Gizmodo

Echo Show 5 | $50 | AmazonRead more...

This is the way. Right into my wallet.

TikTok issued a formal apology this week to a U.S. teenager whose account was suspended after she posted several viral videos disguised as make-up tutorials that sharply critiqued China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims. The popular video-based social network, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance though purportedly operated…Read more...

Have you ever dreamed of turning yourself into an inch-tall plastic figure who can’t bend their arms or legs, and must interact with the world using a pair of lobster-like claw hands? Lego’s new theme park, opening next year in New York, will make that dream a reality using sophisticated motion tracking and neural…Read more...

Xbox One S 1TB NBA 2K20 Bundle | $159 | Amazon | Clip coupon on page

The arrival of The Mandalorian’s shocking true star, Baby Yoda, has sent the internet into a flurry of wild speculation and rampant desire for merchandise, as any good baby should. But baby Yoda isn’t Star Wars’ first go at the infant rodeo—can he compete with the cutest the galaxy has to offer?

Earth is the best planet, hands down. You should need no reminding of this, but on the off chance you do, allow me to introduce you to Hector. That’s him in the satellite imagery above.

Sprawling towers of dust can reach heights of 50 miles during global-scale dust storms on Mars, according to new research. Acting like a space elevator, the phenomenon might explain how water escaped from the Red Planet during its ancient past.Read more...

Somewhere in the distant universe nearly 10 billion light years from Earth, an enormous black hole is spewing a powerful jet of energy that might be turbocharging star formation in galaxies a million light years from the source.

You can get comprehensive lists of everything coming to streaming services anywhere. But half of those titles you don’t care about, and the other half are terrible. Where’s the good stuff? io9 is here to help.

Don’t do it.Read more...

A common critique of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that many of its entries can feel like forgettable fluff: fine and fun in the moment, but will immediately vacate your head the minute those post-credit-scenes stop rolling. Avengers: Damage Control might come in an interesting format, but it would do little to…Read more...

Mark Rober, a former NASA JPL engineer, recently teamed up with James Bruton, an ex-toy designer and all-around expert hacker, to become two of the world’s most talented bowlers. But instead of spending years practising and honing their skills, they turned to science and engineering to cleverly hack a bowling ball to…Read more...

When you think of artificial intelligence and cars, the first thing that likely comes to mind is ambitious self-driving vehicle projects of tech giants like Google, Uber, and probably Apple. Most of these companies are leveraging AI to create cars that can understand their environments and navigate roads under…Read more...

When you woke up this morning, we bet you didn’t expect to see an official E.T. sequel—but that’s kind of what’s happened, just in a slightly unconventional, very commercial way.Read more...

Eric Tien’s favorite dish at Thanksgiving is one his dad makes.Read more...

Home is where the heart is where you’ll find some killer deals. You’ve reached our Black Friday deals hub for all things home, including all the smart home gear your house can handle, plus furniture, kitchen accessories, tools, and more. Stay tuned, we’ll be updating this post as deals go live, and throughout the…Read more...

California’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, was burned by the courts in an attempt to reduce its liabilities from wildfires in 2017 and 2018 linked to its faulty electrical grid on Wednesday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

On Tuesday, Twitter announced that it would soon be launching a purge of inactive users to free up choice usernames for others, potentially allowing users to claim sweet handles like @badguy, @vomit, @logoff, or @gillbates. Just one problem: Twitter forgot that some of those accounts may belong to people who are dead.

Thanksgiving is almost upon us in the United States. A time to reflect on all the good things we have in life. Usually, this means health, family, friends, and maybe even food. But don’t forget the other things that bring you joy—mainly, mountains of popular culture.

Earlier today, Moscow-based BBC journalist Will Vernon noticed that Apple appears to have quietly ceded to Russia’s stance on Crimea by redrawing national borders on the Russian version of its Maps app and labeling the region as “Russia.” When viewed from the US, Crimea is listed simply as “Crimea” and no home country…Read more...

Disney’s Star Wars land is unlike anything else at its plethora of theme parks across the world. It doesn’t feel like you’re in a theme park, even as people queue across the courtyards of Batuu for a chance to get to fly the Millennium Falcon. But as fascinatingly unique as that is, it already feels like it’s going to…Read more...

China’s ByteDance, owner of wildly popular (and often deeply annoying) music app TikTok, has moved to segregate much of the app’s operations from the rest of its business in a bid to convince the U.S. government user data is safe from the prying eyes of Chinese spies, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

A man’s love of delicious hot pot led him down a far more perilous path than he expected. His doctors in China say that the undercooked meal exposed him to a tapeworm infestation that riddled his brain with larval cysts and caused him to have seizures. Thankfully, though, he’s now on the mend.Read more...

Mark Zuckerberg cares deeply about the voice of the people, so this year, he invited a bunch of white dudes to discuss that and other Big Stuff in six pre-recorded conversations. This was Zuckerberg’s 2019 “personal challenge”: A series of “public discussions” aimed, in his words, to “engage more in some of these…Read more...

