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Here’s the $80 Dongle You Need to Use the New MacBook With Your Stuff

Remember the time Apple gave the iPhone a new connector and you had to buy a dongle to use all your old accessories? It’s happening again. But worse. Apple’s new Macbook has a do-everything USB type-C connector. That’s good! But there’s only one on the entire laptop. That’s bad! The idea here is that wireless…

Apple’s New MacBook Hands-On: Gorgeous, Featherlight, But a Bit Awkward

I just lifted Apple’s gorgeous new MacBook with a single hand. For a moment, it felt like I was holding nothing at all. It’s so light. With a laptop in my left paw, a DSLR camera in my right, only one of them felt substantial. It’s the first of many things to love about Apple’s…

A Fond Farewell to the Neon Sign

I simply can’t help it; I am a sucker for neon signs. I just love their clear glowing lines, their curves and bends, their warm though discreet presence in the night. And I hate to see them go. Since the invention of the long luminous gas-discharge tubes containing neon or other noble gases in the…

Some Of The Weirdest Pen Names Science Fiction Authors Have Used

The name Eando Binder sounds exotic and kinkily Teutonic — but it’s actually a pseudonym for Earl and Otto Binder, who turned “E and O” into the science-fictional-sounding “Eando.” Learn the origins of James S.A. Corey, Murray Leinster, James Tiptree Jr., and other unusual SF pen names, over at Barnes & Noble. (But not Cordwainer…

The Many, Many Prices of the Apple Watch

Big or small? Gold, stainless steel, or anodized aluminum? Metal, leather, plastic. So many choices at so many prices. It’s going to be ok. Let’s break it down. The Apple Watch Sport Edition Anodized aluminum and not gold 60 percent stronger than standard alloy Colors: silver or space gray The cheapest model possible The “Sane”…

How Apple Will Make Superhard “Apple Gold” for Its Watches

Apple design VP Jony Ive told the Financial Times that Apple had invented a new kind of ultra-hard 18 karat gold for its line of luxury Apple Watches. Though rumors about the gold’s bizarre molecular structure are false, Apple Gold is a real thing. Here’s what the patent reveals about it, and a possible Apple…

The Gold Apple Watch Costs at Least as Much as 100 Pebble Smartwatches

There’s been plenty of speculative chatterover just how much the fanciest of smartwatches—the gold Apple Watch Edition—will cost. And it’s finally official: this little gadget will set you back at least $10,000. Jesus christ. We’ve knowna gold Watch was coming since Apple first announced its smartwatch lineup, and pricing has been cited as potentially being…

Epic Fantasy Sculpture Wins Top Prize At World Ice Art Championships

Behold “Fighter,” crafted by a team of ice-carving artists (Japan’s Junichi Nakamura and Shinichi Sawamura, and the U.S.’s Chan Kitburi and Dean Murray). It took first prize in the multi-block division and a Governor’s Award (voted on by event volunteers) at the 2015 World Ice Art Competition. According to the event website, the Fairbanks, Alaska…

iOS 8.2 is coming today, bringing with it no doubt the new Apple Watch app. Start your iPhones.

A Heating Element Lets This Blender Make Sauces From Start to Finish

There are already high-speed blenders on the market that spin with such speed and power that they actually produce enough heat to cook soups and sauces right inside a single appliance. But this blender is the first with an actual 800-watt non-stick heating element built right in. That means that not only can homemade soups…

AMC Really, Really Likes The Walking Dead Spin-Off—Plus The First Pic!

AMC has just announced that it’s ordered two full seasons of The Walking Dead spin-off TV series, well before the first episode even premieres. They must really like what they’ve seen of the series, which will star Cliff Curtis (Gang Related) and Kim Dickens (Deadwood), and whose first season will air this summer. Do you…

Puppet Versions Of Korra Characters Reveal What Really Happened On Set

We already miss The Legend of Korra, which wrapped up its final season this winter, but we’ll get to revisit the characters when the final season comes out on home entertainment tomorrow. And in this exclusive clip from the Book 4 Blu-ray, puppet versions of the characters dishing on the behind-the-scenes antics of the Spirits.…

Apple Messed Up on the MacBook Air Again

For years Apple’s MacBook Air has languished in partial obsolescence—a great laptop with fantastic battery life and a quizzically outdated screen. 1440 x 900 is a pitifully small resolution for modern times. Sadly, the company hasn’t learned its lesson: the 2015 MacBook Air refresh has the same, outdated display as it has for years. What…

The “Harvard Sentences” Secretly Shaped the Development of Audio Tech

During World War II, the boiler room under Harvard’s Memorial Hall was turned into a secretive wartime research lab. Here, volunteers were subjected to hours of noise as scientists tested military communications systems. Out of this came the Harvard sentences, a set of standardized phrases still widely used to test everything from cellphones to VoIP.…

Oh Good God It’s a Gold MacBook

If you’re shiny gold iPhoneor your shiny gold iPadweren’t enough, you can now have an equally absurd, pretty goddamn beautiful gold MacBook to round out your collection. Because we may all be monsters, but look how shiny. The fancy new paintjob is a nice complement to the new MacBook’s sleek, super skinny profile. And as…

Artists In Prison Once Created Functional Carnivals Made Of Toothpicks

At a local San Francisco landmark, Musée Mécanique, you can see old entertainment machines like zoetropes and laughing robotic clowns. You can also see elaborate, moving carnivals made of toothpicks, most of which were created by people who were incarcerated. In the 1940s, at least two inmates in California spent their time sculpting and mechanizing…

The New Ultra Skinny MacBook: Here’s Your Next (Gold!) Apple Laptop

It’s about damn time Apple reinvented the MacBook. More than the refreshed MacBook Air we’ve been hearing rumors about since last year, this new laptop is called simply MacBook. It’s so little and tiny that we’re practically breathless. I’ll start with the shockingly diminutive specs about size and weight because jeez: It weighs just two…

Tor Doesn’t Want to Depend on US Government Money Anymore

Tor is transforming. The anonymity service is making a concerted effort to find funding sources other than the United States government, the problematic sugar daddy that’s bankrolled Tor for years. The Daily Dot reports that Tor is making a concerted effort to diversity funding from sources from around the world and depend less on Uncle…

New Technique Reveals Where AIDS Hides In The Body – In Real Time

A new, noninvasive technique has been used to create a real-time map of the simian AIDS virus (SIV) in the entire body of a living monkey, researchers report today. The method is called immunoPET, and it’s already turning up unexpected “viral reservoirs” where AIDS may gain a purchase in the body. Borrowing a labeling strategy…

Apple TV is not getting updated hardware (at least not yet) but its price just dropped to $70. Great for watching HBO Now on.