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Parallels, the virtual machine go-to for Macs alongside Apple’s own Boot Camp, has another annual update, bringing Windows 10 to your Mac. However, this year Parallels adds one feature previously unknown to common Mac users—a virtual assistant. As far as updates go, it’s all-around better software: boots 50 percent faster, with a quarter better battery…
No-one lives in a city because they enjoy being surrounded by hulking concrete monoliths. Thanks to this mapping tool from Portland State University, you can now see exactly how lacking your city in the tree department. As part of a project funded by the U.S. Forest Service, researchers overlaid information about air pollution, tree coverage,…
USB Type-C is shaping up to be the holy grail of ports. It can charge your laptop, deliver 4K video, and transfer loads of USB data all over a single cable—all at the same time. What could be better? You’re looking at the answer. What you see in these pictures is a hub that uses…
This is surely a sign that we’re living in the future: Researchers have just invented a remote-controlled LED chip that can make a mouse walk in circles by using light to activate motor neurons in the animal’s brain—or peripheral nerves throughout its body. The device, published this week in Nature Methods, is being hailed a…
The space elevator is a glorious science fiction idea that’s never gotten past the concept stage, mostly because it’s impossible to build one right now. Recognizing this, a Canadian space firm is hoping to test the waters with a slightly scaled-down version — a space tower, if you will, that only rises into the stratosphere.…
He’s trailing an openly misogynistic troll doll in the polls, but Jeb Bush has outdone his opponents in the “slavish praise for the government’s surveillance apparatus” department. Bush thinks we need more NSA surveillance, not less. “There’s a place to find common ground between personal civil liberties and NSA doing its job,” Jeb! said at…
The blogosphere is freaking out about about the above infographic, elegantly constructed by the marketing team at SwiftKey. The interactive map supposed shows the most popular emoji in each state. However, when you take the interactive part away, it’s just confusing. Does Tennessee really love horses that much? The answer is, almost certainly, no. SwiftKey…
Knowing the humble production roots of the original Mad Max, I could totally imagine this version of Mad Max: Fury Road with just go karts being made. The car chase and the action effects in the go kart version are not as blockbuster big as the one that hit the theaters and made our eyeballs…
America’s first giant combat robot needs funds to ready it for a hand-to-hand melee with Japan’s own battle mecha. And the funds—and big name support—are rolling in. In June, Oakland-based MegaBots and its battle bot Mk.II (pronounced “Mark 2”) challenged Japanese robotics company Suidobashi Heavy Industries in a brawl to robot death. A week later,…
We just passed the halfway mark for Apple Music’s three-month free trial period, and guess what: A whole bunch of people have stopped using the service already. A new report from MusicWatch claims that a whopping 48-percent of users have jumped ship. Are you one of them? (I am.) Apple, predictably, disagrees with MusicWatch’s conclusion,…
Do you keep your butter in the refrigerator? You do? Stop it. Stop it right this second. You’re ruining your butter experience and making your toast taste like failure. Let me tell you why. Butter is a wonderful substance. Made by churning cream until it separates into buttermilk and fat globules, butter is not only…
The idea to build a plane that turns into a submarine is not new. However, the mission to build an unmanned variation of such a vehicle is rather 21st-century. Boeing actually already has a design ready. Earlier this year, the USPTO awarded the aviation giant with a patent for a “rapid deployment air and water…
Astronauts captured a red sprite from their vantage point on the International Space Station. The vibrant jellyfish is part of a thunderstorm that raged over Mexico in early August. Red sprites are bright flashes that happen directly above thunderstorms with more mundane cloud-to-ground or intracloud lightning strikes. The sprites are brightest at an altitude of…
Have you ever wanted to shoot a drone out of the sky but just didn’t have the right kind of bullets? You’re in luck, you violent-minded human, you. Snake River Shooting Products just started shipping its Drone Munition. “PREPARE FOR THE DRONE APOCALYPSE!” The Idaho-based company says that the shotgun shells come with “high quality…
Otto Dieffenbach, the same master drone builder behind that flying R2-D2, is back with a simpler creation that’s sure to strike fear into anyone worried about their privacy: a giant two-feet wide eyeball that can be piloted to peer into any window. Imagine hearing a weird humming sound coming from outside your bedroom, and when…
Razer is making an Intel-powered Kinect for PCs. A 3D-sensing depth camera that uses Intel’s RealSense technology. Why would you want that? Well—Intel says it’ll let anyone put their face into a Twitch game streaming video. Right now, streaming games is kind of a big deal. Ridiculous numbers of people have decided that watching other…
The world welcomed news that the United States would finally cede control of the internet address system this fall. You know… because the American government was spying on everyone and stuff. However, Uncle Sam just announced that he needs a little more time. Like maybe three years. The Commerce Department announced in a blog post…
Fanfiction is one of the internet’s most reviled and beloved genres. Its authors write tales set in their favorite pop culture worlds, from Star Trek and X-Files, to Hogwarts and boy band concerts. For every fic that’s embarrassingly bad, there are thousands more that are brilliant and well-written. Here’s how to hunt down the finest…
Sure, this is totally normal behavior. See mountain, hike mountain, run mountain. But not when the ridge of the mountain is so ridiculously narrow that you’re basically standing on a 2D structure where you can just as easily fall off on either side. But that’s nothing to Sebastien Montaz-Rosset, he runs and leaps and jumps…
“Cortana, wake up.” Seriously, that’s it. Say those words to a snoozing Windows 10 computer with a sixth-generation Intel Core processor, and it’ll wake right up from sleep. That’s because the new Intel Skylake processors will always be listening for that command, thanks to a low-power digital signal processor (DSP) built right into the chip.…
