Just the other day, Apple announced that you can now get your smashed iPhone screen fixed in-store for the low (?) cost of around £100, with or without AppleCare in select stores. This is the machine that lets them do it. Read More >>
Featured comment by Interleap:
"Jesus now iPhone screens have superior damage prevention?
Are you kidding me? I never realised just how deluded some people could be about their pho..." More »
Things I've considered making on my own: a computer, a coffee table, a treehouse, mayonnaise and a few other things. Things I've never considered making on my own: toilet paper, socks, phones and pens. But maybe I should reconsider that last one. Making your own pen is such a beautiful process of machinery porn that I want to see the steel strip off the barrel in real life. Read More >>
Dyson makes some of the prettiest vacuums, hand-driers, and air blower/suckers out there, so it should come as no surprise that the factory where they are born is as mesmerising as its products. Read More >>
It might be hard to imagine, but there was once a time where thousands upon thousands of books and arguably the sum totally of human knowledge was not readily available at your fingertips. And while it's no Kindle, Agostino Ramelli's 16th century bookwheel was a valiant attempt to make that happen. Read More >>
On a visit to Standard Motor Products' fuel-injector assembly line in South Carolina, Atlantic writer Adam Davidson asked why a worker there, Maddie, was welding caps onto the injectors herself. Why not use a machine? That's how a lot of the factory's other tasks were performed. Maddie's supervisor, Tony, had a bracing, direct answer: "Maddie is cheaper than a machine." Read More >>
Featured comment by Singularity Utopia:
"Robots taking over all the jobs is only fearsome if you fail to understand how everything will be free due to Post-Scarcity." More »
Ah, Russia, you never-ending source of amusement and absurdity you, please never change. Take this man, who somehow sunk himself into the mud up to his waist and then couldn't get out—until the man with the caterpillar decided to scoop him out, complete with all the mud around him. [Thanks Karl!] Read More >>
Jeff Bizbub spends his days as a GE engineer, but he also has a degree in music theory. And that works just fine for him, because he's been able to use his artistic know-how to troubleshoot problems in machines. Read More >>
How do you inspect a wind turbine? It's actually a pretty tedious process that takes around four hours and involves someone standing out in a field, stopping the turbine, and photographing any problems through a powerful telephoto lens. To make it infinitely easier, GE made a spiderman-like wall climbing robot. Read More >>
Machines are great. Whether you’re sawing, blasting, drilling or sanding, they make almost everything we use today and they're awesome. In fact, they’re probably essential to humanity’s survival at this point, but that doesn’t mean their hard metal whirrings can’t destroy your puny flesh and bones. Read More >>
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