May 25
Gamers seem to hate the Xbox One. If you wade into a comments section or ask a man-on-the-street at your corner shop, you’ll hear a variety of reasons why the Xbox One is not for gamers—why it’s a horrible misstep, presumed dead on arrival. Some of these criticisms will ring a little truer than others, […]
May 25
The Ring Nebula is a common image in astronomy, but new images from Hubble reveal something rather strange inside the cloud of swirling gas. These new images, captured by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, reveal that the glowing gas shroud is actually a rather different shape to what’s previously been observed. Robert O’Dell of Vanderbilt […]
May 25
According to the WSJ, Iran has hacked US oil, gas and power companies. The hackers were able to gain access to control-system software “that could allow them to manipulate oil or gas pipelines”. Basically, the hackers are far enough inside that people are starting to get worried. US officials say that these break ins from […]
May 25
In an attempt to illustrate the harmful effects of using crack cocaine, Talent, a Brazilian ad agency created a series of posters featuring images of addicts that are slowly eaten away and destroyed by Flour beetle larvae—or mealworms. The posters were actually made of thin sheets of dough instead of paper, to encourage the larvae […]
May 25
Dominic Wilcox has a knack for the absurd. He’s designed gold-plated luxury skipping stones, anti-theft bike stickers, and a post-it note tattoo for hand-written notes. His latest design, though, is both absurd and incredibly useful: a conversion system that makes it possible to screw old sound systems into light sockets. Wilcox calls them Sound Bulbs, […]
May 25
A sixth-form sub usually means your teacher’s sick and you get a free period to screw around. But for one student, its meaning is a little more literal. Eighteen-year-old Justin Beckerman could be considered the reincarnation of Thomas Edison. In his brief life, Justin’s created a remote controlled cleaning machine, a helmet home theatre, and […]
May 25
The Big Lebowski’s The Dude? White Russians. Silence of the Lambs’ Hannibal Lecter? Chianti. This awesome cocktail chart maps the drinks of choice for characters in classic books and movies. On an 18-inch by 24-inch print you’ll see a catalogue of 49 different drinks from classic literature and film — everything from The Great Gatsby […]
May 25
Halo-maker Bungie has released a bizarre new trailer for its forthcoming open-world shooter Destiny, which combines a live-action narration with your usual generic space marine action. The real person is Giancarlo Esposito, the smooth-talking manager of Los Pollos Hermanos in hit TV series Breaking Bad, who puts in a pleasingly menacing performance while reading Jungle Book to […]
May 25
In this week’s random off-topic ‘Ask the Audience‘, we have a question from Stuart Henderson: he (and his liver) are dying to know what the best drinking game is? Given that we’re allegedly a nation of pissed-up students and alcoholic middle-class problem drinkers, this one should be easy. Welcome to Chatroom+, your opportunity to put those […]
May 25
The BBC’s Digital Media Initiative was meant to modernise the way the BBC worked, produced content, and used and shared video and audio. Unfortunately, despite being labelled as “critical” to the BBC’s future, it simply wasted money and ended in failure. And a £98m-of-licence-fee-payers-money failure at that. The BBC’s chief Technology Officer, John Linwood, has […]