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Ping pong match between robot and human looks faked

The highly awaited ping pong match between former champion Timo Boll and KUKA’s AGILUS robot has finally taken place. But after watching the video, it’s blatantly obvious the whole thing was staged. Okay, there’s no denying that KUKA’s KR AGILUS industrial robot is impressive; when it comes to fine motor tasks like sorting small objects…

io9 George Dvorsky

Believe is cliché-filled schmaltz—but it isn’t hopeless

After the thrill ride that was Gravity, the pilot episode for Believe, directed and co-created by Alfonso Cuarón, was a disappointment. It’s a sentimental piece of television, one that is more interested in building visual sequences than connect us to its characters. From the very first minutes of Believe, we get a sense of black-and-white…

io9 Lauren Davis

Special relativity creates its own optical illusion

Special relativity is best known for letting us know that, as a person’s velocity increases, their perception of time slows down. It also creates an interesting little optical illusion that can make objects moving in a straight line appear to twist and turn. Visualization of special relativity by Joseph Choi Einstein’s theory of special relativity…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Looking at Orange Light Is Like Drinking a Cup of Coffee

Light is an incredibly powerful force. Sure, it helps us see and gives us fast internet, but medical researchers keep stumbling upon new positive side-effects. A team of Belgian scientists, for instance, just discovered how a ten minute blast of orange light increases brain activity related to cognition and alertness. In other words, looking at…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

Sorry, But Smart Rings Aren’t the Future

Smartwatch? Please. We’ve already moved on to smart rings, magical digit-wrappers that control your world with a wave of the hand. They’re everywhere—except, oddly enough, on our fingers. That’s because despite the extravagant promises they’re pitched with, most smart rings simply don’t work yet. And they may well never. A handful of smart rings have…

Tech News Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan

New Group Chats and Comment Threads Come to Gizmodo

You’ve probably noticed a change in the structure of Gizmodo—not just the design of the homepage, although that’s been updated, but in the way our comment threads now work. To be honest, it’s pretty confusing at first—and it’s still undergoing substantial tweaks—but bear with us! It’s all for the greater good. For now, let us…

Tech News Geoff Manaugh

Here is the new TV Flash in all his scarlet glory

NICE. The position Grant Gustin is in a little weird, so it kind of makes his head look a little big, but the suit itself looks great to me. We still don’t know when The Flash will premiere on the CW, but it can’t get here fast enough (pun completely intended).

io9 Rob Bricken

The Gudjonsson test can discover how suggestible you are

Put enough pressure on someone and they will often change their story, even in crucially important situations like police interrogations. The question is, how much pressure is “enough”? The Gudjonsson suggestibility scale helps people find out. Gísli Hannes Gudjonsson was a professor of forensic psychology, and so was fascinated with the idea of memory, and…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

The Fascinating, Complex World Of Paralympic Biathlon and Nordic Skiing

The Olympics are done for the year, but Paralympians from all over the world took to the courses in Sochi this week to compete. I talked to John Farra, High Performance director for Paralympic Nordic skiing about the challenges of skiing with a spinal injury, shooting with no sight, and why veterans excel at biathlon.…

Tech News Jordan Kushins

This life-sized origami elephant was made from a single sheet of paper

Origami artist Sipho Mabona and his crew spent four weeks carefully folding a 50-by-50-foot sheet of paper into a 10-foot-tall elephant sculpture, showing the artistic potential of a single sheet of paper. Top image via My Modern Met. Mabona funded his White Elephant project through IndieGoGo, and had a pair of cameras installed in the…

io9 Lauren Davis

High-Speed Proof of an Airbag’s Violently Life-Saving Power

It’s been described as getting hit with a basketball thrown point blank at your face, but if you ever experience an airbag deployment you’re probably not going to complain since it most likely saved your life. Unless you’re a glass of water, as this wonderful high-speed footage reveals. In yet another mesmerizing clip, The Slow…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski

Brian Greene is here to answer your questions about string theory!

