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Have you ever dreamed about impressing the people around your neighborhood with preachy Banksy-inspired graffiti? SketchAR is an augmented reality drawing app that uses a smartphone and its camera to let you trace images. And when used with a device that supports Google’s Project Tango technology, suddenly anyone can become a tagger who doesn’t suck.…
Microsoft overhauled its fading corporate image nearly three years ago with that announcement of a powerful new operating system, Windows 10. The most surprising facet of this rebranding effort was a promising augmented reality headset, HoloLens, shown off at a press conference in January 2015. When it debuted, HoloLens felt like it could genuinely change…
When privacy finally dies, it will be, if nothing else, extremely convenient for travelers. This summer, Delta is launching a $600,000 face recognition pilot program, introducing four face-scanning machines at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. Called “biometric bag drop,” the machines “will be equipped to test facial recognition technology to match customers with their passport…
In December, the headlines were euphoric: After a deadly West African Ebola epidemic two years ago, scientists had not only developed a vaccine, but it appeared to be 100 percent effective. That effectiveness was quickly disputed—but now, as a new Ebola outbreak is rattling the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the vaccine may finally get…
Not content with hopping aboard a tour bus or renting a helicopter, professional base jumper Quentin Luçon figured the best way to see the Swiss Alps was to hang from a giant swing suspended below someone gliding over the majestic mountain range with a parachute. The view is undeniably spectacular, and Quentin was mostly safe…
We’ve looked at a number of different cults and cult leaders here at Paleofuture, and they usually have pretty hefty FBI files. Synanon? 346 pages. The Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh? 591 pages. But a cult leader who recently died this past March has a shockingly small FBI file. How small? Just six pages. Edna Rose Ritchings…
The music video for Ghost, the latest track from an Australian indie folk band named Husky, looks like it was brought to life by hundreds of senior citizens cross-stitching around the clock for months on end. But director Jonathan Chong took a much simpler approach that didn’t require a single needle. By having animator Clem Stamation…
Google’s annual I/O developer conference kicks off Wednesday, May 17th and continues through the end of the week. We’ll be on the ground at the show covering all the breaking news, but before then we’re taking a closer look at what we can expect from this year’s conference. Big products like Android and Chrome will…
We all fidget. We swing our headphones, we peel twigs and tear cardboard coasters, we flip pens around our thumbs and split the ends of our hair. Do we really need to explain, rationalize and lend science to the newest fidget toy? Sure, you’ll feel like a dumbass while you play with it. But here’s…
Have you seen that 1977 Time magazine cover proclaiming that you need to prepare for the coming Ice Age? It’s popular on right wing sites that claim climate change is a hoax. But the magazine cover itself is 100 percent fake. Good thing nobody printed it off and showed it to the president though, right?…
A death row inmate in Atlanta, Georgia has asked the court to execute him by firing squad. He argues that the pain medication he’s been on for the past decade would make him less susceptible to a fast death by lethal injection. And even people who aren’t taking pain medication have died in horrifying ways…
North Korean state media just released a video showing the country’s latest missile test, the first successful test in some time. The intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) has been identified as the Hwasong-12, a new name given to the missile by North Korea. The missile was first put on display during a military parade on April…
As a second wave of the WannaCry Ransomware attack is infecting more systems in more countries, the White House has ordered emergency meetings to deal with a threat that is, in part, the NSA’s fault. Experts believe that we may not even know the extent of how hard the attack hit Asia, and we won’t…
Let’s just throw this one in the science fiction category. Everyone knows humans aren’t even going to survive the next few decades. But what would happen if we did live another billion years? Some really cool things with a healthy dose of horrific disaster. Again, this video by RealLifeLore is just evidence-based speculation, but it’s…
MP3, the digital audio coding format, changed the way we listen to music and drove the adoption of countless new devices over the last couple of decades. And now, it’s dead. The developer of the format announced this week that it has officially terminated its licensing program. https://gizmodo.com/early-spotify-was-built-on-pirated-mp3-files-new-book-1795109991 The actual ownership history of the various…
President Trump has rotated between saying that a “major, major” conflict with North Korea is possible and that he “would be honored” to meet North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. On Sunday, North Korea did what it usually does when it’s unsure of what’s going on and tested another missile. The launch went pretty well. https://gizmodo.com/what-time-is-the-new-korean-war-1794323131…
With an eye towards the developing world where people are more likely to own cheap phones and have spottier wireless data access, the big names in tech are developing simpler versions of their apps. These apps are lightweight, use little data, and don’t burn through battery life. Sound good? It does to us too, and…
President Trump isn’t going to like this. Journalist Patrick Züst noticed something funny when he googled “donald trump office.” Can you spot it? It’s not exactly subtle. For some odd reason, Vladimir Putin features prominently in the search. In fact, if you only glanced at it quickly, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the search…
The WannaCry ransomware attack that spread around the globe yesterday caused chaos at hospitals, manufacturing shutdowns, headaches for Microsoft, and overtime for cybersecurity professionals. But the hackers responsible for this absurd attack have made relatively little in the way of profits. https://gizmodo.com/global-ransomware-attack-accidentally-halted-but-its-pr-1795191097 According to an analysis by respected security researcher Brian Krebs, the hackers have…
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s profile rose a notch last week when John Oliver mercilessly mocked his ridiculous personal habits and his egregious intention to kill net neutrality. Now, Pai’s firing back by making horrible jokes about the Americans who like their internet just the way it is. https://gizmodo.com/can-john-oliver-s-pro-net-neutrality-commenters-compete-1795095982 On his weekly satirical news program Last…
