Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan

The Creator of the iPhone’s Text Message Noise Explains Its Origins

You hear it every time you get a text message or alert. It’s arguably the most iconic noise associated with the iPhone: The default “Boo-Dah-Ling” that plays when you get a text message or alert. But who designed it? A fascinating post from the audio designer behind the legendary tone explains all. According to Kelly…

Do China’s New Skyscrapers Really Signal an Economic Downturn?

Skyscrapers have been symbols of economic plentitude since Daniel Burnham, the architect behind some of the earliest tall buildings, said “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” But is it possible that tall buildings also precipitate crashes? According to one analyst, yes—and China, in particular, is heading for a bust.…

NASA Predicts How Common Forest Fires Will Be By 2100

It’s been a terrible few years for fires, with thousands of homes lost every summer. NASA is using its two earth-monitoring satellites, Terra and Aqua, to help monitor forest fires from space—and to find out how much worse it’s going to get. There are plenty of reasons fires have gotten worse. For one thing, more…

This morning Apple announced the full return of the Developer Center, which had been shuttered for three weeks after a July 18 security breach. By way of apology for the long delay, developer memberships are being extended an extra month.

Let’s Talk About Whatever You Want Right Now

Hello, friends! It’s that time of the week again: Friday afternoon, in which we open up a thread to talk about whatever you want in the name of blowing off some steam. From Snowden’s shout-out in today’s Obama presser, to the war on Candy Crush addiction, to the mysterious origins of the best Vine compilation…

Brave New Garbage: London’s Trash Cans Track You Using Your Smartphone

Remember the “smart” trash cans that popped up around London a few years ago? Placed throughout the city, the LCD-equipped cans broadcast info and ads (mainly ads) to passersby. Now, the company that makes them is testing new functionality for the two-year-old devices, allowing them to track and analyze the signals from nearby smartphones. How…

How Thomas Kinkade Helped Prove That Art Can Be Scientifically Bad

What’s your favorite meal? Logically, your answer depends on the foods you’re familiar with. Now here’s another question: Who’s your favorite painter? Turns out the same logic doesn’t apply. A new study that pits Thomas Kinkade against 19th century painter John Everett Millais has proven that some art actually is objectively good or bad—contradicting what…

What Happens When China’s Copycat Masters Are Hired to Paint Themselves

We’ve heard a lot about the evils of China’s booming art copying industry, which hocks inexpensive replicas of everything from Expressionist paintings to priceless Chinese porcelain. But the people who make these perfectly-crafted copies are also artists in their own right—which is perhaps never more clear than when they’re painting themselves. “The relationship between imitation…

Inside the Cardboard Chapel That Replaced an Earthquake-Ruined Church

The 6.3-magnitude earthquake that hit Christchurch, New Zealand in 2011 killed more than 200 people and damaged thousands of buildings, including the city’s oldest church, a grand stone copy of a gothic cathedral in Oxford. This week, two years after it fell, its replacement is open to the public. And it’s unlike anything ever built…

These “Pinhole Movies” Capture Cities Through Bedroom Camera Obscuras

Camera obscuras are literally older than Jesus—but a pair of filmmakers named Romain Alary and Antoine Levi have managed to reinvent the optical trope thanks to the magic of timelapse. Their “pinhole movies” capture the passage of time across apartment-sized camera obscuras all over the world. For the uninitiated or confused, here’s the gist of…

Neon Bird Feathers Hold the Key to Colors That Never Fade

Have you ever wondered how a fossil hailing from 40 million years ago still maintains its original color, while dyed garments fade in years? The answer lies in the molecular structure of these natural colors—and new research is showing how they could breed a new generation of artificial ones. The concept is called structural color,…

How Often Cities Appear in Books From the Past 200 Years, Visualized

Google’s N-Gram Viewer is a wonderful and under-appreciated thing: At the click of a mouse, it lets you search Google Books’ huge corpus of material for specific words and combinations of words. This N-Gram analysis, for example, maps the mention of ten different cities in every book written between 1800 and 2000, charting the wax…

Daredevil Photographer Rappels Down Skyscrapers For the Perfect Shot

Even window washers can be scary when you don’t expect to see them outside your office window. But a camera-wielding man dangling from a single rope goes beyond the pale. A fearless photographer named Carlos Ayesta is doing just that, rappelling down the side of Paris’s skyscrapers to shoot remarkable images of the city’s towers.…

A $10 Hack Fixes One of Apple’s Most Annoying Product Design Missteps

Apple’s stock headphones aren’t exactly the most-loved product in the company’s oeuvre, even after Jony Ive’s team revamped them last year. Yet they’re free (with purchase) and produced by the millions. So Sprng, an inexpensive little plastic do-dad that makes them useful, is worth paying attention to. Sprng is the handiwork of Canadian product designers…

One Man Is Resurrecting Forgotten Patents of Yore With 3D Printing

The charms of the patent office archives—and the hilariously insane inventions they contain—are well-known. But is it possible that a few of those failed entrepreneurs were actually onto something? New York lawyer Martin Galese thinks so—and he’s resurrecting the ghosts of patents past by offering 3D models of them online. Galese, who works as a…

Inside the Celestial Workshop That Makes the World’s Fastest Yachts

Very few people have ever stepped foot on a boat made by yacht design studio Wally—builder of the fastest yachts on the planet—and even fewer have stepped foot inside their loud, hot workshop in Monte Carlo. British photographer Benedict Redgrove is one of them. Here’s what a $33 million yacht looks like before the paint…

9 Unexpectedly Cool Leap Motion Apps Show Natural Interfaces in Action

It’s been two weeks since Leap Motion appeared in the wild, and while it’s far from being a perfect piece of hardware, the possibilities are pretty damn interesting. So far, most of the attention-getting apps have dealt with music. But there are plenty of other cool developments happening with the device, too. One of the…

Rare Video From Inside a 45-Story Venezuelan Slum

Torre de David is a 45-story, partially-finished office tower that houses a vibrant community of squatters in Caracas. It’s also an internationally-known symbol of Venezuela’s economic troubles, to which the The New Yorker and The New York Times have both devoted long profiles. But there hasn’t been much video documentation of life inside—until now. Vocative…

This Smart Mobile Wind Meter Contains No Electronics

It’s always nice to see a Kickstarter project make it through to reality—and this is a neat one. Vaavud, an inexpensive wind meter that was funded on Kickstarter earlier this year, is finally available to buy. There are other mobile wind meters out there, but what makes Vaavud smart is its durability. People who need…

The Forgotten History of How Modern Art Helped Win World War II

Camouflage—at least in its present incarnation—grew up alongside modernism. And though the relationship between art and war was long ignored by historians, it’s now coming to light just how intertwined they really were. Particularly when it came to hiding things in plain sight. Most of us are familiar with British painter Norman Wilkinson’s development of…