Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Lion fish. Petri dish. Dough. According to one very befuddled artificial neural network, all of these things can be found in the short intro to Star Trek: The Next Generation. The animation isn’t exactly a photorealistic depiction of space—but it’s close enough that most of us can recognize its planets, spacecraft, and other details. Yet…
YouTuber Avboden has a home automation system from 1985, and he recently created this video to show people how it worked. It actually has a pretty great UI, with touchscreen — and it even allows you to give commands from your 1980s ultra-modern, push-button phone. Watching this actually begs the question of why we haven’t…
3M used 25,000 post its, 75 rolls of that blue painter tape, and a whole bunch of other stuff to make this wildly complicated Rube Goldberg machine that’s actually really fun to watch. Unlike other Rube Goldberg machines, it’s not totally obvious how it’ll progress from one level to the next, like a slow burn…
An Atlanta-based company called CineMassive who builds giant multiscreen video walls has created what is easily the world’s largest version of Minesweeper. On its hardest setting players will have to clear 38,799 mines without blowing the whole thing up and having to start over from scratch. The game is played on 24 high-definition screens that…
Carbon nanofibers are an incredibly exciting material. They’ve been around for a long time, but still aren’t common, partially because they’re difficult and expensive to make. Now, a team of engineers say it figured out a simple way to make them–by sucking carbon dioxide straight out of the atmosphere. The research, which was published in…
On Wednesday a website called Shutdownify.com went viral on Twitter. The site supposedly allowed tech startups facing a shutdown to craft an automated notice about their imminent demise. Shutdownify itself announced that it was closing shop. But the site is 100 percent fake. The domain for Shutdownify was registered today and has no other posts…
Yesterday hackers dumped 10 gigs of personal info from “life is short, have an affair” dating site Ashley Madison. Twitter’s first reaction is to crack wise about divorce. Ha ha. While security researchers continue to parse the hack and pundits wonder about what the attack on a company’s “morals” means to the future of data…
Anomaly is an unusual Christmas tale, set in the late 60’s, which tells the story of a group of people connected by the same astronomical event: A frightening meteor that will enter and exit the atmosphere. It is weird and sad and hopeful and just really interesting to watch. Anomaly is an independent short film…
Whenever I write about the history of the internet, someone slips into the comments with a joke about Al Gore inventing it. And it gets funnier every time. The funniest part? Al Gore never claimed that he invented the internet, and yet he was actually influential in helping to privatize it. Legendary internet architects like…
Here in New York City, subway security is on the prowl for crooks, would-be terrorists, and other unsavory characters. But in Japan, security cameras are used to detect a totally different type of passenger: Wasted people. And it’s for their own good. Last week, West Japan Railways announced plans to install security cameras on the…
Buying a cheap phone used to be a little depressing. You bought one because you had to. Now they’re finally becoming the phones you want to buy. And carriers are responding by ripping up their old two-year contracts. Freedom—at a price. The contract era is over When I bought an iPhone 5s two years ago,…
This is just so cool. I love how the dotted red shells split and then the wings slowly swing out and then begin to flap and the ladybug takes flight like some sophisticated alien space ship that’s ready to swarm together. It’s also really cool to see this angle of a ladybug taking flight because…
File Explorer (formerly known as Windows Explorer) is your way into your PC—whether you’re looking for settings, files or peripherals, this is often where you’ll be starting your search (it’s pinned to the taskbar for a reason). Windows 10 brings a new look to the File Explorer interface, and here’s how to tweak it to…
Magnets. You already know what they are and everything about them. Or do you? Magnets are crucial to many more emerging technologies than you might expect. The tried-and-true magnet is about to change everything–from how we drive and treat cancer to how we play sports. 1. Maglev Trains Lightning-fast trains that hover using magnets, like…
“Netflix for torrents” service Popcorn Time has always dealt with legal threats from copyright holders. Since it launched in 2014, its original founders bounced so they didn’t have to deal with copyright headaches, and European regulators suspended its domain. But now, even people spreading information about Popcorn Time can run into legal problems. Two men…
Our buddy Andy’s tiger-catching antics in Detroit have been immortalized by Taiwanese news-ish cartoon house TomoNews. Their see-through tarp technology is unbelievable. Andy is turning the attention into something positive, by selling #TigerWatch15 t-shirts with 100 percent of the profits going to rescuing dogs and rabbits. Because tigers. IndefinitelyWild is a new publication about adventure…
I just came back from a two-week vacation in Europe. I took loads of gadgets. How did I keep them charged? Why, an unwieldy gadget cornucopia consisting of two AC splitters, a USB wall wart, and an external battery for topping up on the go. If only I’d had the Belkin Travel Rockstar, I could…
Combining race cars and kids’ beds was a better pairing than even chocolate and peanut butter hooking up. But when you add die-cast cars into the mix, and turn a race car bed into a giant extension of a Hot Wheels stunt track, kids may never want to play outside again. Step2’s Hot Wheels Toddler-to-Twin…
It’s official. The Smithsonian’s crowdfunding campaign to preserve and display Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 spacesuit ended early this morning. And it was such a huge success, they’ll be restoring Alan Shepard’s suit as well. The Smithsonian smashed through its goal of $500,000, ultimately raising $719,799 from 9,477 contributors. The campaign, called “Reboot the Suit” was…
There is peace when your feet sink into the sand and your ears hear the waves and your nose smells the salt. It’s a beautiful feeling, standing on a beach and looking out into the ocean and imagining the edge of the world. But it might be even more beautiful to see the water creeping…
