Matt Buchanan, Author at Gizmodo

Killer Xeno Pro Network Card Lightning Review

A specialized networking card—with blingtastic LIGHTS—designed to murder lag for gamers, the $130 Killer Xeno Pro practically screams “snake oil.” It’s not quite. https://gizmodo.com/killer-xeno-network-card-kills-lag-has-built-in-voice-5180270 If you’ve got a crappy ISP, obviously, a special thingamajig on your end won’t help you—it can’t fix the whole internet, and it doesn’t claim to. What it claims is that…

Reviews Matt Buchanan May 18

Google Must Reshoot Every Single Street View Image in Japan

Google’s gotta reshoot every Street View image it’s taken in Japan from a height 16 inches lower than Godzilla’s ankle after people complained the photos peeked over their fences. The current photos—which cover 12 cities—were taken by cameras mounted on sticks stuck on the roof of a car, placing them over the height of most…

Tech News Matt Buchanan May 18

Verizon LTE Devices Will Have Swappable SIM Cards

Maybe a no-brainer, but seeing “Verizon Wireless” anywhere near the words “swappable SIM cards” is like seeing a little slice of hell freeze over: Verizon’s confirmed that their LTE devices will have swappable SIM cards, meaning you should be able to actually choose your device. Holy balls. [DSL Reports]

Tech News Matt Buchanan May 18

Windows 7’s Virtual Wi-Fi Turns One Wireless Adapter Into Many for Easy Sharing, Hotspot Double-Tapping

Windows 7’s native Virtual Wi-Fi sounds complicated—it virtualizes your wireless adapater into as many wireless adapters as you want—but making your machine think it has more than one wireless adapter is pretty useful: With multiple independent wireless connections—the virtualization software turns your single hardware wireless connection into several—you can tap more than one hotspot simultaneously.…

Tech News Matt Buchanan May 18

Acer’s Aspire One AO751h 11.6-Inch Barely-a-Netbook Officially $380

We saw Acer’s new netbooks last month—they’re not quite as schnice as Asus’s latest Eee, but the 11.6-inch Aspire One has a full keyboard and is $50 cheaper. Full specs and prices: https://gizmodo.com/acer-and-gateways-army-of-netbooks-led-by-11-6-inch-asp-5202891 Acer Debuts Industry’s First 11.6-inch Aspire One Netbook; Part of Thinner, Lighter Second-Generation Line New 11.6-inch Model Delivers Mobile Productivity with Largest…

Tech News Matt Buchanan May 18

A Girl Getting Transformed (NSFW)

‘Cause once you go ‘bot, you never go back. The rest of this definitely NSFW Shogun Warrior photoshoot from a 1977 issue of Gallery magazine is over at io9. NSFW: https://gizmodo.com/long-before-megan-fox-there-was-a-brunette-who-really-5256608 [io9]

Tech News Matt Buchanan May 15

Are You This Douchebag?

Suburbanites need not venture further, since your torpid bodies have grown into your automobiles. City dwellers, this is how you probably look to everyone else, stumbling around with your iPhone. What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve done while walking and Twittering about how that stupid barista yelled at you for using your phone at the…

Tech News Matt Buchanan May 15

“Nothing Good Has Come From the Internet, Period.”

“I’m a guy who doesn’t see anything good having come from the Internet. Period.” That bit of insight is from Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton, who clearly has not seen the Bacon Explosion. [WWD via beebeejee]

Tech News Matt Buchanan May 15

Psychic Says Steve Jobs Will Be Back, But Not for Long

Barbara Courtney—the psychic known as the Seer of Silicon Valley—says Steve’ll return next month. So what? Well, this psychic is the only one on record that predicted his return in 1997. She told Cult of Mac’s Leander Kahney, “My feeling is he will come back” but “I think it won’t be for very long.” She…

