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Watch Anamanaguchi send a slice of pizza into space in 'Endless Fantasy'

2013-05-24T20:42:23Z

The latest video from chiptune rock stars Anamanaguchi doesn't have as many meows as the first, but it does have a space-bound slice of pizza. The video is for the title track off of the band's new album, Endless Fantasy, and the funding for the slice's voyage came from Anamanaguchi's ongoing Kickstarter campaign. "Literally the first thing we did with your funding was send a slice of NYC pizza to outer space," the band wrote in an update today.

"The first thing we did with your funding was send a slice of NYC pizza to outer space."

Unfortunately, while it makes for a fun video, the prank almost got them in some trouble. After filming the slice's voyage, bass player James DeVito received an email from an environmental medicine professor at NYU, who learned about the prank after the package landed in a family's backyard on its way back down to earth. "We later find out that he was literally about to call the state police to have the bomb squad come and detonate the box," DeVito tells Grantland, "and we'd lose all the footage."

Construction on world's tallest building to begin next month and end this year

2013-05-24T09:32:59Z

Dubai's Burj Khalifa may have its status of "world's tallest building" usurped at the end of the year by a rival yet to break ground. BSC is set to begin construction next month on the 2,750-foot (838-meter), 220-story high Sky City in Changsha, China, and thanks to a process where the building's components are mass-produced in factories ahead of time, the project is planned for completion by the end of the year. A total of 19,000 workers will prefabricate the parts in four months before commencing a three-month assembly process on site.

The manufacturing process means that the building will also be easy to replicate in other areas; BSC told Treehugger that the project is intended to address the growing population of the world. Sky City will feature apartments, schools, recreational facilities, and more, reducing the per capita use of land and the need to move around. BSC claims a fivefold increase in energy efficiency over buildings built with conventional techniques.

Sky City's design is said to be earthquake-resistant to 9.0 magnitude, with "over 10 sessions of government assembled expert group reviews" verifying its overall safety. While cramming thousands of people into a colossal tower may not make for the most comfortable of abodes, BSC believes that it signals the way forward for Chinese cities, saying "Urbanization can not be materialized at the cost of land and environmental pollution."

Live-action 'Destiny' trailer is an early glimpse at Bungie's new universe

2013-05-23T17:42:02Z

Bungie first unveiled its upcoming sci-fi epic Destiny earlier this year, but we've yet to see the Halo follow-up in action. That's still true with the release of the game's first trailer, which is a combination of live-action and CG, but with no actual gameplay. As Variety reports, the trailer was directed by Jon Favreau, the director behind the first two Iron Man films. While the new trailer doesn't provide any more insight into how the game will play, it's still nice to see all of that beautiful artwork in motion. You can expect to see the first gameplay footage of Destiny on June 10th at Sony's E3 press conference.

Watch NASA's Hangout with Chris Hadfield and other astronauts

2013-05-22T23:30:41Z

NASA has been on a roll with Google+ lately, hosting several video Hangouts with astronauts live from outer space. But today, things will be coming back down to Earth for a change, and The Verge will be in attendance. Join us here Thursday, May 23 starting just before 3 PM Eastern for a special Google+ Hangout with recently returned space station Commander Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency, and NASA astronauts Kevin Ford and Tom Marshburn. You may recall Hadfield from his numerous YouTube videos of experiments on the station, guitar solos and killer David Bowie "Space Oddity" cover. We'll be sure to ask him where he learned to hit the high notes, and offer sympathies to his colleagues who may have been trying to sleep during his music videos. Watch the Hangout live below or on Google+.

Seriously, though, we will also ask the astronauts about life on the station, the science experiments they performed while aboard, and space exploration's future in the public and private sector. NASA is fielding questions for the Hangout on its Google+ page and on Twitter under the hashtag #askAstro. You can also go ahead and leave questions you want us to ask in the comments below, and we'll be sure to pass a few along during the Hangout.

'Call of Duty: Ghosts' tech demo reveals what next-gen soldiers (and dogs) will look like

2013-05-22T20:53:24Z

We've seen the reveal trailer, and now the team behind Call of Duty: Ghosts is pulling back the curtain and providing a look at the game's robust next-generation engine. In the below clip (also screened during yesterday's Xbox One keynote), you'll see direct comparisons between characters pulled from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 — which pushed the limits of current-gen consoles, according to Infinity Ward — and those from the upcoming Ghosts. Infinity Ward says each sequence in the clip is running in realtime on its latest engine, though obviously not on a production Xbox One or PlayStation 4. Yes, the "Call of Duty dog" (which has already inspired its own parody Twitter account) is also seen here, serving as yet more evidence of the improved visual fidelity gamers hope to see in their living rooms later this year.

Watch this: Microsoft's Xbox One event in under four minutes

2013-05-21T19:53:07Z

Microsoft's latest game console is (almost ) here: the Xbox One has been unveiled. Catch up on all the big moments from the press conference — Live TV, live-action 'Halo,' new Kinect and more — in less than one-fifteenth the time. And if you have some more time, catch up on all the announcements and maybe check out our pre- and post-event shows!

