Η ΓΝΩΣΗ ΤΗΣ ΣΤΟ ΣΧΟΛΕΙΟ ΚΑΙ ΠΕΡΑ ΑΠΟ ΑΥΤΟ
InMotion sent me its flagship long-distance scooter made for big-n-tall folk – such as myself – for a review, and I have to say, after my first ride, I'm actually kind of shocked. While I haven't ridden a whole slew of makes and models, I do have well over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of scooting about in recent times.
Category: Urban Transport, Transport
Tags: Segway, Scooter, Electric Vehicles, Electric
In what seems like HAL 9000 come to malevolent life, a recent study appeared to demonstrate that AI is perfectly willing to indulge in blackmail, or worse, as much as 89% of the time if it doesn't get its way or thinks it's being switched off. Or does it?
Category: Computers, Consumer Tech, Technology
This week, we released our review of the Fujifilm GFX100RF, and we're deep into the review process for the Canon PowerShot V1. Editors Richard Butler and Mitchell Clark sat down with director of video and social Mykim Dang to discuss the cameras and the community's reaction.
The video touches on several topics: the PowerShot V1's capabilities as a vlogging camera versus how it performs as an enthusiast compact, the GFX100RF's placement as a luxury product and weirdness around flashes and leaf shutters.
After more than two decades of planning and building, the world's largest digital camera at the heart of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory on the summit of Cerro Pachón in Chile has snapped its first imagery – from test observations spanning a 10-hour window.
Tags: Telescope, Observatory, SLAC, Cameras, Astrophotography, Astronomy, Imaging
The Fairphone Gen 6 is here, and in addition to being repairable at home, it packs a neat little trick. A bright lime green physical slider instantly activates a dumbphone mode so you can focus on more important things than doomscrolling.
Category: Mobile Technology, Consumer Tech, Technology
Tags: Phone, Fairphone, smartphones, Repair, Modular, sustainable design
United Kingdom-based Enola Gaye has nearly 30 years of experience selling a multi-colored array of smoke and paint grenades for use in sports like paintball and airsoft, as well as for celebrations and special effects. The company has spun off a survival branch that applies smoke grenade-inspired design to products like the Ultimate Match, a powerful, weather-resistant firestarter that shoots out a mini inferno to spark flammable material into a warming fire. Simply pull the pin and get 'er burning.
Tags: Outdoors and Camping, Camping, Survival, Emergency, Backpacking
As our personal devices get smaller and are expected to do more stuff – whether that's your phone, a smartwatch, or a wearable AI assistant – they also tend to get hotter on the inside. That means it can be hard for them to deliver consistently fast performance, fit more components inside, or avoid getting too warm to handle.
Category: Technology
Tags: Cooling, MEMS, Solid-state, Silicon
A recent video shared by All Arts TV profiles the late Beuford Smith, a self-taught street photographer who captured iconic images in New York City in the 1960s and beyond. The video was the inaugural episode of the publication's new "The Darkroom MCs" series and is one of the last interviews Smith gave before his passing on June 7, 2025. In it, Smith talks about his career, what distinguishes someone's style and his darkroom process.
Smith was a prominent figure in capturing Black life and culture. He documented pivotal moments in the Civil Rights Movement and photographed the likes of Malcolm X, drummer Elvin Jones and jazz pianist Barry Harris. His accomplishments include serving as president emeritus of the Kamoinge Workshop, creating "The Black Photographers Annual," having photographs in the MoMA permanent collection and more.
In the video, Smith talks with hosts Russell Frederick and Anderson Zaca about how good photographs are everywhere. "You don't have to travel to Timbuktu or Peru or anyplace to take photographs," Smith says. "They're right in front of you, you just have to be able to see them and take them." As someone who sometimes grumbles about picking up a camera when I'm in a place that I deem boring, I really appreciated this reminder.
Smith also delves into the technical aspects of his darkroom work, a topic he noted was, frustratingly, rarely discussed in interviews. He walks Frederick and Zaca through a selection of his prints, demonstrating the importance of light and shadow, and explaining his exacting standards for print quality and style. He even reveals that he turned down the opportunity to purchase an Ansel Adams print for $125 because he didn't like its print quality.
Finally, Smith also shows a photo he created of Malcom X, which he said was simply a "self-assignment." Even though he didn't take the image for a paid job, it has been one of his best-selling prints, and the Whitney Museum bought a print of the photo for $6500. It's yet another push to just get out there and create photographs, even if you don't know what could happen with them down the line.
