by Julie Muncy on io9, shared by Alyse Stanley to Giz on (#502BJ)
Samurai Jack. Green Lantern John Stewart. Kit Fisto. Phil LaMarr has voiced some of the most compelling animated characters of the past two decades. In a new video, LaMarr talks through some of those fantastic roles.Read more...
We all know the U.S. healthcare system is unequal and inhumane, but apparently your income can determine your lifespan even in places with fairly good healthcare. A new report from the UK shows that, despite ostensibly equal access to healthcare, people with a lower income and who live in less affluent areas have…Read more...
by Catie Keck on Earther, shared by Brian Kahn to Giz on (#5026A)
On any given day walking through New York City, plastic bags are everywhere you turn. They’re at your corner bodega where you order your sausage, egg, and cheese on a roll; they hold the last-minute necessities you picked up on the way home for dinner; they litter our streets, our subway stations, and our parks.…Read more...
On Friday the World Health Organization took the fight against online health misinformation to TikTok, the same day it elevated its coronavirus threat assessment to the organization’s highest possible level.
Facebook’s redesign for its Messenger app proves two things: 1) Facebook’s leaning hard into its Stories format after the feature’s success on Instagram; and 2) Yes, those chatbots really were the worst.
In the wake of a carpet-bomb of Bloomberg-sponsored memes, The New York Times reported rumblings of nervous activity over at Facebook HQ this week. Several meme accounts, including previous FyreFest shills FuckJerry, had mobilized into an entity called “Meme 2020â€; Bloomberg appeared on dozens of feeds with millions…Read more...
Embattled face recognition startup Clearview AI is topping off a week of intense scrutiny over its nebulous law enforcement partnerships with an even bigger dose of bad news: Apple has reportedly disabled the iOS version of Clearview’s app citing violations of its developer program.
Android users with active Apple Music subscriptions now appear to have the option to link the app with Shazam, delivering an integration that’s previously been available for Spotify.Read more...
Yesterday, Gizmodo reported that the FCC was planning to seek around $200 million in fines against major phone carriers accused of negligently sharing the real-time locations of its customers with a host of shady third-party firms without even the most basic safeguards in place to protect them. Today, the FCC made the…Read more...
After the U.S. government warned European nations numerous times that the use of Huawei networking equipment poses a security risk, now it appears Huawei is hoping to alleviate those fears with new plans to build a 5G manufacturing facility in France.Read more...
In what looks and sounds like something straight out of a Star Wars movie, a robot named Shimon from Georgia Tech can now sing and compose songs with human collaborators, among many other cool upgrades.Read more...
Following decisions to cancel event appearances and restrict travel, Amazon also appears to have put in-person job interviews on hold indefinitely, according to screenshots shared with Gizmodo.
by Gabe Carey on Kinja Deals, shared by Gabe Carey to on (#501BV)
Video games. Remember those? They’re like movies but interactive and most people ignore the story. Anyway, if you’ve got a particular itch that needs scratching this weekend, you may want to turn your head to Amazon, where a slew of games are on sale across all platforms. (Accessories too!)
by Beth Elderkin on io9, shared by Kaitlyn Jakola to on (#501BW)
Geralt of Rivia may be a surrogate father to young Ciri, but he’s got a father figure of his own. Netflix has announced that Killing Eve actor Kim Bodnia has joined the cast of The Witcher for season two.Read more...
On Friday, the House of Representatives approved new legislation that bans the sale of flavored e-cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products. The bill was contentious among the Democratic caucus this week but ultimately passed with a vote of 213-195. The bill will now advance to the Senate but the Trump…Read more...
The Trump Administration’s early reaction to the outbreak of a new coronavirus that’s near certain to hit the U.S. hard hasn’t been great, to put it lightly.
Outdoor domestic cats are a conservation concern as invasive and effective predators that prey on wildlife around the world. Introduced cats are responsible for the extinction of at least 63 bird, reptile and mammal species in the past 500 years.
by Yessenia Funes on Earther, shared by Brian Kahn to on (#5014G)
In 2016, the U.S. began exporting oil after hitting pause for 40 years. The increase in fracking and domestic energy production in part fueled that change, but the climate crisis is forcing Democratic candidates to weigh whether they’d reinstate that ban if they win the White House.Read more...
Our planet recently adopted a mini-moon that’s roughly the size of a car, though astronomers aren’t sure yet if it’s an asteroid or an artificial object. An observatory in Hawaii is now providing us with a clearer view of Earth’s intriguing new—yet temporary—celestial companion.
YouTube TV subscribers who rely on the service to stream regional sports coverage from Fox will now have to find their content elsewhere, as the service says a disagreement with its parent company has resulted in it dropping Fox Regional Sports and Yankee Entertainment and Sports Network programming.Read more...
If you do an Amazon search for “coronavirus,†you get a ton of self-published guides on how to beat it, a foul-mouthed coloring book, some sanitizing products, and of course, face masks. But in recent weeks, Amazon has banned more than 1 million products for falsely claiming that they can cure or protect against…Read more...
Last year, Vivo’s fancy Apex 2019 concept showed us what a phone without ports might look like. But now, Vivo has returned with an even more fantastical concept device featuring a number of potentially major innovations throughout the device.Read more...
by Yessenia Funes on Earther, shared by Brian Kahn to on (#500SZ)
Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg has been the target of climate denying trolls before, but the latest example is too far even by already horrifying standards.Read more...
