Latest

Hackers Broke Into a Public Utility Control Room By Guessing a Password

In a rare gesture of transparency, the Department of Homeland Security just announced that hackers recently targeted and compromised a public utility’s control system. They didn’t say exactly where, but it happened inside United States borders. And it doesn’t sound like it was even that hard. Specific details about the breach are scant. However, DHS…

How to Pour Wine Without Ever Removing the Cork

By now you’ve heard a lot about the gadgets and tools at Gizmodo’s Home of the Future—but here’s one more that knocked our future-socks off: Coravin’s Wine Access System 1000, which uses argon gas to extract wine out of a bottle without actually popping the cork. Here’s how the system, which was being used to…

Thankfully this bear mom was able to save her cub from death by car

A bear saves her cub from a sure dead under an automobile. It is cute—but also a depressing reminder on how humans keep screwing animals up, whether they are wild or domestic. Even when we’re trying to protect them by crewing National Parks. Driving through British Columbia’s Kootenay National Park we stopped to capture a…

The 10 Most Shocking Characters That George R.R. Martin Could Kill Off

Westeros is a bloody and unpredictable place, and death is a constant. In fact, George R.R. Martin has taken to reminding people lately that nobody is safe in Game of Thrones or his books. But how far could he go? Here are the 10 most shocking kills he could make in The Winds of Winter,…

These 3D-Printed Robotic Legs Could Serve As Cheaper Prosthetics

After losing four fingers on his right hand in an accident, carpenter Richard Van As and prop-maker Ivan Owen designed and built a cheap prosthetic replacement hand that would end up becoming a sort of poster child for the 3D printing industry. Now, Robohand’s creators have designed a cheaper prosthetic leg as well. First revealed…

Come Play With Microsoft’s New Surface Pro 3 at Home of the Future

Now, we may be closing down our Home of the Future this afternoon, but we just added another fresh product to our catalog: a brand, spanking new Microsoft Surface Pro 3. And Home of the Future is the only place you can come see it. https://gizmodo.com/the-surface-pro-3-has-a-big-beautiful-12-inch-screen-1578974248 Microsoft literally just unveiled its new, larger 12-inch tablet/computer…

This Short Film Delivers Intense Action, By Showing One Man’s Face

In the short film Mis-Drop, we watch a soldier’s first and final mission from the perspective of a head-mounted camera trained on his face, as he drops from a starship onto a colonial planet. All we see of the world around him are reflections in his helmet, and yet the suspense is incredible. Plus, the…

Man Attacks Car with Sword in Attempt to Slay the Dark Lord Morgoth

A Portland, Oregon man dressed in chain mail and calling himself a “high elf” claimed to be vanquishing the dark lord Morgoth when he stabbed a woman’s car with a sword. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that this J.R.R. Tolkien fan took LSD shortly before he decided to slay a sedan. What’s great…

Photos of Science Experiments are Mysterious and Dazzling

Caleb Charland has been merging science with photography for years, creating images that challenge you to figure out just what the heck is going on. His most recent work is a collection of disparate materials and methods, each one with their own wondrous flavor. https://gizmodo.com/when-apple-orchards-become-personal-power-plants-5873443 The titles of each image give you an idea of…

Listen to the Appliances of the Future

Last week, in collaboration with Disquiet, we turned our ears to the future of the domestic environment, tuning into the speculative sounds of the appliances of the future. The results, here on our last day of the Home of the Future, are worth a listen as you tour the home either virtually or in person.…

Mother Bear Heroically Saves Cub From Busy Highway

Joke all you want about chickens crossing roads, but highways really do pose a danger to wildlife. A bear cub learned that recently when it found itself a bit too close to oncoming traffic. Luckily, mom was nearby. According to the video’s description, a man named Ricky Forbes was driving through Canada’s Kootenay National Park,…

Adventure Time‘s Creator Is Making A Text Adventure Game Over Twitter

Ever wonder what a text adventure game made by Adventure Time and Bravest Warriors creator Pendleton Ward would look like? He’s making (and illustrating) one right now—and you can play along on Twitter. Ward is playing a game he’s calling Quest Attack with his Twitter followers. The premise is simple: the player has woken up…

Beautiful spinning video of New York makes me go both ooooh and barf!

This beautiful new commercial from Nokia uses the same principle of bullet time—the effect made popular by the movie The Matrix—but in a different way: Instead of freezing a moment in time, the rig is built to give the illusion that the world is spinning. It’s pretty, but it can make you a bit dizzy.…

Facebook App Adds Shazam-Like Function to Identify Songs and Shows

Facebook’s newest app addition is a Shazam-esque feature that can identify any song or TV show within 15 seconds purely by sound. Now, any time you’re watching TV or listening to music and want to share that fact with the world, you can pop open your Facebook app, tell it to listen, and post your…

Author Elly Blue Is Here To Answer Questions About Women and Biking

The cycling movement in this country is gaining momentum, yet it’s still predominantly male. So how do we get more women on bikes, and help females to feel more comfortable riding for transportation in their daily lives? Author Elly Blue is joining us today to talk about women and bikes. As part of our Bike…

This Force Is Strong with Geckos

Humans have many scientific achievements, but when it comes to the van der Waals force, we have been bested by geckos. Johannes Diderik van der Waals was a physicist and chemist working at the turn of the last century who was interested in how gases interacted. While there was a set of laws set up…

This amazing floating underwater city may become a reality in China

A Chinese company wants to build this incredible four-square-mile floating underwater city using the same techniques they’re using for the construction of the 31-mile bridge that links Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai. It’s incredible—the kind of stuff I dreamed about when I was a little kid. http://gizmodo.com/c/sploid The China Communications construction company commissioned AT Design…

How Historians Recovered the Only Surviving Nazi “Flying Pencil”

Many good sea tales begin with a fisherman snagging his net on an underwater object, and this tale is no different. In 2000 or 2001, fisherman snagged his net while fishing the waters of Goodwin Sands, fronting the White Cliffs of Dover near the town of Deal in Kent, England. Dover sits at the English…

The anonymous sharing app, Secret, is now available for Android. Now everyone can spill the beans without revealing themselves.

Ask An Entomologist Whatever You Want About Eating Bugs

Arnold van Huis is a tropical entomologist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He’s here today to answer our questions about edible insects and why you should probably consider eating a bug. van Huis was the first author for the UN paper Edible Insects: Future Prospects For Feed and Security (which you can check out…