We Still Don’t Know What Causes That Knuckle Cracking Sound

Snap, crackle, pop: the sound of cracking knuckles is familiar to everyone, but scientists are having a hell of a time figuring out what causes it. A new ultrasound imaging study offers additional clues, but no definitive answers.

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Pre-mutated products: where did all those "hoverboards" come from?

Those bowtie-shaped "motorized self-balancing two-wheeled scooters" you see in the windows of strip-mall cellphone repair shops and in mall-kiosks roared out of nowhere and are now everywhere, despite being so new that we don't even know what they're called.

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Charles Stross Reveals How His Laundry Files World Is About to Change Forever

When Charles Stross isn’t writing mind-blowing space opera about the future of banking, he’s the ultra-prolific author of two long-running series. And one of those, the Laundry Files, has won praise (and a Best Novella Hugo) for its look at a spy agency that deals with other-worldly threats.

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What the 1980s would have made of the $5 Raspberry Pi

The new Raspberry Pi Zero is a $5 general purpose computer, manufactured in Wales, with more power than a 1980s personal computer.

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Happy 30th birthday Windows! What's your earliest memory of Microsoft's revolutionary operating system?

I first started using Windows back in 1992, shortly after the release of Windows 3.1, and I’ve used every iteration since, including both the good (Windows XP, Windows 7) and the bad (Vista, Windows 8). Every time a new version was released, I upgraded pretty much immediately.

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Samsung lays out its IoT SmartThings devices in new infographic

The Internet of Things, or IoT, is the latest rage with more products coming onto the market all the time. It's also become a bit of a target for hacking, though the problem is likely a bit exaggerated.

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Agents of SHIELD Is at the Top of its Game, and That's Amazing to Watch

One thing that keeps occurring to me while watching Agents of SHIELD lately: This show is pretty much 100 percent serialized now, with huge elements of soap opera as well as ongoing plot strands. There’s zero “monster of the week” stuff.

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There's a Hidden Connection Between Pi and Quantum Mechanics

Physicists have uncovered a hidden connection between a famous 350-year-old mathematical formula for pi, everyone’s favorite irrational number, and quantum mechanics. At least one mathematician has pronounced the discovery “a cunning piece of magic.”

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Cool Visualization Lets You See Philae Bounce and Tumble as It Lands on a Comet

It was one year ago today that the Philae Lander bounced, spun, and tumbled across the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. To commemorate the historic event, the European Space Agency has released an animated video chronicling the lander’s chaotic landing.

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Councillor who voted to close all public toilets gets a ticket for public urination

In a decision that environmental activists see as a hard-won victory, President Obama today announced he is rejecting the request from a Canadian company to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

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California cops, want to use a stingray? Get a warrant, governor says

On Thursday, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill into law that requires police get a warrant to use a stingray during investigations. The devices, which are also known as cell-site simulators, are usually used to locate a phone but can also in some cases intercept calls and text messages.

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TiVo’s new Bolt offers 4K streaming and commercial skipping

The 4K game is heating up: the Nvidia Shield and the Nuvola NP-1 were the original boxes to support 4K streaming, along with services built into some TVs. Then came Amazon, which announced 4K streaming capabilities for its Fire TV box.

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Female applicants have harder time getting grants funded in Netherlands

Women earn over half of college graduates in certain countries, yet they continue to be underrepresented in academia, where they face shortfalls in leadership positions, salary, and funding.

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Can You Tell the Difference Between 720p, 1080p, and 4K? This Chart Can Tell You

When I rip my Blu-Ray discs for my home theater PC, I’m always debating whether to rip in 720p or 1080p. Can I really see the difference? It turns out, that debate depends on a lot more than your eyesight.

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New quantum dot could make quantum communications possible

A new form of quantum dot has been developed by an international team of researchers that can produce identical photons at will, paving the way for multiple revolutionary new uses for light.

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“Empty” Epson ink cartridges are still 20 percent full

The high-end Epson 9900 printer, which retails for around £3,000 ($5,000), reports that ink cartridges are empty even when they are still about 15-20 percent full.

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16 Things You Probably Never Knew About The Short Circuit Movies

Right now, we’re falling in love with BB-8 from Star Wars—and yet, there’s still a special place in our hearts for Johnny Five, the robot from the Short Circuit films.

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Stephen Hawking may have finally solved the black hole ‘information’ problem

For the past few decades, black holes have been at the center of a paradoxical problem — a problem famed physicist Stephen Hawking now believes he’s solved. Even if you don’t follow astronomy or physics closely, you’re likely familiar with the concept of black holes.

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Watch the Incredible Force of a Typhoon Move a Skyscraper's 720-Ton Mass Damper

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What programming language should you learn?

Udacity created an infographic about different programming languages, showing their popularity over time, their applications, and the average salary one might expect from becoming proficient in one of the languages. Python often appears at the top of the different lists.

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A Neural Network Designs Magic: the Gathering Cards, and It's Hilarious

What happens when you feed the text of every Magic card ever made to a deep neural network and ask it to design its own cards? Part genius, part gibberish—and maybe a little poetry. But mostly, it just makes you laugh your ass off.

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Spice Girls

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WATCH: How Looney Tunes' Chuck Jones evolved as an artist

Each character moves based on that desire, and it's funny to us because we have had similar desires. The other key to Jones' brilliance is discipline, which became clearer over time: each character had a complex set of rules about what they could not or would not do.

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Philips Hue acts like Illumiroom, syncs lighting with Xbox One game

In 2012, Microsoft Research lifted the wraps off its experimental "Illumiroom" project, which promised to extend game and computer imagery far beyond the limits of a TV screen.

