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Tech News
Climb Higher Than Mt. Everest, Without Leaving Manhattan
Who knew such extraordinary altitudes could be found, hidden inside the towers of Manhattan’s Flatiron District? But, behind the nondescript door of a 5th-floor office on 21st Street, heights as great as the Himalayas are waiting to be scaled. Gizmodo took a deep breath and visited the atmospheric wizardry of Hypoxico, makers of high-altitude training … Continued
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Tech NewsPrivacy and Security
A Key You Can Photograph Is A Key That Can Be Copied
If you take a picture of a car or house key, could you use that picture to get a copy made? Yes—quite trivially, actually. I have a folder on my laptop that is filled with photos people have taken of their keys and put onto the internet. Every few weeks, I take some idle time … Continued
Schuyler Towne -
Tech NewsDesign
OK, it didn’t win the design competition, so this proposed radio tower will never be broadcasting over a city near you, but its harp-like cables and rings sure do make a cool structure in the sky. Designed by the London-based firm Architects of Invention for a site in Santiago de Chile, the tower would have … Continued
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io9Television
An Occult History of the Television Set
The origin of the television set was heavily shrouded in both spiritualism and the occult, writes author Stefan Andriopoulos in his new book Ghostly Apparitions. In fact, as its very name implies, the television was first conceived as a technical device for seeing at a distance: like the telephone (speaking at a distance) and telescope … Continued
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ScienceSpace
New Solar Satellite Uses Pigment Found In Prehistoric Cave Paintings
The European Space Agency’s new solar satellite will be partially shielded using a bone-based pigment found in prehistoric cave paintings. The result will be a surreal cross between the earliest era of human cognition and creativity—that underground cinematic world of flickering animal images found in European caves—and the outer reaches of our current mechanical sciences. … Continued
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Tech News
Escape From Las Vegas: My Weekend Being Fake-Kidnapped in Sin City
In the meeting room of a La Quinta hotel on the northernmost outskirts of Las Vegas, near the entrance to Nellis Air Force Base, the company OnPoint Tactical hosted the most recent iteration of their “Urban Escape & Evasion” course. “Urban Escape & Evasion” is a three-day workshop dedicated to training the general public—with an … Continued
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Tech NewsDesign
Who’s the Greatest App Designer in the World Today?
We’ve been looking at app design from the very beginning here at Gizmodo, breaking down apps in all their various forms—from music streaming to transit apps, from the botched abyss of app-store search to our ongoing apps of the week—and, in terms of design, there’s something to learn from every app out there. So what’s … Continued
Gizmodo Staff -
Tech News
Using a 3D Scanner To Explore The Labyrinths of Soil Beneath Our Feet
Researchers at Scotland’s Abertay University are getting a brand new look at the seemingly nondescript world hidden in plain sight—the soil beneath our feet. Using computed tomography—an imaging technique that takes virtual slices of a subject using X-rays—computer modeling, and a 3-D scanner, the team is revealing the previously hidden complex structures of soil. They … Continued
Txchnologist -
EartherClimate Change
Will Smallpox Reemerge in Siberia as Corpses Thaw from Climate Change?
In an article primarily about the potential folly of holding onto stockpiles of smallpox virus for research purposes—a now-eradicated plague that humans no longer have natural immunity to and that would very likely cause a worldwide catastrophe should it escape from the lab—the BBC includes one awesomely horrible detail. Could the frozen bodies of smallpox … Continued
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Tech News
How LED Streetlights Will Change Cinema (And Make Cities Look Awesome)
The decision by the city of Los Angeles last year to replace its high-pressure sodium streetlights—known for their distinctive yellow hue—with new, blue-tinted LEDs might have a profound effect on at least one local industry. All of those LEDs, with their new urban color scheme, will dramatically change how the city appears on camera, thus … Continued
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Tech News
Listen to the Purring, Electromagnetic Weirdness of Mushrooms
I was blown away when I first heard about a project that tried to tap into the electromagnetic communication potential of mushrooms. Using wires, radio waves, and circuits—not psychedelics—the project’s off-kilter quest to find (and listen to) “electromagnetic fungi” was nonetheless more art than science. But who says mushrooms have the right to remain silent? … Continued
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Tech News
The Time the U.S. Invaded a Japanese Submarine Base… in Alaska?
An absolutely fascinating but little-known story—described as a “forgotten theater” by the U.S. Navy itself—is the tale of Kiska and Attu, Alaska: two remote Aleutian islands where the Japanese military established a submarine base during World War II. The islands—surprisingly close to the outer edge of the Japanese archipelago—were to serve as a landing point … Continued
Geoff Manaugh and Attila Nagy -
Tech News
The Landscapes Of Suburbia Are The Real Science Fiction
Science fiction is often charged with naïve technological optimism and historical amnesia. But for present-day Californians struggling with a wide range of environmental and social problems, science fiction might just provide the perspective we need to successfully pivot from the boom times of the twentieth century to the messy prospect of the century ahead. It … Continued
Michael Ziser -
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Tech News
Gorgeous Aerial Photos Capture the Ironic Beauty of Fracking
Cities popping up in the middle of nowhere. Blackened landscapes of industrial runoff, including lakes of liquid hydrocarbons, like something from the moons of Saturn. Vast transportation systems snaking over previously empty hills and ranches, pulling not human passengers but tankers. This is the new geography of fracking. Think, for example, of the brand new … Continued
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Tech News
How A California City’s Sidewalks Were Redesigned for Wheelchairs
The story of how Berkeley, California, first got wheelchair-accessible sidewalks in the 1970s is an unlikely mix of public protest, anti-war sentiment, and the grassroots potential of urban planning for the people, by the people. Writing for Boom, Bess Williamson explains how the city began to redesign itself for everyone to navigate. A story of … Continued
Bess Williamson -
Tech News
Reinventing the Printer With Rewriteable Paper and Water for Ink
For office workers concerned about cutting costs and environmental impacts, clicking the print button triggers an ongoing internal debate. Many people find reading words on a printed page to be a hard habit to break when the only alternative is reading them on glowing screen. But given that up to 40 percent of office documents … Continued
Michael Keller -
Tech News
Gridded “Superlens” Brings Wireless Power Transmission A Step Closer
Above is a close-up of what developers call a “superlens,” a device that can focus low-energy magnetic waves over a distance. The result? Wireless power generation over nearly one foot of air between transmitter and receiver. That might not seem like a great feat, but its Duke University creators say the superlens for the first … Continued
Txchnologist -
Tech NewsDesign
How a 1940s Gangster Film Foresaw the Surveillance Tech of Today
White Heat is a classic gangster film from 1949, starring James Cagney. It is a thoroughly Los Angeles flick, filmed almost exclusively in the Greater Los Angeles region, including scenes shot at Warner Brother Studios in Burbank. The film is considered a classic for many reasons—but what’s interesting in terms of Gizmodo is its depiction … Continued
Jeremy Delgado -
Tech News
The True Literature of California Is Science Fiction
Kim Stanley Robinson is the author of many works of science fiction, including The Three Californias, a trilogy of novels about southern California; the Mars Trilogy; 2312, a novel about climate change; and his most recent novel, Shaman. Robinson is one of California’s best-known and well-loved, living science fiction writers. A prolific writer, author of … Continued
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