Tech News

Here’s a USB Drive in a Deep Fryer Because Hey Why Not

There’s probably a term you learn if you’re an econ major to describe the point at which your product is so similar to every competitive product that you deep fry it in order to differentiate. Here it is. LaCie makes great portable storage stuff—hard drives, flash drives, and the like. Their little XtremKey is a…

Win a $150 Gift Card to Best Buy, Upgrade Your Man Cave

Or your lady cave. Take the equal-opportunity, one-question survey located down below, and you could win a $150 gift certificate to Best Buy. Just email the last question to [email protected] with “Best Buy Gift Card Contest” as the subject line. You could get new speakers, or a TV, and finally have the “alone time space”…

A Futuristic Golf Game in the Sky

This is the twelfth in a 24-part series looking at every episode of The Jetsons TV show from the original 1962-63 season. The 12th episode of “The Jetsons” originally aired in the U.S. on December 9, 1962 and was titled “Astro’s Top Secret.” Personally, this is my least favorite episode in the entire series. It…

8 Easy Christmas Trees For the Festive But Lazy

There’s a reason the holidays are often referred to as the most wonderful time of the year. The decorations, the lights, the presents, and the food all come together to make it outshine all the other holidays of the year combined. But do you know the one thing that can make Christmas even more wonderful?…

Here’s What It Looks Like When NYC Builds a Brand New Subway Tunnel

New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority is extending the 7 subway line into far west Manhattan. It won’t open until summer 2014 (hopefully), but today the MTA showed off some of its progress. Just so we remember that it’s actually a thing that is going to happen and the MTA isn’t just playing a joke. Photos:…

What the Strange Symbols on Your Gadgets Mean

On the back side of most gadgets, there’s a string of hieroglyphs that look like the bottom line on the eye chart from hell. But this mishmash of symbols and letters is actually essential to international trade. Here’s what each one means and why it’s on there. Underwriters Laboratories is an independent, non-profit “safety science…

These iPod Touches and Android Alternative Are Your Casual-Gaming-Nirvana Deal of the Day

Sorry Nintendo! Apple’s iPod Touch is now the best casual gaming platform in existence. Sam pointed it out in his gift guide for hardcore gamers, but the iPod Touch appeals to pretty much everyone (except those with an iPhone.) Lots of kids are going to freak out when they get one this holiday, and I…

Twitter just updated its iOS app, so now you can add all kinds of new Insta — er — retro filters.

Use Chrome and Drive? Well now there’s a Save to Google Drive extension. You’re welcome. [Google]

Skeleton Muscle Bot Brings I, Robot’s Future One Step Closer

Eerily reminiscent of the design of Sonny and the other NS-5s in I, Robot, Kenshiro is the University of Tokyo’s latest attempt to create a humanoid robot that accurately mimics human movement. And the researchers there believe the best way to build an artificial human is to simply copy our anatomy, particularly our muscular and…

Scientists Create Fish With Legs

Genetic researchers have been working for a long time to reproduce the mysterious evolutionary step that grew legs on fish. This change eventually moved life from water to land, resulting in a explosion of walking species that took over the Earth’s land and skies more than 300 million years ago. Now, they have achieved it.…

Find My iPhone Gives You Driving Directions To Your Lost Phone Now

Lost your iPhone, iPad, or Mac? Well, butterfingers, now you can hunt it down in your car, because Find My iPhone will give you driving directions to your misplaced device. The new navigational feature is only supported on iOS 6. And hopefully Find My iPhone doesn’t get you lost in the process of retrieving your…

Four Alternative Album Covers, Made By You

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but books aren’t music. Every great album has an awesome cover. So for this week’s Shooting Challenge, we asked you to recreate a famous album cover. https://gizmodo.com/shooting-challenge-retro-album-cover-5965866 Rock A Little I knew I had kept my ’80’s garb for a reason and when I saw…

Holiday Shipping Deadlines: The Complete Guide

Holiday shopping online has long been the saving grace of agoraphobes and procrastinators alike. But unfortunately for the latter, even the internet comes with a ticking clock. So please, if you must wait until the last minute, at least know when the last minute is. Here’s a handy list of holiday shipping deadlines to ensure…

The Samsung Galaxy Camera comes to Verizon on December 13th for $550. That’s 50 bucks more than on AT&T.

Are There Any Substances That Turn People On?

No. People sometimes use the word “aphrodisiac” to refer to a substance that enhances sexual function in any way and in that sense there certainly are substances – including prescription medications (e.g., Viagra, Cialis, Levitra) and substances sold as supplements (e.g., Yohimbine and Koren red ginseng). However, the latter are not often recommended as treatment…

The Most Expensive Hard Drive Ever Spun 22.7 GB on 11-Inch Platters

Twenty-two Gigabytes seems like a paltry amount of storage by today’s standards, but in the early days of networked computing—when most storage capacities were measured in a lower order of magnitude—IBM’s ultimate DASD offered an unheard of amount of space. Through the late 1980s and early 1990s, magnetic tape drives were the go-to technology for…

First Full-Length Man of Steel Trailer: Superman’s Never Looked So Badass

Finally! Since the first teaser dropped this past July, this is what comic book fans and move buffs have been waiting for. The first full-length trailer for Zach Snyder’s reimagining of Superman, Man of Steel, just went live and it looks pretty good. Plot points aside, the visuals look stunning, which is Snyder’s go-to. But…

These Are the Best Internet Service Providers

If you’re looking for the fastest, most reliable internet service provider, here you have the ranking of all the major ISPs in the United States. It’s actual, real world performance—compiled by Netflix from all its customer data: 30 million members watching 1 billion hours of movie content every month. That’s a lot of data, so…

The Year in Hacking

Hackers embarked on a strange voyage this year, beginning with spectacular, chaotic success, and ending with a whimper. We saw Anonymous nosedive from the most feared hacking force in the world to disorganized bench warmers. The dizzying highs, the stupid lows: here are 2012’s greatest hacking hits. January — Anon Avenges Megaupload Our dear Anonymous.…