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Sony’s site has an absolutely hilarious page explaining how Intel’s Core 2 Duo chip helps you multitask with cartoons featuring two odd, party-hat-wearing elfin caricatures. Read on for my analysis, with the caveat that I speak not a word of Japanese. 1. Trying to saw a two-by-four alone looks awfully stressful: our moustachioed French hero…
To all of you who’ve RSVP’d for the Chicago Gizmodo Reader Meetup, remember that it’s going on tonight at the Hotel Sax from 8-11pm. You can find full details on the event here, but if the prospect of free drinks, hors d’oeuvres, socializing, informal tech demos, Rock Band 2 and maybe a few small giveaways…
Kids these days, with their baggy jeans and their MTV and their fancy networked booming boxes, they don’t know the joy of sitting around the old-timey radio and listening to the soothing stories. The Areaware 2B radio just might be the bridge to these whippersnappers: its visible vacuum tubes have a cool retro feel, not…
One of the croissant-snarfing editors at Gizmodo France passed along this article that alleges the Mac Pro gives off toxic vapors. Translating from the language of lose to the language of guns, soccer moms and hot dogs results in a bit of discombobulation, but the gist is that a CNRS lab researcher got a Mac…
If you were thinking about pre-ordering the T-Mobile G1 and just didn’t get around to it yet, it looks like you’re out of luck, since they’ve sold out. While there definitely won’t be anything like iPhone launch day madness, don’t be surprised if the launch supply is exhausted by demand and they’re a bit scarce…
Like Yahoo and MSN before them, Walmart is turning off its DRM servers on Oct. 9, effectively putting any DRM’d songs you bought from them into a cold stasis they’ll never wake up from, since they’ll become totally unmovable unless you circumvent the DRM. Walmart went through this earlier with their video store, though it…
Microsoft has scheduled simultaneous service outages for its Xbox Live and Zune platforms this Monday, September 29th, starting at 12:01 PST. These “regularly scheduled maintenance” outages will take up to 24 hours for Xbox Live and up to 48 hours for Zune. Read on for the details. Xbox Live will be offline, and you won’t…
3M’s new Mobile ID Reader scans MRZ and RF chip data from passports and visas and immediately checks them against local or international watch lists by using wifi or GSM/GPRS EDGE networks. It seems like a great tool to further make you feel like you’re living in some scary dystopian sci-fi novel, especially when you…
In the year 2025, a scant 17 years from now, all cars will be electric. But according to Mitsubishi’s entry into the LA Auto Show’s latest design challenge, some will even tear up the Salt Flats, looking like bionic insects with the cruelest of intentions. Each wheel of the proposed MMR25 Rally Racer gets eight…
There are plenty of dual-hard-drive outboard storage systems on the market, but SimpleTech’s Duo Pro struck me as particularly brimming with awesomeness. It’s not a NAS—it’s totally local—but you have a choice of USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and 800, and eSATA, which clocks a max transfer speed of 3Gb per second. (That’s gigabits, not gigabytes.)…
You’ve probably wondered what it takes to become a Genius at an Apple Store. I mean, they’re called Geniuses, and it’s Apple, and they only deal with Apple products, so they know them to the core, right? Well, in at least one Apple Store, not so much. MacBlogz’s Aviv went through the whole process of…
Here’s the first look at the final version of the deadly XM25. We learned this morning of the weapon’s destructive power, but now we have a photo of the final version and all the details, starting with the key for its destruction power, a built-in fire-control system that can program each of the weapon’s 25…
Not long after releasing their super-cheap 3-channel Black Stealth chopper, ThinkGeek is delivering a Micro 4-channel flying saucer with a built-in solid state accelerometer for control. Even if you have poor eyesight and fat, clumsy hands you can always switch on the “EZ button” backup that prevents maneuvers that may send the saucer out of…
Tonight at 9pm ET the first debate between John McCain and Barack Obama takes place. In the interest of keeping political discussion alive in America, here’s a link to CBS, where we know the debate will be streamed live, at least within the US. Here’s a link to NBC, which hosts much debate-related video, but…
An exploit has been uncovered in Adobe software that could be used to download free copies of movies and shows from Amazon’s Video on Demand service (and other similar services). Apparently, Adobe sacrificed a “a stringent security feature” that protects the connection between Adobe software and its players in order in increase download speeds. In…
CNet earlier today broke a story about how the National Association of Broadcasters—traditional broadcasting conglomerates and others who think HD Radio is more vital than the internet—is trying to kill a brand new bill that could save Pandora and other web radio services. We’ve done some reporting of our own, and the situation does indeed…
We have a couple of new, cool features for you commenters out there: permalink threads and most popular sorting. How do they work? Well, the timestamp next to each thread in comments (a comment and its responses) is now a link to that thread that stands on its own. You can direct people to that…
This week marked the start of more interesting times for mobile apps. You may have heard, even, that Android is here-on T-Mobile’s G1. Perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence that it was a relatively quiet week in the App Store, as devs watch a new challenger take the stage (and power on their iPhone lightsabers). But…
That headline was a mouthful, but we didn’t want you to overlook Microsoft’s updated Xbox LIVE Messenger Gold Pack. Going for $70 (that’s a permanent price, incidentally), the pack includes a year of LIVE (about $40 otherwise), chatpad ($20), extra headset ($15) and a copy of Project Gotham Racing 4 ($40). So yeah, if you’re…
We hate crapware, you hate crapware, and Steve Ballmer hates crapware. Here’s what Ballmer said last night about it. When people complain about computers coming with too many applications, it runs slowly, that’s not a good thing. There’s some basic hygiene that we and our partners can participate in together. We can clean them up,…
