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Honestly, risk is a function of impact and probability—and that low battery is pretty inevitable these days. [Truth Facts]
If you’re on Verizon, your calls are about to sound clearer and work with video over the company’s network in the next few weeks. The carrier has finally announced support for Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) services, dubbing the feature Advanced Calling 1.0. A few caveats: both parties must be on Verizon’s LTE network and have phones capable…
The bad news: the Start Screen isn’t going anywhere in the next version of Windows. The good news: it will be much, much better. WinBeta reports that Microsoft’s next operating system codenamed Threshold, will include an updated Modern/Metro user interface when it launches in 2015. Here’s what it will reportedly get: No more desktop on…
Littering is lazy and selfish and just plain dumb. And it seems like the only people who don’t think that are the people who litter. That’s why LiveGreen Toronto cooked up these clever ads that combine trash to literally spell out what litterbugs are doing. Maybe they’ll realize now. The ad campaign uses popular items…
A Minnesota architect has built a 3D printed castle in just under 4 months. Whether he used the world’s largest MakerBot or something else to print it is unclear. All we know is that whatever he used was capable of extruding layer upon layer of smooth concrete. Andy Rudenko wanted to 3D print a castle…
Apple has announced two new ad formats capable of taking over the entire screen of your iPhone or iPad. The new formats will be a part of Apple’s iAd platform for iOS, which allows developers to build in ads right into their apps. Because if you’re going make bigger phones, you might as well have…
It’s an ad, so bear with the never ending attempts to sneak in Toaster Strudels but here’s master swordsman and multiple Guinness World Records holder Isao Machii slicing up fruit with a real sword better than any wannabe ninja can on his phone. On one side, it’s fun and ridiculous and hilarious that people can…
Here’s Israel’s Iron Dome chasing down 15 rockets in the air at one time and well, it’s crazy. Recent footage of the Iron Dome shows the defense system working and it’s like a firework show mixed with an air chase sequence that eerily resembles smokey tentacles reaching out to the sky. The future is scary.…
This GoPro video shows Christian Yellott zipping through the incredible narrow canyons of Lake Powell but if I squint a little bit, I can convince myself that I’m watching kid Anakin podracing in Tatooine. Either way, it’s pretty awesome. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook
Long before her Emmy-winning turn as a bipolar CIA officer on Homeland, Claire Danes played typical teenager Angela Chase. In doing so, she showed an entire generation, including me, that high school was not a perfect place, and that was totally fine. My So-Called Life debuted 20 years ago this week. Especially when you contrast…
We love a waterproofed Kindle, and we put one through hell, but that’s an aftermarket mod, not a feature that comes standard. If you want waterproofed reading on the cheap(er), the new Kobo Aura H2O is for you. Offering IP67 certification (waterproof for up to 30 minutes in 3 of water if the port cover…
This vicious-looking sunnovabitch here just lost a fight against the sharp end of a shovel—but you think that lack of a body is going to slow him down? Not a chance. Turns out, a wide range of predatory snakes are capable of reacting to stimuli and lashing out at potential threats for up to an…
Got a HP or Compaq laptop? Better check the power cord; HP is recalling 6 million of them due to a fire risk. The voluntary recall affects chargers included with some HP and Compaq laptops, mini laptops, and charging stations sold between September 2010 and June 2012 and only affects the power cord, the part…
The last time we checked in with Plebian Design and Hypersonic, the creative teams had installed an interactive map chandelier in Washington DC that glowed in time with different data sets. For their latest trick, they turned the lobby of a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech company into a similarly mind-bending, shape-shifting display. Breaking Wave is a…
When the curtain was first raised at the Future Islands show at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood last week I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t know who would be opening for the Baltimore-based band and hadn’t bothered to check. Squinting to make out the lead singer’s face (I really need to update…
Although 81 percent of the state is experiencing an “extreme drought,” for many parts of California there is no apparent water shortage. Visit the highest-income neighborhoods and you’ll see lush lawns and sparkling fountains defiantly sucking our lifeblood from the Earth. Apparently, as reporter Ann Louise Bardach found in writing for Politico, the rich will…
Rupert Murdoch must be feeling nostalgic: Reporters in The Times UK’s newsroom are working under a constant soundtrack of (artificial) typewriter clatter. It’s an experiment to “increase energy levels,” and for a generation of reporters who grew up on word processors, it’s probably torture. Yes, as The Independent tells us, Times journalists walked into the…
Ever since humans first noticed the mind-altering effects of poppies, we’ve planted vast fields of the flowers to make drugs that range from the legal (morphine) to the illegal (heroin). Some of our strongest legitimate painkillers still originate in these large, unwieldy, and pesky-to-regulate poppy fields. But what if we could just brew vats of…
A stained wood Adirondack chair can class up any deck, and it turns out a stained wood hammock can do the same for a backyard. This impressive creation, called the Para Hammock, still features an intricate web of cords (in this case, strong nylon parachute cord)—but here they’re used to support over 700 tiny tiles…
Nobody likes a fat wallet, especially a fat boring wallet with no real tactical capabilities. That’s what makes the Mesh Card so appealing. This slim slab of featherweight titanium works as a standalone wallet, a multi-tool, or just a useful addition to your existing wallet. It even prevents data thieves! At its most basic level,…
