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What Was Your First Mac?

It’s a question Mac users ask one another to break the ice. Today it’s taking on a whole different meaning. We can’t all of have known Steve Jobs personally, but we know his work. For me, that body of work changed my life. My first Mac was the Performa 6110 CD. The 60Mhz powerhouse was…

Tech News Roberto Baldwin Oct 6

HTC Sensation XL Is About to Go King Kong on Europe and Asia

The HTC Sensation is packing a 4.7-inch screen, Beats by Dre audio, and a camera that doesn’t mess around. This big boy is ready to do some stomping. Our Kat Hannaford at Gizmodo UK has given it 4 Stars. Click on over to Gizmodo UK for the hands-on, review, and video of the HTC Sensation…

Tech News Brent Rose Oct 6

Woz Remembers Steve Jobs

Here’s a video of Steve Wozniak, the cheery man who co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs (and Ron Wayne), talking about Steve Jobs’ passing. Woz said he found out Steve Jobs died when a reporter called and asked him if he had heard the news. At that point, he instantly knew what that meant. Few knew…

Tech News Casey Chan Oct 6

If it is realistic or plausible, then it is not science fiction

Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake, publishes a new essay collection next week called In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination. Throughout her career, Atwood has questioned the idea of the science fiction genre, preferring that her books remain uncategorized. Now, at last, she has collected her thoughts on…

Books & Comics Margaret Atwood Oct 6

Where Were You?

I was sitting on an uncomfortable wooden stool in an Apple Store, holding my iPhone. My butt was hurting. I had gone all the way up to the Upper West Side Apple Store to get my dented, scratched, stained three-year-old MacBook Pro—one of the unibodies where you can still swap the battery—fixed for like the…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Oct 6

R.I.P. Derrick Bell, Creator of One of Science Fiction’s Scariest Thought Experiments

Derrick Bell is primarily known as a pioneering law professor who helped improve civil rights in America. But he also wrote one of the most disturbing thought experiments in science fiction, which later became an HBO TV special. In “The Space Traders,” aliens arrive and offer the United States “enough gold to retire the national…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders Oct 6

Steve Jobs: Futurist, Optimist

After the news of Steve Jobs’ death hit the Internet last night I sat for a bit reading heartfelt messages on Twitter. It wasn’t lost on me that I was sitting at an Apple computer while my iPhone sat on the desk next to me. Like many people around the world, I own some of…

Tech News Matt Novak Oct 6

How to Make Horror and Dark Fantasy Work on Television

Last night saw the launch of American Horror Story, and it’s just the beginning. October also sees the start of Once Upon a Time and Grimm, and the return of The Walking Dead. Horror and dark fantasy are preparing to dominate the small screen more than ever. But how do you make dark, supernatural stories…

Television Charlie Jane Anders Oct 6

If You’re Having Car Problems, I Feel Bad For You, Son

Is that foreboding “Check Engine” light glaring at you from over the steering wheel? Do you kind of miss the days when you all you had to do was open the hood and jiggle the dip stick? Well, if you take this short survey, you could win GL1 Diagnostic Cable for iPad or iPhone. Just…

Tech News Sponsored post Oct 6

Horror and Dark Fantasy on Television: The Full-length Interviews

How do you freak people out without spending movie money on special effects? Gamble: Luckily for modestly budgeted productions everywhere, you can scare people without spending much money. It’s about creating tension. A lot of the scariest sequences in film and TV are basically about people walking up ordinary hallways to closed doors. When executed…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders Oct 6

This 20kW Power Plant Flies—Like, Through the Air

No matter how tall a traditional wind turbine is built it can’t reach the stronger, steadier winds that blow a quarter mile above the ground. That’s why Makani Power traded the turbine’s tower for a tether and created the Wing 7 aeronautic power plant. The Wing 7 spans eight meters but weighs just 130 pounds…

Tech News Andrew Tarantola Oct 6

A New “Recommendation Engine” for Science Fiction Books

Web developer Adam Doppelt, creator of Urbanspoon, felt frustrated — he loved science fiction books but couldn’t find ones he wanted to read. So he created BestSFBooks, a new “recommendation engine” for science fiction and fantasy books. So far, the site seems to be in its infancy, and it’s just set up to recommend books…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders Oct 6

