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Microsoft’s long-term plan to make money from our bored purchases of pretend baseball caps for avatars is paying off, with the company reported to have smashed the $1bn barrier in Xbox Live sales in the last 12 months. Around $600m of that comes from Xbox Live subscribers, with over half the company’s 25m Live users…
Cupidtino, the not-a-joke Apple-only dating site that is “packed with designers, photographers, musicians, and tons of creative types” [swallows vomit] has been something of a success—it has over 22,000 active members. https://gizmodo.com/this-is-how-that-dating-site-for-apple-obsessed-people-5533915 According to figures given to TechCrunch, the site—still badged as being in beta—is already making “five digit” revenues thanks to charging its self-conscious…
Turn your death-trap of precarious wiring into a design feature with E-Line. By placing a grooved, flexible exo-skin around the inner power cord, E-Line creates a semi-rigid cable you’re able to spend hours obsessively tidying into a pleasing shape. But don’t throw out your last-gen floppy cables in a frenzy of excitement—the E-Line Cord is…
We’re not suggesting you need help in that area, but if you do… Thingdom is a genetics game presented like a virtual pet sim, designed to teach kids mating—and how who you do it with alters babies. There’s a routine bit of foreplay first, as ever, in which you feed, stroke and play with your…
You’ve got to hand it to Hitachi: it’s not easy to muster mass enthusiasm for external storage. So the LifeStudio hard drive line takes a new tack: piling on features until it doesn’t feel like a hard drive anymore. The LifeStudio comes in a mobile and a desktop form (the former runs 250GB, 320GH, and…
Sure, the iPhone 4 has a rather great camera, but is that really enough reason to find a special tripod and attach an SLR lens to the little gadget? [Hypebeast via Technabob via Engadget] https://gizmodo.com/test-notes-iphone-4-camera-5572766
This is Peter Paul Biro. Depending on who you ask, he’s either using fingerprinting, forensic science, and state of the art spectral cameras to uncover lost art masterpieces, or using that same technology to manufacture them. Biro is famous for pioneering the use of fingerprint matching in the contentious world of authenticating artworks—proving, say, that…
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good. Then he went off to create the dinosaurs and Raquel Welch. The Lord’s lightbulbs can only be used with the Jesus Switch. https://gizmodo.com/jesus-switch-turns-on-off-359540
The March 29, 1939 San Antonio Light (San Antonio, TX) ran this teaser for an article that was to appear in the April 2nd issue of The American Weekly. At first glance, I had assumed that the ad was referencing this article that we looked at from 1935, but upon closer inspection it would seem…
The folks who own iPads and pay $99/year for MobileMe subscriptions have something to be happy about: The MobileMe iDisk app is now iPad-compatible. Of course, that compatibility upgrade also brought iOS4 support for the iPhone version: What’s New In Version 1.2 – Designed for both iPhone and iPad – Multitasking support for iPhone 4…
Wet Circuits’ waterproof power strip is so brilliant, it feels wrong. Just look at the water splashing all over the electrical outlets! That picture alone sends me quivering, I mean, I’m half-expecting it to blow up in a horrific explosion. Not only is the Wet Circuits power strip water resistant, it also offers touch protection,…
In a recent study, Jakob Nielsen (no relation to “Nielsen ratings” Nielsen) found that it took it took individuals 6.2% longer to read a story on an iPad and 10.7% longer on a Kindle 2 as compared to reading it in print. His sample size of 24 users is too small to draw any real…
Screw the 6,000-square-foot Central Park duplex, the $100 million house in South Kensington, or the 17th-century apartment with views to Notre Dame. I want the Fish House. Property porn doesn’t go more luscious than this. Made of wood, steel, and glass, glass, and more glass, the Fish House is an environmentally-friendly waterfront home in Singapore.…
You’ve got to hand it to the TSA: when they identify a threat, they do NOT mess around. Know this before you even think about carrying a snow globe through the security checkpoint at LaGuardia. Okay, to be fair, snow globes do contain liquid and can be used as projectiles and are often just a…
Japan sure does love itself some vending machines! From cigarettes to coffee to ramen, you can get all sorts of crazy crap from a machine there. The latest? Bananas! Yes, Dole just announced that it’s going to start selling bananas via vending machines in Japan. Keeping the fruit at the idea temperature of 55.4 degrees…
In the eternal arms race that is teachers versus cheaters, the administration of the University of Central Florida has hit DEFCON-1. And they’re doing it with technology. The NY Times report that cheating is rampant in college classrooms doesn’t come as a surprise nearly so much as the degree to which both parties are going…
The great thing about North Korea is that you never know what’s fake and what’s not. I think that the subtitles to this video are a joke, but with the genius of Kim Jong-il, you never know! https://gizmodo.com/north-korea-intercontinental-ballistic-missile-fails-mi-5199611
Twitter for BlackBerry is finally leaving the beta tag behind and making a full launch tonight. It took a while, having toiled in private and public beta for ages, but it’s been well-improved since then. https://gizmodo.com/blackberrys-very-own-twitter-app-sounds-worth-jumping-o-5470274 The whole app is still very BlackBerry-centric so all you crack-addled keyboard enthusiasts will find quick keyboard shortcuts and…
Boniface is a dachshund owned by a Russian professional scuba diver. Naturally, said pro diver created a custom scuba suit for Boniface so he could accompany him on dives. In a recent demonstration, Boniface barked eagerly as Gorbunov readied the equipment and uncomplainingly endured being hung upside-down as Gorbunov fitted the suit on him. Once…
While Apple isn’t giving away free cases to people experiencing the iPhone 4’s antenna problem, a company called cases.com claims they will. They say they will give you a black, purple, rose, blue, or white LifeGrip silicone-based case for free. https://gizmodo.com/sign-here-if-you-think-apple-should-give-free-cases-to-5573177 You only have to pay for the shipping (First Class Mail brings the total…
