Category Archives: Blog

All good things must come to an end, on Earth and even in space. 

NASA announced on Tuesday that the Kepler mission — which has transformed how we understand planets outside of our solar system — is officially over.

According to the space agency, Kepler has run out of fuel in space, ending its 9.5-year planet hunting mission.

“Before we launched Kepler, we didn’t know if planets were common or rare in our galaxy,” Paul Hertz, NASA’s Astrophysics Division director, said in a press call Tuesday.

Thanks to Kepler’s data, which was all safely beamed back to Earth before the end of the mission, we now know that planets are, in fact, exceedingly common.  Read more…

More about Space, Science, Astronomy, Exoplanets, and Planets

Star of Johnny English Strikes Again Rowan Atkinson sits down with Mashable to discuss how his James Bond–wannabe character is both foolish and admirably brave. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Movies, Celebrities, Funny, and Mashable Video

It’s getting even more expensive to use Apple products.

At Tuesday’s Apple event in Brooklyn, the Cupertino-based tech giant unveiled the next generation of the iPad Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac Mini. Each updated device is more powerful than ever, with multiple add-on options that further enhance performance. Of course, those higher-end features come at a price. And Apple’s base pricing for the entry-level version of each of its products is rising, too.

Take the new iPad Pro. This generation of Apple’s flagship tablet is faster, thinner, and has more screen space than ever. The most affordable model, the new 11-inch iPad Pro, starts at $799. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro comes in at $999. Not bad for tablets that Apple puts up against competitors’ full-fledged laptops. But if you take a look at the base pricing of the previous generation of iPad Pros, you’ll find the cost for a 2017 10.5-inch iPad Pro and 12.9-inch iPad Pro when they were first released started at $649 and $799, respectively. That’s a $150 less for the 11-inch iPad Pro and $200 less for the 12.9-inch version. Read more…

More about Apple, Ipad, Mac, Apple Event 2018, and Tech

It’s no secret Ariana Grande is wickedly talented, just like Idina Menzel.

The pop star swung by NBC’s A Very Wicked Halloween Monday night, celebrating 15 years of Wicked on Broadway (which doubled as drumming up some excitement for the long-in-the-works movie adaptation).

Grande — donning a green bustier and some seriously shimmery green makeup — performed “The Wizard and I,” following a sweet intro from original co-stars Kristin Chenoweth and Menzel. 

One vision almost like a prophecy? Though this tune is sung by the character Elphaba, expect Grande, with her huge fan base and professed love of the musical, to be on the shortlist for Glinda once casting for the film finally rolls around.  Read more…

More about Ariana Grande, Musicals, Entertainment, and Movies Tv Shows

It took a while for Huawei to get here. 

Nothing about the company’s boring smartphone lineup in, say, 2013, indicated that Huawei might one day produce phones that can hold their own against the best flagships around.  Read more…

More about Android, Reviews, Review, Huawei, and Huawei Mate 20 Pro

Most of us would come at a Halloween pumpkin simply with a sharp knife and a will to succeed. Others would come equipped with NASA-level engineering skills.

Every year, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California gather for the ultimate pumpkin carving contest. This year’s competition went down on Monday, and guys, the engineers brought it.

It’s been a team-bonding tradition for seven years, and sees JPL engineers taking an hour break from building tools which enable us to explore the universe for a good old fashioned jack-o’-lantern carving competition.  Read more…

More about Nasa, Halloween, Engineering, Pumpkin, and Halloween 2018

Pharrell Williams wants Donald Trump to stop playing “Happy” at his events.

The president allegedly played the song during a rally in Indiana on Saturday, just mere hours following the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh.

Williams’ attorney, Howard King, sent a cease and desist letter on behalf of the artist, who owns the rights to the song.

“On the day of the mass murder of 11 human beings at the hands of a deranged ‘nationalist,’ you played his song ‘Happy’ to a crowd at a political event in Indiana,” King writes in the letter. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Music, Trump, Pharrell Williams, and Entertainment

Waymo is planning to have a self-driving taxi service on the road by the end of the year in Arizona. GM’s Cruise has its sights on an autonomous taxi hitting San Francisco streets in 2019. In Dubai, a self-driving taxi service is already in testing.

Now, Intel’s Mobileye autonomous vehicle tech division plans to roll out a similar autonomous car service in Israel early next year.

Announced Monday, Intel is building out an electric vehicle fleet with Champion Motors and the Volkswagen Group that will use Mobileye’s self-driving software to autonomously shuttle passengers around Israel.

More about Intel, Israel, Taxi, Autonomous Vehicles, and Volkswagen

Are you ready to get spooked? 

A Redditor’s daughter wanted a carved pumpkin shaped like her favorite animal, so u/Zmannum2 created this incredible anglerfish. 

The anglerfish doesn’t look like much in the daylight, but when the lights are off, its teeth and eyes eerily glow in the dark. 

It’s mildly terrifying, but mostly super cool. Trick or treaters will have a blast running into this carving. 

The OP plans on revamping it to add a glowing lure, just like real anglerfish. 

More about Reddit, Halloween, Pumpkins, Halloween 2018, and Culture

Now this is one strange bug.

Some Pixel 3 XL phones are getting an second notch on the side of the phone’s screen. Of course, it’s a software notch, rather than the built-in hardware notch, which contains the front-facing camera and sensors.

A number of users posted the bug on social media, and there’s a Reddit thread of people who’ve noticed the issue too. The problem appears to be fixed with a restart or by tinkering wth the developer settings, so luckily it’s nothing too serious. 

It does look hilarious, though.

More about Tech, Google, Big Tech Companies, Pixel 3, and Pixel 3 Xl