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When Apple decided to encrypt its iPhones by default, the move was hailed as a major step forward for security. Except, of course, by the FBI, which is now saying that such encryption should be outlawed. For the safety of Americans, of course. This past week, FBI director Jim Comey came before the House Appropriations…
Welcome to Reading List, a weekly collection of great tech reads from around the web. This week explores the unknown corners NYC, an underwater supernova, and the real meaning of the so-called sharing economy. Enjoy! The trusty screenshot has a newfound and diverse importance in today’s internet culture, Wired’s Clive Thompson points out. People grab…
When Curiosity came burning through Mars’ atmosphere two-and-a-half years ago, it marked the planet with its landing, and the impact of shedding its sky crane, heat shield, backshell, and parachute. But the planet is recovering, obscuring the scars with unending wind and dust. https://gizmodo.com/see-all-the-landing-hardware-that-curiosity-scattered-o-5932592 Top image: Curiosity’s landing zone between August 2012 and February 2015.…
There you have it—the pinnacle of modern technology, in 1989 Soviet Russia, at least. Recently, someone decided to unearth this gem and share the nostalgic find with the internet. Craziest thing about it? This bad boy was almost three hundred US dollars. For those who can read Russian, the box explains the newfangled device’s benefits.…
A fossilized piece of the sea floor is a glimpse into an ecosystem long-gone, if only you know how to look at it. Read on to learn about the long-dead bryozoans, crinoids, brachiopods, gastropods, and even trilobites in this rock. Top image: Fossilized section of sea floor. Credit: ottermann https://whitenoise.kinja.com/otters-oddities-1693954468
Selfie sticks are very quickly being branded as a public hazard: Our culture’s “wand of idiocy” is no longer welcome in dozens of museums and attractions across the country. Now, it seems, festival goers will have to forgo the sticks, as well, and go back to taking narcissistic photos like it’s 2013. In anticipation of…
When it comes to birds, males—with their bright feathers, extra accessories, and impressive mating displays—tend to get all the attention. But for many birds, such as the Choco Toucan pictured above, brilliant plumage has nothing to do with sex, and everything to do with survival. That, at least, is the conclusion of researchers at the…
On Friday night at 10 p.m. ET, the Pebble Time ended its month-long crowdfunding campaign with over $20 million in pledges, making it the most funded Kickstarter in Kickstarter history by roughly 7 million dollars. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-time-awesome-smartwatch-no-compromises That’s not the only Kickstarter record Pebble’s second-gen smartwatch recently set. Within 20 minutes of launching, Pebble Time had…
An inmate who was in prison for multiple charges of fraud is apparently up to his old tricks. Posing as a senior court clerk, Neil Moore, 28, used an illicit mobile phone to email fake bail instructions to prison staff, who released him. Well, that’s embarrassing. Moore was being held at Wandsworth Prison in the…
The aurora borealis that took place on St. Patrick’s day was spectacular, but aside from being the strongest geomagnetic storm in a decade, there’s another reason it was special. It was the first time that thousands of citizen scientists tweeted about the aurora to help space weather scientists construct a detailed global map of the…
If you’re feeling down, this pin-sized book may be just the thing to cheer you up. Just don’t put it in your pocket, or it’ll be lost forever. “Life’s Lil Pleasures” was created by illustrator and designer Evan Lorenzen. Lorenzen has spent the last year building a library of “micro books” with diverse themes, including…
If you’re looking for a fun, high-risk weekend project, look no further: Grant Thompson, the self-styled “King of Random”, has decided to shared his method for transforming styrofoam into metal. (Spoiler: don’t try this one around your kids.) To start, you’ll need to cut a model of your soon-t0-be metal creation out of foam. Thompson…
Remember the Virtual Boy, Nintendo’s early, failed foray into virtual reality gaming? Twenty years after its release, somebody’s finally figured out the best use for the unwieldily console: Giving all of your friends a handlebar moustache. According to Hackaday, coder and designer Joe Grand bought a broken Virtual Boy several years back at Portland Retro…
Over fifty years ago, physicist Freeman Dyson proposed an awesome, if slightly insane, idea: That an advanced alien civilization might construct a massive, energy-harvesting sphere around its star, and bunk up inside. Scientists have never given up on Dyson spheres—we’ve even conducted a few legitimate searches for their infrared heat signatures. Now, physicists Ibrahim Semiz…
What happens when your production budget consists of water, soap, food colouring, and maybe a bit of magnetic goo? If you’re the filmmaker responsible for this music video, the result is a beautiful demonstration of fluid dynamics, fingering flows, drips, and bubbles. Top image: Screenshot from the music video, “Jack and the Giant.” The fluid…
Anyone with a spare dollar can buy access to stolen, active Uber account information. Vendors on the new darknet market AlphaBay are peddling Uber user details. You can buy all sorts of illicit stuff through darknet markets, from drugs to weapons to counterfeit goods. But this is the first time we’ve seen a high-profile sale…
Amanda Knox can finally breathe easy (again): the Italian Supreme Court just overturned her murder conviction. Knox, who spent four years in an Italian prison, was acquitted in 2011 of the 2007 killing of her roommate; in 2013, after she’d returned to the US, she was re-tried and sentenced in absentia to 28.5 years.
Don’t be fooled: This is not Tony Stark’s latest bionic arm. It’s an incredibly detailed tattoo, one whose proud owner looks like he just stepped out of Neuromancer. The tattoo was inked to life by Tony Booth, who runs Dabs Tattoo in Southport, England, along with his wife. Booth, known for his complex, geometric designs,…
More than 250 million years before the first dinosaur, the most fearsome killers on Earth may have been lobsters. Yawunik kootenayi, a common ancestor to spiders, shrimp and butterflies, was a predatory “lobster-like” creature that ruled the seas half a billion years ago. As reported this week in the journal Paleontology, fossils of Yawunik were…
Back in 2012 Mattel decided to toss Back to the Future II fans a futuristic bone in the form of a hoverboard replica that looked exactly like the one Marty McFly rode in the time-traveling sequel. The one feature it lacked, of course, was the ability to actually hover. That made its $130 price tag…
