$1,099 iMac review: lose 50% of your performance to save 18% of the money

Technically, this is the $1,299 iMac, not that you'd be able to tell the difference.

Andrew Cunningham

Apple's new $1,099 iMac will undoubtedly be a popular computer. People in the know who want the most computing bang for their buck would be smarter to step up to a higher-end model, but there are plenty of people—casual users, schools, businesses—who just want an iMac that's "fast enough," not one that's "as fast as it could possibly be."

For those people, we obtained one of the new entry-level iMacs so we could evaluate its performance. On paper, it sounds like a big step down—you're going from a quad-core desktop processor and GPU to a dual-core Ultrabook processor and GPU. This new iMac and the base MacBook Air models in fact use the exact same processor, even though historically there's been a big performance gap between MacBook Airs and iMacs.

In practice, the story is more complicated. Let's talk about what the new low-end iMac changes, and then we'll spend some time looking at processor performance.

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Top 10 Outdoor DIY Projects You Can Do In Under An Hour

You don't need a lot of time or even effort to upgrade your outdoor space. In fact, in an hour or less you could complete a project that will help turn your backyard or balcony into an impressive oasis. Here are 10+ ideas to consider. More »

   

 

 

Wait 3 Months Before Buying A New Car

Driving a new car can be a great experience, but paying for it is a lousy one. To balance the need for a new car against your financial resources, consider a three-month waiting period before buying a new car. More »

   

 

 

My Cloud Player Streams SoundCloud Music To Your Chromecast

Android: SoundCloud is a great way to discover and listen to music, but the Android app doesn't stream directly to your Chromecast. My Cloud Player bridges that gap. More »

   

 

 

The Cascading Desktop

Flickr user Profound Grafx has a thing for docks and launchers. This desktop is a testament to that obsession, but it also keeps games, productivity tools, websites, media, and more neatly separated and organised. Here's how it's all set up. More »

   

 

 

Facebook mood test outrage is FUD claims ex-researcher

One of the former Facebook data scientists at the heart of the recent controversy over mood manipulation and tests run on unwitting users has spoken out, claiming his quotes were taken out of context, and defending the social network's experimentation. Data scientist Andrew Ledvina, who left Facebook in April, was one of the originally quoted sources when the psychological research … Continue reading

Fireworks from a drone’s perspective

A video posted well before this year's 4th of July, but excellent nonetheless, shows what it's like to be flying amongst fireworks as they're fired. What you're seeing here is the drone known as DJI Phantom 2, and the camera is the GoPro Hero 3 silver. Believe it or not, throughout the drone's flight, no damage was recorded. The drone … Continue reading

Men would rather give themselves electric shocks than sit quietly

As the authors of a new study note, the ability to sit and think may be one of the defining features of humanity. It's a necessary skill for any plan for the future and for detailed remembrances of the past, and it underlies all of art and literature. And, if their study is to be believed, we hate doing it so much that we're willing to self-administer electrical shocks in order to avoid being left alone with our thoughts.

The authors, based at Harvard and the University of Virginia, use a pretty simple structure for most of their experiments: put people in an empty room for six to 15 minutes and ask them to do nothing. Then, when they're done, ask them whether they enjoyed it. About half of them didn't. And, even though absolutely nothing was happening, people generally said they had a difficult time concentrating and that their mind tended to wander away from whatever they had decided to focus on.

Maybe it was something about the empty room, the researchers thought. So they asked people to set some time aside for thinking at home. In general, however, the participants enjoyed this even less, and about a third of them admitted they cheated and started checking their phones or browsing the Web. In fact, when given the opportunity to do these alternative activities, most people said they preferred them.

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These bricks are like Lego for full-sized buildings

Smart Bricks—A New Way to Build

A company called Kite Bricks is out to disrupt the construction business starting with the humble brick.

Kite Bricks has developed "Smart Bricks" (S-Bricks) made out of high-strength concrete that can be used to make buildings rapidly and cheaply, in an energy-efficient way.

The bricks—which are patent pending—are much like Lego in that they come in a variety of forms for different purposes and can easily connect together, with rows of knobs along the top of bricks that slot into voids along the bottom of other bricks. A special adhesive—which works like a super-strong double-sided sticky tape, a bit like 3M VHB—dispenses with the need for cement. They can be delivered to building sites in a kit complete with traditional doors and windows, allowing for structures to be assembled with a minimum of debris and labor. Steel bars can be slotted through dedicated channels in the bricks to provide the same support as traditionally reinforced concrete.

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Video: Taking curves with torque vector control, descending slopes with hill control

PASADENA, CA—Last week, Ars was invited to a Porsche Macan product briefing in Pasadena at the Langham Huntington Hotel. We then got in the car and drove it around for seven hours—perhaps not enough to get a full grasp of the Macan's features and limitations, but enough to get a good snapshot of the way it works to make it drive in a way that Porsche hopes will seem fresh and new against a lineup of competitors in 2015.

We got a little on-the-ground and in-the-cabin video as we drove from Pasadena to the Willow Springs Raceway in California.

Ars test drives the Porsche Macan. Credit: Jennifer Hahn (video link)

The event was notable because it was the Macan's American debut, and because it gave hints into some of the ways the German auto maker will be selling cars in the future. In short: make cars for very specific demographics (like the sports car-SUV hybrid Macan); put low-level autonomous systems into cars that are traditionally for "real drivers," like lane keep assist and manumatic transmission; and take a page out of Tesla's book by moving (ever-so-gently) away from dealerships to draw in customers.

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Shocker: 30 “Bigfoot” hair samples actually from cows, bears, porcupines

You may have swept up some yeti the other day.

You know how science is basically a conspiracy to keep the public from finding out unsettling truths, including those proving the existence of cryptozoological curiosities like the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot? Neither do scientists; most would like nothing better than to be the one who discovered such a thing.

But the entire field of "creature sightings" has become such a swamp of poor practices, nutball theories, and outright frauds that most scientists retreated from it long ago. With "anomalous primates" in particular, the evidence is weak; no bodies have ever been found, and scientists have largely judged the question of their existence provisionally closed. This has led those who believe that massive and mysterious creatures are hiding in the world's woods, mountains, and lakes to claim that they have been "rejected by science."

To dispel this belief—and to scrutinize old evidence with the most modern techniques—five scientists from Europe and the US joined forces back in 2012. Their focus was on the creature known variously as a yeti, sasquatch, or bigfoot. In a May 14, 2012 press release, they asked for hair samples of said creatures from anywhere in the world—and received 57 from museums and private collectors.

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