Gizmodo

Like some kind of maniac, Apple is plunging into the sloppy scrum of the 2020 presidential race.

An Iowa man recently survived what could have easily been a fatal road accident by shouting “Siri, call 911,” CNN reported on Thursday.

Researchers have produced the first whole genome of the Carolina parakeet, a recently extinct parrot native to the United States. The bird’s DNA reveals that humans (and probably humans alone) brought about its abrupt extinction.

You might have heard us say this once or twice already: there was a lot of television this year. We are but a few humble bloggers and could never watch everything out there but of the many TV series we did watch, we’ve narrowed down our most and least successful of 2019.

This was the year the world burned. Literally. The year kicked off with Tasmania on fire. People set the Amazon aflame this summer. California burst into a fiery hellscape. The Arctic didn’t even catch a break. Now, Australia’s out-of-control bushfires are killing koalas and flying foxes while leaving Sydney under a …Read more...

Tania Amador of Grand Prairie, Texas, awoke on Monday to an alarm and a sinister voice speaking to her through her Ring device.Read more...

Just in time for the busy holiday travel season, the Google Assistant’s real-time Interpreter Mode is getting a critical upgrade as Google begins pushing the feature out to phones worldwide.

Quentin Tarantino says he’s finally got the right idea for a new Kill Bill. The Rise of Skywalker still has a few more snippets of footage to share. Oscar Isaac teases the shocking tone of the new Dune. Plus, Robert Downey Jr. talks to the animals, and what’s to come with Nancy Drew’s return. To me, my spoilers!

Fitness tech isn’t new. Before smartwatches that could take your ECG, there were old-school clip pedometers. That said, stepping into an Orangetheory on a weekday night might have been the most futuristic workout of my life—and I regularly work out with no less than four wearables strapped to my body.Read more...

Anker Soundcore Bluetooth Speaker and Headphones Gold Box | AmazonRead more...

Alan Moore, the legendary creator of graphic novels like Watchmen and V For Vendetta, hasn’t voted in 40 years. But he’s voting in Britain’s general election today for the Labour Party. Why? According to a new video, Moore says that he’s not sure the UK would ever have a meaningful vote again if the Conservatives got…Read more...

A pedestrian in New York’s Queens borough was reportedly crushed to death between two parked cars after a 2002 Lexus’s remote engine ignition system was activated, causing the vehicle to lurch forward, Streetsblog reported on Wednesday.

There’s been tons of news about “Quibi.” But, uh, what is Quibi? It’s a streaming service (yes, another one) launching in April that will be filled with content in “Quick Bites”—long-form stories released in chapters that run under 10 minutes, basically optimized for mobile viewing. And it’s got some very big names on…Read more...

From the dawn of time to the release of Her and beyond, man has dreamed of the day they could bone a sex machine. Friends, that day is now upon us... if you’re fine with Amazon recording it.

Owners of pricey Oculus hardware could soon have their data harvested by the company’s owner, Facebook, for use in “more relevant content, including ads,” UploadVR reported on Wednesday.

The Federal Aviation Administration was well aware of the fatal hazards with the Boeing 737 MAX before the March 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash and allowed the planes to continue carrying passengers, a report shows. As the Wall Street Journal notes, the FAA had estimated that throughout its 30-45 year life cycle, the…Read more...

Windows 7 users, prepare yourselves for the aggressive, full-screen notifications informing users their operating system is out of date. It’s happening soon.Read more...

In today’s “the U.S. healthcare system is utterly broken” news, a study has found evidence that some people are buying fish antibiotics online to use on themselves—presumably because they’re cheaper than visiting the doctor to get a proper prescription.Read more...

Netflix just announced that it’s developing a scripted series based on the “Swedish music sensation Spotify.” Based on the book Spotify Untold, the new Netflix show will tell the music streaming company’s origin story in the framework of piracy in the late Aughts. Whether or not this will be an exciting ride, remains…Read more...

Astronomers have spotted an unusually distant star-forming galaxy, the light of which took a whopping 13 billion years to reach Earth. Perhaps most incredibly, however, the galaxy was observed directly, without the help of a celestial phenomenon known as gravitational lensing.

Climate change is taking a toll on the ocean, and people are racing to save the seas. But a new study shows exactly who’s to blame for their crash. And no, it’s not consumers. It’s major fossil fuel producers: BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell.

Hey Siri, debase me in the most unsettling way possible.Read more...

Last year around this time, io9 was dissecting the events of the last Arrowverse crossover, Elseworlds. This year we’re only partway through the giant Crisis on Infinite Earths but there’s still a ton to talk about.

Seafloor mapping has revealed craters beneath the Pacific Ocean from nuclear weapons testing, scientists report.Read more...

Variety reports that the gif, age 32, is suffering from arterial bleeding after being stabbed in the ears on Wednesday morning by Universal Pictures’s Last Christmas starring Emilia Clark. Location: giphy.com/videos.

Back in May 2018, Hawaii’s Kīlauea volcano kickstarted a months-long eruption that would turn out to be the most destructive in its history. Its Halema’uma’u summit crater progressively collapsed and consumed its surroundings, while magma draining from below fed rivers and fountains of lava streaming out of its…Read more...

