Gizmodo

The Food and Drug Administration has taken its hardest swing yet against teen vaping—though not as hard as we were expecting. On Thursday, FDA chief Scott Gottlieb unveiled a series of steps aimed at forcing the e-cigarette industry to work harder at keeping its products out of the hands of minors. Chief among them is…Read more...

Alas, this fake mailman has reached the end of his post-apocalyptic road. But for this final installment, it’s a Giant-Sized Edition of “Postal Apocalypse”—although you guys packed my mailbag so full that I still couldn’t answer all of them! (I tried. Seriously, guys, this is really long.) Enjoy, my brilliant,…Read more...

Vaping is a popular activity, one that has a real a 21st-century twist to it. The technology behind vaping is relatively new. The consequences of doing it are mysterious and potentially very dangerous. And yet, vaping seems better than what people in the 20th century did to their bodies—namely smoking cigarettes. If…Read more...

Artificial Intelligence researchers used a neural network to create fake fingerprints that could be a hacker’s dream tool.Read more...

Earlier this year, Google revamped its search engine on mobile devices, adding tabs for “the most common and relevant subtopics” to the top of results. Search for, say, The Grinch, on your phone, and you might see a suggested tab listing upcoming showtimes. Or, until yesterday, one called “fanfiction” that surfaced…Read more...

After not experiencing any meaningful amounts of precipitation for at least 500 years, Chile’s Atacama Desert is finally getting some rain. Quite unexpectedly, however, these rains—instead of fostering life—are doing the exact opposite.

When GOES-17 launched, meteorologists’ hearts skipped a beat. The satellite offered a chance to view all of the U.S. in exceedingly high resolution, and with it, the weather forecasting possibilities were endless.Read more...

Since its introduction in 2012, Dolby Atmos has been a dazzling new audio technology that you could basically only experience in fancy movie theaters. But recently, high-end soundbars have started supporting the standard, which was cool if you wanted to spend north of $1,000 on a system. Vizio did what Vizio often…Read more...

In the war of notches and bezels, Sharp has landed firmly on Team Notch with its upcoming Aquos R2 Compact. Yup, your eyes do not deceive you. That is a phone with two notches.

The strange case of a couple in New Jersey who raised $400,000 on GoFundMe for a homeless good Samaritan appears to be skidding into a surprise ending.Read more...

For a limited time (probably very limited, as it’s capped at 50,000 uses), new customers can save $10 on any $35 Walmart.com order with promo code ELLEN10.Read more...

There’s a new way to cut the cord, and for do-it-yourself nerds like me, it might be the best way, too. SiliconDust is best known for its series of HDHomeRun DVR devices that you hook up to a hard drive or NAS you already own to record TV content and stream it anywhere in the home. Now, for $35 a month you can stream…Read more...

Yoshitaka Sakurada, Japan’s new cybersecurity minister, has never used a computer. Not even once. But he insists that his lack of real-world experience doesn’t have a negative impact on his job. Seriously.

Is there still hope for a Ghostbusters 3? Tom Hanks joins Miguel Sapochnik’s new post-apocalyptic project. The CW wants in on the world of fairytales. Plus, Felicia Day returns to Supernatural, Godzilla vs. Kong just keeps on casting half of Hollywood, and more snippets from Mary Poppins Returns. Spoilers, away!

I’ll say one thing about the new Microsoft Surface Headphones. They’re pretty, especially if you like the color grey. I’ll tell you a few other things. The Cortana features are frustrating. The noise-canceling tech is basically fine. The ear cups aren’t super comfortable. And the headphones just don’t sound that…Read more...

Scientists have learned more about ‘Oumuamua, the hunk of matter that is the first known interstellar object to ever be detected by scientists within the boundary of the solar system. Specifically, observations performed by researchers using the Spitzer Space Telescope and published in The Astronomical Journal have…Read more...

