STUFF: News, Technology, the cool and the plain weird

[Fuzz]

Scientists Discover A Massive 30-Year-Old Funnel Web Spider In NSW

Just when you think you have gotten your head around all the potential dangers before your trip Down Under, there's one more thing... and it's been unknown for the last 25-30 years! Thanks science for scaring away more tourists.

[MIKA27]

The Air Force Is Trying To Fix Drone Pilot Burnout With Dank Memes

Air Force drone pilots are stressed out, burnt out, overworked and undertrained. But ain’t they got memes!

In August, the Air Force launched a “Culture and Process Improvement Program” to combat what a bummer flying military drones can be:

“We’re seeing problems in the MQ-1/9 community at both the major command and base levels that can be solved quickly,” said Col. Troy Jackson, the command and control intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations division chief and CPIP officer in charge. “Airmen in this career field are being exhausted with no end in sight; we want to fix this.”

Jackson doesn’t explicitly mention the “problems” — but the Air Force drone program has a history of causing psychological trauma for its pilots. Aside from, you know, mental torment, it’s also considered a dead-end job, with little room for career advancement.

If this isn’t evidence of how lost the Air Force is as it tries to make one of its least-appealing jobs anything other than dreadful, I don’t know what is. Or maybe the main personality requirement you need to survive a career in Air Force drone piloting is an equally high tolerance for dad jokes and remote killing

[MIKA27]

PARROT ZIK 3 WIRELESS HEADPHONES

Drones may have put them on the map, but the folks at Parrot have proved time and time again that they can make a stellar pair of headphones as well. Now the brand is back in action with all new set of cans – the Parrot Zik 3 wireless headphones.

These headphones are still designed by the legendary Philippe Starck, and boast a leather stitched exterior that’s available in your choice of classic black, emerald green, ivory brown and candy-apple red. And while these things are stunning aesthetically, it’s not the real selling point here. These headphones are packed with a ton of technology from the noise canceling and wireless streaming to the ability to charge wirelessly via Qi. The Blueooth and NFC headphones feature a fully interactive surface on the right earpiece that allows the user to swipe for things like volume adjustment and track selection, while the headphones automatically pause when you take them off. There are also several different noise canceling modes, ensuring you can still hear slight ambient noises or cancel out the world completely if you so choose. You can also control all of the headphone settings through your Apple or Android smartwatch. Parrot will be releasing the headphones later this year with a price of $400. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

Apple iPad Pro + Apple Pencil: Australian Hands On

Nothing will ever feel as big as the new iPad Pro. Nothing. Why is it so huge and why do I love it so much? Tell me why.

Do you remember when you picked up the iPad for the first time to look at it? Like the very first time. I’m not talking about the iPad Air 2 or whatever the latest new one you held was. I’m talking about the very first one.

The first time I saw it I was in my old job, and the guy across from me bought one and was so smug about it. I got hands on and it blew me away. Of course, the original iPad looks practically prehistoric compared to the lightning performance and design of the new models.

Despite the new tech built into subsequent iPads, however, none of them have managed to re-capture that feeling of wonder you had when holding this massive new piece of tech.

In fact, since then, phone shave got bigger and bigger and really made us wonder why we’d ever need an iPad again. iPad revenues have been declining for Apple, and it needed to do something big to recapture people’s imagination.

Apple’s designers took that a bit literally, and came up with an iPad that features a massive 12.9-inch screen. Holy JESUS it’s big, and it represents the best thing that has probably happened to iPad since the first one came out: it delights, bewilders and baffles you at how good it feels to use.

It makes you feel like you’re using an iPad for the very first time all over again. You’ve never felt something so big be so elegant.

The iPad Air 2 impressed us because it was finally a device meant for reading, note taking and gaming that was thinner and lighter than a book or magazine could ever be. That experience has translated to the iPad Pro: it’s massive, but it’s so light and streamlined that you feel it could replace everything you currently use. It’s more convenient than your tablet, smarter than your A4 notebook and more beautiful than your current iPad could ever be.

It really comes to life when you use split-screen multitasking and picture-in-picture movie mode in iOS 9, to be honest. It blows your mind when you see it working for the first time. It’s what the iPad should have always been.

The iPad Pro also sounds better than ever thanks to four speakers spread around the edges of the device. Pump up the volume and you’re blown away by the sound that’s blasted into your face from a tablet. It would be nice to see those speakers set to front-facing mode rather than oriented on the side of the device, but we can only ask for so much at one time it seems.

The new iPad Pro also comes with a swathe of funky new accessories, including a $US99 stylus called Apple Pencil and a $US169 keyboard cover that makes Microsoft’s Surface keyboard look like a hot mess.

The keyboard is actually very similar to the new keyboard on the 2015 MacBook. The mechanisms are incredibly similar, and it feels about the same to type on, to be honest. Limited travel on the keys, but with a softer click that feels better on your fingers. The whole keyboard is wrapped in a clever fabric which actually suspends the keys rather than have them build into a rigid deck. It all connects to your iPad via a new inductive magnetic connector on the side of the device.

