Tony Ho Tran

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Getty / OhdokiI am instantly uncomfortable.I’m standing in the middle of a massive convention hall during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. After passing by flashy displays from the likes of Sony, Hyundai, and LG, I arrive at an exhibit for a device that somehow manages to stand out the most amongst some of the newest, most cutting-edge technology out there: the Handy, a machine that—to put it bluntly—jerks you off.There seems to be dozens of Handy devices displayed on several tables. Each one looks like a cylindrical bluetooth speaker with a rubber sleeve moving (or, rather, stroking) in an up-and-down motion on its side. There’s no mistaking what it is, or what it’s meant for.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Vlad Georgescu / Getty ImagesHarvard University announced Monday that it’s canceling a solar geoengineering experiment to use particles to block sunlight high in the atmosphere in an attempt to cool the Earth.Frank Keutsch, the principal investigator of the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx), said in a statement that he was “no longer pursuing the experiment.” While he didn’t specify a reason, it was likely the result of intense scrutiny and criticism from advocates concerned that the experiment would cause inadvertent consequences on the world’s climate.For the project, the researchers planned to send a high-altitude helium balloon into the stratosphere where it would release fine particulate matter such as calcium carbonate and sulfuric acid. The idea is for the particles to disperse sunlight and reflect it away from the Earth—temporarily cooling the climate. Instead, the device will now be “repurposed for basic scientific research in the stratosphere unrelated to solar geoengineering,” the statement said.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Eric Anderson / RivianRivian announced a slate of affordable electric vehicles during a reveal event on Thursday—signaling a significant pivot for the company, which has previously focused on luxury vehicles. The reveal also comes at a time of great tumult as the EV industry faces lagging sales and an uncertain future.Rivian’s next EV is the R2, a smaller SUV that’s slated to go into production in 2026. With a starting price of $45,000, it’s significantly more affordable than its current lineup of vehicles such as the R1T pickup truck that starts at $71,000 or the R1S SUV that starts at $74,900. The R2 has a range of more than 300 miles and can travel from zero to 60 mph in three seconds.The R2 wasn’t the only announcement of the day. Rivian also surprised attendees of the event by revealing the R3, another SUV that’s both smaller than the R2 and comes with a lower price tag. While the battery life and acceleration are the same as the R2, it’s meant to be a sportier and more compact version of the vehicle.Read more at The Daily Beast.

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team.NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope just delivered one of its most stunning pics yet—and it was actually one of the first objects the spacecraft spotted when it went into orbit in 2022.In June 2022, Webb observed a star named WR 124, one of the most enormous and brightest detectable stars in the observable universe. The celestial body is roughly 15,000 light-years away from Earth, and about 30 times the size of our sun.NASA astronomers had the rare opportunity to peer at it using Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera and Mid-Infrared Instrument. This allowed a rare look at the WR 124 as it went through a star phase dubbed Wolf-Rayet, or the process in which a star sheds off its outer layers before going into supernova.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here