Tech News

All-Natural Bananas Are Filled With Chemicals

The next time you’re peeling a fresh, organic, “all-natural” banana just remember: it’s filled with tons of chemicals! But don’t worry, so is everything else. James Kennedy, a chemistry teacher living in Australia, has created some fun images that show just what chemicals are lurking inside your favorite foods — even the “organic,” unprocessed ones.…

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R) were on Meet the Press this morning with explosive allegations: Edward Snowden may have been working with Russian spy agencies before leaving the US with about 1.7 million documents that revealed NSA surveillance tactics. The only catch? They presented no real evidence to back up their…

Traveling in a Boeing 747 in the 1970s was pretty damn awesome

Air travel did have a Golden Age. There was more space, classier interiors and bolder designs. You don’t even have to go back to the 50s and 60s to see that. Here are some of the actual cabin interiors for the Boeing 747s in the 1970s. They are awesome. https://gizmodo.com/when-airplane-stewardesses-were-all-glamour-and-sex-app-5316705 The idea of the Boeing…

Reconfigure This Lamp’s Magnetic Arm For Light Exactly Where You Want It

Bulky incandescents are pretty rare in desktop lamps these days, and it’s interesting to see how lighting designers are taking advantage of smaller bulbs—reducing lamps down to their absolute bare minimum. Take Jella, a super slim aluminum stick that’s embedded with both LEDs and magnets, so you can reconfigure it any which way you want…

This so-called Manatus map, originally drawn in 1639, is the oldest map of New York City in the New York Public Library’s Digital Gallery. The prominence offered to Brooklyn, that massive land mass in the bottom middle, ought to please the hipster types. Manhattan is that little nub above it. [Untapped Cities]

What Happens To Music After Net Neutrality?

Years ago, I believed experts who said Net Neutrality wasn’t a big deal for two reasons. First, It never really existed in the first place (because many ISPs prioritize traffic in some way, say, for or against online gaming). Second, the free market would solve the problem, because ISPs that threw up bad content roadblocks…

Verizon just announced big changes to its Edge early upgrade and payment plan, which allowed customers to upgrade their phones mid-contract after 6 months. Customers can now upgrade their phones after just 30 days, provided they’ve paid off at least 50% of the phone’s price. [CNET]

Maximum City: Dizzying Images of Mumbai’s Sky High Building Boom

Mumbai’s housing market is a series of extremes: There are hundreds of skyscrapers being built, yet more than 60 percent of its citizens live in slums. Single families occupy immense towers, but the average living space is less than 14 square feet per person. Alicja Dobrucka, a Polish artist, set out document the city’s changing…

Tour the Hidden Art Gallery on the High Line’s Last Unfinished Stretch

It’s easy to forget that beyond the tourist- and greenery-covered High Line, there are still 300 yards of old, rusting train track. This last patch of decaying NYC railway will soon be turned into the final stretch of the super-successful park—but for now, they’re home to a little-known outdoor gallery. Right now, the trail is…

Christophe Claret’s Latest Watch Lets You Kill Time By Playing Poker

Christophe Claret’s first foray into the seedy world of wristworn gambling was the Blackjack 21 that let deep-pocketed watch aficionados pretend to squander away even more of their fortunes. That was followed by a Baccarat model, and now the company is introducing an even more complicated model that lets up to three players enjoy a…

Check Out the Condos Being Built On the Roof of a Historic NYC Building

361 Broadway, a cast-iron building in lower Manhattan, has stayed put as the neighborhood around it transformed its factories and workshops into restaurants and high-end boutiques. Now, after 133 years, it’s changing too—thanks to two $15 million metal penthouses due to alight on its roof. The project is being designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban,…

These Clamps Turn Any Old Slab of Wood Into a Table, No Drill Required

Buying furniture is expensive. And making furniture is hard. But with this set of table legs, you can fashion a beautiful custom table without so much as a toolbox at your disposal. The concept of clamp-able table legs is not new, but the Detroit designers behind the Floyd Leg are presenting a stylish and simple…

Disquiet: 15, 10 & 5 Years Ago This Week (2014.03)

Curating and DJing, mobile sound apps, Gavin Bryars’ cellphone. This would be roughly the week of January 13 through January 19. 5 Years Ago (2009): I wrote about videos by Lauren Lavitt and Sara Blaylock shown as part of a group exhibit at the Michael Rosenthal gallery in San Francisco. (The above image is Blaylock’s.)…

This Week’s Top Comedy Video: Sustainable Kidnapping

We live in an increasingly eco-conscious world. With organic food, local crop shares and sustainable business, we can give back to our communities. So why not give a green makeover to one of the oldest trades out there? That’s right, we’re talking about kidnapping—the sustainable way! Check out the rest of this week’s top comedy…

Scientists Observe Ball Lightning In Nature For The First Time Ever

Ball lightning, lyrically known as St. Elmo’s Fire, is a phenomenon where electrical storms create a moving, glowing sphere that hangs in the sky. Scientists have created ball lightning in the lab, but had never observed it in nature until now. And it’s just as crazy as it looks. https://gizmodo.com/scientists-have-recreated-st-elmos-fire-in-the-lab-1171146134 Scientists in the Qinghai region…

What’s The One Thing You Keep Searching For But Can’t Find Online?

On a road trip about four years ago, I heard this great song on the radio. It was unique, catchy, and it stuck in my head. Ever since, despite Googling the lyrics, humming the melody to SoundHound, and poring over Youtube, I still can’t identify it. It’s my internet white whale. What’s yours? The weird…

Wood-Backed Moto X Gets 3 New Finishes And a $75 Price Cut

When Motorola launched the very impressive Moto X, one of the most unique (some would say puzzling) features the company touted was the bamboo back plate. Now, Motorola has added 3 finishes—walnut, teak, and the ebony seen above—and dropped the price to $25. https://gizmodo.com/moto-x-review-the-android-phone-for-everybody-1034784286 Opinions on the wood option are sort of split: at the…

Why do videos go viral, while audio doesn’t? What’s the most high-tech music device you can purchase in prison? Who were the first meme cats? Answers to all this, and more, in this week’s Tech Reads! Dave Girard looks at the rise and fall of QuarkXPress, a long-forgotten internet publishing software that once had a…

Net Neutrality, Nest, a Terrifying Devil Baby, and More

Big week here, from serious FCC rulings to seriously scary real-life emoji and the completely bonkers way they unload lumber from ships in Canada. Here’s the best stuff we wrote this week! Federal Court Strikes Down Net Neutrality Rules, Sides with Big Telecom A U.S. Appeals Court just invalidated the FCC’s net neutrality rules that…

World’s most beautiful beach glows like millions of stars at night

Flickr user hala065 brings us these otherworldly images of a beach in the Maldives that glows with millions of pinpoints of glowing blue. The light from these bioluminescent phytoplankton looks like a fantastic starry sky somewhere deep in the universe. It’s mesmerizing. First spotted by Colossal, these phenomenal photographs show how the glowing phytoplankton light…