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What Is Miracast?

Everyone really likes AirPlay, Apple’s Wi-Fi streaming standard that lets you send movies and music from, say, your iPhone to your speakers or Apple TV. Now there’s a new standard out to do pretty much the same thing for everyone else. But how is it different from previous attempts? Miracast is a lot like AirPlay……

Go Download iOS 6 RIGHT NOW (Updated With Direct Links)

iOS 6 is finally available for public consumption and you can get it one of two ways: You can plug your iOS device in to your computer and check iTunes for an update, or you can go into the settings menu on your iPhone (3GS, 4 or 4S), iPod touch (4G, 5G) or iPad (iPad…

Time Warner Paves the Way for Lamest Version of Apple TV’s Future

If Apple TV is anything like the a la carte channels as apps dream we’ve hoped for, it could be amazing. But according to comments from Time Warner Cable president and COO Rob Marcus we might never be liberated from our cable providers. https://gizmodo.com/why-apple-tv-just-became-apples-most-important-product-5931185 Marcus said he’s willing to give up control on the TWC…

The New Science of Drug Testing: The Sewers Never Lie

Scientists are dipping into city sewers in search of drugs. Why? The same reason people on parole take urine tests instead of surveys. You can always lie on a questionnaire; outwitting your toilet, on the other hand, can be a bit more challenging. The technique, known as sewer epidemiology, was recently used to compare illicit…

Thumbs Up Paperclips Let You Like in Real Life

If it’s nearly impossible for you to tear yourself away from Facebook and deal with the real world, perhaps these amusing thumbs up paperclips will help ease the transition away from your phone. They’re even multi-purpose, letting you express your like of a given document, or dislike by simply flipping it over. For example, the…

iOS 6: All the Best New Features

Today is the day iOS 6 arrives, and it’s going to make your iPhone better than it’s ever been before. Why should you upgrade? There are so, so many reasons. https://gizmodo.com/go-download-ios-6-right-now-updated-with-direct-links-5944585 Facebook Maybe the best and most overdue addition. (Almost) everyone uses Facebook, so the deeper it’s stuffed into the soul of iOS, the better.…

You Have Less Than a Month to Conceive a Brilliant Idea, Win $50,000

Remember last week when we told all you would-be inventors about the Nissan Innovation Garage, a.k.a., your chance to fund that brilliant idea you’ve been kicking around? Well, procrastinators rejoice, because you still have time to submit! The Nissan Innovation Garage is inviting Edisons-in-training to share their best “everyday ideas” (that means it could be…

Survival Pod Lets You Ride Out a Tsunami in Relative Comfort

Inspired by the tragic tsunamis that hit Japan last year, Australian houseboat builder Matt Duncan decided to design and construct the ultimate life jacket. What he came up with was the Tsunami Survival Pod, designed to protect up to four passengers from rushing waters and tons of debris. Made from the same materials he uses…

This School-Bus-Sized Satellite Will Deliver Insanely Accurate Weather Reports

Europe will receive nearly infallible weather data thanks to this trio of school bus-sized spacecraft, and the EU saves £4.5 billion in weather-related damage annually. This is what the atmosphere will look like in HD. The satellite MetOp-B, which launched yesterday, is part of a 3.2 billion Euro joint venture between the European Space Agency…

HTC 8X: This Flagship Windows Phone Packs a Big, Beautiful Screen in a Slim, Blade-like Package

HTC’s new flagship Windows Phone—the 8X—is not just impressive because it packs a 1.5 GHz, dual-core Snapdragon S4 chipset and 4.3-inch 1280×720 display good for a PPI of 342. But it also manages to make a phone that, already checking in at a svelte 0.39-inches, feel even thinner than it is. Nokia Lumia 920, you…

What Is This Secret Weapon the US Has Been Hiding for 30 Years?

In 1981, the White House released a secret memo regarding the stockpiling of a certain weapon. What kind of weapon? Now that it’s been declassified, we still have no idea: the title remains censored. The document, National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 7, obtained by the Federation of American Scientists, doesn’t leave much room for interpretation:…

Travel Surge Protector Saves Your Gear From Sketchy Outlets

When you’re traveling and completely reliant on your gadgets you don’t care how sketchy a power outlet looks—if it’s free, you’ll use it. So for those times when you have to plug in and charge no matter how dangerous things look, Satechi’s compact USB surge protector has got you covered. It plugs into a grounded…

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Scientology-inspired movie is a weird love story

In Paul Thomas Anderson’s Scientology-inspired movie The Master, Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a self-help guru who’s in the process of turning his therapeutic practice into a full-fledged spiritual movement. The Master shows us how Hoffman’s character creates the mythology that underpins his new faith, even as it explores the confounding love between Hoffman’s character and…

This insane footage of a volcano is like staring into the jaws of Hell

Good gravy, is this a harrowing video. To capture close-up footage of this lava lake on the Pacific island of Vanuatu, Geoff Mackley and his colleagues had to brave excruciating heat and some rather precarious-looking abseiling. Here’s his description of this mind-blowing footage, which offers the scenic views of a James Bond villain’s veranada: Geoff…

Thank God Dinosaurs Died Out Before Smartphones Happened

Taking a self-portrait might be the least of a T-Rex’s smartphone-wrangling problems, but it would definitely be the funniest. Although I’m sad we’ll never know what dinosaur duck-face looks like. [TwentyTwoWords via TDW]

Could Ethan Hawke’s horror flick Sinister be the first scary movie of the year?

The horror movie Sinister has been creeping under the radar thus far, but a recent crop of good buzz and excellent word of mouth has our spidey senses tingling. Could this be the first good horror movie of the year? Some folks are calling it the new Insidious, which scared us pretty hard. Here’s the…

Skitch: Mark Up Your Pics On Your Phone

We’re huge fans of Skitch here at Gizmodo—it’s the easiest way to quickly illustrate something on an image. And now you can add all the colorful arrows, circles, notes and drawings you want on photos right from your iPhone. What does it do? Gives you shapes, arrows, text, and other illustration tools to let you…

With this Chrome Rotary Desk Calendar, You Won’t Care if Monday’s Black

The magic boxes in our pockets have many wondrous uses, but a digital readout of the date and time is a fairly new phenomenon. People used to have specialized tools to access this mundane, essential information. They wore watches. They had style. They knew the date thanks to elaborate, fantastic calendars, like this refurbished rotary…

New Hobbit trailer shows off Bilbo and Gollum’s contest of wits

Behold the latest trailer for The Hobbit! It’s brimming with new scenes, most notably Bilbo Baggins’ riddle olympiad with Gollum. That anthropomorphic sack of unpleasant sure does drive a hard bargain. (I’m secretly praying that “The Precious” is rebooted to be Hat FM.) The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey hits theaters December 14.

Fandango could be one of the first services you’ll use with iOS 6 Passbook. The movie tickets of the future. [9to5Mac]