More news and features from around the Web
The International Space Station is getting an inflatable bonus room
The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, eventually intended for deep space missions, will be delivered by a SpaceX resupply craft in early April for testing on the ISS.
John Murrell — 3/29/2016 1:30 pm
Airbnb
Submit a winning essay and Airbnb will put you and a guest up for the night in a glass-walled bedroom submerged in the shark tank at the Aquarium de Paris.
John Murrell — 3/29/2016 10:45 am
Ashton Kutcher thinks he knows why he doesn’t have a five-star Uber rating
The Uber investor tells Jimmy Kimmel that it probably has something to do with one drunken night out with Mila Kunis’s dad.
John Murrell — 3/29/2016 10:30 am
The plywood box? Oh, that’s my roommate’s bedroom.
“It sounds very dystopian: ‘Man lives in pod,’ as if I put on my VR headset, drink my Soylent, and never leave. But really it’s just a bedroom. A little bedroom where you can’t leave the bed, but that kind of works.”Peter Berkowitz
— San Francisco artist Peter Berkowitz on the accommodations that his $400 rent buys him
John Murrell — 3/28/2016 3:57 pm
Google Maps
Google Maps has located Bruce Wayne’s latest digs out in the countryside north of Detroit and lets you wander around inside (head for the Batcave).
John Murrell — 3/28/2016 11:07 am
The Internet of unnecessary things
Latest entry: The Wi-Fi wine bottle. The Verge’s Jacob Kastrenakes pours all his energy into a review:
John Murrell — 3/28/2016 10:32 am
Free photo software from Google
The Nik Collection of Adobe-compatible plug-ins originally cost $500. Google bought the developer and dropped the price of the suite to $149. Today it dropped the price entirely (though you probably shouldn’t expect any more updates).
John Murrell — 3/25/2016 5:05 pm
Bill targets burner phones
The disposable prepaid phones are untraceable, which makes them a standard part of the criminal and terrorist toolkit. Rep. Jackie Speier wants to require buyers to produce ID and merchants to keep sales records.
John Murrell — 3/25/2016 3:31 pm
Ideal Conceal
Minnesota weaponry startup Ideal Conceal is developing a two-shot pistol that folds to resemble a smartphone (which seems about as wise as designing a smartphone that looks like a gun).
John Murrell — 3/25/2016 1:16 pm
3-D printers are getting bigger (and smaller)
The big: Autodesk’s multi-headed Project Escher
The small: The OLO, now on Kickstarter — a $99 box that uses the light from your smartphone to print 3-D objects.
John Murrell — 3/24/2016 3:28 pm
O.J. for breakfast (and lunch and dinner)
Looking to ride the wave of renewed interest created by the FX series, the Esquire Channel will run a 12-hour marathon recap of the O.J. Simpson trial featuring actual courtroom and press video footage. Set Sunday, April 3, aside for immersion.
John Murrell — 3/24/2016 2:57 pm
Take a spin through a Google data center
A 360-degree video tour of a place that only a few Googlers will ever enter. Click and drag in your browser or strap on Google Cardboard.
John Murrell — 3/24/2016 1:44 pm
Life, stripped down to the bare essentials
A team of researchers led by genome pioneer J. Craig Venter took a bacterium with the smallest genetic code found in nature, then started trimming away genes until they arrived at a synthetic cell with the bare minimum of material needed for a self-sustaining life form.
John Murrell — 3/24/2016 12:38 pm
So, just an hour to “freshen up,” Mr. and Mrs. … Smith?
The Recharge app lets you book San Francisco hotel rooms by the minute.
John Murrell — 3/24/2016 11:13 am
And here come the “street cleaner” and “suck” jokes
Citing government documents, the Guardian reports that Dyson is developing an electric car.
John Murrell — 3/24/2016 11:03 am
Crowdsourcing cartoon captions
With some help from an algorithm developed by computer scientists from the University of Wisconsin, the New Yorker is now using crowdsourcing to surface the best entries in its long-running cartoon caption contest. (And if you’re a fan of the magazine’s cartoons, check out the documentary “Very Semi-Serious,” showing on HBO.)
John Murrell — 3/23/2016 1:02 pm
© Hidetoshi Ogata. All rights reserved.
Winners and finalists from the Smithsonian’s annual photo contest
A slew of stunning images, as usual.
John Murrell — 3/23/2016 12:27 pm
The inexorable rise of VR porn
Giving a lift to a growing market segment, Pornhub, in partnership with BadoinkVR, just launched a virtual-reality category with free content. (Don’t worry — the links go to SFW articles; anything else, you’re on your own.)
