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ASUS Is Resurrecting the Netbook With the EeeBook X205

And you thought the days of the netbook were done in the wake of the tablet takeover. Think again. It’s using IFA to launch the EeeBook X205, a netbook in all but name, that will cost $200. It’s to tablets what the vinyl revival is to digital downloads. An 11.6-inch laptop, it’s running off an…

​Why Are Superhero Movies So Much Better Than Superhero Comics?

Greetings, my stamp stars. I must escape this land ruled by apes. Generally it’s pretty great here — the apes are chill, the banana wine is pretty good — but they have me delivering the mail here too, and half of what they send to each other is their own feces, because they’re too civilized…

What If We Tried to Fly On Alien Worlds?

Could we fly on far-away worlds, or will it forever be a tantalizing fantasy? Randall Munroe of xkcd tackled the practicalities of flight on the 32 largest stars, planets and moons of our solar system as part of his What if? series. Top image: Excerpt of the visual summary of flying on different bodies within…

Asus ZenWatch: Home-Grown Functionality With a Big Price Tag

Asus has announced its first smartwatch at IFA in Berlin. Shuning the fashionable round faces of Moto and the like, this watch has a whole heap of home-grown software and a hefty price, too. The watch uses a square 1.63-inch, 320 x 320 AMOLED touchscreen—in fact, it’s the same as the Samsung Gear Live—and the…

The Samsung Gear S Gets a Smartwatch Keyboard You Might Actually Use

Fleksy has created a keyboard to work with the upcoming Samsung Gear S. Will it make typing on a tiny smartwatch screen anything other than completely awkward? It’s too soon to say. The Gear S is set to be the first smartwatch with a data connection, and Samsung intends users to send messages from the…

Show Us What Projects You’re Working On!

What have you been working on lately? Building a robot? Putting together a gallery of microscopic images from your lab? Stitching together a 3D panorama from Hubble stills? Whatever it is, get it all together, because it’s io9 show-and-tell time! Image: Commenter zheng3, from our last run of show-and-tell, showing us this incredibly detailed 3D-printed…

Acer R13 and R14: Overhauled Convertibles That Look Oddly Familiar

Acer has just announced two heavily redesigned convertibles at IFA: the R13 whose screen swings around in its bezel, and the R14, whose screen hinges a full 360 degrees. Oh, andanother cheap Windows tablet. If either of those designs sound familiar, that’s because… they are. Let’s take the R13 first, pictured above. A redesigned version…

A Map Of The U.S. Military’s Expanding Operations In Africa

While much of our attention is focused on ISIS and the Middle East, a closer look at the news cycle during the past two days reveals the extent to which the U.S. military has expanded its presence in Africa, where it is providing support for French counter-terrorism operations against militant Islamist groups. As the Washington…

New York’s frenetic energy captured on a video that makes my head spin

The world seems to spin faster in some cities than others. And hyper-energetic New York City might be the one that spins the fastest.Harlem based filmmaker Cutsdatflo captures the frenetic movement of the city in this imaginative video. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

First Look At Allison Williams As Peter Pan Trades Tights For Shorts

The first-ever image from the NBC live Peter Pan musical shows off Allison Williams in her updated Peter Pan costume, and the modern day recreation of the Broadway show has upgraded Peter from tights to shorts. Now Peter kind of looks like he belongs in Brooklyn, which yeah, that works. This first image was released…

A group of space ophthalmologists inspect the eye of a brand new spacecraft which is going to see farther, and going to take better images of our universe, than any of its predecessors. So what is going on in this photo taken in May, 2014? NASA engineers inspect a new piece of technology developed for…

John Oliver And Cookie Monster Are The Only TV News You’ll Ever Need

Sesame Street continues is unprecedented reign of being the Best Thing Ever as John Oliver and Cookie Monster give you the day’s most important word news. Besides a cavalcade of guest stars, the clip attempts to teach the correct use of “literally” to today’s impressionable youth — a truly noble goal. But my favorite part,…

This Is the First of a Slew of Cheap Windows Tablets

Prefer swiping through Windows tiles rather than Android’s app icons? If you’re on a budget, you rarely have any other option other than Android when it comes to tablets—but Toshiba’s new Encore Mini is the first of what could be a long line to buck that trend. Running full Windows 8.1 and offering a year’s…

Is Benedict Cumberbatch in Batman v. Superman?

And is Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor bald after all? James Gunn hints that a cut character and more female characters could show up in Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Jeff Bell outlines Agents of SHIELD season 2. And more information on Doctor Who’s next episode. Spoilers now! Top image: Guardians of the Galaxy Guardians of…

A Smartphone Vote Saved This Iconic Russian TV Mast

You’re looking up and through the Russian Shukhov Tower, a 92-year-old structure that was used to transmit TV signals until 2002. Having fallen into disrepair, it’s now being saved—thanks to a smartphone vote. When it was announced that the tower would be pulled down earlier this year, Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas and a bunch of…

Toshiba’s Chromebook Gets a Redesign, Full HD Model

Last January, Toshiba introduced its first Chromebook, a 13.3-inch device that attempted to deliver Google’s promise of productive computing on the cheap. But over the past nine months, ChromeOS has grown in popularity and as a platform in general, and Toshiba wants to grow with it. At IFA 2014 in Berlin, Toshiba has just introduced…

Lenovo Tab S8: Skinny, Cheap and Surprisingly OK

Now everyone owns a tablet it’s a little harder to get excited by a new offering from Lenovo—but its new Tab S8 is super-skinny, reasonably specced and, best of all, pretty damn cheap. The 8-inch device offers a seven-hour battery life, 8-megapixel rear camera, 1,920 x 1,200 screen, 2GB of RAM and a quad-core Intel…

Owners of the new HTC One (M8), the HTC One Max and Desire 816 now qualify for 100GB of Google Drive storage. Some older models will get a 25GB chunk of server when upgrading to Sense 5+ and Sense 6 too.

Logitech’s New Bluetooth Keyboard Docks Tablet and Phone at Once

Bluetooth wireless keyboards are so prolific that it’s hard to tell one from the other. But Logitech’s new K480 has a surprisingly neat feature: a cut-out groove that lets you dock both a phone and tablet at the same time. There’s no direct connectivity on offer—so there’s no data syncing or charging going on—but the…

Disney’s next animated shorts are “Frozen Fever,” about Anna’s birthday and Elsa’s powers; “Lava“; and “Feast,” about a dog’s 12-year relationship with his owner and their shared meals. In order, they’ll arrive in Spring 2015, June 19, 2015 (Inside Out), and November 7, 2015 (Big Hero 6). [Variety]