The stylus — sorry, Apple Pencil — is also a pretty unique experience for iPad. It works beautifully with the new apps on iOS 9 (like Notes for example) to give you a great drawing and writing experience. With intelligent palm rejection (finally) and a screen area that feels like a solid replacement for an A4 notepad, the iPad is now the best note-taking device you’ve ever seen.

It’s also beautiful for drawing, too. The Pencil pairs over Bluetooth, and has a series of smart sensors built in that talk to the iPad Pro for to represent pressure and force to represent the type of stroke you want.

It’s weighty, and feels like a really high-quality sketching pencil you’d get from an art supplies store.

An accelerometer in the pencil figures out which way you’ve oriented the Pencil, too. Point it straight up and down and you’ve got a fantastic drawing device. Hold it to the side and start drawing with the edge of the tip, however, and the Pencil recognises you want to shade instead of draw straight lines. It really is incredible.

The end of the Pencil is perhaps slightly wasted. Underneath the end cap is a Lightning connector so you can charge it, but wouldn’t it be cool if that was your eraser? Instead, you just have to select a tool with which to erase your work. Lame.

Either way, the iPad Pro is the new standard for smart working on the go thanks to multi-tasking, a smarter keyboard and iOS 9. It’s also probably the last word in portable entertainment with its enormous screen and four-speaker array. What an insane piece of tech.

[MIKA27]

Did Nike Just Reveal Their Back To The Future Shoe?

Does this tweet from a former art director at advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy in Portland show us the first look at a functioning version of Nike’s long promised Back to the Future II powerlace shoes? Hopefully!

Wieden+Kennedy is the agency that made Nike famous. And in the interest of full disclosure, they used to be a client at the non-traditional ad agency I worked for in another life. But that’s a story for another time. The important thing here is that we might finally be getting official Nike powerlace shoes!

Nike has been working on this shoe for a long time, so there’s a possibility that this is just a prototype that won’t hit store shelves soon. But maybe not! Tinker Hatfield promised that they’d be out this year! And we’ve only got a few months left in 2015.

And since October 21, 2015 is the year that Marty travels to in the movies, that release date makes perfect sense! Get excited!

[MIKA27]

A $28,500 Watch For Obscenely Well-Funded Star Wars Fans

So how much money did you spend on Star Wars toys on Force Friday? A couple hundred bucks? It might seem like a small fortune when your credit card bill finally arrives, but it’s nothing compared to Devon’s new Empire-themed timepiece.

If you’re unfamiliar with Devon, the watchmaker has made a name for itself with a unique tread-based system where numbers on rotating belts that appear to float in mid-air are used to display the time. It’s a neat trick, realised with some genuinely complex but intriguing watchmaking.

If you thought Sphero’s $US150 BB-8 toy was an indulgence, few Star Wars collectors will be lucky enough to buy Devon’s latest creation; only 500 are being produced, and each one will cost $US28,500. Disney doesn’t mess around when it comes to cashing in on its franchises.

But surprisingly, even though it’s priced similar to a new car, the Devon Star Wars Limited Edition watch isn’t a completely original creation. It’s actually the original Devon Tread 1 that’s been upgraded with some Star Wars flare including TIE fighter wing accents on the sides, the Imperial crest on the crown, and spaceship-like plating over the watch’s face.

That being said, if you’re a horological aficionado with a soft spot for Star Wars, you’re still getting an impressive piece of engineering to strap to your wrist here, even if it wasn’t redesigned from the ground up with Vader in mind. And as you count down the minutes until Star Wars: The Force Awakens premieres, would you rather be staring at this, or your dollar store Casio?

[MIKA27]

This Glass Will Let You Enjoy Whiskey in Microgravity

Now that whiskey is being aged in space, it seems only fitting that there should be a way to enjoy the results in low gravity. Fortunately, this glass provides a way to sip the stuff en route to the stars.

Developed by Open Space Agency’s James Parr for distillery Ballantine, the glass is designed to provide a pleasant way of drinking whiskey in microgravity without having to resort to sucking at a straw. So how does it work? Well, there’s a convex steel base plate coated with rose gold, which provides a large enough surface tension to hold the whiskey in place and prevent it from disappearing into your surroundings in giant blobs.

A sip from the glass draws the whiskey up a spiral channel etched into the surface of the medical-grade PLA plastic. And if you’re alarmed at the prospect of drinking from something that feels like a child’s cup, Parr has you covered: A special metallic mouth piece provides the cold feel of glass. That means that the thing is safe to use in space — nobody wants a drunken astronaut scattering broken glass in the ISS, after all.

There are some other neat touches, too: a one-way valve at the base allows a special whiskey bottle to fill it with a shot without leaking, and a magnet in the base allows it to be placed on a surface without floating away. Ballantine has published more details about the design process on Medium, if you’re really interested.

Of course, the chances of any of use sipping whiskey in space are some way off. But it may still prove the most exciting way to try out Japanese distillery Suntory’s space-aged whiskey.

[MIKA27]

Terrify Your Neighbours With This Window Tapping Peeping Tom Prank

It’s never too early to start planning a cruel Halloween prank, and this year ThinkGeek’s got a doozy: an easy-to-install motorised Peeping Tom face that taps on windows at pre-set intervals so it won’t go unnoticed. Muhuhaha!

