Tech News

How To Easily Build the Most Useful Keychain You’ve Ever Owned

If you’ve got access to a bucket of Lego Technic pieces, then you’ve probably already got everything you need to build what could possibly be the most useful keychains ever devised. As for the building instructions, just take a look at the image above and you’ll easily figure it out. It’s cheap, it’s compact, and…

You Can Pre-Order the Back to the Future Hoverboard Right Now

If you missed ordering it earlier this year, you can pre-order the official Mattel Back to the Future hoverboard right now at MattyCollector.com. Plop down a $130 and you’ll get the 1:1 scale model that’s fully sanctioned by the movies. It’s the real deal. https://gizmodo.com/pre-order-the-back-to-the-future-hoverboard-right-now-f-5889674 MattyCollector is taking orders for the hoverboard starting at 12:00…

TV producer Vanessa Rae is Here to Chat About The Best Home Entertainment Gadgets

Gawker’s Better State of Living Conversation series is brought to you with the support of State FarmTM. Today, tech expert Vanessa Rae is live in the comments to answer your questions about choosing the right home entertainment system. With the cold weather here and the holiday season in full force, it’s the perfect time for…

Calm Down: Nobody Is Taking Over the Internet

For the next two weeks, the ITU—a United Nations agency that was formed to regulate telegraph lines in the 19th century—will try to make new rules for the Internet. This makes some people worried, but nobody should be. The entire conference is pointless. The World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12), which kicked off today in…

Tumblr’s Getting Massively Hacked Right Now (But There’s an Easy Fix) (Update: All Clear!)

Don’t panic. You might have trouble finding GIFs to describe your feelings for a little bit, because there’s a exploit spreading on Tumblr that’s effectively shutting down your favorite sites. And, if you so much as click on the wrong post, shutting down your own. The exploit, spearheaded by the anti-blogging hacker group GNAA, seems…

Bacon Jello: Part of a Complete (Nightmarish) Breakfast

If you love bacon, but have been looking for a way to enjoy it without its delicious saltiness or crispy texture, Instructable user Canida has put together a thorough, and unsettling, tutorial on how to make a bacon alternative from Jello. It’s not as easy as just buying and mixing up a special holiday-flavored box…

In Russia, Arcade Claw Machines Come With Real Live Cats

Stuffed animals? Please. In Russia, claw machines are stuffed with real animals. Finally, something worth winning! But do everyone a favor and hold off until it’s finished grooming, would ya? [Reddit via OHYST]

This Crazy Sea of Packages Is Santa’s Real Warehouse

Madness. That’s what Amazon’s warehouses are during the holiday shopping season. Take a look at these images. While I’ve seen others in the past, this angle of one of their warehouses is particularly striking. Endless sea of packages never ends! This is like the last scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Except nothing is…

We Spent 121 Billion Minutes on Social Media in One Month

Nielsen says in its annual Social Media Report (because those are a thing now) that Americans spent a collective 121 billion minutes on social media in July alone, up from 88 billion the year before. That’s a whole lot of time for exchanging pokes and creeping on your ex. In fact, it comes down to…

The First Text Message Was Sent 20 Years Ago Today

On December 3rd 1992, a 22-year-old Canadian test engineer sat down and typed out a very simple message, “Merry Christmas.” It flew over the Vodafone network to the phone of one Richard Jarvis, and since then, we just haven’t been able to stop texting. Texting is a major staple of communication now, and by far…

The Modern Wooden Flashlight: For the Grizzled Prospector in All of Us

For the most part flashlight design steers towards industrial and functional rather than just straight-up eye candy. But designer Gad Scott Tal’s stylish Flashlight No. 1 is just the opposite, embracing beautiful natural materials like wood and leather at the cost of a blinding beam. That’s not to say the flashlight isn’t usable. It’s most…

Samsung’s Curvy Projector Is More Pocketable Than the Galaxy SIII

Designed to complement Samsung’s Galaxy line of tablets and smartphones, the company’s new EAD-R10 Mobile Beam Projector is curved like a handset, instead of the standard projector brick, so it more easily slips into your pocket. It’s just too bad its specs harken back to pocket projectors from a few years ago. With just 20…

This Polaroid Look-a-like Packs Modern Digital Guts

The Impossible Project brought the Polaroid instant camera back from the dead, but it turns out that resurrection comes with an extremely high price tag. So if you’ve always liked the looks of Polaroid’s iconic SX-70, you can now grab a smaller, cheaper, digitalier version of it. https://gizmodo.com/these-resurrected-polaroid-cameras-have-me-shaking-with-5708622 Carbon’s One Mini has a five megapixel…

Ukrainians Are Hanging Out in Coffins and Calling It Therapy

How do you prepare to meet your maker? Confess your sins, make right with your enemies, spend all of your money on an elaborate European vacation co-starring LL Cool J? Not in the Ukraine. First of all, you’re already in Europe. Second, you’re probably doing coffin therapy, the hottest and creepiest trend in afterlife acceptance.…

News Corp has announced that its iPad-only newspaper, The Daily, is closing. We’re sad to see it go. [Business Insider]

Dyson Has Patented a Faucet That Also Dries Your Hands

Public and workplace washrooms often have far fewer hand dryers than they have sinks to wash hands in, leaving people queuing for a dryer with dripping hands. OK, perhaps it’s not one of the world’s biggest problems. But it is annoying enough to be addressed by vacuum cleaner and Airblade hand dryer maker Dyson of…

The Cameras and Settings That Captured This Year’s Best Photos

Every year, Reuters publishes a list of its best photography, and you’ll recognise plenty of the 95 iconic images that capture this year’s biggest news stories. One keen Redditor, though, wanted to know more—so analyzed the EXIF data of all the images to find out how they were captured. The result, put together by hallbuzz,…

Watch This Dude Pull an 8-Ton Truck With His Ear

Lasha Pataraya has an unusual gift. He’s not just insanely strong: he has insanely strong ears, too. Which is why he was able to use one of them to pull an 8-ton truck. No, really. Associated Press caught the moment on camera, as he slipped a rope around his ear and pulled an 8-ton truck…

Reason For Bad Signal #37: You’re in a Faraday Cage Fight

Dammit, it’s hard to get a decent mobile data connection sometimes. Are the walls thick in your building? Are you surrounded by exotic electrical equipment that’s causing interference? Or did you just stumble into a cage fight by accident? Clearly the organizer doesn’t want you Googling tactics during the fight, anyway. Maybe just throw the…

Mitsubishi is the final “major” manufacturer to announce it’s scrapping rear-projection TVs for good. So long! [CEPro]