Gizmodo Australia » news

Mac The Magazine Officially Launches

Nick Broughall — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:00:36 +0000

It’s not like there’s a shortage of Apple-specific publications around the world and on the Internet, but the latest one is actually worth a bit of your time. Mac The Mag is an online magazine, edited by former Australian Macworld editor Mathew JC. Powell, and it has officially launched its first issue.

There’s a heap of really good articles inside, like how to protect your Mac against thieves and a guide to switching from PC to Mac. It does take a little bit of getting used to reading a magazine in a web browser, but it’s actually well worth the effort, and you can print out each page if you prefer a hard copy. Considering it’s free, quality content, it’s not like you can really complain, is it?

[Mac The Magazine]

Check Out How Blu-ray Discs Are Made

Nick Broughall — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 03:02:28 +0000

The guys over at News.com.au have a great photo gallery detailing the process of a Blu-ray disc being made at the new Sony BD factory in Huntingwood, NSW. Definitely worth a gander if you’re looking to kill five minutes today…

[News.com.au; Image: Charlie Brewer]

Terminators Are Real, Weak Against Tasers

Nick Broughall — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:14:00 +0000

In quite possibly the funniest story I’ve heard all year, 19 year old Sean Stanley Smith was arrested for indecent exposure and resisting a police officer after he entered a casino buck naked claiming to be a Terminator sent from the future.

According to the Yahoo! Movies news report, he was actually just high on pot and LSD, and was arrested after being tasered in front of a group of children.

If only we’d known Terminator’s were weak against tasers, we never would have had to sit through Rise of the Machines…

[Yahoo News]

Fox Business Network Thinks ‘Microsoft’ and ‘Apple’ Are Search Engines

Dan Nosowitz — Fri, 29 May 2009 03:45:00 +0000

Fox Business Channel: First place in the race to cluelessness. [via Reddit]

Smelly Refrigerator Strikes Down AT&T Office

Mark Wilson — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:19:14 +0000

AT&T may be worried about the Palm Pre, but they should be much more worried about refrigerators that smell so bad they force the evacuation of over 300 office employees.

It’s true, an office refrigerator, unplugged for disinfection and scrubbed with some unsuitable cleaning supplies, grew so rank that it made over 20 people in the office sick. The fire department was called in to handle the situation and the old, smelly lunches.

Refrigerator: 1 AT&T: 0
6Z4x;&m3gCALMJUcou,;|^YXE!|*9{/ojBnJm&i0/42ik@e;$z[#L8@l^`(J'2(13}CTuHq2d_2GQPCdoqNTpCoeGRP" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" allowscriptaccess="always" width="420" height="240">[via RedLasso]

Fans Really Do Bash New Star Trek for Being ‘Fun, Watchable’

Mark Wilson — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:00:00 +0000

Remember when The Onion published that parody piece in which “Star Trek fans” complained that the new Star Trek was too entertaining? Well NPR just ran pretty much the same piece…but with complete earnestness.

From the article:

Sharon Martin, who began watching Star Trek when she was 11, says it’s almost like they’re dissing the generations who grew up on Star Trek.
“They keep running this ad on TV,” she observes. “It says, ‘Forget everything you know.’ This does not seem like a positive come-on for someone like me.” So she says she will wait and watch it on DVD.

You can read the print version here, but to get the full effect, you really need to listen to the audio. There’s a nicer zinger about Obama really being a Vulcan that you really shouldn’t miss. [Thanks Ponies!]

Auto-Tune the News

Jason Chen — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:20:00 +0000

We all know that Auto-Tune has been making singers sound better for years, but what happens when you put it to the news? Magic.

And a bonus. Is anyone else getting the idea that video reviewing stuff with Auto-Tune, in song, is a genius proposition? Just us? [YouTube channel via BoingBoing]

BigPond Launches News Ticker App For Windows Users

Nick Broughall — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:23:06 +0000

I actually reckon that having a news ticker scrolling across the bottom of my computer screen would be incredibly useful way of getting the latest news. Especially if I could customise the types of headlines and add RSS feeds to it like you can with the BigPond ticker. Unfortunately, I can’t because BigPond has made their Ticker Windows-only, meaning Mac users like me miss out, at least for the time being.Apparently they’re “looking into a Mac version” though, at which point I’d probably download it. Sure, all the headlines are going to come from BigPond, but with the ability to add an RSS feed by dragging the RSS icon into the ticker bar, it’s incredibly easy to add your own content – like Gizmodo – and it looks like a fairly unobtrusive way to get the latest headlines.

Also worth noting is that any data is unmetered for BigPond users, although I can’t imagine that scrolling headlines would suck up too much bandwidth…

If any of you PC users out there are game to try it out, let us know what you think in comments.

[BigPond]

Breaking John Mayer News – John Mayer Very Slightly Injures Himself

Jason Chen — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:45:35 +0000

John Mayer may not have shown up at the Apple iPhone keynote yesterday, but that doesn’t mean we’re not the best place to keep up on John Mayer news. And this one, my friends, is one juicy piece of John Mayer news. [John Mayer's Twitter]

TiVo Gets Its First Full Year of Profitability

Jason Chen — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:59:00 +0000

TiVo’s fiscal year that ended Jan 31, 2009 was its first full year of profitability EVER, which is good news if you own a TiVo, or like TiVo, or invest in TiVo.

(AU: Wonder how much of that profit came from the Australian launch…)