Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
After pulling the same dirty trick with the Galaxy S4, Samsung has been caught rigging the Galaxy Note 3 to perform better in benchmark tests than it does anywhere else. It’s like all Samsung phones are on performance enhancing drugs or something. Ars Technica found that the Note 3 can inflate benchmark scores by as…
You can travel every inch of this world and probably travel every inch of the galaxy and you’d find very few places more beautiful than Iceland. Even alien paradises don’t look this good. Stian Rekdal covered over 3,000 miles and took more than 40,000 photos of Iceland over three weeks to cook this time lapse…
Seven new videos show that the group of idiots who attacked a Range Rover in New York City last week are even more obnoxious than anyone could have imagined. Look at these imbeciles riding their bikes in all kinds of dangerous and illegal situations just before the car incident.
As it seems to go every year, iPhone inventory is depleted from the Apple Store. You have to sift through wooden shelves for a single speck of a goldpagne iPhone 5S, pray to the angels for a white 5S and… well, you can actually get a ‘space gray’ iPhone anywhere you want. If you want…
Your computer can be hacked. Your phone can get hacked. Your e-mail account. Your Facebook account. And even… your brain. AsapSCIENCE explains how we’re coming up with ways to use technology—special lasers!—to hack our brains. It’s a little bit scary to think about but the possibilities could be amazing. [AsapSCIENCE]
I hate pacus. Look at those bastards’ teeth. They look like they have been retrofitted with four lines of human teeth, all ready to bite the testicles of any men swimming naked in a lake or river. Nobody is safe, my friends: The pacu was a native of the Amazon and Orinoco rivers, but now…
That time human history was benevolently reset by a higher consciousness. C2C is a French quartet of master-class turntablists and kind of a big deal. They won the DMC World Competition four times in a row (2003-2006) without breaking a sweat, they blew through the 2013 French Grammy’s winning “Best New Artist”, “Best Music Video”,…
This fully automated drive-in food market held the promise of a leisurely, push-button future. But even people of the 1950s probably recognized it as a sleek re-imagining of a surprisingly retro idea. The drive-in market of the 1920s revolutionized how a lot of Americans shopped for food. For better and worse, the world was fast…
What’s the point of using a compact travel power bar that gives you extra outlets when it ends up using and blocking the pair already on a wall? With Quirky’s new Contort Power supply that’s no longer an issue, since its short plug is angled 45 degrees so the extra outlet and USB ports don’t…
The origins of this anti-gay propaganda film are unclear. The video is so gross — a mashup of Hitlerite hate-mongering and American attack ads — that it could be a spoof. But assuming its authenticity, here’s what’s so shocking: the utter lack of self-awareness. Take just three refrains from the subtitles: that gays die early;…
Incredible as it may seem, today 4chan turns a full 10 years old—hello tween years! But 4chan is, let’s say, advanced for its age. And the precursor to pretty much the entire internet as you know it has given us a whole lot to think about over the years. Some of it was fun! Some…
There comes a time in life when the cheap, watery beer ubiquitous at youthful keg parties and in not-quite-legally-sourced 24-packs just isn’t good enough anymore, when Natty Ice and Keystone Light are upgraded to… absolutely anything but Natty Ice and Keystone Light. For those who have developed a more refined taste for beer, the can’t-stop-won’t-stop…
If you go to Tanzania, don’t bathe in Lake Natron or you will end up like these animals: petrified for all eternity thanks to the water’s extreme alkalinity. The animals get confused by the lake’s reflectivity and stay there until they turn into statues. https://gizmodo.com/any-animal-that-touches-this-lethal-lake-turns-to-stone-1436606506
There’s a deceptively still body of water in Tanzania with a deadly secret—it turns any animal it touches to stone. The rare phenomenon is caused by the chemical makeup of the lake, but the petrified creatures it leaves behind are straight out of a horror film. Photographed by Nick Brandt in his new book, Across…
The 475-foot “drop tower” in Bremen, Germany, is not a rocket disguised as a building, but a giant hollow tube used for experimentally dropping things—letting go of objects, watching them plummet toward the ground, and using those nearly 10 seconds of free-fall as a way to study the effects of weightlessness. Fear not that scientists…
Not that any of us needed proof that the times are a-changin’, but grown-up hippies looking to grab this impressive omnipedia of Bob Dylan’s music might be dismayed to discover that instead of vinyl, it comes packaged on CDs as—well as this adorable USB flash drive housed in a faux harmonica. At least this special…
Though Brad Pitt, Justin Bieber, and Stephen Hawking have all (allegedly) snagged tickets for Virgin Galactic’s first commercial space flights next year, it’ll still be a bit longer before our nation’s spaceports are as bustling as JFK or LAX on Thanksgiving weekend. https://gizmodo.com/watch-a-virgin-galactic-test-flight-from-onboard-the-en-1263318278 That reality seems less far off when viewing French photographer Sebastien Lebrigand’s…
Dropping an iPad onto a dock is not only an easy way to keep its battery charged, it also props it up so it’s not laying sprawled across your desk wasting valuable real estate. And where as most docks can only accommodate an iPad going au naturel, Belkin’s new Express Dock features a dial ’round…
This image posted by perpetual juicy rumor machine @evleaks shows what could be a forthcoming iPhone gaming controller from Logitech. Given Apple’s reference designs for such a controller released at WWDC this year, the supposed leak looks pretty legit. https://gizmodo.com/the-surest-sign-yet-that-apple-tv-will-be-a-gaming-cons-513191654 Indeed, the purportedly forthcoming controller looks pretty much identical to one of the two designs…
In May of 2000 three legends of hip-hop formed a supergroup and created something nobody saw coming: A futuristic, sci-fi rap album. Over the years, Deltron 3030 has developed an almost fanatical cult following. The long awaited sequel—officially released today—is likely to do the same. Deltron’s debut was different. It was weird. It was awesome.…