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The History of Ctrl+Alt+Del
If you've ever used a computer, you've used that magical three-key combo — Ctrl+Alt+Del. Stuck programs or locked up computers, that simple command gets you out of the loop and back to work. Dr. Dave Bradley invented the command while working at IBM on its revolutionary personal computer. When something crashed, Dr. Bradley needed a way to get the computer reset without having to go through the entire boot process — and Ctrl+Alt+Del was born.
Parkour Atlas
It's faster than you, stronger than you, and now it can do parkour better than you. While we sit behind our devices, every day Atlas is evolving into the ultimate super-species. Boston Dynamic's robot now uses special control software to jump over logs, climb steep terrain, and take over the world.
The First Manned Launch of an Apollo Mission
15 months before the launch of Apollo 11 that landed the first humans on the Moon, Apollo 7 was the first Apollo mission that carried humans into orbit. NASA celebrates the first manned launch of the Apollo program with this retrospective featuring archival footage and interviews with Walter M. Schirra, Donn F. Eisele, and R. Walter Cunningham, the three astronauts on the historic mission.
The Most Precise Atomic Clock in the World
The first atomic clock was built in 1955, and since then, they've been the standard at keeping the world synchronized. From TV broadcast signals to GPS, atomic clocks do more than minutes and seconds. Dr. Jun Ye and his team at the University of Colorado have built the most accurate atomic clock ever, an instrument capable of measuring everything from the Theory of Relativity to movement at the center of the Earth.
What Smartphones are Made Of
The supercomputer in your pocket is a miracle of human progress in science and technology — and a representative of the environmental impact of our modern society. From rare earth minerals to heavy metals like lead, a smartphone requires a lot of resources, and those resources mostly come from small countries with cheap labor. TED looks at what you need to make a smartphone and how that affects people and environments across the globe.
The First Private Passenger On The Lunar BFR Mission
No human has been to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. Well, that's about to change. Although the rocket hasn't even been built yet, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced that his company had officially signed the first private passenger to board the BFR launch vehicle and fly around the Moon. That person is Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. The fashion tycoon has bought the entire first flight and it's scheduled to take off as early as 2023.
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SimpliSafe Home Security
SimpliSafe teamed up with global design firm IDEO to create a home security experience more beautiful, powerful and intuitive than ever before. Rebuilt from the ground up with new safeguards to create a latticework of protection the new Simplisafe is half the size with double the range. It's also fifty percent louder, five times faster, and the system's wireless Keypad is soft, smooth and wakes with a touch. It's incredibly easy to set up in just a few minutes with no drilling, wiring or tools required and is offered at the same revolutionary price that made SimpliSafe the fastest growing home security company in the nation.
Presented by SimpliSafe.
As seen in Uncrate Issue 04.
![Plum Wine Preserver]( "Plum Wine Preserver")
Plum Wine Preserver
With the ability to identify, chill, pour, and preserve, the Plum wine preserver combines all wine gadgets into one sleek package. Select your bottle and insert it into the appliance. Inside, a camera scans the label to identify the wine and automatically begin cooling to the ideal temperature. Whether it's a cork or metal screw cap, a double-cored needle punctures the top. As wine is released, argon gas fills the bottle to help prevent oxidation. A single canister can preserve up to 150 bottles, keeping each one fresh for up to 90 days so when you're ready, a perfect glass of wine is always waiting to be poured — a valuable feature during the holidays.
Presented by Plum.
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How We Could Build a Moon Base Today
When it comes to space colonization, everyone is talking about Mars. But if humans wanted to inhabit a closer space rock, we could start today. We currently have the technology and estimates from NASA to build a Lunar base. This could be the first step in further colonies as well as new technologies that could enhance our life here on Earth. As always, Kurzgesagt gives the details in a vibrantly animated nutshell.
How Life on Earth Can Help the Search for Aliens
Microbiologist Luke McKay is fascinated by the prospect of life on other planets. To help the search for alien life, McKay is studying a little closer to home — in the hot springs of the United States. Motherboard talked with McKay to see how life living in some of the most extreme conditions on Earth can help scientists look for life on other planets.
