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Pandora is stretching its wings a bit, expanding its stellar recommendation engine beyond just music and into stand-up comedy. Categories range from PG to “working class” to “urban,” or you can sort by a favorite comic. It seems like a terrific idea, although breaking up an act into a bunch of disjointed bits takes away…
Sure, the new iMacs have a couple of Thunderbolt ports and more grunt between them, but other than that has much else changed? To answer that question, we’ll defer to the iFixit guys, who’ve already torn the 21.5-inch iMac apart. https://gizmodo.com/apples-new-imacs-add-thunderbolt-more-graphics-muscle-5798012 In their teardown, they found that the PCI Express and DisplayPort both have their…
When you think electric vehicle, you might think of some piddling, golf cart-like geezer, humming its way along gently. Not a futuristic, 125 mph super-cycle. The Lito Sora motorcycle hardly looks like what it is—100% electric and fierce. The Canadian-made Sora not only looks like it drove out of Blade Runner, but has some real…
There’s been a bit of an uprising among Star Wars fans after a planned Blu-ray announcement got stymied this morning, but we’ve finally got the full details: the complete saga will ship on September 12th internationally, September 16th in North America, and will feature more than 40 hours of special features. Thirty of those are…
“Flattering, I guess. It was really, really flattering. I don’t know.” – Jessica Dovey, a 24-year-old English teacher in Japan whose Facebook status update went viral, unintentionally turning a real MLK quote into a misattributed internet phenomenon. [theatlantic.com, photo: Facebook] http://gawker.com/5797972/is-that-bin-laden+appropriate-martin-luther-king-jr-quote-a-fake
How many times have you wished you could press ctrl/cmd + F in real life? Or ctrl/cmd + Z? We may not be able to perform those life shortcuts just yet, but with Art Lebedev’s ctrl + O bottle opener, at least we can crack open a cold one, for $18. [Art Lebedev via FoodBeast…
Oh, your tablet runs off a Tegra 2 chipset, does it? If word on the Taiwanese street is correct, Asus is working on tablets (note the plural) running on quad-core Tegra 3 processors. We know from previous intel (snicker) handed out by Nvidia that the Tegra 3 chipset (codenamed Kal-El) will have a 12-core GPU…
Over on Kickstarter there’s a nifty stand—that fits all sorts of tablets—just crying out for you to invest a dollar or more to put it into production. Apparently it sucks onto the back of the tablet, with the other end clamped to a table like a vice, or with magnets or even with another suction…
When in doubt, go 3D. Hey, it’s working so well for everyone else, so why shouldn’t Nokia have a stab too? A patent has arisen showing a Nintendo 3DS-style dual-screen phone with both 2D and (glassesless) 3D screens. Dual-cameras would shoot 3D content similar to LG’s G-Slate/Optimus Pad and Optimus 3D/Thrill 4G phone, but unlike…
It takes a fair amount of badass to become the most-viewed photo of all time on Flickr, but the photo of Obama, Hillary Clinton and other officials watching Osama bin Laden’s capture is well on its way to knocking a lame (by comparison) photo of Nohkalikai Falls, Cherraphunjee off the pedestal. https://gizmodo.com/this-is-obama-and-his-team-watching-operation-kill-bin-5797874 Uploaded on the…
The world’s first elliptical bike has been updated with three speeds for even more calf-toning bike riding/jogging. I guess their thinking goes along the lines of why just cycle or jog, when you can do both at once? This new model, the ElliptiGO 3C, adds new features but is also cheaper than the first one,…
Woah. Spotify users—and I hope that’s most of the Europeans reading this—have no reason to continue using iTunes. They’ve just rejigged their download service so you can download tracks in the 10s, 15s, 40s and 100s, but crucially they’re also letting you sync iPods right there in Spotify, negating the need for iTunes. As Spotify…
You might ask why someone would want to turn a perfectly good Toyota Prius into a roller coaster that moves at a mere 15mph. I ask why not? When the Prius begins to brake on the upturn at the end of the track, it stores the kinetic energy generated as electricity, which is able to…
Cords! All gadgets have ’em. They’re everywhere. And there are a million different ways to deal with them. But this cord tamer from Pinza is prettier than most, cast from solid stainless steel and hand-polished. $26. [Pinza]
A national rent-to-own chain, Aaron’s, is being accused of spying on customers without their knowledge. Apparently, they’ve been using rented computer’s webcams to take pictures of people and a keylogger to snap screenshots of what they were doing. Um, that’s kind of creepy. The store is being accused of using software called “PC Rental Agent”…
Lene Rønsholt Wille, a Denmark-based designer, made this absolutely stunning Great Wall of Lego. It took her six weeks to build! She used 270,000 pieces! Can you even imagine what it would be like to play around with 270,000 Lego bricks? Heaven, I’m pretty sure. But in actuality, it was probably hell, since each brick…
Scientists working on the Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus (ALPHA) near Geneva, Switzerland did something no other scientists have done. They stored atoms of antihydrogen for 1000 seconds (~16 minutes) which is 10,000 times longer than they’ve ever done before. By trapping and observing antimatter for that long, scientists can better understand the properties of it.…
Can anything trump chess, the ultimate game of warfare? Yes, warfare, in which actual bullets fly around and kill people in horrible ways. But someone in Afghanistan felt like getting meta, crafting this nifty chess board for more abstract combat. Seems fitting that the king and queen are .50 cal giants, with the rooks being…
Quadrocopters are everywhere these days. But the 20-gram CrazyFlie is one worth noting. https://gizmodo.com/quadrotor-drones-can-juggle-balls-with-each-other-5786711 The first thing you’ll notice is that the circuit board is tiny! In fact, one of its sides is only 8 cm, and the whole thing easily fits in one hand. Yet there’s a CPU on it that helps the quadrocopter…
I won’t fault anyone for spending $3,640 on this radiator because it looks so flipping cool. Called the Matières à Chaud (Hot Matters) and designed by 5.5 Designers in Paris, its sheet of glass (only half an inch thick!) uses Quantum Glass to heat the room up. Quantum Glass, eh? Sounds fancy. And it sort…
