Gizmodo

If you suddenly find yourself in need of extra Switch controllers for your Super Smash Bros. parties, PowerA’s enhanced wireless controller is down to $40 on Amazon right now, an all-time low.

Scientists genetically modified plants in order to give a huge boost to photosynthesis, hoping to one day improve the yield of food crops like rice and wheat, according to a new paper.Read more...

In the not-too-distant future, it will be possible to get a complete readout of a person’s genetics with ease, even right after they’re born. A new study published Thursday offers a glimpse of what that future could look, suggesting many children are born with genetic conditions that can’t be found with current…Read more...

Star Trek: Short Treks has so far been the perfect way to while away the time until Discovery’s return in a few weeks. Tonight, “The Escape Artist,” the fourth and final minisode in the series, shines a spotlight on the infamous Harcourt Fenton Mudd—and to learn more, we spoke to Mudd himself, Rainn Wilson.

With its high price, outdated specs, lackluster holographic screen, and absent mod support, Red’s Hydrogen One may have been the biggest smartphone flop of 2018. However, on the last day of the year, Red teased that something could be coming in 2019 that could potentially redeem the over-hyped handset.Read more...

Vivid new satellite photos of Anak Krakatau are providing our first cloud-free glimpse of the island volcano that triggered a devastating tsunami in Indonesia late last month. As the photos show, a gaping lagoon now appears where a 1,115-foot-high volcanic mountain once stood.

On Wednesday, Tim Cook issued a dire, surprising, and historic warning to his company’s investors. Apple, the world’s first trillion dollar company, would be lowering its revenue forecast for the first time since 2002, thanks in part to bad iPhone sales and China (basically). But wait, you’re thinking, what the hell…Read more...

The day after Christmas, Amazon celebrated its own annual holiday tradition: announcing record-breaking sales in a very long press release that affirms its status as the largest retailer in the known universe. As such, Jeff Bezos’s Big Store said that in 2018, it surpassed its own sales records with “More Items…Read more...

While performing its 17th flyby of Jupiter, NASA’s Juno spacecraft witnessed a volcanic plume erupting from the surface of Io, the most geologically active of the gas giant’s 79 known moons.Read more...

Apple incorporated 42 years ago today, and it’s celebrating with a flash crash.Read more...

Riders of Dublin’s tram system Luas will have to navigate their commute without the aid of the service’s website on Thursday. The site is down following a hack by someone who mostly appears to be worried about calling attention to security holes.Read more...

In the 1940s, as the Italian Jesuit priest Father Roberto Busa studied “the verbal system” of Thomas Aquinas, he wondered if, perhaps, there was “any gadget” that could help him develop a concordance—an alphabetical listing of all words written by the 13th century philosopher saint, complete with conjunctions,…Read more...

Thieves in Italy managed to get away with over $2 million after orchestrating an absurd, Fast and Furious-esque heist involving burning semi-trucks and backhoes ripping the roof off an armored van, Reuters and a number of Italian news sites write. Here’s a look at what reportedly happened in this wild Italian Job.

ESSEX, NEW YORK—I’m standing with John Davis in front of his grave. It was the very first grave he dug three years ago in the firm soil of the Adirondacks in a place known as Spirit Sanctuary. He had planned to be buried on his land, but he became so enamored with this exact spot, tucked among willows and behind a…Read more...

Many hardcore Walt Disney World fans were heartbroken over the holiday season as reports spread about the theft of a retired audio-animatronic character who once brought joy to millions as a part of an Epcot attraction.

The Jacob’s Ladder remake has lost its release date. Alex Kurtzman talks the psyche of Spock. Robin Lord Taylor hopes for a monstrous end with Gotham’s Penguin. Plus, new stills from Captain Marvel, what’s to come on Riverdale and The Flash, and new footage from The Kid Who Would Be King. Spoilers now!

Need more space to backup your photos or store console games? This 2TB portable drive from WD is just $60 today, which is the best price we’ve seen on this drive since last summer.

The Wound Man (or Man of Wounds, depending on how you translate Fasciculus medicinae, the 1491 medical treatise in which his image first appears) is one of the most well-known medieval surgical diagrams going. It’s up there with da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man (né 1490) but is far less aesthetically pleasing than what…Read more...

Apple’s AirPods paved the way for decent wireless earbuds, but the lump of white plastic that serves as their charging case leaves something to be aesthetically desired. Limited battery life means you’ll have to carry some way to recharge wireless earbuds, though, and Klipsch is seriously wooing me with a battery case…Read more...

An account posing as PayPal used a paid promotion on Twitter to bait users into sharing their personal information under the guise that they were entering an end-of-year contest, The Next Web reported this week.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has landed the Chang’e 4 lunar probe on the far side of the Moon, Chinese media reported on Wednesday night (Eastern Time)—marking the first time that any known spacecraft has made a soft landing on the Moon’s more distant half.

As data breaches and privacy concerns become a frighteningly common feature of our digital world, it’s increasingly important that we think critically about the kinds of apps with which we share our information. A new report from the Wall Street Journal finds that a popular weather app has been asking users for an…Read more...

The newly elected House of Representatives will meet for the first time later this week. When they do, it seems North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District seat will be empty. The state’s 9th District election remains undecided, with allegations of election fraud marring the close race between Republican Mark Harris…Read more...

Hackers have discovered a bug that allows attackers to seize control of Google’s Chromecast media streaming player, making it possible to force the device into “playing any YouTube video they want—including videos that are custom-made,” TechCrunch reported on Wednesday.

In the latest enforcement of a recently adopted policy against the distribution of hacked materials, Twitter has moved to vanquish the account of a hacking group believed to have pilfered thousands of documents from an American law firm that litigated insurance claims stemming from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist…Read more...

