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As part of the regulations surrounding self-driving cars, anyone with a permit to test an autonomous vehicle in California has to report how often the human driver is forced to take control from the computer. The first round of filings is in, and it’s not all good for the machines. Overall, seven companies filed a…
The use of mood lighting on planes has almost become cliché—ahem, Virgin—but what if airlines could take that idea a bit further, actually using LEDs and projected imagery to wholly improve the flying experience? Boeing has a pretty great idea for what a well-lit plane of the future might feel like. A new concept video…
Google Maps might know the local traffic better than me, but for short trips around town, I can’t be bothered to turn it on. But thanks to the latest update to Maps on Android, I don’t have to. Among a few other updates in Maps v9.19 spotted by Android Police, Google has introduced a new…
In an investigation published today, Science reveals that a Caltech professor received a one-year suspension for sexually harassing his students. A physics professor was academically punished by his institution to protect students?! That’s not how this usually works at all! Thank you, Caltech. In June 2015, two graduate students at the California Institute of Technology…
Comcast sneakily injecting pop-up ads into user’s browsers is one of the company’s older and shitter tactics. But using those unsolicited ads to push a modem you don’t need, paid for by a system that’s a hilarious ripoff? That’s just downright sleazy. According to a report from Consumerist, Comcast targeted one particular user with letters,…
The last State of the Union address by President Barack Obama will be delivered tonight, Tuesday, January 12 starting at 9:00 pm ET. According to the president himself, the speech won’t be the same old SOTU, and this year, there are more options than ever for how to watch it. Although it’s been easy to…
What US city is framed by snow-capped mountains today after a series of big storms? Hint: It’s not Denver. Okay, maybe the palm tree gave it away. But ever since I moved here 15 years ago, I’m still shocked at how many people don’t believe that Los Angeles gets snow. Although it does actually snow…
Americans, unsurprisingly, are not hitting the major dietary milestones of the recommended diet—and they haven’t been for quite some time. But the ways in which they’re doing that has changed quite a bit in the last few decades. The USDA put together this look at the distance between the recommended percentages of a balanced diet…
As if you needed more proof that celebrities live in a different world than us: here’s what happens when an Instagram account with 8 million followers (this particular one shows the 433 soccer account) posts a picture and then gets deluged with likes, comments, emojis, and whatever other notification. There’s no sad awkward moment before…
We’ve come a long way from Steamboat Willie. This week, Mickey Mouse takes the form of a faceless audio-visual orb that visualizes any music it hears. Designed by Polish design firm PanGenerator, Mickeyphon is a giant A/V unit shaped like Mickey’s noggin. When it hears music it swirls about its axis in the direction of…
Yes, this is the official seal of Whitesboro, New York. And it will likely continue to be. According to Whitesboro’s mayor, the residents just voted 157-55 to keep using this symbol to represent themselves to the world. When the US finally decided to start taking down its more overt symbols of racism last year, Whitesboro’s…
U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently seized a shipment of fake Fitbits coming from Hong Kong. The total haul was just 350 counterfeit wearables, but they’re estimated to be worth about $35,000. The counterFitbits weren’t explicitly deemed a safety hazard, but instead were flagged for infringing on Fitbit’s intellectual property rights. The fake wearables were…
Canada is celebrating its 150th birthday in 2017 and all sorts of preparations are being made for the big shebang. But the sesquicentennial has been sullied by news that the government is being real cheap when it comes to the graphic design. In-house designs which were tested with audiences in 2013 Back in 2013, the…
Kids love to draw, but unfortunately they don’t always limit their canvas to just paper. Boogie Board’s cheap LCD drawing tablets ensure you’ll never have to scrub crayon doodles off your walls, and now they’re finally introducing a splash of color. The Boogie Boards have only ever been available in monochromatic palettes, including the recent…
The giant blue crab that is swooping down on that gecko is known to the people of the University of Massachusetts as Beastcam. It can scan a car in 45 seconds flat. Hopefully it can scan a live shark in less. The first step to creating Beastcam was an abject failure. University of Massachusetts, Amherst,…
Archaeologists in Britain have uncovered the charred remains of a 3,000-year-old stilted wooden structure that plunged into the river after it caught fire. The remarkably well-preserved roundhouse is offering an unprecedented glimpse into what domestic life was like during the Bronze Age. This remarkable settlement in East Anglia was occupied at the end of the…
Science fiction movies and TV shows don’t really count unless they have iconic robot characters. That’s a completely true statement, by the way. Nobody cares how good a story is unless they can pretend living in a reality where sentient robots, awesome droids, and fun little machine pals exists. We want to live in the…
Virtual reality already makes some people woozy. For others, roller coasters are also a motion-sickness nightmare. What happens when you mix two stomach-turning activities? A theme park in the UK is going to find out. Today, Alton Towers, a theme park in Staffordshire, England, announced it would debut a VR experience called Galactica this April.…
Did you know you were waiting for an epic supercut of SpaceX’s historic Falcon 9 launch and landing, complete with a suspenseful soundtrack and a victorious cheering scene that looks like it was ripped straight out of The Martian? Probably not, but SpaceX has delivered! At this point, you’ve certainly heard that SpaceX made history…
Google CEO Sundar Pichai just announced that the 2016 I/O conference—the annual dev get together about all things Android and Alphabet—will be held May 18-20. We’ll get a look at Android N (Nutter butter?) as well as updates on Alphabet’s more ambitious projects. Mark your calendars, people.
