Jamie Condliffe, Author at Gizmodo

Apple Music Lets Siri Work as a Silly Sound Effects Machine

An unexpected perk, if you can call it that, of your free three-month Apple Music subscription? Siri can access it in order to work as a kind of sound effects machine. Go on, ask Siri to play the sound of farts. Go on. Ah, such juveline fun.Verge reports that the following list of silly sounds…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

The LHC Has Discovered a New Sub-Atomic Particle Called a Pentaquark

After restarting to run at higher power than ever, the Large Hadron Collider has made its first proper discovery. Today, a team of scientists announced that they’ve found a new class of sub-atomic particles known as pentaquarks. Quarks are a series of charged sub-atomic particles that come together to form larger particles—such as protons and…

Physics & Chemistry Jamie Condliffe

Facebook Is Apparently Building a Human-Powered Personal Assistant

New reports suggest that Facebook is working on a personal assistant service baked into Messenger called Moneypenny. But unlike Apple’s Siri or Microsoft’s Cortana, this isn’t a virtual helper—it’s a real human service at the other end. The Information reportsthat the new service, known internally as Moneypenny, will allow users “to ask real people for…

Social Media Jamie Condliffe

Fly Through the Largest Ever Map of Our Galaxy’s Cosmic Dust

A team of astronomers has created the largest ever three-dimensional map of our galaxy’s cosmic dust—and you can fly right through it. The researchers, from Harvard University, have mapped out the distribution of space dust across three quarters of the night sky. They did that using data about 800 million stars taken with the Pan-STARRS…

Space & Spaceflight Jamie Condliffe

Google Photos Collects Pictures After You Delete the Android App

If you’ve tried Google Photos and didn’t like it, you probably deleted the app. But you may not realize that, if you use Android, it’s potentially still collecting and storing all of your photographs. Here’s how to stop it. David A. Arnott noticed this was the case when hundreds of his images appeared on Google…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

You’re Using Neural Networks Every Day Online—Here’s How They Work

If you use Google’s new Photos app, Microsoft’s Cortana, or Skype’s new translation function, you’re using a form of AI on a daily basis. AI was first dreamed up in the 1950s, but has only recently become a practical reality — all thanks to software systems called neural networks. This is how they work. Making…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

How Math Helped Design Your Mouse Pointer

You might think that your mouse pointer, and the rest of your computer’s user interface for that matter, was designed with a bucket load of human intuition and large dollop of design savvy. You’d be right, of course — but there was also a healthy amount of math involved in the process. In this video,…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

How Hollywood Creates the Ultimate Digital Humans

Computational simulation of the human form has advanced spectacularly over the last few years. This video explores the current cutting edge, revealing how Hollywood studios create the startlingly accurate digital humans we’re now used to seeing on screen. The first in a new series from The Creators Project, the video explores how high-resolution face and…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

Microsoft Still Sells Its OS in Boxes—This Is How Windows 10 Will Look

The full version of Windows 10 is (hopefully) just weeks away, and now a series of leaks reveal what the box that it arrives in will look like. Wait, it still arrives in boxes? Leaked by Microsoft Insider and WinFuture, and poinited to by Verge’s Tom Warren, the new packaging is a straightforward and simple…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

Tech Exists to Provide Over-the-Air 4K TV (But You Can’t Have It Yet)

A new set of proof-of-concept tests reveals that it’s perfectly possible to beam 4K TV through the air, without the need for streaming video services. Imagine: 4K through your TV aerial. But, perhaps predictably, it’s going to be a little while before you can have it. Research by LG, GatesAir and Zenith shows that, using…

Television Jamie Condliffe

Comcast Has a New $15 Per Month Cable-Free TV Service Called Stream

Comcast has announced that it has a new at-home TV streaming service—called Stream—that Xfinity customers will be able to bolt on to their existing contracts for $15 a month. The service will apparently allow you to watch “about a dozen networks” — including HBO, Fox and NBC — on tablet, laptop, and smartphone. The package…

Television Jamie Condliffe

A Map of Just the World’s Time Zones

Time zones can be confusing things. But this map, which looks like it could be a piece of modern art, strips them back to their essence: this is how the world looks if the only thing you can see is the time zone boundaries. Created by Branden Rishel it’s largely a bit of fun—but it’s…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

The XKCD Phone 3: So Good They Made Another One

Following the huge success of the XKCD Phone 1 andXKCD Phone 2, Randall Munroe has announced the XKCD Phone 3. Featuring wireless discharging, fingerprint randomizer, a magnetic stripe and more, Munroe promises that “if you’re not completely satisfied with the phone after 30 days, we will return you to your home at no cost.” It’s…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