A little boy obsessed with space travel suddenly sees exactly what he requires to make that longed-for journey: a coin-operated rocket ship ride sitting in front of a grocery store. Of course, those rickety things can’t really fly—or can they?Read more...

The FBI now has a not-at-all-dystopian unit to combat “media leak threats,” according to new documents obtained by The Young Turks. The documents were partially declassified thanks to a FOIA request.

Remember when we first saw images of the Millennium Falcon in Solo: A Star Wars Story? Everyone freaked out because it looked so different from the Falcon of the past. But, of course, there was a plan in place for how that Falcon, owned by Lando Calrissian, would turn into the one we knew from when it was owned by Han…Read more...

The Root Man Attacks Black Female McDonald’s Worker, Receives Large Surprise Order of ‘That Smoke’ | The A.V. Club Pete Davidson speaks on “Thank U, Next,” slams Louis C.K. in first stand-up show since suicide scare | The Concourse That Is Definitely Not How You Pronounce That Name | Splinter Trump’s First Cabinet…Read more...

Tim Cook just issued a very curious warning: Apple is lowering its revenue guidance for the first quarter of 2019. In other words, Apple is not going to make as much money as it had previously anticipated, and it’s kind of China’s fault. How bad is the damage, you wonder? Apple now expects to earn just $84 billion in…Read more...

With their elongated bills and specially adapted tongues, hummingbirds are built to extract nectar from flowers. As new research shows, however, some hummingbirds from South America have evolved beaks designed to poke, prod, and pinch—at the expense of feeding proficiency.

I’ve lost count of how many times net neutrality has “died” in the last year, but the last long-shot effort to override the FCC’s 2017 decision is now officially dead in the water. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai knows that this milestone is huge, and he’s using the opportunity to dance on the internet’s grave.Read more...

The excitement around NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft arriving at its latest target, an oddly shaped object called (486958) 2014 MU69, has dredged up a fact that often goes unstated—the object’s nickname, “Ultima Thule,” carries links to Nazism.Read more...

The New Horizons team has released the first high-resolution images of (486958) 2014 MU69, nicknamed Ultima Thule, the furthest object ever explored by a spacecraft.

Wednesday is scandal haver Ryan Zinke’s last day as Secretary of the Interior. And it looks like his last official tweet will be the perfect memorial to his utter lack of self awareness.Read more...

Careful, trademark infringement lawsuits may be coming. Even though HBO has already warned President Donald Trump to stop using Game of Thrones imagery to stoke fear and hate, he’s doubling down by turning his November 2018 meme poster into a real, tangible item. Accomplishing, well, who even knows at this point.Read more...

Keyboards, for reasons I’m still unsure of, seem to inspire a lot of nerdery. People will spend hundreds of dollars to tweak and customize their keyboards until they’re perfect. Or they’ll bust out some old keyboard parts and a knitting needle to add a ThinkPad-style trackpoint to an old mechanical keyboard.

There’s at least one healthy New Year’s resolution that you may actually maintain through the year, suggests a new study: cutting down on your drinking. The study found that UK residents who tried to abstain from alcohol for the month of January in 2018—as part of a public health campaign called “Dry…Read more...

Using machine learning to swap out one image for another isn’t new, but ask these systems to do something a bit more complicated than a basic faceswap, and you can end up with underwhelming or laughable results. Now, researchers say they have developed a technique that produces far more convincing images for complex…Read more...

New research shows that garbage piles produced by leaf-cutter ants emit significant amounts of nitrous oxide—a potent greenhouse gas.

A new filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has revealed some details about a new Sonos product. The redacted documents show that a new model number S18 smart speaker will work as satellites for the company’s soundbars to create a surround sound system and will also include built-in microphones for…Read more...

Tesla drivers calls it “ICE-ing”, after the initials for internal combustion engine: It’s where gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles block access to Superchargers as a way to... protest electric vehicles I guess? It has to be frustrating to be barred from obtaining the single thing your car needs to function, but it…Read more...

They don’t make them like this anymore. Occasional astrophysicist and guitarist for Queen Brian May has gifted us with a song in tribute to NASA’s successful mission to flyby Ultima Thule. It’s pure space-opera rock that deserves a place in the nerd cannon right alongside Queen’s soundtrack for Flash Gordon.Read more...

Back in 2015, Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group (ATAP) showed off tiny radar-based sensors that would let you control your gadgets simply by tapping your fingers together. But it wasn’t until earlier this week (and after a small push from Facebook) that Google actually got the go-ahead it needed to…Read more...

Locking your computer when you step away is good, but it’s not failsafe—if you’ve watched any movie or TV shows with hackers, you know anyone with a malicious USB stick can compromise your device. But Chrome OS will reportedly help safeguard against these sorts of attacks on Chromebooks with a new feature called…Read more...

After years of sitting at the margins, a transformative climate action plan known as the Green New Deal has become a focal point in Washington, D.C. thanks to intense pressure from activists and incoming representatives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Now, just two days into 2019, there are signs radical climate action …Read more...

While its grip might not be quite as secure as a perfectly-sized socket, this Tacklife universal socket can get a good-enough hold on almost any bolt, not to mention oddly-shaped things like hooks, without taking up a ton of space in your tool box. Get it for just $8 with promo code LC4LOUY4.Read more...

The new year has brought important milestones for two space missions—but only one of them deals in the very survival of the human species.

The ending to Shane Black’s The Predator was weird, wacky, and completely out of left field, introducing a weapon that could change the game in possible sequels. But what if the new killer wasn’t a thing, but a person? From another movie universe? Apparently, The Predator shot two alternate endings that would’ve…Read more...

Within days of each other back in 1998, two teams published the results of the first real-world quantum computations. But the first quantum computers weren’t computers at all. They were biochemistry equipment, relying on the same science as MRI machines.