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Ex-Cop Builds His Own Johnny Five Robot From Hacked Appliances

How do you plan to spend your retirement? Traveling the world? Endless gardening? After two decades serving as a Baltimore police officer, Mark Haygood retired and now spends his free time turning old appliances like radios, DVD players, fans, and power tools into impressive humanoid robots. Mark’s first creation, HEX, is a four-foot tall self-standing…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski

How Chris Hadfield Made Us Care About Astronauts Again

It was a simple 31-second clip, uploaded to YouTube in early January—a watch flopping weightlessly around its owner’s wrist, the first such video from Commander Chris Hadfield aboard the International Space Station. No explanation, no context, just metal links and a watch face swishing around a hairy Canadian arm like a tangled length of seaweed.…

Space & Spaceflight Kyle Wagner

Would You Trust One Company to Oversee All of Your Passwords?

Last Friday at Interop, Paypal’s chief information security officer, Michael Barrett, let it be known that passwords were dead. “Passwords, when used ubiquitously everywhere at Internetscale are starting to fail us.” Given recent events surrounding Twitter account hacks and security breaches all over the web, Barrett isn’t completely wrong in his sentiment that passwords are…

Tech News Peter ha

Professor X is a filthy hippie in this X-Men: Days of Future Past pic

Professor X, no! I know you’ve lost the use of your legs and you’re going to end up bald, but this is not an acceptable response! Director Bryan Singer tweeted the above pic of James McAvoy as Xavier on set, and wow… just wow. I assume the plot of X-Men: Days of Future Past is…

Movies Rob Bricken

This Revolutionary DNA Extractor Cracks Your Genetics in Minutes

Pulling DNA from the cell that surrounds it may be a vital process to modern genomics, but it’s also a cumbersome and time-consuming pain in the ass, “like collecting human hairs using a construction crane,” as Jae-Hyun Chung, UW associate professor of mechanical engineering, puts it. Not anymore, though. His handheld device will suck DNA…

Tech News Andrew Tarantola

What would happen if you were born in space?

Sex in space is one thing. But babies in space? Tonight at 7:08 ET, after 145 days in low-Earth orbit, astronauts Chris Hadfield, Tom Marshburn and Roman Romanenko will undock from the International Space Station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft destined for Earth’s surface. Their departure will bring the grand total of people in space from…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

This Simple Device Makes Glorious Timelapses Easy—Even at Night

If the term intervalometer leaves you scratching your head, but you have the perfect idea for the next viral timelapse video, Brinno’s here to help. The company’s new TLC200 Pro makes creating timelapses as easy as using a point-and-shoot camera. And thanks to a relatively large, extra-sensitive 1/3-inch sensor, it will capture beautiful results even…

Gadgets Andrew Liszewski

This Week’s TV: A Game of Thrones Wedding and Doctor Who’s Big Secret

Which are you more excited about: the Doctor Who episode in which we finally learn what everything in Matt Smith’s era has been about — or the Arrow finale, where John Barrowman chains up a shirtless Ollie? Plus there’s a brand new look at Star Trek, featuring David Brin and other SF authors, and more…

Television Charlie Jane Anders

The World’s Most Powerful Computer Network Is Being Wasted on Bitcoin

Bitcoin mining machines are insane powerhouses, and they’re only getting crazier. How much power is getting sunk into the digital cryptocurrency? More than the world’s top 500 supercomputers combined. What a waste. https://gizmodo.com/digital-drills-the-monster-machines-that-mine-bitcoin-5994446 According to Bitcoin Watch, the whole Bitcoin network hit a record-breaking high of 1 exaFLOPS this weekend. When you’re talking about FLOPS,…

Tech News Eric Limer

Come see Annalee Newitz read from her new book tonight in Brooklyn!

I’m on book tour, and my one stop in the New York area will be at the incredible science fiction bookstore/publisher Singularity & Co., tonight in Brooklyn at 7:30 PM. My book is a work of science nonfiction, called Scatter, Adapt and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction. Singularity & Co.’s mission is…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Fantastic high speed shots of liquids swirling through the air

Belgian photographer Manon Wethly likes to throw stuff around, particularly cups and glasses filled with various liquids and powders. Thankfully, she also likes to snap glorious high speed photos of these objects as they go airborne. All images Manon Wethly via her Instagram. Check out more at her blog. Wethly experiments with any number of…

io9 George Dvorsky

Scientology Is as Bad at Photoshop as It Is at Not Brainwashing People

The Church of Scientology held an event for the opening of a new facility in Portland over the weekend. The crowd was around 450-750 people. But the church claims it was more like 2,500, and it Photoshopped in the proof. Except the proof is about as convincing as your thetan’s origin story. In reality, there…

