Lauren Davis, Author at Gizmodo

Hobbit cross-promotions we’re grateful don’t exist

The Denny’s/Hobbit second breakfast cross-promotion makes a weird kind of sense, even if it forces us to link J.R.R. Tolkien with Moon Over My Hammy. And the Hobbit slot machines have landed the movie’s producers in hot Mordor with the Tolkien Estate. But are there other, even more bizarre cross-promotional possibilities that the Hobbit licensing…

io9 Lauren Davis

LCD contact lenses could beam text messages right to your eyeball

Displays that appear right in front of your eyeballs is a popular trope in science fiction, and thanks to new developments in microsystems technology, those displays are one giant leap closer to becoming a reality. Researchers at Ghent University have developed a curved LCD display that can display text and images on the tiny surface…

io9 Lauren Davis

Game of Thrones meets Battle of the Bands with these parody music logos

In the musical Game of Thrones, you either top the charts or you die. Designer IG-HateyHate blends bands with Game of Thrones characters to give us logo t-shirts for King Slayer, Ironborn, and, of course, Greyjoy Division. You can see the rest of the musical mashups at RedBubble, where you can also purchase any of…

io9 Lauren Davis

These sweet Star Wars comics will make your heart ache for the Rancor and Sarlacc

Every character has a backstory, even the monster who spends most of its onscreen time trying to chomp the hero. Chris Gugliotti’s one-page comic reveals the heartwarming story behind Malakili and Jabba’s Rancor, and gives the pair a happy ending. Gugliotti sells prints of his earnest comics on Etsy—and you should head over there to…

Books & Comics Lauren Davis

8 of the Weirdest Predictions for the End of the World

We know that the world isn’t going to end on the 21st of December (or at least isn’t more likely to end then than any other day), but it’s always nice to remember that there’s a firm precedent for the world not ending on schedule. It didn’t end in 1844, when William Miller and Samuel…

io9 Lauren Davis

Tom Cruise plumbs the secrets of post-apocalyptic Earth in the first Oblivion trailer

In the first trailer for Tom Cruise’s post-apocalyptic film Oblivion, Cruise is a drone repairman walking the shattered remains of Earth. But as he explores the planet humanity was forced to leave behind, he finds something he never expected to find, something that makes him question everything he’s been told about the conflict that destroyed…

Trailers Lauren Davis

Proposed new ASL signs could change how deaf people discuss science

Hearing people take for granted our ability to convey scientific terms in conversation, from concepts as simple as weight and mass to chromosomes and covalent bonding. But for people who rely on sign languages, such as American Sign Language and British Sign Language, discussing scientific concepts isn’t so simple. But there are many in the…

io9 Lauren Davis

Serenity LEGO set is now a reality

Granted, it won’t let you build the seven-foot-long Serenity masterpiece that graced this year’s Brickfair, but this 2,186-piece custom Serenity unofficial LEGO set is shiny in its own right, letting you build a Firefly-class spaceship of your very own. https://gizmodo.com/seven-foot-long-minifig-scale-serenity-model-is-a-lego-5931903 While this set, created by tbone_tbl, didn’t win a coveted spot as one of LEGO’s…

io9 Lauren Davis

The hunt for Haven‘s skinwalker leads to the most obvious suspect

With just days left before she steps into the barn and presumably ends the Troubles, Audrey Parker is on the hunt for the skinwalker who has been plaguing Haven all season long. And once she’s resolved the case of an amnesiac man who causes the entire town to slip into a coma, she finds her…

Television Lauren Davis

Watch the entire Large Hadron Collider zombie movie—shot at CERN—online now

We were excited to hear about Decay, the movie filmed by physics PhD students at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider facility. Now you can watch the entire 75-minute film on YouTube and see what happens when you give physicists a camera, some zombie makeup, and access to one of the world’s top research facilities. [via Nerdcore]

Movies Lauren Davis

Concept Art Writing Prompt: A Beauty Salon in an Abandoned Asylum

We’re adding a little Modern Ruins to this week’s Concept Art Writing Prompt, with a real photographic image of a decaying mental institution in upstate New York. We often marvel that these urban exploration photos would make great inspirations for movie sets—and they might also inspire a spooky tale or two. Urban explorer Aband1d_Urbex took…

io9 Lauren Davis

These 1938 psychological researchers studied college students by hiding under their beds

Nowadays, if you want to conduct ethically dubious on how college students speak to one another, you have all sorts of technologically advanced options: bugs, nanny cams, recording applications installed on cell phones. But in 1938, when a team of psychological researchers wanted to study the speech habits of students, they had to resort to…

io9 Lauren Davis

What if Norman Rockwell illustrated scenes of Gotham City life?

