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Considering how cheap and ubiquitous GPS devices have gotten, I’m not surprised that they’re now the most commonly stolen item from vehicles. That’s why Maplock caught my eye: it hooks onto your GPS and tethers it to your steering wheel. The simple, but clever anti-theft idea comes from Australian-based Who-Rae, and recently won Popular Mechanic’s…
The Solar Impulse plane was flown for the first time in Switzerland yesterday, and leading the solar-powered project was Captain Bertrand Piccard, part of the first team to fly the world in a balloon in 1999. https://gizmodo.com/solar-impulse-around-the-world-in-a-100-sun-powered-a-262940 The Solar Impulse team has been working on the project since 2003, with the carbon-fiber plane wingspan measuring…
The CrunchPad would’ve been an easy-to-use Web tablet, but the strange saga of its 11th-hour demise will be anything but simple. Chandra Rathakrishnan—CEO of the CrunchPad’s problem partner—will demo the tablet, and explain his side of the story. https://gizmodo.com/the-crunchpad-is-dead-5415292 The Fusion Garage CEO will speak to reporters and show the device in San Francisco Monday,…
A record for ASUS’ laptop range, the UM30 measures just 19.6mm thick, and while there’s nothing particularly special inside, we do happen to think it looks rather smart. You know, for an ASUS. Running on an Intel Core 2 Duo SU 9400 processor, there’s 3GB DDR2 SDRAM and a 320GB HDD. Loaded with Windows 7…
These creepily realistic face molds are attached to servos controlled by computer. They come from the twisted mind of artist, Nathaniel Mellor, and are part of an art piece being sold at Art Basel Miami Beach 2009 for $75K. Watch: Apparently the facial movements and accompanying audio are on a 15 minute loop, and they…
While all 69 Gmail shortcuts aren’t represented on this Gboard keyboard, the 19 that do feature on the mini-keyboard are bound to be your most-used. Search, star, archives, trash—all the majors are represented in fun Google colors. It’s not an official Google product, with Californian film producer Charlie Mason behind the Mac and Windows-friendly peripheral,…
The possibility that Microsoft might pay Rupert Murdoch‘s Newscorp to delist from Google (in favor of Bing) caused a lot of outrage, Giz included. Now we’ve got a statement from Microsoft in response. https://gizmodo.com/the-definition-of-evil-microsofts-search-wars-hurt-us-5411045 Here’s a quote from Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s senior vice president in charge of online audiences: What I would say is, our…
Amy Klobuchar, True America Hero and Senator of Minnesota, introduced a bill in Congress today in response to Verizon’s doubled early termination fees, aiming to limit them. https://gizmodo.com/verizon-to-double-early-termination-fee-5396828 Verizon’s response: A broad array of Americans who might not otherwise be able to afford broadband connections to the Internet with a home PC, or by paying…
On today’s list of things that didn’t quite make the cut for whatever reason: Dangerous cellphone straps, updates no one will notice, a Google freebie, and a six dollar waste of money. Google Offering to Snail Mail a Holiday Card for Free Google’s getting into the spirit of the season and offering a neat freebie:…
If you guys get motion sickness (or drink heavily), you might want to skip this crazy art exhibit. Imagine a huge iPod (a 4th gen, I’m pretty sure) except all squiggly, like you’re looking at it in a funhouse mirror. This nausea-inducing iPod can be seen at Art Basel Miami Beach, which runs December 3rd…
Ohhh shit, y’all. This is getting dirty. Motorola/Verizon’s newest Droid ad not only depicts the iPhone as a tiara-wearing, Sandra-Bullock-worshipping Barbie doll, it actually shows a clearly identifiable iPhone. It’s both inflammatory and in your face. Right up in it! I have a Droid, and like it a lot, but I’m a little concerned that…
Had enough holiday smartphone deals? Of course you haven’t. AT&T’s cutting prices on pretty much their entire line of BlackBerrys, including the recently released Bold 9700 and Curve 8900. The sale starts today, December 4th, and doesn’t seem to have a definite end date. [AT&T] https://gizmodo.com/blackberry-bold-9700-impressions-small-and-chirpy-lik-5397391
Looking awfully similar to a recent leak, the Chinese-for-now Sholes has leaked yet again. It mostly looks like the same device—except now we can see it’s got some kind of upsetting tumor on its right side. https://gizmodo.com/motorola-sholes-returns-looks-like-a-keyboard-less-dro-5417155 The phone (or tablet, as it’s sometimes called for some reason), similar to the Droid but lacking a…
It may not be due out until early next year, but an engineering sample of Intel’s monster Core i9 processor (the kind we saw benchmarked) ended up on eBay. The 2.4GHz Xeon Westmere Gulftown chip’s auction ended, unfortunately, so all you nerd millionaires can forget about snagging the expensive escapee. https://gizmodo.com/intel-core-i9-benched-six-cores-of-pure-joy-5411119 Given that the pictures…
Some new video footage of Creative’s Zii Trinity reference hardware, giving us a closer look at the hardware-for-hire. It looks pretty diminutive, but also pretty unfinished. The phone looks tiny, especially compared to the iPhone-sized Creative Zii Egg, but it seems the kinks haven’t quite been worked out—some gestures, like swiping between homepages, result in…
A woman is potentially facing three years in jail for recording three minutes of New Moon, the sequel to Twilight. Three years. In Jail. Over Twilight. Samantha Tumpach claims that she should not face the harsh punishment intended for bootleggers, because all she was doing is recording family members singing “Happy Birthday” to her sister…
I know it won’t look like Batman once it’s all unboxed and under normal lighting, but for a fleeting moment, I want to possess nothing more than this $60 miniature Dark Knight multitool. [Amazon]
Everyone knows that stroking a beard helps you think. And there are few beards more majestic than James Lipton’s. So it makes sense that LG is using said beard to promote responsible texting in these actually-amusing ads. Come on, admit it. You can’t resist Lipton. [Beard Revue via NotCot]
It’s a minor update, but the Android 2.0.1 SDK just came out, mostly consisting of little bug fixes (Bluetooth, resource allocation, that kind of thing). Alongside that, there’ll be an OTA update for the Droid in “the coming weeks.” The Android 2.0.1 update should be out by the end of the year, but Droid owners…
Chicago’s 820-feet-tall Aqua Tower is one of those buildings that make me dizzy. It looks like a vertical version of the stunning Lençóis Maranhenses, the sterile desert in the north of Brazil, full of turquoise fresh water ponds: The architects, however, say that the Aqua Tower is inspired by the limestone outcroppings in the Great…