Apple's Big News in 108 Seconds
In an event held at the Steve Jobs Theater on the Apple Campus, the trillion dollar company made some big announcements. They revealed a new line of iPhones and an updated Apple watch. While the entire keynote took about two hours, you can catch all the highlights right here in under two minutes.
Decoding the Mind With Robotic Limbs
One of the biggest problems in science isn't out there in space — it's right inside our own heads. Psychologist Axel Cleermans is on the search for what consciousness is, where it comes from, and why we alone seem to have it. By using robotic limbs activated by thinking, Cleermans is taking steps to answer one of the biggest questions in the universe.
The New Hunt for Dark Matter
Beneath a mountain in Italy, an international team of scientists called SABRE is preparing a new way to hunt for the most elusive substance that may or may not exist in the universe: dark matter. The Italian lab will work with another lab built in a gold mine in Australia, in order to filter out as much cosmic interference as possible. Geomicrobiologist Jennifer Macalady got to take an early tour of the facility with physicist Davide D'Angelo to learn how close we are to understanding one of the biggest mysteries of the universe.
What A Nuclear Blast Feels Like
There are 15,000 nuclear bombs in nine countries across the world — a devastating amount of destruction. Thankfully, very few people have witnessed firsthand the power of a nuclear explosion. But for those that have, it's an unforgettable experience. Motherboard talked to former British soldiers who were subjected to nuclear tests and what it was like to see the most destructive force on the planet up close.
Searching For Life's Origins Underground
Jennifer Macalady is a microbiologist exploring Italy's water-filled Frasassi Caves. The conditions in these caves might be similar to the conditions that the first life on Earth began — lightless and dark. Macalady hopes that the microbes she's discovering might hold the secrets to the origin of life, without the ability to harvest energy from the sun.
Building A $100 Million Satellite
Satellites have become an indispensable part of our communications infrastructure. They've made global communications and research a reality, allowing us to communicate and learn about our planet in ways never thought possible. SSL is at the forefront of satellite design and manufacturing. All you need to do is pick up the phone — and have a hefty amount of cash in your bank account. Here's how a satellite gets to space, from ordering to design, building, and launch.
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Casper Wave
The result of three years of research and millions of data points, the Casper Wave is a breakthrough in mattress design. Underneath its handsome exterior, you'll find the new, proprietary Natural Geometry System. It uses five layers of foam to mimic the natural contours of your body at 36 specific points, adjusting naturally to your shoulders and hips without sacrificing support, and keeping your spine properly aligned. Like the original, it uses open-cell foams to keep you cool at night. Designed and assembled in the USA.
Presented by Casper.
![Light L16 Camera]( "Light L16 Camera")
Light L16 Camera
Fitted with 16 camera modules, the Light L16 Camera can replace that bulky DSLR. The compact camera uses multiple lenses and sensors with varying focal lengths to capture high-resolution images. Although relatively small — the whole thing weighs less than a pound and can fit in your back pocket — it's still equipped with a zoom range of 28-150mm. By capturing multiple perspectives at different exposure values, you can adjust the focus or enlarge your photo once the shot is taken. It's finished off with a five-inch HD touchscreen that features on-camera adjustments allowing users to edit their pictures and transfer them to their desktops while still on location.
Presented by Light Camera.
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Moonlight
NASA turns the Moon's sunrises and sunsets into a masterful, theater-worthy performance. The visuals were created using a digital 3D model built from images taken from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and actual Sun angles from 2018. The lunar day was then set to Claude Debussy's fitting "Clair de Lune" — which means "moonlight" in French — for a performance at the Kennedy Center to celebrate NASA's 60th anniversary.
Why Aliens Are So Hard to Find
The universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old. In all that time, one would think that at some point there has to have been at least one alien civilization in all that time. But astronomer Stephen Webb thinks we're all alone. In this TED talk, Webb explains his theory that there's nothing out there in the vast ocean of the universe.
The Pyro Making Some of the World's Strongest Lasers
Rural Illinois doesn't sound like a hub of the tech industry, but some of the strongest lasers in the world come from a storage unit in a rural area of the state. Styropyro experiments with light and shares the results with half a million people on YouTube, along with his other love — raising moths.
