Posts

Media Platforms Design TeamThe U.S. Navy’s new Cicada drone (Close-in Covert Autonomous Disposable Aircraft) will make a lot of buzz, and not just because of its name. It also could help to blow up the perception of what a drone looks like. This is no hulking piece of hardware: The Cicada fits in the palm of hand and glide gracefully through the air.Just as a real cicada needs many years to mature, the drone endured more than ten years in development....

It sounds like the plot device of a techno-thriller or spy novel. In 2016 and 2017, 24 diplomats in Cuba reported hearing strange noises. Later, they showed symptoms of neurological damage similar to the effects of a concussion.“Following exposure, patients experienced cognitive, vestibular, and oculomotor dysfunction, along with auditory symptoms, sleep abnormalities, and headache,” one medical report states. And then something similar happened again, half a world away. In late May, a State Department employee in Guangzhou, China reported “abnormal sensations of sound and pressure” that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said are “very similar” and “entirely consistent” with what happened in Havana....

The Evryscope is a very peculiar telescope with some very unique charecteristics. Rather than a single aperture, it has 24 “eyes” across a domed surface, each focusing in on an area of the sky. With these 24 telescopes, the Evryscope can take a picture of the sky – the whole southern sky from its location in Chile – every two minutes.A project of the University of North Carolina—who’ve drafted up a proposal for a companion in Antarctica—the Evryscope generates a lot of data....

Media Platforms Design TeamBurt Munro’s 1920 Indian Scout led him to become possibly the world’s most famousDIY mechanicNew ZealandThe World’s Fastest Indian–Tyghe Trimble. He raced the Indian from his native to the Bonneville Salt Flats, breaking records with his tinkered bike that contained parts he made in his home. Munro’s legacy gelled with Hollywood last year in , which follows the life of the garage-schooled genius (played by Anthony Hopkins) as a happy mechanic who didn’t pay much attention to doubters....

Passengers traveling on future Virgin Galactic space flights don’t exactly need suits capable of walking on the moon and withstanding temperature swings of hundreds of degrees. But if you’re spending all that money to go to space, you should at least do it in style. Enter the new spacesuits that Under Armour made for Virgin Galactic.“When we got the brief about bringing this to life, it was undoubtedly a little bit daunting,” Nick Cienski, Under Armour’s principal innovation apparel designer, tells Popular Mechanics....

DARPA’s Robotic Challenge, a competition where some of the most advanced robots in the world go head-to-head, is streaming live right now. These are the finals, where the best of the best get put to the test. Unfortunately it’s not BattleBots, but it’s still pretty cool.You can watch the main, produced feed (with highlights and commentary) below: View full post on YoutubeOver the course of the competition, each robot will have to accomplish the following tasks, in order: Walk to a vehicle Drive a vehicle Open a door Find and close a valve Bust through a wall A surprise task Navigate some rubble Climb up stairs In order to keep things moving (and because these robots mostly move really slow), there are four different courses where robots are running the challenge simultaneously....

This video from the the Aotearoa New Zealand Ross Ice Shelf program is part of a study that’s trying to figure out what’s happening in Earth’s receding ice caps by getting up close and personal with them. The Ross Ice Shelf is massive–the size of France–but little is still known about what’s beneath it. To find out, this program, a collaboration between New Zealand universities, drilled a 300-meter-deep borehole into the ice shelf and sent a camera down there to see what’s up....

Four Navy SEALs covertly entering Russia, rescuing its Vladimir Putin-like president from a well-orchestrated coup, and then escaping in a submerged submarine definitely sounds like fiction. And while the sweeping brushstrokes of Hunter Killer, which hit theaters October 26, are indeed a fantasy, its depiction of submarine warfare is startlingly realistic.From the accurate sets, to illustrating the chain of command, to conveying the very physics of submarine warfare, Hunter Killer checks all the boxes—and this is how they did it....

El Caminito del Rey, also known as The King’s Little Pathway, is a walkway built onto a gorge in the province of Malaga, Spain. It has a reputation as the world’s most dangerous path. It used to, at least. The Internet has changed all that.View full post on YoutubeTom Scott explains how the Internet hyped up El Caminito, leading to many an unauthorized walk along the gorge. While there were plenty of successful walks, there were also a few deaths, enough that the local government banned making the trip....

