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The New York Times and Wall Street Journal have both suspended their paywalls due to Hurricane Sandy. [NYT and WSJ]

Google’s Crisis Map Rolls Together All the Hurricane Sandy Data You Need

If you look set to be affected by Hurricane Sandy, there’s plenty you can do to prepare. While we’re updating live about the storm’s progress, Google’s Crisis Map is also worth keeping open in a tab. https://gizmodo.com/everything-you-need-to-ride-out-a-serious-storm-5955519 The map provides layers and layers of detail, tying together data from a bunch of separate sources. It’s…

Just in time, Microsoft has released a WinPho8 sync tool for Windows 8 and RT. Go forth and transfer media. [Microsoft]

The 16GB Nexus 7 Reportedly Shows Up at Office Depot for Just $200

Leaked pricing details from numerous retailers have all but confirmed that the 32GB version of Google’s Nexus 7 will cost $250. Now another leak suggests the old 16GB model will drop to just $200. https://gizmodo.com/a-32gb-nexus-7-will-probably-cost-the-same-as-the-origi-5952440 Office Depot stores across the US have, seemingly, rolled out the news from today’s cancelled Google event a little early,…

Best of the Week: October 20-26, 2012

IS IT FRIDAY YET? | Just remember, your week could have been worse. This is just one of the stunning wildlife photos from the Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. The winning entries range from the heartwarming to the thrilling… to the dreadfully upsetting. https://gizmodo.com/the-years-most-thrilling-and-heartbreaking-wildlife-p-5953959 Easily the best thing you’ll hear all week: a…

Incredible footage of what happened when a massive hurricane hit New England in 1938

While the eastern seaboard of the U.S. and Canada hunker down and wait for the fury of Frankenstorm to abate, you can rest assured that we’ve survived worse. In this footage of some of the most terrifying storms ever to hit New England, you can find out what it looks like when major American cities…

Sandy’s Timelapse Shows Hurricane Activity From Dawn Till Dusk

Everything from space looks beautiful, including the extremely dangerous hurricane Sandy. This video, made by Kevin Ward using images from NOAA and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, shows the frankenstorm over the Eastern Seaboard through the entire Sunday, October 28, with natural light https://gizmodo.com/the-complete-story-of-sandy-a-timeline-of-horror-and-r-5955575 The natural shadows in these videos…

Philips Hue First Impressions: Wi-Fi Lighting Plus Fun

So, remember when we said bulbs with wireless radios are the future of lighting? We weren’t lying. Philips just upped the ante by making bulbs that can not only cast four gorgeous shades of white, but any color you can imagine. https://gizmodo.com/wi-fi-lightbulbs-are-real-and-theyre-awesome-first-imp-5953671 Hue works similarly to the Greenwave system we wrote about last week. Screw…

The Day After Tomorrow: Oh God We Are All Going To Die

It’s pretty simple. There’s a big-ass storm starting to hamme the East Coast tonight, so why not watch a movie about a bigger-ass storm hammering the East Coast? It’s like the better version of all the news coverage we’re getting over here. The Day After Tomorrow is by no means a super intelligent film, but…

Watch Hurricane Sandy Slam the East Coast Through These 5 Live Webcams

So you want to watch the vicious Hurricane Sandy do her thing, but you don’t actually want to be out there in the thick of it. Maybe you aren’t even anywhere near the East Coast. Well in this Internet age, there’s still a chance for you to get your voyeuristic jollies. Here are five live-streaming…

Behold the terrifying bite of a honeybee… wait, bite!?

For humans and most other animals that you don’t need a microscope to see, honeybees are notorious for their stings. But there’s a whole universe of creatures that are blissfully unaware of bee stings… but are terrified of bee bites. Honeybees deal with a number of pests in their colonies, and these microscopic parasites are…

Joss Whedon endorses Mitt Romney for president of the zombie apocalypse

With less than two weeks until the US presidential election, director Joss Whedon decides to toss in his two cents. But what starts as a Mitt Romney anti-endorsement quickly morphs into a parody of hyperbolic political ads. Which candidate will put us on the fastest path to the zombie apocalypse? And which candidate will mandate…

This Trippy Playground Puts Normal Play Places to Shame

This crazy playground stucture is shaped like something called a “Klein Bottle,” a mathematical model with only one surface, and no inside or outside. Designed by artist and architect Vito Acconci, it’s going to be coming to a neighborhood in Miami in 2014. Acconci was recently named Designer of the Year, and along wtih that…

Supervillains’ high school yearbook photos are as embarrassing as everyone else’s

Did you know that Harvey Dent was a punk in high school? Well, half of him was a punk; the other half was pure prepster. Artist GhostHause imagines what comic book villains looked like in high school—which might explain why some of them went bad in the first place. GhostHause created this collection for this…

Google Maps predict the future of Frankenstorm in real time

If you want to track potential damage from Frankenstorm in real time, or find the nearest shelters, Google has put together a fantastic crisis map for the New York City area. It’s a constantly-updating record not of where the storm has gone, but of where it’s likely to go based on the data that’s coming…

How a Pro Takes Spectacular Split-Second Shots of Water Droplets

A drop of water might seem mundane, but if you take a picture of one the right way, it can be absolutely stunning. No one knows that better than Markus Reugels, the guy who took that amazing “world in a drop of water shot.” This is how he does it. https://gizmodo.com/this-mindblowing-photo-of-a-world-map-in-a-water-drop-i-5872456 It’s not just brandishing…

Hermit crabs are the animal kingdom’s most dickish neighbors

Most of the time, hermit crabs live up to their names, keeping to themselves and refusing to socialize with each other members of their species nearby. But sometimes hermit crabs hang out… and they’re invariably total assholes to each other. About a dozen hermit crab species live on land, and it’s these terrestrial species that…

Is Frankenstorm the result of climate change? Scientists weigh in.

“Frankenstorm” is the most popular name for the upcoming super-storm due to hit the eastern seaboard with floods tomorrow. As Dot Earth’s Andrew Revkin points out, this nickname makes it sound like the storm was created by humans and our climate-changing ways. It’s also a reference to the fact that this storm is actually the…

NASA once held its very own beauty pageant

The lovely lady in this photograph is Miss NASA 1968. Artifacting found a handful of photographs of Miss NASAs from the late 1960s and early 1970s, and NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver mentioned a 1968 Miss NASA pageant in her Women@NASA keynote speech this past spring. There’s little information online about these pageants, however. Anyone…

The Best Ten Micro Photographs of 2012

Nikon has announced the winners of their classic photomicrography competition. All the entries are spectacular, but these are the very best, the top ten. https://gizmodo.com/these-incredible-microscopic-photos-of-small-things-see-5952492 Still, my favorite is the alien embryos photo. Perfect for Halloween. https://gizmodo.com/these-fascinating-alien-embryos-are-actually-bat-fetuse-5955568 10th place: Brittle star (8x) by Dr. Alvaro Migotto 9th place: Myrmica sp. (ant) carrying its larva (5x)…