Samsung creates good smartwatches. The smartwatches, however, remain underrated. It’s hard to be recognized in a category dominated by a single player. In this case, the smartwatch category belongs to Apple. 

Despite the fact that Apple holds the smartwatch category, Samsung was able to hold onto its number two spot on the global market share even though they are just 11.1 percent, which is only less than a third of what Apple has been able to generate.

The line has been a fairly stark contrast to Apple’s offerings. Samsung’s smartwatch philosophy is in line with its mobile counterpart: offer variety and don’t be afraid to try new things. Compare that to the Apple Watch’s annual improvements. The company offers one, key product, opting to make a little bit better, piece by piece.

Announced at the Unpacked event that gave us the S10 back in February, the Galaxy Watch Active presented a streamlining of the line. And simplified —and, most notably, cheaper — take on the Tizen-powered wearable line. Honestly, that $200 price point was really the key, putting the device in line with Fitbit’s relatively recent foray into the category.

A mere six months later, it returned with the Galaxy Watch Active 2. The device brings a smattering of upgrades, including improved heart rate monitoring (with the ECG sensor currently still in beta) and the addition of both an LTE model and a larger 44mm version. Thankfully, it maintains a streamlined design that’s a welcome alternative to some of Samsung’s bigger, bulkier offerings. 

Check out more details about this over at TechCrunch.

(Image Credit: TechCrunch)

It's like a Murphy bed in bathtub form!

In 1895, the Mosely Folding Bath Company advertised this unique piece of furniture in the Montgomery Ward mail order catalog. It's a semi-portable bathtub that folded upward into a mirrored vanity. The National Museum of American History describes it:

This tub, disguised as a mirrored wardrobe, folded down and out of its wood casing into the room, revealing the heater above.

This was similar to Bruschke & Ricke’s combined sofa and bathtub of the same period. The sofa’s bolster concealed a water tank and heater, while the seat unfolded to reveal a bathtub. Often, large rubber aprons protected the wood or carpeted floor. Accounts of igniting sofas and burned bathers dampened the product’s appeal. Since neither bathtub attached to plumbing nor pipes, used bath water drained into a basin and then required emptying.

A few of these clever inventions still exist and can be purchased at auction.

-via Messy Nessy Chic | Photos: Tiny House Blog

Previously Unpublished Photo, By L7′s Jennifer Finch: Kurt Cobain & Krist Novoselic At An L7 Record Release Party. pic.twitter.com/81aZFKr2dq

— Nirvana (@NirvanaFan1994) April 26, 2017

In 1991, a young band from Seattle named Nirvana released an album called Nevermind. DGC Records had high hopes for the album and threw a release party at a club called Re-Bar on Friday the 13th. From the perspective of 2019, you can imagine that the invitations were coveted and the party was a wild night. And you'd be right, but there was more to it.

The first signal that things at Nirvana’s record release party for Nevermind might get out of hand was it was a strictly “beer only” event. To remedy this, Kurt Cobain’s pal Dylan Carlson of the band Earth snuck in a huge bottle of whiskey (allegedly Jim Beam) served it up covertly in a photo booth inside the infamous Seattle entertainment mecca/gay-friendly watering hole, Re-bar. Smuggling booze into a bar is a thing thrifty drunks do, but you also might be asking yourself why did it have to be smuggled into a bar hosting a party full of industry types from Geffen Records, local label Sub Pop and thirsty musicians? To explain this, we have to consider Seattle’s long, complicated history with hard liquor. Prior to the 1970s, it was illegal for people to drink whilst standing up, and women were not permitted to sit on bar stools.

Even in 1991, the liquor laws were quite strange, including one against serving liquor where food was served. Did the local legislators fear that a food fight might break out? Um, that's exactly what happened. Read about the Nevermind release party at Dangerous Minds.

Shortly after Anthony Swofford turned 18, the United States Marine Corps trained him to live, think and operate. This made him into one of the most lethal humans who walk on the earth. The Marine Corps transformed him from a typical suburban American kid into an ideal fighting machine “through a perfected, scientific regimen of psychological rewiring, physiological restructuring, and moral recoding.”

After 10 months in the grunt lab, I was assigned to an infantry battalion. I operated with a new kinesiology of the body and soul that had not only prepared me for war but created a thirst for any brand of conflict. I had an understanding of what perfection on the battlefield would look, sound, and taste like. I had become a Battle Bot.

My lethality increased with each personnel addition: from me, the rifleman, to the four-man fire team, the squad, the platoon, the company, the battalion. Each time, add new men, add new hunger, more firepower, more expertise, more technology with which to lay waste to the enemy. As the fighting organism grows in size, so does the inability to pause mission and consider whether the killing is just or moral: the killing just is.

Swofford writes that American warfighters of every generation is handed excellent new gadgets with which they can play around with. After all, “who doesn’t love a new toy?” And for a soldier, sniping people down can be a fun activity. 

