Kyle VanHemert, Author at Gizmodo

Read About Capsule Living and Feel Better About Your Dinky Apartment

Twenty years ago, Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 was a place where Tokyo’s businessmen could get a quick night’s sleep after a long day at the office. Today it’s an apartment building for those left unemployed by the devastating recession. As Japan’s jobless rate creeps higher—it is currently 5.2%, the highest it has ever been—some Tokyo…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

Zap Some Neon Life Into Your Old Photographs

The Kirlian Photography Device uses high voltage discharges to capture beautiful, luminescent images directly from ordinary film. It is not a machine I’d recommend using in the darkroom. Kirlian photography, also known as electrography, isn’t anything new—we’ve looked at the technique before—but the Kirlian Photography Device wraps up all the necessary components into one machine.…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

The Week In Gizmodo

A lot went down this past week, the last of the year and the decade. People always start looking back this time of year, and we were no exception. But there was plenty of crazy in the here and now. Yes, there were recaps. Brian recounted his love of gadgets in the aughts and explained…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

WakeMate Helps You Sleep Smarter With Your iPhone

The WakeMate, a sensor-laden wristband packaged with sleep analysis software, determines the optimal wake-up point in your REM cycle and adjusts your alarm for that moment. It also lets you say you really use your iPhone 24/7. One of the fundamental reasons we love gadgets is because they help us do things better and smarter…

Health Kyle VanHemert

This Radio Is Hard To Tune, Easy To Look At

Radio Active, a project by industrial design student Erez Bar Am, is a wall-mounted analog radio. That’s all good and well. The frustration begins when you realize you have to rearrange it every time you want to change the station. Radio Active consists of a main module—the blue one—and several satellite modules, three of which…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

Spillarium Tank Keeps Fish Acutely Aware of Their Mortality

Why bore your fish with a humdrum aquarium when you can house them in the Spillarium, a spherical 5 gallon tank that features color-changing LED lights and a spilling waterfall that plunges into a bigger fish’s ceramic maw. Though the MythBusters proved that goldfish don’t really have a 3 second memory—they trained fish to swim…

Biology Kyle VanHemert

Google and HTC Working On a Chrome OS Tablet

Everyone is clamoring about tablets these days—ourselves included—so it’s not too surprising that Google and HTC are set to join the fray. They are reportedly working together on a Chrome OS Google Tablet. Smarthouse, an Australian publication, reports that HTC and Google have been collaborating “for the past 18 months” and have produced “several working…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

Motorola Calgary / Droid Devour Gets Shot Up In Silver, New Info

Motorola making a device in more that one color? You don’t say… One of our connects sent us the above photo of the Motorola Calgary / DROID Devour / Whatever, and confirmed the specifications we posted a few months back. We’re told the keyboard was “nice” and the phone itself was “easier to use” compared…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

Road Signs To Tell It Like It Is This Year

With an unexpected snowfall blanketing much of the East Coast for New Years, someone—either a traffic worker with a sense of humor or an average Joe with a sense of civic duty—reprogrammed this New England traffic sign. This time last year we posted a quick bit on how weirdly easy it was to hack road…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

HP’s Pine Trail-Equipped Mini 210 HD and Friends Leak Before CES

With CES only a week away, photos and incomplete specs for 8 new machines from HP have leaked, including an upgraded Mini 210 HD netbook now touting a N450 Pine Trail processor. The HP Mini 210 HD, to be officially announced next week, boasts a 1.66GHz N450 Atom CPU and GMA 3150 graphics. The N450…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

Apple Lets You Get Stalky With Google Latitude-esque Patent

While it was initially suggested that Google Latitude was rejected from the app store to keep iPhone users from confusing it with Maps, this new patent shows that Apple might be working on their own friend- and ex-girlfriend-tracking app. https://gizmodo.com/google-latitude-for-iphone-is-a-lame-web-app-because-ap-5321583 9to5 Mac points out that the iPhone diagram seems to show a front-facing camera, a…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

When Does the New Year Start On the International Space Station?

