Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
The New York Times already gave usa preview of its brighter, cleaner, and all around more beautiful website earlier this year. But starting tomorrow, the redesign will be here to stay. And to celebrate, the New York Times is showing off just how customizable (and GIF-able) it’s new homepage will be. Conference attendees can take…
Mio, which was one of the first companies to make a watch that could accurately measure your heart rate without an additional chest strap, has decided to downsize. They’ve taken the brains of the Mio Alpha, then they shrunk it and got rid of its face. What we’ve got left is a pulse reading wristband…
Now that we know it was an eight-inch steel pipe that brought the world’s largest-diameter tunneling machine to a halt up in Seattle, we can no longer fantasize about Bertha unearthing a five-story-tall buried locomotive. But we can look at something almost as fascinating: The other giant holes that are currently being churned through the…
Vimeo is officially launching a new default HTML 5 player that’s 50 percent faster than the the flash module that came before. In fact, you may have already been using it for months as the service has been slowly rolling it out to users. Sneaky, sneaky! Pretty much the only way you’ll use the oldness…
Smartwatches might seem like a recent fad, but countless companies have been trying to improve your wearable electronics for well over a decade. Including Casio, who were one of the first to integrate a Bluetooth connection into its watches letting it mirror notifications from your smartphone. And the company’s latest model, the STB-1000, is even…
You might think that the humble light switch is so simple that it couldn’t really evolve much further—but you’d be wrong. Because this wireless switch, designed to work with the new breed of wireless bulbs, can harvest all the energy it needs to function from a button press. Developed by NXP, the switch uses NFC…
The developed world has a love affair with refrigeration that spreads way beyond the domestic chiller: It’s the backbone of the world’s food supply industry, keeping food fresher for far longer than mother nature intended. But it could be about to ruin us. Nicola Twilley has written a wonderful feature for Modern Farmerabout the dangers…
Toshiba has just announced a new camera module that allows users to refocus smartphone photos after they’re taken, like Lytro’s light field technology. Unlike Nokia’s attempts to use software to refocus after the event, Toshiba’s solution uses new hardware to enable the manipulations. Known as TCM9518MD—ain’t that catchy?—the module uses two five-megapixel sensors and a…
Amazon is well-known for its habit of delivering small items in gigantic packages. But this parcel has to be perhaps the biggest that Bezos & Co. have ever had to ship. There are two plausible theories. The first is that lurking beneath that brown cardboard is a car. No, really: last September, Amazon and Nissan…
It may seem impossible at this point, but humans keep enhancing their ability to kill others using guns. Example: the new Advanced Ballistics Concepts’ new Mi-Bullet, a projectile that expands into four connected parts as soon as it’s fired. The mechanism—shown in the video—is very clever, making it very hard to miss a target. According…
On March 8th 1971, the nation tuned in to watch Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier battle it out in the Fight of the Century. Unawares, the FBI were having hundreds of secret documents stolen from their offices by a team of activists. The brainchild of William C. Davidon, a professor of physics at Haverford College,…
Fossils aren’t the preserve of dead dinosaurs and ancient insects. Believe it or not, you could ensure that your body lives on, perfectly preserved in stone, for ever more. You just need to die in a very, very specific way. This video explains exactly how specific that needs to be. Spoiler: you better find some…
While Nikon will show off its new pro-grade DSLR, the D4S, at CES, the camera has already been unveiled at an official press event over in Hong Kong. Here it is. The DSLR was, sadly, behind glass when Engadget caught sight of it. But the image does reveal that Nikon appears to the sticking with…
T-Mobile’s… flamboyant CEO crashed AT&T’s big CES party last night, and was then swiftly thrown out. Apparently the bright pink T-Mo T-shirt he was wearing gave him away.
Yesterday, Intel announced its plans to run Android and Windows on the same PC in perfect harmony. Now, it seems AMD has the exact same plan. Verge reports that AMD is teaming up with BlueStacks to develop technology which will allow Android to run within Windows, on the same piece of silicon, in a way…
Audi just showed the future it aspires to. Meet the Quattro Laserlight. This thing is freaking insane. I’m speechless. I’m not going to sit here and pretend I know a lot about cars, but you’d have to be a moron not to see that this car concept is ridiculous. You should have heard the audience…
Tonight during its CES keynote detailed what it means about the future of mobility including self-driving cars and connected technologies. Importantly, it detailed the brain that will ultimately allow a car to drive itself—by rolling out its “piloted A7”. The car is gorgeous, as for the brain, it looks like a massive computer motherboard about…
Like a vision from Enya’s fevered dreams, this abstract AV production mixes ballet, stock nature documentary footage, and adult contemporary techno into a psychedelic magic carpet that even your parents can ride.
Technically there’s nothing really wrong with the charging cable that came with your smartphone. Except for that long cord you need to constantly wrap, unwrap, and more often than not, detangle. That won’t ever happen with the Thinium, though. It trades an annoying a cord for an ultra-thin transforming design that allows it to plug…
Ok so this? This is the Brick. You may remember it from such places as Saved By the Bell and 1992. But this is 2014, and you can buy a brand new one. For real! The brick is a two-way device, meaning you can either pop your SIM card in it and use it as…