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Both GameFly and Netflix package their by-mail rentals in bright, obvious envelopes, and a Philadelphia mail handler took advantage, stealing 2,200 GameFly games in just six months. When he was caught, he had 81 games on him. 81! Reginald Johnson, a mail processing clerk in Germantown, Philadelphia, apparently stole every GameFly envelope that came his…
The Maldives, a stretch of islands off the coast of Sri Lanka, are so close to sea level that global warming poses a serious threat. So the government held a cabinet meeting underwater to bring attention to the problem. Most of the Maldives lie less than three feet above sea level, which puts them much…
When you start VirtualBox, you should see a screen like this. You don’t need to change anything yet; just click the “New” button in the top left corner. Now you need to tell VirtualBox what kind of OS you’re running. The program adjusts a number of settings when you specify an OS, but this is…
Some stress tests fall way outside the realm of predictable scenarios, and those are our favorites. At Gadgetoff 2009, Lenovo let some guys launch two ThinkPads from a trebuchet, just because. They get destroyed, but fare better than expected. The team recovered the hard drives from their battered casings, and unfortunately they didn’t boot when…
Sounds like PC makers might have missed Ballmer’s call for tempered Windows 7 expectations. There’s a chance that they’re sitting on a glut of inventory now, is there any hope that excess stock will translate to even better holiday deals? https://gizmodo.com/steve-ballmer-theres-a-slight-chance-windows-7-could-b-5377132 AMD said they expect less of an increase in Q4 revenues due to “the…
Remember how Disco Stu has those shoes with a clear platform that he bought with fish in them? And then they died, and he couldn’t get them out? Imagine that, but with the clear LG Crystal phone, and, um…for real. Click to view Looks like the phone still works after this sort-of-upsetting experiment, which is…
One of our readers recently received an unsolicited package from Apple. That alone is kind of weird, but the contents were even stranger: a mix CD titled “Boom Boom Pow,” complete with smiley faces and stars drawn in Sharpie. Updated Apparently, the company the reader works for orders frequently from Apple. They weren’t expecting anything…
Looks like Verizon won’t be passing on the Palm Pre after all. The company tweeted this morning that the phone will be coming to the carrier “early next year.” https://gizmodo.com/rumor-verizon-ditching-palm-pre-screwing-both-of-them-5367223 Straight from the Twitter feed: @lanvuch We will be carrying the Palm Pre smartphone early next year. Finally, it’s looking like Verizon is going to…
Assuming it’s real, this teaser video confirms a few things about the Moto Droid: that Droid is indeed the name, and that it will run Android 2.0. Not much to see here, but apparently there’s “more coming soon.” [BGR] https://gizmodo.com/android-2-0-first-look-fresh-face-sick-speed-5383485
We know that Apple is aware of the data-annihilating Guest Account bug in Snow Leopard, and it looks like a fix is on the way. The latest 10.6.2 beta seeded to developers specifically addresses the issue, and throws in a few other tweaks for good measure. If you’re staring at that Guest Account on the…
How annoying is it to get to a hotel and find that you’re facing land instead having an ocean view? At the Šolta Island Resort that won’t be an issue, because it rotates to give everyone a nice sight. Designed by Richard Hywel Evans of Studio RHE, rooms in Šolta Island face the Adriatic, at…
My trashcan is a metal, woven-looking thing filled with crumpled up ideas and 48 gum wrappers. Makes me wish I had one of these 35 customized, artist-designed trashcans being put into auction for charity instead. (Particularly the cactus one.) You’re probably onto me by now. I just wanted an excuse to use the #cans hashtag.…
Sometimes it’s the unseen that’s the most terrifying. In the case of RFID we think there’s plenty to dread, but never actually looked at those scary, scary waves. Thankfully someone at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design did. https://gizmodo.com/scary-video-rfid-passports-secretly-copied-on-a-lovely-5144548 Jack Schulze and Timo Arnall made this stunning video by using a specially-made LED wand,…
Baby Gets Hit By Train, Strolls Away…There’s a Hole In My Heart That Can Only Be Filled By—Stem Cells?…Beware Bobbies Bearing BlackBerries…Science Figures Out Why We Break Out Bubbly Sure it’s been the lead story on CNN and a big story on Gawker, but there just wasn’t enough DIY mechanics or cellphone-related mayhem for us…
The EyeTV iPhone app is supposed to allow you to stream media from a computer to an iPhone over a Wi-Fi connection, but it comes with a little bonus that must’ve slipped past Apple’s approval process: streaming over 3G. Updated. I don’t even know if this can be called a “backdoor” with as easy as…
The latest Micro Air Vehicle from MIT does an incredible job of balancing itself in-air. Not to mention that the helicopter models its surroundings so well it could probably fly over to the fridge and make you a sandwich. By using lasers and 3D cameras, the team built a vision engine that can very accurately…
There’s a ton of unused space on the Android lock screen. Sure, there’s a nice big clock and notifications appear as needed, but couldn’t it be doing something more useful? It can, with FlyScreen. The FlyScreen app just sits on the lock screen and loads any information that can be brought in via RSS. You…
Nothing makes for a better reading experience than the warm orange glow of fast food parking lot lighting. Now you can bring the effect home by sticking a traffic light in your living room. I love the worn metal, but at $2,400 I would need a much better reason than liking the look to justify…
This is a good idea by dpstyles of Flickr: max out your font and give a coworker a surprise message that will delight his coworkers. Can you do better? Upload a photo of your own version on your instant messaging program of choice in the comments. You can attach a photo directly inside your comment.…
The Street View Trike has been around for a while, but now Google is looking for more places to send it. Know a cool spot where a car can’t go? Google wants to hear about it. If you have any ideas, they’re looking for suggestions of parks, trails, university campuses, pedestrian malls, theme parks, zoos,…
