Matt Novak, Author at Gizmodo

The Lindy Lid: A Forgotten Fashion Craze From The Golden Age of Flight

In the summer of 1927 a new fashion craze swept the nation. Called the “Lucky Lindy Lid,” it was a ladies’ felt hat that came in a variety of sizes and colors. Adorned with a small propellor on the front and two miniature wings darting out on each side, it may have looked a bit…

Tech News Matt Novak Oct 22 '13

The Director of Back to the Future II Lied To Us About Hoverboards

Are hoverboards real? Well, no. But if you were a kid in the 1980s and happened to see the “making of” documentary for Back to the Future II, you’d be forgiven for thinking so. When I first started the Paleofuture blog back in 2007 I got some rather curious emails about hoverboards. Specifically, some people…

Tech News Matt Novak Oct 21 '13

This Week in Time Capsules: Hot Dogs, Elephants, and a First-Gen iPhone

This week in our time capsule news round-up Harvard buries a first-gen iPhone, an animal park in the UK hopes to raise awareness about elephants, and the Sunshine State seals dozens of capsules in celebration of Florida’s “discovery” 500 years ago. Harvard Seals Capsule With Coke Zero, First-Generation iPhone Harvard’s Anthropology Department created a time…

Tech News Matt Novak Oct 18 '13

Did Al Gore Invent the Internet?

Anytime someone online writes about internet history, the comments inevitably fill up with jokes about Al Gore. There’s a popular myth that Gore once claimed to have invented the internet, which means many people think that “Al Gore” works as both a set-up and a punchline. What these jokesters might be surprised to learn is…

Tech News Matt Novak Oct 18 '13

Who Would You Nominate for the Internet Hall of Fame?

The Internet Society is currently taking nominations for 2014 inductees to the Internet Hall of Fame. They’re searching worldwide for people in three categories: Pioneers, Innovators, and Global Connectors. The nomination form is even open to the public. So who would you nominate? Nominees can have contributed to the development of the internet in any…

Tech News Matt Novak Oct 17 '13

Today’s “Kitchen of 2063” Sounds a Lot Like Martha Stewart’s ’90s Dream

The high-end appliance company Miele recently commissioned an interesting study about the kitchen of the future. It projected that in 50 years our food will be 3D-printed, walls in our homes will grow food, and we’ll even have mini-fish farms right in our kitchens. But you’d be forgiven for feeling like you’ve heard this all…

Tech News Matt Novak Oct 17 '13

What New York City Sounded Like in the 1920s

Ever wonder what New York City sounded like in the 1920s? Not the music or even the individual people, but the ambient noise—that swirling mix of life in America’s biggest city? Thanks to historian Emily Thompson, that idle question now has an interactive answer. Thompson, author of the 2004 book The Soundscape of Modernity, worked…

Tech News Matt Novak Oct 16 '13

The Computer Doctor Every ’80s Kid Was Promised

IBM’s Watson supercomputer may be boning up on its medical bona fides, but the concept of Dr. Watson is nothing new. We’ve been waiting on our super-smart computer doctors of tomorrow for over 30 years. https://gizmodo.com/ibms-watson-is-planning-to-fix-americas-healthcare-sy-1445486305 The 1982 book World of Tomorrow: Health and Medicine by Neil Ardley showed kids of the 1980s what the…

Tech News Matt Novak Oct 15 '13

The 50 Biggest Websites of 2010 (As Predicted in 2000)

Remember Webvan.com? A lot of people do, but you’d be hard pressed to find someone with anything nice to say about it. At the dawn of the internet retail revolution, Webvan was supposed to do for groceries what Amazon had done for books. The site failed miserably. But that’s not what futurists of the year…

Commerce Matt Novak Oct 15 '13

When the Next Flu Pandemic Hits, Keep Your Smartphone to Yourself

At the end of World War I, tens of millions of people died in just a few short years. But these deaths had nothing to do with the bullets and bayonets that had taken so many lives in battle. It was, instead, the Spanish Flu, which killed off about 5% of the world’s population from…

Tech News Matt Novak Oct 14 '13

David Byrne: Great Musician, Terrible Futurist

Despite being one of the greatest musicians of all time, David Byrne is a really awful futurist. The legendary frontman for the Talking Heads wrote today in the Guardian that the internet, “will suck the creative content out of the whole world until nothing is left.” But this isn’t the first time that Byrne has…

Tech News Matt Novak Oct 11 '13

This Week in Time Capsules: Ronald McDonald Gets Roughed Up

Our weekly round-up of time capsule news includes a McDonald’s capsule from 1970 that hasn’t aged well, a Vietnam War-era capsule in Virginia Beach that “smells like rotten eggs,” and more church time capsules than you can shake a hymnal at. McDonald’s in Phoenix Opens A Soggy Mess of Early ’80s Nostalgia Thirty years ago…

Tech News Matt Novak Oct 11 '13

Tech Magazines Used to Expose Psychics, Astrologers, and Other Frauds

If you were a psychic, astrologer, spiritualist or any other kind of charlatan in the 1920s, you had no greater enemy than the science and technology magazines of the era. Many publishers of the 1920s saw calling out bullshit peddlers as a natural part of their broader mission. And they did so in glorious fashion…

