Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
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!
Not too long ago, Microsoft introduced its grand, pie-in-the-sky plans to maybe, someday turn your entire wall into an extension of your TV screen. Now, Microsoft Research has dropped some new details about how it all would work, and it’s shaping up to be pretty awesome. https://gizmodo.com/microsoft-wants-to-turn-your-entire-wall-into-a-tv-scre-5974606 The IllumiRoom would take the physical form of…
A quality grinder is an essential tool in making good coffee or espresso, but they’re often known more for their utility than their beauty. The HG-One, though, is a different beast. Its sleek beauty will make you forget how much cranking is involved. The HG-One requires good old-fashioned human strength to grind beans into fine…
Rumors have been swirling that Google Now (the Big G’s super-useful personal assistant application) would be coming to the search page on Google.com, but surprise! Our friends on iOS are getting the love first. Starting today, Google Now will be rolled into the Google Search app for iPhone and iPad. https://gizmodo.com/google-might-change-google-com-and-make-using-the-inter-5995205 Google Now, for those…
In 2012, 19 billion chat messages were sent each day across the world—compared to just 17.6 billion SMS messages.
While the prospect of new smart watches from every corner is terribly exciting, few people seem to spent much time working out how to make them, you know, useful. But a researcher from Carnegie Mellon University has, fortunately, been trying to work out if an on-screen keyboard could work on a smart watch—and the here’s…
Hello, friends! Don’t be startled. This is, in fact, Gizmodo. It just looks a little different now. And works so much better. Some of the changes you’re seeing here are obvious, and are already familiar if you’ve been to one of our sister sites lately. What you’re looking at is what we call Kinja, a…
This might look like some kind of space ship—but it’s actually a model of a supersonic Boeing airliner, being tested in NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. The NASA team is working out how to reduce the incredible amount of noise that a supersonic airliner generates. NASA explains: “We are testing overall vehicle design…
Just in case you thought Samsung didn’t offer enough variety in its tablet range, its gone ahead and launched yet another. This 7-inch Galaxy Tab 3 is brand new and, um, like virtually every other Samsung tablet that’s gone before it. The third iteration of Samsung’s first tablet attempt, this little seven-incher packs a 1.2GHz…
These days everyone wants you to hack your life in order to make your day-to-day existence more efficient. But there are times when the effort’s not really worth it—and this chart should help you work out what to spend time on, and what to ignore. Put together by XKCD’s Randall Munroe, this chart tells you…
Nintendo’s refurb shop is now selling refurbished DSi XL and 3DSs for $100 up. Leaves some change for games!
You may have expected the first ever portable motion picture camera to be housed in some form of stuffy box—but in fact it was shaped like a rifle, which lends a new accuracy to the idea of shooting some film. Invented by scientist Étienne-Jules Marey, the Fusil Photographique—that means photographic rifle if your French isn’t…
This is a good song. No one is saying that you should listen to it while in any type of altered mental state whatsoever. It’s just a good song. The Wings recorded it in 1972 and it got pretty popular, though the BBC was turned off by some of its lyrics. Paul apparently had this…
In San Francisco police are trying a new tactic to disincentivize people from buying stolen iPhones: they’re trapping them in undercover stings. Wearing plain clothes, the officers are going around certain city areas and selling iPhones which they readily indicate are stolen. When someone tries to buy one, they make an arrest. The goal is…
So yeah, efemr is a web app that scrubs tweets after the amount of time you hashtag. Want a tweet gone after five minutes? #5m. Two hours? #2h. You get the gist. The usual retweet concerns still apply, but if no one interacts with the tweet while it’s up, it will pretty much disappear when…
Who even knows. The creators of Wool&Prince are claiming that you can wear their wool button-down shirts for days on end without them wrinkling, smelling or showing any dirt. Frankly, that sounds ridiculous, but maybe? Testers recruited by Wool&Prince all unsurprisingly claim that no matter what they do, the shirts look fresh from the dry…
If ever there was something bubbling out of the primordial ooze it’s these little pools of light. There’s something that’s just gloopy and compelling about them. This is KIHOU, a series produced by tangent, a London/Tokyo design studio. Basically different bowls hold a “sticky liquid” and a layer of black silicone oil. There are LEDs…
When you think about how you would deal with a zombie invasion, the weapons that come to mind probably don’t include slingshots. But if the story of David and Goliath has taught us anything it’s that slingshots are pretty deadly. Plus that whole underdog thing. Whatever. Joerg Sprave wanted to make sure he was ready…
There have been vague rumblings about ISPs stepping up to match Google Fiber’s gigabit internet offering, especially since Google announced that the next Fiber city would be Austin. Now 600 residents of Vermont are actually getting those speeds at half the Fiber price. What gives? https://gizmodo.com/would-a-1-gbps-internet-connection-stop-you-from-saying-5812881 The Vermont Telephone Company (VTel), which serves about 17,500…
There are some things you should really see/inspect/measure before you buy, but in the age of item reviews and free return shipping laziness often dictates that we just take a best guess and see how things play out. Recently I ordered a wetsuit even though I know nothing about wetsuits. Return shipping was $12 so…