Latest

Girly girls and manly men are more realistic about their dating prospects

One of the most important skills to have if you’re looking for dates is knowing whether somebody else is interested in you. According to psychologists who studied speed dating, this is actually an incredibly difficult skill to master. But one group is almost always accurate in their predictions of who wants to date them: men…

The Origins of the Cursor

Before man pointed a cursor at the world, he held a dagger or a sword. But what’s the mightiest of all? [I Love Charts via F Yeah Computer Science via Technabob via LikeCool]

The Craziest Sky I’ve Ever Seen

A night of fireworks, lightning, and a comet hanging on the sky separating them. It’s like a painting of Heaven, Earth and Hell by Hieronymus Bosch. But it’s not a painting. It’s a real sky. It happened in Perth, Australia. That’s where photographer Antti Kemppainen took this photo, back in January 2007. It was Australia…

The Attack the Block soundtrack is an intergalactic brain-melter

Some of us at io9 were lucky enough to catch Joe Cornish’s aliens-versus-South-London-delinquents flick Attack the Block at South by Southwest, but yours truly only recently had a chance to catch a stateside screening. I’m not going to get into a hyper-detailed assessment of the film here (see our first impressions post for that), but…

The Obsessive Hunt for Iranian Nukes Comes up Empty

Much of the US government is determined to prove Iran guilty of nuclear weaponry. We’ve hidden sensors in their cities, watched them from space, and sent spies. And after all that, the New Yorker reports, we can’t dig up proof. The extent to which we’ve tried to confirm our fears of a nuclear bomb-chucking Iran…

Holographic Dark Information Energy: It’s a real thing. Maybe.

There’s a theory that involves every cool buzzword in physics. This theory links the dark energy in the universe with the way photocopies degrade over time. Find out how a loss of information may drive energy creation. Many people reading this will have had a run-in with a photocopier at some point or another in…

No Need to Scrabble and Dig Around For Spare USB Ports When the USB Hub Dog’s Around

If you were appalled the internet had produced a cat USB hub but wasn’t catering to dog-owners (after all those memes!), put down your pitchforks and instead fork out $18 to Fredflare for the HubDog. [Fredflare via Technabob]

Colin Farrell is a vampire dick in the first ever Fright Night clip

Here’s the first clip from the Fright Night remake. Looks like Colin Farrell has channeled the 80s cheese from the original flick into an even more aggressive vampire villain who loves to ladle on the TMI. The more we see from this feature, the higher our hopes are raised. We loved the trailer and the…

iCloud Is Coming to WWDC

Apple is finally ready to show off iCloud, its cloud service that they built that massive data center for. It was always a matter of when, rather than if, but at WWDC, we’ll finally get to see what they’re planning. https://gizmodo.com/apple-building-secret-massive-data-center-probably-to-5339977 Apple oh-so-casually made mention of the service today in a WWDC press release, but…

The Hobbit’s cast and titles are officially announced! Plus the craziest Doctor Who rumor of them all!

More key returning players are confirmed for The Hobbit. Mark Strong explains why Green Lantern’s Sinestro isn’t your average villain. Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams talks Super 8 together, plus another glimpse of season four of True Blood! Spoilers from here on out! Top image from Real Steel. Green Lantern Sinestro actor Mark Strong explains…

io9 Daily Roundup

MEMORIAL DAY | Captain America by Dan Hipp. (Via Comics Alliance). Victorian paper silhouettes of famous (and infamous) scifi characters https://gizmodo.com/victorian-paper-silhouettes-of-famous-and-infamous-sc-5806431 For his “Paper Cuts” series, designer Olly Moss created 19th century paper cutouts of some of speculative fiction’s most esteemed heroes and villains. More » Game of Thrones teaches us what ruling a Kingdom has…

In the Portal fan movie Outside Aperture, it’s cake time!

Fans of Valve video games sure love making hyper-detailed fan movies. The latest one, Outside Aperture, tells the hidden history of what happened after the first Portal. It’s not canonical, but it’s cute. https://gizmodo.com/check-out-this-half-life-fan-film-beyond-black-mesa-5741079 Here’s the description of Outside Aperture from the filmmaker Eisen Feuer: With the fate of the main character of the game,…

Slide a Frosted Door Over Your iPhone’s Screen When It’s Not In Use

Inspired by a shark’s membrane, SharkEye’s $50 case rolls a frosted door over the iPhone 4 to protect it from scratches. You can still see if someone’s calling you, so it’s not a complete blanket. [SharkEye via Cnet via OhGizmo]

Newfangled science fiction drinking games (that we hope you don’t play)

Some of you may choose to tipple this holiday weekend. Rather than playing your patented “drink whenever Hudson speaks in Aliens” game for the umpteenth time, why not give one of the following science fiction themed drinking games a whirl? https://gizmodo.com/game-over-man-every-one-of-hudsons-lines-from-aliens-5798175 DISCLAIMER: We do not advocate drinking to excess or the following games. Hello, Sarah…

Top Stories: May, 2011

Ceci n’est pas une Photoshop | See how National Geographic’s Frans Lanting captured this stunning image https://gizmodo.com/this-is-not-a-painting-5802712 They’re Just Like Us, Honest: Apple Store Employees Caught Planking Apple’s got quite the reputation as being a tough employer, so once they catch wind of employees planking on the job, will they follow Woolworths in giving them…

Falling Skies Cast Pictures

Take a tumble with sexy alien Number 6!

The best part of tween adventure scifi flick I Am Number 4 was easily Number 6, the badass motorcycle-riding, katana-wielding alien mistress. In this video, Teresa Palmer (6) takes us behind the scenes for a quick toss-and-tumble. This clip is from the I Am Number 4 DVD and Blu-Ray specials (which are in stores now).…

How to Give Polaroid Snaps a Dark Tone, in Exchange For 24 Hard-Earned Dollars

I love what the Impossible Project has done with resurrecting Polaroid film, but I just wish there was some way they could lower their prices. Their new black frame PX600 Silver Shade film costs $24 for eight exposures. [Photojojo]

Bradley Cooper wants to adapt Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos for the big screen

Bradley Cooper told us that Dan Simmons’ acclaimed Hyperion Cantos were among his favorite books. And now he’s putting his new star power from Hangover II’s huge success towards writing and directing a Hyperion movie. https://gizmodo.com/bradley-cooper-gives-us-the-plus-side-of-taking-experim-5782778 Cooper was on Charlie Rose the other day, and he revealed that he and a friend have written a…

On Life, Love and Remembering Those Who Died for Us

Today is a day of beach, gardens and nicely burnt burgers. It’s also the day in which we remember those who died while in military service, whether it was during peace time or fighting rightful or wrong wars. The miracle of those lives is now gone forever and, at the same time, it has survived…