Testimonial Reviews and Videos: November 2015

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Ancient skull reveals the secret to why snakes lost their legs

A 90 million year old skull has revealed that snakes lost their legs to live on land, not to live in the sea.

By: Matt Burgess,

Cyber games, gullible kids: Podcast 245

We spend a day at GCHQ's latest recruitment exercise and try and work out why kids will believe anything the internet tells them.

By: WIRED.co.uk,

How two British superfans built Star Wars' new R2-D2

To bring back R2-D2 in Star Wars: The Force Awakens J.J. Abrams turned to two British super fans, Lee Towersey and Oliver Steeples.

By: Oliver Franklin-Wallis,

Sci-fi's Gamergate: How the Hugos were torn apart over diversity

A battle over diversity is raging in the world of science fiction. And it’s a fight for the soul of all popular culture

By: Amy Wallce,

Ridley Scott reveals how his Prometheus sequels fit into Alien

Head's up, fans of complicated sci-fi chronology: director Ridley Scott has confirmed that there will now be three sequels to 2012's Prometheus, which was itself a prequel to 1979's original Alien, before the storylines meet up somewhere in the middle.

Scott made the announcement at a press conference in Sydney, where he is about to begin production on Alien: Covenant, the first of the three (or second of the four, depending on how you count). It was previously known as Alien: Paradise Lost, after Milton's epic poem, but at this point it might be easier to just think of it as Alien -3.

By: Matt Kamen,

This new browser plugin kills all Star Wars spoilers

With the immeasurable glut of Star Wars content coming out of the upcoming The Force Awakens release, you may be struggling to avoid spoilers. But never fear -- a new app is here to help you out.

By: Emily Reynolds,

Formula E announces 300kph 'RoboRace' championship

The first global autonomous car racing championship will start in 2016, the creators of Formula E have announced.

By: Matt Burgess,

Warfare has changed forever now that there are no secrets

From on the ground fighting, to the war of ideas: technology is changing war and Peter Singer describes how.

By: P. W. Singer,

From Clash of Clans to Hay Day: the secrets of Supercell's success

Supercell created Clash of Clans and Hay Day. So why has it killed every project it's worked on since?

By: Tom Cheshire,

Falcon 9 debris found off Scilly Isles

SpaceX's Falcon 9 spacecraft catastrophically exploded shortly after launch this year. And now debris from the failed mission is thought to have washed up on the Isles of Scilly.

By: Emily Reynolds,

This machine turns coffee waste into energy

Bio-bean is an energy company that gets its raw material comes from hundreds of caffeine-consuming locations around the UK.

By: Gian Volpicelli,

How neuroscientists built a monkey brainet

A graphic retelling of how Miguel Nicolelis, a neuroscientist at Duke University, created a brainet with three monkeys.

By: Gian Volpicelli,

The next-generation of the British hovercraft is here

Inside this hangar sits the next generation of fuel-efficient passenger hovercraft

By: Clare Dowdy,

Sony will bring PS4 remote play to PC and Mac

Just days after an unofficial app brought PlayStation Remote Play to PC, Sony has confirmed it will be releasing its own authorised app, allowing players to stream PS4 games to both PC and Mac.

By: Matt Kamen,

Raspberry Pi Zero already sold out, says 'amazed' founder

Virtually every Raspberry Pi Zero in existence has been sold within 24 hours of the miniature £4 computer's launch, The Raspberry Pi Foundation has said.

By: Michael Rundle,

Are you introvert or extrovert? Or an actual human?

Can personalities be pigeonholed into distinct types? Christian Jarrett doesn't think so.

By: Christian Jarrett,

On Art Angels, Grimes' DIY music is still a one-off

Grimes' second album, Art Angels, is bolder, noisier and more out there than Visions.

By: Mark Yarm,

Singapore can't expand outwards -- so it's going underground

The Jurong Rock Caverns, being built 150 metres underneath Jurong Island, will be taller than a nine-storey building and store almost 1.5 million cubic metres of oil.

By: Sophia Epstein,

Airbus wants to cut boarding times with detachable cabins

Plane manufacturer Airbus has once again made headlines with their latest patent -- passenger 'shipping containers' that slot into a plane.

By: Emily Reynolds,

Latest Star Wars trailer gives in to the dark side

In the latest in a series of promotional clips that will end temporarily with the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens on 18 December, before starting again on an annual basis until the end of time, Disney has released a new minute-long preview of the seventh Star Wars movie.

