Latest

SONOS Speakers, The Walking Dead, PC Parts And Peripherals [Deals]

Pick up a SONOS Play:3 or Play:5 speaker today and Amazon will sweeten the deal with a $50 gift card you can put toward anything sold by Amazon, including other components for your new SONOS system. [Amazon] Once you’ve gotten your fill of DIY rig components from today’s Amazon Gold Box, you’ll of course need…

Chromecast Is Finally Going to Get the Awesome Apps It Deserves

Chromecast has always been great at what it does, but up until now it’s done fairly little. Compatible apps have been just trickling in, largely because Google has been hand-picking what devs even get to play with the $35 wonderstick. No more! Google’s opened up the Chromecast to developers everywhere. Finally, it should start getting…

How Far Can This Ship Shift Sideways? Enough to Break the Ice

Today’s largest cargo ships can exceed 130 feet—in width—making any sort of passage through the arctic’s ice-encrusted trade routes nearly impossible without the help of not one but two conventional icebreakers. But with just a single one of these triangular ships leading the way, even the largest container vessel can forge through ice fields with…

Definitive Proof That App Store Search Is the Absolute Worst

One of the most exciting new apps in months has hit Apple’s App Store today: Paper, an app that provides a refreshing new Facebook experience. This is an app that, conservatively, hundreds of thousands of people want to download today. Good luck finding it. It’s well-known that Apple’s app-discovery chops are lacking. The company itself…

A LEGO Movie sequel is already in the works

The LEGO Movie hasn’t even officially premiered yet, but Warner Bros. is already hot for a sequel. But this may not necessarily be good news. The Wrap is reporting that Jared Stern, who penned The Internship and Mr. Popper’s Penguins, has been hired to pen a sequel script. On the one hand, we’re happy that…

Twitter Just Completely Changed Its Layout

Twitter just flipped the switch on a redesign on the web and it looks totally different. Everything is flat, the font has changed, your profile picture shows up in the top left-hand corner, and overall, it looks a whole lot cleaner. We knew this redesign was coming, but today it’s getting rolled out to everyone.…

Spam, Silkworms, Hydroponics: The Speculative Future of Food on Mars

Last year, NASA held a recipe contest for cooking on Mars. Ordinary civilians like us were invited to submit recipes based on a list of available ingredients—heavy on freeze-dried produce and various meat-flavored “textured vegetable proteins”—to be cooked and judged by crew members of HI-SEAS. HI-SEAS wasn’t actually a mission on Mars, of course; it…

All the Science Fiction and Fantasy Books You Can’t Miss in February!

It’s a frozen nightmare outside. Nothing but snowblindness and navigational hazards for miles in all directions. So it’s a perfect time to escape into a book. Luckily, we’ve got 20 amazing science fiction and fantasy books coming out in February — here’s your required reading list for the month! Top image: The Waking Engine cover…

The glacier that killed the Titanic is firing icebergs faster than ever

Greenland’s Jakobshavn Glacier is firing icebergs into the Atlantic Ocean faster than ever, at an unprecedented rate in fact, according to researchers. Worse: it seems to be accelerating. Maybe the glacier that killed the Titanic with one of its icebergs is blood thirsty again. Above: the iceberg that actually sunk the Titanic, which according to…

Finally a 3D CG cartoon movie worth a damn: Chip ‘n Dale, Rescue Rangers

We’ve suffered through two Garfields, three godawful Alvin & the Chipmunks flicks, Yogi Bear, and other horrible 3D CG movie remakes of classic cartoons. But the whole irritating phenomenon may be redeemed by this news that Disney is making a new Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers movie. Most kids of the late ’80s probably remember…

Should Students Be Able To Take Coding Classes For Language Credits?

The Kentucky Senate just passed a law that will let students take computer programming classes to satisfy their foreign language requirements. Do you think that’s a good move? What this new law means is, rather than taking three years of Spanish or French or whatever, kids can choose to learn to code. Sure, whether it’s…

Have we found the key to the mysterious Voynich Manuscript code?

The mysterious, 15th century Voynich Manuscript is full of codes and bizarre illustrations. Most experts believe it’s a hoax, a nonsense book created to fire our imaginations. But now there’s new evidence that it may be written in a lost Aztec language, Nahuatl. Don’t get too excited — people have been saying they’ve unlocked the…

Researchers Just Solved One of Quantum Computing’s Biggest Problems

Like graphene, quantum computing is an exciting but endlessly elusive technological promise. One of the reasons—among many—that quantum computers aren’t exactly a reality yet is that we haven’t been able to effectively spot errors in quantum computations. Not until now, anyway. A team of physicists just demonstrated the ability to spot and correct errors during…

How LED Streetlights Will Change Cinema (And Make Cities Look Awesome)

The decision by the city of Los Angeles last year to replace its high-pressure sodium streetlights—known for their distinctive yellow hue—with new, blue-tinted LEDs might have a profound effect on at least one local industry. All of those LEDs, with their new urban color scheme, will dramatically change how the city appears on camera, thus…

The US Army now has autonomous self-driven vehicles

More Skynet news: “According to Defense-Update the Marine Corps 6×6 MTVR truck, Army M-915 trailer and the multi-steering, six-axle Palletized Loading System (PLS) truck in this convoy were programmed by soldiers and then sent along to drive around Fort Hood, Texas under completely autonomous operation.”

Paper, Facebook’s new standalone reader app, is now available for download. It’s more than just a reading app, providing the kind of content you’re actually using Facebook for on the daily, in quite a beautiful package. [App Store]

This shadow cube is a lamp is a soul trap is a magic thingamajig

Twisted Shifter spotted this beautiful light sculpture by Anila Quayyum,a laser-cut cube lamp that completely changes the room into a magic mosque. In her own words: With this large scale patterned wood project I explored intersections of culture and religion, the dynamics and interpretation of space and sight as it threaded through cultures and emerged…

Benedict Cumberbatch is leaving Baker Street for Sesame Street

Benedict Cumberbatch will soon be headed to “where the air is sweet.” That’s right, Sherlock is visiting Sesame Street, and that is just totally awesome. Still no date yet, but we’ll be sure to let you know when he arrives. And post lots of endearing videos. [via PBS Twitter]

How To Turn Dry Pasta Into a Rocket Engine

You may not realize it, but your kitchen is one of the most well-stocked chemistry sets you could ever hope for. And it’s not only for creating edible chemical reactions. NASA might rely on giant laboratories and factories to build its rocket engines, but all you need is a piece of pasta, a jar, some…

Scientists Feed Peanut Butter to Jellyfish, Make PB and Jellyfish

Researchers at the Children’s Aquarium at Fair Park in Dallas, TX were curious what would happen if they fed their jellyfish a mix of seawater and peanut butter. Why? Well… two reasons, really. Above: A moon jelly on day one of the experiment by Montoya and Christie via NatGeo According to aquarist P. Zelda Montoya…