Tech News

The Nile River is a Glowing River of Light Snaking Across a Darkened Planet

Our planet is truly gorgeous. The rich orange lights of cities marking the complex geography of humans scrabbling in the dust, the bright white clouds drifting with the winds, and the pale green airglow ringing our planet come together for this perfect moment from space. Image credit: NASA/Scott Kelly Contact the author at [email protected] or…

This Video Highlights How Incredibly Slowly Philae Landed on its Comet

A new real-time video of Philae’s descent shows it took the probe longer to drift from Rosetta down to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko than it would’ve taken you to walk the same distance. We knew the tiny lander Philae was incredibly gentle during its historic descent to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, but we didn’t really understand…

Watch a Guy Use 90 Instruments to Play a Single Song

How many instruments can you name off the top of your head. Fifteen? Twenty? If you just got to 25 and you’re patting yourself on the back right now, slow down: The Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix is home to over 6,000. Nobody’s ever played them all, but Mystery Guitar Man has come closer than…

Zuckerberg Wants Everybody on Facebook by 2020

At the United Nations on Saturday, Mark Zuckerberg declared his intentions to get the entire world on Facebook online, arguing that internet access is the key to ending extreme poverty. “When people have access to the tools and knowledge of the internet, they have access to opportunities that make life better for all of us,”…

Fun Data Visualization Predicts When You’re Going to Die

It’s a morbid question but one that we humans tend to obsess over: When am I going to die? Only a highly trained Seer can give you a firm answer, but if you want cold hard statistics, we Muggles have that bit covered. Flowing Data recently produced an enlightening interactive graphic that pulls numbers from…

The patent trolls strike again! Minero Digital LLC, a shell company with ties to the patent-holding giant Intellectual Ventures, is taking Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and two dozen other companies to court over USB hubs. Minero demands the companies pay royalties on said hubs, based on a patent it acquired from IV in April, 2015. Learn…

Elon Musk: Dieselgate Proves It’s Time to Go Electric

While the EPA is promising to toughen up emissions tests in the aftermath of the Volkswagen cheating scandal, Tesla founder Elon Musk has a slightly different take: Gas is dead and it’s time to go electric, people. While speaking to a room full of reporters yesterday, Musk was asked whether dieselgate would cause people to…

Costa Rica: Stay Away From Our Sea Turtles, You Terrible Humans 

Last week, we learned that thousands of selfie-snapping garbage humans drove hundreds of thousands of olive ridley sea turtles away from their nesting grounds in Costa Rica. But the turtles are back, and this time, the Costa Rican government isn’t messing around. Two weeks ago, the guides on duty at Ostional Beach were overwhelmed by…

Everyone Thinks Sam Smith’s New Bond Tune is Rubbish

We’re just weeks away from the release of the latest James Bond epic Spectre, and now we know what the theme music will be. This time around the film-makers have opted to commission Sam Smith (the singer, not the beer as everyone knows that Bond drinks Martinis), and he’s come up with a track titled…

This totally crazy wingsuit video made me stop breathing

Okay, which guy is crazier. Graham Dickinson, the guy we see in the video below who’s so impossibly close the ground and the trees and the mountain face and basically inches away from crashing the entire time during this wingsuit video. Or the camera man, Dario, who is seeing all the ridiculous things Dickinson is…

The Best of Gizmodo This Week

We introduced a new series this week, Living With Data, which will help you decode how the massive amount of personal data hidden from your is affecting your life and your future. We had a bunch of great reviews too, from two new smartwatches on the market to what Siri means for your car. Here…

10 really easily optical illusion tricks you can do to fool people

Some of these optical illusions from Quirkology are totally silly but there are others that are genuinely fun to do, especially to kids and/or drunk people. It’s like explaining how to perform magic tricks or also how to exploit the weakness that is the human eyeball. SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us on Facebook,…

An Autonomous Shuttle Is Driving Public Streets for the First Time

This fall, a city in the Netherlands will become the first to allow fully autonomous shuttles regularly on its public roads–in the form of a small bus carting people between two towns. They’re called WEpods, and they’re only large enough to fit six people comfortably. It’s a project of the town of Wageningen, which is…

Let’s Talk About Whatever You Want Right Now

Let’s do this, Gizmodo. This has felt like a long, weird week. I know many people who would say it’s because Mercury is in retrograde, and I know many people who laugh and point at the idea that planetary alignments can affect our moods/attributes/technology (tech is supposed to break at higher rates during retrograde, did…

Report: The “Internet Room” In North Korea’s Airport Now Actually Has Internet

Back in August reports coming out of North Korea claimed that their new airport terminal had an “internet room” which, contrary to its name, didn’t have any actual connection to the internet. But that seems to have changed. NK News spotted this video from the Pyongyang Sunan airport: It’s notoriously difficult to get reliable news…

Watch an octopus instantly make quicksand and then completely disappear in it

If you need more proof that the octopus is absolutely the super villain of the sea, check out this gnarly superpower that allows the southern sand octopus to create an automatic secret hideout: it shoots jets of water at the sand to make quicksand which it burrows itself in and effectively disappears. New Scientist explains:…

What Modern Achievement Would Most Impress a Time Traveler From the Roman Empire?

Strap the Roman visitor into the passenger seat of something like this. Start the engine. Explain to him that there’s a box full of a special sort of oil that’s burning in constant tiny explosions, making that thing in front that’s like three sword blades fastened together spin around 2700 times per minute. If he’s…

Bandai’s Captain Phasma Figure Is Totally Badass

Okay, so we’ve not seen much of The Force Awakens’ Captain Phasma in action so far. But we know that a), she has amazing shiny armor, b) she’s played by Game of Thrones’ Gwendoline Christie, and c) she’s got a cool cape. In Star Wars, that’s more than enough badassery to earn you an action…

A Not-So-Fantastical Plan To Save California From Drought With Cacti

Imagine the Central Valley of California not as a patchwork of drought-vulnerable crops but as a network of farms that use almost no water. Not only that, these farms can also filter existing water while providing acres of food for Californians. Imagine that thirsty alfalfa no longer reigns: Cactus is king. This is one potential…

A Beginner’s Guide to American Single Malt Whiskey

A couple years ago, American single malt whiskey had its Bottle Shock moment. Just like the California wines that beat the French in a blind taste test back in 1976, an American single malt trounced the Scotch in the prestigious Best in Glass competition. And if you’re not already a fan of the burgeoning genre,…