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Dr. James McLurkin has a swarm of robots. Individually, they’re not that smart, but a crateful of them behaves in some very complex ways, like the bees that inspired them. Gizmodo got to see the wee machines in action, and while they’re adorable, they represent some serious future bot capabilities. The quiet before the swarm:…
The myth: You can’t fold a paper in half more than eight times.* The reality: Given a paper large enough—and enough energy—you can fold it as many times as you want. The problem: If you fold it 103 times, the thickness of your paper will be larger than the observable Universe: 93 billion light-years. Seriously.…
I love calligraphy to the point in which I shiver with pleasure when I see someone writing beautifully—slowly and carefully. I’d have liked to see Turkish calligrapher Tolga Girgin making these 3D writings spotted by Colossal. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook
Driving in Russia is flirting with death—watch these three accidents happening in 30 seconds. First, the grey van violently rams itself into the car in front of it. The red car cuts off the dash cam and skids by. And then the original grey van zooms into the intersection and gets smashed sideways by a…
Scotty Bob, the crazy guy zipping the air in the wingsuit, is flying so fast you might miss it but he comes so impossibly close to scraping the mountain on some of his turns that he can pretty much high five the photographer taking a picture of him. The flight isn’t particularly long but it’s…
It’s man’s most-pondered question: Does size matter? While there are social and scientific explanations of the varying size of male genitalia, I feel as though none of them truly answer the question for the individual. They seem rather to quell the ongoing question only temporarily, but without an answer you can take into the bedroom.…
Did you guys know there is a Gizmodo subdomain where you can go for all things photographic? Yep! It’s called Reframe, and it’s where you’ll find additional coverage of gear, techniques, news, and all kinds of great stuff related to the crafts of photography and videography. No, Smartphones Aren’t Going To Kill GoPro GoPro saw…
If your average work day feels like an un-choreographed dance of chaos, perhaps this graceful wall clock will bring some peace of mind while you wait for five o’clock to roll around. The Dancing Wall Clock’s hands have been replaced with segments of a ballerina, resulting in an endless series of poses and pirouettes while…
Sure, opera isn’t exactly mainstream and is often times pretty atonal and cacophonous, but when written by Swedish pop duo The Knife, it can wield a more alluring sound. Tomorrow In A Year, their full length album that was released in early 2010, is a collaboration between The Knife, Mt. Sims, and Planningtorock. It livens…
Remember @CongressEdits, the tweetbot that alerts whenever a Wikipedia article is edited from a government IP address? There’s a Russian version now, and it just uncovered some pretty drastic edits to a Wikipedia article that mentions Flight MH17, originating from a Russian government IP address. As The Telegraph reports, @RuGovEdits tweeted that a computer user…
Drugs are illegal and often pretty bad for you. But who needs LSD when the world has talented designers like Masakazu Shirane and Saya Miyazaki. Last year, the Japanese duo took on the challenge of creating a mind-bending environment inside of a shipping container—and did they ever succeed. Garden is a huge origami-inspired kaleidoscope built…
Good news for people with horrible taste in movies: Netflix is testing out a private viewing feature. Now the only ones aware of your affinity for Jungle 2 Jungle will be you and your crippling shame. Currently, whenever you watch a movie on Netflix, you’re doing so with the knowledge that both your Facebook friends…
A dog with its fur set in curlers at George Constantinides’ hairdressing salon on Hornsey Road, London, December 1968. [Getty Images] Factually is Gizmodo’s new blog of fun facts, interesting photos, and weird trivia. Join us on Twitter and Facebook.
It’s the weekend, and you know what that means: Time to download some sweet new apps! Here’s the best of what came out this week for your Android, iPhone, or Windows Phone. Multi-Platform Updates Wiper Worried about privacy? You probably should be. Wiper is an end-to-end encrypted app that lets you text or call in…
If you were alive in the 1970s, there’s a good chance you listened to Stig Carlsson’s delightfully streamlined OD-11 speakers at some point. The so-called Sonab “Carlsson Cube” offered unprecedented sound quality in an impossibly small cabinet. Now, a Swedish audio company is re-releasing the design with a whole new set of high tech guts…
If you’re a fan of modern, American IPAs (PBR drinkers: Go stand in the corner) then you are no doubt a friendly familiar of hops, the magical bud that gives beer its bitter bite. But with hundreds of hops varieties and some brews using upwards of a dozen of them , it’s hard to know…
Instead of killing kids during private tours of his fantastical factory, Alex Reben is a Willy Wonka-type character of a different sort. He builds robots for a living—seemingly just for fun—and while some of his creations are certainly distressing, they’re all fun to watch, interact with, or just ponder. The folks at Cool Hunting had…
Craig Mullins is now one of my all-time favorite concept artists and illustrators, up there with N.C. Wyeth and Ralph McQuarrie. He has created some of the most iconic designs on film and video games, touching everything from history to fantasy to science-fiction. Here’s a selection of my favorites. What I love about Mullins is…
Watching ballet on TV doesn’t provide nearly as satisfying an experience as seeing it performed in person—at least using traditional filming techniques. Director Tarik Abdel-Gawad has taken a radical new approach to capturing footage of a ballet performance, using a motion-control camera on a robot arm that’s been choreographed as part of the routine. Before…
The Oculus Rift promises to make Star Trek TNG’s holodeck a reality, but only in your head. You can’t spend every moment of your life with a goofy visor strapped to your face, and that’s why this alternate approach to the holodeck—using projectors to make a tiny non-descript room appear massive—seems far more plausible. The…
