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Disney Patents Interactive Cakes

Think back, if you will, to the last time you ate a birthday cake. Don’t you remember griping about how it didn’t really do anything? Well, Disney’s looking to fix all that with interactive cakes. Yes, birthday cakes with pico-projectors. Just when people were perfecting the non-interactive cake, Disney had to go and throw this…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert Dec 20 '10

How to turn an old laptop bag into a data carrier from Tron’s Grid

If you want an accessory that broadcasts your Tron fandom to the world – and just looks damn cool – check out this tutorial on making a Tron bag with electroluminescent wire. Some soldering required! [via LadyAda]

io9 Annalee Newitz Dec 20 '10

Pretend Your iPhone Is Naked with This Teardown Skin

We’re very tolerant here at Giz—if the thought of your iPhone 4 without its clothes on gets you excited, by all means! But it’s probably not very good for the phone. Slap on this exposed-guts back decal instead. The decal’s makers claim the skin, less than 0.3mm thick, is waterproof, scratch resistant, and should last…

Tech News Sam Biddle Dec 20 '10

Family Guy’s Star Wars spoof takes us inside private voicemails between Vader and Luke

We’ve got an exclusive clip from the new Family Guy: It’s A Trap! Star Wars special, in which Vader Stewie reveals the new Death Star’s going to have free wi-fi! Watch over 9 minutes before it’s out on DVD. And if you liked that, here’s nine more minutes of the special via MTV. UPDATE: Looks…

Movies Meredith Woerner Dec 20 '10

The far side of the Moon at its most psychedelic

These are the most detailed relief maps of the Moon’s far side ever created — NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured the surface down to 30 meters. And thanks to false color (red=highest areas, blue=lowest) it’s also our trippiest Moon yet. The pictures are a huge step towards an accurate lunar atlas — including the area…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders Dec 20 '10

Chimpanzees play with sticks as though they’re dolls

In many cultures, girls play with dolls more often than boys do. Now chimps have been observed treating sticks like dolls. Is there a gender imbalance in the way chimps play with their dolls, too? The differences in how boys and girls play is well-documented but controversial, which raises a tricky question. Is this tendency…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Dec 20 '10

French Cellphone Contracts Will Be the Death of You

Thought getting out of cellphone contracts here in the US was bad? Sorry. It’s got nothing on what American-in-Paris Leonora Epstein went through trying to break up with Orange. This is her story. Quelle horreur! Shortly after arriving in France a year and a half ago, I decided to scrap my shit pay- as-you-go phone…

Tech News Leonora Epstein Dec 20 '10

Harrison Ford wants Indiana Jones to die

Harrison Ford has a serious death wish for all his iconic characters. It’s common knowledge that Ford always wanted Han Solo to die in Return of the Jedi, and now he wants the same for Indiana Jones. ShowbizSpy is reporting from inside sources that Ford is ready to kill off Indiana: “Harrison thinks it would…

Movies Meredith Woerner Dec 20 '10

Motorola Thinks Their Tablet Will Be Best of All Time

Looking forward to the unveiling of their Honeycomb-having tablet at CES, Motorola made this teaser outlining the shortcomings of some older slabs. The iPad? Just a big iPhone! The Rosetta Stone? Too low-res! And no Angry Birds. [YouTube] https://gizmodo.com/android-3-0-aka-honeycomb-makes-a-surprise-appearance-o-5707803

Tech News Kyle VanHemert Dec 20 '10

The Best Apps for People Who Need To Know Everything

Yeah, sure, you probably know a lot. But there’s always that movie or star constellation or post-graduate vocabulary word or Wikipedia fact that you can dig into. Here are the six best apps that’ll satisfy your insatiable thirst for knowledge. iOS Wolfram Alpha This is an app that transformed itself from joke to recommended download…

Tech News John Herrman Dec 20 '10

Doctor Who crashes your Christmas party. Plus Buffy and Star Trek: TNG marathons!

The big event on television this week is the return of Doctor Who, airing in the U.S. and U.K. on the same day. There are also two new episodes of the vastly underrated Tower Prep. Plus some fun marathons! Today: There’s literally nothing on today. Syfy is showing dinosaur movies, including its own Triassic Attack…

Television Charlie Jane Anders Dec 20 '10

Nokia’s Budget 3210 Is Back—Reissued by French Designers

Not content with doing over just the Motorola StarTac, French design company Lekki has reissued Nokia’s 3210, which is one of the best-selling phones in history. Why? Seems like a good time to party like it’s 1999, I suppose. https://gizmodo.com/the-motorola-startac-is-back-in-yellow-5672422 The phone was one of the first models to have an internal antenna, and apart…

