The most useful place for a voice-activated digital assistant isn’t your office, kitchen, or living room. It’s in your car, where your hands and eyes should be pre-occupied with driving. So Garmin put Amazon’s Alexa in a new bare-bones navigation device that will ensure you’ll never get lost, and never get lonely, on…
If there’s one constant truth in the Disney Pixar films, it’s that Cars will never make sense. Every Cars movie that comes out only adds to the confusion, and the latest tidbits that’ll stick a potato in your tailpipe have to do with why there are no motorcycles in Cars world, but there are fairy tales.
Colin Furze is back with another bizarre invention that will make you wonder why more mad scientists haven’t embraced YouTube yet. This time he’s turned a BMW E30 into a drivable hot tub, complete with a pair of leaf blowers used to generate bubbles, and a barbecue grill in the trunk.
Last month, I was driving down the interstate, somewhere near the southern corner of Virginia, when a thunderstorm opened up above me. Suddenly, a wall of water appeared a hundred yards ahead. In a split second, I had zero visibility, a slick road, and a shitload of anxiety. So I let go of the wheel and felt the car…
Does the thrill of accelerating a dragster to speeds of almost 300 miles per hour outweigh the tremendous risks involved with the sport? It’s hard to imagine David Tremayne wanting to climb behind the steering wheel again after he lost control of this dragster at speeds few of us will ever experience on four wheels.
It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that Apple’s once ambitious self-driving car project is no longer ambitious. The New York Times reports that the company has relegated research for autonomous vehicles to a software system that will power a self-driving shuttle in between its new spaceship campus and its old…
Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Santa Monica; all great reasons to visit Los Angeles that are unfortunately overshadowed by the city’s overwhelming traffic and perpetually-gridlocked highways. But through the lens of Ralph & Randy’s timelapse cameras, LA’s traffic nightmare somehow looks like best reason to head to the West…
It’s hot in Japan. Hot enough to melt a dashboard rubber duck into a forlorn pool of gooey plastic. And hot enough to make thousands of people intent on proving or disproving the authenticity of a now-viral tweet.
The heroes of The Fast and the Furious series have taken on the Yakuza, hordes of self-driving cars, and a goddamn submarine. Given that each Fast & Furious movie has gotten increasingly more insane, there’s only one way the franchise’s next installment is going to be able to top its predecessors: by blasting off.
When you can climb walls and swing between buildings, do you really need a car? In 1974 Marvel’s writers thought Spider-Man did, so they gave him a dune buggy that he could use to sit in New York traffic for hours. As weird as it was, it’s a memorable piece of Marvel history, so Hot Wheels is bringing it back as one…
Blood Drive is a new TV show on Syfy which is essentially based on the premise of a world where cars are fueled by blood, and not petroleum, because blood. We had some questions about how such a transportation would work, and now, we have answers. And one of them might be pointing straight at the Homunculus Theory.
No matter how invested you are, or aren’t, in Pixar’s Cars films, the latest entry creates a weirdly interesting narrative around the franchise. Imagine if, after Blade Runner, Harrison Ford made a rom-com-dram sequel where Rick Deckard was suddenly running a hotel. And then he made Blade Runner 2049, where he was…
Aside from turn signals, a car’s horn is really the only tool a driver has to communicate with other vehicles. (Besides gesticulating wildly out of the driver’s side window, of course.) It’s so loud and abrasive, however, that it always sounds like you’re screaming at other motorists, leading to middle fingers and…
Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's weekly reminder to hide your life savings somewhere safe, because there are so many goddamn awesome toys coming out. This week: Hot Toys finally unleashes the Homecoming figure we really want, Overwatch gets an amazing action figure, Anki’s adorable robot gets a new coat of paint, and…
On Tuesday, 27-year-old Melissa Smith was filling up at a gas station in Milwaukee when a man jumped into the driver’s seat of her car, trying to steal it. Smith immediately jumped on the hood, and held tight long enough that the thief eventually ran off. The media are hailing her as a hero. But, in fact, she’s an…
I might be the only person at Gizmodo that likes Sphero’s new Cars toy. My co-workers hate the way the robot announces it’s going to sleep, and the long animated process it takes to wake up. They’re also horrified by the very existence of sentient automobiles and tractors that moo. But my colleagues are too caught up…
As you may be aware, I’m very interested in the rich, complex world Pixar has created for the Cars series of movies. Maybe a little too interested. The movies, while enjoyable as simply fun animated movies about cars, nevertheless bring up a great deal of complex issues when given greater scrutiny. Now I’ve finally…
The baffling (and increasingly disturbing) Cars 3 is all about an intergenerational rivalry between the upstart Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer) and the old star Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson). In this trailer, it’s not just the technologically new and superior Jackson that isn’t good—it’s apparently every bit of new…
Think your office is cool and progressive because there’s a ping pong table in the corner? You’ll still be stuck at your soul-sucking cubicle desk most of the day, which is why these engineers created a giant slot car track that races across everyone’s desk, letting you compete while still getting some work done.…
Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's roundup of the sweet toys and merchandise we’ve seen this week. We’ve got a magical Doctor Strange figure, a rather large Homecoming Spider-Man, and a miserable way to treat your favorite astromech unit. Also: Legend of Zelda Clue. No, really!
