Latest

Windows 10, Days Three and Four

This weekend, I took Windows 10 to a LAN party. It was pretty great. Yes, I’m talking about a nerd fiesta where PC gamers link a whole bunch of computers together with network cables and switches so they can yell at each other while they play games. No, I’m not too old for that shit.…

Heaven or Hell: A Computer That Never Stops Singing Hits From the 90s

Martin Backes presents “What Do Machines Sing Of?” It’s an automatic machine that sings a number one song from the 90s and then randomly picks another. It wails the 90s into a microphone. Forever. In an added twist, the machine tries to match the emotion of the songs in its rendition. So it’s a singing…

Born-Again Planetary Nebula Keeps Reacting After It Dies

After a couple billion years, most stars with a mass similar to our Sun eventually die, shedding outer layers and creating beautiful planetary nebulas. On the outer layers of this nebula, Abell 78, a dying star had a second stab at life. A planetary nebula is a cloud of ejected material from a star, interacting…

OnePlus 2 Hands-On: So Good, It Makes Me Want To Leave Verizon

One year ago, the OnePlus One became the best off-contract smartphone you could buy. An unheard of Chinese company managed to deliver a high-quality Android handset for a crazy-low $300 price. Now, it looks like that awesomeness wasn’t a fluke. Behold: the OnePlus 2. Left: old and busted. Right: new hotness Starting at $330, the…

Here’s The OnePlus 2: Scary-Good Specs For $390

The OnePlus One dominated the cheap smartphone scene with a simple formula: flagship performance with a low price. For the second iteration, OnePlus isn’t fixing what ain’t broken. https://gizmodo.com/oneplus-2-hands-on-so-good-it-makes-me-want-to-leave-1720500080 Although OnePlus founder Carl Pei is keen to remind us that “specs are boring”, the internals of the OnePlus 2 are anything but: a Snapdragon 810…

Watch The OnePlus 2 Launch in Virtual Reality at 10PM Tonight

Proud owner of an Android phone and a Google Cardboard VR headset? Spectacularly bored on this Monday night? Then you’ll probably want to watch OnePlus unveil its latest flagship killer, through the glorious (and only slightly gimmicky) medium of virtual reality. To livestream the launch, you’ll want to download the OnePlus 2 Launch App (Android…

Hugh Jackman Wants Your Ideas For His Last Wolverine Movie

Hugh Jackman has taken to Twitter to release the concept art from the upcoming third standalone Wolverine movie. He’s also asking for fifty words or less from fans about what they want to see. So go tweet “Logan using his knives to make fruit salad” — my personal hope. There have been semi-persistent rumors that…

7 things you maybe didn’t know about the Mission Impossible movies

I’m not an especially big Tom Cruise fan but even I have to admit, the Mission Impossible movies are guaranteed to be a fun time. The powers behind that film franchise have pretty much mastered the art of spy action movie making and know exactly what we want: cool spy stuff, crazy stunts that put…

In 1969, the Apollo 11 Astronauts Reunited With Their Families (Sort Of)

Neil Armstrong (blowing a kiss to his sons) is flanked by Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin on July 27, 1969 at Ellington Air Force base in Houston, Tex. On July 24, the Apollo 11 astronauts returned from their historic trip to the moon, but due to infection fears, they were quarantined for 21 days. Smithsonian…

Watch the Crazy Trailer For the Biggest Film in Chinese History

Teletubbies meets Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon this is not. The trailer you see here is for a film called Monster Hunt, directed Raman Hui, a main animator on the Shrek films. That film, which was released earlier this July in China, has very quickly become the highest grossing film in Chinese history. I mean, what…

Legendary and prolific true-crime author Ann Rule has died at age 83. Her real-life friendship with Ted Bundy (before anyone knew he was a serial killer) brought about her first book, best-seller The Stranger Beside Me; she also wrote Small Sacrifices, which was made into a Peabody Award-winning TV adaptation.

What Font Is Good

It used to be that Comic Sans was the universally acknowledged “Bad Font,” —the #1 Choice of overly convivial, legally separated dads in menial white-collar low-level managerial jobs in mid-sized cities with mortgages and without hope everywhere. But no more! Now MOST fonts are embarassing hokum ripe for mocking, sorry. According a recent news article…

A Quirk of Fluid Dynamics Causes Shapes to Invert Themselves

Here’s a cool aspect of fluid dynamics that you might not have thought of before: When a shape is pushed into the water, it creates a space in its wake. As the space collapses, the shape inverts itself. This is cool! When a shape like a star is pushed into a fluid, the “points” on…

The process of launching a nuclear missile is completely riveting

This video is more intense and more suspenseful and got me more scared than any movie I’ve watched this year. Veritasium dug into the actual process involved in launching a nuclear missile from its silo and the retro-tech combined with its quaint fail safes and cute ignition all under the backdrop of the disastrous power…

No, It’s Not Your Imagination — Birds in the City Really Are Meaner

Out in the country, birds are always singing happily. But in the city, they squawk and fly into your face. Now scientists say there’s actually a reason why city birds can be such aggressive jerks — and no, it’s not the same reason why urban humans can be so terrible. In a recent study published…

NYC Is Razing and Rebuilding LGA, Everyone’s Least Favorite Airport

A panel of architects, engineers, planners, and lawmakers evaluating the future of America’s most-maligned airport released the results of their research to the public today. Their first recommendation: Tear it down! The panel was assembled by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who today announced a plan to demolish and rebuild much of LGA today alongside…

Samsung’s Next Galaxy Smartphone Will Be Announced August 13th

That’s right. Samsung’s next smartphone is coming in less than three weeks. Given the time of year, it’s probably a new Galaxy Note. And we’re pretty sure you can expect a new version of Samsung’s Gear VR virtual reality headset attachment to go with it. Here’s what the new phone will probably look like, if…

Besides Cilantro, What Foods Do You Find Absolutely Disgusting?

Gizmodo staff got into a spirited debate about the most divisive of herbs, cilantro, sparked by the news that the U.S. imposed an import ban after human feces were found in cilantro fields outside Puebla, Mexico. Some of us despise cilantro; others would happily sprinkle it on most meals. Is there any other flavor that’s…

This Is What Happens When You Dissolve an Antacid On the Space Station

Drop an antacid into water here on Earth and you’ve got yourself a glass of fizzy water. Do the same thing up on the space station, and you’ve just made yourself a disco ball. International Space Station crew member Terry Virts shoot this footage showing just what happens when an antacid tablet is dissolved into…

Last Night’s Falling Skies Highlighted The Show’s Most Fundamental Flaw

Last night’s Falling Skies got off to a fantastic start—that opening sequence, showcasing the rubble of our world, dotted with alien corpses full of snakes, was beautiful. And seeing the renegade Pope as the heroic rescuer was fantastic. It was the set-up for a great episode… that didn’t quite materialize. Spoilers ahead… The main flaw…