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Tech News
House of Tomorrow From 1933 Declared National Treasure, Will Be Restored
When the House of Tomorrow was completed in 1933 it gave visitors a sneak peek at the shiny, optimistic future that was to come—all twelve sides of it. Today, this relic of the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair sits in disrepair. But preservationists are hoping to change that with the announcement of a new campaign to … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
Executive Accidentally Reveals Layoffs in Reply All Nightmare
The Wall Street Journal wants a “substantial number” of newsroom employees to take a buyout, editor-in-chief Gerard Baker announced to his staff in a memo sent to WSJ staff Friday morning. According to Politico, Ed Finn—the president of Barron’s, also owned by WSJ’s parent company, Dow Jones—“apparently meant to forward Baker’s email to Barron’s executives … Continued
By Eve Peyser -
Tech News
The FBI and Homeland Security Are Investigating Today’s Giant Cyber Attack
According to a new report from Reuters, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are investigating the massive distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) hitting the DNS provider Dyn. That attack, which is still ongoing, has left websites as Reddit, Twitter, Spotify and others struggling to stay up. The sheer scale of the … Continued
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Tech NewsApple
What to Expect From Apple’s Big MacBook Event
Apple is having a press event on Thursday October 27, and you know what that means: New MacBooks! Finally. We’ve been waiting for this MacBook Pro overhaul for years. The event will be taking place at 1pm ET and we’ll be covering it as it happens. As always, Apple will be livestreaming the presentation on … Continued
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Tech News
The Internet’s Best Conspiracy Theories About Julian Assange’s Meltdown [Update]
Suppression by “powerful states and organizations” is, according to Julian Assange in his 2012 book Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet, “one of the hardships WikiLeaks was built to endure.” That claim must reek of false bluster now that his whistleblowing organization has since been compromised by the US government, according to the … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech News
Engineers Rushing to Build Flying Car in Time For the 2020 Tokyo Games
Engineers in Tokyo are attempting to build a flying car that will help light the Olympic cauldron in 2020. And even though they still have a few years, it’s a race against time to achieve what so many other flying car designers have failed to do: Build a safe and reliable flying machine that can … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsSploid
Where Was the Last Place on Earth Discovered by Humans?
The world is a very big place. Sure, satellites and the internet and, like, McDonald’s can make it seem much, much smaller now. Before all that, however, planet Earth was the great unknown with a world map that was totally incomplete. So it’s really interesting to find out how humans discovered what places when because … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech NewsPrivacy and Security
Today’s Brutal DDoS Attack Is the Beginning of a Bleak Future
This morning a ton of websites and services, including Spotify and Twitter, were unreachable because of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Dyn, a major DNS provider. Details of how the attack happened remain vague, but one thing seems certain. Our internet is frightfully fragile in the face of increasingly sophisticated hacks. Some … Continued
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Tech News
Earthquake Faults Around San Francisco Are Dangerously Interconnected
Geologists have discovered that two deadly faults beneath San Francisco—the Hayward and Rodgers Creek faults—may be linked. Should one slip, it could trigger the other fault to collapse as well, causing an earthquake even larger than the one that struck back in 1989. Geologists are very familiar with the Hayward Fault and its potential to … Continued
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Tech News
What Is DNS and Why Does It Make the Internet Break?
Today, half of America’s internet shut down when hackers unleashed a large distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the servers of Dyn, a major DNS host. It’s still unclear exactly who carried out the attack and why, but regardless, the event served as a demonstration of how easily large swaths of the web can … Continued
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Tech News
Scientists Discover What Your Brain Looks Like When You’re on Weed
You ever hit the blunt and start trying to figure out how getting high even works? How does anything work, really? Electricity? Computers? There are infinite mysteries to life, but some dank scientists are trying to figure out one of life’s most important questions—what does your brain look like when you get high? A team … Continued
By Eve Peyser -
Tech News
Iceland’s Latest Renewable Energy Project Is So Badass
Iceland, land of elves and shark meat delicacies, is proving to be far more inventive than the rest of us when it comes to new energy technologies. Having already tamed its shallow geothermal resources, the chilly island nation is now trying to tap into the power of magma. New Scientist reports on a fascinating new … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
Neiman Marcus Wants You to Put a $1.5 Million Rose Gold Private Plane On Your Christmas List
If you’re the type who insists that your rose gold smartphone matches your wardrobe, then Neiman Marcus has got the perfect accessory for you: a $1.5 million three-seater private plane featuring a rose gold finish—inside and out. The Cobalt Valkyrie-X doesn’t actually debut until 2017, at which time it will be one of the fastest … Continued
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Tech NewsApple
Don’t Buy Shady Cheap Chargers Unless You Want Your iPhone to Explode
We all love cheap stuff, but it’s an incredibly bad idea to buy a cheap charger for your phone, digital camera, or other gadget. And unfortunately, it’s incredibly easy to buy these online, even from sites like Amazon, who often mistakenly sell the products as genuine. As uncovered by Patently Apple, Apple has sued Mobile … Continued
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Tech News
A Future Where Tiny Swarming Robots Bring Me My Phone Is the Future I Want
Making robots act like humans is hard, but making robots act like insects is considerably easier. And if you’ve ever seen a towering ant hill, or a massive bee hive, you know that thousands of insects working together can accomplish impressive things. So why not have a bunch of tiny robots do the same? Researchers … Continued
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Tech News
This Is Why Half the Internet Shut Down Today
Twitter, Spotify and Reddit, and a huge swath of other websites were down or screwed up this morning. This was happening as hackers unleashed a large distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the servers of Dyn, a major DNS host. It’s probably safe to assume that the two situations are related. Update 4:22 PM … Continued
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Tech News
Candy-Flinging Lego Bot Deals With Trick-or-Treaters For You
Kids love Halloween because they get to dress up, act like a monster, and be rewarded with free candy. Then you become an adult, and suddenly have to deal with little monsters demanding free sweets. Halloween is suddenly less fun, unless you build a Lego robot to deal with trick-or-treaters. Jason Allemann of JK Brickworks’ … Continued
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Tech News
‘This Is Your Brain on Drugs’ Guy Endorses Recreational Marijuana
Almost 30 years ago, actor John Roselius filmed the now-iconic “This Is Your Brain on Drugs” PSA for the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. Today, Roselius says he’s still sometimes recognized as the “Egg Guy”—and is voting “yes” on a California ballot measure legalizing recreational marijuana. “I’m 100 percent behind legalizing it, are you kidding?” … Continued
By Hudson Hongo -
Tech NewsApple
Man Claims Flaming iPhone 7 Killed His Car, Pants
Apple users might feel insulated from the exploding batteries currently fueling Samsung’s Note 7 nightmare, but a new story of out of south Australia serves as a helpful reminder that true safety is just an illusion. On Thursday, surf instructor Mat Jones told Australia’s 7 News that an iPhone 7 he left in his car … Continued
By Hudson Hongo