Tech News Matt Novak Oct 10 '13

90% of America’s nuclear safety staff will be furloughed tomorrow

Sure, our chicken is full of salmonella and kids with cancer are being turned away from hospitals. But at least someone’s keeping an eye on those nuclear power plants during this government shutdown. Right? Starting tomorrow as many as 3,600 employees of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be furloughed. That’s 90% of the agency’s staff.…

Sploid Matt Novak Oct 9 '13

17 Jobs That Robots Were Supposed to Have Stolen By Now

Robots are stealing our jobs. Again. In fact, they’ve been stealing our jobs in one way or another since the dawn of the industrial revolution. But when the economy’s in the toilet, our fear of robotic workers reaches new heights. And that fear was well reflected in the early 1980s — a period of double-digit…

Tech News Matt Novak Oct 9 '13

This Air Travel Map From 1929 Is Absolutely Stunning

The 1920s was a thrilling decade for aviation. Daredevils were just beginning to hop across the Atlantic, and at least one airline was even experimenting with in-flight entertainment. But if you wanted to tour the United States by air it was a pretty involved process. And this beautiful map from 1929 showed you how it…

Tech News Matt Novak Oct 8 '13

Sometimes the Kitchen of the Future Was Having No Kitchen At All

The American kitchen has always been a battleground for competing visions of the future. But one of the most radical ideas for the kitchen of tomorrow wasn’t some Space Age design with all the bells and whistles — it was actually having no kitchen at all. At the turn of the 20th century the kitchen…

Tech News Matt Novak Oct 8 '13

Stupid jerks are breaking into National Parks during the shutdown

Entitled idiots all over the U.S. are proudly defying orders not to trespass in the areas of our National Parks that have been closed due to the government shutdown. These infantile whiners have called upon their fellow countrymen to “Occupy America” by disregarding any and all orders by the remaining park officers who aren’t currently…

Sploid Matt Novak Oct 7 '13

Thomas Edison’s Talking Dolls Sound Like They’re Possessed By Satan

Thomas Edison is remembered for his contributions to many great innovations, including the phonograph, the light bulb, and the movie camera. But few people today remember one of his most spectacular failures: a talking doll that was the must-have Christmas toy in 1890. There was just one little problem with the dolls. They sounded like…

Tech News Matt Novak Oct 7 '13

This Week in Time Capsules: How Do You Put a Website in a Capsule?

This week we have a brand new time capsule in the U.K. with the Star Wars movies, a 1960 capsule in Michigan that was thought to be lost for good, and a town in Oregon that included a website print-out in their latest low-tech time travel box. Oregon Time Capsule Includes a (Deadtree) Website A…

Tech News Matt Novak Oct 4 '13

Matt Novak

The Lindy Lid: A Forgotten Fashion Craze From The Golden Age of Flight

The Director of Back to the Future II Lied To Us About Hoverboards

This Week in Time Capsules: Hot Dogs, Elephants, and a First-Gen iPhone

Did Al Gore Invent the Internet?

Who Would You Nominate for the Internet Hall of Fame?

Today’s “Kitchen of 2063” Sounds a Lot Like Martha Stewart’s ’90s Dream

What New York City Sounded Like in the 1920s

The Computer Doctor Every ’80s Kid Was Promised

The 50 Biggest Websites of 2010 (As Predicted in 2000)

When the Next Flu Pandemic Hits, Keep Your Smartphone to Yourself

David Byrne: Great Musician, Terrible Futurist

This Week in Time Capsules: Ronald McDonald Gets Roughed Up

Tech Magazines Used to Expose Psychics, Astrologers, and Other Frauds

90% of America’s nuclear safety staff will be furloughed tomorrow

17 Jobs That Robots Were Supposed to Have Stolen By Now

This Air Travel Map From 1929 Is Absolutely Stunning

Sometimes the Kitchen of the Future Was Having No Kitchen At All

Stupid jerks are breaking into National Parks during the shutdown

Thomas Edison’s Talking Dolls Sound Like They’re Possessed By Satan

This Week in Time Capsules: How Do You Put a Website in a Capsule?

Silicon Valley VCs Invest in Head-Mounted Cameras on Workers in India For Training AI

Bask in the Glorious Detail of Jason Momoa’s Lobo

Cops Want to Turn Your Kid’s School Bus Into a Surveillance Tool

New ‘Vampire: The Masquerade’ Project in the Works from White Wolf

Erin Brockovich Targets AI Industry With New Data Center Map

Alfred Molina Would Totally Play Doc Ock Again

The Global Population Could Crash by 2064, New Model Suggests

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II Explains Where Simon Could Go in ‘Wonder Man’ Season 2

‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3 Teases Epic Battle of the Gullet

AI Investment Is ‘Harder to Justify’ as Productivity Returns Lag, Uber COO Says

Alienware Fixed the One Problem With the Area-51, and Now I’m Afraid I Love It

Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro Max Review: Wireless Earbuds With Enough Features to Make Your Head Spin

Anker Solix E10 Review: No Power? No Problem

Bose Lifestyle Ultra Speaker Review: Sonos Can Start Sweating Now

Bose Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar Review: A Boisterous Stab at Dominating Home Theater

Dell’s XPS 16 (2026) Is Almost Everything I Could Have Asked for… Almost

Smart Glasses With Subscriptions Are As Bad as They Sound

iBuyPower’s Trace X Gaming PC Is the Fishbowl You Want to Swim In

Govee Ceiling Light Ultra Review: AI Art Ain’t It

JBL Live 780NC Review: Solid Wireless Headphones You Can Live Without