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God, it’s been years since this concept surfaced. BumpTop, the 3D, physics-enabled, extremely literal take on a desktop manager is finally available for download. It looks… well, it looks as interesting as it ever did. https://gizmodo.com/bumptop-desktop-prototype-182434 A free version is available for us to play around with, while the Pro version is $30. But both…
It’s been a year since Intel fired the opening salvo against regular-size laptopping with its Atom processor. Now, the Z series gets its expected speed bump, and at the bottom end, a low-power MID-oriented model. https://gizmodo.com/intels-leaked-z550-atom-processor-for-netbooks-mids-rea-5176818 The Atom Z550 takes the Atom to heretofore unseen speeds of 2.0GHz, while maintaining a sub-3W power envelope. Obviously,…
Amazon’s having a week-long 50% off sale on some of their best-selling Blu-Ray titles, from The Godfather giftset to the Mission: Impossible series to Zodiac, as well as two Eddie Murphy classics, oddly. [Electronic House]
You know what’s almost as fun as looking at past predictions of the future? Looking at what stupid kids thought the future would be like. Now, you may take issue with me calling these kids stupid, but this article is from 1975 and all these kids are in their mid-40s now. So take that kid-40-year-olds!…
MacWorld and our good buddy Stevesie are ripe for parody, and NBC’s comedy-with-stuff-blowing-up Chuck has stepped up to the plate. Check out the clip below, it’s got some great zingers. Yep, right before Chevy Chase (sorry, “Ted Roark,” which we’re really, really hoping isn’t an obtuse Ayn Rand reference) walks out on stage, you can…
Now that Apple is slowly and quietly switching all its freshly DRM-free tracks to a popularity-based variable pricing scheme, we almost didn’t notice that Walmart and Amazon have taken the same step. https://gizmodo.com/itunes-tiered-pricing-goes-live-we-get-gently-screwed-5201633 Amazon now has prices ranging from a low of $0.79 to a high of $1.29, the same as iTunes, and its highest…
The Zero S is the latest electric bike from Zero Motorcycles, and is their first street legal motorcycle. The Zero S has 31 horsepower and 62.5lb ft of torque, reaching top speeds of 60mph. The Zero S is the followup to the earlier Zero X, the dirt bike with a smaller, 20 horsepower engine, which…
Matt Richtel of the NYTimes notes that Motorola’s Co-CEO Sanjay K. Jha was paid $104 million dollars last year, putting him at the highest end of of salaries for the 200 largest public companies that filed proxies by March 27th. Wikipedia reveals that Jha worked at Qualcomm, where he helped develop satellite phones, among other…
In the 1979 book Star Wars Question and Answer Book About Space R2-D2 and C-3PO take young readers through space, explaining different types of telescopes, the search for UFOs, exploding stars, and future space colonies! The image below is described as a space colony that humans could be living in by the year 2000! The…
Without a description to be found, these photos leave us guessing what the purpose of this futuristic jetpack/bike is. But even if we never find the answer, this concept is still incredible to look at. [Behance via LikeCool]
The architectural design firm Herzog & de Meuron is designing the Tate Modern art gallery‘s newest extension. For the Tate, its a display that will finally be able to represent its interior. It is a much-needed breath of fresh air into a building that currently looks like an ancient crypt. Which gives a nice vibe…
So email might not be the only stopgap method of prevention the British Navy is using to fight pirates, but Wired says it serves as a vital tool in executing complex and precise operations. https://gizmodo.com/smile-somali-pirates-have-seized-your-container-ship-5170796 In addition to email, British Naval commanders are always in contact via satellite link to coordinate amongst themselves (and with…
Previously on C.S.I… a man found an actual card skimmer in the wild, in the flesh. Today, Gizmodo reader Sean became the card skimmer/PIN camera’s latest almost-victim. Where? Chase Bank in Manhattan, East Village. https://gizmodo.com/a-man-finds-an-actual-card-skimmer-in-the-wild-in-the-5201176 Sean Seibel was inside a local Chase bank where he inserted his ATM card into one of two side-by-side automatic…
Acer’s Aspire Z5600 multi-touch all-in-one does the best job yet of looking like more like a TV than a computer, which is kind of a good thing. Oh yes, it’s built for Windows 7—the future. It’s a 24-incher with a 1080p resolution (the only real size for all-in-ones anymore), with a built-in TV tuner and…
We asked the MythBusters for teasers of the new season, starting tomorrow at 9pm and running every Wednesday on the Discovery Channel. What we got doesn’t disappoint: Hair-raising bus wreck above, Hollywood-style fruit-stand crash below. [MythBusters – Thanks Adam and Katherine!]
Acer is the number one maker of netbooks, so it’s not surprising they’ve got a brand new brigade. They’re all 10.1 and 11.6 inchers—the days of the 9-inch netbook are over. They’re all a clear step above the last generation of netbooks in terms of design as well—as you can see, none of them are…
Here’s a very sad story. A man and his oldest daughter used the GPS locator feature on the wife’s phone to track her down and discover she was cheating. He then killed all his kids. The man shot four of his kids in their beds, killed a fifth in the bathroom after a struggle, and…
Getting out of a car parked on a busy street can be dangerous. Good thing BMW has created a prototype of a smart car door that won’t open if it detects hazards coming at you. BMW has teamed up with Technical University of Munich in creating these smart car doors, which have produced positive results…
Gateway’s ID series are the first computers designed by Pininfarina (of Ferrari fame). The signature aesthetic seems to be the swoop at the bottom of the monitor—not mind-blowing, but better than BMW’s HP effort. Spec-wise, it’s a 15.6-inch notebook with a 16:9 aspect ratio LED-backlit screen, Dolby speakers and multi-touch gesture trackpad (like much else…
The Aspire Timeline notebooks looks sorta familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Hmm. Anyway, they squeeze out 8-10 hours of battery life and start at just $699. It pulls out the battery life by relying on standard tricks of the trade: Intel ultra-low voltage processors, LED-backlit screens and dual graphics cards…
