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Skateboarding through 5000 balloons looks like a whole lot of fun

If you think about it, ball pits are gross cesspools that hide violent bits of static charges and virulent diseases that smell like melting plastic. They are not fun. But that’s because adults are not fun. For kids, there are few places better. This 5000 balloon pit is like a ball pit for kids, but…

Researchers Use Drones and Lasers to Map Out Ancient Maya Sites

Most people think that archaeology technology peaked with spades and Indiana Jones’s whip; but a team of researchers has categorically disproved that idea (and, by the way, mapped out some Maya temples in the process). The team, using a few remote-controlled quadrotors, managed to get enough aerial imagery to stitch together a 3-D rendering of…

A Flash Flood In The Balkans Tears Through A Neighbourhood

The Balkans are flooding again. While flash floods are already nasty, flooding in areas with landmines have their own horrific twist, amplifying the disaster. A video is making the rounds of social media showing a flash flood in the region, although it’s unclear if it’s current or from a previous event. https://gizmodo.com/flooding-in-the-balkans-with-a-chance-of-explosives-1579149506 http://thevane.gawker.com/intense-video-shows-flash-flood-surging-through-neighbo-1635500174

The World’s Saddest Robot Looks For A Friend In Post-Apocalyptic Paris

L30 may be the only sentient robot in Paris—which is doubly sad since nearly all of the creatures in the city have vanished. But when he finally encounters a living being, it turns out that the little robot may not be ready for biological companionship. L30 was made by students at ISART Digital. What starts…

AirVR Wants to Shut Off All Human Contact With an iPad Mini Face-Holder

Would you trade quite literally all of your friends (and $49 shiny Canadian dollars) for a shot at a probably-mediocre virtual reality experience? AirVR, a Canadian company with an entire Kickstarter page all to itself, is thinking yes. Simply put, the AirVR helps you strap your iPad Mini (or iPhone 6 Plus) to your face,…

Good news for Adobe! Another half-a-million people have been converted to their Creative Cloud subscription, making the new total 2.81 million. Bad news for Adobe! This isn’t enough new customers for investors, and shares in the software giant fell 5 per cent following the announcement (sad face emoji). [Reuters]

iPhone 6 and 6 Plus Meta-Review: Bigger and Better (And Bigger)

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus stretch Apple’s winning formula to much greater sizes than ever before, while bringing a potentially game-changing mobile payments option alongside typical upgrades like processors and cameras. They’ve got a slick new design, and boast the latest version of iOS as well. What do critics with advance access think…

Report: Android’s Material Design Will Take a Rolling Pin to Play Store

When Google introduced its Material Design manifesto to the world at I/O, it was made clear that it was only a matter of time before flat design took over the entire Googleverse — starting, it would seem, with the Play Store. https://gizmodo.com/what-material-design-means-for-the-future-of-android-1595976211 Android Police has got an early look at the 5.0 update to the…

You’ll Never Understand Under The Dome Without My Help

The pivotal moment in last night’s episode of Under the Dome comes halfway through, when Julia Shumway comes and prays to me, the Dome. She doesn’t actually get on her knees, which displeases me. But she does beg for one last chance. And then… I look at her, and go “Nah.” Spoilers ahead… There’s a…

All of Harry Potter summed up in one giant comic strip

If you somehow missed the Harry Potter boat and wanted to read all the books now, you’d have to flip through 4109 pages spread across 7 books. Or if you just want to catch up with the Harry Potter movies instead, you’d have to sit and stare for 19 hours and 38 minutes for all…

ZTE Brings Its Phablet-Sized ZMax to T-Mobile

ZTE is a smartphone company that probably exists on the periphery of your consciousness. They’re as well known as any other Chinese mobile brand, which is to say not very much at all. But the company wants to change things up by bringing its affordable phablet to the United States. The ZTE ZMax is coming…

Amazon’s Using the Heat From Its Data Centers To Warm Its New HQ

Downtown Seattle is being slowly consumed by Amazon-funded infrastructure, thanks to the expansion of its corporate headquarters—glass domes, bike lanes, streetcar improvements. Now the company has figured out an innovative way to heat their new buildings by using the energy generated by their data centers across the street. The process—called hydronic heat—works by transferring the…

Nothing Like the Welcoming Glow of the Spaceport’s Holograms

When you’ve been traveling a lot, even the lurid red and blue landing fields of the spaceport are a welcome sight. The arcs of its solar towers seem to embrace weary passengers as they touch down and glimpse the green fields of the city floating below. Chris Kesler is a concept artist in London who…

A Magical Patch of Grass Turns Evil in This Scary Short Film

Whenever people stumble on a mysterious natural phenomenon that grants them powers in movies, things don’t generally turn out so well. You’ll have to watch Burnt Grass to find out exactly what goes awry with the short film’s central couple when they discover a patch of their lawn with the ability to duplicate organic material.…

Lucifer TV Series Will Follow Neil Gaiman’s Devil To Los Angeles

The Sandman character, who got his own spinoff comic series, just landed a TV show on Fox. And in even better news, the show is being made by the creator behind Californication. This is a perfect match. Deadline is reporting that the version of Lucifer introduce in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman books has inspired his own…

This video of a crowded intersection makes me hyperventilate

Even though I know that this video was made by the visual effects experts of Black Sheep Films and isn’t real, I can’t help but feel queasy when I watch it. The rotoscoping is just so well done. I gasp as I see the cyclist cross the road, I churn when the pedestrian decides to…

Lauren Beukes Explains How to Tell Great Stories About The Internet

We live much of our lives online — and even the parts we don’t are still touched in hundreds of ways by our digital presences. And yet TV, movies, and books struggle to portray the crossover between our digital and physical worlds in a way that feels real. Here, author Lauren Beukes gives us her…

Elric Of Melniboné Comes To Life In The Ultimate Comic Adaptation

If you’re any kind of fan of Michael Moorcock or Elric, the dark fantasy antihero he created, you owe it to yourself to check out this new graphic novel adaptation. Not only is it empirically gorgeous, Moorcock himself says it’s the first comic to “capture the sense of utter decadence” of his fantasy epics. New…

Living in the Future Entails More Space Raves Than You’d Expect

Risk of spontaneous nuclear annihilation aside, the Cold War proved a potent period in the history of technological development. I mean, just look at all this cool stuff we invented for little reason more than simply sticking it to the Soviets. It’s amazing the lofty heights mankind can achieve when inspired by smack talking. Leveraging…

iCloud’s Two-Step Authentication Is Back and Now Covers Backups

Good news after a harrowing week: Your iCloud account is now (a little) more secure. After popping up briefly and then disappearing—and a highly publicized, unfortunately timed security breach—iCloud’s two-step authentication has returned for good, with several important improvements, according to Ars Technica. In the wake of Nudegate, it was revealed that Apple ID’s original…