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Chernobyl’s desolation is ruin porn‘s hallowed ground. But photographer Darmon Richter says the image of an abandoned Soviet city, untouched since its nuclear disaster, is a carefully-constructed facade, a powerful and profitable myth perpetuated by the moneymakers of dark tourism. Richter’s fascination with abandoned landscapes brought us chilling shots of the modern ghost towns of…
Though Iceland’s Bardarbunga volcano isn’t the media sensation it was a month ago, it’s still steadily erupting—as shown by this incredible video shot with a DJI Phantom 2 drone and a GoPro Hero 3, which did not survive the trip (though the memory card did!). Brian Lam brings us news of the project over at…
Windows 10 is here! Kind of! You can go pick up a very stripped down Technical Preview of the big, bad, Start Menu-having operating system right now. But if you don’t want to load up a pretty beta OS, we went through the trouble for you. These are the highlights. The Start Menu, window snapping,…
A sharp knife isn’t just sharper, it’s a safer, more efficient, more precise tool. And, like most people, your knives are probably dull. Here’s how to fix that quickly, easily and cheaply. Why do you need to sharpen knives? A sharp knife stands less chance of slipping on the material being cut and, because it…
Instead of trying to make a compact handheld vacuum as powerful as a full-size vac like Dyson did with its cordless DC59, Samsung has decided to just cram a second smaller vacuum into its new VU7000 upright so you can easily suck dirt and dust off everything that’s not your floors. For hard to reach…
Sonos’ pop-up Studio in New York reminds me of summer camp, where you were never sent home without something to show your parents. Except instead of a popsicle-stick sculpture, Sonos sent me home with a speaker I built myself. Sonos is a wonderful wireless audio system that we’ve loved for years. Through October 5th, the…
Mark Hamill appeared yesterday at the Golden Heart Gala in Los Angeles sporting a full beard and long hair. Since they are filming now, I think it’s safe to say that this is how he looks on the new Star Wars Episode VII by J.J. Abrams. So I photoshopped his face on top of Obi…
Video quality in DSLRs has been fairly steady in its seven years or so on the scene. There have been minor jumps in cameras like the Canon 5D Mark III, but DSLRs have been largely eclipsed in image quality by mirrorless and new video-focused cinema cameras. Nikon, used to playing second-fiddle to Canon, is not…
Did you know that before the age of plastic, contact lenses were made of glass? It’s true! And slightly horrifying! Inventors were experimenting with glass-based contacts throughout the 19th century and Leonardo Da Vinci is often credited as having been one of the first to imagine some of the ideas behind the contact lens in…
Quirky’s Wink Hub launched for $50 a few months ago with the goal of becoming your smart home’s brain . Today, Home Depot is tossing in two GE Link LED bulbs with your purchase. Those bulbs alone usually cost $20 each, and of course, they can be controlled with your smartphone via the Wink hub.…
The news that Cadillac is moving its Detroit headquarters to New York City delivered quite a blow to Detroit’s ongoing rebirth. Especially considering Cadillac’s advertising agency is a shining example of that rebirth: It’s housed in a gorgeous new office in a salvaged 100-year-old building, proof that sticking it out in Detroit and can be…
Impressive map of the United States showing only all roads and streets in the country. 240 million individual road segments—according to the its creator Fathom Information Design—and nothing else. It’s amazing how you can see all the geography contours. Check out the details: Roadless terrain forms the topography of the Appalachian Mountains. A detail of…
Now you’re thinking with Portals. Or rather, you should be – according to research from Florida State University, which has shown that playing Portal 2 is apparently better for your thinking skills than your average ‘brain training’ software. The short study, conducted by Valerie Shute, only took place over 8 hours – so whilst it…
A big fan of Google’s cloud-based storage system? Maybe you’re getting some free space from your school? An impressive number of Web apps plug right into Google Drive and let you get more out of the platform—here’s our pick of the best five tools that you should know about. To be clear, these are Web…
The end of your own existence is actually a blessing in disguise, says this short animation by Dice Productions selected for the Encounters Film animation festival. Wait no, actually, what is saying is that death really sucks because it doesn’t make sense. And they are right. As my favorite cook says: “Comer y follar, que…
The purpose of iOS 8’s third-party keyboard capabilities have now been realized now that PopKey, the GIF keyboard is finally available. You can get it here. Download and install the keyboard as an app as you do with other iOS 8 keyboards, and then enable it in settings. When you open the app, you’ll be…
Windows 10 is here! The new, unified operating system for PCs, phones, and tablets alike (with beloved Start Menu intact) is out in preview form. If you’re feeling first-adopterish, go download it now. We got to play around a bit with Windows 10 yesterday, and we came away pretty impressed. It packs enough changes that…
The US has already conducted more 150 airstrikes against ISIS since September 10th and governments from around the world are gearing up to join in. The UK’s Royal Air Force is just brought their contribution to the table with a fleet of low-flying penetrators. The RAF’s Tornado GR4 is a multi-role two-seater combat jet designed…
Buildings get old—most office towers aren’t designed to stand for centuries, as they once were. In Tokyo, a team of artists and curators got permission to interrupt this a near-perpetual cycle of construction and demolition by throwing one last party inside a tower destined for the scrap heap. The project was called Bction, and it…
Google just got students and educators a pretty sweet back-to-school gift: “Drive for Education” offers unlimited free cloud storage to the school crowd. Drive for Education is similar to Drive for Work, which launched in June, except Drive for Education is free. And Drive for Education has a tool called Classroom to help teachers organize…