Tech News Kat Hannaford Dec 20 '10

Werner Herzog turns “Twas The Night Before Christmas” into a tale of existential terror

What would happen if the famously grizzled German director Werner Herzog was allowed to reinterpret the legend of Santa Claus? You would get a consciousness-shattering tale of an omniscient dwarf who judges us from afar, tabulating our sins. This imitation of Herzogian prose is brought to you by Ryan Iverson. For more scary St. Nick,…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar Dec 20 '10

Watch a $200 Camera and a Mirror Effect Turn a Short Drive Into a Journey through Waterworld

Click to viewUh, whoa. Flickr user cshimala mounted a GoPro Hero HD camera to his windshield and took a drive across an overcast Chicago. A simple mirror effect transformed it into a surreal journey through some dreamlike waterworld. [Flickr via Reddit]

Tech News Kyle VanHemert Dec 20 '10

Lifechanger: The Unofficial Shoe of Gizmodo

Biddle’s got the classics, GoreTex-ified. Mascari has ’em in brown, (iconoclast), and I’ve got the tall fleecey ones—I hate getting cold ankles. Blam might order a pair. I’m talking about the L.L.Bean Boot: the accidental, unofficial shoe of Gizmodo. If you grew up on the East Coast, chances are you’ve owned a pair of these…

Tech News Joe Brown Dec 20 '10

The heart of Lost’s island discovered outside of Buffalo, NY

Lost’s mysterious cave, the heart of the island, was discovered just outside of Buffalo, New York. Get a better look at this totally natural phenomenon – just don’t expect a better series ending to be hiding in there, somewhere. The name of this waterfall is Eternal Flame Waterfall on Shale Creek in Chestnut Ridge Park…

Television Meredith Woerner Dec 20 '10

Your Guide to the Darkest Day in 372 Years

Late Monday night—well, actually, early Tuesday morning—the moon will move into the earth’s shadow, causing a lunar eclipse visible to anyone in North America. Even better, it’s happening on the Winter Solstice, for the

Space & Spaceflight Max Read Dec 20 '10

How to create the biggest mudslide you’ve ever seen

It’s landslide season. Just in time for the mud rampages, a group of geophysicists have released a series of videos showing how to create the worst mudslides imaginable. The key? Water pressure. Image by Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press A team of researchers used an outdoor lab called the USGS Debris-Flow Flume, which is a 95-meter-long slide.…

io9 Annalee Newitz Dec 20 '10

Meet Vogue Magazine’s Cover Girl of 2010

Vogue cover girls. Pretty sexy, non? Except when you layer them on top of one another digitally, to get the year’s average. Suddenly, you find yourself ogling something resembling the Turin Shroud. It’s really interesting when it gets broken down country-by-country, too. Australia’s covers tend to use a lot of pink, whereas the Italian cover…

Tech News Kat Hannaford Dec 20 '10

In this exclusive preview of Kill Shakespeare, Iago and Othello duke it out (again)

Here’s an exclusive first look at the latest issue of IDW’s Kill Shakespeare, a fantasy miniseries about the Bard’s creations taking arms against him. In this preview, things become extremely real between Othello and that meddling Iago. The issue hits stores Wednesday, December 22. Here’s the solicitation information: Kill Shakespeare #8 (of 12) Conor McCreery,…

Books & Comics Cyriaque Lamar Dec 20 '10

Disney Patents Interactive Cakes

How to turn an old laptop bag into a data carrier from Tron’s Grid

Pretend Your iPhone Is Naked with This Teardown Skin

Family Guy’s Star Wars spoof takes us inside private voicemails between Vader and Luke

The far side of the Moon at its most psychedelic

Chimpanzees play with sticks as though they’re dolls

French Cellphone Contracts Will Be the Death of You

Harrison Ford wants Indiana Jones to die

Motorola Thinks Their Tablet Will Be Best of All Time

The Best Apps for People Who Need To Know Everything

Doctor Who crashes your Christmas party. Plus Buffy and Star Trek: TNG marathons!

Nokia’s Budget 3210 Is Back—Reissued by French Designers

Werner Herzog turns “Twas The Night Before Christmas” into a tale of existential terror

Watch a $200 Camera and a Mirror Effect Turn a Short Drive Into a Journey through Waterworld

Lifechanger: The Unofficial Shoe of Gizmodo

The heart of Lost’s island discovered outside of Buffalo, NY

Your Guide to the Darkest Day in 372 Years

How to create the biggest mudslide you’ve ever seen

Meet Vogue Magazine’s Cover Girl of 2010

In this exclusive preview of Kill Shakespeare, Iago and Othello duke it out (again)

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