Gizmodo

When you think about it, video chat is a marvel. Yes, I said it: a goddamn marvel. That is, when it works.Read more...

Murmurs that Microsoft’s Surface Duo might appear earlier than expected have been floating around for a while—but an FCC filing earlier this week and Bluetooth SIG certification that popped up today are strong hints that we’re probably a just a few weeks away from launch.Read more...

While we wait patiently for the next breakthrough in battery life technology, we’re seeing plenty of innovation in battery charging. Manufacturers are building phones that can be juiced up quicker than ever before, while new technologies such as gallium nitride (or GaN) to make fast-charging even faster. Here’s what…Read more...

The New York Times published a story Thursday night about the likelihood that aliens have visited Earth. The main takeaway? Aliens could be real and the U.S. government has been conducting classified briefings in recent years about things left behind by “off world vehicles.”

During a study in mid-2019, a team of Facebook employees found that proposed rules for Instagram’s automated account removal system disproportionately flagged and banned Black users. When the team approached CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his upper echelon of cronies with this alarming information, they were purportedly…Read more...

It wouldn’t be a virtual event without a few technical difficulties. Though I can’t imagine the media giants showcasing at San Diego Comic-Con’s online event were worried about copyright violations affecting their panels. Considering, you know, they’re the ones that own the copyright.Read more...

If you’ve been following along with Intel’s troubles moving away from its 14nm process to 10nm over the years, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that the company is now having trouble getting its 7nm process off the ground. On its Q2 earnings call today, Intel revealed that it’s pushing back its previously…Read more...

TikTok is an app at the center of national scrutiny here in the U.S. and abroad, an app beloved by witches and convicted felons alike, an app that’s recently been accused of hooking children up with local drug cartels. It’s also an app that recently announced it would be launching a $200 million funding pool for…Read more...

Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and its de facto leader, his son-in-law and Jimmy Neutron wannabe Jared Kushner, is locked in an increasingly bitter feud with mobile networks preventing them from spamming millions of people with donation or get out the vote requests.

Now would be a good time to change your Instacart password.Read more...

Mailing your spit to an ancestry site and uploading it to a DNA matching database has seemed like a pretty bad idea since 2018 when federal law enforcement officials tracked down the Golden State killer through a discarded tissue and his relatives’ online genetic profiles on GEDMatch. Since that episode generated a…Read more...

Always in motion, the future is, especially in the era of covid-19. And as a result Disney just made some major release date shuffles. Mulan, which was most recently scheduled for release in August, has been undated, and all future Avatar and Star Wars movies have been delayed one year.

In recent weeks, I have succumbed to the insidious allure of TikTok, an app that requires nothing more from me than my undivided attention. When watching television or reading are unpalatable, TikTok’s algorithm is the only thing I can concentrate on, and my extended stints on the app, slumped in a chair drinking ice…Read more...

During a recent earnings call, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood appeared to confirm that the Xbox Series X will launch in November 2020. Only a tad more specific than the holiday 2020 release Xbox has on its website, but we’ll take it.

Have you seen that photo of beloved actor Jim Varney, famous for the Ernest movie franchise, standing next to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein? The photo has been doing the rounds on Twitter today, but we’re here to tell you Ernest isn’t canceled. The image is photoshopped.Read more...

Anyone out there completely overwhelmed with the sheer mountain of Comic-Con 2020 exclusives available online? If so, our apologies, we’re about to make it much, much, worse.

Lego continues its big push towards positioning its sets as the perfect way for adults to pass the time during the ongoing coronabirus pandemic. But like its other recent releases targeted at adult fans of the building toy, Lego’s new playable Grand Piano comes with a steep price tag that’s starting to make playing…Read more...

NASA is set to launch its next rover to Mars on July 30, in what is certain to be an exciting new phase in humanity’s exploration of the Red Planet. Here’s what you’ll want to know about the Perseverance rover and why it’s our best bet yet for finding evidence of life on Mars.