Edited by Regina Dellea

Crack babies: The New York Times chronicles public hysteria over a 1980s 'crisis'

2013-05-21T14:21:04Z

Throughout the 1980s, the media frequently covered crack cocaine's spread across the US. In particular, they often called out the devastating, lifelong effects the drug could have on pregnant mothers and their newborn infants. Mental retardation would be rampant, schools would be overrun with children who constantly struggled to keep up. And these fears extended beyond the press into the public mindset at large; one US congressman described so-called "crack babies" as "the most expensive babies ever born" on account of the resources they'd inevitably demand from social services and other government programs.

Except, as you'll see in The New York Times video report above, things never quite panned out that way. Nearly three decades on, many people born in the crack baby era have managed to live perfectly normal lives. The drug no doubt contributed to some of the ill effects seen in newborns, but other substances (i.e. alcohol) and social issues likely didn't receive as much attention as they should have thanks to a largely overblown "crisis."

Watch lasers track bubbles to the beat of Daft Punk

2013-05-18T23:17:03Z

What's cooler than a laser light show? One that combines real-time control, motion tracking, and Daft Punk. For the past week, artist and hacker Memo Akten has been uploading videos showing off what he's learned using a laser projector and the Ether Dream digital-to-analog converter. At its simplest, the setup allows Akten to draw a shape and have it projected on the wall, but it can also handle more interesting effects. In one video, he uses the Leap Motion controller to track his fingers, letting him sweep circles over a friend in protective glasses (he warns viewers that lasers won't do your eyes any favors.) In another, he sets up a bubble-blowing machine, then points a camera towards it and the wall. By tracking the edges of the bubbles, he can set lasers to outline them. A few more details are over at Vimeo, along with links to the code and software he's using.

New trailers: 'Pacific Rim,' 'The Congress,' 'Riddick,' and 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'

2013-05-17T17:22:34Z

This weekend Star Trek Into Darkness is hitting theaters, but the summer movie season is just getting started. To give you an idea of what you have to look forward to, we've collected some of the week's most intriguing trailers. From sci-fi action to futuristic visions from this year's Cannes Film Festival, there's a little something for everyone.

Pacific Rim

A steady stream of teasers and clips from Pacific Rim have been making their way online over the past few months, but this trailer gives us our best look yet at Guillermo del Toro's mechs-and-monsters blockbuster. Don't worry — the apocalypse is still being cancelled.

The Congress

Screening at this year's Cannes Film Festival is director Ari Folman's follow-up to Waltz With Bashir: a movie called The Congress. Starring Robin Wright, it's set in a near-future where actors can have themselves scanned digitally, signing away all rights to their own likenesses. Part animated film, part live-action, it looks like a timely and imaginative take on some issues that may be facing us sooner than we think.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

ABC picked up Joss Whedon's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to series last week, followed quickly by a 30-second sneak peek. This trailer gives us a better idea of what to expect from the adventures of the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division — and we like what we see.

Riddick

Vin Diesel isn't just Dom from the Fast & Furious series; he's also spent time dabbling in sci-fi. This year's Riddick is another entry in the Pitch Black series, and sees Diesel donning his reflective contacts once again to get angry and fight bad guys. Along for the ride? None other than Kara "Starbuck" Thrace herself, Katee Sackhoff.

US Navy launches first drone from aboard an aircraft carrier

2013-05-15T08:54:09Z

The US Navy this week successfully launched an unmanned plane from an aircraft carrier, marking what officials are calling "an inflection point" in the military's use of drone aircraft. The X-47B prototype drone, manufactured by Northrop Grumman, took off from aboard the USS George HW Bush Tuesday, and made two low approaches before circling back to land. The test, held off the coast of Virginia, marks the first time that the Navy has ever launched an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from an aircraft carrier.

"These are exciting times for the Navy as we are truly doing something that has never been done before," Rear Admiral Mat Winter wrote in a blog post this week, "something I never imagined could be done during my 29-year naval career."

The fully autonomous X-47B was designed specifically for aircraft carrier operations. According to the navy, it can reach a height of more than 40,000 feet, and has a range of more than 2,100 nautical miles. Unlike other drones, which are controlled by remote operators, the X-47B is controlled through computer software, though human operators can intervene if necessary.

Winter notes that the X-47B is "not intended for operational use," adding that Tuesday's flight was designed to "assess the feasibility of X-47B's seamless integration into the carrier systems and environment." The next step is to successfully land the craft on a moving aircraft carrier — a far more difficult task.

"For us, the question is where do you draw line?"

Navy officials have previously said they have no intent to arm the aircraft, saying that it will instead be used to gather intelligence and conduct surveillance; but the idea of an autonomous plane one day roaming the skies hasn't sat well with some critics.

"For us, the question is where do you draw line?" Steve Goose, director of the arms division at Human Rights Watch, told the Guardian. "We're saying you need to draw the line when you have a fully autonomous system that is weaponized. We're saying you must have meaningful human control over key battlefield decisions of who lives and who dies. That should not be left up to the weapons system itself."

The US Department of Defense has issued a directive that strictly regulates the use of autonomous weapons, requiring humans to oversee their use at all times, and calling for a "rigorous" review process before deployment. Officials say it will likely be several years before any autonomous systems are deployed.