We’re still waiting on our flying cars. But back in 1923, the magazine Science and Invention assured readers they were just around the corner. And to top it off, the buildings of tomorrow would be built to “solve” the traffic problem.
One of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most famous mansions, known as the Ennis House, is up for sale in east Los Angeles. And even if you don’t know the house, you certainly know the movies that the famous building has appeared in, including Blade Runner (1982), The House on Haunted Hill (1959) and The Replacement Killers…
Over the past two years, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has been digitizing old, never-before-seen films of nuclear tests and uploading them to YouTube. The LLNL just uploaded a new batch of films last week, and I couldn’t help but notice that one in particular is incredibly cinematic.
Robotic lawnmowers are fairly mainstream these days, even if they don’t have much market share yet. But they’ve been a long time coming. We’ve been promised solar-powered semi-autonomous lawnmowers for decades. This Sunday comic strip from 1959 predicted the rise of these machines, but also pointed at the problem with…
Rivers in cities can easily fill with heaps full of trash, lost things, and industrial waste. But if the city has been around for a while, all of that garbage can tell an incredible story.
Honda just announced that it will cease development of Asimo, the super cute humanoid that tours the world in the name of stunt marketing. Asimo was 18 years old. Asimo, once heralded as the future of robotics, was not even old enough to buy a beer. But it was always happy to help sell you a Honda automobile.
Some people here in the 21st century still think of solar power as a futuristic, unproven technology. But solar-powered machines have been around for well over a century.
If you’ve ever watched the History Channel at 3AM, you know that the Nazis had a secret program during World War II to develop flying saucers. The Nazi’s UFO experiments never actually flew, but the model toy company Revell recently released a set in Germany that makes it look like one of the Nazi saucers actually…
Rome wasn’t built in a day. And the Nazis didn’t exterminate 10 million people overnight. When we look for historical parallels to the current rise of fascism around the world, it’s important to remember how things became normalized in the past. And an old book about propaganda is a helpful tool in understanding how…
If you spend too much online, you’re probably familiar with the “distracted boyfriend” meme. It shows a man checking out a woman on the street while his partner looks on in disgust. Meme makers typically put text on each of the three characters to highlight attention being given to something unimportant at the expense…
You’ve seen video of the Hindenburg disaster in New Jersey from that flame-filled day in 1937. But what about the zeppelins that didn’t crash? How did they work and what did people imagine they would do to revolutionize air travel?
When it comes to high-tech surveillance, identity theft, and financial crimes, humanity lives in a hell of its own making. Technology here in the second decade of the 21st century has created a world where our personal information is constantly getting exposed. And for what benefit? The “convenience” of being able to…
It was a Friday evening in 1975, and Woody Wise was driving from Los Angeles to Palm Springs, with his two kids in the car. He had picked them up from school in a rush, but they weren’t going on vacation. They were hiding out from the FBI.
When you imagine the American police officer of the future, what do you see? In the 1980s, one police officer saw “supercops”—a highly trained force of professionals who had the most high-tech toys at their disposal and almost never killed people.
Uber unveiled a new design for its futuristic “aerial taxi” at the second annual Uber Elevate conference today. And judging by the concept art, Uber is still trying to figure out how to make electric vertical take off and landing (eVTOL) a practical reality. The company’s latest design looks like the Spruce Goose of…
This TV set was the futuristic vision of illustrator Frank R. Paul in 1922. And I absolutely love it.
Disney is currently broadcasting a livestream of the sunrise at the Magic Kingdom theme park in Florida. I have no idea why Disney is doing this, but it’s honestly just what I needed this morning.
There’s a new documentary series in development called Artist Depiction about NASA artists and their visions for the future. Or, in many cases, their past visions of the future. And it all looks incredible.
It’s still weird, isn’t it? German Chancellor Angela Merkel is palling around with robots at every opportunity, with her most recent robo-encounter happening just yesterday on ‘Girl’s Day’ at the chancellery in Berlin.
In 1854, at the height of the California Gold Rush, the San Francisco Mint produced less than 300 special $5 coins. Only three were known to survive into modern times. Until today, that is. Now there are four.