Barista's edition for Tue 07 April 2015
Watch: New documentary proves model minority stereotype hurts more than it helps
Popularity: 11.74
As the cigarette smoke clears across the screen of the A-Town Boyz movie trailer, we see that Asian American men are the ones holding the guns. Not Korean, Chinese, or Vietnamese men in subtitled gangster films that make the international film festival rounds, but Asian American men in a documentary set in Atlanta, Georgia.
CanTheySeeMyDick.com is a surprisingly informative website about the NSA
Popularity: 6.52
Yes, John Oliver sat down with Edward Snowden in Russia to talk about dick pics (among other topics), but even if that moment seemed farcical, it's actually very educational in that it guides people through the functions of various surveillance programs within the (presumably) relatable context of sending photos of your genitals over the internet.
The Solarbike is a very real thing
Popularity: 5.22
Here's an electric bike that doesn't need plugging in.. or swapping out batteries. As the name suggests, the Solarbike has solar cells built into both sides of the party typical bicycle wheels, using cells (and a design) that's apparently "shadow optimized": The inventor is based in Copenhagen, so it's certainly an issue that needed tackling.
Stanford's aluminum battery fully charges in just one minute
Popularity: 4.84
Lithium-ion batteries have been a boon for the modern world -- they've replaced the heavier, single-use alkaline type in everything from wristwatches to jumbo jets. Unfortunately, these rechargeable cells are already struggling to keep up with our ever-increasing energy needs.
Augmented And Virtual Reality To Hit $150 Billion, Disrupting Mobile By 2020
Popularity: 4.18
Editor's note: Tim Merel is the managing director of Digi-Capital. Virtual reality and augmented reality are exciting - Google Glass coming and going, Facebook's $2 billion for Oculus, Google's $542 million into Magic Leap, not to mention Microsoft's HoloLens. There are amazing early-stage platforms and apps, but VR/AR in 2015 feels a bit like the smartphone market before the iPhone.
Turkey blocks Twitter, YouTube over hostage photos
Popularity: 3.44
A Turkish court has ordered blocks imposed on Twitter and YouTube for sharing photos of a hostage taken during an armed siege last week. The blocks have been imposed because images of a deadly siege were being shared via the social networks.
LA's New Parking Signs Are Brilliant and Every City Should Copy Them
Popularity: 2.05
In the quest to make parking suck less, there are apps that help you find a space, and meters where you can pay with a swipe of your credit card. But LA has launched a simple, low-tech solution to make parking better: Well-designed signage that offers no ambiguity whatsoever when it comes to where you can park, when you can park there, and how much it will cost.
This working computer is smaller than a grain of rice - CNET
Popularity: 2.03
Computers used to consume whole rooms, but now one computer can fit on the edge of a nickel. At just one millimeter cubed, the Michigan Micro Mote (M^3) is believed to be the smallest autonomous computer in the world. For over a decade, the faculty and students at the University of Michigan's computer science department have been working on the M^3.