Jamie Condliffe

Amazon’s Gigantic Biodomes Have Been Endorsed By Seattle

Amazon has somehow gained initial approval to build a huge series of greenhouses slap-bang in the middle of Seattle so it’s employees need never leave work. https://gizmodo.com/amazon-is-planning-a-massive-biodome-hq-so-no-one-ever-509289653 The 65,000 square-foot, 95-feet tall, five-floor biodome structure—set to contain offices, dining areas, and retail stores—will be nestled within the company’s giant new campus, which will also include…

How LED Lighting Is Being Used to Comfort Patients in Intensive Care

If you’ve ever stepped foot in an intensive care unit, you’ll know that they can be pretty grim environments. That’s all changing, though, thanks to LED lighting systems that can actually be used to improve patient care. Philips is no stranger to LED lighting, and it’s already developed it for use in hospitals. Now, though,…

Microsoft has slashed another $100 off the price of its original Surface Pro, so now you can get one for $700 compared to $900 for the new Surface Pro 2.

German Chancellor to Obama: Have You Hacked My Phone?

Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, spoke to Barack Obama on Wednesday evening to demand explanations over reports suggesting that the NSA has been monitoring her mobile phone. According to the Guardian, sources claim that Merkel, the head of the German government, was “livid” over the reports. What’s more, leaning on German intelligence and investigations…

Surface Pro 2 Teardown: New Guts, But Still a Nightmare to Repair

Microsoft’s second attempt at the Surface Pro has brought plenty of improvements, even if is still on shaky ground. But tearing the thing apart reveals that its shortcomings still extend to its engineering, too. https://gizmodo.com/surface-pro-2-review-a-little-bit-better-but-so-much-1447991217 iFixit has torn the new tablet apart and found that little has changed mechanically for this iteration—and that’s not such…

NASA Has a 622 Mbps Data Connection—to the Moon

NASA has smashed its record for transmitting data to and from the moon. Now, it boasts a frankly amazing 622Mbps transfer speed to the rock that circles our little planet. The Agency is able to achieve that using lasers—instead of radio waves—to transmit data between its ground station in New Mexico and a spacecraft that’s…

We’re Being Slowly Screwed By Social Networks and We’re Oblivious

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all the others once seemed to have our interests at heart; now that’s looking a little more questionable; in the future, who knows where it’ll end? Problem is, subtle privacy changes creep up on us in such a way that we’re practically oblivious to them. Today’s Doghouse Diaries comic sums that…

Watch These Water Drops Levitate and Form Spinning, Pulsating Stars

If you play around with an ultrasound field for long enough, you can set up standing waves that allow you to levitate water drops in mid-air—but that’s only where the fun starts. The drops, held in a node of low pressure and supported in mid-air by a high-pressure zone sat beneath them, can be excited…

Deep Space Exploration Trials Sure Look Boring

In order to prepare for the human exploration of the furthest reaches of our solar system, space agencies often run experiments to see how our bodies can cope with long periods of sedentary behavior. And my, it looks boring. The latest of the European Space Agency’s such tests have just come to a close. The…

Aereo is now available for Android! At least, it is if you’re running 4.2 and live in New York City, Boston, Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, or Salt Lake City.

4K, 12-Inch Tablet Screens Are on Their Way

If the iPad Mini’s new Retina display isn’t enough for you, how d’you fancy a 4K, 12-inch tablet display instead, hmm? Because that’s exactly what Japan Display—a unified team of manufacturers including Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi—has just announced. They claim to have shrunk 4K resolution—3,840 x 2,160 pixels—into a 12.1-inch TFT panel suitable for tablets.…

Samsung’s new Android 4.3 update will bring Galaxy Gear compatibility to the S3, S4 and Note 2, instead of just the Note 3. Good news if you enjoy looking like Inspector Gadget.

By 2019, Humans Will Be Outnumbered By Lego Minifigs

Since their introduction in 1978, Lego’s Minifigs have, um, reproduced at a rapid rate. In fact, the toymaker has been making the little fellas at such a pace that they’ll outnumber humans by 2019. As of 2006, there were 4 billion Minifigs in the world; projecting forward both human and Lego populations suggests that tiny…

Scientists Have Created a Disk That Can Store Data for a Million Years

Magnetic disk drive storage was born in the 1950s—thanks, IBM!—but while storage density and power efficiency have rocketed, the lifetime for which data can be stored has remained about the same, at around a decade. That could soon change. A team of researchers from the University of Twente in the Netherlands has designed and built…

Breasts Age Faster Than the Rest of a Woman’s Body

The breasts of women seem to age more quickly than the rest of their body, according to new research which uses DNA analysis of tissue and blood to measure the rate of cell decline. As we age, the chemical signature of our DNA changes subtly, with genes becoming more or less methylated (that is, they…

AT&T has announced that it’ll be the exclusive carrier for Nokia’s 6-inch Lumia 1520 smartphone when it arrives in the US.

This Map Shows the DDoS Attacks Happening Across the World Right Now

Yesterday, Google announced Project Shield, a suite of free tools to help small websites stay online during DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks. To accompany it, Google has also made available a live map of DDoS attacks which shows when and where they’re happening. https://gizmodo.com/google-now-offers-free-ddos-protection-1449416865 Put together in conjunction with Arbor Networks, the Digital Attack…

Bloomberg: HTC Is Building a Smartwatch Ready for 2014

Smartwatch rumors seem to a dime-a-dozen these days, and now here’s another: Bloomberg is reporting that HTC has been working on an Android-based smartwatch, According to “people familiar with the matter“, the watch is pegged for release in the second half of 2014. There’s no mention of prices or specs, though the source does mention…

CyArk Wants to Digitally Preserve 500 Heritage Sites In Just Five Years

Imagine creating a 3D digital archive of 500 of the world’s most at-risk heritage sites, preserved in virtual reality so that future generations can explore them in detail for centuries to come. That’s exactly what the CyArk 500 Challenge hopes to achieve—and it’s set itself the ambitious target of doing it in just five years.…

Nokia Leaks Details of Its First Oversized Lumia Handset

With Windows Phone 8 now geared up for larger displays, you can expect to start seeing correspondingly large handsets. Like, for instance, the much-rumored Lumia 1520—which Nokia has now leaked details of. https://gizmodo.com/heres-the-gigantic-nokia-windows-phone-we-might-never-1263159607 The company has prematurely posted details of its first larger Windows phone on its official Chinese Tmall store. There are no images,…