Gizmodo

Last year, Amazon released a cute little children’s version of its digital assistant, and just like the flagship product it is modeled after, it may also be a pretty powerful surveillance machine.

Imagine yourself playing Tetris, and you’ll undoubtedly have the Game Boy version’s memorable theme song (called Korobeiniki) stuck in your head for hours. But playing the game on an old school analog display manages to produce an even more satisfying sound as 210 small plastic discs quickly flip back and forth to…Read more...

The Antarctic is teeming with microscopic life: Mites, water bears, and roundworms squirm around, invisible to the naked eye. In fact, the Antarctic is full of biodiversity hotspots—and they’re thanks to penguin and elephant seal poop.

As drivers around the world went on strike just days before Uber’s IPO, they shared harrowing stories of being overworked and underpaid, subjected to a frustratingly opaque payment system, and even sleeping in their cars in order to save enough money to get by. Research backs up the anecdotes they relayed to the…Read more...

If you’ve ever argued that Facebook has become the Ma Bell or, worse, the Standard Oil of our generation, you’re going to love what Chris Hughes has to say. The Facebook co-founder just published a lengthy and extremely convincing argument for breaking up Mark Zuckerberg’s empire. It’s laden with historical context,…Read more...

While credit cards are rampant in the United States, it’s not necessarily the case in other countries where cash is still king. At this year’s Google I/O developer conference, the tech giant announced it’s adding more payment methods to its Google Play store, including cash and bank transfers.Read more...

For years, we’ve enjoyed watching Star Wars stories from the outside. And typically Star Wars in VR and AR feels more like a very cool tech demo than a full immersion into a galaxy far, far away. But with Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series - Episode I, it seems like ILMxLab has crafted an untold chapter in the Star…Read more...

The CIA and the U.S. military have been using a new type of missile during some drone strikes in recent years, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. What makes this new missile unique? It doesn’t explode and instead deploys sharp blades, hitting targets “like a speeding anvil” from the sky.

It was only a matter of time of course. There’s now a porn video of two people having sex in a Tesla while it was driving on Autopilot.Read more...

The last remaining reactor in operation at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear power plant—the site of the most serious nuclear accident in U.S. history in 1979—is set to close by Sept. 30, 2019, NPR reported on Wednesday.

The CW finds a lead for its new sci-fi action series Pandora. The Lost Boys TV show is heading to reshoots. Cliffhanger could be getting a reboot, courtesy of Ana Lily Amanpour. Plus, what to expect on the Riverdale season finale, a grisly red band clip from Brightburn, and new looks at the next Game of Thrones.…Read more...

The world subsidized its own demise to the tune of $5.2 trillion in 2017.Read more...

North Korea conducted a new weapons test overnight, firing two missiles into the sea between North Korea and Japan, according to reports from the South Korean military. The U.S. military conducted its own missile test just ten minutes later.

UK legal documents obtained by Bloomberg show that e-commerce titan Amazon fell prey to “extensive” fraud that allowed cybercriminals to obtain access to around 100 seller accounts and transfer cash into their bank accounts, with the company confirming to the news agency that it had completed an investigation into…Read more...

Workers for one of Amazon’s Minnesota warehouses filed a federal complaint on Wednesday that alleged workplace religious discrimination as well as retaliation for rallying around a protest effort at the facility late last year.

Long Island City—Just days before Uber’s expected debut on the stock market at a conservative but still-astronomical $80 to $90 billion valuation, the anger among rideshare drivers boiled over into an international day of action.Read more...

All five members of the Federal Trade Commission appeared Wednesday before the House Communications and Technology Subcommittee. One or two would have probably done the job. When it comes to consumer privacy—the hearing’s dominant focus—the commissioners’ opinions, however uniquely expressed, rarely diverge when it…Read more...

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Just days ahead of Silicon Valley’s most hyped mega-IPO, a group of a several hundred Uber drivers gathered in front of the company’s San Francisco headquarters and took over the street in a protest demanding fair pay, benefits, and greater transparency from the rideshare giant.Read more...

See this dummy? Imagine him covered in scabby blisters. That’s probably what he looked like the last few days, as he was recently infected with chickenpox. He got the infection because he refused to get the chickenpox vaccinations. That’s particularly poetic because when the local health department banned him from…Read more...

Uber has had what can best be characterized as a shitstorm of scandals in its decade-long run, and that isn’t even including any misconduct kept out of the public eye thanks to forced arbitration. Hiding those scandals appears to be turning into a costly endeavor for the ridesharing pioneer.Read more...

Scientists used high-energy lasers to create a new phase of ice unlike any seen on Earth before—but which might exist deep within Neptune and Uranus.Read more...

Today, I learned that people—namely, the people I work with—do absolutely unthinkable shit to their computers, and that this is seemingly the norm.Read more...

People who use homemade cat food—based on recipes from books and the internet—to feed their precious felines may be inadvertently harming them, suggests a new study out this week. The study’s authors found that all of the nearly 100 recipes they examined had at least one glaring dietary flaw. In some cases, they even…Read more...

For the second time in just over a year, Baltimore has fallen victim to a major cyberattack. Last year, hackers targeted the city’s 911 emergency system, but this time around, the city government’s files are being held hostage by ransomware.

In January, administrators from the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the organization that puts on CES, rescinded an innovation award from a sex toy company for being “immoral, obscene, indecent, profane or not in keeping with CTA’s image.” Five months later, and the organization has decided that the technically…Read more...

