Jaredlieberher

Sometimes, not often, but sometimes I like to end my day with a relaxing cocktail. This $4,399.99 refrigerator from LG gets me. It makes slow melting ice that’s large and round, which any highballer will tell you is superior to all other shapes for the purpose of undiluted alcohol delivery.

I mean, just look at this photo extracted from the overview page of the LG LRFVS3006S, aka, the 30 cu. ft. Smart wi-fi Enabled InstaView™ Door-in-Door® Refrigerator with Craft Ice™ Maker:

This fridge is clearly targeting people who use lounge as a verb, but have never actually used a refrigerator or know the freezing point of water. BUT... look at the beautiful ice in those mixed drinks....

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Everyone in the auto industry is trying to capitalize on skyrocketing SUV sales, from legacy marques like Ford (which is essentially ditching sedans altogether) to longtime luxury holdouts like Lamborghini, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, even Ferrari. The result is it’s harder than ever to stand out from the crowd. So what has BMW done? It made an SUV you can hardly see.

At next month’s Frankfurt Motor Show, BMW will display a one-off version of the forthcoming third-generation X6 SUV that’s been fully coated in Vantablack paint, in which carbon nanotubes are used to create one of the darkest substances on Earth.

BMW tapped Surrey NanoSystems, the company that stumbled onto Vantablack a few years ago,...

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As someone obsessed with handheld gaming consoles, Nintendo’s Switch should have been the ultimate portable system for me. Instead, it actually made me nostalgic for Tiger Electronics’ LCD handhelds; arguably some of the first true portable video game systems. They were cheap, durable, simple, and addictive, and 30…

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Kelty Low-Love Seat | $75 | Amazon | Multiple colors available

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A little while ago, programmer Foone Turing shared a concept image of a portable WinAmp player that sparked intense reactions on Twitter, like, “I’ve never needed anything more in my life,” and fittingly, “it really whips the llama’s ass.” Seeing WinAmp’s skeuomorphic design translated into a physical object — one that could be folded up into a business card-sized MP3 player, no less — was nothing short of mind-blowing.

The concept was designed by Julien Rivoire, a France-based art director and 3D artist who makes everything from imagined retro tech gadgets to soothing, looping animations that provide a visual oasis from your Instagram feed. A self-taught artist, his clients include Louis Vuitton, Nike, and Fool’s Gold Records. We caught...

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The artificer class returns, bringing magical tech to 5e

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MoviePass, the theater subscription service still inexplicably trying to stay in business, left thousands of customers’ credit card numbers and other sensitive pieces of data exposed for anyone to find on an online database, according to a report from TechCrunch. A cybersecurity expert named Mossab Hussain, from a Dubai-based firm named SpiderSilk, discovered the unprotected server and shared sample data sets with TechCrunch to confirm that MoviePass was in fact leaving the data unencrypted and accessible to anyone.

According to TechCrunch, the data includes both MoviePass debit card numbers and the actual personal credit card details of customers, including credit card numbers, expiration dates, billing addresses, and names. TechCrunch...

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Disney will offer a bundle package of its three streaming services — Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ — for $12.99 a month starting on November 12th, the company announced today.

The company previously hinted at a bundle for all three services, but CEO Bob Iger made it official during the company’s investors call today. At $12.99, the bundle is cheaper than or on par with competitive streaming services, including Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. It’s also significantly cheaper than HBO Max’s rumored streaming price of $16-$17 a month. Hulu is currently available for $5.99 a month (with ads), and ESPN+ costs $4.99 a month. ESPN+ is the Disney-owned sports streaming platform, which carries “hundreds of MLB, NHL and MLS games, Grand Slam tennis,...

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Warner Bros. has shifted its release date for Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Dune, bumping it from its original release date of November 20th, 2020 to December 18th, 2020. The film is the latest adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic 1965 science fiction novel, set on a desert planet in a feudal galaxy.

Along with the news, Warner Bros. says that the film will get an IMAX release. The new date will take up the slot that Disney’s typically released its Star Wars films, ensuring that science fiction fans will get another big space opera blockbuster that month.

Villeneuve comes to the film with an impressive track record when it comes to science fiction, first with his first contact film Arrival, and with Blade Runner 2049. The project...

