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The latest update to Qik’s Android app has brought along cross-platform video-calling. That means Android 2.1+ users can bug iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad 2 users, and vice versa. The app also lets you share videos on your social sites, and send video mail—which is offered free until the 1st of June, and will cost…
Personal details, and maybe even credit card details as well, have been stolen from the PlayStation Network after hackers broke into the system sometime before the 19th of April. But why did it take Sony so long to tell its customers—me! You! Your neighbor!—that they were hacked? http://gizmodo.com/5795923/sony-comes-clean-playstation-network-hackers-have-stolen-personal-data Sony took to its blog to explain…
Testing for acute pancreatitis can take a while, which can be problematic. Brian Zaccheo, a student from the University of Texas, knows this. That’s why he created this crazy sensor for under a buck—from aluminum foil, gelatin, milk protein, and a cheap LED light—that spots the condition in less than an hour. Here’s how it…
So much of what you’re paying for when you buy your iPhone 4 is what’s inside: that A4 processor, the gigundo lithium ion battery. So why hide it? iFixit offers this transparent rear panel for AT&T iPhone 4s—some (dis)assembly required—for 30 bucks. Guts are gorgeous, people. Remember that. [iFixit]
We need better birth control. This isn’t terribly controversial. Most current birth control is based on decades old science, merely refined as the years have gone by. And there’s still no male equivalent of the pill, which puts the brunt of the burden of long-term birth control on women. The closest thing for guys is…
So, in 2006, Virginian senate candidate George Allen made a pretty-racist comment about an Indian, camera-toting rep from his rival’s campaign, calling him “Macaca” and “welcoming” him to America. Like an asshole! Media outrage popped—as did a Wiki-war. Allen denied “macaca” was an actual slur, and that he’d just conjured it up. But the very…
This video gives a rare look inside one of Google’s data centers, you know the place where Google stores all your personal data. This video put out by Google wants to reassure you that all your deets are safe, secure and under control. In their data centers, Google has traditional security methods like physical road…
Okay, novelty iPhone case manufacturers, you’ve had a cute little run of it. But the medium has reached weird mash-up nirvana with this bad boy: Steve Jobs trapped in Han Solo’s carbonite tomb, forever, on the back of your iPhone 4. The plastic case goes for $35 plus the anxiety of getting caught holding this…
Liquid cooling, long the geeky masterwork of any PC gaming champion, has become simpler to set up, with pre-assembled, self-contained units available for any dummy in search of a cooler CPU. Maingear says their newest cooler frosts like a boss. Using a sizable 180mm radiator with more fins and a bigger pump, the EPIC cooler…
In this video spliced together by AllThingsD, you’ll see Steve Jobs and Andy Rubin talk about location privacy and their platform’s philosophy on privacy. It’s very interesting to look back on these interviews given what has happened given the iSpy conspiracy. https://kotaku.com/ispy-conspiracy-your-iphone-is-secretly-tracking-every-5793925 Here’s what Jobs says: We take privacy extremely seriously. As an example we…
In a new file released by WikiLeaks, Abd Al Rahim Abdul Raza Janko told interrogators at Guantanamo Bay that he was forced to spy on Al-Qaeda when he was blackmailed with a sex tape. Janko, a student at the time, says it all started when he was invited to hang out with Prince Fisal Sudid…
Can’t watch Hulu Plus because of the PSN outage? If you happen to have Xbox 360 you’ll be in luck, according to the June issue of OXM. The service is set to launch April 29—yeah, this Friday— and Microsoft will be promoting the launch with a contest. Random users will receive prizes, like Hulu Plus…
Convergence! Its the best, right? My phone replaced my camera, GPS, and the need to throw birds at pigs in real life. Ditching superfluous gear is great. Photosmith will lighten your photographic load, iPad-loading pics straight from your camera. One major caveat: Photosmith only works with Adobe Lightroom, so if you’re an Aperture fan, this…
A house of cards, longtime metaphor for tenuousness and pastime of prison inmates, usually doesn’t last long. But that’s because it’s not made out of giant aluminum cards, like New Zealand designer Fletcher Vaughan’s giganto-version. Vaughan says of his work, “The illusion that [the sculpture] could be toppled at any moment by the slight breath…
If you are a person who takes pictures of their food, please read this. And then this. The first is a simple but effective guide to taking better photographs of food by Serious Eats’ J. Kenji Lopez Alt—and they apply to a lot of other kinds of photography as well. Things like paying attention to…
The magic happens at exactly 25 minutes in. As Tina Fey describes how much insight a phone has into your life, Eric Schmidt, in his creepiest, creepy-friendly voice tells her, “And we want you to use a more powerful phone.” This is Eric’s pitch: And we want you to use a more powerful phone. And…
The Adler Planetarium just renovated the Grainger Sky Theater with a big honking screen. The display will mimic being in space with a 8,000 by 8,000 pixel screen that’s supposed to deliver “the largest single seamless digital image in the world”. For reference, typical movie screens ‘only’ spit out 2k by 4k pixel images. The…
SETI Unplugged | Not the Acoustic Music Sort, the Ran-Out-of-Funding Sort https://gizmodo.com/government-powers-down-seti-5795843 Which of Us Dies First? https://gizmodo.com/which-of-us-dies-first-5795745 What follows is unedited. These are the words of Teru Kuwayama, a photographer who has been to some of the most dangerous places in the world, at some of the most dangerous times to be there, taking…
Street sweepers in the US are big, hulking, monolithic machines that are terribly noisy, slow and occasionally effective. Street sweepers in China? Nothing more than a windmill of brooms tied to a beat up truck. And I’m not sure if it really does anything. [Neatorama]
I don’t care if this one bounces. The magic 8-ball has no place in our times as a form of novel entertainment. Just get a damn app for your smartphone. [Book of Joe]