“Open Informant” is an app created by Superflux that searches your phone using real NSA trigger keywords and then displays those communications on a wearable badge. The NSA, GCHQ and other government security services secretly collect and scan our personal information and correspondence for trigger words; from the overtly malevolent: ‘anthrax’, ‘assassination’ and ‘bomb’ to the seemingly benign: ‘pork’, […]
Over the past few years, we’ve seen several devices that use sound waves to make small objects levitate. Now, the University of Tokyo researchers who created of one such system have taken the concept a step further, using projection-mapping to illuminate particles as they float in midair. The idea is easier to understand once you […]
The artisan known only as Afgoo_Head may be the the world’s greatest cannabis craftsman. While others are content to simply wrap their blunts in increasingly intricate shapes, Afgoo makes mind-bogglingly elaborate weed-smoking devices entirely out of weed. His most famous creations are enormous cigars crafted out of traditional herb, dabs, hash, and whole cannabis leaves, […]
The solar panel-laden behemoth in the rendering above is P.S. 62, a school set to open in Staten Island next year that will allegedly produce more energy than it consumes. How? Well, there are the solar panels, as well as a wind turbine, exercise equipment that generates energy, and geothermal wells for heating and cooling. […]
The last time NASA rolled out a new spacesuit, it was the Z-1, a prototype that looked like exactly like Buzz Lightyear. Now, the space agency is pursuing its sucessor, the Z-2, by asking the public to vote on one of three designs. All three are batshit crazy. There’s “Trends in Society,” above, a suit […]
Freedom of speech watchdog group, Reporters Without Borders, just released its yearly “Enemies of the Internet” ranking and as the EFF notes, for the first time since the inception of this list, the U.S. is on it due to the NSA”s vast snooping and surveillance network. That puts the land of the free, home of […]
Last year, the Boulder-based dispensary Helping Hands Herbals named a strain of weed in honor of CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, after the high profile physician reversed his position on medical weed and outlined its benefits in a widely received documentary. The brand was called the “Gupta Kush” and although the news network […]
Artist Austin Houldsworth‘s new project Walden Note imagines a currency for a utopian society that doesn’t need currency. In 1942, behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner published the utopian novel Walden Two (1942) which imagines a leaderless society that shares work, family and resources. Members are “conditioned to be productive, creative and happy.” They never say “thank you,” never get paid […]
“Recently released NSA documents revealed the existence of DRAGONBROKER, a surveillance program that undermined NIST standards for securing one tenth of all internet traffic. Senator Dianne Feinstein assured the public that the program is actually run by the FBI, not the NSA.” Or, if you prefer: “Recently released NSA documents revealed the existence of STUMPSHADOW, a USB hardware host tap that copies traffic from […]
A new report from the think tank New America Foundation claims NSA surveillance isn’t nearly as effective at stopping terrorism as the feds would have you believe. The study, titled “Do NSA’s Bulk Surveillance Programs Stop Terrorism?” Of the 225 counterterrorism cases researchers studied, only 7.5 were investigated under evidence obtained by the NSA. The […]
