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It’s annoying when a bird poops on your car, but large flocks of them can be a genuine problem in some areas. But when a straw-stuffed scarecrow just isn’t keeping them at bay, a company called Bird-X wants you to consider upgrading to a scarecrow in the sky. For the most part Bird-X’s ProHawk UAV…
An implantable miniature microscope lets researchers track the brain activity of mice in real time, as the animals forage for food or navigate a maze. It’s like a tiny GoPro for the rodent brain. Dubbed the nVista system, it’s the brainchild of Mark Schnitzer, a professor of biology and applied physics at Stanford University, who…
The appeal of decorating a garden with a bunch of ceramic gnomes is completely lost on us. But a fire-breathing dragon ferociously burninating a small gang of gnomes? No garden can have too many of those. This original ThinkGeek creation is made of resin, not ceramic, so it should easily survive both the elements and…
I bet you’ve never thought about how giant clams will revolutionize future technology. It’s okay. You probably didn’t know about the incredible way these massive mollusks turn sunlight into power. Neither did scientists, until a team of researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara decided to study the iridescent cells some giant clams use…
If you weren’t aware that people were actually racing drones competitively, you’re in for a treat. Following CES, the XDC_2 Xtreme Drone Circuit Races were recently held in Las Vegas, and watching the first-person footage of the quadcopters navigating the glowing neon course is better than an acid trip. To make it easier to fly…
Imagine a world where pizza didn’t come from the pizza store. Imagine if you could pop down into your spacious kitchen, toss some toppings on dough, and throw it all into your very own internet-connected pizza oven. This future is finally possible—but it’s expensive. GE’s new Monogram Pizza Oven promises “professional-style pizzas any time.” It…
Not since James Cameron put Leo and Kate on-screen in his disaster flick have we experienced so many feels for the Titanic tragedy. But Lego Jedi Ryan McNaught also manages to infuse some humor into his 120,000-piece model of the doomed ship breaking in half before sinking. The massive model is peppered with countless Lego…
Taser, the company that’s sold electroshock weapons to some 18,000 law enforcement organizations all over the world for years, has made its smallest weapon ever. And it’s not for cops—it’s for regular people like you and me. Meet the Pulse, the Taser designed for purses, and back pockets. The new $400 weapon is impressively tiny,…
A new report by Amnesty International claims that Apple, Samsung and Sony are consistently failing to perform the basic checks which are required to ensure that mining operations for essential minerals do not take advantage of child labor. The report focuses on cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)—the origin of 50 percent…
Twitter has been suffering a widespread but sporadic outage during the early hours of this morning, The problems started at around 3:20am EST, with error messages claiming that the network is both “over capacity” and suffering an “internal error” both on desktop and mobile. Twitter confirmed the outage, even managing to tweet about the issue,…
Amazon’s delivery drone service has been under development for some time. Now, in a big interview with Yahoo Tech, its vice president for global public policy, Paul Misener, has explained in more detail than ever how the scheme will work. While he did admit that the company hadn’t “priced out” how much drone deliveries would…
Heading to the Play Store is such a pain in the ass sometimes. That might be why Google is experimenting with a new feature that lets you install apps directly from a quick Google search instead. Android Police reports that Google is rolling out a feature to some users that provides the option to install…
It’s 2016 and you may have thought we’d all be a little older and wiser than this time last year. But as you read this list of 2015’s most popular passwords, you will shake your head, mumble unmentionables and reach the firm conclusion that, no, we are in fact all still complete and utter morons.…
If you’ve ever sat front seat in a Prius, or really any moderately new Toyota, then you’ve experienced its rear-view camera that pops up whenever you throw your auto in reverse. But what if someone had more artistic aspirations for that camera? Turns out that’s probably a bad idea. LA-based sketch comedy group Mommy Comedy…
If you’ve configured two-step verification for your Gmail account, rather than checking your mobile for codes you can plug in a verified USB stick instead. You can carry it wherever you go, and of course, it doesn’t lose battery or signal. According to Google, it also offers better protection against phishing attacks. Here’s how you…
Lumia smartphones, much like Windows phone itself, has seen better days. Microsoft’s didn’t give Windows 10 mobile much love in 2015, but it seems a new year means a new beginning. Windows Central reports that the Lumia 650, which will supposedly launch in early February, will be the last smartphone named “Lumia.” According to Windows…
GOP candidate and angry sweet potato Donald Trump claims he’ll be able to change Apple’s entire manufacturing system if he is elected president. I’ll give Trump this: He’s great at shouting impossible nonsense. Trump’s remarks on outsourcing at Liberty University today were especially bizarre and unanchored to reality. http://gawker.com/the-donald-trump-mlk-day-speech-and-trainwreck-liveblog-1753566960 First, in the span of a…
The first zinnias are blooming in space, but they almost didn’t make it from bud to flower. This is a story of how an experiment was saved by throwing out heavily regulated, detailed procedures in favor of using human judgement on the fly. Correction: This wasn’t the first flower to bloom in space, but it’s…
China is known for building ambitious infrastructure projects, and finding humans to populate them after the fact. Sometimes, it doesn’t go according to plan. This is one of those times. Meet the Pentagonal Mart, a gargantuan, $200 million shopping complex inspired by the US Pentagon, which has the dubious honor of being the largest vacant…
Last year we debunked dozens of fake photos on the internet. So you might be wondering how 2016 might stack up in terms of volume. Well, it’s only January and this enormous fake-photo Xerox machine we like to call “the internet” shows no signs of depleting its pixelated toner anytime soon. Here are nine images…