Tech News Matt Buchanan May 15

Panasonic’s $4 Billion Loss Makes Sony’s Bad Year Look Peachy

Panasonic, the last sacred bastion of plasma TVs, is down $4 billion for the year. Analysts thought it might lose a billion dollars. Other Japanese companies who’ve lost a bundle this year: Hitachi dropped $8 billion into a black hole, NEC bled out $3 billion, making Sony’s $1 billion negative look positively awesome. [CNN] https://gizmodo.com/sonys-first-full-year-loss-in-14-years-makes-us-look-to-5253843

Tech News Matt Buchanan May 15

Meet Microsoft’s New Laptop Hunter: Lauren 2.0 Likes Pink

The original laptop hunter Lauren was a cute librarian-type who wanted a giant lapmonster. Microsoft’s latest flamespot has a new Lauren. She’s a blond law student who likes pink. https://gizmodo.com/microsoft-marketing-team-now-exclusively-advised-by-int-5186672 I’m sure Mac fansites will point out the MacBook Pro she sneers at for being $2000 is two inches bigger than the 13-inch Dell Studio…

Tech News Matt Buchanan May 15

BlackBerry Storm 2 Screen Won’t Be Clicky, Verizon to Un-Ban Wi-Fi on Smartphones

Boy Genius rolls up Verizon’s entire lineup of new BlackBerrys, but the most interesting point confirms what I suspected when I saw the Storm 2 shots yesterday: The Storm’s clicky screen is gone. Update: https://gizmodo.com/the-blackberry-storm-2-5255143 Instead, it’ll work “more like traditional capacitive touch screen panels,” maybe with haptic feedback. Given Palm and Microsoft’s push toward…

Tech News Matt Buchanan May 15

Sony’s PS3 Costs Are Still 10 Percent Higher Than PS3’s Price

In Sony’s earnings report, CFO Nobuyuki Oneda noted that their costs are still 10 percent higher than the PS3’s price—if he’s talking about Japan’s retail, that means they’re losing 40 bucks per console. Even Microsoft, who was originally losing $126 per 360, has making money on every Xbox sold for a while now. Poor Sony.…

Tech News Matt Buchanan May 15

How to Hack the iPhone to Use SlingPlayer and Skype Over 3G

AT&T’s impotent network—and good ol’ fashioned greed make it do douchey things sometimes, like lock down SlingPlayer and Skype for the iPhone. But you can unlock their true 3G powers. https://gizmodo.com/at-t-uses-semantics-to-justify-locking-down-slingplayer-5251464 Step 1: Free Your Phone There are lots of reasons to jailbreak your phone. Skype and SlingPlayer over 3G is just one of them.…

Tech News Matt Buchanan May 14

What’s the Best USB Flash Drive?

Ars tricked Matt Woodward into running a gauntlet of tests on eight USB flash drives—a gadget you typically only evaluate by price/storage—to discover the secret king of flash drives. It’s an epic piece. Interestingly, the physically largest drives—the OCZ Throttle (which also has eSATA) and Patriot Xporter—are the absolute fastest, but Ars recommends Super Talent’s…

Tech News Matt Buchanan May 14

The Three Things You Really Need to Know About RAM

Maximum PC tests and answers the three biggest questions you have about RAM: How much better is DDR3 than DDR2? Is high-speed RAM worth it? How much RAM do you really need? On the DDR3 question, with AMD’s latest AM3 Phenom II chips, they found no difference between DDR2 and DDR3. Which is good, since…

Tech News Matt Buchanan May 14

HDMI 1.4: Internet Sharing, More Pixels and Ridiculous New Cables

Somebody got a little too eager to share the good word about HDMI 1.4, since PCMag’s original story has vanished. Short version: 100Mbps internet, higher resolution (4,096×2160@30Hz) and stupid, stupid new cable BS. The 100Mbps data deal happens through HDMI Ethernet Channel (HEC) which will let internet-connected TVs share internet with other HEC devices through…

