Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
The thought of being watched is always sort of unsettling. The thought of being watched by enemies or the government can be downright scary, but the thought of being watched by advertisers is anywhere from gross to “meh.” Do Not Track, and privacy-oriented browser extensions show that the lack of privacy is concerning to a…
In many homes, and nearly all apartments, floorspace comes at a premium. That’s what makes bunkbeds such a space saver. The Dumbo Double Murphy Bed takes it a step further by letting you fold them up. Designed by Roberto Gil and built from baltic birch plywood, these bunk beds from Casa Kids are both compact…
Say you’ve got some really important documents—like the meaning of life scrawled on a napkin, or a viable method of time travel in the margins of a newspaper—and someone really wants to shoot them for some reason, like a bunch of times, with a gun. You better hope they’re in the Tegra-Lite Bulletproof Attaché. Pretty…
During the iPhone 5 announcement, Apple mentioned the new phone would have its own new chip, the A6. Specific specs were sparse then, but AnandTech did some sleuthing and found the custom chip packs 1GB of RAM, and 33% more peak memory bandwidth than the iPhone 4S, which it will need for its high-res screen.…
Touch screens can get kind of gross. After all, you’re rubbing them with your dirty fingers almost constantly. As it turns out, the greasy filth that adorns your screen can actually be manipulated to look pretty neat. It’s still gross though. JK Keller has composed a nice series of gifs that show off the way…
We’re well into tablet season with the release of the new Kindles and the almost certain release of the iPad Mini next month, but Microsoft’s Surface is in the game too, though we know quite little about it. In an interview with the Seattle Times, CEO Steve Ballmer was kind enough to mention the “sweet…
So Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a documentary about a guy who is really, really good at making sushi. But wait, bear with me, because it is also the best damn documentary about a guy who is really, really good at making sushi that you will ever see. It’s actually a little inaccurate to call…
Off Dear and the Headlight’s wonderful debut Small Steps, Heavy Hooves, “It’s Gettin’ Easy” is a great little jam with what might be one of my favorite crescendos ever. Beyond the slowly climbing piano scale, accompanied by the ever more frantic yelps of the lead singer, “It’s Getting Easy” is one of those great songs…
The rush for iPhone 5s as soon as they were available was intense, rabid even. So rabid that the delivery dates got pushed back about two weeks within an hour. According to AppleInsider though, if you wound up with the two-weeks-later date, you might not have to wait it out. Apparently emails are rolling out…
The concept of GPS shoes is nothing new, but this pair designed by Dominic Wilcox don’t report your whereabouts to Mom, or an authoritarian government or something. Instead, they’ll help you shuffle home if you get lost somehow. https://gizmodo.com/gps-shoes-let-mommy-know-where-you-are-231578 Commissioned by the Global Footprint project in Northamptonshire, these functional prototypes have a GPS device implanted…
Not too long ago, Samsung faced a big loss against Apple in court, and now, it’s just sat through the announcement of the new iPhone, which sold out its preorders in a matter of hours. What’s a rival manufacturer to do? That’s easy; if you’re Samsung, you attack. https://gizmodo.com/samsung-owes-apple-a-comedically-huge-1-05-billion-in-5937781 Samsung has crafted a pretty aggressive…
Everybody hates roaming and the absurd charges that come with it, but what are you going to do? Disconnect for a few days? Of course not. Pick up a crazy portable hotspot that has 10 SIM cards? Doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. The Uros Goodspeed hotspot is exactly that. By using the appropriate…
When you get angry, throwing something at a wall is always the got-to solution that never works. Well, it might work at making you feel better for that split second before the horror sets in and components scatter across the floor. In college, I once split a phone in half by chucking at a wall…
This week was Apple week, so you can’t be surprised there’s a lot of iPhone news to catch up on. If you haven’t been keeping up, and you want to know the score, there’s plenty for you below. And if you’re sick and tired of hearing about Apple by now, don’t worry; there’s some non-Apple…
Malware and viruses are bad, but so long as you’re careful, your PC will stay squeaky clean, right? Maybe not. Microsoft has found that many PCs from China are coming with malware pre-installed, as many as a fifth. As if bloatware wasn’t bad enough, the four offending computers all run forged versions of Windows, forged…
Twitter’s big API changes have been causing all kinds of problems for third party Twitter clients, but they aren’t the only ones affected by Twitter’s new outlook on life. According to Buzzfeed, third party image hosts are in danger as well. It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise considering these image hosts are yet another…
There are plenty of high-tech phone features to yearn for, but Microsoft is applying for the patent on one so simple, primitive, and awesome you’ll be amazed you didn’t think of it yourself: the ability to smack your phone and have it shut up. It’s that simple, the phone makes a noise, you hit it,…
Warning: If you’re epileptic, you might want to pass on this video. Everybody knows that GoPros are tough little suckers, but this one also seems to have had a little luck on its side. After falling 12,500 feet it not only survived completely unscathed, but also managed to capture its clumsy, skydiving owner’s landing. The…
Think of this comic strip as a warning for everybody with a YouTube account who’s going to get an iPhone 5 and record a video of them unboxing it. Don’t do it. It’s weird. It’s silly. It’s not a thing anymore. And it might be even a little pervy. I’ll admit it, I was once…
Attention case-makers, accessory-builders and generally curious minds: the iPhone 5 blueprints have been made available to those with an Apple dev account. And, even though Joel Johnson no longer has a dev account, he somehow managed to procure the prints. Thanks, Uncle Joel! [H/T @joeljohnson]