Mark Dos Santos imagines a world in which illustrator Norman Rockwell packed up his easel and moved to Gotham City, where he reflected a very different side of American life. Some of his Gotham Evening Post illustrations capture moments with the Bat-family and their rogues that are as sweet as any trip to the malt…

io9 Lauren Davis

Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” gets a stunning animated tribute

Carl Sagan’s lyrical and resonant ode to the planet Earth as seen from a great distance receives a lovely companion animation thanks to the animation studio ORDER. Much like Sagan’s original musings, ORDER’s animation is understated, while contemplating our place in a vast universe. [via Kuriositas]

io9 Lauren Davis

Our first peek inside the new TARDIS interior is inscribed with Gallifreyan

Along with his new companion, the Doctor is getting a new TARDIS interior. BBC America released this small hint to the new design—cold metallics with Circular Gallifreyan inscriptions. Anyone want to take a crack at translating it? (Or, rather, hazard a guess as to what it’s about?) [BBC America via Nerd Approved]

Television Lauren Davis

Australia’s Prime Minister issues a (tongue-in-cheek) warning about the coming apocalypse

Just because Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard knows that the world isn’t going to end this month doesn’t mean she can’t have a little fun with the doomsday predictions. She recorded this video for Australia’s Triple J radio and, in grand deadpan, warns us of the world’s greatest apocalyptic threat: K-pop. Game on, Mr. Obama.…

io9 Lauren Davis

Salacious Crumb dons his ugliest sweater for the Star Wars holiday cards

It’s hard to mention Star Wars and the holidays in the same breath without reliving the horrors of Life Day, but PJ McQuade‘s witty cards are almost enough to cleanse Wookiee winter rituals from our brains. Now we just imagine Bossk’s sleigh pulled by eight tiny tauntauns. You can purchase these cards (as well as…

io9 Lauren Davis

Saturday Webcomic: Corporate Skull is a foul-mouthed, skull-faced pharmaceutical salesman caught in a global conspiracy

If Jhonen Vasquez (of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and Invader Zim fame) wrote about the horrors of working a cubicle job, he might have come up with something along the lines of Corporate Skull. Jamie Smart’s webcomic stars an unassuming office drone whose face is ripped off in a freak photocopier accident. He becomes the…

Books & Comics Lauren Davis

Legolas has a blond elf moment at the LEGO parody Battle of Helm’s Deep

While we’re waiting for Peter Jackson’s big-budget return to Middle Earth, stop-motion filmmakers Brotherhood Workshop are giving us a Tolkien adaptation that may lack big stars but more than makes up for it in plastic minifigs. In this installment, Orcs lay siege to Helm’s Deep, where Legolas has a little bit of trouble staying on…

io9 Lauren Davis

This is the weirdest TARDIS cosplay we’ve ever seen

Apparently, we missed the episode of Doctor Who in which the TARDIS’ personality matrix enters the body of an alpaca. Maybe that will be part of Neil Gaiman’s next Who script? [ThinkGeek via Fashionably Geek]

io9 Lauren Davis

Lauren Davis

Hobbit cross-promotions we’re grateful don’t exist

LCD contact lenses could beam text messages right to your eyeball

Game of Thrones meets Battle of the Bands with these parody music logos

These sweet Star Wars comics will make your heart ache for the Rancor and Sarlacc

8 of the Weirdest Predictions for the End of the World

Tom Cruise plumbs the secrets of post-apocalyptic Earth in the first Oblivion trailer

Proposed new ASL signs could change how deaf people discuss science

Serenity LEGO set is now a reality

The hunt for Haven‘s skinwalker leads to the most obvious suspect

Watch the entire Large Hadron Collider zombie movie—shot at CERN—online now

Concept Art Writing Prompt: A Beauty Salon in an Abandoned Asylum

These 1938 psychological researchers studied college students by hiding under their beds

What if Norman Rockwell illustrated scenes of Gotham City life?

Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” gets a stunning animated tribute

Our first peek inside the new TARDIS interior is inscribed with Gallifreyan

Australia’s Prime Minister issues a (tongue-in-cheek) warning about the coming apocalypse

Salacious Crumb dons his ugliest sweater for the Star Wars holiday cards

Saturday Webcomic: Corporate Skull is a foul-mouthed, skull-faced pharmaceutical salesman caught in a global conspiracy

Legolas has a blond elf moment at the LEGO parody Battle of Helm’s Deep

This is the weirdest TARDIS cosplay we’ve ever seen

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