Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Turning inanimate puppets into beautifully animated stop-motion characters requires a lot of patience, a thorough understanding of movement, and countless supports, armatures, and lighting gear the viewer never gets to see. But in Dario Imbrogno’s OSSA, that animation gear is as much a star of the film as the dancing characters are. [Vimeo via The…
Damn. That’s a good statue. This 158-foot-tall bronze figure depicts Guan Yu, an ancient Chinese general, and majestically towers over Jingzhou, China. Shanghaiist says that over 4,000 strips of bronze have been stuck onto the body of Guan Yu and he stands atop the 86,000 square foot Guan Yu museum. All that is great but…
Dyson’s Bladeless Fans are wonderfully awesome but also ridiculously expensive. Am I really going to spend 300 bucks on a fan? Nah. Thankfully, Rulof the master maker of things breaks down how to build the bladeless fan with a water jug, a few vases, and a microwave fan. Just like Dyson, this DIY version of…
Earlier today Donald Trump said that he doesn’t have time to play Niantic’s hot new game. But it seems like he did have time to approve an attack ad based around Pokémon Go. Trump’s official Facebook page posted a video approximately a few minutes ago that is an apparent parody of the game called Crooked…
We got a sneak preview of Lego’s new Bucket Wheel Excavator at the Nuremberg toy fair earlier this year, but now we have official details on the monstrous set, which will come with over 3,900 pieces, officially making it the largest Lego Technic set to date. Available starting August 1, the excavator stands a mighty…
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have finally broken their silence on Pokémon Go. Their statements today are about what you’d expect. A new page on the Clinton campaign website directs Ohio voters to meet up this Saturday at the “Madison Park Pokestop & PokeGYM” to “put up a lure module, get free pokemon, & battle…
In the 80s and 90s, the 911 system in the US became overloaded with people calling to report things like wayward couches and double-parked cars—not emergencies, yet situations where city officials could help. In 1996, Baltimore successfully tested a system that diverted these requests to a separate number. In 1997, the FCC reserved “311” as…
If you go to department stores in Japan you’ll sometimes be greeted by a friendly robot. Maybe one that looks like this: But for decades people have been imagining that businesses would stock their stores with humanoid robots. In fact, this particular vision of the future is nearly a century old. The June 1924 issue…
There’s an iPhone laying somewhere on this carpet. You have to stare really hard and probably scour every pixel of this picture and possibly stop blinking for at least four minutes in order to find it, but I promise you that it’s there. Jeya May Cruz dropped her iPhone onto this rug and basically saw…
Using the Panasonic Lumix G7‘s 4K photo mode which captures still shots at up to 30 frames per second, photographer Matt Taylor captured remarkable before and after night photos revealing just how bright the light generated by a nearby lightning strike can be. Matt estimates the lightning bolt struck about one or two miles south…
Before product designers were scratching their heads trying to figure out how to make gadgets look good on your wrist, they had to figure out how to make them look good on your head. Eventually, they succeeded, but not with some horrifying results along the way. Even modern headphone makers get caught up in a…
Only weeks after recalling 29 million dressers that killed three children, IKEA has issued another recall, this time for safety gates. IKEA is recalling some 80,000 “Patrull” safety gates for the same reason it recalled the dressers: They pose a fall risk because the locking mechanism can open unexpectedly. So far, IKEA has received 55…
Two years ago, Iceland’s Bardarbunga volcano erupted—and it kept erupting for the next 181 days, forming the largest volcanic depression ever seen. New research reveals the extraordinary processes that transpired beneath the surface, including the formation of a magma-filled canal that measured a whopping 28 miles long. The Bardarbunga volcano began to erupt on August…
Everyone loves Pokémon—everyone except radio show host and pastor Rick Wiles. He recently recounted a story on his show about how he called police on a man he saw taking photos of his office building, only to learn the suspect was playing the popular new app Pokémon Go. “These Pokémon creatures are, like, virtual cyber…
Uber has made hailing a cab as easy as pushing a button, saving countless passengers from wandering the streets in search of a ride. There are still some gaps in the Uber experience though—and Up Hail is happy to plug one of them. It’s a price comparison service for ride-hailing services, but you can actually…
Apart from being a great punk band name, “heavy sweat” is causing Bose’s new SoundSport Wireless headphones to malfunction. In fact, it’s so bad that Bose is offering full exchanges for an updated unit to those who think their headphones are freaking out. It’s unclear how big of a problem this is for Bose. When…
A lengthy list of Silicon Valley’s top players have signed an open letter slamming Donald Trump’s bigotry and policies, arguing that the bloviating, radioactive orange slime puddle “would be a disaster for innovation.” The letter, published this morning on Medium, includes the endorsements of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Tumblr CEO David Karp, Reddit co-founder Alexis…
Bad news perverts: McDonald’s free public wi-fi will begin using filters to keep customers from watching porn in its restaurants. The filtering will eventually affect all corporate-owned locations. McDonald’s says the new policy is aimed at creating “a safe environment.” After two years of pressure, the world’s biggest burger chain finally caved to internet safety…
An underwater survey off the coast of Greece has uncovered a massive cache of wrecked ships, sunk over a span of more than 2,000 years. And researchers just keep finding more and more to add to that tally. In the nine months they’ve been swimming around Greece’s Fourni archipelago, the research team from The Fourni…
Oh thank Christ for Keekoo and the Keekoo K1. The new brand from Chinese company Shenzhen Yi Shengyuan Technology Limited really understands my needs as a lady. See, up until now every phone I’ve used, presented to me completely absent of gendered marketing, has secretly been a man phone for men. I’m honest to God…