Chanoatx

Despite its name, the Goliath birdeater does not normally eat birds. As with other tarantulas, their diet consists primarily of insects. However, because of its size and opportunistic predatory behavior, it is not uncommon for this species to kill and consume a variety of small terrestrial vertebrates. In the wild, T. blondi has been observed feeding on rodents, frogs and toads, lizards, and snakes. Click here to view the first image in this week's funny homework questions gallery. Continue reading for a viral video of an 11-year-old hiding a surprising talent.

If someone asked us what we think the year 2100 is going to be like, it'd probably be filled with holodecks, flying cars, and other crazy things. Between the years of 1899 and 1900, Hildebrands - a German chocolate company - created a series of postcards called "Life in the Year 2000." As you can see, these postcards showed all kinds of crazy concepts about what people thought the year 2000 was going to be like. Continue reading to see them all.

LOS ANGELES — There are so many cool new Batman 75th anniversary Mondo posters here, you could hang them from the ceiling and call it the ultimate Batmobile.

Art gallery/online store Mondo will opens its Batman 75th Anniversary Gallery show on Oct. 24 at the Mondo Gallery in Austin, Texas. Batman joins recent Mondo events for Marvel, Disney and Game of Thrones.

SEE ALSO: Adam West Is a Crusader for Ben Affleck's Batman

So, you ask, why celebrate the Caped Crusader in October, when Detective Comics #27 introduced Batman on March 30, 1939? Holy literal interpretations, Batman! If the person commissioning all this art were named Gordon, we'd happily riddle you that Read more...

Arkansas has plenty of hilly terrain and forests. But until recently, it lacked in engineered mountain bike trails. Well, not any more.

It’s the end of an era, folks. The long lusted after CRT screen off animation introduced in Nexus devices has now officially been sent out to pasture. As discovered in the latest Android 5.0 Developer build, it’s now been replaced by a sort of fade/zoom effect. CRT… you will be missed.

[Reddit]

Previously, long-pressing a notification would offer a link to the app info page of any app that produced it. With Android 5.0 Lollipop Google is improving this functionality. Simply long-press and you get the app name and icon, as well as a link to the app notification settings. Look at how wonderfully hypnotic the animation is.

So simply long-press to get the app name, time the notification was generated, and a link to notification settings (the button on the right).

[Lollipop Feature Spotlight] A Long-Press On Notifications Shows You The App That Produced Them (With An Awesome Animation) was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

People love pumpkins. They really, really love pumpkins. But if we're going to keep celebrating pumpkin season earlier and earlier each year, we're going to have to think beyond the Jack-o'-Lantern.

Jimmy Fallon and Shailene Woodley took on the pumpkin time bomb experiment on The Tonight Show. How many rubber bands can you wrap around a pumpkin until it explodes? Turns out, over 200

Another important tip: wear goggles.

BONUS: How to Make a Beer Keg Out of a Pumpkin

Read more...

Everyone together now: Flashbacks are coming

Season 5 of Game of Thrones will include a flashback to storylines and background provided in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, HBO confirms to Mashable

Show producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss broke the news this week during a Q&A with film students at an event in Spain, where the show is currently shooting

"By making the first season, we set a rule: No prophecies, dreams or flashbacks. We failed the first two and this season, the third. So yes, this season will finally have flashbacks," the producers said. (The quote is translated from a Spanish article about the event.) Read more...

On the heels of the launch of its new iPhones, Apple unveiled new hardware and software updates at a keynote event in Cupertino, California, on Thursday.

Among Apple's announcements was a launch date for Apple Pay, the iPad mini 3, its thinnest-ever iPad Air 2 and an iMac with retina display

Here's a closer look at everything you need to know (you can watch the full event here).

iPad Air 2

The star of Thursday's event, the new iPad Air, has been completely overhauled. The iPad Air 2 is equipped with a new A8X chip, a special version of the processor used in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, and Apple's Touch ID fingerprint sensor. Read more...

The two nurses who contracted Ebola in Dallas were transferred this week to two of the four highly specialized hospital centers in the U.S. that are designed to treat the disease, suggesting that health officials may have doubts about the ability of local hospitals to handle such patients.

The problem: These four specially equipped biocontainment facilities — in Nebraska, Montana, Maryland and Georgia — have the combined capacity to treat fewer than a dozen Ebola patients at one time.