Powered by three AAA batteries (that will probably be destroyed alongside the prank once it’s discovered by the victim) you just hang this $US60 Peeping Tom face on the outside of a window and then set its moving finger to tap three times on the glass when activated by motion, or three taps every ten seconds.

A metal tip on the end of the faux peeper’s finger ensures the tapping can always be heard, but the sound should still be faint enough for your victim to have a hard time finding where it’s coming from. But when they do, hopefully you’ll have had enough time to move to another neighbourhood before facing they have a chance to retaliate. [ThinkGeek]

[MIKA27]

How To Easily Turn Blades Of Grass Into A Long Rope

Ever find yourself in a field of grass and desperately need a rope? Yeah, me too. Turns out you don’t have to live rope-less, you can just grab a bunch of grass and twist them perfectly into a strong and sturdy rope that can hold much more weight than you think.

Here’s how, from Youtuber NightHawkInLight.

It’s an ancient method but it’s also really, really easy. He writes:

Note that for best results, each of the two tails of the rope should be twisted an equal number of turns as they’re wound. That will ensure that the two coils wind around one another tightly and in a double helix pattern. If one side is twisted less than the other it will tend to stay straight, while the more twisted side coils around it like a spring.

[MIKA27]

This Is How Boeing Is Building The First Commercial Starliner Spacecraft Ever

NASA and Boeing have released a little teaser on their newest spacecraft, the CST-100 Starliner, which will be built and tested at Kennedy Space Center and hopefully, eventually, taxi people to space. Imagine touring space inside one of these awesome pods in the future. The video below highlights some features of the Starliner.

[MIKA27]

The Government's New $18.5 Million Facial Recognition System Will Put A Face To Crime In Australia

Many Australians have experienced that sinking feeling upon finding their credit card has been skimmed, scrambling to alert their bank while a stranger makes off with their hard earned cash. This can be even worse in cases of identity fraud, with criminals even taking out credit cards in other people’s names or using forged documents with their details. Australia’s newest national security weapon is designed to combat this threat, with an $18.5 million investment called the ‘National Facial Biometric Matching Capability’ to be operational from mid next year.

Identity crime is one of Australia’s most prevalent types of crime, according to a 2014 study. These findings have resulted in $18.5 million of a $1.3 billion investment in national security going towards the development of a sophisticated facial recognition system. According to the report, between 750,000 and 900,000 Australians have been a victim of identity crime, with many experiencing an average financial loss of more than $4000 as a result. It is also suspected that even more cases of identity crime go unreported, meaning the numbers could easily be far higher.

Fraudulent documents are apparently worryingly simple to get your hands on, if you know where to look. An investigation by the Australian Federal Police found ‘black markets’ were selling fake IDs ranging from $80 for a Medicare card right up to $30,000 for a legitimately issued passport. The most difficult form of identity crime to catch is reported to be the use of fraudulent documents that feature the criminal’s photo alongside another person’s details. With this new system, the fraudulent photos could quickly be compared with other photo identification under the victim’s name — such as their driver’s license — to ensure that the person in the photo is the right one.

With over 100 million facial identification photos stored by the government agencies that produce identity documents, these new biometrics capabilities could become a powerful tool for national law enforcement and security agencies. Aside from tackling issues of identity crime, this system can also be used to expedite putting a name to the face of terror suspects, murderers, and armed robbers.

If you’re starting to imagine the potential Orwellian consequences of this technology, don’t stress yourself too much about it. This development doesn’t give any government agencies any new powers, and must continue to operate in line with the existing Privacy Act. There will be no single database containing every picture of you ever taken — it simply means that if someone tries to book a flight to Syria using your name, there’s a far better chance they’ll be caught.

[MIKA27]

Apple's So-Called Gaming Console Is A Major Bust

For six years now, soothsaying analysts and bloggers have predicted that the rise of easy, affordable iOS games would dominate the gaming market and render consoles obsolete. Nintendo is dead, too, they’d say. And PC gaming.

Even today, as the PC thrives and the PS4 and Xbox One have outperformed most game publishers’ expectations, the tech prophets have taken to the internet’s streets with big signs saying “CONSOLES ARE DOOMED. APPLE IS HERE.”

“Why the new Apple TV will kill your Xbox or Playstation,” wrote Cult of Mac on August 29.

“Apple’s about to take on your game consoles with a new device,” wrote my good friend Ben Gilbert over at Business Insider.

“Sorry Consoles, Apple’s Controller Support Spells Trouble For You,” wrote Kotaku, a snack website that occasionally covers video games, back in 2013. (Sorry, Fahey.)

“Could a new Apple device — one linked to the television — shake up the market for game consoles?” posited the New York Times earlier this week. “The idea no longer seems ridiculous to many people in the games business.”

If the idea didn’t seem ridiculous two days ago, it certainly does today, after a disappointing display in which Apple showed off a micro-console that’s more likely to dominate the Ouya than it is any PlayStation or Xbox. The newly-announced Apple TV, packaged with a motion-controlled remote and a handful of iOS games, sort of resembles a Wii — if the Wii was flooded with shovelware and had no Nintendo games. Like the middling Fire TV and every other tepid microconsole that’s launched over the past few years, nothing about the Apple TV’s gaming selection looks like a must-have. It’s all very… Apple.

