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“The Battle of Anghiari” is a Leonardo da Vinci painting that many in his era called the Renaissance Man’s finest work. The problem is that it’s been lost since the 1500’s. Many people, however, believe it’s hidden behind a brick wall and a photographer thinks he can snap a picture of the work—through the brick…
Anthropologist and Gizmodo friend Félix Pharand is mapping the effect of humans on planet Earth. His latest video—which shows cities, transmission lines, pipelines, roads and railways with amazing detail—is simply spectacular. Play it at full screen. Along with other scientists, Pharand is working on documenting the effects of an epoch that doesn’t exist yet: the…
The September issue of Wired has a nationwide map of marijuana prices (excluding Alaska and Hawaii, where people apparently don’t smoke weed.) It’s fascinating to see the price differences nationwide, but there are interesting economic points as well. The map was put together by FloatingSheep, a group that maps and analyzes location-specific data. In this…
It appears Microsoft may have just leaked its own goods. Some sharp-eyed Windows fans spotted what could possibly be the next version of windows in a promotional video. A promotional video! Someone’s getting fiiiii-iiiired. what if this is the next Windows? We haven’t learned much. The taskbar appears tweaked, but only very slightly. The Start…
An (allegedly) American drone just crashed in Pakistan. That’s not altogether surprising—we fly drones over them all the time to hunt militants. But this one’s different. It’s tiny. And, uh, it’s shaped like a bird. What is it? Danger Room’s Spencer Ackerman points out the ornithological similarities between the mystery UAV and the SmallBird drone—but…
Raspberry Pi. It’s really an amazing PC. Not only it’s really tiny, can run Quake III and play back Full HD video through HDMI, but it only costs $25 PC! Check out the video demonstrating Quake III at full speed. And that’s still an alpha board. The $25 Raspeberry Pi has the following specs: 700MHz…
So Hurricane Irene was a major letdown to some people. Why did that weather dude make you evacuate, anyway? Here’s why you should give him a break: It’s impossible, even with all of the fancy technology at their disposal in this day and age, for meteorologists to precisely predict what a hurricane will do. Mainly…
This is neither the setting of a new Star Trek movie nor a preview of a new id Software game level. But it looks like one of the pits of a Death Star. Or the core of the Large Hadron Collider. In reality it is St. Joseph’s Church in Le Havre, France, a 1950s neo-gothic…
This story sounds mean. It’s about a girl judging a boy because he’s a nerd (like so many of us!) that she met on OkCupid. But that’s the point: Judging people on shallow stuff is human nature, and the magic and absurdity of online dating is how immediately and directly it throws that into relief.…
Adobe just released CreatePDF for iOS. It’s supposed to be an Adobe Acrobat equivalent in terms of creating PDF files on your iPhone or iPad. According to Adobe, it’ll make PDFs that look “exactly” like your original files. The files CreatePDF can convert PDF files from are: • MS Word (docx, doc), Excel(xlsx, xls), PowerPoint…
Someone could cobble together a solid DIY iPhone 5 kit with all the purported next-gen parts that’ve leaked. The latest? A front panel part labeled N94, like previous supposed prototype parts. It looks just like the iPhone 4. https://gizmodo.com/next-generation-iphone-parts-uncovered-5834734 Which keeps the question alive: Is this for the true iPhone 5—which’ll bear striking resemblance to…
Airplay’s pretty great, right? You can zap whatever music you like on over to your compatible device. Fun. Great. Just one problem: Only one person can be AirPlayin’ at any given time. Minor quibble? Maybe, but it’s a tad antisocial. Think about it: Your friend wants to show off his knowledge of the Greenpoint IndyFolk…
After I moved out not too long ago, my family found themselves in need of a new computer. Obviously, they have a host of options, but they happen to be PC people and don’t want to spend too much on just the essentials. BUT my little sister likes MMOs, so that threw much ever so…
When’s the last time anyone got tangible information from a carrier’s customer service representatives about a new phone? It’s like worrying about Army recruits sharing the launch codes. Nevertheless, Sprint is already putting the kibosh on employees talking about the iPhone hitting their network this fall via an internal memo. Employees have been instructed to…
We’ve been told for years that file size doesn’t necessarily mean higher quality, though it’s usually regarding megapixel counts on camera sensors. But did you know that there’s a point in Photoshop where increasing the quality setting—and file size—actually decreases the image quality? That point is 7. https://gizmodo.com/giz-explains-why-more-megapixels-isnt-always-more-bett-5155942 When saving JPEG files, Photoshop uses chroma…
Well whadya know? Published back in May 1874, the Manufacturer and Builder journal ran a story describing the toolkit of the then-cutting-edge burglar. Described are all the essentials. All you need are your standard lockpicks, skeleton keys, slingshots, anesthesia… Well, Victorian-era thieves were nothing if not thorough. So thorough that they continually managed to confound…
Not satisfied with trying to outrun trains, looney kids are now latching onto the side of a MOVING train and playfully dodging things that they pass by. Right when you think they’ll smash into a pole, they manage to stay alive. It’s insane. https://gizmodo.com/why-do-idiots-keep-trying-to-outrun-speeding-trains-5834809 I don’t understand the psychotic level of this. Sure, these kids…
Michele Bachmann’s easily one of the GOP’s most prominent candidates. She also has scientific views from the 15th century, claiming both earthquake ’11 and Irene were divine warnings. That’s insane. She’s not alone. And that’s absolutely terrifying. Let me be clear up front. To be a Republican is not to be a philistine, or against…
Wikileaks founder and accused rapist Julian Assange has long maintained a “trust me” attitude about his data security. However, if today’s reports are correct, people very well may die due to his carelessness. According to German newspaper Der Freitag, and backed up by Der Spiegel, a spat between Assange and his spokesperson Daniel Domscheit-Berg resulted…
You’d expect a speech as famous and powerful as MLK Jr’s ‘I Have a Dream’ to be a part of the public domain already. Nope. Instead, the rights of the speech are held by MLK’s family. Usually, whenever a speech is broadcast to a large audience, it’d be up on YouTube within seconds. What isn’t…
