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If I had a backyard big enough for a home office, the MercuryHouseOne is what I’d be saving all my pocket money up for. It’s a mobile solar-powered lounge, hard and space-age on the outside but warm and soft inside. It was shown off recently at the Venice Biennale art exhibition by the Architecture and…
You know, I have this friend of a friend who actually said “I need whatever it is right now” and “I’m hard. I’m ready now” while referring to the magic Apple tablet. A friend of a friend, ok? [Penny Arcade] https://gizmodo.com/the-apple-tablet-interface-must-be-like-this-5452501
This is the life of an Apple Genius: Computers caked in toxic waste, screaming customers, dead cats, raging homophobes, and oh yeah—getting punched in the face. We’re protecting the identity of the Geniuses who relayed these tales of total cockbaggage with pseudonyms, since some of them might still work for Apple. If you want to…
Gadgets don’t get any more simplerer and usefuler than the GeoSkeeper, a wrist cellphone that only has GSM/GPRS, a speakerphone, GPS, and six buttons, so the “elderly, chronically ill, children or lone workers” can instantly communicate in case of emergency. That’s all it does. The user calls pre-programmed numbers using the buttons, turns on the…
Hello Tiger An elderly woman brought her PowerMac G3 to Ringo, because it wouldn’t turn on. Sure enough, after plugging it in, no response. As Ringo moved to open the case to check the logic board, he noticed the fans were a little… fuzzy. “Did you have any pets?” The woman replied that her cat,…
Well, let’s hope the bad guys weren’t watching German television last week. A demonstration of one of those highfalutin—and highly invasive—full-body airport scanners caught a Swiss Army Knife and a cellphone, but none of the, uh, bomb components. https://gizmodo.com/is-it-this-easy-to-pull-straight-nude-pics-from-airport-5443901 The big reveal comes at around 2:07, and is moderately to extremely terrifying. As Schneier on…
We found the original Philips LivingColors lamp to be pretty astounding with its multi-million-color glow. Now the lamp gets an impressive v2 makeover. https://gizmodo.com/the-philips-livingcolors-lamp-video-review-verdict-mi-337181 The latest LivingColors lamp produces 16 million colors through a combination of 7 LEDs—an overall quality of light that’s 50% brighter than version one. And while the intuitive remote and bulbous…
I thought this Ballmer’s autograph on a Macbook Pro was fake, but according to this video of the big man scribbling it, it’s not. Somewhere in a dark place, Jon Ive is bracing himself and sobbing. With a British accent. [The Guardian]
Computers in movies look nothing like the beasts we lug around today. They’re thin and light, a single pane that jumps to life when touched. Technology follows Hollywood dreams; here’s hoping this montage is a portent of what’s coming soon. The world will be shocked if Apple doesn’t reveal a tablet computer next week. It…
IBM and Fujifilm have spent the last three years working to improve magnetic tape data density, and the result is a prototype with a density of 29.5 billion bits per square inch—enough to hold 35TB of data. That’s about 39 times the areal data density of today’s best products and 44 times the capacity of…
If you thought a boogie board was a salt-water vessel that lets you skim the waves, think again. Improv Electronics’ Boogie Board is a pressure-sensitive tablet that uses a watch battery for power. It’s like a digital blackboard! The Reflex LCD doesn’t need any power to keep the scribbles and drawings on the screen, with…
I’m liking Bing more and more every day. Not only it looks and feels better than Google, but its specialized searches are great. Like the new food recipe search. Check out the nice results, and the useful criteria bar. As a long-time amateur chef, I see myself using this on a daily basis. If I…
In film and video, if you want to rack focus, a “follow focus” makes the job a lot easier. Attaching to the focus ring, a follow focus can be as simple as a stick or as complicated as a gearbox. Ultimately, the purpose is always the same: Make it as quick and simple as possible…
Wouldn’t it be great if we could recycle all those old clothes lying in the back of our wardrobes, turning them into flexible batteries? By dipping fabric into an ink comprised of carbon nanotubes, their electrical properties are transferred over. It’s being worked on by some Stanford University scientists, and follows their efforts in turning…
From an AskReddit member: “Go to a hotel and say you think you lost it there. It’s the #1 most left behind item at hotels, so most places have a big bin filled with every phone charger imaginable. [Reddit] UPDATE UPDATE: I just received this note from a reader on the subject: “I work for…
YouTube’s got millions of songs on its servers, and now, thanks to Vevo, a hefty slice of them are totally aboveboard. In DIsco, YouTube’s built an official, media-player-like front-end for all this music, with a Pandora-like discovery tool. https://gizmodo.com/youtubes-vevo-an-internet-imitation-of-mtv-launches-t-5422122 Disco’s playlisting functionality is still a bit limited, and it’s hard to tell what metrics are…
The Soap Light, a concept, uses inductive charging to power a glowing paperweight. It’s not necessarily any more practical than a Tap Light, but…look, don’t question these things. We’re still gonna need infomercials in the future. [Yanko Design]
A gentle reminder from the good people at Eveready, circa 1936. [LiveJournal via Boing Boing]
In the past, we’ve labeled Dr. Anthony Atala a mad-but-completely-sane scientist because he’s been growing Frankensteinian replacement body parts in his lab for years. But in his recently published TEDMED talk, you’ll realize that idea is less sick than inspiring. I caught up with Dr. Atala after this talk, discussing with him the possibility of…
Count out the calories of the delicious cake you’re about to digest, with some retro cake molds. Each pack comes with seven microwave-friendly silicone molds, which lets you literally cook by numbers. [SuckUK via SwissMiss]