Auto shows used to be a big deal. The auto show was where car companies made big, splashy debuts and automotive journalists got to find out who hates who and why over open bar at a pop-up speakeasy sponsored by whichever manufacturer was feeling especially flush that year. I mean, one year at the Detroit show I had Juan Pablo Montoya pour me a beer because Chrysler hired him to work as a bartender....

According to a recently-uncovered medical case from 2015, one man may have died after eating one too many squirrels. His penchant for squirrel meat seems to have inadvertently exposed him to an incredibly rare fatal brain disorder, the first time this disorder was ever contracted in the United States.Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease is a rare brain disorder caused by misfolding brain proteins called prions. Prion proteins are unique in that when one is misfolded, it causes other prion proteins to misfold too....

The hearing between Apple and the FBI initially scheduled for tomorrow has been canceled according to a report from the Associated Press. The FBI is reportedly working with a third party to gain access to the iPhone before pursuing further legal action. The development comes after a five-hour hearing in front of Congress, during which both sides were put under tremendous scrutiny. Earlier reports have suggested that the FBI might have some alternatives to using a centuries old law to compel Apple to create the backdoor it is so determined not to create....

When the iPhone came out, it basically took two Star Trek devices—the PADD tablet-looking device and the iconic communicator—and rolled them into one. (And it was far from the first.) Well now, thanks to a brave, enterprising outfit called The Wand Company, you can roll that back and get a Bluetooth-enabled communicator that works with your fancy new future phone but looks like that of the original series.The sleek working replica can be yours for $149....

The ship was originally the Soviet aircraft carrier named Riga.Never completed, Riga languished in a Ukrainian shipyard until bought by a Chinese businessman in 1998.The Chinese Navy eventually received the unfinished ship and transformed it into the Liaoning.A picture of China’s first aircraft carrier before it was eventually completed has surfaced on the Chinese internet. The images showed up on Tencent’s microblog and show a rusty, unfinished hulk. The ship, built for the USSR but never completed, was towed to China where it eventually became the carrier Liaoning....

The LJ-1 is designed to function as a robotic wingman to manned aircraft.The drone’s development is evidence Chinese companies see the merit of America’s “loyal wingman” concept.Unlike other drones, the LJ-1 can be sent on a one way trip with a high explosive payload, turning it into a cruise missile.A mysterious Chinese company is showing off a concept model for a high speed “loyal wingman” drone at an airshow outside of Moscow....

Media Platforms Design TeamD+Caf Caffeine Test Strips /// $9.95 for a tube of 20 strips The Promise: A test strip that quickly tells you if a beverage is caffeinated or decaffeinated. The purpose of the D+Caf test strip is to give caffeine-sensitive (or just curious) people the ability to label their coffee as regular or decaf. Silver Lake Research Company, the maker of the product, claims D+Caf is “easy to use, provides quick results, and has the same accuracy rate as professional laboratories (98+%)....

Media Platforms Design TeamThese past few days Twitter and the tech press have been falling over themselves to talk about Ello, the startup social network whose small team of creators has positioned it as an anti-Facebook. Tens of thousands of users are requesting invitations to join every hour, overpowering Ello’s small team.The site has three things going for it right now. One, it pledges to protect your information above all, tapping into the sea of accelerating disgust out there about the way Facebook treats its users....

A top-performing HVAC system provides the perfect amount of comfort while using the least amount of energy. Keeping that perfectly balanced system running at its best requires regular preventative maintenance. Yearly servicing of your HVAC system can reveal rust, leaks, and wear and tear that can require immediate repair, so it’s best to always be on top of these checks to avoid compromising your system’s performance. Here are some essential maintenance tips provided by Trane Residential, leading manufacturer of residential HVAC systems and an expert in environmental technology and energy conservation....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhat’s the best way to fasten to a tile wall? I have a loose shelf in the bathroom that I want to replace, and I don’t want the new one to come away from the wall like the old one did.The gold standard for hanging something on a tile wall is to catch a stud with each mounting screw. Now, the voice of reality: If only it were that easy....

Phones are great for gaming, so perhaps it’s not surprising that Nintendo would look at phones as a platform ripe for their devices. That could be the reason they’ve filed a patent for a phone cover that seems to also function as a playable Game Boy.First spotted by The Verge, the patent describes “a cover that is removably attachable to electronic equipment having a touch screen equipped with a touch panel of an electrostatic capacitance system and a display....