- Tech NewsDesign
There Is a Right and a Wrong Way to Use a Beach Towel
You think your beach towel is just some colorful barrier between your ass and the sand? Wrong. That water-wicking blanket is actually an intricately designed instrument, fine-tuned to provide you with the best possible poolside experience. And here’s the thing: It’s entirely possible that you’ve been using it wrong all along. The beach towel is … Continued
Rachel Swaby - Tech News
How to Make Beer and Influence People
Ok, real talk. How cool are you? Like, on a scale of 1-10. A six, maybe a seven? Are you content with that? Wouldn’t you like for more people to like you more? Well, friend, it’s totally possible. “How?” you might ask. It’s easy! Give them beer! “But beer costs money,” you say. Not if … Continued
Sponsored post - Tech NewsApple
You Can Grab Apple’s First Mountain Lion Update Right Now (Updated)
Has updating your computer to Mac OS X Lion completely killed your battery life? Today Apple has released the first major update (10.8.1), and it’s rumored to fix that problem for you. Here’s the full list of what it includes: Resolve an issue that may cause Migration Assistant to unexpectedly quit Improve compatibility when connecting … Continued
By Leslie Horn - Tech News
Severe Cold War Cameras Make Funky Modern Lamps
These days, camera talk is all Canon-Nikon-Sony, but during the Cold War Zenit and Praktica ruled the lightwaves in Russia and East Germany respectively. These repurposed vintage models pay homage to that history while brightening up a dark corner in your living room. The one-off lamp conversions of these old 35mm DSLRs by Tinker & … Continued
- Tech News
DARPA’s Next Sub Hunter Won’t Need Us Puny Humans
The US Navy has a bit of a sub problem. While the American fleet has contracted over the past two decades, numerous nations that aren’t exactly our BFFs have expanded, with new, ultra-quiet diesel-electric subs. This proliferation has grown into a national security threat, but DARPA may soon have a solution—robotic submarine trackers. Sure, nuclear … Continued
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- io9
This gorgeous world map depicts all of Earth’s hurricanes since 1851
Data visualization expert John Nelson likes to illustrate risk. Usually he focuses on individual events, but in recent months he’s directed his design talents towards a series of bigger projects, in the interest of communicating information about “general geographic trends in existential risk.” Translation: beautiful maps depicting the distribution of natural disasters over time. Using … Continued
- Tech NewsDesign
Cityscape Fireplace Appeals To Your Inner Arsonist
Given it’s been so important to our development, it’s no surprise mankind has a love affair with fire. Deep down we’re all arsonists in our own little way: lighting candles, stoking campfires, or curling up near a fireplace. We all love watching things bur—right, guys? right—and that desire can be kept in check with this … Continued
- Tech News
Coffee Shops Are Not Your Fucking Office, Dickheads
Look, I’m from Spain. We Spaniards stay in cafés and bars and restaurants forever—ordering things to drink or eat, of course. But this? Listen up, hipsters: a coffee shop is not your own personal newsroom. I’m sure this has happened to most of you. But this morning was particularly offensive. This morning it was so … Continued
By Jesus Diaz - Tech News
Compact Folding Scale For Compact Kitchens
Not all recipes call for precise measurements, or require you to painstakingly weigh out every single ingredient. So Joseph Joseph’s new TriScale is the perfect tool for measuring ingredients without gobbling up a big chunk of countertop real estate when it’s not in use. A set of swivelling support arms fold away and protect a … Continued
- io9
Your piece of the Berlin Wall is not special
It is one of the greatest moments in televised history — excited friends and family members tear through the Berlin Wall, reuniting East and West Germany after decades of separation. The fall of the Berlin Wall marked the end of the Cold War and sparked a capitalist sentiment to distribute and sell portions of the … Continued
- Tech News
TV Guide: A Cure for Television Indecision
If you wanted to know what was on TV, you could always check the guide with your remote. But most of us aren’t just watching the tube live—we’re streaming from several different sources. The new TV Guide app brings all those brain mush factories into one place, so you can see what’s on cable, as … Continued
By Leslie Horn - io9Movies
The Best (And Worst) Texting Scenes in TV and Movies
Text messaging is new enough that movies and TV shows haven’t landed on a consistent way to show viewers what their characters are saying. Done incorrectly, an on-screen text session can look immediately dated or weird. But with the right visuals, the effect can be sublime, as Every Frame A Painting shows us. Tony Zhou … Continued
- Tech NewsMicrosoft
What Do You Think of Microsoft’s First New Logo in 25 Years?
Logos are usually boring and quite bad, but they’re things we’re forced to look at every single day, so let’s care about them. In particular, let’s care about Microsoft’s—which just got its first makeover since 1987. It definitely hits the visual zeitgeist right in the stomach—minimalism (which evokes Metro!), and soft, plain type. But is … Continued
By Sam Biddle - io9Movies
New clips from The Apparition show what happens when you believe in ghosts
We love a beast that feeds on fear — such a premise channels the best of Freddy Kruger with a dash of Tinkerbell. And in the new ghost movie The Apparition, a cast full of sexy teens — including a ghost-hunting Tom Felton and Bucky from Captain America (Sebastian Stan) — unleash a spirit from … Continued
- io9
Gibbons on helium use the same vocal techniques as opera singers
In what sounds like a twisted birthday party gone horribly wrong, Japanese researchers have shown that helium-huffing gibbons utilize the same vocal techniques as professional soprano singers. The study reveals that gibbons, whose vocalizations are unique among non-human primates, share a physiological similarity to humans. The unique project was led by Takeshi Nishimura from the … Continued
- Tech News
Best Battery Life: 10 Laptops That Last 7+ Hours
What good is a notebook that dies two hours after it’s unplugged from the wall? Not much. We’ve created a list of the clamshells that ran the distance on the LAPTOP Battery Test (continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi). Each machine lasts (at least) to the 7-hour marker, but some systems use larger, sold-separately batteries to … Continued
Kenneth Butler - Laptop Magazine - Tech News
Do You Care That You Can’t Use Twitter to Find Tumblr Friends Anymore?
Just like Instagram, Tumblr has lost its API privileges to scrape your Twitter followers so that it can suggest people you should follow on its own site. Maybe this matters because it signals a larger trend, but if that trend is just pruning away parasitic little features like this one, should we even care? I’m … Continued