Gizmodo

The Federal Trade Commission is fining Google between $150 million and $200 million to settle the whole debacle with its subsidiary, YouTube, allegedly breaking children’s privacy law, Politico first reported Friday.Read more...

Apple has a new AirPods commercial airing in Korea that highlights the only conceivable reason I can think of why anyone would want a pair: their freaking adorable cases.Read more...

Contractors working at Google’s Pittsburgh office recently announced they’re aiming to unionize, marking the latest contingent of employees to begin pushing back against Silicon Valley for a voice at the bargaining table.Read more...

AB5, the contentious California bill that would upend the gig economy model of Uber, Lyft and other tech companies, moved a step closer to becoming a law.

Starting around 3:45pm Eastern, the account of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sent out approximately 20 out-of-character tweets, which included the apparent names of a hacking crew, as well as racial slurs.Read more...

In May, YouTube let creators know that in the near future, all of them with more than 1,000 subscribers would see their follower counts rounded down. The time has come, and the video-sharing service is rolling out this change throughout September.

As Hurricane Dorian nears Florida ahead of its expected landfall early next week, Miami is taking measures to ensure that the e-scooters on its city streets don’t become an inadvertent safety hazard—namely, that they don’t wind up turning into dangerous flying objects.Read more...

Amazon’s home security company Ring tracked how its users responded to law enforcement requests for surveillance footage captured by Ring devices, and it provided overviews of that data to police departments upon request.

In August last year, teen activist Greta Thunberg began a solitary climate protest on the steps of the Swedish parliament every Friday. In January this year, teen activist Alexandria Villasenor began a solitary climate protest in front of the United Nations in New York. This Friday, their worlds’ collided.Read more...

An Oculus VR founder has been accused of sexually assaulting a woman during a VR demo in 2016.Read more...

YouTube is absolutely capable of keeping white nationalists from hijacking its platform, but is it even remotely interested in doing so? Sigh along with me as we review the site’s latest exploits.

Google researchers tasked with finding zero-day vulnerabilities in the wild revealed on Thursday that a small collection of websites had been aimlessly infecting iPhone users since at least 2017. The sites received thousands of visitors per week, researchers said.

Even the guy running Juul admits that you probably shouldn’t use its highly addictive products if you’re not already addicted to nicotine.Read more...

After searches for “suicide” on Amazon brought up a number of items to aid in causing a customer’s own death, the tech giant pledged to add helpline information to the pages of certain products.

The toll of people sick with acute lung illness tied to vaping has doubled since last week, with around 354 suspected cases across the U.S. Now, health officials are finally starting to publicly zero in on a leading suspect: unlicensed additives and contaminants, particularly those found in products containing THC.

U.S. intelligence has reportedly determined that a mysterious blast that occurred on Russia’s northern coast earlier this month took place during a mission to reclaim a nuclear-powered missile.Read more...

In the aftermath of yet another mass shooting in America, loved ones grieve, gun control advocates call for common-sense reforms, and politicians suggest new “solutions” that won’t do anything about guns. These proposals frequently focus on mental health, but a new plan before the White House to monitor…Read more...

“Inside Nazi Germany” is one of the most important anti-Nazi documentaries in history. First released on January 20, 1938, the 15-minute movie became one of the first explicitly anti-Nazi newsreels to play in U.S. theaters and provided an early glimpse into the Nazi atrocities that would only become fully known to…Read more...

It was supposed to be the ultimate handheld portable gaming console, but the Nintendo Switch didn’t quite fit the bill. The Switch Lite promises a better design for gaming on the go, but Nintendo has only just revealed what is possibly the best new feature for improved portability: a snap-on case with a flip cover for…Read more...

On Wednesday, Uber and Lyft released a new petition against Assembly Bill 5, the California bill about to be debated in the Senate that, if passed, would almost certainly result in gig economy workers being designated as employees in the state rather than independent contractors. Uber and Lyft fear AB5 could tank…Read more...

Special thanks to Darlene Lim of NASA’s Ames Research Center, Mike Malaska of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Jill McDermott of Lehigh University, Kevin Raskoff of Monterey Peninsula College, and Samantha Trumbo of Caltech for contributing their expertise to this comic.

Todd Philips reveals the battle to make his Joker movie R-rated. J.J. Abrams is full of praise for Adam Driver’s performance in The Rise of Skywalker. Andy Muschietti promises human drama for his metahuman-starring superhero movie, The Flash. Plus, a look at the final return of The Good Place. To me, my spoilers!

You should never feel limited to the small screen on the tiny phone in your pocket—or gargantuan phone, depending on your preference for “plus” devices. It’s pretty easy to push whatever you’re looking at on your phone at to a larger screen, like your living-room television. At least, it should be.Read more...

Hurricane Dorian grazed Puerto Rico as a tropical storm and has since spent the past two days feeding on warm Atlantic waters. That’s allowed the storm to pick up steam with winds over the past 48 hours, increasing from 50 mph to 110 mph as of Friday morning.Read more...

Uber lost a mind-boggling $5.2 billion last quarter, but the company’s CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, is still optimistic that Uber will be able to make money one day. Khosrowshahi sat down with Bloomberg Technology reporter Emily Chang yesterday and kept insisting that Uber has the ability to turn a profit, despite…Read more...