Television Matt Buchanan May 14

Samsung Jack Completes BlackJack Windows Mobile Trilogy for $99

If you thought the Epix was the BlackJack III, nope. Meet the Jack. It’s a pretty standard Windows Mobile 6.1, 3G and Wi-Fi deal, and it compels copywriters to make lame playing card puns: https://gizmodo.com/samsung-epix-aka-blackjack-iii-first-smartphone-with-5066527 AT&T COMPLETES ITS FULL HOUSE OF SMART DEVICES WITH THE NEW SAMSUNG JACK™ Compact, Elegant Handset is Powered by Windows…

Gadgets Matt Buchanan May 14

Sony’s First Full-Year Loss in 14 Years Makes Us Look to the Past

Sony’s posted a full-year loss for the first time in 14 years—98.9 billion yen ($1 billion)—fulfilling doomy prophecies—which was better than expected. Sony thinks next year will be worse. https://gizmodo.com/sony-looks-set-to-lose-1-1-billion-in-fiscal-2008-5130127 What a very unhappy birthday week. Its original charter, with the credo,”we must avoid problems which befall large corporations,” and the drive to “create and…

Tech News Matt Buchanan May 14

Asus’s Super Skinny Eee PC 1008HA Seashell Is $429, Still Gorgeous

Yes boys and girls, this tapered sliver of a machine really is an Eee PC. And it’s really a netbook. It’s $429. Here are the specs: https://gizmodo.com/this-gorgeous-laptop-is-actually-an-asus-eee-5164085 It feels like it’s from a third generation of netbook—at first you had the crappy 7-inchers, then larger, better models like from HP and Dell, and now you…

Tech News Matt Buchanan May 14

Matt Buchanan

Killer Xeno Pro Network Card Lightning Review

Google Must Reshoot Every Single Street View Image in Japan

Verizon LTE Devices Will Have Swappable SIM Cards

Windows 7’s Virtual Wi-Fi Turns One Wireless Adapter Into Many for Easy Sharing, Hotspot Double-Tapping

Acer’s Aspire One AO751h 11.6-Inch Barely-a-Netbook Officially $380

A Girl Getting Transformed (NSFW)

Are You This Douchebag?

“Nothing Good Has Come From the Internet, Period.”

Psychic Says Steve Jobs Will Be Back, But Not for Long

Panasonic’s $4 Billion Loss Makes Sony’s Bad Year Look Peachy

Meet Microsoft’s New Laptop Hunter: Lauren 2.0 Likes Pink

BlackBerry Storm 2 Screen Won’t Be Clicky, Verizon to Un-Ban Wi-Fi on Smartphones

Sony’s PS3 Costs Are Still 10 Percent Higher Than PS3’s Price

How to Hack the iPhone to Use SlingPlayer and Skype Over 3G

What’s the Best USB Flash Drive?

The Three Things You Really Need to Know About RAM

HDMI 1.4: Internet Sharing, More Pixels and Ridiculous New Cables

Samsung Jack Completes BlackJack Windows Mobile Trilogy for $99

Sony’s First Full-Year Loss in 14 Years Makes Us Look to the Past

Asus’s Super Skinny Eee PC 1008HA Seashell Is $429, Still Gorgeous

Meta to Smart Glasses Owners: Stop Hitting Yourself

Gaming Handhelds Are Getting Really Funky—and We’re Here for It

This 44% Off Portable Monitor Makes Adding a Second Screen Surprisingly Affordable

Artemis 2 Day 6: Follow the Mission With Our Live Updates 🔴

Netflix Wants You to Stop Yelling at It About ‘Steel Ball Run’

Blueair Smart Air Purifier Returns at Record Low Just in Time for Spring Allergy Season (1,800 Sq Ft HEPASilent Air Cleaner)

How to Watch Artemis 2 Reach the Moon and Make Spaceflight History Today

Samsung’s 2026 The Frame Smart TV Launch Pushes 2025 Models to Their Lowest Prices on Amazon as Clearance Begins

Elijah Wood May Have Revealed the New Aragorn for ‘Hunt for Gollum’

Acemagic’s Windows 11 Pro Mini PC Drops to All-Time Low, With a Stackable Coupon for Even More Savings on Amazon

HP Omen Max 45L Review: 4K60 Gaming Has Never Been So Easy

Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

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