On Wednesday, young climate activists rushed the main stage at the United Nations climate talks in Madrid in protest. The talks—dubbed COP25 in UN-speak—are the latest iteration of a 25-year exercise in futility, broken promises, and negligence. And young adults are sick of it.Read more...

Cannabis has become more popular across the U.S. in recent years, but new research this month shows that one group has especially gravitated to it: people living with depression. And it’s not clear whether that’s a good thing.Read more...

Archaeologists in Indonesia have stumbled upon an extraordinarily old cave painting which appears to depict human-like figures in pursuit of wild pigs and buffaloes. It’s quite possibly the oldest portrayal of a hunting scene in the archaeological record, but the vague nature of the artwork leaves it open to…Read more...

Once you get past the lightsabers, TIE fighters, and general awe of being part of one of the biggest franchises in the world, acting in a Star Wars movie should be like any other acting job: Arrive on set, get in costume, and say your lines. But according to Richard E. Grant, that’s not exactly the case.Read more...

Sensitive data related to roughly 5.2 million arrests in the state of South Carolina were discovered exposed online last month by a California-based security company, Gizmodo has learned. A small percentage of those arrested were juveniles at the time.

Living in the worse possible timeline means that each week invites a new, unbearably dumb viral sensation. This week, it’s pigeons in tiny hats. And reader, while it pains me to spoil the novelty of birds in miniature clothing, whoever is doing this should feel terrible.Read more...

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call Bowers & Wilkins headphones iconic. The recognizable chrome and leather design always drew me in, almost by whispering, “These are the fancy ones.” For reasons I cannot comprehend, Bowers & Wilkins recently trashed that great design and replaced it with an unexpected combination…Read more...

If you’ve ever wondered why photos you upload to Twitter don’t look as nice as the pics in your camera roll or gallery, it’s because typically Twitter reduces the quality of your photos in order to save space. But starting today, that’s about to change.Read more...

Every time Greta Thunberg speaks, I have to fight tears. The 16-year-old Swedish climate activist stood on the main stage at the international climate talks ongoing in Madrid Wednesday and didn’t go on about personal stories or struggles. Instead, she stuck to the science—and still managed to make me choke up.

Sony WH-XB900N Wireless Noise Canceling Headphones | $123 | AmazonRead more...

In what can only be described as an unsurprising turn of events, Donald Trump’s campaign has likened the president of the United States to Thanos, the depraved villain from Marvel’s comics, television series, and film franchise whose whole schtick is wanting to murder billions of people because he’s obsessed with…Read more...

A Switch Pro controller, dog and cat treat Gold Box, and a 128GB MicroSD card lead off Wednesday’s best deals from around the web.

Laptop, Tablet and Monitor Sale | AmazonRead more...

Google’s $2.1 billion deal to acquire fitness tracker manufacturer Fitbit has attracted the attention of antitrust enforcers at the Department of Justice, according to reports that first emerged in the New York Post tabloid and were subsequently verified by Reuters.

Apple’s new Mac Pro and 32-inch 6k Pro Display XDR, whose base models retail at $6,000 and $5,000 respectively, are available for sale as of today. Much hullaboo has been made about how the display requires the additional purchase of a $999 Pro Stand or $199 VESA mount adapter, but the Mac Pro maxes out at a…Read more...

As Steven Universe grew into his vast Gem powers and learned the truth about his and his mother’s identities, he gradually began to discover the degree to which Pink Diamond was able to deceive the people who loved her most. It’s likely that Steven and the Crystal Gems will never know the full extent of what Pink hid…Read more...

Here’s one more leak in the drip drip drip of evidence that Facebook is totally out of control, even if and when it tries to get it together. Buzzfeed reports that an extremely predatory scammer that exploited Baby Boomers (also previously exposed by Buzzfeed in October) had a helper on the inside at Facebook.

If Google had its way, everyone would carry around a physical security key to protect our mountains of sensitive and personally identifying data. Alas, most of us do not, so the company has taken measures in recent years to prioritize security for users by baking them into Chrome.Read more...

The enormous fissure that formed decades ago in the deathless American debate over encryption proved insurmountable on Tuesday. Senate lawmakers struggled to be heard on the all-important topic by the two tech company suits that they invited over mostly for the purpose of serving as punching bags.

A week ago, we learned that Doctor Who will be returning on New Year’s Day, and now we’ve got our first clip from the season premiere.

Today, the New York City Council passed one of the country’s most comprehensive bird-safe glass laws yet.

Yesterday I complained about the breakneck speed of the CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths. The scope was incredible, the wide array of heroes on call was impressive, and the Easter eggs were plentiful. Yet there seemed something soulless at the heart of part one—it moved so quickly that the catastrophes never quite…Read more...

At 8:01 p.m. on October 10, 2018, a bolt of lightning flashed inside of a storm cloud just east of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The International Space Station was passing overhead at the time, and a suite of instruments observed as the bolt produced a flash of gamma radiation—and, simultaneously, emitted a…Read more...

The Green New Deal is a massive proposal that aims to take on the climate crisis—the greatest threat humanity has ever faced—while creating millions of jobs and boosting economic equality. That’s going to take plans for everything from electricity to housing to flood control, not to mention a fuckload of political…Read more...