Curiosity might be a roaring success so far, completing what must be the most complex remote landing procedure ever conceived, but not everything’s going quite so swimmingly at NASA. Watch the first free flight test of the new “eco-friendly” moon lander that’s designed to drop cars onto the Moon – it wasn’t pretty. More »
Back when I was growing up in the 1970s, we fully expected that, by 2012, we’d all be driving flying cars to our condos on the moon where robotic butlers awaited, ready to bring us the cure for cancer from the bathroom first-aid kit. How’s all of that working out? Sure, we now have faster, smaller computers, smartphones that talk back to you, and smart TVs, but in so many areas of technology the pace of change is slower than Windows Vista booting off a floppy disk. More »
A fair number of companies that read our product reviews tell me that they take our criticism to heart to improve their wares. That’s flattering to hear, but I don’t think the message is getting to the right people. How do I know? Companies continue to send us new laptops, tablets and smartphones that exhibit the same annoying design flaws over and over. Consider this list a polite but forceful intervention. More »
Seinfeld excelled at criticism of the everyday. A few months ago, in a fine essay in the NY Times, Sam Anderson suggested that Roland Barthes was the father of pop cultural criticism and that we are all now cultural critics in the Barthian vein, “decoding everything.” Perhaps. But if Barthes gave us serious criticism of popular culture, Seinfeld taught us to be ironic critics of the utterly mundane. Case in point: toilet paper. More »
If you were a fan of the original stylus-packing Galaxy Note, but always thought that 5.3-inches was just too small: good news. Samsung’s finally released the long-awaited quad-core 10.1-inch version of the Note, and you should be able to get your hands on it by the end of this month. More »
Pressure that can melt diamond, an electromagnetic pulse that can kill, and enough current to light 100 million light bulbs. Such are the extremes within the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In this image, artificial lightning spread like a wave through Z’s 33-metre-wide interior. More »
Samsung’s updated Galaxy Note is on the way, with Samsung confirming that its Galaxy Note 2 is scheduled to be the star of its showing at this year’s IFA trade show. More »
We often think of listening to music with headphones as creating “a soundtrack for our lives.” But when you think about it, the music in films usually plays in the background to enhance the setting, not drown it out. Unless you live in a persistent montage scene (where the music comes to the fore) or you’re having one pivotal, life-changing moment after another (ditto), you’re not really “soundtracking your life” with those headphones, now, are you? More »
A coating of hairy electronic skin could soon help robots feel the slightest breath of air or detect the faint vibrations of a beating heart. More »
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
