Gizmodo

Two weeks after entering solar sailing mode, the Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 spacecraft has managed to raise its orbit by nearly 2 miles, in an important test of this promising new means of propulsion.

Residents in a Manhattan Beach neighborhood of Los Angeles are irate that an owner of a house on 39th street seems to be taunting them with a new paint job displaying two emojis on a fuchsia backdrop.Read more...

It’s been almost eight years since a younger version of myself first reported on the Panono: a camera covered ball that snaps 360-degree photos when tossed in the air. It’s been a bumpy ride for the Panono since then, and even a bumpier one for those who purchased and actually received their cameras as yesterday the …Read more...

In 2016, Guillermo Robles sued Domino’s because the pizza chain’s website and app didn’t work with screen-reading software, making their online services inaccessible to him and other users with visual impairment. Robles, who is blind, claimed that on at least two occasions, he was unable to order a custom pizza from…Read more...

Outdoor air pollution causes millions of deaths each year—4.2 million premature deaths globally, according to the World Health Organization. Over time, fine particles of inhaled smog cause cardiovascular and lung issues, like lung cancer and stroke.

Vought International, the American company that manages the entire country’s population of licensed superheroes in the world of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s The Boys, is a capitalistic leviathan with tentacles reaching into the worlds of law enforcement, the entertainment industry, the military, and a number of…Read more...

For men, especially men of color, coming face to face with the police may be one of the most likely ways to die young, a new study out Monday finds. The study estimated that black men are twice as likely to be killed by police than men of other races. It also found that police use of force is one of the leading causes…Read more...

Amazon’s home security subsidiary Ring wields tremendous power over the messaging used by its law enforcement partners about its products, including by pre-writing and approving police statements about Ring’s services. But according to a new report, Ring is also instructing cops on how to persuade customers to hang…Read more...

Following the El Paso, Texas, shooting in which a gunman murdered at least 22 people inside a Walmart this weekend, Thomas Marshall, one of the Walmart’s e-commerce category specialists, has sent a mass email, urging workers to engage in a “‘sick out’ general strike” today in an effort to pressure the company to ends…Read more...

Hey, it’s me, your local environmental reporter here to ruin all your feral hog fun.

In some ways, Muhammad Fahd could be seen as the Robin Hood of tech, except that instead of stealing money from the rich and giving it back to the poor, he liberated phones from being locked down by a single carrier. However, AT&T and the U.S. government probably don’t see it that way, because after being arrested in…Read more...

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has shut down a leading military research facility for failing to meet established safety standards, halting important research into some of the world’s most dangerous pathogens and toxins.Read more...

It’s been most famously used to swap celebrities into movies and even erase unwanted mustaches, but the real power of artificial intelligence is its ability to spot patterns in large amounts of data and make startlingly accurate predictions. Researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health have now trained…Read more...

Physicists Sergio Ferrara, Dan Freedman, and Peter van Nieuwenhuizen will split a $3 million Breakthrough Prize for their theory of supergravity, which drives much of today’s physics research toward our understanding of the universe.Read more...

The Apple Card is finally here—for some of us. Today, people who were accepted into the early preview program got an invite and 10 videos detailing how to use the card itself.Read more...

In describing the literary greatness of Toni Morrison—winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in literature, the first awarded to an African-American woman—the Nobel Foundation said that Morrison “in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.” She pursued…Read more...

The role social networks play in affording a space for hateful and violent content has been put on disturbing display in recent times as these diatribes are directly connected to unimaginable acts of inhumanity. It’s hard not to see the throughline from these online forums to real-world atrocities. But researchers are…Read more...

For a long time, big gaming notebooks were just that: thick, heavy, and more powerful versions of standard laptops, even laptops as ridiculous as the Acer Predator 21X from back in 2017. But more recently, gaming notebook makers have been experimenting with more far-out designs like what we’ve seen from the Asus ROG…Read more...

The still-untitled Walking Dead spinoff casts another young star. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is going straight to hell next season. Get a glimpse of the beginning of the end for Legion. Plus, new It Chapter Two footage, what’s to come on American Horror Story 1984, and a cheekbone-laden Maleficent: Mistress of…Read more...

RAVPower, perhaps more than any other company, has been pushing the envelope on small, powerful USB-C chargers powered by next generation GaN components, rather than silicon.

When Chennai, India’s main reservoir disappeared earlier this summer, the world was rightfully shocked. A city of more than 4.6 million people had lost its main sources of drinking water, forcing authorities to rely on water shipped in by train.Read more...

On Monday morning, President Donald Trump finally took the time to issue a (hollow and thoroughly unconvincing) denunciation of white supremacy in the wake of mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas over the weekend that collectively resulted in at least 31 deaths and scores of injuries—in the latter case…Read more...

There are few better acting bromances than the one between Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and we’re going to get more of it in the near future.

If the extent to which Amazon influences the market with oftentimes aggressive tactics wasn’t already clear, a report that it’s dictating the prices of its sellers on rival marketplaces certainly helps drive the point home.Read more...

Electric fan fans are in for some bittersweet news. A new study out Monday suggests that while fans can help people cool down on hot and humid days, in hot and arid environments they may actually make you more uncomfortable—and may even be unsafe.Read more...

Once upon a time, I was shooting a TV pilot. It was potentially a big moment for my career, but I’d tweaked my neck the week before. Not wanting to be all stiff, I went in to get some bodywork done, and it turns out that the bodyworker was a sadist who left me with visible bruises all over my neck. The morning of the…Read more...

