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Listen to the National Weather Service’s robot sing “Deck the Halls”

A little while back, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration programmed its emergency automated voice service to warble a yuletide staple. Here’s your cyber-chanteur’s biography: NOAA Weather Radio automation is produced by an upgraded program Console Replacement System (CRS). The CRS is a new, personal computer-based broadcasting console, installed at each NWS office, that automatically…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar Dec 13 '11

Themes for Windows Phone 7 Are a Travesty

Windows Phone 7 is a beautiful mobile OS precisely because you can’t screw it up. Microsoft created something clean and gorgeous, and no phone company can slather their themed dreck all over it. However, if you’re a masochist, try this! Themes for Windows Phone 7, a Windows desktop application, kicks all of the mobile OS’…

Tech News Sam Biddle Dec 13 '11

How to Give Better Gifts Than Santa

The holiday season is about to rear its snowy head, and despite your hope that the enchanted old guy will take care of your shopping needs, it’s up to you to find the best gift deals out there. Fortunately, Best Buy® has an amazing digital site that’s made finding each and every one of their…

Tech News Sponsored post Dec 13 '11

4,000 pages of Isaac Newton’s personal notebooks are now available to view online

When Isaac Newton was first developing the mathematical theories that would later form the foundations of Calculus, many of his drawings, equations and calculations found their way into an unassuming notebook (known at the time as a “waste book”), the original cover of which is pictured on the far left of the image up top.…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 13 '11

Watch light particles crawl through a Coke bottle at a trillion frames per second

Three MIT physicists took the idea of high-exposure photography and cranked it up to absolutely ridiculous levels, using special optical equipment to show actual light particles on the move. Prepare to see the fastest thing you’ll ever see… in slow motion. The video up top was created using a streak camera, a new form of…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Dec 13 '11

Watch a Massively Powerful “Walkback” Slingshot Shoot Cannonball-Sized Ammo

We’ve got a big ol’ crush on slingshot master Joerg Sprave, but for all his rubbery kinetic might, there comes a point when the maximum power of a slingshot maxes out. That is, unless you’re such a huge badass you use trees for slingshots. Joerg realized that if he wanted a more powerful slingshot, he…

Tech News Kyle Wagner Dec 13 '11

Boxing Robots of the 1930s

The Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots toy is both a vivid and lukewarm memory of my childhood. I remember playing the plastic fighting game with my friend Matt (apparently Matt was quite a popular name for boys born in the early 1980s in the suburbs of St. Paul) and being terribly underwhelmed. There’s just about…

Tech News Matt Novak Dec 13 '11

A Single Text Can Destroy Windows Phone’s Messaging App

You had better hope the gent who discovered this WinPho security exploit is the only one who knows how to do it: this video shows just how easy it is to permanently ruin a WP7 handset. The vid, narrated by a WinRumors reader who discovered the flaw, shows how one message will force a Mango…

Tech News Sam Biddle Dec 13 '11

Scientists Still Chasing The Force, Getting Closer

After much excitement, the Force has not been found. But don’t be sad, my fellow nerds. Scientists may have not found evidence of the Higgs boson yet, but they have discovered “tantalizing hints” that may indicate its presence. According to CERN, “these are not yet strong enough to claim a discovery” but they have been…

Physics & Chemistry Jesus Diaz Dec 13 '11

10 Satirical Novels that Could Teach You To Survive the Future

There’s only one thing we know for sure about the future: It’ll be weird, and you can’t really prepare for it. Just imagine trying to tell someone in 2000 how to prepare for life in 2011. But luckily, there’s one surefire way to brace yourself for another round of future shock: by reading a slew…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders Dec 13 '11

Honda’s Self-Balancing Unicycle: A Segway For Sitters

Comfort and safety are the top features when it comes to buying a new car, so in an attempt to make its U3-X personal mobility device more consumer-friendly, Honda has improved both those aspects in its new Uni-Cub concept. Unlike the Segway, the self-balancing U3-X was more like a unicycle, allowing riders to sit and…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski Dec 13 '11

What Are the Best Designed Apps on Android?

