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James Bond’s Laser-Cutting Watch Is Finally a Reality

Thanks to some clever special effects, the gadgets that Q creates for James Bond and other MI6 agents are often well ahead of their time. So much so that it’s only now, more than 31 years after Never Say Never Again hit theaters, that we finally have a wristwatch with a built-in laser powerful enough…

Is There Really Going to Be a Game of Thrones Movie?

Charles Dance says there’s talk of one. There are more contradictory rumors about the Star Wars teaser trailer and a description of what the villain looks like in it. Jennifer Lawrence guesses where Mystique will be in X-Men: Apocalypse. And can anyone die in Gotham? Spoilers now! Top image: Game of Thrones Star Wars Some…

7 Pieces of Album Art From the Golden Age of Disco Design

What’s hot, sweaty, and filled with sexual innuendo? I’m talking about disco—what did you think I was talking about?—but I’m also talking about the design that was created to sell this era of suddenly decadent lifestyles. The new book Disco: An Encyclopedic Guide to the Cover Art of Disco Records includes over 2000 (!) album…

Burning Godzilla is the coolest Godzilla Toy

Well, not literally, as he’s meant to be melting from the inside out, but you know what I mean. The last of the Heisei Godzillas is getting a NECA figure, and he looks badass. The figure is based on the ailing Kaiju’s appearance in the 1995 Toho film Gojira tai Desutoroia – aka Godzilla vs.…

The polar vortex was all over the news (and our thermostats) last year, and for many people that was first they’d heard of the alarming phenomenon. But the phrase actually originated over 150 years ago in a magazine edited by Charles Dickens, as explained in this linguistic history of the term.

These ads are so quirky and stupid they made me laugh hard

Man, watching these sweaters dance made me laugh hard. I confess I’m a sucker for quirky humor and these ads—for this year’s Gap gift guide—are without a doubt the quirkiest I’ve seen in a long while. SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Could Terminator Actually Happen?

Robots are smart and getting smarter. But will they ever actually manage to become sentient and go all Terminator on us? This video investigates that question. https://gizmodo.com/on-site-at-the-machine-olympics-of-darpas-robotics-cha-1487282165 Charting the likely course of AI, Hannah Fry ponders the steps required to shift to sentience. I’ll let her explain the conclusions. [Head Squeeze]

Aereo Has Filed for Bankruptcy

The struggling Aereo, which closed its Boston offices but refused to actually shut down, is now filing for Chapter 11 reorganization in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. https://gizmodo.com/aereos-latest-death-rattle-comes-as-boston-office-shutt-1655599827 In a company blog post, CEO and founder Chet Kanojia explained: While we had significant victories in the federal district courts…

This radar image of Tokyo was acquired by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1A satellite earlier this year. The data is so accurate that it can monitor ground movements down to a few millimetres—which helps urban planners know where they can and can’t build. [ESA]

The Stand Is Going to Be Four Movies

After Stephen King said not to count on The Stand being only one film, writer-director Josh Boone confirms that it won’t. It’s going to be four. Boone let a lot details loose in his appearance on Kevin Smith’s Hollywood Babble-On podcast. Boone said he wasn’t a fan of the scripts he was given, so he…

The UK Now Has Poop-Powered Buses

America has the Tesla electric car, Britain has… a poop bus. Bristol Airport now has a bus that will shuttle people to Bath city centre, powered solely by human and food waste. To be specific, it’s the biomethane gas produced by the anaerobic digestion treatment of said waste that the bus runs on. Anaerobic digestion…

How You Can Get Temperatures Below Absolute Zero

It used to be that scientists all agreed that it was impossible to achieve temperatures below absolute zero, but now they realise that’s not entirely true. This video explains how you can reach temperatures below absolute zero. The phenomenon is made possible by playing with entropy and energy, to change the way groups of particles…

Matt Smith And Natalie Dormer Will Fight Extinction in Patient Zero

Sadly, it’s not a crossover. Instead, Matt Smith’s signed on to star in Patient Zero with Natalie Dormer. And they’ll be fighting a pandemic that’s resulted in a violent new species. Patient Zero will be directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky from a script by Mike Le. It takes place when an new rabies strain has resulted…

Can You Ignore Your Own Voice?

We listen to our own voice when we talk – it helps us monitor what we’re saying. But simultaneous interpreters have to translate one language into another in real time, so they learn to ignore themselves. In the 1990s Franco Fabbro and colleagues at the University of Trieste in Italy asked students to recite the…

Report: Amazon Is Planning to Launch a Travel Site With Hotel Bookings

Looking to get away? Maybe you should just add a trip to your Wish List in the hope someone buys it for you. At least, that’s what you might be able to do soon, if reports of Amazon branching out into travel are accurate. The travel news site Skift reports that Amazon has been working…

Hold a Perfectly Accurate Supermoon In the Palm of Your Hand

This LED lamp was designed by Nosigner and is based on the March 19th, 2011 Supermoon, where the moon appeared 14% bigger and 30% brighter. It’s also completely accurate to the actual moon. The design team of Nosigner created the lamp with data from the Japanese lunar orbiter Kaguya. [Bored Panda.es via Bored Panda]

It’s A Weirdly Calm Week On The Space Station

With only three astronauts and three spacecraft, the station seems awfully empty. About the most exciting activity was garbage day, with the Progress M-24M that kicked off from the station in late October finally burning up during a destructive reentry. https://gizmodo.com/the-space-station-has-the-most-beautiful-garbage-day-1623444197 Top image: Progress M-24M probably looked very similar detaching from the station in October…

This hand drawn Big Hero 6 trailer is so simple but so lovely

CGI is wonderful and I love it when excellent animators use it for their films but there’s something about the ol’ trusty pen and pencil way of hand drawing (even if it’s not done with a pen and pencil) that always makes me smile. It’s like doing things simpler is sometimes better. This hand drawn…

Bangkok Won’t Show Mockingjay After Protestors Use Katniss’ Salute

The three-fingered salute used by Katniss and the other rebels in The Hunger Games have been adopted by pro-democracy activists in Thailand. And as a result, a movie chain in Bangkok has cancelled screenings of Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1. Photo Credit: AP Images Thailand’s been under military rule since May, and protestors have started…

Big Hero 6 Could’ve Had Roving Gangs Of Baseball Ninjas—BASEBALL NINJAS

There are a lot of really neat ideas that never made it into Big Hero 6, including Rocket Cat and Honey Lemon as a superhero catgirl. And one proposed iteration of the film has a The Warriors feel to it, with gangs whose members dressed like ninja baseball players and shark-mouthed airplanes. https://gizmodo.com/big-hero-6-supersuits-that-didnt-make-the-cut-like-catg-1660767961 Artist Kevin…