Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Circuit City’s price guarantee was always a little wonky: the only prices they’d match were from local brick-and-mortar vendors, which excludes even their own online site. But sneaky tipster Kevin has caught wind that Circuit City, in the midst of crashing and/or burning, is due to accept any verifiable price, from any retailer, starting tomorrow.…
Are you in a relationship? Can you hardly bear to be apart from your partner for more than half an hour? Do you make out in the library while sitting next to a Gizmodo writer, totally unaware that someday he’ll grumpily complain about you in a post? Well, I have the perfect mp3 player for…
Evil monolith Apple has begun a nefarious program to snatch children from the warm arms of their home PCs with ominous-sounding “field trips.” These trips do lead to a field, but not one with grass and trees and sunshine. This is a field of glass, of white plastic, of aluminum, and of shameful minimalism. Sure,…
Designer Thomas O’Connor has come up with a concept to join the legions of goofy USB flash drives with this charming USB Floppy Drive. Take one of those floppy disks granpappy’s always going on about, hollow it out, stuff it with some flash storage and a USB dongle and you’ve got a “sustainable” and nostalgic…
Boy Genius Report has it “on good authority” that Our Lord and Savior Jesusphone 3G will be sold in God’s own retail store: Walmart. They name November 15th as the date of arrival, which is just in time for shoppers to overlook it as they clear their local Walmart of cans of beans to prepare…
Microsoft is suing delivery service DHL for their refusal to compensate the boys in Redmond for the destruction of over 21,000 Xboxes in a Texas train derailment. The consoles were due for Hong Kong when the train, carrying two large containers of Xboxes, went off the tracks, sustaining a substantial amount of water and impact…
Thanks to about a million tips, I’ve been forced to sit through the new Britney Spears music video for “Womanizer” because the flashy Nokia 5800 XpressMusic ‘Tube’ makes an appearance. The phone is used to take a picture of a ridiculously be-wigged Britney before she violently attacks the photographer and slams his face into a…
As we get closer to yet another Apple event, the rumor mill is operating at full speed and everyone has “sources.” The latest to offer up a juicy bit of gossip is Jason Calacanis, who went on record in an interview with CNET UK as saying that he has direct sources telling him Apple is…
Seagate has decided to enter the solid-state disk (SSD) market in 2009, starting the company’s switch from hard disk drives (HDD). Their first target: corporate America. Once they’ve got the cubicle commanders, they’ll move to consumers. Seagate senior manager Rich Vignes seems to be awfully defensive about this move, stating over and over that they’ll…
CNN reports that General Electric has created a giant OLED panel printer to be specifically used for lighting. The “semi-trailer” sized machine prints out thin layers of flexible plastic, covers them with chemicals, and seals them with foil, so they’ll glow a frosty blue-white if an electrical current is applied. But these OLED sheets aren’t…
New MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and probably an updated MacBook Air are coming up next week, at the Apple MacBook 2008 event. The MacBook and MacBook Pro are long due for a case redesign but, beyond that, little is known for sure. Here we have collected all the pieces of information we have about them. All…
Yep, Dell, purveyors of computers and such, currently have the best price on a really decent Sharp Aquos, the 42″ LC-42SB45U with 1080p resolution. It’s $899, and shipping is free, though you will have to pay sales tax. By contrast, Amazon’s starting price on this model is $972, and the shopping sites tend to list…
CityWall has been around for a little bit now, offering a giant multitouch display of maps and other service-oriented features. But now the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology just launched their new 3D UI for the interactive display, which makes it look super futuristic and awesome. While not actually 3D in the physical sense, the…
Just a few days after its TV anniversary, and in time for the new Star Trek movie, YouTube is now airing a bunch of full episodes of Star Trek. According to them, this is just the beginning: We are starting to test full-length programming on YouTube, beginning with some fan favorites requested by you. For…
I threw away two batteries yesterday. I know, I know—it’s almost the same as chopping down like five old-growth oak trees or something, but it was just so damn easy. And what else are you gonna do with dead batteries? That’s exactly why I am jazzed about this Energy Seed concept by Sungwoo Park. You…
This remote-controlled Lego Mindstorms NXT Fat Boy bike is cute and stylized enough to guarantee a post on its own. But when you see that the actual controller is shaped like the handles of a real motor bike, then it’s just not a matter of writing about it or not. It’s a matter of taking…
If you have a new 4th-gen nano and a decent ear, you may have noticed something funny: After putting it to sleep, if you wake it up by inserting headphones, the left and right channels switch. I tried this with the most obvious stereo mix of all time, David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” and it’s really…
A Brazilian artist named Vivian Caccuri has put together an installation that uses the movements of live fish to remix the music played on an MP3 player. These fish are tracked using a proximity sensor and their activities trigger adjustments in processing levels, distortion and speaker fade to create a unique sound. Sure, it is…
Researchers are using a technique called simultaneous location and mapping (SLAM) to develop helmets that rescue workers can use to navigate through heavy smoke. The helmet features an infrared laser scanner and software that bounces signals off walls and uses that data to create a map of the surrounding area. The software also filters out…
The Life Clock from Jinsei Tokei is kind of like a Tamagotchi for adults—but instead of caring for it, the little guy living inside this box mimics your lifestyle. Well…sort of. You see, you can choose between three characters: a salaryman, a schoolgirl or a rock star. It gets up when your alarm goes off…
