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Showing posts from September, 2018

United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement will replace NAFTA

There is a new US-Canada-Mexico trade deal. The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement replaces NAFTA. Three North American countries plan to sign before the end of November, after which it would be submitted to Congress. The negotiations between American and Canadian officials involved offering more market access to U.S. dairy farmers, as well as Canada agreeing to an arrangement effectively capping automobile exports to the United States. The deal will also modernize what was covered by NAFTA by adding provisions on digital trade and intellectual property. The new trade pact will come up for review every six years.

Indonesia Tsunami warning was lifted too early

Indonesia’s geophysics agency lifted a tsunami warning 34 minutes after issuing it following a major 7.5 earthquake that sent huge waves crashing into the north-eastern coast of Sulawesi island. The Indonesia earthquake and tsunami death toll is now over 830. Many remain missing in Palu, a city of 335,000, some thought to be trapped in the debris of collapsed buildings. There have also been concerns about the town of Donggala, where the impact is still unclear.

Transatomic Energy shuts down and opensources IP

Transatomic Energy started in 2011, realized there were mistakes in their original analyses in 2016 and has shutdown in 2018. They have made their work and molten salt reactor designs open source. As of January 2018, the advanced nuclear industry has climbed up to over 75 projects in North America. At least five companies are already working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to prepare for licensing, and major new milestones have been reached with regulators in both the U.S. and Canada. The first advanced reactors sending power to the grid should be as soon as 2026. Transatomic raised $4.5 million

High-Quality Jurassic Park Stills Are the Ideal Decoration For the Serious Dinosaur Lover

A single frame from a film can often be a work of art. They should be displayed as such. Read more...

How the Kardashians and Selena Gomez are smarter than Elon Musk

Elon Musk is clearly a business and technology genius. He drove the creation of SpaceX and reusable rockets and has electric cars popular. However, all of the members of the celebrity Kardashian family (Kim, Kylie Jenner, Khloé Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian) and other celebrities like Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift are clearly smarter than Elon Musk about using Twitter and Instagram. The celebrities make $10,000 or more from Twitter post and up to $1 million on each Instagram post. Elon Musk lost $20 million from a fine for tweeting about taking Tesla Motors private. The cost is likely to increase a

This Fabulous Video Series Unpacks the Gender Dynamics of Mad Max: Fury Road

What kind of characters are in Mad Max: Fury Road , and why do they fight? Read more...

MoviePass Is Now Re-Enrolling Former Customers in an 'Unlimited' Plan Unless They 'Opt Out'

If e-ticketing startup MoviePass isn’t quite dead yet, there’s been no mistaking the telltale signs of a dead man walking for months now. After months of reports that the service was about to hit a financial brick wall , it suddenly ceased paying for major new releases, nuked its unlimited plan , and offered customers… Read more...

According to the Director, Venom Was Always Intended to Be PG-13

Much has been made about the fact that Venom , for all its vague horror aesthetics , has gotten a PG-13 rating, which suggests a basic limit to how horrific things will get. But according to director Ruben Fleischer, that was always planned to be the case. Read more...

Will India’s economy be $5 or $10 trillion in 2030?

India’s economy is currently at $2.6 trillion on an exchange rate basis. Hong Kong Shanghai Bank and forecasters agree that India will surpass Japan to become the number three economy in the world. India’s government has a target of a $10 trillion economy by 2030. The strength of the US dollar relative to the Indian Rupee will be the key factor. India will likely continue to grow at about 5-9% annual GDP growth. There were periods where the Rupee currency has dropped for extended periods of time relative to the dollar. India’s nominal exchange rate GDP was flat from 2011

World population will pass 8 billion in 2023

The world population will be nearly 7.7 billion by the end of 2018 and will pass 8 billion in 2023. The world urban population reached 4 billion in 2016 and will pass 4.5 billion in 2023 and will pass 5 billion in 2029 or 2030. World population will pass 8.5 billion in 2029 or 2030. The world population will pass 9 billion in 2037. The rural population is staying flat at about 3.5 billion and the new population is produced or is moving to the cities. Mexico and Ethiopia will pass Russia’s population by 2030. Congo, Philippines and Egypt will

Dark Horse's Upcoming Alien Comics Will Take Up the Story of Ripley's Daughter

Amanda Ripley, the daughter of Ellen, is back. Read more...

