Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Convention season is starting, which also means it’s the less-well-known panel-pitching season. If I were coming to a city near you, what would you want me to talk about? I’ll be in full guest-mode for at a scattering of events this summer, but what should I talk about? If you had the chance for me…
You know that feeling when you reach for the milk carton and you think it’s almost full but in fact it’s nearly empty, so you way overcompensate on strength and nearly throw the thing over your shoulder? That’s what picking up this Carbon Fiber chair is like. Even knowing full well that it’s a five-pound…
A team of researchers has found inspiration in an unlikely critter: the humble Namib Desert beetle, a south African species that gathers water molecules straight from the air. The beetle does this by developing a pattern of water-attracting and repelling molecules on its wings and trapping water molecules in these peaks and troughs. The scientists…
Sorting sand from sugar is a classic chemistry challenge — dissolve the mixture in water, filter out the sand, and evaporate the water to recrystallize the sugar. But spontaneous stratification offers a different, mesmerizing approach. The experiment is simple: sift some fine sand, hopelessly mix it with coarse sugar (colourfully dyed for maximum visual impact),…
A Steam machine in your pocket? You’ve got be kidding us. And yet, that’s exactly what we might get with the Steamboy. https://kotaku.com/meet-steamboy-the-portable-steam-machine-1590987020 Announced and teased at E3, the handheld device isn’t affiliated with Valve. Instead, it’s an independant project backed by the SteamBoy Machine team, a third-party group. The specs are modest: a quad-core…
Tim Cook has been the CEO of Apple for almost three years, but there’s very little we actually know about him. He’s humbler than his predecessor, he can cut down investors to size, and he might be the most powerful gay man in America. The New York Times finally has the long Cook profile we’ve…
This week, Illinois became the first state in the country to ban exfoliating plastic beads. Good for Illinois. Plastic microbeads have been running off by the billions into the Great Lakes and the oceans, causing huge amounts of environmental damage. Yet most consumers didn’t even realize they existed. Marine biologists have warned for a while…
Earlier this week, Facebook announced that it was going to start using all of that ever-so-illuminating app and website data it collects to serve us with more targeted ads. In other words, Facebook is getting ready to use your browsing history to benefit advertisers. Here’s how to stop them. Of course, just because you’re getting…
According to “historians” cited by The Daily Mail (LOL!), you’re looking at the tomb of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, aka Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula. Yes. The Dracula. The tomb is located in Santa Maria la Nova, in Naples, Italy. And they want to open it. It seems like the plot for a horror…
Remember that time columnist Maureen Dowd went to Colorado, holed up in her hotel room, ate some pot candy, and freaked out because she ate way too much? And remember how everybody was making fun of her? Well, I identified with that story a little too much. I know those feels, Maureen. Except in my…
Baltimore-based band Future Islands finally got some much-deserved mainstream attention this past March after appearing on Letterman. Suddenly, the band was everywhere with their new single Seasons (Waiting on You). But after listening to their new album on repeat for months, there’s still just one song that haunts me every time it comes on: Fall…
After repeated weather delays, NASA ran out of time to test its new flying saucer. All six planned launch windows in the past two weeks were cancelled due to unfavourable wind conditions. The saucer is grounded while scientists try to schedule a new testing window. Artist’s concept of the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator firing its rockets…
The short documentary, 2001 A Space Odyssey: A Look Behind the Future is a fascinating artifact of film history. As the folks at Coudal Partners point out, it might be a little “cornball” at times, but it still serves to give context for thoughts around space exploration from technical experts and artists in the late…
Uber arrives in Europe and the cab drivers are pissed. Be careful when you let your kid piss all over our public parks. And Donald Trump has gotten himself into a pissing match with critics over his new building in Chicago. It’s (a not totally urine-themed) What’s Ruining Our Cities This Week! Taxi strikes are…
AT&T recently confirmed that a breach in April that let unauthorized contractors into the mobile giant’s database to snag personal information including Social Security Numbers about AT&T Mobility customers. AT&T won’t say how many users are affected, but unlucky folks have already been notified.
I’m enchanted by Alex Parker’s visualization of the planets discovered by the first phase of the Kepler Space Telescope’s exoplanet-hunting mission. The simple swarm of time-vs-distance for exoplanetary orbits captures the overwhelming number of alien worlds with a minimalistic, elegant aesthetic. The horizontal axis is time — the planet’s period. It caps out at 1000…
This week in Tech Reads: How the internet is filling up, the horrors in store if your future connected home gets hacked, cyber-stalking reporters for journalism, and more! Iljitsch van Beijnum explains that with Americans running out of IPv4 addresses, the internet is full. [Ars Technica] Mat Honan explores the inevitable horrors of a wildly…
Considering how early rockets had an unnerving tendency to uncontrolled, unintentional explosions, the earliest test pilots for rocket-propelled vehicles were in their own category of bravery. From an unnamed ram to William G. Swann, these are the pioneers that eventually led to Chuck Yeager, Alan Shepard, and modern spaceflight. https://gizmodo.com/alan-shepard-astronaut-pilot-golfer-1554048203 https://gizmodo.com/the-first-american-rocket-pilot-452502213
You’ve had a busy week, so why not just sit back, kick up your feet and take in our best posts of the week? Dive in! How to Stop Facebook From Using Your Browsing History Earlier today, Facebook announced that it was going to start using all of that ever-so-illuminating app and website data it…
Whether you’re traveling to Tanzania, Taiwan, or Tokyo, you’re likely going to run into situations where English is not the primary language. But rather than blow hundreds of dollars on Rosetta Stone or fumble through archaic paperback phrasebooks, drop one of these helpful real-time translation apps on your phone instead. Word Lens There’s a good…
