Eric Limer

China Sics Its All-Star Supercomputer on Smog

China has abig smog problem. A huge smog problem. And when the country isn’t embracing the noxious clouds as “great for defense,” it’s trying to get rid of them with crazy tech. First artificial rain, now supercomputers. China’s Tianhe-1A—literally the most powerful supercomputer in the world for some 8 months back in 2010-2011 and predecessor…

Quadcopter vs. Swarm of Angry Bees: Place Your Bets

Drones face all kinds of airborne adversaries from gun-toting quadcopter hunters to hackers to other flying contraptions. And it looks like nature is contributing its own flying obstacle as well, in the form of a swarm of angry bees. So who wins in the war of propellers vs. stings? Well, duh. Why are they attacking?…

The First 64-Bit Snapdragon Processor Won’t Be in a Phone You’ll Want

Apple started a wave when it announced its new A7 processor--the brain of all its flagship products—would be 64-bit. Competitors have beenkeen to catch up, and now Qualcomm’s making its move with the new Snapdragon 410, the first 64-bit chip in the line. The catch? It’s for low and midrange phones. You, dear gadget-obsessed Gizmodo…

Thanks to an Amazon Gold Box deal, you can get the Kindle Fire HDX—a delightful little tablet—for just $184 instead of the normal $220. Today only! [Amazon]

Google TV may be dead, but according to reports from The Information, Nexus TV is on the way as early as Q1 2014. Complete with a touchpad remote! We’ll just have to wait and see, but maybe just make the Chromecast a little better in the meantime, eh Google? [The Information]

How Forensic Wizards Bring Dead Phones Back From the Brink

Fingerprints, blood spatter, muddy footprints, an errant hair. Every crime scene has its fair share of evidence. But not all of it is visible to the human eye, no matter how powerful the assisting microscope or black light. Some of the most damning evidence is mere bits and bytes. Different kinds of investigations require different…

The Metals In Your Phone Aren’t Just Rare; They’re Irreplaceable

It takes a lot of different materials to make a modern day phone, and a fair number of them are of the rare earth metal variety. But a new study by researchers at Yale shows that there’s another troubling detail about the supply of pre-phone components. Many of these metals aren’t just rare; they’re irreplaceable.…

Oh Good, a Magical Internet Machine That Guesses your Passwords

Got a super-secure password? Maybe you shouldn’t be so sure.Telepathwords can help you find out, and practically read your mind in the process. The new project from Microsoft Research has a simple premise: you start typing one of your favorite passwords in its little text box, and it tries to guess what the next character…

Forget Mouse and Keyboard: Play Your Next PC Game with Tongue and Butt

With Steam Boxes looming large in the future, game-peddlers-cum-hardware-makers over at Valve have been experimenting with some new ways to control your PC. Yeah, there’s the weird joystick-less Steam Controller, but Valve designer Ben Krasnow has some even weirder stuff: a tongue mouse and a butt controller. Both experiments—which Krasnow explains in depth in a…

How Much the iPhone Costs Around the World

The iPhone is popular. Not just here in the United States, but around the whole world. But depending on where you are, you might be paying a lot for it. ​This map of iPhone 5S prices across the globe shows the worst places to buy. Put together by the folks over at Mobile Unlocked, ​the…

If you buy a new Android phone from Amazon, you’ll get the added bonus of 50GB in cloud storage free (for a year). And they’ve got some good deals too: Moto X and HTC One for a penny on contract. Not bad!

Watching These TV Signals Die Is Like a Glimpse of the End of the World

Yesterday, Sydney Australia bade farewell to analog TV signals, and put a stop to the old-school over-the-air broadcasts across the city. And while that doesn’t affect cable users (or anyone outside of Sydney), the death of those signals is universally poignant and eerie to watch. Goodbye forever. [Gizmodo Australia]

This 3D-Printed Robot Heart Runs on Nothing But Pee

Robots may not have souls, but pretty soon they might have real, 3D-printed, fluid-pumping hearts. Except those hearts won’t be pumping blood; they’ll be pumping pee. Last month, researchers at the University of the West of England made big strides in the worlds of 3D-printing, robotics, and pee with a fully functioning artificial heart actuator…

If you buy a Kindle Fire HDX this week through smile.amazon.com, Amazon will donate $20 to the charity of your choice instead of the standard 0.5 percent. A nice little bonus for everyone involved.

Watch This Chain of Beads Dash Across the Room All On Its Own

When you put chains and physics together, you get results that are borderline magic, and this experiment from MIT proves it. No, this chain doesn’t seem to float in mid-air, but it does walk across the room. https://gizmodo.com/whoa-what-makes-this-chain-of-beads-magically-float-596577212 The weird phenomenon has to do with the physics of waves will spread through a chain if…

The Prettiest Way to See How Screwed Up Your Holiday Flights Are

Flying this holiday? I’m sorry. Here’s to hoping you don’t get stranded in East Nowheresville on the way. As for the rest of us, the Misery Map is a fantastic way to sit back and bask in the misfortune of others. Or, uh, give thanks that we’re not stuck at an airport. Yeah, that second…

Sharing Cuss-Filled Videos on Xbox One Can Get Your Account Suspended

Everyone who’s played so much as a 15 minutes of Candy Crush knows that, aside from mechanics, graphics, and all that other good stuff—swearing is a crucial part of playing games. Swear too much at your Xbox One in gameplay footage though, and your account can get suspended if you upload it. Kinect likes to…

Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro Review: Flipping Fantastic

Two years ago, Windows 8 birthed what feels like a thousand different varieties of twisting, bending, hybrid laptops. In the vast army of oddities, only a few stood out as being actually good. Of those select few, the Lenovo Yoga was our favorite. Now it’s back with a refresh, and it’s better than ever. What…

Considerate iPhone Thief Returns Handwritten List of Stolen Contacts

What really sucks about losing your phone—besides losing the phone—is that you also lose a whole bunch of your data. But to help ease that pain, a iPhone thief in China copied down a list of all his victim’s contacts (by hand!) and returned it to its rightful owner. All 1,000 of them. According to…

The new SkyDrive app for iOS can automatically back up all your photos. Go grab it; you can never have too much redundancy.