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There’s something hypnotic about perfect symmetry, even if it’s faked. For this week’s Shooting Challenge, photograph a mirror image like a Rorschach test…but don’t worry, you can use Photoshop! The Challenge Take a Rorschach-like photograph that mirrors the left and right sides of the frame. Feel free to use lots of color and ditch simple…
iPhone pre-orders start tonight, and for a lot of people, that means deciding if you want to spend two years (or more) with a phone you’ve never held. The irony is, if you’re not sure you want to commit for the full two years, then the answer is cut and dry: Get an iPhone. I’ve…
Gizmodo’s Kyle Wagner makes a great argument for an easy feature that should be implemented by every phone manufacturer: require a passcode to turn it off. That alone could stop thieves from stealing your phone, because the phone will stay on to be tracked. https://gizmodo.com/apple-missed-the-best-use-for-a-fingerprint-scanner-1294669941
Lego is taking the fashion world by storm! Nowhere is this more apparent than this season’s new must-have accessory, the £5,000 Chanel Lego Clutch, clearly made for the obnoxiously rich. Personally, Lego-inspired fashion seems a tad avant-garde and incredibly kitsch. But, beauty is in the eye of the brick-holder. Anne-Sophie Cochevelou, of Central St. Martins…
For the first time in 12 years New Yorkers are electing a mayor who is not Michael Bloomberg, leading to all sorts of reminiscing about how he’s changed the city. These photos offer a twist: grisly historical crimes, juxtaposed against Bloomberg’s sanitized modern-day New York City. Photographer and historian of the New York Press Photographers…
In its quest to keep the legendary Walkman brand relevant in the post-iPod world, Sony has taken to creating some odd and neat, if niche gadgets, like the one-piece waterproof Walkman. Now, here’s another stab at the same concept retooled for the hip commuter crowd. https://gizmodo.com/sonys-one-piece-waterproof-walkman-1-hours-playback-fr-5974059 Like the exercise versions before them, the NWZ-WH505 and…
This horrible new tank—the shamelessly named 2015 Chevy Suburban—is the only car with six USB ports and six power outlets. Doesn’t that sound stupidly overkill? Not in suburban America! Just imagine all those kids playing Candy Crush on their iPads while they are not using the USB ports for their surveillance equipment. https://jalopnik.com/this-is-the-all-new-2015-chevy-suburban-1301022572
Thanks to newly released regulatory documents by the FCC, we seem to have confirmation that a “Nexus 5” will, in fact, be coming to us from LG sometime relatively soon. The documents, first uncovered by Phonescoop, come bearing loads of photos that reveal both the internal and external workings of the device—a device that looks…
The French designers over at Orée first had us oohing and aahing over their beautiful maple and walnut keyboards; one of the rare times when wood and technology blended perfectly. And now they’ve gone and stolen our hearts again with a warm alternative to Apple and Logitech’s sterile touchpadsthat it’s calling the Touch Slab. https://gizmodo.com/beautiful-maple-or-walnut-bluetooth-keyboards-the-wood-5943300…
Earlier this week, the Lt. Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, said that in the future, “65% of grade school kids are going to have a job that hasn’t been invented yet.” If the past has taught us anything, though, it’s that most yet-to-be-invented jobs will never actually exist. While it sounds like one of those…
The Boy Scouts of America are becoming more progressive every day. Next year the organization will introduce a brand-new Sustainability merit badge alongside the Environmental Science badge from 1972. And now, scouts can visit a giant treehouse designed to school them on sustainability using fun installations, from Rube Goldberg-esque recycling machines to light bulb-powering tricycles.…
Microsoft is next in line to build a mobile personal assistant, one that’s more than more than a robotic voice that obeys spoken commands. The feature will tie together all Microsoft products. So it’s probably appropriate that it’ll be named Cortana after the artificially intelligent character in Halo. Clues of Cortana’s existence have been popping…
Even though Iran has backed away from from its threats to lace the Strait of Hormuz with mines, militaries around the world (the US included) continue to employ the devices in large numbers—as much as 200 times as often as any other kind of maritime weapon. So, to augment the DoD’s aging fleet of Avenger-class…
Olympus just announced its latest flagship mirrorless camera, the OM-D EM-1. It’s a robust piece of gear that photogs will be clamoring for. And these tear-down photos from ePhotozine show how it’s built like a tank. https://gizmodo.com/olympus-om-d-e-m1-hands-on-mirrorless-cameras-are-seri-1280215480 The EM-1 boasts many features that set it apart from most mirrorless cameras, and one of those is…
After the enormous map for Grand Theft Auto V leaked online, the Internet has had a ball geeking out on the render of Los Santos and Blaine Counties. The geography is based on the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles, but to give you an idea for how big the city really is in real life…
In an attempt to thwart and discourage the use of cars and other vehicles in suicide bombing attacks, NATO has been funding the development of a compact electromagnetic jammer that can safely cause an engine to cut out before a bomber reaches their target. The jammer is designed to be permanently installed at checkpoints to…
You’ll probably laugh at the righteous fury concentrated on this call from a customer who had two consecutive missed appointments and got bounced around phone support for three hours. And, even while you know that phone rage leads to nothing, you’ll probably feel some toe-curling satisfaction listening to it. http://gawker.com/youve-never-heard-a-customer-service-call-meltdown-qui-1299857467
Remember the young Russian photographers who illegally climbed the Great Pyramid of Giza a few months back? They’re back, fresh off a month-long Eurotrip which took them to the Cologne Cathedral, Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, and at least one police station. And the photos they brought back will make your palms sweat. Though they’re usually referred…
The Galapagos is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, and it was key in Charles Darwin’s findings in forming the the scientific argument of evolution. You may never get to travel to the volcanic archipelago in person, but now thanks to Google, you can explore it through 360-degree imagery on Street View.…
Some of you may remember the heroic death of our dearly departed Spacebat. Some of you may still be grieving. NASA, however, has moved on to a new tragedy. Its latest victim? The most powerful goddamn jumping frog the Wallops/Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport has ever seen. RIP Spacetoad. You flew too high. https://gizmodo.com/shuttle-riding-bat-dies-the-most-glorious-death-imagina-5173385 Last Friday, September…