Following recent reports that two masked perpetrators were raising alarm in a town in West Virginia, police say they have reason to believe the troublemakers had just gotten wrecked.

The Open Society Foundations (OSF), a international philanthropic and grantmaking organization, has responded to a bombshell report that senior management at Facebook including Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and chief lobbyist Joel Kaplan were involved in hiring a Republican opposition…Read more...

A judge has ordered Amazon to turn over any data it has pertaining to a New Hampshire double homicide that happened in January of 2017, saying the court has probable cause to believe an Echo may have created recordings that could be useful to the case. But Amazon doesn’t seem eager to fork over audio it may have on…Read more...

Thanks to the latest trailer for Tim Burton’s live-action remake of Dumbo, you’ll still believe a horribly depressed elephant can fly! He will also be ripped away from his mother and be forced to wear clown make-up, among other cruelties.Read more...

Nearly a week after the Camp Fire devastated an entire town, destroying 7,600 homes and at least 260 commercial properties, officials say dozens of people are still missing—possibly hundreds—and many among them are senior citizens.Read more...

Facebook has been exposed as utter garbage yet again. The company allegedly hired a political research firm to spread a conspiracy theory about its critics. And yes, the conspiracy theory reportedly involves George Soros.

Scientists this week released a conceptual design report for a next-generation particle accelerator in China, which would serve as a “Higgs boson factory,” as its proponents have called it.Read more...

It’s nicknamed the “humongous fungus”—an unusually large fungal growth belonging to a single genetic individual. An updated analysis of this gigantic fungal beast shows it’s substantially larger and older than scientists initially thought.

Comcast will cancel the debts of more than 20,000 customers and pay back $700,000 in Massachusetts as part of a settlement with the state’s Attorney General over deceptive advertising. Back in 2015 and early 2016, the cable giant advertised a $99 lock-in rate for plans that didn’t include equipment costs and had…Read more...

Long Island City—Hundreds gathered this afternoon at Gordon Triangle, smack dab in the middle of a newly proposed campus for Amazon employees. Ringed by local news crews, a coalition of local politicians led by City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer and State Senator Michael Gianaris stated their intent to stop Bezos’s…Read more...

Pedro Pascal has a new companion in the wings. MMA fighter-turned-actor Gina Carano has been cast in Jon Favreau’s live-action Star Wars television show, The Mandalorian.

DeepMind’s health app Streams is being consumed by its sister company, Google, and some privacy advocates see the move as a violation of patient trust.Read more...

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday it plans to better regulate the pollutants spewing out of heavy-duty trucks. Yes, this is the same EPA that wants to keep coal power plants alive, plans to scrap regulations on mercury emissions, and does not care about fuel efficiency.Read more...

Heart disease has long been the number one killer in the United States. But a new study out this week is the latest to suggest that it’s only a matter of time before the second leading cause of death—cancer—becomes more commonly fatal for the average person. On the bright side, though, that’s largely because we’ve…Read more...

An unusually large asteroid crater measuring 19 miles wide has been discovered under a continental ice sheet in Greenland. Roughly the size of Paris, it’s now among the 25 biggest asteroid craters on Earth.

The standalone tablet is all but dead. It’s been supplanted by 2-in-1s like the Surface Pro, which promises the excellent content consumption powers of a tablet, crossed with the actual productivity of a real laptop. Still, Apple has defiantly continued to make a tablet—both the budget iPad that was refreshed in March,…Read more...

Scientists have spotted strong evidence of a super-Earth orbiting the second-closest star system to the Sun, according to new research.

For the first time since Doctor Who returned in 2005, there won’t be a special episode airing on Christmas Day...but you seemingly won’t have to wait too long to get another slice of adventures in Time and Space.

The hunt for a truly great and iconic Wear OS smartwatch is still on—but in the meantime, you could do a hell of a lot worse than the Fossil Sport. Thanks to the newer Snapdragon 3100 processor, the Sport finally has most of the features you expect a 2018 smartwatch to have. Namely, heart rate monitoring, standalone…Read more...

