Tech News

Ka-boom. Clearing fields of mines with rockets is probably one of the most spectacular military duties you can be assigned with. In this photo, taken two weeks ago near Camp Leatherneck in Helmand province, Afghanistan, you can see an M1 Assault Breacher Vehicle–and the huge ball of fire that its MICLIC rockets caused when clearing…

Motocross rider misses curve, miraculously survives huge fall

This unfortunate motocross rider appeared to misread a corner and throttled at just the wrong moment during a race in New Jersey. He ended up being propelled into the top of a tree and—according to comments left at the end of this YouTube clip—survived with some serious injuries. The rider, identified in comments as Justin…

Airliner-Drone Near Miss Spurring FAA to Clamp Down on UAVs

It’s come to light that a small drone almost collided with a US Airways jetliner in Florida in March—and it’s enough to spur the FAA to further clamp down on the use of UAVs. According to Jim Williams, head of the FAA’s unmanned-aircraft office, the UAV came so close to the jetliner that the pilot…

Mad Men cast star in ads that seem created by Sterling Cooper & Partners

AMC came up with these playful ads—starring the Mad Men cast as models—in a campaign targeting Emmy Award voters. They are made in a distinctly sixties style and almost seem like the creations of Sterling Cooper & Partners. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

The Simplest Explanation of What the World Wide Web Is That You’ll See

We all know someone who still manages to confuse the Internet and the World Wide Web, and no amount of frustrated, rambling description seems to help them understand the difference. Now, you can just show them this video. This explainer by TED-Ed describes the World Wide Web as a city, where skyscrapers are web servers,…

Motorola Adds LTE to the Moto G and Launches Budget Moto E

The Moto G is Motorola’s best-selling smartphone ever, and it just got a little bit better: there’s now an LTE version available, as well as budget version called the Moto E. The original Moto G was, and still is, a wonderful phone the money—we said that it was a “solid smartphone to help you improve…

Uber has decided to launch alow-cost SUV car service in San Francisco called UberXL—not to be confused with UberX, which offers smaller vehicles, or UberSUV, which is more expensive. Make sense? No, not really.

How the FCC Makes Its Rules

It’s been hard to go a day without hearing news about the Chairman of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, and his highly contested plan for the future of network neutrality. Google and Netflix signed a letter with nearly 150 other Internet companies calling on the FCC to reconsider its plan, which would purportedly bless the creation…

NASA finds strange dark square hole in the Sun

The NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory has found a strange coronal hole in the Sun, “almost square in its shape.” I don’t know about you, but this square phenomenon freaks me out a bit. It looks like the Sun is some kind of fake LED disco ball and one panel is failing. Here’s the video. From…

Why Air Pollution Has Always Been a Problem in L.A. (And Always Will Be)

Air pollution has plagued Southern California for as long as people have been writing about the region. A blanket of haze hung over the land that would become Los Angeles on October 8, 1542, when Spanish sailors entered San Pedro (or perhaps Santa Monica) Bay and made the first written observations of the Southland. This…

Archaeologists may have found the wreck of Columbus’ Santa Maria

After 500 years, archaeologists believe that they have found the wreck of the Santa Maria— Christopher Columbus’ flagship—at the bottom of the sea off the north coast of Haiti. The leader of the expedition, Barry Clifford, told The Independent that all the evidence “strong suggests that this wreck is Columbus’ famous flagship, the Santa Maria.”…

Everything Wrong with Consumerism in 46 Seconds

Worried that you aren’t good, smart, or attractive enough to find success and happiness and that you’ll die pathetically alone, a washed-out neverwas from the middle of nowhere? That’s because you aren’t and you will—unless you buy these fantastic products!

Noah genesis sequence mixes science and religion into a pretty tale

Everyone has their own beliefs so I don’t care if you side with science or put yourself to faith or are too lazy to think about it, that doesn’t really change anything here. Just enjoy the beautiful sequence in this scene from the movie Noah about the creation of Earth. It tells the story of…

Hubble is the single most useful science instrument ever created

No other single scientific device has gathered more data, confirmed more theories, made more discoveries, and given us more pure visual joy and awe than the Hubble Space Telescope—the single most useful science instrument ever created. NASA has just published some updated statistics to prove it. Hubble has made more the 1 million observations since…

Holy crap, a house just exploded live on TV

A home in Brentwood, New Hampshire, exploded today live on TV as an ABC News helicopter was flying over the area, filming as it was burning. According to ABC News: It was unclear what caused the explosion at the house, located in a development called Mill Pond Crossing, a retirement community, police said. An elderly…

NASA: Unstoppable Antarctic ice collapse to increase global sea levels

Impressive photo of the Thwaites Glacier on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet which—according to NASA and University of California scientists—“appears to be in an irreversible state of decline, with nothing to stop the glaciers in this area from melting into the sea.” They carry enough water to rise global sea levels by 4 feet (1.2…

Road rage driver shows why road rage is so silly by crashing his car

We’re so lucky that Russia is doing its part in documenting history through dash cams because we get to see idiots act like idiots every other day. Here we get to see a foolish driver in road rage, who didn’t merge into a lane fast enough, ‘retaliate’ on the car who ‘cut him off’ by…

Watch a 20mm anti-tank rifle destroying an Apple iMac in slow motion

RatedRR is back again with the big guns. How big? 20mm big! Witness the power of the Lahti L-39, a Finnish 20mm anti-tank rifle used during World War II. So powerful and accurate that they even took down airplanes with its fully automatic variant. Here you can see it destroy an Apple iMac. You can…

These Pixelated Pics of NYC Were Taken On A Game Boy

Ah, to see the world through greyscale-colored lenses. Photographer David Friedman took these charming pixelated pics of New York way back in the year 2000… ON A GAME BOY. They’re not only a technological time capsule, but an urban one. The Game Boy Camera was a short-lived accessory for the Game Boy—it was released in…

DreamWorksTV Is A Perfect Example Of Not Using YouTube Properly

You might not have noticed, but DreamWorks recently launched their own YouTube channel in an effort to make some extra revenue. The company has taken losses on many of their most recent movies, and some extra advertising money could certainly help them. Unfortunately, their YouTube channel is unlikely to make much money since its videos…