Gizmodo

If you got any new gadgets over the holidays, there’s a decent chance they charge over USB-C.

Russia tested a new hypersonic glide missile system today under direct orders from President Vladimir Putin, according to reports from Russian state media. The new system, called the Avangard, utilizes an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and a hypersonic glide vehicle and is supposed to travel at roughly five…Read more...

GoFundMe has refunded people who donated to a viral campaign ostensibly intended to benefit a Philadelphia homeless man and that authorities now allege was an elaborate scam, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.

Since taking up birding in earnest, I’ve started noticing the birds that appear on Christmas merchandise like stockings, cards, and ornaments. And I think we can do better.

Those of you with dark enough skies last week might have caught a glimpse of the green comet 46P/Wirtanen. It was bright enough to see with the naked eye, and occurred alongside the Geminid meteor shower.

This morning, people across the country will unwrap brand new Nintendo Switches. Maybe they’ll open up the eShop and look at the Top Sellers, where they’ll see a selection of the usual suspects: Smash Bros., Mario Kart 8, Stardew Valley. And then they’ll see Bouncy Bob.

A tsunami that slammed into the beaches of Indonesia’s Sunda Strait over the weekend has reportedly resulted in the deaths of at least 429 people.

Russian cosmonaut Sergei Prokopyev said that the mysterious hole in a Soyuz capsule docked to the International Space Station was drilled from the inside, according to the Associated Press.Read more...

While we’re still patiently waiting for Disney+ to announce that Shuri series we’ve been dreaming of since ol’ Loki got his own standalone gig, at least we can admire this smashing new, fully posable Black Panther Shuri doll, a special edition that’s exclusive to Disney stores and shopDisney.Read more...

2019 is the year that tech gets it together, we can feel it.

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.Read more...

After a season full of wonderful adventures that specifically excluded villains from Doctor Who’s past, the BBC is going back to familiar territory.Read more...

Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th are all horror classics—and, if Jordan Peele has his way, Us will soon join them. The first trailer for Peele’s follow-up to Get Out is here, and with this film, the writer-director had some lofty goals.Read more...

If scored a brand new gaming console this holiday season (or any other time), you’re going to want to get it up and running as quickly as possible—here’s how to get started with your PlayStation, Xbox, or Switch, as well as some tips for customizing your new gaming machine and exploring some of its features.

Any number of remotes more than one remote is too many, and this $33 Logitech Harmony can combine all of your disparate remotes into one.

You’ve unboxed yourself a brand new laptop, logged in, changed the wallpaper to something more your taste, and... now what? Let us direct to you a collection of the best free software you need to install straight away, whether your new machine is running Windows or macOS.

You know someone or something is about to get an Asgardian-level beatdown when Thor’s eyes start to glow. It’s an effect in the movies that’s created by visual effects artists in post-production, but YouTuber KyleofAsgard has figured out how to create in real life with a custom-built Thor helmet and special contact…Read more...

On December 24, 1968, Apollo 8 astronauts William Anders, Jim Lovell, and Frank Borman reached lunar orbit, allowing them to become the first humans in history to witness an Earthrise. The images captured that day, showing our planet in context with the lunar landscape, remain among the most enduring photos taken…Read more...

The holidays can be the most wonderful time of the year for some, but only when all of the baking, shopping, and decorating is done. Decking the halls and trimming the tree can often be a gruelling all-day affair, but YouTube’s the Hacksmith has come up with a time-saving solution in the form of a yuletide cannon.Read more...

The volcano that destroyed Pompeii in 79 AD affected both the citizens of the ancient Roman city and their animal companions, as a remarkable new discovery shows.

It’s that time of year again. It’s time to take a look at the most popular fake photos, quotes, and videos that were circulating on the internet throughout the year. And what a year it was for fakes.Read more...

I am bad at Super Smash Bros. Maybe you are too! We could listen to our betters, who claim the only tact for improving is to “get gud,” or we could employ the time-honored tradition of modifying our hardware to make our gaming a little less shitty. This isn’t me encouraging you to apply some shady mod that lets you…Read more...

Anker’s reader-favorite PowerLine charging cables have blossomed into an entire line of different products, and it hasn’t always been clear which one was the best:

There are many gadgets that can be bought for friends and loved ones during the holidays. Some are useful, or thoughtful. Some would have seemed miraculous a decade or two ago. But just get them a battery pack.

All this talk about whether or not Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is problematic has obscured a very important question—i.e., what was actually wrong with Rudolph’s nose? Like, medically? Did no one ever think of taking him to a doctor, to see if everything was ok with his nose, before being mean to him about it?

Update: This code doesn’t seem to working right now. We’ll update you when it’s up and running again.Read more...