In a brief presentation that occupied roughly five minutes of their two-hour show today, Apple showed off two games: the iOS port Crossy Road (now with multiplayer!) and a new Harmonix exclusive called Beat Sports that looks straight out of 2006. Crossy Road is an amusing take on Frogger, and Beat Sports could be fun, but neither is a system-seller, and all of the games Apple later announced on their website fall more into the category of “silly diversion” than “must-play experience.” Apple has never cared enough about gaming to put an end to clones, let alone to develop or cultivate the type of system-sellers that a gaming platform needs to attract any serious user-base in today’s oversaturated video game landscape. The iPhone and iPad are full of great games mostly by accident.

Directly after the gaming session, Apple spent an equal amount of time advertising for the shopping app Gilt, which tells you all you need to know about their priorities when it comes to gaming. Far from the game-focused juggernaut that tech blogs had been hyping, the Apple TV is instead what we all should have expected: a cool media device that might also play a few games but certainly won’t replace our PS4s or even our iPads.

Not that Apple cares that much about making a video game console. Buried in the fine print of their developer hub is a caveat that the Apple TV won’t have local storage for apps, meaning you’ll have to store all of your save data in the cloud. On top of that, the maximum size of an Apple TV application will be 200MB — “Anything beyond this size needs to be packaged and loaded using on-demand resources,” Apple writes. (For reference: Hearthstone is 868MB on iOS. Fallout Shelter is 205MB.)

The old Apple TV is an excellent media device, and I have no doubt this one will trump it. But as the gaming console everyone was hyping? It’s a major bust. Maybe it’s time everyone put down the crystal balls.

[MIKA27]

19 THINGS THAT LOOK JUST LIKE DONALD TRUMP'S FAMOUS HAIRDO

The secret behind Donald Trump's famous combover has eluded us for years now. Is it natural, a toupee, or transplants? The world may never know. I'm sure it takes a lot of work for him to keep up, but where would America be without it? It truly is a beacon of hope.

And did you know that Donald Trump's hair actually even has it's own Twitter account ? It's truly an amazing feed of combover goodness.

[MIKA27]

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CHILEAN DESERT YOU'LL FIND THIS GIANT HAND

Travel along the coordinates 24.1583° S, 70.1565° W and you'll find yourself in the Atacama Desert of Chile standing directly in front of the famous and unusual sculpture known as 'The Mano de Desierto'. Built in the early 1980's and standing 36ft up out of the ground, the giant hand is made from a combination of iron and concrete - sturdy enough to handle the elements.

It was created by Chilean sculptor Mario Irarrázabal, who used the unique work as a metaphor for his feelings of sorrow, loneliness and injustice. That sense of helplessness and vulnerability, were perhaps a reflection of the common feelings felt by many Chileans under the rule of dictator Augusto Pinochet.

The former Presidents stranglehold over the public and his brutal acts of torture against those would oppose him - key in creating sense of fear and helplessness, especially during the final years of his 17 year reign.

Today 'The Mano de Desierto' is not a reminder of Chile's complex past but also a unique and surreal work of art in its own right. If you're planning on going to see it up close and personal, take plenty of water - as you can see from the video above there is literally nothing but dusty desert for the next 75KM

[MIKA27]

Monolith Near Stonehenge Has Different Shape and Purpose

As impressive as Stonehenge is, newly discovered stones at a site just two miles away may put it to shame in size, scope and purpose. The site is the Durrington Walls and new evidence suggests that it once had at least 90 stones standing in a straight line. Many of them are buried on their sides just feet below the surface and they may have been knocked over on purpose.

Map shwing the locations of Stonehenge and Durrington Walls

Previous excavations found houses showing that Durrington Walls was a short-lived settlement dating back to between 2525 and 2470 BC. It’s surrounded by a ditch and a bank that measures a meter tall in some spots. To avoid damaging the site, the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project pulled ground-penetrating radar equipment over it and made the startling new discoveries.

Ground-penetrating radar equipment was used to discover the new stones without excavation

Ninety monoliths measuring 15 feet in height were found buried in a straight line. Thirty stones are intact while the other 60 are in fragments. All appear to have once been standing in a line and were knocked down and buried underneath the dirt bank. Why this was done is a mystery.

The green circles are the buried stones

So is the reason for the stones being in a straight line. The monument predates the Durrington Walls settlement and may have been built at the same time as Stonehenge or possibly even earlier. Despite their close proximity, they don’t appear to have served the same purpose and may not have been built by the same people. The massive scale of the Durrington Walls monument suggests it was a ritual arena built to be impressive in size and shape.

This would have been impressive

Part of Durrington Walls is aligned with the rising sun on the winter solstice. If it was indeed a sacred and significant site, the toppling and burial of the stones may have been done to protect it.

The discovery was unveiled at the opening of the British Science Festival at the University of Bradford.

The true mystery of Stonehenge, Avebury, Durrington Walls and the other Neolithic sites is that the more we find out about them, the less we know.

