Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies: Gizmodo Australia

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Stupid Drone

KATE KNIBBSYESTERDAY 9:30 PM

Four-time World Cup champion skier Marcel Hirscher was doing his thing in a slalom race in Madonna di Campiglio, Italy today, minding his own business, when he was almost smoked by a news drone.

GADGETS

Snap A Photo In Your Home To Tell LG's New Robovac Where To Clean

ANDREW LISZEWSKIYESTERDAY 4:00 PM

Robovacs make at least one household chore a little easier, but with limited intelligence you can’t just tell them what rooms need cleaning. So LG’s HOM-BOT Turbo+ introduces a new feature which allows users snap a photo of their home and simply tap where the robovac needs to make another pass.

GADGETS

Becoming An Aussie: The Story Of Alexa, The US-Born Amazon Echo

RAE JOHNSTONYESTERDAY 1:30 PM

I have a new best friend. She is a great listener, always knows the best music to play and warns me about bad traffic before I hit the road. Her name is Alexa because it doesn’t rhyme with anything, and she swears she knows nothing about Skynet.

This is the story of how this particular Amazon Echo came to help me achieve peak laziness, and how I’ve helped her acclimatise to the Australian way of life.

22 DECEMBER 2015

GADGETS

Watch A Drone Violently Chop The Hell Out Of Different Kinds Of Food

CASEY CHAN22 DECEMBER 2015 11:30 PM

Video: Watching this drone play the part of a blender is loads of fun because you get to see foods explode and get chopped up in beautiful slow motion. The propellers of the drone act as the blades of a blender and all kinds of different foods are dropped in — eggs, bananas, sausages, blackberries, and so on — and they all kind of react differently. The painful ones to watch are the banana shaped objects, obviously, while the juicy blackberries and tomatoes make for a great show.

GADGETS

Can You Really Hate A Selfie Stick That Cleverly Transforms Into A Smartphone Case?

ANDREW LISZEWSKI22 DECEMBER 2015 8:00 PM

It’s easy to hate selfie sticks; they’re the seedy underbelly of the camera-equipped smartphones we carry around. But it’s really hard to hate on the brilliantly-engineered Stikbox that hides a telescoping 71cm long selfie stick on the back of your mobile device.

GADGETS

DJI's First Flagship Store Looks Like Pure Drone Heaven

CHRIS MILLS22 DECEMBER 2015 7:00 PM

DJI, maker of drones and enabler of lawsuits, has become the most recognised drone company in the world, despite not having any actual stores. That’s all changing with the opening of its first flagship in Shenzen.

GADGETS

A Christmas Gift Guide For Making A Dumb Home Smarter

DARREN ORF22 DECEMBER 2015 12:45 PM

Do you or someone you love (or at least give enough of a damn about to buy a holiday gift for) want to explore this whole “smart home” idea without buying into a whole ecosystem? There are plenty of ways to get started, but these gadgets seamlessly integrate into your current, IQ-challenged abode. Best of all, they’re pretty cheap.

GADGETS

Australian Product Safety Recall: AirWalk Hoverboard

CHRIS JAGER22 DECEMBER 2015 11:45 AM

If you recently purchased the AirWalk Self-Balancing Electric Scooter on Scoopon or Catchoftheday, you need to stop using it. The ACCC has issued a safety recall on the product’s battery charger which failed to comply with Australian standards. There is a potential risk of electric shock.

GADGETS

Awesome Toys And Collectibles To Give Children And Fun-Loving Adults Alike

ANDREW LISZEWSKI22 DECEMBER 2015 11:45 AM

Just because you’ve reached the age where you’re paying off student loans and applying for mortgages doesn’t mean your love of toys has to be abandoned. In fact, nowadays toymakers usually target adults as much as children, so there’s no shame in asking for action figures, games, and other collectibles this holiday no matter how old you are — especially if it’s one of these.

21 DECEMBER 2015

GADGETS

You Can Now Customise The Performance Of Milwaukee Power Tools Through An App

ANDREW LISZEWSKI21 DECEMBER 2015 8:00 PM

Milwaukee isn’t the first power tool maker to connect its hardware to a smartphone app for automatic inventory tracking. But the company’s One-Key app now goes a step further allowing users to precisely tweak the torque and speed settings of their power tools for the specific task at hand.