A weekly round-up of the best tech, science, and geek-related news from around the web
Stephen Hawking joins Facebook, accepts the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.
Google has introduced a new email service called Inbox that hopes to ease the clutter and confusion from your regular Gmail account. Facebook also rolled out a new app called "Rooms" which allows users to create mobile forums about any topic you want.
Google's senior vice president Alan Eustace beat Felix Baumgartner's free fall record on Friday, plummeting from the edge of space nearly 26 miles in the air in a custom space suit. Check out a cool video on the jump below:
CVS is the latest company to join the growing list of retailers who will not be accepting the Apple Pay mobile payment system over competing investments in a separate mobile wallet company.
Director Joel Schumacher is reportedly working on a 12-issue comic that will complete the Batman trilogy he began with the camp-tastic Batman Forever and Batman & Robin.
At a MIT talk on Friday, Tesla and Space X founder Elon Musk reiterated his warning about the dangers of artificial intelligence, calling it our "biggest existential threat." Said Musk: "I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I were to guess like what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very careful with the artificial intelligence. Increasingly scientists think there should be some regulatory oversight maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish. With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon. In all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, it’s like yeah he’s sure he can control the demon. Didn’t work out."
Banshee Chapter, a 2013 horror film produced by Zachary Quinto, has now been adapted for Oculus Rift – opening the door to a world of frightening possibilities in the future of immersive, virtual reality experiences. Check out a video of the cast and crew talk about the new edition below:
China has launched the first privately funded mission to the moon.
Tech company Dexta Robotics has launched a Kickstarter campaign for its new Dexmo glove that uses force feedback to enable users to touch objects in virtual reality.
Take a tour of the Minecraft city that took two years to build.
DC is looking for a female director to helm its upcoming Wonder Woman film.
Former NFL-er, LGBT ally, and creative wordsmith Chris Kluwe takes the "slackjawed pickletits" who support #Gamergate to task for their role defending misogyny and the harassment of women in the video game industry.
Apple will reportedly be relaunching it's newly acquired Beats Music streaming platform as part of iTunes sometime next year.
The surprising science behind Christopher Nolan's Interstellar.
