In a jaw-dropping move on Wednesday, the conservative-dominated Wisconsin Supreme Court threw out the entirety of the emergency shutdown order Democratic Governor Tony Evers’ administration ordered to contain the novel coronavirus pandemic.
by Germain Lussier on io9, shared by Tom McKay to Giz on (#53EGJ)
Did you really think Christopher McQuarrie was going to make two more Mission: Impossible movies and not bring back Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, and Vanessa Kirby? Well, confirming everyone’s assumptions, on a new podcast the writer and director of the last two Mission movies said all three actors will in fact be…Read more...
The nation of France has approved a new law that will force tech giants to delete terrorism and pedophilia-related content from sites in as little as an hour or be exposed to fines that could total up to four percent of global revenue, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
Whether you love them or hate them (or think they won’t work), authorities around the world have universally embraced the concept of contact tracing tech in order to curb the coronavirus’s spread. In practice, however, these apps have fallen short of a lot of our expectations, with many turning out to be more invasive…Read more...
Google hardware chief Rick Osterloh once said he hoped Google would be “selling products in high volumes in five years.” That was three years ago. After disappointing sales of the Pixel 4 and a recent shakeup within the Pixel team’s management, Google’s aspirations to become a major player in the hardware space may…Read more...
by Germain Lussier on io9, shared by Tom McKay to Giz on (#53EKM)
Even if theme parks were open, there’s no telling when you’d get to ride Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. The ride opened earlier this year, and right up until Disneyland and Disney World closed due to covid-19, it was the hottest ticket in the parks, with fans arriving way before opening to secure their spot in…Read more...
by James Whitbrook on io9, shared by Kaitlyn Jakola t on (#53ECB)
Remember that hot five minutes the Tenth Doctor was like “I’m the last of the Time Lords, I can do whatever the damn hell I want” before everything went bad for him and he went “oh crap ctrl+z ctrl+z!!!”? Well, looks like he’s back. And this time he’s trying to stop literal dispensers of death?
Like many people, I live in an apartment. I don’t really know how old my building is, but it must be kind of old: it has a dark and dirty basement, the ceiling has cracks in it, and there are a few exposed metal pipes. As you can probably imagine, my old apartment makes a lot of really spooky noises.
While studying Europa’s magnetic field in 2000, NASA’s Galileo spacecraft inadvertently collected evidence of watery plumes shooting out from the moon’s icy surface, according to new research.
God, I love hot dogs. My parents used to reward me with the cheap and oh-so-delicious hot dogs from Costco for making it through a Sunday afternoon shopping session, so that’s probably why I love them so much. The reward center of my brain lights up every time I see or smell them. So when I came across a hot dog…Read more...
by James Whitbrook on io9, shared by Kaitlyn Jakola t on (#53E73)
The Justice Society of America is dead. Long live the Justice Society of America! DC Comics’ first superteam is one of its most iconic and convoluted mythoi, the nexus of the publisher’s approach to its own fictional history. Its members have been rebirthed, re-imagined, retconned, and revived endlessly since their…Read more...
A bipartisan amendment that sought to prohibit law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI, from obtaining the web browsing and internet search histories of Americans without a warrant failed to pass by a single vote in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday.
by Dharna Noor on Earther, shared by Brian Kahn to Gi on (#53E75)
Joe Biden has a lot of work to do to win over progressives as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, especially when it comes to the climate crisis. On Wednesday, his campaign announced the names on a series of task force put together with his top primary rival, Senator Bernie Sanders. Those names are…Read more...
A new study has found that nuclear radiation during Cold War-era weapons testing could have induced significant short-term changes in the amount of rainfall far across the globe..Read more...
by Brian Kahn on Earther, shared by Kaitlyn Jakola to on (#53E15)
The first named typhoon in the western Pacific this year has arrived, and it’s already roaring. Typhoon Vongfong formed on Tuesday and rapidly intensified into a fierce pinwheel of a storm streaking toward the Philippines.Read more...
by Germain Lussier on io9, shared by Kaitlyn Jakola t on (#53E16)
It’s always something with those darned New Mutants. Mergers, rumored reshoots, global pandemics. Anything to keep the film out of theaters. And yet here we are again, with another release date.Read more...
YouTube Music was supposed to be the successor to Google Play Music, when it launched in 2018, but it lacked a number of core features, including the ability to transfer your music library over from Google’s previous music streaming app. Now, ahead of Google Play Music’s impending death sometime later this year,…Read more...
Reminding us that things can always be worse, YouTube’s Foone Turing has created a keyboard that is based around a floppy drive and a stack of floppy disks that somehow looks even more frustrating to use than Apple’s much-maligned butterfly keyboards.Read more...
As of today, there are over 4.2 million cases of covid-19 identified globally, and at least 292,376 deaths. The U.S. has been the hardest-hit country, with over 1.3 million cases and 82,389 deaths. Despite that fact, many states are deciding to “reopen” their economies this month. But sadly, some U.S. states are…Read more...
The wreck of the USS Nevada has been located 75 miles off the coast of Hawaii at a depth of nearly three miles. It’s a significant discovery, as the battleship represents one of the most storied vessels in U.S. history, having survived Pearl Harbor, a kamikaze suicide attack, and atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll.Read more...
