Gizmodo

The Metropolitan Transit Authority’s subway system is in a desperate shape and its riders are very, very vocal about just how terrible it can be.Read more...

It seems the billion-dollar battle over the mobile market has claimed another victim today, as Asus announced that longtime CEO Jerry Shen will be stepping down in advance of an upcoming corporate restructuring.Read more...

This holiday season, the Food and Drug Administration has issued an important, somehow not obvious piece of advice to the public: Please don’t eat or use glitter in your baked goods unless it’s clearly labeled as edible.

A startup based in Maryland has released and tested an impressive new quantum computer that demonstrates the power of an occasionally overlooked quantum computing architecture.Read more...

RAVPower’s HyperAir Qi charging pad is one of the few models out there to support the fastest-possible 7.5W iPhone charging, and you can get it for just $20 today with promo code KINJA034.Read more...

The case of the RMS Titanic sinking in 1912 has generated numerous absurd conspiracy theories over the years, but it turns out the discovery of its wreckage was indeed part of a real-life military cover-up. According to a new report, the team that found the “unsinkable” ship at the bottom of the ocean was actually…Read more...

The precise location of NASA’s InSight lander within Elysium Planitia is now known, thanks to images captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

After investing in virtual reality experiences, IMAX has officially decided to cut its losses. In an SEC filing yesterday, the company revealed it’ll shutter its remaining three VR theaters—including its flagship location in Los Angeles—in early 2019 and write off “certain VR content investments.”Read more...

Listen, don’t be like me. Don’t try to stuff your work laptop and other necessities into whatever backpack you have lying around. It doesn’t work well, and you won’t have a system for which items go in which pockets, which results in lost objects and digging around for your debit card and holding up the line when you…Read more...

Colin Trevorrow discusses his approach to Dinos roaming among us in the third Jurassic World movie. Nic Cage hypes up his next wild supernatural role. Stargirl recruits two more classic DC heroes. Plus, Jennifer Pierce suits up on Black Lightning, another Aquaman clip, and a first look at Playmobil: The Movie.…Read more...

There’s a lot of issues with Facebook Portal, but one of them was the lack of apps and web browser at launch. Privacy concerns aside, you just couldn’t really make use of the smart display aside from its cool-yet-creepy video calls. Today, Facebook is rolling out some updates to fix that.Read more...

It is my genuine and deeply held belief that a miniature car jump starter is one of the most thoughtful holiday gifts someone can give. Some day, somewhere, it’ll get your giftee out of a tricky situation, and they’ll remember that it was you—thoughtful, intelligent you—that saved them with your foresight and…Read more...

Nearly two years before the U.S. government’s first known inquiry into the activities of Reddit co-founder and famed digital activist Aaron Swartz, the FBI swept up his email data in a counterterrorism investigation that also ensnared students at an American university, according to a once-secret document first…Read more...

Following a catastrophic fire in September that destroyed millions of priceless items at the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, Google has unveiled a project that preserved some of those precious artifacts and can now be explored through Google Street View.

Hypothetical question: Assuming that Facebook wasn’t at once impressively incompetent, incredibly dangerous, and also, you know, evil, would you pay to watch some of your favorite movies or TV shows on its platform? Would you be willing to use your hard-earned money to transform Facebook into your one-stop-shop for…Read more...

After Tumblr mysteriously disappeared from Apple’s App Store last month, it appears it has returned. The re-emergence of Tumblr’s app on the platform this week follows its controversial and maligned ban on adult content, which the company said would begin taking effect on December 17.Read more...

It’s been an outstanding week for Godzilla fans. First, we got a monster-packed new trailer for Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Then, we got a very fun fan-made remix trailer that looked at the upcoming movie through an old-school kaiju lens. And now, the movie’s supporting cast of “Titans” have their very own…Read more...

Predictim, a service that sells parents the opportunity to screen potential babysitters by crawling social media, the web, and criminal databases, has announced it’ll be taking a step back and rethinking its approach after a wave of bad press and public criticism.Read more...

Quantum computers that can crack our strongest encryption methods might be decades away—but a group of entrepreneurs and researchers think we better start talking ethics now.Read more...

Earlier today, Virgin Galactic sent its SpaceShipTwo commercial aircraft into space, a historic first for the private company. But at a maximum altitude of 51.4 miles (82.68 kilometers), the spaceplane fell 10.6 miles (17.32 kilometers) short of the Karman line—the internationally recognized boundary separating the…Read more...

Google seems to be trying to distinguishing itself from the likes of Microsoft and Amazon with a recent statement claiming it will not sell its facial recognition technology until it figures out certain policy issues.Read more...

A Pennsylvania Democrat who drew the scorn of activists and constituents after declining to sign on to a House effort aimed at overturning the FCC’s net neutrality repeal now says she will attach her name to the resolution.

PC has never been a singular platform like, say, PlayStation or Xbox. Instead, it’s a series of disparate landmasses sharing the same turbulent sea.

A disease-carrying, newly invasive tick to the United States, the Asian longhorned tick, is poised to spread across much of North America, suggests a new study published Thursday in the Journal of Medical Entomology. According to the study, the tick might be able to live anywhere from Southeastern Canada to most of…Read more...

All of a sudden, it seems like almost no one is making laptops like Alienware makes laptops: beefy, loud, and fast. Most of the top gaming laptop makers have embraced the design style popularized by Razer and supported by Nvidia’s Max-Q design ethos: thin and sacrificing a little power for portability. But not…Read more...

