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This week on Meanwhile in the Future we step onto the field and talk about contact sports. What would it take to create a future in which the most dangerous sports die out? What are those sports to begin with? What does a world without football look like? There have been a lot of questions…
Real-time public transit updates are the holy grail for straphangers. And Google’s making this sparsely-available feature more ubiquitous—announcing today that it’s adding four cities and two new countries to its real-time list. In a blog post today, the company said its Maps app will now include real-time transit updates for Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Budapest,…
I just got back from a week-long camping trip in a hot, humid, torrentially rain-flooded jungle. With a few missteps, I managed to stay dry and comfortable throughout. Here’s what I learned and how you can maximize comfort and performance in this difficult environment. All worth it when you wake up on your very own…
When the FBI first bought its own planes in the 1970s it was a minor scandal. But what’s so shocking about the feds having aircraft? The scandal was that they were originally experimental spy planes used in the Vietnam War. The FBI has finally admitted to using fake aircraft companies to fly surveillance missions over…
Well, this is awkward. Mere days after Hot Topic announced its plans to buy ThinkGeek for $122 million, the nerdy online retailer called the deal off. What’s the deal? Well, it turns out GameStop wanted to pay $18 million more. The last minute reversal is a bit of a shock, but selling to GameStop makes…
The only thing CDs are good for these days is to serve as slow motion destruction entertainment for YouTube videos. The mirror circle shape lends itself to sillily watchable GIFs where young people on the Internet wonder just what the hell retro future object they’re looking at. SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us on…
Thanks to a partnership with DC Comics you can get some wonderful Lego models of Batman’s best toys, including a massive version of the Tumbler from the Dark Knight trilogy. You can also finally get a detailed model of Bat’s backup vehicle, the Bat-Pod, but only through a contest from the Lego store. North American…
Some of you who’ve been reading Throb might think I’m a bit condom-obsessed, but that’s not accurate. I’m actually obsessed with people enjoying sex while preventing unwanted pregnancy and the spread of disease. And let’s be honest: no one is truly thrilled by latex condoms. In a word, they suck. Leaving aside the fact that…
NASA’s been studying the way bugs splatter for years. Those gooey speckles of black and red might be gross to you, but to aerospace engineers, they’re a riddle that’s plagued the industry for decades. Yes, bug guts. Image: davewright321 The problem is one of scale. One splattered fly is one thing—thousands of them, accumulated across…
The summer after I graduated from college, I took an RA job on campus that gave me a lot of free time, but not much pay. So I did the natural thing one does at a research university: I signed up to be a guinea pig for neuroscience experiments. There were a wide range of…
A new MOBA enters the fray this week, and it’s from the studio that helped popularise the genre all those years ago in the first place. Will Heroes of the Storm leave a mark against the likes of DOTA 2 and League of Legends this week? Get ready to push lanes and talk games in…
The stereotypical internet troll is sitting at home bored, primarily interested in shit-disturbing for chaos’ sake. But in Russia, trolling has been professionalized, with troll workers paid for full-time stints perpetuating hoaxes and trash-talking online. Writing for the New York Times Magazine, writer Adrian Chen discovered a Russian group best known as the Internet Research…
Here is the process of turning animal skin—hair and all!—into a piece of parchment that people can write on. It’s really interesting to see it limed and scraped and dried and cut to make a material that is completely different from when it first started. SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us on Facebook or…
Part cosplay, part laser tag, and part interactive toy, Disney and Hasbro have teamed up to create a new line of toys and wearable accessories called Playmation that encourages kids to be more active during playtime, instead of just sitting on a couch poking at a touchscreen. The new toys come in response to concerns…
Every closed door seems to hold infinite possibilities. For this week’s Shooting Challenge, we’re playing on a classic theme on photography: Photograph a door. The Challenge Photograph a door. Any door! (Though garage doors are kinda boring. You’re really better bring it if you’re thinking about photographing a garage door.) The Method It’s not hard…
We’re less than a week away from Apple’s annual World Wide Developer’s Conference, where the company will likely (most definitely) announce its latest mobile operating system—which has been much more quiet compared Apple’s other announcements this year, and there’s a reason for that. The lead up to Monday’s event has focused mainly on the new…
If you were lucky enough to have your own private plane, you’d think flying wherever and whenever you wanted without being crammed in coach would be enough. But apparently luxury demands more luxury, which is why Lufthansa Technik developed a fireplace for planes. Yep, it’s ok to audibly sigh now. Recently spotted at the European…
Fakes here! Fakes there! Fakes everywhere! Today we have five more photos you may have seen passing through the giant digestive tract known as the internet recently. But don’t be fooled. These are all fake. 1. Is this a photo of empty store shelves in Venezuela? This photo went viral last week when some people…
High-speed trains—which can hit 300 miles per hour or more—are the ultimate example of how futuristic engineering can solve real-world transportation problems. In the past several decades, dozens of safe, sustainable high-speed train systems have started racing across the planet. And the place that does high-speed rail best is where it all started over 50…
Ever see those giant rectangular cameras on TV sets and wonder why they’re so damn big? It’s because they house giant-ass lenses that can zoom from here to the moon while maintaining large, bright apertures. One internet mastermind decided to pair his $60,000 Fujinon XA55 lens with a Panasonic GH4, and it’s great. The glorious…
