Eric Limer

Samsung’s saying it’ll have its first high-end Tizen phone out as early as this August. Take that, Google. [Bloomberg]

Jack Dorsey Explains How the Idea of Twitter Was Born

Twitter is just a part of everyday life for a lot of us, but back in the days before, someone actually had to think it up. In an upcoming interview on this week’s 60 Minutes, Twitter co-founder and Square CEO Jack Dorsey sits down to explain exactly how the idea for Twitter came to be.…

A Tuning Fork’s Tantalizing Tiny Tremors in Super Slow Motion

It might not seem like it to the naked eye, but a tuning forks have a pretty serious vibratory freak-out when they do their thing. The Slow Mo Guys have turned their Phantom Flex on one to show off those good vibrations in all their minute glory. It doesn’t look like much at normal speed,…

BitTorrent’s P2P Streaming Takes the Lag Out of Live Video

Livestreams are great and all, but they’re all subject to a terrible reality: the more people who want to watch, the more likely it is the stream goes down. BitTorrent’s P2P streaming service BitTorrent Live stands to change all that by actually drawing strength from the crowd, and it’s here to start shaking up the…

Snap Up This Renegade App and Hide Your Stock iOS Icons While You Can

Hate having that “Stock” icon hanging out on your iPhone? Even if you shunt it over to its own page with all the other misfits, it’s still there and you can’t get rid of it. Well, lucky for you, there’s an app in the App Store right now that’ll let you hide it, but act…

Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet 2 Review: Just Barely a Laptop

Lenovo probably did Windows 8 the best of anyone so far with the bendy, twisty Yoga. Now it’s got the Thinkpad Tablet 2 and keyboard combo. If the Lenovo Yoga is a laptop that’s sort of a tablet, this is the tablet that’s sort of a laptop. https://gizmodo.com/lenovo-yoga-review-this-is-how-you-build-a-pc-tablet-f-5956349 What Is It? An Intel Atom-based, 10.1-inch…

Japan Turned the One Surviving Tsunami Tree Into a Gigantic Sculpture

Two years ago today, Japan was ravaged by a horrible tsunami. And now, right on the anniversary of the disaster, there’s a new memorial to the people and things who lived through it: the “miracle tree” that survived the surge has now been converted in a sculpture. When the surge hit the coast in Rikuzentakata,…

A Crisp, Functional Lockscreen Is Reason Enough to Jailbreak Your iPhone

Whenever you bring up jailbreaking with the uninitiated, you’re faced with that one, recurring question: “Why? Why should I jailbreak?” This beautiful, functional, better-than-stock lockscreen is as good an answer as any. https://gizmodo.com/17-reasons-to-jailbreak-your-iphone-or-ipod-touch-now-5605827 Peekly is a two-page lockscreen widget with a clock on the first page, and a three-month calendar you can peek at with…

The Suicide Machines: New Girl

Ever play Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater? The original? Even just the demo? Then I probably don’t have to say any more about this song. For the rest of you, just listen. Shhhh. Do you hear that? It’s the 90s. I’ve been on something of a ska kick this weekend, and The Suicide Machines classic “New…

Iran’s Blocking VPNs To Tighten Its Stranglehold on the Internet

Iran and the Internet don’t exactly get along. Between trying to shut down all Google services and replacing YouTube with a state-sponsored clone, Iran has been making moves to make its intranet the place to be. By blocking everything else. Until now, tech-savvy and Internet-loving Iranians have been able to use VPNs to get out…

An Idiot Counterfeiter Returned His Printer with a Sheet of Fake Hundreds Inside

It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book; if you can’t earn money, why not make it? With your printer. Now that doesn’t actually work. Making counterfeit cash is really hard. But that won’t keep idiots from trying it, apparently. A Wisconsin man took it a step further though, by trying to return his…

China’s Internet Architecture Gives the Rest of Us a Run for Our Money

In a lot of ways, China’s Internet isn’t the sort of Internet you want to be using. It’s ridiculously censored, for example. But in other ways, it’s way better than the stuff we have over here. According to a recent report from the New England Complex Systems Institute, China’s ‘net infrastructure is head and shoulders…

What’s the Most Important App on Your Phone Right Now?

Everyone has at least one. Stock apps and don’t count; you get those for free. You are given a brand new phone of your choice running its stock OS, and you are allowed to install one and only one app on it. What do you pick? Image by Oleksiy Mark/Shutterstock

You can now pre-order the Piston Steam Box for $900. That’s $100 off its (eventual) retail price.

Ain’t no Firefox coming back to iOS anytime soon. Sorry! [CNET]

Of Course Some Bar Is Already Banning Google Glass

There have been plenty of parodies exploring the creepier possibilities of Google Glass, so it should come as no surprise that it’s already been banned in a Seattle bar, even though it’s not even out yet. The 5 Point Cafe posted on its Facebook wall earlier this week saying that it’d have no tolerance for…

Go Get Your 7.39 GB of Free SXSW Music

There’s a lot of tech stuff going down at SXSW between the talking shoes and the projection-effect pool tables and whathaveyou, but at the end of the day, music is still a huge part. A 7.39 GB part. And you can go grab it all for free right now. https://gizmodo.com/googles-got-a-talking-shoe-because-wearable-computing-5989725 For the ninth year running,…

This Tiny Slithering Snake Robot Has Its Cyclopean Eye on You

Snake robots have a staggering ability to be both graceful and terrifying, but this one developed by CMU Biorobotics is just cute. And it could help save your life someday by slithering through debris and surveying the scene with its cyclopean eye. https://gizmodo.com/this-robotic-water-snake-is-both-graceful-and-utterly-t-5963121 Typically, snake robots aren’t that great for delivering video; all that slithering…

Can a Piano Still Be Classy When It’s Got Squishy Tube Keys?

The piano is a pretty old instrument. And sure we have electric variations, which added the option mess with the sound, but the key interface has remained pretty standard. Roli is trying to shake that up with the Seaboard Grand, a new, futuristic-style instrument that puts pitch tweaking at your fingertips. Sporting a pressure-sensitive touch…

Carve Out a Place For Your Nostalgia with Custom-Made Wooden Photos

Nowadays, we take most of our photos digitally and they stay digital. Photo paper and bulky albums are dead. So if you are compelled to print you photos for some reason, you might as well try to make it interesting, like printing them as tactile wood reliefs with the Photocarver. Designed by Michael Ahlers and…