Canada one of few developed countries with growing population

Canada has an estimated population of 37.1 million (July 1, 2018). This update is based on the 2016 census. This is a 520,000 increase from the prior year. Canada has increased its immigration quotas. Canada increased immigration quotas to 310,000 in 2018, 330,000 in 2019 and 340,000 in 2020. Canada will pass the population of Poland in 2020. Canada population will be 40 million in 2023. Canada population forecast 2023 40 million 2032 45 million 2040 50 million 2049 55 million 2056 60 million 2064 65 million Canada will have the projected population of Spain in 2032 and Italy in

Elon Musk to Resign as Tesla Chairman, Pay $20 Million Fine in SEC Settlement Over Catastrophic '420' Tweet

In August, Tesla CEO Elon Musk set off an entirely preventable and catastrophic chain of events by tweeting that he was “considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.” Musk provided no financing details , and the Securities and Exchange Commission later determined that he never finalized any kind of deal… Read more...

This YouTuber Argues that The Matrix Sequels Are Better Than You Remember

And he’s right, gosh dangit. Read more...

Sunday's Best Deals: Motor Oil, LEGO Star Wars, Sonicare, and More

The best value in the Sonicare line , $2 quarts of motor oil, and LEGO’s Star Wars advent calendar lead off Sunday’s best deals from around the web. Read more...

China will accelerate robotics, AI and ecommerce to match US

China will make more investments and accelerate reforms of agencies and systems to boost its $3.8 trillion digital economy. The digital economy included the internet of things, big data, clouding computing and AI. The National Development and Reform Commission has a new agreement with the China Development Bank to offer 100 billion yuan ($14.55 billion) in financial support for the digital push. China’s digital economy rose 18 percent to 26 trillion yuan ($3.8 trillion) last year, equal to a third of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology. Traditional sectors will

Commonwealth Fusion stronger magnet tokomak gets billionaire funding

Commonwealth Fusion Systems a spinout from MIT has received additional funding from Breakthrough Energy Ventures (which investment from billionaires Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma, Mukesh Ambani, and Richard Branson). Commonwealth Fusion Systems will use new superconducting materials to make far stronger magnets for a smaller Tokamak fusion system. The planned fusion experiment, called Sparc, is set to be far smaller – about 1/65th of the volume – than that of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project, an international collaboration. Breakthrough Energy Ventures’ portfolio company @CFS_energy is building on decades of government-funded research to accelerate the path toward clean, limitless

SEC forces Elon Musk to resign as Tesla Chairman

Tesla CEO Elon Musk will step down as chairman of the electric car company. He will pay a $20 million fine under a settlement reached with the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Musk will remain CEO and keeps a seat on the board. Musk will resign as chairman of the Tesla board within 45 days. He will not seek reelection or accept an appointment as chairman for three years. Musk doesn’t have to admit or deny the SEC’s allegations as part of the agreement. This was caused by Elon tweeting out in August that he was thinking about taking

These Fans Take Their Stormbreaker Replica Very Seriously

Thor’s lightning-wielding, Thanos -threatening axe is quite a weapon. And these fans take the process of making it reality very seriously. Read more...

This X-Men Fan Trailer Swaps Out One Phoenix Movie For Another

Time is a flat circle, and the Phoenix Force never dies. Read more...

Moving: The Kotaku Review

I recently left my apartment in northern California and drove a U-Haul full of my belongings to a new place in southern California. Although it’s a game that’s played by millions every day, I cannot recommend Moving . Read more...

Tessa Thompson Confirms Valkyrie's Post-Infinity War Fate

Marvel might make an Avenger out of her yet. Read more...

Drones, hypersonic weapons, lasers and engines for next generation

The sixth generation fighters and upgrades to older fighters over the next 10-20 years will involve better engines for more range and speed, hypersonic weapons, combat lasers, unmanned flight and drones. Hypersonic missiles (mach 5 or faster) are already being introduced by Russia and China. The US is developing combat laser pods which will be added to fighter jets. Unmanned flight is being used for various planes. Large drones are being deployed to help with refueling existing military planes. Future large drones will fight alongside future fighter planes. It will be another 10 years after that for hypersonic drones and

David Cronenberg Explains Why He Didn't Direct Return of the Jedi 

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi was famously shopped around to some well-respected directors before landing in Richard Marquand’s hands. One of those was David Cronenberg, and recently he shed some more light on why, precisely, he didn’t get the job. Read more...

