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Good news, everyone: Google is looking out for us! It doesn’t want a cleaning robot to knock over grandma’s vase. That’s one of the potentially dangerous scenarios Google engineers explored in a new paper on “concrete problems in AI safety.” For some strange reason, the researchers chose to illustrate these dangers using the example of…
Get ready to see Gordon Ramsay in your Facebook news feed, right next to your high-school friend’s endless wedding updates. Facebook has agreed to pay more than 140 celebrities (including Deepak Chopra, NFL player Russell Wilson, and Ramsay) and media companies (CNN, the New York Times, BuzzFeed) to use Facebook Live, the live-streaming feature the…
This is definitely what you don’t want to see at a kid’s birthday party: a bounce house flying away straight into the power lines after being swept up in the air by a big gust of wind. You can actually see it first fly away from the power lines but then suddenly make a quick…
Last year, Chris Borland of the San Francisco 49ers announced he was quitting football because of the high risk of concussion and long-term brain damage, despite protective helmets. And he’s not alone: it’s a growing concern, particularly for teenaged athletes. But a new collar inspired by the humble woodpecker may help protect athletes from such…
Going to space in movies isn’t just a bad idea, it’s often a suicide mission. Luc Bergeron’s latest space movie mashup puts 32 science fiction movies together to show how desperate things get when you’re all alone in space, and are the only one left that can save the Earth or fly into the Death…
Washington DC’s subway is scheduled to be shut down for an extended period of time to deal with a slew of deferred maintenance. But after today’s service problem—literal waterfalls in one station—maybe DC’s Metro needs a vacation sooner than that. https://gizmodo.com/watch-this-apocalyptic-timelapse-of-the-dc-metro-flood-1782453501 Due to very heavy rain, commuters at the Cleveland Park station were greeted with…
Elon Musk is on the brink of acquiring the the next critical component in a solar-electric transportation future. Tesla Motors just made a $2.8 billion stock-to-stock offer to buy SolarCity, one of the largest solar energy companies in the country. It also happens to be a company founded by Musk’s cousins and one where he…
Ben Ridgway’s specialty is creating flawlessly repeating animations that can be left on loop forever if you’re trying to intentionally trigger the worst acid flashback you’ve ever experienced—minus the acid. Continuum Infinitum has no beginning and no end, just an infinite zoom into a never-ending abyss of trippy mind-melting shapes. [Vimeo via BoingBoing] SPLOID is…
Software updates exist to patch vulnerabilities and to add features, and installing those updates is just common sense. Photoshop will usually remind you on startup if you haven’t updated, but Adobe has gone the extra mile and created an ad based on phone sex hotlines. The update includes a content-aware crop tool and font suggestions,…
Mark Zuckerberg, a man who runs a service that collects the personal information of more than a billion people daily, seems to be worried about being spied on. There’s something very interesting in the photo Zuckerberg posted today to celebrate Instagram’s 500 million monthly active users, can you see it? Look closer. As Chris Olson…
When the Fed constantly replaces old, tattered dollar bills with new, crispy cash, millions of notes get pulled out of circulation while new dollar bills get put in circulation. So what happens to all that old money? It gets shredded. But then what? Until recently, those shredded notes just went into landfills, but now the…
Machines are taking over the world, and some members of the European Parliament aren’t very happy about it. Robots in the EU soon be classed as “electronic persons” if the Parliament adopts a new set of rules on robotics. The drafted motion would mean that robots had “specific rights and obligations,” and that robot owners…
A compound called nicotinamide mono nucleotide (NMN) has been shown to slow down the aging process and extend the lifespans of mice. We’re about to find out if it does the same thing to humans. A planned clinical trial devised by researchers from Washington University in St. Louis and Keio University in Japan is set…
Hard to believe, but these two birds pictured above are the same age. The only difference is that the one on the right grew up in an urban environment. It’s an observation that’s raising questions about the health of birds and other urban animals—including humans. Researchers from Lund University in Sweden have shown that birds…
At Toy Fair earlier this year we were surprised to discover that edible candy bubbles were not only a thing, they were also surprisingly tasty. But why stop at candy flavors? The next time you find yourself headed to a tedious children’s birthday party, you can now whip up a batch of edible boozy bubbles…
Eero Saarinen designed some of the most iconic American buildings of the 20th century. The arch in St. Louis? That was him. The TWA terminal at JFK airport? That was him too. And it wasn’t just buildings. Saarinen also designed the furniture that would define futurism of the 1960s, like the tables in Stanley Kubrick’s…
Today, the Federal Aviation Administration finally unveiled Part 107, the rules that cap off its long-running efforts to regulate commercial drone use. The regulations, a preview of which apparently leaked online yesterday, make it easier for business and government groups to use drones. The new rules now mean that commercial drone operators no longer need…
Every child and every adult who wants to be a child again loves a good Nerf gun. They’re fun to shoot, whether you’re playing in your yard or across cubicles, and they’re fun to be shot at with, because Nerf guns are mostly harmless. Well, the game done changed. Mark Rober has invented the world’s…
Bentley Yoder was born with his brain outside his skull. Doctors said he didn’t have a chance, but he not only survived—he thrived. Now, some seven months later, Bentley has undergone reconstructive surgery to move his brain back into his skull. Bentley’s parents, Sierra and Dustin, both 25, found out something was wrong when they…
Google is making the best security feature, two-step verification, a little bit easier to use. This week, the company announced that it’s switching out the annoying (and hackable) six digit code with a simple “yes” or “no” button. This is a great move. The update could be a huge win for everyone’s security. The easier…
