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Lifehacker found this NoSleepHD utility, which stops external (USB) hard drives from powering down to save energy. https://lifehacker.com/nosleephd-stops-external-hard-drives-from-shutting-down-5163175 This saves precious seconds if you’re only accessing the drive every few minutes, causing it to shut down between each use. It also helps avoid problems if your media server has an issue with drives going to…
It’s sweet, sweet vindication when a Mac store gets pummeled by a car: I’m sick of those iPods, IcePods and those overpriced computers. Take that, Gizmodo Apple fanboys! https://gizmodo.com/who-wants-icepod-i-want-icepod-5163796 I don’t know exactly how, when, and what this car did to come crashing through the front of The Mac Store (which is a certified Mac…
Flickr user cocoip captures this scene in Roppongi, Tokyo, Japan, as some lady walks past some gigantic digits. Is it a clock? A street address? A Godzilla countdown? [Flickr]
A 30-50 meter-wide asteroid just passed seven times closer to us than the moon, glowing so bright you could see it through a cloud. If it had hit the ocean, it would have tsunamied. The Sydney Morning Herald says that if it had been headed toward a populated part of the world, we would have…
It turns out that the engineer who crashed a train in California last year, killing 25 people, was a big fan of texting constantly with teenage rail fans. And letting them drive his train. https://gizmodo.com/death-toll-rises-to-26-in-la-train-crash-engineer-may-5050222 Minutes before crashing his train head-on into another train, he texted “I’m gonna do all the radio talkin’ … ur…
Canon’s got a bajillion cameras laying around, but this little guy, the Power SD780, is the one that most of the Canon reps said they want to stick in their pants and take home. https://gizmodo.com/canon-digital-elph-sd970-sd960-sd780-and-sd1200-point-5155513 That’s because it’s really teeny and the easiest to stick in your pants, and it pulls off the square form…
Almost a year ago, we explained image sensors. This week, with all the camera news, it seems fitting to mention that, along with our explainers on the upside of lenses and the downside of megapixels. https://gizmodo.com/giz-explains-digital-camera-image-sensors-383170
This one almost bests the Jesus’ bonerswitch. Almost. Logan won’t be happy. Or maybe he will, who knows. [Walyou] https://gizmodo.com/jesus-switch-turns-on-off-359540
One of the guys from our Circuit City retrospective just sent us this, a scoreboard from the back room of one of their stores tallying the reasons why customers say CC sucks. https://gizmodo.com/their-final-words-as-the-grunts-of-circuit-city-5146694 The winner by a long shot? Treated like crap. Of course. Other good reasons: overpricing, not having things in stock (it’s a…
The icePod holds no songs, nor will it play back video. But I dare say that it’s the sweetest icePod yet. Now I can’t speak for everyone here, but frankly, I’m a little sick of Apple’s incremental iPod updates. Luckily for me, there’s still a bit of crazy, no-holds-barred ingenuity in the world—and that ingenuity…
If you own an LG 830 Spyder, you should probably upgrade your firmware or get a new phone. Just saying. [RCR Wireless via Phonescoop via Mobile Crunch]
Our Snowmodo meetup at Northstar-at-Tahoe is only a month away, so we hope you’re already planning your trip. If you haven’t made plans yet, RSVPing for the event and a ride is a great start. https://gizmodo.com/gizs-snowmodo-reader-meetup-saturday-april-4th-north-5143084 Our second annual Snowmodo event is going to be an amazing amount of fun, so if you are anywhere…
Ever wondered what’s going on inside lenses that are all “we optically stabilize yer blurry images, biyatch” and make you pay extra? A lot of movin’ and groovin’, as this Canon lens cutaway reveals. https://gizmodo.com/giz-explains-why-lenses-are-the-real-key-to-stunning-p-5160891 PMA is an annual show where we get to see tomorrow’s digital cameras—the ones that’ll be populating pockets and purses…
Here’s something you should not do: put your cat in a bong when it’s being too rambunctious. You moron. UPDATE UPDATE: The AP is now reporting that unemployed cat bong guy “says he put cat in bong 3 times.” [SF Gate] Sadly, that’s just what one Acea Schomaker of Omaha, Nebraska did. Cops responding to…
Pentax’s X70 is a non-DSLR with 24x Superzoom, but it’s also the first of its kind to include 720p video recording. The X70 has a 26-624mm lens, 12-megapixel sensor, 2.7-inc LCD and “Triple Shake Reduction” image stabilization. It can also has an 11fps burst mode, face detection (up to 32 of ’em at once), and…
In the final day of the Pirate Bay trial, the defense made its closing arguments. While doing so, they rebooted the servers, which had crashed, from the court room. Overall, the closing arguments by the defense were the same ones they made the whole trial: they never hosted or transferred any illegal content, just acted…
The 2010 Toyota Prius gets 50mpg while bringing dead trees back to life. But maybe more our speed, the car also features a really nifty “Tracer Display” unlike anything we’ve seen in dashboards before. It’s a simple idea: You control car functions (like the stereo) with buttons on the wheel while the Tracer Display superimposes…
Damn, we missed the Concorde’s 40th Anniversary yesterday. I love this amazing view of its cockpit. Looks like the cockpit in a military plane or spaceship rather than one in a passenger airliner. [Fast Company]
For years, Gizmodo UK has been repurposed for the British Isles by my friend and Editor Martin Lynch. But given the rising prominence of world wide gadget launches, and that fact that not much translation is needed between Americanese and The Queen’s English, we’re redirecting all UK readers to the US site. Welcome back!
If one was short on cash and had a lot of older relatives who look to you for gadget advice, a lesser man might take Sprint up on their $100 new customer referral reward. If you refer someone to a (two-year?) Sprint contract of some sort, your buddy gets $25 and you get $100. Sprint…