Link About It: This Week’s Picks

The DeLorean reimagined, Google's Blob Orchestra, quantum teleportation and more from around the web

Compose Your Own “Blob Opera” with Google Arts + Culture The latest interactive offering from Google Arts & Culture, this time in conjunction with artist David Li, Blob Opera allows users—with the help of machine learning—to string together a song from a quartet of operatic colorful blobs. No musical training is necessary to bring the bass, mezzo-soprano, soprano and tenor blobs together—users simply select one (and access its …

3D Schröder Staircase Wins 2020 Illusion of the Year Contest

The 16th annual Best Illusion of the Year Contest, hosted by the Neural Correlate Society, crowned a 2020 first prize winner this week. Japanese mathematician Kokichi Sugihara’s 3D Schröder Staircase wowed judges with its ingenuity. The Schröder Staircase (aka Schröder’s Stairs) is typically done in 2D on paper with ink or pencil, but Sugihara deciphered a way to render the illusion in real life and …

Best of CH 2020: Most Popular

Tech reviews, spirit stories, photo essays, sustainability surveys and more

Every day, we publish stories that cover a breadth of topics. In doing so we aim to appease and inspire our audience. From travel pieces and technology reviews to artist profiles and design features, our site’s subject matter mirrors many of our own interests and reflects our mission of discovering ideas and products at the intersection of art, design, style, culture and technology. Clearly, as …