Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
I don’t need a lot to crave chocolate. The mere mention evokes flavors and memories that make me want to lick it, drink it, eat it, and pour all over my face and body. But this crispy video of pâtisserie Le Daniel, in Rennes, France, has put that constant desire in overdrive. I’m drowning in…
We’re just over a third of the way through October already – phew! Let’s take a bit of a breather and look back on the last week in popular culture, shall we? Now that the confusion over just how Quantcast has been tracking me is over, it’s been easier to sort of just stop thinking…
Welcome to Reading List, a quick tour of this week’s great prose around the interwebs. So, how’s your Sunday going? Fall is in full swing, and we have a full plate of tech coming up this week. Embrace the slowness of Sundays and take a look at some of these long reads around the web…
The Lunar Reconnoissance Orbiter usually investigates the moon, but in May, the opportunity to photograph both the Earth and Mars in a single shot captured its electronic eye. Here’s the story on how the spacecraft pulled of the technical challenge of catching two planets more than 110 million kilometers apart. Can you see Mars? It’s…
Nicolas Belmonte—Technical Lead for Data Visualization at Twitter—has created an impressive interactive 3D visualization of the world’s temperature anomaliessince 1800 using data from NASA. It’s like a deformed monster bloating and about to explode. The higher than normal temperatures are shown in red and lower than normal is blue. Here’s another graphic from NASA showing…
Columbus Day has been ruining America for a few decades now, but a few cities are finally doing something about it. A sunlight-refracting silver orb is being removed in Calgary after burning a hole in someone’s jacket. And someone says that brunch is turning our neighbors into assholes. It’s What’s Ruining Our Cities! Brunch is…
The biggest problem with 4K displays is that they lack content that actually takes advantage of all those extra pixels, but when Netflix introduced House of Cards, along with other titles, as supporting 4K, it was certainly a step in the right direction. Now, that the streaming company’s adoption is underway, it’s about time you…
Last May, researchers from the University of Dundee in Scotland proved that creating a tractor beamwith sound was possible. This 10-minute video, recently posted by YouTube user whentheappledrops tries to simplify the science behind this discovery and suss out a definitive answer to the question: is this really possible? As is true with many of…
Movies on the Oculus Rift aren’t really movies. They would follow almost none of the century-old rules set by the medium as audiences would explore 360-degree environments instead of the cinematic frame determined by the director. That doesn’t mean we can’t dream. Months ago, I posed the question what movie you’d want to watch in…
The web can be a precarious place to find accurate information regarding your health. With only a list of symptoms to type into a search engine, your mild headache could just be a headache…or the early stages of brain cancer. It’s always best to consult a doctor if you’re concerned and Google is trying to…
It seems that when you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die… probably of alcohol poisoning, judging by the amount of booze that gets necked in this wine-themed supercut. Youtubers The Movie Maniacs have spliced together as much footage of Westeros’ finest supping on alcohol as they could find in Game of…
Smartwatches are still trying to answer a lot of questions, chief among them being, “What do people actually what to do with them?” Their small size means many platforms will need to be reimagined to fit their screens, and Microsoft Research is trying to tackle the most important one—texting. Microsoft Research’s “analog keyboard project,” wants…
We’re now past the first week of October, which is traditionally right about the time that college students realize that they might need more in their kitchen than an endless supply of Solo cups. If you’re on the hunt for a chopping board to do some actual cooking on (or just to lower the tone…
This weekend marks two significant events: the start of the regular NHL season, and Canadian Thanksgiving (OK, so we’re using a loose definition of ‘significant’ here). You can neatly celebrate both of these two occasions by watching Goon, which is 92 minutes of watching an American punch Canadian people in the face with some regularity.…
Last week, I went to watch the incredible Valley Uprising documentary, which is an epic two-hour runthrough of the evolution of climbing in Yosemite Valley. In addition to lycra-clad hippies making a fortune off a downed drug-smuggling airliner (no, seriously), it also reminded me of the existence of Radical Face’s excellent and feels-heavy “Always Gold”.…
A giant robotic arm practiced hanging silver and gold mirrors on the backbone of the James Webb Space Telescope, then a human engineer carefully checked its work. Eventually, the full telescope will be launched into space, then unfold in a delicate choreography of inverse origami. Top image: Optical Engineer Larkin Carey examines test mirrors in…
The Apple Watch won’t be released onto our unsuspecting wrists until early next year, but developers are obviously already hard at work writing apps for the tiny screen. A group of designers have put together some ideas for what popular apps might look like when they land. It’s interesting to see what actual app designers…
According to a leaked Walgreens memo seen by MacRumors, Apple Pay will go live for the pharmaceutical giant on October 18th. Given that Walgreens was listed as an Apple Pay launch partner, that could well mean that Apple Pay will go live nationwide in just seven days time. The date makes sense, as this Thursday…
It’s the time of year where people go out into rural America seeking swollen gourds and fermented apple juice all in the name of Fall Fun™. And because timing is everything when it comes to these things, this beautiful fall foliage forecast map will aid you in your important quest to see the most chlorophyll-free…
As addictive mind-altering substances go, coffee is actually pretty hard to hit up on the move. If you’re out of range of a Starbucks, getting a hot, caffeine-rich epsresso generally requires a 20-pound machine and mains electricity, which is exactly the first-world problem this dinky espresso machine exists to tackle. About the size of a…
