Tech News

Let’s Talk About Whatever You Want Right Now

And lo, the weekend did arise, and descend upon the good people of Gizmodo. The big news in tech this week was Apple’s iPhone (and giant iPad/talking TV/OMG WTF a stylus) keynote. You can review our coverage here. While we’re on it, which phone should you buy? Fun stuff today: a gun attachment that makes…

How Much Money Would It Take To Be Batman?

Is it possible to be Batman? Okay, better question, who could afford the technology to be Batman? Could we even make much of what we see being used by Batman in the Dark Knight movies? Certainly some of the technology exists, but putting it together in a way that can be used the way the…

California Smacks Down Bill That Would’ve Limited Private Drone Flights

This week marked a win for fans of unmanned aerial vehicles: California governor Jerry Brown vetoed Senate Bill 142, which would’ve outlawed drone flights below 350 feet over private property. The bill, proposed by Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, was introduced back in January. Its goal? To make drone flight above private places (like backyards) illegal, just…

Risk: Star Wars Edition Lets You Conquer an Entire Galaxy, Not Just Earth

You know the sense of satisfaction you get from conquering an entire planet while playing Risk? Well imagine what it must feel like when you take over an entire galaxy. If that’s not enough reason to try Risk: Star Wars Edition, playing with X-wings and TIE fighters should sweeten the pot. Available now for $30,…

You Can Now 3D-Print Your Own TSA Master Keys

TSA-recognized locks provide little more than a false sense of security. That’s not news. It is news, however, that some hacker type has uploaded the CAD files of the agency’s master keys to Github, so that anybody can 3D-print them at home. Let the stealing begin! Just kidding, please don’t break into other people’s luggage.…

How to Drink Sake: Your Guide to Japan’s Tasty, Boozy Gift to the World

Sake. You might only know it from Sapporo bombs or overheated swill from all-you-can-eat pan-Asian buffets. But if you get a beat on its basics, it’s the smoothest, sexiest, slickest libation. We’re going to demystify sake, and make you that sashimi-pairing, worldly boozehound we know you can be. It’s Friday afternoon, you’ve made it through…

When Bears Go To Rehab

Every year, hundreds of black, brown and even polar bears are successfully rehabilitated from their addiction to human-reliant food sources and released back into the wild. How does bear rehab work? Human-on-Bear Conflict Habitat loss is the single biggest factor affecting wild animal populations in North America. As the human species continues to grow and…

These guys doing crazy tricks on a slackline follow different rules of gravity

I don’t know what planet these guys are from but it’s certainly not Earth because they don’t follow the very simple laws of gravity and break the concept of balance and destroy the very idea of time. They can jump on and off a slackline like it’s nothing and even do ridiculous tricks normal people…

How visually similar Indiana Jones 4 was to the original movies

Very few people enjoyed Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Actually, I’m not sure if there was a single person who ever watched an Indiana Jones movie before who liked the movie. But as Pablo Fernandez Eyre points out in this video comparison, there were a lot of similarities between the last…

Louisiana Officials Said That After Planned Parenthood Closes, Women Can Just Go to the Dentist

When Louisiana state officials announced their plans to terminate Planned Parenthood’s state Medicaid contract in late August, they argued that there were plenty of doctors who could take on the more than 5200 patients the reproductive health organization sees each year in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. They even provided a list of those doctors…

The First Human Head Transplant Will Take Place in 2017

Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero grabbed the world’s attention this past winter when he announced his plans to perform the first human head transplant. Many doubted that such an outrageous procedure would ever see the light of day. Now, Canavero has a date on the books. Thirty-year-old Russian computer scientist Valery Spiridonov is set to become…

Google Fiber plans to explore expansion possibilitiesin three new cities: San Diego, Louisville, and Irvine. This just means that Google Fiber is working with folks in those respective city halls, so it’s not certain that they’ll get gigabit internet. Butany extra internet help is great! Contact the author at [email protected]. Public PGP key PGP fingerprint:…

This Guy Turned His Dorm Room Fridge Into an Over-Sized Playable Game Boy

You can buy stick-on decals that will make your fridge look like a giant Game Boy, or you can do what Daniel d’Entremont did and actually turn your fridge into a giant playable Game Boy using a Raspberry Pi 2. The most important part of d’Entremont’s hack, which involved removing and hollowing out the tiny…

You Can’t Steal Data From a Chip That’s Self-Destructed

Losing a flash drive full of family photos is unfortunate; losing an encryption key that gives access to sensitive data could be a catastrophe. So researchers at Xerox’s PARC have developed chips that can self-destruct on command, making them completely unusable once they shatter. The key to making chips that can just shatter into a…

Here’s What Syrian Refugees Bring On Their Long, Dangerous Journeys 

It’s a classic trope of fashion magazines: What’s in your bag? But that question, posed by a photographer with the International Rescue Committee to refugees arriving in Greece from Syria and Afghanistan, takes on a very different tone. This summer, the nonprofit aid group sent one of its staffers, a photographer named Tyler Jump, to…

Japan’s Notorious “Boy A” Killer Now Has a Creepy Vanity Website

It was called “the grisliest murder in memory in Japan.” In 1997, a 14-year-old Kobe boy murdered 11-year-old Jun Hase and left his victim’s sawed-off head on the gate of a school, with a message taunting police stuffed in the mouth. The killer, who called himself “Seito Sakakibara”—a combination of symbols meaning apostle, sake, devil,…

Watch bare skin get tasered in painful super slow motion

This is a little bit gross but if you were ever curious as to how a taser works, just watch it shoot out in super slow motion. The electrical cartridge jumps out of the gun in an explosion of confetti (the confetti has a unique serial number), breaking down the door and then swimming through…

Cupertino May Replace Its Dead Mall With the Biggest Green Roof Ever Built 

Like most suburbs that were built in the 1950s or 60s, Cupertino has a once-hopping mega mall that’s now a crumbling eyesore. But unlike most suburbs, Cupertino is now a very affluent hub of Silicon Valley capitalism. Cupertino’s mall is called Vallco, and it was built in the 1970s. For a long time, it was…

Sony A7s II: The Best Low-Light Mirrorless Camera Now Records 4K Video Onboard

Last year, Sony’s A7s camera blew us away with its low-light video powers that could capture decent footage, even when in complete darkness. Today, we’re getting a new version that shoots 4K video. The A7S II boasts the same 12-megapixel sensor as the A7S, with the same 100-469,600 ISO range that can be expanded to…

Half Of The Joker’s Torso Is The Creepiest Lawn Ornament Ever

There’s about a month and a half to go until the night of ghoulish glee that is Halloween—but why wait that long when you could be terrifying the living bejesus out of your neighbors right now with this petrifying replica of the Joker crawling out of your front lawn? This thing is one hell of…