Gizmodo

Animal Crossing: New Horizons | $60 | AmazonRead more...

Gizmodo is looking at a lot of net art these days, but you’ll have to scan further than Google Arts and Culture to find it, so we asked net artists for help. Today, Lorna Mills tells us about the gif that launched a thousand works.

Right now, telemedicine could be key to keeping frontline healthcare workers safe. To that effect, plenty of robots have been deployed to help hospitals remotely monitor patients, disinfect surfaces, make deliveries, and bring food to quarantined people. Now, Boston Dynamics is jumping on this bandwagon with its…Read more...

Dermatologists are starting to report some peculiar symptoms linked to covid-19: discolored and/or rashy patches of skin, often along people’s toes and fingers. At this point, though, it’s not clear just how often these symptoms happen in patients or what exactly causes them.Read more...

Michael Moore is a dude known for provocation. Every documentary he drops is designed to paint a world of sharp contrasts with clear bad guys. They’re designed to get a reaction and get people talking, so in some ways, him dropping a documentary he executive produced trashing renewable energy on Earth Day makes total…Read more...

Aside from nostalgia, or maybe loaning it out to filmmakers as a prop for period pieces, there are not many practical uses for a 90-year-old Remington portable typewriter anymore. Against all odds, William Sun Petrus did manage to find one novel use for the hardware; he turned it into a makeshift drum machine that…Read more...

Astronomers think they’ve found an entire population of asteroids originating from outside our solar system, according to a new paper.Read more...

Hojadurdy Durdygylyjov, an electrical engineer based in Turkey, has designed one of the geekiest pieces of jewelry to ever breach the time-space continuum. He’s miniaturized the technology that makes time travel possible (according to Doc Emmett Brown, at least) with these glowing, animated flux capacitor pendants.Read more...

When it comes to virtual reality tech, you typically fall into one of two camps. Either you love the sci-fi concept of snapping on a headset and suddenly being transported into an immersive, three-dimensional universe, or you’re a reasonable person who finds these same headsets vomit-inducing, awkward to wear, and …Read more...

Modern phones are some of the most sophisticated pieces of equipment ever built, but the iPhone wasn’t developed in a day. From backlit screens to weird keyboards, the development of the smartphone got us more than a few strange devices. Their oddities are what makes Dave Shevett likes the early personal handheld…Read more...

It’s no secret that Apple has been working to create custom processors for use in its computers. The question was never if, but when. And now, a new report is adding even more weight to the belief that Apple will start selling Macs equipped with homegrown chips in 2021.Read more...

Rick Bright, who was reassigned from his job as the federal government’s top vaccine expert this week, says he will file a whistleblower complaint alleging he was demoted because he refused to back the White House’s claims that hydroxychloroquine is a wonder drug that could put an immediate stop to the coronavirus…Read more...

This could be the biggest movie event of 2020—and we mean that literally. There are so many characters in Dune that it’s hard to keep them straight. We’ve got a handy guide to the biggest characters in Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation (with as few spoilers as possible) and who’s playing them, as well as a few others we…Read more...

Scientists have compiled the most comprehensive map yet of tectonic stress magnitudes across North America, highlighting regions most vulnerable to earthquakes.

This is Sick Days, a series documenting how jobs are changing during the coronavirus pandemic, as told by workers themselves. This week, we hear from a cop, a morgue volunteer, and more. If you’d like to submit a story, use this Google form and provide as much detail as you’re able; read this post to learn more about…Read more...

Now that we’re all spending a bit more time streaming television shows and movies at home, maintain a robust “what to watch” queue is more important than ever. If you’ve signed up for a few new streaming services to keep you entertained in quarantine, it might also be a lot harder to manage—but a new feature in…Read more...

You guys: Werner Herzog wanted to direct that baby so much. Give him a whole episode!

Taotronics Bluetooth Headphones | $27 | Amazon | Promo code W6QPLXDWRead more...

Samsung is trying to make its TVs more useful during the global pandemic that is keeping us inside our houses, first with free fitness apps from popular boutique fitness studios and now with an Apple Music app—and free 90-day trial to stream tunes from your Samsung TV.Read more...

Whoop is not your typical wearable.Read more...

You’d have to be really, really bored to devote some time to scrolling through all the settings on your phone or laptop—so the devices you rely on every day may well offer a selection of options and features that you’re completely unaware of. Here’s a rundown of 31 of the best lesser-known settings that you might find…Read more...

Last week, Amazon shut down its fulfillment centers in France amid a dispute with unions over alleged covid-19-related health hazards. A French court ruled in favor of the union, ordering the company to limit deliveries to necessities such as medical supplies and food until it fulfills a risk assessment and improves…Read more...

Police in Westport, Connecticut, announced this week that they’re testing a so-called “pandemic drone” that can detect when people on the ground have fevers. The new drone platform will also be used to determine when people are closer than six feet to each other. Police will be able to deliver a verbal warning through…Read more...

VAVA 9-in-1 USB-C Hub | $30 | Amazon | Use code KINJAVA417Read more...

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar appointed an aide with “minimal public health experience” and who had spent the six years prior to joining the agency running a dog breeding business to head its coronavirus response in mid-January, Reuters reported on Wednesday. Sources said decisions made by that…Read more...

Oh. My. Godzilla.

