Tech News

Riding in the Car of the Future, Built in an Illinois Barn

At first glance, this rockabilly Batmobile looks like a retro-fetishist’s pet project. It’s not. In fact, this freak machine, hand-built by a ragtag team in an Illinois town of 1,200, is the deepest look into the future of cars you’ve ever clapped eyes on. One frigid day in Brooklyn, Gizmodo buckled in for a ride.…

Hackers Swiped 70,000 Records from Healthcare.gov in Four Minutes (Updated)

After the bevy of problems Healthcare.gov encountered in its first few months of life, dumping one more onto the pile shouldn’t phase you all that much, right? Well, not if that hiccup is actually a gaping vulnerability—and one that can grant hackers access to over 70,0000 private records in just four minutes, at that. https://gizmodo.com/everything-thats-wrong-with-healthcare-gov-1455989647…

12 More Viral Photos That Are Totally Fake

Can you spot the fakes? Hundreds of amazing images wash over our greedy eyeballs each and every day, clogging our Twitter timelines and Facebook feeds. Many of them are fakes, lies, or both. Like these! No, Nikola Tesla wasn’t a swimming instructor. And Teddy Roosevelt never rode a moose. https://gizmodo.com/7-more-fun-fact-photos-that-are-total-lies-1480737089 But did John Lennon ever…

Israel’s Adding Lasers to Its Iron Dome Defenses

When it comes to national air security, Israel doesn’t mess around; it has not one but four separate levels of “active defenses” alone. And with the introduction of the new Iron Beam system, Israel now has five different ways to shoot down incoming projectiles. Israel’s short-range Iron Dome is currently complemented by batteries of medium-to-long-range…

The Army Wants to Replace Up to 25 Percent of Its Soldiers with Robots

Cash-strapped and somewhat adrift in terms of missions, the U.S. Army is in the midst of an existential crisis. Once ballooning in budget and size, the Army now says it wants to be “a smaller, more lethal, deployable, and agile force.” And it’s going to need robots to do it right. General Robert Cone, head…

Radioactive Gold Rush: Nuclear Waste Storage Is a Booming Business

First, dig a hole. Then, reinforce it with clay, concrete, steel, and plastic. Fill it with nuclear waste and cover it in forty more feet of concrete. Then profit. That’s how one company in Texas has struck radioactive gold, charging companies $10,000 per cubic foot to store nuclear refuse. Safely burying “low-level” nuclear material is…

​This tree causes instant blisters, blindness and death

It looks like a regular tree, but the Manchineel can kill you. Everything about it is extremely toxic. If you touch its leaves, they will cause “a strong allergic dermatitis.” It’s so bad that, if you stay under its foliage while it’s raining, the water will cause instant blistering wherever it touches you. It gets…

Aphex Twin SAW2 Countdown: Track 24 (“White Blur 2″)

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…

In Dre We Trust: Why You Should Try Beats Music

After a year of hype, Beats Music is finally here, and if it has a definitive pitch, the company’s frenetic, towheaded CEO Ian Rogers served it to me over blaring punk music in a Lower East Side bar last week. “I’ve got [legendary producer] Jimmy Iovine calling me on the weekend and saying, ‘What the…

Hasselblad is Switching to CMOS With New 50 Megapixel Sensor

Hasselblad just announced that they are re-vamping the sensor tech for their 50 megapixel medium format digital back. A new CMOS sensor will replace the older CCD technology previously used. The differences are what has led to many camera maker abandoning CCD sensors over the past few years or so. Leica was the most recent…

Dubai’s Turning Drones into Firefighters

It makes perfect sense. Burning buildings are very dangerous places for people to enter, so when there’s a fire that needs to be put out, why not recruit robots to do the dirty work? That’s exactly what Dubai Civil Defense is doing this year. The emergency management organization just bought 15 quadcopters that it plans…

The world’s largest offshore wind farm from space

The London Array—the world’s largest offshore wind farm—started operating on April 8, 2013, about twenty kilometers (12 miles) off the coast of Kent and Essex, England. Looking at these pictures taken from space gives you a perfect idea of the Array’s amazingly vast extension. It has a maximum generating power of 630 megawatts (MW), enough…

8K (Yes, 8K) Broadcasts Just Took a Major Step Forward

Back in May of 2012 the NHK’s science & Technology Research Lab in Japan successfully broadcasted an 8K, 7680×4320 signal over a distance of 2.7 miles using UHF frequencies. As a proof of concept it showed that 8K TV could be successfully delivered to televisions over the air, but it lacked the distance of traditional…

The LighterBro Multitool Turns You Into John McClane and MacGyver

If you’re a smoker who’s always got a disposable Bic lighter on hand, it’s time to ask more of that small accessory taking up space in your pocket. The LighterBro is basically designed to serve as a case for your Bic lighter that also happens to give it amazing slicing, repairing, and bottle opening powers.…

Selling Shame: 20 Outrageously Offensive Vintage Ads

One vintage ad warns women, “Don’t let them call you SKINNY!” while another promises that smoking cigarettes will keep one slender. If the task of morphing their bodies into the current desirable shape isn’t enough of a burden, women are also reminded that they stink. In these vintage ads, a woman may be emitting a…

Awesome image of the Golden Gate Bridge burning in a sea of fog

Brian Donovan captures incredible landscapes. This amazing image of the Golden Gate Bridge—taken in a perfect sunset as “the fog slowly filled the basin and the clouds began to light up”—is just one of them. Here are some more. https://gizmodo.com/the-golden-gate-bridge-looks-like-a-bright-streak-of-fi-1505541249

The Golden Gate Bridge looks like a bright streak of fire in fog

It’s easy to forget how beautiful the world is when we shackle ourselves inside all day. Maybe on the weekend we’ll take a hike, we say. Maybe next month we’ll make a trip out to the woods, we plan. But even if we do all that, we still don’t see it enough. Good thing photographers…

Microsoft Is Paying YouTubers for Positive Xbox One Coverage

Microsoft has been outed by YouTube content generators, who claim the company has been offering to pay increased ad revenue to video producers who mention Xbox One in a positive light and include the relevant tag in their videos. News of the pay-to-mention promotion came via the Machinima UK YouTube channel’s Community Manager (who has…

WithBeats Music now live, MOG will shutter on April 15th. Users will be offered a month’s free trial of Beats Music but, sadly, playlists won’t be transferable.

Beats Music Is Now Available

You wants Beats Music? You gots Beat Music. The audio company’s new streaming service went live in the US this morning, and you can go download the app for iOS right now. At least, you can if you’re willing to stump up $10 a month from the off, or $15 for a five-user family plan…