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The year of VR is here, and HTC’s just confirmed that pre-orders for its Vive VR headset will open on leap day—Feb. 29, 2016. We got hands on with HTC’s more refined headset at CES last week, and the Vive looks to be a top VR contender thanks in part to its partnership with Valve.…
It’s the classic dilemma of being on a sailboat that has a 80-foot tall mast but needing to get under a bridge that only has a 65-foot clearance. The answer is obvious, right? Just strap some heavy bags to the mast so you bend the boat diagonal so it shortens the height of the ship.…
For the first time in ages, AT&T will offer customers an unlimited data plan. The catch? You need to pay for TV service as well. The new AT&T Unlimited plan offers endless data, talk, and text for $100—assuming you also sign up for a DirecTV or AT&T U-Verse. Additional lines cost $40 per month. (You’ll…
Lego sells some impressively large and obscenely expensive models (the $800 Super Star Destroyer comes to mind) but the company does have its limits. Its largest AT-AT set tops out at 1,000 pieces, but this custom build pushes that to well over 6,000, which explains why it’s so gloriously detailed. Based on an original custom…
Forgive this picture for being a little blurry, because you’re actually looking at the first ever image of a single folded protein. Usually, scientists create images of proteins by taking millions of snaps of different molecules. That’s because the illumination required to capture an image of a single protein is usually too high for it…
Set 7,900 ft above sea level, on the outskirts of the Atacama Desert, the La Silla Observatory has an amazing view of the night sky. So good, in fact, that it’s possible to capture other-worldly photos like this, where space and Earth seem to exist as one. This image shows the Geminid meteor as it…
There’s a dark and mysterious force out there that’s intent on attacking the country’s power lines, and this map shows exactly where the culprits strike. The culprits are, of course… squirrels. The site that provides these maps, called Cyber Squirrel 1, is exquisitely tongue-in-cheek, as you might imagine. From its ‘About’ section: This map lists…
Apple already has a tool that makes it easier to move to iOS, but it may someday have one to help you leave it too. At least that’s according to a report from The Telegraph, which suggests that pressure from European carriers may force Apple to develop a “simple tool” to ease the switch. The…
Take 100 drones. Strap lights to them and launch them into the air. Control them with a single piece of software and have an orchestra play Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in the background. Voila: you have a world record and a spectacular light show to boot. Intel has claimed a Guinness World Record for its latest…
Adverse weather conditions have long been considered one of the biggest barriers in the development of self-driving vehicles. Now, Ford has announced that it’s been testing its autonomous cars in the snow. In a new video, Ford shows that it’s been testing its autonomous Fusion fleet in the snowy surroundings of Michigan’s Mcity proving ground.…
It takes a stronger person than me to actually get out of bed when the alarm goes off—after all, that snooze button is so conveniently located. But if the alarm didn’t stop until I was out of bed, there’s a chance I could actually eat breakfast one of these days. That’s the idea behind Ruggie,…
Apple News is the long-awaited replacement for Newsstand that landed with iOS 9 last year. It’s a simple news app that displays content from a bunch of big-name publications, allowing users to read stories from right inside the app. Unfortunately, it seems that Apple has been failing to keep track of whether anyone’s really using…
The Obama administration has been remarkably proactive in using new technology to force people to pay attention to politics. Among other things, that’s meant a State of the Union livestreamed on YouTube for the last few years, and this time around, the digital options are even better. In a post on Medium, White House Chief…
There were no big winners at last night’s Powerball last night, and the jackpot has grown to an astonishing $1.3 billion dollars. So, say you buy a ticket, and you win. What geeky things are you doing with the money? Image credit: Shuttershock / Anne Kitzman
The Dawn spacecraft has been hard at work orbiting Ceres, and over the last week, it’s sent back some stunning images of our closest dwarf planet. This view of Ceres from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft shows Tupo Crater (22 miles, 36 kilometers wide), at upper left, with its sharp rim and prominent central peak. This image…
Bears are deadly fuzzballs, pairing a bumblingly awkward appearance with terrifyingly mighty claws. Before we always consoled ourselves with their clumsy slowness. But now we’ve seen a bear chase down an iconically nimble deer, it’s game over. We concede, and welcome our new fluffy overlords. Bears can climb as daringly as a mountain goat, and…
When it comes to clandestine meet-ups with drug lords, fuck WhatsApp. Turns out BBM is indispensable for interviewing the most wanted fugitive in the world. Rolling Stone published Sean Penn’s account of visiting notorious drug kingpin and tunnel expert Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera tonight, giving BlackBerry some fine press clippings. The 55-year-old Madonna bondage…
Trilobites are everywhere: you’ve probably seen them in museums, or if you’re lucky, in the rocks near where you live. While we’re used to seeing the fossils, one scientist has turned to 3D printing to get a sense of what these creatures were like in life. Dr. Allan Drummond is a professor of biochemistry at…
Statistically speaking, the lottery is an exciting way of separating you from your money. Except today in the United Kingdom. For the first time ever, playing the lottery is the mathematically sensible choice. Lottery tickets in the UK are £2 per play. Usually the expected payoff on a ticket is 95p. In the long term,…
Soldering has been around for thousands of years: it’s an essential component to electronics around the world. But, there’s some limitations: high temperatures can damage delicate components. Now, some researchers think that they’ve come up with a solution: a room temperature, conductive glue. Writing in the January issue of Advanced Materials and Processes, scientists from…
