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Two well-documented sensory biases enter. One entirely new sensory bias leaves. This is what happens when researchers pit your eyes against your ears to see which one you’ll believe. Sit a test subject down in front of a row of five speakers and play a sound in one of those speakers. Then ask the subject…
The problem with technology shrinking is that our hands aren’t getting smaller, creating usability issues. Apple’s 12-inch MacBook is about as small as you can make a laptop with a full-size keyboard, but Japan’s King Jim has found a clever way to make its Portabook XMC10 even smaller. The ultra-compact laptop—which powers Windows 10 with…
You can now sign up for the Google Play Music family plan announced earlier this fall. $15 connects up to six accounts to Google Play Music. It’s a fantastic deal. In addition to unfettered, ad-free access to Google’s great streaming music service, the six accounts will also get access to YouTube Red, Google’s newly launched…
It’s like the Avengers of inefficiency. Particles from different locations, having undergone vastly different journeys, all assemble, for one moment, to work as a group to jam up a hopper. This particular experiment was done in 2011 by scientists at Duke University to study the microscopic aspects of what’s known as granular flow — the…
There’s probably not a person on this planet that would associate burgers with Christmas but after watching this video from Food, People, Places, I just might start. They made burgers inspired (very loosely!) by Christmas and the sheer visual deliciousness of all their wild creations is so incredible and the recipes are so inventive that…
Parallel Gizmodo and Wired investigations into the identity of mysterious Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, published yesterday, pointed to Australian academic and serial entrepreneur Craig Wright as potentially involved with the invention of the cryptocurrency. While the evidence does not conclusively pinpoint Wright or his business associate Dave Kleiman as the creator(s) of Bitcoin, it does…
The same Connecticut teen whose shotgun-outfitted drone video went viral this summer is back—this time with a flamethrower attached to an unmanned aerial vehicle. Reminder: there is currently no law formally banning individuals from weaponizing drones. The video, uploaded to YouTube on Monday by drone enthusiast Austin Haughwout and entitled “Roasting the Holiday Turkey,” shows…
Every mobile operating system comes with its own digital assistant. iOS has Siri, Android has Google Now, and Windows phone has Cortana. But now, Microsoft is giving all smartphone users some choice, now that Cortana has escaped (the sinking ship that is) the Windows phone and officially migrated to Android, iOS and also Cyanogen. Cortana…
It’s all about the perspective. Well, it’s also a little about how easily our eyes can be tricked. Here’s optical illusion expert BrussPup pulling the old perspective trick on us by making us think something is real when it’s not and making us believe something is fake when it’s actually the real object. It’s a…
I offer my deepest apologies to Wu-Tang fans. The buyer of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, a record-slash-art-project of which only a single copy will ever be sold, is now owned by a huge douchebag. The millionaire buyer’s identity has been revealed as pill price gouger Martin Shkreli. Bloomberg Businessweek reports that the pharmaceutical…
When he’s not recreating tragic Greek characters using Lego, Jason Allemann of JK Brickworks enlists his thousands of bricks to help out with the holiday chores. Decorating Christmas cookies is usually a mind-numbing task, but now when you pawn it off on a Lego Mindstorms creation. Baking up a batch of cookies is still left…
There are plenty of extensions out there for customizing Chrome’s New Tab page and Infinity is one of the latest ones to catch our attention. It creates a simple row of icons for speedy access to your favorite apps and sites, and you get convenient links to search and weather reports thrown into the mix,…
Yahoo is reversing its plan to spin-off its huge stake in Chinese retail monster Alibaba. Instead it will spin off its core internet business, including names you recognize like Flickr, Tumblr, et al, into another business. It’s a riveting morning in Marissa Mayer’s empire. What does this mean for you right now, non-Yahoo investor? Very…
I wasted a ridiculous amount of my youth building fictional roller coaster parks on my computer with Roller Coaster Tycoon. It was so fun! Building new rides, dealing with your customers, handling demand, creating park layouts, it all made me want to work for Six Flags. This video from AndrewMFilms imagines a day at a…
Instead of releasing yet another smartphone-controlled RC toy car to the yawns of children everywhere, Mattel’s Bug Racer takes kids out of the equation altogether. They still get to watch it race around a room, but this toy car’s controlled by a live cricket scurrying around the vehicle’s cockpit. The Bug Racer doesn’t come with…
As we head towards the holidays, inner-city ice rinks spring up for young and old alike to fall over on. But this concept by architecture firm NBJJ envisions fold-away natural rinks that could turn London’s River Thames itself into a temporary place to skate. The concept, called Frost Flowers, uses foldaway structures that could be…
If you don’t like using the 3.5mm headphone jack on your iPhone but demand high-end audio, you’re a rare beast. But a rare beast whose dreams have come true, in the shape of Audeze’s new headphones, which combine audiophile luxury with an integrated Lightning connector. The Audeze EL-8 Titanium headphones are claimed to be the…
This is Mahabir Pun. Fed up with the fact that he had to hike for two days whenever he wanted to check his email, he decided to connect his home town of Nangi to the Internet. This video explains how he did it. Produced by Clemens Purner, the video describes how Pun struggled, and succeeded,…
Apple’s latest version of its Lightning to SD card adapternow supports USB 3.0 transfer speeds if you use it with the iPad Pro. It costs $30.
Have some time to kill? YouTube has just announced its most popular videos of 2015, which include everything from dance crazes to Justin Bieber doing karaoke in a car. You can watch them here. It’s worth noting that YouTube has chosen the most popular clips not just on the absolute number of views, but by…
