Gizmodo Australia » new years

Gizmodo AU’s Most Popular Posts From 2008

Nick Broughall — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 23:30:53 +0000

Hot on the heels of the top 10 posts from our US brethren comes the top 10 stories on Giz AU for 2008. And boy, they’re totally not what I expected…To add some suspense to proceedings, I’m going to count them down from number 10 to number 1.

10. Australian Company Launches The World’s Smallest Pocket Projector – 21,066 Pageviews
Aussie FTW!

9. The Biggest Mo-Fo Of A Printer I’ve Ever Seen – 21,338 Pageviews
From my trip to HP’s regional launch earlier this year, this printer was huge – and expensive!

8. Micro Camera Shows the Workings of a Combustion Engine – 21,627 Pageviews
Looks like we’ve got some car enthusiasts or engineers for readers (or both).

7. Slime Turns Into Sex Toy, Childhood Memories Shattered Forever – 34,311 Pageviews
You’re all sick and twisted (and we love you for it).

6. Update: Optus iPhone Pricing Details ‘Wrong’ – 39,527 Pageviews
In the pre iPhone 3G hype period, our exclusive (and incorrect) pricing for Optus’s Jesus phone certainly gained some attention.

5. Audiophile Deathmatch: Monster Cables vs. a Coat Hanger – 44,440 Pageviews
Verdict: Don’t buy Monster Cables.

4. Vodafone Puts iPhone Pricing Online, Then Pulls It Down – 45,986 Pageviews
Seems you guys were hungry for iPhone pricing stories last year. In retrospect, it was one area that all the local networks screwed up royally…

3. Bacon iPhone Case Is Most Savoury Gadget Protector Yet – 57,101 Pageviews
Guess you guys like bacon.

2. A Visual Look at the Nokia Damage Test Labs – 65,868 Pageviews
This was a personal favourite of mine as well.

1. Sprint’s HTC Touch Diamond Gets Photographed By Digital Camera From 1998 – 167,774 Pageviews
Not what you expected, right? Us neither.

And there you have it. And now that 2009 is well under way, stay tuned for even more stories about terrible spyshots of unreleased bacon iPhone cases being dropped in Nokia’s testing facility. Because we cater to the people.

The Best Gadgets to Come in 2009

Mark Wilson — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:00:00 +0000

FIRST!!!

2009 Will Arrive One Second Late To Its Own Party

Nick Broughall — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:53:55 +0000

If you’re heading out to watch the midnight fireworks tonight to say goodbye to the year that was 2008, be prepared for a slight delay. And when we say slight, we mean slight – one second, to be precise. Boffins at Greenwich will be adding a single second onto the year 2008 to adjust time for the minute slowing of the earth’s rotation. According to AP, the move has reignited the debate between GMT and atomic time as the worldwide standard for timekeeping – atomic clocks are precise to the nanosecond and don’t need sporadic adjustments of a second to maintain accuracy. However, they don’t take into account changes to the planet’s rotation, either and in hundreds of years midday would actually be closer to 1pm than today’s 12pm. In any case, if any of you have an X-men like ability to slow down time and you’re wondering why tonight’s fireworks don’t kick off until 12:00:01, now you know.

[AP]

Oslo Celebrated New Year’s Eve With More Fireworks Than You

Adam Frucci — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:05:41 +0000

This incredible photo was taken two minutes after midnight in Oslo, Norway. While some cities might set off fireworks from one location to celebrate the ringing in of 2008, the people in Oslo went crazy, setting off fireworks pretty much everywhere. But hey, when you’re a city where spending over $10 on a beer is pretty normal, I guess you can probably afford to go a little crazy on New Year’s. Hit the jump for a bigger version. And a local’s explanation of the display.

In Norway there’s no tradition for fireworks arranged by the city. It’s too cold in January to gather downtown for the celebrations, so everyone just go out into their gardens or a nearby open spot, launch their rockets and then head back inside. The result is a view like this, with fireworks shooting up from absolutely everywhere at midnight on January 1.

[Foto.no via Spulch]

A Brief History of the Times Square Ball on its 100 Year Anniversary

Mark Wilson — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:24:13 +0000

Most of us know the Times Square Ball as the symbol of the new year, fresh starts and the last moment of celebration before you puke up cheap champagne. But it’s also an interesting gadget, so to speak, changing with the times alongside consumer trends. So for its 100th birthday, we’ve made a mega timeline (big size after jump) to show the ball through its various tech fashions. And it’s pretty neat. Yes, we just said neat.

The idea of a timeball was actually born in 1832 when Robert Wauchope, a Royal Navy Officer, devised a way for those at sea to sync their marine chronometers (watches) with the shore. A giant ball would drop at a pre-arranged time that could be seen for miles around. Sailors, of course, probably didn’t throw confetti or kiss another in glee (though they were quite possibly drunk). Here’s the rest of our timeball timline in written form.

1904 – Times Square coined.

1907 – The First Ball drops. It’s made of iron, wood, 100 25-watt bulbs…and it’s 700lbs.

1917 – First billboard with moving lights goes up (in Times Square).

1920 – Ball goes 100% iron, nearly 50% lighter at 400lbs.

1927 – Oleg Vladimirovich Losev discovers LED to little fanfare.

1939 – WWII begins.

1942 – Losev dies of hunger.

1942-43 – Ball out for WWII “dimout”, people partied but offered a moment of silence at new year

1951 – Xenon lamps first went on sale in Germany.

1955 – Ball drops to 150lbs. Suck it, Oprah.

1962 – American scientists discover LED.

1976 – Times Square is declared most dangerous area of New York City.

1979 – Disco dies.

1981-88 – Ball becomes an apple for “I Love New York” campaign. Red lights, green stem…subsequent puke colour not specified.

1989 – New Yorkers realize apple ball is stupid, go back to normal design with white lights.

1993 – BMW is the first to use Xenon lights in cars.

2002 – Gizmodo is born.

1993-2003 – Times Square violent crime drops 85%.

1995 – Ball is computerised, aluminumised, covered in rhinestones, and strobe lights.

2000-07 – Ball is made of Waterford crystal, now weighing 1070lbs (which is the heaviest to date, nearly 10 times its weight in the 50s). Lighting includes one 10,000W Xenon lamp and 432 multi-coloured (5 colours) bulbs. Plus it features 144 strobe lights and 92 rotating pyramid mirrors—disco anyone?

2008 – Today we have the same base crystal ball, but it’s been fitted with 9,576 Luxeon LEDs from Philips with 16.7 million programmable colours. Needless to say, that’s a lot more visual variety than the 5 available colours of just a few years back.

Happy New Year everyone!

For more information, check out New York’s own guide and timeline on Times Sqare and this helpful wiki. And a special thanks to our own resident Jesus Diaz, who stayed in for part of his New Year’s celebrations to make us this badass graphic.