Sploid: Where awesome, wild, and breathtaking tech moments burst into view.
Robots are already coming for our jobs, and now it looks like they’re coming for our treasured cultural ceremonies, too. On Monday, the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology’s Hubo robot carried the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympics relay torch for a stretch of the relay in Daejon, South Korea. Even more impressively, as shown in…
Throw a pebble into a still pond, and the shockwaves from the disturbance will ripple out in all directions in nearly perfect concentric circles. But disturb the fine mesh of a window screen that’s soaked with rain or morning dew, and the shockwave will ripple out with a unique, four-pointed star pattern. Backyard Scientist’s Kevin…
What does this video represent to you? Are you the duck, the cat, or the human? What are the peas? Is this the future we wanted? [Boing Boing]
Thomas Blanchard doesn’t paint like normal artists do. Instead of painstakingly applying colors to a canvas with a brush, he dumps gallons of brightly colored paints into a giant tank filled with oils and other liquids, producing psychedelic waterfalls of color that could never hang in an art gallery. Instead, his colorful experiments are documented…
If you happened to be in Tokyo, Japan, this past weekend, you might had a chance to check out the 2017 International Robot Exhibition, where companies demonstrate cutting-edge robotics by having them perform pointless tasks. I, for one, could watch this magical living table roll soccer balls around all day long. The table, which was…
As soon as cameras got small enough to ride along with drones, the internet quickly filled with amazing aerial footage shot by pros and amateurs alike. But in addition to a camera-equipped drone, filmmaker Ian Montgomery used a second quadcopter carrying a bright spotlight to capture these eerie videos of what barely looks like Earth.…
Hidden away in factories across the globe are purpose-built industrial machines that the world not only deserves to know about, but also deserves a chance to own. Like this high-speed meat slicer that would finally help you realize your dream of having bacon for breakfast, brunch, lunch, and dinner. The Textor TS700-UB high speed involute…
There’s no denying that a massive bolt of electricity streaking hundreds of miles across the sky is one of Mother Nature’s most impressive demos. But when seen through the lens of Dustin Farrell’s high-speed camera, lightning becomes even more phenomenal as it slowly zig-zags its way from the clouds to the earth below. Throughout 2017,…
Starting a new hobby usually requires a hefty investment in both time and equipment, but when 77-year-old Tatsuo Horiuchi retired and wanted to take up painting, he passed on the pricey brushes, paint, and canvases, and decided to use an app already installed on his Windows PC: Microsoft Excel. Relying on the business software’s ability…
You can try as hard as you want, but you’ll never be as cool an uncle as ex-NASA JPL engineer Mark Rober. Using elaborate experiments, he makes learning about science even more entertaining than Bill Nye did, and his latest invention is a sand-filled hot tub that somehow still behaves like water you can swim…
Because jumping off a mountain with just a pair of thin fabric wings underneath your arms isn’t already dangerous enough, professional wingsuit flyers Fred Fugen and Vince Reffet decided to do that and then try and land inside an airborne plane, using a side door that was just a few feet from the aircraft’s spinning…
If you had access to a crash test facility, whenever you weren’t smashing cars you’d probably be spending all of your free time thinking of other things you could launch at a wall at 120 miles per hour. Like toys, which the good people at Switzerland’s Dynamic Test Center did, and were kind enough to film…
Looking for a creepy and unsettling way to start your morning? No? Well, too bad, you probably shouldn’t have clicked on this story because the hyper-realistic CG experiments in Simon Christoph Krenn’s short film, Parasitic Endeavours, are going to leave you feeling a little disturbed. WARNING: NSFW VIDEO BELOW The CG heads and twisted human…
If you don’t have access to a proper recycling facility, a talented blacksmith who goes by shurap on YouTube has found another way to recycle old batteries by turning them into a gorgeous Damascus-steel knife that also uses a recycled Maglite flashlight for its handle. A word of caution, however. When foraging for metal inside…
No one’s pretending that life in the middle ages didn’t suck. There was the plague, unceasing catapult attacks, and beheading after beheading. But watching Evan Snider painstakingly make a chainmail shirt by hand once again reminds us to be extra thankful to live in this century. In addition to ten days of preparation and planning,…
Filmmaker Jan van Ijken’s documentary, The Art of Flying, captures the hypnotic movements of hundreds of thousands of starlings flying in massive flocks that appear to be completely random and chaotic, but miraculously, not a single mid-air collision ever occurs. Murmurations, as these starling flocks are also known, are especially intriguing to researchers as there…
There’s a good reason it’s so difficult for photographers and film crews to capture the elusive snow leopard in the wild. The animal’s not only a master of stealth, it also sports a patterned fur coat that turns it nearly invisible in its natural habitat. Can you find the big cat sneaking up on its…
If the sound of a single mosquito buzzing near your ear is enough to send you running, you might want to skip this video of a Louisiana exterminator battling what is easily the largest hornet’s nest I’ve ever seen in my life, hiding inside someone’s backyard shed. Jude Verret, the brave, brave soul in the…
By now the band OK Go is better known for its over-the-top, impossibly choreographed music videos than its actual music. So much so that you can enjoy the music video for its new song, “Obsession,” without actually having to turn your speakers up. It’s a visual treat starring a wall of 540 printers used to…
Here’s a harsh truth the country needs to hear: turkey is actually the worst part of your Thanksgiving meal. It’s bland, it’s often dry, and it takes up valuable space in the oven all day long. There’s an easy fix, however, that doesn’t involve brining or frying. Just replace your bird with a giant turkey-shaped…