The Pentagon has a lot to keep track of these days. But don’t ask the folks over there a difficult question like how many websites they manage. An official at the U.S. Department of Defense recently admitted that they have no idea how many websites the U.S. military bureaucracy oversees.

Every big tech event in 2019 has a buzzword in common: privacy.

America: Land of the free, home of the brave, and kingdom of deniers. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but a new poll has found that climate denial is thriving in the United States. In fact, the only countries that deny climate change harder than America are Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.

Humans evolved from a group of ape-like hominins known as Australopithecine, but scientists aren’t such which species is our direct ancestor. A new statistical analysis has found it highly unlikely that one particular candidate, Australopithecus sediba, is ancestral to humans—a finding that could finally end this…Read more...

If you’re serious about starting or maintaining an exercise routine, fitness trackers and smartwatches are a great way for both beginners and veteran athletes to track progress and stay motivated. Still, there are a ton of options out there with different features and advantages, so which one should you choose?

A study published today in Science Advances comparing pre- and post-rideshare boom traffic in San Fransisco found that the presence of Uber, Lyft, and similar companies has been an overall detriment for people who like getting where they’re going quickly.

If you really want to prepare for an asteroid impact, you might as well simulate some of the worst possible outcomes—like an asteroid blasting into the heart of New York City.

During the Jurassic period, various dinosaurs experimented with different forms of powered flight. The discovery of a new dinosaur species in China suggests some of these pioneering flyers evolved webbed fingers and an elongated forelimb, allowing them to fly in a distinctly bat-like fashion.

An Airbnb Superhost in China was reportedly caught stealthily filming guests after a woman with security expertise located a hidden camera tucked inside of a router in the home’s bedroom.Read more...

With summertime around the corner, many of us will be preparing for our family trips to our nation’s beloved national parks. You may wanna pack your face mask, though, because a new report shows just how widespread air pollution is in these seemingly pristine environments.Read more...

Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) today announced a bill that would ban loot boxes and pay-to-win microtransactions in “games played by minors,” a broad label that the senator says will include both games designed for kids under 18 and games “whose developers knowingly allow minor players to engage in microtransactions.”

On Wednesday, drivers for Uber, Lyft, and lesser-known services like Via and Juno will sign out of their apps and stop picking up passengers as part of a global strike against these companies’ abysmal treatment of drivers. The duration of these strikes will vary from city to city, and workers in Los Angeles,…Read more...

The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) proposed a new set of rules on Tuesday that would change how debt collectors can pester debtors. The good news for the money-owers out there is the rules would restrict how often collection agencies can call you. The bad news is the agencies would be able to send…Read more...

In the long history of recorded media, Sony’s MiniDisc format barely registers as a blip on the timeline. In hindsight, it was doomed from the start—forced to compete with immensely popular CDs and an emerging threat called MP3s. But despite now having instant access to millions of songs on my phone, there’s a part of…Read more...

Tenants at a property in New York City just struck a deal in what is both a wildly reasonable ask but also a crucial precedent at a time of increasing surveillance—their landlord has to give them physical keys to their building.

Coal may have helped birth the Industrial Revolution in Britain, but the nation is working hard to leave it behind. And it just hit a big milestone: This marks the first time since 1882 that Britain has run a week without coal.Read more...

TV ads for prescription drugs are already annoying as hell, but those drug ads are about to get even more absurd. The U.S. government will soon require pharmaceutical companies to display the price of medications during every commercial.

The bounty of research funding provided by companies such as Coca-Cola to universities and elsewhere may come with some major strings attached, according to an investigation out Tuesday. The paper’s authors describe evidence of Coca-Cola crafting research agreements with universities in the U.S. and Canada that…Read more...

If you want the durability and lifetime warranty of Anker’s PowerLine II charging cables, but you own a lot of different devices, this $11 microUSB cable includes Lightning and USB-C adapters attached to the end.Read more...

An ordinance to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms in Denver that the Denver Post reported was “the first of its kind put to a vote in the nation” failed on Tuesday, with results showing it failed 48 to 52 percent.

On the UK set of Spider-Man: Far From Home last summer, one question was on the minds of press: How does Peter Parker’s next solo adventure deal with the cataclysmic events of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame? We didn’t get to find out, obviously. But we did learn how a different scale for Jon Watts’ Homecoming…Read more...

Cryptocurrency trading hub Binance, one of the world’s largest, has confirmed it lost about 7,000 Bitcoins (around $40 million) to hackers after its so-called “hot wallet,” i.e. one connected to the internet and used to process transactions, was breached, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.Read more...

Former Trump lawyer and current prison inmate Michael Cohen said in a recording earlier this year that he helped conservative scumbag Jerry Falwell Jr. cover up “personal” photographs of the sort that would generally be kept “between husband and wife,” according to Reuters. Cohen helped Falwell out with this dilemma…Read more...

The FBI working in conjunction with authorities in multiple nations has arrested several individuals in connection with their involvement in Deep Dot Web, a website that allegedly profiteered by taking commissions on referral links to dark web markets, TechCrunch reported on Tuesday. It has also seized domains…Read more...

There are two kinds of people in the world: people who want dark mode everything, and people who for some reason don’t care about being blinded by apps with white backgrounds at night. As you’ve probably guessed, I fall into the first camp, which is why I was curious to check out the official Dark Theme in Android Q. S…Read more...