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Chromebooks may have started life as very basic laptops that were useless without an internet connection, but they’ve become more powerful and more useful with each passing year. Now, not only is it possible to run Linux on your Chromebook, you can access the operating system through a browser window. The tool you need to…
If Deep Space Industries has its way, there’ll be a small robotic lander on a nearby asteroid in just three years. That’s the latest phase of the California-based asteroid mining company’s plan to bring about an outer space real estate boom by creating a resource supply chain off Earth. “Our thirty year goal is to…
We’ve seen 3D-printed violins before, but they used an electric pickup to amplify the sound of the resonating strings. Using a newly formulated white resin, Formlabs instead 3D-printed an acoustic violin that relies on its shape, internal chambers, and the material its made from to produce an authentic violin sound. Brian Chan, an engineer at…
It’s always a good time to get up close and personal with Mars. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been sending data back from our planetary neighbor since 2005, when it was launched to look for signs of water on Mars. While that objective may be getting more difficult by the day, the MRO has…
No Man’s Sky was arguably the most anticipated game of 2016 after it was announced at E3 2014. Our friends at Kotaku have already committed tons of their time to the procedurally-generated space exploration adventure, which promises a “truly open universe,” filled with seemingly infinite things to explore. Players have been taking advantage of it,…
Why do we throw coins into fountains and pretend that a wish will come true? Oh that’s right, there’s a wish granting man underneath every fountain that can totally make it happen. Or at least that’s what happens in this very cute short animation, The Wishgranter. The short, which was made by Kal Athannassov, John…
A man is presently climbing Trump Tower on New York’s Fifth Avenue using four suction cups. He reached the fifth floor about an hour ago according to Gothamist. Presently it’s not known why he’s doing this, but you can certainly watch it happen below, for as long as it lasts: Update 5:04pm EST: The climber,…
It seems like only yesterday Snapchat was putting out a blackface Bob Marley filter. Now, it appears the company has moved on to yellowface. As various people have pointed out on Twitter, Snapchat’s new filter—which has since been taken down—turned users into, uh, this: The company tells the Guardian that the filter was “anime-inspired,” and…
Wikileaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange blatantly lied about publishing only the “last four digits” of credit card numbers from democratic donors during an appearance on the HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday. “We did not publish full credit card numbers of donors,” Assange said in response to a torrent of criticism from the…
Last week, a Serious Academic™ exhausted hundreds of words denouncing the use of social media by his colleagues while insinuating that selfie culture poses an existential threat to academic life. The social media backlash from other serious academics was swift and on point, reminding us that many scientists are voluntary participants in the broader experiment…
Damn, dirty butt grout doesn’t stand a chance against this terrifyingly powerful grout cleaning machine. It totally whoops on the dirt and makes gunky floors look brand spanking new, possibly even newer than new. Like it might’ve vaporized the floor it just washed. Everything gets totally erased in seconds. The magic potion is Army Chemical’s…
The United States Geological Survey’s @USGS_Seismic Twitter account is the best place on the world wide web for news and updates about earthquakes and other seismic activity around the globe. If you want to know about glacial seismological activity, and why wouldn’t you, it’s got you covered. This morning, however, things changed. Whomever is the…
Breaking news: famed NSA whistleblower has deleted his infamous humblebrag about getting sent some nudes via Twitter DM. We’ve contacted Snowden’s attorney, Ben Wizner at the ACLU, and will update if we hear back.
States are still scrambling to figure out how to regulate fantasy sports websites like DraftKings and FanDuel. And while much of the attention has been focused on whether fantasy sports should be classified as gambling and whether these websites are being upfront about the risks, some consumers are more worried about data security. Documents obtained…
Less than 24 hours after Olympic onlookers watched the Rio diving pool turn a murky shade of green, it now looks like the water polo pool is slowly growing something, too. However, unlike yesterday’s brief mystery, we know the official reason why the Rio Olympics is inundated with greenish water: it’s algae, baby. Update: Strangely,…
It’s a veritable certainty that North America’s first people arrived via the Bering Land Bridge, but less certainty exists about how and where they migrated from there. For years, scientists thought they had travelled along an ice-free corridor in western Canada, but new research suggests this was impossible. At the end of the most recent…
Since June 2012, a parody Twitter account named @GizmodoUSA has lurked in the shadow of our real account, tweeting like a demented preteen version of Giz. Each of the account’s 300 tweets is absolute gold. GizmodoUSA is characterized by bursts of activity over a few days or weeks, followed by long periods of silence. Usually,…
There’s so much violence in movies that it doesn’t even matter anymore. People get hurt, nameless bad guys get killed, cities get destroyed and we’re just like, “Oh whatever.” Superheroes fight superheroes and we don’t even care. That’s because most movies are numbingly uncreative when it comes to movie violence. Most films just use violence…
Ernie Keebler just likes to make elf cookies in his elf tree with his elf friends. But a look at old Ernie’s Twitter account seems to reveal something much darker. Why is he looking directly at me? Honestly, just scroll through Ernie’s Twitter and tell me you don’t notice something strange. For one thing, I…
Good morning, everyone. Fancy waking up to some delicious, sizzling bacon? Sometimes, the fleshy animal goodness we consume reminds us that it’s just that—animal body parts. And sometimes, it reminds us by having a nipple still attached. Urban Dictionary designates “nipple bacon” as a sex act, but that’s not real nipple bacon. Real nipple bacon…
