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Downtown Seattle is being slowly consumed by Amazon-funded infrastructure, thanks to the expansion of its corporate headquarters—glass domes, bike lanes, streetcar improvements. Now the company has figured out an innovative way to heat their new buildings by using the energy generated by their data centers across the street. The process—called hydronic heat—works by transferring the…
Whenever people stumble on a mysterious natural phenomenon that grants them powers in movies, things don’t generally turn out so well. You’ll have to watch Burnt Grass to find out exactly what goes awry with the short film’s central couple when they discover a patch of their lawn with the ability to duplicate organic material.…
Even though I know that this video was made by the visual effects experts of Black Sheep Films and isn’t real, I can’t help but feel queasy when I watch it. The rotoscoping is just so well done. I gasp as I see the cyclist cross the road, I churn when the pedestrian decides to…
Risk of spontaneous nuclear annihilation aside, the Cold War proved a potent period in the history of technological development. I mean, just look at all this cool stuff we invented for little reason more than simply sticking it to the Soviets. It’s amazing the lofty heights mankind can achieve when inspired by smack talking. Leveraging…
Good news after a harrowing week: Your iCloud account is now (a little) more secure. After popping up briefly and then disappearing—and a highly publicized, unfortunately timed security breach—iCloud’s two-step authentication has returned for good, with several important improvements, according to Ars Technica. In the wake of Nudegate, it was revealed that Apple ID’s original…
Gizmodo—and Gawker Media—are moving. We’re packing up our cozy little SoHo walkup and heading to a big new office in Union Square. And according to the architects who are designing it, it’s going to be very, very cool. After news broke about Gawker’s relocation today, we talked the two architects leading the project: Kirsten Murray…
Google’s Android Silver program was first rumored by Android Police back in April as a “premium sale and support” experience for users. In human speak, this means Google wanted to make Nexus-like devices with more manufacturers rather than just its one yearly release. Now that plan may be on hold. The Information‘s Amir Efrati says…
At first glance it seems like just another fun art project, but this dancing traffic light can actually vastly improve safety wherever it’s installed. Because people waiting for a ‘don’t walk’ sign to change to ‘walk’ are far more likely to stick it out when they’re distracted and entertained, rather than just try and walk…
Deck the halls, deck your desk, and charge your iPhone or iPad this holiday season with a USB Lightning cable featuring festive LED bulbs along its length—even if Christmas is months away. It’s the easiest and most useful way to bring holiday cheer wherever you go, even if those ten power-sipping LEDs mean your device…
The Maersk Triple-E is the largest cargo ship in the world. Photographer Alastair Philip Wiper got the chance to visit Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering, the South Korean port where nine of these behemoths are currently being build. These are his amazing photos, originally published on Wired. As commissioned by Danish shipping company Maersk lines,…
NASA just announced a critical component of Launch America, the country’s highly anticipated next chapter in human spaceflight. The organization confirmed in a press conference today that Boeing and SpaceX will split the $6.8 billion “space taxi” contract, with $4.2 billion going to Boeing and $2.6 billion to SpaceX. Essentially, Boeing’s CST-100 Space Capsule and…
Parking sucks, and that’s why there are plenty of apps to help your car find a vacant spot. Trouble is, those solutions tend to require expensive sensors to be installed in each and every one of those potentially open spots. A new app called PocketParker instead leverages the power of passive, portable sensors—the ones already…
It’s so ungodly hot in much of California right now that you can almost hear the sun sucking what’s left of our reservoirs dry. But if a group of engineers and politicians would have had their way in 1964, the lower 48 would be swimming in water imported from the far North—all the way from…
Forget about all the company’s work on its incredibly durable Gorilla Glass. No one’s going to care if their smartphone’s screen gets scratched when Corning’s other major innovation hits consumers. Because when their device is covered in Fibrance, a fiber-optic thread-like material that glows in any color and looks like a prop straight out of…
Today NASA announced new commercial partners to take over crew-transport to the International Space Station. Following in the wake of Russia playing hardball with astronaut training in Crimea, human spaceflight launches will finally be returning to the United States by 2017. Top image: The International Space Station as seen from space shuttle Atlantis during undocking…
I work from home. My home is a small apartment in San Francisco in a building that’s been around since 1917, and my “office” is a butt’s-width section of a used Ikea sofa I bought off Craigslist a few years back. I recently had the opportunity to spend a workday rolling around town in a…
If you find yourself wander a strange city in the middle of the night, something is probably wrong. But if you stop and take all in, the urban landscape is somewhat surreal at night, when all of the people are sleeping. Photographer Paul Puiia captured that uncanny feeling so well, I don’t think I’ll ever…
Thought you had a lot of Doctor Who related knick nacks at home? Perhaps not as many as this man from Manchester in the UK does – he’s just entered Guinness’ Book of World Records for having over one-and-a-half thousand bits of Who merchandise in his collection. Ian O’Brien’s collection started out with a single…
Obviously discounting the master stroke you see above, there are a lot of pretty horrible cases out there. In fact, some would even go so far as to say that the entire genre is inherently flawed. But in reality, iPhones scratch far too easy—having a case is a necessary evil. Which is why we ask…
Everyone has a few garments that they need to dry clean on occasion, even it’s just for that one wedding every few years. But the solvent most commonly used in the process, known as “perc,” is a known carcinogen. Fortunately, there’s a better option available. A brief (but explosive) history of dry cleaning solvents Romans…