In an effort to supercharge the development of military drones, DARPA will this year fast track flight testing of five advanced Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) prototypes as part of the agency's Early VTOL Aircraft Demonstration (EVADE) project.
Category: Military, Technology
Canister-shaped lifestyle projectors are great for quick and easy wall-filling viewing in a small space without the room being dominated by a huge TV. Yaber's T1 Pro also serves up mood lighting, and rocks the house with TurboSonic sound.
Category: Home Entertainment, Consumer Tech, Technology
Tags: Projectors, HD, Portable, LED, Pico projector, Lighting
This week, we released our review of the Fujifilm GFX100RF, a rangefinder-style large-sensor compact made for street photography. We've added the best photos we took during the review process to a sample gallery, which you can look through to get a feel for how the camera performs in a variety of real-world conditions.
Please do not reproduce any of these images on a website or any newsletter/magazine without prior permission (see our copyright page). We make the originals available for private users to download to their own machines for personal examination or printing; we do so in good faith, so please don't abuse it.
Sample galleryThis widget is not optimized for RSS feed readers. Click here to open it in a new browser window / tab.A team of chemists has developed a new type of magnetic molecule that could be the key to storing vast amounts of data on absolutely miniscule drives.
Category: Technology
Tags: Chemistry, Data Storage, University of Manchester, Australian National University, Magnetic, Molecules
A Longspined Bullhead. Click here to experience the full-size image.
Image: Søren Skarby
Combining work with hobbies can be a risky endeavor. Søren Skarby, a photojournalist and passionate fly fisherman, endeavored for years to keep photography – his profession – and fishing – his hobby – separate. But inevitably, the two worlds collided. The result was a long-term, ongoing project named Scaled Up, which aims to document fish with a level of detail we don't usually see. Skarby took the time to chat with me about his series, providing insight into what led to the project and the complicated process behind it.
"We think of fish in this part of the world as something dull. But fish are very colorful"Skarby often has the experience of catching a fish and thinking how beautiful it is. Other people didn't quite get it when he would tell them, though. "We think of fish in this part of the world as something dull. But fish are very colorful as you can see, even in Scandinavia," he explained. Plus, most people only come across fish after it's processed and in the supermarket, which is always colorless. Seeing the fish alive is a totally different experience, and he wanted to figure out a way to show others the beauty he saw while fishing.
A Common Dragonet. Click here to experience the full-size image.
Photo: Søren Skarby
When he saw the Microsculpture series of insect photographs by Levon Biss, it was a turning point. Skarby decided he wanted to do something similar with fish by combining hundreds of images taken with a high-resolution camera to create uber-high-resolution photos. From the start, he knew he would need funding. "If I'm going to do this right, I've got to get paid while I'm thinking because I'll only be focusing on that," he said. So he reached out to a museum to collaborate, and they were eager to participate. Obtaining funding took time, but it did eventually come.
While the idea of photographing fish is simple at face value, it's actually quite complicated. "I came up with one idea after the other and ditched it because it didn't work," Skarby explained. While most fish are colorful while alive, they lose that color very quickly when they die. So you have a very short window to work. Skarby says that cod is the worst, as it will turn very dark in less than 10 minutes. He started working with a taxidermist, and together they figured out that baby oil would prolong the time they had to photograph the specimen before the color drained.
A female trout. Click here to experience the full-size image.
Photo: Søren Skarby
Next, Skarby said he had to figure out how to manage the camera setup. His process involves a combination of focus stacking and panoramic stitching to maximize the level of detail. But that presented its own set of problems. "It's really, really hard to set up a camera vertically and then move it and keep the same distance to the subject all the way. There's no gear made for it," he said. He was venting his frustrations to a friend, who said, "Can't you move the fish?" It was a lightbulb moment, and they drew the idea on the drywall of his mid-renovation kitchen, eventually having a movable table made for the project.
Lighting was the next hurdle. Skarby tried using constant light but said the exposure time gets way too long. He explained that the image he created of the male Three-Spined Stickleback took 40 minutes total, with each exposure lasting 15 seconds. Every time a loud motorcycle or large truck drove past their studio, they got nervous, because they were sure it would shake the camera or table with the fish and ruin the image. Flash, then, is a must, but it has to be precise flash that fires consistently each time.
A male Three-spined Stickleback. Click here to experience the full-size image.
Photo: Søren Skarby
His lighting setup is relatively simple, with a light under the glass on which the fish rests and a light above at a 45-degree angle. However, the highly reflective surface of the baby oil-covered fish introduces challenges with lighting. So, Skarby adds polarizing filters to everything, including both lights and the camera lens.
