Gizmodo

Loot boxes have been plaguing video games for years, luring gamers into spending money on random digital prizes. However, for gamers in the U.K., this practice could take a hit following a new investigation that could reclassify loot boxes in video games as gambling.Read more...

Filmmaking is, occasionally, a labor of love. Mostly, though, it’s a labor of endurance, patience, and compromise—a lot of compromises—between directors and pretty much everyone else. When the system works, it’s nothing short of a miracle. When miracles won’t come, Alan Smithee steps in.

Amazon’s poor handling of the covid-19 crisis affecting workers at its warehouses has made it the target of a new lawsuit filed by a group of workers at JFK8, an Amazon facility in Staten Island.Read more...

Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, have transfixed astronomers for over a decade, but their origin remains unclear. A newly concluded survey identifies an unexpected and unusually long 157-day cycle for a known repeating FRB, in a discovery that’s redefining what we know about these mysterious intergalactic pulses.

While Google, Apple, and Amazon generally do their best to keep their voice assistants apolitical, all three have decided to program answers to the questions “Do Black lives matter?” and “Do all lives matter?” It’s a good thing that all three affirm that Black lives, do in fact, matter. But where Google and Apple’s…Read more...

The sun is a great source of free lighting if you’re in a home with lots of windows. But in the summer months, natural lighting can also quickly turn your home into an oven. Instead of spending all your waking hours opening and closing blinds to block direct blasts of the sun’s rays, Lutron’s new automated smart blindsRead more...

Dyson Small Ball Vacuum | $140 | NeweggRead more...

A popular painting app for the Nintendo DS and 3DS that relied on each handheld’s stylus is finally coming to the Switch. But instead of forcing users to paint with their fingers, Colors Live will include a stylus that cleverly uses the Switch’s headphone jack for pressure sensitivity and a better painting experience.Read more...

Hurricane season just officially started last week, but it’s off to a terrifying start. Tropical Storm Cristobal made landfall on Sunday, bringing dangerous weather to the Southeast.Read more...

Over the past few months, the U.S. has been buffeted by a pandemic, protests over racist police violence, and two tropical storms. Add wildfires to the list as well, as the West prepares to start the week with tinderbox conditions.Read more...

Marvel’s Disney+ shows could resume filming next month. When Pandora returns, Charisma Carpenter is becoming a series regular. As all superhero media villains must these days, Stargirl’s Neil Jackson compares his goals to Thanos’. Plus, what’s to come on Snowpiercer, and the We Bare Bears movie gets a new release…Read more...

At least five people have died trying to find it, but the hunt appears to be over. Forrest Fenn, an 89-year-old art and antiques dealer in New Mexico, announced that someone finally found the $1 million treasure chest he hid in the Rocky Mountains roughly a decade ago.

Watching your computer gradually slow down seems inevitable. Your local storage space eventually fills with crap (or important files), and your installed applications become bloated and wheezy. However, you don’t have to settle for this slow-motion performance decay—speeding things up can more straightforward than…Read more...

Tile Mate 4-Pack | $55 | Amazon

Most workers have no ownership stake in the companies to which they give their labor. This is, if you ask me, not ideal. But I’m not a CEO. If I was a CEO, I’d probably feel this was just as things should be, and would be able to justify this feeling with various statistics, theories, rationalizations, etc. For a…Read more...

Philips Sonicare DiamondClean Smart 9750 | $196 | Amazon Gold BoxRead more...

It can be difficult to return to business as usual during America’s first phase of reopening with federal social distancing recommendations still in effect. But a new patent from Apple gives us a glimpse into how one bit of normalcy—group selfies—might work even when we’re all at least six feet apart.

I don’t know abouty’all, but there’s been a lot going on in recent days. While my brain is intenton learning about the battles of 2020, including the ones against coronavirusand for racial justice, sometimes it just needs a break from the news. During those times, Ibinge on TV for a while. These past few weeks,…Read more...

U.S. President Donald Trump apparently isn’t the only world leader unhappy with the World Health Organization (WHO) and who’s willing to take drastic steps in response. On Friday, Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro accused the WHO of having an “ideological bias” and threatened to withdraw from the…Read more...

Ridley Scott seems like there’s somewhere in his brain that is always thinking about Alien. He’s never quite been able to leave the franchise behind, and after returning with Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, it does feel like he’s camped out to stay. And while Covenant didn’t do well enough to demand an immediate…Read more...

America is, you might be aware, expressing a groundswell of disgust against police brutality following the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor—a challenging scenario many local law enforcement departments have responded to with an increased escalation of said brutality. Considering the sheer number of videos…Read more...

Over the weekend, more than 140 scientists who have received funding from the Facebook CEO’s philanthropic group, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg denouncing his spineless response to the president’s most recent inflammatory comments.Read more...

Atlantis: The Lost Empire was a distinct andunderrated entry in Disney’s modern-day lineup, breaking with a lot ofconvention and showcasing gorgeous, engrossing animation to boot. According toits director, Kirk Wise, a sequel was planned, with a twisty villain reveal andeverything.Read more...