Game developer and writer Mike Bithell made a name for himself with the clever mechanical heartbreak of Thomas Was Alone, the heady sci-fi ideas of Subsurface Circular and its followup Quarantine Circular (also? a surprisingly good John Wick tactics game). But now, while we wait for his next video game, he’s turned…Read more...

Vegas, what the fuck you doing?

Zoom, the video conferencing app that’s seen an utterly staggering spike in usage during the coronavirus pandemic, has been the subject of ongoing reporting over its egregious security failures—which include, among other things, misrepresenting its encryption protocols.Read more...

A big chunk of the wish-fulfillment aspect of most genre media (sci-fi, fantasy, horror) involves inviting you to fantasize about how you would use your own vast superpowers to save the world in a time of crisis. But in moments like the one we’re all living through right now, the idea of having superhuman abilities…Read more...

The Washington Post reports that 25,000 email addresses and passwords, allegedly from the World Health Organization (WHO), National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Gates Foundation, and other large organizations, were stolen by hackers and posted online. It’s unknown where the list came from, or who even created it,…Read more...

Gizmodo is looking at a lot of net art these days, but you’ll have to scan further than Google Arts and Culture to find it, so we asked net artists for help. Today, Anthony Antonellis tells us about his long slog to convince gatekeepers that internet art is more than an unprofitable career path.Read more...

Without plate tectonics, our planet wouldn’t have continents, mountains, and possibly even life itself. New evidence suggests this geological process began at least 3.2 billion years ago, a surprisingly early origin.

The Star Wars galaxy may be taking a break at the box office, but it continues to expand on streaming.

Stephen Wolfram, computer scientist, physicist, and CEO of software company Wolfram Research (behind Wolfram Alpha and Mathematica) made headlines this week when he launched the Wolfram Physics Project. The blog post announcing the project explains that he and his collaborators claim to have “found a path to to the…Read more...

The healthcare system in the U.S. has buckled under the current coronavirus pandemic, with overloaded hospitals struggling to keep up. But should a second wave of the outbreak occur simultaneously during the coming flu season, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield says, things could get…Read more...

Google announced in late 2010 that for the past year, Californian drivers had been sharing the road with a secret self-driving car project. Many years and one death at the hands of rival Uber later, we can finally see 2009's testing footage.

The CEO of Life Time gyms, Bahram Akradi, was on CNBC today defending his company’s decision to soon reopen its gyms in states that are lifting lockdowns, such as Georgia. It feels like the kind of clip that will be played in future documentaries about how poorly we handled the coronavirus crisis.

In the interim stimulus bill the Senate passed on Tuesday evening, federal lawmakers failed to include any relief for customers struggling with their water bills. As a result, millions of Americans who are being told to stay in their homes and wash their hands as often as possible could face impossible choices, such…Read more...

A little over a year ago, I came up with an idea for story to turn my apartment into an indoor garden. This ended up being a terrible idea, though in my defense it was late January, and I was hoping the addition of greenery could inject some vitality back into those bleak, dreary days, while also serving as a way to…Read more...

The waters surrounding the Antarctic Peninsula are warming rapidly, yet we know very little about how this is impacting some of the region’s most charismatic denizens: the filter-feeding baleen whales that call this icy realm home. But a team of scientists is hoping to change that with the help of their flippered…Read more...

South Florida is dealing with a record-breaking heat wave. It’s only April, but temperatures have been rivaling those more typical of summer.Read more...

Weeks before the first documented U.S. death from covid-19, at least two people in California likely died from the virus. On Tuesday, health officials in Santa Clara, California announced that the deaths of two residents in early and mid-February are now believed to be related to the novel coronavirus.Read more...

If your Facebook feed is teeming with wild Deep State theories, that might be on you, a Facebook study has found. Two researchers from Facebook and one from Harvard tested an algorithm that looks at your friending activity to detect fake accounts, or sybils. The paper shows that an outlying group of people who accept…Read more...

It’s been almost three years since Motorola released anything you could really consider a flagship phone (and that’s including its $1,500 bendy-screen Razr reboot). But now with the new Edge+, Motorola is getting back in the high-end handset game with practically all the features people expect in a premium device, for…Read more...

The relationship between YouTube and its content creators can best be described as symbiotic: Vloggers rely on the platform’s promises of fame and fortune (or at least a decent living). In return. YouTube relies on these content creators, for, well, content—hundreds of hours uploaded every minute, netting the company…Read more...

Reality competition shows are usually about surviving, dating, or singing. Maybe even a combination of all three. But sometimes, reality television has tried to enter the realm of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Sometimes it’s worked, other times it’s failed spectacularly.

It was a warm July day when Frau Troffea began to dance. She walked out of her home, into the narrow streets of Strasbourg, and began her frenzied steps. She danced uninterrupted for nearly a week, her feet swollen and bleeding. By the time she had tired of dancing, 34 of her neighbors had joined her; by the end of…Read more...

Scientists are attributing the 2018 Kilauea eruption, which destroyed hundreds of homes on Hawaii’s Big Island, to a surprising source: intense and sustained rainfall.Read more...

I wonder sometimes how strange it must be to own a company, create a product packed with features that people have long asked for, then try to launch it in the midst of a global meltdown. Polar just launched a $430 GPS watch that seems like it will be perfect for outdoor athletes—except everyone is stuck indoors for…Read more...