Tech News

The Secret Twitter Music Feature That Adds a Dash of Pandora

Twitter’s stab at music streaming burst onto the scene a few weeks ago, in all its celebrity-stalking glory. But there’s at least one feature that’s still hiding behind the scenes: a Pandora-like “similar artists” option. And you can coax it out if you know the secret code. https://gizmodo.com/twitter-music-hands-on-a-celeb-stalking-music-discov-5994969 Discovered by Tyler Hayes the feature can…

These Japanese Wooden Pens Are Perfectly Elegant

You know, there’s nothing quite like finding the perfect writing instrument. It’s a wordsmith’s holy grail of sorts. And we love these elegant new pens from Japanese brand Miidori. The smooth ebony and tulipwood pens come in two colors options, and they’ll arrive on your doorstep in a nice little box. Sure, they’ll run you…

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Report: There’s Going to Be a Lot of Jony Ive in iOS 7

With Jony Ive in the driver’s seat for iOS 7, the scent of change is on the breeze. Change itself is inevitable, it’s just a question of how much. And according to 9to5Mac’s sources, the answer to that question is “a lot.” According to several unnamed sources who have been briefed on the upcoming iOS…

The Woman Who Received the First Successful Womb Transplant Is Now Six Weeks Pregnant

Derya Sert, a 22-year-old Turkish woman, is officially six-weeks into a normal, healthy pregnancy. The absolutely remarkable part? Sert was born without a womb and received the first successful uterus transplant ever. After performing the actual surgery in 2011, doctors were able to use her own eggs, which they then fertilized before placing an embryo…

A Chinese Winery That Mimics Everyone’s Favorite Five-Armed Glyph

Here’s a fun little piece of literalism for a Monday afternoon: Asterisk, a winery designed by the Japanese firm Sako Architects. Sited on an artificial island in a complex outside of Beijing, the building’s five prongs each house a different program—one for eating, one for boozing, and so on. The 60,000-square-foot winery is part of…

Look at SpaceShipTwo’s Rocket Ablaze

In case you missed it earlier today, Virgin Galactic successfully performed its first rocket-powered test flight of the SpaceShipTwo. In other words, space tourism is nigh. https://gizmodo.com/today-might-be-virgin-galactics-first-rocket-powered-t-484341889

A Full Copy of Windows 8 Is Your Deal of the Day

The best time to upgrade to a new version of Windows is during the launch window—due to Microsoft’s abysmal adoption rates for new operating systems, they offer a slew of great deals on upgrade copies. Those deals are over now. But the versions for cheap were upgrade copies: if you were building a machine and…

Set Your Phone’s Photos Free With the Wikimedia Commons App

Wikipedia just wouldn’t be the same without its pictures, but someone has to go out and take ’em. Now you can help, armed with nothing but a smartphone and some stuff to shoot. The new Wikimedia Commons apps for iOS and Android make uploading pictures to Wikimedia’s Creative Commons archive a piece of cake. By…

The iPhone Is One of the Best Google Phones You Can Buy

The addition of Google Now to the iOS App Store has granted iPhone owners access to one of Google’s most useful products. But it did something else, too. It made the iPhone a better Google phone than the vast majority of Android phones you can buy. https://gizmodo.com/google-now-for-iphone-and-ipad-its-here-and-its-gre-484296181 The Android Experience Let’s be clear right up…

Arbitrary iPad Swipes and Taps Make Accidental Art

When you check your email, when you play Temple Run, when you’re selecting a song to listen to, you’re making art. You just don’t know it. In a series called Invisible Hieroglyphics, artists Andre Woolery and Victor AbiJaoudi highlight those hidden masterpieces you don’t even mean to make. The works of art are created on…

Gizmodo’s Transformers Trip:How They’re Made,Where They Come From

Recently, Gizmodo had a chance to go out to the Transformers HQ at Hasbro’s home office outside of Providence, Rhode Island. We got to see how the classic toys are designed from the ground up, as well as the workshop where early prototypes for all of Hasbro’s toys are put together. It was a pretty…

Today Marks Virgin Galactic’s First Rocket-Powered Test Flight

Earlier this month, Virgin Chairman Richard Branson announced at the launch of Virgin America’s new route through Newark that his other flying endeavor would be hitting a huge milestone this month: Its first rocket-powered test flight. From the looks of Virgin Galactic and Branson’s Twitter feeds this morning, it looks like that time has come.…

Make Coffee Without a Coffee Maker Using Crap Around Your House

With most people content to just pop in a cartridge, push a button, and accept the caffeinated lighter fluid that comes forth with open mouths, it’s easy to forget that coffee-making can be an art. Which is partially why Tonx’s fun and monstrously informative infographic on cofeee-makerless coffee-making is such a delight. Whether you’re a…

Put The History of Time In Context With a Click of Your Mouse

There’s nothing to spice up your Monday like getting a feel for how insignificant of a speck you are in the grand scheme of the universe. Here Is Today does just that, but in such a pretty, minimalist way that you won’t even mind. HereIsToday.com is a single serving site that does exactly what it’s…

Beer Mapper App Takes the Mystery Out of Choosing Your Next Pint

Imagine if an app could learn your taste in beer the way Netflix learns your taste in movies. It’s coming. Drink it all in. Beer Mapper is a project by engineering student Kevin Jamieson. The app, when it becomes available, will work a lot like a Hot or Not for beer: It shows you two…

Form(s) vs Function: Making Official Docs Look Better–And Work Harder

A crop of newly reimagined government forms beautify and clarify the documents that define us (as far as the government is concerned, at least). But should we be thinking harder about how these forms function, alongside how they look? Earlier this month, a London design agency called I Want Design introduced a new concept for…

The Military’s New Flying Gas Station Will Be Open 24/7 Worldwide

KC-135 Stratotanker planes have been refueling fighter craft in-flight for more than 60 years. While such longevity is commendable, the US military’s fleet of mid-air refuellers is in desperate need of an update. And that’s where this new flying gas station comes in. The Boeing KC-46A is a derivative of the Boeing 767-200 built at…

Twitter Should Shut Me Down

In August of 2012 I left my job at a startup in New York City. I was 24. I enrolled in a graduate program at NYU, wanting to study Computer Science and Biology. Two weeks in, one of my professors assigned a homework project that would rapidly turn into a profitable business. The goal of…

Change is good. We changed over to Kinja today. We’re super excited to have the new design, so we made you this Spotify playlist to rock out to as you read. Enjoy!