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Anyone Else Having iOS Buyer’s Remorse?

Despite the problems I had with the HTC One X, I find myself missing it. More specifically—and I never thought I’d hear myself saying this—I find myself missing Android. The widgets, specifically. I just had that thing so damn dialed in. Anyone else? https://gizmodo.com/htc-one-x-after-4-months-weird-batteries-and-wimpy-gor-5931430

First Human Supersonic Space Jump Aborted (Updated With Video)

Felix Baumgartner is going to jump from the edge of space. If successful, he’s going to become the first man in history to go supersonic without any mechanical propulsion aid whatsoever. He’s now getting ready. Update: the launch was aborted. You can watch the video of the abort and the aftermath here. He will break…

The LED As We Know It Is 50 Years Old Today

Fifty years ago today, Nick Holonyak, Jr. proudly demonstrated the world’s first visible light-emitting diode (LED) at General Electric. In the process, he changed the world of lighting forever. In the early 1960s, LEDs were only capable of emitting infrared light. Nick Holonyak suggested using a mixture of gallium arsenide and gallium phosphide to create…

Math Has Never Looked as Pretty as This

When you were at high school, math was probably an uninspiring string of algebra you had to crunch through. Get to the cutting edge of computational fluid dynamics, though, and it all starts to look a hell of a lot more pretty. These images represent incredibly complex fluid flows, and were generated suing supercomputers by…

RIM’s PlayBook is being pulled from online stores, which suggests a new one is on the way. Yay? [Computer World]

AMD’s New Mobile Processor Plays Call of Duty on Your Windows 8 Tab

AMD has officially announced its new tablet-specific Z-60 processor, known as Hondo, and it promises rather a lot. In fact, the chip manufacturer claims it will allow you to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on your Windows 8 tablet, at 30 fps on a 1024 x 768 display. Sounds zippy. https://gizmodo.com/amd-mobile-processors-coming-this-year-5881820 AMD claims…

Windows Phone 8 pre-orders, including the colorful new HTC 8X and Nokia Lumia 920, will begin on October 21st. [Verge]

Microsoft Giving Away Free Wi-Fi Across San Francisco and NYC

Microsoft is rolling out some marketing for Windows 8 that we can really get behind: free Boingo Wi-Fi across huge swathes of San Francisco and NYC until the end of the holidays. The Wi-Fi hotspots in San Francisco are already up, running and free, and are concentrated around Fisherman’s Wharf and Union Square. In NYC,…

Will You Read Julian Assange’s New Book?

Julian Assange has penned a new book about his worries over government control of the Internet and surveillance. Written along with Jacob Appelbaum, Jérémie Zimmermann and Andy Müller-Maguhn, it will be published in November. Assange explains: “In March 2012 I gathered together three of today’s leading cypherpunks to discuss the resistance. Two of them, besides…

A Tesla Coil Nerf Gun Might Be The Coolest Nerf Gun Ever

Two things that are always cool: Tesla coils and Nerf guns. One thing that’s cooler than those two things: a freaking Tesla coil Nerf gun. That’s right. Rob Flickenger converted a Nerf gun into a handheld Tesla coil. Freaking. Sweet. Here’s how Flickenger and Rusty Oliver of the HazardFactory made the gun Tesla coil-ready: He…

The Stoner Channel: High Dogs, Psychedelic Science, and Pearl Jam Goes Black for the First Time

CO Tokers Can’t Stop Stoning Dogs PSA for all Denver area stoners: Yes Half Baked was a great movie. No, the part where Killer gets high goes flying was not real—doesn’t matter how badly you want it to be. So you really need to stop giving your dogs weed and throwing them out of windows.…

The New Boxee TV Might Be the Set Top Box We’ve Been Waiting For: Live TV Broadcasts, DVR and More

We’ve been waiting for a set top box that could shake up the current craptastic boxes we get from our cable companies and/or do more than some of the neutered offerings available and Boxee may have figured it out. Or at least done something different than throw out the same black square puck as everybody…

Is This the Next LG Nexus Phone?

We’ve already heard that the next Nexus phone will be made by LG and be kinda, sorta similar to the powerful LG Optimus G but this might be the first time we’re getting a good look at it. A gallery of photos of an LG Android phone that looks like the Optimus G and runs…

Declassified documents reveal Air Force’s plan to build a UFO

Here’s a quirky find from the National Archives: the United States Air Force’s 1956 plan to build a saucer-shaped aircraft that would zip across the skies with the greatest of ease. As the Archives explain of “Project 1794, Final Development Summary Report”: The Air Force had contracted the work out to a Canadian company, Avro…

A Girl’s Stomach Was Removed Because She Drank a Liquid Nitrogen Cocktail

When you’re celebrating your birthday, it’s completely normal to get a little crazy! Everybody does it. So you have to feel sorry for poor Gaby Scanlon, a British teenager, who ended her 18th birthday night with an emergency operation to remove her stomach. What? It’s because she drank a cocktail that had liquid nitrogen. As…

Once Upon A Time’s Prince Charming: Very Charming, but Not so Great at Anything Else

Last week’s premiere of Once Upon A Time went for bust, when it revealed that the Enchanted Forest land still existed. That was interesting! Then it teleported Snow White and Emma straight into the clutches of the hopefully soon-to-be-smooching Mulan and Sleeping Beauty. TWEEST! We were in — pass the popcorn and remember to drink…

What the Future Looks Like According to Movies

A lot of our imagination of the future comes from sci-fi movies—Minority Report, Blade Runner, etc.—so Eclectic Method created an awesome music video where they mixed their music with scenes from sci-fi movies that talk about the future. It’s a little bit hypnotic. The Future is a giant supercut of all your favorite sci-fi movies,…

A newspaper profile of Darth Vader from 1977, when he was a nobody

Darth Vader is many things: iconic villain, tragic figure, ambiguously Jewish Sith lord. But back when Star Wars opened, Darth was nothing but — as The San Francisco Chronicle put it — a run-of-the-mill “star creature” and “metallic creature.” For more fun with Darth Vader and local papers, see the time David Prowse accidentally spoiled…

Picture of the Day: October 8, 2012

WATCHING OVER US IN THE NIGHT | A brand new super-spooky picture of the Helix Nebula, looking bluer than ever and even more like a giant eye of Sauron in space. Tons more details at Universe Today. Want to read today’s io9 stories a different way? Check out our blog view Or watch the io9…

Behold the wild campus from Pixar’s Monsters University

Pixar’s prequel to Monsters Inc. might a long ways away, but marketing for Monsters University is already underway. The school where Sulley and Mike learned all about the art of scaring has a website, and it’s adorable. The whole thing is pretty interactive — there’s even a run-down of monster Greek Life. Fingers crossed Disney…