How Quantum Memory Could Change Computing

In a hot tub in 2012, physicist Seth Lloyd pitched a quantum internet application to Google’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page. He called it Quoogle: a search engine that, using mathematics based on the physics of subatomic particles, returns results without ever actually knowing the query. Such an advance would require an… Read more...

Danny McBride Wrote for Halloween's Villain, But Was Too Scared to Meet Him

Michael Myers is an intimidating guy. That big, hulking visage . The creepy mask. For fans of the horror franchise, and even people who just see that look, he’s the stuff nightmares are made of. Read more...

Saturday's Best Deals: Qi Charging, Skincare, Boxer Briefs, and More

Anker’s smallest wall charger , a faster Qi pad , and McCafé coffee lead off Saturday’s best deals from around the web. Read more...

Old Man Aragorn, Out on One Last Hunt

What, you thought that after his coronation, the legendary Strider himself would give up on the occasional hunt? Read more...

China airdrop tested some hypersonic prototype scaled designs

China has tested three vehicles expected to be capable of hypersonic flight in a single airdrop. Scaled models of D18-1S, D18-2S and D18-3S wide-range aircraft were released to fall in a successful experiment. The three scale models in this test were developed by Institute of Mechanics, CAS. named D18-3S, D18-1S & D18-2S from left to right in 1st photo. D18-3S/1S with a dimension of 2 meters ×1.5 meters are set as comparisons in a conventional configuration. They were unpowered. The test may have been to get some aerodynamic analysis. The black one i.e. D18-2/S using different material featuring cantilever wing

All of io9's Fantastic Fest 2018 Coverage in One Handy Place

io9's Germain Lussier spent the last week in Austin, Texas, feasting his eyeballs on Fantastic Fest’s rich, grisly bounty of genre movies. He didn’t love everything he saw, but he found quite a few winners. Read on for all of his reviews—and then add the best titles to your own “must-watch” list. Read more...

The PS4 Finally Has a Super Customizable-Controller, and It Is Excellent

It’s taken more years than it should have, but it’s finally here, a PS4-friendly answer to Microsoft’s ultra-customizable Elite controller . The Scuf Vantage might look like a weird third-party peripheral of old, but this officially licensed controller finally delivers all the weird little tweaks I demand, except now… Read more...

Gary and His Demons Is a Brilliant Show About How Awful Being the 'Chosen One' Is

Into every generation in the world of VRV’s Gary and His Demons , a demon slayer is born who—well, is responsible for ridding the world of its demons. But as much fun as being a chosen slayer might sound, Gary rightfully hates his calling. Read more...

Tokyo creates 1200 Tesla for 100 microseconds

Physicists from the University of Tokyo have generated the strongest controllable magnetic field ever produced at 1200 Tesla. The field was sustained for longer than any previous field of a similar strength. At 1,200 teslas, the generated field dwarfs almost any artificial magnetic field ever recorded; however, it’s not the strongest overall. In 2001, physicists in Russia produced a field of 2,800 teslas, but their explosive method literally blew up their equipment and the uncontrollable field could not be tamed. Lasers can also create powerful magnetic fields, but in experiments they only last a matter of nanoseconds. The magnetic field

Jodie Whittaker's Looking For a Doctor In the Electrifying First Clip from Doctor Who's New Season

You wouldn’t happen to know one, would you? Read more...
Physicists from the University of Tokyo have generated the strongest controllable magnetic field ever produced at 1200 Tesla. The field was sustained for longer than any previous field of a similar strength. At 1,200 teslas, the generated field dwarfs almost any artificial magnetic field ever recorded; however, it’s not the strongest overall. In 2001, physicists in Russia produced a field of 2,800 teslas, but their explosive method literally blew up their equipment and the uncontrollable field could not be tamed. Lasers can also create powerful magnetic fields, but in experiments they only last a matter of nanoseconds. The magnetic field

Good Robots, Dead Robots, and an Excellent Princess Leia Are Among the Best Toys of the Week

Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's regular round up of the coolest merchandise we’ve seen on the internet. This week: RIP Optimus Prime! Plus, a very good Princess Leia, Wolverine goes ronin, Overwatch ’s divine robot monk gets the figure he deserves, and much more. Check it out! Read more...

