Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Despite a stormy ride, The Pirate Bay is still alive and well. And now it has a wonderful new feature: You can stream its torrents right there in your browser. The torrenting site has announced that it now supports Torrents Time—a browser plugin that lets you stream a torrent from inside a browser. It’s a…
There is no better way to celebrate the passing of time than with a gratuitous display of synchronized dancing. Scratch that: Make the dancers robots and add in some drones, too. That should do it. This video is a clip taken from China Central Television’s Spring Festival Gala which aired this weekend. Shanghaiist refers to…
The US may make big turbines, but the UK knows how to make lots of them: The world’s biggest wind farm is to be constructed just off the cost of England. Offshore wind company Dong Energy has announced that it’s to build the huge farm off the coast of Yorkshire in northern England. It will…
Turning off a light just became a much smaller task. A team of researchers has developed the world’s smallest optical switch, which uses just a single atom to control the flow of light. Developed by a team from ETH Zurich, the device is surprisingly simple. A platinum pad sits just below a shaped silver pad.…
This has to be one of the more interesting ways to clear snow. In Colorado, road crews have a unique way to preemptively take care of snow build up in mountain passes: a World War II era 105-millimeter howitzer that they lease from the US Army. The crews use precise shots to create avalanches, clearing…
Last week, we were blown away by a photograph from Mike Mezeul II depicting a storm over White Sands National Monument. We looked in a bit more on Mezeul’s portfolio and were amazed at what we saw. Mezeul got his start as a photographer when he was fifteen: his father gave him a camera: I…
It can be a pain in the ass to stream live sports, but this year’s Super Bowl 50 will be easy to watch on February 7, even without a cable subscription. This is a fantastic innovation, because it means cordcutters will spend less time agonizing over how to watch the Denver Broncos play the Carolina…
Robot manufacturer iRobot announced on Thursday that they would be selling off their military line of robots to Arlington Capital Partners to be spun off into a new company, in order to better focus on the growing market for home robotics. iRobot is famous for their home cleaning robot, the Roomba, as well as the…
Buchanan New York’s Indian Point Energy Center, a three-unit reactor power plant, reported yesterday afternoon that radioactive tritium has been detected in groundwater testing wells near the facility. Three groundwater monitoring wells surrounding the plant have reported radioactive samples. Despite the discovery at the site, the risk to the public in this instance is low:…
The internet has been buzzing angrily after Buzzfeed published a post that indicated that Twitter was moving away from its timeline and towards an algorithm generated feed next week. That might have been premature. For months now, it’s been rumored that Twitter would be shifting their model away from the strict, chronological timeline model that…
Scott Kelly posted up a STUNNING picture of Earth earlier this week, with a fitting caption: “When you think of beautiful things. Don’t forget Earth.” I seriously want this framed for my house. It’s a beautiful picture. Image credit: Scott Kelly / NASA
Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell passed away on February 4th, on the eve of the 45th anniversary of his mission to the moon. He was 85 years old. Mitchell was born on September 17th, 1930 in Hereford Texas, and later attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology, where he studied Industrial Management. Following his graduation in…
Wood is the future. That’s the feeling you get after looking through the 2016 award winners named by WoodWorks, the United States wood building council. All of these structures are made from wood, but not the traditional two-by-fours you’re thinking of. These buildings make use of innovative new materials like glued-laminated timber (glulam) and cross-laminate…
Safes and locks and other security measures of that nature? They’re all eventually doomed because they’re designed to open. It’s just a matter of how long it takes. With the help of rare earth magnets, it takes just seconds. Here is Mr. Locksmith demonstrating how a rare earth magnet can exploit the nickel piece in…
A certain medical dye will stick together when hit by a laser, effectively suturing a wound without the need for staples or traditional sutures. But the dye will only penetrate as deep as the light does, so this method only works on superficial wounds. The solution is a biological wave guide to direct the light…
Here’s a great way to enrage the Apple fans in your life whom put all of the company’s creations on a pedestal. Imgur user hahabird converted the shell from a classic 1986 Macintosh Plus into a garbage can, complete with a spring-loaded screen flap. Don’t start flipping out because someone destroyed a perfectly good retro…
The US and UK are currently holding secret meetings with the hopes of making it easier for police and spy agencies to access emails and other electronic data held by private companies on both sides of the Atlantic, the Washington Post reports. The agreement, which is still in very early stages of negotiation, would allow…
Earlier today the Guardian reported on mounting “fury” over a mysterious “Error 53” appearing on iPhones repaired by unauthorized repair providers. The report includes a quote from an unnamed “specialist” journalist (whatever the hell that is) who claimed that Error 53 will “will kill your iPhone.” But let’s roll that back a little, because Error…
If you smoke a lot of weed, it’s time you buy an Amazon Echo. This week, Amazon rolled out three major updates to its artificially intelligent speaker, which make it a fantastic tool for stoners: You can now order a Domino’s pizza, stream music from Spotify, and hail an Uber all by yelling commands at…
Terrorist groups like ISIS use social media to rally support around the world, using sites like Twitter to mobilize sympathizers into possible plots. But in a blog post today, Twitter says that kind of behavior flagrantly violates its terms of service, and reports that it’s suspended tens of thousands pro-ISIS accounts since May. “We have…