Latest

Two-Fifths of American Households Now Use Video Streaming Services

A new report by the media measurement organization Nielsen reveals that more than two-in-five American households now subscribe to an online video streaming service such as Netflix or Amazon Prime. Of the streaming services used around the country, Netflix wins out by a clear margin. In its Total Audience Report, Nielsen claims that around 36…

What In Westeros Does The Latest Game Of Thrones Spoiler Refer To?

Daredevil adds a host of new characters, including a villain who’s reformed in the comics. Rumors abound for the villain for Suicide Squad. Plus, Arnold Schwarzenegger talks fighting himself for Terminator Genisys. And our first look at Maze Runner: Scorch Trials. Spoilers await! Top image: Daredevil. Suicide Squad Latino Review’s Umberto Gonzalez is back with…

The best GIFs of 2015 according to the Internet 

I love animated GIFs. I make them as part of my work here in Sploid, I drool when we see one that is a perfect infinite loop, and I think it’s a great medium to tell stories. That’s why I like theGIFYS. An award show devoted to honor the best animated GIFs on the Internet.…

NASA Is Going to Try Out Smart Glasses for Astronauts

NASA has announced that it plans to investigate the use of smart glasses in space, for virtual reality and augmented reality applications during human spaceflight—to help with flight operations, repairs or other technical tasks. In a collaboration with the Osterhout Design Group, which makes the smart glasses pictured above, NASA will investigate how the glasses…

Returning to Earth Has Never Been So Beautiful

The three crew members of International Space Station Expedition 42 returned safely to Earth early in the morning of Thursday March 12th after a 167-day mission. Their journey was stunning. You can see the view they got in this graceful photo of the Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft as it descended toward the silken clouds above the…

Vaio’s First Smartphone is an MOR Black Slab

Now Vaio is its own boss, free from Sony, it’s able to do as it chooses. Hoton the heels of two rather nice new laptops, it’s announced its first smartphone. Say hello to VAIO Phone. Its a sleek enough looking handset, certainly, all glossy back plastic—but if anything that serves to make it look rather…

The Game You Can Play to Help Cancer Research

Cancer Research UK’s latest foray into citizen science is in the form of the game Even the Odds. Just spend some time trying to save the Odds and you can also help researchers gather data on cancer cells. The game itself is pretty similar to other games out there: the world of the Odds is…

Here’s How Apocalyptic Fiction Has Changed Over the Last Century

Tumblr user Destination Toast has done a lot of statistical analyses of fandom — all of it very impressive — but the latest analyzes how the kinds of apocalypses in fiction have changed over time. We’re worried about a lot more now than we used to be. The chart below covers the different kinds of…

New Outlander Promo Puts Everyone In Danger

We just cannot wait for Outlander to return. We’ve still got three weeks to go before the rest of season one airs, but now we have a short glimpse at it. And things seem to be going quite poorly for everyone in this trailer. There’s only a little bit of happiness in this trailer —…

A Completely Clean Web Would Be So Boring

For all its wonders, the internet does have some dark sides. Trolls. YouTube comments. 4chan. But as YouTuber Tom Scott explains by showing us what a completely offence-free internet dystopia would look like, even the lowliest of bridge-dwellers are a defining feature of online life. Scott’s ‘Bubble’ — a fictitious, perfect, personalised screening device for…

Watch Sarah Michelle Gellar As Cinderella In An Epic Princess Rap Battle

This one’s hard on a very personal level: Sarah Michelle Gellar is awesome, as always, but it’s hard to really side with Cinderella over Belle. Feel free to come at me in the comments.

Wi-Fi Signals Look Incredibly Uneven When They’re Visualized

You probably don’t think about Wi-Fi signal much, except when you’re at the the wrong end of your apartment and swearing profusely. But rather than being some steady, even projection of data, Wi-Fi actually looks completely random when you map it out in 3-D. Dominique Thiebaut, a computer science professor at Smith College, used a…

What It Looks Like To Receive A World-Record Snow Dump 

Capracotta, a charming town in Italy’s heartland, received a barely-believable 8 feet of snow over the course of 18 hours yesterday. That’s possibly a world record for snowfall, and unsurprisingly, it’s brought life in the town to a grinding halt. Italian broadcaster Telemolise managed to get a news crew in (presumably by snowmobile, since 8…

Japanese Tsunami Is A Reminder To Prepare In the Pacific Northwest

In 2011, a massive earthquake hit Tōhoku, triggering a tsunami that devastated coastal Japan and surged across the ocean. The triple-plate tectonic junction that spawned the disaster has a mirror image across the Pacific Ocean, a nasty intersection of looming catastrophe in the Pacific Northwest. Road damage after the 2001 Nisqually earthquake in Washington. Image…

Watch a B-2 bomber refuel and then make its fuel receptacle disappear

Damn, that thing really is stealth. This video shows how the B-2 stealth bomber refuels and rotates its fuel receptacle so that it can maintain its stealth. You see the receptacle in clear view when it’s ready for fuel but after it’s all filled up, it’s gone and the whole plane is back to being…

NASA’s New Rocket Booster Is A Firebreathing God of Thunder

NASA successfully live-fired thenew booster for its Space Launcher Systemtoday. It’s the largest, most powerful booster ever built, putting one hell of a scorch mark into the desert. And yes, there’s a video. Today’s test, which went off without a hitch, is the first of two tests necessary to qualify the booster for flight. The…

Water droplets jump off a gecko’s skin like popping popcorn

Geckos have a neat superpower that allows it to stay dry at all times: water droplets basically get catapulted off their skin like popping popcorn. It’s pretty nuts to see the water launch in the air like that and also pretty gross to think of it as the sort of human equivalent of shooting out…

This puts everything in perspective. Here’s an image of today’s X2.2-class solar flare, along with the Earth for scale. Image via NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory

​This Customizable Modular Keyboard is Anything You Want It To Be

There are a lot of alternative keyboard options out there, but sometimes you need something really specific. Building your own is pretty tough. Students from Tokyo University are about to make it easier. Tricky is a prototype modular keyboard system designed to create small, purpose-built input devices. Want a mini-keyboard for Photoshop shortcuts? Build it.…

If You Want Healthy Cows, Feed Them Magnets

Dairy farmers routinely feed their cows a finger-sized magnet, which settles in the digestive tract to help keep the cows healthy. Wait what? This is no bizarre homeopathy, but rather a legitimate treatment for a stomach-churning ailment called “hardware disease.” The problem arises because cows don’t chew before swallowing. Of course, cows do famously spend…