edison

The Long History of Star Trek Uniform Fashions

The debate over whether or not Starfleet is a military organization, a scientific one, or a messy, often contradictory combination of both has been a part of Star Trek since it began. One thing that we can always be certain of though? It loves a wardrobe shakeup. With Discovery’s upcoming season adding yet another uniform,…

Can You Pay Your Way Out of Email Hell?

There’s no perfect way to manage massive quantities of emails, but everybody has their preferences. Some people are Gmail purists, who might be sad to know that the Google’s free supercharged email management app Inbox will stop working on April 2. Others are Outlook devotees, who probably get the app free through work. Me, I’m…

Benedict Cumberbatch Plays Thomas Edison in the New Trailer For The Current War

We’re all familiar with Nikola Tesla and his brilliant work helping to invent the electric technologies that we live with today. But did you know that there’s a guy named Thomas Edison who also helped invent some of that tech? If you didn’t, you should check out the new trailer for the upcoming movie, The…

Incandescent Bulbs, 135 Years Ago and Today

On January 27th, 1880, Thomas Edison was awarded a patent for an incandescent lamp. It was still two years before his first power grid would flicker to life in NYC, and Edison was living on the precipice of a new age. Oh, how things have changed. United States patent no. 223,898 described an innovation whose…

The Forgotten Story of NYC’s First Power Grid

Lower Manhattan of the 1880s was a wonderland of futuristic technology and engineering: The city’s first cable car arced over the harbor. A spindly new steel bridge was forming to connect Williamsburg to the city. And on the Lower East Side, Edison was tearing up the streets to build the first permanent power station in…

Happy Birthday Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla was a legendary futurist before the term futurist even existed. He made all kinds of predictions about the way that world would and should operate — some of them accurate, and some of them controversial. And guess what? It’s his birthday! Born “at the stroke of midnight” on July 9th/10th in 1856, Nikola…

Remember Intel’s Edison from CES, the SD card-sized computer that would run Linux and also sounded too good to be true? Well it was! Intel has admitted that the device will now use an Atom processor and be larger as a result. Shame.

[Fluxmachine]

10 Scientific and Tech Visionaries Who Experimented With Drugs

Is intelligence related to an increased likelihood of recreational drug use? It’s an interesting hypothesis, and one that’s been gaining momentum in recent years. If a definitive link between intellectual capacity and drug use does exist, it will likely be some time before anyone establishes one. Having said that, this much is for certain: history…

Clever minimalist posters pay tribute to scientists and their discoveries

In observance of India’s National Science Day, graphic designer Kapil Bhagat created a series of simple typographical posters that creatively recognize scientists for their various inventions or discoveries. The Mumbai-based artist posted the designs to his tumblr, where he regularly hosts images of his work. We’ve included a sample of the collection below, but you’ll…

Making Edison’s Batteries Charge 1000 Times Faster

Over a century ago, Thomas Edison developed a rechargeable nickel-iron battery, designed to power cars. Remarkably, the technology is still used by some people to store energy from solar panels and wind turbines—but now, Stanford engineers have tweaked it to charge 1000 times faster. Edison’s original battery used a cathode made of nickel and an…

10 Scientific and Technological Visionaries Who Experimented With Drugs

Is intelligence related to an increased likelihood of recreational drug use? It’s an interesting hypothesis, and one that’s been gaining momentum in recent years. If a definitive link between intellectual capacity and drug use does exist, it will likely be some time before anyone establishes one. Having said that, this much is for certain: history…

Talking Watches of 1895

This story about talking watches appeared in an 1895 issue of the Dutch journal De Natuur and was found in the book Victorian Inventions. In the first reports on the phonograph invented by Edison in 1877, it was remarked that it would now be possible to produce timepieces capable of calling out the hours instead…

The year 2011, according to Thomas Edison in 1911

100 years ago, a newspaper published Thomas Edison’s musings on the far-off future of 2011. According to the famed inventor, we should be driving around in solid gold taxis. On June 23, 1911 the Miami Metropolis published predictions about the year 2011 from the one and only Tommy “Dumbo Killah” Edison. Edison makes some amazing…

Thomas Edison’s Oddest Inventions

Thomas Edison is an inventor known for great things. We also know he had a pretty good sense of humor. Some of these er, lesser known contributions from Mr. Edison were ahead of their time; others are just plain twisted. https://gizmodo.com/inside-thomas-edisons-vertically-integrated-megalab-5623885 Feeling the spirit of Thanksgiving, American ingenuity, or invention? Why not take a look…

Video: Thomas Edison Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge in 1899

The bridge was only 16-years-old when Edison shot this video from a BMT train crossing to Manhattan. It may not be HD, or 3D, or whatever fancy-format you kids like these days, but it takes me right back. [KottkeviaBoingBoing]

How Thomas Edison Pranked the 1920s With His “Dead People” Phone

You can’t blame the people of 1920 for falling for Edison’s practical joke. After all, this was the man who invented the light bulb! When he told a magazine he’d invented a phone that communicates with spirits, hysteria understandably ensued. Over 600 letters were sent in to American Magazine, which published Thomas Edison’s quotes on…

A Brief History of Tesla and the AC/DC Wars

Today is inventor extraordinaire Nikola Tesla’s 154th birthday. To celebrate, someone made this gushing video overview of Tesla’s life, including a lengthy digression on how Thomas Edison was a “jerk.” Is this, I wonder, our very first Tesla fanboy? [Reddit]

Remainders – The Things We Didn’t Post: Tell Me Something I Don’t Know Edition

In today’s remainders: Apple hints at an LTE iPhone, augmented reality finds a new niche, Thomas Edison brings down the house, and Microsoft comes clean about its cryptic ads. Ye Olde LTE iPhone An Apple job posting for a Cellular Technology Software Manager got the hens-a-cluckin’ today in regards to Apple developing an LTE phone.…

This May Be The Only Existing Video of Mark Twain

There’s little action, no sound, and the footage is grainy. But this brief clip may be the only existing video of writer Mark Twain and his daughters Clara and Jean. It was captured in 1909 by inventor Thomas Edison. Mark Twain died a year after this footage was filmed, but here we are—over a century…