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Carnage Comes to Westeros, in this Bloody Game of Thrones Prequel

A hundred years before King Joffrey ruled with distinction, a very different boy learned how to be a King. Fans of George R.R. Martin have long admired his “Dunk and Egg” stories, and now there’s a new graphic novel adaptation showing the history of Westeros. We’ve got some brand new exclusive images. The graphic novel…

18 Breathtaking Architectural Lookouts You’ll Wish You Could Visit

People have been building up for as long as they’ve been building at all, but structures made solely for the purpose of leisurely looking around at things—“purpose-free architecture”—are a relatively recent phenomenon. Lookout: Architecture With a View, a new show at the Swiss Architecture Museum (and accompanying book), offers an almost-like-being-there glimpse into some of…

Blinky, the freaky three-eyed crab that is actually two crabs in one

Imagine the look on biologist Gerhard Scholtz’s face when he looked down at this crab in New Zealand’s Hoteo river, only to find three eyes looking back at him. Was this the result of a freak nuclear accident? An alien invasion? A mean trick? Nope. It’s just Blinky. The Amarinus lacustris crab, Scholtz would later…

Holy crap, I can’t believe this wasn’t made with a computer

Watch this crazy video featuring a swarm of drones flying around. I just can’t believe they weren’t generated with a 3D animation program. They are real, flying in perfect choreography. Stunning work. https://gizmodo.com/you-wont-believe-these-perfectly-synced-drones-arent-1460768867

Xbox One vs PS4 Streaming Apps in One Glorious Megachart

Both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One want to be way more than just your gaming console—they want to be the centerpiece of your home entertainment system. This week, we got our first look at the apps that’ll launch with both consoles. Here’s how they measure up. On the numbers game alone, Xbox One appears to…

10 stories where technology is indistinguishable from magic

Arthur C. Clarke’s third law of prediction holds that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” The magical space-age design of Asgard in the new Thor movie seems to have taken its cue from this idea in a major way. Here are ten other stories where machinery seems to have merged with sorcery. Art…

Pop Music Makes Experimental Solar Panels Work 50% Harder

Ever notice how you feel more productive while listening to a great song? It’s not just you. Researchers just discovered that a certain type of solar panel works most efficiently when exposed to the acoustic vibrations of pop music. Crank it up! The UK research team works on zinc oxide solar panels, a cheaper, more…

New Kepler data could change our odds of meeting aliens

Earlier this week we reported on the astounding revelation that 22% of sunlike stars in the Milky Way are orbited by potentially habitable, Earth-sized worlds. Given that there may be billions upon billions of life-friendly planets out there, it’s time to revise the numbers in the Drake Equation and estimate how many communicable alien civilizations…

Ender’s Game could live on inside your television

Even though Ender’s Game didn’t perform as well as Lionsgate hoped it would, the franchise could get another chance on TV. During the annual shareholders conference call, Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer speculated that the Ender’s franchise could spin-off into a TV series. Ender, the boy who refused to die. We could get into an Ender’s…

The Air Force has a base in a dormant volcano to spy things in space

The Air Force has a very special base sitting atop Haleakala, a dormant volcano in Hawaii. It doesn’t look like any other air base because the USAF Maui Space Complex has a very special mission: Spy on objects orbiting Earth. This is how it looks: Talking to Airman, the official USAF magazine, Capt. Shahn Rashid…

This Book Shows You What It’s Like to Have Dyslexia

For people with dyslexia, relating their struggle with reading to the general population can be a seemingly impossible and frustrating task. Graphic designer (and dyslexic) Sam Barclay, though, hopes to finally bridge the gap between those with reading difficulties and those without using his new book—a visual experience of what dyslexia actually entails. Currently a…

Add Vertigo’s iZombie to the pile of TV shows DC is trying to make

Chances are you didn’t read Chris Roberson and Mike Allred’s pop-horror Vertigo comic iZombie, as it was canceled after only 28 issues. It’s a shame, because it was a great, fun, and a genuinely fresh take on horror tropes. But you might get another chance, as The CW is putting an iZombie show into development,…

Most superhero, science fiction and fantasy movies would fail Sweden’s new ratings system, whichcalls for movies to pass the Bechdel Test (two women talking to each other about non-man-related subjects) in order to get an “A” rating.

​Thor: The Dark World shows superhero movies can still be joyful

It’s a grim time for big-screen superheroes. Rebooted versions of Superman and Spider-Man both have daddy issues. Tony Stark has PTSD. Wolverine kinda wants to die. So it’s a relief to watch Thor: The Dark World, which is the lightest, funniest superhero movie in ages. Let a thunder-god show you how to make a joyful…

Inside the Hidden NYC Clocktower Gallery’s Grand Finale

Even though the Clocktower Gallery has been around since 1972, you might never have known it was even there. It resides in the top two floors of a government-owned building in Tribeca, which is just part of the odd story of how this alternative art space has operated through the years. Now it is hosting…

This “Caspian Sea Monster” Was a Giant Soviet Spruce Goose

Soviet engineering is often derided as effective but crude and simplistic, but that’s a bum rap. The USSR produced a number of technologies that were as visually arresting as they were effective. Just look at the sleek, humongous, flying hammerhead named Ekranoplan. The Lun-class (“Harrier”) Ekranoplan is a ground-effect vehicle, that is, one that takes…

The history (and effects) of injecting alcohol

When alcohol ends up in the blood, and it eventually ends up in the brain. Does it matter if it goes through the stomach first? And can injecting alcohol be that bad if people used to use it as a medical intervention? Yes. Yes it can. In 1891, one of the earliest heart surgeries in…

You’ll Be Able to Get Google Glass With Prescription Lenses Next Year (Updated)

Good news for all you four-eyeses of the world. Google is going to let you get Google Glass with prescription lenses in early 2014. A company called Rochester Optical is the one that’ll be building these RX lenses. Rochester is also going to be making “fashion and sport lenses” for Glass. We think—and we surely…

The Best TV, Your Nominations

Welcome to the first entry in a series we’re tentatively calling Gizmodo Select. Our first category is the big one: Televisions, and we can’t wait to dig through your nominations. If you’ve participated in a Lifehacker Hive Five or Kotaku Co-Op, you already know what to do. If not, it’s pretty simple: Post #1: You…

The libraries that governments will burn in the future

The famous library at Alexandria wasn’t burned down with fire — it was destroyed by government mistreatment and neglect. Will today’s great digital libraries like the Internet Archive suffer the same fate? https://gizmodo.com/the-great-library-at-alexandria-was-destroyed-by-budget-1442659066 Photo via Internet Archive Over at Medium, cultural critic Tim Maly has a terrific and thought-provoking essay about the design of contemporary…