Tech News

This Week’s Best Photo-Related Posts on Reframe

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: 2014 Oscar Nominees…

How Two Big Brand Boozes Are Moving Forward By Going Backward

Original recipes are one of those things coveted most in marketing. Remember how excited everyone was about Coca-Cola Classic after the New Coke fiasco? Well, sometimes spirits-makers want to get in on that action as well, whether that means a limited-edition release like Beefeater is doing with Burrough’s Reserve, or whether it’s a complete replacement…

New York’s ice-choked East River—seen from Pier 1 Playground in Brooklyn—is evidence of the extraordinary cold temperatures gripping much of the central and eastern United States this week. Video of the scene shows the frigid water moving at a surreal and unexpected speed.

These Prints Were Made By Pressing Photo Paper To a Computer Screen

Analog or digital: it’s the Thunderdome throw-down of our time. Two formats enter; one format leaves. Either or. Pick a side. Or do like Brooklyn-based artist Job Piston, and use ’em both. Reds is a series of physical prints made on light-sensitive paper pressed up against a computer screen—and they’re pretty dang cool. In an…

8-bit Big Lebowski Game. Gimme. ASAP.

Jesuschrist, somebody please license The Big Lebowski and make this 8-bit isometric adventure game. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

The Most Amazing Gmail Glitch Is Flooding Some Poor Guy’s Hotmail

You probably noticed Gmail was down for a while. David S. Peck probably wishes that Gmail was still down. Because right now, a glitch is causing thousands of misdirected emails to be sent to his personal Hotmail account. Right now, when you search for Gmail in Google, one of the top results (the one that…

This Week in Time Capsules: The 100-Year Akron Mayor Capsule Hoax

This week in our time capsule news round-up we have a Navy capsule with some awesome tech history, some disappointed uncapsulers in Tacoma, and a time capsule hoax 100 years in the making. The 100-year time capsule hoax In 1914, the mayor of Akron, Ohio wrote a letter to whomever might be mayor of that…

13 Industrious GIFs of Machines Making, Breaking, and Moving Stuff

Machines: They make stuff. Lots of it. Hundreds of millions and billions and hundreds of billions of things over and over again forever. Watching them work is positively hypnotic. And we’ve got the GIFs to prove it. Note: Many (most) of these GIFs were found using the Giphy search engine, so props to the fine…

Beatstep Is a MIDI Controller and Step Sequencer in One Tiny Package

Inexpensive, portable hardware for electronic music usually comes short on the features. A beginner 25-key MIDI keyboard, for example, isn’t going to get you very far towards making big music, even if it does fit in your backpack. Arturia’s new Beatstep is remarkable because manages to put both a software controller and an versatile sequencer…

Ecstasy in London? Heroin in Zagreb? The Answer Is Found In The Sewers

Drug users might be less than forthright about their illicit habits—but they all have to pee. With that in mind, scientists are drug-testing entire sewer systems to study just how popular illegal drugs have become. Dan Burgard, an associate chemistry professor, knew students tried to get an edge. But he didn’t know about the “study…

The computer that changed the world 30 years ago

Today is the 30th anniversary of the Macintosh, the computer that changed everything. It popularized the graphical user interface, taking the crude version that existed at Xerox and making it infinitely better, introducing all the conventions that we now take for granted. I was ten when it came out, and I wanted one since the…

Gmail Is Down, Everybody Freak Out (Update: Okay We’re Cool)

It’s not just you; Gmail appears to be down. Usually when this sort of thing happens it gets resolved quickly, but for now you might be stuck chatting with a real human person in your physical presence. In the meantime, please feel free to make a Gmail-is-down joke of any of the following varieties: Internet…

11 Tech Support Questions My Mom Has Asked Me (And How I Answered)

Being a tech blogger has made me the default tech support for my family. Especially for my mother. While she’s pretty savvy, all things considered, she still asks me some pretty funny questions. Rather than getting frustrated that she can’t remember how to upload photos from her camera onto her computer for the umpteenth time…

$50 Off Every iPad Air, SwissGear Backpacks, Samsung 840 EVO [Deals]

Best Buy is running one of the best promotions we’ve seen on the new iPad Air, offering $50 off all models, including LTE. Typically, iPad deals are only available on the base 16GB Wi-Fi versions, so this is worth checking out if you’ve been on the fence about picking up a new tablet. If your…

Techbrats and Tech Buses: What’s Ruining San Francisco This Week

It’s been a tumultuous week in San Francisco. The city’s transit agency held hearings to regulate the ubiquitous tech buses, but protesters say the buses have already ruined the city’s real estate. It’s a What’s Ruining Our Cities San Francisco Special Edition. Tech buses are ruining affordable housing On Tuesday, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation…

Porn star Christy Mack offers blow job in exchange for Lego creation

“Whoever builds me the best Lego creation to put in my house gets a blow job.” That’s the offer from Lego fan (and porn star) Christy Mack. The response in Twitter has been overwhelming. Thousands of Lego fans are already taking out their plastic bins. Answering criticism from some people, Christy had this to say:…

Don’t Overlook Minimum Focus Distance When Buying Lenses

Shopping for camera lenses can be daunting. It’s easy to get caught in a whirlwind of f-stops, zoom ranges, and of course, price. But there is one lens spec that is often overlooked, but can have a significant effect on the pictures you take: minimum focus distance. Minimum focus distance is simply the closest you…

Robo-Whiskers and Three Other Cool, Creepy, Animal-Inspired Machines

Inventors, designers and engineers are constantly cribbing from Mother Nature, building new-school robots inspired by old-school biology. Let’s take a look at some of the latest, greatest, and weirdest designs that use biomimicry to give animal capabilities to machines. https://gizmodo.com/how-nature-is-inspiring-a-new-breed-of-robotic-design-601144171 Electronic Whiskers Researchers at the Berkeley Lab created artificial electronic whiskers out of a composite…

MEMS: The Microscopic Switches That Make the Modern World Possible

We use them every day without realizing it. They’re in our phones, our cars, our cameras, and innumerable electronic devices. They’re called MEMS, and they’re the microscopic switches that allow our gadgets to become smaller, lighter, and faster. Micro-ElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) are minuscule mechanical switches that control the flow of electricity. That may not sound…

The Fascinating, Untold History of Jell-O

For over a century, Jell-O has been a part of American culture and, according to a 1904 edition of the Ladies Home Journal, “America’s Favorite Dessert” (conveniently enough named such in an advertisement paid for by Jell-O before anyone was really buying it all). That said, ever since then it really has been one of…