On a beach in northern Taiwan, a few dozen Futuro and Venturo houses, designs of the future from the 1960s, sit abandoned and rotting away. It’s a fascinating place; here’s how it looks.
Forward this or you’ll die in seven days: On the persistence of chain letters
If you have an email inbox, you’ve probably received a message that promises money or luck if you share it and unspecified misfortune if you don’t. “Please do not throw this letter away until you have carefully considered what I am about to tell you,” it might begin. “This can be the most important communication you will ever receive if you can understand and act upon this incredible opportunity.” (Emphasis theirs.) But if you’ve received one of these messages more recently, it probably arrived on a smartphone and read a little differently. Say, like this: “ It’s moday ✌️the start↗️of a new✅ week mondays✏️are✏️HARD ‼️send this↗️▶️▶️to 6 HOMIES to make them have a GOOD Monday. DON’T BREAK THE CHAIN or else you’ll have a BAD…
This Week in the Future of Cars: Electric Start
The new Audi E-tron, Tesla’s crash test, the Ferrari Monzas, and more car news from this week.
Trumps Comments About Hurricane Florence Top This Week’s Internet News Roundup
Last week, the downpour of news on the internet never let up.
How Lego Came to Be the World’s Most Famous Brick
A Danish woodworker’s bet on a new manufacturing process gave us a toy that never gets old.
How Alexa Could Fix the Microwave
An Alexa-powered microwave may sound silly. Here’s why it’s a brilliant idea.
Artificial Intelligence Has a Strange New Muse: Our Sense of Smell
The brain’s way of processing smells is inspiring scientists to rethink how we design machine learning algorithms.
Comcast has outbid 21st Century Fox for Sky
Comcast has won an auction to acquire UK telecommunications company Sky, bidding $38.8 billion to overtake Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox after a lengthy bidding war this summer. Comcast’s win paves the way for it to acquire Sky and its 23 million European subscribers and entertainment assets. Sky’s shareholders will now need to approve the deal.
Over the course of this year, Comcast and Fox have been locked in a titanic battle over their futures, one that will define the nature of the industry as a whole. Last summer, Disney CEO Bob Iger spoke with Murdoch about an acquisition of Fox and made its first offer in December, and while Comcast made its own overtures this spring. The two made several bids this spring, but after Disney…
Amazon’s new device preorders dominate this week’s best deals
Last week was Apple’s time to shine with the introduction of the iPhone XS and XS Max and Apple Watch 4, but the tail end of this week was all about Amazon. It announced more than 10 products at its hardware event in Seattle, consisting of a few redesigned popular sellers, and several additions to its Alexa-powered arsenal.
Preorders for most of its new tech are open, and the products should start shipping in mid-October. If you think you can hold off, we’re likely to see discounts for most, if not all, of these Amazon products come Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
- The new Echo Dot costs $49.99, but Amazon will sell you two for $90
- Amazon’s new Echo Show is up for preorder at $229.99, but you’ll save $100 if you buy a second one
- If…
Trump’s Space Force may come with a big price tag, and no one can agree how to structure it
Two months after Vice President Mike Pence announced the plan to create a Space Force, the military is fighting over how to make it happen. This week, an internal Air Force estimate leaked to the press that said the Space Force would cost nearly $13 billion to create. And an Air Force organization is arguing that we shouldn’t create the Space Force at all, but rather rename the Air Force.
This is just the beginning of a debate about the right way to move forward with the Space Force, says Brian Weeden, a space expert at the Secure World Foundation, a nonprofit that specializes in space security. Creating a new branch of the military is going to require a lot of complicated bureaucratic reshuffling. “The other piece of it is, how do we…