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R.I.P. Barry Letts, The Man Who Made Doctor Who Transcendental

Barry Letts, the producer of Doctor Who from 1970 to 1974, died at the age of 84. He was responsible for introducing Buddhist themes and ideas to the series during the Jon Pertwee era, and also cast Tom Baker as the fourth Doctor. I will always think of his strange, wonderful moment in the Doctor…

Tweetie 2 Review: The Best iPhone Twitter App, Period

Tweetie 2 is so far ahead of every other iPhone Twitter app, it’s astounding. It’s the most polished Twitter app yet, oozing slickness with every swipe. Yet, it’s exploding with new features, and still really fast. It manages to cram in every possible feature you could possibly want in a Twitter app—offline reading!—without feeling too…

The Ads In Microsoft Office Starter 2010

Maybe I jumped the gun too fast yesterday, slamming Microsoft for including advertising in the free Microsoft Office Starter 2010, to be included with many new PCs next year. This is how they look, on the bottom right corner. https://gizmodo.com/bloatfest-microsoft-office-starter-2010-edition-to-hav-5377481 We missed these yesterday in the snoozing promotional videos in the Office page. They are…

Live Action Duck Hunter Review: Briefly Satisfies The Urge To Kill

Being a fan of the classic NES Duck Hunt, I have been anxious to test out this new live action mechanical version from Hammacher Schlemmer. I’ll say this: It’s fun while it lasts. https://gizmodo.com/flying-duck-hunter-robot-will-appease-peta-but-not-your-5125031 The Price Available later this month for $30. What’s Good I’ve never hunted actual ducks, but I would imagine that the…

Command & Conquer on the iPhone Looks, At Least, Decent From the Screenshots

It’s unclear how well Command & Conquer Red Alert is going to translate, control-wise, to the iPhone’s touchscreen, but the graphics in these screenshots aren’t half bad. They’re not up to par in today’s console or PC graphics, but they do look about the same as what I remember in the first few C&C games…

The Life and Times of a Brain in a Jar

Pixar illustrator Nate Wragg‘s recent series captures moments in the life of BrainBot — part robot, part human brain. BrainBot proves that you don’t need facial expressions to display your melancholy. We’ve profiled some of Wragg’s sexier (read: NSFW) work before, and BrainBot has the all their whimsy, but is tinged with sadness as well.…

7 Gadgets That Fulfill All Of Your Sad Emotional Needs

Adam’s disturbing adventure with the Fleshlight (NSFW) this week got me thinking about the flipside of sex with machines. What about our emotional needs? https://gizmodo.com/i-had-sex-with-furniture-the-shameful-nsfw-fleshligh-5375323 German designer Stefan Ulrich’s Funktionide is like a body pillow best friend (or lover as this video suggests). https://gizmodo.com/funktionide-substitutes-human-contact-if-you-are-a-big-5375376 Based on EAP-technology “Funktionide” is a concept for an emotional robot…

Frank Herbert’s Greatest Influence Was Rachel Carson

Inspired by the late Frank Herbert‘s birthday yesterday, io9 pal Joshua Glenn posted an interesting meditation on the awesomeness of Dune over on Hilobrow. He talks about the social issues Herbert was responding to, and writes: The influence of Herbert’s secret muse – environmentalist Rachel Carson, whose Silent Spring appeared shortly before Analog began serializing…

PewPewPew (With Your iPhone)

I don’t really have to explain this one, do I? It’s called iPew and it’s 99 cents and it’s got rockets and lasers and fire and bullets and it’s awesome. [iTunes, Thanks Kevin!]

Resident Evil’s Alice’s Heads To Infected Hollywood For Bloody Revenge

Last we heard about the next Resident Evil movie, Milla Jovovich was going to team up with Wentworth Miller inside an infected prison, but now the official synopsis is out. And Paul W.S. Anderson is back in the director’s chair. https://gizmodo.com/prison-breaks-miller-heads-back-to-zombie-filled-jail-f-5365324 Sony Screen Gems finally announced the official synopsis. Sounds like the prison we heard…

We Saw Monday’s Lesbotastic, Rainbow-Britey Heroes!

