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Meet the Kinema Pick. It’s a self-taught robot capable of breaking down large pallets of cardboard boxes, and it’s probably going to steal a lot of jobs someday. It’s the brainchild of Kinema Systems, a robotics startup from Menlo Park, California. According to the company, the nifty machine is the very first “self-training robot picking…
Making a stew? It doesn’t matter what you throw in the pot, it will probably turn out fine. But when you’re making candy, precision is an absolute must, and that’s what this over-engineered induction hot plate from Breville is all about. It’s definitely not for making drugs. Nope, not at all. With a price tag…
This year, virtual reality is finally hitting the mainstream. The Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are the first high-end VR machines that people can actually buy and setup in their homes. But they don’t come cheaply. Both headsets will set you back a couple of hundred dollars ($600 and $800 respectively), which makes it a…
DARPA recently christened its brand new Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV). The autonomous vessel can travel on the high seas at speeds up to 27 knots for months on end without a single crew member. The 130-foot ACTUV can be remote-controlled, but its primary use is as an autonomous vessel that can operate…
Say hello to Sea Hunter. That’s the new name for DARPA’s autonomous warship, which is designed to seek-and-destory submarines without a crew aboard. The ship used to be called ACTUV before it got its new name on Thursday in Portland, Oregon. We’ll admit that Sea Hunter sounds much better than ACTUV—which stands for Anti-Submarine Warfare…
A 42-year-old man from New Jersey recently showed up in an emergency ward following a seizure. After looking at the data collected by his Fitbit Charge HR, the doctors decided to reset his heart rate with an electrical cardioversion. It’s the first time in history that a fitness tracker was used in this way. When…
When Sony announced a release date for Playstation VR a few weeks ago, I felt simultaneously excited at the potential of the platform and skeptical about what Sony would actually be able to accomplish with nothing more than a giant headset, a Playstation 4 Camera, and the PS4’s relatively middling power. Can it really compete…
Do you dream of jerking off on your couch in surround sound as the dull blue glow on your giant 4K television fills your eyes with flesh? Today is your day my horny friend. Pornhub just launched its first ever app for set-top boxes. It’s a real blast. The new app just launched on Roku…
Whether you’re counting by calories, pounds, or dollars, the world is wasting a huge amount of food. But there’s also another way to measure it: The quantity of resources we burn up for nothing at all. The UN estimates that growing our food accounts for about 5 billion (and climbing) tons a year of carbon…
Yesterday on my Instagram feed, nestled between an old college friend’s Belgian waffle breakfast and a post from a Japanese experimental artist, was a sponsored post claiming “Millions of Americans are applying for Obama’s New Student Debt Forgiveness Program” and promising I could qualify in less than five minutes if I tagged a friend and…
It seems like the best ping-pong players in the world have a sixth-sense for knowing exactly where the ball is going to be, often without even looking. But put them on the receiving end of slingshot-master Joerg Sprave’s new ping-pong ball gatling gun and they won’t stand a chance. Powered by a tiny electric drill,…
Do you find it easier to work with the din of a bustling coffee shop all around you, but would rather not deal with the guilt of not actually buying coffee for hours on end? A new website called Hipster Noise can simulate the sounds of a busy Starbucks, but from the lazy comfort of…
The arms race that is mega cruise ship design ticks one minute closer to midnight on the doomsday clock of obscenity as Norwegian Cruise Lines has revealed its next luxury ship will include the world’s first two-level floating race track. Set to debut in 2017 on a China-based route that sails from Beijing and Shanghai,…
YouTube scientist Mark Rober and molten metal obsessive BackyardScientist teamed up to answer a simple question: is a grenade deadlier on land or under water? But in order to answer that, we need to understand exactly what a grenade does. The metal casing of a grenade is designed to fracture at specific points so that,…
Rio’s Summer Olympics are just a few months away, and it’s not looking good for the city. The water is still polluted, stadium budgets have been slashed, and a scary virus is frightening athletes and spectators. Now, there’s also growing concern that the Games will be a financial disaster—and the poorest areas of Rio will…
Venezuela relies heavily on hydroelectric power generation but has been suffering from a long and heavy drought. Now it’s taking desperate action, introducing a three-day weekend to help reduce demand for electricity. Water levels in the country’s major hydro plants are reported by Bloombergto be reaching a ‘critical’ state. The water level behind the Guri…
Google has announced that it’s expanding its self-driving car tests to Phoenix, Arizona, in order to test how the cars handle high temperatures and desert dust. Reuters reports that four of Google’s Lexus RX450h SUVs have already been driving around the area to create a detailed prior map of street features—whether that’s traffic signals, road…
Metal foams are light and surprisingly tough. Actually, make that very tough: In this video, a composite metal foam turns an armor-piercing bullet to dust on impact, as if it were a piece of chalk. The experiment was performed by researchers from NC State, led by Afsaneh Rabiei. It saw a M2 armor-piercing projectile—0.3 inches…
Volvo has big plans for its fleet of autonomous cars—and it’s about to put them through a rather big test, too. The car manufacturer has announced that it’s taking 100 cars to China, where “local drivers will test autonomous driving cars on public roads in everyday driving conditions.” It’s not the first time Volvo has…
Food labels are notoriously confusing—but what if they simply told you how long it might take to burn off the calories you’re about to consume? That’s the suggestion of the UK’s Royal Society of Public Health, at least, which is suggesting that food packaging could feature labels that show how many minutes of walking, running,…
