Tech News

Can the World’s Thinnest Keyboard Cut a German Sausage?

If you cast your mind back to 2009, you might recall the Palm Pre had an edge so sharp, it was able to cut through cheese. Measuring just half a millimetre thick, the world’s thinnest keyboard — made by British company CSR in partnership with Atmel and CIT — should be able to take on…

This Mercedes is the newest top “family” car for the disgustingly rich

This new Mercedes BRABUS 850 iBusiness is the new four-wheel toy for the super rich with family or chauffeur. It has an engine more powerful than this dump truck, with (real) gold tubes that nobody but a mechanic would see. Inside it looks like a Gulfstream jet, so its owner never feels out of his…

What Is High-Resolution Audio?

This week, Sony unleashed a battery of expensive audio gear that claims to support “high-resolution audio” which, like “ultra high-definition” in the video world, sounds pretty snazzy. But what does high-resolution audio mean? And will HRA really make the music sound better? High-resolution audio is a new industry marketing term… On Tuesday, the Consumer Electronic…

The Cold War Bunker That Offered Subterranean Suburbia Below Las Vegas

The real estate listing for 3970 Spencer St. shows a foreclosed two-bedroom on a suburban street east of the Las Vegas Strip. That’s nothing remarkable in Vegas, which has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country, but this house is special: It’s 25 feet unground. A high-end fallout shelter built in secret, it’s…

This weird and wonderful iridescent cloud is not a special effect

It’s hard to believe that the sky in this photo is not a frame from a sci-fi movie. The weird ball on top of a mountain, the antennas, and a sky that seems to belong to an alien world… it’s a sky that you can only see in one place in the world. That place…

A Simple Leather Loop That Outperforms Most Smartphone Accessories

Most leather accessories for your smartphone take the form of unflattering cases that add unnecessary bulk to your device and detract from its sleek design. And that’s why we love Alain Berteau’s lovely leather keyring accessory—because it does neither of those things. Instead, besides making your keys easy to retrieve from your pocket, the recycled…

This Ship Makes Its Own Waves Inside to Remain Stable in Rough Seas

It can take a land lubber quite a while to get their sea legs, so MARINTEK (the Norwegian Marine Technology Research Institute), working with Norway’s Salt Ship Design, have created a boat that can actively cancel out the rolling motion of the ocean’s waves. Designed for use alongside oil platforms under construction as a temporary…

Police arrests man who broke the drive-around-Manhattan speed record

His name, according to the New York Police Department, is Christopher Adam Tang. He claimed he drove around Manhattan in just 24 minutes and seven seconds using a BMW Z4. The man was arrested following the publication of his video and an interview in Jalopnik. https://jalopnik.com/source-says-police-have-arrested-manhattan-speeder-afro-1253640248

Here’s the Gigantic Nokia Windows Phone We Might Never See

There’s a new leaked image of Lumia’s gigantic phone-tablet, the Lumia 1520, and it looks pretty nice. It comes from @evleaks, a historically reliable source for advance shots of phones. It looks pretty nice—if it ever comes out. Evleaks posted the image as “Nokia Lumia 1520, 2013”, but it’s unclear what’s happening to all of…

7 Surprising Structures That Would Have Transformed San Francisco

When you live in a city for a while, it begins to feel—for better or for worse—like every block is completely familiar. But there’s a heck of a lot of invisible history inherent in even the most recognizable sites. This month, San Francisco is celebrating its own unrealized gems; Unbuilt is the theme of the…

According to 9to5Mac, we may have to wait until the end of October for the final release of OS X Mavericks. The update—which features a lot of small improvements that add up—is reportedly taking extra time to mourn the tragic loss of Goose.

Qualcomm Toq Hands-On: This Is Tonnes Better Than the Galaxy Gear

Disregarding my opinion that smartwatches (unless they’re the Pebble, or something as intuitive and elegantly-executed) can all be tossed in a skip and set on fire, I’m actually really impressed after a brief play with the Qualcomm Toq (pronounced “talk,” not “toc.” Dubbed “the anti-Galaxy Gear” (by us), such is the stripped-down nature of what’s…

LG’s 77-Inch Curved OLED Ultra HD TV Is a Monstrous Beauty

Currently, the biggest curved curved ultra-high resolution OLED TV tops out at a mere 55 inches—but LG is shaking things up with this monstrous 77-inch creature. Being shown off at IFA 2013, it’s not clear why anyone would really need a 77-inch curved TV like this. But that’s OK, because it’s currently just a concept…

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Craig From Craigslist

Craig Newmark is the Craig of Craigslist whose estimated net worth as of 2010 was around $400 million. This is in direct contrast to his financial wealth during childhood, where his mother struggled to support Craig and his brother, Jeff, after the death of their father. Craig Alexander Newmark was born on December 6, 1952,…

Visualizing Published Science as Forming Galaxies

Scientific research is published by the bucketload every single week—to the extent that it’s virtually impossible to keep up with. So this neat way of visualizing published papers as growing galaxies is particularly fun—and useful. Initially basing the idea on arXiv—the open website where scientists publish research, not yet peer-reviewed, to make it available as…

China Telecom Leak Seems to Reveal New iPhones

On Thursday afternoon, a verified China Telecom account on the Weibo microblog posted an advert for advance orders of the iPhone 5S and 5C—the phones we expect Apple to announce next week. https://gizmodo.com/the-new-iphone-s-are-officially-coming-sept-10th-1245187290 While the post was swiftly withdrawn, a journalist at the Wall Street Journal spotted—and screen grabbed—the web page. It’s not clear if…

Can You Identify a Mystery Cocoon Which Has the Whole Internet Stumped?

Usually, throw the internet an image of something you can’t identify and it’s only a couple of minutes until you’re bombarded with people pointing out how dumb you are. Not so with this mystery cocoon, though—because nobody can work out where it comes from. First spotted by Troy Alexander in Peru, he calls it a…

Some Guy Got a Random Guy’s Facebook Profile Pic Tattooed to His Butt

When we said that Selfless Portraits, an awesome website where strangers drew pictures of other stranger’s Facebook profiles, is something we should all totally get behind, we definitely didn’t mean this: Joey Jordan took one of those random Facebook profile pictures and got it tattooed on his butt cheek. Now some guy’s face from Brazil…

The Weirdest Thing on the Internet Tonight: Palette of the Ocean

This must be what Jacques Cousteau’s dreams looked like. This gorgeous visual poem from watercolor artist Will Kim is accompanied by an original score composed and performed by Ray Lee.

Could The Fork and Knife Chopsticks Be the Only Utensil You Ever Need?

There’s an eternal battle going on in my head on what’s the greatest utensil in the entire world. I flip with a fork but then flop to chopsticks, I side with the spear and then Benedict Arnold to extended fingers. It’s never settled. Different types of food require different utensils. If only there was one…