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When Microsoft unveiled its digital assistant in 2014, it looked to the Halo franchise for inspiration, naming its system Cortana, after Master Chief’s AI companion. One ambitious fan has gone a step further and created his own holographic version of the assistant for his home.

Jarem Archer, who goes by untitled network on YouTube, demonstrates the build in the video by asking Corana if he’ll need an umbrella that day. The Halo AI appears in the pyramid-shaped device, and appears to consult a series of digital displays. “That’s probably not necessary,” she says. “The forecast shows sun, with a high of 87 and a low of 68.” When she’s done delivering the news, she walks away and vanishes.

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BMW’s motorcycle division has shown off a new concept bike called the BMW Motorrad Concept Link. And while it’s far more tame than the BMW Motorrad Vision Next 100 concept that the company flaunted last year, it’s a much more realistic take on what the near-future of Beemers could look like.

That starts with how the Concept Link is an all-electric vehicle. BMW positions the bike as a representation of its “vision of zero-emission urban mobility on two wheels,” which ticks all the right boxes in an era full of emissions scandals. But it’s not all just talk — you can see from the bike’s low, long profile that it’s clearly been designed with a floor full of batteries in mind.

There are a few impractically fun futuristic touches, too. BMW…

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BMW’s motorcycle division has shown off a new concept bike called the BMW Motorrad Concept Link. And while it’s far more tame than the BMW Motorrad Vision Next 100 concept that the company flaunted last year, it’s a much more realistic take on what the near-future of Beemers could look like.

That starts with how the Concept Link is an all-electric vehicle. BMW positions the bike as a representation of its “vision of zero-emission urban mobility on two wheels,” which ticks all the right boxes in an era full of emissions scandals. But it’s not all just talk — you can see from the bike’s low, long profile that it’s clearly been designed with a floor full of batteries in mind.

There are a few impractically fun futuristic touches, too. BMW…

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When artist Jennifer Meridian signed up as a bidder for Donald Trump’s US-Mexico border wall, she didn’t think much would come of her plan. Meridian, part of Pittsburgh-based JM Design Studio, had wanted to make a statement about the wall’s absurdity. So her studio imagined a series of subversive, welcoming “barriers” made of lighthouses, hammocks, and pipe organs. “I just did it as a very light gesture,” Meridien says. “I imagined it would just be discarded immediately.” Then, she got her first pitch from somebody who wanted to help her build them.

The first vendor to approach her was hawking a product called EZ Slide, an “anti-climb coating” as slippery as ice that would “improve the aesthetics of the wall, protect it from the…

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When artist Jennifer Meridian signed up as a bidder for Donald Trump’s US-Mexico border wall, she didn’t think much would come of her plan. Meridian, part of Pittsburgh-based JM Design Studio, had wanted to make a statement about the wall’s absurdity. So her studio imagined a series of subversive, welcoming “barriers” made of lighthouses, hammocks, and pipe organs. “I just did it as a very light gesture,” Meridien says. “I imagined it would just be discarded immediately.” Then, she got her first pitch from somebody who wanted to help her build them.

The first vendor to approach her was hawking a product called EZ Slide, an “anti-climb coating” as slippery as ice that would “improve the aesthetics of the wall, protect it from the…

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Let’s get one thing out of the way: no matter what movies like Limitless claim, humans use more than 10 percent of our brains. This isn’t a surprise to a lot of people, but there’s more to the science of our cognitive potential than knowing that it can’t be true that 90 percent of our gray matter is inactive.

The claim has been around for a long time, but where did it come from, anyway? And why are we so eager to believe it? How much of our brain do we really use — and is there a limit to what we can learn?

The Verge spoke to University College London neuroscientist Sophie Scott to clear up some of these questions.

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Let’s get one thing out of the way: no matter what movies like Limitless claim, humans use more than 10 percent of our brains. This isn’t a surprise to a lot of people, but there’s more to the science of our cognitive potential than knowing that it can’t be true that 90 percent of our gray matter is inactive.

The claim has been around for a long time, but where did it come from, anyway? And why are we so eager to believe it? How much of our brain do we really use — and is there a limit to what we can learn?

The Verge spoke to University College London neuroscientist Sophie Scott to clear up some of these questions.

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Ambient noise is something that we don’t think about much, but by definition is always there. “Collector" is an interactive art object from Dmitriy Morozov as part of his ::vtol:: project, that puts a focus on the sounds that surround us.

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Two years ago, Richard Clarkson made the Smart Cloud, a delightfully realistic-looking cloud-shaped lamp / speaker. The design was meant to evoke a thunderstorm, with the cloud flicking accurately and booming out thunder (along with also functioning as a regular lamp and Bluetooth speaker).

But the problem with the original Smart Cloud was that it had to be hung from a ceiling cord, which completely broke the illusion of having a magical, musical cloud floating in your living room. But Clarkson is back this year with a new project, Making Weather, that combines his original Smart Cloud with magnetic levitation technology from Crealev to solve this problem by making a true floating cloud.

While the…

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Here they are, at long last, the Google Phones. Technically, they’re called Pixel and Pixel XL. I’ve spent slightly longer with both than we usually get at a typical tech event hands-on, and so I have a few impressions to share. But the most important one is this: these are perhaps the most refined Android phones I’ve ever laid hands on. Not every detail is going to amaze you, but very few of them are going to put you off. The Pixel is approachable; it doesn’t feel techy or angular like most Android phones.

It comes in two sizes: a 5-inch model with an HD display and a 5.5-inch model with a QHD display. Prices start at $649 for a 32GB model, which is more expensive than we’re used to from Nexus devices. But this isn’t a Nexus, it’s a…

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