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The science of yeti footprints

We’re at last getting into spring, which means that whatever abominable prints that yetis have left in the snow this year will be melting away into nothing. Possibly, though, they’ll be melting into existence before they return to nonexistence. Here’s how a little melt can make a yeti track that could fool anyone. Yeti history…

HTC One: The Great White Hype Is Here

Carved out of a solid block of aluminum, HTC’s great white hype is the oft leaked One aka M7. It’s what the company is touting as its new flagship device today in New York. And in typical HTC style, the One has one or two new software features to help differentiate itself from the rest.…

Magnet Boxes Are Puzzles You Can Actually Use

Jigsaw puzzles are fun, though they’re a tedious undertaking. You can never figure out where that one corner piece goes. Plastica’s MagContainers are an assortment of magnetic, puzzle-like wooden boxes, and there’s no wrong way to put them together. The geometric shapes have magnets embedded on all sides, so you can configure them any way…

Scenes from the 1950s Space Movie That No One Saw

Morris Scott Dollens is best known to aging SF fans as one of the most prolific space artists who ever lived. For decades there was rarely a convention art show that didn’t feature half a dozen or more of his small-scale astronomical paintings. Unable to afford to attend many cons himself, he mailed hundreds of…

Nvidia Tegra 4i: Quad-Core Processing and LTE For Mobile Awesome

Just over a month after announcing the Tegra 4 processor, Nvidia’s back with another mobile chipset, the Tegra T4i, which comes with an integrated LTE modem. It’s designed specifically for use with smartphones. Where the Tegra 4 is all about raw power for big phones and tablets, the Tegra 4i is a marvel of tiny…

Have Trekkies taken over the voting on the naming of Pluto’s new moons?

Last week we reported on a SETI initiative allowing the public to vote on their favorite names for Pluto’s 4th and 5th moons. The voting is scheduled to close on February 25th, after which time the top names will be presented to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) for consideration. Initially, SETI provided a short list…

Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan: A Massive GPU That Might Be Unbeatable

Today Nvidia is pulling the wraps off the GK110-based GeForce GTX Titan, a single-GPU card that is expected to easily capture the title of Baddest Ass GPU in the world when benchmarks are released this Thursday, February 21st. The Titan is Nvidia’s “Big Kepler” GPU, and has double the transistors and almost double the CUDA…

Joss Whedon explains why S.H.I.E.L.D. will be unlike any other TV show. Plus New Peter Dinklage X-Men Speculation!

Check out an Iron Man 3 villain in a brand new poster. David Fincher is still having trouble making 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Rachel Nichols discusses time travel in Continuum. Plus G.I. Joe and Sin City sequel updates! Spoilers from here on out! Top image from Oz the Great and Powerful. Iron Man 3…

Are Computers Ruining Education?

The original description for this image says “My med school this morning. Future doctors of america learning ADHD one imgur link at a time.” I don’t know if they are medical students or if they were learning about ADHD for real, but maybe it’s time to reconsider laptops in the class. I never brought mine,…

Google Wants To Starve Piracy Sites to Death

Google is looking into a new strategy for cracking down on piracy sites: cutting off the sources of their funding so they’ll wither and die. The Telegraph says Google is in cahoots with Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal to stop supplying money to websites that host links to illegally obtained books, movies, and TV shows. This…

Goal Line Tech Will Feature in the 2014 Soccer World Cup

FIFA has announced that—finally!—goal line technology will be used to assess whether balls really do cross the line at the 2014 soccer World Cup, which is due to be held in Brazil. Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, explained that goal line technology was successfully tested in the Club World Cup in December, so it’s…

How Graphene Could Transform the Gadgets of the Future

Graphene doesn’t need any introduction: it’s the super material to beat ’em all. But this beautiful video demonstrates how it could transform the future of the gadgets you use everyday. There’s been an idea floating around for a couple of years which suggests that graphene could be used to construct the world’s best supercapacitor: an…

Budapest From Orbit

Oh, hello Commander Hadfield! And thank you for the nice pic!

Russian Meteorite Exploded With “30 Times the Energy Released by the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb”

Following last week’s meteorite explosion, scientists have finally had chance to sit down and figure out exactly what happened—and the results help explain why it shook Russia so hard. https://gizmodo.com/meteorite-explodes-over-russia-panic-spreads-5984476 Peter Brown, from the University of Western Ontario, Canada, has been using the extremely low frequency sound waves detected during the incident to work out…

This Bionic Hand Will Let an Amputee Feel Again

The first ever bionic hand that allows patients to feel again will be transplanted into a human this year, according to the researchers who have developed it. The patient—currently unnamed—is in his 20s and lives in Rome. He’ll have the new hand, shown in the picture, connected directly to his nervous system, and it’s hoped…

This Is Almost Certainly Probably How HTC’s New Phone Will Look

HTC is gearing up to announce its new phone later today. We’ve seen numerous leaks and renderings but now, just ahead of the announcement, French site NowhereElse claims to have laid its hands on some press images. https://gizmodo.com/if-htcs-new-phone-really-looks-like-this-will-you-buy-5984495 It shows the phone off from all angles—and ties in with everything we’ve seen to date. Codenamed…

Chinese officials have branded that report identifying a Shanghai hacking base “groundless”. Of course they have! https://gizmodo.com/the-chinese-army-is-hacking-the-united-states-from-this-5985228

BlackBerry Security Flaw Could Compromise Enterprise Servers

BlackBerry has released news which warns of a vulnerability that could expose enterprise servers to malware attacks. Listed as “high severity”, the flaw could allow attackers to leverage a loophole in the way TIFF image files are rendered to take down servers. From the release: Vulnerabilities exist in how the BlackBerry MDS Connection Service and…

Firefox 19 officially launches later today—but if you’re desperate, you can download it now from Mozilla’s FTP server.

This Building Is Home to the Chinese Army Unit Hacking the US

In a dusty, run-down suburb of Shanghai, this white 12-story building looks like nothing out of the ordinary. But according to US surveillance, it’s actually the base of the Chinese Army’s cyberwarriors. The New York Times reveals that a new report, by American computer security firm Mandiant, singles out this building as the hub of…