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Let’s be honest: it would be really cool to have a wearable personal brain-computer interface (BCI) that would monitor your brain waves while you do all your favorite activities. Not to mention being able to operate smart phone apps using your thoughts alone. That day is closer than you think. Meet the BrainStation—your brain interface…
Photoshop is a vast program, packed with all kinds of sophisticated tools and functions to keep the professional photography world turning. Whatever your level of experience with the software, though, there are some quick and easy tips you can take advantage of to improve your Photoshop experience—here are some of our favorite ones. 1) Rotate…
The K’NEX Big Ball Factory was so loved by fans of the building toy that the company decided to bring it back last year, 20 years after it first hit toy stores. But with just over 3,000 pieces going into its construction, it doesn’t even begin to come close to Austin Granger’s record-setting K’NEX creation.…
I didn’t think I could be surprised by a new Kindle, but, well, Amazon got me with the Kindle Oasis. In more than one way. It’s weird-looking, and the $290 price tag is shocking. That leak earlier this week was bang on, and Amazon’s latest e-reader has an unusual design that’s different from any other…
These guys may have melted the soles of their shoes a bit, but it was worth it to capture these jaw-dropping tricks in stunning slow motion. Skateboarders Christopher Chann, Mike Davis, Gabe McCoy, Blake Jossi, and Merari Paz teamed up with BeyondSlowMotion, and the first order of business was lighting everything but themselves on fire.…
They don’t look much, but these little black balls harness the power of bright light to zip across the surface of water—pulling up to 150 times their own weight in the process. New Scientist reports that these little dots have been developed by researchers from the Osaka Institute of Technology in Japan. While you might…
Several years ago, scientists calculated the properties of an exotic form of carbon—called Carbyne—and found that it promised more strength and stiffness than any other known material. Now, it’s finally been made in a stable form inside an Austrian lab. Researchers from the University of Vienna in Austria report in Nature Materials that they’ve managed…
Data centers are usually vast, cavernous warehouse-like spaces rammed full of computers and cooling systems. But a pair of Italian architects has imagined a sustainable alternative that would meld server farms with skyscrapers. Marco Merletti and Valeria Mercuri have sketched out a vision for what they call the Data Tower. And if the name doesn’t…
Neural networks are a fundamental part of Artificial Intelligence: Software systems that train themselves to make sense of the human world. But if you want to understand how they work at a basic level, a cool new website allows you to get under the hood. The site is based on Google’s new TensorFlow software library,…
Bored of taking photographs from a single point in space? This experimental new camera can be wrapped around objects to capture images in completely different ways. A team of researchers from Columbia University’s Computer Vision Laboratory has developed this new device which shuns the conventional form of the camera to create a thin and deformable…
If you stood this close to a rocket launch, your face would probably look like deep-fried Swiss cheese. Luckily, 360-degree cameras and a VR headset can put you in the action a little more easily. The video below was shot at the launch of a Delta-IV rocket from Vanderberg Air Force Base in California. The…
The MTA’s MetroCard system is a source of frustration for regular commuters and presidential hopefuls alike. A plan to replace the magnetic cards with a modern contactless system has been in the works forever, and now the MTA is finally taking bids on the project. The public bid details a system that would let bus…
When you’re looking at movies directed by Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs) and Wong Kar-Wai (In the Mood for Love) and Francis Ford Coppola (Godfather II), you know you’re watching true masters of their craft at work. Everything matters, every detail is important. Even if you’re not well versed in filmmaking, your eyeballs are being led…
I was kind of tired of the FBI vs. Apple story, but now it has a secret collective of morally ambiguous hackers, and I’m into it again. According to a report from the Washington Post, the Federal Bureau of Investigation paid a group of hackers a one-time fee to pinpoint a zero-day security flaw, which…
USB-C is a fantastic new standard for almost everything, unless you have a crappy cable, in which case you might accidentally fry your laptop. The people behind USB-C understandably see this as a problem, so a fix is in the works. The solution is reasonably simple: when you plug in a USB-C cable that’s been…
Don’t get me wrong, it’s totally smushed. But yet the vaunted (?) yellow rubber ducky doesn’t explode like how the previously impenetrable hockey puck nor did it get destroyed to smithereens like every other object that’s been put under the hydraulic press. Instead, after going through a few bouts with the smasher of all smashers,…
You can order the same drink at bars all over the world, but how much booze each order is really going to get you depends a lot on where you are. A new study out today in the journal Addiction surveyed the different alcohol contents of a single drink in 75 different countries. What they…
This is totally silly because it was two years ago but anyone who saw True Detective season one knew a few things to be true. That Matthew McConaughey was going to win an Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club because of his performance as Rust Cohle in True Detective and that as foul as cigarettes are,…
An intrepid team of postdocs at the Santa Fe Institute pulled off a hell of a feat last week. They gleaned some useful insights into how fads, technology, and new words spread rapidly throughout the population—even faster than a deadly virus. And they did it all in just 72 hours. The research project looked at…
Seismic retrofitting is a major endeavor that requires bracing and bolting an older building to its foundation so it doesn’t shake apart in an earthquake. But depending on a building’s age and what materials it’s made of, a traditional retrofit has the potential to destroy a structure in a different way—aesthetically. A Japanese company believes…
