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Have you gotten a call from the number 1-800-323-8603? Does it say on Caller ID that it’s from the Department of Homeland Security? It’s definitely a scam. Hang up and don’t give them any information. That number is the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) hotline. The number exists for employees…
Growing up, one of my favorite CD-ROM games was called The Simpsons: Virtual Springfield. As games go, it wasn’t that advanced, but it let me take a virtual, interactive tour through my favorite television show. The game had in-jokes from the show, voices from the cast, and perfect attention to detail. It was awesome. I…
Most Rube Goldberg machines are designed to complicate a very simple task, but a Japanese TV show called Pitagora Suitchi—which translates to Pythagoras Switch—created an endlessly complex contraption to tell the story of two colored balls who have to rescue their trapped brother. Biisuke Ball’s Big Adventure is actually a sequel to an earlier Rube…
“We are sending an armada, very powerful,” President Donald Trump said over a week ago when asked about the tensions in North Korea. As it turns out, that “armada” wasn’t heading anywhere near North Korea. And sadly, some very important allies are now nervously laughing at Trump’s lies. On April 10th, the US Pacific Command…
I’m not saying you should do this…. But hypothetically… If you handed someone your phone while this GIF was playing… And you just said “wait for it”… How long do you suppose…. They would sit there… Watching the GIF loop… Over and over and over again… Two times? Three? Twenty times? I guess it would…
It’s not just you, online ads are getting worse. Auto-play video has become a standard, pop-ups are back in a big way and those inline ads seem accidentally clickier all the time. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google is well aware of this and it’s planning to add a built-in ad blocker to the…
Following last week’s decision to end the Obama-era practice of releasing White House visitor logs to the public, the Trump administration is now saying that the petition site “We the People” could be the next thing to go. This is an absolute outra… eh, screw it. https://gizmodo.com/white-house-you-should-be-able-to-unlock-your-phone-if-5988388 U.S. News spoke with White House Communications Director…
At Facebook’s annual developer conference, F8, on Wednesday, the group unveiled what may be Facebook’s most ambitious—and creepiest—proposal yet. Facebook wants to build its own “brain-to-computer interface” that would allow us to send thoughts straight to a computer. What if you could type directly from your brain?” Regina Dugan, the head of the company’s secretive…
Climate change threatens to affect everything from the food we eat, to straight-up making the planet inhabitable for humanity. But our self-wrought apocalypse isn’t all bad. As the ice caps keep crumbling, they’re creating lots of icebergs we can use for badass kitesurfing stunts. Geza Sholtz headed to Greenland to capture these amazing shots of…
Let’s say we do somehow end up growing grains like corn or wheat on Mars. What fun would that be if we can’t puff them into curls and dust them with cheese? Purdue University scientists have been tasked with developing a Mars-worthy extruder, the machine which takes ground up raw grains and processes them into…
It seems like every day there’s news of another significant data breach, so here’s today’s: An internal investigation by the InterContinental Hotel Group, which owns Holiday Inn, has revealed that guests at more than a thousand of their hotels had their credit card details stolen. The company identified malware on front desk systems used between…
Probably the suckiest thing about science is the fact that lots of the time you can’t read the research yourself. If it’s not open access and you’re interested, either you shell out 35 bucks for a pdf, email someone asking for it, or settle with listening to some dummy like me interpret the results peppered…
After NASA’s announcement last week, Enceladus is the icy moon on everyone’s mind—not that are are many others (sorry, Europa). According to the agency, molecular hydrogen has been found in Enceladus’ subterranean ocean, which bolsters the idea that the icy moon could host extraterrestrial microbes. Despite Enceladus’ frigid exterior, this ocean is thought to be…
If you use Gmail and your office uses Google Apps or you like to maintain multiple Facebook accounts, than operating on a phone can be a nightmare. Multiple logins means constant logging out of apps and then logging back in—a process that only gets more excruciating when you have two-factor authentication (and you should really…
On Wednesday, the Presidential Inaugural Committee filed its final report with the Federal Election Commission, revealing the full list of donors who financed Donald Trump’s electoral college victory party. Unsurprisingly, the biggest names in tech all chipped in, including Google, Amazon, Intel, and Microsoft, all of whom spoke out against Trump’s Muslim ban. The filing…
Remember Juicero? It was the darling of glass-eyed Silicon Valley investors just a year ago. But it turns out the the $400 juice-making gadget is very literally useless. You can actually just buy the juice packets and squeeze the goods into your glass with your bare hands, no gadget required. If you’re one of the…
For a few years now, Sony’s been the most innovative name in the camera game, besting incumbents like Nikon and Canon in several categories with awesome point-and-shoots, like the RX100 line, and the truly game-changing A7 full-frame mirrorless line. Far from just an innovator, there are signs the company’s efforts are finding an audience: A…
Some SETI researchers believe the best way to detect aliens is to search the skies for their laser beams. In the largest survey of its kind, astronomers scanned 5,600 stars in search of these optical signals—and they found…absolutely nothing. Nada. Zilch. Here’s what that means to SETI and the ongoing hunt for alien intelligence. In…
French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon is pulling out all the stops in the final days of the campaign season, beaming a holographic image of his far-left message to six cities across the country. There’s only one problem with Melenchon’s incredible technological feat: It’s not actually a hologram. Melenchon used the same technique that brought Tupac…
Listen, scientists. I appreciate what you do, and boy I sure do love that evidence-based pursuit of knowledge, but did you have to make mutant wasps? Did you? The Nasonia vitripennis wasps’ genomes happen to be one of the most studied of the order of insects that includes wasps, bees and ants, since they’re super…
