Author Archives: Carol Edwards

That man who dressed as a car seat to make it look like he was in a self-driving car last year was, in fact, not a terrible Halloween costume, but part of a study for Ford’s self-driving cars. 

At the time, pesky reporters quickly uncovered that the disguised driver was with the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. Now we also know that that covert driving attire was to help Ford’s self-driving car team shape a “common language” for cars to “talk” to pedestrians and other people on the road.

This all came out this week when Ford released its self-driving safety report, in which it explained how the “simulated” autonomous experiences with the disguised driver in a seat suit led to its windshield light bar, which lights up with different patterns to show what it the car is doing. A back-and-forth white light means the car is yielding. When the car is about to go, the white light quickly blinks. Ford said it’s trying to find a way to communicate that doesn’t use text. Read more…

More about Autonomous Cars, Ford, Safety, Self Driving Car, and Tech

What in the fresh hell is going on at Tesla?

About 20 miles due west of Reno sits the monumental Tesla Gigafactory. Construction started on the now almost 5-million-square-foot building in 2014, with the goal of creating, on a massive scale, the batteries needed to power the company’s electric cars. But if a newly released summary of a SEC complaint is to be believed, that’s not all that’s going on inside those walls. 

The document, sent to Mashable by the law firm Meissner Associates, contains allegations made by a former Gigafactor employee that run the gauntlet from “unauthorized wiretapping and hacking,” to possible “narcotics trafficking,” with a little $37 million copper theft thrown in for good measure.  Read more…

More about Tesla, Elon Musk, Sec, Gigafactory, and Tech

Though it can be a challenge to give up meat in favor of a veggie-based lifestyle, your tastebuds don’t have to suffer in the process. When those meat cravings hit, finding satisfying alternative is an absolute must. 

But what do you do when all you want is a juicy cheeseburger? Simple. You go and find a veggie burger that doesn’t taste like complete garbage. But where should you start? We asked the veggie-loving staffers of Mashable for their go-to meat-free picks. Here’s what they recommend:

1Impossible Burger

More about Vegan, Vegetarian, Burger, Burgers, and Vegetarian Food

More about Mobile, Android, Samsung, Reviews, and Mashable Choice

Aretha Franklin isn’t with us anymore, but her long-standing feud with Patti LaBelle apparently still lives on, thanks to none other than Fox News. 

During the network’s in memoriam tribute to the Queen of Soul — who died Thursday morning — viewers noticed that one of the featured images of Franklin wasn’t a picture of the late singer at all. Rather, it was an image of LaBelle, who is very much alive. Yikes.

The photo in question shows LaBelle dressed in a green jacket, performing in 2014 at the White House. It is most definitely not Franklin —and if years of shade between the divas has taught us anything, it’s that Franklin would have hated this mix-up.  Read more…

More about Fox News, Aretha Franklin, Patti Labelle, Culture, and Celebrities

Netflix hidden categories are the secret to better binging, friends. 

The vast amount of content on Netflix can get pretty unwieldy. Luckily, there’s a secret, better way to browse the swaths of mediocre titles on the streaming service to get to what you’re really looking for.

Netflix has a master list of hidden categories that go far beyond the usual Action, Drama, Sci-Fi, and the like. First discovered by the blog What’s On Netflix, anyone can access them by simply typing specific URLs into a browser. Each URL has the format:

http://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/###

…where the “###” is where you put the code that relates to the particular Netflix category you’re looking for. For example, 35800 is steamy romantic movies, 11140 is supernatural thrillers, and 67879 is Korean TV shows. You can check out the complete list below. Read more…

More about Lists, Netflix, Entertainment, and Movies Tv Shows

A towering, twisting skyscraper with vertical green space and a public rooftop garden is set to become Australia’s tallest building.

Dubbed the “Green Spine,” and set to stand 356.20 metres (1,168 feet) high, the design for the striking cantilevered structure was unveiled for the city of Melbourne on Wednesday.

Designed by Dutch architecture firm UNStudio and Melbourne-based Cox Architecture, the structure will sit on Melbourne’s Southbank Boulevard and is made up of two buildings clad with vertical gardens and geometric glass facades. Read more…

More about Australia, Design, Architecture, Melbourne, and Tallest Skyscraper

A pirate radio station which served as Alex Jones’ flagship outlet has been shut down by the Federal Communications Commission.

Liberty Radio was broadcasting on 90.1 FM without federal consent, according to The Austin American-Statesman reported that with the FCC accusing the station had done so since 2013.

FCC agents managed to trace the station’s signal to an apartment block in East Austin, following a complaint, according to the agency’s lawsuit filed against Liberty Radio. The FCC has also handed a $15,000 penalty to the station’s owners, who reportedly are refusing to pay. Read more…

More about Politics, Radio, Austin, Infowars, and Alex Jones

It’s 11:15 p.m. on a Friday night and a man in a white button-down shirt named Joey just ordered me a shot of Fireball. It’s a little hard to hear him over the music blasting from the other side of the velvet ropes, but the club’s director of services leans in close to make sure I can hear him. 

“Excellence and hospitality in the crypto world,” Joey says in response to my request that he describe just what, exactly, is going on here. 

I’m sitting on a spacious couch in a private club, inside of another nightclub, inside of a casino, and we’re discussing Las Vegas’s first cryptocurrency nightclub: MORE Las Vegas. Launched in April by Peter Klamka — a man known for, among other things, his involvement with The Legends Room gentlemen’s club which allowed patrons to tip performers in bitcoin — the nightclub comes with all the trappings of a typical VIP Vegas destination. There’s the $250,000 bottles of champagne, high-heeled cocktail waitresses, and view of the Bellagio fountains that’s to die for.  Read more…

More about Bitcoin, Las Vegas, Def Con, Ethereum, and Cryptocurrency

No shoes were removed, no toiletries put into separate clear bags, and there was no need to arrive two hours before the flight. 

As part of flight-sharing app Blackbird’s media flight, we walked right onto the tarmac to the door of our plane at the small but busy San Carlos Airport. San Francisco International is just 10 miles away, but this tiny airport would end up being much more efficient for a quick jaunt down the California coast.

We then climbed aboard a Pilatus PC-12, a pretty luxurious single-engine turboprop plane. For startup Blackbird’s newest service, dubbed Hitch, passengers fly on smaller private airplanes, splitting the cost of travel (that’s oil and fuel costs and any airport and rental fees) with the pilot and any passengers. We were flying fewer than 100 miles south and back for a day trip to show how smooth and simple this could all be, if only people could accept flying as a normal — instead of extravagant — travel option.  Read more…

More about Startups, Airplane, Air Travel, Tech, and Startups