Kyle Wagner

You Can Get a Cheaper, Personal Version of Basecamp Now

A personal version of Basecamp, the well loved project management system for businesses, is out now for $25. Project management software sounds boring and staid and zzzzzzz and that’s probably about right, but it’s also crucial to, like, getting anything done, so this is nice for anyone who’s got personal side projects they want to…

12 Months of Xbox Live Gold Are $35 Today

Xbox Live isn’t perrrrfect—we wish the streaming half weren’t still paywalled—but for a lot of us, it’s how we game and stream and basically use our TVs in any way at all. So it’s necessary. And a year of it’s $35 today (usually $60). So that’s a pretty good deal! [Buy via Twitter] https://gizmodo.com/its-time-for-xbox-live-gold-to-be-free-5915635

One Important Way Mega Is More Law-Proof than Megaupload

Mega is here, and you’ve been hearing a lot about its encryption, as well as it not really working too great just yet. But maybe the most important thing is Mega’s promise of being less of a lawsuit magnet. A lot of steps have been taken there, but there’s one that stands out as the…

Kid Got Expelled from College for Reporting a Security Problem to School Officials

No good deed, huh. A student from Dawson College in Montreal has been expelled for his involvement in the uncovering of a potentially horrible flaw in his school’s online directories. Sounds dumb, right? Even worse: Everyone more or less agrees he meant no harm. Here’s what happened: Ahmed Al-Khabaz, a Computer Science student at Dawson,…

14 of the Most Bizarre Fast Food Reviews on YouTube

We have our own history of weird food reviews, but man, we’ve got nothing on YouTube. Here are 14 of the weirdest we could find, but let us know if we’ve missed any standouts. https://gizmodo.com/taco-bell-doritos-locos-taco-lightning-review-love-and-5892010 TheReviewSpace Oreo Cakesters Chocolate Cream Soft Cookies Review Cheyenne Restaurants: Red Lobster Review BiG BOX MEAL (Taco Bell) Review Fast…

PSA: Windows 8 Upgrades Get Way More Expensive After February 1

Have you upgraded to Windows 8 yet? Well, if you’ve been holding off, but figure you’ll end up making the move sooner or later, you should grab your license now, even if you’re going to hold off on installing for a little bit longer. Microsoft announced on its blog today that its low prices for…

Rumor: LG’s New Optimus G Pro Will Have a 5-Inch 1080p Screen

LG’s Optimus G—the boilerplate for the wonderful Nexus 4—is getting a big brother. According to a leaked image acquired by Engadget, LG has a 5-inch, 1080p monster coming. The phone’s full reported specs are a 1.7Ghz Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064, LTE, 2GB RAM, 32GB storage, and a 3,000mAh battery (still not quite up to the…

Watch a Balloon Explode 100,000 Feet Above the Earth

We’ve seen a lot of DIY space balloons, and they’re all usually pretty similar to look at. Balloon goes UP. Balloon comes DOWN. Sorta-outer-space in between. Caleb Anderson’s looks a little different. Because he sent a bunch of cameras up, and because they caught the balloon exploding like a wad of pudding and dispersing into…

How to Create a Fake “Online Girlfriend”

By now you’ve heard about Notre Dame star linebacker Mantai Te’o and his fabricated internet girlfriend. There are a lot of reasons and ways that this could have happened. Te’o claims that he was duped and not behind the accounts, but regardless of who is to blame, this was a deep, meticulously planned deception in…

Whyyyyy Are Headphone Jacks on the Wrong Side of Computers?

This is a problem. It’s not the biggest problem in the world, but it’s a just such a dumb, thoughtless, annoying design flaw that it bears mentioning. Apple’s doing headphone jacks wrong. Actually, no, everyone’s doing them wrong. In short: Headphone cords almost uniformly insert into the left cup. Some still connect to both, but…

Microsoft Is Finally Bringing XBLA Games to Windows 8 and RT (Updated)

This has been a long time coming. Microsoft Play just added has (see update below) 15 Xbox Live Arcade games to Windows 8 and RT through the Windows Store. And it’s about time. When the Windows Store launched, its ability to unify games across computers made it seem like a natural fit for XBLA titles.…

Nintendo is reportedly merging its console and handheld divisions. Logical! And also a good look at next generation.

Listen to 150,000 Different Animal Sounds in This Humongous Online Library

This is more or less like the grown-up, nerded-out scientist version of those spinny roulette toys you had as a kid that taught you that The Cow Goes Moo. Except the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Macaulay Library tells you that the katydid goes, uhhh, “dial-up modem noise“? More or less. The Macaulay Library just went…

Emailing Jeff Bezos Every Time You Read a Book on Kindle Is the Best Art Project

Everyone wants you to share. Share the music you listen to, the movies you watch, the articles you read, the books you read. So Johannes Osterhoff is sharing, just with the guy in charge. Osterhoff’s “performance” piece is to send Jeff Bezos a personalized email every time he sets a bookmark on his Kindle. The…

Russia Will Send a Probe to the Moon in 2015

We sort of ignore the moon these days, because we’ve BEEN THERE and ugh it’s kind of out of the way. But Russia says it’s going back in 2015 with an unmanned probe. Russia, you’ll remember, originally beat the United States to that particular achievement in 1959, ten years before Neil Armstrong touched down. The…

OkCupid App Bug Exposed Email Addresses and Birth Dates

OKCupid’s new blind date app came out today, to some fanfare and probably a little more mockery. But it’s hit a snag: Apparently, it was coughing up users’ emails and birth dates for anyone who bothered to dig for them. https://gizmodo.com/okcupids-new-blind-date-app-aims-to-find-you-love-or-r-5976070 The information was leaked when you “tweaked” the web traffic info from the app,…

Is It Ever OK to Hit on Someone You Don’t Know on Facebook?

No. Never ever do this. Never ever do this. Never ever do this. Never ever do this. Never ever do this. Never ever do this. Never ever do this. Never ever do this. Never ever do this. Never ever do this. Never ever do this. Never ever do this. Never ever do this. Never ever…

What Is Facebook Graph Search?

Facebook’s big announcement today was Graph Search. It’s a deeply important step for Facebook. But it’s also kind of unlike other search systems out there, and adds a bunch of new ways to use Facebook. Here’s how it works. Graph Search is way to sort through Facebook… The first thing to note is that Graph…

Report: Dell Is “in Talks” to Take Company Private

According to Bloomberg sources, Dell is considering taking its company off the public stock market. Trading has been halted on the company for the time being while the situation plays out. Dell has told CNBC that it won’t comment on “rumors and speculation”. Dell taking its company private, if that were to happen, would mean…

How Intel Will Build the Holodeck

Mooly Eden steps out of the world of transistors and microprocessors for a moment. “If you want a simple explanation of what we’re doing, just look to Asimov,” the head of Intel’s Perceptual Computing push says, explaining. “Or Star Trek, Star Wars, and Avatar. The ideas have been in science fiction for years, and now…