Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Charlie over at DVICE is a musician, so if he says this Direct Note Access is miraculous, we definitely believe him. Think of this software suite as Photoshop, but for music—able to change any note to any other note even if it’s buried inside chords or other instruments playing simultaneously. Up until now, you could…
Region-free gaming on the Wii is a whole lot simpler now with the new release of Gecko Region Free. Now you don’t need a Freeloader or any type of fancy hacking, but you do need the Twilight Princess disc and the ability to run homebrew apps. It’s not a completely optimal solution, because of certain…
A quick cigarette break by Business Week employee Nicholas White turned into a nightmare when his elevator stopped dead in its shaft and trapped him there for a crazy 41 hours—all of it caught on a security camera. It seems like all of the technological developments in elevator design, from Archimedes through Otis’ security brake…
I thought that the whole chicks would do anything for chocolate stereotype was just, you know, a stereotype, but vaguely scientific market research proves it’s true! Infosecurity Europe went around posing as marketers, offering people chocolate bars in exchange for their computer passwords, and 45 percent of the women gave it up like prom night.…
We’ve been talking a lot about emerging mobile tech lately, tossing around crazy acronyms and words like WiMax, LTE, 3G, G-Spot, EDGE and whatnot. A lot of you probably already know this stuff cold, but in case you don’t, here’s the quick and dirty guide to what you need to know. GSM is the most…
This might look like the world’s dumbest criminal stole your printer by sawing through the USB cable rather than just unplugging it, but it’s actually a totally badass USB flash drive. It’s actually a relatively simple DIY project, so if you’ve got the inclination and an hour or less of time to spare, you could…
A source tells us that in May, Pioneer will announce two new Blu-ray players, including the Elite BDP-05FD you see above. Surprisingly, they won’t be Profile 2.0, just 1.1 (so PIP but no Ethernet), but they will have some other talents: https://gizmodo.com/coming-blu-ray-2-0-update-makes-ps3-best-player-ever-370116 • Internal decoding of all high-res audio formats • 8-bit to 12-bit Deep…
We’ve shown you some beautiful retro-digital watches recently, but this timepiece takes the prize for integrating real old technology: a tourbillon escapement. Invented in 1795, this type of escapement actually rotates inside its frame and was designed to counteract lop-sided gravity effects caused by the vertical position gentlemen’s pocket watches usually sat in. Concord’s C1…
Click to viewAfter the Guardian did their own investigation into the Mac clone maker Psystar yesterday, we decided to take it a step further and see if they actually exist, in the physical sense. How could a company so brazenly challenge Apple and have little to no record of actually being a company? We sent…
Earlier this week, we posted a rumor about the possibility of the LG Voyager coming to Sprint and AT&T. We finally got in touch with LG reps, who told us the rumor is false, false, false. They say they have no intention of bringing the Voyager to Sprint, AT&T or any other carrier and don’t…
Oh, Pirate Bay. You know just what to do to get people’s attention, you rabble rousers. In February, The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI; essentially, the international RIAA) went to court and got Danish ISP Tele2 to block access to the famous BitTorrent tracker. It now appears that the courts are going to…
You’ve gotta wonder how, in a company the size of Microsoft, there’s not a single person who has the balls to step up and say “Hey, you know what? This Vista music video we’re making for the sales department, complete with a cheesy Bruce Springsteen impersonator and horrible music, damages the dignity of not only…
You know why I never wanna have a heart attack or prostate problems? The catheter. You know which one I’m talking about. Just the thought makes my junk burn. Enter this year’s truly deserving Medical Design Excellence award winner, the GeeWhiz Condom Catheter. No more tubes twisted and crammed into tiny holes they don’t belong…
If your otherwise perfectly functional PowerBook has fallen apart from rough handling, many would either pay big bucks for a new screen or just replace the computer outright. But one modder had a better idea: gut the components to create a sleek desktop system. The case is essentially just two large pieces of white acrylic…
If you live in San Francisco’s Bay Area and your name is Darth Vader, head to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for the hottest laser action in the galaxy. Instead of destroying planets, however, the $3-billion National Ignition Facility will be used to fuse hydrogen atoms to create a small star and, in theory, get us…
It looks like Microsoft’s acquisition of Sidekick-maker Danger is complete and official. Whether or not this is good news or bad news for fans of the Sidekick has yet to be seen, but we’ll try to stay positive and keep an open mind. Hit the jump for the full press release. https://gizmodo.com/microsoft-absorbs-sidekick-maker-danger-inc-354998 Microsoft Completes Acquisition…
Sony is preparing for the inevitable and will launch a movie and TV video-on-demand service for the PS3 to compete with the glut of other options already available, according to Sony’s Peter Dille. He was thin on details, saying the only thing that we’d be getting “very soon” is more details on the service, which…
When you’re green, you’re green: Tesla Motors chairman Elon Musk’s other gig is SolarCity, a solar energy company that just announced it would lease panels to residents of San Jose with no money down. Typically going solar requires a $20K to $30K install, or at the very least, a $2,000 down payment, so a no-cash-upfront…
The itsy bitsy spider ran up the water spout. Someone grabbed its limbs and tore them all right out. Up came the modder holding USB, Until the itsy USB Spider killed him in his sleep. [MAKE] UPDATE: Yes, it appears to be a crabbbbbbb. How humiliating.
Sony’s 11-inch, 3mm-thick XEL-1 OLED TV is OK, I guess. But sometimes I worry that it’s just too thick. I mean, 3mm? Come on, Sony. Who do you think you’re dealing with here? Luckily, it looks like Sony is working on a new 11-inch OLED, one that’s 10 times thinner than its expensive predecessor. https://gizmodo.com/sony-xel-1-oled-tv-review-verdict-small-on-size-larg-372072…