By: Michael Rundle,

Government accused of 'rubber stamping' mass surveillance law

The government has been accused of 'rubber stamping' proposed surveillance law which will see spies get increased surveillance powers.

By: Matt Burgess,

WIRED Awake: 10 must-read articles for 27 November

Your WIRED.co.uk daily briefing. Today, Russia is building a nuclear-powered data centre, proposed Internet Connection Records are 'of limited use' according to a UK ISP, scientists grow functional human liver cells in the lab and more.

By: WIRED.co.uk,

Pro Evolution soccer 2016 launches free to play version

Konami has confirmed rumours that it would be launching a free-to-play version of its football franchise Pro Evolution Soccer, announcing that an "entry level" version of the game will launch next month

By: Matt Kamen,

The lost riches of Star Wars' Expanded Universe

When Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012, it got more than it bargained for. A shared continuity fans had come to know as the "Expanded Universe", exploring both the past and future of the universe. Then Disney killed it.

By: Matt Kamen,

Large Hadron Collider makes record-breaking collision

The Large Hadron Collider in Geneva has collided heavy nuclei at the highest energies ever recorded.

By: Emily Reynolds,

London cabs to accept contactless payment from 2016

The trusty black cab's fight against the perpetual march of Uber is ongoing, but they just got extra firepower -- giving customers the ability to pay with contactless methods.

By: Emily Reynolds,

London's next Thames bridge will probably look like this

Design company Bystrup have won the Nine Elms to Pimlico Bridge competition, Wandsworth Council have announced.

By: Emily Reynolds,

BBC Three will stop broadcasting in February

BBC Three is going to be turned off in February, the broadcaster has confirmed.

By: Matt Burgess,

We watched a simulated bio-chemical attack on London

After initial doubts about whether or not to cancel the event in the wake of the Paris attacks, Cyber Security Challenge UK and GCHQ used the annual recruitment event to stress the importance of bringing talented and diverse youngsters into the industry.

By: Cara McGoogan,

'Dragon's Lair' Kickstarter movie killed before it failed

The ambitious plan to resurrect classic video game Dragon's Lair as a feature-length traditionally animated movie via crowdfunding has been cancelled, with creators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman pulling the Kickstarter before it ended.

By: Matt Kamen,

Thursday, November 26, 2015

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This is what the spending review means for tech and science

Chancellor George Osborne has set out spending plans for the next four years, and science and tech are getting some love -- though not as much as many hoped.

By: Nicole Kobie,

Birds, like humans, argue over parental duties

Parental arguments about who's pulling their weight are not restricted to humans, a study released today found. And it turns out that birds also bicker about whose turn it is to watch the baby.

By: Emily Reynolds,

Backlash fears over Dead or Alive's busty females keep game Japan-only

The global gaming market is still a fractured one, with different cultural sensibilities meaning titles that work well in one territory may not fly in another -- first person shooters traditionally never did well in Japan, while visual novels were anathema to most western gamers, for instance.

Proving that it's good to keep abreast of differences in regional tastes, Koei Tecmo has confirmed it won't be bringing Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 to EU countries or America -- because it fears a backlash over how the game represents women. For those unfamiliar with the series, it "represents" them as scantily clad beach babes with barely contained breasts.

By: Matt Kamen,

Fish have emotional responses that indicate sentience

A new study showing 'emotional fever' responses in stressed fish provides evidence that they are in fact sentient beings.

By: K.G Orphanides,

TalkTalk hack: fifth arrest is for blackmail

A fifth person has been arrested over the TalkTalk hack, this time an 18-year-old from Llanelli, Wales.

By: Nicole Kobie,

Sony has already sold more than 30 million PS4s

New sales figures show that about twice as many PS4s have been sold as Xbox Ones, and make the fourth PlayStation Sony's most successful console to date.

By: K.G Orphanides,

FBI seeks hacker controlling 1.2 billion stolen logins

The FBI is looking for a hacker who has control of one of the largest known caches of stolen data, including over 1.2 billion sets of internet login details.

By: Nicole Kobie,

Betrayal is behind the spread of humans around the world

Around 100,000 years ago, the way human beings moved around the planet changed significantly. New research shows that this was due to cheating, betrayal and "the dark side of human nature".

By: Emily Reynolds,