A Plagiarist Lies His Way Into a Job and Everyone's Afraid of Girls in This Week's Best New Comics

This week’s comics feature characters whose ideas about what kind of people they are directly contrasts with the way the world sees them. In their deepest hearts, they do know who their true selves are—but they all struggle all day, every day with being truly understood by others. Read more...

Facebook reports security breach affecting 50 million accounts

On the afternoon of Tuesday, September 25, the Facebook engineering team discovered a security issue affecting almost 50 million accounts. They are taking this incredibly seriously and wanted to let everyone know what’s happened and the immediate action they have taken to protect people’s security. Attackers exploited a vulnerability in Facebook’s code that impacted “View As”, a feature that lets people see what their own profile looks like to someone else. This allowed them to steal Facebook access tokens which they could then use to take over people’s accounts. Access tokens are the equivalent of digital keys that keep people

Fishing, tourism and energy business in the South China Sea

Xue Gong researched and wrote The Role of Chinese Corporate Players in China’s South China Sea Policy”. It shows extensive work by Chinese State-Owned-Enterprises (SEO) in developing infrastructure and tourism, as well as oil and gas, in the South China Sea. China Communications Construction Corporation (CCCC) and its subsidiaries developed some of world’s largest dredgers. CCCC has formed new units centered on the Paracels. They plan to expand in tourism, logistics, fishing and the ongoing construction business. There will be US$15 billion (S$20.6 billion) for investment across various sectors. More than 70,000 tourists have traveled on four cruise ships that

CBS Shuts Down Ambitious Fan Effort To Make A Virtual Starship Enterprise

Before there was Star Trek: Bridge Crew , Ubisoft’s game about piloting the original Enterprise, there was Star Trek Stage-9, a fan project recreating the Enterprise-D from The Next Generation in Unreal Engine. This week the project is no more, following a cease and desist demand by CBS. Read more...

The Wonderful Starfish Gives Grief and Healing an Apocalyptic Spin

In Starfish , a woman wakes up after her friend’s funeral to find the world is ending. She may be able to save it if she can find the mix tapes the dead friend hid for her all across town. It’s a high-concept idea complete with monsters and animation, but really, it’s not about any of that. Read more...

Giving Robots Lizard-Like Tails Could Improve Their Mobility

RUN, LIZARD, RUN It’s not every day that a single study tells us something unexpected about lizards and robots, but such is the case for a new research project out of Australia. Researchers from several Aussie universities teamed up to study eight species of Australian lizards that run on two legs. They determined that we may have been wrong about why lizards move that way — and concluded that we might want to consider giving robots lizard-like tails to help with the bots’ own bipedal movement. HEADS UP For their study , published Tuesday in  Journal of the Royal Society Interface , the researchers used a slow motion camera to record the lizards as they ran along a horizontal racetrack. To keep tabs on the lizards’ body positions, the researchers tagged nine locations, including the tops of the lizards’ heads and their tails, with Liquid Paper. They then analyzed the footage using custom-built software. “There was an existing understanding that the backwards shift in these lizar

NASA’s Got Ambitious Goals for Crewed Space Exploration

NASA’s got a whole new plan. On Wednesday, the space agency  announced  its detailed National Space Exploration Plan to achieve the President’s lofty goals set out in his December 2017 Space Policy Directive-1 . Those bold plans include: planning a new Moon landing , long-term human deployment on and around the Moon, reassertion of America’s leadership in space, strengthening private space companies , and figure out how to get American astronauts to the surface of Mars. There are a lot of unknowns built into the plan, not the least of which is whether or not scientists can figure out a way to keep astronauts safe from the  many hazards of space . Those smarties at NASA took that into account when  detailing expected timelines for completing each goal in the 21-page report. Indeed, the timeframe within which NASA expects to reach key milestones along the way to their goals includes dates that NASA expects it will actually figure out certain parts of the plan. That’s important bec

A PG-13 Cut of Deadpool 2 Is Hitting Theaters This December, Gambit and Dark Phoenix Get New Dates

You know. ‘Tis the season. Read more...

