Chris Mills

Appeals Court Rules That Your Electronics Can Stay Turned On In Flight

Back in 2013, the FAA saw sense, and ruled that passengers can use their electronic fondleslabs during takeoff and landing. And, shortly after, the Association of Flight Attendants sued, claiming the FAA had overstepped its bounds. An appeals court just ruled against the AFA, meaning takeoff Candy Crush is here to stay. The AFA argued…

Happy Birthday To Betamax, Sony’s Next Big Thing

On May 10, 1975, Sony took out full-page ads in a bunch of newspapers to proudly announce the arrival of a new product, “The Next Thing”: Betamax. At the time of launch, Betamax was the first home video recorder to hit the market. But as everyone knows, JVC released a recorder that used VHS soon…

Some SSDs Can Lose Data After Just A Few Days In Storage

Solid-state drives outclass hard drives as a storage medium in almost every way: they’re faster, less fragile, and can store more data per square inch. But according to some experts, SSDs suck at long-term storage of information, thanks to one particular problem: temperature. Under optimal conditions, consumer-grade SSDs — the ones you’d find in most…

Drone Vandalism Is Now A Thing

By this point, drones have been co-opted into most human activities: proposals, religion, and yep, porn. As of Wednesday morning, you can also add vandalising a gigantic NYC billboard to that list. As Wiredreports, well-known graffiti artist KATSU has been working on his plan to scribble on billboards for a while. The benefits are obvious:…

A Web Browser On The Apple Watch Is As Bad As You’d Imagine

There is a short list of things that smartwatches are good for. Browsing the internet is not one of them. Apple didn’t include a web browser on its smartwatch, and for good reason. But that didn’t stop noted iOS jailbreaker Comex from hacking one on there. Given that Watch OS is really just a version…

If you’re all about having shiny new apps the moment they hit the virtual shelves, then today brings good news: Google will now let you pre-register for upcoming apps, starting with Glu’s Terminator Genisys mobile app. Contact the author at [email protected].

Watch The Sun Go Down On Mars

At the end of another long day examining rocks on Mars, Curiosity stopped for a moment to watch the sun go down — the first time in 956 sunsets that the rover has watched it in color. The four images, taken over the course of six minutes and 51 seconds, were captured with the left-eye…

In A Terrible Alternate Reality, Siri Is Your Mom

To celebrate Mother’s Day, the team at The Daily Dot tracked down the real-life voice of Siri, and put her to work giving motherly advice to a real-life human. On the one hand, it’s fun to imagine a world in which Siri is your mom: totally practical, but useless at small talk. But it’s also…

The Casino Owner Who Wants To Make You Live Forever

Welcome to Reading List, a weekly collection of great tech reads from around the web. This week, we’ve got stories about the casino entrepreneur who wants to make you immortal, the NSA’s ‘Google For Voice’, a dive into Mars colonization, and more! Glenn Straub, an “independently wealthy 68-year-old industrialist, itinerant polo player, and pugnacious real…

A Fibonacci Clock Is Hands-Down The Nerdiest Timepiece

There are many possible ways to broadcast both the time and your level of nerdiness to the outside world. A Star Wars projection clock, for example. A watch that tells the time in binary also works. But far, far more effective than any of these is a bedside clock that uses the Fibonacci sequence. As…

Russia’s Rogue Spacecraft Disintegrated Safely 

On April 27th, a Russian resupply ship to the ISS started spinning out of control shortly after reaching space. For more than a week, Progress 59 has been hurtling around the Earth in an increasingly unstable orbit, but tonight, it re-entered safely (and violently) over the Pacific Ocean. Progress 59 reached orbit successfully after its…

Windows 10 Will Spell The End Of Patch Tuesday

Since Windows 98, the second Tuesday of every month has seen Microsoft issue a slew of updates to eager users. With Windows 10, those days are going to come to an end: Microsoft will become a 24/7 update machine. Once (or sometimes twice) monthly updates make a lot of sense: make it easy for users…

Surprise! Electrocuting Your Brain Does Not Make You Smarter

There’s a relatively well-known theory that applying an electric current to your head in just the right way can improve cognition. It’s popular with some scientists, internet DIYers, and students at 2AM before a final. But according to a new double-blind study, transcranial direct current stimulation makes you the opposite of clever. Scientists at the…

Swatch Wants To Fix The Biggest Problem With Smartwatches

Swatch is normally a company associated with duty-free shops and 12-year-old’s birthday presents. It’s not a leader in the smartwatch market. In fact, it’s not actually in the smartwatch market. But apparently, it’s months away from solving the biggest problem with wrist computers: the battery. According to a report in Swiss newspaper Handelszeitung, Swatch has…

These Augmented Reality Hands Are Giving Me Nightmares

Evolution decided that humans should have five digits on the end of each limb. Not four. Not six. Certainly not five little hands attached to one big hand. But thanks to this art/technology/torture installation, some people got to experience what would’ve happened if Darwin screwed up. Augmented Hand Series (v.2) was a project developed by…

IBM’s Watson Could Offer Customized Treatment To Every Cancer Patient

Rather than relying on carpet-bombing approaches like chemotherapy and radiation treatments, cutting-edge cancer cures are looking more towards a surgical strike, tailored to shutting down the mutations that are driving growth. And the secret weapon in that fight might just be a well-known Jeopardy contestant. IBM’s Watson supercomputer rose to fame when it trounced two…

Here’s The First-Ever Picture Of Thunder

During a thunderstorm, it’s normally the lightning bolts that take over Instagram — after all, it’s a little difficult to apply the X-Pro II filter to a soundwave. That is, if you’re a heliophysicist armed with rockets, your own lightning bolt, and some heavy science. In a paper presented today at a meeting of the…

Apple Apparently Under Government Scrutiny Over Music Deals

Apple’s long-rumored relaunch of the Beats music-streaming service is slated for June, and in preparation, the company is softening the beaches by playing hardball with record labels. And, not for the first time, federal trade commissioners aren’t particularly happy. According to sources that have spoken to Bloomberg and The Verge, Apple is pushing hard to…

A Physical Bitcoin Wallet Will Put Coins In Your Non-Digital Pocket

Owning Bitcoin might give your inner crypto-anarchist a bit of a rush, but the currency lacks the tactile fat-cat feels of physical notes in your wallet. Plus, only dealing with currency in the ether can make Bitcoin insecure and difficult to use. Case, a Bitcoin wallet that fits in your jeans, hopes to solve those…

For People With Disabilities, Smartwatches Can Be More Than Just A Toy

It’s fun to mock the Apple Watch for being an expensive, needless gadget for nerds with oversized phones and too much money. But if you stop and think, there’s a second — and far less douchey — group of people for whom a smartwatch can make all the difference. Molly Watt lives with Usher Syndrome,…