Tech News

Possible Palm Devices Revealed in WebOS 2.0 Code

A bevy of potential Palm handset codenames have been revealed in a snippet of WebOS 2.0 code this weekend. If you’re curious, have a look at what we won’t be officially calling five Palm devices if they officially launch in the future: Broadway, Windsor, Mantaray, Roadrunner and Stingray, come on down, you’re the alleged Palm…

Tech News Jack Loftus

Grip-Happy Compliant Electroadhesion Sneaking Into Everyday Usage

More than two years ago SRI International was marching robots up walls using little more than static electricity. Today, they’ve moved onto bigger and better things, like gripping a banana using the same technique. Meet “compliant electroadhesion.” https://gizmodo.com/robot-climbs-walls-with-static-electricity-392110 As was the case back in 2008, electroadhesion still requires very little power to function. According to…

Tech News Jack Loftus

Meet Finland’s All-Knowing 3D Speed Camera

In Finland there are cameras. Automated cameras. They observe the roads, watching for speeders. Nothing new, right? Wrong. These silent watchers can ding drivers for pretty much everything else too. Items like insurance, taxes, seat belt usage and tailgating—all checked in the blink of an eye! Called ASSET (Advanced Safety and Driver Support for Essential…

Tech News Jack Loftus

Ancient Roman Multitool Trims, Cleans and Kills

Back in the 3rd century there were these Roman fellas. They were conquerors, to be sure, but a few of their number we undoubtedly pretty handy as this multitool suggests. When the tool was unfolded, the solider would have had at his disposal a fork, spatula, pick, spike, and a knife. Also, the admiration of…

Tech News Jack Loftus

What Is This?

These mysterious boxes, powered by car batteries, are popping up all over New York City. There’s no cause for alarm, of course, but something’s definitely afoot. That something being the New York Marathon, which was run this morning in the chilly November fall air: The boxes are tracking equipment, and this particular one was located…

Tech News Jack Loftus

NVIDIA Teases Cooler, Quieter Beast of a GPU

NVIDIA, unsurprisingly, is billing its next big GPU as the fastest, quietest and coolest yet. Shocking, yes, but the “vapor chamber system” at its heart, which they contend will knock off about seven decibels (compared to the GTX 480) does sound slightly cool (obnoxious pun!). Within the sealed cooling chamber, you see, water will be…

Tech News Jack Loftus

Japanese Coast Guard Performs Maneuvers Dressed as Dancing School Girls

This video showing the Japanese Coast Guard dancing “in uniform” whilst coming into port is making the rounds for obvious reasons but I still have to ask, when AREN’T Japanese sailors dancing as school girls while coming into port? All kidding aside, the choreography presented here is top notch. They’ve obviously practiced and are displaying…

Tech News Jack Loftus

Microsoft Kinect Hacked? Already?!

Adafruit’s $2,000 bounty for an open source Kinect driver hack was only offered up late last week and already someone has allegedly delivered, said Adafruit’s Phillip Torrone in an email to us just now. This was inevitable. Microsoft, for its part, offered up the standard boilerplate last week in an email to CNET: “Microsoft does…

Tech News Jack Loftus

Artist’s Unique CAPTCHA Requires Visitors Also Be Artists

To contact Guy Abbott, owner of the web site Geee, one must simply learn to paint like Claude Monet. No big deal. [Geee via Geektoplasm via Neatorama]

Privacy & Security Jack Loftus

Photoshop Artist Creates a World Without Weapons

A world without war or weapons would be a pretty spectacular place. That will never happen, of course, so artist Tabor Robak used Photoshop’s awesome new “content-aware fill” feature to erase them from a few photos. The result is Annihilation. Actually, I suppose we should never say never in cases like these. When we’re all…

Tech News Jack Loftus

Diamond-Busting, Super-Hard Graphite Squeezed Toward Reality

Are the diamond’s days as an indestructible substance numbered? Possibly. At about 170,000 atmospheres, scientists managed to use super-hard graphite to crack one in 2003, but the exact reason why was somewhat of a mystery. Now maybe it’s not. There’s still much work to be done, of course—as there usually is with breakthroughs and articles…

Tech News Jack Loftus

These Speakers Look Like Gigantic Golden Ears

These Avantgarde Trio Classico speakers look like gigantic golden ears. The frame bends in an ear-like shape and the horns act as the lobes. At $190,000, they better make my ears bleed gold though. A set of these speakers at 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide each would take up my entire living room.…

Tech News Casey Chan

Microsoft And Their Never Ending Battle Against Piracy

The NY Times has a lengthy report on the constant threat of software piracy and Microsoft’s evolving fight against it. It’s a sordid tale involving organized crime, billions of dollars, CSI-like techniques and foreign governments. Microsoft is basically training intellectual-property protection squads in foreign countries to help fight their battle. Together they’re trying to take…

Tech News Casey Chan

Al Qaeda Tried To Bomb a US Plane With Live Exploding Dogs

The Sun is saying that the sick bastards of Al Qaeda had stuffed 2 dogs with bombs, explosives and detonators back in 2008. The dogs were meant to board a flight from Baghdad to Los Angeles and explode in the air. The dogs never made it on board though. The explosives and bombs inside their…

Tech News Casey Chan

Holding An Exploded Water Balloon

Edward Horsford has taken a series of high-speed pictures that captures a water balloon…without the balloon. The shots are snapped at the point of explosion, when the balloon skin breaks open. It looks like he’s somehow holding a ball of water. He actually takes the pictures solo, with no help. When Edward talked to the…

Tech News Casey Chan

Calculate How Much Damage An Asteroid Will Cause

Asteroids headed for Earth are scary. So get to know them a little! You can use the Impact: Earth! calculator to see what kind of damage an asteroid will cause. It’s totally not as scary when you crunch the numbers. The Impact: Earth! calculator was developed by a Purdue University research team and it basically…

Tech News Casey Chan

BP Oil Spill Aftermath: Dead Coral Found Near Spill Site

Scientists have found dead and dying coral reefs 4,500 feet deep in the Gulf of Mexico. The dead coral means that oil from the BP oil spill is harming marine life in the deep ocean too. When 5 million barrels of oil spill into the ocean, something bad was obviously going to happen. However, no…

Tech News Casey Chan

Stick These Stickers On Your iPhone To Get Some “Real” Control

Gaming on the iPhone is great! That is, until you try to hadouken. Then you realize its limitations. So if you’re sick of using those stupid touchscreen controls, here’s a desperately bright idea: attach plastic stickers to moonlight as physical buttons. The hilariously cheap looking “buttons” are called Tactile+Plus and they’re actually more like plastic…

Tech News Casey Chan

Gizmodo University: Guest Lecture

This week, Gizmodo University is proud to have a very special, super-secret guest lecturer! This is presented in addition to our normal curriculum and in conjunction with Sparkle Labs so step on into class and see who we’ve brought! Good afternoon class. As you know, we were scheduled to begin Discover Electronics week 3: Sensors…

Tech News Gizmodo University

The iMac G4 Lamp Is As Cute As A Luxo Jr

This DIY iMac G4 lamp from Etsy is like Apple’s version of the Luxo Jr. All of the lamp’s parts come from a recycled iMac G4 and the overall result is just as cute, useful and brimming with character. Call me crazy but $125 doesn’t seem too expensive here. [Etsy via Notcot]

Tech News Casey Chan

Possible Palm Devices Revealed in WebOS 2.0 Code

Grip-Happy Compliant Electroadhesion Sneaking Into Everyday Usage

Meet Finland’s All-Knowing 3D Speed Camera