Tech News

Scientists Can Now Sequence an Entire Genome from a Single Cell

Everyone knows that a drop of blood or strand of hair is all the police need to identify suspect’s DNA. But now scientists from Harvard have gone a step further: they can sequence an entire genome from a single cell. The researchers have spent three years developing a new technology known as Multiple Annealing and…

Target Will Match Amazon’s Prices All Year Long

What’s not ideal for Target is you walking into one of their local stores, testing all of the camcorders, and then buying your pick on Amazon because it’s almost inevitably cheaper there. That’s called showrooming, and Target isn’t taking that guff anymore. If possible. Please? To combat the problem Target is turning its holiday price-matching…

Trade Hydration For Hendrix With Scosche’s boomBOTTLE Speaker

After a long ride there’s nothing quite like a refreshing bottle of water. But getting to that point where you’re tired and dehydrated sometimes takes some extra motivation. Like your favorite music, which Scosche makes easier to access on a bike with its new boomBOTTLE weatherproof speaker. Clad in a shock proof exterior that should…

Why You Shouldn’t Post Your Concert Tickets on Facebook

The scene: your girlfriend and/or boyfriend (hey, nothing wrong with polyamory) got you tickets to The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. You’ve been waiting your whole life to see those goats up close, so naturally, you want to post pictures of your beloved gift on Facebook, rubbing it in all your friends’ rodeo-less faces. Here’s…

Can Panasonic’s A100 HD Action Cam Muscle in on GoPro’s Turf?

Panasonic claims its new wearable HD camcorder will be perfect for adrenaline junkies and recreation-seekers alike—but can it compete in a market that’s already dominated by GoPro, the clear winner in our recent action cam test? https://gizmodo.com/the-best-action-camera-5965732 The HX-A100’s water-proof and dust-proof case houses hardware capable of filming 1920 x 1080 video at 60 fps,…

This Is the Most Embarrassing Furniture Ever

If you really hate your guests, looks no further than Jay Watson Design‘s thermochromic furniture. Before they sit down it looks like any normal old table and bench—but when they rise, their sweaty ass will leave a large bright patch that would make any man blush. Made of solid oak, its surface is coated with…

McGraw-Hill’s SmartBooks: Digital Textbooks With Built-In Drill Sergeants

When textbooks were actually books they were good for flattening posters and bringing monitors to eye-level. Now their ebook personas may really force you to learn. Grim, I know. Textbook publishing behemoth McGraw-Hill is producing a series of adaptive e-textbooks in 90 subject areas. Targeted at college-level classes, the SmartBooks quiz students as they read…

Corsair Voyager Air: A Do Anything, Anywhere NAS

Corsair, primarily known as a manufacturer for PC memory and power supply, is breaking into new territory with Voyager Air, an all-in-one wireless hard drive that’s just as useful on the road as it is in your living room. This neat little box is essentially four products in one: a mobile wireless drive, home network…

Canadians, rejoice! Amazon has finally graced you with its Prime service—including free two-day shipping—for $79/year.

Here We Go: Valve-Backed PC Hardware Will Be Shown Off This Week [Update: It's Code-Named Piston]

Let the Steam Box speculation begin. Valve is investing in computer hardware, and they’re showing it off this week. A company called Xi3Corporation is developing the hardware (whose chassis you can see above), which they say is designed to play Steam games on big-screen TVs. They say they’ve received an investment from Valve, and that…

This $100 Dongle Lets You Send Video to a Dumb TV’s HDMI Input via Wi-Fi

This sleek little dongle, called Plair, is a neat little solution for slinging video from any number of devices to your TV. Simply plug it into an empty HDMI port and beam media to it via Wi-Fi. Sure, there are plenty other ways to do that already—principally Airplay and the upcoming Miracast—but this is a…

Faulty iPhone Burns Through $30,000 of Mobile Data

A supposedly “faulty” iPhone landed a man in severe financial trouble, after the phone racked up an astonishing $30,000 data bill—and UK network Orange tried to take the money from the bloke’s account. Chris Bovis realised he’d been cut off, so phoned Orange for an explanation. That was when he discovered the network had tried…

Every Geek’s Kid Needs Cuddly Electronic Components

If you’re a raging geek with offspring, firstly congratulations on convincing someone of the opposite sex to procreate with you. Second: get these electronic component plushies for your child immediately. You can get a whole range of components in cuddly form: LEDs, transistors, capacitors, resistors, even a timing chip. That’s enough to teach your kids…

You’ll Want to Keep This Kids’ Pico Projector to Yourself

This cute and colorful little pico projector is designed for kids. But don’t bother giving it to them—because it’s good enough you’ll want to keep it for yourself. This Innocube DLP pico projector is designed, apparently, to help children chill out as they watch TV shows on their ceiling. But forget that. It’ll just get…

Chinese Dude Pleads Guilty to Pirating $100 Million Worth of Military Software

Yesterday a Chinese businessman pleaded guilty to selling pirated software—used by defense, space technology and engineering businesses—worth a retail value of over $100 million. A plethora of sophisticated software was stolen from an estimated 200 American manufacturers and sold onto 325 black market buyers in 61 countries between 2008 and 2011, according to Reuters. Software…

eBay’s overhauled its iOS app, streamlining the set-up and management of auctions. Sell those crappy Christmas gifts!

Sony’s One-Piece Waterproof Walkman: 1 Hour’s Playback From 3 Minutes Charging

If workouts take you from pounding the pavement to plunging into the pool with little time to spare between, Sony’s new one-piece Walkman might be of some interest to you. The one-piece design looks light and unobtrusive, while the 4GB of storage should offer enough capacity for most people’s workout music. Of most interest here,…

These Optical USB and Thunderbolt Cables Are Up to 330 Feet Long

If you thought screens were where glass started and finished in gadgets, think again. Corning, the company behind Gorilla Glass, has also started making optical USB and Thunderbolt cables—and they’re super, super long. https://gizmodo.com/gorilla-glass-3-hands-on-somehow-even-more-indestructi-5973945 The cables are optical instead of your typical wired connection. There’s no speed advantage, but because there’s less signal attenuation in…

Sigma’s 50mm DP3 Merrill Completes a Glorious Triumvirate of Fixed Lens Cameras

The Sigma DP3 Merrill is a boxy shooter with 50mm f/2.8 lens. It follows the 19mm DP1 Merrill and the 30mm DP2, which aside from their fixed focal lengths are identical. This is a trinity of image quality awesome, and if it were any other manufacturer, we’d join the haters in saying this is a…

Bad Jokes, Complicated Buds, and a Sneak Peek at Pixar’s New Short

Hank Green Tells 53 Terrible Jokes in 4 Minutes This has got to be some sort of record. Great Growers Know about the Three Additional Cannabis Flowering Phases Getting the most out of Cannabis blooms is more than just cycling back to a 12/12 lighting cycle and switching up the fertilizer mix. As Big Buds…