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The pigeon is a nasty bird. Sooty, dingy, generally unpleasant to behold. But right now, as part of the currently underway Venice Biennale contemporary art festival in Venice, Italy, the city’s unsightliest tourist attraction (its plethora of pigeons) has been given a stunning makeover. Artists Julian Charriere and Julius von Bismarck devised a rooftop pigeon-painting…
Like the life history of a camera, this Facebook Timeline shows you and schools you on the story of how the computer as we know it came to be. It wasn’t always pretty and aluminum and thin and lovely! From its humble, beige box beginnings to not so little improvements like the Internet, this Facebook…
These brass middle-finger keys are a great example of how even a workaday utilitarian item like a door key can be worthy of—and improved by—a little design attention. Good Worth & Co.’s “Best Wishes Key” fits all Kwikset K1 locks and measures in at 1″ x 3″. At $8 a key, you might not want…
Beyonce is a goddess and today is her birthday, thus “Upgrade U,” a song off her 2006 album B’Day is perfectly fitting. Bey can do no wrong. And she has been kind enough to grace us for the past 31 years with her unmatchable moves, her unbeatable voice, her unbelievable body, and her unreal style.…
For reasons mostly undescribable, I love this notebook. But it’s not lost on me that there’s something to be said about the lack of convenience that crease provides on this thing. But still, I can’t get over the inherent charm of this thing. What say you, reader: yay or nay? [MoMA Store via Design-Milk]
If you’re getting tired of seeing the purported guts of the iPhone 5, we feel for you. But it’s like following a cookie crumb trail that might, possibly, hopefully lead us to some real semblance of information about the next iPhone. Or at least help us connect the dots. Case in point: here’s the rumored…
Your pet gives you nothing but undying love and affection from the crack of dawn until they curl up by your feet at night. So why not repay their selfless admiration with toys and accessories that make them look and feel like nothing but a sight gag? Here’s everything you need to completely and utterly…
That delicious red Chloé bag. Those funky YSL kicks. And oh god, this lucious Rick Owens coat. Back to reality—most of the stuff of Net-a-Porter is not included in the daily budget of a tech blogger. But staring at those pieces costs nothing. And now you can do it on your iPad. What does it…
The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. But what about the life that exists on it? We’ve thought since 2006 that biological activity in the form of stromatolites—ancient layered geological structures—first appeared here 3.5 billion years ago, and now we have even more evidence to prove it. Scientists took to the Strelley Pool Formation in…
Paying for a quick meal or drink with a debit or credit card is convenient for customers, but the lack of physical currency means there’s a less of a chance of waitstaff or baristas getting a tip. At least until the tests of the DipJar digital tip jar are deemed successful and it becomes widely…
With Labor Day behind us, summer is officially over. But people still drink beer and other cold things, which means this cooler bag still works even as we enter the chillier fall months. Designed by Jakob Wagner for Menu A/S Denmark, the bag ($56) will fit a six-pack of your favorite brews for weekend nights…
Microsoft delivered its Kinect for Windows fall roadmap today, and among one of the most important things included in the announcement is that Kinect will get Windows 8 support on October 8. On that date both the runtime and the SDK will be updated. That means in the event something goes awry, Microsoft will have…
Antisec has reportedly released a million Apple device UDIDs, which it claims to have taken from the 12 million it got from a breach of an FBI laptop. That is kind of terrifying for a variety of reasons, but let’s just focus on the one you care most about: What is a UDID, and how…
The Average Day Watch does a lot more than just let you keep track of how long you’ve been sprawled out on the couch watching TV. It actually has the potential to improve your life, shaming you into physical activity or other pursuits by breaking down how the rest of civilization spends their days. It…
Digital audio is everywhere in the modern world—telephones, television, sonar, and Spotify. For all the ways it has revolutionized the way we hear, converting the waves to ones and zeros is a surprisingly straightforward process. Here’s the science of sound. What is Sound? Sound is a pressure oscilation travelling through a compressible medium, whether it’s…
We are in the middle of hurricane season. Isaac hit the south of the United States last week, inundating acres of land, wreaking homes and disrupting oil and gas production—a stark reminder of the Katrina disaster and yet another warning of catastrophes to come. Now, imagine if the President of the United States had the…
The 2012 Macbook Air may be the best ultraportable laptop, but let’s not forget about its older 2011 brother. https://gizmodo.com/the-best-ultraportable-laptop-5870943 What do you lose when you buy last year’s Macbook Air? For starters, you get a processor from a generation ago—a Sandy Bridge processor as opposed to an Ivy Bridge processor. In addition, the 2012…
Stealing Mother Nature’s multi-tentacle squid design has already proven useful for power bars and USB hubs. So it’s not surprising that this fake squid also looks right at home in a shower stall, keeping bottles and other cleaning accessories close at hand. https://gizmodo.com/the-usb-squid-hub-265835 Made from latex rubber and available for $35 in red, blue, or…
Ever since they first arrived in 2001, Harman Kardon’s soundsticks always stuck a harmonious chord in balancing price, looks and performance. Designed by Jonny Ive himself, the first Soundsticks were inducted into MoMA’s permanent collection. And now, they’ve gone wireless. For the most part, the speakers are the same: 10 watts in each satellite and…
There are hacks, and then there are hacks. After this morning’s apparent Apple UDID dump, Al-Jazeera’s English website has been defaced in about the most conspicuous way possible. But who’s responsible? https://gizmodo.com/antisec-leaks-1-million-apple-device-ids-obtained-durin-5940183 Clearly someone with a bone to pick with Al-Jazeera. But who is this Al-Rashedon? An opponent of Al-Jazeera’s coverage of Syrian civil war?…
