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As Theo Gray of Gray Matter demonstrates below, contrary to what the ads may say, diamonds CAN expire. Especially when attacked with a blow torch and liquid nitrogen. Gray says: "Diamonds are neither rare nor intrinsically valuable nor uniquely romantic. Those are ideas inven ...more

Culinary collective Studiofeast is known for thinking outside the box, especially when it comes to food. They've hosted inventive and spectacular events like the L Train Lunch, where a high-end meal was served to guests on a moving train, and the Datalicious Last Supper, where ...more

MIT artificial intelligence researcher Lex Fridman recently asked SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk possibly the best question he's ever been asked: What would he ask a hypothetical AGI system (an AI system with human-level intelligence and understanding) if he only had one q ...more

Hello fellow training hackers. I do not know if many of you are familiar with ruby, but since it is a useful scripting language, that hasn't been covered too much here on Null Byte, I thought why not do some How-tos about it now and then. The idea is to write simple scripts ...more

Kick Ass Review Part 3: Conclusions [Spoiler Alert! Plot points are discussed from the movie and comic in this section!] Big Daddy as a selectable character presents problems for the story in the game. In the movie and in the comic, Bid Daddy dies. As a playable character th ...more

Blackbirds are NOT singing in the dead of night. At least, not in Arkansas. The unexplained deaths of over 100,000 drumfish and 4,000 blackbirds in Arkansas over the New Year's weekend is still baffling the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Was it a lightning storm that kil ...more

On Twitter, quote retweets are a great way to share someone else's tweet with your view of their message. Twitter has expanded on this idea by giving us the ability to attach images, video, and GIFs to quote retweets. With these extra options, you should have no problem adding ...more

While not cuddly to most, bats are shy, skilled flyers that fill an important role in their environments. A new study reveals a deadly disease decimating North American bat populations has stepped up its attack on vulnerable bat populations in the summer months. Pseudogymnoas ...more

Speech recognition software made it easy to search Google on your smartphone, and Google Goggles made it easy to find answers from camera snapshots on your device. But now Google's bringing similar technology straight to your desktop, and with faster results—faster than Google ...more

Go out and find a bag of Qualatex Balloons from your local party suplier or party store. Qualatex is the "Very Best Balloons" you can get and they tend to be easiest to work with.Buy a quality hand pump that you can use to blow up the balloons. A quality pump should run anywhe ...more

If your current cellular provider costs too much, has poor reception in your area, or doesn't support features you'd like to use, switching to another carrier is the obvious move. But can you bring your current iPhone or Android phone? In most cases, your current smartphone w ...more

Are you looking for a little microbe magic? Think composting. Composting is a great way to reuse food and plant waste that you would otherwise throw into the trash, which would just end up in a landfill somewhere. During the composting cycle, microbes reduce this organic wast ...more

Not that long ago I wrote an article discussing what it would be like, realistically, if you were to accidentally travel back in time to the Victorian era. At the end of that article, I mentioned that the best thing you could bring with you on a time-traveling adventure is a K ...more

As Microsoft unveiled their new Windows Phone 8.1 software update yesterday, undoubtedly the most memorable takeaway was their showcase of Cortana. Competing directly against Apple's Siri and Google's Now, Cortana is Microsoft's entry into the digital voice assistant fray, and ...more

Clearly, the next big battlefield for tech gamesmanship between Apple and Google will be augmented reality. While the announcement of the new iPhones by Apple may have underwhelmed in the AR department, they did highlight their new ARCore platform and Core ML image recognitio ...more

I truly don't understand why anyone would pay $10.99 for a case of carbonated water just to feel like a Midwest mom on a diet. Every time I talk about LaCroix, pronounced La-CROY (rhymes with enjoy), it's like I take all the money I spent on my French major and light it on fir ...more

Apple seeded the official version of iOS 13 to compatible iPhones on Sept. 19. Since then, we've seen two major updates — iOS 13.1, which, by our count, introduced 22 new features, and iOS 13.2, which also added 22 new features. Today, Dec. 10, Apple introduced the third major ...more

There is an Indian story called the Legend of Paal Paysam, and while it doesn't seem like it at first, it has a lot to say about what motivated Paul Travers in the augmented reality space. The story is about a king that loved chess and the sage that he challenged. To motivate ...more

A new dating app has arrived, and it'll finally land you a date with your celebrity crush ... kind of. The app — Dating AI — uses face search technology to help you search for potential love interests that resemble a celebrity you're attracted to. That's right folks, Dating A ...more

If you're a tech geek who cares about the environment, you probably concerned with your personal carbon footprint. You may feel like your love for gadgets is slowly contributing to the degradation of our planet, but tech is your life. And in this scenario, small changes matter ...more