Gmail Now Uses Artificial Neural Networks to Sniff Out Spam

Gmail’s spam filters have always been pretty good, but now they’re getting a shot in the arm. Google’s rolling out its artificial neural network technology, currently used in the likes of its Search and Now apps, to help reduce the weight of unwanted email even further. The filters that Google has used in the past…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

You Can Read the First Chapter of Harper Lee’s New Novel Online

It’s 55 years since To Kill a Mockingbird was published, but Harper Lee’s second book, Go Set A Watchman, is about to be released. Now you can read the first chapter online. The first 3,500 words of the novel have been published on the websites of The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal. If it’s…

Books & Comics Jamie Condliffe

This Is What the New Ghostbusters Look Like

We’ve already seen what they’ll wear and drive, but this is the first glimpse of what the new Ghostbusters will like when they hit the screen. While previous leaks from the film set have been made by director Paul Feig, these images of Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones appear to have…

Movies Jamie Condliffe

Advertisers Won’t Study Facebook Likes and Shares As Closely Anymore

Facebok is going to stop including Likes and Shares in the data it provides to advertisers about how effectively it pushes ads onto it users—but it’s nothing to do with altruism. The social network’s announced that, as of yesterday, its Cost-per-Click data—a metric that demonstrates how effective a Facebook-based marketing campaign is—will “only include clicks…

Social Media Jamie Condliffe

The Incredible Housing Value Across the U.S., Mapped

The cost of housing in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area is cripplingly expensive. But what does housing value look like across the whole of the country? This animated map wascreated by Max Galka. It breaks down the total housing value held within each country across the U.S. using data taken from…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

IBM’s New Chip Is Four Times as Powerful as Today’s Best Silicon

IBM has announced that it’s designed a new kind of ultra-dense chip, which squeezes in four times as much computing power as the best silicon currently available. The ability to squeeze ever more processing power into the same small processors is a result of shrinking the fundamental transistors that make up chips. Until recently manufacturers…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

This Is What Happens When You Remix Calvin and Hobbes Using Math

What happens when you take one of the world’s best cartoon strips and remix it with some random process math? Wonderful gibberish is what. Josh Millard has used aMarkov chain process to remix Calvin and Hobbes strips into a glorious mess. Markov chains are a random mathematical system where the next step depends only what…

Books & Comics Jamie Condliffe

Jamie Condliffe

Apple Music Lets Siri Work as a Silly Sound Effects Machine

The LHC Has Discovered a New Sub-Atomic Particle Called a Pentaquark

Facebook Is Apparently Building a Human-Powered Personal Assistant

Fly Through the Largest Ever Map of Our Galaxy’s Cosmic Dust

Google Photos Collects Pictures After You Delete the Android App

You’re Using Neural Networks Every Day Online—Here’s How They Work

How Math Helped Design Your Mouse Pointer

How Hollywood Creates the Ultimate Digital Humans

Microsoft Still Sells Its OS in Boxes—This Is How Windows 10 Will Look

Tech Exists to Provide Over-the-Air 4K TV (But You Can’t Have It Yet)

Comcast Has a New $15 Per Month Cable-Free TV Service Called Stream

A Map of Just the World’s Time Zones

The XKCD Phone 3: So Good They Made Another One

Gmail Now Uses Artificial Neural Networks to Sniff Out Spam

You Can Read the First Chapter of Harper Lee’s New Novel Online

This Is What the New Ghostbusters Look Like

Advertisers Won’t Study Facebook Likes and Shares As Closely Anymore

The Incredible Housing Value Across the U.S., Mapped

IBM’s New Chip Is Four Times as Powerful as Today’s Best Silicon

This Is What Happens When You Remix Calvin and Hobbes Using Math

Artemis 2 Crew Become First Humans to Travel Beyond Earth Orbit Since the 1970s

Artemis 2 Day 2: Follow the Mission With Our Live Updates 🔴

Labubus Might Be Labu-Bust After Pop Mart Posts Record Share Loss

Cursor’s New Tool Lets Users Delegate to a Team of Coding Agents

Nvidia Needs to Remind Itself What PC Gamers Actually Want

Iran Says It Hit Oracle Facilities in UAE

‘Invincible’ Season 4 Is Doing Right By Debbie

New Theory Says We’ve Been Overcomplicating the Big Bang

Marvel Might Have Finally Dealt With One of the Most Hated ‘Spider-Man’ Characters Around

China Is Trying to Grow New Forests in This Notorious Mega-Desert. It’s Working

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?