NASA Is Looking For New Ways to Detect Alien Technology

PHONE HOME Are we alone in the universe? Hunting for biological signatures of life on  moons and exoplanets  is just one way we might find an answer. Another is to look for “technosignatures” of alien technology — radio signals or microwaves coming from deep in space. The idea has been around for decades, but now Congress is  pushing NASA to ramp up the approach. This week, the agency held a  three-day workshop  in Houston to explore the state of the field and what might come next. ALIEN TECH The organizing committee included representatives from NASA, the Planetary Science Institute, the SETI Institute and several large research universities. During a   Reddit  question-and-answer session on Thursday between workshop participants and the public, Penn State professor of astronomy and astrophysics Jason Wright said that  though the search for alien technosignatures goes back decades, its pace slowed in the United States after the 1990s. But more recently, Wright wrote, there’s

The Nerd's Watch: The Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Streaming in October

You can get comprehensive lists of everything coming to streaming services anywhere. But half of those titles you don’t care about, and the other half are terrible. Where’s the good stuff? io9 is here to help. Read more...

US defense spending will surge past $1 trillion per year and get surprisingly little

The US spends $890 billion on defense in 2019 . Continuing this rate of spending will mean the US Navy would shrink to 230 ships in 2047. Increasing costs for ships and planes and other military equipment cannot be contained. China is a rising power and is increasing its military size by spending about 2% of GDP and $200-300 billion per year. Russia spends about $50-60 billion but has aggressive use of its military. The US has just been fighting terrorists in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq and had taken their focus off of China and Russia. Now the

A Second Season of The Dragon Prince Could Tweak the Show's Hotly-Debated Animation

The Dragon Prince , Netflix’s recent fantasy series from the lead writer behind The Last Airbender , has a vivid, gorgeous aesthetic. But one repeated source of debate among viewers has been less about how the show looks and more about how it moves . And that debate could inspire behind-the-scenes changes if the show… Read more...

This Week in Tech: Sept 22-28

Would you be OK with a caterpillar robot crawling all over your insides, even if it meant it would deliver helpful medications in the process? That might be a choice you have to make in the future. To glimpse what else we’ve seen in our crystal ball, read on. Scientists Want to Put a Horrifying Caterpillar Robot Inside Your Body.  Researchers in Hong Kong have invented a robot that looks like a caterpillar. It’s designed to travel through your body and release drugs. Should Coma Patients Live or Die? Machine Learning Will Help Decide.  An algorithm is helping Chinese researchers determine if a coma patient will wake up again. This “Flying Sports Car” Is Like a Giant Drone You Can Ride In.  This week, Philippine inventor Kyxz Mendiola took his Koncepto Milenya, a flying sports car prototype, out for its first public test flight. These Robots Weave Super Durable Fiberglass Structures So Humans Don’t Have To.  MIT researchers have created Fiberbots, autonomous robots that can weave f

50 Million Facebook Accounts Affected in Massive Security Breach

An estimated 50 million Facebook user profiles were affected by a security breach, the company confirmed in a blog post today. The breach could allow attackers to take over the accounts of affected users, but the full extent of the attack remains unknown. Read more...

DARPA has challenge to map, navigate and search the underground world

DARPA has selected nine teams to compete in the Subterranean (SubT) Challenge to develop new approaches to rapidly map, navigate, and search underground environments. This will better equip warfighters and first responders to explore human-made tunnel systems, urban underground, and natural cave networks that are too dangerous, dark, or deep to risk human lives. DARPA has selected seven teams to compete in the funded track of the Systems competition: Carnegie Mellon University Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia iRobot Defense Holdings, Inc. dba Endeavor Robotics Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology University of Colorado, Boulder University of Nevada,

Will VFX Erase Location Shooting Forever?

Since Hollywood’s earliest days, filmmakers and actors have traveled to far-flung settings —or even just particularly striking local landscapes—to give their projects atmosphere and authenticity. But will the current shift toward VFX “locations” put an end to that tradition? Read more...

Shut Up and Take My Money! Futurama Is Only $5 Per Season Right Now.

For a limited time, Amazon’s marking down digital downloads of every Futurama season to just $5 each . The early seasons are only available in standard def, but it makes the switch to HD in season 7, for no additional charge. Read more...

