Facebook’s already-troubled Libra cryptocurrency project, which has already run into significant opposition among the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services and the Senate Banking Committee, is running headlong into further resistance from regulators.

Virgin Orbit, the sister company of spaceflight company Virgin Galactic, nailed its first-ever drop test on Wednesday using a dummy LauncherOne rocket deployed from a Boeing 747 carrier named Cosmic Girl, Space.com reported.

How much Ultraman do you want? All of it? Well, good news.

A man who was struck and left unconscious last month by an unknown individual riding the wrong way on an electric scooter is taking legal action for the rider’s data.

Rideshare drivers in California turned out in droves in support of a state bill that would classify them as full employees. They walked away this afternoon with another victory in what is and is likely to continue to be a long and ugly fight.Read more...

If you want to get a sense of who, exactly, automation is working for right now, well, there’s a study for that. Spoiler—it’s the c-suite executives doing the automating.

San Diego Comic-Con isn’t the only major annual genre convention that takes place in the U.S., but it’s one of the largest and most significant—both because of its history and because it’s where many big announcements from studios and publishers about new releases are made. These are only some of the reasons that…Read more...

The herbal remedy kratom, often touted as an alternative treatment for opioid withdrawal or chronic pain, is in for more bad publicity. This week, scientists published yet more research showing that the plant is linked to reported dangerous side effects like seizures and deaths. Some people also appear to go through…Read more...

The turquoise water of a lake in Siberia looks like a tropical paradise, and it’s drawn in hundreds of Instagramers who have posed in and around the “Novosibirsk Maldives.” But it’s not white sands or microscopic plankton that give the water its unusual hue. The “lake” is actually a human-made ash dump, used to store…Read more...

U.S. Homeland Security officials faced a barrage of questions on Wednesday from House lawmakers frustrated—as several put it—over the alleged lack transparency exhibited by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) when it comes to the legally murky use of face recognition tools at U.S. ports of entry.

Another Star Wars movie, another Stormtrooper redesign. If The Last Jedi had the Executioner, and The Force Awakens had the First Order trooper design itself, now The Rise of Skywalker is bringing the full might of the dark side.Read more...

Many older cats suffer from health problems caused by a hyperactive thyroid, and while there’s no single cause of the condition, hormone-disturbing chemicals in the environment are thought to be an important factor. A new study involving some furry volunteers suggests that these chemicals include fire retardants…Read more...

Four Maryland students charged with hate crimes for plastering their school in racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic words and imagery just days before their high school graduation last year were identified by school administrators because their phones had automatically connected to the campus’ wifi network, according…Read more...

Historic, record-breaking heat isn’t the only environmental malaise that’s gripped Alaska this summer. So has wildfire smoke.

Noise-canceling is an expensive and appealing feature in headphones, which is why Sony has made it central to its newest models. In the past couple of years, Sony has also managed to surpass Bose to become the industry leader in noise-canceling. At the top of the Sony lineup is the $350 WH-1000XM3, and the company…Read more...

T-Mobile screwed over millions of customers when it collected their geolocation data and sold it to third parties without their consent. Now, two of these customers are trying to pursue a class-action lawsuit against the company for the shady practice, but the telecom giant is using another shady practice to force…Read more...

Yesterday we learned that a lot of people think actor Robert Redford looks like comedian Zach Galifianakis. And honestly, it’s all very confusing.

Satellite images can make it easier to get around when you’re using apps like Google Maps, but researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and the UK’s University of Bath believe advanced satellite imagery can also be used for a more critical purpose: analyzing structures like bridges for tiny movements that could be …Read more...

One of the more frequent annoyances of our modern world is the endless defenses social media platforms make to sidestep their responsibilities to curb the myriad problems that arise solely because they exist. Every so often, one of them will pat themselves on the back for doing the Absolute Bare Minimum to amend an…Read more...

A comprehensive re-analysis of a skull fragment found in a Greek cave back in the late 1970s suggests early modern humans were present in Eurasia some 210,000 years ago. It’s the earliest indication of our species on the continent, but the lack of supporting archaeological evidence raises some questions.

Would-be Tropical Storm Barry is still a day or more away from forming, let alone making landfall. But the developing system’s impacts are already being felt on Wednesday morning in New Orleans.Read more...

It’s been a rough few months for Huawei, but as of now, it looks like there might be some relief for the Chinese tech giant at the center of recent U.S.–China trade tensions. In a speech in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross clarified that while Huawei will remain on the Entity List, his…Read more...

It feels like I’ve been waiting years for iTunes to die. (A quick search of the Gizmodo archives reveals that I have, in fact, been waiting four years.) The bloated software was confusing to navigate, annoying to use, and increasingly obsolete, so you might imagine what a treat it was when I finally fired up macOS…Read more...

In the winter of 2010, a 19-year-old Moroccan man named Kacem Ghazzali logged into his email to find a message from Facebook informing him that a group he had created just a few days prior had been removed from the platform without explanation. The group, entitled “Jeunes pour la séparation entre Religion et…Read more...

Last year, it was announced that Middle-Earth’s latest foray into the world of gaming would be a new Massively Multiplayer Online RPG from Chinese developer Leyou Technologies, set long before the events of Tolkien’s books. Sound familiar to another big Lord of the Rings project kicking around? Well, that might…Read more...

Robocalls are annoying as hell, and thanks to new techniques like caller ID spoofing that makes phone spam appear like it’s coming from a legitimate number, the problem is only getting worse.Read more...

