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James Wan says The Conjuring is “the opposite” of found footage horror

James Wan is a legend of horror film-making, with movies like Saw, Insidious and Dead Silence under his belt. And The Conjuring, which comes out Friday, might be his scariest film yet. We talked to Wan about how to make a really scary movie, and why his movies are the opposite of “found footage” horror.…

This Micro-Penetrator Will Impregnate Distant Planets–With Science

After nearly a decade and billions of dollars in R&D costs, we’ve still barely scratched the surface of Mars. That sort of outlay just won’t work for exploring Jupiter’s moon Europa, especially since all the interesting parts of the moon—like its potential subterranean ocean—are encrusted with meters of ice. But with the help of the…

Lindsay Lohan Will Get $2 Million to Let Oprah Tell Her What to Do

Good news for actress, model and recording artist* Lindsay Lohan: she’s getting two million dollars to star in an 8-part docuseries in which Oprah will life coach her. The deal sends a good message to kids: wrecking and making a public joke out of your life pays. *Source: Wikipedia.

Microsoft confirmed today that XBox One users will be able to play games while they’re still downloading. After all the back-and-forth over XBox One’s new features, this is some good, if not unexpected, news for gamers. [Polygon]

A Brief History of Speech Recognition’s Glorious Retrofuture

In the two decades following World War II, it seemed there was no limit to technological growth. Sure, a computer was still the size of an entire room, and no one had telephones in their pockets. But techno-utopian ideas like flying cars and jetpacks and meal pills were all being taken very seriously as the…

The Controversial Words Your iPhone Won’t Autocorrect

Autocorrect can be a beautiful thing. It can also be a pain in the ass. Either way there’s apparently a “kill list” that Apple’s built-in iOS autocorrect function simply ignores, according to a Daily Beast report. Said list includes dozens of sensitive words, like “abortion,” “rape,” “marijuana,” “Aryan,” “drunken,” and “bullet,” that when misspelled by…

The Science Behind Discworld’s Flat Earth on the Back of a Turtle

The world is flat, and resting on the backs of four elephants who, in turn, stand upon the back of a giant, space-faring turtle. Welcome to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. How does it all work? Pratchett, along with Professors Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen, explain it all in The Science of Discworld IV. Not everything made…

NASA Aborts Spacewalk After Water’s Found in Astronaut’s Helmet

Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano is sitting out a scheduled spacewalk on Tuesday after the crew found water leaking “inexplicably” into his helmet. As much as half a liter of water was leaking down the back of Parmitano’s head about an hour into the spacewalk. According to the Associated Press, “The leak was so bad that…

11 Books That Every Aspiring Television Writer MUST Read

Tomorrow, an army of geeks descends on San Diego — and many of them would kill to write for television. Comic-Con always hosts panels about TV writing, and they’re always standing-room only. But how do you learn the craft? We asked some great television writers, and they told us 11 books that every aspiring scribe…

Another Round With ATLAS, DARPA’s Most Unsettling Humanoid Robot Yet

Our first real look at ATLAS: DARPA and Boston Dynamics sophisticated humanoid robot that will compete in the upcoming Robotics Challenge left us a little concerned about how quickly our cyborg-dominated future is approaching. But this more in-depth look at the hardware and technology that make ATLAS so eerily lifelike thankfully ends up being more…

Apple Logic Pro X: A Whole New Look for Apple’s Music-Making Machine

Apple just announced a new version of its top-end music production software. It’s been four years since Apple updated its professional editing suite, so there’s a long list of upgrades in Logic Pro X. The improvements range from an overhauled interface to an iPad controller app to a new automatic drummer feature to help fill…

Why does the shadow in this unedited image cast a future action?

This image hasn’t been photoshopped or digitally altered in any way. So why is the shadow so out of sync with the frisbee thrower’s action? It has to do with the way digital cameras work when set to scan from top to bottom. Writing in the Blog of Wonders, Mariano Tomatis explains: The acquisition of…

Helmet Leak Forces ISS Astronauts to Abort Spacewalk

A spacewalk outside the International Space Station was cut short this morning when flight engineer Luca Parmitano noticed a water leak inside his helmet. “My head is really wet and I have a feeling it’s increasing,” the Italian astronaut told Johnson Space Center in Houston, about an hour into the mission. The leak got worse.…

Watch the Gymnast Bot Land a Quadruple Backflip

We’ve seen this bot before. Just this past March, we witnessed it stick a near impossible landing. And now it’s stuck a quadruple backflip, which by all accounts appears to be it sixteenth feat of heroism. What can’t this little guy do? Nothing. Imagine crossing this with ATLAS. *shudder* Not that gymnast bot could even…

Steerable Paper Airplanes Put Your Harassment Right On Target

Technically, this steerable paper airplane wasn’t designed for making pinpoint attacks on a teacher or college lecturer—more as a highly affordable unmanned aerial vehicle that could be used to blanket a given area with cheap sensors. But clearly the researchers at the University of Queensland haven’t realized the full potential of their creation. Recently developed…

How Man of Steel should have ended, seriously

Still conflicted by the nonsensical “send him to India to smash up the spider terraformer thing” ending to Man of Steel? Well, the clever “How It Should Have Ended” series has solved all those problems for you.

AT&T now has the Nokia Lumia 1020 available for preorder. The new phone with its serious camera is available for $300 with a new two-year contract, and launches July 23rd. [Geeky Gadgets]

The PS4’s Controller Almost Had Basically a Built-In Lie Detector

During the development of the PlayStation 4’s DualShock 4 controller, Sony tested a version of a controller that included biofeedback sensors to detect how stressed the player was, based on how much his or her hand was sweating. That’s right; the same technology that’s used in polygraphs could have been an integral part of the…

Watch this robot perform a perfect quadruple backflip

Youtuber hinamitetu has engineered a squadron of robot gymnasts capable of executing flips, handsprings, and high-bar acrobatics. Bots capable of entry into other artistic events are sure to follow. In this, his latest video, one of hinamitetu’s creations performs a flawless quadruple backflip and sticks the landing like Kerri Strug. Please, nobody tell DARPA about…

The Avengers can take on dungeons and dragons in this awesome fan art

Do Avengers LARP? I doubt it — probably because they’re busy saving the world, although trying to explain the rules to Cap also sounds like a chore — but if they did, they’d do well to pick costumes based on DeviantArtist TheDurrian‘s amazing high fantasy versions of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Check ’em out! I was…