- io9
It’s Time to Bring Back the Banality of Evil
What makes people become murderers? If you are watching shows like Hannibal and Dexter, you’d think it had to do with their exceptionally refined moral sensibilities and sheer genius. This trope is getting tired. Have we forgotten about the horrifyingly commonplace nature of evil? The Fascinating Murderer All over television, detectives are wading deep into … Continued
- io9
Extended Age Of Ultron Trailer Has Even More Goddamn Creepy Ultron
The extended version of the first trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron follows the same structure as the original version, but there’s even more footage for us to pick apart, including more of James Spader monologuing as the terrifying Ultron. We already did a breakdown of the shorter trailer, but get ready to speculate about … Continued
By Lauren Davis - io9
How Do Galaxies Form? Ask All Your Questions!
How does a galaxy evolve — and how do we know what we know about that process? James Geach is here to take all of our questions about the process and the observation of galaxy formation. Geach recently published a new book Galaxy: Mapping the Cosmos focusing on the evolution of galaxies, and the ways … Continued
By Ria Misra - io9
New Translation Of Grimm’s Fairytales Restores The Gore And Horror
The first edition of the Brothers Grimms’ tales, in 1812, featured such stories as “How the Children Played at Slaughtering.” Over the next 50 years, each new printing was edited to make it more child-friendly and include more Christian references. But now, the first edition has finally been translated into English. “The original edition was … Continued
By Mark Strauss - io9
The Most Hilarious Proofreading Mistake in a Scientific Paper Ever
This is an actual quote from a scientific paper, published recently — and clearly without editing. Apparently the authors didn’t think much of one of the papers they were citing. And their publisher didn’t bother to edit out their pre-publication snark. Ugh, this is not the kind of thing you want to see in a … Continued
- Tech News
Leaked Sony Sensor Has Potential to Supercharge Future Cameras
If a leaked document from the Chinese site Cnbeta holds true, within a couple of years consumer cameras could see a significant bump in quality and low light performance. The leak describes a Sony image sensor that uses a completely new way of gathering light called Active Pixel Color Sampling. This new APCS sensor (not … Continued
- Tech News
Beats Now Makes a Wireless Version of Its Wildly Popular Solo2 Cans
Beats just announced a wireless Bluetooth version of the revamped Solo2headphones it announced a few months ago. The Solo are the company’s bestselling headphones, largely because they’re fashionable. I would recommend other headphones for the price The V-Moda XS and Sennheisser Momentum on-ear are similar and far superior on both sound and comfort. The wireless … Continued
- Tech News
There’s Now a Game You Can Play Right In iOS 8’s Notification Center
Now that Apple has finally introduced widgets for iOS 8’s Notification Center, we’re starting to see some great ways to quickly access important info on our iPhones. But a few clever developers are pushing those widgets beyond just notifications. A new iOS game called Overglide can actually be played directly from your iPhone or iPad’s … Continued
- Tech News
Keep This Arcade Mug Filled With Coffee For Infinite Power-Ups
Like Tetris and Pong, the simple but challenging gameplay mechanics of Space Invaders have kept the game popular for decades now. And while this $13 Space Invaders-themed mug isn’t playable, it’s still wrapped in those wonderful 80s-era graphics, and features a molded handle that looks like it was torn from an old-school arcade machine. You … Continued
- Tech News
Riding Across Baja At Night
They say never to ride a motorcycle through Baja at night. But, following a hurricane that wiped out much of its east coast, sometimes needs must. The trip computer on my GPS told me that we had less than 45 minutes until the sun set. We had departed Catavina (a desolate town in the middle … Continued
Justin W. Coffey - io9
A New Blu-Ray Release Of Gravity Will Let The Space Scenes Be Silent
I was already kind of traumatized by watching Sandra Bullock hurtling through the vast nothingness of space in Gravity; the idea of seeing the movie without its score, where space is as audibly empty as it is visually, sounds chilling. And that’s exactly what we’re going to get in a new special Gravity Blu-ray. The … Continued
By Rob Bricken - io9
Inside The Doomsday Bunkers Of The Rich And Famous
When the world ends and most doomsday preppers will be hunched in cramped dwellings, fighting off hungry mutant freeloaders, a select few will be enjoying the high-end amenities of a luxury survival condo, buried 174 feet underground in a decommissioned missile silo. The Survival Condo complex, current under development, can house up to 75 people, … Continued
By Mark Strauss - ScienceSpace
These Are the First Images Sent Back to Earth By Rosetta and Philae
This morning marks one of the most exciting moments in space exploration in years: Rosetta’s lander, Philae, will touch down on the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. It’s still making its way down to the comet, but the little lander that could is already snapping photos and sending them home. Rosetta and Philae, which each have adorably anthropomorphized … Continued
- io9
China Could Outspend U.S. On Science Funding By 2020
China is on track to overtake the United States on research & development spending by the end of the decade, according to a report issued yesterday by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Above: A technology demonstration of China’s Chang’e 5 lunar sample return mission launches on October 24th, 2014. Credit: Xinhua/Jiang Hongjing. The … Continued
- io9
Biologists Have Named A New Tree Frog Species After Ozzy Osbourne
When Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a bat in a 1981 concert, he never could have imagined that the event would be commemorated decades later by metalhead scientists, who discovered a weird frog while on an expedition in the Brazilian Amazon. “As soon as I heard its call, I knew it was a new … Continued
By Mark Strauss - Tech NewsApple
This T9 Keyboard Puts Old School Texting on Your iPhone
Nowadays, you can put third-party keyboards on iOS 8, but back in Ye Olden Days of mobile phones (anything pre-Blackberry *shudder* *vomit*) there wasn’t much choice when it came to tapping out texts. If you wanted to send a message, you used T9, a predictive keyboard style where you’d press numbers on the dialpad to … Continued
By Kate Knibbs - Tech News
AT&T Will Muddy Up Your Pristine Nexus 6 With Bloatware
Today, you’ll be able to pre-order the Nexus 6, which will be one of the year’s best phones. If you buy it from AT&T, it’ll come with the gift of a bunch of useless and annoying bloatware. Yesterday, SlashGear reported that if you buy the phone through your AT&T contract, you’ll actually get a clean … Continued
- Tech News
Blizzard have planted an Axe in a Times Square Taxi, because Warcraft
Look, I get getting angry if your cab didn’t get you where you wanted, but this is a little extreme, no? Ahead of the new WoW expansion Warlords of Draenor’s release tomorrow, Blizzard decided to get things ready for their midnight launch a little early with this display in Times Square, featuring a Taxi cleaved … Continued
- io9
Why Does Fox Keep Fucking Up The Fantastic Four?!
I got so many good questions this week — well, and maybe a few good questions from the week before, which I’d accidentally stuffed in one of my boots for some reason and just found again — that this week’s “Postal Apocalypse” is super-sized! Get comfortable! Get a snack! Say goodbye to your loved ones! … Continued
By Rob Bricken - Tech NewsDesign
5 Concert Halls Designed For the Most Famous Composer of All Time
It’s been almost 250 years since Beethoven was born in 1770, and as his big two-five-oh birthday rolls around, his birthplace of Bonn is planning a big, big party—including a $90 million concert hall in which to throw it. Slated for completion in 2019—or the year before Beethoven’s 250th birthday—Bonn is planning to build the … Continued