Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” is currently on summer hiatus, but that hasn’t stopped Oliver from ranting about how birds are awful. We complete.y agree. Birds are the worst. Birds are total dicks. In this clip, posted to the show’s YouTube channel, Oliver explains just a few reasons that birds should fuck right…
If you’re looking to create digital copies of your old video tapes, vinyl, and cassettes, it can be difficult to know where to start with so many different approaches and hardware setups out there. Our approach should be simple enough for everyone to follow. Here’s what to need to know about creating digital versions of…
NASA’s Curiosity rover is currently exploring the “Murray Buttes” region of lower Mount Sharp, where it captured these beautiful color images of eroded rock formations. The pictures are so crisp and detailed, it’s as if we’re right there on the Martian surface. Curiosity captured these images using its Mastcam on Thursday, September 8. The images…
It’s no dress, but this optical illusion will surely make your head hurt. What you’re looking at is called Ninio’s extinction illusion. There are twelve black dots evenly distributed on the grey smocking leaf pattern, but your (dumb) brain simply won’t allow you to see them all at once. What’s up with that? It’s a…
Expressing love is one of the most difficult and important things you can do as a human being. There is no correct way to tell someone you love them, to truly express how much they mean to you. Messages get lost in translation. Wives and husbands feel taken for granted. Communicating clearly with your partner…
Remember Kim Dotcom? He’s the convicted fraudster-turned rich dude who ran MegaUpload, that file storage website that hosted a ton of pirated content. In January 2012, Dotcom was raided by New Zealand authorities and he’s been in legal purgatory ever since. Right now, Dotcom is fighting extradition by the United States for charges of online…
Domino master Hevesh5 spent 25 hours building this triple spiral over eight days. Despite following three separate paths at three different heights, the delicate structure takes less than two minutes to come tumbling down, creating beautiful patterns in the process. Perhaps from the vantage of an alien civilization, humanity’s ongoing self-destruction will also look as…
WikiLeaks is no stranger to controversy. In July, the organization posted tons of Americans’ credit card and social security numbers. In August, the “whistleblower site” published dozens of malware links in an email dump from AKP, Turkey’s ruling party. But Sunday evening, the organization felt it crossed a line, when it tweeted a now-deleted poll…
Facebook is using a plane emoji to mark the events of September 11th, 2001. This feels a little weird. It’s unknown if a human Facebook employee chooses the icon for remembering specific events on Facebook, or if it is chosen by an algorithm. Regardless, there’s something not right about using cartoonish emoji of the weapon…
Sure, YouTuber Hugo Doris could have 3D-printed some slick shell for his super-mini Super Nintendo, but when you’re making a one of a kind object, why not craft it by hand? Using a Raspberry Pi Zero, a USB hub and clay, Doris (lyberty5) has meticulously put together an emulator for the SNES that rivals Nintendo’s…
Airlines and airports are beginning to crack down on explosive Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones. This morning, New York Times reporter Mike Isaac tweeted that his airline verbally warned passengers to power off and stow the recalled device. In a direct message, Isaac clarified that he was flying American Airlines. Several others have said they’ve…
When a hydraulic press takes on the bathroom, things get messy. First, the ceramic toilet completely explodes. Then, the toilet paper is flattened into a useless disk of cardboard. Finally, the soap dispenser dispenses a little bit of soap and cracks in slow-motion before shattering in all directions into a mess of goo and broken…
Two Israeli eighteen-year-olds have been arrested in connection with an FBI investigation into vDOS, a cyberattack service that has been credited with perpetrating “a majority” of the DDoS attacks over the last few years. According to security blogger Brian Krebs, the vDOS site has reportedly raked in $618,000 for its services in two years. The…
With technologies’ trend toward sleek design and invisible components, it’s easy to forget that there are still a lot of little layers, pieces and ports on a modern flat screen. That is until you watch them up close and on fire. So go ahead, let the folks from Let’s Melt This burn that reminder into…
Is that a baby or the blob? It’s actually just the sick and twisted result of a neural network predicting what a still photo of a baby would look like if it were moving. Researchers at MIT have published demonstrations of their work on generative video, and the “hallucinated” outcomes of are both impressive and…
It’s been called “the worst infectious disease ever recorded among vertebrates.” The devastating effect of the chytrid fungus on frog populations around the world has contributed to the extinction of at least 200 species and no one knows where it came from. But now scientists are hoping to tweak the amphibian’s evolutionary development by bulking…
In a vote carried out on Friday night, Univision executives voted to remove six posts published by former Gawker Media properties that are involved in ongoing litigation. The vote took place just hours before the close of Univision’s purchase of Gawker Media’s assets, and was carried out under a provision in Gawker’s existing collective bargaining…
Scientists have been arguing over the authenticity of an ancient document called the Grolier Codex for 50 years. A new analysis published in a special section of the journal Maya Archaeology has concluded that the codex is indeed genuine, making it the oldest surviving manuscript from the pre-Colombian era. Perhaps you’re not familiar with the…
Mylan Pharmaceuticals spent the past decade raising the price of the EpiPen from $57 to $600. Why? Because they could. The company didn’t have any real competition. And now one competitor, Teva Pharmaceuticals, a company that has tried and failed to bring a generic EpiPen to market before, says that their product won’t be ready…
Samsung’s exchange program for Galaxy Note 7 has been a nightmare for customers so far. A week after Samsung’s “voluntary” recall of the Galaxy Note 7, customers have yet to be clearly told when and how they’ll be able to replace their devices—devices that could set cars, hotel rooms, or garages on fire—with new, working…
