Tech News

Watch This Phallic UAV Get All Grabby With Its Scary Six-Foot Arm

When it comes to handy features for UAVs, your mind probably doesn’t jump to towering, phallic protuberances and grabby arms for gingerly setting things down before darting away. Well DARPA’s does, which is why they funded and demonstrated this monstrosity. The drone you see here is the MLB Company’s V-Bat and it’s designed specifically to…

Square Is Rolling Out Digital Gift Cards for Your Phone

Who needs a piece of plastic to give a gift card anymore? Not you if you go through Square. A new update to the Square Wallet app adds digital giftcards you can give right from your phone right to someone else’s. And if your gift-target is running iOS 6, it’ll show up in their Passbook.…

Russia and China Are Pushing For More Government Control Over the Internet Because Duh

With the WCIT-12 in full swing, it’s pretty much inevitable that some countries’ views on the Internet and the direction they are trying to push it will leak out. In this case, the news is about a coalition led by Russia and China that aims to find ways to exert more government control over the…

Genius Gifts For Kids Who Love Science

If your kid starts showing an aptitude towards science and education, it’s probably a good thing to encourage. This young person could advance humanity, and potentially land a full college scholarship in the process. Here are some of the best ways to begin to develop that natural curiosity into a lovely Nobel Prize. Hey there!…

Sony’s Putting Its Handheld Cassette Recorders In That Old Junk Drawer In the Sky

It’s the end of an era. Or more accurately, it’s effectively been the end of an era for a while and this is another part of it. In early 2013, Sony will stop producing its three remaining models of handheld cassette recorders, meaning first the Walkman and now its cousins are on their final march…

This Smokestack Looks Like It’s Sliced Up and Floating In Mid-Air

Normally you might consider a smokestack to be something of an eye-sore, but this “Sky Stack” Is very much the opposite. With parts of it seemingly missing, the whole thing turns into an awesome fixture. Sky Stack, designed by Hamburg-based asdfg architekten, sports five reflective rings around its neck that under the right viewing circumstances,…

Watch These Kids Play Musical Instruments Made Out of Trash

Sometimes you’ve just got to make do with what you’ve got, but that doesn’t mean you have to want for things, things like musical instruments. The upcoming documentary Landfill Harmonic (a totally righteous pun, I feel obligated to note) is about a slum in Cateura, Paraguay that still has an orchestra, and orchestra with instruments…

John Lennon: Imagine

Today in 1980, the world lost a true music icon much of whose work is as relevant today as it ever was. While it’s pretty futile to try and touch on John Lennon’s influence on modern music in its entirety, “Imagine” stands as a classic that sounds just as good today as it ever has.…

All Burritos Should Be Delivered By a Bomber Like This One

Remember the Tacocopter, that delicious hoax? Thought that may not have been real, the Burrito Bomber is, and though it may not be able to bomb a burritos at you yet, maybe someday it will. After all, the onslaught of food drones is pretty much inevitable. https://gizmodo.com/the-tacocopters-are-coming-for-real-5939895 Developed by Darwin Aerospace, the Buritto Bomber is…

Best Buy Screw-Up Results In an Amazing “Buy One Get Five” Deal on iPads

Most of the time a shipping error is a pain in the ass for you. Maybe you get the wrong thing, maybe you don’t get anything. Sometimes though, it can be a huge boon, like when Best Buy accidentally sends you five iPads instead of one and then says “You know what? Keep ’em.” That’s…

Starting tomorrow, the Nook Simple Touch has a new, lower price: $79. [Engadget]

Mitsubishi’s Remote Control Tankbot Is Yet Another Member of the Robot Clean-Up Crew Army

We may not have had the wide variety of radiation-resistant robots we needed before Fukushima, but we’re certainly getting it now. Following Toshiba’s four-legged dogbot, Mitsubishi is rolling out their own four-tredded tankbot that aims to fix up a disaster site without sending anyone in. https://gizmodo.com/this-chunky-four-legged-robot-scopes-out-danger-so-you-5963046 Dubbed the MEISTeR for Maintenance Equipment Integrated System of…

Merry Christmas from Twitter: photo-filters should be coming in time for the holidays. [AllThingsD]

Apple and Google Are Reportedly Joining Forces To Buy $500 Million of Kodak Patents

It’s not often that you hear that Apple and Google—both fighting for utter smartphone dominance—have teamed up on anything, but reports from Bloomberg say it’s the case. And they’re both going in on a half a billion dollars worth of Kodak patents. Kodak is selling that patents as part of its bankruptcy liquidation, and apparently…

Would You Be Comfortable Trusting Your Health To a Robot Doctor?

Technology is marching ever forward and the medicine is no exception. CNN’s Fortune Tech predicts tech will eventually take over 80 percent of what doctors do today, and that might be great, but would you feel comfortable putting your life in the hands of Dr. Robot? Chances are that someday, you won’t have a choice.

Infamous Sexts, Fantastic Photoshops, Mythical Creatures, And More

We’re rolling ever forward towards the holidays, and this week we have some early presents for you. We’ve got the years more infamous sexts, insanely tall Lego towers, the most overpriced gadgets ever, a not-unicorn, awesome Photoshops, dissovling condoms and much, much more. Check it all out below. This Hilarious Video Shows Everything That’s Annoying…

This Contact Lens Puts a Display Right On Your Eye

It seems like everyone and their brother is working on some sort of smart glasses, but how about smart contact lenses? It turns out those might actually be closer than you think. https://gizmodo.com/microsoft-has-plans-for-its-own-project-glass-5962848 Researchers at Ghent University have been working on smart contact lenses and now they’ve got a working prototype that uses an LCD…

Apple’s Flagship Multi-Touch Patent Has Been Tentatively Invalidated

Apple has quite a few patents. Steve Jobs alone had 313 patents to his name. There’s one key one however, the ‘949 multi-touch patent, sometimes known as the Steve Jobs patent, and the USPTO just tentatively rejected all 20 of its claims. https://gizmodo.com/steve-jobs-has-313-apple-patents-to-his-name-5834315 This tentative rejection was first reported by Foss Patents and while it…

How To Control Your Computer With Your Phone

Want to pause a Netflix stream from the comfort of your sofa? Email a forgotten file from your home to your office? Gain full remote access to your PC from halfway across the world? No matter what OS your smartphone is on, there’s a mobile app that can make it happen. Here’s a look at…

Google Now Is Coming Soon To A Desktop Near You

Since its introduction earlier this year, Google Now has quickly become one of the stand-out features of having a (current version) Android phone or tablet. It looks like Google Now-age won’t be exclusive to mobile for long, however; Google Now is coming to Chrome. While the transition hasn’t been officially announced, the addition of several…