Jamie Condliffe

Watch the Biggest Ever Drone Swarm Take to the Sky

The robots are coming, thick and fast. A team of researchers from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey California has successfully lofted 50 drones into the air at once, all controlled by a single person — making it the biggest drone swarm ever to enter the sky. The Zephyr drones — custom craft made from…

Good news for early Microsoft Surface adopters and other RT lovers: an update for the Windows RT 8.1 brings a Windows 10-like Start menu to the OS. It’s not an overhaul, but it breathes a little fresh air into the orphaned software.

The Amazing Racing-Inspired Art of Death Spray Custom

Death Spray Custom is a British artist whose playful designs appear on everything from chairs and gas cans to motorbikes and crash helmets. This beautiful video looks at the very normal man behind the incredible designs. From rural Wales, with no formal art training, Death Spray Custom would rather be racing on a track than…

This Teenager Was Arrested for Making a Clock His Teachers Thought Was a Bomb

When 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed arrived at school on Monday morning with a digital clock he’d built from scratch, he was keen to show his teachers the fruit of his labors. Instead, he was pulled out of class and arrested for attempting to build a bomb. The Dallas Morning News reports that Ahmed built the clock…

The World’s First 8K TV Will Cost $133,000

Next month, Sharp will put the world’s first 8K TV on sale. You may not have to take too long in considering a purchase, though — as it will cost an eye-watering $133,000. Technically the world’s first production 8K TV, the LV-85001 boasts an 85-inch screen stuffed with 7680 x 4320 pixels. That’s 104 pixels…

This Is a Transistor for Living Cells

This is a transistor, but not as you know it. Instead of acting as a tiny switch to control the flow of electrons, this devices controls the flow of living cells. A team of researchers from Duke University and University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill has developed this new device, which trades electrons for cells —that’s…

Qualcomm’s New ‘Quick Charge’ Takes a Phone From 0 to 80% in 35 Minutes

Most phones have some kind of quick charge system these days and on Android many of them are powered by Qualcomm’s Quick Charge. But the technology has been given an overhaul, and the next-gen version will take a dead phone to 80 percent of charge in just 35 minutes. That is lightning fast. Qualcomm has…

Facebook Is Working With Germany to Fight Anti-Refugee Content

Facebook has vowed to help the German government clamp down on hate speech and xenophobia relating to refugees. The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook is to work with the country’s ministry of justice and internet providers in order to remove content deemed to be hateful from the social network. The move follows recent criticism…

Scientists Have Built the World’s Shortest Wavelength Laser

A team of Japanese scientists has developed a new laser which has the shortest wavelengths ever recorded. The advance could help see microscopic objects like molecules with more clarity than ever. The team, based at the University of Electro-Communications in Toyko, has created a new atomic X-ray laser which has a wavelength of just 0.15…

Take a Look Inside a Completely Empty Data Center

A data center without data is… well, just a center, I guess. But it’s quite fascinating to actually see inside one, before all the server racks arrive. In this video, Spencer Lamb — who works at a large data services provider in London — shows the folks at Computerphile around a new data facility. Soon,…

Scientists Have Created a System That Absorbs 99.7% of All Sound

Is this thing on? That’s likely what Hong Kong University of Science and Technology scientists thought, shortly after they’d developed a new system that absorbs 99.7 percent of all the sound that hits it. Many systems use sonic insulators to deaden sound: materials which absorb sound, typically over a small range of frequencies. By combining…

This Music Video Actually Put a Vintage TV Into Space — Twice

How do you create a convincing space-based music video? By actually filming it in space, at least if you’re producer Joe Connor. To create this new music video for Kelvin Jones, Connor decided to eschew animation and actually do it the hard way. He explains: Yup, that really is a TV in space, for real.…

This Is How Marines Learn to Overcome Obstacles

You’re looking at a Critical Skills Operator with U.S. Marine Corps as he learns how to uses a torch to cut through a metal door. That’s just part of a list of techniques including “mechanical, ballistic, thermal and explosive” methods that the soldiers uses to overcome walls, fences and anything else that gets in their…

Your Mac Charger, Explained

Not pictured: the $80 you have to spend when you leave one behind in a coffee shop. [Truth Facts]

This Video Shows Every 24-Bit RGB Color Exactly Once

Your computer knows more colors than you do. In fact, representing them in 24-bit RGB, it knows an amazing 16,777,216 different hues — and this video shows each one exactly once. RGB, of course, represents color as three different numbers, defining the quantities of red, green and blue in the mix. In the case of…

This Is the Selfie Stick the Lonely Have Been Waiting For

The only problem with taking selfies alone is that it makes everyone painfully aware of how… alone you really are. But there could be a solution. Illustrator Matt Blease has imagined a selfie stick that can fool your friends into thinking you have a significant other after all. Someone there to hold your hand as…

This Is What Happens When You Turn a Line Drawing Into a Chair

What happens when you take a line drawing into three dimensions? For designers at SOHN this chair is what: a simple seat with clean lines and an iconic profile. The chair, known as the One Liner, takes a single tube of metal to draw out the frame for the seat. It snakes up from the…

The Fields of Italy Aren’t Really This Red

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the Italians had decided to grow nothing but poppies and tomatoes from this picture — but in fact you’re looking at an image from Sentinel-2A, where healthy vegetation shows up as red rather than green. The image, taken above Avezzano in Italy, was captured using a multispectral camera aboard…

Some Simple Slices Could Help Solar Cells Track the Sun

The vast majority of solar cells sit fixed in place on top of buildings — but that means they miss out on absorbing some energy, as the sun moves through the sky. Now, researchers suggest that a few simple cuts could help create simple solar cells that track the sunlight throughout the day. Developed by…

This Folding Table Is Inspired By a Pop-Up Map of New York City

At first glance this table looks like any other piece of minimalist furniture. But if you look at the intricate way in which it unfurls, you might notice a similarity with those pop-up city maps that neatly unfold with the flick of a wrist. Of course, stood on a street corner, in the rain, somewhere…