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Apple has been raking it in with this whole “iPhone” thing, so they’ve got some spare change to drop on a shiny new campus. The spaceship is finally looking like it’s almost ready to blast off. Matthew Roberts recently flew his drone over the new Apple campus again to give us an update on the…
Oh no. This is it. It’s the end. We had a good run everyone, but Google Calendar is down. According to Google’s status page, the holy Calendar has been down since 9:47. We here at Gizmodo must report that since the crash of Calendar, World War 3 has erupted, Donald Trump has seized the presidency…
Amid the killing of its own Olympic mascot, the dysfunctional clean up of its polluted waters, the shutdown of its doping lab, the declaration of a financial emergency, the presence of the Zika virus, and various other calamities, Rio’s Olympic ambitions are a disaster. And the latest news out of the city is just as…
Set yourself a reminder for September 30—that’s when the Rosetta spacecraft will make a controlled descent and crash on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. After 12 years in space and nearly two years circling around this dusty, weirdly-shaped comet, this historic mission is finally coming to an end. Comet 67P/C-G, is heading away from the…
If you’re lucky enough to have not one but two robotic vacuum cleaners at home, they can make backyard beer pong extra fun—and especially challenging. Put the two Roombas on separate tables, cover them in red Solo cups, and start their cleaning routines. The edge detection that prevents the robo-vacs from falling down stairs will…
YouTuber BreaksBricks has created a delightful stop-motion Lego animation featuring a couple of retro ‘80s toy robots having a break-dancing competition—which eventually gets a little over-competitive. If you happen to be in your late thirties you probably remember these two robots, who could usually be found rolling around your local Radio Shack store. Outside of…
Renea Royster turned a pen pal friendship with an inmate into a business helping prisoners do everything from post updates to Facebook to find dates online—and she’s making more money than in her job at a Walmart deli. There are at least 50 sites that help people find pen pals in prison, according to The…
People of the West Coast, get ready for faster internet. After two years of building, the undersea cable Google built between the US and Japan is now live. The $300 million high-speed network—unsubtly named FASTER—carries data at 60 terabits per second from Oregon to Chikura and Shima in Japan. From Oregon, the cable connects to…
Yes, we can. We can totally create the artificial gravity seen in movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Elysium, it’ll just cost a lot of freaking money and require a lot of freaking resources. Real Engineering explains how centrifugal force works as artificial gravity and estimates (using math cribbed from how much the ISS…
You’re looking at the first-ever sonogram of a pregnant tiger shark. The baby sharks inside the mother shark’s belly have been highlighted in the footage below so you can see them more easily. But even without the added outline and color, you can very clearly see the sharks’ heads and their very frightening rows of…
You might have noticed an uptick of stories about the Bay Area’s homeless crisis in your social media feeds recently. Dozens of news organizations worked together to coordinate the publication of stories on homelessness today—all of which are mean to specifically focus on solutions for housing the region’s homeless population. Back in May a coalition…
Trimming the bushes. Vacuuming the carpet. Coiffing the cat. Whatever your choice in questionable metaphor for the act of tidying up one’s pubic hair, have it on hand, because it turns out that a whole lot of American women do it. According to new research published today in JAMA Dermatology, roughly 84 percent of women…
Prehistoric humans may have observed the sky via primitive lens-less “telescopes,” according to a team of British astronomers who have studied the long passageways of ancient megalithic tombs. The details were presented today by Kieran Simcox, a student at Nottingham Trent University, at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society. Technically it’s not a telescope…
Whenever you hear about a tragic plane crash, you always hear about the mythical black box. What exactly does the black box do and what’s even inside it? What’s Inside took a look by cutting the black box (it’s not actually black) in half and ripping it open to see its guts. The black box…
The world is drying up all around us, but which crops can we use to shift the blame away from our cars, pools, and cartons of almond milk? Cast your eyes hard on these two culprits, right in your very own kitchen cabinet. A new report from Oxfam identifies the crops that are using up…
Good kitchen knives are expensive. A top of the line Shun, for instance, can cost as much as $750. But one knife enthusiast promises to offer the same great quality knife for a fraction of the price. So I got a chef to try out the prototype. The bargain knife in question is the Bulat…
No one is impressed by your dumb choreographed videos, OK Go. It’s old. It’s masturbatory. You’re hurting yourselves and the people closest to you, and you need to stop. AJJ’s new video for “Goodbye, Oh Goodbye” reads like a parody of all the hallmarks of mad-vi internet band OK Go: There’s synchronized dancing (walking in…
Radiolab’s Jad Abumrad sits down to talk about music—its purpose, its function, its meaning—with filmmaker Mac Premo in this wildly frenetic video and somehow manages to explain why music is so special. Abumrad says that unlike words, which are basically just a code or an agreement between people, music just is what it is, and…
We’ve seen omnidirectional wheels installed on forklifts that have to deftly maneuver around crowded warehouses, but William Liddiard has invented a set that allow his Toyota Echo to move in any direction, spin 360-degrees, and slide into a parking spot making parallel parking easier than actual driving. William calls his creation Liddiard Wheels—appropriately enough—and they’re…
Cirrus Logic, a prominent supplier of audio technology for brands like Harmon Kardon, Sony, and Philips, announced a new development kit that will make it easier for companies to create headphones using the Apple Lightning connector. The announcement comes in the wake of a flurry of rumors suggesting that the iPhone 7 will not feature…
