In March, the price of an Ether cryptocurrency token rose to an all-time high of around $25. This was good news for investors in Ethereum—the blockchain-based distributed computing platform that uses Ether as its currency—who had watched the cryptocurrency's price stagnate at under $10 since its…

Flatpacking... Pasta? MIT might go IKEA on your macaroni and cheese By - Jun 06, 2017 2 Comments Did anybody else love those dinosaur sponge pills, but wonder what would happen if you swallowed one? You can deliver on that slightly menacing magic with this new shapeshifting pasta invented by MIT's…

Hello, friends. Leah is on vacation, so I, Adrianne Jeffries, am writing this week’s Letter. Thesis: The New York Times crossword is very old and very white, which is bad and also makes for a boring puzzle. Adrianne, then why do you continue to do the puzzle night after night , you ask. For years…

Binky is an app that does everything an app is expected to do. It’s got posts. It’s got likes. It’s got comments. It’s got the infinitely scrolling timeline found in all social apps, from Facebook to Twitter, Instagram to Snapchat. I open it and start scrolling. Images of people, foods, and objects…

This article originally appeared on Noisey US Ten minutes ago, a guy called Quinn—mid 30s, from Wisconsin—was standing near the main stage at Governors Ball, trying to explain his love for Chance the Rapper to me between draws from his electronic cigarette. He was making a point about nuance and…

Information architect, usability engineer, interaction designer, ui designer, ux designer, motion designer, prototyper … these are just some of the job titles that us designers have taken on in recent years. Each one was supposed to clarify a particular part of the design process. Each one…

Unfortunately, ‘Boontling’ is nearly extinct today Bahl hornin! Northern California farmers developed a localized term for “cheers” in the late 1800s. (Underwood Archives/Getty Images) In 1979, Johnny Carson told millions of television viewers he wanted to have sex. But only about a hundred people…

Joy Buolamwini gives her TED talk on the bias of algorithmsPhotograph: TED Joy Buolamwini is a graduate researcher at the MIT Media Lab and founder of the Algorithmic Justice League – an organisation that aims to challenge the biases in decision-making software. She grew up in Mississippi, gained a…

After Donald Trump’s surprise election victory, many people on the right and even in the center tried to make the case that he wouldn’t really be that bad. Every time he showed a hint of self-restraint — even if it amounted to nothing more than reading his lines without ad-libbing and laying off…

T here’s a fundamental assumption a lot of us make about sex that often causes a lot of skewed perceptions about why we’re not getting the sex/love we want. Men have a tendency to make the assumption that sex itself is a need, regardless of who (or what) it comes from. Women have a tendency to…

R oberto Escobar is a short, hunched man. He’s old now and nearly blind and deaf from a letter bomb blowing up in his face years ago. His eye sockets sink into his skull leaving two golf-ball-sized craters in his face. His gaze is lifeless. It passes through you, as if you were some sort of…

Give a man a gadget, and you feed his tech needs for a day. Teach him to make gadgets, and he can feed himself--and a few savvy venture capitalists--for life. Such is the thinking of Neil Gershenfeld (pictured above), a 48-year-old physicist and MIT professor and the inventor of what he calls the…

Retailers are increasingly using customers' personal data to decide how much to charge for products This article titled “Surge pricing comes to the supermarket” was written by Tim Adams, for The Observer on Sunday 4th June 2017 06.00 UTC In 1861 a shopkeeper in Philadelphia revolutionised the retail…

One year ago, an air, sea and land blockade was imposed on Qatar by four Arab countries : Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt. Here are the latest developments: Al Udeid base On August 2, Qatari Defence Minister Khalid bin Mohammad al-Attiyah visited Washington to meet…

Last December at the wrap party for the second season of “ Master of None ,” the show’s star and co-creator, Aziz Ansari, addressed the cast and crew. But this wasn’t the typical thank-you for hard work. Using what would politely be called a “bathroom word,” he suggested they managed to ruin Season…

The early 80s were a weird time for hip-hop. The genre was new, tons of people loved it, and there was a genuine sense that this was a new, radical artform that would help define the future. That hunch would prove to be true, certainly, but at the time nobody knew quite what that meant. Hell, nobody…

Customers of Pirate Joe’s, the Canadian renegade reseller of groceries from the American chain Trader Joe’s, no longer have a place to buy products like Organic Carrot Turmeric Juice Blend or Quinoa Cowboy Veggie Burgers. Pirate Joe’s , which for more than five years celebrated its status as an…

