Phil is only here tonight, so if you want to get your computer or phone etched, come down now. He also etched the new iPhones for the first time ever tonight, and they look surprisingly badass, especially the black one. Make sure you bring your own vector art with you unless you just want text.

Also, while you're here you'll have the opportunity to take the Giz staff on in Call of Duty 4 on the 103-inch TV. What else do you need?

[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.]

Look at that amazing Gizmodo logo made out of Lego. They made it for us, and it glows from the inside. Thanks Lego, for all your bricks make us happy.

[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.]

Stuff You'll Never Own
Panasonic 103-Inch TV
The biggest production HDTV in the world, this 103-inch diagonal plasma is coincidentally the largest set we could fit into Reed Annex.

Sony 11-Inch OLED TV
OLED technology will power all flat-screen TVs in the future, but the beautiful, high-contrast wafer-thin screens are still excruciatingly expensive—in this case $230 per diagonal inch, or $2500 for the set.

Draganfly X6 RC Helicopter
A carbon-fiber remote-controlled helicopter designed to be stable in 18mph winds or even if some of its motors die. It's GPS enabled and can be armed with a high definition camcorder or night vision. And it looks like a Terminator.

Optimus Maximus Keyboard
A keyboard with little OLED screens under each key, which can be programmed to display whatever character, picture or animation and trigger any keystrokes you want.

Carbon Butterfly RC Plane
This remote-controlled airplane is lighter than a piece of notebook paper because of lightweight balsa, carbon fiber and Swiss-made gears.

Au Infobar2
Despite it lacking a lengthy feature list, the Infobar2 is the most beautiful phone from Japan's AU company and I think maybe the most beautiful in the world. On Loan from Gizmodo Japan and Au.

Red One Movie Camera
A digital movie-making revolution and a future-proof modular platform, the 10-lb. digital video camera shoots pristine 4K-resolution movies with its 12-million-pixel "ultra high def" sensor.

Stuff You Might Convince Your Mom To Buy You
Yamaha YSP-4000 Surround Sound Bar
This soundbar is a 5 channel surround sound system that uses cold war submarine sonar tech to bounce beams of audio against walls and to your ears from different angles.

Amazon Kindle Ebook Reader
The first wireless E-Ink ebook reader with a cellular connection, so you can buy and download books without the need for a computer. It bests the paperback but can't be safely read in the bathtub.

Pentax W60 Waterproof Camera
I've had many happy times in Hawaii with this camera. It's my favorite because it works to 30 feet and yet is small enough to pocket without causing a bulge.

Yamaha Tenori-On Music Maker
A revolutionary rethinking of the music keyboard, this 16x16 pad of light-up keys interprets a player's finger strokes and performs a light and sound show in response.

USB Heated Gloves
Thanko's Gloves use the power from a computer's USB ports to warm your fingers on cold winter mornings.

USB Neck Tie
Thanko's USB powered neck ties have a built in fan for hot office afternoons.

USB Wrist Charger
If it has a plug, Thanko's battery-loaded bracelet will charge it.

Gundam Robot Slippers
They make giant robot stomping noises when you walk. Only in Japan, in more ways than one.

Wicked Lasers Torch
Currently pending Guinness records for being the most powerful flashlight of its kind, the 4100 lumen Torch can easily set paper on fire.

Blendtec Blender
We don't know if Blendtec makes the best blenders, but if they can shred bananas the way they can shred gadgets on their famous YouTube videos, we're sold.

Casio Exilim EX-F1 Super-Slow-Motion Camera
The first consumer-grade camera to deliver 1200-frames-per-second slow-mo, it can also shoot 60 full-resolution stills per second.

Chumby
It's an internet machine disguised as a pillow. I use it to check the snow report, play internet radio, tell the time, check the surf and read the news, but it can run hundreds of additional widgets.

Aiptek V10 PMP Pico Projector
Battery-powered mini projector plays movies from an SD card, using an LED to project a picture up to 50" on the wall without burning your hand. One day, all cellphones will have these.

WildCharge Charging Station
A charging matt that uses nubs on a matt instead of wires to charge your devices.

Philips LivingColors Lighting System
These lamps can display 16 million unique colors, controlled by a remote with a color wheel. What can we say? We love pretty lights.