John Murrell — 3/23/2016 12:00 pm
Uber will pay bounties to bug hunters
And here’s where it’s asking hackers to look.
John Murrell — 3/22/2016 1:27 pm
Meet Liam, the Apple recycling robot that tears iPhones apart
John Murrell — 3/22/2016 1:03 pm
For the first time, astronomers see the death flash of an exploding star
Here’s NASA’s animated depiction of what the Kepler space telescope spotted.
John Murrell — 3/22/2016 12:42 pm
Matthew Cetta
Just in time for Easter and emoji fans, a recipe from Matthew Cetta at Nomaggedon.
John Murrell — 3/22/2016 12:00 pm
What would it take to get rid of traffic lights?
Communicative cars and autonomous intersections, say the researchers at the MIT Senseable City Lab.
John Murrell — 3/21/2016 2:05 pm
A face you can trust? Not so much.
Face2Face — real-time manipulation of faces on YouTube videos.
John Murrell — 3/19/2016 11:00 am
The first trailer for the third season of “Silicon Valley”
The Pied Piper folks get ready to fight.
John Murrell — 3/18/2016 12:14 pm
How much do you tip a robot?
Domino’s is testing what it calls “the world’s first autonomous pizza delivery vehicle” in Wellington, New Zealand, a battery-powered robot with a range of 20 miles and room for 10 pizzas.
John Murrell — 3/18/2016 9:54 am
Panasonic’s exoskeleton lineup
Robotic assistance for all occasions.
John Murrell — 3/17/2016 4:08 pm
Is Nefertiti in Tut’s tomb?
Scans indicate hidden chambers and the presence of material that could be organic.
John Murrell — 3/17/2016 4:03 pm
Bald eagle nest cam
Eggs have started to hatch, and the American Eagle Foundation has a live feed from the nest in the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington D.C.
John Murrell — 3/17/2016 12:52 pm
Chipotle workers free to disparage Chipotle online
After a judge in Pennsylvania ruled that the restaurant chain’s social media policy for employees violated labor laws.
John Murrell — 3/17/2016 12:32 pm
Teleportation speculation
CGP Grey says there’s a problem with the “Star Trek” conception of a transporter — it’s a suicide box.
Not necessarily, responds MinutePhysics, if you’re talking about quantum teleportation.
John Murrell — 3/17/2016 11:26 am
Nothing like the purr of a powerful game engine
McLaren is now using Epic’s Unreal Engine to help design its luxury and high-performance cars.
John Murrell — 3/16/2016 11:58 am
NASA test aims to answer burning questions
After the Cygnus supply ship is finished with its next delivery to the International Space Station, NASA plans to ignite an experiment inside the craft to study how fire behaves in microgravity.
John Murrell — 3/16/2016 10:34 am
Snack time
The Bento Watch, a one-off novelty from Takii Seed, complete with pop-out chopsticks.
John Murrell — 3/16/2016 10:02 am
That might make taxiing to the terminal problematic
From the BBC: “Three Royal Brunei Airlines pilots have made history by being the company’s first all-female flight crew, making their first journey to Saudi Arabia, where women are not allowed to drive.”
John Murrell — 3/15/2016 2:31 pm
This year’s Abel Prize (the Nobel of math) goes to Sir Andrew J. Wiles
“For his stunning proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem by way of the modularity conjecture for semistable elliptic curves, opening a new era in number theory.” The prize comes with a check for about $700,000.
John Murrell — 3/15/2016 1:12 pm
Pigeon pollution patrol
The @PigeonAir flock, wearing pollution-monitoring backpacks from Plume Labs, is collecting air quality data around London for a couple of days.
John Murrell — 3/15/2016 12:56 pm
Rose Garden freestyle
In case you missed it, Lin-Manuel Miranda of the blockbuster musical “Hamilton,” with an assist from President Obama, spitting some rhymes during Monday’s White House visit.
John Murrell — 3/15/2016 11:12 am
Child’s play
Twitch is supplementing its staple diet of video-game streaming with a new food channel and is kicking things off today with a 201-episode marathon of of Julia Child’s “The French Chef.”
John Murrell — 3/15/2016 11:01 am
AlphaGo finishes up with comeback win
The artificial intelligence program from Google’s DeepMind recovered from an early bad move to beat legendary Go champion Lee Sedol and take the five-match challenge four games to one.
John Murrell — 3/15/2016 10:45 am
Murder suspect blames Uber app
According to a police report, the Kalamazoo, Mich., Uber driver charged with killing six people last month told the cops he was being directed by the ride-hailing app. Jason Dalton said the logo (presumably the pre-rebranding one) looked diabolical to him. “Dalton described the devil figure as a horned cow head or something like that and then it would give you an assignment and it would literally take over your whole body,” said the report.
