At Gizmodo Gallery: A Live "Will It Blend?" Demo The Gizmodo Gallery, which starts this week in NYC, is going to have voodoo. See, Blendtec, the guys responsible for those catchy videos of gadgets being destroyed aren't just giving us one to give away as a door prize, but they're setting us up with a demo model we can use to pulp our own gadgets with. MORE »

At Giz Gallery: Reader Meetup With a Back To the Future DeLorean We've been teasing out a few of our 40+ Gizmodo Gallery gadgets on display next week in NYC, like the 103-inch Panasonic plasma, Apple prototypes and the first Walkman. But did I mention we'll have a DeLorean parked outside the Gallery next Friday night December 5th, coinciding with the reader meetup? No? Did I mention its a car with full Back To the Future props. No? Huh, funny. I probably should have told you that earlier. Anyhow, here are the details for the reader meetup, which I hope you can come to. MORE »

Introducing Gizmine: A Store For Weird Japan Gadgets Doug Krone is my friend who started the dependable Japan importer Dynamism in the 90's and he's just launched Gizmine. Gizmine is different from Dynamism, a high end gadget site, by measure of its content type and breadth. I'd most summarily explain it as a collection of weird stuff on gadget blogs from Japan, but for sale. In fact, most of the inventory is stuff discovered on blogs and while walking through Shibuya on any given afternoon. Doug is also the man responsible for making Gizmodo Gallery possible. Below are a few of the pieces in his catalog that are my personal picks, and Doug says they'll be adding new pieces every day til the end of the year. Not a bad place to find a gift for the geeks in your life. [Gizmine] MORE »

Catching Up: Retromodo Gates Interviews and Puppy Battles Hey Chen, did you see this post Joel wrote on BBG about the behind the scenes of Giz's first Bill Gates interview? We've met with Gates a few more times since then, but I don't think anyone here expresses the anxiety attached to such a meeting as well as Joel does. Dogs are freaking out a bit after some bad owner in Corona Heights park with a white/black spotted dog with one blue eye attacked one and then the other. Bit of hair off the nape of their neck and a limp, but they're ok. I wasn't there, Lisa was. But that owner is going to get yelled at when I see him again. Dog control is important! Oh my Fable ii game got corrupt. Somehow, my dude is always running in slow motion and I can't draw a weapon. Other than that, my family is in town for the holidays. I hope I get all the Gizmodo Gallery planning done soon or there won't be much break to speak of, even though Denton gave us Friday off in full. I mean, I JUST FOUND OUT that I need an electrician to wire up the place before this huge 103 inch TV is going to turn on. I mean, I knew it was 220 volt all along, but until last week, we didn't even know it was going to fit in the door. Meatspace events = hard. What are your plans? Here are my favorite links of the day:
• Brutally Honest Black Friday Ads Showcase Retailers on the Brink
• The Ultimate Black Friday Survival Guide
• At Gizmodo Gallery: Free DIY Laser Etching
• At Giz Gallery: 103-Inch Plasma, IF We Can Get an Electrician's Help
• ZzzPhone Is Second Google Android Cellphone Ever MORE »

At Giz Gallery: 103-Inch Plasma The big piece, out of 30+ devices, in our show is supposed to be a 103-inch Plasma from Panasonic, which we weren't sure would fit in the door. We found out it DOES fit, only a few days ago, but lo, we also found out that we are in deep doo doo when it comes to powering this 1500 watt monster. To even turn it on, we'll need the help of an electrician in NYC who can run a dedicated power cable for us. Here's where I beg for your help. Update:Not one but THREE Giz readers emailed to volunteer. They are heroes, and they have my thanks. The kids getting Toys from Toys for Tots also thank them. Our place, REED ANNEX, is cool but not built to house a gadget that sucks the juice faster than the containment vault in Ghostbusters. I said 1500 watts, which is about a hairdryer, but that's 1500 watts at 220 volts. Using 110 volts upconverted, we need to be ready for 5000 watts of power. To actually power up the TV, we need an UL certified electrician to go down to to our space and run a cable for us sometime between now and next Tuesday. Otherwise, the TV will remain dark for the entirety of the show, and we'll be forced to play imaginary Gears2 deathmatch with all the readers that stop by. If you're a Giz fan that works as a professional electrician or knows someone who can lend us their expertise, PLEASE EMAIL ME. THANK YOU. For those of you wondering why we don't just hire someone and pay them, well the gallery is a low budget fund raiser for Toys for Tots and we're already stretching what we can spend, including my own out of pocket contributions. [Thanks to REED ANNEX and thanks to our benefactor gizmine.com] Gizmodo Gallery
Reed Annex
151 Orchard Street
New York, NY 10002 Gizmodo Gallery Reader Meetup
The reader meetup takes place across the street from the Gallery, at a place called The Annex (not to be confused with REED ANNEX where the gallery is hosted.) The address is 152 Orchard Street and we'll be there at 9 PM SHARP on Friday December 5th. Gallery Dates:
December 4th-7th Times:
12/4 Thursday
12-8 12/5 Friday
12-8 12/6 Saturday
11-8 12/7 Sunday
11-4 [Read more about our Gizmodo Gallery here and see what else we'll be playing with at the event.] MORE »

