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Three Apple Geniuses Share Their Best Retail Horror Tales

Last month, I invited Apple employees to send me funny stories, and they did not disappoint. (The invitation still stands, so please drop me a line!) Here are three of my favorites so far. This isn’t brick and mortar, it’s glass and steel. Pseudonymous Apple Store employeeJ. K. Appleseed takes you backstage at Apple Retail,…

Command legends with 5 new decks for Magic: the Gathering

Magic: the Gathering’s legendary casual format, Commander, got a huge boost this month with the release of five new decks full of multiplayer shenanigans. This guide to Commander will help you get started and find the right deck to destroy your friends in the most horribly fun way possible. Whenever I post Magic: the Gathering…

Inside the Push to Wipe Out Polio From the Furthest Corners of Earth

In North America and Europe, we don’t worry much about polio. Vaccination has eradicated this terrible, paralyzing disease in the first world. But far away, the poliomyelitis virus still thrives. Wired accompanied the teams that hope to wipe out polio in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The story is compelling. In the fight to prevent a polio…

Deep Discounts on Transcend Flash Storage of all Shapes and Sizes

If you need to stock up on SD cards, flash drives, or even SSDs, Amazon is running a great deal on Transcend storage, today only. http://www.amazon.com/b?tag=gizmodo08c-20 As always, we’ve broken out a selection of the best deals below, all of which carry the lowest prices we’ve ever seen. Most also offer multiple storage capacities if…

Watch a Spinning Sewage Tube Slingshot Spit Ball Bearings

Joerg Sprave is a creative guy. He’s also an ambitious one. That’s why, when his YouTube viewers doubted that his slingshot rifles were actually rifles—after all, they’re slingshots—he set out to prove them wrong with a big piece of sewage tube. Of the many unique things about a rifle, the grooved—or “rifled”—barrel that makes the…

This Screen Can Display 2D and 3D Images At the Same Time

With most 3D TVs you’ll see a headache-inducing double image unless you’re wearing a pair of polarizing or shutter glasses. But researchers from the Shirai Lab at Japan’s Kanagawa Institute of Technology have developed a remarkable screen that can display both 2D and 3D images at the same time, without the eye-straining side effects. Powered…

The most terrifying and gut-wrenching video of this week’s tornado

This short video is absolutely terrifying and heartbreaking. In just 30 seconds, the home and life of this Washington, Illinois, couple was utterly destroyed at the hands of a monster tornado. The footage is a gut-wrenching look at how quickly a natural disaster can wreck everything.

Not sure what to give the girl or guy in your life that already has everything? Turns out the store that has everything also happens to have your answer—you can nowgift your friends and family with their very own Amazon Prime year-long membership. Because nothing says “I care” quite like free two-day shipping.

It’s Just Not a Gif Party Without You, So Come on In!

Put on your party hats, folks. It’s time for the Friday Gif Party! So, hurry on over, quick as you can. Because it’s just not a party until you (and all of your gifs!) have arrived. Drop your favorite gifs (and, perhaps, their favorite hats?) into the comments below and let the Gif Party begin!

This colossal new megapredator may have outsized T. rex

Behold Siats meekerorum, one of the largest terrestrial apex predators ever discovered. Paleontologists think it may have been bigger than even the almighty T. rex, holding it back on the evolutionary food chain for millions of years. The Cretaceous-era dinosaur, whose moniker stands for “Man-Eating Monster,” may be the biggest carnivore to have ever terrorized…

Bridgestone’s Futuristic Airless-Tires Are Almost Ready For Your Car

Bridgestone continues to taunt us with its wonderful airless tires that promise enhanced durability, minimal maintenance, and the ability to never go flat. Previously, the tiremaker was only demonstrating smaller versions of the wheel designed for golf carts and the like, but at the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show it’s finally revealed a larger version bringing…

Quadcopters? Please. We’ve Got Octodecacopters Now.

Four small corner-mounted rotors has become the most common configuration for autonomous hovering aircraft these days. But it turns out that if you’re willing to add a few more rotors into the mix—like say 14—suddenly you’ve got yourself an octodecacopter that’s strong enough to carry a couple of human passengers. In other words: a helicopter.…

Want ultraviolet vision? You’re going to need smaller eyes.

Unlike humans and most other mammals, birds can see ultraviolet light. But not all avian eyes are created equal, according to new research. Apparently, birds with smaller eyes are better able to perceive the UV spectrum. Many animals can see ultraviolet light, including some amphibians, reptiles and fish. Even a few select mammals can see…

How Will Edgar Wright Make Ant-Man a Badass?

Read some excerpts from the Star Wars: Episode VII audition script. Warner Bros. has registered a bunch of possible Man of Steel 2 titles as domain names, and the Amazing Spider-Man universe is getting bigger. And it looks like the Governor will be stepping up his game in The Walking Dead. Spoilers ahead! Star Wars…

12 Ghostly Ads For Forgotten Brands

Despite the sexy that Mad Men brought back to the advertising game, most of us are jaded as hell about being sold to and targeted via infernal viral schemes and clever campaigns. It’s not that ads are anything new, they just used to be… different. https://gizmodo.com/24-of-the-most-beautiful-ads-ever-made-1467575735 For example: A little over a century ago, before…

Kinect 2.0 Teardown: Lots of Sensors and Highly Repairable

We’ve already seen what lurks within the new Xbox One, but what about its sidekick the Kinect 2.0? Wonder no longer, because iFixit has ripped the innards out of the clever little camera to see what’s what. https://gizmodo.com/xbox-one-teardown-plenty-of-room-to-breathe-1468992907 Ripping into Microsoft’s voice, vision, and motion control accessory yields some interesting insights. Here are the highlights:…

Researchers from Australia have uncovered a previously unknown species of giant clam on reefs off the coast of Western Australia. The clams — which come in colors of blue, green, brown, and yellow — can grow to a whopping 500 lbs (230 kg). Recent DNA evidenceconfirmed that what was thought to be one species is…

Tim Berners-Lee: Surveillance Threatens the Future of Democracy

The NSA revelations and general feeling of threat that comes from the knowledge our communications are being watched is worrying Tim Berners-Lee, so much so that he’s calling for “bold steps” to be taken to ensure our privacy and right to freedom of expression make it through this era of intense monitoring and paranoia. Sir…

This Rollerball Pen Lets You Draw Conductive Circuits

Forget printing circuits: how about drawing ’em instead? At least, that’s what you can do with this rollerball, which spews out conductive silver ink to let you doodle circuits all day long. The Circuit Scribe pen lets you draw smooth lines, which don’t require any drying time, with the ink fuss-free—it’s not smelly, messy or…

The Dumb Ways Some Websites Store Your Passwords

In an ideal world, passwords would be secured so tightly that not even the best hacker could get the merest sniff of your details. Sadly, that’s not always the case. Plenty of websites manage to mess up the way they store passwords. Naive encryption techniques, hashing or, worst of all, plain text? Put together by…