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The Complete Book of Space Travel (1956)

The classic 1956 book The Complete Book of Space Travel contains some amazing imagery. The book was targeted at young boys and had that unique blend of sincerity, wonder and confidence we so often see in 1950s futurism. As early as 1956 the question was not if we’d explore the moon and other planets in…

Labeling a Post a Rumor is Not a Free Pass to Write About The Gadget Equivalent of Unicorns

TO: Gizmodo Staff FROM: Brian Lam SUBJ: Labeling a Post a Rumor is Not a Free Pass to Write About The Gadget Equivalent of Unicorns We posted a tip yesterday, labeling it a rumor, that later turned out to be fake. That happens often. But what is totally unacceptable is that the source was 100%…

.Mac Scheduled Downtime During Apple Event Tomorrow

The .Mac homepage reveals that it’ll be intermittently up and down tomorrow, the same time as the Apple event. Does this mean that fresh .Mac upgrades or uses are part of tomorrow’s news?

Nixie Tube Clock Kit Lets You Go Retro

MAKE’s got three different DIY kits that you can buy to build your own Nixie Tube clock. If you’re not familiar with Nixie tubes, you’re obviously not reading us often enough. You can buy your own kit for $150, which is a small price to pay for something that’s too bright and will keep you…

Physicists Figure Out How To Cause Levitation; Hoverboards Imminent

If there was a cooler movie prop in my childhood than the hoverboard from Back to the Future, Part II, I don’t know what it was. That hoverboard made me really, really want to be living in the year 2015. And while as I got older my pragmatism and cynicism lead me to believe we…

80GB PlayStation 3 Available Now

The 80GB PlayStation 3 is finally available now, after much fanfare at E3. The 80GB will come with Motorstorm and software-based backward compatibility for $599. If you want a real good deal, you can pick up a $450 20GB PS3 that we reported about two weeks ago. https://gizmodo.com/ps3s-100-price-drop-and-80gb-version-officially-offici-276104

Fighter Jet Software Automatically Pilots Jets to Safety, Steals Glory/Girlfriend

A new software suite called Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System installed in fighter jets is designed to prevent them from crashing straight into the ground. How? By taking over when it detects that the plane is going to fly straight into the ground, usually when the pilot’s unconscious. The system can avoid 98% of plane-to-ground…

The normally $300 Sonic Impact iPod speaker dock and LCD screen is now only $75 on Amazon. [Amazon via Gadget Madness]

Microsoft Releases Another Halo-Themed Zune, Only for Sale to Military Personnel

Being a soldier isn’t an easy job. If you aren’t being shot at in hostile territory, you’re doing lots of pushups and getting haircuts. At least that’s what movies have lead me to believe. Well, Microsoft wants to give something back to our servicemen and women, which is why they’re releasing an exclusive Halo Zune…

Sony Sends SIXAXIS Prototype to Developers, Doesn’t Have Rumble

Sony’s been passing out a slightly tweaked SIXAXIS controller to developers to work into their upcoming games. The good news is these SIXAXIS+ controllers have better motion sensing. The bad news is they don’t have rumble. Sony says this is just the natural evolution of controller development. Everyone else says give them their goddamn rumble…

OpenMoko Developer Preview Kit Unboxing: Wow, That’s a Lot of Stuff

Someone got their OpenMoko Neo Advanced developer preview phone kit in the mail, so naturally the first thing they did was throw the Christmas-in-August pictures up on the net. That “Hi, I might contain a portable nuke” case is indeed packed to the gills. But for $450, it should be. [digg] https://gizmodo.com/openmokos-neo-1973-open-source-smartphone-ships-in-octo-275414

Swans 2.3HT Speakers Let You Hear the Voices of the Gods

If you have $30,000 lying around, why not get yourself a roomful of Swans 2.3HT speakers, a 5.1 home theater system with each speaker capable of handling 1500 watts? Check out those huge towers, each one packing 64 isodynamic ribbon tweeters, the heart of the sound that manufacturer HiVi says “takes you gently away to…

Where Our Tech Dollars Go: Landlines and Cable TV, Mostly

Wired had this really cool chart that shows where we spend our tech dollars last week that we somehow missed, but better late than never, eh? The chart breaks down the average household spending on tech goods and services annually, and it shows that we spend way too much money on landline phones: 26% of…

Win a $2000 Laptop in Laptop Confidential II Contest

Pssst! Hey you! Want to win a $2000 laptop? Enter our Intel-sponsored Laptop Confidential II contest by making a one-minute film noir video, and if yours is the best, take home any laptop of your choice as long as it has an Intel Core 2 Duo processor inside and doesn’t cost more than two grand.…

IBM to Build $200 Million Petaflop Supercomputer

According to some leaked government documents, IBM is working on building a monstrous $200 million petaflop supercomputer. Commissioned by the National Science Foundation, it would be the fastest computer in the world, the first to break the petaflop barrier. For you folks keeping track at home, a petaflop is a thousand trillion mathematical operations per…

Coolness Roundup, All Your Podcast Are Belong to Us

This week on Coolness Roundup, Gizmodo’s Charlie White and Sci Fi Tech’s Stephen Schleicher talk about how NASA hates the iPhone, give you a first-hand description of the Timex iControl iPod watch, and make snap judgments about what’s cool and not cool. They wrap things up with the rip-roaring Rapid-Fire Roundup of Cool Products and…

$7000 Beast II Flashlight Turns Night Into Day With 2000 Lumens

Who knew there would be a flashlight that burns as bright as an aircraft landing light? That would be the Surefire Beast II LED torch, blasting 2000 lumens, giving you a searchlight that’s as bright as 130 regular flashlights. That’s some serious light, but it sucks a tremendous amount of power and money, too. Try…

With 7% of males who work at home working in the nude, chances are at least one Gizmodo editor isn’t wearing clothes as he writes. Guess which one it is today. [Boston via Fleshbot]

Gold. Plated. Vibrator.

We’re not sure what purpose there is in this $1500 gold plated Elo Vya vibrator other than to give you heavy metal poisoning, but here it is. The 18k gold plated vibrator will satisfy women (and men), but also passes its AU into your porous areas. Which can’t be good at all. But hey, it’s…

Japanese Thermal Expert Examines Xbox 360, Figures Out What’s Wrong (Hint: Everything)

Because Microsoft will never admit to any possible overheating problems with their beloved Xbox 360 design, Japanese-based Nikkei hired a thermal design expert to come examine the console. They looked at two—one made in 2005 and one repaired in May 2007. Here’s what they found: • The temperature gap with room temp was 22 degrees…