If you’re on terra firma, it’s pretty obvious when you need to grab your make-out partner. But how, asks Slate’s Explainer, do you know when to celebrate “when you’re hurtling through time zones at 17,500 miles per hour?” The obvious answer is something like: “you don’t pick a single moment, you celebrate once over each…

Space & Spaceflight Kyle VanHemert

Fox and Time Warner Reach Agreement: Your Guilty Pleasure Shows Are Saved

Late last night, Time Warner Cable and Fox Networks Group reached an agreement on subscription fees, ending their very public stand off and guaranteeing Time Warner subscribers their American Idol, Glee, and House fixes in 2010. https://gizmodo.com/time-warner-cable-takes-subscription-fee-fight-to-the-p-5436599 The spat over carrier fees that had Time Warner threatening to drop Fox’s stations altogether has been resolved.…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

Cube-Based Chess Set Adds Modern Confusion To Timeless Difficulty

My chess strategy doesn’t extend too far beyond pulling my knights out first, because that’s what the computer games always do against me. But with this cube-based set, I’d probably need a strategy just to remember which piece is which. Chess has been reimagined more times than anyone cares to count. But Scott Cruz‘s chess…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

eBooks by Kobo

Kindle’s not the only ebook game in town. Kobo, Border’s horse in this race, is now offering its 2 million ebook library to Android users. You can tweak font types, change background colors, and buy books in the app. If you’re anti-Kindle, this is the one to get. FREE From The App Developer: Kobo is…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

IMDb

Who’s that guy? Where’s he from? Should I even watch this movie? Solve all your movie questions with Android’s official IMDB app. The IMDB app is basically IMDB’s website optimized for your phone-that’s a good thing. Along with all the movie info, you can also watch trailers, see the top 250 movies of all time,…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

Mark the Spot

AT&T is (slowly) getting more Android phones so it’s as good a time as any to release their “tell us where we suck” app. Mark the Spot lets you pinpoint the exact location of your dropped your call, failed call, slow data, and other areas of suck. The app itself is kind of ugly, but…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

The Year In Image Cache: 50 Shots That Wowed Us In 2009

The Internet offers an endless stream of cool pictures, but here’s a look at the best we’ve come across this year. Inside you’ll find images that amaze and amuse. Though #imagecache has only been around since March, we’ve collected some incredible images in these last nine months. Click through to the original posts for hi-resolution…

Space & Spaceflight Kyle VanHemert

SlingPlayer Mobile

Slingbox can now stream whatever is on your home TV to your Android phone. With the Android app, you get full control over your at-home DVR box and remote, so you can pause, fast-forward, rewind the live and recorded shows you’re watching, and even schedule DVR recordings. Works over 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi. $29.99 From…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

SoundHound

Like Shazam, it’s an awesome music recognition app that’ll tell you what song is playing on the radio. Unlike Shazam, you can also sing or hum a song and it’ll give you the results complete with videos, lyrics, and a link to the Amazon MP3 store. Sadly, the free version limits you to 5 song…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

Kyle VanHemert

Read About Capsule Living and Feel Better About Your Dinky Apartment

Zap Some Neon Life Into Your Old Photographs

The Week In Gizmodo

WakeMate Helps You Sleep Smarter With Your iPhone

This Radio Is Hard To Tune, Easy To Look At

Spillarium Tank Keeps Fish Acutely Aware of Their Mortality

Google and HTC Working On a Chrome OS Tablet

Motorola Calgary / Droid Devour Gets Shot Up In Silver, New Info

Road Signs To Tell It Like It Is This Year

HP’s Pine Trail-Equipped Mini 210 HD and Friends Leak Before CES

Apple Lets You Get Stalky With Google Latitude-esque Patent

When Does the New Year Start On the International Space Station?

Fox and Time Warner Reach Agreement: Your Guilty Pleasure Shows Are Saved

Cube-Based Chess Set Adds Modern Confusion To Timeless Difficulty

eBooks by Kobo

IMDb

Mark the Spot

The Year In Image Cache: 50 Shots That Wowed Us In 2009

SlingPlayer Mobile

SoundHound

Sam Witwer Is Ready for Maul’s Moment

Watch and Follow Live as NASA Launches Its First Crewed Mission to the Moon in 54 Years 🔴

Anthropic Can’t Cover Up Its Claude Code Leak Fast Enough

Zach Cregger Recruits Second Zach for His Aunt Gladys Spinoff

Can You Run a Computer Without RAM? Surprisingly, Yes—But You’ll Be Miserable

How Adult Swim Skipped the April Fools’ Nonsense and Dropped a ‘Smiling Friends’ Claymation Horror Short Instead

Oracle Lays Off Thousands to Offset AI Spending

The Films and Shows You Should Be Streaming in April 2026

Chinese Startup Debuts Super-Bendy Robotic Arm for Orbital Repairs

Your Devices Are Targets. Bitdefender Shields Them All — For Less Than You Think

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?