Jamie Condliffe

Nevada Just Made Interstate Online Poker Legal

Yesterday, Nevada officials rushed through a bill which makes interstate online poker legal. The decision will allow the state to form pacts with other states, allowing people to play legally across borders. The Las Vegas Sun reports that Bill AB114—actually rushed through as an “emergency measure”— was passed unanimously in Assembly and Senate, then signed…

These Are the Bacteria Lurking on Your Phone

Sure, your phone might look clean, but it isn’t really. In fact, it’s covered in bacteria—and this image shows how horrible they are. Created by researchers from the University of Surrey, UK, this image shows the culture of bacteria grown in a petri dish after students pressed the surface of their phones against the agar…

These Bicycles Made From Old Cars Are Gorgeous and Green

Bicycled is a new company from Lola Lowe Madrid that’s building bikes out of junked cars. While that sounds like it could be a recipe for disaster, the results are actually amazingly beautiful. Each bike is hand-built from parts scavenged from old cars on junkyards. Think frames made of old space frames, saddles upholstered using…

How a Monkey Can Mentally Control a Robot 7,000 Miles Away

Miguel Nicolelis is an ambitious man. For years he’s been decoding brain signals and trying to use them as electrical commands for robots—and now he’s at a stage where he can get a monkey to mentally control a robot which is 7,000 miles away. This is how he does it. Amazingly, as he points out…

Watch These Quadrocopters Throw and Catch Poles Like Acrobats

There seems to be no end to the marvels that quadrocopters can achieve. Now, though, researchers have got ’em throwing and catching poles like acrobats—and it’s amazing. https://gizmodo.com/this-quadrotor-flying-machine-gun-would-kick-serious-as-5904277 Carried out by researchers from Zurich’s Institute for Dynamic Systems and Controls, the mini drones are capable of launching—and then catching!—an inverted pendulum (umm, a pole). Man,…

Finally, an LTE Chip That Will Work Anywhere in the World

Qualcomm has announced something that will make travellers everywhere very happy: a new radio chipset that can support every LTE network in the world. More accurately, the RF360 chips provides connectiviry for LTE-FDD, LTE-TDD, WCDMA, EV-DO, CDMA 1x, TD-SCDMA and GSM/EDGE networks. That should be enough, though, as it currently covers every LTE network in…

A Shimmering, Tweet-Based Langauge Map of NYC

If you’ve ever wondered which languages are spoken where in NYC, here’s the map for you. This visualization shows exactly which languages are used in tweets across the city. Put together by James Cheshire, Ed Manley and Oliver O’Brien from University College London, the map builds on 8.5 million tweets, captured between January 2010 and…

International, Flat-Rate, Pay-As-You-Go 3G Data SIM? Yes, Please

If you’re an avid traveller, you might want to think about picking up a soon-to-go-on-sale Doodad pay-as-you-go SIM card: it offers flat-rate, 3G data, around the world, and will work in any unlocked GSM device. Neat. Flat-rate doesn’t mean you get charged the same in every country, but you can at least set caps for…

This Is Officially the Best Copyright-Free Way to Sing Happy Birthday

You might not know it, but the melody from Happy Birthday To You is actually copyrighted, owned by Time Warner, and won’t enter the public domain until 2030 at the earliest. That’s why the Free Music Archive set out to find an alternative—and this is officially the best choice. Along with WFMU, the Free Music…

How Many Digits of Pi Do You Really Need?

Pi is famously calculated to trillions of digits—but how many of them do we really, really need? This video demonstrates that, actually, just 39 will do. Taking pi to 39 digits allows you to measure the circumference of the observable universe to within the width of a single hydrogen atom. Sure, you could use more,…

Nielsen TV Ratings Will Finally Include Streaming Figures

Nielsen, the company that tells us how successful TV shows are, is joining the modern age: from September, it will include data from streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video in its statistics. The Hollywood Reporter claims that viewing habits on set-top boxes, consoles and tablets will be monitored, and rolled into the results…

Samsung’s Ads From the 80s Got a Few Things Wrong

Back in 1988, Samsung decided that a little future gazing could help it sell its products. Looking back, though, it got a few things wrong. Samsung lauded steak as the health food of 2010, and claimed its microwave would be the ideal device for health freaks to cook it in. Wishful winking which, sadly, hasn’t…

HBO Go for Android now supports HDMI video output, so you can pipe video to a big screen. [Play]

WSJ: Google Has Developed a Touchscreen Device Which Uses Chrome OS

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google has developed a touchscreen laptop which runs its Chrome operating system—and suggests they’ll go on sale later this year. The Journal’s sources, however, are short on extra detail: there’s no word on which hardware manufacturers are working on the devices, nor exactly when it will go on…

Anatomy of a Movie Trailer

If you’ve ever wondered how film makers chop up and reassemble a two hour film into a two minute trailer, you need wonder no longer. The New York Times has visualized the contents of five recent film trailers, so you can see how they’re put together. In the visualizations, the horizontal axis represents time elapsed…

What Is Light, Anyway?

First you’re taught that light is wave. Then you get a little older and your teacher explains that it’s actually particles called photons. Wait, which is it then? Particles? Waves? Both? Neither? This video should help explain. The folks at Veritasium have recreated Young’s famous—well, amongst nerds, at least—double slit experiment. It’s one of the…

This Is What It Will Look Like When You Wear Project Glass

Google has just released a video which shows off the UI for its Glass project—and it looks kinda neat. We’ve seen some similar videos before, but this one shows off far more about the device’s functionality. On-lens directions (including ski runs!), voice-controlled messages, web searches, notifications, and even on-the-fly translation. This all looks kinda fun—and…

This Jackknife-Inspired Lamps Is Simple But Beautiful

This beautiful lamp, designed by Elia Mangia for Foundry, is subtly inspired by a jackknife’s folding blade—but don’t let that put you off, because its simplicity is too alluring to resist. Called Tuca-Tuca, the lamp’s main structure is made from a carved and turned stick of maple, on which a painted metal shade is mounted.…

Report: Spotify Wants to Extend Its Free Service to Phones

The Verge is reporting that Spotify is in talks with major music labels to negotiate substantial reductions in the royalty fees it pays—as well as extending rights so that it can roll out its free pricing tier to mobile devices. According to “several music industry sources”, Spotify is already in negotiations with Warner Music about…

Happy Wednesday, news fans: CNN has finally added live streaming to its Android phone app. [Play]