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The Death of Twitter has be proclaimed over and over in some form since 2009. Eulogies ramped up over the last year, when its monthly active user count stalled, its executives left en masse, and the prospect of changes led users to revolt with the hashtag #RIPTwitter. It’s been a few months since those stories…
Within the last two years, routers have gone from ugly boxes tucked away in shame to well-designed products, complete with a variety of new technologies and user-friendly interfaces. Led by ambitious startups like Eero, Luma, and Starry, and even bigger companies like Google’s OnHub, routers are having a gadget moment—and that could finally help people…
Back in 2010, the US Patent and Trademark Office granted Citigroup a trademark for “thankyou,” which the company uses for credit card services. Today the company is suing AT&T over its own use of the terms “thanks” and “thanks AT&T.” Check the date, because this isn’t April Fool’s. Earlier this month AT&T announced a new…
New York studio Method Design was tasked with creating something for the Association of Independent Commercial Producers’ annual awards show. They decided to make a dance party. Real humans were rigged up to motion capture suits while they recreated some of the most recognizable dance moves in our pop culture lexicon. Method Design then used…
Discovered in an ancient shipwreck near Crete in 1901, the freakishly advanced Antikythera Mechanism has been called the world’s first computer. A decades-long investigation into the 2,000 year-old-device is shedding new light onto this mysterious device, including the revelation that it may have been used for more than just astronomy. The Antikythera Mechanism is one…
As is tradition, some last-minute rumors are sneaking their way into the news before Apple’s big reveal on Monday morning in San Francisco. We already have a good idea what of what we think is coming, but this latest bit that says iMessage is coming to Android is very intriguing. https://gizmodo.com/what-to-expect-from-apple-wwdc-2016-1778673239 Citing an anonymous source,…
We’ve already shown you how to take control of your privacy settings on Apple’s iOS and now it’s time to turn our attention to Google’s mobile operating system. Follow the tips below to limit what apps can access, the amount of personal data leaked back to the cloud, how much attention Google is paying to…
Fire arrows are in everything from Gladiator to Braveheart to Game of Thrones. The good guys stretch their bows in unison and rain flaming death en masse onto the opposing army, looking like total badasses the whole time. But like so many things on this terrible planet, fire arrows are too good to be true…
Never let anyone tell you memes don’t matter. That famous image of Hillary Clinton looking chill with her Blackberry actually prompted a government official to inquire about the status of her State Department email account. No one listened, and here we are now. In a deposition this week, State Department official Karin Lang revealed some…
It doesn’t take much practice to learn to play the world’s tiniest violin—just a complete and utter lack of sympathy for what someone else is complaining about. But thanks to the folks at Design I/O, your microscopic violin will finally produce actual sad music. Based on Google’s Project Soli—a tiny radar-based chip that can detect…
A few months ago a Stanford Linguistics PhD candidate named Ed King cooked up a website that makes Obama say anything you want, spliced together word-by-word from endless online clips. There’s now an alternate version that does the same thing with Donald Trump, except that you’ll be hard-pressed to come up with anything more ludicrous…
Never mind that Google is working on a kill switch to control robots, executive chairman Eric Schmidt thinks there’s nothing to worry about because “the state of the earth” does not support these killer AI scenarios. In other words, let’s come back to reality here. Speaking at Stockholm’s Brilliant Minds conference, Schmidt acknowledged the fears…
So much for “on demand” meaning “right this moment.” Uber is moving beyond the “on-demand economy” by testing a feature that lets users schedule a ride anywhere from 30 minutes to one month in advance. Car companies, beware. The new feature, which launched this week in Seattle, will first be available for UberX only, but…
Any man worth his salt should know the difference between cement, concrete, and mortar. I am not that man. They’re all just gray sludge to me. But This Old House explains the difference between the three in a very easy to understand way. Cement is a fine powder that hardens when mixed with water and…
The woman involved in an eyewitness account of sexual misconduct by ex-Tor developer Jacob Appelbaum given to Gizmodo says her experience of the night in question is “entirely different.” In late May, Appelbaum stepped down from his position at the Tor project. Following the announcement of his departure, numerous anonymous accusations surfaced accusing Appelbaum of…
Who gets the credit for a great movie? The director, obviously. It was his vision that came to life. The lead actors and the rest of the cast too. Their performances left an impact. The cinematographer even gets some love for how the movie was shot. And, of course, we have to give credit to…
Six British warships stationed in the Persian Gulf are breaking down because the water is too hot. This week, members of the British Navy testified to the UK’s Defence Committee that their Type 45 destroyers keep losing power because of high ocean temperatures. When the ships’ turbines get overheated, they can’t generate as much energy,…
Hearing the alphabet through movie scenes is totally dumb and silly but also loads of stupid fun. Burger Fiction took scenes from 85 different movies and stitched them together to spit out all 26 letters, and it’s almost captivating, in a “Damn, they’re really going to be able to get every letter” sort of way.…
An ongoing audit of the FDA’s food recall system has come out with a preliminary report that throws some serious fire at the existing recall system, describing it as neither “efficient” nor “effective.” The auditors from the Office of the Inspector General reviewed 30 cases of food recalls by the FDA between 2012-2015 to back-check…
Earlier this year, seven cities were named as finalists for the Smart City Challenge, a chance to win $40 million from the US Department of Transportation to become a connected, automated city of the future. Today, the mayors of Austin, Columbus, Denver, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Portland, and San Francisco made their final arguments for why…