The Original LED Watches
These Tokyo LED watches were the original inspiration for all other Japan streetwear timepieces.

Tenmetsu Tokyo Flash Watch
Tokyoflash's Tenmetsu watch is one of the cleanest designed of their collection, and has never been seen before the Gizmodo Gallery.

Lego Death Star
This Lego diorama includes 3800 pieces, 21 minifigs and is one of the biggest sets ever made. It's also the only one that can destroy entire brick planets at will.

Godzilla Beer Pourer
This Japanese gadget looses a Godzilla roar when you lock in a can and serve beer from its mouth.

Stuff You'd Have To Make Yourself
Ben Heck Custom Atari VCSp
Almost a decade ago, Ben Heckendorn sparked an entire underground scene of custom, hand-built game consoles when he deconstructed the classic Atari 2600, transforming it into the Atari VCSp, complete with built-in screen, sound amplifier, battery power, and aluminum frame. On loan via Ryan Block, gdgt.

Jonah's Slot Machine
This web 1.0 bubble art project checked for short URLs and if you land on an available address, you've hit the jackpot.

Make's Phil Torrone and His Laser Etcher
Yes, our friend Phil from MAKE Magazine is showing up with his laser etching device to brand custom images onto any and every surface.

Back To the Future-Modded DeLorean
Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads. Oh wait, yeah we do—this mod is pre-Mr. Fusion.

NES Bong
A Nintendo controller modified into a contraption for smoking tobacco and only tobacco. On loan from some stoner.

PC Running Mac OS X Using Hackintosh
We're partial to Macs at Gizmodo, but there's plenty of nice PC hardware that we'd love to run Mac OS on, like this MSI Wind Nettop that uses Hackintosh to get it done. On Loan from Brian X. Chen of WIRED.com

Limor's Wave Bubble Radio Jammer
An open source radio wave jammer that will disable connections like those from Wi-Fi, GPS, cellular and RF. Illegal. Small enough to hide in a pack of cigarettes.

TV B Gone
This pocket sized remote spams IR power codes of common TVs to shut off different makes and models. Not recommended for trade shows. Trust me.

The Stuff of History
Apple Phone Prototype
In the early 80's, Frog Design and Apple collaborated on this phone prototype with electronic check payment and a stylus for use on the monochrome screen.

Apple Tablet Prototype
From Frog and Apple's "Snow White" design language comes this tablet, looking very much like a cousin of the IIc.

Apple 20th Anniversary MacintoshUnveiled at MacWorld on Jan. 7, 1997, Apple called it "the most beautiful thing we've ever built." Both historical and ahead of its time, you can see the Mac's past, present and possibly future.

Sony's First Walkman
The TPS-L2 Walkman did not record and was panned by the press before its release in Japan in 1979. Right before becoming a huge success. On loan from Sony Tokyo Archives.

First Sony Digital Mavica Cam
This 1988 electronic camera paved the way for modern digital cameras. It wrote to a floppy disk and had a TV output cable.

Blickensderfer Portable Typewriter
George Blickensderfer's portable typewriters, introduced around 1892, were advertised as "The Five-Pound Secretary." The Model 6, first sold in 1906, offered an aluminum framework, at that time a relatively expensive and rare metal. On loan from Christopher Bonanos.

Polaroid Land Camera, Model 95
In the fall of 1947, the chemist Edwin Land brought a few dozen new cameras and a pile of film to Boston's Jordan Marsh department store, to demonstrate the instant-photography system he'd developed.

Bell Labs Briefcase Phone
First used in 1984 as an early example of a transportable cell phone (most other cell phones were car only phones). On Loan from the AT&T Archives and History Center.

Bell Labs Picturephone
The first Picturephone test system, built in 1956, was crude—it transmitted an image only once every two seconds. But by 1964 a complete experimental system, the "Mod 1," had been developed and was
displayed at the New York World's Fair, paired to a model at Disneyland. On Loan from the AT&T Archives and History Center.

Dyson G-Force Bagless Vacuum
James Dyson invented a bagless vacuum, which no one would manufacture because it would kill bag sales. It was picked up in Japan in 1983, though, and James used the proceeds to launch a company that today builds the world's suckiest vacs.

