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Loud TV Ads Will Get Even Quieter Next Year

The FCC adopted a law to keep TV commercials back in 2011, but it’s decided that it’s not enough: from June 2015, there are set to be further volume reductions on loud ads. https://gizmodo.com/have-you-noticed-a-change-in-your-commercials-obnoxious-5968545 The Hill has spotted that the FCC is planning to update 2011’s Commercial Advertisement Litigation Mitigation (CALM) Act. As of June…

Good morning, Hong Kong

One of the coolest things about Hong Kong—one of the great cities of the world that feels a lot like living in the future, for better or worse—is the bustling city’s relationship with the picturesque nature that surrounds it. You get a glimpse of that in this video by Billy Boyd Cape. This is part…

ISIS Militants Use the Same Drones as Ordinary Folks

What kind of drones do ISIS militants use? Nothing fancy actually: in fact, they use an off-the-shelf consumer drone like a DJI Phantom. https://gizmodo.com/the-dji-phantom-2-quadcopter-is-now-a-real-autonomous-d-1599334139 A video posted to YouTube (now removed because it included graphic scenes) showed ISIS militants using a a DJI Phantom FC40 to capture video. The footage, a still from which is…

This Biodegradable Plastic Is Made From Corn Husks And Rice Stems

We all know what havoc plastic wreaks on our environment. When it’s not running off into our lakes and choking fish, it’s fusing with sand, wood and natural debris and forming permanent litter that will far outlast us. Wouldn’t it be great it we could make biodegradable plastic out of agriculture waste? Turns out we…

Artist Imagines the Tiny People Who Make Animals Possible

The zebra’s stripes. The flamingo’s pink hue. A leopard’s spots. What if all of those came from the dedicated work of a few people? These whimsical pieces are the work of Ricardo Solis, who pairs what looks like Victorian ingenuity with incomplete animal forms, all in the service of imagining the painting of these creatures.…

Texting Don’t Make You Bad Writer

There’s a commonly held view that kids using SMS abbreviation is going to be the ruin of the English language. But what if all that typing is actually just great practice? Randall Munroe muses on the fact that some of the most celebrated writers didn’t write in a way that their elders may have approved…

Keywords Are Going To Make Facebook Search on Mobile a Lot Better

Search on Facebook sucks so hard it would be funny if it wasn’t frustrating. Now it looks like Facebook is finally doing something about it, so allow me a minute bounce around my living room in joy. The social network is testing a feature for its mobile app that lets people search through old posts…

Google Authorship—the thing that told you who wrote each article you saw when you searched—is being killed off. The reason? People just don’t use it.

Report: This Is Why LG Software Sucks

If you’ve ever despaired with a piece of ropey LG software, you’re not alone. But it’s not just pure chance that’s rendered it so bad—it’s practically corporate policy. In a feature about how LG screwed up its webOS acquisition, GigaOM unearthed a fascinating nugget of information about the way software development was incentivized at LG:…

Pixlr, a Great Online Photo Editor, Is Now Free on the Desktop

If you haven’t tried out Autodesk’s fabulous Pixlr, a capable photo editor in the browser, you should. It’s good. And now, it’s available as a free desktop program for Mac and Windows. Just like Pixlr’s web version, the desktop edition offers all the basic tools for easily cropping and resizing your images, as well as…

Beautiful Space-Themed Bedding Sets for Astonomy Lovers

These quilt covers and pillow cases from CBedroom are absolute beauties and perfect for the space geek in your life. Available at CBedroom’s etsy store, these bed sets come in seven galactic designs.

Amazon 4K Streaming Is Coming in October – to Samsung TVs Only

You can start streaming 4K content from Amazon Instant Video as soon as October — but only if you have a Samsung UltraHD aka 4K television set. The announcement comes from Samsung, which has been eager to start pushing 4K content for its UltraHD televisions, which isn’t surprising — not only there isn’t a whole…

Good night, Vienna

I just came from Vienna and I have to admit that I loved it. Part of it was the great company and the other part was the architecture, food, and wine—the Viennese are such hedonists! This time-lapse video of the imperial city in the style of House of Cards* gives a perfect idea about how…

All the close-up shots used in all Edgar Wright’s movies

Though we know funny movie maestro Edgar Wright uses a ginormous arsenal of visual tools and tricks when he’s directing a movie, one of his trademarks is his use of close up shots. They’re quick, they’re snappy and they’re so fun to see on the screen. James R. Lloret stitched all of them together in…

Are We Getting a New Avengers Line-Up at the End of Age of Ultron?

It could be that the after-credits scene of Avengers: Age of Ultron is where we’ll learn which characters will join the ever-changing line-up. And one long-awaited name has always been on the list. Spoiler warning here, although it’s not really plot-related. According to Badass Digest, the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron will have Captain…

This gross glob is actually thousands of larvae swarming together

What’s more gross than a fungus gnat larva? Thousands of fungus gnat larva swarming together to look like a giant blob snake. From afar, it just looks like a rotten log or snake trying to slide by on the sidewalk but when you get up close, the horror, the horror. Here’s some more videos of…

Bárðarbunga Briefly Burbles With A Midnight Fissure Eruption

After rumbling at us all week with unconfirmed subglacial eruptions and tormenting volcanologists to debate will it or won’t it erupt, Bárðarbunga belched forth a fountain of lava. The eruption was both gentle and short-lived with no ash, boding well for air travel. https://gizmodo.com/another-volcano-is-rumbling-under-the-ice-in-iceland-1624326524 https://gizmodo.com/icelandic-scientists-mobilize-monitoring-for-uneasy-vol-1625759095 Bárðarbunga started erupting just after midnight local time with a…

Ruin your childhood memories with everything wrong with Toy Story

It’s a cruel job being destroyer of childhoods but CinemaSins loves to ham it up when they poke fun at universally loved movies from our past. This time, their target is Toy Story, a movie that’s not just awesome but also responsible for so much more awesome in the Pixar movies that followed it.* *The…

This is not an awesome scene from a science fiction movie set in space

This looks like a scene from a sci-fi game or movie, but it’s actually a photo from one of the latest tests of the X-47B unmanned combat aircraft on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt. The US Navy is getting really close to the future, people: Combat drones launched automatically from motherships. The Navy’s X-47B completed…

This Is Your Brain On Coffee

The latest episode from Mitchell Moffat and Gregory Brown of AsapSCIENCE is on the brain-boosting effects of coffee and the mechanisms of caffeine addiction. Plus, Moffatt and Brown take a crack at the age old question (no, not that one): how much caffeine is too much? https://gizmodo.com/why-does-coffee-make-you-poop-1538746609 https://gizmodo.com/how-much-caffeine-is-too-much-5982468