Tech News

Can You Fool This Nudity-Spotting Algorithm?

Identifying nudity online is a notoriously thorny issue. Is it a butt or a bent elbow? Renaissance art or porn? Well, now one company that builds algorithms to identify such differences has built a website that you can challenge with your own, um, material. IsItNude.com is the brainchild of Algorithmia and it provides much the…

The Code For This Pleasingly Simple Game Fits in a Single Tweet

If you’ve got a few spare minutes, you might enjoy a quick game of Tiny-Twitch. But then you’ll no doubt end up amazed by the fact that the source code for the whole thing can fit inside a single tweet. Developed by Alex Yoder, the game—which requires you to try and click the X that…

Blowing in the Wind: The Mysterious Kawasaki Disease

Hard to diagnose, with an unknown cause, Kawasaki disease has been puzzling doctors for 150 years. Jeremy Hsu explores what we know, and still don’t know, about this troubling childhood heart condition. A child’s death from scarlet fever wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows during the devastating epidemics that swept Europe and North America in the…

This Simple Video Celebration of Everyday Color Will Brighten Your Day

The world around you is a rainbow, if only you stop and notice it. This video is a charming celebration of color in our everyday lives—and a bewilderingly pleasant way to spend two minutes. [Vimeo] Image by laffy4k under Creative Commons license.

The latest preview build of Windows 10 for PCs comes complete with a version of Microsoft’s new Edge web browser so you can try it out before the official launch on July 29th.

AppleCare Now Covers Worn-Out Batteries

Built-in batteries mean a built-in expiry date for gadgets: lithium-ion batteries slowly lose their ability to hold charge over time, eventually dying an ignominious death, and rendering your expensive gizmo useless — unless, that is, you’ve got AppleCare. In a small change to the policy for AppleCare for Mac spotted by MacRumors, Apple will now…

The Key to Longer-Lasting Smartwatches Might Be Stupidly Simple

Smartwatches are not endowed with the greatest battery life, thanks to the limited space available. But for the increasingly large number of circular smartwatches on the market, there’s one simple change that could yield a quarter more power: stop trying to fit rectangular batteries into round bodies. LG Chem, the battery-making division of Korean manufacturer…

Video: MiG-29 flies impossibly close to an airplane’s open rear door

This is just plain cool. Imagine opening the rear door of a paratrooper plane and seeing a MiG-29 right in front of you, dancing in the air mere feet away from the aircraft’s opening. This stunt was obviously planned for the photographs but it’s not unlike opening your house’s front door and seeing a giant…

Lego Wants to Stop Producing Oil-Based Bricks

Since 1963, Lego toys off all shapes and sizes have been moulded from ABS plastic, a material with a long list of pros; but thanks to the reliance on petroleum to make ABS, sustainability isn’t one of them. That’s why Lego is spending hundreds of millions of dollars finding an alternative. The company will spend…

Seeing the crazy movement of guitar strings in real time is so damn cool

This is wild. When cameras try to capture guitar strings being played, they see wavelength-type movements from each string because of the camera’s rolling shutter effect. But it can only be seen on camera, the wild wiggly effect is totally blind to the naked eye. Not anymore! This Wobble Strings project recreates a camera’s rolling…

Did Your Drone Knock Out a Woman on Sunday? Seattle Police Want to Chat

Sunday’s Pride celebrations in downtown Seattle were going fantastically. Until a drone fell from the sky and knocked a woman out cold. If that drone was yours, the Seattle Police Department would like to have a word with you. A 25 year old woman was struck by a small 2-pound drone at the Pride parade…

Watch liquid nitrogen change the color of lasers and LEDs

When you drop lasers and LEDs into liquid nitrogen, the lights cool down and start turning one color into another. In the GIF above you’ll see it start from a urine yellow to a Mountain Dew color and then to a radiator fluid green and finally some super alien blood goo substance. It’s great! Styropyro…

The Unbelievable Case of the Two-Year-Old Who Was Framed For Murder

Imagine enduring 25 years of being told that when you were two, you caused the death of your four-month-old brother. Conversely, imagine being the sort of person low enough to frame a toddler for murder. In 1971, a tragedy and its prolonged aftermath would go on to shape more than one life. Tracy Rhame grew…

No One Can Do Background Checks Until The Feds Fix Their Hack Mess

Fallout from the cyberattack on the US Office of Personnel Management is already starting: Federal background checks have been shut down for six to eight weeks as a “proactive” security measure. New employees and contractors will be left in clearance limbo as OPM cleans up its system. The shutdown happened after OPM conducted an internal…

Facebook Is Probably Tracking All Those Rainbow Profile Pictures

Friday’s Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage was a historic moment for civil rights in America, and for the first time ever, Facebook released a tool that encouraged people express solidarity with a rainbow profile picture. Naturally, Facebook is also keeping track of who’s using it. [Update: Facebook didn’t deny it.] The Atlantic recently asked…

Here’s everything important that has happened in the Terminator movies

The Terminator movies are always fun to watch because they involve time travel and bad ass science fiction action scenes while juggling multiple timelines and always bringing back the memory of T2. But it’s confusing to know what has happened when! IGN clears up some of the confusion in this nice summary of the Terminator…

Would You Try 3D-Printed Meat?

Free-range? Grass-fed? How about 3D-printed next to the Nespresso on your kitchen island? That could be the beef of the future, friends. And two German design students have ginned up the latest plans for a slick-looking machine that could make it. Sarah Mautsch and Aaron Abentheuer, students at Germany’s University of Applied Sciences Schwäbisch Gmünd,…

A Controller So Beautiful You Might Not Care If It Actually Sucks

If you’ve been playing video games since the original NES hit North America over 30 years ago, your tastes have probably refined over the years. So why muck up your living room coffee table with plastic controller monstrosities when this gorgeous walnut and aluminum alternative perfectly complements all your furniture? Designed by Kem Studio for…

Google Maps May Alert You the Next Time You’re Near a Train Crossing

Car accidents at railroad crossings spiked nine percent last year, according to the New York Times–a huge number that the Federal Railroad Administration is trying to bring down. Today, it announced a project with Google to create alerts within Google Maps that will tell motorists when they’re closing in on a crossing. Google says that…

Our First Ever Batman v Superman Merchandise is, of Course, a Funko Pop

I’ve frequently described Funko’s vast range of little Vinyl figures as a force that feels like it’s slowly consuming the entire toy world. Case in point? Our first ever look at merchandise for Batman v Superman, one of the biggest movies of 2016, and it’s of two adorably big-headed, vinyl toys of Batman and Superman.…