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Leoni Werle designed the Pilu Lamp with a v-shaped angled base they can rotate back and forth from upright to inclined, as if they’re spying on you. The bell-shaped pieces are sized for the floor or the desk. Their aluminum shades and bars are grey and yellow, and they have bases made of solid oak…
For the first time, the United States has officially disclosed plans to develop counterattack measures against foreign nations’ cyberattacks. General Keith Alexander, chief of the military’s Cyber Command and the NSA, told Congress yesterday the military is training 13 teams of programmers and computer experts to carry out offensive attacks. As disclosures to Congress go,…
If you need an excuse to sleep through that Psych 101 lecture instead of taking notes, just come to class with one of these $20 Claustrophobic Notebooks that are designed to be hard to open. To access the pages within you’ll actually need to tear the cover and individual sheets on one edge. Why? Who…
The Fukushima Daiichi meltdown and other recent disasters like Deepwater Horizon highlight a very real need for robotic first responders that can operate in inhospitable environments. In response, DARPA recently issued a Robotics Challenge addressing the issue. Here’s the design that Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center (CMU NREC) hopes will take home the…
The folks at iFixit just went all Saw on the newly available Kickstarter edition of the Pebble smartwatch. Despite its lack of screws, the gadget mechanics were able to pry the e-paper display watch open and check out its guts. From a DIY repair point-of-view, the verdict isn’t good: You cannot replace anything on the…
Streaming video philanthropists of the world: your generosity streak is probably coming to a close. Starting today, Netflix goes social: everything you watch can be beamed to Facebook. So it’s time to cut off all your mooching friends https://gizmodo.com/your-facebook-friends-can-see-what-youre-watching-on-ne-5990303 It’s been a great run. Netflix doesn’t enforce any kind of login limits, so your tightwad…
The Battersea Power Station is an iconic London building, but it’s been tragically unused since it was decommissioned in 1983. Now architectural firm Atelier Zündel Cristea wants to turn that around with a proposal to make the abandoned spot a roller coaster. Where do we sign? The station would be the center of a rollicking…
All-black stealth suits, fingers flying across keyboards, screams of unintelligible jargon at Matrix-style lines of code. These are the things that generally come to mind when you hear the phrase “foreign military hacking unit”—or at least the mind of anyone who’s seen a movie in the past 10 years. But as the Los Angeles Times…
Wander down any highway as recently as 30 years ago, and you’d be confronted by storefronts, banners and billboards that were all hand painted. Sadly that tradition has declined—but this amazing documentary attempts to shed light on the lost art of sign painting. As with any industry, technology brings change—but in the case of sign…
Google I/O registration is now open. Update: Google I/O is sold out. Didja get in?
Any professional sporting venue hoping to stay profitable is designed to accomodate a varying sports so it’s always in use. And in an attempt to reduce the wasted hours often needed to convert a field, a pair of Dutch companies have developed the 4D Sportsground which uses rotating three-sided segments to almost instantly transform it…
It’s always better to be safe than sorry if you’ve had too many drinks to get behind the wheel. Breathometer is a new breathalyzer that works with your smartphone to make absolutely sure you’re clear. And it’s a whole lot cheaper than a DUI. The pocket-sized piece of hardware plugs into your headphone jack. You…
Brace yourselves and your news feeds: Netflix is finally giving you and your buddies the chance to announce what you’re watching on Facebook. That functionality has been available to non-US residents since 2011, but Netflix has been cautious when it comes to the States because of decrepit laws that could’ve landed it in hot water.…
Leave it to Brando to add one of the most obscene iPhone cases we’ve ever seen to its online catalog. If you love the iPhone 5’s minimalist design, you’re going to hate it. But if you love The Avengers, particularly Iron Man, you’ve just found your next iPhone case. Available sometime in April for about…
So, this sounds nuts, but Dell’s new 18-inch desktop-cum-tablet actually feels… light. Like something that isn’t insane to hold and carry around and, more importantly, like something that might have a chance at being more than a gimmick. The specs on the XPS 18 are pretty standard for desktops. Its processor starts at the low…
Electrons are tiny little particles that whizz around atoms, right? Well, kinda, but they’re actually far better understood as waves. Wait, what? If that makes you stop and scratch your head don’t worry! Just watch this video, and you’ll know everything you need to about the exciting world of electrons. Starting off with the best…
Eric Schmidt was given a $6 million cash bonus for his work in 2012. Nice work if you can get it! [WSJ]
When an amateur mathematician from Indiana managed to solve one of mathematics’ great problems—squaring the circle—he decided to copyright his proof, but allow his home state to use it for free. Sadly, things didn’t quite go to plan. It turned out that his proof incorrectly assumed that pi was exactly 3.2—but a bill had already…
Some times, the good ol’ fashioned ways are the best. Seems Facebook would certainly agree: according to a blog post, its new news feed was developed using paper, Post-its, and a large blank wall. https://gizmodo.com/facebooks-new-news-feed-the-biggest-change-in-years-5989228 This is a apparently what came out of a series of focus groups, the overwhelming message from which was that…
In no way surprising, but UK carrier EE has spilled that Samsung’s Galaxy S4 will have LTE.
