Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Adds Yayoi Kusama Balloon

Conceived of by beloved artist Yayoi Kusama’s studio and built by Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade’s balloon specialists, the large-scale floating artwork “Love Flies up to the Sky” will join this year’s televised extravaganza. Measuring 30 feet long by 36 feet wide and 34 feet tall, the personified sun balloon, surrounded by red tentacles, is covered in more than 300 white polka dots, a Kusama signature. …

Google Announces Breakthrough in Computing Speed

Since the 1980s, Google has been developing technology called “quantum supremacy” that could revolutionize computing speeds. This past week, “a mathematical calculation that the largest supercomputers could not complete in under 10,000 years was done in three minutes 20 seconds.” Atypical from the computers we use every day, this device relies on complex scientific processes to power its computations—which could potentially include powering future artificial …

Skin for Computers Modeled After Real Human Flesh

Bristol Interaction Group’s biomimicry research project, Skin-On Interfaces, has delivered the uncanny: skin for electronics that’s modeled after and closely resembles real flesh. Composed of silicone layers, molded with human-like wrinkles, the epidermis can be squeezed, stroked and twisted. These actions trigger a reaction from the grid of electrode wires (the same as you’d find in any smartphone touchscreen) beneath the skin. In many ways, …