Tech News

America Tweeted Till Its Fingers Bled Last Night (Updated)

Twitter was overrun with hashtags and drunk punditry as the returns form presidential election came in last night. We were there, and so was pretty much all of America. Or you’d think so when you look at the freaking numbers. Reuters reports that democracy-loving tweeters fired off some 31 million election related messages last night.…

Unflappable Patent Troll Not Satisfied With $368 Million Apple Payday

VirnetX is not a company that, strictly speaking, makes things. It is, instead, a company that collects patents the way joyless millionaires collect hermetically sealed comic books: for profit. And while it just scored an impressive $368 million in a successful Apple lawsuit, it’s not stopping there. It’s out for a full-on iPhone, iPad, and…

This Mouse-Keyboard Combo Is Smaller Than Your Smartphone

There’s apparently been some breakthrough in miniaturization, since compact wireless keyboards are coming out of the woodwork these days. The latest to tempt you away from your smartphone or tablet’s on-screen layout is this little number which manages to squeeze an optical touchpad and full QWERTY into a form factor that looks smaller than an…

The National Weather Service Refuses to Acknowledge Dumb Winter Storm Names

Last month, The Weather Channel proclaimed that it would start naming winter storms in the manner of tropical storms and hurricanes in hopes that people would pay more attention to them. The National Weather Service—the official government agency in charge of all of this—just laid the smack down on that plan. https://gizmodo.com/all-hail-xerxes-the-weather-channel-will-name-this-yea-5948204 As the first…

This New York Subway Tunnel Looks Like Some Sci-Fi Disaster Movie Set Right Now

This is the subway tunnel that brings the L line under the East River, connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn. It looks like a set from a movie. MTA employees using a pump train are working around the clock to pump seawater out of the L train’s tunnel under the East River. The tunnel was flooded during…

Do You Want Touch Typing On a Tablet Enough To Endure This Chorded Keyboard?

If tablets had one achilles heel preventing them from personal computing dominance, it would be their awkward touchscreen keyboards. But the makers of the ASETNIOP keyboard think they’ve found a better alternative. An on-screen keyboard with just ten keys that lets you access every letter of the alphabet with multiple keypresses, like playing chords on…

Report: Microsoft Office Is Finally Coming to iOS and Android in Early 2013

The Verge is reporting that Microsoft Office is finally coming out for Android and iOS early next year. Like, for real this time. Apparently, it’s coming to iOS first in February or March, and will be available for Android soon thereafter in May. The Office software will reportedly require a Microsoft account, and will launch…

Incredibly Slow Refresh Rates Make This LCD Easy On the Eyes

One of the reasons the Kindle’s e-ink display is more enjoyable to read with is because it’s not constantly refreshing. You might not be able to discern it, but the high-speed flicker of your LCD can lead to eye strain and headaches. So a research lab in Japan has developed a display that can refresh…

This Obama Celebration Is the Most-Liked Facebook Photo Ever

Early this morning, with this simple, joyful photograph, Barack Obama scored yet another victory: the most-liked Facebook photo of all time. As of now nearly three million people have given the photo—uploaded to Barack Obama’s timeline and adorned with a message of “Four more years”—a thumbs up. Between it and last night’s most popular tweet…

Drift’s New Action Cam Packs In the Features

When we last took a look, the Drift HD came in last in our action camera battlemodo. It had a lot of features that we really liked, but image quality wasn’t up to snuff. https://gizmodo.com/the-best-action-camera-5919942 The new Drift Ghost, though, promises even more features, not the least of which is a new set of optics.…

What Obama’s Victory Means for Tech

Barack Obama’s victory last night has far-reaching fiscal, social, and military implications, all of which are familiar to anyone who kept at least one eye open during any of this year’s debates. But what do four more years mean for tech? Turns out, a lot. While Obama hasn’t indicated that he’ll dramatically change course on…

The US is getting a bum deal from Amazon: the Japanese Kindle Paperwhite costs just $100. [Computer World]

Now Kim Dotcom’s New Site Me.ga Has Been Hacked, Too

Not only did Kim Dotcom’s Megaupload reboot get its domain name seized by officials in Gabon, it seems ‘real pirates’ have taken offence to Dotcom, and have hacked his domain to redirect to a group calling themselves ‘Omega‘. https://gizmodo.com/megauploads-new-website-me-ga-has-already-been-shut-dow-5958358 What’s more, they want to sell it to Dotcom’s adversaries. Looks like ol’Kimmy’s got a war…

Add Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1 and Android 4.1 to the list of products Apple claims violate its patents. [Bloomberg]

Overcharged Pay-As-You-Go Data Users To Be Refunded by AT&T

The FCC has announced that AT&T has agreed to refund customers who were unfairly pushed from their original pay-as-you-go wireless plans into monthly data contracts. AT&T began mandating monthly data plans back in 2009, but promised customers already buying wireless data through them on a pay-as-you-go basis that they would be “grandfathered” into the new…

Hot on the heels of Staples, apparently RadioShack is getting in on the act, too. So. Many. Delivery options. [Geekwire]

Help Site Confirmed Physical Google Wallet Card

After last week’s leaked news about Google launching its own physical credit card to sit alongside Wallet, a new help site seems to have confirmed the search giant’s intentions. https://gizmodo.com/google-wallet-looks-like-it-s-getting-a-physical-credit-5956330 The site—which has now been modified—contained references to the yet-to-be announced card, explaining on an “Eligible Devices” page that all Android devices with Android 2.3.3…

Pixar Names Its HQ After Steve Jobs

Pixar has renamed part of its headquarters—in fact, the studio’s main building—after Steve Jobs. It’s easy to forget that Jobs had a non-Apple side, but in fact he invested heavily in Pixar before it became profitable, and this serves as a permanent reminder. [Pixar News via 9to5mac]

What an iPad and Microsoft Surface Parody Commercial Looks Like

Cheery piano music and then *drop* DUBSTEP BOW WAH KEKEKEKE CHIGGCHIGGCHIGG BADOOM chop your stupid hand off music. It’s kind of hilarious to see the two tablets (and its ad strategy) next to each other, no? Kind of like seeing a Mitt Romney and Barack Obama dual commercial or something. The ad parody was made…

Your President for the Next 4 Years Barack Obama Just Probably Tweeted the Most Popular Tweet of All Time

After the networks gave the presidential victory to President Barack Obama, his Twitter account sent out a few tweets talking about the victory. One of those tweets has been retweeted so much in the past hour that it’s very probably the most popular tweet of al time. The tweet, a touching Twitter picture (#nofilter) of…