Jamie Condliffe

Amazingly, This Lamp Isn’t Made By Google

This lamp looks like it’s come straight outta the offices of Google. But in fact it was created by the famous Italian designer Alessandro Mendini—and we think it’s beautiful. Called Amuleto—see what he did there?—it’s made from a series of circles which represent the Sun, Moon and Earth respectively. The halo at the top of…

Got a new BlackBerry? There’s now an unofficial port of Instagram for BB10! (We can’t vouch for quality or security…).

Report: Twitter Is an Awful Predictor of Public Opinion

A new survey by Pew Research Center reveals that relying on Twitter to gauge public opinion might not be too smart: the reaction on Twitter to big national and political news seems to differ wildly from that measured by surveys. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Twitter reactions generally tend to be more liberal than the national average. Tracing…

Everything You Ever Need to Know About the Periodic Table

The Periodic Table is one of the most iconic—and useful!—pieces of data organization to ever exist. Here’s everything you need to know about it, from its history to how to use it, in just 11 minutes. First published by Dmitri Mendeleev way back in 1869, the table is just as useful today as it was…

Jailed Cyber Criminal Joins Prison’s Computer Class, Hacks Its Network

When one of Britain’s biggest cyber criminals was jailed in 2011, officials thought they’d be safe from his internet attacks. But then he managed to sneak into a prison computer class and hack the jail’s network. Nicholas Webber, pictured above, was jailed for five years in 2011 for running a large-scale internet crime site, called…

Relax, Mars fans: Curiosity is no longer running in Safe Mode, and should be back on its wheels in no time. Phew!

The iPhone Was Almost Called Telepod, Mobi or Tripod

During a talk at the University of Arizona’s Department of Marketing, Apple’s former head of advertising, Ken Segall, let slip about some of the alternative names seriously considered at Cupertino before the launch of the iPhone. They’re surprisingly bad. Fortunately, 9to5mac was at the talk, and has published Segall’s justifications for some of the names.…

Canadian Android users can now make VoiP calls via the Facebook Messenger app. No word, sadly, on when it’ll head south.

Rumor: Google Is Working on Same-Day Amazon Prime Killer

TechCrunch claims that Google is “stealthily preparing” to launch a new same-day-shipping Amazon Prime competitor called Google Shopping Express. Sources have told TechCrunch that the service would cost $59 a year—undercutting Amazon’s annual Prime subscription by $10—and allow customers to receive same-day deliveries from bricks-and-mortar stores. The sources don’t expand on which those stores might…

This Is Not a Painting

This beautiful orange swirl looks like it could be an oil painting—but it is in fact a low pressure system currently floating above the Southern Ocean, just west of Australia. The image was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra Satellite just yesterday. The orange hues are actually false color—MODIS detects…

Good news, iMac buyers: Apple has ironed out supply issues, so they’re now shipping in 1–3 days rather than 2-3 weeks.

What the Out-of-Office Reply Really Means

We’ve all experienced it: you send an important email, expecting to wait at least hours for a reply, but immediately get a response. Uh-oh. It’s the out-of-office reply, a complex and coded message which essentially says “screw you”. Jorge Cham’s annotated email rams that point home. My personal favorite is the mention of the sender…

Microsoft Might Owe Denmark More Than $1 Billion in Unpaid Tax

A new report by Denmark’s national broadcasting corporation, DR, suggests that Microsoft owes the country over $1 billion in unpaid tax. The report claims that Ballmer and co owe the Danish Treasury a total of 5.8 billion kroner, a hangover from the 2002 acquisition of Danish financial software company Navision. The OS giant sold rights…

How Word Processors Changed The Novel

Back in the 60s, novelists hired personal assistants to type and retype chapter drafts for their books, dozens of times over. When a technician at IBM heard about it in 1968, he decided to see if the word processor he’d been working on might help. Slate has a wonderful feature about how novelist Len Deighton…

Now You Can Get Your Favorite Mountain 3D Printed

If you want a permanent reminder of an amazing hike, ski trip, or whatever else, here’s a good idea: a new website called The Terrainator lets you select your favourite geographical features and get ’em 3D printed. Dan Wilson, the man behind the project, explains how it came about: I’ve had the good fortune to…

The Asus Transformer Pad is the first non-Nexus device to get an Android 4.2 update… today!

Watch a Man Disappear Before Your Eyes

Chinese artist Liu Bolin does a wonderful job of hiding himself in all kinds of locations, but this video reveals exactly how he does it. A time-lapse taken at this year’s TED conference, it shows Bolin on stage, being painted in-situ. The artist explains: “For the talk, I stood up on stage with my outfit…

Seagate is completely discontinuing its entire range of 7200rpm 2.5-inch drives later this year. Blame SSDs.

This Lego Fortress of Solitude Should Be a Set

We all want to be Superman, but sadly can’t be—so maybe the nearest we can get is building his pad out of Lego. At least that’s what Chris Melby thought when he constructed this sensational model of the Fortress of Solitude from scratch. It’s fantastic: he managed to do a wonderful job of recreating the…

If You’re Blaming Computer Problems on a Virus, You’re Probably Wrong

Next time a computer in your office is broken, chances are someone will blame it on a virus. But let’s face it, most computer problems don’t stem from viruses; they stem from dumb people. Of course, it’s easier to blame something than it is to understand a problem. That’s natural; we all look for scapegoats…