Renowned physicist Brian Greene is here to answer all your questions about theoretical physics, superstring theory, and his new online science education website, World Science U, launching today. Greene is a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University and the co-director of Columbia’s Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics, where he specializes in…

io9 Ria Misra

These Womb-Like Cathedrals of Color Are Made From Giant Balloons

Would you believe this room was created with nothing more than plastic sheeting, natural light, and an air compressor? It’s called a luminarium, and its inventors, Architects of AIR, have just released a book that chronicles two decades of their creations. A luminarium is a human-scaled pneumatic sculpture which uses inflated sheets of PVC to…

Tech News Alissa Walker

The Oscar selfie Hollywood doesn’t want you to see

Remember the massive group selfie Ellen took while hosting the Academy Awards? Well, we have the REAL version of that image, and it is fantastic. Now if you’ll excuse us, it’s time to go watch They Live again. [Via Geeks of Doom]

io9 Meredith Woerner

This Black Widow toy may have stolen Scarlett Johansson’s soul

If you know toys at all, you know that Hong Kong-based Hot Toys makes 12-inch action figures that are uncannily realistic. But this new figure of Black Widow from Captain America: The Winter Soldier is… something else. Something beyond. None of these are photos of the actress; they are all of the toy (which will…

io9 Rob Bricken

The Science of How Spice Affects Your Body

Eat some chili, and your mouth feels like it’s on fire—because,as far as your body is concerned, that’s what your brain actually thinks is happening. This video explains the weird, wonderful and oddly addictive effect that capsaicin has on the human body. Remember: water won’t help one little bit. [TED Ed]

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

New map reveals the Milky Way’s location among the “Council of Giants”

Astronomers know that the Milky Way is parked within the Local Group of galaxies, an interstellar expanse extending 3 million light years across. But we know very little about the area just outside of this. A new map corrects this oversight, showing that we live among the “Council of Giants.” Top image: This is what…

io9 George Dvorsky

This Beautiful Blur of Color Is a Space Rainbow Over Venus

This isn’t some sort of alien test card beamed from Venus, but a rainbow-like optical phenomenon known as a glory in the atmosphere of our nearest planetary neighbour. In fact, it’s the first time a glory has ever been imaged on another planet, and it was snapped by the European Space Agency’s Venus Express. ESA…

Space & Spaceflight Jamie Condliffe

What artifacts of today would you put into a future museum?

Today’s junk could be tomorrow’s artifact. We want to know what things from today you would choose to be preserved in a museum in the future. Post your selection in the comments (with a picture, please) for what things you would put into a future museum, and don’t forget to tell us just why it…

io9 Ria Misra

Visualizing How Sorting Algorithms Work Is as Good as Any Art

We don’t need to tell you that data can be beautiful—but the process of putting it in order can look pretty darn good, too. A new site called SORTING aims to make people aware of just how elegant some of computer science’s most fundamental algorithms can be. The site provides visualizations of all kinds of…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

Ping pong match between robot and human looks faked

Believe is cliché-filled schmaltz—but it isn’t hopeless

Special relativity creates its own optical illusion

Looking at Orange Light Is Like Drinking a Cup of Coffee

Sorry, But Smart Rings Aren’t the Future

New Group Chats and Comment Threads Come to Gizmodo

Here is the new TV Flash in all his scarlet glory

The Gudjonsson test can discover how suggestible you are

The Fascinating, Complex World Of Paralympic Biathlon and Nordic Skiing

This life-sized origami elephant was made from a single sheet of paper

High-Speed Proof of an Airbag’s Violently Life-Saving Power

Brian Greene is here to answer your questions about string theory!

These Womb-Like Cathedrals of Color Are Made From Giant Balloons

The Oscar selfie Hollywood doesn’t want you to see

This Black Widow toy may have stolen Scarlett Johansson’s soul

The Science of How Spice Affects Your Body

New map reveals the Milky Way’s location among the “Council of Giants”

This Beautiful Blur of Color Is a Space Rainbow Over Venus

What artifacts of today would you put into a future museum?

Visualizing How Sorting Algorithms Work Is as Good as Any Art

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