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Your New Desktop Background: Supersonic Wind Tunnel Edition

Three men (look closely) stand inside Arnold Engineering Development Complex’s 16-foot supersonic wind tunnel facility. The tunnel, seen here in 1960, is housed at Arnold Air Force Base, Tennessee, but is now inactive. Photo Credit: Phil Tarver Via FYFD: The wind tunnel was capable of Mach numbers between 1.60 and 4.75 through a test section…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Jun 8 '14

Teen Invents Footwear That Will Charge Your Phone As You Walk

Angelo Casimiro is only 15, but he just invented electricity-generating footwear—as you walk or run about, your shoes will generate power that can be used to charge your phone or any small battery-powered device. The footwear was Casimiro’s entry to Google’s Science Fair this year. “Electricity is generated using a an insole generator that is…

Tech News Pranav Dixit Jun 8 '14

Artificial intelligence outsmarts humans for the first time in history

For the first time ever, a computer program has been able to fool a human into thinking it was another human, passing the Turing Test—the benchmark for artificial intelligence.

Sploid Jesus Diaz Jun 8 '14

Would You Resell Your Ebooks and MP3s Even If You Could?

The MPAA doesn’t want you to resell the movies you buy on iTunes and other services. The U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee Intellectual Properly and the Internet hearing is now discussing if they are right or wrong in a—but does it matter? Would you resell your digital goods online if you…

Tech News Pranav Dixit Jun 8 '14

First-person point of view video recorded by a wild polar bear

US Geological Survey’s biologists attached cameras and radio collars to four free-ranging female Alaskan polar bears last April. One of the resulting videos shows one of the bears in action in the Beaufort Sea, checking out a potential mate, swimming below ice, and trying to eat a frozen seal (which is kind of gross.) Female…

Sploid James Baker Jun 8 '14

A Chatbot Has ‘Passed’ The Turing Test For The First Time

A Russian chatterbot named “Eugene Goostman” has become the first to pass the Turing Test – an assessment of machine intelligence first proposed in 1950 by visionary mathematician, logician and codebreaker Alan Turing – by convincing 1 in 3 judges that it was a 13-year-old non-native-English-speaking Ukrainian boy. Here’s What Went Down: “Eugene” and four…

io9 Robert T. Gonzalez and George Dvorsky Jun 8 '14

How they made the classic Old Spice “I’m on a horse” commercial

I thought that the classic Old Spice “I’m on a horse” commercial was entirely made with green screens and video compositing. I was so wrong. This video shows that, for the most part, it was made with clever use of movable backdrops and camera work on a beach, in one single take. Reader bacondreamer found…

Sploid Jesus Diaz Jun 8 '14

A New Vulnerability Could Leave Smart TVs Exposed

A new hack that requires little more than a $250 1-watt amplifier could leave your smart TV vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack. It’s called the “Red Button” attack, after the red button on your remote that allows you to control the interactive features of your smart TV, and was discovered by two researchers at the…

Television Pranav Dixit Jun 8 '14

A Computer Program Has Passed the Turing Test For the First Time

This is big. A computer program has successfully managed to fool a bunch of researchers into thinking that it was a 13-year-old boy named Eugene Goostman. In doing so, it has become the first in the world to have successfully passed the Turing Test. The test is named after computer pioneer Alan Turing. To pass…

Artificial Intelligence Pranav Dixit Jun 8 '14

Okay, Now Orphan Black Is Just Showing Off

We get it: Tatiana Maslany can play any character she wants to play. But the truly exciting things are going down are going down at the Hendrix household, where proper housekeeping just became a matter of life and death. So a new guy breezes into town looking for Beth Childs. That’s exciting enough, even before…

io9 Lauren Davis Jun 8 '14

In The Flesh Reveals The Horrors Behind The Zombie Cure

Zombies have never been the scariest thing about In the Flesh, and even well-intentioned people have been capable of some truly horrific acts. And this episode shows that even the treatment for undead people—the entire premise of the show—came at a terrible price. I have to give In the Flesh a lot of credit for…

io9 Lauren Davis Jun 8 '14

Playing with Science and Technology for Fantastic Costumes

As convention season heats up, we get a steady stream of fan tributes to various media characters in the form of elaborate costumes. While this is independently awesome, I’m particularly fascinated by just how much science, technology, and mathematics goes into design. I don’t get to many conventions — this summer I’ll be visiting Comic…

