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Tech News
In Two Years Every Shitty Movie Will Be About Uber
Did you want a movie about Uber? No? Too bad! You’re getting two! Yesterday, The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that Universal and Fox both paid a shitload of money to get the wheels turning on two different Uber-themed movies. On April 14, Universal reportedly coughed up seven figures for an untitled comedy starring Will … Continued
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Tech NewsApple
The FBI Paid at Least $1 Million to Get Inside the San Bernardino Shooter’s iPhone
After weeks of a very public back and forth with Apple over opening the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, the FBI opted for plan B and possibly asked an Israeli security firm or some other shady hacker group to crack the device. And they paid a premium. FBI director Comey told a crowd in London today … Continued
By Darren Orf -
Tech NewsSploid
Watch a Chef Make a Dish with a Poisonous Pufferfish
In order to serve fugu (pufferfish) in Japan, a chef needs to have a special license. That’s because fugu is poisonous and toxic and lethal. So why would someone eat something that could kill you? Because when prepared properly, it’s safe to eat and delicious. Watch chef Sasaki, a fugu specialist for over 45 years, … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech NewsGoogle
Alphabet’s Taking a Long, Hard Look at Its Money-Bleeding Projects
Despite being enormously profitable, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has ballooned its expenditures on experimental projects. It’s gotten so bad that the company said it intends to make sure all that spending makes sense. In its just released financial statements for the first quarter of 2016, the company once again split its numbers into two categories: … Continued
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Tech News
Gigantic Dinosaurs Had to Grow Freakishly Fast
Titanosaurs were the largest land animals to ever appear on this planet, but even these lumbering beasts had humble beginnings. The discovery of a baby titanosaur fossil suggests that these dinosaurs were born with very adult-like features—and wow did they ever grow fast. Titanosaurs like Argentinosaurus, Apatosaurus (formerly known as Brontosaurus), and Rapetosaurus grew to … Continued
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Tech NewsSploid
How to Maybe Stop Procrastinating
Everybody procrastinates. Well, every sane person does. That’s because it’s nice to not think about what we have to do and it’s so much funner to just play video games and distract ourselves from reality. But then eventually we still have to do the thing we had to do and we now have less time … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech NewsSploid
Brilliant Short Film Tells the Memories of a Family with a Tour of Their Empty Home
This short film, Hiraeth by Trent Jaklitsch, is absolutely wonderful. Without seeing any actors and without seeing any relationships on screen, you’re still able to develop an emotional attachment to the family through a tour of their empty home. Each room represents a memory in their life and hearing those memories and feeling their progression … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech News
Bless the World, MTV Cribs Is Coming Back Thanks to Snapchat
Some people like to claim that MTV’s heyday was back when it actually showed music, rather than the reality TV programming. Those people have clearly never watched MTV Cribs, the crown jewel of the televised aughts, featuring celebrities showing off their homes. Among other things, it produced the spectacle of Mariah Carey bathing in a … Continued
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Tech News
The Coolest Shit Acer Announced Today Includes a Liquid-Cooled Laptop
Acer just had its annual hardware vomit: from laptops and tablets to PCs and wearables. Most of the stuff involved incremental updates, gaming gear that looked more like alien architecture, and something called a GrandPad that is a tablet for old people (and not adult diapers). But there were other glimmers of cool, and this … Continued
By Darren Orf -
Tech News
You’ll Never Forget Your Password When It’s the Sound Your Skull Makes
Lacking a decent keyboard for password entry, it’s tricky to secure a wearable computer so that someone else can’t just put it on and access your private files. But researchers have come up with a better alternative, by listening to the unique sound of the wearer’s skull. That’s not to say that your brain is … Continued
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Tech NewsSploid
A Lovely Ode to the Sounds of a Mechanical Keyboard
Clickety Clack. The sounds of a mechanical keyboard are just so soothing. There’s such a satisfying audible (and physical) reaction whenever you hit the keys, like hey, press this button and you’ll feel good. Here’s Pseudorandom using the mechanical keyboard as an instrument for a song. SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us on Facebook, … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech News
Elon Musk Is Working on Some Kind of Self-Driving Bus
Sure, an affordable electric car can go a long way towards helping the US achieve energy independence and wresting its citizens away from fossil fuels. But if Elon Musk really wanted to solve our transportation problems, he’d be designing an electric bus. If his comments at a conference today are true, Musk is doing exactly … Continued
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Tech NewsSploid
What’s Inside a Record Player and How It Works
A record player is always going to be a little magical. How it sounds, the nostalgia of it, the vinyls, the needle, and so forth. This exploded view of a record player plays down the specialness of its sound and breaks down what’s inside and how it works. SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech NewsSploid
Paint Powder on a Drum Becomes an Explosive Rainbow With Every Hit
Is it really any surprise that pointing a Phantom Flex high-speed camera at a drum covered in colorful paint pigments would produce stunning results at 1,000 frames per second? Not at all. But the results from The Slow Mo Guys’ latest video are especially spectacular as you watch the shockwaves launch an explosive rainbow in … Continued
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Tech News
Why We Sleep So Poorly In Unfamiliar Places
Many of us have trouble sleeping in an unfamiliar place, like a hotel, or a friend’s house for the first time. When we finally do get to sleep, it’s often fidgety and disturbed. New research shows that one hemisphere of our brain stays more active during the first night of sleep—and it does so to … Continued
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Tech NewsSploid
You’re Washing Your Hands Wrong. Here’s How to Wash Your Hands the Right Way
Apparently, there are two schools of thought when it comes to washing your hands. There’s the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) approved way, which we all do already. Which is wrong. And there’s the WHO (World Health Organization) method, which is better and cleaner and “microbiologically more effective”. Which is right. The CDC … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech NewsSploid
Put on a Tiny Fireworks Show by Blowing Up Electrical Components
You don’t need dangerous explosives to put on an impressive fireworks show. Just grab a magnifying glass, a bunch of tiny resistors, capacitors, and transistors, and then blast them with more electricity than they were designed to handle. The results won’t disappoint, as long as you aren’t hoping for a Fourth of July extravaganza. [YouTube … Continued
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Tech News
The Best Camera Bags and Straps
After doing more than 24 hours of new research and testing—including interviews with several professional photographers—on top of 60 hours previously spent reviewing camera carrying gear, we’ve found the best bags (both backpack and messenger style) and straps to keep your equipment organized and protected in the field. This post was done in partnership with … Continued
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Tech News
Hot Water and Ice Power This Motor Made of Paper
If you’re going to bother tackling a craft project, it might as well do something interesting when you’re done with it. Aliaksei Zholner used his skills with paper and glue to build a working Stirling engine powered by a bowl of hot water and a handful of ice cubes. Even the flexible diaphragms that move … Continued
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Tech NewsGoogle
Even Google Got Fooled by a Fake Harriet Tubman Quote
Another day, another person fooled by a falsely attributed Harriet Tubman quote. Or, as in today’s example, the world’s largest search engine. This morning, a quick visit to Google dot com brought up a fairly normal webpage: the colorful Google logo, the search bar, the “Google Search” and “I’m Feeling Lucky” buttons. Below that, however, … Continued