In a small, simple building near the water in Southampton, England stands the Solent Sky museum. Dedicated to flying boats and other aircraft built in the Southampton and Solent area, like the Supermarine Spitfire and the razor-thin Supermarine S.6 seaplane racer, it’s a unique slice of aviation/nautical history. The highlight, a Short Sandringham (the civilian …

Most TVs today — including all of those made by Samsung, Sony, Vizio and just about every other TV brand — are based on decades-old LCD, or liquid crystal display, technology. In the last few years something better has come along, called OLED, or organic light-emitting diode. OLED TVs have the best picture quality we’ve ever tested, keeping LCD-only companies …

Just outside Hiroshima, Japan, in the town of Kure, there’s an odd sight: a submarine almost as long as a football field, up on stilts. Amid the buildings with no water in sight, the sleek black and red shape couldn’t look more out of place. It’s the Akishio, a former submarine of the JMSDF, or Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. Decommissioned …

Battleship Island. It’s a fantastic name for an unbelievable place. A place unlike any in the world. A tiny island, once home to 5,259 people with the highest population density in history, abruptly abandoned and left to the elements for decades. The result is haunting and fascinating. If you’ve played any of the recent installments in of the post-apocalyptic Fallout …

Japanese castles are familiar to movie lovers, gamers, and anyone interested in world history. Their iconic designs and impressive appearance are a stark contrast to the castles of Europe. Matsumoto castle is one of the oldest, a largely original example that dates back to the 1500s. Its mostly-black exterior earned it the nickname the “Crow” Castle. Himeji is the largest, …

The Tokyo Skytree is amazingly tall. It’s the tallest tower in the world, and only the Burj Khalifa in Dubai is a taller structure (for now). It stretches 2,080 feet (634 meters) above Tokyo. Ostensibly a TV broadcasting tower, it has restaurants and observation decks that offer tremendous views of the incredible Tokyo skyline. Constructed between 2008 and 2012, the …

The next generation of broadcast TV is coming, whether you’re ready or not. Actually, no one’s ready, and that’s sort of the point. ATSC, or Advanced Television Systems Committee, is the group that decides what over-the-air (and more) TV signals look like. Last year about 76 percent of US households subscribed to cable, satellite or fiber for TV, while 21 …

Tokyo is a wonderfully frenetic city of lights, high rises and concentrated insanity. It’s equal parts “Blade Runner,” “The Fifth Element,” “Ghost in the Shell” and, well, just about every other sci-fi movie you can think of. For years, Tokyo’s Akihabara district was the place to score cheap electronics. As the Internet became a thing and manufacturing largely moved out …

The Netflix Recommended TV certification is a badge given to TVs that are “Built for a better Netflix experience.” You may be asking, how can a TV offer a “better” Netflix experience. Isn’t Netflix, well… Netflix? Yes and no. Using specific criteria, Netflix has identified several features and performance aspects that it feels make using their service a bit easier. …

You’ve got lots of options to stream music into your home. I’m not talking the streaming services (Spotify, Pandora, Tidal, etc.), but the technology to get music from your phone to a speaker or to multiple speakers around your home — or both. There are hundreds of speaker options that let you do this, but just as not all the …