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Those press covering the Olympics sure do have a plum life. They bundle off to Vancouver for 16 days of watching ice-skaters embarrassing themselves, and ruthless Russian bobsledders showing their dark sides. Oh, and they get lens-shaped thermoses. UPDATE http://tv.gawker.com/5472578/the-olympic-night-of-figure-skating-fail The story goes that a Microsoft employee by the name of Josh Weisberg wandered into…
Now that the Apple Vs Google war has eclipsed the Microsoft Vs Google war, Microsoft has felt it safe to quietly slip the Android platform a freebie. Tag is a high capacity color barcode reader also available for iPhone. https://gizmodo.com/how-apple-and-googles-romance-turned-to-hate-5483662 It’s been around for some time on other platforms (BlackBerry and Symbian as well as…
This week Pioneer introduced five new receivers, from $230 to $750. All have HDMI 1.4 switching for 3D, and all have Pro Logic IIz surround. But one model stands out, the $550 VSX-1020-K, a worthy successor to our Battlemodo champ. https://gizmodo.com/av-receiver-battlemodo-600-or-bust-5480790 Receiver technology has become amazingly affordable, and to me, the sweet spot is the…
Dit-dat-dat. Dit-dit-dit-dit. Dit-dat. Dat. May 24th, 1844. Samuel Finley Breese Morse is sitting in the Supreme Court chamber in the United States Capitol in Washington, DC. Dit-dit-dit-dit. Dit-Dat. Dat. Dit-dit-dit-dit. He has a message. And here it is in full-length: Click on the image to get a closer look of the entire outgoing message. Warning:…
Remember how some Koreans were using sausages to control their iPhones? Well, good news! You too can now have your very own iPhone Sausage Stylus for the low price of one dollar*! Just one dollar*! But wait! There’s more! https://gizmodo.com/koreans-are-buying-sausages-to-play-games-on-the-iphone-5468285 Not only will you be able to keep your gloves on during cold weather and…
OK, I’ll admit it: it’s rare that I come across a do-it-yourself project that even for a moment makes me consider getting off my lazy ass to actually make something. But this compass-inlaid table points me in that direction. The Compass Table is a project from Instructables that puts 500 mini compasses underneath a glass…
The May, 1969 issue of Science Journal features an article by Dr. Rodney Wendell Johnson about lunar colonies of the future. Dr. Johnson was the Advanced Planner for NASA’s Advanced Manned Mission Program Office. The illustrations by Roy G. Scarfo that accompany the article are pretty amazing. (Please excuse the semi-blurred scans. The magazine is…
The bride: “We knew that we didn’t want standard paper invites. We wanted something for people to keep and remember. We’re geeks. We love video games. Why not have a video game invite?” You can play as the groom too: Darina and Niko, we all want to marry you now. Happy life! [Offbeatbride via Boing…
Ooh la la! You can now update to version 1.1.0 of the Facebook app for webOS. It looks great and it brings an enhanced inbox, photo album access, more profile viewing options, events, and search. Finally! According to Palm, this is the breakdown of the new features: Enhanced Inbox – Now, your inbox lets you…
There’s been all sorts of hype about Dean Kamen’s revolutionary prosthetic, robotic hand. But let me ask you a question, Dean: is your hand made of Legos? No? Well, thanks but no thanks, then. [NowhereElse via CrunchGear] https://gizmodo.com/dean-kamens-cyborg-arm-its-real-and-its-spectacular-243648
This is so brilliant, and so very wrong. Some poor soul in Baltimore has lost her iPod Touch, offering a $50 reward for its return. And some Bad Samaritan knows a bidding opportunity when he sees one. Of course, the $148 estimate is just for an 8GB Touch. When you get into 64GB territory, you’re…
This man says he invented over 3,000 things including floppies and springy-shoes—frequently while diving underwater until he almost died. He basically thinks Thomas Edison’s an uneducated wimp who quit at 1,093 inventions. Sounds ridiculous? Watch this: Part of me wants to believe that Yoshiro “Dr. NakaMats” Nakamatsus’ story is just a cleverly spun tale, that…
Forget typing out searches or searching by voice. Devices running Android 2.0 can now use Google Gesture Search to find contacts, music, and more. All you have to do is “draw” letters on the screen. This is how Google says the whole thing works: Say you want to call your friend Anne. Just open Gesture…
The more I look at Thomas Prescher’s Mysterious Double Axis Tourbillon watch, the more I think it’s impossible this thing exists. The watch is completely empty of everything except the tourbillon, apparently floating in the middle of space. Only one single metal wire holds it there, rotating onto itself and improving the accuracy of the…
I’ve successfully removed my Ultimate Ears MetroFi 220 earphones thousands of times in the few months I’ve had them. Today, however, I botched the operation. The whole thing transpired at the Gizmodo office in New York City this afternoon. Right when I removed my earphones I knew something was wrong. I quickly looked down at…
Click to view On February 17th, an air traffic controller let his little boy take the reigns for at least five transmissions to commercial jets at JFK International. This was terribly dangerous breach of protocol! And so totally awesome for the kid. So many questions here: why’d the pilots go along with it? How could…
This is what digital books from Penguin—one the mega-publishers—will be like on the iPad. Children’s books that are games, interactive anatomy books, and an augmented reality intergalactic GPS system. This is the future we’ve been waiting to see. The excitement over the iPad? It’s this precisely kind of stuff that people are wetting themselves over,…
A judge has finally ordered RealNetworks to put its DVD ripping service, RealDVD, to sleep because apparently it’s “illegal to bypass the copyright protections built into DVDs designed to protect movies against theft.” Whoops. As part of its legal loss against the Motion Picture Association of America, the media delivery company will be forced to…
When a clearly sane man couldn’t convince his wife to line their home in tinfoil, he moved his most prized possessions into the garage. Joking aside, the guy does nice work. We can barely line a pan before breaking the (otherwise impenetrable) barrier that is tin foil (OK, or as some of you pointed out,…
Anyone can take a picture with plenty of sun around. But capturing extreme lighting conditions takes discipline. So for this week’s Shooting Challenge, you can shoot whatever you want, but you only get a single candle to light it. https://gizmodo.com/122-brilliant-and-blinding-blow-outs-5477376 The Challenge Capture a photo in complete darkness, save for the light of one candle.…