One thing you aren't likely to hear Sunday night from the Oscar-winning producer after accepting the trophy for Best Picture: "I'd like to thank my neuroscience partners who helped us enhance the film's script, characters, and scenes." More »

Backdoor installers, malware loaders and social media propaganda bots.These are all tools the U.S. Government contracts IT security firms to develop for them in order to fight enemies. Check out the full story over at [Ars Technica]. More »

You know that feeling when you're at bar or a party, and then all of a sudden there's just a whole lot more hair gel and sleeveless t-shirts than when you got there? This sums that up pretty perfectly. More »

Here are the best stories on Gizmodo, today. Enjoy them! More »

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPad last January, the biggest surprise wasn't the actual product. (Many shrugged and called the iPad a "bigger iPhone.") It was the price: Just $500. More »

Remember this? Still pretty crazy! But maybe a little less so after taking a look at David Goldman's theory of how exactly this contraption was put together: More »

Here it is again – the photo from President Obama's dinner with tech titans last night. Featuring a sadly sick and frail Steve Jobs, a young Mark Zuckerberg on the rise, and Eric Schmidt in his last weeks as Google CEO, it is an already iconic image of an era. More »

If you use Google Docs more than you use Microsoft Office, you'll be happy to know that they added support for 12 new file formats, including Excel, Powerpoint and Photoshop files. Here's the full list: More »

On a rampage against anything that remotely smells like regulation, the House of Representatives have voted to block funding for the FCC's Net Neutrality plan, which would ensure that ISPs couldn't restrict certain users from accessing select content. Of course, this would have to pass through senate and survive President Obama's desk, so the chance of this becoming a bill is unlikely. But the anti-tech sentiment coming from one half of our congress makes me all sadface. [Reuters] More »

Welcome to Gizmodo Giveaways! This is the first edition of the weekly freebie fest, that brings you an ultimate selection of nifty tech-related gear. We are hitting it off with some sleek, protective iPhone and iPad cases with integrated stands from, iChair! More »

Spiders are often portrayed as malicious, bloodthirsty creatures looking for anything with a pulse to sink its fangs into—especially us humans. Look no further than movies like Arachnophobia, Arachnid or even Eight Legged Freaks. Even Peter Parker was the victim of a random spider bite. But the truth is, spiders don't really bite. I mean, sure they bite, but only if you really provoke them to do so. More »

I think some law was passed in the last year that requires all photo apps to come with filters that function as aesthetic time machines, passing your perfectly fine photograph through a wormhole of analog nostalgia. It turns out that creating such a rift in photographic spacetime is not as easy as sending your photo through it. More »

Finally, a trailer for Marvel's Thor movie where the main character is actually acting like Thor, the Norse God. Demanding more coffee by smashing his cup, yelling at puny humans and crashing about. Now this is the dense blonde butt of Iron Man's jokes that we know and love. More »

Popular uprisings throughout Libya have pushed the bizarre, iron hand of Muammar al-Qaddafi to block access to Facebook in the capital of Tripoli, and sporadically shut Libyan access to the internet entirely. Clearly, the country's autocracy fears Egypt redux. [Yahoo] More »

As someone sans womb, I'm not terribly qualified to opine, but my guess would be that a text message is the last thing you want to deal with while giving birth. Not so! At least, according to some doctors. More »

In 2007, some goons looted a casting of Rodin's The Thinker (one of many castings that exist of the iconic piece) from the Singer Laren Museum in the Netherlands, intending to sell it as scrap metal. I'm not sure why you'd want to sell a multi-million dollar work of art as scrap metal, but hey, that's on them. Though six other works from the museum were destroyed in the looting, The Thinker was recovered, though badly damaged. The museum asked the Belgian 3D printing company Materialise to help them fix it up. More »

This is Evan Emory. This past Monday, he posted a video on YouTube that showed (through some simple editing) him singing a sexually explicit song to a classroom full of elementary school students. He didn't actually sing anything offensive in front of the kids. But he's still facing 20 years in prison, on a felony charge of manufacturing child sexual abusive material. More »

Are your Calendar apps, Post-It notes, and calls from your mother still not helping stay on track? Well, this colorful concept clock might not solve all your procrastination woes, but at least it looks good in the process. More »

Well before Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, IBM's design team grappled with a different challenge - getting beaten to the punch by someone else inventing a trivia-savvy artificial mind. Final Jeopardy discusses Watson's early development and how this Q&A juggernaut overcame the "Basement Baseline." More »

This morning, we decided we think axes are awesome. Beautiful, functionally perfected, and, yes, great for elegantly chopping the crap out of things. Below, a roundup of our favorite old school cutting contraptions. More »