Sony Aibo ERS-111
Sony's first revision of their 1st generation robot pet was able to learn and grow from having puppy-like logic to dog-like logic. They were too unsophisticated to run or seem very lifelike, but they paved the way for true robotic toys like the Pleo dinosaur.

First Cameraphone Prototype
Philippe Kahn built the first cameraphone in 1997 out of a digital camera, a laptop and a Motorola handset with some clever software. To date, well over a billion cameraphones have been sold. You do the math.

[Links above wrangled by intern Erica—Thanks Erica!!! And thanks to our host REED ANNEX and 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.]

Long story short: CNN created this site "... in February 2008 to be a clearing house for user submissions — as many as 10,000 a month — that in the past were only culled by CNN staff," wrote Noam Cohen in a October 12, 2008 New York Times column.

He added, "It's not the first place to go for stock tips."

From the website: "iReport.com is a user-generated site. That means the stories submitted by users are not edited, fact-checked or screened before they post. Only stories marked 'On CNN' have been vetted for use in CNN news coverage."

And yet, there's gold there amidst the piles of citizen-journalist supplied dross — if you know how and where to look.

Judging by the numbers in the graphic up top, about one item out of every 200 proves to be newsworthy.

At least by CNN's standards.

Yours may vary.

Design Miami/ officially opened to the public yesterday in a new tented pavilion whose surface skin was designed by the New York-based Aranda\Lasch. While the hall was eerily quiet, the mood remained one of cautious optimism, as exhibitors tried to put their best foot forward in hopes of successfully pulling through the year's final fair.

Matthew Marks Gallery exhibited a broad collection of Domestic Furniture by Roy McMakin (top), which included both new and recently exhibited items. A simple plywood floor complemented McMakin's humble furniture, making it easily the best booth in the show.

Kenny Schachter Rove Gallery presented a stunning seating element by Zaha Hadid (above), made from lacquered fibreglass.

Early images of the Bavaria collection, designed by Studio Job, for Moss left something to be desired. The series seemed less an evolution and more a throwback to the duo's earlier series, Perished. Seeing the work in person was altogether a different story. The precision of the laser-cut, hand-inlaid work is simply phenomenal.

According to a mailing list from the Netherlands, Atompunk is devoted to the cultural period (mostly of the United States) of between 1945 to 1965. While the moniker hasn't become a part of our country's vernacular yet (though I'm sure some of you already started using it ages ago), it sounds just annoyingly catchy enough to warrant a New York Times trend piece in about eight years. And the Dutch aren't helping, devoting a festival to it in Amsterdam for September 2009.

First I had to shake off being labeled steampunk because of my love for Jules Verne novels and Victorian-era science... NOW I have to go around convincing people I'm not another type of punk just because I'd totally live in Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion home? Great, Dutch people. Thanks a lot. [Boing boing]

Gizmodo will be holding their first ever Gizmodo Gallery at the REED Annex, in New York, from December 4-7. The gadget exhibition will not only be a Toys for Tots fundraiser, but will also feature 40 of the best devices they could get their hands on. Among them is the very small Aiptek Pocket Cinema V10 pocket projector. The V10 is one of the lightest and smallest projectors in the world and is about the size of candy bar. This projector features LCoS display technology, 10 ANSI lumens, and a VGA (640 x 480) resolution. The V10 comes with a composite connection as well as an SD card slot and 1G internal memory, which makes this model incredibly mobile. The projector also comes with a built in Li-ion battery that can be recharged by either an AC adapter of connecting it to your laptop via USB connection. The V10 is capable of producing up to a 50 inch screen from less than 6 feet away.

[via Gizmodo]

Up top, the headline of Noam Cohen's interesting October 12, 2008 New York Times Business section "Link by Link" column about the amplifying effect of websites like Drudge and Digg in making stories big seemingly instantly — whether or not they're true.

Here's the Times piece.

Spinning a Web of Lies at Digital Speed

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” — attributed to Mark Twain.

In 1864, back when rumor still traveled by foot, a young messenger walked into the newsrooms of New York City’s press row with an Associated Press bulletin that President Lincoln had ordered the conscription of 400,000 additional troops for the Union.

The news arrived at a precarious time for the newspapers — around 2 a.m. Even the night editors had left, forcing a skeleton crew to decide whether to rush something into the paper, or risk being scooped. Two papers took the bait on what soon was exposed as a hoax.