Tech News Leslie Horn

DC gets ready for Superman Vs. He-Man, round 2

If, like me, you were wondering why DC had recently given the blond barbarian a “New 52”-ish redesign, wonder no longer — it turns He-Man and the Masters of the Universe are coming to the DC universe in a crossover reminiscent of Supes and He-Man’s first battle in the ’80s. The six-issue miniseries begins in…

Books & Comics Rob Bricken

Buildings You Can Lick: 9 Spectacular Structures Made Out of Salt

Is it possible? Yes it is. Using special salt mixes, builders in countries from Bolivia to Poland have been building with sodium chloride for centuries. Humans have a long, conflicted relationship with salt. Homer called it “the divine substance.” It drove many of the earliest trading economies, from the Phoenicians to the Venetians, and towns…

Tech News Leslie Horn

Your Hacked 5D Mark III Can Record RAW Video

DSLR video is great, having ushered in a new ecosystem of tools, workflows, and filmmakers. In the last couple of years, though, the image quality has stagnated while other, video-centric cameras like the Canon C300 or the Blackmagic Cinema Camera have proven superior. However, it turns out that hidden inside the Canon 5D Mark III,…

Tech News Michael Hession

Amazon Celebrates Its Virtual Currency With Free Money for Fire Owners

It’s a good morning for Kindle Fire owners. To accompany the launch of their new virtual currency, Amazon has dropped 500 Amazon Coins (at a value of $5) into the accounts of Fire owners everywhere. https://gizmodo.com/amazon-just-made-its-own-currency-amazon-coins-5981745 Just unveiled this morning, the new system functions exactly like cash, allowing users to buy apps, games, and in-app…

Commerce Ashley Feinberg

How did feathers evolve?

Today we have birds. Millions and millions of years ago we had feathered dinosaurs. What happened in between? In this recently posted TEDEd video, science journalist Carl Zimmer explains 200-million years of feather-evolution in just three minutes, with the help of some fine animation work by Armella Leung. Check out the rest of the lesson…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

How to get away with attempted murder

Very few people want to get away with attempted murder, mostly because they want to get away with actual murder. Still, if your murder attempt has already failed, there is a way to keep from facing the full consequences of it — just have someone else murder your victim. Fiery Cushman, a psychologist, was interested…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

You Don’t Need a Wookiee To Build This Laser-Cut Falcon Puzzle

There are endless situations where a Wookiee co-pilot can come in handy, from repairing intergalactic spacecraft, to tearing people’s arms off. But when it comes to assembling this miniature laser-cut Millennium Falcon puzzle, you won’t need a big walking carpet, just a pair of scissors, pliers, and plenty of patience. Available from Strapya World for…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski

Aereo’s Cloud DVR Pricing Is Now Simpler (But Not Necessarily Better)

Aereo’s embattled cloud-based DVR service for network television is getting an updated pricing structure on May 15th. The options will be trimmed from the previous 5-tier structure down to just two plans. Sure, that should be easier for people to understand, but the rejiggered structure makes the cheaper monthly plan far less attractive. https://gizmodo.com/cable-killing-tv-service-aereo-has-won-a-major-court-de-5993146 Now…

Television Mario Aguilar

Ex-Cop Builds His Own Johnny Five Robot From Hacked Appliances

How Chris Hadfield Made Us Care About Astronauts Again

Would You Trust One Company to Oversee All of Your Passwords?

Professor X is a filthy hippie in this X-Men: Days of Future Past pic

This Revolutionary DNA Extractor Cracks Your Genetics in Minutes

What would happen if you were born in space?

This Simple Device Makes Glorious Timelapses Easy—Even at Night

This Week’s TV: A Game of Thrones Wedding and Doctor Who’s Big Secret

The World’s Most Powerful Computer Network Is Being Wasted on Bitcoin

Come see Annalee Newitz read from her new book tonight in Brooklyn!

Fantastic high speed shots of liquids swirling through the air

Scientology Is as Bad at Photoshop as It Is at Not Brainwashing People

DC gets ready for Superman Vs. He-Man, round 2

Buildings You Can Lick: 9 Spectacular Structures Made Out of Salt

Your Hacked 5D Mark III Can Record RAW Video

Amazon Celebrates Its Virtual Currency With Free Money for Fire Owners

How did feathers evolve?

How to get away with attempted murder

You Don’t Need a Wookiee To Build This Laser-Cut Falcon Puzzle

Aereo’s Cloud DVR Pricing Is Now Simpler (But Not Necessarily Better)

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