It’s the Heroes episode we’ve been waiting for, called “Hysterical Blindness,” and NBC was kind enough to send us a preview copy. Dying to know the future of your television life? We’ve got a spoiler-lite breakdown for you. Let’s go through our favorite subsubsubplots and grade them, shall we? We’ve also got a tasty batch…

The Mountain Goats Go To The Moon, Harvest Your Organs

How did we miss the fact that the Mountain Goats released an EP set in an organ-harvesting facility on the Moon? Moon Colony Bloodbath, a collaboration with John Vanderslice, has a story like Duncan Jones’ Moon, only much darker. As far as we can tell, Moon Colony Bloodbath was only released as limited-edition vinyl album,…

Four Old Gadgets We Love (and Four We Hate)

Anna Jane Grossman is the author of Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By. She has compiled a special short list for Gizmodo: Four old gadgets we love and we’ll really miss, and four we’re glad are gone: Technology is all about what’s new and what’s next—today’s iPhone is just tomorrow’s paperweight. What…

Why IBM is in trouble with the antitrust police

Of course Microsoft is behind this government inquiry into IBM over antitrust issues. Ballmer is going nuts because he wants to own the glass house and for years he’s tried and failed to pry customers away from those fugly old mainframes. [FakeSteveJobs]

T-Mobile Project Dark: A Hyperfast 21Mbps 3G Rollout? (Update: It’s Much More)

Boy Genius hears T-Mobile’s Project Dark (aka Black) contains two things: a bunch of phones launch, like the Cliq and BlackBerry 9700, and more importantly, a “very, very rapid expansion” of T-Mobile 3G network—the 21Mbps HSPA one. Update: https://gizmodo.com/expectations-of-t-mobiles-mysterious-project-black-ar-5377678 There’s actually more to it, possibly: A new “Everything Unlimited” plan that’ll be $50 for all-you-can-eat…

Large Hadron Collider Scientist by Day, Suspected Al Qaeda Terrorist by Night

Police has arrested a 32-yo physicist at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, linking him to an Al Qaeda terrorist group. Just fraking great. As if we didn’t have enough with the morons predicting Apocalypse and the thing failing on its own. https://gizmodo.com/spammer-keeps-whining-about-large-hadron-collider-asspl-392324 Click for artistic impression of terrorist at CERN According to French newspaper Le Figaro,…

Gadget Deals of the Day

Get that weekend redecorating project started with a quart of Glidden paint. Hopefully the job is small enough that a quart is all you’ll need. Thanks Don for helping out with the list. Have a great weekend everyone! Top Deals: • 12.1″ Dell Vostro 1220 Core2Duo Laptop for $698 plus shipping (normally $1040 – use…

Von Trier’s Science Fiction Epic Will Be Romantic — And Genital Mutilation-Free

Danish director Lars Von Trier, best known for the brutal Dogville and slasher movie Antichrist, is turning his baleful gaze to science fiction. But fear not: the scenery won’t consist of outlines and labels, and no genitals will be harmed. Von Trier says his next film is the psychological disaster film Planet Melancholia, which sounds…

What We’ll Miss Boomboxes Boomboxes forced social interaction. Yes, they may have sometimes been disruptive, but at least they were egalitarian: anyone could whip out a so-called “ghetto blaster” if they wanted to determine which song everyone else would hear. Today’s public places are flooded with people living in their own little aural universes. Personal…

Jupiter’s Moon Could Sustain Animal-Like Life

Water on out moon might make lunar colonization possible, but it appears that Jupiter’s satellite Europa is better suited for life. A new study suggests Europa could support not just microorganisms, but complex life — and a lot of it. Richard Greenberg of the University of Arizona will be presenting his findings on Europa today…