Tech News Mika McKinnon Jun 8 '14

Venus Has Space Weather Explosions That Are Larger Than the Planet

A common space weather phenomenon on the outskirts of the magnetosphere, the magnetic bubble that surrounds the earth (and protects the surface of the planet from solar radiation) are “hot flow anomalies.” These are, in effect, enormous explosions. NASA researchers recently discovered that the same phenomenon occurs on Venus, except that these giant explosions can…

io9 Ron Miller Jun 8 '14

Success: Disney Will Add Princess Leia Toys To Its Merchandise Line

Three weeks ago, Disney said it had “no plans for Leia products at the Disney store.” This after announcing just one new female actress in the initial casting announcement for Episode VII. The toy announcement drew considerable criticism, including a barrage of tweets tagged with #WeWantLeia. Now, Disney says Leia toys are coming. “The current…

Movies Robbie Gonzalez Jun 8 '14

Astronaut Captures A Never-Setting Sun In The First Vine From Space

It takes about 92 minutes for the International Space Station to do a lap around Earth. In this, the first Vine from space, astronaut Reid Wiseman condenses one orbit into the span of about six seconds. But there’s something unusual about this timelapse. Crew members aboard the ISS can observe as many as 16 sunrises…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Jun 8 '14

Stanley Milgram’s Chain Letter Experiment

Stanley Milgram got a lot of press for his experiment in which participants thought they were shocking people to death. We don’t give him credit for his other experiment – in which participants forward the ultimate chain letter. If you thought Stanley Milgram was only responsible for the inner sadness that comes from knowing that…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Jun 8 '14

D-Day battle images merged with photos of tourists on the same spots

I love to see before and after D-Day photos like the extensive series published in The Guardian or The Globe and Mail to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Allied Invasion. But I love to merge them into single photos even more, so couldn’t resist merging some of them in Photoshop. Above you can see…

Sploid Jesus Diaz Jun 8 '14

First person video of a 34-foot-high jump on a motorbike

Watch motocross freestyle biker Ronnie Renner clearing 34 feet (10.36 meters) to win the Moto X Step Up—a bike high jump competition at the Summer X Games 2014 in Austin, Texas. It’s amazing to see how high he got. According to Renner, the jump is really hard, especially the landing. The impact becomes a real…

Sploid Jesus Diaz Jun 8 '14

On June 15 Join in to Discuss Daphne Oram’s 1971 Book ‘An Individual Note’

A proper online discussion forum was recently introduced on Disquiet.com. The implementation is still in beta, but it seems to be functioning well. One of the things the forum will support is an occasional book club. After much deliberation, the first book we’ll be collectively reading and talking about is the out-of-print volume An Individual…

Tech News Marc Weidenbaum Jun 7 '14

This Week’s Top Comedy Video: Amazon’s Mystery Product, Revealed

This week, Amazon put out a teaser video of people reacting to a mystery product the company will reveal on June 18th. The first version of the video never showed the product, but we got our hands on the uncut video. Now you can see exactly what those smiling people had their fingers in. For…

Tech News SplitSider Jun 7 '14

Your New Desktop Background: Supersonic Wind Tunnel Edition

Teen Invents Footwear That Will Charge Your Phone As You Walk

Artificial intelligence outsmarts humans for the first time in history

Would You Resell Your Ebooks and MP3s Even If You Could?

First-person point of view video recorded by a wild polar bear

A Chatbot Has ‘Passed’ The Turing Test For The First Time

How they made the classic Old Spice “I’m on a horse” commercial

A New Vulnerability Could Leave Smart TVs Exposed

A Computer Program Has Passed the Turing Test For the First Time

Okay, Now Orphan Black Is Just Showing Off

In The Flesh Reveals The Horrors Behind The Zombie Cure

Playing with Science and Technology for Fantastic Costumes

Venus Has Space Weather Explosions That Are Larger Than the Planet

Success: Disney Will Add Princess Leia Toys To Its Merchandise Line

Astronaut Captures A Never-Setting Sun In The First Vine From Space

Stanley Milgram’s Chain Letter Experiment

D-Day battle images merged with photos of tourists on the same spots

First person video of a 34-foot-high jump on a motorbike

On June 15 Join in to Discuss Daphne Oram’s 1971 Book ‘An Individual Note’

This Week’s Top Comedy Video: Amazon’s Mystery Product, Revealed

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