There are numerous sites that attempt at being the “next big thing”, most them perish in the flames of the Internet; however, in the recent months and years, quite a number of websites have been released that meet some of the basic standards that their ubiquitous counterparts do not. An obvious example of one of these is Reddit. A wonderful place to find a slew of various humorous and entertaining content. The second is a new and upcoming website called, Pinterest. Pinterest allows users to “pin” various pictures and interests around the internet and categorize them in a  lovely cork-board-like design. Users are able to follow and befriend others, as well as re-pin others’ posts.

One might wonder, after hearing about the two websites, which is better. At the moment, Reddit is a little easier to access (as it is older and not in beta); however, when the overall design and usability of the two websites is taken into account, the clear winner is Pinterest. There are several other features that Reddit has over Pinterest, for example the ability to share links, but in the grand scheme of things, this doesn’t really effect the usefulness of either. Truthfully, if Reddit were to completely redesign their website using a minimalistic design schema, they may attract a larger audience. If all else fails, hopefully Pinterest will encourage Reddit to do so. Pinterest has the ability and interest (no pun intended) to attract a very large audience, and in my mind, wins between the two.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Tell us in the comments section below.

Windows 8 was announced a little over one year ago at CES 2011, Microsoft didn’t precisely specify the release date of the product; however, in recent months (and days), the release has been getting ever more eminent. At the most recent CES (the last?) Microsoft showed off more of Windows 8′s features. Today, however, they announced  that they would be releasing a consumer preview on February 29th at the Mobile World Conference.

The consumer preview will hopefully include a downloadable preview of Windows 8 that is capable of being installed on virtual machines for wide-spread testing. Specifics are very minimal at this point, so check back soon!

What do you think? Tell us in the comments section below.

Hello Gizmoteers,

Today marked the opening of the King Of The Web competition, I have entered my name into the pile. If you like what you see on GizmoRay, please feel free to vote at your leisure, the tournament shall last two weeks from today. One can vote ten times per day, so hopefully we can start getting some supporters One can sign-up via Facebook or by using the built in services.

Click Here to Vote!

Thank you all very much,

–

GizmoRay (Elijah Rotholtz)

As I recently said, the United States Congress was going to be voting on both the Stop Online Piracy Act, and Protect Intellectual Properties Act on January 24th. Majority Leader, Harry Reid, said on Friday that he had decided to postpone the vote for an undisclosed amount of time. In general, this is a very good sign for us, the fact that Google received over eight million signatures on their online petition just adds to this “goodness”. However, as I’m sure one might surmise, this does not guarantee the dismissal of the act, it merely makes it likely that it will be changed to more properly fit the wishes of the general public.

Here are the links to the various articles and petitions where one can find more information about the acts, as well as petitions one can sign:

• Google
• Wikipedia
• GizmoRay
• Stop American Censorship
• Info-graphic

In the past, those of us in the United States, looked at countries like China or Egypt and laughed maniacally at the thought of such censorship. Now, the US is facing a horrible problem of online censorship dictated by the United States government, on January 24th the US Congress will vote whether to pass the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA, for short). If passed, this will effect you in a variety of ways. Popular websites such as Facebook, YouTube, and other social media websites, will be under constant scrutiny of the government. Said government will be keeping a keen eye out for copyrighted material. For example, if I were to post a YouTube video of me doing a dance video to music (not saying I would), and if, by happenstance the music in the aforementioned video was copyrighted, two of three possible outcomes could occur. One, I could face five years in jail, and two, YouTube could be taken down for a temporary duration. Today, as you may have noticed various websites all across the internet have been protesting this act (list below). Those outside of the United States may feel safe and sound; however, consider this, our universally beloved YouTube could be taken down at the whim of the US government, all because a five year old posted a cat video with Justin Beiber playing in the background.

What can you do? Well, I’m glad you asked! You can contact your congress-person and tell them you want this madness stopped (Click Here!)! They consider everyone’s opinion when they vote on the 24th. You can also sign Google’s petition (Click here!).

Watch the Anti-SOPA video:

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

List of websites protesting SOPA:

• Google
• Wikipedia
• GizmoRay (Click here!)

Thanks for reading!

First off, let me apologize for the delay in posts over the last month or so. I’ve been very busy designing a new website layout and various other upcoming features of the website. The aforementioned updates should be out within a few weeks if nothing goes wrong. Now on with technological news!

Nikon, as you may or may not know, is one of the more respected companies in the camera world. Professional photographers around the globe use their cameras to capture the most stunning of photographs. On January 6th Nikon announced their latest and greatest camera to the world: the Nikon D4. Nikon’s D4 is a 16.2 megapixel, 10fps, 204,800 ISO beast of a camera.The list of new features can found below, in the neat list form. However, one of the more interesting features of the camera is the fact that it includes a new XQD memory card slot. The new memory card handles 1Gbps transfer speeds (125MBps), and has the potential to reach fives times that speed with upcoming cards. The D4 should be coming out sometime in February, hopefully along with the announcement of the Nikon D800 on February 7th.

List of Nikon D4′s features (in epic list form):

1. The 16.2MP CMOS sensor
2. ISO range of 100-12,800, expandable to 50-204,800
3. 10FPS with full auto-focus, 11FPS max
4. XQD memory card slot (1Gbps transfer speeds)
5. 100% viewfinder coverage
6. New 91,000-pixel RGB metering system
7. 1080p video at 30fps, 25fps, and 24fps (720p video at 60fps)

Hello Gizmoteers! I will be hosting a Minecraft server. If you want to join please feel free to do so. The address, at this point, is 24.16.155.62:25565. I will be setting up  a more powerful/permanent server shortly. Hope to see you there!

Congrats to Notch on releasing the game!

Update: Can anyone connect to the server? If not try using an application called Hamachi (created by LogMeIn). The username is GizmoRay and the password is P@$$.

–

GizmoRay

Apple has officially released iOS 5.0.1, it supposedly fixes issues with iCloud syncing, and battery life; however, people with have reported that the aforementioned fix is not working. Apple’s support page is being inundated with reports of worsening battery issues, some even saying that it’s decreasing about 45% after two hours off the charger with no use.

What have your experience been? Tell us in the comments section below.

Einstein’s theory of relativity has been a long standing foundation for modern physics. About a month ago, CERN researchers reportedly found neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light. The world went into uproar; however, a group of more rational minded people remained unfazed by this discovery, convinced that it was merely an error in the calculations. As of October 17th, the aforementioned group has had their beliefs confirmed. Researchers at University Groningen (don’t ask how to pronounce that… I don’t know) have discovered an error in the GPS that was used to track the neutrinos, said error can be proven to exist with an Einsteinian effect. Thusly, the mistake was essentially resolved by Einstein himself. The timing of the satellite was 64 nano-seconds off, the precise difference the neutrinos had when compared to light.

If such literature interests you, you can read the paper published by the Cornell University, which explains the issue in depth (Click here for science).

What do you think? Do you think that Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity will ever be disproven? Tell us in the comments section below.

Source: Cornell University.

The long awaited Samsung Galaxy Nexus has been announced! It brings with it a wealth of updates, it is also the first Ice Cream Sandwich enabled phone. It has included a 1.2GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, a curved 4.65″ screen, LTE, HSPA+, Near Field Communications, and an HD display (720p resolution)!

In development… More coming soon!