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Are We Living in the Best or the Worst of Times?

Charles Dickens famously pointed to a moment in time that was both the best and the worst of times, but today we quit equivocating and ask ourselves once and for all: are we now living in the best or the worst of times? So, is our present an enlightened resurgence, which history will mark as…

This is the amazing Lockheed Martin SR-72—the space Blackbird

Aviation Week’s Guy Norris has an exclusive article on the successor for the Lockheed Martin SR-71 Blackbird, the legendary spy plane that may be the favorite of every airplane nerd in the world. The hypersonic SR-72 is the first aircraft that can fit perfectly in Star Wars or Galactica, a true space age ship. https://gizmodo.com/the-thrill-of-flying-the-sr-71-blackbird-5511236…

Sony Made a Volcano Spew 8 Million Flowers For This Stunning 4K Ad

If there’s one thing Sony knows how to do, it’s sell its technology with cool imagery. In past commercials the company has blasted buildings with paint, sent millions of rubber balls bouncing down a street, and even unleashed a small army of Play-Doh bunnies. But this time around, Sony’s dumping eight million flowers—three-and-a-half tons worth…

Take $20 Off The iPad Air On Day One

If you’re going to pick up Apple’s latest, greatest, thinnest tablet, you may as well save 20 bucks in the process. Grab it from Walmart right now with free shipping for $479. [Walmart] Follow Gizmodo Deals on Twitter to never miss a deal. Get in touch with Shane Roberts on Twitter or by e-mailing Shane@Gawker…

About Time proves it’s more fun to watch time travelers who can’t steer

There have been lots of romance movies where time is warped, looped or frappéd — from Groundhog Day to Time Traveler’s Wife. But in the new movie About Time, from Richard Curtis (Notting Hill), the dude has total control over his time-journeys, which means that everything goes pretty smoothly for him. Yawn. Spoilers ahead… In…

These Smart Glasses Could Help the Blind to See

These smart glasses could help bring sight to thousands of blind people, by converting visual information into images that can actually be seen by the visually impaired. When people use the word blind, they don’t always quite mean that someone can’t see anything at all; often times, people with visual impairment can perceive some light…

Amazon’s new Kindle First lets Kindle device or app users buy one of four “Editors’ Pick” e-books a month ahead of official release for $2 — or free, for Prime member. [Amazon Business Wire via The Verge]

The world’s largest ball pit has a whopping one million balls in it

If this doesn’t bring out your inner child, nothing will: A hotel in China has just established a new Guinness World Record for the largest ball pit ever created. And best of all, it was all done for a good cause. Top image: Shangri-La Hotels. The ball pit, which was constructed from a pool measuring…

The effects of global warming have reached even the ocean deep. New analyses – published in the latest issue of Science – reveal that water temperatures a kilometer below the surface of the Pacific Ocean have warmed 15 times faster in the last 60 years than at any time in the last 10,000. [New Scientist]

An Awesome Flexible Display That Wraps Around the Edges of Your Phone

As if we needed any further convincing of the wonderful potential of flexible displays, a Japanese company called SEL has developed a high-resolution screen that can be rolled to a tight four-millimeter radius, allowing it to wrap around the edge of a smartphone while still working. Made possible through the use of highly flexible but…

Bryan Singer breaks down everything in the Days of Future Past trailer!

Both Netflix and Amazon have commissioned science fiction series about eight people who are mysteriously connected, so find out what J. Michael Straczynski and Chris Carter have to say about their respective projects. And we may be seeing a new Addams Family from the writer of The Corpse Bride! Spoilers now! Ender’s Game It’s out…

The 12 Best Airline Safety Videos, Reviewed

Virgin America, the airline that invented the sassy in-flight safety video, has rolled out a brand new sassy in-flight safety video: A live-action musical number. It’s still heads and shoulders above most airlines, but is it the best? Airline safety videos have been around as long as in-flight entertainment systems but have really only taken…

This 3D Gesture-Detecting Chip Could Actually Make Smartwatches Useful

If idea of fiddling around with a tiny, wrist-mounted touchscreen is enough to make you want to give up on smartwatches before they even really arrive, then whoa. This 3D gesture-recognition might actually make these things useful. Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and Davis are developing a tiny chip which uses ultrasound…

Blowing Up a Building In Slo-Mo Is a Great Way To Start the Month

Is there a better way to ring in November than watching a controlled explosion? Sure there is, if said explosion was captured by a Phantom Flex high-speed camera at 2,500 fps. The Slow Mo Guys are back and after playing around with a couple of grenades (please don’t try that at home) they set their…

This Negative Space Chess Set Is Beautifully Simplistic

Chess sets can often be overly fussy, with intricate or unusual pieces distracting from the game at hand. Not so this gorgeous negative space chess set, though, with each piece represented by the void drilled into a transparent acrylic block. Created by American designer Stefan Gougherty, each of these transparent blocks has a central core…

iPad Air Teardown: Glorious Guts, But So Much Glue

We know it’s light, fast and beautiful already, but we still haven’t seen inside Apple’s new iPad Air. Fortunately, iFixit has had the good grace to rip the thing apart. https://gizmodo.com/ipad-air-meta-review-so-light-so-fast-so-beautiful-1454449034 So what’s lurking beneath that sleek outer casing? Here are some of the high- (or should that be low?) lights: So. Much. Adhesive. Not…

Exclusive: All the cool official minifigs from The Lego Movie

It had to happen, people: The Lego Movie is coming with its own set of never-before-seen minifigs. It includes William Shakespeare and Abraham Lincoln, which are two of my favorite minifigs in history already. These, like the rest of these minifig series, will become collector items. 71004 LEGO Minifigures Series 12: THE LEGO MOVIE. William…

The Moon May Have Been Made of ‘Magma Mush’ For Millions of Years

We’re used to thinking of the moon as a cold and unassuming lump of rock—but new research suggests that it could have been made of a strange magma mush for hundreds of millions of years before it solidified into the object we now see every night. Professor Sara Russell, head of the mineral and planetary…

The Math of The Simpsons: Pi, Algorithms and Counting on 8 Fingers

You might not have realized it, but The Simpsons is crammed with math. In this video, Simon Singh explains how Pi and algorithms crop up in the show—and why the characters work in a decimal world, despite only having eight fingers. I could go on to explain some of the stuff that Singh talks about,…

Report: Google’s Barge Will Be an Invite-Only Google X Showroom

CBS is reporting that Google’s barge will “feature luxury showrooms and a party deck” for the search giant to show off projects coming out of Google X to special, invite-only clients. Citing “multiple sources”, CBS explains that the barge has been in the planning for over a year, and was masterminded at Google X in…