Jamie Condliffe

Amazon has just added thousands of new items to its one-hour delivery scheme. But most importantly, if you live in Manhattan that now includes beer, wine and spirits. Party!

Baidu’s Testing a Self-Driving Car and Samsung Is Building Autonomous Car Parts 

Asian tech giants are scrabbling to join the autonomous car race. A pair of new announcements reveal that Baidu has successfully tested a self-driving BMW in China, while Samsung has decided to begin producing components for use in autonomous vehicles. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Wang Jing, a Baidu senior vice president, explained that…

Natural Ice Rinks Would Turn London’s Thames Into a Winter Wonderland

As we head towards the holidays, inner-city ice rinks spring up for young and old alike to fall over on. But this concept by architecture firm NBJJ envisions fold-away natural rinks that could turn London’s River Thames itself into a temporary place to skate. The concept, called Frost Flowers, uses foldaway structures that could be…

These $800 Lightning Headphones Make Your iPhone’s 3.5mm Jack Redundant

If you don’t like using the 3.5mm headphone jack on your iPhone but demand high-end audio, you’re a rare beast. But a rare beast whose dreams have come true, in the shape of Audeze’s new headphones, which combine audiophile luxury with an integrated Lightning connector. The Audeze EL-8 Titanium headphones are claimed to be the…

Watch How One Man Took the Internet to 60,000 People in Rural Nepal

This is Mahabir Pun. Fed up with the fact that he had to hike for two days whenever he wanted to check his email, he decided to connect his home town of Nangi to the Internet. This video explains how he did it. Produced by Clemens Purner, the video describes how Pun struggled, and succeeded,…

Google Claims to Have Proved That Its Quantum Computer Actually Works

A team of researchers from Google’s artificial intelligence labs has published results which it claims demonstrate that its controversial D-Wave quantum computer really works. Google bought one of D-Wave’s quantum computers back in 2013. Claimed to be the “world’s first commercial quantum computer,” the device sits at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California,…

Apple’s latest version of its Lightning to SD card adapternow supports USB 3.0 transfer speeds if you use it with the iPad Pro. It costs $30.

Watch YouTube’s Most Popular Videos of 2015

Have some time to kill? YouTube has just announced its most popular videos of 2015, which include everything from dance crazes to Justin Bieber doing karaoke in a car. You can watch them here. It’s worth noting that YouTube has chosen the most popular clips not just on the absolute number of views, but by…

Best Buy Has Cut $100 Off the Price of Every Apple Watch

Just in time for the holidays, Best Buy has slashed the price of the Apple Watch. The store is cutting $100 from the price of every model of the wearable, which means you can buy a 38 millimeter Apple Watch Sport for just $250. The retailer cut the price of the Apple Watch for Black…

Why Cities Are Better at Fighting Climate Change Than Countries

As the second week of global climate negotiations gets underway, the world waits for national leaders to make meaningful commitments to save the planet. But it’s become clear that cities, not countries, are leading the way in the fight against climate change. There’s a good reason for that: the world’s cities account for 70 percent…

Scientists Have Found Arsenic from Chilean Mines in Antarctica 

A team of researchers working in Antarctica have discovered ice that contains arsenic, thought to have originated from copper mines in northern Chile. Arsenic is used to smelt copper, and is typically released into the air during the process. In this instance, though, the substance appears to have drifted over 4,000 miles south to Antarctica.…

Apple’s New Smart Battery Case Gives Your iPhone 25 Hours of Battery Life

Apple has quietly announced a new official Smart Battery Case for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S. The case, which costs $100, will provide your phone with as much as 25 hours of battery life. The new case is designed and produced by Apple specifically for the iPhone 6 and 6S. It’s shrouded in soft-touch…

Peer Inside a Beautiful Model of a Spinning Star

It may seem like some kind of delicate flower head, but you’re actually looking at the results of a computational model which is used to predict what happens inside a star when it spins quickly on its axis. Developed by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, this models depicts a star that’s about…

The Most Influential Universities, According to Wikipedia

There are many ways to judge the quality of a University: the results of its students, the research it produces, perhaps even the number of Nobel prizes it boasts. But how about using Wikipedia citations instead? That’s what a team of researchers from the University of Franche-Comte in France have done. In a paper published…

World’s First Ibuprofen Patch Can Relieve Pain for 12 Hours Straight

Ibuprofen is an amazingly effective and impressively safe pain killer. Now, researchers have created what they claim to be the first ever ibuprofen patch, that’s able to conform to the skin and provide a steady release of the drug for up to 12 hours. A collaboration between scientists at the University of Warwick in the…

Sony’s new PlayStation Messages app is the messaging companion to its PlayStation app—the equivalent of Messenger to Facebook—for all those times you only want to talk to PlayStation-based friends.

This Tiny Wireless Temperature Sensor Is Powered Only By Radio Waves

This minuscule chip can measure the temperature wherever it’s placed—and it never needs a battery, because it’s powered by the radio waves from the same wireless network that it uses to communicate. The sensor, which is a tiny 2 millimeter square weighing just 1.6 milligrams, communicates the temperature it records to a dedicated router nearby.…

ISIS State-Building Manual Leaks Online

The Guardian has published a 24-page Islamic State manual online which describes how the terrorist group is attempting to become an independent state in Iraq and Syria—from propaganda operations to plans for creating a self-sufficient economy. The manual, which you can see below, is said to have been written last year, some time between July…

A $140 Lumia Is the Cheapest Windows 10 Phone You Can Buy

If for some strange reason you need a new Windows phone but don’t have a big budget, the Lumia 550 is likely the thing for you. At $140, it’s the cheapest Windows 10 handset you can buy so far. Don’t expect much in the way of specs from the plastic-cased smartphone. While it’s got a…

Everything That Happened on Twitter in 2015

Each year, Twitter rounds up the biggest events that its users have discussed over the past twelve months. So what were the main stories to trend on Twitter in 2015? In a blog post, the folks at Twitter highlight some of the “most influential and memorable moments” of the year. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they include the…