Tech News

Spy on Instagram All Around the World in Realtime

People across the globe are Instagramming right now. In Tokyo, a face, cat’s legs, breakfast sandwich, and another face were just uploaded. How can you tell? This site lets you watch it all happen, instantaneously. This Is Now documents the unceasing, visually nauseating torrent of Instagram pics taken in New York, London, Sao Paolo, Tokyo,…

Microsoft: Metro Isn’t Metro Anymore (Update: MS Responds)

Well this is going to be weird. After calling Microsoft’s radically wonderful UI design “Metro” for a couple of years now, The Verge says Microsoft is ditching the name for legal reasons. So now what the hell do we say? According to a source “who wishes to remain anonymous,” Microsoft is telling Metro developers to…

The Olympics Are Using Miniature RC Mini Coopers To Retrieve Javelins and Other Track & Field Gear

The 2012 Olympics might best be remembered for being some of the most over-sponsored games ever. But even product placement can occasionally be awesome, like these 1/4-scale RC Mini Coopers that will be used to retrieve hammers, shots, discuses, and javelins when the track & field events finally get under way. Despite being scale models,…

Dying a Single Shirt With CO2 Saves 25 Liters of Water

The simple act of turning a shirt from white to blue—or any color—requires 25 liters of water and enough harmful chemicals that every clothing manufacturer should be looking for safer methods. Like this fantastic CO2-based DryDye technology that Adidas has started using which doesn’t require a single drop of H2O. But it’s not like the…

Software Glitch Costs Trading Firm $440 Million In 45 Minutes

Knight Capital lost $440 million in a flash on Wednesday when newly installed trading software went haywire. That’s nearly double the company’s second quarter revenue, and could be enough to sink Knight for good. You know all the concerns about automated high-speed trading on the stock market? This. So how does a screw up this…

Just Dance 4 Is Your Just-Dance-Privately Deal of the Day

I have no idea how to dance, but I regularly find myself hanging out with people who do. The Just Dance games are probably the best series of games to be released for the Kinect if only because they’ve meant endless hours of seeing really goofy people like me dancing to songs they barely know…

Built-In Suitcase Blanket Gives You a Clean Place to Sit in Airports or Anywhere

It seems most airports are designed so that the randomly scattered power outlets are located as far from the gate seats as possible. So while California College of Arts student Daye Kim’s actually designed the Whaletale suitcase mat for parents wrangling kids while traveling, it also seems incredibly handy for anyone dealing with an overcrowded…

Talk to the Man Who Drives the $2.6 Billion-Dollar Mars Curiosity Rover

Matt Heverly has one of the coolest jobs in the Solar System: he drives rovers. On Mars. He drove NASA’s Opportunity rover for four years and now he’s getting ready for the biggest mission in the history of NASA’s planetary exploration—driving the $2.6-billion car-sized Curiosity rover after it lands this Sunday (I will be covering…

Yes, These Are $1000 Headphones For Cats

Is there anything worse than a smug cat staring at you all bored like it’s got something better to do than sit around while you’re listening to music? Sol Republic’s new headphones for cats—which were designed specifically for Deadmau5’s cat Professor Meowingtons pHD—will wipe that angsty gaze off your cat’s face. Sol Republic x Meowingtons…

Compact Hydroponics Cube Turns an Extra Parking Spot Into a Vegetable Farm

Tired of paying the exorbitant markup for fresh produce at your grocery store? For a mere $70,000—and the cost of finding someplace else to park your car—this compact hydroponics container lets you grow a farm’s worth of vegetables on a minimal chunk of land. In fact, the creators of the aqua-cube claim it can successfully…

Did you know that patents used to be gorgeous? And that now they’re, uh, pretty stupid ugly? What a pity. [Wired]

Samsung’s New Superfast Chips Could Fuel Your Future iPhone

Samsung has just announced some superfast new chips and they might one day power an iPhone. The company claims the Pro Class 1500 line is the Usain Bolt of flash memory cards—four times speedier than predecessors, and possibly the fastest chips around. They can read data at 140 MB per second and write it at…

The Best Ultraportable Laptop of 2012

For a while now, ultraportables have been the only class of laptop that really matters. Sure, you can find more powerful machines for less money. But the mix of portability, speed, and beauty—along with the miniature muscle of Intel’s Ivy Bridge chips—has made ultrabooks the best laptops to own for almost all of us. Problem…

Who Is Nixeus Because Its Cheap 27-Inch Hi-Res Monitor Looks Awesome

You could buy Apple’s gorgeous 27-inch Cinema Display but it’ll cost you a grand. If you don’t have that kind of paper, Nixeus is about to drop the Vue, a display of the same size, packed with 2,560 x 1,440 WQHD resolution for just $430. “But wait, I’ve never even heard of Nixeus,” you say.…

Turns out 8.7 percent of Facebook’s 955 million users are fake, and not in a Mean Girls way. [CNET]

Would You Buy This Freak Egg Carton?

A Hungarian designer completely rethought egg packing with Egg Box, a simple, modern carton. Only problem is, we can’t decide if it’s terrible or perfection. The single stackable piece of microwaved cardboard has ellipse cut-outs where the eggs go, and it supposedly protects the fragile orbs while letting you inspect them for cracks without having…

What’s Apple Doing With This Mystery Building?

North Carolina: home of BBQ, beaches, and Apple’s gi-freaking-normous data center. It’s where iCloud lives, and maybe Siri! And now the company is putting the finishing touches on a new center. Why? Nobody really knows. So Wired checked it out. From above, Wired was able to spot some interesting physical details of the 20,000 square…

Choose a Drinking Establishment According to “Vibe” with Don Q’s New Barometer App

Picking the perfect watering hole can be tough. You might not know exactly where to go to satisfy your urge for, say, one of those places with a mechanical bull. If only you had a group of locals that knew just the spot… You do! Barometer is a new app from Don Q Rum that…

BREAKING: David Pogue Has Lost His iPhone (UPDATE #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15 #16—THEY GOT IT—Still Updating #17 #18)

New York Times technology writer David Pogue has lost his iPhone. He has posted a screenshot of where it might be on Lockerz.com, though. Won’t anyone help him find it? Or help him sign up for PhotoBucket? Update 11:52AM EDT: David has posted another photo to Lockerz.com, this time showing the larger scope of the…

Ingenious Chopsticks Never Touch the Table

The gentle curve of the tines on a fork make spearing food a little easier, but also help to keep them from getting dirty when placed on a table. Which is an issue that has made chopstick rests a necessary accessory at many restaurants, at least until these brilliant Restless Chopsticks become more mainstream. Created…