Tech News

I can’t wait to see these cool racers flying over Earth’s oceans

Concept designer Al Brady is at it again with some really cool racers with inverted cockpits—they are like flying bikes. Can you imagine yourself piloting one of these things? The sensation of speed in that position would probably cause adrenaline to overflow out of your ears and nostrils. Al Brady is a concept designer in…

The Beautiful Process of Turning Quartz Into Lab Glass at 3,000 Degrees

If you work in a lab, you’ve probably used lab glass made from quartz. But you probably haven’t realized that the reason those test tubes are so durable is exactly what makes them so hard to mold. These beautiful GIFs, shot at GE’s Global Research in upstate New York, shows exactly what it takes to…

Deals: Customizable Bluetooth Speaker, $40 Puma Shoes, Logitech Combo

This portable Bluetooth speaker ships with a free Skinit credit to decorate it with the your favorite team, school, painting, pattern, superhero, and more. Oh, and it has great reviews. [Acoustic Research Portable Bluetooth Speaker with One Skinit Credit, $37] We’ve featured James Bond box sets several times in the past, but if you only…

The Plan to Build a Floating Beach That Travels Around NYC’s Shores

As summer rolls in with its heat and its sun, we’re all thinking of fleeing toward the beaches. For New Yorkers, that could soon be a beach on a reclaimed barge, floating along the Hudson River. Could it actually work? We talked to City Beach‘s structural engineer to find out. The idea for City Beach…

This Agricultural Roomba Is a Robotic Pooper Scooper for Dairy Farms

Cows, it turns out, can be pretty filthy, just pooping wherever and whenever it strikes their fancy. And when they let loose in the confines of a milking stall, the splattered mess becomes a source of infection for every cow that enters after. But rather than force a human to shovel shit 9 times a…

A Water Filter You Won’t Be Ashamed to Leave on the Dinner Table

I’m a tap drinker, myself—I take L.A.’s finest, straight up. But I understand if you’d like some filtration with your hydration. What I don’t understand is the use of crappy plastic pitchers to clean and store your water. Here’s a far more elegant solution. Soma was apparently developed with a “water formula designer” for Starbucks…

Google will shut down Orkut on September 30. If you’re wondering what Orkut is, you’re probably not in Rio de Janeiro: Orkut was Google’s first attempt at a social network, ignored by everyone but a surprisingly fervent sector of Brazilians. Orkut users will be able to export their photo albums to Google+.

Where Do Satellites Go To Die?

Although the International Space Station has a pair of self-repairing robots, most artificial objects in orbit aren’t nearly as lucky. Sooner or later, satellites reach the end of their useful life. When this happens, they either drop down and burn up during re-entry, or are sent to the satellite graveyard. The satellite graveyard is sadly…

The 7 Best-Designed Objects of the Year

Later today, the Design Museum will announce its pick for Design of the Year 2014. Since “design” applies to pretty much any object created by humankind, it’s a pretty tough to whittle down an entire year’s worth of buildings, electronics, apps, and objects to a single winner. Here are the seven finalists they’ll be choosing…

Top five misconceptions about evolution according to science

Purdue University’s Ph. D. student Caleb Trujillo posted this infographic explaining the top five misconceptions about evolution—misconceptions that are believed by many to be true and widely used by creationists to attack evolution. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

Artist draws incredible illustrations with no prior sketching whatsoever

Kim Jung Gi is one of those rare illustrators that can conjure up any scene he wants out of thin air, without any sketching and in record time. There are no tricks here, just an amazing visual memory, raw imagination, and a perfect command of the medium. Watching these videos of him working is a…

Serious Security Threat Lurks on 10 Percent of Android Phones

A bug in the Android KeyStore left an estimated 86 percent of Android phones 10 percent of Android phones vulnerable to major security breaches, according to an advisory IBM researchers published last week. KeyStore is like the janitor’s closet for Android; it’s where all cryptographic keys and other sensitive information lives. So it’s a bad…

How To Recover Old Versions and Deleted Files in Dropbox

Dropbox offers an excellent way of syncing files across computers and devices, sharing files with others and automatically backing up your photos. The more you dig into the app, the more features you uncover, and one tool you might not know about is the ability to recover deleted files. Any file deleted in the last…

4 Parking Garages That You Wouldn’t Mind Getting Lost In

Cars are wonderful things. They take us places, they bring us joy, they’re arguably one of the most important consumer technologies of the last 150 years. Parking garages, on the other hand, are more like a necessary evil. Which is why these designers are trying to make them a little more pleasant to be around.…

This Golf Ball-Sized Magnet Creates Three Metric Tons of Force

This little superconducting magnet may look serene, but it in fact it’s a record breaker, capable of creating three metric tons of force. The magnet beats a record that has stood for over ten years, generating a magnetic field of 17.6 Tesla—that’s more than a typical MRI machine, or about 3,000 times more than a…

Falling crane misses fortunate pedestrian by a few inches

It’s Lucky People Day at Sploid! Watch this guy walking along a sidewalk come insanely close to being flattened by a crane—if he had taken just a second longer things would have ended very different. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

Economy Airplane Seats of the Future Will Be More Like First Class

BAE Systems has taken a break from submarines and warships to lavish attention on the humble cattle-class flyer. Its IntelliCabin, a system that integrates passenger controls into a touchscreen tablet interface for fliers and staff, should make standard class a bit more like first. A bit. http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2014/05/new-nuclear-sub-artful-plops-into-the-sea-beside-cumbria/ The system delivers power to each seat, so…

You Can Now Buy the Super-Private Blackphone for $630

Paranoid? Or just privacy conscious? Well, the Blackphone is an Android handset that promises to keep your secrets safe, and now you can buy one for $630. The super-secure phone has been in the works for some time. While its specs were revealed at the start of the year—a 4.7-inch HD IPS display, 2GHz quad-core…

The best way to put on your pants without using your hands

This guy has a hands-free technique for putting on his pants that is as ridiculous as it is effective—and a total waste of time and energy. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

Boston Is Getting Solar-Powered Smart Benches in Its Parks

The next park bench you sit on may be smarter than you think. Boston is rolling out new smart benches to parks around the city, which will use solar power to allow anyone to charge their phone on the go and record data about their surroundings at the same time. The benches, developed by MIT…