Tech News

Remember when Google ‘accidentally‘ mined Wi-Fi network data? Well, $7M is supposedly what’s going to make it go away.

Scientific Reasons to Respect Light Beer

On a hot summer night in Manhattan, the young beer connoisseurs were talking shop inside Good Beer NYC, a craft-beer store on East Ninth Street, when the conversation turned to light beer. The consensus: Three of the top-sellers in America-Bud Light, Coors Light, and Miller Lite-were barely worth the glass they’re bottled in. “I used…

Hey Austin folks, come hang out with us tonight for a sneak peek at our new show! Lobster rolls and beer are on us.

Injecting Mice With Human Brain Cells Actually Makes Them Smarter

A scenario like Planet of the Apes might not be as unrealistic as we think, but fortunately—or at least for right now—it seems like our future overlords will be far less threatening than Caesar and co.. That’s because scientists have discovered that injecting mice with human brain cells can actually make them smarter. All hail…

All The Tiny Changes Hiding in Facebook’s Latest Redesign

Zuck bought Facebook its fanciest new outfit in many years this week, and naturally, the New News Feed is getting all the swooning. But FB added a handful of delicate tweaks and turns to the site—some you might not have noticed yet. https://gizmodo.com/facebooks-new-news-feed-the-biggest-change-in-years-5989228 It makes sense to toss in little changes in the shadow of…

T-Mobile just announced plans to finally start selling the BlackBerry Z10 on March 11.

8 Historic Post Offices That Might Turn Into Starbucks

The US Postal Service is obviously suffering because, you know, the internet. It’s about to stop Saturday delivery, but another part of its plan to save $20 billion over the next three years is to sell off some post offices. More than 600 have been “earmarked for disposal” and a total of 57 are up…

Let’s Talk About Whatever Your Want For the Next Hour

Hi there. It’s the end of the week, and we’re sure you’re sick of working, so we’re going to help make the rest of your day bearable. For the next hour, the entire Giz staff will be hovering around this thread, willing to shoot the shit about whatever your little hearts desire. What do you…

4-In-1 Measuring Spoon Leaves You One Thing To Wash

On one hand, the Dash 4-in-1 measuring spoon from Umbra reduces drawer clutter, leaves you with just a single tool to wash, and looks pretty snazzy in the process with its avocado finish. On the other hand, if you’ve multiple ingredients to measure, particularly wet ones, at some point you’re going to probably end up…

MakerBot’s Desktop 3D Scanner Is a Real-Life Star Trek Replicator

Once a tool designed exclusively for trained technicians, 3D printers are now almost as easy to use as your desktop inkjet—except when it comes to designing and prepping the requisite 3D models. That step still requires an expertise with 3D modeling software, and is a barrier to 3D printing that MakerBot hopes to remove with…

Angry Birds For Free For The First Time Ever Is Your Deal of the Day

You probably already have a copy of the original Angry Birds hanging out on your Apple ID or Google Play account. Not only has the game become synonymous with mobile gaming, but when Apple released data back in 2012 it was the most downloaded paid iPhone app of all time. Now it’s free. Yup, the…

DirecTV just released an Android Tablet app—two whole years after it released an iPad app. Better late than never?

This Awful Netflix Tattoo Comes With a Free Year of Service and Lifetime of Shame

You think you love Netflix? You don’t, at least not compared to @TheRealMyron. He loves it so much he had (a horrendous interpretation of) its logo tattooed onto his arm. And as a reward for his fanboyism, he got a comparatively impermanent year of free Netflix. Myron here didn’t get the tattoo for the free…

AT&T: ‘We Will Unlock Your Phone’

In a blog post, AT&T clarified its policy on unlocking devices, saying it will release your phone as long as you have fulfilled the terms of your contract and as long as they have the unlock code. How generous: you are free to wander the wild world of carriers once your contract is up. The…

How to Get the Best Exclusive Features on Any Android Smartphone

A Samsung Galaxy phone won’t go to sleep as long as you’re staring at the screen. An LG Optimus handset lets you run apps in tiny windows on top of the desktop, while Motorola RAZR devices can perform key tasks according to a schedule. Some call the proliferation of custom features Android fragmentation, but I…

Is This Google’s First Third Party App for Glass?

Yesterday the NewScientist put out a report that Google was funding the development of an app called InSight for Glass, which would recognize people based on their clothing and not their actual faces. After some head-scratching about why anyone would need such an app—and I scratched a lot of people’s heads about this—it turns out…

All the Google I/O Easter Eggs (And How I Found Them)

If you go to the Google I/O 2013 homepage and punch in IIIOOIII on your keyboard, the I/O logo changes into an new logo formed by cats. There are 12 of these easter eggs in all, and Zak El Fassi figured them all out. Here they are, plus an explanation of how he solved a…

How the World’s Biggest Clock Tried to Change the Center of Time

For the multitudes of cultural differences that exist throughout human civilization, we do share a single, universal goal: to build stuff bigger and better than the schmucks next door. Every single one of the seven wonders of the ancient world was created as a chest-thumping, neighbor-shaming testament to its builder’s awesomeness. That proud tradition continues…

Facebook’s Most Overlooked Design Change

Facebook showed us its new News Feed yesterday. It’s as pretty as anyone could have hoped, and a wonderful update to the design. But lost in the big images and new feeds was a pretty major change that actually started weeks ago: The first thing you look at on Facebook’s page has moved. https://gizmodo.com/facebooks-new-news-feed-the-biggest-change-in-years-5989228 Move…

Flexible Flat-Pack Furniture That Actually Looks Pretty Comfy

What you gain in convenience when opting for flat-pack furniture from stores like Ikea, you lose in comfort. But with a clever enough design, it turns out that your flat-pack seating can actually look comfortable and inviting—as South Africa-based Wintec’s Stratflex line demonstrates. At first glance it’s hard to believe these contoured curvaceous pieces actually…