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Amazon’s voice-controlled assistant, Echo, is getting a few siblings you can bark your orders at. Meet the Echo Dot, which is designed to connect to whatever speakers you already happen to own, and the Amazon Tap, a portable version of the Echo. You’ll recall Echo, the tabletop speaker tube with a baked-in intelligence engine called…
Researchers have developed a wireless brain interface that allows monkeys to control the movements of a robotic wheelchair using their thoughts alone. The breakthrough suggests that similar interfaces could allow severely paralyzed individuals to navigate all sorts of robotic devices with their minds. Prior to this study, researchers used brain-machine-interfaces (BMIs) to help primates control…
Before Donald Trump signed up for the presidential race, he signed his name to buildings. Lots of buildings. Sure, presidential candidates have owned real estate before. But no other candidate has been such an ostentatious developer of a real estate empire, with so many gilded phallic structures built in his likeness. Let’s look at Trump’s…
First there was aerogel. Then there was graphene aerogel. Now, there’s 3D-printed graphene aerogel. That’s a whole lot of scientific buzzwords in a single lump of feather-light material. The new process, developed by researchers from State University of New York at Buffalo and Kansas State University, uses 3D printing to layer up a graphene paste.…
Single? Lonely? Looking for more commitment? Well, this chart will tell you when you’ll probably get married, based on your employment status, education, race, and gender. Created by Nathan Yau from Flowing Data, the interactive chart is based on data from the American Community Survey between 2009 and 2014. It lets you choose from a…
You probably take the DisplayPort on your laptop for granted, but the folks that develop the standard have been working hard to make it perform way better—and the next version will allow you to drive an 8K display with HDR video, if you ever happen to own one. This will be the first spec bump…
South Korea has announced that its nearest neighbour in the North has fired six short-range missiles into the sea, just hours after tight UN sanctions had been imposed upon the country. According to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, the six rockets were fired from Woman on North Korea’s east coast at about 10:00am local time.…
A piece of horizontal stabilizer found washed up on Mozambique over the weekend was already thought to be part of the downed MH370 plane. Now, Australia’s transportation chief has furthered the case, saying the location is consistent with how the debris would have drifted. “The location of the debris is consistent with drift modeling commissioned…
To stop all those $20 side tables from getting banged up, Ikea has to use a lot of polystyrene packaging every year. Unfortunately, polystyrene isn’t biodegradable, and people are bad at recycling, leaving Ikea looking for a better material to stick between sheets of ply. The new packaging is made from mycelium, better thought of…
Last year, Samsung made the rest of the world feel mighty inadequate by announcing a world-record 16TB SSD. Turns out that was more than just talk—Samsung is shipping drives to (very wealthy) customers today. Making the largest-capacity drive/SD card/memory stick is a continual dick-measuring contest that most storage manufacturers engage in, routinely announcing “world first”…
It was really only a matter of time before the Finnish brand known for popularizing playful, accessible, well-designed products for good living made its way into the American retailer that epitomizes those values. Over 200 Marimekko for Target products will be in US stores next month and include summer-centric goods like swimwear, beach gear, and…
If the waterlily beetle were the size of a human, it would fly along the surface of a pond at 500 kilometers an hour. Then again, if a waterlily beetle were human, it wouldn’t fly at all. The beetle is subject to, and able to take advantage of, forces we don’t even notice—and when scientists…
Everyone reading this has stared at a targeted ad wondering why anyone thought it applied to them. A new study shows that making people guess why a targeted ad applies to them, and feel flattered by it, gets them to open their wallets—and just maybe become a better person. Nobody is entirely immune to the…
In a big win for public health advocates, the city of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors unanimously approved raising the legal smoking age to 21. That includes not only cigarettes, but e-cigs as well. The law is likely a very targeted attack on e-cigarettes, which have doubled in popularity with teens over the last few…
The Pentagon announced an unusual new program calling for hackers to test its digital security today, as well as a “Defense Innovation Advisory Board.” Google CEO and Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt will head the board—but, if you’ll believe Wall Street Journal sources, this is all for his own personal gratification, not a “company initiative.” Hmmm.…
The Department of Transportation has finally (really this time, you guys!) had it with those motherfucking e-cigarettes on America’s motherfucking planes. On Wednesday, the government agency announced that e-cigarette use is now explicitly banned on all commercial flights going into, out of, and within the United States. Seriously! Just now this is a rule. The…
Trump 2016: We Get Huge Respect™ Contact the author at [email protected].
On February 26 at 7:10am Google Maps published a tweet seen ‘round the world—or at least in fanatic Android circles. The tweet included a purported leak that shows a build of Android missing a critical feature: the app drawer. For the unfamiliar, the app drawer is a uniquely Android feature that keeps all the software…
All the satisfaction in the world exists through a tunnel boring machine that finally cracks the surface and shreds open the crap that was in its way. Here is the tunnel boring machine Alice digging through a 1.5-mile giant tunnel in New Zealand. SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Do you know what a furry is? Disney sure does—and it’s trying to boost box office sales to its zoo-themed film, Zootopia, by marketing directly to people who like to roleplay as animals for sex reasons. BuzzFeed’s Katie Notopoulos uncovered proof that at least one marketing agency hired by Disney to promote the film is…
