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Tech NewsSome Brilliant Idiot Made the Android KitKat Logo in 3D and It’s Great
Some things are just too dumb to not be fun. Here’s the Android KitKat logo, in 3D, which you can drag around and spin in circles, for no reason at all, except that it’s the funnest. I haven’t eaten a KitKat in years, and now I’m hungry for KitKats, even though this whole edition is … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
Tech News
Sony Vaio Flip: One of the Most Logical Laptop Convertibles Yet
Convertibles as a whole aren’t the most sensible thing in the world. At this point, most are still rife with compromises, gimmicks, and odd decisions. Sony’s new Vaio Flip is too, but its gimmick—a screen that flips back on itself—also happens to make a whole lot of sense. The Flip works by using two hinges: … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
Tech News
The New Asus Zenbooks Are Covered in Gorilla Glass Now (???)
We’d been waiting on this one—the Zenbook is finally getting a refresh. And for whatever reason, Asus has decided to cover one of the prettier ultrabooks out there in a sheet of Gorilla Glass. Which, hey, sure. The Zenbook U301X and U302X have the upgrades you’d expect, mainly being the new fourth generation Haswell processors … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
Tech NewsCommerce
The New Amazon Kindle Paperwhite: Better Screen, Same Kindle (Hands On)
Amazon just officially announced its new Kindle Paperwhite on its site, after a false start a few hours ago. It’s a refresh of last year’s model—the first time Amazon has put out an iterative update—with a better screen and some new software. It will be out September 30th. Here’s quick rundown of the upgrades: a … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
Tech News
The Next Android Version Is Called… Kit Kat. Good God.
Well, that’s different. The next major iteration of Android will be called Kit Kat, it seems. We know this because Android boss Sundar Pichai just tweeted a photo of a gigantic Android robot made of Kit Kats. Apparently that’s going to come along with a promo campaign in Kit Kats to win a free Nexus … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
Tech News
Breaking: Microsoft to Buy Nokia Phones Division, Make Its Own Phones
Microsoft has agreed to buy Nokia’s hardware division for $7.1 billion in cash. Microsoft’s a company that makes its own phones now. Specifically, the deal is for Nokia’s Devices and Services division. Microsoft will also license Nokia’s patent portfolio. 32,000 Nokia employees will join Microsoft as part of the deal. It comes about two and … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
ScienceSpace & SpaceflightHow Astronauts Use the Toilet: It’s More Complicated Than You Think
Here’s our favorite astronaut and yours, Cmdr. Chris Hadfield, giving a simple, English language version of how going to the bathroom is complicated by being in space, the, ahem, dangers inherent in introducing poop to zero gravity environments. You might already know this stuff, or you might not, but Hadfield makes it as fun and … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
Tech News
This Gene Lets Doping Athletes Pass Pee-in-the-Cup Steroid Tests
Some people are just naturally good at cheating. That is, they’re born with a gene that allows them to take steroids, but pass traditional tests—without any of the designer masking agents that many athletes have turned to. And in a lot of leagues, that’s as good as a license to dope your brains out. The … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
Tech News
Who Has the Best Mail Refresh Animation: iOS or Android?
Because sometimes it’s just fun to scream at each other for no reason, let’s figure this thing out. There are plenty of GIFs of Apple’s iOS Mail refresh animation. It’s squiggly, like an earthworm you’re stretching out and snapping back onto itself, like a jerk. But Android’s version is equally satisfying, expanding its horizontal bars … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
Tech News
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Will Retire in the Next Year
Microsoft just announced that its CEO, Steve Ballmer, will retire within the next 12 months. He’ll remain in his current position until Microsoft finds his replacement. Ballmer has been with Microsoft since 1980, and has been CEO since 2000. A special committee—which includes chairman Bill Gates—has been formed to find his replacement. Something obvious, but … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
Tech News
UK Moves to Ban Phones Designed to Fit Up Prisoner Butts
Necessity is the mother of invention, and invention is the father of designing things that you can fit into your butt to sneak them into prison. And so a phone shaped exactly like a small butt plug has come into our world, and the UK government is trying to ban it. The phones in question … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
Tech News
Ha, the Most Hated Customer Service Companies Are All Cable and ISPs
You know cable companies are unpopular. ISPs are, generally, too. But seeing just how unpopular is just too funny. As in: pretty much the entire bottom end of the list was made up of cable and internet companies. The chart here is made up of a survey of 10,000 consumers on 235 companies, across 19 … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
Tech NewsWatch People Get Flung at a Mountain by a Giant Human Slingshot
What a great summer tradition this is. Every so often, these wonderful folks plop down a gigantic human slingshot and fire people at stuff. Sometimes it’s down a slip and slide and into a lake, sometimes it’s that, just double. This time it’s at a mountain, while eating pizza. It still looks like a lot … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
This Is What Astronauts Use to Poop in Space (Ew. Awesome. …Ew.)
So our dear friend Cmdr. Chris Hadfield shared a horrifying piece of trivia this morning: Soyuz astronauts get two enemas before launch. Which is a little uncomfortable, but necessary because, uh, Soyuz restroom looks like this. The “human interface” part is on the left, and all that brown tubing coming from it is illustrative in … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
Reviews
Jobs Movie Review: A Sadly Appropriate Metaphor
There isn’t very much human about Jobs, Ashton Kutcher’s Steve Jobs biopic. It’s about Steve Jobs working more than it is about Steve Jobs’ work. And that’s probably about as unintentionally fitting a character portrait as you’ll find—just not always an entertaining one. There are a few arcs that a Steve Jobs biography could track. … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
Reviews
Sony Vaio Pro Review: Climbing a Steeper Grading Curve
There is no joy in the Sony Vaio Pro. For a laptop that is, in substance, elegant and powerful, that’s strange. It’s pretty and sleek and slim, but somehow with none of the joie de vivre that typically comes along with that. When the Vaio Pro first hit two months ago, it was a small … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
Tech News
Why Your Internet Connection Just Had a Freakout (And How to Fix It)
There’s a chance your internet connection just fritzed out for 20 minutes or so and didn’t let you load any webpages. If you were paying attention, though, you’d have seen that other services, like your chatrooms or a Twitter client, kept working just fine—you just couldn’t send any data out. That’s because there was a … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
Reviews
Acer Aspire S7 Review: The PC Revival Is Late, But It’s Here
Laptops are at a point right now where they should all be more or less excellent. Ultrabooks are into their third year of relevance, and the screens and processors that are widely available are good enough that you can piecemeal together a perfectly acceptable laptop from chaff, more or less. So making a great one … Continued
By Kyle Wagner
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