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Who Greenlit Space Vulture?

The creator of Roger Rabbit and an archbishop have created an homage to pulp scifi that sounds almost unbearably cheesy and derivative — and yet sort of awesome. Space Vulture, just published by Tor Books, is Who Framed Roger Rabbit writer Gary K. Wolf’s tribute to Space Hawk, a pulpy scifi novel he read as…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

The Seven and a Half Rules for Making Scary Aliens

Welcome back to Horrorhead, a fortnightly column where we explore the intersection of horror and scifi. For every bland, friendly Star Trek alien with a crinkle-cut french fry nose or waffle forehead, there are dozens of insanely scary aliens that could rip your face off. Certain alien characteristics, whether physical or psychological, are enough to…

Movies Annalee Newitz

Cops Shut Down Meizu’s CeBIT Booth for Ripping Off Apple

It looks like we weren’t the only ones not impressed with Meizu’s M8 iPhone ripoff – its booth at CeBIT was shut down by the local police and all products and promotional materials were removed. Yikes! Apparently some other booths were shut down as well, as this was part of a wider initiative to protect…

Tech News Adam Frucci

How To Improve Your Starship’s Feng Shui

When you’re cruising across the galaxy at faster-than-light speeds and battling super-intelligent crystaline beings, the slightest mistake can spell disaster. So it’s vital to have good feng shui on your starship’s bridge. Just look at this flight deck from the movie Red Planet: cramped, ugly and angular, with no way for energy to “flow” around…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Who Doesn’t Love a Survey?

So, there’s some sort of a Gawker survey going on here. If you take the survey, you’ll be entered into a drawing for a $100 American Express Gift Card. But you have to enter by tomorrow (standard rules and such here). So what’s to lose? Take the survey.

Tech News Adrian Covert

Sony CEO: $200 Blu-ray Players Coming

Click to viewEverybody clamoring for a cheap Blu-ray player now that the format war is over might wanna bide their time with a sweet DVD upconverter—the $200-player Blu-ray cavalry is at least a year away, according to Sony Electronics CEO Stan Glasgow, who we talked to today in New York. “I don’t think $200 is…

Gadgets Matt Buchanan

Schimmel Pegasus Grand Piano Could Probably Travel Through Time and Space

Looking like it belongs in Jeff Vader’s Coruscant bachelor pad, the hand-made Schimmel Pegasus has an ergonomically curved keyboard, over 200 strings under a total tension of 176,520 newtons, and a key assembly composed of 10,000 pieces. Only 14 were made ten years ago for people like Eddie Murphy, Lenny Kravitz, and granfunkmeister Prince. Now…

Tech News Jesus Diaz

Physicists Say Lost Features Realistic Time Travel

Last week, TV audiences boggled at one of the best Lost episodes in recent memory, where a character traveled through time guided somehow by his conscience. The twisty turns in the episode may have been surprising, but not nearly as shocking as what I’m about to tell you. The scientific basis for the time travel…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Steve Jobs Craps on Adobe Mobile Flash, Does Not Bode Well for iPhone Support

Everybody agrees that Safari Mobile on the iPhone is pretty much the best way to surf the web on a mobile phone save one issue: no Flash support. This annoying little hangup prevents pretty much all video sites from working, save a tiny selection of YouTube videos, and seriously hinders the functionality of sites that…

Tech News Adam Frucci

Crocs Make Shoe-Themed Cellphone Holsters, We Wonder Why

Nurses and Doctors rejoice: you can now buy Crocs for your cellphone! Ok, so the Crocs “O-Dial” [sic] is actually a shoe-themed cellphone holster, but it is official. Why your phone would enjoy the lightness, comfiness… um, waterproofness and stain-proofness of those lovely rubbery, resinous shoes is another matter, though. Oh — its got raised…

Gadgets Kit Eaton

We Have Some Winners For Our Caption This Photo Contest!

You blew us away and nearly terminated our ability to process comment overload with the over 400 comments on our Terminator caption contest, underscoring the fact that io9 readers rule no matter what the current timeline is. We had a lot of great entires, including several dozen that had John and Cameron interfacing intimately, if…

io9 Kevin Kelly

Digital Converter Boxes Are for Cheap Fogies, Not Sony Customers

As much as Sony is looking forward to the Feb. 2009 analog broadcast cutoff, the opportunity to sell millions of government-subsidized digital converter boxes isn’t why. Sony isn’t even touching that mess, or the low-end consumers who want them. Talking about the effect of digital converter boxes on the HDTV biz today in New York,…

