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When Google introduced its cardboard VR headset, there was an easy point of reference. It’s like a View-Master, but with full-on virtual reality. And now, the marriage is official because Mattel and Google are partnering to make just that: A Google Cardboard-powered View-Master. Because the new View-Master is basically just a phone-powered VR headset just…
Arrow has had a few action figures to its name, but somehow it’s taken this long to get a plastic incarnation of everyone’s favourite hacker badass, Felicity Smoak. Well, huzzah – DC Collectibles have unveiled her figure as well as new figures based on The Flash and Batman: The Animated Series too! Nothing says New…
BitStream is the stream of consciousness of the tech internet, gathering up all the pieces of news and rumors that may have slipped by in the last 24 hours. Obama uses a selfie stick, and that’s a good thing President Obama is an internet president. He needs to do things and say things that no…
It has been years since I’ve had a MAD magazine subscription, but their hilarious new take on Lego has brought me back to the folded back page. MAD #532 hits news stands on February 24th ($5.99 Cheap!), but subscribers can take a look at this parody by writer/artist Sergio Aragonés and colorist Tom Luth right…
A few days ago, these guys were fishing in Alfonse Island, in Seychelles, when a giant trevally bit the lure. As soon as they started to reel the fish in, a vicious barracuda appeared and ate half of it in just seconds, leaving the fishermen—and myself—in shock. Sharks might be the first think that comes…
Music visualizers are—how can I put this—quite, nineties. But this one takes an MP3 and renders it into a fly-through of a constantly changing landscape. It’s still quite nineties, but it’s also weirdly, amazingly compelling. Like some kind of flight sim that reacts to the pulse of your music, it’s incredibly easy to sit and…
Wanna create your own beautiful, living, breathing solar system at home? It’s easy—you just need petri plates (or any kind of flat, wide and shallow containers), some fatty milk, a little dish soap, food coloring and liquid plungers and droppers. And your own imagination. The following artistic video, brought to you by Shanks FX, will…
Music for the bedroom is no longer a case of slipping Barry White onto your vinyl player and leaning in to your loved on. More likely, it means firing up a cloud-based playlist and routing it through your Bluetooth speaker. So, perhaps, unsurprisingly, Spotify knows exactly what you’re listening to when you do the deed.…
The FBI is known to have flown unmanned aerial vehicles since at least 2005 and, like any other federal agency, it’s supposed to conduct a privacy impact assessment prior to such activity. But according to Muckrock, the Beaurau can’t track them down, and nor can the Justice Department office that’s supposed to collate them. An…
Are you tired of the high-pressure sales tactics used by the cookie-selling Girl Scouts outside the entrance of your local shopping mall? You’re not alone, and you’ll never have to be intimidated by them again because the Girl Scouts Cookie Oven from Wicked Cool Toys lets you make your own Thin Mints and Coconut Caramel…
What would you do if you had 300 Android devices (and a whole maze of microUSB cables) at your disposal? If your answer was ‘a digital beatbox rendition of Beethoven’s 9th’, chances are you work in Google Japan’s PR division. Or you just have too much spare time. The Android Chorus (ugh) uses 300 phones,…
San Francisco isn’t Gotham. That’s New York (or Chicago if you want to be wrong). San Francisco is too colorful, too weird, too positive and too future friendly to be the dark and gritty Gotham City. But Toby Harriman stripped the color of SF in this time lapse and man, the city by the bay…
Over at JSTOR Daily, Matthew Wills has an interesting read on all the different ways snow can be colors other than white. You might think that there’s only one reason for off-color snow — one that doesn’t take a lot of scientific effort to identify — but there are many biological and physical causes for…
It’s an unfortunate fact that most high-end desktop PCs are either bland to the point of extreme sleepiness, or so gaudy and neon-lighted that you have to throw a blanket over when you sleep (or have guests over). Small, sensible-looking PCs are virtually impossible to come by, with the notable (but non-Windows) exception of the…
This is interesting not only because you get to see the juxtaposition of the orchestra and scenes from The Great Human Odyssey or because you learn how 70 musicians score an entire film in 3 days without any preparation or how the filmmakers painstakingly do their job, but also because it’s just cool to see…
Hey, happy Lincoln’s birthday! Abe would have been 206 today, and the US Patent and Trademark Office took the chance to remind us of a strange and oft-forgotten fact: The United States’ 16th president is the only one to ever hold a patent. And a very interesting patent, at that. Lincoln’s patent was only #6,469…
I know Chef Evan Funke of Bucato is making pasta in this video—I see it and it’s absolutely beautiful—but it almost looks like he’s playing a musical instrument. There’s so much skill in his work and so much grace in his movements that I can’t help but feel like I’m watching an artist at work.…
For all the cold and ice that winter dumps upon, you have to admit that ice can be beautiful—perhaps no more so than in this ethereal winter castle. Filmmakers Michael Sutton and Julian Tryba shot this time lapse in a hand-built Ice Castle in New Hampshire. We interviewed the icicle farmers who make Ice Castles…
It would be easy to make fun of China’s new anthem glorifying internet censorship. But I don’t want to pan“Cyberspace Spirit” or mock the Cyberspace Administration of China choral group signing it, because they literally don’t know what they’re missing. The Great Firewall of China truly sucks. If you or I tried living a day…
An episode of WNYC’s On the Media podcast TLDR was unceremoniously removed from the On the Media website today, and people are not at all happy. Rightly so. (UPDATED: This post was updated on 2/13, to include comments from WNYC.) The TLDR episode featured tech blogger Amelia Greenhall criticizing male “women in tech expert” Vivek…
