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Today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revealed new labels to help people cut through the bullshit when they’re buying home internet or mobile data plans. The labels are meant to combat hidden fees and blatantly misleading advertising that many consumers complain about when purchasing internet. Although these type of labels are completely necessary—we all know…
After Nest was bought by Google in the summer of 2014, it went on a acquisition spree, snapping up connected home products. The haul included Revolv, a kind of pre-Nest smarthome hub. Now Revolv is being shut down. This is inherently good for anyone who wants better Nest-type products for their home—and really shitty for…
Animals have evolved all sorts of different ways to carry around their young, but scientists have never seen anything quite like this before. This bizarre creature lived about 430 million years ago in what is now England. It goes by two names, the formal Aquilonifer spinosus and the informal “Kite Runner,’ named in honor of…
It’s been 30 years since the Space Marines—the ever-popular stars of Games Workshop’s grimdark Warhammer 40,000 universe—first graced the tabletop game. To celebrate three decades of big guns (and even bigger shoulderpads), the company is releasing a gorgeous model of the original Space Marine design. The classic design—jokingly called a “Womble Marine” by fans, its…
GOP presidential candidate and sentient sac of millions of spiders Donald Trump—literally more spiders than you’ve ever seen—does not have a coherent stance on cybersecurity. In his business ventures, though, his cybersecurity record sucks. Trump has failed to encourage policies to prevent large-scale data breaches at the hotels that bear his name. Krebs On Security…
The largest great apes on Earth have suffered a “catastrophic” population collapse over the past twenty years, according to a report published today by the Wildlife Conservation Society. Grauer’s gorilla, a subspecies found only in the lawless eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, is a victim of the same brutal civil war that claimed up to…
Admittedly, it’s a little weird to do a history of Spider-Man in movies because they just told and re-told the origin story of the superhero within like a span of 10 years. But we all love Spider-Man so much that even though there’s not much history to go over, it’s still always fun to look…
WeLive, the communal housing project created by co-working office space giant WeWork, officially launched today. Finally, young wealthy people in New York City and near Washington, D.C. can relive their college days and reside together in very close quarters with other young wealthy people! May the entrepreneurial genius of the startup world never burn out.…
Good news for the basements and attics of the world: bulky old cathode ray TVs are no longer useless! And turning them into a retro streaming device is easier than it looks. Dr. Moddnstine found a way to make a “portable” TV from 1978 accept Chromecast, turn on automatically when streaming to it, and found…
A new computer simulation shows that alien worlds with super salty oceans may be even more hospitable to life than ours—a finding that could influence the search for extraterrestrial life. Researchers at the Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of East Anglia have shown that ocean salinity can have a huge bearing…
The number of bad ideas on the internet far outweighs the good, and making art by tossing cans of spraypaint into the spinning blades of a running lawnmower falls into that former category. As YouTuber Uncle Rob also discovered, if you’re not careful, your masterpiece might go up in flames before you even have a…
As flesh-and-blood bank tellers disappear, ATMs are becoming the only way to get access to your cash. But new limits from Chase on how much you’re allowed to withdraw are a privacy advocate’s nightmare come true. According to the Wall Street Journal, Chase is limiting cash withdrawals for non-customers to $1,000. This doesn’t seem like…
Pedestrian shaming has long been a way for cities to prioritize cars over people, from the invention of jaywalking to blaming walkers for their smartphone use. In Toronto, an ad campaign telling pedestrians that their clothes make them more likely to get hit by cars is getting serious backlash—and rightly so. The “Stay Focused, Stay…
Here’s footage of an old bridge over the Washita River in Oklahoma being demolished with 600 pounds of explosives. Because of the super slow motion, you can see how and where the explosives were rigged to the bridge in order to take it down. Explosions, always a good way to go out. SPLOID is delicious…
Approximately half of the content on the internet is cat videos, but the BBC managed to capture one that’s truly remarkable: high-speed footage of a wild Caracal as it deftly manages to spin itself around midair in order to land safely on its feet. Even if you’ve seen every last cat video on the web,…
The Department of Defense launched a new program last week, “Hack the Pentagon,” to reward hackers for pointing out security flaws in some of its public-facing websites. It’s a bug bounty, the same kind of program that most big tech firms use to encourage hackers to help instead of harm. The program budget is $150,000,…
Scientists have theorized for decades that an additional state of matter exists, but despite tantalizing hints to its presence, details about this mystery state have remained elusive—until now. A new paper in Nature Materials by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Cambridge details how physicists were finally able to catch a…
Since the early 19th century, many chess grandmasters have come and gone, some better than others. This elegant data visualization by Abacaba shows which players were the very best, and how long they were able to maintain their dominance. Chess has been around for thousands of years, but it wasn’t until the early 19th century…
Every social media platform has bottom feeders. You know the ones: the fake teen pornbots, the meme factories, the personal brand trumpeters—the spammers. They come in many different forms, but they are all categorically bad, and they make the experience of actually using the platform slightly worse every time they pop up. Even if you…
With research that will make you wish you had studied a little harder in high school science class, engineers at MIT have revealed some delicious-looking experiments. The latest batch of research at MIT hopes to better predict how thick the shell produced by a liquid coating will be. Inspired by master confectioners, who use melted…
