Tech News

How a Simple Wikipedia Edit Got a Guy Backstage Gig Passes

In the 21st century, you don’t need a record label connection or sexual favor to get backstage. All you need to know is how to edit a Wikipedia page. David Spargo was attending a gig by the dance duo Peking Duk in Melbourne, Australia on December 2nd when he decided he’d try his luck at…

France Plans to Build an Electric Car for Under $7,500

At the climate talks in Paris, the French government has announced a global competition which aims to create a small electric car that will sell for under $7,500. In a translation provided at the event, Madame Ségolène Royal, the French Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, explained that she wanted to “create an electric…

Report: YouTube Red Might Become More Of a Netflix Competitor

At the moment, YouTube Redis basically just regular YouTube, but with no ads and the option to save videos offline. But if a WSJ report is to be believed, YouTube is seeking streaming rights to TV series and movies, in the hopes of creating one video service to rule them all. The Journal’s sources have…

A Scientific Breakthrough Brings Us Closer to a Weed Breathalyzer

Law enforcement officers around the country are anxiously waiting on the day when a portable weed breathalyzer becomes reality, so they can stop relying on the scientifically dubious roadside munchies test. Thankfully, one Californian company claims to be almost there Hound Labs has developed what they claim will be the first accurate, portable breath-based device…

Beware Exploding Hoverboards This Christmas

Self-balancing skateboards are taking the sidewalks of the U.S. by storm. But aside from the potential damage to your public image, they pose another, very real danger: burning your house to the ground. Many of the hoverboards/Swagways currently on sale for cheap have something in common: they’re made by knock-off Chinese companies that don’t pass…

Do Digital Typefaces Really Need To Be Different Than Print? Not According To This Designer

There’s been plenty of talk lately about why certain typefaces are better (or truly awful) for our increasingly screen-based reading. A new typeface by celebrated typographer Tobias Frere-Jones is designed to elegantly bridge what is perceived to be a growing gap between print and digital worlds. After a very public split from longtime business partner…

This paper plane model of an Airbus A380 is so ridiculously detailed

Singapore Airlines got artist Luca Iaconi-Stewart to build a paper model airplane of one of their Airbus A380s and it’s so impressively detailed that all the tiny paper seats on the model airplane can do everything that the real life version can do in real life. We see how Economy seats compare to Premium Economy,…

Here’s How You Transport a 200-Foot Rocket: Very Carefully

Having an Antonov AN-124 Ruslan, one of the largest cargo airplanes in the world (only the Antonov An-225 Mriya is bigger) is a key part of this operation. This photo above, taken from a distance, shows perfectly how huge the Ruslan really is. Look at the United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 stage—about 60 meters…

Android Creator Andy Rubin Reportedly Wants to Make His Own Android Phones

Andy Rubin, estranged father of the world’s most popular smartphone operating system, is reportedly gearing up to launch his own Android hardware startup. Andy Rubin making smartphones! It could happen! According to The Information, Rubin has been trying to raise money to start a hardware company to produce phones. As the report points out, the…

Millions of Climate Refugees Have Already Lost Their Homes

When your town is continually threatened by floods or your village’s fields become too dry to grow crops, there are two options: move on, or stick around and try to make things work. At the Paris climate talks, there’s a swell of opinion to encourage the latter. In a session at the Conference of Parties…

Your Pet Desperately Needs This Astronaut-Inspired Backpack

“Who’s the greatest catstronaut in the United States? It’s you Champer-damper. It’s you!” That’s the song I would sing to my pet cat if I had a pet cat and carried it around in one of these amazing ventilated carrying cases from U-Pet. Each of the cases comes with three different options for your pet’s…

Target is paying $39.4 million to banks and credit unions that lost money reimbursing fraudulent claims and otherwise cleaning up the mess made by the 2013 hack affecting 40 million customers. The big-box retailer already agreed to pay $10 million to customers affected by the data breach.

Inside America’s oldest hat factory

Bollman Hat Company, located in Adamstown, Pennsylvania, is America’s oldest hat factory. It first opened in 1868 and its machines are decades old and that all makes for a fascinating place with so much history. It’s really cool to see how the machines work since they all have their own specific tasks and weird way…

7 of Yahoo’s Biggest Fuck Ups

Yahoo is considering selling off its core internet business, which includes Flickr, Tumblr, and of course, Yahoo.com. It’s not surprising that the company’s board is looking for an escape hatch: Yahoo is hurting, and the footfalls of this stumbling tech titan have been echoing for awhile now. The slow undoing of Yahoo is particularly painful…

Google Is Shutting Down My Beloved Songza 

When Google bought streaming playlist service Songza last year, a spokesman promised that “no immediate changes” to Songza were planned, which is like saying “we still need to figure out how to dismantle and absorb it.” Looks like Google figured it out: Songza isofficially shutting down on January 31, 2016. Most of Songza’s features have…

This Is What Happens in a World Ruled by Broadband Monopolies

An entire town in northern Canadajust lost its internet. Not for a few minutes. Not even for a few hours. The area’s one and only internet service provider went out of business, and now the town of Stewart, British Columbia will be without internet for months. This is what happens when broadband monopolies rule the…

Conventional Picking Tools Won’t Work On This Shielded Lock

By now we know that even the most secure-looking locks can be easily compromised. So we should all just leave our doors open and hope for the best, right? Maybe not, because a simple design change promises to make it impossible for someone to pick tumbler locks. The innovation that makes the Bowley Lock so…

Blinking Looks Super, Super Creepy in Slow-Motion

This high-speed video of humans blinking allowed scientists to study the mechanics of the eye blink. It will also let them study how disconcertingly weird and creepy blinking actually is. This video can show you a few things about eyes, like the “palpebral aperture”— defined as the space between the apex of the top lid…

The Tiny Figures In This Massive Star Wars Diorama Are Actually a Foot Tall

When it comes to action figures, few toymakers can match the level of detail that Hot Toys puts into its sixth-scale collectibles. So it’s no surprise that when the company creates a Star Wars diorama for those figures, it ends up being a monstrous sight to behold. We’ve seen Hot Toys’ gigantic 18-feet long Millennium…

This Ingenious Printer Recycles Scrap Paper Into New Paper Right in Your Office

This is PaperLab: Epson says it’s the world’s first recycling system to take waste paper and instantly transform it into new paper—onsite, in your office. The Japanese company claims that the device can churn those reams of shredded paper in your cubicle’s overflowing recycle bin into brand new, crisp, white sheets, without using water. This…