John Murrell — 3/14/2016 2:32 pm
Robots in U.S. law
From Ryan Calo at the University of Washington, a scholarly (and very readable) review of case law:
Among other issues, courts have had to decide whether robots represent something “animate” for purposes of import tariffs, whether robots can “perform” as that term is understood in the context of a state tax on performance halls, and whether a salvage team “possesses” a shipwreck it visits with an unmanned submarine.
John Murrell — 3/14/2016 1:28 pm
Watch six microrobots tow a car
Stanford researchers equipped tiny bots with gecko-inspired grippers and got them to work together like ants.
John Murrell — 3/14/2016 12:56 pm
British teen supplements allowance with $250,000 drone racing prize
Luke Bannister, 15, piloted his drone to victory over 150 other teams to win the inaugural World Drone Prix in Dubai over the weekend.
John Murrell — 3/14/2016 11:46 am
Happy Pi Day
Sure, it’s irrational, but who doesn’t love pi? Well, some folks, as evidenced from the video below.
John Murrell — 3/14/2016 11:18 am
Google sends research team on a feedback road trip
A custom-built van will make stops in seven states, and Googlers will invite people inside to watch how they use apps and services.
John Murrell — 3/11/2016 3:51 pm
U.S. Attorney General talks iPhone encryption with Colbert
Loretta Lynch discusses the government’s fight with Apple.
John Murrell — 3/11/2016 9:59 am
Billion-dollar heist tripped up by a typo
But hackers still managed to get away with about $80 million from the Bangladesh central bank’s account at the New York Federal Reserve.
John Murrell — 3/10/2016 3:20 pm
Mmm, plastic
Researchers have found a strain of bacteria that feeds (albeit very slowly) on the type of plastic called PET, commonly used in bottles and containers and commonly found taking up a bunch of space in landfills.
John Murrell — 3/10/2016 1:17 pm
Tesla
Coming as soon as 2017, the Electric GT World Series will feature 10 teams, each running near-production versions of the discontinued Tesla Model S P85+.
John Murrell — 3/10/2016 1:00 pm
Christian Musat / Shutterstock
Must be willing to serve in Russian military, based in Sevastopol.
John Murrell — 3/10/2016 12:34 pm
Teach your children well
John Murrell — 3/9/2016 3:46 pm
An instant classic in the annals of journalism
On a Wired piece — “Correction at 9:58 a.m. on 3/09/2016: Due to an oversight involving a haphazardly-installed Chrome extension during the editing process, the name Donald Trump was erroneously replaced with the phrase “Someone With Tiny Hands” when this story originally published.”
John Murrell — 3/9/2016 12:32 pm
Drone vs. jet ski
Drone loses (around the 3:45 mark).
John Murrell — 3/9/2016 12:00 pm
That Jobs-Gates musical won’t be coming to Broadway after all
Because a major investor dropped out.
John Murrell — 3/9/2016 11:51 am
Blue Origin
“Step by step, ferociously” is the motto of Jeff Bezos’s spaceflight company, Blue Origin, and if those steps go well, the company will be giving tourists rides as early as 2018.
John Murrell — 3/9/2016 11:45 am
Bionic fingertip lets amputee feel textures
Moving toward prostheses enhanced with sensory feedback.
John Murrell — 3/8/2016 12:50 pm
USPTO
A new Ford patent for an entertainment system in an autonomous car envisions a movie screen that pulls down to block the windshield.
John Murrell — 3/8/2016 12:40 pm
Toyota’s latest navigation device is a wearable for blind people
Project Blaid, soon to enter beta testing, can detect stairs, doors, restroom signs and other key features of indoor spaces and guide the wearer.
John Murrell — 3/7/2016 3:56 pm
Star Wars, from the comic world’s greatest artists
A new book from Abrams Comic Arts, “Star Wars Galaxy: The Original Topps Trading Card Series,” features the work of more than 170 of the top names in the film and comic book industries. Polygon has a nice sampling.
John Murrell — 3/7/2016 3:12 pm
Watch the man vs. machine Go challenge
Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo program takes on Lee Sedol, the top Go player of the past decade, in a five-game match that begins this week. Watch the livestream from South Korea on the DeepMind YouTube channel, starting at 8 pm PT Tuesday.
John Murrell — 3/7/2016 12:29 pm
Blackest black gets even blacker
Watch the latest iteration of Vantablack soak up the light from a laser pointer.
John Murrell — 3/7/2016 11:49 am
Liang Dong / Iowa State University
Iowa State University engineers have come up with a flexible material that uses liquid-metal resonators to suppress radar reflections.
