Tech News

Scientists Will Drill Directly Into a Fault Overdue For an Earthquake

The Alpine fault is the most dangerous fault in New Zealand—and one of the most dangerous in the world. It ruptures with an 8.0-magnitude earthquake roughly once every 300 years, and with the last one in 1717, it’s ripe for another. So what are we going to do about it? Why, drill a hole nearly…

Is the Domino’s Pizza Tracker Telling the Truth?

The tracker is legit—but only as legit as the people in the store let it be. The fact is, there are a lot of factors that happen in a store that the tracker can’t always account for, and so your mileage may vary with the online tracker for those reasons. The Dream As others have…

Where To Find Beautiful Wallpapers for All Your Devices

The benefits of a good background image can’t be overstated. It can improve your mood, boost your productivity, even lend a little freshness to an aging device. If you don’t want a picture of a loved one, cherished pet or recent holiday trip as a backdrop, here are five excellent sites for picking up free,…

This Anabelle and Toy Story mashup will haunt your dreams tonight

I never thought Woody could be portrayed as a horror character until I saw this video of Toy Story mashed up with Annabelle. It’s so scary that it will haunt my dreams tonight, tomorrow, and the rest of the week. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

A Built-In Color Picker Lets You Tint This Lamp To Any Shade You Want

Now that a trio of red, blue, and green LEDs can reproduce almost any color you can imagine, tinted mood lighting has become a hot trend. But why settle for manually dialing in a specific shade when this ColorUp lamp includes a built-in color picker that can sample and reproduce any color you so desire?…

This Supercard Wants to Replace All of Your Credit Cards and Then Some

Remember Coin, the card that promised to put all your credit cards on one handy chunk of plastic, and then suffered from substantial setbacks that may make it useless by the time it comes out? Well now it has a competitor. This is Plastc, another upcoming supercard with some seriously big promises that will be…

Dubbing Dragon Ball’s fights is as intense as the actual fights

When Sean Schemmel and Jason Douglas record the English voices for a Dragon Ball Z fight, they get so much in character that I was expecting them to get covered in yellow flames too. The energy they display is as interesting to watch as the fight itself. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff.…

A 7-Year-Old Could Build This Computer That Fits Together Like Lego

Kano is a new kind of computer company, a startup that’s totally devoted to teaching a new generation about the craft of silicon. Its first product, a Raspberry Pi-based system so easy a child could build it, makes it easy to build a PC practically from scratch. The idea behind Kano is focused on educating…

9 of the Coolest Buildings of the Year, Chosen by Architects

The World Architecture Festival wrapped up last week and a whole new batch of buildings—both completed and “future” (aka not yet real)—were given the nod as this year’s best. Let’s take a look at some of the winners, shall we? What’s really fun about the awards is that they’re chosen by architects themselves, since the…

Toshiba’s Eerie Sign Language Robot Will Silently Stare Into Your Soul

Proving its engineers are just as capable as anyone at developing a creepy human-like robot that embraces the Uncanny Valley, Toshiba has developed an android that specializes in sign language thanks to a pair of highly articulated hands. One day the company hopes it could serve as an artificial receptionist, but it’s probably going to…

Watch 25 years of Simpsons Couch Gags evolve before your Eyes

In 25 years of The Simpsons, there’s been an awful lot of couch gags – there are gags at the start of 544 episodes, to be exact. What happens you play all of them at once? Well… you might want to turn your speakers down a bit first. Enterprising youtuber Omni Verse has spliced every…

Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M: A Graphical Leap For Gaming Laptops

The dirty little secret of GPU marketing is that laptop graphics chips are never as powerful as you’d think. Think you’re going to run a game maxed out at 2K resolution with the GeForce GTX 880M in your laptop? Think again—even if it’s no trouble for a desktop-grade GTX 780. But this year, Nvidia may…

Finally, Foolproof Teleconferencing (I Hope)

How much do you hate Polycom? GoToMeeting? Vidyo? Skype? Or whatever the hell else you use to hold meetings with distant colleagues? Well, I’m here to tell you that somebody may have finally figured out a foolproof way to make teleconferencing actually work. “May” because I only spent ten minutes with the so-called solution, but…

How Much Coffee You Need Is a Genetic Trait

For some, three double espressos is barely enough to get them out of bed; for others, the whiff of weak latte is enough to have them jittering. Now, it turns out that those differing reactions are genetic. New researchreveals six new genetic variants that are associated with coffee consumption—brining the total to eight that are…

This beauty is a delicious lamb burger in disguise

The Pornburger of the weekmight not have the appearance of a proper burger, but who cares when it’s so delicious: A gorgeous braised lamb patty, sauced with lamb demi glace, stuffed inside a golden yorkshire pudding, and topped with potato and parsnip gratin, crispy onion rings, and mustard caviar. SPLOID is a new blog about…

How the Taser Was Invented

Early use of an electronic control device, like the TASER, by law enforcement occurred in the 1960s when American police officers used electric cattle prods to disperse Civil Rights activists. As for the earliest cattle prods, this came about when inventor John Burton of Wichita, Kansas received a patent (US427549 A) in the late 1800s…

Making Stars With Lasers Looks Like Tron Made Real

Not how to destroy an entire planet, but how humans are able to create a star—with the help of a laser tuned to 589.2 nanometers wavelength. The fantastic superstructure you are staring at is the Unit Telescope of the Very Large Telescope in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It is shooting its laser in…

Turkey looks stunning in this fantastic travel video

Some friends visited Turkey recently and they came back really impressed. They told me about its stunning landscapes, friendly people, and extraordinary food. This travel video—beautifully made by Leonardo Dalessandri—shows that they weren’t lying. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

The EU is investigating Amazon over a massive and potentially illegal tax deal in Luxembourg. Oh dear.

Even If You Don’t Use Social Networks, They Still Know Stuff About You

We all have friends who smugly boast of their lack involvement in social media—and their heightened privacy as a result. But new research reveals they may have more to worry about than they thought. A team of researchers from Switzerland’s ETH Zurich university believes that social networks are learning about everyone, whether they’re signed up…