4 Recent Tech Stories That Were Total B.S.

4

The United States Isn't Building Iron Man Armor, Sorry

What with their trillions in walking-around money, it was only a matter of time before some general popped in The Avengers and thought, "Fuck it -- let's get one of those."

theverge.com
"Suck it, Steve." -Tony Stark

The suit, according to the Verge, RT, and International Business Times, will feature such boner-inducing gizmos as night vision, super strength, nanotechnology, liquid armor, and probably even Gwyneth Paltrow. There's also a demo video of this suit "in the making." So, shit, they could probably coordinate the release with the new Avengers flick, right?

Not really, because no one is actually building this. The original NPR article this all spawned from opens with the fact that the U.S. Special Operations Command is simply looking into whether this could be made as part of a current campaign for proposals regarding the future development of armored suits -- the keywords being "looking into."

In other words, this was less "Look at this cool thing we have" and more "Wouldn't it be cool if we had this thing?"

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images News/Getty Images
"And Wolverine claws. Anyone know where I can get those?"

3

U.K. Police Didn't Find a Gang-Run 3D-Gun-Printing "Factory"

Can you imagine a future where criminals can make their own undetectable, easy-to-conceal guns at home using 3D printing technology? Well, according to recent headlines, that futuristic world exists, and it's called "England":

metro.co.uk
Quick, someone download the blueprints for Judge Dredd.

Holy shit! As Metro.co.uk tells it, Manchester police stumbled upon a "3D gun factory" while raiding a criminal hideout. Inside they found a 3D printer and "a trigger and a magazine capable of holding bullets." See for yourself:

Greater Manchester Police/PA
"Great, now I can rob someone to pay for cartridges for my regular printer."

What else could those things possibly be? It took the Internet mere hours to answer that question -- apparently they're 3D printer parts.

gigaom.com
Although our first guesses would have been "bong" and "poorly made bong."

The police later clarified their statement to reflect that they "cannot categorically say we have recovered the component parts for a 3D gun." However, that leaves us with a scarier prospect -- are criminal gangs using 3D printers to print 3D printers? We're going to take a page from the British media and say "Yes, definitely." (Also, let's not forget that 3D-printed guns are pretty silly devices at the moment.)

2

No, Tesla Cars Aren't Suddenly Bursting into Flames

Electric cars like the Tesla have pros and cons: On one hand, you save on fuel and help protect the environment. On the other, our Internets seem to be telling us that they could blow up on you any minute. From ABC News:

abcnews.go.com
Somewhere, Edison's ghost is sporting major wood.

The story of the burning Tesla (which caused the company's stock to plummet) was first reported by Jalopnik.com, which even threw the word "death" in there to make every electric car owner who saw the headline shit themselves.

jalopnik.com
Although if they saw it while driving, they had it coming.

So how does a Tesla catch fire? If ABC had bothered to ask the driver, he could have told them the unspectacular answer: He hit something. Yes, bad things tend to happen to cars when they run into shit at high speed -- in fact, car fires happen 152,000 times a year. The difference is that this dude's Tesla politely warned him to pull over and get out of the car before going up in flames. When was the last time your shitty Toyota did that?

1

Holy Crap, Half-Life 3 Is Conf- Nope, Never Mind

Half-Life 2 made a barrel of money, so naturally the next step for the game's creators at Valve was to sit on their hands for the next 10 years until their prime demographic was holding down jobs and getting married. And while the hardcore fans have postponed life in waiting, it appears that wait is finally over:

sidhtech.com, theregister.co.uk
"Thank God, I've been waiting years to nitpick this."

Nerds, rejoice! It appears the long tunnel has a light after all, as numerous sources have begun speculating and confirming that the game is coming ... because Valve filed a trademark. If you're thinking that a trademark is far from confirmation (Nintendo probably has one for Hotel Mario 17, just in case) and those websites should have waited before uncorking the champagne, you're correct -- because it was all a hoax anyway.

Valve
You'd have to be a real jerk to joke about something like that.

The other "evidence" that Half-Life 3 is happening were some leaked screenshots from an anonymous (read: bullshit) source. In other words, everyone go back to weeping over Garry's Mod, because it's gonna be another 10 years, at best.