[MIKA27]

Possible Pterosaur Recorded Flying Over Idaho

If you took a survey asking which dinosaur people would most like to see in modern times, the answer would probably be the flying reptile (yes, it’s not really a dinosaur) known as the pterosaur. A video taken recently in Boise, Idaho, shows what looks like a pterosaur soaring across the sky. Have millions of wishes come true?

The defining characteristics of a pterosaur are a wide bat-like wingspan and a large backward-pointing crest. The creature in the video appears to have both. It flaps its wings, glides and does some sort of maneuver before flying out of sight. Is it real? A fake glider or kite? CGI?

There have been a number of alleged pterosaur sightings around the world. Texas and California are the states in the U.S. where some have occurred. In Texas, there were reports of pterosaurs in Harlingen in 1976, San Antonio in 1976 and Los Fresnos in !982. No photos were taken but three-toed, 8-inch tracks were found in Harlingen. Pterosaurs have also reportedly been seen in Kansas, Utah, Arizona and Ohio … and now Idaho.

As expected, there are many more pterosaur sightings in Africa and on remote Pacific islands. In 1923, natives in Zambia reported seeing what they called a kongamoto, which means “overwhelmer of boats,” and said it looked just like drawings of pterosaurs. There have been many reports of pterosaurs in Papua New Guinea, where it’s called a ropen and has the unusual characteristic of glowing while flying.

Has some species of pterosaur survived extinction for 65 million years by hiding in the jungles of Africa or the forests of Idaho? Where are they? Are they sharing hiding places with thunderbirds? It’s difficult to judge the size and shape of birds, bats and gliding animals when seen in flight, especially at night. Does that explain every sighting of a pterosaur?

What do you think? Does the video from Idaho nudge your needle towards ‘yes’ or ‘no’?

MIKA: I believe in Cryptids but I call BS on this one. Wing flapping looks too stiff IMO and that manoeuvre is unnatural, not that I've ever seen a pterosaur

[MIKA27]

What It's Like Living Near Cotopaxi, Ecuador's Very Active Volcano

The trouble with Cotopaxi, Ecuador's largest volcano, is that no one knows when it's going to blow.

"It isn't going to explode little by little," says Mauricio Andrade, a café owner in Latunga, a town near the base of Cotopaxi. Roughly 16 miles from the volcano itself, Latacunga has benefitted from Cotopaxi's renown in the form of tourism but now stands directly in its line of fire. "There will be a boom, and everything that's in its path—water, rocks, trees—will be brought down in gushing streams of lava. In 30 minutes it could take out half of the city. But we don't know when it will happen."

El Gringo y La Gorda, Mauricio's café, serves a cocktail called Cotopaxi, as well as one dubbed Fin del Mundo, or "End of the World." He was in Latacunga on August 14 when Cotopaxi woke up after 70 years of relative calm, issuing ash and smoke from its mouth. That day, the Ecuadorian government raised the volcanic activity alert level. The next day, Latacunga's airport was closed. Two days later, President Rafael Correa declared a state of emergency.

"The city just went crazy," Mauricio says. "We kicked opened our doors and we took what we could and we just ran. We were not prepared with masks or first aid kits. It was mayhem."

The town of 70,000 is now on volcano watch. According to a statement from the office of Minister of Security Cesár Navas, an eruption of Cotopaxi would affect around 300,000 people.

Cotopaxi is the third largest volcano in the world. Its crater is roughly 2,600 by 1,600 feet wide. It is 20,000 feet above sea level. And it's covered in snow.

Here's the other problem: Latacunga is intersected by three rivers—San Pedro, Cutuchi, and Illuchi. In an eruption, simulations done by the Geopolitical Institute of Ecuador predict these rivers will overflow with lahars—a mix of melted ice, lava, and whatever other debris get picked up along the way. The banks would burst and potentially wipe out anyone living by the river between Latacunga and Quito, about 30 miles away. In other words, the top of the volcano is a ticking time bomb.

To many all this means one thing: run.

"A fifth of the community has left," claims Mauricio. "Some forever, some temporarily. The little tourism we had is gone because most people come to see or climb Cotopaxi and the national park is closed. And now because people don't know what's going to happen, they're holding on to their money to wait and see what happens. They're scared."

Hotel owner Enrique Naranjo says he has lost 80 bookings in the past month. His friend's Mexican restaurant Guadalajara has closed down, he claims. Valuable artifacts have been removed from the local museum. And even the town's famous Mama Negra festival has been cancelled—which is ironic when you consider why it's held.

Mama Negra celebrates the town's salvation from the 1742 eruption of Cotopaxi. According to folklore, when Cotopaxi exploded people from the church decided not to evacuate but instead carry a statue of the Virgin of Mercy in procession in the streets and pray for mercy. This, so the story goes, calmed the volcano's fury. And now, every year there's a big party to celebrate.

But when you're on Volcano Watch, nothing else matters but Cotopaxi—not even the virgin who saved it.

Police sergeant Carlos Culinya of the nearby town Cumbayá is manning a stall at the town's Feria de Seguridad, which roughly translates to "Security Festival" in English. The event's vibe is odd, somewhere between a fair and a day of public safety demonstrations. Reggaeton blasts from stereos; there are fire engines and giant blow-up policemen. Kids are learning how to ride Segways. Others pretend to get rescued. But beneath the upbeat mood of the kids, there is a feeling of deep anxiety among parents.