I have often proclaimed my love for Paul W.S. Anderson’s 1997 sci-fi horror film Event Horizon, about a deep-space vessel that goes to a very bad dimension and returns with mind-warping powers, and features Laurence Fishburne barking the immortal line “Fuck this ship!” A TV series might happen, you say? Fuck YES!

Perennially responsible company Facebook announced its intention to launch its own cryptocurrency, called Libra, less than two months ago. In that time a raft of governmental bodies have told Facebook in no uncertain terms to knock it the hell off, including:

On Monday, Motherboard re-published a memo written by a Google employee with the title, “I’m Not Returning to Google After Maternity Leave, and Here is Why.” First posted on an internal message board, it details a now-departing employee’s allegations of pregnancy-related discrimination, harassment, and retaliation.…Read more...

On Sunday, following two devastating mass shootings, Neil deGrasse Tyson decided to do a science-y tweet about gun violence. Here it is:

Google depends deeply on its contractors, but a series of damning reports indicate that while these workers make up around half of the company and are tasked with essential work, they are largely treated as second-class citizens. In response, a group of U.S. senators wrote a letter to the tech giant in late July…Read more...

There are lots of companies who make wearable tails for humans, but they’re usually for cosplay or other entertainment pursuits. Researchers at Keio University in Japan have created a wearable animated tail that promises to genuinely augment the wearer’s capabilities—not just appearance—by improving their balance and…Read more...

Sesame allergies seem to be a lot more common that previously thought. According to a new study out this weekend, as many as 1.5 million Americans could be allergic to sesame, and the findings may prompt the Food and Drug Administration to require new warning labels that identify sesame in foods.Read more...

Logitech G903 LIGHTSPEED Gaming Mouse | $70 | AmazonRead more...

There are two flavors of surprise: good and bad. Winning the lottery? Good. Extreme heat waves cooking the oceans with more regularity, ruining fisheries that millions of people rely on? Decidedly bad.Read more...

As impressive as Apple’s FaceID tech is, when it was first introduced on the iPhone X in 2017, many still maligned the loss of Touch ID, a feature that hasn’t been included on any new iPhones over the past two years. However, according to a new report from one of the world’s most well-respected Apple analysts, Touch…Read more...

As Juul explores ever-more creative means by which to curb what government officials refer to as an “epidemic” of teen vaping, one of its latest stabs at that undertaking involves collecting personally identifying data to verify that a user is legally allowed to use its products.Read more...

Next to photos, contacts are usually the most important thing people want to transfer to a new phone. But it doesn’t have to be a headache. In the video above, I share the easiest way to transfer your contacts on both iOS and Android devices.Read more...

Following a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday that left at least 20 people dead and dozens more injured, an anonymous forum at the center of the tragedy, 8chan, is no longer protected by the website security firm Cloudflare. The company’s abandonment of 8chan leaves the online shitbox vulnerable to…Read more...

Remember when we were all hopeful that Qualcomm releasing the Snapdragon Wear 3100 chip would mean better, faster, longer-lasting Wear OS wearables? Well a year on, turns out it was just a dream as most Wear OS watches are still running that busted old 2100 chip. But today, Fossil is launching its Gen 5…Read more...

Earlier this spring, Samsung introduced its Galaxy Watch Active smartwatch. Gorgeous and streamlined, it would’ve been the perfect smartwatch if not for some buggy software. Less than six months later, Samsung’s already unveiled the Galaxy Watch Active2, which I got to see for myself at an event last week. It fixes a…Read more...

James Wan teases an old-school vibe to his next horror project. Black Widow co-writer Jac Schaeffer wants the film’s combat to be visceral. Star Trek: Discovery will have to sort out its captain vacancy in season three. Plus, get a look at the Katy Keene spinoff of Riverdale, and tons of new pictures from the Batwoman…Read more...

There are employers and IT departments out there that take an extreme approach to monitoring what the staff gets up to on company-owned equipment. You may not be able to change the policies of the firm that you work for, but you can at least check if and how you’re being watched.Read more...

Of the many downsides to being a human being—as opposed to, say, a squirrel, or some kind of fantastically plumed bird—exercise is one of the more egregious. Awareness of mortality is bad enough—do we really have to jog, on top of that? Still, animals are like us in so many ways that it’s worth wondering whether they…Read more...

Logitech Crayon For iPad | $50 | AmazonRead more...

It looks like this week is dead set on proving that old superstition about bad omens: They always come in threes.Read more...

In another nostalgic reminder today, I’m thinking about how much I used to love the awful, terrible, absolutely egregiously bad Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon. Like, it is a bad kid’s TV show by most metrics, unless your metric is the consumption of chili dogs. But, oh, did I love it. And seeing Sonic in a cartoon again—a…Read more...

Old Bruce is coming back, and he’s being played by the only person who really should be playing him.Read more...

Longform articles can be a great way to do a deep dive on a particular topic. That said, sometimes you don’t have the ability (or perhaps the desire) to read through a 5,000 article on a topic right this second, but you still want to get the gist of what is said, that’s where TLDR can come in.

We all know that age-old adage: if you don’t succeed, try, try again. Sometimes you’ve just got to pick yourself up by your bootstraps, get back on your hoverboard, and give crossing that English Channel another go.Read more...