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Robots have been with us in film for almost 100 years, starting with 1921’s The Mechanical Man. This supercut takes us through an extensive (but likely not exhaustive) tour through the robots of cinema, packing 105 movies into a little more than two minutes. The big ones are there, like the famous Fritz Lang creation Maria from Metropolis and the replicants from Blade Runner. But there’s also B-movie robots, like those in Disney’s sinister Star Wars rip-off The Black Hole, and Z-grade films like Starcrash, Robot Monster, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, and The Robot vs....

Laptops are getting weird—a trend what we wholeheartedly support. A couple of weeks ago, I talked about Toshiba’s high-priced but option-heavy Portégé R400, which featured a tablet touchscreen interface and a relatively useful little external display. But the new W5Fe laptop from ASUS is at least as unique (or gimmicky, if you’re feeling harsh), with a comparatively expansive 2.8-in. external screen, large enough to let you read through e-mails and even play Solitaire, however awkwardly....

Media Platforms Design TeamHow long have you been thinking about air launch to orbit?My work on a large aircraft designed to launch orbital boosters began in the early 90s, shortly after we (Scaled) started work with Orbital Sciences, building wings and tail surfaces for their air-launched Pegasus first stage booster. I was unable to convince Orbital that Scaled should build an airplane to launch Pegasus, so they modified an L1011 airliner for their launches....

Space Shuttle Discovery rolled out of the Orbiter Processing facility and relocated to the massive Vehicle Assembly building, the last move for the Orbiter before it crawls out to the pad next week in preparation for July’s scheduled launch of STS-121 to the International Space Station. The move, or rollover, as it’s called in Cape Canaveral circles, was originally scheduled for Thursday, but was delayed because of a “sheared left-hand jack screw on the lifting sling in the assembly building,” according to a NASA statement....

Tonight, just before midnight, a leap second will be added to the day, as clocks will go from 11:59:59 to 11:59:60 before they officially turn over to 12 o’clock. This occasional fluke of the calendar has inspired a lot of wishful thinking regarding what you can do with that extra second, and, on the other, fears of worldwide devastation because Reddit crashed the last time we went through this.Relax.First of all, we need the leap second to account for the fact that an Earth day, currently, does not, as our clocks would suggest, measure exactly 86,400 seconds long , but rather 86,400....

The crash of Metrojet Flight 9268 on Halloween 2015 took the lives of 224 people, including 217 passengers and 7 crew members. The plane was traveling from Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport, Egypt to Pulkovo Airport, St. Petersburg Russia. The aircraft, an Airbus A321-200 airliner, crashed in the Sinai desert. Reports indicate debris and human remains were scattered over a wide area, suggesting the plane broke up in flight. The Airbus A321-200 is a wide body airliner with a range of 4,000 nautical miles....

We humans tend to think about our immune system only when it fails and we come down with a cold or flu. But every day that we walk around healthy, it’s because white blood cells are waging a tireless war on bacteria, viruses, and parasites that invade our bodies, tracking down these foreign agents in the body and eliminating them. Any defense can get overwhelmed, though, and our immune system is no exception....

Media Platforms Design TeamI regularly watch TedTalks, NASACast, and other video podcasts on my computer, but I would rather use my smart TV instead. I know I have to go to each individual podcast channel, or Web feed, to access episodes. Is there an easy way to queue them up chronologically on my smart TV without having to involve my computer each time?You’ll have to involve your computer just once in order to set this up....

Q: The maximum volume on my Apple MacBook is too low to enjoy my movies and music. Is there any way to make it louder?A: While very few laptops have high-quality speakers, the ones on the MacBook are notoriously quiet. Even at full volume, it can be difficult to discern dialogue in movies, or to hear system sounds such as alerts, especially if there is any background noise. This problem is made worse by the unusual placement of the speakers: They are located on the back of the computer and pump their sound away from you....

When you need to remove a few pieces of metal quickly, the cold chisel is king. It easily chops through metal screws, bolts, rivets, brackets, and nails. On a recent plumbing job, I removed the remains of an old mounting flange, lead, and oakum using a sharp cold chisel. It took only seconds and I didn’t have to waste time setting up a reciprocating saw or angle grinder.Always use a cold chisel that’s slightly wider than what you’re cutting....

