Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies: Gizmodo Australia

REGULARS

10 Expert Tips For Building Your Automated Smart Home

CAMPBELL SIMPSON21 JANUARY 2015 1:00 PM

Imagine walking into your house, and tapping a button on your iPad — then seeing the lights come on, your air conditioning change to a comfortable temperature, and your favourite program come onto the TV. You can turn your apartment into a high-tech penthouse and stand out from the crowd, or build a smart home on your very own piece of Australian soil.

GADGETS

Build Your Own Pac-Man Ghost-Chomping Clock

ANDREW LISZEWSKITODAY 12:30 PM

Maybe the reason you find it so hard to crawl out of bed in the morning is your uninspired alarm clock? Random annoying beeps certainly don’t make the thought of facing the day any more appealing, but the sound of Pac-Man desperately trying to chow-down on a pair of terrified blue ghosts? Now that’s something to get out of bed for.

GEEK OUT

How To Grill To Perfection According To Michelin-Star Chef Raymond Blanc

OMAR KARDOUDITODAY 12:00 PM

Our good old friend, the amazing master chef Raymond Blanc,shares the best tips for grilling and barbecuing fish, meat, vegetables, seafood, or even fruit in another set of his mouth-watering recipes.

SCIENCE

MIT's Well On Its Way To Perfecting Auto-Zipping Zippers

ANDREW LISZEWSKITODAY 11:45 AM

Sneaker freaks have their fingers crossed that Nike will be able to deliver power laces in time for when Back to the Future II predicted we’d all be wearing them. But what about the rest of our clothing? Who wants to be bothered zipping up a jacket when your shoes automatically lace themselves? So Adam Whiton and MIT’s Personal Robots Group have already been hard at work developing, and perfecting, automatic zippers.

GEEK OUT

Star Trek Versus Star Wars Is The Trailer We Had To Have

LOGAN BOOKERTODAY 11:30 AM

There’s not really much to the seemingly eternal Star Wars or Star Trek argument. Both are set in space but, really, they’re different styles of science fiction with their pros and cons. That said, we can still have a little fun setting them against each other — literally. You know, Star Destroyers blowing up the Enterprise and all that.

ONLINE

Do You Have Skype Sex?

KATE KNIBBSTODAY 11:30 AM

If you’ve been in a long-distance relationship, you probably know how much it sucks to live your life with the knowledge that you’ve finally managed to lock someone down for sex stuff but you’re just too far away to actually make genital contact. So what do you do? Skype? Snapchat? Confess!

SCIENCE

The Anti-Vaccine Movement Should Be Ridiculed, Because Shame Works

MATT NOVAKTODAY 11:00 AM

The best way to win a debate is to present your facts in a clear, respectful way. When that doesn’t work, another option is incessant ridicule. Here’s why we have to use shame if we want to stop the anti-vaccine movement.

GEEK OUT

I Don't Know What The Hell I Just Watched, But I Watched It All

JESUS DIAZTODAY 10:45 AM

Video: So this machine comes with a weird thingie and it starts moving the ground and then there’s this weird hose that goes under and stuff or something. I guess the hose will be connected to a pump to drain the water at some point. I don’t know. I don’t care. I just know that I watched it all. So relaxing.

COMPUTING

Can A Cheap Windows Tablet Replace Your Desktop?

SEAN BUCKLEYTODAY 10:00 AM

It started as an offhand brag, but turned into a dare. I was telling my Gizmodo colleagues why I loved my Windows 8 tablet: it’s fast, it’s cheap, it’s a fully fledged PC. Hell, I said, I could probably hook it up to a monitor and use it as my workhorse for a week.

GEEK OUT

How The Silk Road Trial Set A Dangerous Legal Precedent

KATE KNIBBSTODAY 9:30 AM

The Silk Road trial is over. A jury found Ross Ulbricht guilty on all seven charges, including money laundering, drug trafficking, and the “kingpin” charge. That’s not just bad news for Ulbricht, who faces life in prison. His trial has set a dangerous precedent, which could allow law enforcement to gather evidence illegally.