Tech News

The First Smartwatch You Might Actually Want Is Designed For Kids

As if kids didn’t have it pretty awesome already, now it looks like they’ll be among the first of us to get their hands—or wrists—on a bona fide smartwatch with the Filip. But don’t get too jealous. The Filip is designed as a safety device more than anything, with Wi-Fi, cellular, and GPS capabilities designed…

7 Graphics of Earth’s Coolest Phenomena, From Rainbows to Earth Wobble

What’s the oldest tree on Earth? What’s a rainbow? Is the Earth wobbling? It’s fun to ask these questions but trickier to answer them—in simple terms, at least. Luckily, Viennese designer Michæl Paukner has done us all a huge favor by creating these lovely visual explanations. Paukner is a graphic designer by trade, but a…

The 10 Most Controversial Wikipedia Topics Around the World

Give a bunch of scientists a dataset like Wikipedia to play with, and it’ll keep ’em amused for a long old time. Now, a team of researchers from Oxford University have mined the rich seam to work out the ten most internationally controversial topics on the online encyclopaedia. By analyzing edit wars—where one editor changes…

This Samsung SSD Runs at a Blistering 3,000MB/s

If you think your SSD is speedy, think again: this new Samsung SSD is capable of reading data at a frankly obscene 3000MB/s. Sadly, there are some caveats. First up, it won’t run with a normal SATA-6 port—instead, it requires a PCIe hook-up. Second, it’s actually intended for enterprise customers. But hey, we all do…

Android 4.3 Leaked via a Googler’s Second-Hand Nexus 4

A version of Android 4.3 has come out of Google—thanks to a Google staff member selling a Nexus 4 with a near-final version of the OS update onboard. The code’s been extracted from the phone and released and—bar a missing radio—would appear to be a virtually complete version of the next version of Android. If…

Netflix has responded to allegations of cropping movies, claiming “we do not crop” and suggesting that the issue is aresult of movies arriving in awkward aspect ratios. “When we discover this error, we work to replace that title as soon as possible,” the company claims. Just, you know, slowly enough for someone to Tumblr them.

3D Printed Sugar Is Intricately Beautiful

Forget medical applications and guns: when 3D printing is this beautiful, I don’t care if the result is only good for sweetening my coffee. Liz and Kyle von Hasseln, from The Sugar Lab, have taken 3D printing to a new level. With a background in architecture, the pair have developed 3D printing processes which allow…

ICANN Approves the First Generic Top-Level Domains–and They’re Non-English

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is currently busy deciding the future of the internet in Durban, South Africa, this week. First on its list: non-English generic top level domains. According to ICANN, a new set of four domains names “mark the first time that people will be able to access and…

HTC One Mini Hands On: Hey There Lil’ Speedster

It’s been leaked on more than adult diapers, and now the HTC One mini (all lowercase, because it’s so small, see?) is real. The idea is that it’s a smaller, cheaper version of the our current favorite phone, the HTC One. But to accomplish such shrinkification and encheapenment, sacrifices must be made. Let’s take a…

The Technology You Need to Protect Against Mass Surveillance

In the past several weeks, EFF has received many requests for advice about privacy tools that provide technological shields against mass surveillance. We’ve been interested for many years in software tools that help people protect their own privacy; we’ve defended your right to develop and use cryptographic software, we’ve supported the development of the Tor…

Twitter’s latest Android updateautomatically censors“nudity, violence, or medical procedures” as you sift through your feed. Which is either good or bad, depending on your tastes.

If Facebook Was a Board Game

You probably use Facebook too much and don’t play board games enough. That’s not right! But what if Facebook was a board game instead? How would it work? Graphic designer Pat C. Klein imagined Facebook as a board game and came up with some clever Monopoly-style rules. Klein cooked up this Facebook: The Board Game…

The Weirdest Thing on the Internet: Tacky, Sticky & Glutinous (NSFW)

Watching yourself slide from a deadend life into the decay of madness is terrifying, regardless of the adorable animation. This mind-bending short by David Maingault follows a frustrated desk clerk as his neurosis, fantasies, and fears gradually meld into a single, beautiful full-blown psychosis. Only try to realize the truth. There is no sandwich.

These Cross-Sections of Golf Balls Look Like They’re From Outer Space

What is this? A pint of dragon fire ice cream? An alien planet model? Speckled clay? Amazingly, it’s the cross section of a golf ball. Photographer James Friedman captured the innards of different golf balls and unexpectedly revealed a core that look more like they’re from outer space than anything in this world. The golf…

LG is ditching the awkward transformers Optimus brand name for its Android phones. From now on, LG Android phones will just be part of a ‘G-series’. Like the upcoming LG G2. Which LG sort of just announced. [LG]

How to Save Offline Maps in the New Google Maps for iOS

Saving offline maps in Google Maps 2.0 is a sneaky ‘easter egg’ type feature that’ll make Google Maps on iOS even better. You won’t need to rely on a data connection, you’ll get your maps faster and it’ll make things work better. So how do you save offline maps on the iOS version of Google…

Is This the Next Google Nexus 7?

We’ve been hearing that Google will release a new version of the Nexus 7 in July for some time now and with Google hosting an event on July 24th, that’s probably when we’ll officially see the new Nexus 7. But if you can’t wait a week, here’s what the upcoming Nexus 7 will probably look…

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ70: Zoomier Than Any Point-and-Shoot Camera Ever

What you’re looking at here is the zoomiest point-and-shoot camera ever made. The Panasonic Lumix DMX-FZ70’s f/ 2.8-5.9, 20-1200mm lens offers up to 60x optical magnification. The previous top zooms only hit the 50x mark. That’s a lot of zoom. Look at that freaking lens. Optical zoom—meaning zoom that’s done in the lens and not…

LG Laser TV Hands On: Your Wall’s Not Worthy

With a massive Hecto-class 100-inch display, crystalline 1080p output, and Methuselan 25,000 hour bulb life, LG’s sleek new Laser TV short throw projector gives us a lot to be excited about. It’s a big, beautiful display, no two ways about it. Too bad its size is matched by a Kia-sized price tag. The Laser TV…

Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and others are forming an alliance to demand more transparency from the NSA. According to AllThingsD, they’ll ask President Obama to let them do three things in their transparency reports and ask the government to provide their own transparency reports too. The three things this tech alliance wants to add…