Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla Motors, has taken a huge step by releasing all the patents behind the electric roadster. That means the tech that built one of the biggest tech shifts in car history is now open source. Anyone can build a car this way (having the skills to do that though is […]
Archive | Science
Killswitch Engage!
Hey, remember Killswitch Engage? The metalcore band formed back in 1999 from bands like Aftershock and Overcast? Not as popular as Atreyu? Those guys. Well, this article isn’t about them. This is about why your cellphone doesn’t have a remotely activated kill switch that you can use to brick your phone when it gets […]
Faraday Cages In Your Kitchen
Paranoiacs rejoice! Last week, Heather Murphy of the New York Times explained that Edward Snowden had lawyers place their cell phones in a refrigerator to block the signals, using the fridge as a makeshift Faraday cage. Murphy quoted Adam Harvey, a countersurveillance products designer, who said that a martini shaker is a foolproof Faraday cage that can […]
Pepsi Leaves Bad Taste In A Whole New Way
In what may be an identity thief’s wet dream, an ad agency has created a Pepsi machine that dispenses cans in exchange for Facebook likes. Did you catch the sinister, Orwellian note to the end of that video? And thanks to this new way of sampling we know exactly who liked, tried, and enjoyed an ice […]
Boldly Going Where No Techfiction Has Gone Before With Star Trek
It’s hard to imagine a television show that has had more examples of techfiction becomie techfact than the original Star Trek series. The multimedia franchise has a grip on the collective unconsciousness of geeks on the level of few other things. While the movies and spin-offs have their own assortment of impressive gadgetry made real, the original […]
Real Life Astronaut Rock Star Covers David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” In Space
Canadian-born astronaut Chris Hadfield hands over command of the International Space Station today, but not before taking the Blue Marble by storm with a cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” performed from space. It’s a remarkably well done music video and just about the coolest thing ever. (See the original “Space Oddity” music video from […]
State Department Tries To Muzzle 3D Printed Firearms
Remember all the hubbub about 3D printed guns? No? Not even when the U.S. government gave a firearms licence to Defense Distributed, the biggest name in renderable firearms? This past week was another huge one for DD, as it printed and tested the new Liberator gun, an all plastic gun that only needs the addition of a nail to serve […]
From Techfiction To Techfact With Iron Man
Techcitement touched upon some of Tony Stark’s wardrobe the other day, but we didn’t deal with one of the coolest aspects of the armor — the predictive nature. A lot of what was far-out science fiction in 1962 is science fact today. The first thing you need to be aware of is that in the […]
Send A Haiku To Mars
Later this year, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN) is scheduled to launch on an exploratory and scientific mission for NASA, with support by the University of Colorado Boulder. As part of the spacecraft’s mission, it will act as the first spacecraft to focus primarily on the state of the upper atmosphere, the […]
3D Printers Produce Custom Bone Implants
An unnamed patient recently had 75 percent of his skull surgically replaced with a 3D printed implant. The patient’s head was scanned, and then a custom digital model of the implant was created before finally being fabricated in a 3D printer. On February 18, Oxford Performance Materials in Connecticut gained approval from the U.S. Food […]