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Here at Gizmodo, we’re obsessed with beautiful old factories, captivating control rooms and fascinating scientific machinery. (Yes, that’s me.) A few weeks ago, I showed you the 99-year-old Kelenföld Power Plant, one of most beautiful industrial places on earth. This time, I’d like to show you another industrial pearl—in a rather hideous place. https://gizmodo.com/the-awesome-control-rooms-that-run-the-world-5955205 A…
If you’re desperate to get your hands on iOS 7, but don’t want to upgrade your iPhone until the official release is available next week, Macmixing has posted all of the new wallpapers available in the gold master released to developers yesterday, which should tide you over until next Wednesday. https://gizmodo.com/ios-7-will-be-out-september-18-with-even-more-new-featu-1278033928 It’s far from the…
Which famous singer, actress and widow of a seminal grunge star who committed suicide in Seattle hates Katy Perry but loves the twerking demon child for being “sort of punk in a weird sex way…like dark and hillbilly and fucked up”? https://jezebel.com/courtney-love-calls-miley-cyrus-an-effed-up-hillbilly-1291973596
For a coding contest where competitors had a limited amount of time to come up with a novel game that plays out in just 10 seconds, SassyBot Studio created this stressful-looking bomb defusing challenge that has players trying to figure out what wire to snip. Bomb Defuse Simulator 2013 took just 72 hours to create,…
Flint, Michigan was once home to GM, serving as a vital hub in the American automotive industry. But in the 1990s, it emerged as a bellwether for Rust Belt cities, plagued by financial mismanagement and an outsized foreclosure rate. This spring, the city launched a competition that asked architects to reimagine one of its many…
The all-new and elegant iOS 7 is officially coming out next week, but if you are too impatient to wait, here’s a very easy method to upgrade your iPhone or iPad right now. https://lifehacker.com/how-to-upgrade-to-ios-7-right-now-1288208215
While there was no mention of Apple TV yesterday, All Things D is reporting that it believes Cook & Co. will roll out a software overhaul for the media box next week. Apparently the update will land the same day as iOS 7 on September 18th. Peter Kafka writes: The one new feature I’m aware…
This typeface may not look incredibly sophisticated, but give it a chance: it was, after all, created by a robot. An experiment by Egyptian designer Mostafa El Abasiry, Robosans is created by the robot pictured below. Gripping a brush, the robot was used to sweep out curves and create letters. A lot of trial and…
We went over this in depth last week, but it’s worth a stern reminder: There is no good reason to stand in line for the iPhone. None. Unless you are Steve Wozniak, and even then it’s dicey. https://gizmodo.com/should-you-stand-in-line-for-the-new-iphone-1264876209 If you want a new iPhone, just order it online and have it delivered to your door…
Back in the 1990s, Ben Shneiderman invented the treemap as a means of visualizing the hierarchical contents of his hard drive. Now, he’s taking inspiration from famous artists to make his data look pretty. Really, very pretty. The idea is to use the stylistic cues of famous artists to generate visualizations that represent the data…
There are plenty of gaming PCs designed to replace consoles, but if you’re short on space that normally means accepting something underpowered like the Ouya. But this little guy, called the Gigabyte Brix II, is both powerful and petite. https://gizmodo.com/heres-what-100-worth-of-gaming-console-looks-iike-ins-496277518 Its cute little 4.5-inch square frame—which is smaller than an Xbox controller—is actually hiding a…
The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) just today released hundreds of pages of documents related to the government’s secret interpretation of Patriot Act Section 215 and the NSA’s (mis)use of its massive database of every American’s phone records. The documents were released as a result of EFF’s ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. We’ve posted…
Sometimes it feels like there’s nothing that computers can’t beat us at: chess, Jeopardy, curing cancer… hell, even cooking pudding. Randall Munroe sums it up nicely in today’s XKCD. https://gizmodo.com/fifteen-years-ago-today-a-computer-became-the-worlds-b-5909509 And if that weren’t depressing enough, he really knocks it out of the park with the alt-text, too: ‘At least humans are better at quietly…
The one in which the father of gonzo journalism goes off on the “asshole who scrambled all my wiring.” Turns out, Thompson had had a new-fangled DVD player installed in his Woody Creek, CO home but couldn’t get the damnable thing to turn on. So he called what he thought was the installation company that…
The iPhone 5C is colorful! The iPhone 5C is cute! The iPhone 5C also comes with a ridiculous case that looks like a cross between Connect Four, a cheese grater and Crocs. Hmm… maybe that’s where Apple got the ‘c’ in 5C. Most people with eyes think the 5C case is just plain ugly. Some…
Usual disclaimer about not trying this at home and all that but if you were wondering if you could use the Nvidia Shield as a bulletproof vest and then still play with it later, the answer is yes! Well, as long as it gets shot through the screen. And as long as you’re not actually…
So Apple’s iPhone event is over and we have two new iPhones to fondle, swipe, break, fingerprint and maybe even use. Well technically we have two new iPhones. One of them is last year’s guts in a brand new body. The other one is brand new guts in last year’s body. Half a new phone…
Chance the Rapper’s breakout mixtape, Acid Rap, is my favorite thing I’ve laid ears on in a long, long time. Inspired in part by Chance’s experiences on LSD, it’s a piece of music that jaunts through something like half a dozen different genres from jazz to funk to soul to pop to create some a…
In news that you already assumed was already happening, the NSA declassified documents that reveal repeated violations of American’s phone records. A judge said the NSA had “daily violations” for over two years and that “thousands” of American phone numbers had been improperly accessed. Is it massive incompetence or a blatant disregard for privacy? Probably…
On today, the high holy day of frenzied consumerism, please take a moment to reflect on your position of relative privilege in these uncertain times. Let us not forget the real trials and hardships of people both around the world and around this country while we vapidly argue the perceived advantages between competing operating systems.…