Elon Musk wasn’t asking for permission. Quite the opposite, in fact. On Monday afternoon, the Tesla CEO told the California government to eat shit. He was reopening his factory and they could come cuff him if they wanted.
by Beth Elderkin on io9, shared by Kaitlyn Jakola to on (#53DPZ)
In a post-Game of Thrones world, it’s hard to get your hopes up. Shows can spend years building toward something, only to let you down. It’s taken two years and five seasons to bring us to the end of Netflix’s She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, and I cannot imagine a better way for it to go out.Read more...
The notification popped up without warning just as I was syncing the Whoop tracker I was testing: The tracker had a new metric, respiratory rate. Truthfully, I almost ignored it. But the notification used the phrase covid-19, and my eyes widened.
Earlier this year, Dell refreshed the XPS 13 to great results, and now Dell is coming back to revamp the rest of its best line of laptops with the new XPS 15 and XPS 17.Read more...
by Yessenia Funes on Earther, shared by Brian Kahn to on (#53DF5)
When the Amazon Rainforest burns, illegal loggers and miners are typically to blame. In the past, indigenous communities would patrol their lands every week or fortnight to find criminals looking to loot the forest. These patrols—usually made up of two to six men—deterred illegal land-grabbers from deforesting…Read more...
by James Whitbrook and Gordon Jackson on io9, shared on (#53DF6)
Matt Ryan really wouldn’t mind playing Constantine again in the new Justice League Dark show. The CW’s Superman and Lois has found its big bad. Neve Campbell’s still not sure if she’d be down for a fifth Scream, in spite of recent reports. Jordan Vogt-Roberts is still teasing his Metal Gear Solid movie. Plus, zombies…Read more...
Apple is bucking the trend set by rival tech giants Facebook and Google during the coronavirus pandemic and is planning to have staff return to its offices this year, according to a Tuesday report by Bloomberg.
by Germain Lussier on io9, shared by Tom McKay to Giz on (#53CVB)
A new hero is going to walk the earth, meet people, and get into adventures. You know, like Caine from Kung Fu. Except now, she IS Caine from Kung Fu.Read more...
by Beth Elderkin on io9, shared by Tom McKay to Gizmo on (#53CYS)
Welcome back to Gaming Shelf, io9's column all about board games and tabletop roleplaying games. There are a lot of exciting crowdfunding campaigns out right now as developers try to prepare for life after the coronavirus pandemic. In addition, we’ve got the new Arkham Horror: The Card Game campaign and a creative way…Read more...
If Lyft and Uber had classified their drivers as employees rather than independent contractors as the companies currently do (and would very much like to continue doing), what would they have hypothetically owed to California in unemployment insurance tax? According to an estimate from the UC Berkeley Labor Center,…Read more...
Tesla informed workers that if they did not show up for work at a Fremont, California, production facility CEO Elon Musk has reopened in violation of a county health order that they may be ineligible for unemployment, emails obtained by the Guardian show.
Finally, some good news for Facebook’s beleaguered moderator community. According to preliminary settlement records first uncovered by The Verge earlier today, the tech giant has agreed to pay a total of $52 million to its current and former content moderators to compensate them for the massive mental strain that…Read more...
They’re better for the environment than a gas-guzzling car, but the other big advantage of commuting every day on an electric bike is that they’re easier to park. With Poimo, a prototype inflatable e-bike created at the University of Tokyo, you don’t even need to find a bike rack when you get to work, just an empty…Read more...
by Andrew Liszewski on io9, shared by Kaitlyn Jakola on (#53CMZ)
Despite what Star Wars and George Lucas taught the industry about how to properly market a summer blockbuster, when Back to the Future hit theaters in 1985, there was a dismal amount of movie merchandise in stores. But 35 years later, an avalanche of BttF collectibles is en route, including some new sets from…Read more...
As part of its fight against online bullying, Instagram is rolling out new features designed to make it easier for users to control who interacts with them on the platform.
by Quentyn Kennemer on The Inventory, shared by Gabe on (#53CSZ)
No matter which side of the aisle you’re on, you might agree many countries haven’t had the best response to the global pandemic. America is chief among them.
A Manhattan law firm frequented by some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry has been hit with a hack compromising over 750 gigabytes of intel on its famous clientele. Now, the hackers are threatening to go public with the resulting database unless the company pays up.
Uber, a furnace people can’t stop shoveling money into, is looking to buy up its main restaurant delivery competitor, Grubhub, in an all-stock deal. I think we’re all wondering the same thing: What the fuck?Read more...
Scientists around the world are scrambling to develop a covid-19 vaccine. A newly proposed strategy could dramatically improve this currently disjointed process, allowing for the accelerated development of multiple vaccines at once.Read more...
Three Democratic senators have launched an effort to keep Americans connected to the internet throughout the novel coronavirus pandemic and amid one of the most devastating economic downturns in nearly a century. Legislation introduced on Tuesday seeks a national “moratorium” on phone and internet shutoffs until the…Read more...
by Dharna Noor on Earther, shared by Brian Kahn to Gi on (#53CG8)
Climate action plans are all the rage for polluting companies. Last month, Shell pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. It’s just the latest example: Other oil giants have recently made similar pledges as well. These pronouncements use pseudo-inspirational marketing speak, promising to “leverage” their…Read more...