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Real players will walk out of the corn and take their positions, just like the book

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Nintendo appears to be preparing to launch SNES wireless controllers for the Switch. In a FCC filing spotted by forum posters at Resetera, photos of the new SNES controller have been marked as confidential until next year. However, a label location reveals that there could be ZL and ZR buttons on the top or this section could form part of the Joy-Con docking rail to attach them to a Switch.

Nintendo launched NES wireless controllers for the Switch last year, alongside access to classic NES titles via its online subscription service. The FCC filing is fueling speculation that Nintendo will likely launch a similar bundle for SNES classic games, with the controllers sliding into the Joy-Con rails just like the NES versions.

The FCC filing...

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British Airways is hoping that VR entertainment might help some of its passengers distract themselves long enough on a flight to forget they’re zooming several hundred miles per hour at tens of thousands of feet above the ground. In a new pilot program, the UK airline announced that it will offer VR headsets from SkyLights for select first class flights between London’s Heathrow and New York’s JFK airports.

The programming includes 2D, 3D, and 360-degree format movies, documentaries, and TV shows as well as guided meditations to help calm the nerves of those who are afraid of flying. (One could argue that first class seating could help mitigate those fears a bit more than those in economy, but phobias are phobias and who am I to judge?)...

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Enlarge / This can be a bad idea, evidently. (credit: Aurich Lawson)

The relationship between Americans and their automobiles is a complicated one. More than mere transport, cars can become extensions of one's personality—think of stereotypes about drivers of a particular model like a Corvette, for instance. Since cars are mass-produced, it's natural that people want to personalize them. Sometimes it's covering them with every bit of chromed plastic you can find at JCPenney. Sometimes it's plastering them in stickers. And sometimes, it might just be a personalized number plate.

The rules for personalized plates vary depending on the state in which you're registering your car. These can foster creativity, but today we have a cautionary tale from California, which reveals the risks of being too creative. It's the story of a security researcher known as Droogie, who presented his experience at the recent DEFCON conference in Las Vegas. Droogie decided his new vanity plate should read "NULL." While he did this mainly for the giggles, he told the audience that there was an ulterior motive, as reported by Mashable:

"I was like, ‘I'm the shit,'" he joked to the crowd. "'I’m gonna be invisible.' Instead, I got all the tickets."

Droogie's hope was that the new plate would exploit California's DMV ticketing system in a similar manner to the classic xkcd "Bobby Tables" cartoon. With any luck, the DMV's ticket database would see "NULL" and consign any of his tickets to the void. Unfortunately, the exact opposite happened.

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Do more with the iPad Pro’s one and only port

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Burger King will start selling its meatless Impossible Whopper in its more than 7,000 locations across the US starting on August 8th. The fake meat patty, which costs only a dollar more than the beef version, is supplied by Impossible Foods. It first rolled out in April in St. Louis restaurants. The Impossible Whopper contains 15 percent less fat and 90 percent less cholesterol than the standard Whopper.

Even still, Burger King claims customers can’t tell the difference, especially because the burger is designed to “bleed,” just like a meat patty. This occurs because of a compound called heme, which is found in plants and meat. (The Impossible Whopper comes topped with mayonnaise, so it isn’t vegan-friendly.)

To prove just how similar...

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Fire Emblem: Three Houses has some of the most rewarding tactics action and Hogwarts-simulating that you can get. There aren’t many flaws in the game, but there is something that badly needs to be fixed: For a game focused on navigating menus, that text size sure is tiny.

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If you can hear the sound of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” playing in the distance, it’s likely because Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi is returning for Marvel’s Thor 4.

Waititi is pausing his work on Warner Bros.’ live-action Akira adaptation to focus his attention on Thor 4, according to a new report from The Hollywood Reporter. There isn’t too much information about Thor 4 right now, but Waititi is expected to team up with Chris Hemsworth again for the project. Considering Avengers: Endgame ended with a tease of Thor heading out to space with the Guardians of the Galaxy, there may be some crossovers, too.

The director’s decision to board Thor 4 and drop Akira came as a shock, according to a report from Variety. There was...

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In 2015, a Connecticut teenager raised the question of whether our robots have the right to bear arms when he jury-rigged a working flamethrower — and separately, a semiautomatic pistol — to his drone.

But this Thursday, for better or worse, you’ll be able to easily build a flying flamethrower yourself. You’re looking at a the Throwflame TF-19 Wasp, a functional flamethrower attachment for commercial-grade heavy lift drones that can hit targets up to 25 feet away, with a one-gallon fuel tank that can produce a stream of fire for 100 seconds, according to the company.

