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Your mom always told you to keep your feet off the coffee table, but you’ll finally have good reason to listen to her advice with this wonderfully over-the-top Star Trek pinball machine sitting smack dab in the middle of your living room. It started life as a legit Star Trek pinball machine built and sold…
Besides a bit of YouTube fame, it’s hard to say why stuntman Damien Walters challenged himself to perform a daring backflip over a speeding Formula E race car—which he couldn’t actually see coming. It’s a stunt more impressive than anything you’ll see in a Hollywood movie because there are no wires, and no computer graphics.…
Feliks Zemdegs solved his 5×5 cube at Melbourne Cube Day in 44.837 seconds. And the crowd went not at all wild. The 5×5 Rubik’s cube—or Professor’s cube—has over 282 trevigintillion (10^72) permutations, and requires intimate knowledge of the solving algorithms for both the 3×3 and 4×4. Even the tutorial for solving one of these complicated…
When Saturday Night Live aired a skit this weekend riffing on America’s new heroin epidemic—a satirical fake ad for “Heroin A.M.” to help addicts remain productive while using—many people weren’t laughing. That’s because heroin and other powerful opiates are killing more people than ever, across all demographics. So much for the War on Drugs. Maybe…
The one thing you can’t buy at Lululemon to help you with your fitness routine is motivation. But IMAX thinks it can get your butt off the sofa with a new cycling class that takes place in front of one its massive and immersive movie screens. The first IMAXShift spin class will be available in…
Even on a hot summer day, the outside temperature at 30,000 feet can hit 50 below zero. Ice forming on a plane’s fuselage is inevitable, despite how dangerous it can be. So to help ensure planes can survive freezing temps, Boeing is developing fake plastic ice to make it easier to test its aircraft. In…
It’s not exactly the best Monday morning pick-me-up, but if you were ever curious at just how inaccurate movies about the Titanic are, watch this animated simulation showing the infamous ocean liner sinking in real-time. You’ll just need to find a way to dodge work for two hours and forty minutes. The animation was created…
Knowing a cyberattack’s going to occur before it actually happens is very useful—but it’s tricky to achieve in practice. Now MIT’s built an artificial intelligence system that can predict attacks 85 percent of the time. Cyberattack spotters work in two main ways. Some are AI that simply looks out for anomalies in internet traffic. They…
Here’s something to start your week off right: NASA Television’s latest feature, a compilation of stunning vistas of both the Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis, as viewed from the International Space Station and filmed in 4K Ultra-High Definition. I’ve seen many videos of the Northern and Southern lights filmed from the ISS, but these time-lapse…
Usually removing hardware means removing functionality. But a team of researchers from Columbia University have created a new kind of wi-fi chip that uses just one antenna rather than two—and yet manages to be just as fast. The team, led by Professor Harish Krishnaswamy, has been working on the concept of what they call “circulators”…
Beverly Hills City Council has voted—unanimously—to build up a fleet of autonomous cars that will be used to provide an on-demand transport service in the area. The Hollywood Reporter explains that the microcosm that is Beverley Hills wants to run a set of self-driving cars that would be used to provide public transportation. “Beverly Hills…
If you need to get somewhere inaccessible, a ride aboard a Sea Hawk helicopter is probably a good bet—but you’re probably better off getting inside. Just kidding: This is Naval Aircrewman Nicholas Farris, and he’s actually inspecting the tail rotor of the helicopter aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp, rather than trying to hitch…
Need to haul a heavy load through the sky? Then DJI may now have just the thing: It claims the new Matrice 600 drone is the most powerful professional drone it’s ever made. This is a drone built for serious work, like hauling very a expensive camera kit for movie-making and industrial inspection in absolute…
Amazon Prime is one of the best deals on the internet, but the $99/year subscription price can be a little daunting. Amazon is rolling out new monthly subscription offers and breaking out Prime Video into its own subscription for the first time. Per the report, the new subscription offers will cost $11 a month for…
You may remember that last year, a hacker exposed the inner workings of Hacking Team, a company that makes spyware for governments. Now that the dust has settled down, someone claiming to be the hacker has posted all the details on how he did it. The hack itself was executed using a common weakness: first,…
Gizmodo on Friday reported that some Facebook employees wanted to ask Mark Zuckerberg if the company should do anything to stop a Trump Presidency. The Don himself responded in an interview on Saturday, and he does not sound threatened in the slightest. In a wide-ranging interview on Fox and Friends, Trump claimed that he’s one…
The argument surrounding encryption, mass surveillance and terrorism is a difficult one, normally invoking some firery passions, invocation of 9/11 and some mild racism. If anyone wants to debate with you, just sit them down in front of this video instead. The arguments made aren’t new or novel, but it’s an impressively comprehensive look at…
Earlier today, a British Airways pilot on approach to London Heathrow said that he thought he collided with a drone. It’s the nightmare pilots (and drone operators) fear the most, but according to British Airways, the plane didn’t get a scratch. The Airbus A320 was flying from Geneva, Switzerland, to London Heathrow. The pilot reported…
As Kate Winslet and Leo can attest, piloting ships in icy waters can be hazardous. So for an Antarctic naval patrol vessel, it makes sense to get some extra help. For HMS Protector, that help comes in the form of a SULSA UAV, a tiny, lightweight UAV that can be launched from a deck and…
Apparently, we’re in the middle of a “global infidelity crisis,” a crisis that can only be solved by a smart mattress that pings your phone when it’s being used for sex. Wait, what? Smarttress is a real-looking product from Spanish company Durmet, which claims to use ultrasonic sensors to detect when two people are going…
