Latest

Samsung’s Mirrored and Clear OLED Screens Are Straight From the Future

Samsung has announced a new series of prototype OLED displays in Hong Kong that, with their mirrored and transparent surfaces, are like something from a sci-fi film. The new mirror display has been shown off as a kind of virtual fitting room, allowing whoever’s looking at it too see a reflection of themselves augmented with…

Here’s Proof That the LightSail Satellite Has Unfurled Properly

Over the weekend, the LightSail satellite unfurled its gigantic solar sail to help propel it through space. Now, the first images to be beamed back from the satellite prove that it’s really up and running. The satellite, funded by The Planetary Society to test the technical and economic benefits of solar sails, was originally championed…

New Solar Storm Forecast Gives Over 24 Hours Warning of Disruption

Solar storms start their lives as violent explosions from the sun’s surface. They’re made up of energetic charged particles wrapped in a complex magnetic cloud. As they erupt from the sun’s surface, they can shoot out into interplanetary space at speeds of up to 3,000 kilometers per second (that’s 6.7 million miles per hour). Depending…

This 8K YouTube Video Is Too Amazing For Your Computer

You can forget 60 frame-per-second 4K video. This footage, recently uploaded to YouTube, is available to view in astonishing 8K. The only problem: It’s probably too big for you to watch. The short clip, called Ghost Towns, is really a series of slow shots of an abanonded mining settlement. It was apparently shot on RED…

This LEGO Jurassic World Short Has a Better Twist Than Any of the Movies

I’m just saying, there’s more creativity, humor, and character in this than in the Jurassic Park sequels. Contact the author at [email protected].

SpaceX’s New Hangar Is A Mammoth Gateway To The Stars

To send really big rockets into space, you need equally enormous buildings to construct them in. Enter SpaceX’s new hangar, under construction right next to the pad that used to send Apollo missions to the Moon. The new hangar — big enough to hold fiveFalcon 9rockets, or house the upcoming Falcon Heavy vehicle — is…

Logitech’s New Couch Keyboard Is Still One Of The Best

About a year ago, I set out to find a keyboard that made using my desktop PC tolerable in the living room. I found the Logitech K400. It’s a small, inexpensive keyboard with comfortable keys, plenty of media center buttons and—most importantly—a built-in touchpad. Today, Logitech is launching an update: the K400 Plus. It’s… different.…

A Man Desperate to Get to Mars Runs Afoul of the Space TSA

In the animated short “The 4th Planet,” a man is desperate to get onto a spaceship headed for Mars, but he meets with some resistance. From his run, we get a look at a shiny departure terminal contrasted with the sorry state of Earth, giving us a bit of a clue as to why this…

Eerie Chalkboard Drawings Show Life in Oklahoma Schools 98 Years Ago

Contractors doing construction at Emerson High School in Oklahoma City unearthed chalkboards from 1917, showing classroom life from 98 years ago. In making way for new white boards, the contractors removed chalkboards only to find another set of chalkboards — with the preserve writing and illustrations — underneath. It looks like the 1917 lessons were…

Stop Trying To Sell Me A Smart Water Bottle

Kickstarter is obsessed with trying to make things smart: just add Bluetooth, and you get smart locks, stoves, ovens, kettles, and now, water bottles. Because apparently, you are literally incapable of drinking unless you have a buzzing thing telling you to hydrate, every second of every day. Normally, I try and avoid bad crowdfunding projects…

Kelpies at the airport! If you’re traveling in Scotland for the next month, check out these miniature versions of Andy Scott’s Kelpie statues at Edinburgh Airport. (The full size versions sit in Helix Park.) Just don’t get too close: They probably bite. Photo via Edinburgh Airport. Contact the author at [email protected].

Beware the Phone-Hungry Foxes

Here’s a solid PSA: if you’re camping out a species of animal that is famously good at stealing stuff, don’t leave a shiny object just lying on the ground invitingly. Like, for example, a phone. This adorable (but vertical, ugh) video shows one intrepid YouTuber’s attempts to stake out a desert fox’s den. Things go…

Sorry Android Users, You Don’t Get Free Apple Music (Corrected)

Correction: We’ve learned that Android users will indeed get to try Apple Music for free, both as a free three-month trial and in a free tier very similar to the one iOS users can enjoy. The only difference is that Apple Music radio stations (aside from the flagship Beats 1 station) won’t be included on…

U.S. Students Granted Up To $3.5 Billion In Debt Relief

It’s an unprecedented move in higher education, but a welcome one. The U.S. Secretary of Education has pledged to forgive the loans of as many as 350 thousand students who were defrauded into taking on huge student loan debts by online schools owned by Corinthian Colleges. More students may also be eligible. In the New…

These Giant Robot Arms Handle Highly Radioactive Materials

These enormous devices you can see in this fisheye photo are the main parts of remote manipulator arms at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s radiochemistry hot cell facility, where highly radioactive materials are used to produce isotopes for medical purposes. Just look at the worker below, you can see how massive those arms really are.…

How States Use Inflated DOT Forecasts to Rationalize More Highways

Americans are simply not driving as much as they used to; most experts agree we hit “peak car.” But that’s not the story according to the Department of Transportation’s forecasts, which year after year show skyrocketing demand for more roads—and year after year are proven wrong. Still, states use this data to fund lots of…

Bird’s eye view time lapse shows off Apple’s new spaceship campus

Apple’s new campus is in the process of being built right now and it truly does look like a space ship is being constructed in sleepy Cupertino. Here’s the state of things so far, from August 2014 to May 2015, a pile of Mars-colored dirt is being transformed into a closed circle from the future.…

Meet the master saxophone maker who’s so good he’s considered a magician

There are so many moving parts in a saxophone (like hundreds of ‘em!) and so many holes and so much going on in the instrument that it always needs tinkering and adjustment so it’s no wonder that Steve Goodson, legendary saxophone designer and restorer, is basically considered a magician for what he does. Anthony Bourdain…

75 Million-Year-Old Blood Cells Found in Dinosaur Fossils 

Dinosaurs fossils, we’ve all been taught, consist of bone—their flesh, skin, and organs having decayed long ago. But a new discovery might upend that assumption: Scientists have found evidence of blood cells with the protein intact in eight fossils which were not even particularly well-preserved. Soft-tissues have been discovered in dinosaurs before, but the results…

What’s Your Favorite Meme?

You know you have one. I’m going to be examining a range of the weird, cool, strange, funny, terrible stuff the internet produces for Gizmodo. Sometimes these creations can skew controversial; but memes as most conceive of them — defined as “a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc. that is copied (often with slight…