Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Mythbusters attempted to turn a car into a pancake with the help of 1,000 pounds of ANFO (ammonium nitrate fuel oil) and a giant steel plate which resulted in a ginormous explosion and a really spectacular shockwave. Seeing the whole thing in high speed, you can see the shockwave grow like a bubble beyond the…
Apple’s new UFO headquarters/backup plan for escaping the planet is continuing to take shape, as yesterday’s update from a drone shows. As someone used to seeing only municipal construction projects, the speed with which the $5 billion build is happening is remarkable. A video from 18 months ago basically shows a giant concrete ring, while…
Swiftkey is the most innovative and interesting predictive keyboard maker in the business, and Microsoft is a software giant that’s trying to push its artificial intelligence cred a little higher. According to a report in the Financial Times, it’s a match made in heaven, to the tune of $250 million. Swiftkey is best known for…
The rainbow bagel looks like a Willy Wonka creation crossed with used play doh set in a reality that I’m not quite prepared to live in. It exists at The Bagel Store in Brooklyn, New York and is topped with a schmear of Funfetti cream cheese made with cake mix and is something you can…
After the Super Bowl leaves town, San Francisco can stop vandalizing corporate statues and go back to focusing on more important projects, like imagining the day the Bay Bridge bike path might finally cross the entire San Francisco Bay. A new bike and pedestrian pathopened along the reconstructed Bay Bridge in 2014, but residents are…
El Niño’s been very busy blasting the West Coast (and everywhere else) with storms. Now Folsom Lake, one of the most famous lakes to be depleted by California’s drought, has surpassed its average water level for early February and will soon reach capacity for this time of year. Last month, Lake Oroville made headlines when…
On last night’s episode of The X-Files, Mulder proved himself to be basically as adept with a smartphone as any old man. Worse, possibly, than most. Here are some lessons you can take from Mulder’s abject failure. The burst mode can really annoy your partner: Why not consider filming instead of taking a shot every…
Have you resigned yourself to the fact that in the future, you’ll be required to strap on a headset or facemask of some kind just to enjoy basic entertainment? Well, if that future looks as awesome as this HoloLens concept video for the future of football, my face is ready. In advance of the Super…
Yahoo is having a midlife crisis. Today, the company announced that it’s seeking strategic alternatives (i.e. – looking to sell some or all of its properties) in an attempt to generate more cash and please shareholders. “The Board also believes that exploring additional strategic alternatives, in parallel to the execution of the management plan, is…
Tech companies are resorting to increasingly peculiar measures to look like they’re taking action against ISIS. The latest: Google will show anti-terrorism links to people who search for extremist content. Google executive Anthony House told The Telegraph that the company is running two pilot programs to introduce counter-programming when people search for extremist content. “One…
Amazon is working on plans to open hundreds of brick-and-mortar bookstores, according to a new report from CNBC. Yes, following in the footsteps of chains like Borders, Amazon apparently thinks that the future is in dead trees. Amazon already has one physical store that opened back in November. The Seattle store was dismissed as a…
If you turn Uber’s new logo 90-degrees, it looks like an asshole. How appropriate. Contact the author at [email protected]. Public PGP key PGP fingerprint: 91CF B387 7B38 148C DDD6 38D2 6CBC 1E46 1DBF 22A8
Health officials in Dallas have confirmed a case of the Zika virus being spread through sexual contact. The unidentified patient had sexual contact with a person who recently returned from a country where Zika infections are currently being reported. In most cases, Zika is transmitted by mosquitoes. But during a field study in 2009, a…
A DNA analysis of nearly 90,000 23andme customers suggests our preference for early mornings may be rooted in our genes. The study also suggests that night owls are at greater risk of depression and other health issues. But those findings come with a couple of caveats. The new study, published today in Nature Communications, highlights…
Twitter has had a rough year—and it’s only February. Following the departure of four executives, the company is looking for any good news to ride into its earnings call on February 10. To drum up enthusiasm about the service, Twitter is now extending a basic feature it rolled out early last year as part of…
That’s Uber’s new logo which isn’t a stylized “u” anymore. Which is a weird choice that doesn’t seem at all connected with the name of the brand. Updated with more information and another logo. The new logo, along with quadcopter-like background, is already everywhere from App Store: To the official Uber twitter account: The old…
Massive accelerators like the one at CERN create particles that can exist for as little as billionths of a second. But you know what lasts even shorter? The cardboard box a deck of cards comes in, leaving you with a loose deck and missing cards, unless you grab this clever alternative. The Hold’em, available from…
Exploding hoverboards have gone from being an occasional mishap to a fairly regular occurrence. And since it seems like the manufacturers are in no rush to fix the problem, the Underwriters Laboratoriesis finally going to start certifying the self-balancing scooters so consumers can know which are safe, and which are fiery death traps. You might…
Smart mirrors still reside in the realm of tinkerers, only achievable for those who’ve mastered the art of DIY electronics. Which is too bad! Because Max Braun, a software engineer at Google, may have hacked together the first IoT device I actually want to buy. Braun uses a combination of Android and weather forecast APIs,…
The Super Bowl is less than a week away, and that means it’s time to throw out everything you own and start living like a real American—with a brand new home entertainment system plopped right in the middle of your living room. Sure, you could probably get by streaming the game on a laptop, but…