Mind you, the $1,499 price for the flamethrower won’t get it up in the sky, as you’ll need to provide the drone, too — which you may need to piece together since commercial...

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Bundled with all DLC, will come to PC and consoles too

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While some of Nike’s recent pop-culture tie-ins have merely been inspired by something, this upcoming line of Kyries is a full and officially licensed collaboration between the athletics company and...Spongebob Squarepants. [Update: now with official product images]

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In the end, nobody effs with the Jesus

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To stock Amazon’s shelves, merchants travel the backroads of America in search of rare soap and coveted toys

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You’ll be able to complete the trifecta of tiny 16-bit throwback systems on March 19, 2020, when Konami releases the TurboGrafx-16 Mini. It’ll include Dracula X, Bonk’s Revenge, Gradius and many more games, including many Japanese exclusives.

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An upcoming colourway of Nike’s Air Max 97 doesn’t make an official mention of the console—gotta keep those lawyers at arm’s length—but its inspiration is clear: this is a Nintendo 64 sneaker.

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Flash flooding in Washington, DC has thrown the capital region in chaos, with reports of water rescues, traffic closures, and power outages. The floods are also taking their toll on the city’s thousands of bikes and scooters, with images surfacing on social media of dockless vehicles floating forlornly in floodwaters.

Bird, Jump, and Lime, three of the city’s five operators, told The Verge that their employees were actively engaged in removing scooters from the flooded areas. Another operator, Skip, was ordered by the city to pull its scooters off the streets last month following a battery fire in a storage area. (We’re still waiting to hear back from the other two companies, Lyft and Spin.) Whether those scooters will ever be back in...

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Joe and Anthony Russo are heading back to the small screen for a new Netflix animated series based on the popular card game Magic: The Gathering.

The Russo brothers (Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame) are teaming up with Netflix, Wizards of the Coast, and Hasbro to oversee the series. The show will “expand on the stories of the Planeswalkers, which are Magic’s unique magic-wielding heroes and villains,” according to a press release from Netflix. The company didn’t confirm how many episodes the first season will contain.

“We have been huge fans and players of Magic: The Gathering for as long as it has been around, so being able to help bring these stories to life through animation is a true passion project for us,” the Russo...

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Apple is bringing dark mode to iOS 13, the new version of its mobile operating system for this year. The company made the announcement at WWDC 2019, the year after bringing the feature to macOS Mojave. On stage the company showed many of its popular apps working in dark mode, including Maps, Notes, Calendar, Music, and Messages.

Today’s announcement means that both major mobile operating systems will be receiving a dark mode in 2019 after Google said that it would be bringing one to Android Q later this year. Android’s dark mode is already available in the beta version of Q, and Google is hard at work updating its first-party apps to take advantage of the new color scheme.

For the uninitiated, dark modes have become an incredibly...

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Ikea is launching a new robotic furniture system called Rognan, developed in collaboration with American furniture startup Ori Living. The large storage unit, controlled by a touchpad, can slide across a room to divide a small room into two living spaces, and contains a bed, desk, and a couch for people to pull out when needed. It’s designed for people living in urban areas to maximize their small spaces, and will launch first in Hong Kong and Japan in 2020.

Rognan is built on Ori’s robotic platform, and works with Ikea’s Platsa line of storage furniture. It’s also compatible with Ikea’s Tradfri line of cabinet and wardrobe smart lighting. Ikea says the Rognan can save an extra eight square meters (about 86 square feet) of living space....

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Japan’s DJ Doooo not only makes music but also wraps everyday objects in realistic-looking human flesh. The result is starting, and ghoulish.

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Today at WWDC, Apple introduced a new single sign-on (or SSO) tool called “Sign In with Apple,” designed to authenticate users to apps while sharing a minimum of personal data with third parties. It’s a direct competitor to simpler services offered by Facebook and Google, which were called out by name on stage, and part of Apple’s broader effort to brand itself as a privacy-conscious alternative to those companies. The new system will be available across apps as well as on the web.

As described onstage by Apple software chief Craig Federighi, users would encounter the service as a simple sign-in button, presented as an alternative to setting up a persistent username and password for a given service. But where Google and Facebook use...

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