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In the future, when your car can drive itself, you may well have this little guy to thank. Alternatively, when it gains sentience, bitterly plots against its owner and drives you into a wall, RoboCar will sit, watch and laugh. In the nearer future, this disarmingly cute RoboCar will be used by researchers to experiment…
This crazy-looking electric pole isn’t just a concept design; it’s been approved by the Swedish government and will be placed on either side of an entry highway to Stockholm. That’s not to imply it isn’t crazy-looking, though. Designed by No Picnic, the consonant-heavy name Yggdrasil is actually the name of the “world tree” in Norse…
It’s a tough call for a nerd lost in the wilderness: Use your cellphone battery to start a fire and survive the night, or play another game of Brickbreaker? At least with this guide you’ll have the option of survival. A bit of steel wool held to a battery’s contacts will create a short and…
Here’s the stuff that we didn’t post today. (Until now, obviously.) YouTube singer and guy whose friends think he’s funny Julian Smith recorded a skillful love song to Apple’s newest release, entitled “Got My Mac On With iPhone 3GS.” While we applaud Smith’s speed and his songwriting ability, we just really don’t like the song.…
In what probably seemed like a two-birds-with-one-stone situation (before the arrest, we mean), a 9-member British gang used stolen credit cards to purchase their own music on iTunes and Amazon, then collected the royalties—an estimated $300,000 total. The gang, made up of six men and three women, included one DJ who created the music. They…
I was thinking of getting a Canon T1i, but after seeing this fully-functional, transforming Voltron SLR-wannabe 110 film camera from 1985, I will seriously have to reconsider my options. [DoobyBrain via DVice via TheDailyWhat] https://gizmodo.com/canon-eos-rebel-t1i-first-hands-on-50ds-sensor-1080p-5182772
Call me a luddite if you have to, but I miss the days in which science fiction movies were actually done with real gadgets, real models, real robots—even with dwarves inside—and real explosions. On the left, Lucas surrounded by a ton of stuff from the first Star Wars trilogy, which ended with 1983’s Return of…
In this five-step tutorial, RapidRepair shows you how to carefully disassemble—and reassemble—your Kindle DX to get a closer look at its innards. When dismantled, you can see that even when the power is switched off, the text is still clearly displayed on the front LCD. And, we knew the Kindle DX was thin—full review right…
Historically, Apple loves cleanly delineated product lines, so the “MacBook Pro” re-shuffling seems strange even if the socialist element is a fun side effect. Unless they’re clearing out the MacBook for something else entirely. https://gizmodo.com/macbook-pro-2009-review-5287179 Think about it: Right now a single, lonely model bears the name MacBook. A model that’s been around forever, too.…
For those who have a treasured item you want to display in style, the Levitron Revolution uses some sort of electromagnets—or anti-gravity voodoo magic—that levitates and slowly rotates your prized possession in space. As long as your collectible weighs around 4 ounces or less and is non-ferrous, this device will pick it up, spin it…
Lifehacker’s got some browser speed tests, file copiers and an office setup that’s good if your wife only gives you a corner of a room. • Building a quad monitor alcove • Lifehacker speed tests Safari 4, Chrome and Firefox 3.5 • Use an empty cigarette packet as a flash diffuser https://lifehacker.com/the-quad-monitor-alcove-5287275 • Repair your…
This is how the 40 million iPhones and iPod touches, a figure given by Apple at the WWDC Keynote, stack up against actual consoles. https://gizmodo.com/wwdc-09-liveblog-archive-5285110 Even though the iPhone has the distinct disadvantage of being a platform that’s not purchased just for gaming—pretty much every person who buys a PSP buys it to play games,…
Described as a cross between a lightsaber and Listerine, scientists at the University of Southern California have invented a tiny, world’s first, plasma blowtorch that is to be used for medical procedures—specifically in annihilating plaque. Although shooting a stream of plasma into your mouth sounds painful, the blowtorch actually works in small pulses, which lets…
As part of their bankruptcy filings, Hackintosh maker Psystar declared that they owed Apple $75,000 for something or other. https://gizmodo.com/psystar-files-for-bankruptcy-5270448 Computerworld guesses that it’s for 581 copies of Leopard that Psytar ordered but didn’t get a chance to install on machines, but my guess is that it’s one giant copy of Leopard that they custom…
Not that half of you will care, but Microsoft’s going to ship Windows 7 in Europe without IE8 bundled. That doesn’t mean Europeans won’t be able to get IE8—OEMs can shove them into their installs if they want, and end users can download IE8 themselves as well. [Ars Technica]
It’s no coffee cup speaker, but PET bottles do, in fact, make a pretty decent shell for a couple of small speakers. Plus, the standardized shape means they will fit in a lot of existing holders. Yeah, $15 speakers from CVS are not going to crank out a lot of sound, but it is definitely…
And with that, Microsoft’s powerful, underappreciated photo visualizer resigned itself to an inevitable fate, as a promotional tool for iPhone fart apps. https://gizmodo.com/apples-huge-throbbing-wall-of-iphone-apps-5284198 The neatest thing about the Cinema Display iPhone app wall, which Apple stationed in the Moscone Center lobby during WWDC, was how it was animated, sending little shockwaves from each app’s icon…
It’s easier than ever to pit Windows 7 and OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard head-to-head: They’re launching soon, both within a month of each other—and both are basically glorified service packs of the current OS. In way, they’re opposites: Windows 7 uses the same core foundation as Vista while fixing issues and prettying up the…
Although we have yet to hear anything about an Android MID from their event today, Archos has announced the Archos9—a UMPC that runs Windows 7. https://gizmodo.com/archos-event-invitation-unsubtly-hints-at-rumored-andro-5259045 Unlike its predecessors, which are basic touchscreen internet media tablets, the Archos9 is a touch tablet that can run a full computer OS. It also features a built-in webcam,…
There has been some grumbling here and there about a lack of Palm Pre signal strength (it doesn’t look too hot in the image from our review). So I have a simple question for you: how is your Pre signal? https://gizmodo.com/palm-pre-review-5277499 How is Your Palm Pre Signal Strength?(survey software) If there really is a problem…
