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A man had $1.35 billion in Nazi-stolen paintings in this apartment

Police has found what’s probably the biggest stash of stolen art ever: 1,500 paintings valued at roughly $1.35 billion hidden by 80-year-old Cornelius Gurlitt in his Munich apartment. Of course, the art was stolen by the damn Nazis during the 30s and 40s. Cornelius inherited the paintings—which include works from Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Marc…

This Unique Umbrella Will Never Flip Inside Out Because It Already Is

A Japanese company may have finally solved the issue of umbrellas flipping inside out during nasty storms with a new, rather brilliant design: why not have the umbrella inside out to begin with? You’ll probably need to take a few minutes to wrap your head around the concept, which actually has several advantages over a…

When did we first get the idea of alligators in the sewers?

Mutant alligators slithering through the New York sewers are one of the colorful legends of the city. What got the legend started? And why does one version of it contain pot? Maybe people considered an alligator an apt manifestation of the predatory city. Maybe they thought it was a dirty, reptilian counterpoint to polished New…

Anti-Abuse Crusaders Create Virtual Lolita to Trap Kiddie Porn Pervs

Child porn on the Internet is nothing new, but an international organization, Terre des Hommes, has adopted a novel method for busting the perverts who consume it. Meet Sweetie, the virtual Filipino girl who busted 1000 Humberts overseas. In an effort to raise awareness about “Webcam Child Sex Tourism,” TDH posed as a 10-year-old Filipino…

Carol and Rick clash on a decisive episode of The Walking Dead

What does the worst episode of season 4 of The Walking Dead look like? Still pretty darn good, and it includes the biggest shake-up to the series since Carl had to give his mother a post-natal bullet to the head. Having just learned that Carol did in fact kill and then burn the bodies of…

The First Five Smart Home Appliances From Quirky and GE’s Future-Store

What happens when a Fortune 500-ranked, 120-year-old company like GE partners with a four-year-old startup like Quirky? Today, six months after announcing a partnership, the companies launched their first co-branded products. https://gizmodo.com/ge-is-freeing-up-thousands-of-patents-to-fuel-your-imag-5994291 They’re designed to bring a little bit of gee-whiz connectivity to mundane household objects, from your egg tray to your power strip. Each…

The Aztec word for avocado, ahuacatl, means “testicle” (probably because the fruit typically grows in pairs). But that’s only the the second-most interesting thing you’ll learn about avocados today. The first? Wild avocados are sort of an evolutionary anachronism; as Smithsonian’s K. Annabelle Smith points out, they really should have gone the way of the…

Watch the Entire History of Nexus Phones in Just Three Seconds

The Nexus 5 is finally here, and it looks lovely. But it was a long road to Nexus 5 greatness, and with this GIF from the folks at GadgetLove, you can speed down it in just three seconds. It’s clear from a glance that Google’s come a long, long way with its Nexus offerings, and…

Holy Hell, This Year’s io9 Halloween Costume Show Will Blow Your Mind

Halloween may be over, but there are still two unfinished pieces of business to wrap up: Finishing up that leftover pile of Halloween candy (no time like the present!) and checking out the amazing costumes from this year’s Halloween Costume show! Take a look at some of the costumes from the fourth (and final this…

The original Star Wars trailer is even better with blooper reel clips

The only thing that could possibly be funnier than that recently discovered collection of Star Wars outtakes is if someone replaced all the clips in the original Star Wars trailer with blooper reel footage. So thankfully the folks at Slacktory did just that, and the results are amazing. https://gizmodo.com/hilarious-new-star-wars-bloopers-video-discovered-1453393702 If there was ever a way…

How Earth’s coastlines would look if all ice melted (bye Florida!)

National Geographic made precise maps on how Earth would look in the case all the planet’s ice melted. The bad news: New York, San Francisco, New Orleans, London and other cool cities would be completely gone. The good news: the entire state of Florida would disappear. But that’s the only good news. The rest is…

No, Malware Can’t Infect Your Computer Over the Air

It’s enough of a nightmare to have malware of any sort, but the more persistent the stuff is, the scarier it gets. That’s why the rumors of badBIOS, a bug so bad that it can affect Macs and PCs and communicate itself wirelessly while the infected computers are being taken apart is terrifying. But maybe…

The original Star Wars trailer is even better with bloopers in it

You’ve seen the very first Star Wars trailer we recently posted, and of course you’ve seen the recently rediscovered blooper reel. Now, are you ready for the two to be combined? Slacktory’s OneMinuteGalatica edited the blooper footage into the trailer, and behold the glorious result — Star Wars Episode IV: A New Derp. https://gizmodo.com/watch-the-original-trailer-that-introduced-star-wars-to-1444365590 https://gizmodo.com/original-star-wars-gag-reel-is-the-best-thing-youll-see-1453466539

Amazon’s Taking 15 Percent Off Kindles Today in Honor of the FAA

You’re excited the FAA isn’t going to make you power down electronics during your flight anymore? So is Amazon. And to commemorate the momentous occasion, it’s knocking 15 percent off the price of several Kindles all day today. https://gizmodo.com/faa-personal-electronics-can-be-safely-used-in-all-pha-1455949764 That brings the price of a basic Kindle down to $60, the Kindle Fire HD to…

What caused this spectacular fireball to zip across a power line?

Several days ago, a resident of Lachine, Quebec, captured harrowing video of a large electrical fireball that traversed across a power line, prompting everyone to ask: What the hell was that? Head’s up: There’s some profanity in the above video. The incident happened after a huge wind storm swept across the region, knocking out power…

You Don’t Have to Enlist to Tour a 50-Year-Old Sub on Street View

Google Street View is slowly becoming the window to a world that most of us may never get to see in real life. And if you’ve already explored every last nook and cranny of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider via Street View, you can now head on over to the UK and poke around the retired…

Just how intense will the midseason finale of Walking Dead be?

Has Star Wars Episode VII finally, actually cast someone? And does Star Trek have a director to replace J.J. Abrams? Plus more news puts a Deadpool movie within reach, and we know what’s next for Once Upon a Time’s Tinkerbell. Spoilers now! Star Wars Jedi News, the website of many other unsubstantiated reports, is saying…

30 Starry Wonders Hiding Inside of Dull Meteorites

A few weeks ago, Russian divers extracted a 1,250-pound chunk of the infamous Chelyabinsk meteorite from a lake where it landed on February 15. The massive space stone ended up cracking into three pieces—and though scientists may have cursed the clumsy divers, I was interested in something else: What was inside the rock? Scientists have…

Woe is BlackBerry; the company’s hail mary acquisition has fallen through, and its CEO Thorsten Heins has been canned. There’s nowhere to go from here but… well, nowhere. [Globe and Mail]

Woz: I Wish to God That Apple and Google Were Partners

If there’s one man who talks tech sense it’s Woz—and never more so than in a recent interview with the BBC. Woz would love it if Apple and Google played friendly, and he makes a very, very good point. Both have strengths and weaknesses, after all. He explains: “Sometimes I say ‘Go to Joe’s Diner’…