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Aside from nostalgia, or maybe loaning it out to filmmakers as a prop for period pieces, there are not many practical uses for a 90-year-old Remington portable typewriter anymore. Against all odds, William Sun Petrus did manage to find one novel use for the hardware; he turned it into a makeshift drum machine that rewards his…
When it comes to virtual reality tech, you typically fall into one of two camps. Either you love the sci-fi concept of snapping on a headset and suddenly being transported into an immersive, three-dimensional universe, or you’re a reasonable person who finds these same headsets vomit-inducing, awkward to wear, and downright butt-ugly. At least for the…
The FCC voted today to allow unlicensed use of the 6GHz wifi spectrum, the goal of which is to help unclog the current 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, expand wifi through rural America, and help consumers take full advantage of the new WiFi 6 standard. While this is the largest addition to the mid-band wifi spectrum…
Twitter is expanding its crackdown on misinformation that may influence people to “engage in harmful activity” to include a conspiracy theory that 5G technology is somehow behind the spread of the novel coronavirus causing the current covid-19 pandemic. “We have broadened our guidance on unverified claims that incite people to engage in harmful activity, could…
It’s no secret that Apple has been working to create custom processors for use in its computers. The question was never if, but when. And now, a new report is adding even more weight to the belief that Apple will start selling Macs equipped with homegrown chips in 2021. According to sources familiar with the…
This is Sick Days, a series documenting how jobs are changing during the coronavirus pandemic, as told by workers themselves. This week, we hear from a cop, a morgue volunteer, and more. If you’d like to submit a story, use this Google form and provide as much detail as you’re able; read this post to learn…
Samsung is trying to make its TVs more useful during the global pandemic that is keeping us inside our houses, first with free fitness apps from popular boutique fitness studios and now with an Apple Music app—and free 90-day trial to stream tunes from your Samsung TV. I admit that I didn’t see this coming,…
You’d have to be really, really bored to devote some time to scrolling through all the settings on your phone or laptop—so the devices you rely on every day may well offer a selection of options and features that you’re completely unaware of. Here’s a rundown of 31 of the best lesser-known settings that you…
Last week, Amazon shut down its fulfillment centers in France amid a dispute with unions over alleged covid-19-related health hazards. A French court ruled in favor of the union, ordering the company to limit deliveries to necessities such as medical supplies and food until it fulfills a risk assessment and improves safety measures, and threatened…
Police in Westport, Connecticut, announced this week that they’re testing a so-called “pandemic drone” that can detect when people on the ground have fevers. The new drone platform will also be used to determine when people are closer than six feet to each other. Police will be able to deliver a verbal warning through the…
Zoom, the video conferencing app that’s seen an utterly staggering spike in usage during the coronavirus pandemic, has been the subject of ongoing reporting over its egregious security failures—which include, among other things, misrepresenting its encryption protocols. As part of its previously announced 90-day plan to fix the issues on its service and beef up…
The Washington Post reports that 25,000 email addresses and passwords, allegedly from the World Health Organization (WHO), National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Gates Foundation, and other large organizations, were stolen by hackers and posted online. It’s unknown where the list came from, or who even created it, but it was first posted to 4chan…
Gizmodo is looking at a lot of net art these days, but you’ll have to scan further than Google Arts and Culture to find it, so we asked net artists for help. Today, Anthony Antonellis tells us about his long slog to convince gatekeepers that internet art is more than an unprofitable career path. “The…
The healthcare system in the U.S. has buckled under the current coronavirus pandemic, with overloaded hospitals struggling to keep up. But should a second wave of the outbreak occur simultaneously during the coming flu season, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield says, things could get even worse. Speaking with the Washington Post…
If your Facebook feed is teeming with wild Deep State theories, that might be on you, a Facebook study has found. Two researchers from Facebook and one from Harvard tested an algorithm that looks at your friending activity to detect fake accounts, or sybils. The paper shows that an outlying group of people who accept…
The relationship between YouTube and its content creators can best be described as symbiotic: Vloggers rely on the platform’s promises of fame and fortune (or at least a decent living). In return. YouTube relies on these content creators, for, well, content—hundreds of hours uploaded every minute, netting the company roughly $15 billion in the last…
I wonder sometimes how strange it must be to own a company, create a product packed with features that people have long asked for, then try to launch it in the midst of a global meltdown. Polar just launched a $430 GPS watch that seems like it will be perfect for outdoor athletes—except everyone is…
After making its way through the developer and beta versions of the browser, a significant new feature is arriving in the stable version of Google Chrome that most of us are using: Tab Groups. It might just change the way you browse the web forever. Update: we originally stated Tab Groups had rolled out for…
The state of Missouri filed a lawsuit against China in U.S. federal court on Tuesday, claiming the Chinese government caused the global coronavirus pandemic. The lawsuit is unlikely to succeed and is most likely a political stunt by Missouri’s Republican Attorney General to distract from the U.S. federal government’s abysmal response to the global health…
Facebook caved to Vietnamese government demands for increased censorship of “anti-state” posts after state-owned telecoms suppressed local traffic, two sources at the firm told Reuters on Tuesday. According to Reuters, Vietnamese telecoms launched a sustained attack on Facebook traffic that intermittently knocked out its servers for seven weeks spanning February to early April, with one…
