Leslie Horn

3D Printers Might Get Way Cheaper After 2014

The 3D printing “revolution” isn’t just being held up by the state of the technology. It’s also being held up by the sheer cost of a 3D printer. But in February 2014, some key patents will expire, leaving an opening for competitors come in with cheaper alternatives. The patents in question are for a technology…

An Otherworldly Gordian Knot Sculpture That Dares You To Climb It

Normally, a gallery’s white walls are meant to foreground the art. In the case of Brazilian artist Henrique Oliveira‘s latest sculpture, Baitogogo, they are the art. The giant Gordian Knot is currently installed in Paris gallery Palais de Tokyo, and it fits into Oliveira’s canon quite nicely. The artist is known for massive organic installations…

11 Map Tattoos That Pay Tribute to Cities and Their Systems

Tattoos, just like hometowns, leave a permanent mark. If you harbor a special attachment to a city or town—even if you left long ago—inking it on your body forever is often a fitting tribute. In many cases, maps symbolize far more than just a street grid: It might be a city you’ve only dreamed about,…

Motorola X Rumored Specs: Not the Droid You’re Looking For

Android Police has gotten ahold of the alleged specs of Motorola’s upcoming Moto X smartphone, and they’re not very impressive. But at least that means you can afford it. The phone will allegedly have a 1.7GHz dual-core Qualcomm S4 processor, 2GB of RAM, a 4.7-inch 720 x 1184 resolution screen, a 2.1 megapixel camera on…

The Facade of This Water Cooling Plant Is Chill as Hell

University of Ohio’s Central Chiller Plant is chill because it has to be—it supplies water and emergency power to the university’s medical district. But thanks to its facade covered in prismatic fins, it’s also chill in the non-literal sense of the word. Designed by Ross Barney Architects, the plant was created to be both sustainable…

108 Years of Legendary Herman Miller Design in 108 Seconds

How did iconic furniture like the Eames side chair become iconic? What about the Noguchi table, or countless other classic pieces of the modern era? The answer is through the legendary design firm Herman Miller, whose history you can see illustrated in 108 seconds in this short video. These classic designs would have never come…

68 Plans For London’s Hilariously Misguided Response to the Eiffel Tower

In 1889, Paris unveiled the magnificent Eiffel Tower. It was a worldwide sensation. London, meanwhile, was green with envy. Not about to be outdone, city officials announced a competition for a grand monument of its own, and revealed 68 of the entries in a showcase catalog. Most of these designs are pretty bonkers, and thanks…

The FDA Has Approved a Cap to Diagnose ADHD More Accurately

Just because Billy is super hyperactive and can’t sit still doesn’t necessarily mean he has ADHD. But unfortunately, he might be identified as such. These kinds of medical mistakes could be avoided with a new brainwave-measuring cap that the FDA has just approved to help diagnose ADHD. The device is called the Neuropsychiatric Electroencephalogram-Based Assessment…

Follow the Pope on Twitter for Less Time in Purgatory

Things you can do to get time off of Purgatory: help the poor, volunteer, and now… follow the pope on Twitter. So next week is Catholic World Youth Week in Rio. Attending is one way to knock down the days on your Purgatory stay. But so is following along on Twitter. According to Vatican officials,…

A Better Fix for Your Old, Aching Back From a New Biomaterial

When you get older, your back aches. Why? One explanation is those cushy shock absorbers called nucleus pulposus (NP) between your vertebrae that provide support, spine, mobility, and equal weight distribution are worn down. Unfortunatley you can’t exactly take your vertebrae to the mechanic’s shop for a tune-up. But thanks to a new biomaterial created…

PayPal Randomly Credits Man with $92,000,000,000,000,000

PayPal just made 56-year-old Chris Reynolds a quadrillionaire. Yes, a quadrillionaire. For a little while, anyway. When Reynolds opened his monthly email account update on Friday, he was pleasantly surprised with a balance of $92,233,720,368,547,800—922,337,203,685,478 times more than the $100 or so worth of transactions he usually does per month on PayPal. And very obviously…

Foursquare Just Got Ads

Next time you check in at a local coffee shop you might see an ad. As expected, Foursquare has just rolled out ads to its mobile apps. They ads aren’t as distracting as you expect, and you don’t see them at every check in. They pop up immediately after you check in somewhere, just like…

What Would Manhattan Look Like If It Were Inside the Grand Canyon?

Suspend disbelief for a second and imagine if the Big Apple were dropped inside of one of the biggest canyons in the world. It would be an amazing, vast, and otherworldly mashup of two opposite places, as demonstrated in a series called Merge by photographer Gus Petro. Petro is from Switzerland. His inspiration for the…

The PS4’s Controller Almost Had Basically a Built-In Lie Detector

During the development of the PlayStation 4’s DualShock 4 controller, Sony tested a version of a controller that included biofeedback sensors to detect how stressed the player was, based on how much his or her hand was sweating. That’s right; the same technology that’s used in polygraphs could have been an integral part of the…

13 Enchanting Posters From Hollywood’s Lost Years

Most of the movies made before sound hit the big screen will never be seen by our eyes. According to Martin Scoresese’s Film Foundation, half of the films made pre-1950—and more than 90 percent of those made before 1929—are lost forever. And while not all of them are lost, you’ll probably never see the films…

Wall Decals Give Jay-Z a Starring Role in Your Living Room

You love Jay-Z, you say? Bad news: his appearance fee is bonkers. Good news: you can still have a private audience with Hova with these wall decals from design studio Pixers, which put him and several other famous musicians right in your home. Pixers has created eight different colorful wall decals, each featuring a different…

Of Course They Made an Instagram Trailer for Jobs

Here’s one of those things you’d always think was a joke but turned out to be real—the filmmakers behind Ashton Kutcher Steve Jobs movie have made an Instagram trailer. Open Roads Studios claims it’s the first Instagram trailer, made from 15 seconds’ worth of the official preview we saw a few weeks back. It features…

Behold a Once-Lost Plan for a Central Park That Might Have Been

When the Board of Commissioners of Central Park decided it was time to build Central Park in 1857, they announced a design contest with a prize to the tune of $2,000 (around $50,000 today). Obviously, it was Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux’s design won. But there were 33 other failed entries, only five of…

Ride-sharing service Uber is adding fare splitting to its iPhone and Android apps. So you can look forward to fewer empty promises from friends to pay you back for that late-night Uber ride.

20 Gorgeous Posters From a Time When Travel Was Glamorous

Travel was once the epitome of glamor. People dressed in their finest clothes to go to the airport. Ships and planes were things of luxury. In that era, the posters and brochures that advertised luxe journeys were just as lovely as the journeys themselves. The Boston Public Library’s Print Department has an extensive collection of…