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Logging into apps and services with Facebook is really easy—but it’s also really creepy. You don’t want to just give up a ton of permissions you don’t trust and don’t even necessarily know you want to use more than once. At F8, Mark Zuckerberg announced some forthcoming improvements to Facebook logins that make it way…
Really good stuff coming out of this Facebook developer conference.
Air pollution in the U.S. is better than it was a decade ago, but a staggering 147.6 million Americans—47 percent of the country—live in places where air quality is often too dangerous to breathe, according to the American Lung Association’s State of the Air report. The new study looked at a three-year span of 2010,…
Why did the dinosaurs die? Sure, you could go with careful, rational reasons, or you can go for the totally insane theories! Or, maybe they were all eaten by the ever-adorable Edison Quillsworth Bristlebottom, a hedgehog with voracious dino-nibbling appetite who lives with Jenn Sell & Ryan Gierke. Photography credit: Jenn Sell & Ryan Gierke…
The question of just how an ancient civilization—without the help of modern technology—moved the 2.5 ton stones that made up their famed pyramids has long plagued Egyptologists and mechanical engineers alike. But now, a team from the University of Amsterdam believes they’ve figured it out, even though the solution was staring them in the face…
Google just pushed out some very nice-looking standalone apps for both Docs and Sheets.
Photographer Clark Little takes stunning images of shorebreak waves. He explains how he developed his style and found success, throwing himself and his camera into the action—and taking a beating for his art—in this video. While some photographers focussed on capturing conventional shots from the safety of the sidelines, Clark spent eight years in the…
Outdated technology and government wastefulness seem to go hand in hand, but this time the two are combining for a startlingly huge money sink: the Pentagon is planning on destroying $1.2 billion in excess bullets and missiles, some of which could still be used by troops. And it’s all because the military has no way…
Tuesday night was horrific. After weeks of controversy, Oklahoma had planned to execute two convicted murders with untested lethal injection drugs. As many had feared, the drugs didn’t work like they were supposed to, and one lethal injection drugsof the prisoners suffered in front of an audience. That prisoner, Clayton Lockett, died of a heart…
The Space subsite covers all sorts of stories from stargazing to planetary exploration, and from explainers on geological phenomena to marvelling at pretty places. Here’s stories from April that you may have missed. Not everything gets shared to the io9 main page. Here’s the April stories exclusive to the Space Subsite: Stargazing at Dark Sky…
If there’s still one complaint we all have about touchscreens, it’s that we sometimes miss physical buttons. Whether it’s a game controller, or a keyboard, having tactile feedback is often a better solution—sometimes. Which is what led to the development of these tiny robot Thumbles that roll onto a touchscreen as needed to provide temporary…
Until now, sequencing the genomes of many marine animal species has been all but impossible, what with the need to transport delicate specimens thousands of miles back to a terrestrial laboratory. But thanks to this mobile genomics lab created by the University of Florida, researchers will be able to run a specimen’s DNA without returning…
Most of us see our USB flash drives as expendable, one-trick ponies—good for storing and sharing files and not much else. But with the appropriate knowledge, that little mess of gigabytes in your pocket has the potential to be so much more. After scouring a recent Quora thread calling for useful (and largely unknown) thumb…
This guy builds rockets with bottles and water, adding liquid nitrogen, turning them upside down and boom, instant propulsion: The nitrogen expands very fast on top of the warmer water, turning violently into gas, and pushing the bottle up. And in case you worry about how he’s handling liquid nitrogen—I did too—apparently it’s not that…
Daydreaming about traipsing around the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone made me wonder just how idyllic this accidental-wildlife refuge really is. Local camera-trap photography is downright sexy with wolves, lynx, eagle, and deer, but the satellite images paint a duller picture. Wildlife is thriving without pesky humans in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Photography credit: Dr. Sergei Gaschak…
While many people think countries like Norway are leading the way with recycling programs, an ambitious new idea in Venezuela takes things to a whole new level. The country just announced that it will start recycling abandoned cars, motorcycles, and bikes in order to build houses from their raw materials. “We have sent 10,485 automobiles,…
Speeding cars! Jaywalking! Cyclist… behavior. As part of Mayor de Blasio’s Vision Zero plan, which aims to cut traffic deaths to zero, the city just launched an interactive map where you can report any number of complaints about the hazards of street life. The map went up less than 24 hours ago, but it already…
Fingerprints, as most of us know, are composed of whorls, loops, and arches. But keep zooming in, and you’ll find tiny, tiny sweat pores arranged in patterns equally unique. Scientists in Korea have found a new way to map those pores that could help identify decade-old fingerprint fragments. The sweaty creatures they are, humans leave…
Sometimes all that’s needed to encourage people to recycle is a little incentive. That’s why pop cans and beer bottles have deposits, and why Coca-Cola built an arcade machine that runs on empty plastic soda bottles instead of quarters. Sure, it’s also a way to advertise sugar water, but that doesn’t make this recent initiative…
If there are any Ikea engineers reading this post, please take note. Your system of using hex bolts and wrenches to assemble your flat-pack furniture is OK, but things would be a heck of a lot easier for everyone if all of your pieces were held together with giant wine corks. Clearly designer Hyeonil Jeong…