Since the explosion, there have been 14 practice evacuations across danger zones to the volcano's north, east, and west. Culinya explains, "We are training people to know where the information centers and the secure areas are. We are teaching people house by house, suburb by suburb, all along the river. Because we don't know when, what, or if something will happen."

"We came to see what's going to happen with the volcano, to see what areas will be affected and what areas will be safe," says Elena Perez, a local mother of two. "We are trying to see what areas are in the danger zones so we can make a plan. For example, if the kids are in school where should they wait for us? Where we should pick them up? Where will our family meet? If we can make it, I mean."

One child asks a security official, "Will the gas stations explode?" The response: probably.

As part of the effort to prepare the public for the worst, volunteers hand out Emergency Plan brochures. The front page has a picture of an angry exploding volcano with a house sliding down it. A man, a little girl holding a teddy bear, and a cow look on. In big bold letters it reads, "Volcanos were here before us. Respect their space and you won't get hurt by an eruption."

It's a child-friendly interpretation of the Cotopaxi situation. But it's hard for locals to be cheery when there are news updates of increased volcanic activity, or when posters tell you how to dispose of ash (not in front of the gutter) and others explain how to care for a passed-out dog (gently lift them with a towel).

And adding to all the anxiety are the rumors. An audio message was leaked claiming the government was hiding the seriousness of the situation. The message was dismissed by the government (their response is here) but controlling hysteria continues to be a challenge.

As with any emergency, there are those who don't take it seriously. Someone has created a Volcán Cotopaxi Twitter account, posting "Roooaaar!"

"Social media has been a problem," admits Juan Zapata, Security Chief of the Quito metropolitan zone. "Someone makes a comment and all of a sudden everyone is panicking. We didn't have that problem back in 1742."

But for most, especially those in Latacunga, there is a tangible fear that their town is on the brink of destruction.

"We're trying to be positive, to put on a good face for the few people who come but we're nervous, obviously," says Mauricio. "Almost every day we've had ash and smoke. Every day it's more constant."

He looks down at his rubber bracelet, decorated with the words, "I love Latacunga." Despite the steady fall of ash, miles-long columns of smoke, and thick smell of sulphur, he is determined not to leave the town, whatever the risk. But he is forgiving of those who do.

"We can't judge the people who leave because they had to leave. They wake up in the middle of the night, afraid they'll be swept away by lava," he says.

For now, the town and other areas in the danger zones remain under alert. There will be more practice evacuation, more brochures, more updates, but ultimately no more answers.

As Mauricio says, "We're left with huge questions: When is it going to happen? How big will it be? Will we survive? After it happens how much damage there be? We just don't know."

[MIKA27]

Dramatic Video Shows Plane Ablaze on Las Vegas Runway

All 172 passengers and crew escaped a fire on a British Airways (BA) plane in Las Vegas on Tuesday when smoke and flames engulfed the aircraft as it was about to take off for London.

The fire in one of the plane's two engines sent black smoke into the cabin, forcing the passengers to rush to the front, sparking scenes of panic, one person on board tweeted.

Several passengers and crew suffered minor injuries and were taken to hospital after all on board the Boeing 777 escaped down emergency inflatable slides.

"Mayday, Mayday, Speedbird 2276 request fire services," one of the pilots is heard saying calmly on an audio clip posted online. "We are evacuating on the runway, we have a fire, I repeat, we are evacuating."

The Federal Aviation Administration's Pacific Division said the plane's left engine had burst into flames on take-off. BA said the engines were made by General Electric (GE). A GE spokesman in Europe declined to comment.

Video and photographs from the scene showed the wide-body jet engulfed in flames and thick black smoke at McCarran International Airport. The plane was carrying 159 passengers and 13 crew members.

"Our crew evacuated the aircraft safely and the fire was quickly extinguished by the emergency services at the airport," a BA spokeswoman said.

The incident temporarily delayed flights across the western United States.

Jacob Steinberg, a sports journalist for Britain's Guardian newspaper, tweeted that he had fallen asleep on the plane during take-off and felt the jetliner come to "crashing halt".

"Could smell and see smoke but was on other side of plane. One person said fire melted a couple of windows," he wrote. "They opened the back door and slide went down and smoke started coming in plane, followed by mad dash to front. A lot of panic."

The BA spokeswoman said the airline was providing passengers with hotel accommodation and other needs.

[MIKA27]

APPLE IPHONE 6S AND 6S PLUS

The Cupertino-based tech giant has officially pulled the curtain back on the latest iPhone iteration. Don’t let the outside fool you; the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus have been significantly upgraded from last year’s models, and is sure to have Apple fans chomping at the bit.

They now have a feature called 3D Touch, which uses Force Touch technology. A light pressure will allow you to peek at the contents of an app, while pressing with more force will pop it open. The updated phones use an A9 chip, speeding up overall performance by 70 percent, and graphics performance by 90 percent. For photographers and selfie snappers there’s now a 12 megapixel camera, and they can shoot 4k video. Even the phones’ enclosure has been upgraded to 7000 series aluminum, the same used in the aerospace industry, and the cover glass is the most durable ever implemented on any smart phone. The new iPhone 6s features a 4.7″ display and costs $649, while the iPhone 6s Plus features a 5.5″ display and will run you $749.

