Gizmodo

With winter comes changes, many of which are bad. The days get darker sooner. Christmas carols play everywhere. Sure, there are good things about winter, but at least for me, it’s particularly hard to find joy in the early days of the season, when the memory of summer and fall is still fresh.Read more...

After years of so-called “upgrades” that have failed to allay oversight lawmakers’ concerns about the integrity of its public comment system, the Federal Communications Commission has apparently decided to scrap and replace the system entirely, multiple sources told Gizmodo.Read more...

At a House hearing held yesterday in Washington D.C., members of Congress and space experts voiced serious concerns about NASA’s current plan to send American men and women to the Moon in just five years.

New game announcements from Obsidian, Rare, and Dontnod highlighted Microsoft’s Inside Xbox presentation at X019, the company’s annual fan festival taking place in London this weekend. It also showed several updates and new trailers for previously announced games, as well as new content coming to Project xCloud and…Read more...

Star Trek: Discovery had a lot to prove going into its second season—especially in its bold move to cast new faces as two very familiar heroes from Trek’s past and bring them into Discovery’s morally murky take on a pre-original series Federation. But Discovery’s second season not only took on those high expectations, …Read more...

Private equity firm Ethos Capital has acquired the Public Interest Registry (PIR), the agency that operates the .org domain.Read more...

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The U.S. and the world continue to lose ground against antibiotic resistance, according to a new report out this week from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And among other things, the number of superbugs that pose a dire threat to the health of Americans has only gotten larger in the past half decade.Read more...

Horny audiophiles lusty for more sundry alternatives to raw-dog banging, here ya go: today Caroline Spiegel, the 22-year-old sister of Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel, serves you an audio and text-only platform for erotic storytelling. In Bloomberg and Wired profiles, Spiegel–who launched “Quinn” as a website while a…Read more...

Venice is reeling from some of the worst flooding in 50 years, driven in part by sea level rise. The high water has put the city under a state of emergency and, in theory, should be a huge wakeup call that it’s all hands on deck to combat climate change. But the regional council, controlled by a president from Italy’s…Read more...

Paleontologists in Japan have uncovered the fossilized remains of a 120-million-year-old flying dinosaur that’s seriously shaking up the bird family tree.

Well, in what could be yet another seal of the apocalypse melting down and sloughing off like skin at Chernobyl, Arizona Representative Paul Gosar meticulously inserted a conspiracy theory about late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein into a Twitter thread on Wednesday.Read more...

Rick and Morty has returned with season four, and with it has come a bunch of corporate tie-ins. One of the latest is a Dungeons & Dragons game based on a comic book crossover series about Rick’s adventures as a power-hungry Dungeon Master. It may not be the best D&D game out there, but for DMs eager to have someone…Read more...

One prominent software developer’s viral Twitter thread, several Steve Wozniak tweets, one New York State probe, two corporate press releases, and approximately 144 hours later, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore) has tweeted that he, too, will be investigating the crapshoot mystery of Goldman Sach’s allegedly sexist algorithm…Read more...

The fossil fuels driving climate change make people sick, and so do impacts like extreme heat, wildfires, and more extreme storms, according to research published on Wednesday. In short, the climate crisis is a public health crisis.Read more...

I imagine it’s looking pretty grim from where Netflix is standing right now.Read more...

Comcast’s justification for refusing to carry channels by Entertainment Studios Network owner Byron Allen–whose channels include Cars.TV, Pets.TV, and Recipe.TV–could arguably dismantle 1866 civil rights protections, in a case that appeared before the Supreme Court today. Totally unrelated to the case, I submit to the…Read more...

The New Horizons team announced yesterday that MU69's official name would be “Arrokoth.”Read more...

Ahead of Stadia’s launch next week, Google’s representatives fielded questions during an AMA on Reddit about what exactly the video game streaming service will include in the beginning. The answer is, not much.Read more...

Satellite observations of Jezero crater on Mars, the chosen landing site for NASA’s next rover mission, have revealed evidence of minerals that are exceptionally good at preserving traces of ancient life, making this an even better place to send the rover than initially thought.

Artificial intelligence has changed the way we roam the internet, buy things, and in many cases, navigate the world. At the same time, AI can be incredibly weird, such as when an algorithm suggests “Butty Brlomy” as a name for a guinea pig or “Brother Panty Tripel” as a beer name. Few people are more familiar with the…Read more...

You may have seen alarming headlines today warning of the “Black Death plague” that’s believed to have infected two people in China. But while there are real reasons for public health officials and residents in that area of the world to be concerned, there’s no reason to fear a deadly pandemic.

On Monday, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi was roundly condemned, including by this website, for telling Axios’s HBO show that the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi government was “a serious mistake,” just like when Uber killed a woman with its self-driving car. Khosrowshahi then dismissed both incidents by…Read more...

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power stepped up its game in season four, giving us a story that was big, challenging, and tragic. The Netflix animated series isn’t afraid to take risks and bring its characters to their lowest points, just to see what they can do. There was a lot to celebrate this season, but there were…Read more...

A new paper asks: What if antimatter is the portal into the dark universe?

