Gadgets

When I was a boy, I loved New York’s Museum of Natural history. Mostly the dinosaurs. But why, in the tech world are there no places that celebrate gadgetry as art, history and the things we love?

This year’s follow up to the original Giz Gallery is just that.

It is a collection of the greatest gadgets and tech we could find and fit under a roof. It is not meant to throw things in your face that you don’t need so you can engulf them in exchange for debt, but is here to celebrate what is great about our world of tech, commercial or hacked, new or old. And there is no other collection in the world like it for strength of display of amazing technical achievement and fun—sometimes those artefacts are commercially made but more often, not. And this year we’ve learned a few new tricks.

It’ll be three times bigger in a new location and open nearly three times as long (from September 23rd to the 27th) And from what we learned last year, we added lots of stuff for you to play with; there’s less an emphasis on staring at old, important pieces of gadgetry in glass cases and more of an emphasis on trying things out. We have over 60 devices, but this year and here are some of what we’re bringing you:

• Tesla coils. Singing. Three times a day. (Hello? Man made lightning? Check!)

• The 103-inch TV, again. With exclusive art from Bad Robot’s Star Trek playing on it. When we’re not playing Rock Band or Call of Duty.

• A giant 3D Etch a Sketch with a custom 3D motion controller.

• Pancake Machine running all hours of the show.

• A brief timeline of the Sony Walkman, through history.

• A smart phone testing station—all the best, side by side, for your use and abuse and evaluation.

• The world’s most expensive keyboard—hovering under the world’s most disgusting Cheeto.

• A blank wall of Lego plates. And thirty thousand bricks you can attach to the wall.

• A reader party on the 25th at 8pm with prizes.

• Guest curated items by Adam Savage of the Mythbusters, former nemesis and gdgt founder Ryan Block, Phil Torrone from Adafruit and Make Mag and none other than the great Hartmut Esslinger, founder of Frog who influenced original Mac designs.

• One of a kind tech art projects from NYU’s ITP program, including the messy and fantastic Mud PC.

• Secret new gadgets being seen for the first time at Gallery.

• And much more.

• Did I mention free pancakes?

The tech world needs the anti Best Buy*. One as great as the Smithsonian or the Museum of Natural History. For now, we have our little Gizmodo Gallery. It’ll be a blast.

(*There’s nothing wrong with Best Buy, inherently. We just need something that is the opposite of it.)