Labelling Edited Selfies on Social Media Might Make Us Less Miserable

IMPOSSIBLE STANDARDS Flat stomachs and thigh gaps are simply everywhere on social media. That can make many women feel inadequate — or even push them into disordered eating . And because it’s the internet, some (lots of) photos might not (definitely don’t) reflect reality. Many users, after all,  edit their selfies into unattainable ideals of beauty. Researchers at Ohio State University may have found a way to reduce the negative impact of retouched Instagram selfies: simply label them as edited. SELFIE STICKLERS For the  study , published last week in the journal  Body Image , the researchers asked 360 female college students to each look at 45 Instagram selfies of thin women wearing revealing clothing. Half the participants saw mostly images that had been marked with an icon indicating that they had been edited or filtered and half saw mostly images with no icon. Participants who saw the photos that had been marked as edited, they found, were less likely to agree with the st

Entourage's Version of the Aquaman Movie Hype Was Surprisingly On Point

The year was 2005. Mariah Carey’s “We Belong Together” was at the top of the charts, North Korea had just revealed it possessed nuclear weapons, and the second season of HBO’s Entourage shifted its focus to the world of big-budget superhero movies . Read more...

Will the US waste $100+ billion on SLS, Orion and LOP-G by 2030?

The US could get so much more accomplished in space if they stop wasting money on the Space Launch System, Orion and the Lunar gateway. The US did waste money on the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. The Space Shuttle was supposed to demonstrate fast reusability but had to have its heat shield reinspected and rebuilt after launches. The Space shuttle cost more than disposable rockets. The SLS will continue that tradition of costing more for no gain. SLS will cost $2-5 billion per launch versus about $20-100 million for SpaceX Falcon Heavy with 4 boosters or a

Breaking: Hackers Accessed 50 Million Facebook Accounts

HACK ATTACK Hackers accessed data from nearly 50 million Facebook accounts, the company said today . The company discovered the breach on Tuesday, according to the post, and does not know who was behind the attack. The social giant didn’t immediately say what data the hackers might have stolen. Facebook’s vice president of product management Guy Rosen wrote in a post announcing the breach: Our investigation is still in its early stages. But it’s clear that attackers exploited a vulnerability in Facebook’s code that impacted ‘View As’, a feature that lets people see what their own profile looks like to someone else. This allowed them to steal Facebook access tokens which they could then use to take over people’s accounts. Access tokens are the equivalent of digital keys that keep people logged in to Facebook so they don’t need to re-enter their password every time they use the app. ZUCKED This new data breach is significant not just because it showed another way that hackers can

Planes Kill Huge Numbers of Birds. LEDs Could Save Their Lives.

THE BIRDS AND THE B52S Each year thousands of birds collide with airplanes, dying in the process. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to figure out an effective way to help the animals survive alongside humans in the not-so-friendly skies. That may be changing, though. A team from Purdue University has uncovered a simple solution to the problem of bird collisions, at least for one species: adding red or blue LEDs to planes . BIRD’S EYE The Purdue team described their experiment in a  study  published this week in the journal  PeerJ.  They cut two holes in a large board, one on the left side and one on the right, and positioned a large LED light next to each. Each LED could shine in five different wavelengths of light: ultraviolet, blue, green, red, and white. Then they let a brown-headed cowbird go and observed which hole it chose to fly through, given various choices of LED lights. They chose the species because it is commonly involved in plane collisions and has a visual syste

Robotic Skins Can Turn Almost Anything Into a Machine

Wrapping these robotic skins around an object will “bring it to life”, making any household object a helpful, programmable robot. The post Robotic Skins Can Turn Almost Anything Into a Machine appeared first on Futurism .

Look at This Creepy Finger You Can Plug Into Your Smartphone

PAY BACK We tap away on our mobile devices all day long. Isn’t it about time they tapped us back? Human-computer interaction researcher Marc Teyssier clearly thinks so. He’s the brains behind MobiLimb , a horrifying finger-like robotic attachment for smartphones and tablets that somehow simultaneously evokes “The Addams Family” and “Black Mirror.” Today, he published a video demonstrating all the ways the robotic finger can creep you out — including by softly stroking the back of your hand while you mess around on your phone. SINGLE DIGIT According to a paper Teyssier will present at the Berlin User Interface Software and Technology conference in October, the MobiLimb uses five precisely-controllable motors to make a great range of finger-like motions. Sometimes Teyssier isn’t feeling the standard black plastic look, so he covers the robotic finger with one of two custom skins — a fur-covered one and a fleshy model that (kinda, sorta) makes it look like a human finger. POINTL

Award-Winning Microscopic Video of Growing Zebrafish Embryos Is Mesmerizing

A glowing, branching web slowly grows more and more tiny connections, with thin white tendrils reaching in to a black void. It looks like a fractal art piece. But in fact, it’s someone’s science research—the developing nervous system of a zebrafish embryo. Read more...

