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According to an FCC filing, Motorola’s slick new Moto 360 smartwatch will support wireless charging using the Qi standard.
This clip shows skateboarder Koki Loaiza jump the tracks at 145th Street in Harlem as part of a shoot for a video. He wipes out right onto the line on one attempt but clears the gap on another at around 2:32. Pure unadulterated madness. With trains and live killing electrical rails. SPLOID is a new…
This surreal short film shows how life in a western saloon changes dramatically thanks to the malicious influence of a smart-ass voiceover. The voice reveals all the thoughts from the villagers dragging them into a true ballet of death. The film, directed by Erick Kissack, features the voice of Nick Offerman. SPLOID is a new…
MIT engineers have taken inspiration from architecture to create a new material that combines high stiffness with low weight—by using a repeating geometric structure that’s airy, yet remarkably strong. The new material design has been developed in a collaboration with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and uses microlattices with nanoscale features to combine “great stiffness…
We talk about memory a lot when we discuss gadgets, and it’s no surprise: it’s one of the biggest indicators of performance in the gadgets we all use. But rarely do we stop and think about how it works at the very basic level. In this video, Dr Steve Bagley explains how logic gates—the simplest…
Watch the CTX gamma 2000 TC—a computer-controlled metal milling machine with 4,000 Newton meters of torque. It’s pure metal porn eye candy, so deeply hypnotic that will put you into a trance state. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook
Nokia has just announced an update to its first Android handset. The X2 is brightly colored, cheerfully specced, cheap—and even accepts dual SIMs. https://gizmodo.com/nokia-x-the-first-nokia-android-1529525060 Weighing in at $135 or so off-contract, you might not expect much from this evolution. But in fact the specs aren’t too bad: you get a 4.3-inch WVGA ClearBlack LCD screen,…
Bloomberg is reporting that Apple will put two new iPhones into production in July—one with a 4.7-inch display, the other with 5.5-inch screen—and both might ship by September. If that rumor is true—and that’s still a big if—it both reaffirms rumors and states the obvious. We’re now primed to expect two new larger iPhones, and…
When a trio of telescopes teamed up to stare at the sun, they captured the dynamics of solar puffing. The timelapse of a puff is gently mesmerizing: not outright stunning or mind-boggling, but somehow still incredible in their understated hiccupping release of plasma. A jet building into a puff. The red-green-blue channels are each mapped…
Money is just tinted paper printed with different numbers on it. So what gives the ol’ greenbacks its value? The bills used to be tied to the gold standard but now, it’s up to The Fed to control how many bills there are. So why can’t they just decide to print out ridiculous amounts of…
In an announcement made late this evening, Nest announced the project that seems all but inevitable: The Nest Developer Program, a project that will open up Nest’s platform to developers—and connect existing Nest products to a broad array of other smart devices, from smart watches to washing machines. The program is launching today in conjunction…
NASA just completed a test of an early prototype—maybe just an early, early precursor—space rover that may be flown to explore the Jupiter moon Europa. What’s cool is that the rover is designed to float on the underside of the ice and “rove as if the underside of the ice is the ground.” Up is…
The most popular brands in America are not always the largest companies making the most revenue. Brands that you know, stores that you go to and places that you associate with some states get replaced by faceless monoliths who basically repurpose oil, energy, technology, other people’s money, etc. into more money. The Washington Post points…
Believe it or not, some idiots think that Earth doesn’t rotate and others still think that Earth is flat. I’m sure the latter group would love this picture just taken by our space Captain America—astronaut Reid Wiseman. The angles on those two coasts converging makes Earth’s spheroidal surface look strangely flat. The image shows the…
Alaska was hit by a major earthquake today, and it was totally harmless. The magnitude 7.9 subduction-zone earthquake let off a build-up of tectonic stress in the most harmless way possible, proving that with disasters, location really is everything. Seismograph record of the station located on Adak, Alaska. Image credit: USGS The earthquake hit at…
Downton Abbey is a great show, especially if you like sadness. Season four, which opens with Lady Mary and the rest of the Crowleys recovering from yet another personal tragedy, is now streaming exclusively on Amazon Prime. Drama! Intrigue! Wealth! Quasi-adultery! Sex! Class warfare! This show has it all, set in the stylized backdrop of…
Here’s an enjoyable animation bit from ADHD: they hilariously imagine different famous actors as Batman. All the impressions are great. You’ll see Matthew McConaughey putting on his True Detective mask, Kevin Spacey doing his Frank Underwood shtick, Mark Wahlberg’s everyman persona, Aaron Paul screaming bitch and more. Maybe we should just run it back with…
At first glance it looks like these shoes are shod with two strategically shaped Top Ramen bricks. Delicious, perhaps, but c’mon—too crunchy for underfoot! The flexible soles were actually made with a 3D weaving machine designed by a graduate at London’s Royal College of Art, by layering a single, continuous thread in complementary patterns, one…
Semi-Charmed Life, Third Eye Blind’s meth-addled anthem of the 90s, came out 17 years ago last week. And for me, that has meant 17 years of playing the song to death—over, and over, and over again. Thankfully, North Carolina-based singer/songwriter Jackson Scott (the patriotic off-brand-Nerf-enthusiast you see above) has the cure to what ails me…
If you’ve been waiting for a smartwatch that looks beautiful in a more traditional sense, your wait might be over. The new Withings Activité is a fitness tracker that can really hold its own in terms of style. The Swiss-made timepiece from the makers of the Withings Pulse can’t show you text messages on your…
