In 2016, former NASA engineer Mark Rober and The Backyard Scientist filled up a backyard swimming pool with 25 million Orbeez water balls. On that same day, Rober decided he was going to fulfill his childhood dream of creating the world’s biggest JELLO swimming pool. With the help of his brother, Rober accomplished his long-awaited…
Samsung AI Machine Learning Turns Mona Lisa and Other Famous Portraits Into Realistic Talking Heads
Researchers at the Samsung AI Center in Moscow, Russia have quite amazingly turned Mona Lisa and other famous subjects of photos and art into realistic talking heads. This “Few-Shot Adversarial Learning” technology combs through thousands of videos and catalogs visual information. When an image is presented, the matching landmark features are located and put to…
McHive, A Tiny Replica of a McDonald’s That Also Serves As a Fully Functioning Beehive
Several McDonald’s in Sweden have been putting beehives on their rooftops in order to safely house and replenish the worldwide dwindling bee population. In that spirit, BBD Nord announced that that they have built the “McHive”, a tiny replica of McDonald’s that’s also a completely functioning beehive. Some of McDonald’s restaurants in Sweden have beehives…
Dedicated Father Captures 13 Years of His Daughter’s First Day of School From Kindergarten to Senior Year
In 2017, dedicated dad Kevin Scruggs shared a wonderful compilation of interviews he conducted with daughter Mackenzie on the first day of school from first grade through graduation. Two years later, he did the very same with his younger daughter Madison, starting with kindergarten and going through to her senior year and in doing so,…
A Bipedal Robot That Makes Front Door Deliveries After Being Transported to the Curb by a Self-Driving Vehicle
In February 2019, Agility Robotics announced the development of Digit, an anthropomorphic version of their bipedal robot Cassie. Digit sports an upper torso, arms, and an increased number of sensors. These additions give Digit a greater sense of balance, stair-climbing capability an ability to pick up large items and even deliver packages. Digit’s out-of-box readiness…
A Raft of Sea Otters Perform an Unintentionally Synchronized Swimming Routine Across an Inlet
An absolutely adorable raft of Southern sea otters at the Elkhorn Slough in Moss Landing, California, happily performed an unintentional synchronized swimming routine from one side of the inlet to the other, much to the amusement of the humans watching. It gets even better with the addition of the iconic theme from Hawaii 5-0. Everything…
Captain Jean-Luc Picard Explains Why He Left Starfleet Over Some Wine in the CBS All Access Series ‘Picard’
A teaser for the upcoming CBS All Access series Star Trek: Picard shows a retired Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation walking through his vineyard and boxing his namesake wine before sitting down to explain why he left Starfleet when he did. The end is only the beginning.
Playdate, A Retro Yellow Crank Controlled Handheld Gaming System With a Black and White Screen
Panic, the company behind Transmit, Coda and the adventure game Firewatch, teamed-up with Teenage Engineering to create Playdate, their unique version of a handheld gaming system. Playdate is bright yellow with a black and white screen, with retro design. It also sports modern conveniences such as wifi, Bluetooth, USB-C, and a headphone jack, yet also…