Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
If I started telling you about a new all-wheel-drive, turbodiesel-powered off-roader, you’d probably think I was talking about a 4×4 truck or SUV, right? Wrong. Check out the RNT, a concept from Indian motorcycle company Hero that could be the only back-country survival tool a motorcycle adventurer would ever need. The scooter’s rear wheel is…
To be fair, if you put together every second of any movie in one image, that image would almost always look like the skin and scales of dinosaurs but I swear my mind is making me believe it even more for Jurassic Park. It also kind of looks like a Magic Eye picture and I…
Oh wow, this is wonderfully psychedelic. Oslo based illustration agency, byHands, shows off its wide variety of illustrative styles in this excellently eclectic, experimental animation. I only wish there were more of it.
I am going to do this track-by-track countdown to the release, on February 13, 2014, the day prior to Valentine’s Day, of my book in the estimable 33 1/3 series. It is a love letter to Aphex Twin’s album Selected Ambient Works Volume II, which will mark its 20th anniversary this year, less than a…
Ooh, lights. Pretty. It’s like stepping into an enchanted forest from the future. Romain Tardy and Squeaky Lobster created this installation called The Ark during Proyecta Oaxaca at the Ethnobotanical Garden in Oaxaca, Mexico. It’s built around the cacti that line the heart of the garden and the installation projects lights onto it and gives…
It still looks like magic. To be honest, I haven’t ruled out magic as a reasonable explanation for this yet yet. The MIT morphing table that lets you create a virtual version of you has some new tricks up its sleeves and they’re just as impressively mesmerizing as the first time we saw it. Watch…
Well, well, well. Isn’t this good to know? Turns out, you can strain all the ice cream out of cookie dough ice cream and use its dough to bake cookies. Surprise! It’s actually cookie dough! It’s not just factory made cookie flavoring made to make you crave ice cream more (even if it still is…
Starting about two days ago and lasting until about two weeks from now, it’s all Olympics all the time. That’s all fine and well, but if you’re looking for a reprieve, you’ve come to the right place. From fungus towers to slinky-like sculptures, here are the most beautiful things we showed you this week. Human…
Any mention of tech buses in San Francisco should come with a trigger warning, because pretty much every discussion surrounding the massive, much-maligned vehicles comes fully equipped with deep contention. Now, the winners of an unofficial competition to rebrand the behemoths—which are often partially bright white and completely unmarked—has sparked a new debate over art,…
I can’t imagine climbing 10 feet and this guy did 1500 with no equipment. He’s basically Spider-Man. Rock climber Alex Honnold used no equipment to scale the 1500-foot limestone wall of El Sendero Luminoso in El Potrero Chico, Mexico. It’s the first ever free solo ascent of the wall. Honnold, who climbs Yosemite’s Half Dome…
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. Here are this week’s best posts: All the Gear…
We’ve all been there before. You’re out at a bar with friends when—suddenly—you find yourself talking the man and/or woman of your dreams. You exchange numbers, and the next morning, after carefully crafting your first sober communication, you await his or her response with bated breath. Your phone vibrates. You look down, eyes opened wide.…
Artist Ray G. Scarfo’s illustration of a semi-permanent moon base in the future. Published in the May 1969 issue of Science Journal, just two months before humans would first set foot on the moon.
In May 2013, a storm uncovered these ancient footprints on an English beach. At over 800,000 years old, they’re the oldest human ancestor footprints ever found outside of Africa. The storm that revealed them soon washed them away too, but scientists have been studying the footprints for months after the fact, thanks to 3D imaging.…
A massive avalanche violently invaded the Passeier Valley—in South Tyrol—yesterday. In this video it looks harmless until you get to the 1:30 mark. Then things start to get scary and weird. Instead of spreading through the entire slope and die, the snow actually takes the road onto the bridge that leads into the town, like…
The “smart city” might not be so smart, and gentrification might not be so bad. Plus a sad story about how urban development is destroying Chinese villages—300 of them per day. This is our weekly look at What’s Ruining Our Cities. Urbanization is ruining Chinese culture When we talk about China, we’re usually talking about…
If you have been frustrated with the hugely successfuland extremely difficult game Flappy Bird, here’s a tutorial that will teach you how to beat the hell out of it. It’s actually really easy once you learn this technique. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook
While it’s been widely reported since Wednesday that Fazio Mechanical Services was the third party vendor whose login information the Target hackers hijacked, president and owner Ross E. Fazio has finally put out an official statement confirming his company’s role in the attack. In the statement, Fazio denies that his company had performed any sort…
Sex toys are great, but they still can’t compare to skin-on-skin contact. That may be about to change—kind of—thanks to a new generation of internet-enabled playthings that fall under the awesomely-named umbrella of teledildonics. These toys let long-distance partners “feel” each other in real-time via data-enabled devices. A new company called Kiiroo, wants to break…
It’s the end of a long week and the beginning of Winter Olympic madness. Don’t let your smartphone or tablet get left behind—turn it into a gold-medal productivity star, or the olympic village of time-wasting games, with our favorite new apps. Android Beats Music Beats Music is a promising new take on streaming music—it’s curated…