Hey wizards! As you have read in the gardening article I put up a few days ago, it requires the Test Realm! It's pretty easy to use the Test Realm, but there are a few very important limitations you have to pay attention to before using it. Many of you reading this may be pret ...more

At Build 2017, the annual developer's conference, Microsoft featured a Windows Mixed Reality Academy. This class was designed to get a developer started creating Mixed Reality experiences quickly. For those of us already developing for the Microsoft HoloLens, while the class — ...more

I am often asked about getting started with HoloLens development and most of the time my answer, in short, is: Install Unity, install Visual Studio, install the HoloLens emulator, and make something. I suspect most of the time this advice is ignored, since the idea of develop ...more

What happens when a entrepeneur/theme park creator and special effects artist/magician team up? You get a team crazy enough to create the first true virtual reality theme park (sorry, Six Flags). They only have a single experience so far, but it's already taken a giant leap be ...more

Whether you're in high school or college, you no doubt will have your iPhone in your pocket all day long. To make your iPhone last the whole time and even help you out with your studies, these are the accessories you'll want to get your hands on. You might not think you need ...more

Oh yeah, this is a big topic, at-least for me. All the frequent flyers will/should be interested in this topic. I'm sure all of you have heard at-least something about the TSA, and most of it should have been bad. Complaints, lawsuits and general disgust surround this organiza ...more

Now that the augmented reality cat is out of the bag, Magic Leap is beginning to open up a bit more about how of some of its work came together in the years and months leading up to the Magic Leap One's release earlier this month. On Wednesday, the company unveiled a behind th ...more

One of the biggest advantages iOS has over Android as a mobile platform is how readily and fully it has embraced mobile gaming. There are over 200,000 games available in the Apple store, compared to approximately 100,000 in the Android Marketplace. As an Android-using gamer, t ...more

Perhaps the most important decoration of the holiday season is the Christmas tree. It's where all of the magic happens. If you're not into real Christmas trees, there's always some festive alternatives, but for those of us who can't live without a natural Christmas tree, choos ...more

Hyundai Motor Company says it will launch its driverless tech ahead of schedule, but the Korean carmaker will remain behind mainstream rivals, including General Motors (GM), Nissan, and Honda. Speaking to the Korean IT news outlet the Electronic Times, Hyundai said it was lau ...more

Whether it's a short road trip or an 18-hour flight, our phones are now essential travel companions. No longer do we need a GPS unit, maps, cameras, camcorders, or even boarding passes. However, not all phones are created equal in this regard. Some are more suited for travelin ...more

BANSHIE n pl. -S banshee 62 points (12 points without the bingo) The BANSHIE (or BANSHEE) is a female spirit from Gaelic folklore that wails unbearably loud as PRESAGE for someone's imminent death. Irish legend states her as being a fairy woman and messenger of death from th ...more

If you're an Android fan, you're probably familiar with Qualcomm's Quick Charge technology or, at the very least, what it can do. Quick Charge 3.0, the third generation of Qualcomm's fast-charging technology, is built into most Snapdragon SoCs and it's what lets you charge you ...more

Over the past decade the Internet community has been witness to the rise of many new forms of online interaction. These new technologies have given rise to anonymous networks (like TOR), black markets within the deep web network (like the Silk Road), and even forms of digital ...more

This coming Friday, November 11th, 2011 is Veterans Day and everybody's celebrating! But only veterans and active military personnel can get the great deals being offered at restaurants and retail outlets across the country. If you need help locating some of those deals, below ...more

You can visit your neighbors and play a fun trick on their farm! When you visit a neighbor you will get to play a trick on them! Click on the web icon on the left side to get started. Things you can trick will be outlined in orange. After you have played your 5 tricks, you ...more

Hey explorers, I have a new help line! (By email, not phone. Sorry, phone's not coming soon.) If you need help, email to: williamiceflame@mail.com Oh, and another note, after maybe a year or more (I know, lots of time left), I'll move this blog over to Blogger. There's a lo ...more

Are you into the GOOP lifestyle? No, I'm not talking about some unpleasant, oozy, thick liquid. And no... especially not that (you perverts). You can see that this GOOP is in all capital letters, which means an acronym, but no, that is not the case— not exactly. At least, acc ...more

There are plenty of useful shortcuts in Mac OS X, but not all of them are necessarily simple. You can use one of built-in shortcuts to take many different kinds of screenshots, but the shortcuts can be rather annoying to use because they require at least three different keys, ...more

In the past, to see a pre-constructed state of the house that you would one day live in, you had to be able to read blueprints or hire an artist to sketch it out. Later came the ability to have a 3D rendering of that house on a screen, but you'd still have to work hard to envi ...more

What separates Metro 2033 from other FPS games? Life. There are underground towns, markets, children, music, and so much background chatter than sometimes you can't single out a particular conversation. Most FPS, especially American shooters, are streamlined for Adventure and ...more