Tech News

Comic Book Sticky Notes Make Your Reminders Extra Exciting

Are you more likely to “call Ted in accounting” when the reminder is stuck to the frame of your monitor on a boring yellow Post-it Note? Or when the reminder appears to leap from the page on these wonderful comic book-style sticky notes? The answer is pretty clear. Just five bucks gets you three stacks…

The Army’s Laser War Truck Can Now See (and Shoot) Through Fog

The problem with the current iterations of combat laser prototypes is they can easily be foiled by suspended condensation, smoke, fog, and other obscurants that deflect and defract the beam as its en route to its target. The HEL MD, however, proved earlier this year that the solution is simple: Just increase the power of…

This Cocktail Concocted By IBM’s Watson Isn’t Half Bad

The surreal strength of IBM’s famous supercomputer, Watson, is now available to the public (for a fee). And to mark the occasion, the company threw a little party last week and served a very blue cocktail. Naturally, I whipped up my own slight variation when I got back to the office. I call it the…

Lego Batman takes to the streets on this brilliant R/C Technic Batpod

Polish Lego fan Sariel‘s created an outstanding bit of vehicular design with this teeny Batpod from The Dark Knight – not only is it made entirely out of Lego and Technic pieces, it’s fully powered for R/C control and flashing lights too. It’s not the first time Sariel has crafted RC Technic vehicles from Christopher…

Report: iWatch Might Face Battery Life Issues

We’re already well aware that no matter how great a gadget might seem, none of that means anything if it dies almost as quickly as it turns on. And according to a new report from The Information, the long-awaited iWatch’s battery power is going to be “disappointing.” The Information says that “People who have talked…

Searing the Sky to See the Stars

Laser guide stars look undeniably badass, deathrays slicing through the celestial sphere. More importantly, astronomers use these artificial stars to compensate for atmospheric blurring in real-time, allowing ground-based telescopes to take crystal-clear images of the sky. Top image: Testing of the Wendelstein laser guide star unit during a thunderstorm in Germany prior to installation at…

There’s a Horror Novel Lurking in These Ikea-Style Photos

For the DIY-challenged among us, Ikea catalogues are already terrifying enough in their own right. For everybody else, there’s Horrorstör—a traditional haunted house story dressed up in trendy, Scandinavian flat-pack furniture. The novel, written by Grady Hendrix, includes illustrations in the style of everyone’s favorite meatball/furniture catalog—and they are just as creepy as they are…

This Classical Venetian Palazzo Is Like a Chill Portal to the Afterlife

If Hollywood has taught us anything about death on Earth—and goodness knows it has—it’s that we’ll be welcomed to the afterlife by an eye-squintingly bright white void. For his latest site-specific exhibition, artist Doug Wheeler has transformed the classical architecture of Palazzo Grassi building in Venice into what looks like a portal to heaven. Wheeler…

Watching this piano burn and slowly disintegrate is beautifully sad

Having Beethoven as the soundtrack obviously adds to the feels but there’s something strangely beautiful and yearningly sad about seeing this wood piano burn to ashes by two heat guns. Like it’s a memento of a simpler life disappearing via the hands of cold robots. The short film, Deconstructed Piano, was made by Laurin Döpfner.…

The Stubborn “Nail Houses” That Refuse to Get Demolished

In 1914, the government of New York City took ownership of a Manhattan apartment building belonging to one David Hess.The city used a legal power called eminent domain, allowing governments to seize private property for public use—in this case they wanted to expand the subway system. Hess fought them and lost, and when all was…

But not forgotten: How Pop Culture has memorialised its Fans and Stars

With footage of Robin Williams’ World of Warcraft tribute NPC emerging yesterday, we’re reminded that the worlds we love can ensure that icons of pop culture, as well as their fans, can live on forever. Here’s some of the times that games, TV shows, comics and movies have paid tribute to those no longer with…

Redesigning One of Google’s Most Useful Tools

Google Images is a great product, but there are a few areas where the user experience and design could be better. So, I spent a few days refining it. Too lazy to read? Jump to the bottom and watch the video for the tl;dr. This post originally appeared on Zak Malik’s Medium site. In this…

Garth Brooks Launches iTunes Competitor “GhostTunes” Because Why Not

Notorious friend to drunks andkeen observer of meteorological phenomena, Garth Brooks, is finally putting his entire musical catalogue online—by launching his very own iTunes alternative, GhostTunes. Made special for the cowboys and rebels among us, GhostTunes will give artists “the ability to sell their music in ways never seen before.” What that might actually mean…

Only an iPhone Was Used to Create This Archive of Backyard Wildlife

This is indeed a different kind of wildlife photography. Instead of going to exotic corners of the globe, Joshua White combs the foliage of his own backyard in making hundreds of finely-detailed images. White takes a scientific approach to collecting specimens and photographing them for his Photographic Survey of the American Backyard. The collection of…

In 1966, the Angels Landed in Anaheim’s Futuristic Baseball Stadium

How could the Angels call any place but Los Angeles their home? After all, the club’s name directly referred to the city, and there had been a team named the Los Angeles Angels since the first decade of the 20th Century, when the minor-league Los Angeles Looloos wisely opted for a more dignified nickname. So…

The Plan to Make the Moon an Enormous Detector of Cosmic Rays

About once a century on any given square kilometer of Earth, a cosmic rayhits with mind-boggling intensity. The teeny tiny subatomic particle from space comes careening in with more than 10 million times the energy of particles shot out by the LHC. Where do these ultrahigh energy cosmic rays come from? Astronomers havea plan to…

Touring The Diversity of California in Just Four Minutes

From deserts to mountains, coastlines to forests, California is a diverse and beautiful state. It contains almost every major climatological biome, with valleys of towering redwood forests, deserts of spiky Joshua trees, and rolling hills of vineyards. California usually pops up on this subsite in relation to disasters, be it fire, drought, or earthquake, so…

Fisherman catches monstrous giant shrimp in Florida

A fisherman caught this monstrous 18-inch-long creaturewhile fishing from a dock in Fort Pierce, Florida. Scientists say it could be a rare kind of Mantis Shrimp but further analysis needs to be conducted in order to determinate what the hell is this mutant monster from hell. If it is a mantis shrimp, it’s an exceptional…

Behind the Scenes at the San Francisco 49ers’ New High Tech Stadium

Candlestick’s out and Levi’s Stadium has been officially christened as the new home of the San Francisco 49ers. The brand-spanking-new site is all kinds of wired up and ready to receive upwards of 70,000 smartphone-wielding fans. I went behind the scenes to see how the tech has come together. Are you ready for some football?…

Google Glass Explorer Edition is now available in the U.S. Google Play store, along with its accessories. Right next to all the products you might actually want to buy. It’s still the same price ($1500) but Google is still throwing in a free pair of shades or frames. Glass was already available in the U.K.…