Are you a frontline worker dealing with new stresses or irresponsible management? Is working (or not working) from home starting to take a psychological toll? How are you coping with reopening? Submit a story using this Google form or send me an email with the subject line “My Covid Story” and provide…Read more...

New research looks to provide a fuller retelling of the tragic, brutal past that was the transatlantic slave trade. Based on genetic analysis of over 50,000 people, the study reaffirms other historical evidence of how different groups of people in Africa were forcibly taken from their homes, as well as how those…Read more...

Corning’s Gorilla Glass is one of the most recognized components used to help protect smartphones against the perils of everyday life. Typically, each new generation of Gorilla Glass comes with improved durability against either drops or scratches, but not both. However, for its newest formula of Gorilla Glass—Gorilla…Read more...

People pace the bus stop at Queensboro Plaza on a Saturday before New York City’s covid-19 shelter-in-place order. They are waiting for the Q100 bus, which serves as the only modes of public transportation with a direct route to Rikers Island, the location of New York City’s largest jail complex. Metal containment…Read more...

If you’re going to try to convince collectors, who’ve already dropped hundreds of dollars on various model kits, to spend another $2,000 on just a single tiny model, this is the way to do it. At just five-inches tall, this RX-78-2 Gundam justifies its obscene price tag by swapping plastic for a fictional metal alloy…Read more...

Samsung Galaxy S10e (Unlocked) | $500 | Amazon Gold BoxRead more...

China successfully launched its first independent mission to Mars, dubbed Tianwen-1, from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan Province on Thursday. China’s “Long March-5” rocket is carrying an orbiter, lander, and even an uncrewed rover that will explore the surface of Mars in 2021, provided everything goes…Read more...

As part of its ambitious bid to be your go-to streaming service for virtually everything, Plex this week announced the addition of a new, free TV feature with more than 80 channels available at launch.Read more...

U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez plans to file an amendment that would bar any part of the U.S. military from spending federal funds to operate accounts on any “video game, esports, or live-streaming platform,” Vice reported on Wednesday. At the same time, prominent civil rights groups have demanded…Read more...

Considering Facebook’s, um, questionable track record on all things privacy, you’d think the company would learn to stop leaning into the phrase when rolling out new products that promise to be safe and secure when the company actually means they’re safe and secure from everyone except, y’know, Facebook.Read more...

Usually when companies make major changes to their services, a little advanced notice is a good thing. Unfortunately, when AT&T recently began sending out emails telling customers that their phones would no longer work on its network when AT&T phases out support for 3G, the carrier forgot to include one important…Read more...

As part of a series of security updates to G Suite announced this week, Google says it’s piloting a new standard for email authentication that will display a company or brand icon next to email that Google has verified as legit—a measure that may help curb phishing and other malicious activity from bad actors.Read more...

Dreaming of other planets, other realities, or other timelines? So far, 2020 has us wishing we could be literally anywhere else. Here’s a temporary escape hatch: these awesome new short films, all of which share glimpses of a future where so much more has gone wrong. At least we aren’t there... yet?Read more...

Hurricane season is unfortunately alive and well, folks. As of Wednesday, two storms are brewing: Hurricane Douglas in the Pacific and Tropical Storm Gonzalo in the Atlantic. A third is also likely to spring up in the Gulf of Mexico later this week.

According to a public letter from the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, the federal group responsible for the security of the banking system, banks are now allowed to hold cryptocurrencies.Read more...

Democratic Party officials put together a draft of the 2020 platform which includes several pages on the climate crisis, but contains barely any mention of the biggest cause of that crisis: burning fossil fuels.Read more...

The U.S. Army has dealt with sustained backlash over the past few weeks against its recruitment-oriented Twitch channel, which has banned viewers for asking about war crimes and hosted supposed giveaways that just dumped people out onto a recruitment page (which the Army has since claimed did enter viewers into a…Read more...