Gadgets Matt Buchanan

Anti-Smog Spaceship to Hover Over Famed Paris Canal

French architect Vincent Callebaut imagines this UFO-looking Anti-Smog Innovation Center as a super center of the future where people can hang out, look at art, hold meetings, or grab a meal. The plan is to suspend this building atop the Canal de L’Ourcq in Paris, where it will simultaneously look awesome and remind Parisians of…

io9 LISA KATAYAMA

Thirty-Foot Trebuchet Fires Chicken Poop at Potential Thieves

A businessman in the UK has come up with a novel way to deal with potential thieves: firing chickenshit at them from a 30-foot catapult. Joe Watson-Webb, a retired showman, had the iron trebuchet left over from his days as a showman, and gets his avian ammo from the farm next door. Local cops have…

Gadgets AddyDugdale

Wristwatches Banned in College-Entry Exams Thanks to One Lousy Cheater

Some kid used his cellphone-connected watch to receive incriminating text messages during a college-entry exam in Thailand and now “all kinds of watches” have been banned from 18 exam centers. Thailand has a seriously competitive testing system, with selectivity in some engineering and medicine programs reaching 1 in 100. Still, you’d think that a kid…

Tech News Wilson Rothman

Set Phasers On “NBC”

The saddest part of the end of the whole BluRay/HD-DVD format war isn’t the ritual suicide of literally tens of Toshiba obsessives as they realize that their side was crushed by the omnivorous Sony Corporation. No, it’s the fact that, no matter how cool BluRay may be, it didn’t produce anything as jaw-droppingly awesome/pathetic/both as…

io9 Graeme McMillan

President Bush: You Should Thank Telcos For Spying On You, You Terrorist-Loving Jerks

While many people who value their privacy got pretty pissed when they found out that companies such as AT&T were illegally tapping their phones for the NSA, President Bush doesn’t see it that way. In fact, he thinks the wiretapping telcos are American heroes, and anyone who thinks differently is straight-up unpatriotic. https://gizmodo.com/senate-gives-telcos-free-pass-on-warrantless-domestic-s-355698 Now the…

Gadgets Adam Frucci

Score a TiVo HD For $180

For those who’ve been considering purchasing an HD TiVo but were hesitant about the price, Woot’s deal today is a refurbished TiVo HD for $179.99 plus a reasonable $5 shipping. The first three months of service are free with the offer to delay the inevitable soul-sucking monthly payment scheme of most DVR services. [woot via…

Gadgets Mark Wilson

Touchscreen Blackberry Patent Suggests RIM has SideKick-Envy

A new patent filing by RIM for a “hybrid portrait-landscape handheld device with trackball navigation and Qwerty hide-away keyboard” suggests that future Blackberrys may remind us pretty strongly of a SideKick Slide, or perhaps an HTC Tilt without the tilt. We’re guessing that the trackball is a version of their pearl controller, though the patent…

Gadgets Kit Eaton

What The World Needs Now is Doomlord

While Marvel Comics try and get the world excited about their summer shapechanging alien invader storyline Secret Invasion, it’s perhaps time to consider reviving Britain’s very own little-known human-hating, shapechanging alien comic character Doomlord. With a name like that and writing from Judge Dredd and Batman veterans John Wagner and Alan Grant, you know that…

Books & Comics Graeme McMillan

Who Greenlit Space Vulture?

The Seven and a Half Rules for Making Scary Aliens

Cops Shut Down Meizu’s CeBIT Booth for Ripping Off Apple

How To Improve Your Starship’s Feng Shui

Who Doesn’t Love a Survey?

Sony CEO: $200 Blu-ray Players Coming

Schimmel Pegasus Grand Piano Could Probably Travel Through Time and Space

Physicists Say Lost Features Realistic Time Travel

Steve Jobs Craps on Adobe Mobile Flash, Does Not Bode Well for iPhone Support

Crocs Make Shoe-Themed Cellphone Holsters, We Wonder Why

We Have Some Winners For Our Caption This Photo Contest!

Digital Converter Boxes Are for Cheap Fogies, Not Sony Customers

Anti-Smog Spaceship to Hover Over Famed Paris Canal

Thirty-Foot Trebuchet Fires Chicken Poop at Potential Thieves

Wristwatches Banned in College-Entry Exams Thanks to One Lousy Cheater

Set Phasers On “NBC”

President Bush: You Should Thank Telcos For Spying On You, You Terrorist-Loving Jerks

Score a TiVo HD For $180

Touchscreen Blackberry Patent Suggests RIM has SideKick-Envy

What The World Needs Now is Doomlord

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