On Wednesday afternoon, a wave of bomb threats were reported at various locations across the United States. On social media, numerous law enforcement departments issued alerts notifying citizens that they’re looking into bomb threats targeting businesses, schools, government offices and even private residents. It…Read more...

Robotic couriers that look a whole lot like Minions could be coming to your city next year.Read more...

Since its inception in the 1950s, radiocarbon dating has proven indispensable to archaeologists and climate scientists, who rely on the technique to accurately date organic compounds. But a good thing just got better, owing to the discovery of two stalagmites in a Chinese cave containing a seamless chronological…Read more...

The first teaser trailer for Avengers: Endgame dropped last week, featuring a universe devoid of 50 percent of all living things thanks to Thanos’ extremely poorly thought-through ecological genocide. The Big Bad was inspired to wipe out half of all life after watching his home world of Titan descend into chaos when…Read more...

What did kids from the year 1904 think would happen by the year 1919 or even the year 2019? They imagined fancy airships in the sky, “automobiles for everything,” and wondrous house-cleaning robots. They even imagined trips to Mars by the year 1919. Seriously.Read more...

Autonomous vehicles were supposed to make driving safer, and they may yet—some of the more optimistic research indicates self-driving cars could save tens of thousands of lives a year in the U.S. alone. But so far, a recklessness has defined the culture of the largest companies pursuing the technology—Uber, Google,…Read more...

One of the most fun memories my family has made in recent years was a giant NERF battle on the lawn. I’m talking children, my adult siblings and their spouses, my parents — all of us pummeling each other with foam darts and then pausing to collect them so we could go again.Read more...

The story behind animation legend Hayao Miyazaki’s retirement from Studio Ghibli—and nascent return to work on new animation mediums and deliver one last film—is well known at this point. But a new documentary wants to show the world the personal struggle behind Miyazaki’s latest quest, and we’ve got a brief look.

What separates Tesla, at least according to the marketing copy, from every other car company is this: It’s not driven by a desire for profit, but by a mission to save the planet from climate change by electrifying our cars. But what’s it like to live that mission every day if you’re a rank-and-file Tesla worker, or…Read more...

Another day, another tech company being disingenuous about its privacy practices. This time it’s Microsoft, after it was discovered that Windows 10 continues to track users’ activity even after they’ve disabled the activity-tracking option in their Windows 10 settings.

Alexa can be fun to talk to when you’re lonely or bored, but she’s not exactly animated. The Anki Vector Home Robot solves that problem by behaving almost like a pet. He can answer questions, sure, but he also reacts to sight, sound, and touch and is excited to see you when you come home. And better than any other…Read more...

Remember when the Trump administration proposed rolling back Obama-era fuel economy standards and the auto industry’s response was basically, “Whoa, we didn’t actually want all that”? That was weird, if also revealing. Behind the scenes, Big Oil never wavered though, according to a new New York Times report, which…Read more...

Mark Hamill talks Star Wars: Episode IX secrecy. Birds of Prey casts an intriguing ally for Renee Montoya. Black Mirror adds a surprising guest star. Supernatural celebrates three hundred episodes with the return of a familiar face. Plus, what’s to come on the DC/CW shows, and new clips from Into the Spider-Verse and …Read more...

Sous-Vide circulators, weighted blankets, a Kamado grill, outdoorsy gear, and discounted Anker headphones lead off Thursday’s best deals.

Internal Google documents obtained by the Guardian warn full-time Google staff to treat temps, vendors, and contractors (TVCs)—which comprise just short of half of the company’s 170,000 workers around the globe—much differently than they treat fellow full-timers.

Courtesy of the New York Times, we just got another reminder of how invasive location tracking through apps can be—which might have caused you to turn off this particular permission for a bunch of apps on your smartphone. But location tracking goes a lot deeper than that.Read more...

There are a few levers of power that can shut down fossil fuel companies, one of which is to cut off their supply of money. And investors are starting to do just that in increasingly greater numbers.Read more...

For the last seven years, SplashData has revealed its annual list of the most commonly used passwords of the year. This time around, the results reveal that, uh, we still have work to do.

A weighted blanket would be an amazing gift for your stressed out friends and family members (and really, are there any other types?). Just think about how nice the lead vest feels when they lay it on you at the dentist, and then imagine feeling that way at home, under a soft blanket, without someone scraping at your…Read more...

Apple announced overnight that the tech giant will open a new $1 billion campus in Austin, Texas, just a mile away from their existing presence in the city. The 133-acre campus will house 5,000 employees, with an eventual capacity for as many as 15,000 workers.Read more...

A man who police suspect of attempting to rob a shuttered Chinese restaurant in San Lorenzo, California found himself in a potentially fatal situation after he became trapped in a metal duct, where he reportedly remained for two days before someone found him.Read more...

Washington, DC, has a serious rat problem on its hands, and it has little to do with the shady goings-on at some of the highest levels of government. No, we’re talking real, honest to god rat kings who are wreaking havoc on the nation’s capital.Read more...

Gaming hardware manufacturer Razer has launched a cryptocurrency mining program named Razer SoftMiner to put spare graphics card capacity to work—for them, not for you.Read more...

Should we hold companies like Equifax and Facebook responsible for the protection of our personal information in the same way we hold banks and hospitals responsible? Should we expect the same level of control over data we’ve given to Google as we do with information shared with our doctor or lawyer?

There is a lot more artificial intelligence, and it is sprouting and multiplying everywhere. In schools, in job openings, in media coverage. The number of AI-based startups, conferences, research papers, and patents is skyrocketing. That’s perhaps the simplest way to frame the findings of the 2018 AI Index Report,…Read more...