Latest

Here’s Every Detail About Motorola’s New Budget Moto G

Motorola won’t be officially launching the new version of its venerable budget smartphone until next week, but it might as well cancel the event: thanks to an accidental leak on Moto’s site, we already have all the details. https://gizmodo.com/the-best-cheap-smartphone-for-every-off-contract-need-1671295476 The Moto Maker page for the new phone was briefly live on Motorola’s site — certainly,…

The Pebble Timehas a firmware update that makes it a whole lot better: a brighter backlight, buzzing notifications that don’t shake your wrist off, and the long-overdue option to dismiss all notifications. [Pebble]

Windows 10, Day One

Last night, as promised, I installed Windows 10 on my own personal laptop. I left everything to chance. I didn’t back up my data. Hell, I set my Lenovo ThinkPad X240 on the floor of a pizza parlor in San Francisco—dongle and all—and let it install totally unattended. Then, I woke my precious laptop to…

Meet Captain Eli, the “One-in-Several-Million” Neon Orange Lobster

Fisherman Bill Coppersmith plucked this very rare orange lobster yesterday from the Gulf of Maine, but amazingly, it’s not his rarest-ever catch. That honor goes to the white albino lobster he snagged in 1997. Still, the critter he dubbed “Captain Eli,” in honor of his grandson, is unique indeed. According to Maine’s Portland Press Herald:…

Testing Kids for “Potential Depression” Seems Like a Bad Idea

What if you lived in a world where every kid got tested for potential depression when they were in elementary school? This video, from Binghamton University, describes new research on how we’d do it. The researchers created a test that’s designed to determine whether children of depressive parents will also suffer from depression. So the…

Surfing while you’re on fire looks so crazy but actually makes sense

My first, unwrinkled brain reaction: Oh my God, that man is on fire. Like, flames are coming out of his body on fire. And he’s surfing! And doing things that aren’t get these flames that are coming out of my body off my body. I don’t know about you but if I see myself on…

Celebrate The 30th Anniversary Of Explorers With This Nifty Poster

The 1985 film Explorers is one of those movies that’s friends talk about in secret. If you’ve seen it, you probably love it. If you haven’t, it’s a movie you have to share. And that makes sense considering it was made by Gremlins director Joe Dante and stars Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix. In the…

“In an odd reversal, it’s the scientists who are showing more fear than the civilians.” At Wired, Amy Maxmen writes at length on the awesome potential of the much-ballyhooed gene-editing tool known as Crispr-Cas9. A must-read. Contact the author at [email protected].

Berlin Spends $16 Million a Month To Maintain This Never-Opened Airport

As the EU’s self-appointed morality police, Germany publicly spanked Greece earlier this month for being so financially frivolous. Well, Germany has its own money troubles! Namely, a catastrophe-riddled $6 billion airport that the country continues to pour money into—with no opening date in sight. Scheiße! This week’s Businessweek engages in some A+ finger-pointing to call…

Watch planes cut straight through Paris by flying on top of a street

Watch as airplanes cut straight through Paris as they fly right on top of Champ-Elysses and hit all the landmarks of Paris, from La Defense to the Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre and everything in between. The footage gets a little jittery at times and almost looks fake, but it’s so cool to rip…

The World’s Deadliest Construction Projects, Visualized

The infrastructure being built for Qatar’s World Cup is using the most cutting-edge construction technologies. Yet due to the poor treatment of migrant workers, an estimated 4,000 people could die building it. A new timeline of construction deaths shows this inconsistency throughout history: Even though construction methods have improved over time, worker conditions don’t always…

Windows Search Doesn’t Suck Anymore

The first thing that everyone notices about Windows 10 is that the Start Menu is back. It’s a cool feature, but an irrelevant one. Thanks to the absurdly powerful new system-wide Search, you’re never going to need a Start Menu again. Search has been getting better and better with every version of Windows, but with…

Paul Wesley Wishes Stefan Salvatore Would Stop Trying To Fix Everything

There’s one huge reason to be excited about the return of The Vampire Diaries this fall, and that is the on-again, off-again, will-they-won’t-they romance between Stefan and Caroline. And a lot currently depends on whether Stefan can step up his game and win Caroline over, after a tepid showing last season. So when we caught…

Sunlight and Body Heat Make Vitamin D Inside Your Skin

Many people don’t get enough vitamin D in their food. They still get enough vitamin D, because ultraviolet radiation radiation creates it—usually. If you eat a lot of fish, eggs, and mushrooms, you might get the vitamin D you need from your diet. If you don’t, you have to rely on the sun. Specifically, you…

An Oscar-Winning Badass May Join Brie Larson in Kong: Skull Island

Remember a few weeks back when the King Kong-prequel film, Kong: Skull Island lost both Michael Keaton and J.K. Simmons from its cast? That definitely seemed like a blow but the two latest names mentioned for the project definitely restore any faith lost at that time. They are Brie Larson, the amazing star of Short…

Some Of Your Favorite Authors Are Writing James Bond Stories!

Here in the United States, we’re excited because James Bond has another big movie coming up. But in Canada, James Bond just entered the public domain. Or at least, Ian Fleming’s books did. To celebrate, ChiZine Publications is putting out a book of “unauthorized” James Bond stories. Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond is edited…

Have You Ever Had a Disastrous Butt-Dial?

A U.S. Appeals court just ruled that butt-dials (your phone calling a random contact due to, generally, contact with your butt) are not protected under federal wire-tapping law—which means that your inadvertent communications can be used against you. The case centered around a former Northern Kentucky airport board chairman who accidentally dialed the assistant of…

How this Tree Growing 40 Different Fruits at Once Was Made

This tree growing 40 different types of fruit—including varieties of peaches, plums, apricots, and almonds—may look like something plucked straight from the imagination, but it’s very real. And this is how it was made. Last year, we featured this 40-fruit tree from artist Sam Van Aken. We already knew how the tree was made, of…

Which Writer Deserves More Credit For Revolutionizing SF and Fantasy?

Science fiction and fantasy don’t lack for heroes, especially among the writers who’ve helped to shape them. We all celebrate people like Joss Whedon, Frank Herbert and Ursula K. Le Guin. But which writers deserve way more credit for their roles in revolutionizing science fiction or fantasy? Please include a book cover, comics panel, movie…

Exploring Santa Cruz Island

Twenty miles off the coast of Ventura lies Santa Cruz Island — a remote mecca for adventure. We spent a weekend exploring it. Here’s how you can too. After having a two week and nearly 200 mile sufferfest on the Sierra High Route, I needed to relax. My idea of relaxation, however, is kayaking around…