Happy Halloween! You’re banned from Xbox Live.

We hope your recent forays into piracy merely involve you donning a hook and eyepatch for a debaucherous costume party, or else you likely received a message from Microsoft like the headline of this post. The company recently dispatched a wave of bans to owners of modded Xbox 360s who’ve been playing pirated copies of [...]

Gizmodo’s Essential iPhone Apps: October ‘09 Edition

Each month, the best new iPhone apps—and some older ones—are considered for admission into Gizmodo’s Essential iPhone Apps Directory. Who will join? Who will live? Who will die?
The Month’s Best
Layar: There’s the obvious reason to be excited about this:

Layar, the first camera-based AR app to really blow us (or anyone) away, has quietly slipped into [...]

And the winner of the Pumpkin Carving Contest is …

It was a hard fought battle with 140 contenders, but the grand prize winner of Joystiq’s Annual-ish Pumpkin Carving Contest 2009 is … Antonio F.! His conceptualization of the Worgen starting zone from the upcoming WoW: Cataclysm expansion is one of the most impressive gourd-based works of art we’ve ever seen. We imagine you guys [...]

iLuv Ships iMM183 Dual Dock iPod/iPhone Alarm Clock

iLuv has been making iPod and iPhone alarm clocks for as long as we canremember, and so far as we know, they are about the best you can buy.The new iMM183 is taking things to the next level by being the world'sfirst dual dock alarm clock with a weather radio. That's a lot offunctionality in [...]

Sims 3 price dropped to $30 for one day only

The streak of brief yet impossibly frugal discounts continues! Until the end of the day, EA is selling The Sims 3 for the price of $29.99 — a full twenty bucks off the standard cost of the game. Maxis’ life simulators tend to retain their launch price long after hitting store shelves, so if you [...]