Finding an ideal polarizer for the lights was yet another moment of creative problem-solving. Eventually, Skarby realized that TFT displays used in TVs have polarizing filters inside, and that he could buy packs of the filters meant for large TVs directly from China for cheap. Those filters then go in front of the softbox, and when one needs to be replaced, it isn't a big cost to replace it.
A Garfish. Click here to experience the full-size image.
Photo: Søren Skarby
The studio setup isn't the end of challenges, either. Skarby ends up with between 120 and 440 individual images for each fish. He goes through each Raw file before starting the stitching process, and then spends an extensive amount of time retouching at 200% or even 300% once the files are stitched together. For example, the image he created of the Gar, which is 52,500 pixels long, took 80 hours to Photoshop. Each image has loads of dust to remove, along with the edges of the glass pieces used to spread out fins and keep the fish in position.
This unretouched image shows just how much work is involved in the retouching process. The final image can be seen here.
Photo: Søren Skarby
While the Scaled Up project has been running since 2019, Skarby is far from done. He's currently working on his largest round of grant funding and plans on building out a caravan to be a mobile studio. That includes a camera stand that is built into the vehicle instead of using a tripod.
The caravan studio will enable him to go where the fish are, and connect with more people to curate stories with each individual fish. He's also going to be switching from the Fujifilm GFX 50S to a Phase One camera system, and using Helicon software for stacking the images instead of Photoshop. He says those changes should make the process somewhat easier and faster.
A Snake Pipefish. Click here to experience the full-size image.
Photo: Søren Skarby
Beyond the technical side of things, Skarby says there are also concerns related to conservation and ethics. After all, the fish aren't alive when he photographs them. He was recently offered the opportunity to photograph the European sprat, which is endemic to Denmark. While he was honored, that fish is incredibly rare, so he turned it down. "It would be crazy to say that 'we want you to be aware of the wild tiger and that’s why we’ve shot one to show to you,'" he said.
"What I'm trying to do with the pictures is showing people this is what you risk losing."Skarby says that one of the reasons this project is so important is for conservation reasons. "I don't know what I am any more, if I'm a fly fisher, photographer or both or I'm actually an environmentalist," he says. No matter what he is, he's using the images to raise awareness and help bring attention to the unexpected beauty of certain fish. "What I'm trying to do with the pictures is showing people this is what you risk losing."
We aren't able to show off Skarby's images at full resolution, so if you want to see these fish in all their glory, be sure to head to his website. There, you'll be able to zoom in to remarkable levels, highlighting spectacular details on each fish.
Sample galleryThis widget is not optimized for RSS feed readers. Click here to open it in a new browser window / tab.Tiny houses are not just for living in, and we've seen the towable dwellings turned into everything from a wedding chapel to a pub. Dragon Tiny Homes recently came up with yet another use for them in the form of a mobile sauna.
Category: Tiny Houses, Outdoors
Tags: Building and Construction, Tiny Footprint, Micro-House, Sauna
From home-building micro-factories to wall-building excavators, robotic construction workers are coming on strong. Civ Robotics now brings bot benefits to the surveying stage of the construction process, and they've just secured some serious cash.
Category: Robotics, Technology
Tags: Construction, Robotic construction, Building and Construction, Automation
What will the orbital spacecraft of tomorrow look like? If Dassault Aviation has its way, it could be similar to its Véhicule Orbital Réutilisable de Transport et d’Exploration (VORTEX) reusable spaceplane unveiled at the recent Paris Air Show.
Tags: Spaceplane, France, Dassault Aviation
For the first time, scientists have unraveled just how high levels of fructose affect the body, flipping a genetic switch as it's broken down – one that primes your immune system to overreact to things it would normally ignore. In this "trigger happy" state, certain immune cells are less discerning, resulting in inflammation, more severe infections and even new food intolerances or sensitivities.
Category: Diet & Nutrition, Wellness & Healthy Living, Body & Mind
Tags: Inflammation, Diet, University of Vienna
Eating just one extra serving of leafy greens a day could help protect your heart, according to a new long-term study that found that a higher intake of vitamin K1, found in spinach, kale and broccoli, was linked to a lower risk of dying from heart disease.
Category: Wellness & Healthy Living, Body & Mind
Tags: Heart health, Cardiovascular disease, Diet, Edith Cowan University
A new study has found that psychopaths show structural changes in particular areas of the brain that deal with things like impulse control and emotional regulation. This improved understanding may help to formulate targeted treatment and rehabilitation strategies.
Category: Mental Health, Brain Health, Body & Mind
Tags: psychiatry, Psychopathy, Brain, Behavior
