Watch This | The Verge

This PC orchestra, built from 512 floppy disk drives, is wondrous to hear and behold

2022-06-16T04:06:23-04:00

When I was a kid growing up in rural Yorkshire, one of the regular attractions at local fairs was a huge steam-powered organ: a baroque monstrosity of pipes, horns, and whistles that would parp out classical tunes to the delight of onlookers. I don't know if steam organs are still a thing, but if they've been retired then I have the perfect replacement: the Floppotron - a mammoth "PC hardware orchestra" that plays music using only electric motors.

Like a fairground organ, the Floppotron is unwieldy, massive, musically unsubtle, and a complete joy to behold. It's the work of Polish engineer Paweł Zadrożniak, who's been building various itera …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Nvidia shows off AI model that turns a few dozen snapshots into a 3D-rendered scene

2022-03-25T10:36:46-04:00

From 2D to 3D with the help of AI. | Image: Nvidia

Nvidia's latest AI demo is pretty impressive: a tool that quickly turns a "few dozen" 2D snapshots into a 3D-rendered scene. In the video below you can see the method in action, with a model dressed like Andy Warhol holding an old-fashioned Polaroid camera. (Don't overthink the Warhol connection: it's just a bit of PR scene dressing.)

The tool is called Instant NeRF, referring to "neural radiance fields" - a technique developed by researchers from UC Berkeley, Google Research, and UC San Diego in 2020. If you want a detailed explainer of neural radiance fields, you can read one here, but in short, the method maps the color and light intensi …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Geralt fights giant monsters, and Jaskier befriends rats in new Witcher season 2 trailer

2021-10-29T10:28:17-04:00

The Witcher's second season has gotten its official, full-length, real trailer today, giving the best look yet at the monsters, magic, and mayhem that await Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill), Ciri (Freya Allan), and Yennefer of Vengerberg (Anya Chalotra) when the show arrives on Netflix on December 17th.

The new trailer teases a lot more about what to expect from the upcoming second season, including the upcoming war with the Nilfgaardian Empire, Ciri's training to become a witcher, Geralt's usual monster hunting, and the long-awaited return of everyone's favorite bard, Jaskier (Joey Batey).

It's also the latest salvo in Netflix's marketing b …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot looks like a scary Jim Henson puppet in this Rolling Stones tribute

2021-10-29T09:35:45-04:00

Old snake hips, Mick Jagger, has met his robotic match. Boston Dynamics has released a tribute to The Rolling Stones' iconic music video for their 1981 hit "Start Me Up," with band members replaced by the company's quadrupedal Spot robots.

It is, as with most things Boston Dynamics, either:

cool
creepy
a harbinger of a terrible future in which people are hunted in the streets by robot dogs armed with knives
a harbinger of a wonderful future in which people, I don't know, go to a dance party with robot dogs?

Just take your pick and please don't mention that Black Mirror episode. You know the one I mean. At this point, everybody has made the sam …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Uncharted’s first movie trailer is full of very familiar action

2021-10-21T09:44:52-04:00

After over a decade of development (and seven directors), it seems that Sony's Uncharted movie is finally, really, truly going to actually come out - and it has the trailer to prove it.

Starring Tom Holland as an incongruously young version of fortune hunter / adventurer / general human punching bag Nathan Drake, Uncharted is set long before the popular video game series, winding the clock back before Drake was a seasoned Indiana Jones knockoff to the start of his career.

It is kind of hard to shake how young Holland looks here compared to his more grizzled video game counterpart, along with what appears to be an identical American accent …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Netflix’s latest live-action Cowboy Bebop teaser makes bounty hunting look easy

2021-10-19T08:08:53-04:00

It's still not a full trailer, but Netflix showed off the best look yet at its upcoming live-action Cowboy Bebop adaptation in a new teaser to celebrate the one-month countdown to the show's debut on November 19th.

Like the previous teasers for the show (which so far have included stills and the opening credits), the latest video, titled "Cowboy Bebop: The Lost Session," isn't actually made up of footage from the show but does show off the key trio of Spike Spiegel (John Cho), Jet Black (Mustafa Shakir), and Faye Valentine (Daniella Pineda) in action as they hunt down a bounty, get some noodles, and fight through an army of thugs.

That s …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Listen to the sick Mac sound effect song that Apple opened its keynote with

2021-10-18T18:07:00-04:00

Apple kicked off its MacBook Pro keynote a little differently today: with a sweet remix of classic Apple sound effects from the past 45 years of the company's history, created by artist A. G. Cook - using Apple's Pro Display XDR, MacBook Pro, and Logic Pro, of course.

The song itself is called "Start Up" and is a surprisingly chill listening experience. The video's fun, too, featuring a wide array of Apple hardware from throughout the years, including old iBooks and the sadly defunct iPod Hi-Fi.

The full list of sound effects trend toward Apple's more recent hardware, of course, but there are a few classic Easter eggs, too. The full list …

Read the full story at The Verge.

How to watch the Inspiration4 launch, SpaceX’s first fully private mission to space

2021-09-15T12:25:39-04:00

SpaceX is set to launch the first fully private crew of passengers to orbit on Wednesday. The Inspiration4 crew, three ordinary people and a billionaire philanthropist who's funding the mission, will board SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule on Wednesday afternoon and lift off at 8:02PM ET atop a Falcon 9 rocket, speeding toward an orbit 360 miles above the ground - farther from Earth than the International Space Station.

If all goes according to plan, the mission will mark a new milestone in the budding commercial space industry, where companies owned by billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have been racing to normalize space travel for peo …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Hawkeye’s first trailer introduces the other Hawkeye and some Christmas hijinks

2021-09-13T09:42:35-04:00

The first trailer for Disney Plus' Hawkeye has arrived, giving a first look at the surprisingly whimsical Christmastime adventures of Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) - and his new successor, Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), who also is running around New York City as a preternaturally skilled, purple-clad archer.

Hawkeye picks up with the titular character after the events of Avengers: Endgame, which saw Renner's character flip out into a gothic edgelord style as the murderous vigilante Ronin after his family was wiped from existence in Thanos' snap. But with things back to normal (and his family restored), Clint just wants to enjoy Christmas w …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Amazon’s Wheel of Time show is finally revealed in its first trailer

2021-09-02T12:33:48-04:00

The first trailer for The Wheel of Time TV series has arrived, giving an early look at Amazon's upcoming adaptation of Robert Jordan's epic 14-book fantasy series ahead of its November 19th release date on Amazon Prime Video.

The trailer sets the stage for the series, establishing some of the basic tenets of Jordan's world, with a specific focus on Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike), a member of a group of female magic wielders known as the Aes Sedai, who are capable of wielding the One Power to accomplish feats like controlling the elements and healing others.

The trailer also shows off a first look at The Wheel of Time's younger cast: Mad …

Read the full story at The Verge.