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When Amazon tried to give the world Lady Gaga’s Little Monsters album for just a buck, what did it get in return? A giant customer service headache. But today, like Rocky Balboa before them, they’re climbing back into the ring. http://gawker.com/5805759/lady-gagas-little-monsters-are-pissed-at-amazon Amazon’s doubling down on its Little Monsters deal, insisting that this time they’re ready…
Skype is down, Skype is down! Well, for some people anyway. While the service outage isn’t widespread enough to be a pandemic (working fine over here), enough users are reporting/complaining about it via Twitter to indicate a widespread whoops. Skype has responded with a tweet of its own, saying 30 minutes ago that they’re investigating…
Part of Central Washington University was shut down for four hours after campus police stumbled across a homemade pinhole camera, believing it was a bomb. After calling in the army explosive team, they discovered it was some poor photographer’s project. As you probably know, pinhole cameras can be left alone for months at a time,…
Old purists of Glastonbury festival may argue that an app goes against everything Glastonbury—replete with hippies and other unwashed revellers—used to stand for. But give me an app with a map and customisable line-up any day. Orange has snagged the rights to release the one and only official Glastonbury 2011 app, which is available for…
Mind you, I’d rather have a Lego-covered wall than a Duplo-covered wall. There’s an important distinction between the two building blocks, and I don’t want those creepy Duplo eyes staring at me as I sleep. [Cafe Boobah via HGTV via Ohdeedoh via OhGizmo via Wired]
You don’t have to chuck your $500 Eames bin (into another bin?) when you purchase a new shredder, if it’s Takumi’s shredder bridge. Placed over any receptacle, the battery-powered shredder is perfect for small offices. [Takumi via DesignBoom]
We’ve used plenty of The Oatmeal’s funny comics in the past, here on Giz. But that’s always been with artist Matthew Inman’s permission, full attribution, and a link back to the site. Some websites aren’t so generous. Case in point: Funnyjunk.com. I’m not going to link to them because I don’t want to increase their…
Around a month ago, Xbox Live users were alerted to a phishing scam on popular online title Modern Warfare 2. You’d think this was the work of nefarious group, but no, it was a single perpetrator. Who Microsoft is now working with? Read the rest at Kotaku here https://kotaku.com/microsoft-is-not-helping-an-xbox-live-hacker-develop-5805742
Are you one of those people that likes to doodle on a dollar bill? Deface the president with a goatee? If so, then you must participate in the Make Your Franklin Project. Created by Martin Joubet, the online art exhibit lets people exercise their creativity and commemorate the iconic $100 bill at the same time.…
Air India may have a bad reputation for poor customer service and delayed flights, but what were its pilots thinking when they blocked the sun by covering the cockpit windows with newspaper? Bob Haygooni tells the story of an in-flight visit to the cockpit shortly after he was hired by the airline. He was shocked…
IRL books. Psssssssssssssh. Those stupid things are just collecting dust now that I have e-readers and tablets and all sorts of stuff for consuming books in the obviously superior digital format. So what do I do with all those novels? Lamps!
Hasselblad one-upped itself again with the H4D-200MS camera, a 200 megapixel monster that hit the market with a whopping $45,000 price tag. https://gizmodo.com/hasselblad-bills-40-megapixel-h4d-40-monster-as-the-pe-5463075 This claim of 200MP is impressive, but slightly misleading. The H4D-200MS actually ships with a 50 megapixel sensor and uses multi-shot technology to produce a 200MP image. A piezoelectric motor slightly moves…
Cicadas like to sing. And when thousands of them gather on a six-story wall, the noise they produce is deafening. As with most ostentatious displays, these male cicadas are looking for a mate. When in full singing mode, male cicadas can reach 100 decibels at their loudest. That’s as loud as a chain saw or…
Oprah’s show is over—sob. But the league of spelling-challenged fans who email Opera (a niche browser, not a TV host) will probably continue. Opera’s rounded up their favorites. YOU GET A MISTAKEN EMAIL! YOU GET A MISTAKEN EMAIL! The emails run the gamut of bizarre, problem-stricken people who wish to sip from the fountain of…
Combine equal parts DJ Miguel, middle-grade strippers, iPads embedded into guitars, iOS music apps, twins, record scratching, cowbell, and what do you get? A piece of sonic expression that is beyond any explanation, classification or definition. [XLR8R]
Gotta love modern art that makes a statement, looks impressive and invites user interaction. German artist Cyprien Gaillard hits all three with his beer case pyramid. Gaillard uses his artistic creation to make an interpretive (read: confusing) statement about displacement and tourist colonialism. He may be trying to make a valid point, but his jumbled…
Leica revealed the newest addition to it’s compact digital camera line today with the V-Lux 30. Its equipped with a 15.1MP sensor, 16x zoom range, built-in GPS and a new mode for creating 3D-stills. Video records in 1080i HD with full use of the zoom as well as a stereo mic with electronic wind noise…
Google Wallet, the company’s new NFC payment system has been confirmed as the topic of tomorrow’s Google Event in NYC. The Container Store has already been identified as an early adopter of the technology and will accept payments using it when the system goes live September 1. The rest of the list, as well as…
Daniel Bean, a filmmaker, captured power lines exploding like fireworks in Brazil. It’s scary because the town has been experiencing a ton of problems with their electricity and the company hasn’t stepped up to fix it. That. Shit. Ain’t. Safe. [Daniel Beam Films]
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, a small arm of the US intelligence community, is distributing $20 million grants to computer scientists who can parse a language and determine a culture’s relationship with a certain concept. It’s called, The Metaphor Program. It may seem like an enormous amount of money to spend on linguistics research…