And now, with technology providing us with new ways to kill people, without even stepping into the battleground, Swofford says that this creates moral distance, and that technology would increase killing.

Check out more of his analysis over at Technology Review.

(Image Credit: Pexels/ Pixabay)

It might sound like a really crazy idea that could come out from a person’s mind while he’s drunk. Nevertheless, this idea is already scientifically proven.

The idea is creating a refrigerator made from a rubber band. When you stretch a rubber band and hold it against your lips, you would notice that it is warmer. When you release it, it cools. This is called the “elastocaloric” effect, and this effect is very similar to how fluid refrigerants in a fridge or air conditioner transfer heat through compression and expansion.

Now, scientists have created a version that not only stretches the rubber band, but also twists it. It may one day lead to greener cooling technology.

To find out how twisting might enable a new kind of fridge, engineering graduate student Run Wang at Nankai University in Tianjin, China, and colleagues compared the cooling power of rubber fibers, nylon and polyethylene fishing lines, and nickel-titanium wires. For each material, they pulled a 3-centimeter length taut in a vise and began to wind it with a rotary tool. The fibers not only twisted, but also began to coil around themselves—and coil around the coils (a process known as “supercoiling”). The different fibers warmed up by as much as 15°C. When allowed to unwind, the fibers cooled by the same amount.

Check out more details of this study over at Science Magazine.

(Video Credit: Science Magazine/ YouTube)

You know that a man is a genius when scientists still marvel at his creations over five centuries later. Leonardo da Vinci was truly a man ahead of his time, as proved by his creations.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) engineers have analyzed a bridge designed by Da Vinci in 1502, which is over 500 years ago. The bridge was designed for Sultan Bayezid II, head of the Ottoman Empire, and was intended to connect Istanbul and its neighboring city Galata.

In the end, da Vinci's design wasn't used, but the MIT team has carefully modelled the polymath's design, finding it to be structurally sound – no mean feat, considering it would've been the world's longest bridge at the time, by some distance.

Check out more details of the investigation over at ScienceAlert.

(Image Credit: Gretchen Ertl/ ScienceAlert)

Mattel now offers its famous card game in a format accessible to the visually impaired. The company is now selling decks in which the numbers and colors have been marked in Braille script on the corners. From the press release:

“UNO Braille is doing more than making this beloved game more accessible. It’s also helping promote the importance and normalcy of braille by putting it in places people might not expect, and integrating it into the play of blind children,” said Mark Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the Blind. “The fact that a blind person is now able to play a classic game of UNO straight out of the box with both blind and sighted friends or family members is a truly meaningful moment for our community. I look forward to enjoying UNO Braille with my own family and I know that blind people across the nation will embrace this important and exciting step toward more inclusion and accessibility.”

-via Design Boom

As earthquakes frequently occur in Japan, it is no wonder why they think more about earthquake safety more than anyone else. 

One of the most crucial things to do during an earthquake is protecting your head from falling objects. There are a lot of ways you can do this. For example, you can get under a desk or table, or cover your head using a helmet. A helmet, however, is bulky and takes up a lot of space. Fortunately, there is the Derucap —a lightweight and portable helmet.

The Derucap is designed specifically for protecting your head in the event of an earthquake, and what makes it unique is how it stores flat when not in use, measuring just about 1.6″ thick. To open it up, simply place it over your head, and pull down until it’s expanded. The lightweight helmet is made from a flame retardant polyethylene, and can cushion the blow in the event that something falls on your head. It’s not going to protect you from a 2-ton steel beam, but it should reduce the chances of injury from things like items falling off of shelves or other small debris.

The Derucap comes in two designs – a compact model that you can toss in a desk drawer, or a stackable square model which comes in boxes of 10. If you live in Japan, you should be able to grab one for about 3,900 yen – or about $36. But if you want to import one to the states, you’ll need to turn to Japan Trend Shop, who sells singles for $69 each.

(Image Credit: Technabob)

You might want to strap a light resistance band between your feet the next time you go out to jog. While this may seem as odd, this is a rather effective method to make you an efficient runner by about 6.4%, according to UC Santa Barbara mechanical engineer Elliot Hawkes.

“In running, the energy is mostly wasted,” said Hawkes, who conducted research on this topic while at Stanford University. His paper appears in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Running is an extremely inefficient activity for the human body (which is why it’s also a calorie-torching workout). According to Hawkes’ study, for every 10 calories burned, less than one calorie is needed to maintain a constant forward velocity. The other nine calories are spent keeping us from falling as we pound the pavement with our bodymass, as well as braking and accelerating the swinging leg. Hawkes noticed this inefficiency while biking at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco at a cycling track concentric with a running track.

