Tech News

A Battery Charger That Reports Back To Your iPhone

Most users are more than content with the red light/green light approach to battery chargers. But there’s always that select few who want to know more—a lot more—and the SkyRC NC2500 should more than satisfy their hunger for data. Not only can the SkyRC NC2500 be used to charge four AA and four AAA batteries…

Walmart’s Already Got Discounts on iPhone 5S and 5C

Walmart is looking to save you some money on both of the newly-introduced iPhones. It’s offering a $20 discount on the iPhone 5C, and a $10 cut on the iPhone 5S. https://gizmodo.com/iphone-5c-apples-colorful-budget-phone-is-real-1278630584 In-store preorders for the 5C, which Walmart offers starting at $80 for the 16GB model, start on Friday, with the phone arriving on…

What Apple’s 64-Bit Architecture Really Means For Your iPhone

Probably the most underrated announcement Apple made on Tuesday was its move to 64-bit architecture for the iPhone 5S. It’s an industry first, and one with major repercussions both for your phone and for the future of Apple. Here’s why it matters. https://gizmodo.com/apples-new-a7-chip-is-apples-first-64-bit-soc-1278205052 A more thorough technical explanation of 64-bit architecture follows below, but in…

11 Glittering Insects From the US Geological Survey’s Bug Collection

Insects are pretty much the raison d’etre of macro photography. And while there are plenty examples out there, this collection of hundreds of high-res creepy crawlies collected by the U.S. Geological Survey deserves some special attention. The photos come to us from the USGS Bee Inventory & Monitoring Lab—part of a government agency that collects…

An Emergency Lightning Cable That’s No Bigger Than Your House Key

The makers of the ChargeCard—that wallet-friendly credit card-sized sync cable for smartphones—are back with a new product called the ChargeKey that’s instead designed to hang out on your keychain. It’s almost like a stripped down version of the ChargeCard that sheds most of the plastic so it can easily sidle up next to your keys,…

How Analogies Shape Your Thinking

You might just think of analogies as being clever constructions, put together by smart people, to help you understand complex problems—but there’s more to them than you might think. In fact, they’re a crucial part of being human; the way in which our (relatively!) simple bodies manage to understand the incredibly complex world around us;…

Broadcom’s Bringing UHD to Your Cable Box

Ultra-high definition TV is coming—sooner than you think. The industry is certainly already on board, what with the recent release of the HDMI 2.0 standard and a steadily growing stable relatively inexpensive of 4K-capable TVs. But actually getting 4K content from anything other than a local media drive is still a problem. Or it was…

This Guy Fought in WWII With a Sword and Bow

Running into battle armed with a broadsword, bow, and quiver of arrows was perfectly acceptable if you were fighting in the Hundred Years’ War or fending off some orcs on Middle Earth. But when it comes to World War II, such medieval weaponry looks like child’s play next to the technology of the time. A…

Rumor has it that the super-sized 6-inch Lumia 1520 should see an official launch announcement on September 26th. Let’s wait and see!

When Did Humans Start Wearing Clothes?

Determining exactly when humans began wearing clothes is a challenge, largely because early clothes would have been things like animal hides, which degrade rapidly. Therefore, there’s very little archaeological evidence that can be used to determine the date that clothing started being worn. There have been several different theories based on what archaeologists have been…

Google+ Now Works as a Serious Photo Editor (If You Use Chrome)

Google+ is now rolling out many of the image adjustment tricks included in its Auto Awesome feature as manual tools—if you use the right browser. https://gizmodo.com/google-new-photo-features-hands-on-fun-but-unreliabl-507748875 Auto Awesome did an admirable—if unreliable—job of applying image adjustments to photographs uploaded to Google+, but clearly the idea here that a human touch may help somewhat more. So,…

Samsung: Our Next-Gen Phones WIll Have 64-Bit Processors, Too

Not be outdone by Apple, Samsung has swiftly reacted to the announcement of Cook & Co.’s new 64-bit A7 processor by announcing that its next slew of phones will pack similar silicon, thank you very much. https://gizmodo.com/apples-new-a7-chip-is-apples-first-64-bit-soc-1278205052 Speaking to the Korea Times, Samsung’s mobile business head JK Shin has explained that the company’s future phones…

Mark Zuckerberg on the NSA Debacle, Facebook Home, and Sucking at IPOs

Speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference Mark Zuckerberg has made his feelings known about the recent NSA scandal, pointing out that the government “blew it”. In his own words: “Frankly, I think that the government blew it. They blew it on communicating the balance of what they were going for with this.” He’s rightly annoyed,…

This skyscraper can get invisible at the touch of a button

This 1,476-foot skyscraper will have an electronic cloak that will make it invisible—something completely unimaginable until now. Tower Infinity will use a clever combination of cameras and an electronic light emitting façade to project its surroundings onto itself, fading into the sky in broad daylight. Sounds like an impossible sci-fi dream? It will be very…

Verizon is starting iPhone 5C pre-orders at 3:01AM EDT on September 13th. Sprint will start pre-orders for the 5C a minute before at 3:00 AM EDT. No word on AT&T and Apple yet, though you’d assume the same 3:00AM EDT/12:oo AM PDT timeframe. [Verizon, Sprint via MacRumors]

The Weirdest Thing on the Internet Tonight: Jii Jii Jii

A word to US advertising firms: if your USB drive/electronic cigarette lighter ad doesn’t last over two minutes, involve oddly inappropriate component mating scenes, or incite seizures in at least 13 percent of the viewing public, you’re probably doing it wrong.

The 9/11 memorial lights looks like a space portal from the inside

These are the 88 lights that form New York’s 9/11 memorial Tribute in Light, as captured using fisheye lenses from the inside. A weird perspective that makes it look like one of the spaceships from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Really beautiful shot. https://gizmodo.com/the-view-from-the-base-of-new-york-citys-annual-9-11-me-1292691726

Conan Reveals Why Apple Created the Gold iPhone 5S

You see, the goldpagne iPhone 5S wasn’t designed in Cupertino. No, no, no. It was made by a team outside of Apple located in Miami Beach! By the same guys who wears shiny shirts, gold chains, sunglasses indoors and more rings than fingers. Duh. That makes so much more sense. Gold is best, best, best.…

10 Photography Hacks to Help You Save Money on Camera Gear

Trying to become a real photographer? I know. All that gear that’ll make you legit costs oodles of cash money. Juggling which photo gear you need to buy and which you really need to buy can lead to credit card statement horror. Don’t worry though, DigitalRev has 10 hacks specific to photography that’ll save you…

Watch People Get Pranked into Thinking Star Trek Teleportation Is Real

Teleportation is perhaps the dreamiest sci-fi invention ever imagined so it’s no surprise that when a Star Trek-style Transporter pops up in a middle of a mall and promises real life teleportation, a crowd forms to ooh and ahh and secretly hope that it’s real (no matter how unreal it is). Illusionist Scott Penrose created…