As you might have noticed, another year is drawing to a close. What you might have missed are all the tips and tricks we’ve packed into the Field Guides of 2018—and so here are some of our favorite hacks and time-savers, from exporting Fitbit data to finding hidden Windows menus, that we think are worth highlighting…Read more...

Everyone by now is familiar with the specific kind of partisan rage that manifests on Facebook, particularly with the kind of tailored memes meant to incite political outrage that find a home on its platform. But according to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Facebook mulled a tool meant to facilitate greater…Read more...

The holidays are nigh, and this year’s naughty list is long indeed—and from revelations of reckless privacy violations over at Facebook headquarters and continued labor abuses at Amazon to the generally terrible way humanity has treated our homeworld, your erstwhile chroniclers at Gizmodo have been adding names to it…Read more...

I expect a lot of things from The Walking Dead. Action. Melodrama. Zombies. But actual, deep-seated fear, that Texas Chainsaw Massacre kind of creeped out? Not usually. It’s not that kind of show anymore, most of the time.Read more...

The crypto crash has continued, with about $700 billion wiped off the market since its peak at around $800 billion at the start of the year, and leaving a trail of destroyed startups behind it. Bitcoin at one point closed in on the $3,000 price mark, well below both its peak of nearly $20,000 in 2017 and a so-called…Read more...

While Santa Claus himself may be sovereign, the people who work behind the scenes to track his movements in real time are not. But any concerned parties can breathe easy knowing that in spite of a government shutdown that may or may not continue on through the new year, the government organization that’s tracked…Read more...

I don’t care for first-person games that are heavy on jumpscares, and so speedrunner AcrohTheBeast’s 10:24 blindfolded run seems like the perfect way to play the game.Read more...

The Trump administration’s latest gambit to erodeconstitutional and legal protections for asylum-seekers will be tested in thecourts, and if recent experience is any indicator, Trump’s probably going tolose. Again.Read more...

And Kylo Ren has been brooding the entire time.Read more...

Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched its first national security payload for the U.S. government (specifically the Air Force) on Sunday, delivering a roughly $500 million GPS satellite constructed by Lockheed Martin into orbit on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral at 8:51 a.m. ET, the Guardian reported.

“Vader Episode 1: Shards of the Past” is the first installment in a fan film series by the Star Wars Theory YouTube channel, and it’s a good ‘un. Taking place in the early months of the Empire—after the full fall of the Republic but before the Clones were replaced with cheaper Stormtroopers—the film focuses on Darth…Read more...

A deadly tsunami that struck Indonesia unexpectedly has reportedly left hundreds of people dead and many more missing and injured.Read more...

Our nation’s great Z nightmare is over.Read more...

While Gunnar glasses are marketed towards gamers, they can be effective at reducing eyestrain for anyone that spends their day staring at a screen. The problem is that they’re typically pretty expensive, and rarely go on sale. Today though, you can grab a pair of MLG Phantom frames for $40 with promo code KINJAMLG.

Updated 12/23/18 9:30 a.m. ET: Sussex Police have released the two suspects arrested in connection to the drone incident at Gatwick Airport without charge, Detective Chief Superintendent Jason Tingley said.Read more...

Superstructures—giant, impossible machines or buildings, popular in science fiction, more or less impossible in reality—are the absolute best. They are my jam. The Dyson Sphere is the best one.

Sometimes, you just have to lean into it. And that was James Wan’s precise reaction when asked about “Ocean to Ocean”, Pitbull’s… interesting… remix of Toto’s “Africa.” The song appears both on the soundtrack and in a moment in the film, and Wan has a pretty clear explanation as to why.Read more...

Following an investigation by the New York Times that revealed a group of researchers mirrored tactics used by the Russians to oppose Republican candidate Roy Moore in last year’s special election in Alabama, Facebook has reportedly closed the accounts of several individuals involved with the effort.Read more...

This week, the Oogie Boogie Man made of deflated basketballs currently residing in the Oval Office, Donald Trump, made good on his threat to shut down the federal government if Congress doesn’t approve $5.7 billion in funding for his U.S.-Mexico border wall project.

Aquaman’s in the limelight, but Marvel has its own ocean-faring counterpart, and he is not happy.Read more...

The brain behind a number of Super Mario 64 mods has done it again by recreating lots of Super Mario Bros. levels inside of Super Mario 64.Read more...

Mr. John Wick is riding a wild assassination train, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.Read more...

The Chinese government has ended a nine-month freeze on new approvals of video game licenses, the South China Morning Post reported on Friday, after the establishment of a “new body to review ethical issues in gaming” and the completion of a re-organization among government media agencies.

After unnecessarily shutting down the accounts of some of its customers, Slack is now apologizing for the significant overreach.