“It was kind of an interesting challenge because as an engineer, when you see a very inefficient system, you think, ‘Oh gosh that’s really bad; there’s got to be some low-hanging fruit that would improve it a bit,’” he said.

So how did they come up with their solution? Find out on The Current.

(Image Credit: Journal of Experimental Biology/ The Current)

Some things do not mesh well, like strong winds and substantial eyelashes. As far as I can tell, this woman took a selfie in Lagos, Nigeria, where flooding is in progress. Meaning, she didn't expect to be evacuated by boat when she left for work that morning. My guess is that she felt the chaos on her face and pulled out her phone to see what was happening. What we know for sure is that she had the sense of humor to post it to social media. What everyone wants to know is what kind of eyelash glue she uses. -via reddit 

Utah businessman Dell Loy Hansen paid $1.32 million for a dime at a Chicago coin auction. The 10-cent dime is the 1894-S Barber Dime, one of only nine coins that are confirmed to exist. The $1.32M- worth dime is one of only 24 that were ever made, and Hansen just paid a whopping amount of cash for it. Hansen is an avid coin collector, and his means of living provides enough for his passionate hobby, as he is the owner of the Real Salt Lake MLS team. 

image credit: via CNN

Did you know that guppies, angelfish, and even honeybees can distinguish between qualities of three and four? However, according to Scarlett Howard from RMIT University, Australia and the Université de Toulouse, France, the trusty insects have a hard time distinguishing between four and five, and this made her wonder.

According to Howard, honeybees are quite accomplished mathematicians. 'Recently, honeybees were shown to learn the rules of "less than" and "greater than" and apply these rules to evaluate numbers from zero to six', she says. Maybe numeracy wasn't the bees' problem; was it how the question was posed?

The study by both Howard and Adrian Dyer from RMIT documents their discovery that bees can discriminate between four and five, given that the training procedure is correct. The study is published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

What is the correct training procedure? Find out over at EurekAlert.

(Image Credit: Alexas_Fotos/ Pixabay)

A Russian cosmonaut just created an artificial meat aboard the International Space Station, and it’s only a matter of time before these products come to a supermarket near you.

Tests carried out in space in September led to the production of beef, rabbit and fish tissue using a 3D printer.

Didier Toubia, the head of Aleph Farms, an Israeli startup, states that this new technology could possibly “make long-term travel possible and renew space exploration,” to Mars for example. The Israeli startup was the one who provided cells for the tests.

"But our goal is to sell meat on Earth," he told AFP.

The idea "is not to replace traditional agriculture," he said. "It's about being a better alternative to factory farming."

More details over at PHYS.org.

What are your thoughts on this one?

(Image Credit: PHYS.org)

On October 11, at about 12:16 AM, Beijing Time, a dazzling meteor lit up the sky over Northeast China, turning night into day, casting dark shadows as it flew over the city. The meteor appeared as a bright fireball in surveillance videos of the event.

See the video over at Space.com.

(Image Credit: CCTV)

Before the Industrial Revolution, British shipbuilders depended on wood imported from Baltic nations, which was expensive. Meanwhile, Britain had a colony across the Atlantic that had almost unlimited timber. The problem was that American wood had to be shipped a relatively far distance, which raised its price. The solution would seem to be to establish a ship building industry in America, but that didn't happen, and the American Revolution eventually made the concept moot. Britain tried to regulate timber imports with various tariffs, complicated by several wars.  

In the midst of this frenzied activity, two Glasgow shipbuilders, Charles and John Wood, in search for quick profit, devised a technique to import large quantities of timber. Their plan involved building a huge vessel, many times larger than the largest vessel in operation, which was to be packed to capacity with timer and sailed across the Atlantic. On arrival, the huge cargo was to be unloaded and the vessel itself dismantled and the timbers sold. That way the importers could reap big profit, first from the sale of the large cargo, and second, by evading the duty on timber of the vessel itself.

In 1824, Charles Wood left for Quebec to supervise the construction of the first disposable ship, Columbus. In size, she was immense—300 feet long, 50 feet wide and 22 feet tall. She weighted an astounding 3,690 tons, more than ten times the tonnage of the average vessel operating in the timber trade. The ship was built as cheaply as possible. The hull was made from thick pieces of undressed, squared timber which was not caulked at the seams so that she could be taken apart easily without damaging the timber. The bottom was wider than the deck, and the vessel looked ungainly and crude. In the words of a Times correspondent, “the Columbus was an immense mass of timber knocked together for the purpose of commerce, without any regard to beauty and little attention to the principle of naval architecture.”

Okay, so a shipbuilder built a ship badly in Quebec in order to ship wood to Britain to make good ships. Gotcha. Surprisingly, the Columbus made it to Glasgow, which proved such a scheme could work. However, subsequent events spelled doom for the era of disposable ships. Read the rest of the story at Amusing Planet. -via Damn Interesting