Tech News

17 People Who Think They’ve Bought an iPhone 5 Already

As much as we talk about the iPhone 5 around here, it’s important to remember that it doesn’t actually exist yet. At least, Apple hasn’t announced its existence, much less made it available for preorder. All that doesn’t happen until Wednesday. https://gizmodo.com/iphone-5-the-complete-rumor-roundup-5930100 But, uh… some people didn’t get the message. Like these kind folks who…

A Waffle Maker To Help You Through a Lifetime of Hangovers

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Especially after a night of drinking. And those often bleak mornings will be made better after you’ve eaten to soak up all the alcohol—like waffles. For that of course you need a waffle iron, and no shock that All-Clad has a really good offering. It comes…

The Anti-Skyscraper Law That Shaped Sydney, Australia

When we look at visions of the future from the 20th century we often imagine the lone inventor or solitary artist concocting the fantastical world of tomorrow in isolation. But it’s amazing how frequently both government regulation and the lack of regulation can influence the future of a given city in ways we don’t often…

5 Reasons Why Spotify in Your Browser Is a Good Idea

A Saturday TechCrunch report about a browser-based version of Spotify led to thousands of posts over the weekend. https://gizmodo.com/spotify-could-finally-be-coming-to-a-browser-near-you-5941639 The odd thing about Spotify’s reported makeover as a web app: Its status as a desktop client is responsible for at least some degree of its success. Being a desktop app allows Spotify to gobble upstream…

The Tiny Yellow Sticker That Detects Accidents and Alerts Your Emergency Contacts

Expanding on its product line which makes it easy for someone to find your emergency contacts if you’re injured, ICEdot (In Case of Emergency) is taking the idea one step further. Working with a company called SenseTech LLC, it’s developing a tiny helmet sensor that knows when you’ve been in an accident, how severe it…

Gojee: Make a Meal With the Scraps in Your Pantry

You can get stuck in a rut in the kitchen where you end up making the same boring dishes night after night. If you find yourself in this position, Gojee will save your from culinary boredom. What does it do? It offers up different recipes for drinks or food based on either what you’re craving…

What’s Your Favorite Site Affected by the GoDaddy Outage?

In case you’ve been living under a rock, GoDaddy was the victim of an attack which took everything down today. Anonymous is claiming responsibility for the attack and million of sites are unaccessible as a result. Surely some of the sites you read use GoDaddy for your internet hosting purposes. Which makes me curious: which…

The Duck’s Foot Pistol Put a Firing Squad in the Palm of Your Hand

Flintlock pistols may have been super effective against single opponents because, as Boris the Bullet Dodger once said, “If it doesn’t work you can always hit them with it.” Against groups, however, they were comically useless—that is, until enterprising gunsmiths added some extra barrels. Officially known as Volley Guns but colloquially dubbed the “duck’s foot”…

Google Has Officially Started Censoring the Pirate Bay In Search Results

Back in January, Google bowed down to corporate monoliths and started censoring “piracy-related searches” containing terms like BitTorrent, torrent, RapidShare, etc, so that they won’t appear on Google’s autocomplete and instant search results. Looks like The Pirate Bay is the latest to be added to the list. TorrentFreak points out what you can see in…

Lonely Scientists Make a Robot With a Gentle Touch

A typical robot does not know that you must never shake a baby. And a typical robot just doesn’t have a tender touch. But now scientists at Harvard have developed a robotic tentacle so gentle that it can wrap around flower without breaking it. How does it do it? New Scientist explains: The tentacle is…

Tiny Floating Donut Turns a Glass Of Water Into a Humidifier

The next time you travel to a particularly dry part of the world, you’ll wish you could bring along this tiny plastic Fogring donut to ensure your sinuses aren’t destroyed while you’re supposed to be relaxing. It floats on water and uses ultrasonic vibrations to turn liquids into refreshing vapors—humidifying a room with nothing but…

This Ridiculous Bike Mutates While You Ride It

There are a million different bike designs out there, each suited to a different terrain. The Continuously Ergonomic Race Vehicle—Or CERV—is Cannondale’s attempt at making a single bicycle that can adapt to the course you’re on. It’s a bonkers concept that looks just as crazy as it sounds. Immediately upon looking at CERV you know…

Do You Use Your eReader for Anything Besides Reading Books?

E-Ink readers are great for reading books, or anything really, but mainly books. But many of them offering 3G, and apparently non-book-reading-and-buying activity is high enough that Amazon had to limit browser usage to 50MB per month. That raises the question, though: Do you use an e-ink reader for anything but reading books? Even articles…

“Emma Watson” Is Full of Viruses

Warning: don’t search for Emma Watson online unless you want to get infected. According to an McAfee’s annual list of most dangerous online celebrities, if you’re looking for news about Hermione, specifically naked news, you have about a 12 percent chance of picking up malware. Hackers often lure us in with the promise of naked…

7 Features the iPhone 5’s Display Might Have

The display will play a central role in the marketing, appearance, and performance of the iPhone 5, which will be announced on Wednesday September 12. The iPhone 4 display is no longer state-of-the-art. While I don’t have any inside information about the iPhone 5 display, below are a series of Sherlock Holmes deductions based on…

This Lego Death Star Is Your World-Destroying Deal of the Day

In the Star Wars canon, the Death Star took 20 years to build. In the real world, economics and Star Wars nerds estimated that the Death Star would cost a staggering $852 quadrillion. In my world, I would just buy this amazing 3800-piece Lego Death Star set and save all of that time and money.…

Five Free Ways to Boost Your Wi-Fi Signal

Your home wi-fi network can be a fickle mistress, with connectivity coming and going seemingly on a whim. But there’s no need to shell out hard-earned cash for a brand new router just because you can’t get online. (Besides, how would you order one?) Instead, try these five free steps to whip your wireless network…

Pentagon’s New Mechanical Horse Is Smart Enough to Follow Its Masters

Boston Dynamics keeps refining its Legged Squad Support System, the robotic quadruped descendant of the good old and creepy Big Dog. The new version of the eerie mechanical horse, which will aid US Marines squads once finished, got some cool upgrades. https://gizmodo.com/watch-the-amazing-bigdog-robots-big-brother-romp-around-5883323 Now it is smart enough to follow the squad lead, which is quite…

Samsung Will Reportedly Sue Apple Over a 4G LTE iPhone 5 (Updated)

The $1.05 billion Samsung has been ordered to pay Apple has not ended fight between the two companies. In fact, the battle might get even more complicated. According to the Korea Times, Samsung will sue Apple once again over LTE patents the iPhone 5 reportedly infringes on. https://gizmodo.com/here-are-the-damages-samsung-has-to-pay-apple-scrawled-5937808 The latest news came after a Korean…

GoDaddy is down, taking millions of sites with it. Good time to remind you that GoDaddy is the worst.