Tech News

Finally, An Actual Innovation In Helmet Technology

Motorcycle crash helmets have essentially been the same old thing since they were invented 60+ years ago – an energy absorbing chunk of styrofoam glued into a hard outer shell. Sure, some have better graphics or neato vents or whatever, but that’s the basic technology. Now, a tiny company in California is bringing actual technical…

AR Train Windows Can put the Eiffel Tower in Nebraska

Traveling by train can be a lovely way to see a country—until you get tired of the endless farmer’s fields and industrial parts of town where rails are normally routed. But if you’re on a train equipped with this slick augmented reality window that enhances the passing scenery, you may never want to get to…

Holy Spock! The Star Trek Medical Tricorder Is Real, And It’s Only $150

The device you’re looking at is called the Scanadu SCOUT and, basically, it’s a medical tricorder that will give you precise vital information about any human being within seconds, just on contact. It’s very real and it works now. I tried it myself, and knew I was looking at the beginning of a personal health…

How Can This 1890 Automaton Produce Such Surprisingly Realistic Bird Songs?

It’s hard to look back at 120 year old devices like this and think of them as technology. Where’s the touchscreen, the OS, the battery? But this 19th century automaton that produces remarkably authentic bird songs would have been cutting-edge tech back then. And even now, it’s still pretty damn impressive. Originally created in Paris…

Sony’s launched an online version of its PlayStation Store, stuffed with games, movies and TV shows to download. [Sony]

Apple-Samsung Judge Longs for “Global Peace” Between the Two

Judge Lucy Koh is getting into the Christmas spirit early. In the courtroom yesterday, while presiding over the eternal Apple-Samsung case, she called for “global peace” between the two companies. Perhaps understandably, the statement reportedly caused its fair share of laughter in the court room. But Lucy Koh, she doesn’t take any shit. She quickly…

Amazon’s Silk Browser Can Be Hacked to Provide Free Grid Computing

Cloud computing is big business. Companies and individual users rent bandwidth from large cloud services to perform all manner of tasks, from hosting small websites to churning through large, computing-intensive tasks like modelling new drug compounds. But what if you could gain access to all that computing power for free? It turns out that you…

The FCC’s Nationwide 911 Texting Service Could Save Yr Life

The four major US carriers have joined forces and agreed to create a nationwide 911 texting service. It will allow their customers to send a text message in the case of emergency rather than making a voice call. The FCC has announced that AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile have signed up to a “text-to-911” plan,…

FCC to FAA: C’mon, Let People Use Electronic Devices During Takeoff

The FAA has been mulling the idea of allowing the use of electronic devices during takeoff for a little while now. The FCC, however, is getting impatient—and its chairman is now urging the FAA to get a move on. https://gizmodo.com/the-faa-is-seriously-thinking-about-letting-you-use-ele-5938308 The FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski wrote a letter—people still do that!—to Michael Huerta, the acting…

If your business was planning to migrate to Google Apps, bad news: now your have to pay for the privilege. [Google]

How to Annoy a Web Developer

Sometimes there’s nothing better than a gratuitously geeky joke to raise a smile. Today’s XKCD certainly provides just that. As if the set-up, above, wasn’t funny enough, the punchline is hidden in XKCD’s al-text: : Like this.  If that makes you laugh, great! If it riles you, sorry! And if you don’t get it, learn…

480GB Ultrabook SSDs Will Arrive in 2013

If 256GB just isn’t enough for your ultrabook-toting needs, things are set to change. Mushkin has announced what it claims to be the “world’s first” 480GB mSTATA SSD—and it will be available in January. Slim laptops—we’re talking ultrabooks—don’t have room for even a standard 2.5-inch SATA SSD, so use a smaller form factor known as…

Rumor has it the Washington Post will put up a paywall in 2013. Gorge on free news while you can. [Wall Street Journal]

Here Is the Official Color of 2013

Pantone, the hoity toity decision council for everything we’re allowed to see, has announced the color of the year for 2013: green. Or well fine, emerald. It’s unclear what scientific process Pantone goes through to determine what the COTY is (other than complete arbitrariness) but hey, emerald’s a nice color. Last year’s color of the…

The Stoner Channel: Corporate Weed, Blamestorms, and a Tale of a Country Doctor

Former Microsoft Exec Trades in the Board Room for Bong Rips Michael Shively is living the dream. A corporate strategy manager for Microsoft from 2003 to 2009 (and great-grandson of Diego Pellicer, the number one pot producer of the 19th century), Shively recently announce that he’s currently developing a premium cannabis retail business in Washington…

Watch Tim Cook in His First TV Interview Since Becoming Apple CEO

It’s been about a year since Tim Cook took the helm at Apple, and he has apparently decided now is a good time to start talking to people. Brian Williams got first dibs, interviewing Cook earlier tonight on NBC’s Rock Center. It was a pretty standard issue CEO interview—laden with vague answers and lofty corporate…

How Photoshop Would Work in Real Life

Imagine if you had the powers of photoshop in real life. You could fix any blemish, smudge any color and brighten any situation with a quick drop down menu. How would it work? Photographer and graphic designer Flora Borsi imagined a life version of photoshop in a photo series called, “Photoshop in Real Life”. Check…

What Color Means to Blind People

Tommy Edison, the wonderful blind film critic who once showed us how he used an iPhone, has a new video describing something nearly impossible for blind people to understand: color. What’s great is that even though Edison doesn’t understand the concept of color, colors still have meaning to him. Watch him describe what red, blue,…

How to Say Google in Different Languages

Google, the word not the company, has become such a common word for anyone who uses a computer (other than the yahoos who still use Yahoo, I guess) that it’s surprising to learn that other languages have a different word for it. Like Italians say Googlare. Or that the Portugese say Googlar. It gets weirder.…

Famous Photos Taken As Selfies Are So Damn Hilarious

Selfies are hilarious photographs people take of themselves. It’s a close cousin to the MySpace mirror shot and birthed from the proliferation of smartphones and point and shoots and really, there’s nothing more awkward than catching someone in the process of taking a selfie. So when you take these famous photographs and repurpose them as…