The e-scooter craze has been convenient for some, annoying to others, and painful or even deadly to an unlucky few. A new study out Thursday seems to highlight some of the (perhaps obvious) common factors behind e-scooter accidents: being drunk or otherwise intoxicated and not wearing a damn helmet.

In an apparent flip on its position on independent repair operations, Apple this week announced that it will finally provide the parts and tools needed to perform “the most common out-of-warranty iPhone repairs” to independent businesses. But don’t go patting Apple on the back just yet.Read more...

The Surgeon General issued a very somber advisory to the people of the United States on Thursday: Weed may be legal in a lot of states now, but if you’re pregnant or a kid, you should stay away from it. Sage advice, to be sure.Read more...

President Donald Trump spoke at a ceremony on Thursday afternoon establishing the United States Space Command—a military division that was actually launched in 1985 in the midst of the Cold War.

The ill-fated Franklin Expedition to map the Northwest Passage resulted in the loss of two ships, one of which, the HMS Terror, was explored by researchers earlier this month. Unprecedented footage taken from inside the well-preserved wreck highlight various artifacts left behind by the sailors who ultimately perished.

“Gig economy” tech companies that rely on armies of “independent contractors” are panicked at a bill being considered in California that could force them to classify their workers as actual employees. Now, they’re busily enlisting their own workers to lobby against... improving the lives of their own workers. Read the…Read more...

Don’t you hate it when you do like one major, nearly catastrophic screw-up and no one lets you forget it? For AMD that colossal fuckery was the launch of the Bulldozer chipset in 2011. 8 years later AMD has been hit with a $12 million fine related to false advertising around Bulldozer, and hours after the fine was…Read more...

Following an Apple notice that a “limited number” of 15-inch MacBook Pros may have faulty batteries that could potentially create a fire safety risk, multiple airlines have barred transporting Apple laptops in their checked luggage—in some cases, regardless of whether they fall under the recall.Read more...

More than a year ago, alongside the reveal of the Galaxy Note 9, Samsung announced that it was working on a smart speaker powered by its Bixby digital assistant called the Galaxy Home. And even though the original Galaxy Home still hasn’t gone on sale, it seems Samsung already has a Galaxy Home Mini in the works.Read more...

In its latest bid to keep the kids from vaping, Juul announced today that retailers will soon have to scan IDs for anyone trying to purchase a Juul e-cigarette.Read more...

A new study seems to firmly bury the idea of a so-called “gay gene.” Scientists looked at the genes of nearly a half million people and couldn’t find any genetic variations that could reliably predict someone’s same-sex behavior. Rather, they argue, our sexual preferences are influenced by a complex mix of our genes,…Read more...

Archaeological evidence excavated in western Idaho suggests humans were in the region well over 15,000 years ago—prior to the opening of the massive ice sheets that blocked entrance into North America via the Bering land bridge. It’s further evidence that the continent’s first people arrived by traveling along the…Read more...

Labor Day Sale | Best Buy

Apple just sent out media invites to its annual iPhone event. This year, as everyone expected, the big party will happen on September 10. And that’s literally all we know because Apple is always extremely vague in these invitations.Read more...

Nike’s self-lacing (self-tightening is probably a more apt description) FitAdapt technology is slowing making its way into more of the brand’s shoe lines, including the Adapt Huarache now. The sneaker’s design might date back to the early ‘90s, but it will actually be Nike’s first self-lacing shoe that can be remotely…Read more...

On Thursday, the Trump administration announced plans to roll back an Obama-era regulation to cut methane emissions from power plants and fossil fuel infrastructure.Read more...

Heathrow is one of the world’s busiest airports. And that’s an exactly why climate activists plan to shut it down by flying drones next month.Read more...

One way that scientists can non-invasively study the human brain is by growing “mini-brains,” clusters of brain cells each about the size of a pea, in the lab. In a fascinating progression of this line of research, a team this week reports that they observed human-like brainwaves from these organoids.

A medicine imbroglio left several parents in Spain scrambling to figure out why their children were growing hair all over their bodies.Read more...

Today is August 29, a very important day in the lore of Terminator. August 29, 1997 was originally Judgement Day, the day Skynet became self-aware and launched nuclear weapons, basically ending the world. The event marked the beginning of a timeline when machines ruled the world and started sending Terminators back in…Read more...

A video from China is all the proof you need that the hilarious antics of monkeys at the zoo are really just a distracting ruse as they spend their days figuring out the best way to escape.Read more...

Vincent D’Onofrio is still trying to fight for Daredevil’s survival. A new image gives us our first look at the next CG Scooby-Doo movie. Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor adds another to its cast. Plus, what’s to come on Batwoman, Weird Al joins the Scooby gang, and a look at Killjoy’s next episode. Spoilers, away!

Steve Wozniak has always been a straight-shooter who speaks his mind. And the Apple cofounder is not shying away from some bold statements this week, telling Bloomberg News that he thinks the Big Tech companies should be broken up. And that includes Apple.

There’s smartwatches that can do fitness, and then there’s fitness smartwatches geared toward that one super buff friend who reminds you every few months about the upcoming triathlon. Garmin’s made a name for itself making the latter. Today, it’s launching its fenix 6 series of smartwatches, and boy, they sure are…Read more...

A beekeeper in Turkey’s Black Sea-adjacent province of Trabzon, frustrated that local bears kept on stealing and consuming his precious honey, apparently set up a nighttime taste test for the purposes of determining which products the bears prefer, per numerous reports in Turkish media over the past week.