Gizmodo Australia

Zuckerberg Buys Facebook Control, $100 A Time

Jamie Condliffe — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:30:00 +1100

Now Facebook’s IPO is filed, soon anybody will be able to buy a piece of a Facebook. But going public won’t stop Zuckerberg having control — especially given that he buys out the voting rights of current shareholders, $US100 at a time. According to the New York Times, Zuckerberg owns 28.4 per cent of all Class B Facebook shares. But through a string of agreements, he actually h ...

Foxconn Hacked, Passwords Made Public

Jamie Condliffe — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:00:00 +1100

Foxconn has more to worry about. As well as struggling to deal with allegations of exploitative working conditions in its factories, it’s now had the bad fortune of being hacked, having login and password information spread across the web. 9to5Mac reports that a hacker group called SwaggSec gained access to Foxconn’s internal networks through an unpatched copy of Internet Explorer that ...

Famous Explosions Recreated Using Cauliflower

Jamie Condliffe — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:00:00 +1100

It takes a very certain mind to re-imagine images using quirky media. Artist Brock Davis has that kind of mind: his latest project involves recreating famous explosions using… cauliflower? I guess when you stop and think, the outside of a cauli’ has a certain cloud-like quality to it, which is perfect for recreating the plumes of gas and debris created during explosions. In the image a ...

Do Apple Users Care Enough To Protest Chinese Working Conditions?

Jamie Condliffe — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:00:00 +1100

Since it came to light how bad working conditions are in Chinese factories that make iPhones and iPads, many have muttered about boycotting Apple. If that’s you, you should join a globally coordinated protest against it, which is happening today. But do you care enough? Organized by Change.org and SumOfUs.org, the protests will see petitions, with over 250,000 signatures, delivered to Apple ...

Google Wallet’s PIN System Has Been Cracked But Don’t Panic Just Yet

Andrew Tarantola — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:00:31 +1100

The security PIN system that Google Wallet users have to enter to verify transactions has been compromised. Thankfully, the chances of your wallet being used against you is relatively low — assuming you haven’t rooted your phone, that is. Since Wallet saves your PIN in an encrypted file on the phone itself, rather than the secured NFC chip, if your phone falls into the wrong hands, tha ...

This Bikini-Shaped Bacteria Produces Some Of The World’s Strongest Glue

Andrew Tarantola — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:30:27 +1100

Remember the old Crazy Glue commercial where the guy suspended himself from his hard hat with just a dab of the adhesive? If he had been using the sugary compounds this bacteria naturally produces, he could have suspended a dump truck with the same amount. Caulobacter crescentus is a common water bacteria that is responsible for the slime in our bathtubs, the film on our teeth, and the ro ...

Two People Are Dead Because They Unfriended This Man’s Adult Daughter on Facebook

Andrew Tarantola — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:15:11 +1100

A Tennessee man, Marvin Potter (on the right), is in police custody tonight, charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of a couple who had unfriended his 30-year-old daughter on the popular social networking site. The murderous spat began when Billy Payne Jr and his girlfriend, Billie Jean Hayworth, unfriended Potter’s 30-year-old daughter Jenelle. According to po ...

Scientists Exploit Quantum Interference To Turn Iron Sheets Invisible To X-Ray

Andrew Tarantola — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +1100

We just reported a few weeks ago on the successful masking of objects from microwaves. Now a research team from Hamburg, Germany has figured out how to make iron (57Fe) transparent to X-rays — and presumably Superman. A team of researchers from Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Germany made the discovery by employing a technique known as electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT ...

Siri Might Be Speaking Mandarin, Japanese, And Russian By March

Andrew Tarantola — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:30:50 +1100

Per a report from Chinese tech blog DoNews, the Siri voice-assistant may be speaking the three new languages by March. The website cites an unnamed Apple engineer working on the Mandarin version, which is reportedly already in testing. Siri currently supports three English accents, as well as French, and German. There’s no word yet on when the Cantonese or Taiwanese dialects could be added, ...

Qantas A380 Grounding Reflects “Teething Problems”

Angus Kidman — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:15:01 +1100

Qantas’ grounding of one A380 aircraft and Airbus’ subsequent plans to check all flying A380s might have made some flyers nervous, but one Australian expert says the move reflects “teething problems” and shouldn’t stress travellers. Picture by Jimmy Harris University of New South Wales senior lecturer Peter Marosszeky told the Australian Science Media Centre ...