Founded in 2000, Tellart is a design-driven, future-focused design studio that creates interactive experiences that move between digital and physical spaces. We spoke with Tellart’s head of strategy, Andrew Haarsager, about how 3D printing has found its way to the studio’s design process as well as…

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images It was political theater of the best kind. The nature of the events that led ex-FBI Director James Comey to testify before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Thursday are extraordinary. Comey’s testimony of his version of events was even more so.…

Iraqi Kurds have finally set a date for their long-discussed referendum on independence from the rest of Iraq, with the Kurdistan Regional Government calling for a vote on Sept. 25. The decision, announced by KRG president Masoud Barzani on Twitter, and picked up by local and international media, is…

Nineteenth-century retailer John Wanamaker is responsible for perhaps the most repeated line in marketing: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don't know which half." Today, marketers are grappling with the Wanamaker Paradox: The more we learn which half of advertising…

Story highlights Six attackers went after two highly symbolic targets US President Donald Trump says, "... states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote" Tehran, Iran (CNN) Iran's Revolutionary Guards say Saudi Arabia supported ISIS in the deadly twin attacks in Tehran…

Illustration: Jim Cooke/GMG Imagine this: You’re out at a bar. Maybe you’re there with some coworkers, and everyone is shaking off that crazy conference call and is starting to get a little loose. You’ve had one drink, and now you’re enjoying another. No big deal. You’re feeling good, and why…

A friend warns me not to turn up to a Danny Brown interview without vinyl or weed. Eager to avoid mistakes of the past (Brown once cut off an interview after the journalist generously offered him a scotch egg), I do exactly that. You see, Danny Brown isn’t your everyday rapper. Volatile and…

Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, and Kelly Rohrbach star in Seth Gordon’s movie. Illustration by Bendik Kaltenborn There are so many things you can do with a beach in the movies. You can clear it by shouting, “Shark!” You can storm it in the face of German guns. If you’re Steve McQueen, you can race…

Twitter is full of porn. Automated accounts, some of which are designed to drag you off to a web of dodgy dating sites , overwhelm the social network, constantly clogging up mentions with insincere likes and retweets. But what actually sits behind Brianne's, Helen's, or Christina's account? Thanks…

President Trump said on Thursday that the United States was officially withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, following through on a campaign promise and defying fellow world leaders who had pleaded with him to remain a party to the pact. The move was sure to provoke a sharp backlash from the…

President Trump is a master marketer. Look no farther than the successful branding of his billionaire self as a champion of working-class Americans. In that vein, one line from Thursday’s announcement that the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate change accord is a perfect example of…

Macon Blair was terrified. The year was 2013 and he was the unknown star of a movie no one had heard of, made on the cheap, and directed by a guy who hadn’t made anything in six years. Blair was sitting in a vast auditorium in France with hundreds of strangers, seated beside his friend and…

Items for sale at Infinity Photos by Brian Crecente/Polygon, collage by Emily Haasch Media piracy in Cuba isn't just rampant; it's a way of life. Terabytes of data come into the country nearly daily through smugglers, internet connections and satellite feeds, immersing the country and its people in…

A drawer packed with video games from a Havana home Photos by Brian Crecente/Polygon, collage by Emily Haasch Video game arcades are alive and well in Havana, though you might not recognize them. Where arcades in places like North America and Japan are often large expanses of space packed with…

Game collector Gabriel Huie with friend Rafael Rivas Photos by Brian Crecente/Polygon, collage by Emily Haasch Cuba will likely always be a country seeped in the throwback car culture aesthetic of bullet-nosed, tail-finned 1950s classics, lovingly maintained objects of teen angst and tourist…

There’s an unfortunate myth in San Francisco: that Soylent is a healthy, viable replacement for normal food. When I challenge people drinking it on its healthiness, I’m usually met with confusion. Isn’t Soylent good for you? Doesn’t it have all of the vitamins and nutrients you need? Isn’t it well…

Thom Yorke has four words of blunt advice for his younger, twitchier self, that paranoid twentysomething humanoid who made his band’s turn-of-the-millennium masterpieces. “Lighten the fuck up,” Yorke says, laughing hard. Radiohead‘s frontman, who turned 48 in October, is long past his days of hiding…

Amazon’s new bookstore at Columbus Circle has a bewilderingly small selection and, in some sections, seems organized like an ill-advised dinner party. PHOTOGRAPH BY SPENCER PLATT / GETTY On Thursday, Amazon opened its first brick-and-mortar bookstore in New York City, in Columbus Circle. It is…