Tech News

Snooze for iPhone Lets You Donate Money Every Time You Hit the Snooze Button

RIINNNNGGGGGG. Ah, frack. Not again. It can’t be 7AM already. I can’t get….SNOOZE…up. Repeat. Snooze. Repeat. How many times do you hit the snooze button on your alarm? Too many. With Snooze for iPhone, every time you hit snooze donates money to a non-profit. What’s it do? It’s an alarm app that donates a quarter…

Solari Cifra 3: The Greatest Clock Ever Made?

The minimal, futuristic design of the Solari Cifra 3 is timeless. So timeless, in fact, that it’s part of the collections of NYC’s MoMA and London’s Science Museum. So what is it that makes this clock so special? Designed by Gino Valle in 1965 for Solari di Udine, the cylindrical shape of the Cifra 3…

Google’s 16 Biggest Acquisitions So Far—And What Happened To Them

Google’s $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola will be its biggest acquisition ever — more than four times the size of DoubleClick, the previous leader. But over the last decade, Google has been one of the biggest—and most successful—acquirers in the tech industry, and owes a lot of its success to these smart buys. Its core…

Restaurant Forces Customers To Sign No Cellphone Contract Before Dining

A shout of OHHH MY GODDDD ARE YOU SERIOUS? SHE DID? The LED flash of someone Instagramming their entree, followed by look of smug gratification. Some jerk waving his phone around trying to get a cell signal Foursquare. Not anymore! Buzzing DC eatery Rogue24 wants hype to be the only thing in the air, making…

Ashton Kutcher’s Two-Story Trailer for Two and a Half Men Makes Me Dream About Being Trailer Trash

Everyone knows that Ashton Kutcher, actor and sometimes tech investor, is replacing Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half Men. What people might not know is that Ashton’s getting a sweet deal: nearly a million dollars an episode and this palatial don’t-call-it-a-trailer “mobile estate”. Made by Rob Anderson of Anderson Mobile Estates, these trailers run…

I Want to Grow This $21,000 Sound Tree In My Living Room

Expensive speakers manufacturer Elipson has a new toy for design audio freaks with $21,000 stuck in their underpants: the Sound Tree. Each of these 6-inch (15 cm) orbs are connected to a base and can push 30 watts each. https://gizmodo.com/the-orb-shaped-speakers-that-look-like-planets-5749333 You can personalize your own tree, covering a space of 16.4 x 16.4 x 16.4…

6 Tools to Help Transform You Into a Super Jock of the Future

Face it, you’re a nerd (you are reading Gizmodo, aren’t you?). Nerds and sports have traditionally been mutually exclusive, but that’s no longer the case. Technology is your friend. Here are 6 tools to make you a champ. Image via Shutterstock Finis Swimsense Monitor In swimming, the quality of your stroke is everything. The Finis…

Horse Cops Are Installing Computers Onto Horses So They Can Pretend to Be Real Police

Mounted police officers, which are the cops who ride horses and pretend to do real police work, are actually becoming useful. In Louisville, new Mobile Data Terminals—similar to what the police have in cars—are being installed onto horses. The MDT is actually a small Panasonic U-1 computer that lets police officers hit up emergency dispatch…

Google Will Pay Motorola $2.5 Billion if Their Marriage Falls Through

Google and Motorola have a prenup of sorts worked out before the wedding. Well, really more like Google buying Motorola as a sex slave. But still—the former will hand the latter $2.5 bil if the deal collapses. [BusinessWeek]

Acer Iconia Is the Econo-Tablet Deal of the Day

Do you know what’s caused more murders, bank collapses, and divorces than anything else in history? I’ll give you one guess. Wrong. It’s boredom! When we get bored, we make our own fun by exerted our malicious wills upon our peers and neighbors. I have no evidence to back this up, but it seems like…

What It’s Like to Drive 400MPH

The Spectre Performance SpeedLiner has been making headlines for a couple of years now because it can roll along at 350mph with ease. But it’s reacheds speeds as fast as 415mph. Wanna know what it’s like? Click play. This video is from last year, but it gives you an idea of what the thing can…

Replace All Your Sheet Music With the ELASTICK Music Stand

While musicians gleefully move their musical talents into the tech world, they still need a way to see their work during performances or recording sessions. The ELASTICK solves that problem by strapping your tablet to a standard microphone stand. Easy. And when it isn’t attached to a mic stand, it does a fair job of…

MiniMash Lets You Pretend to Be an iPad DJ While It Does All the Work

DJ-ing is hard. Apart from buying all that expensive gear, the steep learning curve will keep many a budding turntablist out of most clubs (thankfully). So while the MiniMash app is awesome for doing the work for you, keep it away from my bars. In principle, MiniMash works similarly to last year’s impressive djay app…

Songwriters Can Soon Reclaim Publishing Rights From Record Labels

In 1978, Congress put the Copyright Law into effect. Most of it was standard fare, but it included a caveat which wouldn’t be relevant for 35 years: songwriters would be able to reclaim publishing rights from record labels. The NY Times says that beginning on January 1, 2013, artists will have a five year window…

The Most Interesting Tablet You’ve Never Heard Of

Finally we have something that looks legitimately different in the tablet game. TabCo’s Grid 10 tablet has a whole new OS and a smartphone buddy to play with. First off, TabCo is a parody brand. It’s actually just Fusion Garage, who made the ill-fated (read: craptastic) Joojoo. They created TabCo, with a mysterious ad campaign,…

Create the Perfect Motorola Android Phone

So some stuff happened today in smartphone land! Google will likely soon own Motorola, giving it the chance to have complete control over a piece of hardware. To make it perfect. To make it theirs. Why don’t you try first? https://gizmodo.com/google-is-buying-motorola-5830842 If you had Google’s bulging software biceps and Motorola’s hardware cojones, how would you…

Why Verizon’s Latest Promotion Might Mean No iPhone 5 Until October

PhoneArena reports that Verizon’s introducing a $100 trade-in incentive for people upgrading their dumbphone to a smartphone. In the fine print, the carrier dropped a major hint at when we’ll see iPhone 5. Or more specifically, when we won’t. Here’s the thing: The promotion is reportedly set to run from Aug. 18th to Sept. 30th.…

An iPhone 4 Backing That Magically Changes Colors When You Touch It

Ordinary fingerprints on your iPhone 4? Passé. Fingerprints that can morph your iPhone 4 into a color changing chameleon!? Psychedelic. These heat sensitive backings, made by RF Laserworks, magically turn a variety of gnarly colors depending on the temperature (aka your finger). It’s made by the same guy behind the Grip Tape iPhone 4 backing.…

Grid 10 and 4

13% of Cell Owners Pretend to Talk to Avoid Human Contact. That’s It?

The stat diggers at Pew dug up a new gem: in their nationally representative survey, “13% of cell owners pretended to be using their phone in order to avoid interacting with the people around them.” This seems very, very low. Part of the beauty of the ubiquitous phone is the ubiquitous excuse. See someone walking…