By solving a complex protein structure, biologists have unlocked a critical mechanism in plants that could lead to improvements in how photosynthesis works, and by consequence, greater crop yields.Read more...

The first season of Netflix’s The Witcher isn’t even out yet, but the studio knows that basically everyone is on-board to stare at Henry Cavill’s Geralt, which is why it makes all the sense in the world that the series has already been renewed for a second season.Read more...

There you are, minding your own DM business, when all of a sudden you’re added to a group chat with a bunch of other work colleagues, neighbors, parents, old school friends, or people probably, maybe going to a party in three weeks’ time. You don’t have to settle for this shoddy group chat etiquette—here’s how to stay…Read more...

This year saw plenty of tech giants dabble in finance. Apple released its credit card, Facebook just launched a Venmo competitor and is trying to get its Libra cryptocurrency off the ground, and now Google is reportedly mulling offering a financial product of its own—checking accounts.Read more...

Warning: This article includes descriptions of sexual and physical abuse of children.Read more...

The Trump administration continues to fail at making blueprints for untraceable, undetectable 3D-printed firearms free and easy for anyone to attain. On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s State Department could not allow plans for such guns to be posted online, claiming that it had circumvented Congress in…Read more...

This story was produced in partnership with Atlas Obscura.Read more...

The first look at the Sonic movie was an unmitigated disaster. Its horrifying take on the blue speedster was so universally reviled that it sparked a wave of backlash so furious, the film was delayed and conversations about the undue pressure on its animators to comprehensively redesign the movie’s hero emerged. But…Read more...

The City of Canals has become a city underwater as the worst flooding to hit Venice in 50 years engulfed 85 percent of the city this week.Read more...

The good news for MacBook and MacBook Pro users is that Apple has finally capitulated and fixed, or at least improved, the low profile butterfly keyboards that have been causing headaches, and straight-up failing, since 2015. The bad news is that, for the time being, the only upgrade path available is the new…Read more...

The impeachment hearings against President Donald Trump start today in Washington, D.C. at 10 am ET/ 7 am PT. And even if you’re not near a TV, you can watch it all unfold on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and more, with our links below.Read more...

A federal court in Boston ruled on Tuesday that suspicionless searches of electronics at U.S. border crossings are unconstitutional, finding that reasonable suspicion of an actual crime is required before authorities can demand access to cell phones and other devices.

Donald Trump’s senior policy advisor Stephen Miller, the immigration ultra-hardliner behind this White House’s nastiest efforts to villify and torment immigrants and refugees, pushed racist talking points and linked to white supremacist websites in leaked emails published on Tuesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Disney+ is finally here and with it comes hundreds of classic Disney movies, some impressive original content, and zero new Marvel Studios shows. Which, of course, we knew. Those shows aren’t going to start rolling out until late next year. However, to tease fans of what’s to come, Marvel Studios did add a 12-minute…Read more...

If you’re lucky enough to live in a country where Disney has launched its vast, occasionally breaking, and petrifyingly all-encompassing new streaming service today, you’ve probably watched the first episode of The Mandalorian by now. Shall we talk about it? Let’s talk about it.

There could be a million different structures with the ability to store genetic information, according to a recent paper.

Facebook, a company best known for its societal fuckery and gross mismanagement of user data, has announced the launch of its Venmo competitor, Facebook Pay. A real treat for anyone looking to share even more of their valuable data with what is arguably one of the most reckless companies in the world.Read more...

On Monday, we reported that dirt-cheap transcription service Rev was lowering the already precarious minimum pay for its independently contracted workforce by over 3o percent. The change wasn’t even announced in an email, according to multiple Rev workers.Read more...

NASA’s Curiosity rover sniffed out an unexpected seasonal variation to the oxygen on Mars, according to new research.Read more...

A handful of folks recently spotted an unwelcome addition to the Facebook app for iPhone. Some stray swipes on the News Feed would inexplicably reveal the viewfinder for the phone’s rear camera. It’s unclear if the camera was recording, but there it was lurking in the background of an app that’s infamous for running…Read more...

The Japanese space agency has declared an end to the exploratory phase of the Hayabusa2 mission. Beginning tomorrow, the overachieving spacecraft will leave Ryugu and head back to Earth, bringing—hopefully—its asteroid samples along with it.Read more...

Security researchers who played a role in uncovering the Spectre and Meltdown attacks that targeted microprocessors revealed on Tuesday a new vulnerability in Intel chips which they claim the company failed to address after it was first alerted a year ago.

Just in case you forgot that Microsoft is deep into augmented reality, the early access version of Minecraft Earth is finally available on iOS and Android for Americans to get a taste of the future.Read more...

A new “Surprise Me” button will be added to the Xbox One’s game library, Microsoft announced yesterday on Twitter. Rolling out first for players in the Xbox One insider testing program, the “Surprise Me” button will allow the indecisive player to select a game randomly from their library to play.

Leadership at WeWork knew that the company’s custom phone booths had elevated amounts of formaldehyde for months before it warned its customers about sitting inside the small toxic cells, according to a report from Bloomberg.Read more...