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Last September, a 14-year-old Dutch boy was assaulted and robbed after being shoved off his bike. But with no evidence and no real idea who his assailants were, police were powerless—until the crime showed up on Street View. The photo shows the boy being tailed closely by two men who matched the boy’s original description,…
This huge billboard near New York City’s Madison Square Garden was constructed by the Deutsche Bank with assistance from MIT researchers. It measures carbon emissions monthly, and then averages them for a steady incline, broadcast for all to see. So it’s not exactly “real time,” but it’s fairly close, according to BusinessGreen. The amount of…
Lifehacker reader rykennedyan created this customized desktop based on Halo, and even if you’re not a gamer, you’ve got to appreciate the workmanship that went into this. Check out what it can do after the jump. [Lifehacker] https://lifehacker.com/the-halo-3-hud-desktop-5297193 The desktop is made from a string of custom Rainmeter configurations on a Halo 3 background image.…
This is the Palo Alto, CA garage where two young Stanford engineering grads named Bill Hewlett and David Packard started building what would one day become the world’s largest PC manufacturer. In 2000, HP turned it into a museum. We’ve known about this garage for awhile, but we’re glad CNET brought it back to our…
You know you’ve made it when a shady Chinese company uses your image without permission to sell a crappy knockoff of a phone nobody really liked all that much in the first place. [Cloned in China via Coolest Gadgets] https://gizmodo.com/blackberry-storm-review-verdict-not-quite-a-perfect-s-5093715
Since Apple hasn’t given us a comprehensive list of all the little changes in iPhone 3.0, users have taken it upon themselves to compile the treats they’ve found in the new software, some of which are actually quite nice. The MacRumors forums have a couple of ongoing, constantly updated lists, though of course we can’t…
It’s times like these that make me proud to live in America. A new survey ranks the US number 20 in household broadband use, just behind Estonia and the United Arab Emirates. Wait, is “proud” the right word? We all know the US lags way behind in broadband penetration (a phrase that never fails to…
The WSJ reports that Steve Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago in Tennessee. He is expected to still return to work later this month, even if only at a part time schedule. From there, the article goes on to speculate loosely, ever so loosely, that Jobs’ cancer had spread to his liver. William…
Here’s the stuff that we didn’t post today. (Until now, obviously.) • Somebody finally took a stand against the crap Michael Bay Transformers, and built himself a life-size Bumblebee using a very real Volkswagen Beetle. It’s mighty without being, bizarrely disjointed, and has the old noble Tranny face, instead of the weird insectoid new ones.…
Thomas Meyerhoffer used to work at Apple and helped design Chumby. These days, he’s reinventing the classic shape of the surfboard. Looks more like a snowboard, with that midcut radius. Or a spaceship. I like it. Here’s how it rides: I would try to explain the theory behind this one, but the shape itself is…
We’re playing 1 vs 100 on Xbox Live right now. If you’re anywhere near your Xbox 360, hop on and we can use the comments as a discussion of what’s going on. https://gizmodo.com/1-vs-100-makes-you-the-star-of-a-game-show-from-your-co-5241593 AND, if you’re going to be on at 7PM Pacific (10 ET), it’s the live game. You’ll get a chance to win…
Dag Spicer from the Computer History Museum leaned over and unscrewed a bolt. Underneath, it read, “I can’t stand it”. The operator’s job was to look for cold war bombers that never came. I would go mad, too. Look: The IBM SAGE spoke to me. It was old, but unlike other machines from the era,…
Pop Sci has a neat video of the Teamworkbot, a robot who can watch you attempt to carry out a task, then offer help when you’re doing it wrong. But I won’t lie…when you fail, Teamworkbot seems pretty intimidating. As part of a project under the EU’s Joint Action Science and Technology team, the Teamworkbot…
Today people were shocked to discover that the first turn-by-turn navi iPhone app to hit the iTunes App Store cost $9.99—per month. Well, get used to it, because there are a lot more subscription apps coming. https://gizmodo.com/first-iphone-app-with-in-app-purchasing-1-app-10-pe-5296667 Think about it: Carriers like Sprint, Verizon and AT&T regularly charge between $8 and $10 per month for…
14-yo Sophie Frost was trying to find shelter from a thunder storm when she dropped unconscious and fried like a bag of chips. The culprit: A lightning bolt. Thankfully, this one didn’t die thanks to her iPod. https://gizmodo.com/girl-dies-by-electrocution-while-twitting-in-bathtub-a-5297351 It’s not the first time that this happens. Apparently iPods have a tendency to save people from…
Asked if he could have just one do-over, Ballmer replied, “I would probably say I would start sooner on search.” Ballmer’s been talking about search now for the last couple years as something Microsoft needs to put more money and effort into. The failed Yahoo deal last year was one play that didn’t quite work…
Intel Research showed me a demo of their Platform Power Management system. Essentially, they’re applying the smart, quick, hardware level idling you find on a CPU to many system parts. The result: systems that idle at 10x less juice. The tech is applied to things like USB ports, which in 3.0, will go from polling…
The Rapid Repair crew ventured to France to obtain an early iPhone 3GS, dismantle it, and scope out the inner components. Their discovery? The same 600 MHz CPU powering the Palm Pre (that can actually run at 833 MHz). Though the two phones share the same CPU and GPU, they run on different chipsets (iPhone:…
While we’ve been working hard all week, Kotaku’s been writing about video games. The nerve! Here are our favorite Kotaku posts from the week: • 8-Bit Movie Games We Wish Existed • The Great Chain Interview Kotaku makes execs ask competing execs questions. • Nintendo Explains How MotionPlus Thing Go Into Remote Thing http://kotaku.com/5296199/8+bit-movie-games-we-wish-existed •…
Two things here in what seems to be the world’s first Twittercide: don’t use your computer while taking a bath. And if for whatever reason you do, don’t be like this 17-year-old Romanian girl and risk your well-being to Tweet. The Austrian times says that Maria Barbu was, in fact, in the tub while using…