Despite its utterly awful image quality (maxing out at a resolution of just 160x144 pixels), the Game Boy Camera was still a popular add-on, thanks in part to a cheap accessory that could print out tiny photos. But finding paper stock for the Game Boy Printer is no easy task these days, so Vaclav Mach created a $20…Read more...
by Gabe Carey, Ignacia, and Tercius on Kinja Deals, s on (#500KA)
A $550 Epson ful HD home cinema projector, a $33 Kyoku paring knife, and a Mario Party Switch bundle at Kohls head up Friday’s deals of the day. TGIF indeed.Read more...
by Dharna Noor on Earther, shared by Brian Kahn to Gi on (#500T1)
Texas’ 28th congressional district stretches from Laredo to San Antonio’s East Side. Along the way, it cuts through one of America’s most productive fossil fuel sites. Known as the Eagle Ford Shale reserve, fracking has driven a huge natural gas and oil boom there over the past decade.Read more...
The amazing canine nose is more impressive than we thought, demonstrating the ability to detect weak infrared radiation from a distance, according to new research.Read more...
Tokyo Disneyland, Legoland Japan, and Universal Studios Japan will close their gates for at least two weeks on Saturday over concerns about the coronavirus outbreak that has sickened at least 226 people and killed four in Japan alone. The closures were announced on Friday after the Japanese government suggested a…Read more...
The Senate unanimously voted Thursday to grant rural telecom carriers a cool $1 billion in funding to help them ditch and replace any existing equipment from Chinese manufacturers like Huawei and ZTE. Its official name is the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act, but many simply call it the “rip and replaceâ€â€¦Read more...
by Dell Cameron, Shoshana Wodinsky, and Dhruv Mehrotr on (#4ZZY6)
A face recognition app used by thousands of law enforcement agencies, which has drawn considerable scrutiny in past weeks over its creator’s dubious data collection methods, contains code hinting at an unreported range of potential features, based on a version of the app discovered by Gizmodo.Read more...
Apple really, really wants you to consider the iPad a MacBook replacement, so after adding cursor support in the latest version of iPad OS, the company reportedly has a reimagined Smart Keyboard with a built-in trackpad on deck.Read more...
A whistleblower from the Department of Health and Human Services has alleged that officials sent more than a dozen workers to receive American evacuees from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the global coronavirus outbreak, without providing sufficient protective gear or medical training, according to recent reports from …Read more...
Walmart is gearing up to launch a new membership program called Walmart+, a service that’s reportedly being tailored to compete with Amazon Prime by offering deals and services that a Prime membership doesn’t.Read more...
In June of last year the world was introduced to the Raspberry Pi 4: a tiny computer with an even smaller price tag that could run a full desktop operating system making it useful for more than just hacks and homebrew projects. To celebrate the Pi’s eighth birthday it just became an even better bargain with the base…Read more...
When we think about companies “harvesting our data,†chances are we’re thinking of The Big Tech Names doing that harvesting. But sometimes, even these companies get taken for a bit of a ride. Case in point: earlier today, the adtech company OneAudience got slammed with a hefty Facebook lawsuit, on charges that the…Read more...
by Brian Kahn on Earther, shared by Andrew Couts to G on (#4ZZMN)
On Wednesday, a British appeals court issued a ruling that Heathrow Airport’s long-planned third runway expansion in London is illegal due to its climate impacts that planners failed to adequately account for. The move is the latest in a decade-plus of wrangling over the expansion that would be a climate disaster.Read more...
Frederick Brennan, the founder of the fringe 8chan discussion board that disbanded after users on its far-right /pol/ subforum were linked to multiple mass shootings, could face arrest in the Philippines thanks to criminal libel charges brought by the site’s current owner, Jim Watkins.Read more...
The spread of coronavirus is prompting companies to cancel nonessential travel. That includes trade shows like the smartphone-centric Mobile World Congress, which was scheduled to be held in Barcelona this week but was called off. Now Facebook has canceled its own annual event, the F8 developer’s conference, citing…Read more...
Earlier this week, the developer behind Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian Studios, invited press to watch hours of gameplay in which a developer died over and over again in the difficult isometric RPG based on Dungeons and Dragons. I went because the Baldur’s Gate series is one of my absolute favorite ever made—and also because…Read more...
by James Whitbrook on io9, shared by Kaitlyn Jakola t on (#4ZZMS)
The Clone Wars is back, which can only mean a few things: One, some of our favorite Star Wars characters in the galaxy have returned. Two? It’s all about to end rather tragically for most of them. But Rex and Ahsoka will come out of the Clone War...mostly unscathed, and for the voice behind the former, their…Read more...
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to seek a total of at least $200 million in fines from cellphone carriers accused of illegally sharing the location data of their customers, Gizmodo has learned.Read more...
This week, the other shoe dropped for people living in the U.S. worried about the spread of the new coronavirus. Officials have reported the first local cases of the respiratory illness, COVID-19, in California. The virus is here—and has probably been here for some time—and the U.S. is almost certain to face the sort…Read more...
Facebook is already responsible (at least in part) for one of the biggest and most poorly named smartphone flops ever: the HTC First. But in a new book about the inner workings of Facebook, author Steven Levy reveals the social media giant had an even wilder prototype device that never saw the light of day.Read more...