Lily Hay Newman

Have You Been Buying CDs This Whole Time?

How many CDs did you buy in the last 15 years? Because if you bought some, and you bought them from Amazon they’re about to show up in your Amazon music cloud. But, uh… has anyone been buying them? Starting today, Amazon is offering free digital copies of CDs purchased since 1998, plus new ones…

Looks Like People Are Buying Lumias After All

Nokia had higher than expected Lumia sales for its fourth quarter thanks to the release of the Lumia 900 last spring and 920 in September. The company sold 4.4 million handsets, up from 2.9 million in Q3. For perspective, though, Apple sold about 27 million iPhones in the third quarter of 2012, and Nokia is…

Is It Possible For a Bike to Do Too Much?

The nCycle has a lot going on. It looks great and it’s super sleek, but it might be a little over-designed. Maybe. Modeled by Marin Myftiu, the bike’s feature set starts with handlebars that double as a lock, so you don’t have to carry one around, and goes from there. The nCycle has a retractable…

Social Media Butlers Are Unfortunately a Thing at the 2013 Inauguration and Beyond

Really, the only way to celebrate the 2013 inauguration is with a $47,000 vacation package. Right? Right. But Instagraming and Facebooking your every move can get exhausting when you’re galavanting about. Where is that social media butler? Oh. Here she is. As part of its “Inaugural Town and Country” package, The Madison Hotel is offering…

Firefox 18 now has retina display support and a speed bump for web apps. [Mozilla Blog]

Target Will Match Amazon’s Prices All Year Long

What’s not ideal for Target is you walking into one of their local stores, testing all of the camcorders, and then buying your pick on Amazon because it’s almost inevitably cheaper there. That’s called showrooming, and Target isn’t taking that guff anymore. If possible. Please? To combat the problem Target is turning its holiday price-matching…

McGraw-Hill’s SmartBooks: Digital Textbooks With Built-In Drill Sergeants

When textbooks were actually books they were good for flattening posters and bringing monitors to eye-level. Now their ebook personas may really force you to learn. Grim, I know. Textbook publishing behemoth McGraw-Hill is producing a series of adaptive e-textbooks in 90 subject areas. Targeted at college-level classes, the SmartBooks quiz students as they read…

Walmart’s For-Pay Blu-ray Ripping Is Now Slightly Less Annoying, Still Way Overpriced

If you’re looking to convert DVDs and BluRay discs to a digital format and want it to be easy, but not too easy, and definitely not free, Walmart has the service for you. They’re automating their Disc-to-Digital service so you can get UltraViolet versions of movies you’ve already bought. But here’s where it gets really…

The Emergency Phone With Crazy Battery Life Now Has Audio Feedback and Location Data

If you’ve kept a SpareOne cell phone in your car for emergencies since Xpal announced them at CES last year, congratulations! You still have 14 years of power left on that one AA Energizer battery. https://gizmodo.com/an-emergency-phone-with-a-15-year-battery-life-is-defin-5874309 Those late to the party, though, can consider this year’s upgraded model, SpareOnePlus, which still comes with a waterproof…

This Centimeter of Dried Glue Is Apparently Worth Thousands of Dollars

This glob of dried glue kind of looks like Homer Simpson. Kind of. The thing is that this insignificant blip in the scheme of humanity is about to sell on eBay UK for a metric crap ton. It’s at £151,000 with two days to go. Let’s be real here. Crazy stuff happens on eBay all…

Experimental Magnetic Soap Might Clean Up Massive Oil Spills

If you spill millions of gallons of oil all over, say, the Gulf of Mexico, no amount of OxiClean is going to help. You need something industrial strength, and researchers are looking at magnetic soap as a potential solution. Soaps, also known as surfactants, can be problematic when used on a large scale because their…

NFL Team Logo Mats Are Your Cleanliness-Is-Next-to-NFL-iness Deal of the Day

I’m concerned about anti-bacterial soap. People slather that stuff on and think they’re doing everyone a solid, but they’re actually contributing to the evolution of resistant bacterial strains. Oh yeah? You’ve heard it all before? Then why are you taking a Z-Pack for a cold? IT’S THE SAME PROBLEM. Someday we’re going to have to…

Everything You Need to Know About Apple’s New Education Tools

In an attempt to promote interactive learning and take over the textbook industry, Apple made its education announcement in New York this morning. Just in case you were at the chiropractor all day trying to undo years of damage caused by a heavy backpack, here’s what went down: Apple’s iPad Textbooks: Everything You Need to…

Star Wars Saga Sheets Are Your Imperial Bedroom Deal of the Day

Dinner went decently. I had the risotto, she had the quail. I tried to make a joke about gamefowl but ended up offending her—there was no way I could have known she lost her family like that. We talked about the election, commodity trading, Bauhaus textiles, and whether or not snow is the best weather.…

Ocean’s Eleven: The Rat Pack Does Vegas

The 2001 remake of Ocean’s Eleven may be slick, but the original is campy, kind of confusing, and set on New Year’s! It’s pretty great. Who’s in it? Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., and a bunch of their friends you’ve never heard of. What’s it about? Danny Ocean calls in some airborne…

Downton Abbey: Rich British People Behaving Badly

The Downton Abbey Christmas special aired in the U.K. on the 25th, but it won’t come out here until March. Doesn’t matter. If you have time off and need something to marathon, this period drama is it. No. Stop trying to navigate away. It’s awesome. Who’s in it? Downton has 16 main characters played by…

The Pudding Machine That Yells At Kids

You know what kids don’t deserve? Free pudding. And you know why? Because they’re too damn eager. Puppy dog eyes may work on spineless parents, but they’re not gonna move Kraft’s stone hearted sample dispenser. Jell-O’s Temptations dessert is being marketed to adults so this vending machine has built-in face recognition to check the age…

Shooting Challenge: Day to Night

This is a shot of downtown Louisville, KY. I set up in a picnic area across the river in southern Indiana. On a side note, this was a pretty good first time out for my new Tokina ultra wide lens. Nikon D90 Tokina 11-16 f2.8 DX Pro (Set at 14mm) Locked off on a tripod…

Shooting Challenge: Shadow People

Its a Instamatic. I was just hanging out down town Vancouver, and thought the contrast in the grid in the show was kinda cool. -Cory Luck While fishing in the Outer Banks in NC I came on a situation where I was taking pictures. I had lots of pictures of sunsets and fish (of course).…

Switchboard Uses Cell Phones to Improve Healthcare in Africa

In the US you can see four different specialists when your plugs need work. Why not? But in Liberia, where 181 doctors treat four million people, the doctor you’re seeing is the only game in town. Several towns, actually. The featured group on Philanthroper today is Switchboard, a nonprofit started earlier this year to adress…