Live in Air: 10 Things You Need To Know About In Flight Wi-Fi I'm live from Virgin America's Beta run of their Wi-Fi service, over San Francisco, and there are a few things you should know about how its going to work when most airlines go live in 2009. And yes, I am posting this live from 15k feet over the Pacific Ocean. 1. Your last bastion of Internet Free peace is gone. Forever. You'll be forced to work on flights instead of valium napping or reading comic books, and your boss will expect you to be checking email. Time to plan a camping trip.
2. Total bandwidth is not as fast as Cable Modem, but it seems faster than slow DSL. (We were sharing 3.6Mbps down and 1.8Mbps up, which isn't bad at all, on this Virgin America test flight, and it felt this fast when benching.)
3. But bandwidth is shared between customers. Aircell's GoGo a 3GHz EVDO-Rev A related tech modded for ground to air, started crawling as soon as other passengers signed on. (I got a test result measuring 66kbps down at one point, but Ryan showed about a mbit down. )
4. You have to pay. Virgin America charges, for example $9.95 for flights under 3 hours, and $12.95 on flights over 3 hours.
5. You will still need to close your laptops and shut off your devices until you reach cruising altitude.
6. Most airlines, even those that are not blocking ports, are blocking known VOIP ports. For our sanity. Although I WAS able to initiate a really solid iChat video session, but they may filter this on real flights. (See Below, courtesy of Nick Bilton from the NYTimes.)
7. Although plenty of airlines will have Wi-Fi by the end of next year, I prefer Virgin America because they've got 110v AC power plugs in coach.
8. WiFi porn won't be blocked by Virgin America (or American Airlines according to a test we performed earlier this week). But blocking porn is silly — people can easily play porn on DVDs or predownloaded files, but people generally have refrained so there's no reason to think they'll do otherwise now.
9. Flights using Go Go service will be able to connect to a VPN.
10. You can file share with other computers on the 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi network. That's good for gaming, but also, make sure your firewall is up. Most of this applies to Virgin and GoGo's set up, but since GoGo will be providing service for companies like Delta and AA and eventually more, much of this will apply to other airlines. MORE »

At Gizmodo Gallery: Weird Japanese USB Gadgets! The Gizmodo Gallery lineup isn't just mega gadgets like the Red One Camera and prototypes like the Ancient Apple phone concepts from Frog Design. On a recent trip to Tokyo I raided Thanko HQ for the latest and weirdest USB gadgets I could find, including this USB Tie with a fan in it and a USB heated gloves. I mean, I don't know how anyone gets through winter in NY without USB heated mittens. MORE »

Catching Up: Star Trek Preview Impressions From a Casual Fan Hey Jason,
I was in LA for a bit yesterday, helping Jalopnik cover the LA autoshow with my long lens. (It was a boring show with nothing too interesting other than the Electric Mini and Honda Concept.) But it was coincidentally the same day JJ Abrams was showing off some scenes from the new Trek movie, so I stopped by. This is funny: When they asked me if I had any recording gear in my bag, I had a heart attack. Most people had a mere cellphone, but I had my full journo-blogger-battle messenger and so I ended up checking like 4 pieces of AV gear and a laptop. So embarrassing. MORE »

Catching Up: Crazy Week Jason, last week everything went kind of crazy with the dogs and work, and my machines. MORE »

What it Feels Like to Drive a Tesla Roadster The Tesla dealership is quiet as a cage of sleeping panthers. A pack of the electric roadsters, in varying degrees of grey, are strewn across the show floor looking 120mph standing still. I imagine most of them are awaiting for a venture capitalist to pick them up and take them from meeting to meeting for the rest of their uneventful lives. But outside is a bright blue roadster ready for the 10 minutes Telsa and God have handed me. This is my long awaited drive in the Tesla roadster. MORE »