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How To Design Your Life: Q&A With Author Mike Monteiro

Life is a design problem. Which is why reformed Philadelphian Mike Monteiro’s new book, Design Is a Job, isn’t just about how to maneuver through the Web design business, it’s an instructive life lesson. You may know Monteiro as one of Twitter’s more, er, notorious users (even the background image on his Twitter page is…

Hijacking Panic Sends Terrifying Sonic Booms Over England

A series of unfortunate events: a confused helicopter pilot accidentally gives a signal that he’s been hijacked. British RAF fighters are scrambled so quickly to shoot the thing down, they go supersonic. Brits down below fear explosions and earthquakes. Boom. The Aviationist recounts the air force farce, which went down yesterday over English skies: At…

Foolish Vietnam Cop Almost Dies Riding on a Criminal’s Windshield

Watch this Vietnamese traffic cop go for a wild, half-mile ride on the front of this speeding vehicle in Hanoi. Holy hell, it’s terrifying to watch him hang on for dear life by only the bus’s windshield wiper. High-speed chase: You’re doing it wrong. According to the Associated Press, 2nd Lt. Nguyen Manh Phan stopped…

Apple Wants to Make Unibody-ish Earbuds (That Will Probably Still Suck)

The latest Apple patent to seep into public knowledge is one for new and improved earbuds. But instead of addressing the real issue—audio components—Apple is blaming its noisemakers’ woes on something entirely different: the multi-component design. Its solution: make em unibody-esque. Discovered by Apple Insider, the patent calls for the implementation of ultrasonic bonding in…

Former RIM CEO Resigned Because His Ideas Were Too Good

Ex-RIM CEO Jim Basillie had a radical plan in store that could have been enough to resuscitate the flat-lining company. But it seems that idea—one that would put the BlackBerry network on major carriers and devices around the world—was seen as so drastic that it caused enough conflict at the top for Basillie to cut…

PSA: Fake Angry Birds Space Android App Is Full of Malware (Updated)

There’s a fake Angry Birds Space app in the Android Market available on Android phones that infests your phone with malware. According to Sophos, a digital security firm, the malware hides its “payload” deep inside two .JPEG files. Once installed, it downloads additional malware to your phone, and enlists your phone as part of a…

World Famous Designer Philippe Starck Says He’s Working on “Revolutionary” Apple Product (Update: Nope)

Jonny Ive is about to kick someone’s ass: eminent French design homme Philippe Starck just said he’s behind an amazing Apple mystery gadget. And it’s coming out in eight months. One problem: Starck’s stuff is sometimes very ugly! Starck was predictably demure in his interview with a French radio program, declining to give any further…

Monkeys Can Read (Kinda)

You may think that the only thing separating some of your friends from monkeys is their ability to at least read. Time for a rethink: new research shows that baboons are capable of learning how to tell the difference between real and fictional English words. A study carried out by Jonathan Grainger from Aix-Marseille University,…

Why It Definitely Doesn’t Matter That You Thought of It First

Oh, man, the iPad? I totally thought of that back in 1998. And good for you! Here’s a handy flow chart that explains exactly why no one cares. Which I totally thought of drawing up myself last fall. [Doghouse Diaries]

15 Current Technologies My Newborn Son Won’t Use

A surprising number of the gadgets and technologies we have today are on the verge of extinction. Laptop Mag’s Avram Piltch walks us through more than a dozen, knowing that his newborn son will be about as familiar with them as today’s teens are with Betamax. And some of this batch might surprise you. From…

How Maple Syrup Is Produced in the 21st Century

We’re not quite at the cusp of The Singularity yet, but technological progress touches just about everything around us. This fact was driven home recently when the Geeklings and I visited a local sugarbush. For the uninitiated, a sugarbush is the term for a maple syrup harvesting operation, which includes the trees, collection apparatus, and…

Does This Leak Hint at Google Drive’s Imminent Arrival?

Google Drive—the widely rumored and highly anticipated cloud storage service—is expected to land in the next few months. To add more fuel to that rumor fire, Lucidchart has just managed to leak a Google Drive integration page, which suggests we could see the service launching very, very soon. https://gizmodo.com/rumor-google-drive-will-give-you-5gb-of-free-cloud-sto-5897769 The Verge reports that Lucidchart very…

Worriers Have a Heightened Sense of Smell

Some people can pinpoint odors better than others—which can be both good or bad, depending on the source. But new research reveals that it’s people who are more anxious that have a heightened sense of smell. The study, published in Chemosensory Perception, looked into how anxiety was related to the ability to detect odor. Participants…

The FBI Wants to “Advance the Science of Interrogation”

Some ideas can’t help but sound creepy. Like the FBI’s new call for research which aims “to advance the science and practice of intelligence interviewing and interrogation.” But what the hell does that mean? The call for research actually comes from the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group—part of the FBI that generally keeps itself to…

Google Glasses Will Work With Prescription Glasses, Too

Google’s new HUD glasses are official, even if they don’t look that great on. But since they’ve been announced, those who currently wear glasses have no doubt been wondering if they’ll ever work for them. https://gizmodo.com/google-glasses-first-look-would-you-wear-these-augment-5899091 Fortunately, it sounds like Google has been thinking about that, too. One of the Project Glass team, Isabelle Olsson…

Now Anyone Can Make Money From YouTube

YouTube’s been full of adverts for a long ol’time—but for users to make money from it, they had to be approved by Google as being popular, in turn becoming a “partner” and grabbing a tiny slice of advertising revenue. Not anymore: now any old Joe can make money out of their video. The new announcement…

Amazon Prime’s Streaming Title Count Might Be off by an Order of Magnitude

Amazon claims to be supplying “more than 17,000 movies and television shows” through Prime Instant Video and in some ways it’s true—like if you consider each episode in a TV series an individual title. Amazon confirmed to Fast Company that the “17,000 titles count is inclusive of both TV episodes and movies.” The problem lies…

Apple Claims It Broke “Amazon’s Monopolistic Grip” on Publishing

Apple’s delivered its response to antitrust charges leveled by the DoJ earlier in the week. Apparently the Feds have it all backwards, Apple is the hero here, not the villain. https://gizmodo.com/the-us-department-of-justice-files-antitrust-lawsuit-ag-5901002 Per an official statement from Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr delivered to AllThingsD The DOJ’s accusation of collusion against Apple is simply not true. The…

Study: Drinking Two Beers Makes You Clever

If you’re hung up on a brain-twizzling problem, crack a brew. A new study from the University of Illinois suggest that, contrary to common belief, alcohol’s buzz might actually improve your problem-solving skills. A team from the University of Illinois at Chicago and led by Professor Jennifer Wiley believes that inebriation might enhance the mind’s…