Buried deep within a leaked 79-page draft of the Democratic National Committee’s 2020 platform are promises to “recommit” to net neutrality and bridge the digital divide once and for all. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders had already outlined similar plans in a joint task force…Read more...

When Uber sold off its e-transportation offshoot, Jump, earlier this year, the company was left with hundreds of employees that needed to be let go, and tens of thousands of electric bikes that, well, also needed to be let go... directly into the trash.Read more...

DC Universe’s excellent $75 year-length subscription is reportedly dead. New subscribers will be limited to only the monthly $8 plan, which averages about $21 more annually than the defunct annual plan. It’s a major bummer and another significant hint that DC Universe, one of the absolute best deals in streaming, is…Read more...

Workplace messaging software company Slack is accusing Microsoft of monopoly behavior in an antitrust complaint filed today to European Union regulators. Unsurprisingly, the accusations hinge on the same practice that helped make Microsoft rich in the first place.

This first-of-its-kind image reveals a star system just 300 light-years from Earth. It was captured by the Very Large Telescope (VLT), which is managed by the European Southern Observatory and located in the Atacama desert of Chile. This is considered the first direct image of multiple exoplanets in orbit around a…Read more...

I never planned to be the weirdo walking her cat around on leash during a global pandemic. But stuck inside for months, there’s nowhere for the difficult truths in your life (cat-related or otherwise) to hide.

San Diego Comic-Con has begun, but it’s looking a little different this year. Thanks to the novel coronavirus pandemic, all the panels, cosplay competitions, and merchandise areas have moved online. Normally, this would be the time we’d take you onto the show floor during preview night but instead, we’re giving you an…Read more...

The hype behind Apple’s rumored augmented reality headset and glasses just won’t die. Every few weeks, almost like clockwork, some sort of Apple AR rumor or news makes its way through the tech blogosphere, even as other smart glasses and AR companies are capsizing left and right. This has always irked me, but it…Read more...

A new paper suggests that the East Antarctic ice sheet may not be as stable as we thought. Looking at ancient melting, the study finds evidence that this piece of the Antarctic experienced melting 400,000 years ago when the world was 1.8 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 2 degrees Celsius) warmer. Enough ice melted…Read more...

If you’ve ever shopped for office furniture, you’ve undoubtedly drooled over Herman Miller’s fancy chairs, and then turned away in disappointment at their Dyson-like pricing. Still a staple of well-funded startups, the furniture maker now assumes that gamers who’ve already spent thousands on a spec’d-out PC are happy…Read more...

When should Twitter have banned QAnon, the conspiracy theory that has thoroughly convinced people, mainly Trump supporters, of an omnipresent threat of Satanic child abusers? Was it when Reddit banned their QAnon subreddit for making “violent threats” in 2018? Was it when a group of armed Arizona veterans stormed a…Read more...

A lot of gaming phones fail to differentiate themselves from standard smartphone fare. But that’s not a problem for Asus’ new ROG Phone 3, which has massive specs, in your face RGB lighting, and possibly the most responsive performance I’ve ever experienced in a phone.Read more...

Looks like Gen Z is at it again with the climate lawsuits, this time in Australia. Kathleen “Katta” O’Donnell, a 23-year-old college student in Melbourne, launched a world-first lawsuit against the Australian government on Tuesday, alleging that it has misled investors in sovereign bonds by failing to disclose…Read more...

These days, if you’re talking about movies, you’re probably talking about Christopher Nolan. Oh sure, some really good movies have premiered on streaming during the pandemic, but all eyes have been on the latest blockbuster from Nolan, Tenet, which many expect to usher in a return to movie theaters post-covid-19.Read more...

Archaeological discoveries in a Mexican cave suggest humans reached North America some 30,000 years ago, which is a whopping 10,000 to 15,000 years earlier than previous estimates. The new research means it’s all but certain that the first people to reach the continent did so by following a Pacific coastal route.Read more...