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Blade Runner is an unambiguous sci-fi classic (well, the director’s cut, at least). But in the 30-plus years since its release, there has been no sequel (aside from a sidequel video game in 1997)—just myriad special editions and director’s cuts. According to The Hollywood Reporter, however, the real film sequel might be happening—director Denis Villeneuve could be about to sign on.Villeneuve is not a household name in the United States, but his 2010 film Incendies got an Oscar nod for best foreign language film, and his 2013 film Prisoners was a modest critical success....

View full post on YoutubeTire manufacturers typically finesse the balance between comfort and performance by adjusting compound ratios and structural geometry. But to tweak the ride quality and handling of their latest motorcycle rubber, Michelin stepped outside of the box and combined two seemingly mutually exclusive construction methods: bias and radial ply.The basic premise is simple: achieve the overall structural stiffness and load-bearing capabilities of a bias ply, with the flexibility and performance of a radial ply....

If flying a commercial airliner has any perks, it just might be the job’s potential for hunting aliens. The pilot of a British Airways flight cruising over Ireland last Friday noticed something peculiar darting fast through the sky, and quickly called air traffic control to report the sight. According to radio logs obtained by the website Airlive, a “very fast” moving object suddenly appeared within the cockpit’s vantage point, but disappeared shortly afterward, alarming the pilot of the Boeing 787....

Following a series of provocations by Russian forces in the air and at sea, Sweden is opening its wallet for defense spending. Famously neutral Stockholm will spend an extra $722 million on the military over the next five years, reversing years of military cuts.That includes a new fighter jet. The Gripen E, which was rolled out today, is a substantial update of the Gripen fighter introduced in the late 1980s. Sweden was particularly rattled by an incident in March 2013, when four Tu-22M-3 “Backfire” bombers and their two Su-27 “Flanker” fighter escorts made a simulated nuclear attack run on the headquarters of Sweden’s National Defense Radio Establishment, which controls the country’s signals intelligence collection and early warning radar systems....

Media Platforms Design TeamIf you’re sitting in the Dallas Cowboys stadium on Super Bowl Sunday among 100,000 fans and can call your best friend, text a photo of yourself waving a Terrible Towel* (or wearing a Cheesehead hat) and upload a video of Rashard Mendenhall (or James Starks) diving into the end zone, it’s at least partly because of one person not watching the game, but a large-screen monitor in the stadium’s 5000-square-foot data center: a rep from your cell phone carrier....

Scott Manley spends a good chunk of his YouTube time with Kerbal Space Program tutorials. (Thanks for all you do, Scott.) But when not perfectly executing the most difficult game on Earth, he somehow found time to make this awesome simulation of asteroid discoveries in the last 45 years. It shows how quickly we went from 4,000+ asteroids to almost 700,000. With telescopes like the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope going online in the next decade, that number will only grow....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show in Las Vegas was once just a week when we learned about the latest aftermarket parts. Ten years ago, press conferences were about new suspension kits and exhaust systems—not brand-new vehicles. Today, SEMA is so huge that manufacturers are holding world introductions as if it was the Detroit Auto Show.Toyota is the official vehicle manufacturer of SEMA 2007 this November. So what exactly will Toyota be bringing to the show?...

After months of teasing, Faraday Future finally showed off its FF 91 flagship electric car for all the world to see. According to Faraday, the car can hit hit 60 mph in 2.39 seconds, just barely edging out the Tesla Model S P100D for the title of “world’s quickest-accelerating car, " full stop—if the numbers hold up during independent tests. What’s more, it comes with a suite of self-driving tech, including the necessary radars and sensors required to pull of autonomous feats like self-parking....

Not so long ago, the boat called Helge Ingstad comprised one-fifth of Norway’s frigate fleet. Now it’s a habitat for fish. A new video posted by Blueye Robotics, makers of the unmanned underwater vehicles involved in the salvage effort, shows the extensive damage to the ship and efforts by the Norwegian Navy to recover all of the ship’s weapons. You can also see the gaping hole in the vessel’s side, which makes it plain how the ten-year-old frigate took on water so quickly....