Hi there. I’m back from a little long break. I’m using a Galaxy Nexus now, and I want some apps that have as much shine on them as Ice Cream Sandwich, if not more. Preferably stuff that’s not on our Essential Apps List or created by Google, ’cause that’s like cheating. So what apps do…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 13 '11

This music video is the collective subconscious of the internet

First, watch that music video (titled “Starship Baconprise”) above. Don’t read anything beyond the next sentence. Just let it soak in. Finished? Good. Now that you’re wondering what the hell you just watched — Frankenstein dining with F. Scott Fitzgerald and whatnot — know that this music video represented a magnificently deranged community art project…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar Dec 13 '11

US Air Force Crashes Yet Another Drone

How many drones can you lose in a month? Apparently not enough: the US Air Force lost another drone today, a General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, this time on the Seychelles. According to the US embassy in Mauritius: “a U.S. Air Force remote-piloted MQ-9 crashed at the Seychelles International Airport in Mahe. The MQ-9 was not…

Tech News Jesus Diaz Dec 13 '11

Apple Will Finally Let You Delete Pics From Your iCloud Photo Stream (Updated)

We’re not the biggest fans of iCloud’s Photo Stream feature, largely because you can’t manually delete pictures saved to the cloud without wiping everything out. But as devs are noticing in iOS 5.1 Beta 2, that’s about to change…kinda. According to Apple Insider, Photo Stream will delete any photo that you delete from your phone.…

Tech News Adrian Covert Dec 13 '11

Cable returns, Guillermo del Toro pens vampires, and a ton of other craziness hits stores this comic book Wednesday!

Boy howdy, there’s a truckload of nifty stuff hitting the spinner racks come Wednesday. Among many things, Secret Wars is back in print, a fairy tale by Persepolis’ Marjane Satrapi gets an English adaptation, and a big story arc on Uncanny X-Force wraps up. Let’s dive in! First Issues From Marvel, there’s the Cable versus…

Books & Comics Cyriaque Lamar Dec 13 '11

Those Drunk RIM Execs Were Insanely Drunk Beyond Our Wildest Dreams

Remember those two guys from RIM who were such drunk assholes, they grounded a plane on the way to China? New details show exactly why they were such a hassle—they were like two shitfaced gorillas. The CBC relays court document notes that seem too good to be true. Not only were the men drunk before…

Tech News Sam Biddle Dec 13 '11

Verizon Accidentally Sent a Scary Emergency Alert Telling People to “Take Shelter”

Imagine your day yesterday. Maybe you were working. Maybe you were at home or at the grocery store. Now imagine at 12:27 PM you got an emergency alert message on your phone saying, “Civil Emergency in this area until 1:24 PM EST Take Shelter Now U.S. Govern”. Wouldn’t you freak the eff out? I would…

Tech News Casey Chan Dec 13 '11

Physicists reveal compelling evidence for the “God Particle”

This morning, physicists representing the Large Hadron Collider’s two largest experiments — ATLAS and CMS — announced that both teams have independently uncovered signals that point to the appearance of the Higgs boson. That’s the long-sought sub-atomic particle thought to endow all other particles with mass. So have CERN physicists found the Higgs boson? Not…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 13 '11

Do you have questions about the Higgs Boson discovery? Ask a physicist!

The Large Hadron Collider has just announced results strongly suggesting a potential detection of the Higgs Boson at approximately 135 times the mass of the proton. While this doesn’t quite count as discovery yet, many physicists (including our own Dave Goldberg) are getting pretty confident that the Higgs is real, and that we now know…

io9 Annalee Newitz Dec 13 '11

Listen to the National Weather Service’s robot sing “Deck the Halls”

Themes for Windows Phone 7 Are a Travesty

How to Give Better Gifts Than Santa

4,000 pages of Isaac Newton’s personal notebooks are now available to view online

Watch light particles crawl through a Coke bottle at a trillion frames per second

Watch a Massively Powerful “Walkback” Slingshot Shoot Cannonball-Sized Ammo

Boxing Robots of the 1930s

A Single Text Can Destroy Windows Phone’s Messaging App

Scientists Still Chasing The Force, Getting Closer

10 Satirical Novels that Could Teach You To Survive the Future

Honda’s Self-Balancing Unicycle: A Segway For Sitters

What Are the Best Designed Apps on Android?

This music video is the collective subconscious of the internet

US Air Force Crashes Yet Another Drone

Apple Will Finally Let You Delete Pics From Your iCloud Photo Stream (Updated)

Cable returns, Guillermo del Toro pens vampires, and a ton of other craziness hits stores this comic book Wednesday!

Those Drunk RIM Execs Were Insanely Drunk Beyond Our Wildest Dreams

Verizon Accidentally Sent a Scary Emergency Alert Telling People to “Take Shelter”

Physicists reveal compelling evidence for the “God Particle”

Do you have questions about the Higgs Boson discovery? Ask a physicist!

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