Although President Donald Trump has said that he was only being sarcastic when he suggested people inject disinfectant into the body to cure coronavirus, there are some Americans who do not think that this idea is a joke. In fact, according to a recent survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),…Read more...

With the surprising news that Ruby Rose was leaving Batwoman came the equally surprising news that, in response, the showrunners would not simply be recasting the role of Kate Kane, but would instead be entirely rebooting the show, starring a new character, who casting calls refer to as “Ryan Wilder”, who will come to…Read more...

Why do I bring this up today? Oh, no reason. Definitely not because one of the world’s most (formerly) beloved fantasy authors outed herself definitively as a transphobe, sharing boilerplate trans-exclusionary talking points that are pretty easily debunked.Read more...

The environmental movement has had a reckoning coming its way for decades when it comes to its racist history. While it’s been inching toward it in recent years, the events of the past two weeks have thrown the floodgates wide open.Read more...

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Apparently, Twitter and Facebook take copyright infringement seriously, even if the entity infringing is President Donald Trump’s campaign. The platforms recently took down a tribute video to George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died after a police officer kneeled on his neck in Minneapolis.Read more...

Is this what he meant by “America First”?Read more...

The economic crisis stemming from the coronavirus pandemic has hit countries all over the world, costing millions of jobs and putting a freeze on a lot of non-essential spending, like upgrading your old phone or computer. Apple knows this, and that’s presumably why it’s reportedly planning to launch an installment…Read more...

There’s something really satisfying about seeing rich people getting nervous.Read more...

Facebook has purged nearly 200 accounts on its social media platforms associated with white supremacy groups, some of which pushed members to grab their weapons and crash protests against police brutality, according to a weekend Associated Press report.

Despite being the originator of the most popular vampire story of the past 100 or so years, Bram Stoker’s Dracula is incredibly restrained with its vampire nastiness. Dracula, in the novel, is a specter, a mystery, an intriguing incitement to delve deeper into dark horrors that unfold slowly.Read more...

Tenet is apparently pretty twisty, in more ways than just the whole time travel thing.Read more...

Josh Trank, in the time surrounding the release of his latest movie, Capone, has been more open than ever about his troubled experiences directing big-budget superhero fare with the disastrous 2015 version of Fantastic Four. Now, he’s being frank about the racial politics of casting that film.Read more...

Today, Black families are most likely to live surrounded by toxic air pollutants extractive industries discharge into their backyards. Black people face a more immediate threat whenever they leave their homes: the police. To disconnect the two is irresponsible. Polluting industries don’t wind up in Black communities…Read more...

It’s easy to feel helpless right now. Cities across the country are seeing unarmed protesters maimed by police officers who enjoy both the full support of the current presidential administration and of the American legal system itself. Congress is, in 2020, debating whether to make lynching a federal hate crime. And…Read more...

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Sonic the Hedgehog (4K) | $28 | Amazon

Police in Portland, Oregon deployed a controversial sound cannon to disperse protestors early Friday morning, the Willamette Week reported. Called a long-range acoustic device or LRAD, it can generate a piercing tone so loud that its potential to cause serious health effects has resulted in a federal lawsuit.

As demonstrated by their virtual walkout earlier this week, the folks working at Facebook aren’t too happy about the company’s refusal to remove incendiary and misleading posts made by President Donald Trump. Now, thanks to a slew of internal documents obtained by the Washington Post, we have a clearer picture of just…Read more...

With covid-19 having thrown a wrench practically every company’s product launch timeline, it’s impossible to predict when new gadgets might get announced. But according to multiple reports, Samsung is expected to announce the Galaxy Note 20 and the Galaxy Fold 2 in early August.Read more...

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has asked a federal court to impanel a jury to determine whether senior members of the Trump administration, including Attorney General Bill Barr, violated the constitutional rights of demonstrators when they used U.S. military soldiers to clear them away from a park near the…Read more...

In one fell swoop, Facebook may have changed its mind about how the online news media will operate from here on out. Undermining a now age-old assumption, Facebook told Ars Technica on Thursday that embedding from Instagram may not shield news organizations from freely cross-posting on their sites. A spokesperson said:

Across the country, white people are being called on to use their power and privilege to lift up black people—by hiring them, promoting them, and in some cases actively relinquishing power. In a particularly bold reflection of this stance, Alexis Ohanian announced that he will step down from his seat on the board of…Read more...

Instacart says it has revised its tipping policy to stop tip-baiting, a practice where a customer lures an Instacart shopper with a large tip to pick up their order, but removes the tip after the groceries have been delivered. This practice became increasingly problematic at the height of the covid-19 crisis due to an…Read more...

Here are some of the latest scientific developments around covid-19, including insights about the first major outbreak in Wuhan, China, a raft of hydroxychloroquine treatment trials, and steady progress in some but not all areas of the U.S.Read more...

Recycled human hair has been used throughout history for a variety of purposes, but never before has it been turned into OLED displays—until now.Read more...

Facebook says it is cracking down even further against groups related to the “Boogaloo” movement, which has considerable momentum among far-right militiamen and is based around the idea that the U.S. is headed towards a second Civil War. Just kidding! It only said that it will stop actively promoting them.