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It appears that Airbus is working on new ways to make flying more comfortable for overweight passengers. As The Consumerist reports, the aircraft manufacturer has filed a patent application for a “Re-Configurable Passenger Bench Seat,” which envisions airline seats not as individual chairs, but a single bench.

The seat belts on each bench could be configured to accommodate two large adults, three less large adults, or two adults and two children. In the application, which was filed in August and published by the US Patent and Trade Office this month, Airbus says the design can be “adapted to the requirements of the operator” and “to the requirements of specific groups,” including senior citizens, overweight passengers, and those with…

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“Forget me nots” is a collection of simple visualizations of one woman’s emails from ex-boyfriends, represented by number and not by length, content, or importance. The data paints a tidy but obviously incomplete portrait of five different relationships. It shows what data visualizations usually show — a whisper of a bigger story.

It’s the first installment in Wall Street Journal data journalist Lam Thuy Vo’s “Quantified Selfie" series, through which she hopes to use data to explore human identity.

Quantified Selfie / Lam Thuy Vo

I do most of my internet-ing at work, so it makes sense that I do a lot of my feeling here too. At the mere suggestion that I revisit former romantic interests in the furthest reaches of my…

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It’s been nearly four months since we first learned about Roborace, the driverless racing series being started up by Formula E and the FIA. During a talk at Oxford University today, though, Formula E CEO Alejandro Agag did let one detail slip: Daniel Simon, the same man that gave us the light cycles in Tron: Legacy, is helping design the cars of Roborace.

That appears to be all that Agag said about the new supporting series during the talk (though it seems the series has also been promoting Simon’s involvement as a way to lure new hires). But it’s enough to make your mind run wild. Imagining what a driverless racing car will look like was already a fun exercise, but adding someone like Simon — who has also worked for Bugatti, designed…

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Renault has long teased the return of Alpine, its classic sports brand, first by creating a wild concept car for Sony’s Gran Turismo racing simulator franchise. Now, it has something a little more concrete: the Alpine Vision, a concept car that hews “very close” to the inaugural model that it’ll be selling starting next year.

This car is no joke. A mid-mounted turbocharged four promises 0-62 mph times under 4.5 seconds, which puts the Alpine Vision solidly in Porsche 718 Cayman territory — and if the company can come anywhere close to this concept’s interior, they’re in a good place. (The press materials claim that the Vision represents roughly 80 percent of the production car.) And it sounds like corporate parent Renault is giving…

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Nerf guns were created for light-hearted fun — squishy darts shot to terrorize older siblings and parents — but now the toys have slugged the metaphorical Dew and gone extreme. A new blaster fires Nerf balls at 68 miles per hour, Hasbro announced at New York City’s Toy Fair this past weekend.

We’re told it doesn’t hurt when you’re shot with one of these; we didn’t volunteer to experience first-hand the equivalent of a weaponized slow-pitch softball machine. (No one else in the room readily seemed down for that, either.) The balls are made of squishy Nerf material, however, and won’t, we’re told, give targets welts or cause injury. The balls are bouncy, too, so they spring right off whatever they hit.

The blaster itself is super heavy…

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New York City’s Toy Fair included more than the typical fare this year. There were far out toys (a Barbie drone, say what!) and upgrades on old favorites. But one trend was readily apparent: toy makers are trying to appeal to a diverse market with more inclusionary products.

Lego, for instance, introduced its first standardized wheelchair figure. It’s part of a new City box, which aims to depict the world kids interact with every day.

This isn’t the first Lego figure to come with a wheelchair, but it’s the first time the brand has introduced one in a fully standardized set. The figurine can be taken out of the chair, as well.

Interestingly, when we talked to GoldieBlox — a newer company that wants to encourage girls…

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This week on the Vergecast, with Dieter, Nilay, and Nicola missing we have put together an alternative cast featuring Chris Ziegler, Sean O'Kane, and Loren Grush, with video director Mark Linsangan and social video reporter Kirsten Frisina discussing the news of gravitational waves, Google cars, and maybe a little Valentine’s Day talk.

We’ll be live at our usual time today  — 4:30PM ET / 11:30PM PT / 9:30PM GMT. You can watch via the YouTube Live stream embed above. And if you miss the live show, you can always watch the replay (using the embed above) or download the audio version on iTunes. And speaking of iTunes, be sure to rate us five stars if you enjoyed the show. We’ll do our best to make sure you do.

We have a whole network of…

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If you wished on a monkey paw for “all the world’s knowledge,” you’d get the iPhone 16GB, an ironic device that provides its owner exceptional access to information and tools, but places onerous limits on the device’s most basic function: saving stuff. Of course, the 16GB iPhone is the most affordable option, and millions of people own them.

Good people live with imperfect technology. We want to make that experience easier, so we’ve compiled a short video instructing you how to make the most of little space, sort of like a feng shui guide for a Manhattan loft.

Share your own tips for fellow 16GB iPhone users in the comments.

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Remember when you proudly watched the Super Bowl just for the commercials? The 1990s were an advertising heyday for Budweiser, Pepsi, and a handful of forgotten dot com companies, all of whom jockeyed to win the nation’s approval with trippy short films featuring talky animals and unshakeable catch phrases. People would have them printed on t-shirts or inked into tattoos.

Things have changed. Over the last two decades, the Super Bowl ad lost its punch. The rise of late night pot-friendly television, internet videos, meme culture, and GIFs have normalized weirdness and reduced pop culture moments to mere minutes. The Super Bowl ad’s time has passed, leaving us to appreciate the Doritos or Heinz commercial with a smile as it erases itself…

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2015 was a big year for the popularity of space. So perhaps you’ll forgive NASA if the space agency wants to capitalize on that momentum with some stellar new artwork.

Today, Seattle design firm Invisible Creature — which has done work for clients like Nike, Seattle Weekly, Target, and many more — released three gorgeous new space-themed travel posters commissioned by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for a 2016 calendar that will be given to NASA staff, scientists, engineers, and government officials. JPL will also release digital copies of each month’s artwork for free, but you can buy physical prints of Invisible Creature’s posters on the firm’s website.

The idea is not terribly new — JPL has commissioned posters, infographics,…

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