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Report: China’s Tech Factories Are Abusing Poor Interns

Think that you have it hard, with your internship forcing you to work 8-hour days making coffee for no pay? Well, a WSJ report might make you feel a little better: Chinese factories are relying on cheap intern labour to keep the manufacturing dream alive. Chinese tech factories have long been under fire for atrocious…

Scientists Are Using Anthrax to Cure Cancer

“You need some anthrax” is probably not the diagnosis you’d like to hear from your family doctor; but if one MIT team has their way, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. A MIT research team were apparently just sitting around one evening, and wondered what would happen if you used the anthrax bacteria to deliver…

These Avengers Cereals Are Part of a Marvelous Breakfast

These cereals should be included in every breakfast from here until eternity. Also, there is some level seven punning going on here. These confections aren’t available in reality (reality loses to fantasy yet again), but shirts are available here and here. The designs are by Bamboota and Elliot Fernandez. http://sharkrobot.com/collections/bamboota

Japan Tests Its New 500kph Maglev Train

Maglev trains have been promised as the future of public transport since about forever, but high-speed magnetic levitation systems are rapidly gaining a serious reputation — something Japan’s public demonstration of its high-speed maglev system is only going to help. The test was carried out by the Central Japan Railway Company, and was the first…

Apple has posted an ‘official’ workaround to the iOS 8 screwing-over-your-cell-connection update, and it’s similar to all the versions that’ve been floating around today: backup your phone, then restore to the earlier version of iOS 8, using iTunes. And no, they still haven’t said sorry. [Apple]

I can’t believe this underwater film was made without special effects

This underwater video is impossibly surreal but the makers of the video, Francisco and Armando del Rosario and Armiche Ramos, say that no computer special effects were used in the video, just some camera tricks to make it look like the ocean world can be sideways and water can be walked upside down on. It’s…

Short film: A zombie apocalypse might actually be pretty fun

TV shows like The Walking Dead make the zombie apocalypse look like a soul evaporating place because the characters enjoy making dumb decisions. Zombie movies like 28 Days Later make it look terrifying because of the constant state of panic. But what if the zombie apocalypse was actually… fun? Don’t get me wrong, the zombie…

Forever Is Exactly What a Sherlock/Highlander Crossover Would Look Like

This week, ABC aired the first two episodes of its new immortal detective show Forever. And it was perfectly fine! In fact, it’s a more-than-serviceable supernatural procedural. That I happened to fall asleep in the middle of. Let me be clear: I’m pretty sure the reason I missed half of Forever’s second episode was because…

Developer: iOS In-App Browsers Might Be Stealing Your Information

More (slightly) bad security news for Apple, on what’s already been a pretty bad day for iOS: Craig Hockenberry, one of the devs behind Twitterific, has revealed in a blog post that in-app browsers are capable of logging your keyboard. The point is that anything you enter into an in-app browser — even your password,…

Person of Interest Is Back, and Here’s Everything That’s Changed

Last night’s Person of Interest was one of those season premieres that’s also a reboot. It was slightly clunky, but we learned all the new ground rules for this show now that our heroes have scattered, assumed new identities, and must cope with constant surveillance from a hostile A.I. named Samaritan. Spoilers ahead! I suspect…

How are these water drops just floating on the surface of the water?

Water isn’t supposed to float on top of water because well, water is water. So how are these droplets of water suspended on the surface of the water? Sound. The water is actually on top of a speaker and the acoustic vibrations allows the water drops to stay as drops on top of water. It’s…

HTC Is Teasing Some Kind of New Camera

HTC’s just released a new, deliberately mysterious video that’s teasing some kind of waterproof, slo-mo capable camera, to be released on October 8th. Should GoPro be worried? In the movie, we get a couple of casual real-world events captured by the mystery HTC device: underwater footage of girls swimming! Girls playing slo-mo soccer! Hipsters street-jamming…

Report: The Nexus 6 Is Made by Motorola, And Is Terrifyingly Massive

According to 9to5Google, this is the next Nexus device: a Motorola-made, 5.92-inch behemoth. In other words, the next Nexus could be the mother of all phablets. 9to5Google claims to have sources ‘directly familiar’ with the upcoming device, set to be launched in mid-October for a November release. The specs they’ve been leaked include a hand-torturing…

iPhone 6 survives crazy drop test from a wingsuit 7,000 feet in the air

Because dropping the iPhone 6 on the sidewalk is not enough and because soaking it in liquid nitrogen to shatter it and shooting it with a .50 cal is a little too unfair, RatedRR decided to do the ultimate drop test for the new iPhone: dropping it while skydiving in a wingsuit thousands of feet…

Happy Wednesday, Key and Peele Is Back in Our Lives

Good news for fans of sketch comedy and laughing: Key and Peele comes back for its fourth season tonight, and the first episode is stellar. Key and Peele was always good, but the third season was especially smart and silly, and if this season is as strong as its opening episode, we’re gonna have a…

These Actions Have Done The Most To Curb Carbon Emissions

As our leaders gather in New York for a UN meeting on climate change, it’s fair to ask which measures to date have contributed the most to slow global warming. Because no one has really thought to ask this question, The Economist recently tried to find out. In the chart above, The Economist ranks 20…

Why Sprawling LA Could Be Denser Than NYC in a Decade

By 2025, the biggest cities in the world will not only be bigger, but exceptionally denser. According to a new study, Hong Kong will be the densest megacity on the planet, almost twice as crowded as the runner up. And here in the U.S.—and this might be a real shocker—Los Angeles may be more dense…

How Laline Paull Brought Real Science into Her Novel The Bees

Science fiction has a celebrated role in inspiring real scientific advancements. But, the relationship also works in the opposite direction, with science inspiring stories to go to new places. Here, author Laline Paull explains just how scientific facts sent her novel The Bees into an unexpected direction. Paull joined us today to answer questions about…

The Beautiful Near-Silence of Botswana’s Okavango Delta at Night

I spend most of my weekdays on my sofa sitting in front of a computer screen. I’m guessing a lot of you spend most of your weekdays in some kind of indoor office environment, also sitting in front of a computer screen. Wanna close your eyes with me and take a sonic journey to Botswana’s…

These illustrations perfectly make fun of our obsession with Facebook

Everybody uses Facebook even if you don’t. Artist Pawel Kuczynski played on the idea of our obsession with the social network and people’s behavior while using it and how Facebook treats its users in these perfectly on point satirical illustrations. They take Facebook’s logo and twist it into something else. The illustrations are clever! Facebook…