Tech News

It’s Only Mr. T! 30 Years Of Toys Confiscated From London Schools

Yeah, it’s easy to romanticize the past, but there’s something almost sweet about Confiscation Cabinets, an exhibition at the V&A’s Museum of Childhood showing 30 years’ worth of contraband swiped from kids at over 150 schools in London. Teacher and artist Guy Tarrant collected a lot of the ephemera himself, with the rest donated for…

At the turn of the century […] a nurse visiting a 75-year-old person may be engaged as part of her job in making sure that he is taking regularly several kinds of vitamin doses, a painkiller, a hypnotic dream regulator, an anti-depressant, a sedative or psychostimulant, and so on. — Dr. Stanley Yolles, Director of…

The Hot New Trend in Suburbia Is Subdivisions With Their Own Farms

You might own a CSA or keep your own chickens in the backyard of your brownstone, but the suburbs are way ahead of you: Communities planned around agriculture are the hot new thing in real estate development, and roughly 200 of them already exist. Nebraska NPR affiliate Nebraska Net reports on Bucking Horse, a 1,000-home…

A Beginner’s Guide to Buying Custom Kitchen Knives

When selecting a set of knives for your kitchen, you can certainly go to any retail store and purchase an inexpensive set of knives made with plastic handles and low-grade steel. But, when you want something of higher quality, specialized design or materials, or you just want something a bit more personalized, custom is the…

Seriously, Enough With This Apple Holiday Ad

Apple’s new holiday ad has been called, in turn, endearing, note-perfect, and, in a spasm of enthrallment, perhaps Apple’s best iPhone commercial ever. I think maybe I saw a different ad. You can watch above, but for those who prefer words: We see a family celebrating the holidays, absent Sullen Male Youth, who is preoccupied…

(Faked) Headless Photos Are Morbidly Fascinating

Last week, we asked you to take photos that simulated mundane headlessness. Only two of you were up for the challenge, but they’ve left our stomachs churning all the same. Couch Potatoes This idea came to me pretty quickly as I have been having an ongoing struggle with my son (age 9) and his interest…

A $49 Kindle, iOS Games And Credit, Sony RX100, Ouya [Deals]

At a loss for gift ideas? Amazon is selling its $69 Kindle for the stocking stuffer-approved price of $49 today. This isn’t the Paperwhite, so you don’t get a touchscreen, but I’ve actually found the buttons to be a much better solution for page turning. Amazon Kindle | $49 Audio Technica’s venerable ATH-M50 headphones, long…

30 Percent of the Internet Is Just a Copy of Itself

Sometimes it feels like the internet’s just the same thing over and over. Google agrees: According to the search giant, 25-30 percent of everything online actually is a duplicate of something else somewhere else online. On the GoogleWebmasterHelp YouTube channel that you didn’t know existed, engineer Matt Cutts turns to the mailbag to answer a…

The App Store’s Most Popular Apps of 2013

Apple has officially unveiled its most downloaded apps of the year and—well whaddaya know—Candy Crush comes in strong at number 1. There were, however, a few legitimate surprises thrown into the mix For one, Pandora comes in at number 9 with Spotify nowhere to be seen. Given the fact that Pandora’s been around longer (meaning…

Oh Hey, Google Glass Has an iOS App Now (Updated)

Google Glass isn’t quite out in the wild yet, but if you were holding out based on your phone’s operating system, now’s your chance — MyGlass just hit the iOS app store. https://gizmodo.com/when-i-actually-wear-google-glass-1211492290 The free app will let Glass users configure their new face-computers, beam navigation prompts from phone to face, and screencast Glass’s view…

Everything That Goes Into a Cup of Eggnog

Traditionally, yes, eggnog included raw eggs. However, some countries today, such as the United States, severely restrict the use of raw egg in products, due to health concerns; thus, most commercial eggnog does not include raw eggs. (The FDA actually limits the egg yolk solids in eggnog to less than 1%.) You can, however, buy…

How All of Reddit’s Communities Overlap, Visualized

Reddit may the front page of the internet, but it’s also home to all manner of weird and wonderful niche interest groups. This visualization reveals how they all relate to each other. Created by Randal Olson from Michigan State University, redditviz is an interactive visualization of how all of Reddit’s communities—and there are over 5,000…

12 Things More Likely Than You Winning Tonight’s $636 Million Jackpot

After tonight’s MegaMillions lottery drawing, someone could be walking away $636 million richer. The odds of winning, however, are less enticing: 1-to-259,000,000. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a good investment! Someone, somewhere, someday is probably going to become disgustingly rich. And that disgusting person could be you! But it probably won’t be. This past…

The YouTube app is now available on Roku 3, and it features full HD streaming and a send to TV feature from your phone. Might we suggest this Beyonce video as a candidate for the first thing you watch?

Facebook and Google Are Buying Up the Cables That Carry the Internet

It can get a little bit annoying when people ramble on about how Facebook and Google are taking over the world. They’re just websites! But when those websites start to buy up other things, say, the very cables that connect the people of the world—well that’s actually pretty alarming. It’s also happening. The Wall Street…

See How Much New York Has Changed (Or Not) Since The 1990s

Everybody loves vintage street photography, especially when it’s from New York City. Every decade has its distinctive taste; I personally love the Seventies. But what about the Nineties? Oh dear, those years! Only twenty something years ago! But can you remember what was it like on the streets of New York City? Gregoire Alessandrini—currently working…

These Swarming Satellites Are Mapping Earth’s Magnetic Cloak

You can’t see it with any ordinary telescope, but without the Earth’s magnetosphere—the magnetic field that encases the planet, blanketing it against gusts of deadly solar radiation—life here would have been all but impossible. Yet for as vital as it is to our survival, we understand very little about the magnetosphere. And that’s where these…

Stunning image of a burning hot Blackbird’s jet engine

This is an image of the very last test of the Pratt & Whitney J58, the engine that powered the legendary SR-71 Blackbird and A-12 Oxcart. It used to get so hot at full afterburner that it looked like it was about to melt. Those shock diamonds are beautiful. https://gizmodo.com/the-thrill-of-flying-the-sr-71-blackbird-5511236 I love this description excerpted…

Nathan Myhrvold: Patent Troll, Molecular Gastronomist… Dino Expert?

Nathan Myhrvold, the former Microsoft exec who has since become (in)famous in patent litigation and a bit more positively regarded in the field of molecular gastronomy, is now flexing his muscles over dinosaur research. Studies on dinosaur growth by top paleontologists contain “serious errors,” he contends in a new paper published in PLoS ONE. https://gizmodo.com/how-nathan-myhrvold-and-intellectual-ventures-would-cha-5623996…

Join the Club: Memberships in These Groups Make Great Gifts

This year, consider giving your friends and family something they can use and be excited about everyday—not an object to unwrap but a membership to take advantage of again and again. We’ve rounded up the best, most useful, most convenient, or just plain coolest groups, institutions, and clubs that you can join. Find our suggestions…