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After a winter that will be remembered for freakish heatwaves, record snowdrifts, and deadly flooding, the weather is feeling less predictable than ever. Which is why, when AccuWeather announced a brand new 90-day forecast tool last week, it sounded a little good to be true. Is it? Yes. It’s misleading as hell, and meteorologists are…
Handheld 3D printing pens seem like a cheaper alternative to those giant autonomous boxes, but they require more patience than most of us can muster, and a decent level of artistic capability. This robot arm can help with the latter, by controlling where the pen can move to ensure better results. Like with a dedicated…
Introducing the Eelume robot, a self-propelled aquatic mechanical snake designed for subsea inspection and repair work. We humans are ill-suited for work on the ocean floor. Robots, on the other hand, are perfect for the task—especially if they emulate something that actually lives in the sea. This mechanical snake is a collaboration between The Norwegian…
On the morning of Monday, February 29th, the day HTC’s Vive VR headset became available for pre-order, Daniel Flesher parked himself in front of his computer and waited. “I sat at my computer hitting F5, but I was at work,” Flesher, an architect, told Gizmodo. He was worried about getting in trouble, but his bosses…
Wired just published a giant feature on Magic Leap, the lavishly-funded, and very secretive mixed reality startup that we know almost nothing about. Professional thoughtfluencer Kevin Kelly got impressive access to the startup and reveals some new details about what the hell they’re doing. There’s a headset! And it is capable of what you see…
Your typical Hot Wheels car is 100 percent powered by imagination. But we’re at the point where you can cram a lot of technology into a 1:64-scale toy car, which is what the creators of Pocket Racing have done to bring these tiny rides to life as they interact with a new iPad game. Inside…
If you’ve been to the app store on your phone recently, you’ve probably noticed a slew of clever apps that let you virtually swap faces with someone standing next to you. It’s a fun party trick, but Imgur’s JakeMarshall91 took it to another level by swapping faces with ancient sculptures in a museum. The results…
Over a century ago, scientists discarded a proposed theory that human limbs evolved from gills, given the lack of evidence in the fossil record. That theory is being revisited in light of new genetic results just published in the journal Development. Human beings inherited many features from creatures that lived hundreds of millions of years…
The ancient Syrian city of Palmyra has been liberated, but many of its features have been destroyed by Islamic State. Now, a team of archaeologists has created a replica of the city’s Arch of Triumph in London, based on 3D scans of the structure. Islamic State militants occupied the historic city last May and while…
The blood-testing company Theranos has been at the receiving end of biting criticism for months now. But it seems things have finally come to a head: A new report claims that the company is under criminal investigation by federal prosecutors. The Wall Street Journal reports that “people familiar with the matter” say the company is…
Siri let slip yesterday that Apple’s WWDC conference—the week-long exploration of Apple’s software development—would begin on June 13th. Apple’s since confirmed it to be the case. As you can see above, the official website for the event features a rather weird stream of consciousness about what to expect. But aside from dubious creative experiments, what…
Getting kids to code is a great idea—but it’s not always easy. Now a team of researchers from Harvard has developed this little robot, called Root, that’s designed to make writing code a more tangible experience. Wired reports that that the team from the Wyss Institute at Harvard has been working on the project for…
Earlier this year, DARPA unveiled its latest concept design for a new vertical take-off and landing craft. Now, a working scale prototype has already made its first successful flight. Aurora Flight Sciences has been working on the new vertical take-off aircraft—which is called LightningStrike according to The Verge—since it was awarded the second phase of…
While Apple has been waging a very public battle, it turns out that Canadian police have been decrypting the messages of millions of Blackberry users. Rather than apologizing for the breach, Blackberry CEO John Chen defended his company’s approach. In a statement today, Chen laid out how Blackberry approaches requests from law enforcement: When it…
This is madness. Like, seriously what in the hell is going on. In northern China, multiple bulldozers apparently got so mad at each other that they started one of the craziest demolition derbies I’ve ever seen on a public road. It’s a legitimate royal rumble between heavy machinery. There are normal cars on the street…
Stock-taking is one of those awful jobs that robots are primed to take. A Toronto-based company is working hard to make that happen, with a Segway-based robot that rolls down the aisles, scanning as it moves. The “Space Genius” looks like a marginally less threatening Dalek, as it rolls down the aisles of a store,…
A slow, ongoing nuclear waste leak at a storage facility in Washington State has escalated over the weekend. According to KING 5 News, the leak has expanded significantly, and one former worker is calling it “catastrophic.” A leak from the inner hull of AY-102, an old double-wall storage tank, was first discovered in 2011. But…
Everybody lies. We can’t help it. We exaggerate details to seem more fun, we highlight specifics to get more sympathy, and we fish for other people’s reactions to make us feel better. And with the social media handcuff we lock onto ourselves everyday with our phone addiction, we lie even more on the Internet to…
We know that the housing crises facing big American cities right now can be solved by building more housing. And we also know that for years, the construction of this new housing has been prevented by NIMBY groups—you know, those who say “Not In My Backyard.” Now YIMBY groups—yep, “Yes In My Backyard”—are organizing to…
It’s the circle of life! Well, not quite but sort of. This great short animation from production company Chromosphere highlights the world we live in and the worlds beyond our world through the clever use of circles. Right smack dab in the middle of the frame, watch as the circles transform into animals and planets…