But the news also came at a precarious time for the country: a conscription would have meant the Union army was in trouble, and the price of gold soon shot up. Two journalists from Brooklyn hatched the plan, knowing how best to sneak bogus news into print, and remembering to buy gold beforehand. (They were soon caught.)

Markets exist to convert good information into profitable investments. And, in their deep agnosticism, they also exist to allow false information to create quick profits. During that brief window, false information may in fact be easier to exploit — it shows up just in time, and purports to answer the questions on everyone’s mind.

And while the Civil War-era hoax had to use crude tools (war is going badly, gold rises in the face of bad news), Internet-fueled falsehoods and day-trading sites allow for highly tailored rumors to be quickly amplified and exploited.

In recent days there has been a range of false reports that managed to gain great purchase across the globe while the truth is still logging on.

Early in the month, Apple stock fell as much as 5 percent after a CNN-sponsored citizen-journalism site, ireport.com, published a false item from a user reporting that Steve Jobs, the company’s chief executive whose health has been a public preoccupation, had been rushed to the emergency room. The poster is still a mystery, though the Securities and Exchange Committee is investigating and CNN is cooperating.

In September, United Airlines lost more than $1 billion in market capitalization when traders treated a six-year-old announcement of a bankruptcy as a new development.

And in politics, it is common for rumors to be floated on sites like Drudge Report, forcing hurried denials and gaining life in the court of public opinion.

While not involving the stock market, an example from the Drudge Report is instructive about how false news — in effect, reputational short-selling — spreads. On Friday, Sept. 5, Drudge Report hailed an exclusive about the newly nominated Republican vice-presidential candidate: “Oprah Balks at Hosting Sarah Palin; Staff Divided.”

Oprah Winfrey later that day released a statement denying the report. But it was in the news enough for Tom Brokaw, of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” to introduce the subject to the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Joe Biden: “Do you think that some people will see that as an elitist position, that in some ways Democrats may be afraid of her, Sarah Palin?”

With its oodles of information, the Internet is laden with falsehoods, but, in fact, these recent cases show how critical are amplifying sites like Drudge or Google News or Digg to getting reports from the backwoods before the public.

Wander over to ireport.com, which CNN created in February 2008, and it can appear overwhelming. It was meant to be a clearing house for user submissions — as many 10,000 a month — that in the past were only culled by CNN staff, and it looks like one. It’s not the first place to go for stock tips. But the Steve Jobs item benefited from promotion on collaborative news-rating sites like Digg.

While disavowing responsibility for the spread of the Steve Jobs item, saying that it never reached the coveted spot of being on Digg’s home page, the site’s chief executive, Jay Adelson, readily conceded that Digg had promoted other items that turned out to be false.

“There is almost a short-seller mentality in the blogosphere,” he said. “We allow anyone to submit on a level playing field. We allow the digital democracy to be the fact checkers. There is definitely some risk to that.”

While only 150 or so items make the Digg home page, Mr. Adelson said its tools for “syndicating” an interesting item to friends could help create a cascade, since the way young people “consume is through the push.”

But he argued that transparency would be one way to counteract rumor-mongering on the Internet. The person who submitted the ireport item to Digg had the impersonal login “joshua’s iphone.” And Mr. Adelson mentioned the various red flags: the user first posted in July; none of his or her earlier stories made it to the home page; and the first story to gain any traction was the one about Mr. Jobs’s health. “These things matter to the digital citizen,” he said.

Relying on the community and transparency is one method. Mr. Adelson says Google News tries to ensure reliability by vetting what news sources it draws from. And experimental sites like newstrust.net hope to create ratings systems from authorities who evaluate news articles on a range of criteria, and are themselves rated by the raters. (One of my articles was vetted by four reviewers and received a 4 out of 5 in terms of accuracy from its four reviewers.)

Fabrice Florin, the founder of News Trust, said sites like his would be crucial to flagging inaccuracy, though he said, “we probably wouldn’t be as effective in less than an hour,” a time span when most of the damage is done in these false reports. He said three reviewers would be enough to warn readers, “if the reviewers are trustworthy.”

The only long-term hope, he said, was news literacy training for the public, one of New Trust’s missions. “Our little brains were never in a position to handle that much information,” he said.

If you work at Motorola, it's payback time.

[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.]