Jamie Condliffe

Take a Look Inside Samsung’s New U.S. R&D HQ

Yesterday, Samsung opened a brand-new 1.1 million-square-foot building in San Jose. Home to its American R&D teams, it will house 2,000 employees. Why not take a look around? The new 10-story building was designed by architecture firm NBBJ and began construction in 2013. It will house the South Korean company’s west-coast R&D teams, and Samsung…

iPhone 6S Plus Teardown: Bigger, Heavier, Slightly Smaller Battery

We’ve already seen inside the iPhone 6, and now iFixit has torn apart its larger sibling, too. This is what lurks within the iPhone 6 Plus. The guys at iFixit have been busy with their screwdrivers and torn the new, larger iPhone apart. Here are some choice findings: The display assembly weighs 80g — 33…

Report: FTC Investigating Google Over Anti-Competitive Android Practices

Earlier this year, EU authorities opened an anti-trust investigation into Google. Now, according to Bloomberg, the U.S. is doing the same thing. The news organization reports that two sources familiar with the matter tell it that “the Federal Trade Commission reached an agreement with the Justice Department to spearhead an investigation of Google’s Android business.”…

This Is How Foster + Partners Wants to 3D-Print a Martian Settlement

The acclaimed architecture firm Foster + Partners has unveiled a series of images that depict plans for a 3D-printed settlement that could be built on Mars. The designs have been shortlisted as one of the finalists in the 3D Printed Habitat Challenge organised by America Makes and NASA. They describe a 93-square-meter base which would…

Google’s Voice Search Is Getting Way, Way Better

Google released its first neural network-powered voice recognition system in 2011 and it’s been slowly improving ever since. But now, it’s announced that the addition of recurrent neural networks will make far faster — and way more accurate. In a blog post, the Google Speech Team explains that it’s added what are known as Connectionist…

iPhone 6S Teardown: Smaller Battery, Heavier Display, Kinda Repairable

With the arrival of the iPhone 6S in eager hands around the world today, iFixit has already torn the new phone apart. Here’s what’s inside. It’s not the first iPhone teardown, but it is certainly the prettiest and likely the most comprehensive. With glass and metal prised apart, the slightly thicker and marginally heavier phone…

This Is the Most Beautiful View of Poop You’re Ever Going to See

Poop is sometimes considered a little taboo, but it can tell you a lot about your health and potentially even save your life. And, if these images are anything to go by, it can even look beautiful, too. These images were created by Dr Nicola Fawcett from the University of Oxford as a submission for…

This Lovely Interactive Video Explains How Neurons in Your Brain Work

The brain is a very complicated chunk of stuff, with billions of individually simple neurons combining to give rise to very complex behavior. This interactive video does a wonderful job of describing how it all works. Created by Nicky Case, it’s part-game, part-video. He guides you through almost as if he’s there with you, and…

This Mirrored Pavilion Is a Space For Mind-Bending Personal Reflection

This eight-foot cube, covered in five mirror-clad faces, was designed by Los Angele- based architect and designer Michael Jantzen as a personal retreat. Presumably it brings new meaning to the idea of personal reflection. Each of the five sides features three mirrored panels: two fasten directly the edge of the metal cube’s frame, while a…

Paraplegic Man Walks Using Own Legs With Brain Signals Re-Routed to Knees

A team of scientists has successfully re-routed the signals from a paraplegic man’s brain to his knees, allowing him to walk using his own legs for the first time in five years. The Guardian reports that researchers from the University of California at Irvine have developed a system that captures brain waves using an electroencephalogram…

Physicists Smash Quantum Teleportation Record With 60-Mile Fiber Jump

A team of researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology has broken the distance record for quantum teleportation down optical fiber, showing they’re able to transfer quantum information over 60 miles. The researchers have shown that they can perform quantum communication, often performed in free space, over standard fiber-optic lines. It means they’ve…

Samsung’s Fastest SSD Reads at a Face-Melting 2,500 MBps

Samsung has just launched its latest SSD — and it happens to be the fastest consumer drive it’s ever made, with read speeds of up to 2,500MBps and write speeds as fast as 1,500MBps. That is seriously speedy. The 950 Pro SSD is an update to its predecessor, the 850 Pro, and boy is it…

Mozilla has jut released Firefox 41 and it claims that the desktop version is the first browser to have a built-in instant messaging. Powered by WebRTC, it should let you IM if you use Windows, Mac or Linux.

Watch Five Minutes Solid of Louis C.K. on Mobile Phones 

Louis CK has a track record for amusing commentary about phones. Now, the A to Z Review has compiled a solid five minutes of it into one video. You will laugh, you will wince, you will question modern life. Louis is, of course, conflicted on cell phones: they’re miracles but he doesn’t want his daughter…

Beautiful Video Describes How Tanzanian Hunters Turn Ecology Researchers

If you need to understand the depths of the wilds, there’s nobody better to turn to than someone that lives and breathes the environment. This beautiful video tells the story of an African hunter who decided to stop killing animals — and help scientists find them instead. It tells the story of Ruben, describing his…

Uber Launches Carpooling Service — First in China, Then Around the World

Uber has launched a new service that it’s calling UberCommute: a tool that allows people who are driving long distances to pick up extra travellers and share the cost of the trip with them. The new Uber service will initially be available just in Chengdu, China — in fact, the company points out that it’s…

You Probably Can’t Tell Your Toes Apart Without Looking at Them

You may think you know your body well—but you likely don’t know your toes as well as you may hope. A new study reveals that most people can’t tell their toes apart without looking at them. Researchers at the University of Oxford had people close their eyes while testers gently prodded at their toes. While…

Simple Collections of Gold Nanoparticles Can Develop Computational Abilities

We’re used to thinking of silicon as being the go-to material in computer architecture. But now a team of scientists has shown that a random assembly of cold nanoparticles can evolve to perform computational tasks too. A team of researchers from the University of Twente in the Netherlands has been experimenting with tiny gold particles…

You Can Now Order Starbucks via Mobile, Anywhere in the U.S.

For a while now, Starbucks has been trialling a service that allows you to order from an app and then skip the line when you pick up your purchase. Now, that service is being rolled out across the U.S.. Spiced pumpkin lattes all round! The coffee chain has announced that, from today, anyone can use…

4 Billion People Are Still Without Internet

The United Nations’ Broadband Commission has published a new report whose headline finding is that 57 percent of the human population — or around 4.2 billion people — will still not have access to the internet by the end of 2015. Geographical location obviously plays a huge role in the prevalence of internet access. In…