The limited number of beds isn't unusual for hospitals that treat rare diseases, and a widespread Ebola outbreak in America is extremely unlikely. But if the U.S. is forced to handle more than a dozen Ebola cases — either because the disease spreads further within the country, or more Americans become ill abroad and are brought to the U.S. for treatment — the burden will once again fall to the broader, inadequately trained American health system. Read more...

LeBron James has a message for all you "non-basketball people." That message? He remembers that he plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers now — he's "coming home," in case you missed it — and is no longer a member of the Miami Heat

James has to clarify all this because it looked like he had a senior moment when his current and former teams met for the first time. James, it sure as heck looks like, tried to set a screen on his own Cavaliers teammate Matthew Dellavedova, in the process freeing up his former Heat teammate Norris Cole

As we lay in the aftermath of today’s big announcements (Android 5.0 Lollipop, Nexus 6, and Nexus 9), I think we can now officially call it in: we aren’t going to see a Nexus 5 refresh for 2014. This may come as the biggest let down for those that felt Google’s new gargantuan-sized Nexus 6 phablet was simply too unwieldy, but as we all saw today, Google didn’t surprise the world with a brand new Nexus 5.

Earlier today we told you guys about the Nexus 5 (along with the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10) showing as “out of inventory” in the Google Play Store, suggesting that the Nexus 6 would soon replace the smaller handset. But is that really the case? Let us now divert your attention to the newly remodeled Google Nexus homepage showcasing — not only the Nexus 6, Nexus 9, and Nexus Player — but the Nexus 5 as well. The question you should ask is why would Google go through the trouble of creating a completely new homepage for a device that’s supposed to now be “obsolete?” Simple. Because it’s not.

Although Google hasn’t actually come out and said anything, it seems as if they will continue offering the Nexus 5 in the Google Play Store as a smaller, low priced Nexus option which makes perfect sense. In the event they wanted to refresh some of the device’s specs, offering up a 64GB model or simply dropping the price another $50 would be alright by us given how well the Nexus 5 has aged the past year. What do you guys think?

[Nexus 5 on Google Play]

Quick heads up for those of you in Austin, Texas looking for better internet soon — Google Fiber is nearly ready, and Google will soon be taking signups from anyone interested. The company will accept signups from the metropolitan area of the city for any and all folks interested.

It’s believed that those in smaller, surrounding markets will have to pool together and show enough interest in Fiber for Google to start spreading the service (though if rollouts in Kansas City and Provo are anything to go by, that won’t be a huge issue).

Google will offer their standard gigabit high speed service for those willing to pay up the monthly coin for it, though basic free internet for 7 years is certain to be an option as long as you pay the $300 upfront installation cost. Not bad if you or someone you know doesn’t need a whole lot of data to get things done. Google has a sizable list of other cities they want to hit in the months to come and within the next year, but these things take time and you shouldn’t be holding your breath for Fiber in your area if you need internet connectivity now.

[via WSJ]

There's no shortage of ways to track your data while working out, especially when it comes to things like running and cycling. There's Runkeeper, Map My Ride/Run, Endomondo, Strava, and many others. Which one you choose really comes down to personal preference, but each has its own set of benefits and features that may make it a better fit into your life. Personally, I've been using Runtastic since I reviewed the Orbit a couple of months ago, and settled in with the company's dedicated road cycling app after getting the Runtastic-branded Speed & Cadence Sensor and Heart Rate Monitor.

Runtastic Speed & Cadence Sensor And Heart Rate Monitor Review: Two Useful Tools To Transform Your Phone Into A Full-Fledged Cyclometer was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

With Google surprising just about everyone and making an aggressive play to offer up the Nexus 6 across the 4 major carriers in the US, you would assume the phone is being actively tested on those networks. And you’d be right. Taking to his Google+ page, T-Mobile employee Duan Dao decided to post a few images of his test unit, not too unlike the one we saw T-Mobile Product Manager Des Smith unbox yesterday.

Because he’s a good sport, Dao was nice enough to go the extra mile and show the world how the phone compares in size to the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and last year’s Motorola Moto X. The best part was he even posted a few sample images showing off the phone’s photo taking abilities — something we haven’t seen given Google didn’t have time to send out actual review units for anyone to play around with (yet).

Unfortunately, these weren’t posted at anywhere near full res, so you wont be able to blow these up and thoroughly examine every pixel (we also blurred out a minor which appeared in one of the pics). Although the phone is still in testing and the software on the test units more than likely isn’t final, this is just a sample of what you may expect when the phone launches next month. What do you think?

