Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Amazon’s got something cooking. First, we saw a huge fire sale on Kindle Fires, now the wonderful Wi-Fi Kindle Paperwhite has gone out of stock on Amazon’s website. Looks like someone’s trying to clean house. http://gizmodo.com/preview/is-amazon-making-room-for-its-next-e-ink-kindle-1214296487 The 3G Kindle Paperwhite—$179 to the Wi-Fi Paperwhite’s $119—is still in stock, but it’s probably a safe bet to…
The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt design museum in New York just acquired the source code to an iPad app called Planetary from its now-defunct developer. Code is officially art now. Planetary, as you can see in the video above, is basically a fancy music visualizer. The app’s source code was donated to the Cooper-Hewitt, which promptly open-sourced…
Would you be more scared of a guy dressed in a velociraptor suit or a ghost girl that appears out of nowhere in a broken elevator? Do you know of a more traumatic prank than any of these? https://gizmodo.com/this-terrifying-raptor-chase-is-the-most-traumatic-pran-1210483692
Melbourne IT, an Australian domain name registration, just got hijacked, apparently by the very busy Syrian Electronic Army. This shouldn’t be a surprise since it’s the same company that was implicated in Tuesday’s New York Times and Twitter hacks. https://gizmodo.com/how-the-ny-times-is-still-publishing-despite-being-hack-1210167435 Attempting visit Melbourne IT’s homepage (www.melbourneit.com.au) on Wednesday morning showed a blank white page with…
Laptop trackpads have gotten considerably more capable over the years, but sometimes a mouse in hand is still the better way to go. And if you’re used to carrying a svelte laptop, Logitech’s betting you’ll want a mouse to match with its new Ultrathin T630/631 Touch Mouse that can keep you working for hours, even…
The London Underground secured a place in the pantheon of good graphic design with engineer Harry Beck’s topologic Tube Map from 1933. In addition to that icon, however, the transit system has a pretty substantial history of bringing top-notch visuals to the subterranean masses; posters promoting everything from the Underground’s pleasant temperature control—cooler on hot…
Apple’s compact Mac mini isn’t as popular as it once was, but the company could easily make it a hot seller again if they just followed John Leake’s lead and turned it into a miniature Macintosh. At one-third the size of the original, it’s pretty much too cute to resist. Using a Raspberry Pi at…
Hue Menu, introduced today, lets you control your psychedelic Philips Hue color-changing mood lights from your Mac computer. Most Hue owners control their setup via mobile app, but now you can set the color palette of the room while looking like you’re doing work. [Mac App Store via TechCrunch]
Have you noticed this trend in YouTube? You watch a video on YouTube. Maybe it’s a minute, maybe it’s two. Maybe you laughed, maybe you didn’t. But then there are 5 minutes of additional post-video video that tells you to either subscribe to their other channel, add them on Facebook, tweet out a shoutout, click…
The United States is rapidly preparing a strike on Syrian military targets following President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical attacks against his fellow citizens. The tension in the region continues to increase as an Iran spokesperson has said that Israel will be the first victim if Syria gets attacked. Israel has announced forceful retaliation against any aggression…
Because language doesn’t really matter anymore to the Internet, words that people use online all the time even though people are often too embarrassed to say it in real life are now a part of the dictionary. The Oxford Dictionaries Online is adding these wonky words to its dictionary: twerk, phablet, derp, selfie, bitcoin, vom…
Remember kids, next time giant robot mimes invade Dublin, you only need to distract them until reinforcements can ship a contingent of giant laser cats down river. Everything will be fine.
For every awesome life hack and tip you see on the Internet, there are thousands more that seem so complicated that they seem like they would make life harder. This parody video by KipKay—who actually comes up with awesome life hacks—hilariously pokes fun of those types of useless, ridiculous tips. Like using your sandals to…
Dead media like cassette tapes, video tapes, CDs, DVDs and so forth should die. I have no problem admitting that. They take up space, offer a worse experience and are just unnecessarily inconvenient now. Who cares that I have a CD tower filled with music? Where would I ever listen to all that? But none…
Parallels Access turns your iPad into a porthole to your more powerful (and heavier) Windows or Mac computers somewhere else. Connecting the your iPad to your remote machine through the cloud is the (relatively) easy part. The real magic is how Parallels Access elegantly shrinks your desktop applications into manageable tablet apps. Remotely accessing a…
You can buy a Nexus 4 8GB for $200 and a 16GB for $250 now. That’s $100 cheaper than before and a sweet deal considering no additional contract but it’s probably worth mentioning the Nexus 4 is 9 months old now.
Who cares that the Iron Throne in Game of Thrones is forged from the swords of everyone Aegon conquered. This Throne of Nerds is made by artist Mike DeWolfe who warped together more than 20 different keyboards to create a throne every one of us who stare at a computer for a living should be…
Leave it to our friends at Devin Super Tramp to make walking on a tight rope over a canyon look like such a freaking party. To be completely accurate, the people on the rope are actually ‘highlining’ which is like tight roping without the pole. I’d probably pee my pants just from setting one toe…
Everyone’s busy. Now, whether it’s for legitimate reasons or own anxious need to feel like we’re busy at all times is a different story. Regardless, anything we can do to save time is going to free up precious minute we (think) we so desperately need. Speed-reading app ReadQuick is here to do just that. What…
The Syrian Electronic Army claims it’s taken over Twitter’s domain registration. Indeed, several public Whois listings show [email protected] as the contact information for Twitter.com, which would seem to indicate the hacker group isn’t bluffing. Many Twitter users say they’re experiencing problems with the service. We’ve reached out to Twitter, and the company responded that they’re…