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CAMPAGNOLO BIG CORKSCREW

The Campagnolo Big Corkscrew is exactly the type of design you’d expect from the Italian cycling brand. Taking decades of Italian engineering and design into account, the company’s founder designed a corkscrew which always places the screw in the central part of the cork.

Its design makes opening a fresh bottle of wine a breeze, allowing users to easily pull out even the most stubborn corks without ruining the wine. Its screw is developed in such a way that it prevents piercing through the bottom of the cork, preventing cork from falling into the wine. And because of its big size, it provides an impressive amount of leverage to pull corks right out of their bottles with ease. It was first introduced in 1966, and its design remains unchanged. It’s available in two finishes: antique bronze or silver. It will run you $182. [Purchase]

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THE HUNTING LODGE BY SNOHETTA

It’s undeniable that Norway’s landscapes are breathtaking, so when someone disrupts the land in some way, we often scowl. But what if that disruption barely scratches the surface of the landscape, blending into nature in a way that is unmatched? The Hunting Lodge by Snohetta is the perfect example of that.

This lodge set deep in the western mountains of Norway along the Akrafjorden Fjord looks to be one with nature. It’s expertly crafted utilizing steel beam construction that’s covered with timber. Its top is covered in green moss that matches the landscape, hiding it from planes or helicopters that might pass above. The result is a beautiful, warm and cozy getaway that can only be reached by horseback or foot. It can house up to 21 people, and it has a central fireplace to mark the gathering point.

[MIKA27]

The Jeep Wrangler Pickup Is Becoming a Reality

With the addition of a longer Wrangler, the Unlimited, the question now becomes—could we see a pickup edition of the ever-popular Jeep? After all, the Jeep Gladiator concept introduced in 2005 (pictured above) has long since churned the rumor mills of a pickup Wrangler. And it wouldn’t be the first time either. Despite being generally a shitty decade for cars, the 80s did give us the CJ-8 Scrambler, a long wheelbase version of the Wrangler. Well, churn no more fellas, the rumor is now reality. Sort of. While details are limited, expect to see a Wrangler-based pickup in showrooms as early as 2017 or 2018 with production remaining in Toledo, Oh.

[MIKA27]

The Story of Anchor Liberty Ale: The Beer that Started the Craft Revolution

Liberty Ale was first brewed in 1975 to commemorate the start of a revolution—the 200th anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride—but, in the process, it ended up launching one.

Walk into any taproom, bottle shop or local watering hole these days and you’ll find an IPA-heavy assortment of sudsy offerings. And while the India Pale Ale’s history can be traced overseas, the American version’s history, in all its hoppy glory, begins with Anchor Liberty Ale.

Frederick Louis “Fritz” Maytag purchased Anchor Brewing Company in 1965, saving the 70-year-old brewery from closing its doors. “When Fritz started, there were mostly major breweries making lager,” says Mark Carpenter, brewmaster at Anchor. “The smaller breweries that were around at the time just tried to compete by making cheaper lager than the big guys.”

Knowing that model would never work, Maytag decided to focus on quality, being hands-on and, in turn, charging a bit more for his beer. It would be nine years before he saw a profit, but shortly after he did, Maytag looked to expand Anchor’s range beyond the classic Anchor Steam and the newly introduced Anchor Porter, which was the first produced by an American craft brewery after Prohibition. To do so, he looked to England.

Drawing inspiration from a stronger ale he had during his travels in West Yorkshire, Maytag returned to the U.S. and concocted Anchor’s newest beer: Liberty Ale. It was a beer that featured hops like no American beer had before, and it defied existing labels. Liberty Ale was more effervescent than the pale ales of England, brewed with whole-cone hops, and crafted with only natural ingredients. A couple of years earlier, it was Coors who started experimenting with Cascade hops, a new American hop variety. But whereas Coors used the newfangled American hop in small quantities to impart some slight notes, Anchor went all in on it. Not only did they use it during the boil to make a beer far more bitter than anything most Americans had ever come across, but they used it to dry-hop Liberty Ale and deliver an aroma U.S.-based nostrils had never experienced. For the first time, that citrusy, floral aroma that drives hopheads crazy flowed from draft lines.

It was the first American IPA (or the first American Pale Ale, as category lines are often quite blurry). Since Anchor Liberty Ale didn’t exist when the terms “American Pale Ale” and “IPA” were used prevalently in the States, it was simply called their “special ale.” Michael Jackson, the famed beer writer, called Anchor Liberty Ale the first modern American ale, and its introduction set in motion the craft beer tidal wave that would slowly build over the next few decades.

“Pale Ales started the microbrewers revolution,” says Carpenter. After Liberty Ale came New Albion Ale from New Albion Brewing Company, a short-lived brewery that only churned out 7.5 barrels a week, and then the infamous Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, often championed as one of the earliest and finest craft brews. It was the style that launched a thousand little breweries, inspired homebrewers, and changed the landscape of beer in America.

