Jamie Condliffe

Everything You Need to Know About the Grid, CERN’s Global Supercomputer

Before the word wide web was a twinkle in Tim Berners Lee’s eye, CERN had developed the Grid—a world-spanning network of computing power to help drive the progress of physics. In fact, the Grid is still very much in existence, and does rather more than just help share the reams of data the Large Hadron…

Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich said he expects a rash of $100 tablets, $300 laptops, and $350 2-in-1 hybrid to appear over the holidays, sporting Haswell and Bay Trail silicon. Bodes well for your Christmas shopping.

Kindle Fire HDX Teardown: Blazing Guts (Just Pray It Doesn’t Break)

We’re big fans of Amazon’s new Kindle Fire HDX, but we’ve been waiting to see exactly what lurks within its sleek frame for a while. Fortunately, iFixit has now stripped it bare, and it’s thumbs up all round—unless you wanna try and repair it. https://gizmodo.com/kindle-fire-hdx-review-third-times-a-charmer-1427201835 iFixit reports that the device is certainly stuffed full with…

Conan Screwed Up His iOS 7 Upgrade By Trying to Do It on an iPhone 3GS

When iOS 7 launched, Conan showed us all how to go about installing it. But as one eagle-eyed viewer has since pointed out, he screwed up big time—by trying to install the OS on an iPhone 3GS, which doesn’t even support it. https://gizmodo.com/conan-shows-us-what-its-like-to-update-the-iphone-to-i-1346142028 In fact, it’s the first time a viewer has successfully challenged Conan…

Introducing MAP: An Unbreakable, Private, Portable Navigation System

Google Maps? Pfff. Nokia HERE? Get outta here. There’s an alternative to all those navigation systems you use: it’s made from 100 percent sustainable material, it’s easy to share, it’ll never break, you can fit it in your pocket, and it’s completely private. It’s a map. OK, so the video’s in French. But it’s hilarious.…

Twitter Now Lets Any Follower Send You Direct Messages If You Want

Twitter is changing the way direct messages work. In the past, Twitter required two people to follow each other for direct messages to be exchanged in either direction; now, users have the option to change settings so that any of their followers can send them a direct message, without having to follow them back. The…

IBM’s Watson Is Planning to Fix America’s Healthcare System

While Obama might be having a hell of a time trying to reform healthcare, we perhaps shouldn’t worry too much—because IBM’s supercomputer Watson is now being used to fix America’s shortage of doctors. Watson has had plenty of jobs along the way: as a pastry chef, on Wall Street, and even just answering phones. But…

Applehas hired Angela Ahrendts, the current CEO of Burberry, to head up its retail efforts. Could Macs get any more fashionable?

Yahoo Mail Is Switching to HTTPS–Four Years After GMail

From January 8th, Yahoo will be enabling encryption by default for all of its webmail users. That’s great news—it just happens to be four years later than the likes of GMail. The Washington Post reports that Yahoo will roll out its SSL encryption standard—which has been kicking around as an option for users since earlier…

Microsoft isrolling out a third update for Windows Phone 8—the most distinctive feature of which is support for 5- and 6-inch displays at 1080p resolution. Brace yourselves for monstrous Windows phones.

If you’re a Galaxy S4 user desperate for an update, then you might want to grab SamMobile’s latest leaked build of Android 4.3. If you don’t mind the faff of installing it, that is.

Report: Advertisers Could Track You Via a Smartphone’s Accelerometer

Careful how you handle your phone: researchers have been testing out new surveillance techniques, and they think that you could easily be tracked around the web using your phone’s accelerometer. That might sound a little cooky, but according to the SFGate security researcher Hristo Bojinov has discovered that it’s possible to distinguish between individual devices…

How a Math Professor Predicted the Government Shutdown

To many of us, the government shutdown is inexplicable: a crazy situation, brought about a minority faction over a bill that’s already been passed into law. But for math professor Peter Turchin, it wasentirely predicable. New Scientist writes that Turchin, who applies math of complex systems to political instability, saw the situation coming in his…

The Average Man, Rendered and Visualized

Say hello to Todd. Todd, on the far left, is literally Mr Average: the most typical of American men based on averages from CDC anthropometric data. How do you compare? Rendered by James Hamblin for The Atlantic, Todd is somewhere between 30 to 39, has a BMI of 29, is five-feet-nine-inches tall, and has 39-inch…

Type:Rider Is a Mobile Game That Teaches You About Typograhy

We love typography at Gizmodo, so it’s no surprise that we’re rather taken by Type:Ride—a mobile game that let’s you solve riddles and puzzles while learning about fonts along the way. Available for iOS and Android, the game see players explore the history of typography as two dots: an umlaut or colon, depending on how…

Facebook has announced a new alpha program for its Android app, so super-early adopters can excitedly try out new features. Be warned, though: even Facebook engineer Christian Legnitto says it’s “not for the faint of heart.”

This Amazing Image Shows How Atoms In Glass Move When You Bend It

When you bend anything, you stretch the bonds between atoms and force the little fellas to move about against their will. This image shows exactly that happening, inside a sheet of glass. Just last month, scientists announced that they’d created the thinnest ever sheet of glass which was just two atoms thick. At the time…

Watch These Giant Bubbles Exploding in Slow Motion

There are few better sentences than one that includes the words “giant”, “bubbles”, “exploding” and “slow motion”. Well, there’s one thing better: a video that fits that sentence. Put together by Joey Shanks of Shanks FX, this video contains some mesmerizing footage of…giant bubbles exploding in slow motion! It also explains how you can create…

The BBC has made eleven lost episodes of Doctor Who—nine of which haven’t been viewed in 46 years — available for purchase exclusively on iTunes. Go get ’em!

The Size of Earthly Surfaces Directly Under Different Space Objects

If you’ve ever wondered how much of the Earths surface actually sits directly beneath the Sun at any given moment, then you probably also gave up on the math pretty quickly. Luckily, Randall Munroe didn’t. If you draw lines from the edge of an object in space straight to the center of Earth, there’s an…