Alissa Walker

How your neighborhood was designed by racists. What it’s like to sit behind the wheel of a car for four hours every day. The evils of alternate-side parking. And the beauty of traveling by antique rail car. All this and more, in this week’s Urban Reads. The racist policies that determined the way your neighborhood…

RIP Massimo Vignelli: The Iconic Designer Who Shaped a Century

We’d known that legendary designer Massimo Vignelli was sick: His son issued a plea to designers who were influenced by him to send him a letter, which surely flooded his home with well-designed well-wishes over the past few weeks. This morning, Vignelli passed away at the age of 83. Here, we’ve collected a handful of…

Tonight’s Meteor Shower Will Be Like Watching the Jump to Light Speed

Already being hyped as one of the best of 2014—with some calling it a once-in-a-lifetime experience—the Camelopardalids meteor shower, which starts tonight, will also be unlike many meteor showers you might have seen: Instead of lights streaming across the sky diagonally, the meteors will be radiating out from a very visible point in the sky.…

E. Coli and Crossing Signals: What’s Ruining Our Cities This Week

Berlin’s “walking men” found at every crosswalk are too manly for some local feminists. And Portland has yet another issue with water contamination. It’s What’s Ruining Our Cities! A crossing signal is ruining Berlin The little “walking man” who greets pedestrians at Berlin crosswalks has become a beloved icon of the German city. But feminists…

Butterfleye Keeps an Eye on Your House For Safety and For Fun

Gone are the days of nanny cams embedded in teddy bears or CCTV arrays mounted outside your front door. The new home camera Butterfleye represents a new surveillance device that’s somewhere in-between—a small, unintrusive device designed for monitoring your home’s security, but with smart activity-sensing features which could also feasibly capture your baby’s first steps.…

What Kind of Bike Do You Ride?

It’s Bike Month here at Gizmodo, and we’ve been celebrating with stories covering locks and e-bikes, chats with bike lawyers and bike clothing brands, and looks at vintage cycling posters and outlandish bike designs. Now we want to see how you ride: Show us your bike! I ride a PUBLIC C-7 in a color I…

Author Elly Blue Is Here To Answer Questions About Women and Biking

The cycling movement in this country is gaining momentum, yet it’s still predominantly male. So how do we get more women on bikes, and help females to feel more comfortable riding for transportation in their daily lives? Author Elly Blue is joining us today to talk about women and bikes. As part of our Bike…

Scenes from Gizmodo’s Home of the Future Opening Night Party

Our Home of the Future is in full swing, and we kicked off the week with an opening party on Friday where guests got to experience the home and see its kinetic computer desk, spinning hydroponic towers, and telepresence robots in action. Guests sipped our beer of the future, Hop Tech 431, made with experimental…

This bridge over the San Gabriel River outside of L.A. was built in 1936 but devastating floods washed out the canyon and the road to it was never completed. The popular “Bridge to Nowhere” hike is nine miles round-trip and on weekends, hikers are greeted by the screams of bungee-jumpers. [@ZachBehrens, KCET]

Ice Cream, Mayors, and Criminals: What’s Ruining Our Cities This Week

A mayor who ruined lives in his quest to dox a Twitter account parodying him. Why Asian tourists are being robbed in Paris. And the super-disturbing history of the ice cream song you’ll hear on every street this summer. What’s Ruining Our Cities? Indeed. Ice cream trucks are ruining summer Ah, the sounds of summer.…

Dear Massimo: 12 Designers Who Penned Letters To Their Hero

Earlier this week, we posted a call from the son of Massimo Vignelli: The graphic design legend has fallen ill and requested letters from those he might have inspired or influenced during his long career. Designers all over the world have been mailing letters, and posting them online as well, tagging them #dearmassimo. It’s a…

The Most Common Languages Spoken in the U.S. After English and Spanish

What’s the language that the most Americans speak after English? As you’d probably guess, the second-most common language spoken in the U.S. is Spanish. But if you look at the most common languages after English and Spanish, the results get a little more surprising, especially when you parse them by state. Using data from the…

The Founder of Outlier Is Here to Talk About the Best Biking Clothes

Six years ago, Abe Burmeister searched for a pair of good-looking pants that he could wear as he biked to work. When he couldn’t find them, he founded Outlier, a fashion-forward clothing line that’s since been embraced by urban cyclists. He’s here today to talk about starting that company and to share his tips for…

Airbnb’s becoming more like a hotel every day: The service now allows you to book a place to stay at the last minute. The “book it tonight/tomorrow” feature can be accessed on the Airbnb app and is currently only available in L.A. and San Francisco. [Engadget]

Examining rap lyrics to measure quality of life in Compton. An ambitious housing plan from New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. How Boston is changing thanks to one architecture firm. Why Atlanta is putting all its money on the BeltLine. Plus, Bike Month! All in this week’s Urban Reads! Why does all the rap and…

Join Us For A Week of Events at the Gizmodo Home of the Future

It’s almost time for the Gizmodo Home of the Future, highlighting our favorite forward-looking products from design, technology, and beyond. From May 17 to 21 you’ll be able to stop by the New York City space to browse the home or pull up a seat in our co-working lounge, and we’re also hosting events every…

Vacant Hotels and Unemployed Teens: What’s Ruining Our Cities This Week

An empty hotel that’s symbolic of Vegas’s bust. A parking app that’s about to turn San Francisco into one big $20/hour parking lot. And why it’s really, really important that you spend your formative years working at a Dairy Queen. Let’s look at What’s Ruining Our Cities. A lack of working teens is ruining the…

Vegas Is Tearing Down This Empty Hotel That Never Opened

If you’ve visited Vegas anytime since 2009, you’ve likely seen the empty hotel. It doesn’t have any signage; instead, it is often swaddled in ads, like the world’s priciest billboard—a bloated Cirque du Soleil-wrapped blue whale hovering over the Strip for four lonely years. Now a court ruling is finally putting the doomed hotel out…

8 Last-Minute Mother’s Day Gifts That She’ll Actually Want

Flowers? Really? You should be ashamed of yourself. What mom wants is something that she can use and have a good time using. Buy one of these gifts for mom instead, and let her know that you care about the woman who incubated you in her womb for nine months. Many of these products offer…

Check Out All These Gaudy-Ass Skyscrapers Going Up in Russia

What big country has big plans for its big buildings? It’s Russia! According to data from skyscraper-indexing site Emporis, Russia is home to seven of the 10 tallest buildings currently under construction in Europe. It’s like a Space Race for office space. But that’s not even the half of it. Right now, Moscow’s Mercury City…