Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Just like AT&T, some Apple stores are now selling iPhones without a contract for $599 (8GB) and $699 (16GB). But unlike buying these phones at AT&T, you don’t need an existing AT&T contract to take advantage of the offer. And there’s no account limit on the amount of iPhones you can buy. https://gizmodo.com/at-t-soon-selling-iphones-without-activation-for-600-a-5174094 Like we…
Kotaku caught a GDC presentation by Masato Kuwahara, Nintendo’s DSi Hardware Group leader, where he ran through some Game Boy concepts that fell off the fast track at one point or another. http://kotaku.com/5184237/nintendo-shows-unreleased-dual+card-dsi-gba-touch?skyline=true&s=x The nearest miss is the dual-card DSi, apparently rejected for being a little too fat. Also shown was a 1998 Game Boy…
This is the second such slip, though the “reveal” here isn’t that surprising: T-Mobile, current G1 carrier, will probably get the Magic. [Cellphone Signal] https://gizmodo.com/gmail-tech-demo-possibly-outs-t-mobile-as-us-htc-magic-5157092
You’ve heard it before, and it’s true: Macs are more expensive than PCs. There’s not much more to say about that! Unless, of course, you have a vested interest in casting Apple as elitist. https://gizmodo.com/study-average-mac-computer-price-more-that-twice-that-5033865 In this, the most directly anti-Apple ad of Microsoft’s ‘I’m a PC‘ campaign, Microsoft sets up an experiment: a focus…
Everyone who’s grown up with Legos has mused about the limits. Could I build a car? A house? A boat? Now you can tell your inner child: Yes! Just don’t let him watch the end. Japanese boy band Arashi constructed a boat capable of keeping the whole group of four afloat, assisted only by the…
Bandai first brought the pleasure of regular bubble wrap to your keychain with its Mugen Pop Pop Toy. And now, in case you don’t bring your keys everywhere, they’ve put it on the iPhone too! https://gizmodo.com/mugen-pop-pop-infinite-bubble-wrap-toy-hits-the-us-5071681 The iPhone app, which is free, gives you three different Mugen Pop Pop play modes: normal, repeat and scramble.…
Once, while walking down the street, a man suddenly approached me screaming “QUICK! We need someone to DJ!” If only I had had this portable cross fader—who knows how differently my life would’ve turned out. The Urban DJ portable cross fader has been ultimate retro hipster designed into a cassette shape. It has three inputs…
SSD, Smesh Smesh Dee. Here’s my visual tribute to magnetic tape, the storage medium that can be measured in MBytes, minutes and meters. From Wikipedia: Magnetic tape revolutionized the broadcast and recording industries. In an age when all radio (and later television) was live, it allowed programming to be prerecorded. In a time when gramophone…
Oobject’s list of flying helmets proves that pilots never need to look far for absolutely terrifying Halloween costumes. Like that f-35 joint strike fighter helmet – those terrible green eyes will haunt me forever. [Oobject]
One in five teens send nude photos to others they date or want to date. The law says that makes them child pornographers…of themselves? Weird! And glad I’m not a parent! [NYT]
I think she’s going to get sand stuck in that thing. That bulky iPod color hangs tenuously from this girl’s bikini. How impractical. That’s not going to stay put once she runs towards you in slow motion in your mind. This particular model is from 2004, right before the shuffle was released in 2005, and…
Perhaps we should rethink our blankets and sleep with something extra comfortable—like this blanket constructed entirely out of pillows. With a pillow missing in its rectangular design, it allows you to slip your head through the hole—poncho style—and use it as both a pillow and a blanket. But if you get cold easily in the…
Some of you were wondering how the homeless charge their cellphones—maybe they do it Chechen-soldier style and create wooden, dynamo-powered cellphone chargers out in the untamed wilderness. https://gizmodo.com/that-homeless-guy-outside-starbucks-he-probably-has-a-5180783 The chargers, developed by Chechen soldiers work by generator turned by crank and pulley. Electricity stores up in the capacitor (the blue thing), which charges the phone.…
The “Bag” and “Totem” radiators are actually more like contemporary showpieces. Both models are composed of a warm wooden body that is heated with aluminum detailing. They’re also portable and can be stored away for the warmer months. [Design Italia via core77]
How do you store three petabytes (that’s 3,145,728 GB) of web pages for the Internet Archive? You put them in a datacenter housed in a shipping container. Each container packs in 60 of the company’s Sun Fire X4500 Open Storage Systems and is constantly monitored for potential threats. It’s actually a pretty elegant, modular solution…
Charlie Miller, the security expert whose meticulously crafted exploit took over a MacBook through Safari in 10 seconds at the Pwn2Own hacking competition, says that Macs are in fact safer than Windows. Oh boy. https://gizmodo.com/safari-cracked-in-seconds-at-pwn2own-hacking-competitio-5175246 It’s for reasons we’ve heard before—there’s just way less stuff out there attacking Macs. He told Tom’s Hardware: https://gizmodo.com/giz-explains-why-os-x-shrugs-off-viruses-better-than-w-5101337 “I’d…
I don’t get iPhone cases. Or any gadget case. It’s like your grandma putting a plastic cover on the sofa. Things are designed to be enjoyed as they are. These Dexter cases are pretty, though. They are going to be released by Speck in the summer of 2009, when the new Dexter game comes out…
Aside from being able to convert Swedish krona into pesos, millimeters of mercury into pascals and everything in between, ConvertBot looks and sounds beautiful. Also, I think this is the most emotionally touching app demo I’ve ever seen. With the crisp 5D Mark II limited-depth-of-field video, that plaintive guitar music and this guy’s voice, I…
Sling announced that they have finally submitted their SlingPlayer app for the iPhone to the App Store for approval. If everything goes well, it should be out soon. In addition, the SlingPlayer app for BlackBerry is also no longer in beta and hits version 1.0 today. [TUAW and Engadget]
Every time we run a post with this background, I get a ton of people asking where I got it. So here it is—it’s called Night Blur, from Mandolux. Click the picture to ginormify it. https://gizmodo.com/windows-7-release-candidate-changes-increase-productivi-5169801 Mandolux, which we’ve highlighted before, has a ton of amazing wallpapers, many of them designed for multiple monitors. It’s…