A telescope in Hawaii has captured a close-up view of comet 2l/Borisov—only the second known interstellar visitor to our Solar System.Read more...

One of the world’s top human champions of Go has decided to retire from playing the strategy game professionally, citing AI as a reason he feels he can no longer compete.Read more...

It’s no secret that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Donald Trump gives zero fucks about the planet. So imagine the irony of EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler urging Americans to “fill bellies, not landfills this Thanksgiving.”Read more...

Apple TV+’s mysterious Servant—from M. Night Shyamalan and Tony Basgallop—begins streaming tomorrow. The unsettling atmosphere of the show is achieved in part due to its fantastically moody score. Today, io9 is debuting an exclusive track from the show and we got to talk to composer Trevor Gureckis, too.Read more...

Paleontologists in China have discovered the fossilized remains of a rodent-like creature that featured an auditory system unlike anything seen before.Read more...

New York City is poised to bar all flavored e-cigarettes and e-liquids, meaning it would be sayonara for all the good vape flavors—and yes, that means menthol too.Read more...

DC Universe’s very adult Harley Quinn animated series is almost here and we’re so ready for it. But Harleen isn’t the only DC Comics character set to get wild. Are you ready to see what the Legion of Doom’s breakroom is like?Read more...

You’d think it would be hard to talk the federal government into giving you some random town’s .gov email address. You’d hope the process would be rigorous. But as one hacker explained to security researcher Brian Krebs, securing a government-endorsed top-level domain is actually frighteningly easy.Read more...

A future where a key ingredient of psychedelic mushrooms called psilocybin is regularly used to improve our mental health is none too far off. This month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted a “breakthrough therapy” designation to a non-profit company developing psilocybin as a treatment for clinical…Read more...

The sun has set on the Navajo Generating Station, which burned its last pile of coal earlier this month. Economics finally caught up with the West’s largest coal plant, forcing it to shutter as cheap natural gas and renewables made it irrelevant to the energy grid.Read more...

Everyone gets frustrated with their mobile phones at some point, leading many of us to fantasize about throwing our shit into the ocean and just living without one. And back in the ancient world of 2007, that was a much more reasonable possibility. A Wired article from July 31, 2007 made the case that there were…Read more...

At this point, it’s no secret that Apple’s working on augmented reality glasses. However, a patent reveals that the company is also tinkering around with augmented audio in headphones.

New research results show how sound below the range of human hearing can help scientists predict and track tornadoes.

“Quantum dot” technology sounds like a fake invention, something made up by a well-meaning marketing team. Well, it is, and it isn’t. Although different companies have different brand names for their own recipes, quantum dot displays are a real innovation that allows TVs to show off a wider range of colors, and…Read more...

J.J. Abrams reveals the runtime of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. James Wan teases his next horror adventure. It’s bad news this Turkey Day for MST3K fans. Plus, new pictures from Nancy Drew amp up the lens flare, Barry succumbs to Bloodwork in a new Flash teaser, and Oliver Queen fights for the multiverse as Arrow…Read more...

Organizing a group of friends for an outing got significantly easier when smartphones came along, but even the best-laid plans can be thrown into chaos if your posse is headed somewhere cell phone service is spotty. The LynQ—a digital compass that points towards your friends instead of true north—works without…Read more...

Disbelief and disappointment are some of the more PG-rated reactions coming from the ocean conservation community on Tuesday in response to a decision not to protect mako sharks. A closely-watched measure to protect IUCN Red List Endangered fish failed to pass at an international meeting that ended Monday due to…Read more...

WEBSUN Silicone Egg Bites Molds | $8 | AmazonRead more...

A massive explosion rocked a chemical plant that produces petroleum products in southeast Texas overnight, sending fireballs into the air. The shockwave of the blast has damaged walls in nearby homes and even shattered windows miles away, according to early reports on social media, but the cause of the blast is still…Read more...

Facebook has lost its only fact-checking partner in the Netherlands, Dutch digital newspaper NU.nl, over its policy of allowing politicians to openly lie in ads on the platform, according to an article on NPO 3.

Jordan Peterson’s Thinkspot has not one, not two, but ten of my stinkin’ dollars, and I want them back.

Welcome back to Gaming Shelf, io9's regular column all about board games and tabletop roleplaying games. It’s Thanksgiving week for some, meaning there will be plenty of time to enjoy (or escape) the family with board game nights. We’ve got some suggestions for games to look out for, along with some exciting…Read more...

When you get free technology, you can reasonably assume that you’re getting screwed. That’s infinitely truer if you’re in prison.

As Universal Pictures continues to diversify and surprise with its upcoming slate of monster movies, Elizabeth Banks is stepping into the mix.Read more...

Twitter is gearing up to remove scads of inactive accounts. That means one thing and one thing only: one lucky idiot might soon have rights to the handle @sexhaver, leaving the rest of us (losers; virgins) in their digital dust.Read more...