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Sharp’s Free-Form Display Make Bezels Super-Thin, Screens Any Shape

Rectangular screens are so square. Which is presumably why Sharp has announced a new technology called Free-Form Display—that could allow screens to come in any space, and reduce bezel size to almost zero. Usually, a lot of display circuitry sits in the bezel of a screen, which forces manufacturers to use very conventional shapes—rectangles, usually,…

New York’s Central Park never looked so beautiful as in these photos

Michael Massaia started this series of beautiful night photographs of New York’s Central Park as a way of coping with severe insomnia. He’d walk alone with up to 50 pounds of kit and no interruptions—except for an occasional attempted mugging, solicitation or dog attack. All of the images were shot using an 8″x10″, 5″x7″, and…

There’s an Arnold Schwarzenegger Programming Language

If coding bores you, maybe you just need to try a different programming language. Perhaps you’ll allow us to recommend one but together by Lauri Hartikka—which is themed around Arnold Schwarzenegger. Called ArnoldC—see what he did there?—it’s “an imperative programming language where the basic keywords are replaced with quotes from different Schwarzenegger movies.” Yes, really.…

Google’s adding the ability to make a Hangouts call directly to phone numbers that show up in your search results. Click on the number, and Google will connect you. Neat.

The Perfect Family Work Surface: Three Desks, One Shelving Unit

A busy home can place high demand on desk space, so why not make something that provides more than one surface to work at? That’s exactly what design graduate Matej Chabera’s shelving unit it designed to achieve. Presented at a Royal College of Art show in London on Monday, the Shelf of Tables stacks three…

This is Phil Fish—or why hate makes some celebrities even more famous

Using indie video game designer Phil Fish as an example, this video explains the cycle of fame and hate, and how it generates more and more fame. Why do we hate some famous people so much? Why does hate generate even more attention and fame? It’s a fascinating process. SPLOID is a new blog about…

Dying Sun-Like Stars Contain Molecules Vital For Making Water

New observations by the European Space Agency’s Herschel space observatory have revealed that the burning embers of Sun-like stars at the end of their lives actually contain molecules vital for the creation of water. When stars like our sud die, they become dense, white dwarf stars—but also cast off their outer layers of dust and…

Brutally honest trailer explains why Transformers 2 sucks so badly

The guys at Screen Junkies just released a new and hilarious Honest Trailer. This time they rip Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen apart. A must watch for those who like me get dizzy watching Michael Bay movies. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

Here’s What Victorian London Looks Like Invaded By 600 Book Worlds

Art collective Dorothy has added to its collection of fiction-based maps (previous editions include a movies map in Los Angeles and a TV map in Washington) with a book map loosely constructed around Victorian London. So, in case you were wondering, Anne of Avonlea is at the intersection of Basil of Baker Street and The…

Blackmailers Held Nokia Code to Ransom For Millions of Euros

Blackmail is a nasty business, but it’s not just the stuff of movie plots: Nokia was in 2008 forced to pay “several million euros” to criminals who held its code to ransom, reports Reuters. The Finnish company found itself in difficulties six years ago, with criminals apparently threatening to reveal the source code “for part…

Here’s What All Those New Emoji Actually Look Like

On Monday, the internet was all kinds of excited over the fact that hundreds of new emoji were soon to arrive. Now, the Unicode Consortium has published a chart which shows us what they’ll actually look like. The list highlights the 240 news Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs that are being added to version 7.0 of…

Photographer Celebrates 40 Years of Making Dioramas Seem Real

Photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto first visited the American Museum of Natural History in 1974 and has returned four times since to add to his “Dioramas” series of photos. With his skill, Sugimoto makes the exhibits appear like nature shots. On his website, Sugimoto explains how he was first inspired by AMNH’s animal displays: Upon first arriving…

Here’s How How to Train Your Dragon Would Be Immortalized in Tapestry

Artist Mittie Paul says he originally wanted to do a realistic portrait of Toothless but ended up researching Viking Art instead. This is the result. https://www.tumblr.com/mittiepaul/88690534282/ironically-i-started-out-with-the-intention-to-do

The Amazing Before and After of Jurassic Park‘s Special Effects

The first Jurassic Park was hailed as a triumph of visual effects when it came out, but there are actually only five scenes that depended on CGI creatures. The rest of the time, the dinosaurs were animatronics. The video above shows you exactly how each of those scenes were put together. One of the most…

These three toys look exactly the same but only one is an actual toy

Two of the three toys above are not toys at all but rather printed pictures perfectly mimicking the detail and look of the other toy. It’s a wonderful illusion, a can easily rolls over the first two objects (the printed pictures) and gets stopped by the third object (the actual toy). If you never saw…

In Cibola Burn, a Space Colony is Torn Apart by Racism from Earth

Cibola Burn is James S.A. Corey’s fourth outing in the Expanse series. Its intense action is set in motion by one compelling truth: humanity may be able to escape from our home system, but we have a lot of baggage that we carry with us. Shortly after the first Expanse novel Leviathan Wakes was published,…

How to Cut a Cake Using Science

If you’re like most people, when you cut a cake you simply take a wedge out, making two lines from the edge straight into the center. But there’s a far, far better way to take a slice, based on maths that’s over 100 years old. In this video, mathematician Alex Bellos describes how you can…

Here’s how to cut a cake perfectly, according to science

The way we cut cakes is wrong. That old traditional style of slicing a wedge and leaving the rest? It ruins the cake and creates imperfect slices. How can we cut it better? How can we eat more delicious cake? Numberphile says the most scientific way to cut a cake is to slice an entire…

Lars Van Trier Made A Cartoon When He Was Just 11—And Wow, Is It Creepy

Melancholia and Antichrist director Lars Von Trier has a taste for the unsettling and bizarre, and it’s apparently a taste he developed at an early age. When Von Trier was just 11 years old, he made his very own stop-motion animated film, and it’s pretty weird. Turen til Squashland: En Super Pølse Film (Trip to…

How to Grow Food in the Middle of a Desert Using Seawater

As conventional sources of clean water dry up, we’re looking ever farther, wider, and deeper. In a long feature on unusual sources of water, Nature leads us somewhere especially unexpected—into the middle of a desert. The Sahara Forest Project wants to prove we can green the desert, turning barren land into oases of cucumbers and…