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Many of today’s seafaring megastructures would be nigh on impossible to build without the lifting assistance provided by dockside cranes. And as we continue to build ever-bigger systems we’ll need ever bigger cranes, like the gigantic hammerhead from Kone. Giant cantilever cranes, or hammerheads, were first developed in 19th century Germany—known then as hammerkran—and were…
Bill Gates’s Microsoft-running days are behind him. He’s moved on to toilets and condoms and general philanthropy. Still, Windows is his baby, so no wonder Jimmy Fallon felt the need to hide his MacBook during an interview on Late Night. Awkwardly. https://gizmodo.com/bill-gates-wants-to-build-a-better-toilet-5823091 It probably wasn’t necessary, but Gates definitely didn’t do anything to stop it.…
Boardwalk, Park Place, and even Marvin Gardens are all iconic properties on the world’s most popular board game. But what if you wanted to play a game of Monopoly with locales you were actually familiar with? A simple Sharpie is one solution, but so is Hasbro’s My Monopoly game. It lets you create a custom…
I love the work of photographer George Christakis. He creates fantastic images, composing photographs into impossible landscapes that sometimes feel entirely possible and others make you feel as the lone survivor of a dream that has collapsed. In his own words: I had scenes of people, lonely at strange environments, looking for peace, enjoying a…
Fiber internet is great no matter who’s laying it down. Gigabit connection speeds? Hell yes. But if you thought that was fast, researchers in the UK have something better that will not only blow your hair back, but blow it right off: a 1.4 terabit connection, and all with commercial-grade hardware. Developed by a joint…
Getty Images has published a fresh set of photos from the heavily polluted Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro—which is the site chosen for water sports at the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics. The photos are frankly shocking, as the iconic bay will be the site of sailing events during the summer Olympic Games. Although Rio’s…
Ford is teaming up with the brainy folks at MIT and Stanford University to work on self-driving cars. MIT will focus on technology that anticipates movement by pedestrians and other vehicles, while Stanford will work on sensors that let autonomous vehicles see around obstacles. [Ford via PhysOrg]
Voice control is an awesomely futuristic way to control your technology like a spaceman, but only if you can trust it. So you might want to stay tight-lipped around Chrome; Google’s browser has a dangerous security flaw that can let malicious sites eavesdrop on your every word. Discovered by web developer and Gizmodo reader Tal…
Meet Sepideh Hooshyar, a provincial Iranian teenage girl who dreams of becoming an astronaut. As a young woman in a conservative Muslim culture that disapproves of such pursuits, Sepideh spends her days studying astronomy and her nights watching the stars. This documentary chronicles her quest to dream big. Sepideh lives in Sa’adat Shahr, a town…
After lightning struck and chipped Rio de Janeiro’s iconic Christ the Redeemer statue last week, repairs were required. In this AP photo, a worker is inspecting the statue’s outstretched arm for damage, with the goal of installing more protective lightning rods on the figure in the weeks to come. [AP/Felipe Dana via Hypervocal]
Yesterday Fujifilm dangled a shadowed image of their new mirrorless camera, the X-T1, in front of us. Today, the entire thing can be seen thanks to a few leaked images on Digicameinfo. https://gizmodo.com/fujifilm-x-t1-image-shows-another-retro-body-with-slr-s-1505074098 Looking at the camera body, everything looks quite nice with a ton of physical dials and buttons. The one thing I don’t…
There are many ways to scuttle a warship. Here are three of them: explosive charges, torpedoes, and nuclear blasts. Spoiler: Loose lips sink ships but C-4 sinks them much better. Even better than nuclear blasts, but not as cool as torpedoes. Explosives The video above shows the last few seconds of the USS Oriskany—an Essex-class…
Think this polar vortex part deux is bad? Here’s a little perspective, courtesy the wonderful PTAK Science Books: A map of the glacier that once covered New York City in thick ice some 20,000 odd years ago, carving out the landscape we know today. It was called the Laurentide ice sheet, and it was part…
In the 1960s, a sociologist named William H. Whyte revealed something interesting about the behavior of people in parks and plazas across the U.S.: people liked being with people. But has that changed now that everyone carries a tiny computer in their hands? According to a new study: no. Throughout the 60s and 70s, Whyte’s…
And, yes, we do mean “literally.” But, before getting into the physics of it, let’s take a minute to imagine what a maple syrup farm today looks like. Tall maples, snowy woods—pretty much an idyllic New England scene. A recent scientific discovery, however, means that forests of mature trees could be replaced by fields of…
Liat Segal’s Confession Machine printer isn’t designed for running copies of TPT reports at work, unless you’re really making an effort to realize a truly paperless office. Because instead of ink or toner, Segal’s creation uses an array of 16 ultraviolet LEDs to ‘print’ messages on a static surface covered with a photosensitive paint that…
The Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan? You know the one—it cost $6.7 million to build. Yesterday, a snowblower smashed one of its 15 seamless glass panels, which created this beautiful cracked vignette of New York City. It looks like a painting. Image above from Twitter Plenty of pictures of the smashed panel have…
Yesterday, many of China’s 500 million internet users were mysteriously rerouted to a bunch of web addresses registered to this unassuming house in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The New York Times says a fluke in China’s internet censoring system was to blame. But why, of all the places in the world, did the traffic come here? And…
This 29.6 carat blue diamond was found last week at the Cullinan Diamond Mine near Pretoria, South Africa, the same mine where the famous South of Africa blue diamond—the second largest cut diamond in the world—was discovered. The mining company claims that it is “extremely valuable.” The stone is an outstanding vivid blue with extraordinary…
These days, we tend to think of New York’s bridges as traffic obstacles. But at the turn of the last century, the bridges that sprang up in thickets around Manhattan’s shores were objects of wonder and civic pride—near magical pieces of infrastructure that took many years (and lives) to build. A New York Times article…
