Latest

Watch the remote-controlled flight of a cyborg moth

Researchers at North Carolina State University implanted electrodes in the muscles of moths—Manduca sexta—so they can remote-control their flight. This technique could lead to a new generation of small-sized biobots that can be used for both military and civil purposes. The electrodes are implanted during the insect’s early metamorphic stages. So they are perfectly compatible…

9 Images of How Kids Played Before Modern Playgrounds Existed

“Playground.” The word evokes visions of brightly colored jungle gyms and swing-sets, fenced-off or otherwise protected from dangers of the surrounding real world. But before these kinds of site-specific joy zones, kids kept busy: Playing. On the ground. ” Reinventing the Square” is an exhibition that looks at the evolution of public places created specifically…

Catch Up On Batman v Superman, The Ring 3, Resident Evil 6 And Avatar 2

The Star Wars Expanded Universe may not be as dead as some people believed. The Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts gets a veteran Potter director. A major Marvel villain comes to Agents of SHIELD, and Syfy’s The Expanse gets two more stars. Plus a startling Doctor Who hint. Spoilers right now! Top image: The Flash…

How the Hell Does Quantum Mechanics Work Anyway?

People that know about quantum mechanics tend to talk about it very breezily, leaving us mortals behind. Be left behind no longer, though, with this wonderful little video. Taking a cue from Schrödinger’s famous cat thought experiment, Josh Samani walks us through the basics of quantum mechanics and entanglement. It’s still not easy—you’re going to…

F-16s flying over Greenland look like snowspeeders over Hoth

Enjoy this cool video of some Royal Danish Air Force’s F-16s flying low level over Greenland. I imagine the pilots wearing rebel helmets looking for Imperial AT-AT walkers. Pew pew. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

Google’s Testing Self-Driving Cars In a Matrix-Style Simulation

Somewhere in the Googleplex, Google has a digital simulation of the entire Californian road system to test its self-driving cars. This, says Google, allows it to perform “decades worth of testing” in just hours. Indeed, Google has such confidence in its system that is now lobbying the California’s government to certify these self-driving vehicles based…

This video of the evolution of Nike shoes since 1971 is pretty damn cool

Polish design and creative studio Hello Mono made this cool video that shows four decades of Nike shoes evolution. While watching it I found myself trying to spot all the Nike sneakers I ever owned. All of them were from the company’s first decade. HELLO MONO is an initiative of Creative and Art Director Wojtek…

Reuters: iPhone 6 Display Redesign Could Limit Availability

Whether it’s made of sapphire or not the display of the next iPhone is rumored to be causing some trouble.Reuters reports that Apple suppliers are “scrambling to get enough screens ready” for the new phone as a last-minute redesign has disrupted production. https://gizmodo.com/whats-sapphire-glass-and-why-would-apple-want-it-in-yo-1603457905 The newswire explains that two supply chain sources have told it that…

Wait, is that… human bones on Mars? Not quite, conspiracy theorists: in fact it’s just a rock that happens to look a little bit like a femur thigh bone. It was snapped by the Mars rover Curiosity using its MastCam. [NASA]

White House Cybersecurity Leader: Technical Know-How’s a Distraction

In much the same way that the best heart surgeons have never studied medicine and Supreme Court judges have never really read the law, Michael Daniel, the White House’s cybersecurity co-ordinator thinks that “being too down in the weeds at the technical level could actually be a little bit of a distraction” in his position.…

Bad Guys Can Make Your Phone Automatically Dial Expensive Numbers

Here’s yet another way that bad guys can use your smartphone to do nasty things. A Copenhagen-based developer has just discovered a simple way to automatically make your phone dial expensive numbers. Let’s say you’re browsing the web in Safari on your iPhone and see a number. Safari presents the number to you as a…

Deliciously explosive tropical fruits

German design studio Foreal made these cool series of tropical fruits exploding with a mix of photography, CGI and hand drawing. They called it Tropical Blast. A self-initiated illustration project focused on mixing different visual styles into a fresh and new form of expression. CGI, photography and accurate hand drawn elements coming together, composing an…

A Guide To Surviving Your First Burning Man

It’s been almost a year since my first trip to Black Rock City and I’m pretty sure that I’m no longer carrying any playa dust on my body. As that magical week approaches, I’ve been seeing first hand and virtually all the chatter and preparation my fellow Burners are going through for their trip “home”.…

One of the best live medleys in the history of rock ‘n’ roll

Sometimes you don’t need striking imagery to make a great music video. You just need David Bowie and the camera of a documentarist like D. A. Pennebaker, who filmed Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture. This scene in particular is one of the best medleys in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. The only problem when…

This Sneaker Is an Homage to an Eames Chair

This sleek-looking Nike trainer isn’t real (yet), but it ought be. Because while it looks like a piece of footwear from the future, it is in fact a homage to furniture from the past. The brainchild of French designer Ora-Ïto, the shoe pays tribute to Modernist furniture designers Charles and Ray Eames—and in particular their…

The Modern-Day Loop of Infinite Self-Distraction

When you’re sat at your computer gazing at its screen it’s easy to get bored and start looking at a smaller screen until you get bored and start looking at a computer screen and then get bored and… This is the modern-day infinite loop of self-distraction. But, as Randall Munroe points out, there’s nothing particularly…

Google’s Voice Search App Will Now Understand Five Languages At Once

When it came to choosing a language to do a voice search with in the Google Search app, you were spoiled for choice. You could speak over 50 languages — anything from Arabic to Italian — and Google would still understand you. The problem was, you could only choose one language at a time. Until…

Looks like the rumor mill was right. Windows 9 will finally be unveiled to the public on September 30 at a press event. Not only will Microsoft highlight the new features in the next version of Windows codenamed “Threshold” — virtual desktops! Cortana! A new Start menu! No more Charms! — it will also release…

Into The Amazon: What To Do When Attacked By A Poo Bat

In part three of this series, Laurel actually gets into the Amazon, taking a swim after a reported lack of caiman sightings. That was after finding dozens of the world’s most venomous spiders and prior to a close encounter with ayahuasca. The spider above my head is as big as my hand, squatting on an…

Twitter Might Start Attaching Promoted Media To Your Hashtags

Seriously, what’s up with Twitter trying to actively piss us off? Since last week, it has been stuffing our timelines with tweets from people we don’t follow. And now, it might just use a hashtag in your tweet to attach promotional content to your message. A promotion for Selfie, ABC’s new TV comedy that premieres…