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Roadtrippers: Plan Your Next Cross-Country Trek

Back before smartphones came along and made our lives easier, when we hit the open road we had to—hahahahaha—print out directions. Sometimes, if you can believe it, we used physical maps made of paper. Now that epic road trip you take is even easier to plan and execute with Roadtripper’s iPhone app. What does it…

Humans can survive the harsh conditions found on Mars, scientists say

Metallic robots constructed by ingenious humans can survive on Mars. But what about future human astronauts? What fate awaits them on a bold and likely year’s long expedition to the endlessly extreme and drastically harsh environment on the surface of the radiation drenched Red Planet? How much shielding would people need? Thankfully, recent evidence suggests…

Save the Buckyballs!

Friends, Americans, geeks, lend me your ears. The U.S. government is trying to ban Bucky Balls, Zen Magnets, and all sets of amazing and wonderful magnetic spheres, and we only have a few hours left to stop them! https://gizmodo.com/buckyballs-magnets-have-been-banned-by-the-feds-update-5929064 Since this summer, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has been threatening to sue Zen Magnets…

This Guy Built a Bot that Sends Him Random Crap From Amazon

What if you could give Christmas gifts to yourself but actually be surprised when you open them up? That’s exactly what Darius Kazemi did when he wrote a bot that buys him random crap off of Amazon. And he never has any idea what he’s going to get. He explains how it works on Random…

Xbox Live Now Has WatchESPN

ESPN on the Xbox just got a helluva lot better. Instead of being an awkward, half-featured sports channel, Xbox Live is now getting the real deal: a WatchESPN app. That means you can watch ALL of ESPN’s channels: ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNU and more. We’ve been expecting WatchESPN to launch on the Xbox since it…

Science Fiction and Fantasy DVD Sets That Make Amazing Gifts

Everyone you know is hard to shop for. That’s because everybody’s hard to shop for, period. Finding the right present for all the humans in your life can be nearly impossible, without telepathy. And that’s why God made DVD box sets. Almost everybody has a DVD player, and would like to catch up on a…

A New Translation of The One Russian Science Fiction Novel You Absolutely Must Read

The great Russian science fiction author Boris Strugatsky died today in Saint Petersburg at 79. He and his brother Arkady (who died in 1991) wrote some of the most iconic works of Soviet science fiction. In their honor, we are republishing this review of the most recent translation of one of their most famous works,…

Watershed’s Water-Tight Backpack: Durable, But Stylish Enough for Every Day Use

Sometimes carting around expensive electronics in your bag can be worrisome. Bad weather is always a threat since no one wants their laptop to get wet. If you’re paranoid, then the Watershed Big Creek Backpack might ease some of your anxiety. Watershed is famous for its dry bags. But this isn’t just camping gear—the water-tight,…

This Radiant Fryer Promises Deep Fried Foods Without a Side of Guilt

It might look like a souped-up bagel toaster you’d find in a cafeteria, but this radiant heat oven was designed by a Purdue University food researcher to fry up foods without requiring them to swim in a vat of fatty oil. Which means healthier fried foods with less calories, fat, and cooking times. Professor Kevin…

Recapping ‘The Jetsons’: Episode 09 – Elroy’s TV Show

This is the ninth in a 24-part series looking at every episode of “The Jetsons” TV show from the original 1962-63 season. When I was a kid I didn’t quite understand how TV and movies were made. Around the age of four or five, I had a basic understanding of how live TV was recorded…

More NYC subway stations are getting Wi-Fi and cell service. This is a good thing, people. So quit your whining. [NYT]

These Internal Videos Show Why The Microsoft Kin Was Such a Total Disaster

Long before the Windows Phones we have today, there was another: the Kin. You may remember it…as being total garbage. Well now you can relive the horror with some previously unreleased videos WIRED dug up and watch Microsoft’s own Kin testers recoiling in disgust. As these testers show, the performance was pretty dismal. A far…

Guillermo del Toro explains the biggest mistake people make in telling stories for children

Guillermo del Toro has directed some of the coolest movies of the past decade or so, including Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy, plus the upcoming monster/robot smackdown Pacific Rim. But he’s also gotten into producing animated films for kids, including Kung-Fu Panda and the upcoming Rise of the Guardians. We were lucky enough to get a…

DARPA’s Falcon HTV-2 Can Deliver Its Payload Faster Than Domino’s

ICBMs are great and all, but since they are used almost exclusively for nuclear strikes, launching one would practically guarantee WWIII. So, to get non-nuclear ordnance anywhere in the world in under an hour, DARPA is developing the reusable, hypersonic Falcon delivery system. The Falcon (Force Application and Launch from CONtinental United States) Project is…

What Is Israel’s Iron Dome?

Israel got itself into a little mini-war in Gaza, and Hamas is firing off an extra dose of rockets into the Holy Land. What’s (maybe) stopping them? Something called the “Iron Dome”—and what exactly is an Iron Dome? https://gizmodo.com/israels-iron-dome-intercepts-incoming-rocket-threats-5914690 The Iron Dome is a web of missile launchers designed to protect Israel from rocket attacks……

Everything You Need to Know About Killer Drones in One Rad Musical Cartoon!

Are you confused by the ethical grey area, constitutional ambiguity, and general scariness of robots that kill people? Don’t sweat it, man. Hang out with these Cool Drones, and watch this Edu-Fun video, right here on Gizmodo. SNL’s video might not address the legality of conducting lethal drone warfare in the airspace of sovereign nations…

Apple Just Can’t Keep iCloud In the Air

Today, iTunes Match went down. Yesterday, it was iMessage and FaceTime. Since launching iCloud to the public on October 12th, 2011, Apple just hasn’t been able to keep its cloud-based services airborne. Sure, the most basic iCloud plan is free, but iTunes Match costs $25 a year. As a replacement for the MobileMe catastrophe, iCloud…

Come and watch one of Jon Pertwee’s finest Doctor Who stories with us!

If you’re in San Francisco on Saturday, you absolutely must come to the inaugural classic Doctor Who screening, the first of many. We’ve teamed up with BBC Home Entertainment and the folks from SF in SF to bring you monthly screenings of Doctor Who stories in downtown SF. This is something that’s already been happening…

No, children are not natural born scientists

We like to think that children are born scientists. Because Neil deGrasse Tyson says so. Because The National Science Foundation proclaims it on its website. Because when Mark Twain warned that school should not “interfere with [one’s] education,” he clearly meant it as a prophetic indictment of No Child Left Behind and the Rod Of…

Windows 98 Solitaire Deck Immortalizes Our Most Important Pre-Internet Distraction

Is $20 too much for a deck of playing cards styled to look exactly like the pixelated designs in Windows 98 Solitaire? Not a chance. As their creator Evan Roth points out, before the internet Solitaire was the only real distraction an office drone could rely on. So why not give it the respect and…