Friday's Best Deals: Halloween Costumes, Dolby Vision TV, Cheap Tiles, and More

One of last year’s best TVs , discounted Halloween costumes , and the best deal we’ve ever seen on Tile device trackers lead off Friday’s best deals. Read more...

Reports: Elon Musk Turned Down an SEC Settlement

NO DEAL Before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a  lawsuit against Elon Musk for alleged fraud yesterday, the Tesla CEO reportedly turned down a settlement offer. That’s according to the  Wall Street Journal,  which spoke to  sources who said the settlement for an undisclosed amount was approved by the SEC’s commissioners. But after Musk’s lawyers turned it down Thursday, the sources said, the agency “rushed to pull together” the complaint they filed that afternoon. TWEET TROUBLES Musk’s troubles with the SEC stem from an August 7 tweet in which he said he was considering taking Tesla private for $420 per share — a corporate buyout the SEC says he had no way of financing. Sources who talked to CNBC offered more details about the no-deal settlement, reporting that the enigmatic CEO “refused to sign the deal because he felt that by settling he would not be truthful to himself.” In other words, Musk wouldn’t take the settlement because that would imply that he d

The Good Place's Season 3 Premiere Has a New Student: The Audience

NBC’s The Good Place is a show that enjoys a good challenge. After all, it spent a whole episode dissecting The Trolley Problem —it doesn’t steer away from asking tough ethical questions. As the series enters its third and bizarrely most “normal” season, it’s introducing what might be its biggest moral mystery yet. And… Read more...

New Daredevil Season 3 Teaser Promises That Wilson Fisk Is Ready to Dance With the Devil

The third season of Netflix’s Daredevil will see a broken, beaten, and darker Matt Murdock facing down against Wilson Fisk once more. But when Matt does inevitably come face to face with his nemesis again, Fisk intends to be more than prepared. Read more...

Watch Hayao Miyazaki Face the Challenge of 3D Animation in the Gripping Trailer for Never-Ending Man

Hayao Miyazaki shocked the world in 2013 with the announcement of his retirement . But the legendary animator has gone on to create a few new works since he stepped back from Studio Ghibli—including one that challenged so much of what he knew about he knew about animation: a CG short. Read more...

Scientists Can Now Peek Inside Mummies in a Whole New Way

A revved-up version of traditional CT scanning shows it’s possible to acquire microscopic-scale images of ancient Egyptian mummies, revealing previously unseen features such as blood vessels and nerves. Read more...

Simon Kinberg Hints at an Intriguing Tone for the Gambit Movie

Tim Allen teases an emotional Toy Story 4 . There’s a few tiny rumors about the progress of The Batman . Joaquin Phoenix takes a miserable-sounding call in new Joker set footage. Plus, what’s to come on The Flash and Black Lightning , two new clips from Venom , and the Coven gang return to American Horror Story . Spoilers… Read more...

This Week in Science: Sept 22-28

This week, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) landed a pair of tiny hopping robots to the asteroid called Ryugu, and they’ve got the mind-blowing photos to prove it. Meanwhile, SpaceX is officially gearing up to send a Japanese rover to the surface of the Moon around 2020. Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto. Here Are the First Photos Japan’s Robot Landers Sent Back From an Asteroid.  Japan’s asteroid-exploring robots have officially landed on Ryugu and are now transmitting data and photos of the rocky small planet. Scientists Just Took A “Spectacular Step” Towards Lab-Grown Human Egg Cells.  Researchers have come closer than ever before to producing lab-grown human egg cells using just the blood of a person. Electrical Stimulation Helped A Man With Paralyzed Legs Walk Again.  With the help of electrical stimulation and physical therapy, a 29-year-old man diagnosed with total lower body paralysis can now take steps on his own. SpaceX Will Send Another Company’s Robots to the