Media Platforms Design TeamJupiter’s moon Io is the only place in the solar system besides Earth with volcanoes that spew molten rock. In fact, it’s the most volcanically active body in the solar system, producing 30 times more heat than Earth despite being 70 times less massive. But the source of all this volcanism was hidden from scientists, until now—a new study reveals the vast ocean of semimolten magma that lies beneath the moon’s volcano-ridden surface....

Meet the X-56A, the newest in a long line of experimental aircraft under the X-Plane banner. Designed by Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Project, it’s a drone designed for efficient flying via aeroservoelasticity—a ten-dollar term for responsive, flexible wings that conform to jet streams instead of breaking under stress. The X-56A has a 28-foot wingspan and uses a series of wings, including three made of flexible materials and two using stiff-wing designs....

Media Platforms Design TeamThis is an exploded view of the CubeSat-class 50-millimeter (2-inch) imaging instrument that technologist Jason Budinoff is manufacturing with 3-D-printed parts. (Image Credit: NASA Goddard/Jason Budinoff)In its latest effort to bring 3D-printing to outer space, NASA is at work on a way to 3D-print entire cameras and telescopes. A 50-millimeter camera and 350-millimeter telescope now under development will be the first of their kind to be made almost entirely of 3D-printed parts....

Getting detailed data on the performance of race cars can be difficult as they are roaring along a track.When it opens in Concord, N.C., later this year, a full-scale, high-speed race car treadmill, the first of its kind in North America, will provide teams the chance to crunch the data indoors. After a driverless car is tethered to the track, a two-story-high fan whips a 180-mph wind through the test bay while a paper-thin, stainless-steel belt spins beneath the wheels....

Media Platforms Design TeamNest Labs, a hardware startup that was recently acquired by Google for $3.2 billion, just announced that it is recalling all of its smart smoke detectors. Since launching Nest Protect a little over six months ago, the company has sold more than 400,000 units.Apparently the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is concerned about a glitch that shuts down the device accidentally. The smart smoke alarm was designed so that users could dismiss the alarm by waving a hand in front of the device—a feature called Nest Wave—but the CPSC has since determined that the feature could also be inadvertently activated, posing a serious safety concern for consumers....

A team of lucky British paleontologists just happened upon something that’s never been seen before: They have found fossilized dinosaur blood for the first time, in a 75-million-year-old specimen.“I want to stress that we really went into this project with a high degree of skepticism, but at this point [our research team] is happy to say we have found fossilized red blood-cells in which some of the original blood components are preserved,” says Susannah Maidment, the lead paleontologist of the team at Imperial College London....

Media Platforms Design TeamLAS VEGAS — If you crossed a Pontiac Solstice with the Speed Racer’s Mach 5, you might get the Pontiac Solstice SD-290 Racer Concept. One-off bodywork finished with candy-apple red paint gives it a retro-racer style, enclosing the passenger compartment and cutting a super-low profile with its barely there windshield bubble and arched-roll hoop.Under its rounded snout is an Ecotec 2-liter turbocharged engine tweaked with a Stage II kit that produces 290 hp, making it a sort of Solstice GXP on steroids....

Does your current smartphone work? YES NO2. Is the screen smaller than 5 inches? YES NO3. Do you mind being trapped in the Apple ecosystem? YES NO4. Are you excited about the new iOS 8? YES NO5. Have you ever had to delete photos to take new ones? YES NO6. Do you have a micro SD slot? YES NO7. Do you have a front-facing camera? YES NO8. With more than 2 megapixels?...

Media Platforms Design TeamIt’s not every day that you get to build your own United States. But back in the 1950s, PM subscribers got five months’ worth of plans showing them how to do just that. Beginning in December 1952 and spanning through April 1953, we offered blueprints for a scale model of nothing less than one of the greatest ocean liners of the 20th century, the SS United States. “Modelmakers throughout the world have been eager to start modeling the new speed queen of the seas,” PM declared in the inaugural edition of the expert-laden, step-by-step construction plans for a 36-in....

Media Platforms Design TeamConventional tapered wheel bearings need regular service, which is simple and takes just an hour or so.It started as a faint squeal a few weeks ago, but lately a grinding sensation has been added to the mix. No biggie, you figure, as you accelerate up the entrance ramp you use every morning. The car probably just needs a fresh set of brake pads. Ker-runch! Suddenly, your left front wheel rockets out from under the vehicle, the nose drops, sparks spray from the chassis, and your latte goes flying out the window....