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I love this illustration by Marco D’Alfonso, showing what Akira would have looked like if it were drawn by the master of all comibook masters, Jack “The King” Kirby. Enjoy: I love the art of Katsuhiro Otomo, but Jack Kirby—the artist who created most of the best superheroes of all time—owns my heart. I just…
California’s drought has hit a new stage in bad. As of April 24th, the entire state, every square meter of it, is impacted by the drought. So far 25% of the state is in exceptional drought with an additional 50% in extreme drought, with a mere 5% experiencing milder moderate drought. Image credit: Brian Kahn/ClimateCentral…
The new Star Wars VII, directed by JJ Abrams without George Lucas, now has an official cast. Here’s the list, straight from the Star Wars website: John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, and Max von Sydow (the villain?) will join the original stars of the saga, Harrison Ford (Han…
The smartwatch revival isn’t going away anytime soon, but maybe this time around we can finally figure out a way to make their tiny displays useful for more than just showing notifications. In fact, a group of researchers from Carnegie Mellon might have finally figured out how with a concept watch that can be twisted,…
Do you ever fantasize about living in the 1980s? No phantom smartphone vibrations, no iPads, no Spotify — just VHS tapes, old-fashioned radio, and mullets. Well, a family in Ontario tried to do just that, living as best they could like it was 1986. But now they’re giving it up. Blair McMillan and his partner…
Boyers, Pennsylvania, is home to the Iron Mountain storage facility, a former limestone mine that is now the storage site of more than 15 million photographic negatives and prints, all preserved hundreds of feet underground. This documentary, produced by the Hillman Photography Initiative, takes you inside for a glimpse at the collection and the folks…
United States Senators have removed a provision in an intelligence bill that would have forced President Obama to publicly reveal information about people killed during drone strikes. The move comes at the request of the director of national intelligence, James Clapper. So much for transparency. According to The Guardian and The New York Times, the…
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…
Mozilla just released a pretty extensive new Firefox redesign, with cleaned up visuals and some great new features. It looks pretty different from the old Firefox—and rather similar to Google Chrome—with some deep customization options and nice integration between desktop and mobile browsers. This newest Firefox browser (version 29) puts add-ons in a quick-access menu,…
Google is reportedly getting ready to ditch its Nexus branding in favor of a new stringent “Silver”certification program, which would encourage hardware partners to make sick flagships with limited bloatware. The Information has a (paywalled) report with a lot of details about Google’s supposed plans. In short, it sounds like Google wants to set the…
The wonderfully simple to-do list app for Mac and iOS, Clear, is getting reminders so that you can keep track of when you’ve got to do stuff—not just what you’ve got to do.
There was a time when the U.S. Army foresaw the need to launch more than 400 nuclear weapons in a single day should Soviet Russia attempt to invade Western Europe at the height of the Cold War. It was with this doomsday scenario in mind that army researchers developed a recoilless, truck-mounted rifle capable of…
Google Field Trip, the company’s hyperlocal recommendation engine for nearby sights and destinations, has found a new home in Google Glass. Users simply say, “OK Google, explore nearby” to pull up information about the area around them—from history to art to food. Hopefully without getting punched in the face.
The artist Hellbent works on an optical effect for the wall surrounding the construction site at the Domino Sugar factory on the Brooklyn waterfront this week. Hellbent was commissioned by the Two Trees realty, the developer of the mega-project, and should finish up the mural by the weekend. [Nicholas Stango]
Sony’s NEX-6 is a fantastic camera that Gizmodo recommended at $850, calling it the “sweet spot” in the market space, and went on to say it was “hard to imagine a better design.” Available today for $525, its lowest price ever, it’s an absolute steal. [Amazon] Update: Now even cheaper at $525, with a free…
When you try to imagine what it will be like to live in the future, you might imagine flying cars, robotic butlers, or floating beds. Will we grow our own food? Will TVs still exist? How will we turn the lights on? Seriously, what will our future homes look and feel like? In a few…
Last year researchers at Cornell University figured out a way to 3D print a functional speaker cone. But now researchers at Disney have one-upped them with a new printing technique that lets any 3d-printed object work like a speaker—no matter its shape. The secret involves using electrostatic loudspeaker technology that actually dates back to the…
At a New York event today, Spotify and Sprint just announced a banger of a new partnership—Sprint Framily plan members can now get six months of Spotify Premium for free beginning May 9. But regular Sprint customers still benefit—they get three months for no dollars whatsoever. That’s a pretty nice deal. After those free periods,…
The Mars rover Curiosity spent the day banging on a new rock, then paused to take a selfie. The original portrait is a mosaic of frames reminiscent of the rover seen through alien eyes. It’s only after aligning, smoothing, and joining that the charismatic rover is revealed. Curiosity’s self-portrait on sol 177 is composed of…
Sprint just announced a new Sprint-specific HTC One M8 that harnesses all the goodness of Harman’s audio tech. Think of it as a phone for music lovers. For context, Harman uses sophisticated technology that analyzes the quality of the audio and attempts to rebuild what was lost in lossy compression. Harman Kardon demoed the technology…
