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Is the Data on Your SSD Secure?

SSDs are wonderful things that take up next to no space and are incredibly fast to boot. But while most people understand the basics data security on HDDs, the same isn’t necessarily true of solid state storage. Deleting files may not mean they’re gone, overwriting them isn’t safe, and a thorough scrub is at the…

Sasquatch Sightings Across the US and Canada, Visualized

If you’ve ever wondered where the true home of sasquatch might be, then this visualization of sightings could help you track the mythical beast down. Put together by Josh Stevens, a PhD candidate at Penn State, this viz shows 92 years of sasquatch sightings, and is based on data from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization.…

BlackBerry Z30: Can This 5-Incher Win People Back?

While there have been leaks aplenty over the summer, BlackBerry has now officially announced the successor to its all-touch Z10. Say hello to the Z30. https://gizmodo.com/hands-on-video-claims-to-show-off-rumored-sleek-new-bla-1106750563 To be honest, it matches up fairly closely with what we’ve seen already. Externally, it measures 140.7mm x 72mm x 9.4 mm. Inside, it packs a 5-inch 1,280 x…

Virgin Mobile’s YouTube page can—if you let it—use your webcam to tell when you blink and change the ads each time you do so. It’s creepy, but kinda cool.

How an Engineer Earned 1.25 Million Air Miles By Buying Pudding

Air Miles are awesome, they can be used to score free flights, hotel stays and if you’re really lucky, the scorn and hatred of everyone you come in contact with who has to pay full price when they travel. The king of all virtually free travelers is one David Phillips, a civil engineer who teaches…

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Hulu is about to add 144 titles from the BBC to its library—including Doctor Who, Torchwood, Sherlock, and Luther.

Offline Viewing Is Coming to YouTube’s Mobile Apps

You’ve been able to pre-cache YouTube videos on Android to watch—while still online—for a while. But by November, you’ll be able to watch them offline, too. According to the YouTube Creators Blog, users of the YouTube Android app will be able to store videos and watch them one offline a “short time” later. It’s not…

TWTIT: Mick Humphries Can Teach You to Drive

Make all the Bob the Builder jokes you want, I have never wanted to learn to handle an excavator as much as I do at this very moment. The Mick Humphries Training Group of Wagga Wagga, New South Wales offers class licensing and vehicle certifications for a wide array of light, medium, and heavy duty…

What the Next iPad Might Look Like Next to the Current iPad

Reports have been filed, sources have spoken, parts have leaked and most everybody agrees that the next iPad (iPad 5?) will sport a much thinner bezel than what we’re used to from the current iPad. Basically, with the narrower bezel and thinner body, the next iPad will look like a bigger version of the iPad…

iPhone 5C Meta-Review: Colorful Plastic Masks Sure Are Fun

The iPhone hasn’t delved into the recycled slums of plastic since the days of the 3GS. That was way back in 2009. But with the iPhone 5C, colorful plastic is now in vogue. How much better has Apple gotten at doing plastic? How does it compare to other plastic phones? And most importantly, why should…

iPhone 5S Meta-Review: That Fingerprint Scanner Is Pretty Sweet

The iPhone 5 was one of the best phones money could buy. The iPhone 5S looks just like the iPhone 5 but packs guts that are even better, improves a camera that was already fantastic and adds a fingerprint scanner that can be either viewed as a game changer or a gimmick. What’s the deal?…

R. Kelly: Genius

R. Kelly is back with a new single called “Genius” and he’s singing about his favorite topic: sex, obviously. Hey, the man sticks to what he knows. “Genius” is classic Kels. And say what you will about the Pied Piper, but damn. The man knows how to make an R&B song. Hopefully we hear more…

The Bestest Friends Ever Filled a Guy’s Entire Home Plumbing with Beer

Friends don’t get better than this. They could always have your back, they could be your groomsmen at your wedding, hell they could even give a kidney to you and they won’t ever beat these guys who pranked their friend by replacing his entire home plumbing system with beer. As in every faucet would spew…

The floating city was rebuilding itself with remarkable efficiency

Even as the columns and elevated floors cracked in the fury of the heat storm, the city’s microbiome was repairing everything. Shattered rock hung suspended from the city walls, held together only by a membrane. And as sunlight flooded the valley, houses filled in their own cracks with bacterial cement. Aikoo lives in Shenzen. You…

Yep, the iCloud facelift to look a lot more like iOS 7 is finally public now. The iOS 7-designed iCloud website was previously in beta but has now gone wide. This update comes the day before the launch of iOS 7.

Is it really possible for books to “transcend genre?”

The debate over “literary fiction” versus “commercial fiction” (with the latter category including speculative fiction) has gone on forever — but there’s a new wrinkle. New York Times Book Review contributor Christopher Beha has a proposal for how the NYTBR can recognize really groundbreaking works of speculative fiction, among others. Writing in Slate, Beha admits…

What’s the Biggest Living Thing on Earth?

Dinosaurs! No. Blue whales! No? Pandas? Ha. It really depends on what you consider a thing and what’s not a thing. And what’s actually living and what’s not traditionally considered living but is. And what’s on Earth and what’s inside Earth. Because if we’re counting any sort of organisms, it could very well be mushrooms…

The world’s largest robot is a 51-foot, fire-breathing DRAGON

The Guinness World Records just awarded the “world’s largest walking robot” prize to a Dragon! Created by Germany’s Zollner Elektronik AG, this remote-controlled beast is GORGEOUS. Seriously, we want to ride him and hug him and sleep curled up by his belly. Named Tradinno, this dragon was built to replace the older dragon for the…

Comment of the Day: Dark Carnival Edition

In comments today, we talked about a nightmare clown stalking an English hamlet, looked at the role (or lack thereof) of fortune-telling in scifi, and watched dancers battling errant beams of light. But this comment from Steve Climaco drove a tiny clown car straight into my heart. Responding to a post on the retro tech…

This NYC Gas Station Is Home to a Temporary Sheep Pasture

When most Manhattan real estate developers buy up land to build a new tower, they unceremoniously raze any existing structures. But Michael Shvo, a developer and art collector who recently bought a lot near the High Line with the intention of building a new residential tower, decided to have a little fun first. This year,…