Making Music on the Super Nintendo
Two chips, 64 kb of memory, and some of the best music in the history of video games. The Super Nintendo was a quantum leap over the original NES in every way, but the limitations when it came to audio were severe. Nerdwriter looks at how composer David Wise and others overcame the limitations of the system to create lush, ambient tracks to match the visuals on the screen.
How NASA's Parker Probe Will Touch the Sun
NASA's Parker Probe will launch this summer and makes many firsts in space exploration. Over the course of seven years, it will orbit Venus, eventually becoming the fastest man-made object as it passes through the sun's corona, then becoming the closest man-made object to our nearest star. The Parker Probe's heat shields will disintegrate as it moves through the corona, and its instruments will operate at room temperature as it tries to solve the mystery behind why the corona is hotter than the surface of the sun. The data is years away, but the Park Probe is poised to help us better understand the life-giving body so close to home.
The Robot That Finds Waldo
The robots are coming for your childhood. All those hours spent desperately searching for Waldo — at the beach, the train station, the airport — can now be accomplished by some AI software in seconds. Using Google's Auto ML Vision service, the arm takes a photo of the page and identifies Waldo once a 95% or better match is found. So much for getting lost in the crowd.
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Wormholes Explained
A tunnel through spacetime that can link two places light years away. We've seen it hundreds of times in movies and video games but the jury is still out on whether these magical passageways really exist. In an attempt to add some clarity to this hypothetical theory, Kurzgesagt explores the possibility of wormholes and the science behind them in their usual animated form.
The Mastermind of Holography
Jason Arthur Sapan is the last professional holographer in NYC and possibly the world. Known as Dr. Laser, Sapan has worked with musicians, artists, and met presidents — all while doing what he loves. Mashable sat down with Dr. Laser to talk about the art and science behind recording light in three dimensions.
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Building the World's Largest Robot
Standing 28 feet tall and weighing in right at 5 tons, the LW Mononofu is the world's largest fully operational robot. The monster 'bot was built by engineer Masaaki Nagumo who was inspired by the Japanese anime series Mobile Suit Gundam. The real-life Jaeger is controlled from within and is ready to take on the colossal sea monsters of the world with its sponge-ball cannon.
The Astronaut Crews for The Boeing and SpaceX Commercial Flights
NASA has announced the nine astronauts who will board the Boeing CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon during their first flights to space. Both shuttles were built for furture commercial space travel and their inaugural journey includes a round trip to the International Space Station. Fulfilling their childhood dreams, the new crew members share their excitement, as well as a little nervousness, as they prepare for the historic launch.
Chain Explosions at 200k FPS
The Slo Mo Guys have done explosions before — but not like this. Gavin and Dan travelled to the Colorado School of Mines to film the biggest explosions they've ever done, using det cord, shock tubes, shaped charges, and avalanchers. Dan is no stranger to explosives, having trained in the British Army as an explosive ordnance tech, and along with the pros at the school, captured some of their best slow-motion film yet.
Moon 101
Tomorrow, Friday, July 27th, there will be a total lunar eclipse. The Moon will pass directly behind Earth and into the center of its shadow for approximately 103 minutes, the longest one in the 21st century. So before the big show, get to know the big star — or in this case, satellite — a little bit better.
Detonating a Nuclear Bomb in the Marianas Trench
The deepest point on Earth is the Marianas Trench, nearly 7.5 miles below sea level in the Pacific Ocean. At that depth the pressure is enormous — enough to crush anything used to living on the surface like an aluminum can. So what would happen if you detonated a nuclear bomb there? Kurgesagt looks at what might happen, and the surprising results.
Declassified Nuclear Test Footage
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory finished digitizing recently-declassified footage of atmospheric nuclear tests from the height of the Cold War. All the chilling film is available on their YouTube channel — and they are terrifying to watch. The video here is from a test on the infamous Bikini Atoll site called Operation Hardtack. The detonation causes a huge water burst that causes an ominous black mushroom cloud to rise from the ocean — a dark reminder of the power of the Nuclear Age.