Today, IPAs account for close to a quarter of all craft beer sales, and the style is the most popular category at the Great American Beer Festival. Names like “Heady” and “Pliny” dominate trade forums and spark impromptu trips to Vermont and California. Five of the top ten beers in America sport those three little letters (even if they drop a “D” before them). “When I started, there were 100 breweries in America,” says Carpenter, who began working at Anchor in 1971. “Today there’s around 3,800. It’s impossible to comprehend.” It really is. It’s estimated that America’s beer industry has created 1.75 million jobs, and that’s not just because of the big guys. There’s BPA (Before Pale Ale) and APA (After Pale Ale).

With close to 4,000 breweries, we suggest stopping into the one around the corner, ordering up their latest IPA featuring the current hottest hop (they’ll have one), and raising a toast to Fritz Maytag and Anchor Brewing for starting this whole damn thing.

[MIKA27]

HONDA 2&4

Set to debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show, is the impressive Honda Project 2&4, a spectacular four wheeled, lightweight, open-air kart with a 999cc V4 superbike motor under the hood. Designed by Honda’s motorcycle design studio in Asaka, Japan, the 2&4 claims influence from the pivotal RA272 Formula 1 car from 1965, and is powered by a 215 hp RC213V competition motorcycle engine. The unique "floating seat” design places the driver as close to the action as possible, evoking the freedom of a bike, and the maneuverability of a car.

MIKA: Maybe Button and Alonso can get better results driving one of these?

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The iPhone's New 3D Touch Is The Future Of User Interaction -- Here's How It Works

It’s official: The new iPhone 6s will have force feedback. But the new feature, called 3D Touch, won’t be quite like any other haptic feature Apple has used before.

While a few Apple products and competing smartphones have featured forms of force feedback before, make no mistake: Apple throwing the weight of the iPhone behind this emerging form of interaction is a big deal. It’s “unlike any experience you’ve ever seen in an iPhone,” said Schiller, also calling it “profound and new.”

So what, exactly, does that mean?

What You’ll See and Feel

Here’s what we know about this new feature from the user’s perspective. 3D Touch adds two new distinct levels of interaction to your fingers. There’s a “peek” and a “pop,” each of which will activate discrete modes of functionality. The peek is the one you’ll probably use the most. It opens up a preview-style window into whatever you’re touching, be it a link to a website or a map. Pop lets you actually go to that content. Together, the idea is to make the way you interact with your phone far simpler and far faster, cutting away excess taps.

The first use case Craig Federighi gave us was the email inbox. You can “peek” at an email to see the content, but if you press deeper — a “pop” — to really open it. Peek will also open up content like Safari pages and flight information, right within the “peek.”

Another example: Within Maps, you can use peeks and pops to drop pins, grab directions, and other direct routes to functionality within the app.

Third party app developers will be able to leverage 3D Touch too. Instagram, one example onstage today, lets you “peek” at a photo in your Explore tab without fully opening them, or pop into the full post. Each of these interactions will be accompanied by haptic feedback — little vibrations that let you know what you’re doing on the screen.

What’s Inside

Having secondary and tertiary forms of touch on such a small screen is a risk — it could easily confuse some users, and if it isn’t consistent, it could be a massive headache for everyone. That’s why the hardware matters so much.

First the glass screen, which like all screens, bends and deforms on a microscopic level when you tap it. According to Jony Ive, the system interprets the force of your fingers by measuring the distance between the glass and the phone’s backlight, using a layer of capacitive sensors that are embedded against the backlight of the phone itself. When you press the screen, the super-sensitive capacitors can actually measure the “microscopic” change in distance between the glass and the backlight.

So 3D Touch is basically just measuring how much your taps (whether hard, enraged, my-flight-just-got-cancelled taps or calm, slight, I-just-woke-up-and-am-browsing-Instagram taps) are displacing your phone’s screen.

Now for the hardware that provides the feedback.

Those buzzes come from an embedded haptic actuator — or as Apple has rebranded it, the “Taptic Engine” — which is similar to the one that provides vibrations in the Apple Watch. This is essentially just a linear actuator, which creates a single buzz with each firing, but this one is very, very fine-grained. Ive says that it only requires a single oscillation to reach full power, compared to the ten oscillations that your current phone probably needs to produce a vibration.

Translation: This engine can provide force feedback very, very quickly — and stop it just as fast.

Together, both of those hardware features are meant to create a more deft form of user interaction using haptic feedback. When you peek, your finger will get a response buzz of 10 milliseconds. A longer look will gain you 15 millisecond buzz. Presumably, over time, those haptic responses will get more varied and diverse. Theoretically, a finer actuator could be programmed to provide customised and detailed responses — likewise, we may see the capacitor layer of the 6s get more sensitive and provide even more new levels of touch interaction.

And that’s why Apple using haptic feedback matters: More than anything else, this company is a heavyweight of hardware design. The smallest details of these new nuts and bolts inside your device, which you’ll never actually see, have been refined and refined again in a way that most companies can’t afford. Those tiny hardware details matter. Apple wasn’t first with haptic, but with its hardware and manufacturing expertise, it’s trying to be the best.