Does your passport look like this, with a strange-looking symbol on the bottom? Then you’re in luck, for your passport contains an RFID tag! Now, we’re not exactly the tin foil hat types, but news that one of those security researcher types has managed to copy sensitive data off various passports in San Francisco without the owners’ knowledge does annoy us. What’s worse is that the pertinent… → Read More
What’s one of the scariest sounds you can hear come out of your computer? How about the telltale clicking of a broken hard drive? Once you hear that click-click-click you know it’s game over. Hope you backed up your data. Datacent, which is a data recovery company, has a collection of broken hard drive sounds that should put the fear of God in you. Note that the site has been… → Read More
Good lord. If you want to see the future of warfare and fear, this is it. This is the BigDog quadraped robot designed by Boston Dynamics for DARPA and can climb over rubble, walk through snow, and even save itself when slipping on ice. It can apparently carry over 300 pounds. When they put a gun on this bastard and set it lose behind enemy lines, watch out. via Giz → Read More
You’ll be seeing this at the airport soon, I think. Everyone was concerned when they started saying they would install X-ray backscatter scanners at the security checkpoints, and those things couldn’t move. Now we’ve got a similar (to laypeople) technology in a mobile, pointable form. Sounds great! These things work by emitting X-rays and analyzing the reflections; they add… → Read More
Aside from looking creepy as all hell, this Mr. Clock Radio serves an important purpose: it’ll simultaneously wake you up and send you into cardiac arrest. It could be least friendly looking clock radio ever devised. Even though Clocky was a loud lumbering jerk, at least it didn’t look like the bad guy from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” OK, enough bashing—what does… → Read More
We try really hard to stay away from discussing politics here on the Gear, mostly so as not to reveal our leftist pinko commie attitudes. This story, however, is neutral, and gadgety, and scary. Meet the robobug. These little fly-sized robots have been seen buzzing around political events in the NYC and DC areas. Nobody’s sure who sent them, or even what they’re capable of doing, but… → Read More
…provided you’re hiding under a tree in a thunderstorm and, freakishly, lightning hits you instead of the tree and runs down the length of the iPod earbuds and blows out your ear drums and blows up your iPod. I mean, otherwise, you’re fine. Apparently a 37-year-old jogger in British Columbia (is that even a place?) got hit by a bolt of lightning resulting in severe burns. There… → Read More
This right here = awesome. It’s a pop-up book of phobias, including spiders, fear of death, snakes and clowns. (Hey, books were gadgets in the old days.) I have to say this book, even though I’m like seven years behind the curve, is something that I need in my collection immediately. The next edition, the Gadget Blogger Edition, will have: WordPress is ganked; Internet connection is… → Read More
Nothing scares the living crap out of you more than the po’ kicking down your door and telling you to freeze. So if you woke up to the sound of a police officer screaming “This is the police, you have until the count of three to get out of bed or we are coming in, 1…..,2…..,3” with a hail of siren sounds and flashing lights going off soon after, I’d bet 10 bucks that… → Read More
Alright, I’ll admit it. I’m arachnophobic. It’s like my only fear. Well that and germs. But that’s the only other thing. Aside from little people and gingers, though those aren’t so much of phobias as paranoias (there is collusion between the two to overthrow the world’s governments, sending us spiraling into apocalyptic chaos as they rise up [to the height of… → Read More
They are being programmed to take sensory input and adapt responses accordingly. The researcher in charge of the operation says the behavior will be something akin to babies learning from external stimuli. I find this kind of horrifying. I’ve been hearing my entire life about how robots are going to take over the world and then “The Matrix” happened. I don’t want evil robot… → Read More
Something about scrubbing my teeth with metal scares me. It probably has something to do with the fear that titanium would grind the enamel right off of my teeth, I think that’s it. Anyway, there is no denying that this is the coolest looking toothbrush I’ve ever seen. Titanium is one of the sexiest metals. Due to its unique ability to retain shape, its used in a variety of settings… → Read More
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