Backdrops are called backdrops for a reason—they're designed to fade against the focus of a particular scene. But as a new single-serving Tumblr called Anime Backgrounds proves, sometimes the best art is to be found behind the characters. Read More >>

The average UK user of iTunes has spent £345 buying/leasing a digital music and media collection through Apple's servers, according to a survey that tracked people's iOS spending habits. Read More >>

There's something a little bit magical about sweet-makers. If Roald Dahl is to be believed, they're eccentric gents in purple suits and top-hats, or quirky inventors with flying cars and a litter of adorable singing children. Sadly, the truth isn't quite as magical as the West End musicals, but the story of how our favourite tooth-rot came to be is still fascinating. Read More >>

Inventors are the lifeblood of technological progress -- without them, we'd still be stuck gorging on raw meat, jerking off to cave-painting porn. But sometimes, an innocent invention can be taken for nefarious means, and take our whole species backwards. Read More >>

Yesterday afternoon's release of the iOS 6.x hack saw record numbers of jailbreak downloads. But there's totally zero point in freeing your device from Apple's shackles if you don't know what to do with your new-found freedom. This list is a good starting point. Read More >>

The advent of digital photography has transformed how we view the world around us. The breadth and scope of our image capture devices has exploded. But not even the most ingenious action cam can compare to the sheer audacity of these awesome rigs collected by our friends at Ooobject. Read More >>

Supermarkets are wonderful places; grocery-filled utopias equally amazing for the weekly shop and late-night maple syrup runs. They're basically the epitome of modern retail prowess; like the rest of us, though, they're just human, and sometimes they screw up awfully (as I'm sure you've read this morning). Here's a collection of the retail giants' greatest gaffes to date. Read More >>

Recently, I've been conducting a bit of an experiment: rather than going to see lots of films in grimy mulitplexes, I've been shunning the mainstream and going to fewer blockbuster releases, but all of them in awesome, luxury cinemas. "Oh, you dirty hipster" I hear you cry -- but while I might be perilously close to skinny-jeans-and-gratuitous-glasses territory, I can promise you that ditching the mulitplex is totally worth it. Here's why. Read More >>

Adobe's a nasty mean bully. It took our hopes of free Photoshop and violently sucker-punched them in the face. I felt picked on, and I wanted to go crying to Mammy. But I didn't. I kept my resolve, and grew from the ashes to be a bigger and better person. You can too. We don't need that meanie Adobe and its so-called 'software'. There's lots of perfectly good alternatives to Photoshop out there, and you know what? Their makers love us. I love them too. Read More >>

For all of next week, if you dare show your face on the internet you're going to be slapped -- hard -- by more Consumer Electronics Show news that your poor brain can stand. Yet, over the years, some significant stuff has still managed to wrestle its way through the metric tonne of crap that also gets released. Read More >>

Winter break is a time for video games and snoozing. But it's also a good time to get some reading done, or at least pretend like you're going to read all the books on those end-of-year lists. Here's what the Gizmodo staff are reading: Read More >>

We're firmly in Christmas' snowy soggy embrace by now; but for some of us, that's not a good thing. Some of us will spend the next few weeks being dragged round various relative's pads and tortured through long afternoons of small-talk with pea-brained people you don't really want to chat to. We feel your pain. So here's five Christmas-themed drinks to get you through it -- and because they're Christmassy, it's socially accepted to get wasted on them. Read More >>