Last time I was in a store, I was like, "Why is there no creepy animatronic sea captain here to tell me today's specials?" Apparently that's what the founders of Characters Unlimited thought too, because they've come up with a vast array of Hall of Presidents-style robotic people—and a few animals, too, like the ever-popular dog in over...

Remember when it was cool to joke about how the vibrating Wii remote looked, felt and behaved pretty much like a vibrator? No? Well, too bad, because it turns out that the two were more similar than the light-hearted humor suggested. In fact, both tools of pleasure employ technology built from a patent from the same company, Immersion.

Sure, Immersion uses an alter ego, "Internet Services, LLC," as an alias for when it li...

When I look at the classic Nintendo Zapper I think of my younger days as a screaming, hot-headed 8-bit gamer, but not Fluffypants. No siree. The enterprising DIY lamp artist looked at the orange and gray plastic and saw a lamp. A few hours and one fabricated cardboard NES cartridge stand later, that laughing dog was back in action, ready to haunt my dreams once again. If this model played the level intro music I'd be tempted to break out the glue gu...

The vanity-saturated life of a Gizmodo writer means no scars, visible or otherwise, so this breakthrough procedure for appendicitis is a godsend for those among us who still have the vestigial organ. According to doctors who performed the operation in San Diego, a flexible tube is used to thread miniature surgical instruments down the patient's throat into their stomach. At that point, the fun...

David Pogue has a quick video review of Livescribe's Pulse Smartpen that does a very good job of illustrating the concept. Worth watching on top of our own review. [Pogue's Livescribe Pulse Smartpen Video review]