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Forest Pearson is a 10-year-old who saved $500 to build a snow-making machine from scratch. Forest Pearson is also our hero, who will probably grow to build a 100-person Jacuzzi on top of Everest. This real-world Calvin put together the machine using a 30-gallon air compressor and a pressure washer, with spray noozles that throw…
Psychology researchers from Glasgow University have just announced that they’ve developed a facial recognition algorithm that’s 100% accurate in their testing. The technique essentially averages 20 photos into one composite but is able to disregard confounding variables like age, lighting, expression and camera equipment used. (I mean, you can see what they did to poor…
Remember that honkin’ ATI graphics card we showed you at CES? The one that was 1,000 times as fast as a Cray-1? Well, it’s official, making its debut today as the $450 ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2. It’s the first GPU to break the teraflop barrier, and is nearly double the performance of the HD…
The December 27, 1950 Robesonian (Lumberton, NC) ran an Associated Press article titled, “How Experts Think We’ll Live in 2000 A.D.” The article covered the future of movies, commercial flight, space travel, medicine and women, among many other topics. Can you believe that by the year 2000 a woman may be president of the United…
So, it looks like Sony is nixing the 80GB PS3. But not for single model simplicity. Shnope, Sony is introing a re-juiced, re-jiggered top SKU: Ars’ fairly reliable source says that the new box will be packed with a 120 or 160GB hard drive and a Dual Shock 3, which is due our on side…
Sony is offering both the color pink and absurd romanticism in a special $299 V-Day Sony Reader Bundle. Coming with a pink “Cross Your Heart” Reader skin and a coupon for 14 Harlequin Special Releases…let’s just say that we’d never date anyone who accepted this gift in earnest. For those interested in what a real…
Asthma attacks can come out of nowhere, or so it would seem. A new portable system is trying to predict asthma attacks by sampling the air and identifying likely triggers. The 1-lb. device, designed by a team at Georgia Tech, takes samples every two minutes, looking at recorded air temperature and humidity, and testing the…
One of the pet projects of Ray Kurzweil, genius inventor and futurist, is camera-based reading for blind and learning-disabled people. His original designs were chunky by our standards, a Canon Digital Elph literally strapped to a PDA. Now, working with the National Federation of the Blind, Kurzweil’s group has shrunk the knfbREADER Mobile system down…
Where exactly are major cellphone service providers finding new subscribers nowadays? Fresh off AT&T reporting they’ve enrolled 2.7 million new, newly sad individuals, Verizon says today they’ve added 2 million fresh weepies for a total of 65.7 million. https://gizmodo.com/earnings-roundup-nintendo-at-t-and-nokia-make-mad-ban-348463 Notably, it’s the second quarter in a row they’ve been outpaced by AT&T for subscriber growth,…
We like the idea of just tossing our precious HD media into the trash, which is basically what you can do with the cylindrical TViX HD multimedia hub by DVico. You can rip DVDs to the hard drive (in true .iso format), record shows via an optional over-the-air HD tuner, play back a ridiculous amount…
This rugged fire-extinguisher concept contains both an oxygen supply to help you breathe and exploding powder pellets that you roll, grenade-like, into a fire to put it out at a distance. We’re slightly worried at the idea of having an oxygen tank near lots of flames, but hey ho, it’s great that designer Woo Seok…
Sony announced last week that, yes, it’s still releasing UMDs, baby! Partnering with MTV, PSP owners will soon be able to purchase “Beavis and Butt-Head: The Mike Judge Collection,” volumes 2 and 3; “Jackass,” volumes 2 and 3; “Wildboyz,” volumes 1 and 2; “Viva La Bam,” volumes 2-4; and “Aeon Flux: The Complete Animated Collection.”…
This is $20,000 of love-themed hot tub, the Walker Signature Special Edition. Special features include seating for six, tacky red hearts, fountains, Valentine-red colors, a “playground area” (ooer) and MP3-ready stereo. Our ideal use for this tasteless tub is in the video after the jump. [Born Rich and Dimension One press release]
LeapFrog today introduced a baby brother to the Fly “pentop computer.” The $50 Tag uses the same Anoto high-res scanning technology to “read” specially printed books to kids, and can connect to the internet (OK, net-connected PC via USB) to download audio and programming for up to five books at a time. In addition to…
The LEGO brick turns 50 at exactly 1:58 p.m. today, January 28, 2008. This timeline shows these 50 years of building frenzy by happy kids and kids-at-heart, all the milestones from the LEGOLAND themed sets to TECHNIC and MINDSTORMS NXT, as well as all kinds of weird curiosities about the most famous stud-and-tube couple system…
Click to viewLivescribe’s Pulse Smartpen, which creates digital copies of notes and links them to recorded audio, launches today in 1GB and 2 GB models. Using specialized paper with microdots to track pen movement, the Pulse not only copies notes, but can do quick calculations, translate foreign words and record 3D audio. https://gizmodo.com/livescribe-smartpen-links-your-scribbles-with-audio-not-264302 We got…
One of the big Oh Noes about working for Giz is getting to see sexy new phones, enjoying a quickening of the pulse and then thinking, “Buggerama,” as you realize that said sodding cell is only available in Japan. Casio’s W61CA uses Exilim technology to give you a five-megapixel camera that will survive rainstorms and…
Each time someone buys one of these limited-edition concrete coffee tables, the designers subtract a pre-planned chunk from the next one they’ll sell. So, it’s self-destruction in an expensive, arty, musical-chairs-meets-LEGO kind of way rather than a Mission Impossible explosion. “This Table Will Self Destruct” is intriguing, though: does its shrinkage represent less value for…
Hokay: the iTube looks like it is the 21st-century version of the Lava Lamp. A 30-inch-tall iPod speaker with 360º speakers and special effects that react to your tunes, the iTube connects up to either an MP3 player or your stereo, and you can control the psychedelic levels of its LED lights and bubble blower…
The Japanese tentacle of HTC’s multi-armed octopus-like body is planning on opening an HTC Land in Shibuya; a place where customers can come in and fondle the goods for themselves without buying first. The studio will be open between February 1 and March 1, which means you only have a limited time to experience the…