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Google Now is great, but it’s only on your mobile devices. We’ve been waiting on a desktop version for what feels like forever. Now, finally, it’s just starting to poke its head out in the beta-est of Chrome’s beta builds. So far, the Now integration is a far cry from the redesigned Google homepage you…
If you’re driving along the New Jersey turnpike just outside of Moorsetown and think you see the top of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer peeking above endless rows of corn, miles from the nearest ocean, don’t worry—it’s supposed to be there. It’s just a full-size mock up that Lockheed uses to develop its AEGIS Combat System.…
I really love these 2.5D animations of classical paintings by Rino Stefano Tagliafierro. He says that they are “a tribute to the art and her disarming beauty.” Some are more inviting and evocative than the actual painting. I want to keep getting into the scene. And a few are quite disturbing. Warning: the video includes…
Facebook will start showing you trending stories to the right of your News Feed, just under where you’re used to seeing notifications about your friends’ birthdays and upcoming events. Twitter has been showing trending topics for years, but Facebook’s trends promise to be personalized to your interests, so maybe they’ll be better? Not everyone on…
There’s something strangely throttling about a Dyson device. The curves feel futuristic, and the transparent plastic shows you what’s under the hood. And the latest generation runs faster than a Formula 1 race car. You almost have to pinch yourself to remember that it’s just a vacuum cleaner. But it’s really not. Dyson’s new cordless…
We’ve been hearing for months about “Normandy”, the rumored Android phone that Nokia’s supposedly got in the works. @evleaks, the source of many of those rumors, has a fresh one for us: A UI that looks a lot like Windows Phone. https://gizmodo.com/this-is-supposedly-nokias-rumored-android-phone-1480728910 On Monday, @evleaks posted a photo of the phone showing a homescreen complete…
As the story goes, Las Vegas was built by Mormons and mobsters. This unlikely team worked together to bring gambling to a place almost exclusively populated by men constructing the Hoover Dam. Their work turned a tiny sun-baked town into a global phenomenon. As the other story goes, downtown Vegas is not a once-glorious place…
Austrian urban art and graffiti illustrator Nychos is the animal anatomy Leonardo to Jason Freeny’s toys and animation characters Michelangelo. His mural designs are exquisitely made, with enough detail to both fascinate and gross you out. https://gizmodo.com/these-toys-and-characters-anatomies-will-ruin-your-chi-1500923545 They may not be accurate in many cases, but obviously that’s not the point. This is how he…
When you’ve got a hit, somebody’s gonna try to rip it off. The rule is almost universal, applying to erotic fiction books the same way it applies to iPhones. You could argue, then, that if nobody’s ripping off your work, you’re probably in trouble. https://gizmodo.com/how-a-fake-erotic-fiction-ebook-hit-the-top-5-of-itunes-5933169 CNN reports that Chinese counterfeiters have declined to knock off…
Do you feel guilty printing out an entire email when all you really needed was someone’s address? King Jim’s new compact Cocodori printer is designed for just those occasions. Using an included piece of software, it lets you highlight only specific areas of your screen for printing. And what you’re left with is a receipt-sized…
Purveyor of all things candy, Hershey, just made the delicious announcement that it will be making 3D-printed sweets in the future using machines from 3D Systems. Is your mouth watering?
Reddit user JM2845 recently shared this amazing GIF of a barge in British Columbia emptying a load of timber into the water in a most unusual way, by tilting at 3o-degrees and having its cargo tumble right off the side. Amazing. Maybe this is commonplace amongst these kinds of barges, but it is certainly gasp-inducing…
The Sacramento Kings will become the first pro sports team to accept BitCoin. Great news for all nine of their fans. The franchise will accept the currency for merchandise and tickets starting March 1, and transactions will be processed through BitPay. It’s sort of ridiculous and fitting that the Kings are the first team to…
If you had to pinpoint one common feature of all the backup batteries on the market, it would probably be their uninspired brick-like form factor. There are exceptions, though, but none as elegant and civilized as Brando’s new lightsaber-themed portable backup battery. It’s highly detailed, it lights up, and carrying this around instead of a…
We’re more than half a century past 1960, when the Doomsday Clock ticked down to two minutes before midnight. Yet, despite the steady outpouring of movies and TV shows featuring rogue nukes and dirty bombs, fewer and fewer people actively worry about a nuclear bomb going off. That being said: Do you know where and…
What do you get when you apply the kindly, whimsical emoji you know and love to actual human faces? Nightmare fuel for days. But also very clever ad campaign that aims to stop sexual predators from occupying your child’s open tabs. The offputing images come from ad agency Rosapark for a group called Innocence en…
Rumors are swirling in early 2014, and the first ones you should be taking seriously are regarding three new Olympus micro 4/3 lenses. Images have leaked, so it’s almost a sure thing that they will be announced in the coming weeks. The first new lens is a 25mm f/1.8 lens to add to the already…
With an increasing number of bikes now sharing American roads with vehicle traffic, it’s more important than ever to be as visible as you can on two wheels, especially at night. But with the Zap commuter jacket from Sugoi, that won’t be much of a problem. Set for release later this fall, the nylon-shell Zap…
Infographics might seem like a modern phenomenon—citizens of the internet love nothing more than a nice and tidy presentation of catchy stats—but data viz dates way, way back. In The Book of Trees: Visualizing Branches of Knowledge, interaction designer Manuel Lima examines a recurring theme: more than eight centuries’ worth of trees used as diagrams,…
A new invention filed by Apple with the US Patent and Trademark Office is so simple but clever that it’s amazing it’s not been done before: Cook & Co. suggests that it could insert doctored or pre-recorded images into FaceTime chats on crappy connections to keep the conversation smooth. The patent, called “Video transmission using…