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When tabletop arcade manufacturer Retro-Tech makes a coffee table, it’s gotta do more than hold books on Famous Chateaus of the 18th Century and What Things Look Like From the Sky. It has to hold that stuff and piss off your home theater. So they start with a 19″ touchscreen, add a Blu-ray drive with…
To kick off our CIA gadget series, I’m starting with something from the beginning, well, before the beginning: covert weaponry sent to resistance fighters behind enemy lines during WWII. They thought of all kinds of disruptive technologies, including exploding edible flour, cigarette-shaped single-use guns and other discrete but explodey gadgets. https://gizmodo.com/cia-spy-gadgets-revealed-q-aint-got-nothin-on-langley-392289 The Firefly was a…
In this week’s Giz Explains, we’re doing a quick rundown of a sweet technology that has evolved from a (deadly) serious military application to becoming a household utility, found in all kinds of gadgets: GPS. https://gizmodo.com/50-years-of-darpa-5-good-inventions-5-lousy-ones-391157 Let’s start with the acronym: GPS stands for global positioning system. Originally a DARPA-funded joint project of the Air…
We knew that rumor about AT&T iPhone insurance for $5 was too good to be true, seeing as we went through the same thing back in 2007 when the iPhone was launched. AT&T’s insurance company, Asurion, isn’t going to cover that super expensive phone for only $5 a month, even with the $125 deductible on…
Back in the year 1984, there was no Gizmodo to warn you away from lousy gadgets. Instead, you had to take your chances on products that you saw on TV. If you actually sent away $34.95 for one of these Music Vests after seeing the commercial, however, you get no sympathy from me. Although it…
This crazy, crazy “Flatmobile” is going to enter the Guinness books as the flattest vehicle ever. How flat is it? Nineteen inches. I think that’s about how flat we’d be if we laid on our backs (depending on what’s on our minds and what we ate for lunch). Not only is this Batmobile-like contraption dangerous,…
It looks like Amazon will be offering deals on music-based video games all day. The Deal of the Day is Guitar Hero III on any system for $60 (that’s down from $90 retail). And in addition, Gold Box offers will be running every few hours with various musically themed alternatives. 10AM Pacific offers the hint…
We knew that refurbished iPhones have their previous owner’s data on it, but how do you protect yourself when Apple won’t go through the trouble of wiping phones out before passing them on? By unsyncing everything, then loading it up with music and videos until the phone is full to overwrite the old data that…
We’ve reviewed both the Cowon A3 and the Q5W and found them to be fantastic media players with a pretty damn wide range of video and audio format support. Cowon’s just bumped up both players to 80GB, which is great since you’re probably going to be loading both with lots of video files. We’re still…
This isn’t huge news that will change your life, but AT&T is aiming to have the first round of their HSPA 3G network complete by the end of June. The company is addressing their network’s upload speed, bringing High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) in to complement the existing High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA)…
Even though most Twitter users use it to inform the world of their bowel movements, Justin Wickett came up with a slightly more clever use for the app. He uses an INSTEON switch and a computer in order to monitor a Twitter account for the on or off switch command send from his cellphone. When…
The FCC might be getting up in cellphone providers’ collective grill, telling them what they can and cannot charge to customers who quit their service early. A proposal to them outlines some changes consumers want enacted, including free termination up to 30 days after signing a contract or 10 days after the first bill and…
The Boy Genius managed to get his paws on some exclusive shots of the upcoming Palm Treo 850. The details are scant, but he does say that it’ll have a 400 MHz processor and 100MB of RAM. As for more pertinent details such as carrier, date and price, well, just be happy with the picture.…
We like the looks of this metallic blue PSP, but it won’t be a standalone product when it hits on August 12. The PSP will come as part of a $200 pack that includes Madden 09, “NFL: In Just One Play” on UMD, 1GB Memory Stick, and the downloadable PSP game Beats. Here are all…
Our mouths dropped last week when we discovered the double-lidded jar. Now we’re equally impressed by a can that’s resealable. The can pops open like any normal can. Then, when you’re finished taking a few sips, you simply rotate the the tab and a second layer of metal plugs the hole. (The video will probably…
This week is Gizmodo’s salute to CIA spy technology. What’s the occasion? The May 29th release of Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA’s Spytechs from Communism to al-Qaeda, by Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton (with Henry R. Schlesinger). While we don’t typically review books, this one happens to be the best we’ve ever…
Most diabetics are tough enough to routinely test their blood without crying about it (the alternative to death is certainly a good one), but Tanita has announced a portable digital urine glucose meter for those with sugar-management diseases like diabetes and metabolic syndrome that needs no blood. A portable unit of what they’ve had in…
According to the Taiwan-based Economic Daily News (who has spoken with Apple’s chief LED supplier), every MacBook shipped in 2009 will have an LED-backlit display. Consider the news unconfirmed, but the transition would certainly make sense, as Apple already uses LEDs in its MacBook Pro and MacBook Air lines. Aside from LEDs being an eco-friendly…
This is Samsung’s new air-conditioning unit from its Hauzen range. Blah blah blah blah pretty laydee blah blah legs blah blah is she smiling at me blah blah BLAH. Gallery below, and feel free to improve on my captions in the comments. [Akihabara News]
Analyst Michael Pachter may be stating the obvious, but he expects a $50 price drop on both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this holiday season. (Yes, we know that’s like six months away.) That would put the Xbox 360 Premium at $299 and the 40GB PlayStation 3 at $349. He contends that such a…