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Here's What We Just Learned About Pluto

At a NASA briefing this afternoon, Alan Stern, New Horizon’s principal investigator, answered questions from the media and the public on today’s historic flyby, discussing the team’s latest impressions of Pluto’s surface, how the data is being transmitted back to Earth, and much, much more

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Judge releases video of cops killing suspect despite PD objections

A suburban Los Angeles law enforcement agency fought two years to keep secret the dashcam video of Gardena Police Department officers shooting two suspects, one of whom was fatally wounded. The victims were mistakenly believed to have stolen a bicycle outside a drugstore on June 2, 2013.

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CERN’s Large Hadron Collider confirms newest particle: the pentaquark

If you want to see some funny nerd-runs over the next couple of days, go hang out at your local university’s physics department.

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Making a katana the old traditional Japanese way is so impressive

I think this is the most impressive video that Man At Arms has ever done, and that’s saying a lot since they’ve recreated all the coolest weapons from TV shows and movies in real life.

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Russia bringing back Cold War mini-subs, report says

Russia is reportedly bringing back a fleet of Cold War-era mini-submarines, a move that could ramp up tensions with the West. Moscow is set to bring back the Cold War-era Piranha-class midget subs as part of a $350 million military spending spree, according to the U.K.’s Daily Express.

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Frito Lay CEO mistakes twitter for google search

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Japan accepts America's robot deathmatch challenge

Updated: Suidobashi Heavy Industries has since accepted the challenge by the Megabots team with its own hilariously over the top video. "But my reaction? Come on guys, make it cooler" says SHI founder Kogoro Kurata, "just building something huge and sticking guns on it, it's.... super American.

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What happened when Colorado offered free birth control? Teen birthrate and abortions plummeted.

The state of Colorado has been conducting a massive experiment with birth control over the last 6 years. Teens and low-income women were offered free IUDs and implants that prevent pregnancy for years. Officials wondered if women would sign up for the family planning assistance if it were free.

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CNN thinks comedy dildo flag at London Gay Pride is "ISIS FLAG"

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Almost half of leading websites fail security and privacy tests

In an audit of 1,000 websites, including those of leading retailers, banks, social media, news and government bodies, 46 percent were found vulnerable to known online security threats.

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Android is the biggest target for mobile malware

Most of the malicious software for mobile devices targets Google’s Android operating system, a new report by Pulse Secure says. Last year, almost one million individual malicious apps for Android were released, according to Pulse Secure’s Mobile Threat Report.

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California Passes Bill Banning Personal Exemptions for Vaccination

California vaccination bill SB277 has passed in the State Assembly on a 46 to 30 vote.

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Stop Preordering Video Games

It seems like everywhere you look, a new video game is broken. Your time and your money deserve better. So stop preordering video games.

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AMD explains why it put 'Intel Inside' its Project Quantum PC

AMD managed to keep a couple of fascinating products away from the leaksters ahead of its 'New Era of PC Gaming' event at E3 last week.

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Security Awareness Newsletter

"Wow! This is the first security awareness document that our users really like! Thank you, SANS" That note came from the CISO of an 8,000 employee organization. OUCH! is the world's leading, free security awareness newsletter designed for the common computer user.

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Net Neutrality Racks Up Another Win as Sprint Stops Throttling Subscribers

Who knew when a former top cable industry lobbyist took the helm at the Federal Communications Commission that it would lead to this much positive change for consumers? The FCC’s much-lauded new net neutrality rules took effect this past Friday, and we’re

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Planning

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30 year-old Commodore Amiga still powering school district heating system

Once again we must salute the greatest computer of all time, civilians. The Commodore Amiga was new to GRPS in the early 1980s and it has been working tirelessly ever since. GRPS Maintenance Supervisor Tim Hopkins said that the computer was purchased with money from an energy bond in the 1980s.

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Types

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Get an Android Development Education With This Nanodegree From Google

Getting into Android development can be rewarding, but there’s also a lot you need to learn. If you have some experience with code but want to transition to becoming a developer, Udacity has a year-long curriculum of material straight from Google that can get you started.

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Qualcomm And Google Hit Augmented Reality Dance Floor With Project Tango Smartphone

At Google's I/O conference, held late this week, Qualcomm announced that the next-generation Project Tango platform is going to sport its upcoming Snapdragon 810 processor. The 810 is set to be sampled in Q3, and will pack in the very capable Adreno 430 GPU.

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Open-Source Cyborg Hand is Making Prosthetics More Accessible Than Ever

A generation ago, getting a prosthetic limb fitted usually amounted to a having a heavy, nearly useless hunk of plastic and metal tacked onto your body. But bionic hands such as this one illustrate just how quickly that’s all changing.

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60M-year-old fossil can’t convince creationist that Earth is older than 6,000 years

A Canadian who happens to be on the board of directors of Big Valley’s Creation Science Museum, a place that’ll try to prove to you that Earth is only about 6,000 years old, made a stunning fossil discovery, but the historic finding can’t actually shake his beliefs.

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The BDLPSWDKS Effect

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Project Brillo is Google's platform for the 'internet of things'

Google wants to be everywhere in your home, not just hiding inside your thermostats and smoke alarms. That's why, as rumored, it's just announced Project Brillo, a super-slim operating system that's designed specifically for devices collectively known as the internet-of-things.

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Home and small office routers are being hijacked for DDoS attacks

The router security message really should have been driven home years ago, but it seems that a lack of basic security practices by ISPs, vendors and users has resulted in large numbers of hacker-controlled routers being used to launch DDoS attacks.

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