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Steven Spielberg’s Robopocalypse has been “indefinitely postponed”

Sad news! Steven Spielberg’s movie adaptation of Daniel H. Wilson’s Robopocalypse has been pushed back (yet again) until who knows when. The movie was rapidly picking up big name talent: Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods) was working on the script, and Chris Hemsworth and Anne Hathaway were attached to star. So why is Spielberg…

Leave Our Awesome Dinosaur Stampedes Alone

For years, people were perfectly happy believing that the series of fossilized footprints in Australia’s Lark Quarry was all that remained of an epic dinosaur stampede. Then Science happened. According to dream-killing researchers from the University of Queensland, the tracks were actually being misread for years; these fossils aren’t from a sudden prehistoric exodus but…

Why did the Vikings abandon Greenland?

For nearly 500 years, the Vikings lived and thrived in Greenland. Taking advantage of the Medieval Warm Period, they established outposts in the North Atlantic where they farmed and ranched. But quite suddenly, at the mid-point of the 15th century, they abandoned their settlements and ventured back to Scandinavia. Anthropologists have theorized that they were…

Foursquare just added detailed check-in pages for mobile web users—your adoring fans can now hunt you down with ease.

Chris Nolan is going hard scifi with his next movie Interstellar

Christopher Nolan is finally reaching for the stars! He’s in talks to direct and produce Interstellar, based on a script by his brother Jonathan. Sez The Hollywood Reporter: The story involves time travel and alternate dimensions and sees a group of explorers travel through a wormhole. The script is based on scientific theories developed by…

The Gadgets of the Future From the Electrical Shows of Yesterday

Postcard from the Chicago Electrical Show circa 1908 [Source: Novak Archive] The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which concluded last week in Las Vegas, is where the (supposed) future of consumer technology gets displayed. But before this annual show debuted in 1967, where could you go to find the most futuristic gadgets and appliances? The answer…

Apple’s App Store Is Finally Cracking Down on the Screenshot Scam

After years of complaints, scams, and careless screening tactics, Apple’s App Store is finally starting to figure itself out. The latest update should stop developers from using misleading screenshots by locking them into place once the app gets approved. As one of the most widespread app store hoaxes, developers would upload actual screenshots to gain…

The Unbelievable Wretchedness of Mainstream TV’s “Nerd Episodes”

We all know crime procedurals and medical dramas rule mainstream TV. Every network has them, they almost always attract viewers, and they last for years — which means they’re constantly scrambling to new ways to make their murder/patient-of-the-week interesting. One tried and true trope that these shows inevitably turn to is the “nerd episode,” where…

13 Design Trends For 2013

What better way to start the year than to make predictions – some obvious, some not so obvious – as to what trends will become more widely used in the design community. Each year seems to bring new ideas to the community and once they gain enough traction, they eventually become the norm (we’re looking…

The first proof of the Doppler Effect

The Doppler Effect is physics that is so ingrained in our brain that even the movies get it right. Any time some character is walking down a street and a car or train rushes past, the sound of the horn drops down a few notes as it passes by. Anything else would be jarring. We…

An entire pod of orca whales may be hopelessly trapped under arctic sea ice [UPDATED]

A dozen orca whales have become enclosed and trapped in arctic sea ice in Hudson’s Bay about 30 kilometers (19 miles) off the coast of Inukjuak, Quebec. The whales are currently sharing a small hole in the ice in order to breathe — but it’s starting to rapidly shrink. Locals are calling on the Canadian…

Hack Turns Cisco’s Desk Phone Into a Spying Device

Cisco’s internet phones—which sit on thousands of desks around the world—have been shown to be easily hacked and turned into remote spying devices. The official announcement comes two whole weeks after Cisco first found out about the problem. The exploit was discovered by Ang Cui and Salvatore Solfo, a pair of computer scientists from Columbia…

Looks Like People Are Buying Lumias After All

Nokia had higher than expected Lumia sales for its fourth quarter thanks to the release of the Lumia 900 last spring and 920 in September. The company sold 4.4 million handsets, up from 2.9 million in Q3. For perspective, though, Apple sold about 27 million iPhones in the third quarter of 2012, and Nokia is…

The Y: The Last Man movie is back on (for now)

New Line Cinema has finally hired a new director for its long-gestating movie adaptation of Brian K. Vaughn’s fabulous Vertigo comic Y: The Last Man. The bad news? The director has only professionally directed commercials. The good news? This particular commercial director is Dan Trachtenberg, who also made that fabulous Portal fan flick “No Escape.”…

At what point would the Earth become a black hole?

Pretty much anything could, in theory, become a black hole if it were squeezed down small enough. At what point would the Earth become a (very unimpressive) black hole in space? We’re going to figure it out, and tell the tale of the Schwarzschild Radius. Karl Schwarzschild is one of those people who make us…

Amazon to Provide CD Buyers With Cloud-Based MP3s For Free (Update: It’s Just Launched!)

CNET is reporting that Amazon is planning to launch a reward scheme for CD buyers. When they purchase music in its physical form, they’ll also receive a digital copy, which they’ll be able to listen to via Amazon’s cloud music service. Update: The service is now live! See below for more details Codenamed “Auto Rip”,…

Why Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot will remind you of Alien!

Director Ruben Fleischer is pretty sure Zombieland 2 isn’t happening, but it’s not for lack of trying. Bill Pullman says an Independence Day sequel doesn’t necessarily need Will Smith. Plus more Catching Fire and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters photos! It’s all spoilers from this point forward! Top image from Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.…

What Is This? (Answer)

It is in fact, none other than that famous mathematical constant Pi. The image is a “walk” made out of the first 100 billion digits of pi, in base 4. Starting at the origin, each digit forced a point to move in one of four directions: a 0 made the point move right, a 1…

Convert an Old Game Boy Into an Android Gamepad

If for some reason you still have an original Game Boy lying around, the time has surely come to throw it out—or, perhaps, convert it into an Android gamepad to relive that retro gaming feel. That’s exactly what Chad Boughton decided to do, and he describes the process on Instructables: Using a Wii remote as…

Anonymous Wants DDoS Recognised as an Official Form of Protest

The Anonymous hacking collective has petitioned the White House, using the US government’s open forum to ask for DDoS attacks to be registered as an official form of complaint – and requesting the convictions of previous DDoS attackers be wiped from their records. The petition does make some sense. Anon claims that a DDoS attack…