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Kathleen Kennedy, keeper of the Holocron at Lucasfilm, says that Ep VII may not be ready by 2015. [Hollywood Reporter]

More People Are Using Facebook via Phone For the First Time Ever

It’s time for another quarterly earning, that kooky game wherein companies announce how much cash they’ve raked in, and then investors spank or hail them without much correlation to reality. Now up: Facebook, which has just entered crazy new territory. For the first time, more people are hitting the site via mobile web or app…

Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors Who Served in the Military, and How it Changed Their Work

So much of science fiction’s core topics intersect with war, one way or the other. Rapid social change and technological innovation both get supercharged during wartime, and some of our greatest explorers are also warriors. So it’s not surprising that many of science fiction’s most well-known authors served in the military at some point —…

Everything You Need to Know About the New BlackBerries

This morning the world held its collective breath as RIM BlackBerry took its sweet ass time trotting out the BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 and amidst all the shenanigans, the company formerly known as RIM managed to show off a few notable new BB10 features, too. In case you missed all the live coverage this morning,…

Shooting Challenge: $20 Lightbox

Sooner or later, if you want a studio-quality photo of an object, you’ll have to get a light box. But aren’t those expensive? Not really. For about $20, you can build your own. And this week, you will! The Challenge Take a photo in a light box. If you don’t already have a light box,…

And here it is: the first Mega indexer and search engine. That didn’t take long.

Your Tweets Are Prettier Than Ever Before

Twitter wants tweets to be far more than words and links, and now they’re packing bigger and better media. Photos and video just got a very nice upgrade. Viewing pictures has never been graceful on Twitter, but now it’ll be a little better: click a thumbnail, and a beautiful big version will expand, a la…

Why do we still send animals into space?

A gray rhesus macaque made history the other day, when the primate reportedly flew into space in an Iranian mission. It also joined a long tradition of animal astronauts. But since science has proved time and again that humans can survive the extra-terrestrial trip, why do countries still bother sending monkeys and other living creatures…

BlackBerry Z10 Camera: The Worst Low-Light Performance We’ve Seen in a Long Time

For the old BlackBerry, a handset’s camera was an ancillary feature. But the new hip BlackBerry is supposed to be tuned into how regular people—not just suits—use their phones. The BlackBerry Z10’s camera has a chance to prove it’s better than the rest. And if our initial low-light camera test is any indication, the camera…

BlackBerry’s Best Trick: Nailing Work-Life Balance

Today BlackBerry demoed what it’s calling BlackBerry Balance, a clever way of separating one’s personal and work lives in one device. You don’t see it as much these days but carrying two phones—one for business, one for pleasure—was commonplace not too long ago. I remember having a BlackBerry 6200 alongside my Sidekick 2; and I’m…

Art Created by Industrial Robots with Chainsaws… and Quill Pens!

Check out this video showing a six-axis industrial robot fitted with an electric chainsaw. It can create 3D sculptures, or furniture out of a solid log of wood. The title of the video translates as “kkaarrlls for real forrest.” Kkaarrlls is a German design studio focused on creating art in novel ways. Like giant chainsaw…

Our Favorite SSD Is Your No-Brainer-Upgrade Deal of the Day

Switching out an old-school spinning disk to a modern SSD is by far the best hardware upgrade you can do. Shopping for a good SSD price might seem simple —”you just divide the storage space by the price” — but there’s actually a lot of nuance to getting the right SSD. You want one with…

Why You Always Wake Up Early After a Night of Drinking

Lots of people have a little booze before bed to help them get to sleep — but while a night cap may help in the dozing-off department, too much alcohol can actually do a number on the overall quality of your shuteye. Let’s take a look at some of the important differences between drunk sleep…

Dropbox Just Put All Your Photos in One Place

Any photos you have on Dropbox are about to be organized. A new virtual photo album service rounds up literally every image you’ve got in Dropbox, puts them in one place, and sorts them by date. Pretty great—or maybe pretty scary if you’re not sure what’s in your Dropbox. The service will roll out to…

Ridiculous first looks at Zod and Jor-El courtesy of new Man of Steel toys

[UPDATE: And now the first pic of the Russell Crowe as Jor-El Movie Masters figure has surfaced; it’s located below the Zod toys. Warning: Jor-EL looks… I don’t know. I have no goddamn clue what is going on with his outfit, but it’s definitely… odd.] Insert “kneel before XXX!” joke here! What’s you’re looking at…

Rotating LED Lamp That Shines Light Only Where You Want It

Light fixtures are so gothic. Wanna be modern? Throw something behind your monolithic sofa and light room from the bottom up. Only problem with upward-shining lights? Aiming them. The Up Lamp aims (GET IT??) to remedy that with a tilted funnel that rotates to send lumens only where you want them: against the wall, at…

Windows Phone users rejoice! Google has extended Exchange ActiveSync support till July 31st. [Windows Phone Blog]

This animated short doesn’t just look cool, it looks hand-drawn

Disney’s latest Oscar-nominated short proves that there’s still a future for 2D animation. Paperman combines 2D animation with 3D animation. The result: a sweet little film that will give you hope for a computer-animated future that can preserve the feel of line-drawn animation. If you’re curious as to how they did it, here’s a featurette…

This gallery proves Frank R. Paul still rules science fiction art

Frank R. Paul did more than almost any other artist to shape the images that light up our collective dreams. He provided the bright, eye-popping imagery for Hugo Gernsback’s vision of science fiction, and his art from the 1920s still feels fresher than a lot of the stuff being created today. A brand new book…

BlackBerry’s Most Important Phone Isn’t Its Flagship

BlackBerry announced two phones today, but it’s clear which is the favorite son. The Z10 looks like a winner; it’s got brains and body enough to face the iPhones and Galaxy S IIIs of the world head-on. It’s got a release date and a price. It’s a phone any company would be proud to call…