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Americans were promised one thing during World War II: life was going to be amazing in the “world of tomorrow.” But when the war ended many companies, along with the U.S. government, turned back on that promise as quickly as they could. Americans were told that as soon as the war was over, everyone would…
Government-run anti-obesity program First 5 is running a campaign asking kids not to abuse juices and soft drinks with sugar in them, even if they are labeled as “less sugar.” Unfortunately, to do that they fattened a stock photo of a girl (left) using Photoshop in the most horrible and sloppiest way possible (right).
Intel’s always been a bit of a brand machine—remember the “Intel Inside” stickers?—and on Tuesday it upheld that tradition. In a pivot from the sort of stodgy “Sponsors of Tomorrow” slogan, the company is going with the hacker-friendly “Look Inside.” How much can a new slogan really matter, though? A lot, if history is any…
When the Surface RT launched, the most exciting hardware feature was the Touch Cover, a slick cover-keyboard hybrid. However, it cost an extra $120, which is a lot for a practically obligatory feature. Microsoft’s online store is now giving them away with a Surface RT purchase, which is the way it always should have been.…
A giant prehistoric lizard who feasted on huge mammals back when the world was broiling is a possible preview of what our world will look like when climate change melts the ice caps. The “Lizard King,” named for Jim Morrison’s reptilian alter ego, thrived upon the flesh of big animals during a warm age 36…
The enormous, expensive, bewildering Kindle DX is suddenly back from the dead less than a year after its quiet demise. Why? Who knows. Go get your $300, 10-inch e-ink tablet/sideshow curiosity while it lasts!
Keys have been around for hundreds, if not, thousands of years. We’ve all used them. We generally understand how they work and how vulnerable they can be. Some are better than others. And now that the simplest of devices in the home are connecting to the cloud, it’s time to figure out just how safe…
Antarctica is frigid, self-consciously cloaked in a sheet of ice that’s miles thick. But underneath, there’s a wonderland of bedrock human eyes have never laid eyes on, and this is what it looks like. This new map, named Bedmap2, was generated by the British Antarctic Survey from millions upon millions of measurements taken on the…
Lego has been creeping its way into the architecture market for years now—see their Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright models for reference—but they’ve steered clear of building full-scale buildings based on the modular plastic bricks. No longer: today, the company unveiled designs for a visitor center that will open in 2016. And…
Black, white, and flat all over. Those are the much-ballyhooed words of an anonymous source quoted by every tech blog on the Internet last week, describing the future of iOS. And indeed, if early glimpses are any indication, some flatness may be in our future. But there’s a more important question out there that has…
This morning, Twitter pushed a redesigned TweetDeck, featuring a new expandable sidebar that makes navigating the app way easier Here’s a walkthrough of the entire suite, and as you can see, the new design brings new order to the uncivilized barrage of tweets we stare at every day. https://gizmodo.com/tweetdeck-redesign-post-goes-early-and-christinas-gon-511424542 Indeed, while we’ve always loved that…
With a third of all American marriages now starting with online dating, there’s some good news for all the Match.com and OkCupid couples planning to get married: People who meet on dating sites are less likely to separate or divorce, and they’re also happier than married couples who meet the old fashioned way. https://gizmodo.com/couples-who-meet-online-tend-to-have-better-marriages-511429018 [Photo…
On May 20th, the Newcastle-Moore tornado tore across central Oklahoma for 39 minutes, killing 24 people and causing an estimated $2 billion in damage. The NASA image above shows the 17-mile tract of scraped earth the disaster left in its wake in striking relief.. At its widest, the Newcastle-Moore tornado was 1.3 miles wide—so wide…
We’ve already got smartphones with GPS radios, data connections, and mapping software that can tell us where we’re supposed to go. Why on earth would we need additional smart devices in the world to help us get around? Quite simply because sometimes the smart gadgets in our pockets aren’t hip to what we want to…
The college kids protesting in Istanbul are from Turkey’s first big video game generation, and the language they’re using on social media to describe the scuffles with police are straight out of Grand Theft Auto, the hyper-violent car crime game. http://gawker.com/what-is-going-on-in-turkey-and-do-i-really-need-to-care-511018243
When you’re flying around the world in a lightweight solar-powered plane with a wingspan larger than most commercial airliners, you need to guarantee you’ve always got a safe place to store it on the ground. So the support team behind the Solar Impulse, the world’s first globe circumnavigating solar-powered aircraft, decided that the easiest way…
Cool cucumber, weathered wood, crocheted doily—apparently these are the makings of the perfect Pinterest picture, according to a year’s worth of research provided to Wired by data-crunching startup Curalate. The picture is from the Paula Deen recipe for “Aunt Peggy’s Cucumber, Tomato, and Onion Salad.” It’s been repinned 307,000 times, liked 800 times, and commented…
There’s something inherently creepy about tiny, skittering robots, and if you need to add a new terrifying bullet point to the robot apocalypse list, you might as well start here. This 6.5-cm guy can move at 30 body-lengths per second. If it were a full-size car, that amounts to about 400 miles per hour. https://gizmodo.com/this-climbing-robot-cockroach-gives-me-more-heebie-jeeb-5847626…
An apartment building and thrift store collapsed in downtown Philadelphia this morning, injuring 13 and the rubble. Just before 11 a.m., the four-story structures at 22nd and Market fell to the ground, killing six people. http://gawker.com/building-collapses-in-downtown-philadelphia-511433001
Slapped on the front page of Wednesday’s New York Times Business page is a picture of Steve Jobs, resurrected. It’s clearly taken at a new product launch where a black-shirted, blue-jeaned CEO stands confident and alone on stage. But there’s something off. The product description is in Mandarin. The CEO is wearing Converse, not New…