I Made This on a Mac

I made this on a Mac. That statement is pretty common these days. But there was a time I would have never imagined creating something on a computer. Sure, I had some friends type up one of my essays or a college application on their parents’ Compaq computer, the glowing green letters clicking across a…

Tech News Dave Pell Oct 6

Meet the ancestor of all living things on Earth

The Last Universal Common Ancestor is the great-grandparent of everything that has ever lived on Earth. Scientists had long assumed it was a crude, simple thing, more a chemical mishmash than anything else. But our earliest ancestor holds some surprises. Known as LUCA for short, it’s hard to even know how to describe this…thing. For…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Oct 6

New study supports the existence of the “hot hands” phenomenon in basketball

Basketball fans are all familiar with terms like “hot hands,” “on a roll,” or “in the zone,” that are used to describe players demonstrating what appears to be a streak of above-average performance. For over two decades, scientists have debated whether the phenomenon actually exists, or if basketball fans simply attribute non-random patterns to completely…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Oct 6

Fleshlight creates vampire, Frankenstein, zombie and cyborg vaginas

Tired of humping the same old fake, rubbery vagina hidden inside a flashlight? Fleshlight’s already four steps ahead of you: They’ve created a zombie, vampire, Frankenstein, and cyborg vaginas — in case you ever wondered what having sex with a vampire was like (which apparently means getting around the horrific labia wings). Congratulations Fleshlight, you’ve…

Movies Meredith Woerner Oct 6

Never eat again after visiting the Museum of Food Anomalies

The Museum of Food Anomalies, entirely located online, allows you drop weight fast. See a frightened little sandwich get smothered in a plastic bag, demonic bell peppers, fruit loops shaped like Saturn, a cryptic message (JUUG) spelled out in an eggplant, and a ranch dressing spill that spontaneously formed the number ‘2.’ [via MOFA]

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Oct 6

The 10 Types of Writers’ Block (and How to Overcome Them)

Writer’s Block. It sounds like a fearsome condition, a creative blockage. The end of invention. But what is it, really? Part of why Writer’s Block sounds so dreadful and insurmountable is the fact that nobody ever takes it apart. People lump several different types of creative problems into one broad category. In fact, there’s no…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders Oct 6

Rdio’s Freemium Service Is Here

Remember when Rdio announced their freemium streaming plan was on the way? Well it’s here. No ads. No limits. And you don’t have to have a Facebook account (if you don’t want). Like the other services, Rdio’s free plan only extends to the web and desktop apps. So you still gotta pay for mobile access.…

Tech News Adrian Covert Oct 6

Machines that let you observe and manipulate a single biological molecule

Have you ever wondered how an individual molecule really behaves? Recent advances funded by the NIH and NSF have helped us reach the point where scientists can observe individual molecules act when they are isolated from other molecules. Let’s take a look at a revolutionary and new way to perform scientific experiments. How do single…

io9 Keith Veronese Oct 6

What Was Your First Mac?

HTC Sensation XL Is About to Go King Kong on Europe and Asia

Woz Remembers Steve Jobs

If it is realistic or plausible, then it is not science fiction

Where Were You?

R.I.P. Derrick Bell, Creator of One of Science Fiction’s Scariest Thought Experiments

Steve Jobs: Futurist, Optimist

How to Make Horror and Dark Fantasy Work on Television

If You’re Having Car Problems, I Feel Bad For You, Son

Horror and Dark Fantasy on Television: The Full-length Interviews

This 20kW Power Plant Flies—Like, Through the Air

A New “Recommendation Engine” for Science Fiction Books

I Made This on a Mac

Meet the ancestor of all living things on Earth

New study supports the existence of the “hot hands” phenomenon in basketball

Fleshlight creates vampire, Frankenstein, zombie and cyborg vaginas

Never eat again after visiting the Museum of Food Anomalies

The 10 Types of Writers’ Block (and How to Overcome Them)

Rdio’s Freemium Service Is Here

Machines that let you observe and manipulate a single biological molecule

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