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Gizmodo’s own Alissa Walker, who covers urbanism with burning insight and flair, has been honored by the Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects this year as an outstanding design advocate for the city. Congrats, Alissa! You rock. Contact the author at [email protected]. Public PGP key PGP fingerprint: CA58 326B 1ACB 133B 0D15…
Microsoft just stepped on Google’s toes, beating the search giant to the on-demand info finish line. Bing now has Now on Tap superpowers, thanks to an update that hit the Play Store this morning. The new app update allows users to long-press the home button and get access to search results based on whatever image…
The vast majority of time you’re using a drill, you want your hole to end up as straight as possible. And the BullseyeBore promises to make it a lot easier to keep your drill at a perfect 90-degree angle using a series of laser-projected rings that distort when it’s not straight. The battery-powered BullseyeBore uses…
If you haven’t had a chance to see the biggest movie of the summer yet, take the next 90 seconds and watch this wonderful retelling of Jurassic World instead. It covers all of the movie’s major plot points, but with animated Lego so it’s especially delightful. Created by the team at Brotherhood Workshop, this 90-second…
Los Angeles is too big and unwieldy to be considered a real city, especially since the only aspect of city life is the collective 5 mph spurts on the freeway during rush hour. Not to mention that its machine is responsible for so much that is awful in mainstream culture (celebrities! plastic surgery! excess!) that…
We trust Google not to be evil, but new evidence published by prominent psychologist Robert Epstein suggests that if it wanted to, Google could undermine democracy–simply by tweaking its search algorithm. In an article on Politico Epstein describes the findings, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Along with his colleague…
Given the popularity of apps like Instagram that intentionally make your photos look like garbage shot on film, it’s no surprise there’s finally an app that lets your iPhone or iPad shoot video that looks like it was recorded with a VHS camcorder from the mid-1980s. Developed by an LA-based post-production shop called Rarevision, VHS…
In 1952, a vacationing British family of three was brutally shot and clubbed to death while camping roadside near the village of Lurs, on the banks of the Durance. The murders, for which a local farmer was convicted (but spared the guillotine), became known as “France’s crime of the century.” And its mysteries still intrigue.…
This is Sony’s SmartBand 2. And guess what? It still doesn’t tell time. But other than its lack of screen and a new heart rate monitor, there aren’t many surprises on Sony’s official page for the new wearable—since info about its specs were accidentally published on the Play Store in June. Much like the old…
The ratio of newborn boys to girls slightly and consistently leans toward males: around 106 boys are born for every 100 girls. If that seems odd to you, it should: the way sperm form suggests that the ratio of X-sperm to Y-sperm should be exactly 50:50–and scientists are only now beginning to understand why the…
IFA, one of the largest European tech shows, is rapidly approaching. And at about two weeks out, we’re seeing a litany of teaser vids showing off new gadgets. This year—much like the last—it’s all about smartwatches. Almost a year to the day, we saw the IFA teaser for LG’s G Watch R, and now we’ve…
Being in zero gravity has to be a never ending amount of fun. Everything that you boringly do in your normal life, all the things you don’t bother to look twice at—they all become instantly more interesting because you have no idea what’s going to happen. Just check this spinning T-handle in zero gravity, it…
In the heart of downtown Montreal, between a boarded-up bar and a poutine shop, there’s a three-story glass building. It looks for all the world like realtor’s office — that is, until you spot the sign swaying in the wind: “Bitcoin Embassy.” The idea of a brick-and-mortar embassy for a digital payment system most often…
You could just stick with the native apps that came pre-installed on your smartphone—there’s nothing wrong with them—but you’d be missing out on a wealth of excellent alternatives on both Android and iOS. We’ve collected the best second choices in all the key categories. Mailbox for email Mailbox is now owned by Dropbox and wants…
The worst part about air travel isn’t the cramped airplane cabins, the terrible food, or the awkward security pat-downs–it’s all the waiting and lining up you have to do at the airport. So New York’s JFK is now using a new cellphone tracking system to predict just how long you’ll be standing around. At JFK’s…
The sole of an espadrille—a really basic form of shoe—is made from rope. Specifically, jute rope. It’s a rather impressive (though also totally quaint) process as the rope needs to be braided together with different twines and then hand molded and pressed into the shape of a foot. Here’s how they do it. SPLOID is…
Welcome to another week of apps. Android gets all the cool stuff with an awesome Bing upgrade and your next mobile gaming addiction. iOS is all focused on the camera, and Windows Phone wants to make you more productive. Let’s take a look. Android Bing Bing just upped its game in a major way. Much…
The BIC ballpoint is a triumph of efficient design; it’s also a pretty good mascot for disposable consumption, with 100 billion having been manufactured since the 1950s. But empty pens are good for more than just landfill: chain 10,000 together, and you can have yourself a neat canopy. The ‘BIC pavilion’ is a clever structure…
Yesterday, Burning Man organizers revealed the truth: the annual desert arts festival is infested with bugs. Swarms of them. Piles of them. What are they? Why has nobody ever seen them before, in over two decades of building mega-party spaces in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert? We found out. We asked entomologist and insect photographer Alex…
The Mad Max plot playing out in California is causing all sorts of problems, not least for farmers, who have turned to pumping groundwater to irrigate crops. According to NASA, all that pumping is having an effect: in some places, the ground is sinking by two inches per month. https://gizmodo.com/learning-from-australias-drought-lessons-to-avoid-a-mad-1703693517 Subsidence — the technical word…
