Tech News

Music from Haiku

Larry Johnson, an active SoundCloud member under the avatar L-A-J, oftens pops up in the comments section of Disquiet.com having remixed a Disquiet Downstream entry of the day. His remixes are like comments in the form of sound. In Downstream entries, I try to describe what the track is getting at by how it is…

This Week’s Top Comedy Video: Rust Cohle Explains Time

Rust Cohle from True Detective is a font of bleak, perplexing wisdom. Just listen to him explain time and dimensions. But man, he looks a little… different here, doesn’t he? For the rest of the week’s top comedy videos, head on over to Splitsider. Here’s all the big comedy stuff you may have missed this…

How Bill Nye Became “The Science Guy”

If you’re a bit of a geek (and I know you are because, c’mon, you’re reading Gizmodo), you probably grew up watching Bill Nye. The goofy puns, the cheeky visuals, the corny yet cool music videos, all inspired a generation to grow up and do cool things with science. Here’s our TV hero’s origin story.…

Geologic Time: the Star Wars Scale

Geologic time spans 4.6 billion years, from the early Earth through present day. That’s a lot of time to cram into a brain evolved to deal with the day-to-day. So, how about using Star Wars as a metaphor, calculating out what events happen when in the story? But, humans don’t take up much time at…

Water On Earth: Floods, Droughts And Prediction

Today is World Water Day, a time to think about how water interacts with the environment. Too much water leads to floods and landslides; too little water results in droughts. Better predictions of when either situation is going to occur will reduce risk through better disaster preparation, in turn making everyone safer and happier. Too…

Oculus Rift Perfectly Recreates … The Grocery Store?

I’m not really sure what’s going on here. This video seems to be demonstrating the mind-blowing virtual reality capabilities of Oculus Rift by taking people on a stroll through a virtual land. But it’s not an alien landscape, a grizzly battlefield, or even a national monument. It’s the damned grocery store. Huh? https://gizmodo.com/i-wore-the-new-oculus-rift-and-i-never-want-to-look-at-1496569598 It turns…

It’s relative: observing the cosmos

Artist Taki Bump has created a very neat bit of interactive art on the relative nature of observing the universe. The Twitter embed is mangling the illustration presentation, so please click here to view the original tweet, then click on the image again for the reveal. I like this as both a statement of the…

How Were You Using the Internet in 1999?

For whatever reason, one of the Gizmodo writers posted an image of an old AOL free trial disc in our staff-wide chat the other day. One thousand hours free for 45 days! This, of course, started us all down a road of weird nostalgia, recalling how we used (or misused) the World Wide Web back…

This week in Tech Reads: micro-entrepreneurship, New Mexico’s curious investment in space tourism, and the history of the veggie burger. And so much more! Sarah Kessler goes inside the “gig economy,” spending a month doing freelance odd jobs found through sites like TaskRabbit and Mechanical Turk. It ain’t the easy life. [Fast Company] Gizmodo alum…

Huawei, Once Accused of Spying, Has Been Hacked by NSA Since 2009

Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei decided to withdraw from U.S. business last year amid accusations that it built backdoors into American government and business systems. But while the U.S. government was publicly accusing the company of espionage, the NSA had already established its own backdoors into Huawei’s networks, say Der Spiegel and The New York Times.…

Clever bus stop ad makes people believe meteors are striking the street

If we have to get advertising everywhere, is should all be as fun as this bus shelter ad in London, where they used augmented reality to make passengers believe that meteors were striking the city or a tiger was freely roaming through the street. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on…

The Big Bang, GMOs, How Earth Was Almost Destroyed in 2012, and More

This week rocked us with big news in astronomy, big dangerous hacking attempts, and the discovery that bugs are already immune to supposedly bug-proof GMO corn. Let’s take a victory lap on the week, shall we? Astronomers Discover First Direct Proof of the Big Bang Expansion Somebody’s going to win a Nobel Prize. At least…

Walking Dead Tribute Beer Is Made With Real Brains, Of Course

The folks at Dock Street Brewing Co. really love beer. They also apparently really love AMC’s The Walking Dead. Putting these two loves together was a no-brainer. Or wait. The exact opposite of that. Yes, the Philadelphia brewery will celebrate the season finale of The Walking Dead with Dock Street Walker, a beer brewed with…

Watch a Motorcycle Helmet Become a Pinstriped Masterpiece in Minutes

Pinstriping is an old school hot rod style that’s become an art form all its own. At an event hosted by Bell Helmets, we got to watch master striper Skratch crank out eye popping custom-painted motorcycle helmets with nothing more than a brush, a rock-steady hand, and a laser-precise eye. Perhaps most amazingly, Skratch’s designs…

How to Catch a Cheater Using Satellites and Cell Phones

Waiting around for your lover’s cheating heart to tell on them won’t get you anywhere. But with these sneaky tracking apps and GPS tokens, you’ll know exactly whose bed their boots have been under. Be warned, however, getting caught stalking your partner’s movements can end a relationship just a quickly as being caught in the…

Microsatellite Art In Orbit

Planet Labs has a flock of DOVES, microsatellites to provide rapid Earth imaging. Aside from being adorably tiny science-machines, these little observers have art etched into their very panels. Why? Because it’s beautiful. Art in space is a tricky concept. To ensure that the images will last in space without fading, chipping, sticking, or otherwise…

The Fascinating Journey of a Blood Donation

If you’re super squeamish about blood this might be a teeny bit uncomfortable, but I found it absolutely fascinating. City of Hope shows each step a unit of donated blood takes on its journey from a donor’s arm to a patient in need. It’s a peek into the circulatory system that helps your hospital save…

Your Nose Is a Super-Machine That Can Detect Over a Trillion Scents

For nearly a century, scientists assumed the human nose was capable of discerning about 10,000 different odors. Turns out, that number was missing a whole bunch of zeroes—new research shows that the human nose can detect over 1,000,000,000,000 distinct scents. Tell your dog to quit being so smug. In a paper published yesterday in Science,…

Chinese Satellite Spots Floating Object in Flight 370 Search

Chinese authorities said today that a satellite spotted a large object in the area of the Indian Ocean where the search continues for Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370. Malaysia’s defense minister Hishammuddin Hussein says China will send ships to investigate the object. The 74-foot by 43-foot object was seen in an image captured by a…

Watching these dogs confused by a magic trick is hilariously cute

Dogs can be incredibly smart but—when it comes to trusting humans—they are as naive as a little kid who doesn’t know what a lie means yet. Watching these dogs getting completely confused when magician Jose Ahonen mades a treat disappear right in front of their eyes (and noses) makes me laugh and awwww at the…