People use Twitter to share just about everything: mundane thoughts, witty commentary, pictures of food, and their favorite sounds. That last bit is the only part of this list that requires a user to jump away from the app. Now the company is addressing that. Twitter has rolled out Audio Cards, a way for users to stream music and other sounds directly within the Android app.

The experience is not all that dissimilar to how Twitter handles images.

Twitter Introduces Audio Cards That Let You Stream Music Directly Within The App was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Alongside announcements for the Nexus 6 and Nexus 9 this morning (as well as confirmation that Android 5.0 will be Lollipop) was a revelation of a new device we hadn’t heard of. It’s called the Nexus Player, and it’s the first consumer-ready Android TV set-top box available with Google’s latest big screen platform. Android TV can be seen as a new platform, of sorts — it’s pretty much Google TV done right. As such, the idea of this set-top box isn’t new but the execution of it is fresh and exciting.

As you’d expect, its primary uses are streaming video, music and photos through apps and Casting, and Google’s also putting a pretty nice emphasis on games. It’s an ASUS made unit that looks to be built quite well at first glance. The internals aren’t anything to sneeze at by a set-top box’s standards, either.

The Nexus Player features a 1.8GHz quad-core Intel Atom chipset, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, HDMI-out at up to 1080p, microUSB 2.0, 802.11 ac WiFi with 2×2 MIMO, Bluetooth 4.1 and more. It comes in at about 235g and its diameter is 120mm with depth of about 20mm. In other words, this thing certainly won’t be taking up much space on your home entertainment stand.

Other points of emphasis for Google are seamless transitions (so you can pause on the big screen and pick back up on your phone or tablet) and effortless search (pressing a microphone button and simply speaking your content into existence). It sounds like everything you’d expect from a Nexus device — nothing outrageous, but does what it’s intended to do very well.

The Nexus Player will be available starting November 3rd, though you can pre-order one starting October 17th (that’s this Friday if you haven’t been keeping up). No pricing information just yet, but we will be keeping you updated on everything we can dig up throughout the day!

[Update]: Looks like Google is targeting a $99 price tag for this thing, which is about par for the course for a set-top box these days. The $35 Chromecast might seem like a better option for folks who don’t need the extra oomph the Nexus Player provides, but this certainly deserves a look at $99.

[via Google]

Developers won't have to put up with that junky "preview" SDK much longer. In just two days (October 17th) the final Android 5.0 SDK will be available for download in the SDK manager.

If you still need the rundown of new features in Android L, check out our post on the official announcement. Developers will be able to play around with features in Lollipop like the new camera API, JobScheduler, and a ton of performance improvements.

The Android 5.0 Lollipop SDK Will Arrive On October 17th was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

The Nexus 6 is too big to be stopped. The news is out, and the phone is as large as you hoped or feared but expected nonetheless. This year's Nexus phone is essentially a stretched out Moto X packed with better specs - 5.96" AMOLED 1440 x 2560 display (493PPI), Snapdragon 805 processor, Adreno 420 GPU, 3GB RAM, 3200mAh battery, 13MP camera, and a 2MP front shooter. On the external side of things, the power and volume buttons have slid halfway down the side of the device so that they're still accessible.

The Nexus 6 Is Official, And It's Running Android Lollipop, Available For Pre-Order October 29th For $649.99 was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Looks like AT&T could be in line to offer the Nexus 6 through their own storefront once the device is announced (well, rumors say to expect it to be announced) later today. A listing for the device appeared on the carrier’s website as the Motorola Nexus 6 with a price tag of $49.99, except the image shown was of an LG G3 Vigor.

There’s no telling how much of this listing was accurate. Was the price tag shown for the LG G3 Vigor or the Nexus 6? We’d guess the former considering that’s its stated cost on AT&T’s site right now. Also, does this mean AT&T will be offering Nexus 6 sales as soon as the device is announced? Having such an early listing up would seem to suggest as much, but we’ll elect not to get too far ahead of ourselves at the moment.

The question isn’t necessarily “if,” anymore, but “when,” “how much,” and “how soon,” and we imagine Google will have all of those answers for us right around daybreak. Let us know if you’ll be looking to purchase one directly through AT&T should they offer the device once it’s allegedly revealed later this afternoon.

