Tech News

A High-Speed Robot Arm That Snatches Objects Out of Mid-Air

Major League Baseball probably hasn’t even considered the idea of allowing teams to add artificial players to their rosters. But games would certainly be a lot more exciting if this EPFL arm—that can react in less than five hundredths of a second to catch an object—were to take the field. The robot arm seems particularly…

This New Gel Could Let Doctors Grow Bone Exactly Where They Need It

The body is expert at re-growing bone, but it doesn’t always manage to get the right shape. Now, a team from Rice University has developed a hydrogel that could let clinicians grow bone right where they need to. The researchers have created a hydrogel that’s liquid at room temperature but stiffens to a semi-solid at…

This Is Possibly, Probably the Moto E

The first handset out of Motorola’s stable since it snuggled up with Lenovo, the expected launch of this week’s Moto E handset is a big deal for the company. So it’ll probably be a bit miffed that serial leaker EvLeaks has popped the first images of the handset online already, ahead of any meticulously-planned launch.…

Japan’s Secret WWII Weapon: Exploding Balloons

WWII saw the development of some zany designs for weapons, such as when the U.S. developed pigeon guided missiles and (literal) bat bombs (the latter of which were a little too effective, accidentally destroying the testing base when they escaped), or when the Soviets trained exploding anti-tank dogs. Not to be left out of the…

Watch parkour with a pogo stick and other gravity-defying tricks

This extreme pogo video shows just how gravity-defying tricks can be performed with the latest super-charged sticks, a limited concern for your own well-being and a hell of a lot of talent. If you are interested in understanding how it is possible to pull off such insane stunts when the pogo you had as a…

Sci-fi Chinese porcelain plates show giant robots and alien invasions

Check out Calamityware fine China plates designed by Don Moyers—instead of peaceful scenes and landscapes, they are full of flying dragons, destructive robots, and giant sea monsters. Too bad that only a couple of these plates are available via his online store. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

An Elegant Angular Take on an Old Stick Chair

New takes on old creations often result in beautiful objects that transcend the boundaries of time. Not unlike Andréason & Leibel‘s Woodkid chair: an angular, geometric take on the kind of stick chair your grandparents may have owned. Replacing round for square looks smart, sophisticated, and even simple—but Andréason & Leibel make a very good…

Black+Decker’s AutoSense Drill Stops Itself When a Screw Is Flush

If you’re not already experienced with a drill, when working with screws there’s a very good chance you’re going to accidentally drive them below the surface of whatever material you’re working with—splintering wood and cracking drywall. You can of course get better at it with practise, or you can just buy Black+Decker’s new AutoSense drill…

LG’s G Pad Will Now Come In Every Size You Could Ever Want

Like LG’s G Pad 8.3 but not convinced by the size? No problem: the tablet will now be issued in three other sizes to make the range exhaustively complete. We liked the G Pad 8.3 when reviewed is Google Play edition last year. Now, that 8.3-inch version will be complemented by 7-,8- and 10.1-inch versions.…

The A to Z of old television series in one neat video

Tom McCarten, a designer based in Auckland, pays homage to all those hours we spent sitting on the couch watching TV when we were kids. A is for the A-Team, B is for the Brady Bunch and so on. The video was created for Sky Retro TV channel ‘Jones!’ but was never used. And yes,…

Tech’s So Advanced, Why Don’t We Change the Way Smartphones Work?

Technology has advanced so much that maybe it’s time to rethink the smartphone. In fact, Randall Munroe has an idea: why not have apps just download on the fly as you need them? Turns out, though, that such thinking isn’t perhaps as new as he might have first thought. In today’s XKCD, he explains his…

Samsung’s 72-year-old chairman Lee Kun-hee suffered a major heart attack over the weekend, though is now stable, breathing without assistance and undergoing surgery. Samsung insist that there “has been no disruption in the group’s day-to-day operation.”

Horrific Medical Procedures That WIll Make You Glad of Modern Medicine

If you ever think that medical techniques sometimes sound icky, then at least be glad you live in a world of modern medical progress. Because this video, by Five Facts, shows some horrific medical procedures that were once thought to actually help us get better. From eating dog poop—no, really—to chainsaw-like tools designed to prepare…

Iran unveils bootleg copy of US Sentinel stealth drone

Iran claims to have successfully reverse engineered and manufactured their own version of the Lockheed Martin Sentinel RQ-170 stealth drone that crashed in their territory on December 2011. It’s unknown if their claims are true or not—they have not demonstrated the drone flying yet. They only thing we know for sure is that last year…

Users Didn’t Like Mozilla’s New-Tab Ads (So It’s Trying ‘Em Again)

Back in February, Mozilla announced that it was going to trial promotional tiles in its ‘new tab’ page. Now, the company has revealed that the idea “didn’t go over well” with users—but it will try again anyway. In a blog post, Mozilla VP Jonathan Nightingale says “A lot of our community found the language [them]…

Report: FCC to Remove “Fast Lanes” From Net Neutrality Proposal

It appears that the major public backlash in response to the FCC’s proposed net neutrality rules hasn’t fallen on deaf ears. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Tom Wheeler will in fact be revising his proposal (you know, again) to ensure that companies can’t “segregate Web traffic into fast and slow lanes.”…

How Star Wars would be if it were a Tarantino film

After watching this Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars trailer, I want to see him direct Star Wars Episode VIII. I mean, it makes total sense: it’s all about cowboys, magical samurais, and bad guys who look like Nazis. And as long as he casts Christopher Walken as Han Solo, we are fine. SPLOID is a new…

This Week in Space

It’s time for the weekly edition of In Case You Missed It from the Space subsite paired with links from around the web of news we didn’t cover here. It was a slow-traffic week for Space this week, so if you read something you like, pass it along to a friend! Quantum mechanics inspiring jewellery…

Bill Murray Does His Best Hunter S. Thompson Impression

Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro weren’t the first to take a trip through bat country. Nearly two decades prior, Bill Murray and Jeffrey Tambour Peter Boyle dove head first into the beautiful, demented mind of Dr. Gonzo through a series of thinly veiled vignettes about Thompson’s most memorable moments—like the time he fed a…

Cool video of nine jet fighters flying in perfect formation

Coolvideo of a diamond formation perfectly executed by four Mikoyan MiG-29 Fulcrums and five Sukhoi Su-27 Flankers. It was part of the Russian military parade for the 69th anniversary of Victory Day over the Nazis, celebrated on Friday, May 9. In Russia they celebrate Victory Day on May 9 instead of May 8, like the…