Media Platforms Design TeamCar 876 (aka Twisted) is a rubber-band-powered racer. Mounted between two thick pieces of high-strength aluminum, the bands are twisted and released to provide the energy necessary to move. All we’re hearing now is that –along with a ton of lightweight tubing and high-speed racing allow wheels and narrow tires–there’s a ton of gears, chains, hydraulic brakes and those rubber bands inside. As soon as I see Twisted move under it’s own power (i....

Artificial intelligence has discovered a new Nazca Line in Peru for the very first time.Additionally, a team of Japanese researchers have also found another 142 new Lines with a combination of traditional archaeology, hi-res aerial photos, and AI.Masato Sakai, the research lead, hopes that these new discoveries will help raise awareness and preservation efforts for the Lines.Japanese researchers have used machine learning and artificial intelligence to identify 143 new Nazca Lines, also called geoglyphs, in Peru....

Media Platforms Design TeamDean Kamen’s first visit to a machine shop was a revelation. He was too young to drive, so he bummed a ride. The smell of oil, the glistening equipment, the grinders throwing sparks–so this was how precision parts were made. When Kamen started his first company, while still in high school, he outfitted his own machine shop in his parent’s basement. “Each time I bought a tool,” he says, “I extended my capability to do something, to make something....

“James Cameron’s Story of Sci-Fi” airs tonight with a two-parter on AMC starting at 9 PM Eastern. The fifth episode of this six-part series focuses on intelligent machines. Here, we take on the question of whether we should fear the rise of AI—and whether that will really mean the downfall of humanity.I’ve been interested in A.I. since I was a kid. I focused my Ph.D. on it. My first novel was a parable about the dangers of being fearful of it....

Media Platforms Design TeamDespite the Harry Potter headlines they’ve inspired, efforts over the last few years to create a real-life invisibility cloak have been simple proofs of concept. They’re lab experiments, and not the kind of thing that could mask a troublesome young wizard lurking in a library, much less a soldier on the battlefield. But in those early successes, some scientists see the potential for active cloaking technology that could hide objects in plain sight....

In layman’s terms, what is Conficker and why is it dangerous?Conficker is a piece of malicious software that is able to install itself without the user’s consent or notice on many Windows personal computers. The people behind Conficker are able to control the computers Conficker is installed on. If, for instance, computers with Conficker are instructed to visit a specific Web page at the same time, it would create so many requests that it would effectively prevent legitimate users from viewing the Web page....

DETROIT — The moment we saw the sketches of the Jeep Trailhawk Concept and learned of its rugged Jeep Wrangler chassis, one word came to mind: Cherokee. Not the Grand Cherokee in production today, but the 1984-2001 small Cherokee—that popular, off-road-capable SUV that hasn’t yet had a proper successor. The intended replacement, the Liberty, just didn’t cut it for the hardcore four-wheel drive fans. We know folks are still waiting for a new Cherokee....

Media Platforms Design Team In Wednesday’s episode of Lost, “Some Like it Hoth,” daddy issues once again became the main topic of conversation, Kate once again couldn’t keep her mouth shut and a dead body once again had to be secretly disposed of. We’re talking about Alvarez, the Dharma workman who was killed when one of his fillings was ripped out of his mouth, through his brain and out his forehead....

When researchers discovered KIC 8462852, they discovered a weird, weird star indeed. Around 22 percent of the star’s light was blocked out, according to the Kepler Space Telescope measurements, which is far more than any planet could have done. That led to the idea that it just might, maybe, possibly be aliens – or that the possibility should at least be explored. But the SETI Institute has looked high and low, and found no evidence of any sort of alien megastructures....

As flames rose from the timber roof of the historic Notre Dame de Paris, the world watched the 850-year-old landmark’s tallest spire and roof succumb to the heat. Although citywide fires are mostly a thing of the past, these ancient structures standing among us through the centuries, remain vulnerable—with Notre Dame standing as an extraordinarily tragic example.Before Monday’s devastating fire, Notre Dame wasn’t in the best of shape. For decades, the cathedral showed many signs of aging through cracking, and the fire yesterday likely started because of a $6....

Google the name Robin Hood and you might be amazed at how often a filmmaker adapts the tale—at least every two years, and three times in 2012. The latest, out November 21 and starring Jamie Foxx and Kingsman’s Taron Egerton, is different: Lit like a Batman movie, with eternally compelling themes of corruption and abuse of the masses, it feels modern. “You can imagine the amount of dye you’d need to do a horse....