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MS Paint may be beloved but it’s also the butt of plenty of jokes about art skill. Project Gustav is Microsoft Research’s answer: An artist-friendly GPU-intense multitouch-and-Wacom-tablet-based natural painting program. UPDATE: My quick, colorful hands-on video https://gizmodo.com/90-visions-of-future-in-ms-paint-are-terrifying-insane-5033299 Sure, there are geniuses—including possibly one or two on our staff—who can make masterpieces with Illustrator and Photoshop.…
It’s a common thing to see on TV: the cops get a dark, blurry image of a perp, and using the magic of computers, are able to zoom in and see his face. But now that might be actually possible. The technique, called compressed sensing, won’t work like those fake programs do on TV. And…
A disheartening chart from Ars Technica, if you’re a Firefox booster: That gentle downward slope indicates Firefox might never reach 25 percent marketshare. Why? Because companies with money care about browsers now. Or, in a word: Chrome. Chrome is the only browser that gained marketshare from January to February, bouncing .41 percent to 5.61 percent.…
Microsoft’s Surface tables are sweet but they have two problems: They’re huge pieces of furniture and they cost a lot. Turns out, they could solve both problems by turning the system upside down, using a portable camera/projector and any surface. Surface tables are just cameras and projectors pointing upward at a tabletop of glass. Since…
The September 11, 1960 edition of Arthur Radebaugh’s Closer Than We Think envisioned a type of disaster response vehicle that could seemingly accomplish many of the things people still complain about whenever governments respond to crises. With a decimated infrastructure those “terra tires” (crushing cars, mind you) would certainly come in handy. It’s interesting that…
Olympic finishes always look close, but when these fractions of a second are charted in audio, you really conceptualize the nearly nonexistent margin between the top of a podium and the bottom of a scotch bottle. Just listen: [NYTimes]
Today kicks off the bi-hourly shutdowns for anybody still running their free copy of Windows 7 Release Candidate, which will continue until June 1, when the seizures turn the OS into straight crippleware. (Or more specifically, your copy of Windows is marked as non-geniune, locking you out of any feature that requires a legit version…
One of the more straightforward acquisitions Google’s made in a while, they’ve just bought the online image editor Picnick. Given Google’s past acquisition strategy—turning Grand Central into Google Voice, Writely into Google Docs—the logical expectation is that it’ll get merged into its already excellent Picasa photo managing app. [Picnick]
After what feels like years of concept renders and photos of the hairy David de Rothschild accompanying gushing magazine pieces about his plastic bottle boat, the Plastiki will set sail this month across the Pacific Ocean. https://gizmodo.com/boat-made-from-plastic-pet-bottles-to-sail-on-11-000-mi-5166844 If you’ll remember, the boat was constructed using 12,000 plastic 2-liter bottles, which have been pressurized using dry…
In today’s Remainders: wishful thinking. Nikon fans hope they’ve stumbled on a viral campaign for new cameras; magazine companies hope their slick new ads will keep you buying magazines; Google CEO Eric Schmidt gets pranked in 1986, and more. Follow the Signs Camera geeks are getting excited over some mysterious cards that have been showing…
You’re probably relatively confident in your various machines’ integrity against hackers. Repeat Pwn2Own hacking competition victor Charlie Miller would like you to know that you’re wrong—especially if you have Flash. In an interview with OneITSecurity, Miller picks off questions about hacking and security with just enough ease and nonchalance to make me queasy. Like, you…
Here lies today’s dealz. Grab the Archos 9 before the new ones drop, enjoy some free jams from SXSW 2010, and if you’re feeling lucky pick up Fallout 3 for your timebomb of a PS3. Good luck, you bargain hunters. https://gizmodo.com/choose-one-the-archos-7-and-archos-8-home-tablets-each-5482693 Top Deals: • Archos 9 PC Tablet for $504.66 plus free shipping (normally $540).…
I don’t know who has the pockets and the space to install Hydrofloors—mechanically operated tiles that sink into the ground slowly, revealing a swimming pool already full of water—but I want to meet them. Watch them in action: According to the manufacturer, the system is “nearly invisible” and you can adjust the depth of the…
After years of Mini DVI and Mini DisplayPort, will Apple really give us HDMI? A bucketful of rumors from AppleInisider say HDMI is replacing DVI in the next Mac minis, and reveals a long lost audio/video Mini DisplayPort adapter. The new Mac mini, according to AppleInsider, will ditch its old DVI port for HDMI, which’ll…
Sure, you could just sit tight and wait until mega ISO camera sensors give all of our cameras flawless night vision, but what if you have a Micro Four Thirds camera right now? Then this lens will do just fine. https://gizmodo.com/giz-explains-why-iso-is-the-new-megapixel-5470334 Noktor’s HyperPrime 50mm has something I’ve only seen one other time in a consumer…
Panasonic is going to be rolling out production of Li-ion batteries that use a silicon alloy anode soon, according to Nikkei. The result? A whopping 30% increase in capacity. Panasonic’s not the only company working on the technology, but they’re the first to yield any kind of spec detail. The Si-alloy batteries are expected to…
An analyst is reporting that “an unspecified production problem at the iPad’s manufacturer, Hon Hai Precision, will likely limit the launch region to the US and the number of units available to roughly 300K.” Analysts make poofy, speculative claims that we ignore all the time, but Canccord Adams’ Peter Misek here is reporting that there…
There is great clusterfuckassery going on right now on the PlayStation Network, affecting fat PS3s. Sony is working on it and they hope to “resolve the problem within the next 24 hours.” Updated https://gizmodo.com/error-8001050f-takes-down-playstation-network-5482365 We hope to resolve this problem within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, if you have a model other than…
He may have plastic boobs saggier than Dame Judi Dench, but as Wired points out, this RoboThespian “shows more acting range than some Hollywood stars.” The British robot has been programmed to show off a variety of acting abilities. His creators, Engineered Arts, have made him completely self-supporting, with his torso capable of bending and…
Assassin’s Creed II is one of the best console games of 2009. And now, Ubisoft has released a top-down multiplayer version of it for the iPhone/iPod touch, free for two days. The game, which is to the console version of ACII what the original Grand Theft Auto is to GTAIV, features a top-down viewpoint. The…