How Does This Tiny Wood Grill Reach 590C?

Andrew Liszewski — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:00:00 +1100

A uranium core? A miniature sun? Molten lava? None of the above I’m afraid. Like the blacksmiths of yesteryear, the Cook-Air uses bellows, or in this case a fan, to provide an ample source of oxygen to fuel the flames. Instead of a bottle of propane or other combustible gases, the Cook-Air uses simple compressed wooden pucks (made from recycled scraps) that burn inside a chamber that’s ...

Vodafone Opens Up Australian Vita Pre-Orders

Angus Kidman — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:15:50 +1100

If you’re keen for Sony’s PlayStation Vita and haven’t already imported your own, Vodafone Australia opened up pre-orders on its site today. The handheld gaming consoling will ship locally February 23. You can choose between two options: paying $419 for the prepaid kit, which includes the Vita and a SIM with 200MB of data (with 30 day expiry); buying on contract for $55 per mont ...

NASA’s Concept Planes Of The Future: Gallery

Alex Kidman — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:00:45 +1100

Fuel efficiency, noise reduction and looking like they could hide Batman are obviously high on NASA’s priority list. Qantas is having its woes today with its fleet of A380s, but perhaps it should be looking far forward in the way that NASA is. NASA’s seeking to find cleaner and greener ways to fly, and is working with the giants of the airplane industry to come up with new concepts; w ...

Chrome 17 Now Available: Get Ready For Prerendered Pages

Andrew Tarantola — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:00:34 +1100

Google has made the newest version of its popular browser available, offering more secure downloads and faster-loading web pages. Here’s what’s new. Prerendering pages appears to be a natural progression from autocomplete. According to the Google Chrome blog, “When you start typing in the omnibox and the URL autocompletes to a site you’re very likely to visit, Chrome will p ...

Google’s Getting Sued For Consolidating Its Privacy Policies

Andrew Tarantola — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:30:45 +1100

Seems like everyone is lining up to take shots at the search giant. Besides lawmakers investigating how it will use the unified data and regulators investigating whether the company prioritises its own services in search results, a public interest group is now suing to prevent Google from implementing its privacy policy changes. Electronic Privacy Information centre (EPIC) has filed suit in D.C di ...

The Transmission Tower Coat Rack Will Electrocute Your Eyes

Mario Aguilar — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:00:00 +1100

Electricity is beautiful, but transmission towers are eyesores. That contradiction hurts my brain. How am I supposed to feel when I look at a beautiful landscape, and it’s ruined by giant towers disappearing into the horizon? We NEED the towers so we might as well get used to them. The Nanton Coat Rack re-envisions the transmission tower as a household device that reflects its utility in the ...

Billy Connolly Is The Newest Hobbit Cast Member

Alex Kidman — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:15:38 +1100

Billy Connolly is many things. A great Scottish comedian. A man not afraid to get his kit off, even when asked not to. Now, he can add “mighty dwarven warrior” to that list, as he’s just been confirmed in the role of Dain Ironfoot in The Hobbit. The confirmation comes from Weta’s site, with the following comment attributed to Peter Jackson: “We could not think of a m ...

You Come From This Thing: The Oldest Animal Ever Discovered

Jesus Diaz — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:00:00 +1100

Scientists believe that this is the animal from which everything else evolved. The first multicellular being that spawned every living being in this world through billions of mutations, from fish to amphibians to reptiles to birds to mammals to you. It’s an amazing discovery. Its name is Otavia antiqua, and it is the oldest animal ever discovered — 760 million years old. Scientists cl ...

Geekiest Marriage Proposal Yet: Binary, Bender Mask, Flying RC Shark

Andrew Liszewski — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:00:00 +1100

Raising the bar on nerdy wedding proposals, YouTuber doctorpappa (possibly not a real doctor) decided to ask his girlfriend to marry him by donning a paper-mache Futurama Bender mask, and popping the question in binary. As the story goes, he asked his girlfriend to close her laptop for a couple of minutes while he posted the video link to her Facebook wall. After logging back in she spent half an ...

Lumia Concept Tablet Looks Great, Doesn’t Exist

Alex Kidman — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:45:05 +1100

There’s a lot of excitement online today about a Nokia Lumia Windows 8 tablet. The only problem? It doesn’t exist. This is not to say that Nokia’s not working on a Tablet per se — it would certainly be fair to suggest that it’s probably been kicked around Nokia’s labs once or twice. However, the concept image — and the accompanying specifications, which ...