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Back in June, NBCUniversial CEO Steve Burke described the worst case scenario for the Olympic games: We wake up someday and the ratings are down 20 percent. If that happens, my prediction would be that millennials had been in a Facebook bubble or a Snapchat bubble and the Olympics have come, and they didn’t know…
Silicon Valley is, in theory, all about innovation and social change, but despises regulation, meaning the its most powerful leaders’ political leanings vary quite a bit. In past elections, tech millionaires and billionaires gave tons of money to both Democrats and Republicans, but 2016 is, unsurprisingly, not your average election. A new report from the…
On Saturday, controversial Silicon Valley personality Shanley Kane went on a (now partially-deleted) tweet rant about the word daddy. “Don’t have deep psychosexual Freudian and Oedipal trauma/dysfunction?” she wrote in a now deleted tweet. “Good for you. Stop appropriating ‘Daddy’.” She continued: For the uninitiated, the daddy meme has been floating around for a while…
This is certainly a much better idea than a message that self-destructs after you read it (we’re looking at you, Inspector Gadget). Researchers at the University of Connecticut were inspired by the skins of squids and jellyfish, which can change color or texture in response to certain factors in their surroundings. In a move that…
What do you do with your old Game Boy? Some of us try and boot it up for the first time in decades, while others look at this brick that we played with in our childhood and make something of it. For somebody who goes by the name Gautier Hattenberger, the first thing that came…
The flying car is just one of a group of futuristic technologies that are like science’s White Whales—along with jetpacks and a machine that can record our dreams (just me?). Plenty of startups have tested their own versions and now, one major company says that future will be here sooner than you think. According to…
Traditional gender roles have been shifting over the past few decades and that’s probably for the best. Not just because society’s expectations for a binary gender system are outdated, but because it might be bad for you. At least, that’s according to a new study to be presented by University of Connecticut sociologists at the…
Nikola Tesla was both of his time and ahead of it (he has a car company named after him, after all). Besides his contributions to altnerating current electrical systems, the inventor predicted smartphones, television, and apparently drones, which he thought could cause humanity’s destruction. In a patent that was granted on November 8, 1898, Tesla…
The extensive price hike for a vital, life-saving drug for many with allergies is causing concern among doctors, patients, and politicians—along with a guy responsible for an extensive price hike himself. Mylan pharmaceutical, the maker of the EpiPen—a portable epinephrine injector that can potentially save someone having a life-threatening allergic reaction—is being accused of raising…
Social media can already give others insight into your personal life and mental state (even if you don’t want them to), but according to a recent study, even something as small as your Instagram filter choices can be enlightening. Andrew Reece at Harvard University and Chris Danforth at the University of Vermont published a paper…
Massachusetts is attempting to aid its taxi industry in the wake of the digital ride-hailing industry by taking from one to give to the other—just like our Founding Fathers did. According to Reuters, the state plans to levy a 20-cent fee per trip on ride-hailing apps, with five of those cents going to taxis. It’s…
Facebook knows more about your personal life than you probably realize. As part of the company’s increasingly aggressive advertising operation, Facebook goes to great lengths to track you across the web. The company compiles a list of personal details about every user that includes major life events and general interests. For years, details have been…
Microsoft’s first big Anniversary Update for Windows 10 went live earlier this month. With it came improved pen performance, new Cortana features, and an all around better Windows. Two weeks later, it’s become clear that the Anniversary update has some big problems. First, some users were plagued with a system-wide freeze after logging into Windows,…
It’s slightly uncomfortable to see a hornet climb out of its cocoon from this close of an angle but there’s also something really captivating about seeing it stretch out and discover its own body and surroundings for the first time. I imagine it must be like waking up with a massive hangover with no memory…
A federal judge has thrown out a $100 million class-action settlement offered by Uber to its drivers, calling the proposal “not fair, adequate, and reasonable.” U.S. District Judge Edward Chen rejected the ride sharing company’s offer on Thursday. The original lawsuit contended, among other things, that drivers should be classed as employees rather than contractors,…
Humpback whales, those 80,000-pound giants of the sea, might be the living embodiment nature’s majesty, but when one gets close enough to crush you, it’s like you’re in the middle of some Godzilla monster flick. Things start off mild, even serene, in this video. A kayaking adventure off the coast of British Columbia. Then things…
Google is pretty much everywhere. It’s in your smartphone, car, and maybe even your watch— but there’s still nothing like searching Google on a desktop computer. To this day, about 64 percent of US web surfers use Google as their primary search engine. If you still haven’t asked anyone but Google to answer your search…
There’s a crap ton of steel in broken down bridges and some of that steel gets repurposed into things like turntables. It’s already fun to imagine a structure that connects land getting re-used for an instrument for sound, but it’s even cooler to see the whole melty metal process of it all. Who doesn’t like…
These days Mike Judge is busy with his HBO show Silicon Valley, but back in 2006 he made a movie that would become an instant cult classic. Set in a dystopian future, Idiocracy is now a cultural touchstone for people who think the world just keeps getting dumber. And now Judge says it’s “scary” how…
Do you find yourself going to war every time you climb into bed at night? Fighting with your significant other over the sheets and duvet, trying to ensure you stay covered all night? The Cover Clamp permanently tips the odds of victory in your favor, ensuring you’ll never again wake up uncovered and cold. Installation…
