Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Nokia’s Lytro-like Refocus app is now available for all Lumias running WP8—not just those with PureView cameras.
Disquiet Junto Project 0115: Mediated Solo Duet Each Thursday at the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.com a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. This project was…
To have a little bit of fun, artist Marty Cooper drew some cute critters and funny looking monsters on a transparent sheet and inserted them into real life. As in he superimposed his drawings into the environment around him. It’s like what the world would look like if monsters were living among us. You’ll see…
Planetary science news! Not only does Earth have a nice, wet surface, but a new mineral sample gives us a peek at a wet interior, too. Water, water, everywhere… One quibble — this isn’t a new suspicion amongst geoscientists. Instead, it’s the first direct proof from a deep-Earth mineral that those suspicions are correct! I…
Everyone wants a pool in their backyard until they realize they never actually swim in it. Those neglected pools become nothing more than holes in the ground filled with cloudy water that act as mosquito magnets. Not this pool though. This outdoor pool is magic. The floors sinks into the ground and it fills itself…
Layering dozens of asynchronous Gifs onto his digital canvas, Johnathan Gillie creates a hyper-kinetic allegory for our overly-stimulated, technology-saturated modern lifestyles. Be warned, this does include numerous flashing lights and may not play well with your epilepsy.
If you crossed Hunger Games with Oblivion, mixed in some feelings of Moon, sprinkled a little of action from that Bourne movie without Matt Damon and shook it all up with astronaut suits, futuristic guns, another planet and an eerie death match you would get Project Skyborn, a heart pumping short by Marko Slavnic. It’s…
Man, talent is talented. Watch fantastic artist Heather Rooney draw an amazingly photorealistic picture of the famous Ellen Oscars selfie. You know the one with a billion celebrities that got retweeted a billion times. All she used was Prismacolor colored pencils to turn a blank sheet of paper into what looks exactly like a photo.…
It’s kind of hard not to like mashups. They’re gimmicky after a while, but it’s fun to hear songs you know and love mixed with other songs you know and love. When you take two artists you know and love and create a whole mashup album, it’s crazy fun. Amerigo Gazaway is doing a whole…
Convenience stores are many things to many people: a Slurpee-filled oasis on a long road trip; a late-night hang-out for thirsty teens hoping to bum some beers in the parking lot; somewhere to grab some Cheetos, because Cheetos. But no matter where you are, after hours the artificial glow of these things is like an…
Even your most basic outdoor store will sell you a collapsible silicone drinking cup that helps keep your backpack as light as possible when hiking. And it turns out that same strategy can apply to portable speakers too, like the making them even easier to stash in a bag when not in use. Available in…
The home office of the future, as imagined in the 1967 short film, 1999 A.D.
The Passive House movement is a wonderful thing. What could be wrong with a voluntary standard that encourages people to make their houses as energy efficient as possible? Well, it’s complicated. No seriously, these things are really hard to build. That’s what makes the Pop-Up House so interesting. Designed by French architecture firm multipod studio,…
When a deck is available, it’s probably the easiest way to start up a quick game of cards with a group of friends. But while many of us have a smartphone on hand 24/7, few of us have a deck of cards in our pockets as well. Which is why this app that creates a…
It seems like every big city is facing a major housing crisis. But things are looking up in London: not only is the city planning an astounding 230 new towers that will fundamentally change the skyline, but an impressive 80 percent of those towers will be residential. A survey by GL Hearn for New London…
The five-alarm fire that destroyed a San Francisco apartment building this week put the city’s municipal water supply to the test: When water pressure began to dwindle, firefighters tapped an emergency system that was built below the city—all the way back in 1913. The six-story building under construction in the city’s Mission Bay neighborhood caught…
The dilemma: Sitting for hours on end is horrible for you, and standing desks are expensive as heck. The answer: The UpStanding Desk, a Kickstarter for an inexpensive shelf-like module that turns any surface into an instant standing desk. Magic! The UpStanding Desk has two levels—one for your monitor, and one for your keyboard or…
It does’t normally do this, but the NSA just released a statement in response to the recent report about the agency’s habit of infecting millions of computers with malware and impersonating Facebook servers. Unsurprisingly, the NSA is denying everything.
Los Angeles funk band Vulfpeck wants to go on tour, but they’re going to need your help to raise the money. This isn’t some Kickstarter: They’ve made an entirely silent album designed specifically for the purpose of siphoning cash away from Spotify’s treasury. Its a clever stunt, and it just might work. Here’s the deal:…
Back in 1963, two Czech travelers drew an incredible illustrated guidebook based on their first trip to Mad Men-era New York City. Soon after, the Czech police destroyed every last copy, and the book was lost forever. Or so they thought. The Guggenheim, Times Square, Eero Saarinen’s WTA terminal: Zdenek Mahler and Vladimir Fuka drew…