Gizmodo

Voting machines weren’t the only thing getting penetrated at DEF CON this year.

Another world, another time, in the age of wonder. The Dark Crystal finally returns with a prequel series, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. The Jim Henson Company has been cautious about expanding the lore of ‘80s classic The Dark Crystal, only authorizing a couple of books, some graphic novels, and a canceled…Read more...

The internet is a big place, and there’s no shame in not having gotten around to exploring every last corner of it—but just in case you’ve missed out on some of the very best sites the web has to offer, we’re going to pick out a few lesser-known highlights from our travels that are well worth adding to your bookmarks.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge discusses the nightmare fantasy of James Bond. Daniel Radcliffe stars in a dystopian nightmare of his own in a new still from Guns Akimbo. Ian Ziering still has hopes that Swamp Thing could survive cancellation. Plus, a new look at the CW’s Nancy Drew show, and behind the scenes on Ad Astra. To…Read more...

At this point, the promise of a device with a tablet-sized screen that folds to the size of a smartphone for easy pocketing is starting to sound too good to be true. After missing the promised June release for its Mate X, Huawei now says the folding phone won’t be available until after November but is optimistic it…Read more...

In 2017, the world was introduced to James Damore, a Google engineer who published a document to the company’s internal message boards claiming (inaccurately) that genetic differences between men and women explain disparate representation in the engineering profession and that the company’s diversity initiatives had…Read more...

Amazon Device Sale | WootRead more...

CyberPower Swivel Surge Protector | $11 | Amazon

8Chan has become an incredibly popular place for violent white supremacists to post their manifestos before a mass shooting. Now Democrats in Congress want to hear from 8Chan’s owner, Jim Watkins, and they’ve issued a subpoena for him to testify on Capitol Hill on September 5.

The attorney general of Ohio, Andrew Yost, has suspended facial recognition database access for approximately 4,500 law enforcement personnel after the release of a Washington Post report in July indicating that federal agencies, including the FBI and Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), had obtained access to…Read more...

Things haven’t been going so hot for Uber, which is burning through billions of dollars a year with no fleet of driverless taxis in sight to stop it. Now, the party is really over: According to a report in Crunchbase News, Uber has decided to stop buying hundreds of thousands of dollars in celebratory balloons…Read more...

The official trailer is here for Bong Joon-ho’s Palme d’Or winner, Parasite, and while it may not be as genre-leaning as many of his earlier films (The Host, Snowpiercer, Okja), it’s definitely pitch-black comedy with at least a small side of horror, so we can’t resist sharing it here.

Whether it’s superheroes, historical fiction, or survival horror, you can tell any kind of story in comics. More importantly, because comics require freezing specific instances in time, creators can play with expectations from moment to moment. Matador—by Devin Grayson and Brian Stelfreeze—does that exceedingly well,…Read more...

Mobile users are rightfully exhausted with receiving predatory robocalls, and certainly of getting spoof calls attempting to trick them into answering. Companies this year finally started to do something about it—and now, AT&T and T-Mobile say they’ve joined forces to better shield their customers from robocallers.

When Al Moussab had his water tested for lead, he got comparatively good news. Tests on the taps in his Newark, New Jersey home revealed lead in concentrations of around 6 parts per billion (ppb).Read more...

In April of last year, a photo of “33-year-old,” “single” police officer named “Jason” appeared in sponsored ads across Facebook and Instagram to promote a dating app for “uniformed singles.” Only thing is, the photo was actually of a 24-year-old police officer named David, who is married, has children, and is now …Read more...

A pair of farmers in Australia have been sentenced to prison for their involvement in an elaborate semen racket.Read more...

After natural disasters strike, families are forced to cobble their lives back together. However, federal aid may take months to reach the hands of those who need it. In the interim, organizations usually rally to send items such as food and water into hard-hit communities, but what if groups gave survivors cold, hard…Read more...

Daewoo Retro Compact Refrigerator, Mint Green, City Blue, and Cream Beige | $229 | AmazonRead more...

Apple still hasn’t set an official day for its annual fall product launch event (aka iPhone Day), but that hasn’t stopped leaks and rumors from shedding light on what we might see some time in early September.Read more...

There’s certainly something to be said for cleverly hiding an object in plain sight, but Panasonic’s new incognito wireless security cameras are camouflaged inside a conspicuously tall floor lamp that doesn’t really look like a floor lamp, inevitably leading to visitors taking a closer inspection to figure out what it…Read more...

Security researchers discovered a new form of malware that specifically targeted users of a French telecom giant. One of the more disturbing features of this malware is its capability to identify when someone was likely viewing porn and record their screen.

My name is Dave, and I’m a guitar hoarder.

Microplastic pollution has become so ubiquitous, it’s almost easier to find places covered in the stuff than not. High peaks, low valleys, and even the air we breathe is filled with microscopic bits of plastic.Read more...

In 2010, a pair of researchers published a controversial economics paper. It was cited by UK politicians to justify austerity measures that sparked economic and employment crises, and anti-austerity protests—measures that the UN later called “punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous” inflicting “great misery.” In…Read more...

