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Nearly six months ago, I was thrilled to test out DJI’s fancy new Phantom 4 drone. Our video team joined me in a park, after I’d tested the features again and again. But somehow, I forgot a key detail and smashed the $1,400 aircraft into a fence at top speed. DJI was not not amused.…
At Gizmodo, I get a lot of unsolicited app pitches. Some of them are great, others are less so. But for every great app, there are thousands of shitty ones that never get written about (or downloaded). Some of them of knock-offs of more successful apps that already exist. Others are simply doomed to fail…
Stormy weather caused the Transocean Winner, a 17,000 ton oil rig, to break free of the tug line that was pulling it out to sea. A few hours later, it ran aground on a Scottish beach. Fortunately, the tug boat had been hauling the Transocean Winner to a scrapyard, so the rig was empty when…
New research shows that male dogs have been suffering from a rapid decline in fertility over the past three years, and all signs are pointing to contaminated pet foods as the culprit. The University of Nottingham researchers say a similar effect may be causing decreases in human male fertility. This is the first time that…
As reporters and editors, we at Gizmodo like to investigate stuff and ask questions. But there comes a time when you’re beat and have to reach out for help. That’s why we’re coming to you, our readers, with a question we haven’t been able to answer despite weeks of probing. So: Did you have sex…
When it’s burning that bright orange and oozing out like goo, glass looks almost like some sort of alien honey. This short from Bill Cox takes a close look at Chris Mosey of Ignis Glass in Chattanooga, Tennessee to examine the process of glass blowing and the relationship Mosey has with the material. The narration…
Add this to the growing list of reasons to be uneasy about your municipal water supply: a new Harvard study has found that six million Americans drink water containing unsafe levels of obscure industrial pollutants associated with cancer and other severe health consequences. The chemicals, called polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), repel both oil and…
Facebook announced today that people will see ads on the desktop version of the social network regardless of whether or not they are using ad blockers. The company also said it is rolling out increased controls for advertising, because who doesn’t love customizing their online advertising experience. In a post announcing the change, Andrew Bosworth,…
For months, rumors have swirled about Apple’s top secret all-glass iPhone. We’ve tracked the developments closely, saying early concepts looked ridiculous and would break too easily. But as a new patent shows, Apple is serious about this all-glass iPhone idea. In the patent, first reported by Patently Apple, Apple describes a curved display wrapping around…
Sure, the world around us is slowly crumbling, the American electorate has never been angrier, human interaction has never felt less genuine, no one I’ve talked to in years seems particularly happy and everything feels utterly, inescapably hopeless—but 190 years ago curly fries were considered an “edible garnish.” Are you fucking kidding me? Our malnourished…
After a squirrel mistook it for a tasty nut, YouTuber Viva Frei wasn’t sure if he’d ever see his GoPro camera again. But he did it eventually get it back—and more. The GoPro was actually recording from the squirrel’s perspective as it raced through the branches of a tree, and the footage is amazing. Strapping…
In July, construction workers at the Astravets nuclear power plant in Belarus dropped a 330 ton reactor shell. Weeks went by before the government admitted an “abnormal situation” had occurred, prompting international concerns about safety at the Russian-built facility—and the Belarusian government’s unwillingness to disclose information in a timely manner. Mounting mishaps at the construction…
Pixel art, the digital equivalent to old-school pointillism, can be an incredibly tedious to make if you don’t know how. That’s why coder Amit Agarwal’s new Google Sheets trick is so impressive. It allows you to take any 300×300 image and turn it into an in-browser masterpiece. Click here to copy Agarwal’s Google Doc file,…
British police investigating a drone being flown near a prison pursued a woman in a vehicle who eventually crashed and died, according to a report in The Guardian. At around 3am, police were called to investigate the suspicious drone and pursued a car that appeared to be fleeing from the scene. Ten minutes later, the…
Gizmodo isn’t going anywhere. But as you know by now, a bunch of stuff happened involving an angry billionaire and a wrestler, and now our parent company, Gawker Media, is being acquired. Gizmodo will remain the best publication in the world, or at least top three. But it’s fair to say that next week marks…
Time and time again we’ve cautioned you against buying coffee pod machines like the Keurig, but what if one is gifted to you? Instead of just settling for bad coffee every morning, you can do what Evan Booth did and rebuild it into something else, like a functional robotic bionic hand. This isn’t some weekend…
Apple was granted its first patent for vehicle hardware today, but it’s not for a car. The invention is related to “articulated vehicles” or ones with a pivoting joint in the middle of its construction like a large bus. So will there be an Apple bus in the near future? Who knows. The patent, first…
Do you remember how proud you were the first time you built something with Lego—without instructions—that other people could recognize? We’re sorry to say it was probably complete garbage compared to ShineYu’s fully-functional, remote-controlled Liebherr LTM 1350 all-terrain crane model. Measuring in at over three feet long and weighing close to 22 pounds, ShineYu’s creation…
The Internet Archive is the home of our digital past, and now it’s offering the greatest gift to any kid who grew up in the 80s and 90s: thousands of playable Amiga games. If you’re unfamiliar with Amiga, the computer system was the technological successor of the Commodore 64, one of the most popular computers…
Ever think all you see in Pokémon Go is that stupid Pidgey bird or that dumb Ekans snake one or that ugly Zubat? There’s a simple reason for this: they obviously get carpet bombed all over the Earth to clutter your map and drain your smartphone battery. Or at least, that’s what Nixolas imagines. His…
