Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Hawaii is a tropical island of picturesque eruptions. While usually the eruptions are mostly harmless, an offshoot of a new lava flow has been inching towards suburb since June. Now the residents of Puna are settling in to watch the slowly creeping doom. https://gizmodo.com/boiling-coke-with-a-lava-flow-1581427619 Top image: A peek through a skylight into the lava tube…
If you’ve ever thought that 4G was a little slow for your liking, not to fear — everyone’s favorite federal communications regulator has got your back. The FCC has issued a statement saying that it’s looking into using super-high-frequency radio spectrums for future mobile broadband networks. The FCC statement says that previous limitations on uses…
It’s no surprise that I love this. This movie trailer uses footage from Wall-E, my favorite Pixar movie ever, and transforms the story to match the trailer for Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, which from what we’ve seen so far, is going to be fantastic. The result? An absolute thrill ride. SPLOID is a new blog about…
Sony’s Smartwatch 3 has popped up in the Google Play store, listed for an about-average $250. For that, you’ll get all your normal Android Wear features, plus 4GB of onboard storage to let you stream music without the need for a phone. If that tickles your fancy, you’ll have to wait a little — it’s…
Over the past thirty years, few cities have undergone the transformation of Shanghai—from flat city filled with greenery to mutant New York on speed and steroids. Claire and Max illustrate how much has changed in this neat video. They eliminated the current buildings from the skyline and then drawing them in and putting them back.…
As long as architects keep building up (and up, and up), folks are going to want to check out the view from way up in the air. Well: The Burj Khalifa just unveiled a new observation deck that gets visitors a little closer to heaven on the 148th floor—that’s about 1,821 feet. Gulp. At the…
Friday night. You could rally and go out for beers, or you could remain pantsless and stay home for beers, while watching a delightful film about the film industry—specifically, voiceover actors in the biz of narrating trailers. It begins: In a World… Lake Bell plays a somewhat wayward 31-year-old vocal coach living in the booming…
The folks over at iFixit have done their usual job of tearing exciting new bits of technology to pieces, this time with the new Retina iMac as their unlucky victim. Conclusion: apart from that pretty new screen, everything’s more or less the same. Overall, they found that once you take a scalpel to the edge…
Baking a cake is a labor of love but also just basic chemistry, you’re mixing ingredients together and making it react into something delicious. But each ingredient is important! Leaving out eggs or baking powder or butter can change the cake dramatically. Here’s what a cake looks like without one of those ingredients. The baking…
Remember the amazing app that made your iPad practically invisible? The man who made it is back, and now he intends to tackle virtual reality with a new company — and app — called Pantomime. Just like Invisibility, you start out by taking a picture of your tabletop, and the iPad mimics that surface as…
Should scientists be allowed to create mutant viruses deadlier than natural ones? The White House waded into this controversy today with a surprising announcement to cut all funding to such studies, pending a thorough review of this risky research. https://gizmodo.com/the-benefits-and-dangers-of-designing-mutant-super-vi-1599301288 The announcement is a big blow to a small but active contingent of scientists who…
Wilco is turning 20 years old, but about 10 years ago I loved that band with a nerdy, eager cooped-up high schooler kind of feeling. They were my band when I was 16. They were from Chicago, like me. They had a pleasingly turbulent backstory and every lyric seemed to be about yearning. I wanted…
The June 1930 issue of Science and Invention magazine featured this amazing little pocket projector. But much like other small handheld gadgets of the time, it was pretty impractical given its battery needs. https://gizmodo.com/this-1920s-shockwatch-was-like-a-taser-for-your-wrist-1541046903 From Science and Invention: A complete pocket-sized motion-picture projector has been introduced in Berlin, and has become very popular there. Current…
One of the coolest features of OS X Yosemite is Handoff, which allows you to transition your app session on an iOS device to a Mac and vice versa. Unfortunately, Handoff isn’t going to work with every Mac. How Handoff works The beauty of Handoff is that it’s easy to use. For starters you’ll need…
You can’t buy Bose products from Apple’s online store anymore. And if earlier reports are true, soon you won’t even be able to wink at a Bose product in an Apple Store, because Apple plans to scrub every trace of Bose from its vaunted retail chambers. I don’t know what they’d do to you if…
On October 17, 1814, over a quarter million gallons of beer were unleashed onto London’s streets. The 15-foot tall tidal wave of booze crashed into buildings and flooded cellars, even killing eight especially unfortunate souls. The culprit? A bursting vat. The epicenter of the London Beer Flood was Horse Shoe Brewery on Tottenham Court Road,…
The X-37B—America’s spy space drone—has landed safely after a record-setting orbit of 675 days. While this was expected, that doesn’t make it any less incredible. The fact that this spacecraft has been in orbit for almost two years and has returned to Earth intact is an amazing technological feat. The spacecraft landed today at 9:24am…
It could very well mean the end of wacky sports bloopers where football players crash into sideline tables stacked with Gatorade. But now that drink coolers come with retractable, folding legs, you’ll never need to remember to bring a folding table to your next football game/family reunion/PTA meeting. For $70 these five-gallon coolers serve as…
When discussing street photography, locations like New York City or Los Angeles probably spring to mind. A less obvious setting is that icon of late 20th-century capitalism: the shopping mall. Stephen DiRado roved the halls of his local mall in the 80s and captured stunning portraits of the denizens within. Many of DiRado’s photos have…
Egon Spengler’s delightful inventions are part of what make Ghostbusters such a great franchise – but what if Egon decided to patent the likes of the Proton Pack or his Ghost trap? Artist Timothy Anderson imagined just that with these stylishly minimalist prints. Anderson’s created 3 8×10 prints depicting patent imagery for the Ghost Trap,…
