Tech News

Christopher Dorner: Hunting a Killer One Click At a Time

If the charges leveled against Christopher Dorner are true, the brief but theatrical saga of the cop-turned-vengeful-murderer began on Super Bowl Sunday. That’s when Dorner allegedly sneaked into an apartment-complex parking garage in Irvine, California—”America’s safest city”—and shot Monica Quan and her fiancé, Keith Lawrence, as they sat in their new white Kia. Dorner emerged…

Apple’s Best Mouse Is Your Deal of the Day

You may have heard that the humble computer mouse is an endangered species, threatened by the rise of modern touch gestures. This may be true, but gesture based-computing isn’t a zero-sum game. Millions of people still use a mouse every day, and some of those mice have slick gesture capabilities. https://gizmodo.com/its-time-to-exterminate-the-mouse-5886574 If you’ve got a…

This Morning’s Google Doodle You Weren’t Meant to See

Google, topical as always, prepared one of its famed doodles in celebration of today’s passing asteroid and the fact that we’re all not post-apocalyptic shadows of our former selves. The Google Doodle team, however, couldn’t have anticipated how unfortunately relevant they actually would be following the unexpected and destructive meteor explosion over Russia. https://gizmodo.com/what-would-happen-if-the-asteroid-actually-hit-earth-to-5984469 The…

I Can’t Stop Watching This Coin Rolling on a Treadmill

A man named Parker Reed has uploaded an hour-long video of a coin rolling on a treadmill. You’re skeptical. It’s okay. I was too. But then I started watching, and I haven’t yet been able to stop. You won’t be either. What’s so special about a coin rolling on a treadmill for an hour? It’s…

We’re Safe! The Asteroid Goes Away

We are safe! We knew we were going to be safe, but now we know we are safe. Which is a lot nicer, don’t you think? Now all the paranoids can relax, sit back, look at the sky and wave goodbye to 2012 DA14 as it leaves us at five miles per second. https://gizmodo.com/what-would-happen-if-the-asteroid-actually-hit-earth-to-5984469 It…

BitTorrent’s New Trick: Letting You Send Terabyte-Sized Email Attachments

Not too long ago, BitTorrent launched a little project called Sync, which provides practically unlimited “cloud” storage. Now the professional sharers are rolling out yet another service called “SoShare” which promises to let you easily send huge files to friends and coworkers with little to no hassle. Up to a whole terabyte at the click…

This Is the Russian Meteor Impact Site

Russian authorities claim to have found the impact sites of some of the fragments of the Chelyabinsk meteor, according to the RIA Novosti news agency. Two have been found near Chebarkul Lake—one of them pictured here. The other one is near Zlatoust, a town 80 kilometers northwest of Chelyabinsk. Scientists and police have recovered small…

Skype Video Messages Gives You Visual Voicemail

Skype has a new video messages feature. Through an Android, iOS, or Mac app, you can send other users three-minute recordings. Interestingly enough, Microsoft isn’t launching a Windows or Windows Phone app for Skype video messages just yet. These users can still see their these short visual notes, but they’ll have to follow a link…

Here’s the Russian Meteor Entering Earth from Space

The European Meteosat-10 satellite captured the precise moment as the meteor entered Russian airspace over Chelyabinsk at 33,000mph. Here you can clearly see its vapor trail. [Meteosat] https://gizmodo.com/meteorite-explodes-over-russia-panic-spreads-5984476 More reading What would actually happen if the asteroid hit today Videos: Meteorite explodes over Russia, Panic Spreads This Is the Russian Meteor Impact Site

Haze: Turn Your Weather Forecast Into Psychedelic Art

The Weather Channel’s app has had you covered on the basics of your local forecast for eons. It ain’t pretty, but if you want to know what the chance of precipitation will be 3AM, it’ll give you a number. Haze takes that raw data and packages it into something simple and beautiful. Haze’s weather forecasts…

The Burden of Apple iOS

When Apple released the iPhone in 2007, they released iPhone OS (later known as iOS) with it. The device and the operating system necessitated each other. The two were birthed into the world together on the same stage. The industrial design of Apple’s new phone was a drastic departure from other mobile devices at that…

Why were so many Russian dash cams already set up to catch the meteor? Horrible roads with rampant psychopaths, for one.

This Wire Brush-Weilding Robot Is Like a Roomba For Your Grill

It’s never fun when it finally comes time to clean that grill. The residue has been building up for months, and you have no choice but to whip out the steel brush, pull off the grate, and literally get your hands dirty. But how about if you could get a cute little circular robot pal…

How Many Twitter Lists Is Too Many?

Twitter lists are a very good organizational tool. They let you keep tabs on the people you don’t necessarily want to follow, and they can keep you on top of a very specific subject. I’ve made lists for things like rappers, people I know from college, and comedians. That way if I don’t want these…

There’s No Such Thing as a Fake Apple Product

By now, the year-old claim that Apple makes people work on fake products is well-known. How scandalous. To ensure the loyalty of new hires, the company puts them on “dummy” projects before letting them work on the real goods. Too bad it’s not true. https://gizmodo.com/apple-makes-new-employees-work-on-fake-products-until-a-5880510 Jacqui Cheng at Ars Technica did some digging with sources…

The Carnival Cruise From Hell Refuses to End as the Passengers’ Bus Home Breaks Down

If you thought things couldn’t get any worse for the unsuspecting participants in Carnival Cruise’s new Lord of the Flies at sea program, you’ve underestimated the excessively vengeful god they’ve angered. Just as they were finally on their way home and ready to start their lives over, the ex-hostages found themselves once again stranded—this time…

Uhh, Bang With Friends Is a Sexiness Score for Your Facebook?

Even if it oozes the desperation of sex-starved C++ nerds, the theory behind Bang With Friends is genius. A service that helps people who know each other hook up—if and only if both parties are interested in getting jiggy. It’s funny! And as Mark Wilson at CoDesign points out, the service has lured in a…

Microsoft Is Finally Merging Skype and Windows Live Messenger This Spring

Ever since Microsoft acquired Skype and confirmed the end of Windows Live Messenger, a merger has been a tiny dot off on the horizon. Now Microsoft has pinned down when the two will become one: this April. https://gizmodo.com/confirmed-microsoft-is-buying-skype-for-8-5-billion-5800329 Starting on April 8th, Messenger clients will start receiving updates that will upgrade them into Skype clients,…

Here’s How To Stop a Horrible Parody Twitter Account Before It Starts

Parody Twitter accounts are a pox on the internet. Comedian Jake Fogelnest, however, has done his part to prevent another one of these vile, unfunny things from becoming a thing. https://gizmodo.com/winter-storm-nemo-has-ruined-twitter-parody-accounts-fo-5982883 Just after the giant meteor hit Russia early this morning, Fogelnest rushed to Twitter to register @RussiaMeteor, so no one else could do it.…

Google+ Is Down, Due To Neglect Probably

Google+ is apparently experiencing an outage. If a social network falls on the internet and nobody’s on it, has it actually fallen at all? G+ is down at least in the U.S. We’re getting a 503 server error when we try to pull up the site. The reason for the outage is unclear, but we’ve…