Worst Gadgets Ever From Wired's Fetish

It's not online yet, but I had to post this: Wired's done a 15th anniversary retrospective on past gadgets from its Fetish column, pulling out the most absurd, useless and ridiculous through the hindsight of 2008. I have a special interest in this article, as I wrote Fetish for 20% of its lifetime, and the column was the original inspiration, my media mogul boss Nick Denton told me, for Gizmodo. More »

Wired Feature on Deep Sea Cowboys Saving Giant Ships

The cargo ship Cougar Ace was entering Alaskan waters when its ballast tanks malfunctioned and a wave turned it on its side. Millions of dollars in shiny new Mazdas were dangling feet from the cold water. Then the A-Team of sea salvage (including a geek) flipped it right side up without the help of cranes or tugs. My good friend Josh Davis wrote this breathtaking feature on the small group of divers, ship captains, salvage masters and ship architects who brought the Cougar upright again. More »

Best of Wired NextFest 2007 Walkthrough

Before I catch my flight back to SF, here are a few choice shots of my favorite fun at Wired's 2007 NextFest down in LA. Notable things include nano ferrite "magnetic fluid" solutions, prototypes of JPL's Mars rover running over Justin from Justin.tv (above), a giant disco wall that comes to life when your cellphone EMI hits its wiring system, Jeff Han's latest multitouch systems, a Japanese robot that looks like a samurai, complete with sword, armor and glowing red eyes, a few rainbow touch instruments like the laptop orchestra, some UAVs, one blond wearing body armor being hit with a shovel by another blond, hyper-efficient solar cells that can collect light from multiple angles, a supercomputer efficient enough to be powered by a team of cyclists, a bipedal robot with Albert Einstein's head. Lots of stuff, and I'll have videos of the rest, tomorrow. Mega-gallery here: More »

WSJ Goes Back to 1999 to Freak Out About 'l33t 5p34k'

In a blatant example of downright-lazy journalism, the Wall Street Journal has just discovered the fact that, OH NOES, there is slang coming from the internet! And kids are using it irl (that's "in real life," for you WSJ writers). More »