People unjustly kept away from feline companionship due to an allergy are rejoicing this week, after news resurfaced of a potential vaccine that makes cats less able to cause allergies. But while this research is promising, a finished product won’t be available any time soon.

Pop culture can have a huge effect on society, influencing how we dress, what we eat, what we say (“hasta la vista, baby”), and even how we pronounce certain words. Brent Spiner believes the way we all say the word “data” now was directly influenced by his Star Trek: The Next Generation co-star Patrick Stewart.Read more...

Breathing polluted air could impact a person’s health just as much as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.Read more...

Following the death of four scooter riders in the metro Atlanta area, the city has introduced a ban on the operation of permitted electric scooters and bikes during nighttime hours, the mayor’s office announced last week.Read more...

A fossil discovery has added another entry to the list of comically large New Zealand birds: a 5-foot-tall penguin.

WeWork, the coworking space startup, just filed paperwork detailing its financials with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering and boy, oh boy, does it throw away a lot of money.Read more...

Refurb Elgato Game Capture HD60 Pro | $80 | AmazonRead more...

Illinois will become the first state in the nation to require that insurance companies cover the EpiPen auto-injector for anyone 18 years of age or younger. The state bill, which passed 92-0 in the Illinois House and 51-0 in the state Senate, will take effect on January 1, 2020.Read more...

The first time I picked up the Jaybird Vista truly wireless earbuds, a thought started looping through my head: These things are impossibly tiny and light. Even the case is pocket-sized. The sheer portability reminded me of AirPods, but there’s an essential distinction. The new Jaybird earbuds are practically…Read more...

School Backpack Sale | Nordstrom RackRead more...

The first Misfit Vapor was nearly vaporware. Its successor, the Vapor 2, tried to fix the original smartwatch’s issues but was ultimately hindered by an outdated processor. Today, Misfit launched its third stab at a smartwatch with the Vapor X—and at least on paper, it looks like it could be a substantial improvement…Read more...

Increasingly, it seems, our gadgets are not wholly owned by us—that when some component breaks, we are at the mercy of the giant companies that charge us out the ears for repair parts and services. One of the tech industry’s favorite lines of defense with respect to upholding repair monopolies is “safety,” but…Read more...

Tiffany Haddish makes her pitch to be Nubia in DC’s cinematic universe. Idris Elba wants back in on Thor: Love and Thunder somehow. Jeph Loeb clarifies Marvel TV’s approach to the arrival of Marvel Studios’ Disney+ output. Plus, a sequel to May the Devil Take You, more American Horror Story: 1984 teasing, and...Urkel…Read more...

Juul pulled almost all of its flavored nicotine pods other than menthol and mint off the market last year under pressure from the Food and Drug Administration, which under recently departed Administrator Scott Gottlieb was pursuing a hardline stance on the vaping industry and specifically on Juul, which has been…Read more...

SteelSeries Sensei 310 Ambidextrous Gaming Mouse | $35 | AmazonRead more...

The white supremacist accused of killing 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, currently has no access to internet, TV, newspapers, and radio. Yet he’s still able to get his hateful ideology out into the world, all thanks to extremists on 4Chan and lax rules about letter writing in New Zealand prisons.

The chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Chairman Joe Simons, acknowledged in an interview on Tuesday that perhaps maybe, just maybe, one outcome of an FTC task force inquiry into whether tech giants violated anticompetition laws could be forcing them to break up into smaller companies, according to reports in …Read more...

The Federal Aviation Administration has “banned select MacBook Pro” units from flying in the air after Apple issued a warning that some contained batteries that pose a fire risk, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

Russia military officials issued conflicting reports this week about whether residents in areas near a mysterious nuclear explosion must evacuate.

Well now, it appears the deck has been shuffled yet again in the ongoing streaming wars, and it looks as though CBS may be shaping up to be a stronger contender than we’d previously anticipated.Read more...

Facial recognition systems are still far from accurate, and yet government agencies continue to push for its deployment. To illustrate the existing flaws of the tech, the ACLU conducted another test of Amazon’s Rekognition software, which inaccurately identified one in five California lawmakers as matches to a mugshot…Read more...

Following criticism, IMDb has decided to allow transgender film professionals to remove their birth names in credits—in some circumstances. As it now stands, the website will allow users to remove a person’s birth name if that person no longer voluntarily goes by it, and it’s not widely known to the public.Read more...

Most people familiar with face-scanning software suite Amazon Rekognition, its place in the surveillance state, and its questionable efficacy are apt to fear what the consequences of such a technology might be when deployed against civilians. As the company was delighted to point out, fear is also also the most recent…Read more...

Facebook has paid hundreds of contractors around the world to transcribe some of its users Messenger messages, according to a new Bloomberg report. The social network stopped doing the transcriptions a week ago, following public outrage after journalists revealed that Amazon, Google, and Apple employed similar teams…Read more...

A vaccine for the most commonly reported sexually transmitted infection in the U.S.—the bacterial disease chlamydia—is now a substantial step closer to reality. On Monday, researchers reported that two of their vaccine candidates were found to be safe in a phase 1 clinical trial of 35 women. Though the trial wasn’t…Read more...