The stereotype of a typical Neanderthal life is that it was extraordinarily difficult, violent, and traumatic. But a comparative analysis of the remains left behind by Neanderthals and contemporaneous humans is finally overturning this unwarranted assumption.

It’s the perfect science-fiction device: a hurricane of dark matter. Recent, real-life research has demonstrated that our Sun is currently engulfed in a so-called a stellar stream. Some publications have seized on this ominous-sounding idea, reporting that Earth is about to be walloped by a dark matter storm—but in…Read more...

Ralph Breaks the Internet is an insanely ambitious movie. It is jam-packed with fascinating ideas and important themes to go along with all the humor, heart, and excitement one would expect from a Disney Animation film. For the most part, that ambition adds to the film, providing it with memorable scenes, emotional…Read more...

The Pixel 3 is a pretty good smartphone, but it’s gotten off to a buggy start since launching last month. From unsaved photos and extra notches to wonky RAM management, the latest bug for Google to fix is vanishing text messages, according to recent complaints from Pixel 3 owners.Read more...

The societal, psychological, and sometimes violent consequences of social media are now reverberating from the inside: A recent survey of Facebook employees reportedly found that their opinion of the company has begun to tank.

Customers of the Infowars store are getting scammed every day but this time it’s different. A security researcher discovered a form of malware embedded in the conspiracy site’s checkout process that records credit card details and transmits them to a remote server.Read more...

Adam Knox was a week into learning how to capture brown tree snakes on the Pacific island of Guam when the first one slithered out of his grasp. He was training for a seek-and-destroy task force capable of deploying to isolated islands and removing any invasive brown tree snakes before they had a chance to wreak the…Read more...

For just $19 today, you can grab Anker’s SoundBuds Surge lightweight Bluetooth headphones, a close relative of the SoundBuds Slim, which won our affordable Bluetooth headphone Co-Op. With magnetic connectors on the earpieces and a water-resistant coating, these would be a great addition to your gym bag or suitcase,…Read more...

As residents of Malibu fled their seaside city in droves to escape a raging wildfire on Thursday, volcanologist Jess Phoenix hitched her two-horse trailer to her Ford F-250, hopped on the 101-freeway, and headed straight for the inferno. There were animals that needed rescuing.

Google has a new, experimental web app for you to try: Squoosh. It uses the latest in image compression technology to cram your pictures into smaller file sizes with a minimal loss of quality, but what really impresses about the app—coded in the WebAssembly programming language—is its speed, even under a relatively…Read more...

Kevin Feige talks about Marvel’s plans for The Eternals. There’s wild rumors about who else could join Westworld’s third season. Go behind the scenes on Aquaman’s underwater filming. Plus, the first details from the last two episodes of Doctor Who season 11, and a new look at Elseworlds. Spoilers go!

The trailer for the new Detective Pikachu movie caused a lot of controversy when it first hit the internet on Monday. Ryan Reynolds voices the yellow pocket monster and people are having feelings about that choice. But one Twitter user has now fixed the movie by adding exactly what this film needs: The voice of…Read more...

Tyler Barriss, the California man authorities say was behind a wave of “swatting” incidents, has pleaded guilty to a total of 51 federal charges and will receive a minimum of 20 years in prison if his plea deal is approved by the judge in the case, the AP reported on Tuesday.Read more...

Twitter is never, ever going to ban or otherwise take direct action against the president, who besides being the site’s number one power user has in the past skirted uncomfortably close to using it as ground zero for nuclear war. The logic goes that as the president, Trump’s tweets are inherently newsworthy—a sensible…Read more...

The British Army is carrying out a major, four-week test of 70 new technologies, “including unmanned vehicles and surveillance drones,” as part of its “Autonomous Warrior experiment,” the MIT Technology Review reported this week.