Tech News

These bizarre snow rolls were actually created by the wind

Earlier this week, Pennsylvanians woke up to backyards full of curious snow formations. The hollow cylinders varied in shape and size from doughnuts to hay bales to rolled-up carpet. They are snow rollers, making their first appearance in Pennsylvania in 10 years. If you’ve ever made a snowman, you pretty much know how this works,…

They gave their lives to Humanity’s greatest adventure

The Challenger crew died in a fatal explosion 28 years ago today. Left to right: Sharon Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, Judith A. Resnik, Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, Ronald E. McNair, Mike J. Smith, and Ellison S. Onizuka. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

The Very First Mirrorless Camera Was a Gem Made by Epson. Yep. Epson.

By 2010, the mirrorless camera had become a model on the rise, with Sony, Olympus, and Panasonic each pushing their new compact interchangeable-lens systems on the world. But the very first mirrorless camera came years before, made by a company known mostly for printers. Epson announced the RD1 digital rangefinder in March of 2004, making…

This Colorful Rubber Bike Rack Won’t Scratch Or Ding Your Favorite Ride

You might be able to get away with riding a scratch-free bike around the city, but locking up a scratch-free bike? Good luck, buddy; that’s gonna leave a mark. Ottawa-based design consultancy The Federal Inc. devised the colorful Loop rack to give your beloved frame a soft spot to rest against—a high-strength steel chain wrapped…

Archaeologists Uncover 300,000-Year-Old Kitchen in Israeli Cave

Sure, early hominins used fire for upwards of a million years. But when did early hominins start acting like humans—for example, cooking in the same spot each night? The new discovery of an old (really old) hearth at an Israeli dig site could hold the answer. The site is Qesem Cave—Qesem meaning “magic” in Hebrew—a…

A Crazy-Making Day in the Life of an Apple Store Creative

I didn’t know this until I went to work for Apple Retail, but their credo is “Enriching Lives.” I never had a job with a philosophy attached to it. I know the Marines have one. It’s Semper Fi. If you see that on a bumper sticker, it’s Latin for, “Mess with this car, and you’re…

Guam Could Get a Missile Shield to Deter North Korean Attacks

Guam’s strategic location just 1,500 miles South of Japan’s shores make the tiny island a very valuable piece of real estate for the US military and a very enticing target for Pyongyang’s missile program. To make sure that Kim Jong Un doesn’t get any funny ideas, Congress wants to arm Guam with our version of…

Incredible iceberg images are actually drawn with fingers

They may seem like photographs, but these are the finger paintings of Brooklyn-based artist Zaria Forman—an artist who draws using pastels on very large papers with extraordinary photorealism. Here’s Zaria in the middle of drawing the iceberg above: Her water renderings are hyperrealistic too: While I’m not a fan of this kind of art, I…

Snow From Sewage, Extreme Antibiotics, and Houses That Make Us Sick

In this week’s round-up of landscape reads, we’ve got sacred grounds, coffee grounds, and camping grounds. Skiing on Sewage The Arizona Snowbowl is a ski resort outside of Flagstaff that has, despite its name, been having trouble getting snow. For the past several years, they’ve been making artificial snow from the city’s reclaimed sewage water,…

If you’ll be at MetLife Stadium for the Super Bowl, don’t expect to watch streaming replays on your phone: the NFL and Fox Sports will block streaming video to folks inside the stadium on game day, to preserve capacity for all the other data-heavy social media bragging attendees will no doubt be doing. [Ars Technica…

A Touch-Sensitive iPhone Case That Lets You Answer Calls While Closed

A flip-style case will protect all the parts of your expensive smartphone—from the housing to the display—but at the cost of making you a little slower on the draw when it comes to answering a call. So to solve this ‘problem’ Moshi has created the SenseCover case which features a touch-sensitive strip on the outside…

An 8K Endoscope Probably Shows More Than Anyone Really Wants To See

8K television broadcasts are slowly creeping towards becoming a reality, but 8K video technology is already being embraced and used in other industries. A group called the Medical Imaging Consortium—or MIC for short—has revealed that back in December they used a new 8K endoscope in an experimental surgery where they successfully removed a pig’s gall…

Here’s What iOS Might Actually Look Like in Your Car

Last week, app developer Steven Troughton-Smith showed some purported screen captures of what in-car iOS could look like. Today, he’s got a video on YouTube showing how dashboard iOS might look in action. It looks nice, if a little bit limited in its current form. https://gizmodo.com/ios-in-your-car-could-look-pretty-great-1505984952 In the video’s description, Troughton-Smith says everything you see…

What’s Eating Florida? These Six Voracious Species

Just in case Florida didn’t have enough going against it already (looking at you Florida Man), the state that everybody loves to hate is currently being invaded. No, not by Cuba—by a variety of non-native plants and animals that are wreaking environmental havoc and causing billions of dollars in damage. These are six of the…

Is the New Google Glass Actually Any Less Awkward?

Google Glass has a new style. In fact you might say, it has “style” for the first time ever. But does the new look really make Glass look any less absurd? The original Glass was so held back by its crazy spaceman look that this update to real frames is definitely an improvement. But it…

How Tumbleweeds Spread Radiation From Old Nuclear Sites

The tumbleweed, which seems so at home rolling down an American highway, is actually an invasive plant from the Russian steppes. In the relatively short time it’s been invading the plains—just over a century—the tumbleweed has managed to establish itself as an indelible symbol of the western landscape. It is the ultimate sleeper cell, we…

Watch the development of America’s next space shuttle

In 2016, a new kind of space shuttle will rise to the skies atop an Atlas V rocket. Developed by a private company—the Sierra Nevada Corporation—it would be able to ferry seven astronauts to orbit and back. Its name is the Dream Chaser and this video shows its (spectacular) development progress so far. A fine…

Someone Turned a Quadcopter Into a Flying Missile Launcher

Forget concerns over surveillance and privacy when it comes to quadcopters and drones filling the skies. A member of Flite Test—a site dedicated to custom flying creations—built a quadcopter with a built-in launch pad for firing model rockets while in flight. The quadcopter itself appears to have been built from scratch from balsa and other…

These Are the Futuristic Venues of the Upcoming Winter Olympics

The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics will start on February 6th, 2014. The Russian Empire has built a bunch of brand new arenas for the upcoming winter sports fiesta. This is our collection of the artistic-futuristic architecture of the Sochi Games, built from scratch in the past few years. Outside of Shayba Arena, Alder, Russia. The…

Rumour: The Nokia X Will Be a Super-Cheap Android

New specs have appeared giving us a look inside the Nokia X Android model, suggesting it’ll be a very low-spec budget phone. Conspiracy theorists might even suggest Nokia’s making a rubbish Android phone on purpose, to make its WP models look better in comparison. According to popular and usually on-the-ball Twitter news source EVLeaks, the…