John Murrell — 3/7/2016 11:05 am
What’s a 10-letter word for misappropriating someone else’s work?
Evidence extracted from a database of puzzles has given rise to accusations of plagiarism in the world of professional crossword creators, reports FiveThirtyEight.
John Murrell — 3/7/2016 10:17 am
Jose-Luis Olivares / MIT
Advances in quantum computing, like the one just announced by MIT.
John Murrell — 3/4/2016 3:12 pm
The latest in drone defense systems
Meet the SkyWall100.
John Murrell — 3/4/2016 2:21 pm
When will the Oculus Rift work with the Mac?
“That is up to Apple. If they ever release a good computer, we will do it.”
John Murrell — 3/4/2016 11:44 am
DARPA funds a new concept plane
Aurora Flight Sciences’ LightningStrike is a pilotless vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft powered by electric fans.
John Murrell — 3/4/2016 11:32 am
NASA / ESA / P. Oesch (Yale University)
The galaxy, named GN-z11, is 13.4 billion light years away and formed a mere 400 million years after the Big Bang.
John Murrell — 3/3/2016 1:26 pm
Olympian Graham Bell wants to become the fastest man on skis
Come next year, he’ll be aiming for 180 mph, with the help of Jaguar and a jet-equipped suit.
John Murrell — 3/3/2016 12:43 pm
Foodini
Professional chefs are starting to use the Foodini and other variations of 3-D printers to produce elaborate creations with ingredients from mashed potatoes to chocolate.
John Murrell — 3/3/2016 11:50 am
Martin Molin’s marvelous marble music machine
John Murrell — 3/2/2016 2:00 pm
NASA
The astronaut, now back on terra firma, tweeted 1,000 fantastic photos during his 340 days aboard the International Space Station, and Windows on Earth has collected them all.
John Murrell — 3/2/2016 1:18 pm
Marshall Astor / Wikicommons
“The Most Important Object In Computer Graphics History Is This Teapot,” from Jesse Dunietz at Nautilus.
John Murrell — 3/2/2016 12:46 pm
One idea to narrow our search for ET
We should focus on planets where aliens might be looking for us the way we look for them — in other words, planets from which it would possible to spot Earth passing in front of the Sun.
John Murrell — 3/1/2016 3:30 pm
A guy walks into a news cycle …
And makes headlines. A lot of very familiar headlines. From Claire Blechman at McSweeny’s.
John Murrell — 3/1/2016 1:41 pm
Waze on Israeli soldiers’ wrong turn: It wasn’t our default
Israeli military authorities said Tuesday that two of its soldiers were mistakenly guided into a dangerous Palestinian neighborhood by Waze, the crowdsourced navigation app owned by Google, forcing a rescue mission that resulted in multiple casualties. Waze said that its app has a default setting “that prevents routes through areas which are marked as dangerous or prohibited for Israelis to drive through,” that the setting had been disabled in this case and that the soldiers had deviated from the suggested route.
John Murrell — 3/1/2016 12:55 pm
Dog meets bot
Alex, the canine companion of former Google robotics chief Andy Rubin, vs. Spot, the robot companion of Google’s Boston Dynamics team, filmed by Steve Jurvetson, venture capital companion of many tech companies.
John Murrell — 3/1/2016 12:20 pm
Ballmer takes it to the rim
We’ve always know that Steve Ballmer has hops (just Google “Ballmer Monkey Boy“), but the former Microsoft CEO and current Los Angeles Clippers owner took it to new heights Monday night at the introduction of the Clippers’ new mascot, Chuck.
John Murrell — 3/1/2016 12:04 pm
Previously > >
Previously on Then There's This
- March 9, 2016: And now, the rest of the story At bar.foo, Google software engineers talk about the inspiration for and development of features like collaboration in Docs, smart composing in Gmail and voice search recognition. John Murrell — 2/29/2016 1:03 pm Don’t get mad, get even The Auralnauts imagine how the heartless hazing of Boston Dynamics’ Atlas […]
- February 5, 2016: More news and features from around the Web Bye-bye, Babbage For almost eight years, a full-size working model of the Babbage Difference Engine No. 2, a proto-computer designed by Charles Babbage in 1834, has been on display at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. But now the owner, former Microsoft exec Nathan Myhrvold, […]
- January 13, 2016: More news and features from around the Web Guesstimate, a spreadsheet for things that aren’t certain For calculating stuff using estimates. Creator Ozzie Gooen: “For any cell you can enter confidence intervals (lower and upper bounds) that can represent full probability distributions. … At the end of this you don’t just understand the ‘best’ and […]
- November 24, 2015: Sleeping With the Fishes, Kutcher's Uber Rating, Bedroom Box
