Tag: KILLER GADGETS

If you have a GPS, you've surely noticed that, from time to time, it gives directions that are a little bit... wrong. Maybe it got the name of an exit incorrect, or told you to turn down the wrong way onto a one-way street, or maybe even told you to turn onto a road that didn't exist. You're certainly not alone in these findings, but we hope your wayward directions were less of an ...

It's been quite some time since we've had a good exploding battery story. Back in 2007, it seemed like nobody was immune from the plague, with Sony being blamed for battery recalls extending to laptops from Apple, Dell, Toshiba, and a number of others. Given that was so long ago and the news was so widely publicized, we'd figured everyone would have, by now, swapped their recalled batteries for ...

We've chronicled the threats of driving while texting many times in the past, including women who were sentenced to 21-months and four years for committing this act of stupidity. Now we have a member of the United Kingdom's Parliament to add to the list. Lord Ahmed, a member of the British House of Lords, will spend 12 weeks in jail for killing another driver. While the details of the accident ...

Okay, look, we know that unchecked addiction to the Internet and social networking sites is going to have a negative impact on your mental abilities and attention span, but warnings from neuroscientist Susan Greenfield make Facebook out to be an epidemic worse than the Bubonic Plague and Rickrolling combined. Most of the news isn't new; scientists believe that the Internet is changing how ...

Tiny model remote-control (RC) helicopters that fit in the palm of your hand are hugely popular right now, appearing on shelves at nearly every kind of store you can think of and generally selling for $20 or less. However, they are just cheap, miniaturized versions of more serious model helicopters that are larger, heavier, and, as a man in Hong Kong recently discovered, much more dangerous. Lo ...

Texting while driving KILLS, people. We've seen people accidentally kill themselves while tapping away on their phones, and others incarcerated for getting into accidents while not watching the road, so we're sad to report that the worst case texting-while-driving scenario has happened again: An English woman, Philippa Curtis, was arrested after it was discovered that she was texting when she ...

Here's the thing about batteries: they store energy. Lots of it. Channeled correctly, that energy does really awesome things for us -- but channeled chaotically, and... well, you know where this is going, don't you? A man shopping in a Lenovo store in mainland China has been killed after the phone in his chest pocket exploded, severing arteries and leading to massive blood loss. The make and ...

We've seen tons of interesting and hilarious stuff on Google Street View, but this made us a little sad. See the cute little deer skipping across the road above? Move forward two frames and turn around (check out the embedded map after the break) -- poor guy never had a chance. If you really want to tug at your heart strings skip forward one frame and point the camera down... The images of ...

We thought that we had heard the last from the doom-sayers about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), but of course leave it to that bastion of high-quality journalism, Fox News, to find a research paper that slightly contradicts accepted scientific assumptions about the LHC and twist them into prophecies of world-ending catastrophe. A new study from three scientists, Roberto Casadio of the ...

Nineteen-year-old Codey R. Hawks of Parma, Ohio has been arrested for allegedly raping a 12-year-old boy after meeting him via Xbox online live. On January 15, according to Cleveland's NBC affiliate, Hawks allegedly traveled to the boy's residence in Michigan, staying there with him for some time. Having been arrested Monday and charged with rape and sexual imposition, Hawks is currently being ...

Every year, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) gives out the TOADY award for worst toy. The lucky winner is plucked from thousands considered to be Toys Oppressive And Destructive to Young Children. It's kind of like the Razzies for toys, only CCFC isn't laughing when it hands out its awards. The top nominees for this years TOADY award are all pretty bad, but one in particular ...

We've seen some bizarre Facebook stories in the past, and have warned you on how information on the site can cause people to lose their jobs, but we've never heard a story quite as sad as this. According to the BBC and the Stafford Crown Court, 41-year-old Edward Richardson of Staffordshire, England, killed his estranged 26-year-old wife, Sarah, after she changed her Facebook status to ...

The situation in Gaza, as you probably know, is an utter disaster. The conflict between the Israeli military and Hamas has left thousands dead, homeless, or clinging to life. What you may not know is that cell phones -- the ubiquitous, seemingly harmless devices -- are being utilized by both sides to inflict psychological damage on the opposition. Threatening text messages (e.g. announcing ...

We've seen the carnage that Wii remotes can inflict: TV's have been destroyed and good old human flesh can barely stand up to the wiicked remotes, but we've never hear of anyone killing their dog before. Poor Kathy White, of Marquette, MI, almost did exactly that while playing 'Wii Bowling.' Right around the recent holidays, her five month old miniature Sheltie, Ozzy, jumped up in front of Kathy ...

Last Monday, in a live chat with an employee of Blizzard Entertainment, a seventeen-year-old boy in Fairfield, Ohio threatened to kill himself over frustrations with 'World of Warcraft,' MyFox Springfield learned from the Middletown Journal. In response, the Blizzard representative immediately traced the boy's IP address and notified local police, who promptly showed up at the boys' house. ...