Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Juan González has hacked together a simple setup that lets his Wii Balance board move a small, irritating robot in any direction. This looks like the first robotic pairing for the board, which has to date has only been interfaced with computers as a control device to awkwardly navigate games and mapping applications. It’s pretty…
What would you wear every day if you could wear anything? We’re talking no limits, not from bank accounts or corporate wardrobe requirements, not those snarky writers from US Weekly or the sexy lady judging the size of your 401k by the validity of your Rolex. One man in particular has had that choice over…
The hacking and account stealing has gotten so bad on World of Warcraft that Blizzard has decided to release a hardware authenticator to make sure when you log in, you’re actually not some dude in China who looks like me. (Unless you are.) The authenticator costs $6.50, and will spit out a six-digit code-much like…
Despite our shameless, snot-filled pleading, today is Addy’s last day here at Gizmodo. Somehow she got the idea in her head that she wanted me to be the one to write her goodbye post. Coming from the best writer (by far) on Giz, that’s quite a compliment. Seriously, the top five list looks something like…
Here it is, the definitive Bill Gates timeline. It may contain some bugs and lack some features, but it works: from his parents to the last day of his work at Microsoft, the Bill Gates timeline shows his personal and business adventure-on the top-in relation to the tech industry-on the bottom-as his company takes over…
The guys over at Phone Mag managed to get their hands on the HTC Touch Pro “Raphael” and its sweet slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Unfortunately, there was no battery and the device could not be turned on-but no significant changes are expected on that front over the previous Touch handset. All in all, Phone Mag felt…
Every other week it seems that the bar for foosball tables gets set higher and higher. The new mark to beat comes to us from a group of engineering students from The University of Adelaide. As part of a final engineering project, the students utilized a 96-pinhole camera and LED sensor grid, custom-written software and…
Dudes in the Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials in Tohoku University just developed a 42GB DVD that’s backwards compatible with nothing. The new tech uses a V shape in the pits—current pits are just pits—which allows nine times more information to be held on the same sized disc. The downside is that current…
Bill Gates puts up with us, having granted us three interviews in the past three and a half years. It’s an intense experience: Bill isn’t always fond of making eye contact, and is known to snap at reporters who ask dumb questions. After all, he’s not just the Andrew Carnegie-or Emperor Palpatine-of his time. He’s…
We’ve all seen wires coming out of potatoes to power lightbulbs, but the design has always been a crude science experiment, not something with the polish of a real product. This Lemon Light is just an artist’s work, but it’s a brilliant design all the same. Simply cut off one end of the lemon and…
You probably already know that both we and Lifehacker enjoy running Windows on our Macs using Parallels. Well, MacHeist has a deal today where you can pick up a copy for just $49, which includes a copy of MacPilot. That price gets even sweeter ($10 sweeter) if you previously bought a MacHeist bundle. Get yours…
In today’s news of Virgin buying Helio for 39 million dollars, it has been revealed that the advanced features Helio was known for (and paid dearly for in the end) will be ported over as Virgin takes over operations. The infrastructure will also allow future handsets from Virgin to include modern day amenities like Google…
This isn’t first-hand word from Asus, but Liliputing is reporting that a member of their readership got an extremely confident US release date from the Asus pre-sales department for both the Atom-based Eee PC 901 and 1000. And that date was July 8th—one day later than MSI’s Wind. We’ll let you know if we hear…
This fake plastic nerf gun For the fake plastic vampire man Is steampunk’d to death. https://gizmodo.com/steampunk-nerf-rifle-lets-you-get-victorian-on-someones-383943 And you can buy it from ebay For a bunch more days, Just to get hold of it yourself. It’s the Model 666, it’s the Model 666, With a crucifix, with a crucifix. [Ebay via BoingBoing. -Apols to Radiohead.]
Part giant Segway, part car, part Tron light-cycle, part whirling glass-walled deathtrap…think of it as you will, the Ozone is actually a pretty interesting concept vehicle designed by Ozkan Koral. Accessed by rotating doors within the wheels, the passenger cabin is actually inside the wheelbase. It’s powered by fuel cells driving twin electric motors and…
The only thing better than a robot may be a papercraft robot, and computer security software company Symantec clearly totally realizes this. Because to better educate the public on various malware bots that can infect their systems, Symantec has released free thematic papercraft robots. And kudos to their marketing department-they aren’t covered in logos for…
Reports have been floating around from various forums and tipsters that the MSI Wind was delayed yet again. MSI has confirmed the delays with a representative explaining that the problem is still industry battery shortages. https://gizmodo.com/msi-wind-delayed-but-not-for-long-5016897 MSI went from 6 to 3-cells in hopes of getting to market faster, but the batteries have become a…
Sony Ericsson’s Paris, much coveted by S-E purists, has been canned, according to the Unofficial Sony Ericsson Blog. The Paris, aka the P5i, has been filed under T (for trash) alongside its sister smartphone, the BeiBei, or the G702. Apparently it’s to do with the less-than-enthusiastic reactions from some of the mobile phone bloggers, who…
Crytek, makers of the game/PC benchmarking software Crysis, have reported that they believe that the piracy rate on the game is somewhere between 15:1 and 20:1. That means for every one game sold, people download 15 to 20 pirated copies. It’s an amazing number when you realize that as of February, the game had sold…
Following up on the promise made back in March, Apple and Nike have integrated Nike+ iPod technology into gym equipment. 24 Hour Fitness, the largest fitness chain in the US, will be the first to roll out the equipment to select locations across the country starting in July. [BusinessWire] https://gizmodo.com/nike-ipod-to-jack-directly-into-gym-equipment-363699