Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
You’ve already checked marching band music off your list if you went to a local parade this morning. Now that you’ve got that covered, here’s a Fourth of July-themed Spotify playlist so you can rock out, America-style today. What’s a party without good tunes? We put some of the usual July 4 offenders on there—some…
Firebugs everywhere are breaking out their favorite little explosive treats today. In states where doing that is legal, of course. But even with all the Roman candles in the world, you’d be hard-pressed to look this cinematic during a pyromaniac binge. Using a tried and true GoPro-ceiling-fan bullet time rig, photographer Jeremiah Warren put together…
If you’ve got $1,350 burning a hole in your pocket and an arachnophobic friend you love to terrorize, the folks at Robugtix will happily trade your heard-earned money for this incredibly lifelike robotic spider called the T8. The robot’s 3D printed outer shell and limbs hide a complex inner network of electronics and a total…
There’s hardly a better day for grilling than the 4th of July, and what better way to celebrate a nation’s independence than barbecuing with a charcoal grill that celebrates freedom from traditional geometry? The one-of-a-kind Decahedron Fire Pit is made from 10 distinct pieces of CNC-engineered plate steel, meticulously arranged to form everyone’s favorite irregular…
Ground-based telescopes have long struggled to achieve the image clarity and resolution of their orbiting cousins due in large part to atmospheric distortions. That’s why we build observatories on mountain tops: to minimize the amount of atmosphere between the telescope and incoming starlight. But with the help of a cutting-edge adaptive optic system, astronomers are…
Fireworks go boom, and when things go boom, sooner or later somebody gets hurt. For a blow-by-blow taxonomy of fireworks injuries, we turn the Consumer Protection Safety Commission, which each year documents the damage we do to ourselves around the Fourth of July. In 2012, 60-percent of the year’s fireworks injuries occurred between June 22nd…
Today, a fraction of the world’s population celebrates its independence with shockingly expensive displays involving thousands of pounds of potassium nitrate and sulphur (and many more gallons of beer). But if you’re a member of the other 6.7 billion people on Earth, fireworks aren’t synonymous with a particular event or celebration. In that spirit, while…
A Toronto photography studio has stumbled across a stereoscopic camera, and its photographic slides, that captured scenes of World War I in 3D. The resulting images are chilling—but incredibly striking, too. The images, acquired using a handheld stereoscopic camera called the Verascope, were captured by French soldiers. They show scenes from the trenches, streets, and…
A team of security researchers claim to have identified a four-year-old Android bug that can allow malicious trojans to appear as verified apps, infecting devices with malware while users remain unaware of its presence. Usually, apps are verified using cryptographic signatures: modified updates are thus rejected if the key doesn’t match the one provided by…
Bad news for slow coaches: the white Nexus 4 has now sold out on the Play Store. Given it was a limited edition, that’s your chance gone.
In this beautifully haunting short film written and directed by Peter Szewczyk, an idealistic young woman meets her demise in a most peculiar fashion at the hands of a poisonous, spiteful crone. But will her death also lead to the downfall of the city around her?
Google is responsible for giving birth to tools that have changed the entire world: Google search, Gmail, Android and so forth. It should be celebrated! However, Google is also responsible for the death of many of its own products as it re-focuses its priorities: Google Labs, Google Reader and many other less celebrated Google products.…
Traveling this summer? Don’t forget to pack the suntan lotion. And check in to your flight online. And check if your flight is delayed using your flight number. Speaking of, how the hell do airplanes come up with flight numbers? Apparently there’s a system! Like did you know flights that go east or north are…
There are some very smart people on this planet we call Earth and they’ve all done some very smart things to help us understand the world better. Isaac Newton. Charles Darwin. Albert Einstein. No name scientists. Commenters of the Internet. We have them to thank. But of all the discoveries and accomplishments, is finding out…
Not to be outdone by his less famous mirror image Robin Thicke, Justin Timberlake has released a new music video, ‘Tunnel Vision’, that skirts the NSFW YouTube line with boobies just like Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines video. Which is to say: THIS VIDEO IS SO NSFW PEOPLE. It’s nearly as NSFW as Blurred Lines which…
Remember 1995? Yeah, me neither. But to refresh our memories, we’ve got an “In and Out” list from the December 20, 1995 edition of USA Today. This strange artifact (found in the University of California-San Francisco tobacco document archives) gives a peek at how mainstream America was thinking about shifting trends in media, technology and,…
Grilling and patriotic holidays go together like stars and stripes, so New Jersey-based designer Jacob Riley-Wasserman’s Star Spangled Spatula is a perfect fit for your July 4 barbecue. The stainless steel homage to Old Glory costs $50. Obviously you’te too late to have it for America’s birthday, but Labor Day is right around the corner.…
Sony’s UHD 4K media player is now available to order for a whopping $700. It comes with 10 movies and rentals are $8 a pop. In case you forgot, this is some real rich people stuff.
Apple’s long-overdue stab at a cloud editing service has finally come to, well, some of the masses. If you happen to be an Apple developer,iWork for iCloud is available to you right now. The new, cloud-dwelling incarnation of the iWork suite will finally catch Apple up to Google and Microsoft office, which have long been…
Most running novices plot their early runs in terms of distance. “I used to be able to run X distance in high school; I’m going to run that same distance today.” Then they spend the next two weeks hobbling around like a broken grandpa. There’s a better way. It’s natural that we think of our…
