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Anyone who’s ever stared glass-eyed at a Netflix video that won’t load or stuttered through a glitchy Skype call knows that the United States leaves its citizens starving for bandwidth. But the latest data in Akamai’s annual “State of the Internet” report presents some prettypretty depressing statistics about America’s slow, shitty internet. In case you’re…
Bertha, the world’s largest tunneling machine, has been stuck under downtown Seattle since it broke in December 2013. Engineers have had to concoct a massive and expensive rescue plan—essentially a whole construction project in itself. And yesterday, the Bertha’s broken cutter head was finally hoisted out of the Earth. It’s been a long, frustrating 15…
Here’s an entire series of ASMR videos featuring baking and cooking and prepping and opening packages and so forth. The chef makes vegan goods, which depending on your world view may shade what you think of the cooking, but there is no doubt: it is so very pleasurable to watch the food get made. It’s…
With all these rich musicians making a ruckusabout Jay Z’s overpriced streaming music service, I’m getting a little emotional. Not about Jay Z’s overpriced streaming music service. About the bygone golden era of streaming music’s erstwhile golden boy: SoundCloud. In a way, you can chart that golden era to the lifespan of the SoundCloud desktop…
China’s rapid growth isn’t all about wacky buildings—there are also millions of people whose lives have been uprooted in the name of progress. Many of them have moved to the new megacity of Chongqing, where photographer Tim Franco has managed to capture its hyper-vertical, accelerated brand of urbanism, and the odd juxtapositions it creates with…
Following up on its first humidifier that used a UV light to kill germs in its water reservoir, Dyson has just announced an updated version of its Cool fan that now includes a built-in 360-degree glass filter to remove 99.95 percent of airborne invaders in a room. And not just any filter, but a high-efficiency…
Furious 7 is releasing this weekend which means all of mankind is about to have their eyeballs blasted (and brains removed for two hours) with the most insane special and practical effects that don’t involve space or superheroes or space-based superheroes. Here’s a quick cut of some behind the scenes footage of Furious 7 and…
Step aside dancing fountains and community gardens, it’s the age of the urban swing set. I’m not talking about playgrounds. These are swings designed for adults, enticing the tushes of office workers, college students, and tourists—city dwellers young and old who all want to take a turn kicking their legs up into the sky. In…
Recycling is not just a nice thing that hippies do anymore. Recycling is a business—a massive one whose wheels are greased by money, money, and more money. Nowhere is this more apparent right now than in the recycled plastic market, where prices have plunged 50 percent in just six months. “One day it’s profitable to…
Every year, humanity turns off the lights for Earth Hour. Well, some of humanity. As we learned during this week’s Shooting Challenge, a lot of people leave the lights on. Winner: Vincent Thomas Bridge Took this picture of the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro, CA while on the way home. It’s normally very brightly…
Say it with me: awwwww. In a story that’s a little like the first hour of Wall-E, this short film, Artoo In Love by Evan Atherton, tells a cute love story of R2-D2 and a blue mailbox. R2 starts holding picnics with it, zaps away people who want to mail things and holds an umbrella…
Five years ago, Google CEO Eric Schmidt proclaimed that laptops would become disposable. We’re nearly there. Starting today, you can buy a new Chromebook for just $150—the cheapest price ever. And this spring, there’s a $250 Chromebook coming that looks pretty incredible. Let’s put things into perspective. Chromebooks aren’t the only awesome cheap laptops on…
It’s another quiet week, but that just means there’s plenty of time to catch up on all the damn video games that have been coming out lately. Or, you could buy more new games and find yourself weeping at your ever-expanding back catalogue. What’s it to be? Tell us in the new Tuesday Game Room!…
Google just introduced a whole new kind of Chrome OS computer—a dongle that plugs into any HDMI-equipped display. It’s called a Chromebit, and it isn’t your run-of-the-mill streaming stick. For under $100, you’re looking at a full computer that plugs right into your TV. How is that possible? Well, it’s not exactly a new idea.…
There have been over 2,000 nuclear explosions in real life but if we believe the movies, it seems like every other action movie drops one in for added color. And I totally get it. I hope to never see a nuclear bomb go off in person but I wouldn’t mind seeing more explosive mushroom cloud…
Ever had a burning desire to start your own robot army? Well, now might be your chance, provided you have $55,000 to spare. Someone is selling an experimental unmanned military vehicle on eBay. (Death ray not included.) In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the U.S. military had a renewed push to develop unmanned vehicles.…
A few weeks ago we rounded up some eye-catching widgets for your Android device so it’s only fair that we spend some time looking at a selection for iOS too, even if widgets aren’t quite the same thing on both platforms. All of these apps will add functionality and flexibility and to the Notification Center…
Internet Explorer is dead, and Microsoft’s new Spartan browser is going to fill its empty shoes. We’ve heard the details before, but now the new browser is out in the wild. Any early version just showed up in the latest Windows 10 preview build. Here it is in action. The biggest and best feature of…
It is always a pleasure to see the Kopps-Etchells Effect in such perfect form. The sparks from this U.S. Marines helicopter form a starry ring around the edge of the blades—a the result of static electricity created by friction between the dust and the metal blades moving through the air. From the official U.S. Marines…
Just when you thought American capitalism had reached its peak, Amazon is announcing the Dash Button. The idea is simple: You push a branded button, and Amazon ships that brand’s products to your home. The Dash Button is free for Prime Members. Just don’t let the kids near it. While the Dash Button sounds like…