The Mortal Kombat movie reboot actually takes a solid step towards finally happening. Felicity Jones joins George Clooney’s Good Morning, Midnight. Director Tom McLoughlin has a script for a new Jason Vorhees movie. Plus, Kara may have a new look in Supergirl’s next season, and good news for The Society. Get over…Read more...

So you’ve grown bored of the latest photo filtering tool, or the newest anonymous question app, or whatever the flavor of the month in the app charts happens to be. Just remove the app from your phone and get on with your life, right? Well, not quite.Read more...

Confirming rumors and speculation based on leaked photos of cases and other accessories, today Nintendo revealed the new $200 Switch Lite portable console that sheds a bit of weight, a bit of size, and quite a bit of functionality to hit a price point that’s $100 cheaper than the wonderful original Switch. But are the…Read more...

Samsung Q80 65" 4K QLED TV | $1,799 | Drop | Upgrade to 75" at checkout for $1,000 extraRead more...

If you’re visiting Epcot at Walt Disney World this summer, keep the kids away from any stray animals you might find. A feral cat just tested positive for rabies and the health department is warning people to be careful during the coming months because it could have infected other animals.

If you like airplanes, then this is the hotel for you. The Haneda Excel Hotel Tokyu, which is connected to Terminal 2 of Haneda International Airport in Tokyo, will offer a room outfitted with a full-sized flight simulator. Fittingly, it’s called the “Superior Cockpit Room.”

The 50th anniversary of the Moon landing is coming up on July 20 and there are events being held all around Washington D.C. to celebrate. One of the coolest events will be at the Washington Monument, where a full-scale, 363-foot Saturn V rocket will be digitally projected on the landmark as a 17-minute show about the…Read more...

The number of issues plaguing YouTube at any one time boggles the mind, and range from accusations it promotes extremist content to reports its nightmare algorithm recommended home videos of children to the pedophiles infesting its comments sections. One of the less overtly alarming but still widespread issues has…Read more...

There are many things that one never wants to see out a plane window, and this is definitely one of them. In a video posted to Twitter by user Logan Webb, one of Delta Flight 1425's engines can be seen with what appears to be its spinner completely detached and rattling around in the inlet, all while an extremely…Read more...

After initially defending their decision to install insecure local web servers on Mac users’ machines that posed a major security risk and could be hijacked by attackers, teleconferencing app Zoom has backtracked and has said it will quickly remove the “feature.”Read more...

After years of watching her as Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica, there’s just something that feels right about seeing Katee Sackhoff in a spaceship, heading off to save humanity. She’s done it before and now she’ll do it again, albeit in a whole new way, in Netflix’s Another Life.

Civil rights organizations were, somehow, both pleased and exasperated with Twitter on Tuesday after the social network announced the latest update to its rules against “hateful conduct,” a change characterized by the New York Times, which first broke the news, as a “scaling back” of the company’s policymaking to…Read more...

You know that donating blood is one of the most impactful things you can do for others on an individual level. But you probably don’t know that dogs and cats can donate blood, too. According to a new study out Tuesday, most pet owners have no idea that their good boy or girl could be helping other animals in this…Read more...

There are lots of things you can do to keep your heart healthy and hopefully live longer. But a new review suggests that most dietary changes and supplements won’t move the needle much, if at all. Some supplements might even slightly increase your chances of a stroke.Read more...

Slipping-on-a-banana-peel-into-a-pile-of-rakes firm Facebook, a name which is now synonymous with massive, irreparable fuckups, has recommitted itself to mistakes, failures, and harebrained flights of fancy. We know this because they said so, and they’re proud of it!

Virgin Galactic is preparing to become the first publicly traded spaceflight company, and the venture is setting a course to be profitable by August 2021, which would put it lightyears ahead of the profitability projections of another transportation-based company that simply moves people around on Earth: Uber.

Governments declaring climate emergencies are all the rage these days. On Tuesday, a resolution slated to be introduced in Congress aims to get the U.S. as a whole to join the growing number of towns, states, and countries recognizing that yes, climate change is an emergency.Read more...

Launched 42 years ago, the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes are now exploring the outer realms of our solar system. Sadly, the end of the mission is now firmly in sight, but NASA has a plan to keep the probes operational for as long as possible before their power finally runs out.Read more...

Ken Shirriff is a hardware hacker who also has a penchant for restoring old computers, including the Xerox Alto, which had a huge influence on Steve Jobs and the Macintosh computer. His latest project was bringing one of NASA’s Apollo-era guidance computers back to life, but without a visit to the Moon on his horizon,…Read more...

Anyone who’s ever gone exploring in a new city has probably walked past some cool street art, Instagrammed it, and then went “Oh well, whoever made it was really cool.” Instead of shrugging your shoulders, Google Lens could soon be used to find out which local artist crafted the artwork.Read more...

A stunning report published Tuesday by Yahoo News identifies a Russian intelligence service as the origin of a conspiracy theory connecting the unsolved murder of former Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich to the leak of thousands of DNC emails in the summer of 2016. The report, authored by Yahoo’s chief…Read more...

It’s hot, all the fireworks have been lit, and we’re still two months out from when Apple traditionally announces a new batch of iPhones. But that hasn’t stopped rumors and leaks from swirling including speculation about the next AirPods, the death of a once highly touted feature, what Apple has planned for 2020, and…Read more...

More than a month after news broke that Mark Zuckerberg’s chief security officer, Liam Booth, had been accused of sexual misconduct and making racist and transphobic comments, he is now leaving his role with the Zuckerberg family’s private office. Despite the departure, a spokesperson for the office claims an…Read more...

In its attempt to keep pace with SpaceX and other competitors, Amazon is seeking FCC approval to put 3,236 interconnected broadband satellites into orbit.