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Tech NewsChrome Will Choose HTML5 Over Flash By the End of the Year
It can’t be too long now until Flash finally dies. Google has proposed a new “HTML5 by default” scheme that would mean that Flash is only used as a last resort by the browser. Venture Beat reports that Google plans to switch to a new system for using Flash in Chrome as early as this … Continued
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Tech NewsGoogle
Google Could Face $3 Billion European Commission Fine Over Unfair Search
Last month, the European Commission issued Google with formal anti-trust charges over Android. Now, it appears that the company could face new fines over skewing search results. The Telegraph reports that the charges, which are yet to be finalized, would be the result of “a seven-year investigation of [the] company’s dominant search engine.” It’s not … Continued
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Tech NewsAmazon
Amazon’s Planning to Sell Own-Branded Food
Amazon plans to infiltrate your home more thoroughly than ever. A new report by the Wall Street Journal suggest that the online retailer is planning to launch a slew of own-brand products in the coming month, which will include perishable food and other household items. Amazon already sells plenty of own-branded products, from USB cables … Continued
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Tech News
John McAfee Apparently Tried to Trick Reporters Into Thinking He Hacked WhatsApp
John McAfee, noted liar and one-time creator of anti-virus software, apparently tried to convince reporters that he hacked the encryption used on WhatsApp. To do this, he attempted to send them phones with preinstalled malware and then convince them he was reading their encrypted conversations. In April, WhatsApp announced that it had added automatic end-to-end … Continued
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Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
A Major Law Firm Will Soon Be Using A Robotic Lawyer
An “artificial-intelligence attorney” created using technology from IBM’s Watson has snagged its first customer, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be appearing in the courtroom anytime soon. Law firm Baker & Hostetler said this week that it will use the “AI lawyer” ROSS as a resource for the 50 lawyers in its bankruptcy division, which has … Continued
By Angela Chen -
Tech News
A Rule Change In Germany May Allow For Widespread Free WiFi
After years of being a “hotspot desert,” Germans could finally have widespread free WiFi by fall, thanks to a proposal that relaxes some online piracy guidelines. Until now, businesses—from local coffee shop owners to hotel chains—were responsible for what happened on their networks, which discouraged them from offering free WiFi out of fear that they’d … Continued
By Angela Chen -
Tech NewsWatch This Drone Land on Walls and Ceilings Like an Insect
Researchers at Stanford University have created a drone that can perch on walls and ceilings like a bug, making progress on the problem of limited flight endurance that has plagued the devices. Utilizing several“microspines,” (textured pads inspired by the same technology that lets geckos climb walls) and a tail spine, the drone positions itself against … Continued
By Angela Chen -
Tech News
Hyundai’s New Transportation Exoskeleton Is Less Iron Man and More Aliens
Hyundai is developing an exoskeleton that it hopes will eventually become a transportation device. The future will look less like Iron Man, and more like Aliens. The car manufacturer made the announcement on its blog, making no secret of the fact that the suit was inspired by the Marvel character, even if the bulky blue … Continued
By Angela Chen -
Tech NewsSamsung
Samsung Thinks It Can Make Smartwatches Useful By Projecting Onto Your Hand
Samsung thinks it has a possible solution to the problem of tiny, hard-to-read smartwatches: a projector. The company has filed a patent for a smartwatch that projects a larger screen onto the user’s hand or forearm. A projector smartwatch would work by using an image projector, a camera that captures the interactions with the projected … Continued
By Angela Chen -
Tech NewsWatch This Remotely-Operated Robot Thread A Needle
Replicating human movement is an engineering challenge, and robots are slowly getting better at delicate movement all the time. A research team funded by Disney has constructed a remotely operated robot sensitive enough to thread a needle and move an egg without breaking it. The research team, which includes researchers from Northeastern University, The Catholic … Continued
By Angela Chen -
Tech News
US Senate Reaches Compromise on Emergency Zika Funding
In February, the White House formally asked Congress for $1.8 billion dollars to help combat the Zika virus this summer. Now, the Senate has worked out a bipartisan deal will allocate $1.1 billion in emergency funding. The $1.1 billion is less than the White House had asked for, money that will go towards mosquito control … Continued
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Tech NewsWhen the Past and Future Collide: Russian Reenactor Takes Out Drone With Spear
Flying a drone can come with some unforeseen hazards. Hawks have taken out drones on more than one occasion, but now, there’s another hazard for pilots to take into consideration: Spear-wielding Russian reenactors. A Russian drone team was flying over a reenactment settlement in Lipetsk, Russia, taking some fantastic footage of the event, showing off … Continued
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Tech NewsSploidThis Woodworking Wizard Turns a Single Block of Wood Into a Chain
This is a really neat woodworking project from Matthias Wandel: turning a single piece of wood into a chain just by using power tools. It takes very careful planning and specific carving to transform the block of wood into links on a chain, but Wandel shows us his entire process in detail. The end result … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech NewsSploidHilarious Short Animation Shows the Random Ways You Can Die in Space
This short animation Death in Space by Thomas Lucas is a collection of two-second scenes that show people dying in space in the most random ways. It’s totally silly, but it’s funny because it pokes fun of the careless curiosity of human nature. Yes, we’re going to jab that creature that might swallow us alive. … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech News
Scientists Used the Stars to Confirm When a Famous Sapphic Poem Was Written
Scientists from the University of Texas at Arlington used planetarium software to recreate the night sky of ancient Greece, the better to peg the date when lyric poet Sappho penned one of her most famous verses. They describe their findings in a new paper in the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage. “This is an … Continued
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Tech News
How to Make a Delicious Cocktail Using Prohibition-Era Hacks
Prohibition was a dark time for America. Booze was banned, and crime was skyrocketing. But that doesn’t mean people stopped coming up with new ways to have fun with alcohol. A few months ago, I got my hands on Lost Recipes of Prohibition, a fascinating book by Matthew Rowley about a found object. The object … Continued
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Tech News
Experts Held a Secret Meeting to Consider Building a Human Genome From Scratch
Earlier this week, over a hundred scientists, lawyers, and entrepreneurs gathered to discuss the radical possibility of creating a synthetic human genome. Strangely, journalists were not invited, and attendees were told to keep a tight lip. Which, given the weighty subject matter, is obvious cause for concern. The idea of creating a synthetic human genome … Continued
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Tech NewsAmazon
Amazon Finally Made the Dash Button We’ve Wanted All Along
When Amazon first announced the Dash Button in early 2015, we couldn’t decide whether it heralded a more convenient future or whether it was a harbinger of our doom. Since then, the number of Dash Buttons has ballooned, but they have yet to escape the confines of being “plastic things that order things” Cool, but … Continued
By Darren Orf -
Tech NewsIt’s Nuts How Much Work Went Into Making the Sounds for Uncharted 4
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is the closing chapter of Nathan Drake’s treasure hunting adventures. The game is made by Naughty Dog, a developer known more recently for the survival thriller The Last of Us. The unifying thread among developer’s projects is that they’re exceptionally cinematic, even more so than most other big budget games. … Continued
By Darren Orf -
Tech NewsSploidThe Mathematical Explanation for Why You Can’t Catch a Falling Dollar Bill with Your Fingers
Here’s a really interesting mathematical explanation on how the “catch a dollar” trick works. You know the trick: a person holds a bill vertically and says you can keep the bill if you can catch the dollar with your fingers when it drops. You never catch it. It’s really hard! Why? As Numberphile explains, the … Continued
By Casey Chan