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Germany’s Investigating Claims That It Illegally Spied on Europe for NSA

German prosecutors are rallying to assess whether its BND foreign intelligence agency has broken laws by spying on officials and companies throughout Europe for the National Security Agency. Reuters reportsthat the country’s top public prosecutor has kicked off a preliminary investigation following pressure from politicians. The German magazine Der Spiegel claims that the BND helped…

Curiosity Has a Rock Wedged In Its Wheel

Like any vehicle, Curiosity’s wheels have to roll over whatever lies in its path. Sadly, that path isn’t always smooth: now, the rover’s got a chunk of rock wedged in one of the grooves of its wheels. According to New Scientist, NASA scientists aren’t too concerned about the stone. They don’t expect it to affect…

Joss Whedon Explains What Happened to Loki’s Age of Ultron Cameo

Late last year, Idris Elba let slip the names of some of the major Thor characters that would make brief appearances in Avengers: Age of Ultron. And yet, when the movie actually arrived, no Loki. What happened? Tom Hiddleston was noticeably — if you were aware he’d filmed scenes for Age of Ultron — absent…

Blackboard Chalk Isn’t Really Chalk at All

Ubiquitous in many classrooms since the 19th century, chalk and chalkboards are familiar to most of us. White, powdery and prone to sticking to those surfaces where it is put (and just as easy to wipe away), chalk and its accompanying board are excellent instructional aids. Notably, however, most chalk today isn’t technically chalk at…

RIP Grace Lee Whitney, Star Trek‘s Yeoman Janice Rand

Grace Lee Whitney, instantly recognizable as Yeoman Janice Rand from the original Star Trek, has passed away at the age of 85. Whitney died in her home in Coarsegold, California, her son, Jonathan Dweck, confirmed on Sunday. Despite only appearing in eight episodes of the original series, Whitney officially reprised her role in Star Trek:…

Vagina Monologues Writer Eve Ensler Consulted on Mad Max: Fury Road

In an Esquire interview, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley gave a few fairly amazing details about the band of escaped women traveling with Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and Mad Max himself (Tom Hardy). The first: the girls made their own costumes out of bandages. The second: Eve Ensler flew out to spend a week letting the girls pick…

Pilot Season Round-Up: Minority Report and The Muppets Are Done Deals

It’s that time of year where we get a good look at what’s going to be on TV come fall. And we’ve got some things rising from the dead, some obvious done deals, and some things wavering on the bubble. It’s a good time to be a superhero or a Muppet, though. Deadline’s got a…

Everything Is Organized In This Architect’s Lego Basement

On the surface, owning 250,000 Lego pieces sounds awesome. But then you start to think about it: the late-night encounters with carpets in the brick; trying to find that one particular head; trying to explain things to your insurance broker. Clearly, you’re going to need one hell of a storage system. That’s exactly what’s been…

The Detail That Goes Into Making Orion’s Windows Is Incredible

Given how high-tech spacecraft tend to be, I was surprised to learn that existing space vehicles tend to use good old-fashioned glass (albeit a rather expensive kind). But for the next-gen Orion spacecraft, NASA has been working overtime to find something stronger, lighter, and just a little less fragile. The historical preference for glass is…

How Good Design Can Make Or Break A Product

Slack, a humble workplace messaging service, has become something of an internet phenomenon: a chat program worth $2.8 billion, which has otherwise well-educated humans foaming at the mouth, salivating over how much fun talking to coworkers can be. And, as one of its architects explains, a lot of that is down to the sassy design.…

SOPA Lives On For the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition

Last week the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition (IACC) held their spring conference in San Diego, to share intelligence about the latest strategies for combatting “counterfeiting” (by which they mean trademark infringement) and “piracy” (by which they mean copyright infringement). EFF’s Jeremy Malcolm attended as an invited panelist, giving us the opportunity to assert our views that…

I Want to Live in this Magical Microscopic Ice World

The microscopic world loves to deceive us. This image, for instance, looks like an icy landscape on an alien planet, but it’s actually a thin film of wax, sandwiched between two glass microscope slides and illuminated using linearly polarized light. Image Copyright: Aongus McCarthy “Frozen Landscape” was created by Aongus McCarthy of Heriot-Watt University, an…

May’s Essential Apps for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone

April seems to have flown by, but a decent amount of stuff has happened. We saw more glimpses of plenty of upcoming films including Star Wars, Jurassic World, andMad Max: Fury Road. Super hero sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron came out, and it was awesome, LG announced the G4 smartphone at long last, we found…

Behold The Suicide Squad In the Flesh, Including Harley Quinn 

As has been the tradition for Suicide Squad thus far, David Ayer’s tweeted the first full-on cast photo, with pretty much everyone (save the Joker and Amanda Waller) in costume. UPDATED: Now with a look at Deadshot’s full costume. We’ve heard that Suicide Squad will have Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Flagg, Killer Croc, Enchantress, Boomerang, Deathstroke,…

Jilted Crowdfunders Are Demanding More Than Unfulfilled Pledges

Welcome to Reading List, a weekly collection of great tech reads from around the web. This week explores the rage of the jilted crowdfunder, the untold history of the Silk Road, one man’s unfortunate weekend using only the Apple Watch for communication, and more! Enjoy. When a crowdfunded project doesn’t deliver as promised, backers feel…

Magical Words In Real Estate: Plan 9 From Outer Space Was Filmed Here!

Granted, 5628 1/2 Santa Monica Boulevard has changed a lot since Ed Wood and his merry band of grave robbers prowled Hollywood. The 14,000 square foot property, built in 1925, is now an apartment building with a bar, “Gold Diggers Entertainment,” beneath. But still … it could be yours! Or could have have been yours,…

Here’s How Much Earth Gets Blasted Away to Extract a Hunk of Diamond

If you ever wondered how much land mass had to be moved to produce that diamond engagement ring, this series of photos should help put things in perspective. Dillon Marsh, a photographer and artist from Cape Town, describes his ongoing For What It’s Worth series as an attempt to quantify mining, “an industry that has…

We’ve Just Developed a Portable Cloaking Device 

If you’re a non-magical being, you might think your chances of becoming invisible are slim to nil. But don’t jump to conclusions just yet: Researchers are now claiming to have developed a portable system that can make small objects, like your keys or pet lizard, disappear from sight. Top image: Conceptual model of an invisibility…

Problem solving at its most pungent: After studying thousands of hours of footage, scientists have discovered that Antarctica’s Gentoo penguins “poop on their frozen landscape to melt it, creating the ideal location to rear their young when the time comes.”

Tesla Battery Economics: On the Path to Disruption

Elon Musk announced Tesla’s home / business battery today. tl;dr: It’ll get enthusiastic early adopters to buy. The economics are almost there to make it cost effective for a wide market. And within just a few years, it almost certainly will be cheap enough to be cost effective for a broad market. Not a complete…