Can’t say this 100% foreshadows imminent Nexus 6 and Nexus 9 announcements, but the latest Nexus phone and tablets are no longer in stock on Google Play. The Nexus 5 is showing out of inventory for all 16GB models, while there are no versions of the Nexus 7 or Nexus 10 currently in stock. The 32GB Nexus 5 is still available for shipping in 1-2 business days for all color variants.

Considering these devices should be readily available at this point (nearly a full year from their initial launches) it’s quite odd for them to be so short on inventory. This would lead us to believe that Google is getting ready to retire the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 as their flagship Nexus devices on the Play Store and make room for the new breeds.

Inventory adjustment also suggests that the new devices will be made available for purchase almost as soon as the announcement goes live, though we’ll obviously have to wait for official word to see if that ends up being the case. Another thing this could hint toward are price adjustments to make the older devices cheaper once the newer ones hit the digital store shelves. The Nexus 5 would still be a fine phone for anyone at a cool $300. The only thing we can advise you to do is make sure your Google Wallet account is up to date, make sure your funds are up to snuff and make sure that trigger finger is ready to fire on the point of sale later today.

It’s not 100% official, but it’s now looking like “Lollipop” is a definite contender for the name of the next version of Android. A screenshot taken from the Chromium Issue Tracker site as posted by a Google developer, shows a new never-before-seen debug icon appearing in the notification tray that appears to be an Android head on a stick. Or, you know, an Android Lollipop.

Of course, as we all saw with Android 4.4 KitKat, internally it was known as Key Lime Pie. We even had a similar “leak” showing a debugging icon that appeared to be a slice of key lime pie, only to have Google turn around and strike a deal with Nestle to officially brand Android 4.4. as KitKat and the rest is history.

Right now, rumors are pointing towards an official Nexus 6, Nexus 9 and Android L announcement arriving as soon as tomorrow, so stay tuned!

[Myce]

You know what they say, when it rains, it pours. The typical birthing pangs of a new release, leaks have been spewing out from all around the net as Google prepares to launch the newest additions to their product portfolio: the Nexus 6 and Nexus 9.

If you needed any further confirmation that we’re nearing an official announcement, Forbes is now chiming in, confirming that tomorrow will be the day Google finally reveals, not only their new super-sized smartphone and tablet, but the latest version of their software currently known as “Android L.” They wont have an event, instead of opting for a simple blog post as they work on getting Android L up to speed (and get the jump on Apple’s iPad event).

According to sources, the Nexus 9 (aka HTC Volantis) will be available for pre-order starting this Friday October 17th, public availability (and shipping) on November 3rd. The new tablet will be available in 2 hardware configurations: 16GB for $400, or a 32GB 4G LTE model for $500.

When it comes to specs, Forbes was able to confirm the Nexus 9’s 8.9-inch 2048×1440 resolution display, 64-bit Nvidia Tegra K1 processor, 8MP rear/3MP front-facing cameras, and an approximate weight of 480 grams. As far as stylings, it appears HTC and Google decided to go with a “brushed aluminum” frame instead of “all metal.” This was an effort to help keep their costs down.

An origami-like magnetic flip case / stand will also be available tomorrow as well, and mimics a design we’ve seen before where it bend into various shapes to suit your favorite viewing angles.

Unfortunately, Forbes wasn’t able to confirm much else about the Nexus 6 (like available colors), but then again, tomorrow is only a short time away. Stay tuned!

“The Secret Of Live” shows the beauty of Panamanian nature and adventure.

Apple Pay could launch as soon as this week, a report suggests.

The company is in the midst of prepping staff at its Apple retail stores for the upcoming rollout of Apple Pay, according to 9to5Mac. The mobile payment platform will allow users to complete transactions by tapping an iPhone at a payment terminal and authenticating your fingerprint.

Employees at Apple retail stores are required to attend a one-hour Apple training session in the coming days, the report says. It's a sign that Apple is close to launching the service in stores Read more...

The umbrella market is ripe for innovation, and regular ones just don’t cut it anymore. So one Kickstarter project wants to bring you an umbrella powered by air.

The aptly-named Air Umbrella is a rod-shaped device with a motor, rechargeable lithium battery and fan blade. The device takes in air below the fan blade and forces it out in such a manner that falling rain gets redirected

The device, which is available in Models A, B and C, comes with an adjustment controller at the bottom that allows users to adjust the speed of the motor Read more...