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It’s been two weeks since Leap Motion appeared in the wild, and while it’s far from being a perfect piece of hardware, the possibilities are pretty damn interesting. So far, most of the attention-getting apps have dealt with music. But there are plenty of other cool developments happening with the device, too. One of the…
The first official Chinese Army war simulator promotes real world war scenarios against Japan, with the Chinese soldiers soldiers screaming “The devils are here, kill them all!” What’s worse: they will automatically fire at point-blank range against any Japanese bodies on the ground, emptying their ammo clips. https://kotaku.com/chinas-first-person-military-shooter-has-a-terrible-me-1026025398
Over the next week, Spotify will roll out a few new features to its web and mobile interfaces that’ll make getting to the music you want faster. The coolest of the bunch is that Spotify it will be threading its music sharing features so that it’ll look more like a long conversation on other platforms.…
I have this chart as my ringtone. Anytime anyone calls me this is what I hear. Except my phone is almost always on silent, but whatever. The point is, “Bessie’s Blues” is a great tune. And it’s interesting because it’s the only uptempo track on Coltrane’s 1964 album Crescent, which has some pretty dark stuff…
JetBlue has a new design scheme for their Airbus A321s, used on transcontinental flights. In addition to the usual 143 economy seats, these planes will have actual “class” seating for the first time with 16 business class seats and four business class “suites.” Apparently Jetblue had to file a special request with the FAA for…
Even if you’ve never seen them in person, we’ve all gotten glimpses of the Palace of Westminster or the Arc de Triomphe on television, in magazines or wherever. And most likely those brief encounters have even been high res. But Luke Shepard’s Nightvision takes images of famous European architecture to a whole new level. The…
Watch these incredible clips for a taste of the Matrix-style 360-degree replays coming to NFL Sunday Football starting this September. They were taken with a similar technology now installed at Yankee Stadium. It’s really going to be incredible. https://gizmodo.com/baseballs-downtime-will-be-less-painful-with-360-degre-1021413637
After weeks of anxious fan speculation, the secret has been revealed: the actor who will play the 12th Doctor Who in the cult sci-fi British TV series is Peter Capaldi. io9 readers point out that, ironically, Capaldi played a World Health Organization doctor in Brad Pitt’s World War Z. https://gizmodo.com/meet-the-new-doctor-who-time-lord-peter-capaldi-1020872836
Given that baseball is America’s pastime, it’s kind of frowned upon to even talk about the game’s . . . slower . . . moments. But they exist. On the flip side, baseball has great drama over contentious plays. And, as with football, so much could be explored if there was a way to get…
Deadspin readers say this ridiculously funny skit—starring Saturday Night Live comedian Jason Sudeikis as an American football coach sent to manage an European football team—should get made into a full movie starring him and Will Ferrell. They’re right. https://deadspin.com/what-might-happen-if-a-football-coach-coached-soccer-1012841849
Groundbreaking essays and eloquent commentaries have almost certainly been written on this issue, but I’m just looking for some real talk. Can we all agree that nothing new has really happened since the cultural moment that produced America’s Funniest Home Videos? I mean sure the devices we’re using to film our dumbassery are more powerful…
I’ve definitely used Excel for some wordy stuff. It’s not blasphemous exactly, but making charts full of apartment listings, square footage, amenity notes, broker e-mail addresses, and links to photos doesn’t really make use of Excel’s formula wielding, number crunching prowess. But a former Excel developer who knows this dirty little secret, built an app…
When you’re moving and you have a lot of IKEA furniture, you know what you should do. You should take it apart, transport it and then put it back together on the other end. You know this. You consider this. And then you create a last minute flash sale on Craig’s List, get whatever money…
There are lots of interactions and fields around us all the time that we can’t see. Like gravity. We can always count on gravity to be there when we trip and face plant. And we interact with all different frequencies on the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation every day, which is usually fine and sometimes deadly.…
The internet is a constant popularity contest, and everyone is trying to collect followers, friends, shares, likes, hearts, views, +1s etc. You know the soul crushing drill. But YouTube wants to change the conversation. They’ve lowered the bar so you only need 100 or more subscribers to be able to live stream. The move comes…
Have trouble saying goodbye? No problem; let the Front Bottoms do it for you. You’ll enjoy it, I promise. The lead track off the band’s 2013 sophomore effort Talon of the Hawk “Au Revoir” is about as straight-forward as the best goodbyes. The instrumentation is delightfully simple, the vocal performance is modest, with just the…
Having to sweep up thousands of tiny metal shavings is admittedly a pretty uncommon chore. But doing it by using a super powerful neodymium magnet to just suck it all up and drop it in a box looks like such a freakin’ blast. I’d take that over washing dishes any day. Please, someone tell me:…
Just after Mars rover Curiosity touched down, it sent home a selfie worthy of Instagram. But what if it was actually using Instagram? Nikos Kantarakias figured he might as well find out what that’d look like. https://gizmodo.com/curiosity-sends-home-a-self-shot-thats-out-of-this-worl-5941672 Since Curiosity’s many, many photos are out there on the web, all Kantarakias had to do was grab…
Imagine being trapped in a plane with six toilets and 26 passengers suffering constant explosive diarrhea and violent vomiting for 13 hours. Imagine it and shiver. That’s what happened in this Qantas flight from Santiago de Chile to Sydney, Australia. https://jalopnik.com/qantas-flight-to-australia-becomes-poop-plane-from-hell-1011607008
Be honest, how often do you use unsecured Wi-Fi for something you shouldn’t? You know, just a quick Facebook login at Starbucks. If you’ve done it even once, that’s too much, because making a secret spy computer that can steal all that data is dumb easy. And cheap to boot. Brendan O’Connor, security researcher, founder…
