Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
The Villarica stratovolcano in Chile erupted late on March 3, 2015, producing gorgeous photographs of molten glowing rock against a starry sky. Image credit: AP Photo/ Lautaro Salinas
Bubbles are micro-thin orbs of liquid suspended around gas. That’s nuts. And yet they’re never more than a squirt of dish soap away. These 12 photos from this week’s Shooting Challenge are a small reminder that the little things around us are pretty amazing. Winner: Magic Pop Honestly my goal was to capture a bubble…
YotaPhone 2, the weird Android smartphone that’s all AMOLED on the front and e-paper on the back, is finally coming to the US, says Phone Scoop. However, the launch will be more of a baby step into the US market; the phone launches this spring on Indiegogo for $600 (with backer incentives). I spent some…
You know Flash? Haven’t thought about it in a while, have you. For good reason! It’s less useful and less relevant than ever. It’s worth thinking about it one last time though—as you go to disable it in your web browser. Here’s how and why you should. Even if you’ve never heard of Flash (which…
Hundreds of images flash in front of our eyes each week as we navigate this strange machine we call the internet. But sometimes those images are lying to us. The following lies are culled from the bits and bytes that came through the tubes over the past few weeks. 1) Are these school lunches from…
Equipped with the most-advanced gyro stabilized camera in the world, the team at Teton Gravity Research flew from Kathmandu to Mount Everest, capturing the first ultra HD footage ever shot above 20,000 feet. I’ve never seen these mountains look so beautiful. The video was shot using a GSS C520 camera system mounted to a helicopter,…
If you’re up to the challenge of trying to cook for others, there’s a good chance you welcome all kinds of challenges. And for chefs who love to tackle words and riddles as much as they do a demi-glace, this $19 crossword puzzle Subtext trivet is a perfect addition to their kitchen. It’s made of…
It’s another quiet week for big releases – perhps most notably Screamride, Microsoft’s new rollercoaster game, but that’s not stopping a veritable cavalcade of smaller titles coming out this week. Trying something new? Digging into your backlog? Tell us all about it in Tuesday Game Room! What have you been playing this week? I got…
HBO Go has been slowly trickling out to to all our current generation set-top boxes and game consoles over the past several months. Finally, Sony’s PS4 will be outfitted with an app for Games of Thrones/True Detective/Girls creation machine later today. If you’ve ever piloted the HBO Go app on the PS3, you’ll be in…
Our friends over at Gawker’s Antiviral are calling bullshit on the flood of lies and fakery on Facebook. Part one: “satire” news sites. Check it:
The Rosetta spacecraft spotted its shadow. Does that mean Comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko is in for 6 more weeks of winter?
It wasn’t until Star Wars stormed through theaters in 1977 that blockbuster movies came with toys and collectibles in tow. And since Jaws was released two years earlier, there has never really been a decent amount of shark-themed collectibles available for the film. At least until Shark City Ozark created this wonderfully detailed 1:6-scale Bruce…
Samsung might be making waves at Mobile World Congress with the new Galaxy S6, but that’s nothing compared to the waves that will be produced by what the company’s Heavy Industries division is working on. It recently announced that it will be building the world’s largest container ship, over 1,300-feet long, for Japan’s Mitsui OSK…
Pizza is big business in America. So it’s only natural that everyone’s favorite salt delivery device has a lobbying group spending money to influence politics. Big Pizza spent about $1.5 million in the last two election cycles, which is really no surprise. What might surprise you is that pizza is so partisan: 88 percent of…
Remember how Uber,in a Friday night post last week, admitted that the names and personal info of 50,000 drivers had been accessed by an unknown party? Well, Ars Technica has an update. A sad update. According to Ars, Uber seems to have made the most rookie security mistake of them all, which Dan Goodin calls…
Mobile World Congress, the big annual tech show that goes down in Barcelona every year, is now coming to a close. There were a few really big hits this year—a new flagship Samsung phone, and Valve’s VR headest!—plus a few, lower-profile but still awesome announcements. Here’s the best of MWC 2015. The Galaxy S6 and…
Youtuber Olivier C. is back with another Star Wars drone after his wonderful Millennium Falcon build recently – what better to accompany it than a TIE Interceptor to fight it? Like his Falcon, the Interceptor is built around a custom made quadcopter, designed to support the extra weight of the foam additions. Although his TIE…
Here’s the Galactic Empire’s answer to theRC Millennium Falcon,an RC quadcopter TIE Interceptor. I want to see two dozen of these flying in formation across the sky—or a chase behind the Falcon. With real lasers. SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter.
In a bid to be more transparent, the Seattle Police Department is posting footage from the body cameras and dashboard cameras of on-duty cops on YouTube. But, the footage has been carefully censored to blur out faces and remove any sound. The result looks like surveillance conducted by a drunk ghost: Computer programmer Timothy A.…
MicroSD cards have become the standard currency for mobile devices that offer an external storage option. And to make it extra easy to speedily share files back and forth between devices like your smartphone, tablet, and laptop, ADATA has created this tiny card reader that cleverly hides its slot for a microSD card right inside…