Gizmodo

Today has been exciting for anyone who cares about tension among Big Tech’s ultra-rich, as two executives have thrown barbs over Facebook’s management ethos.

Madagascar’s history contains some truly enormous animals, from giant lemurs to giant tortoises. The island was also home to 10-foot-tall flightless birds, which sadly disappeared hundreds of years ago. But how we humans classified those birds was, well, a mess.Read more...

“This is it,” Mark Zuckerberg said to a crowd of developers and press at Facebook’s annual VR developers conference, Oculus Connect. “This is the all-in-one VR experience that we have been waiting for. It’s wireless, its got hand presence, 6 degrees of freedom, and it runs Rift-quality experiences.”Read more...

For a female octopus, the laying of eggs signifies the beginning of the end.

Not every one wants email notifications or step-tracking on their timepieces, but Longines has created an analog watch that cleverly integrates one useful smartwatch feature: easy time zone adjustments, without requiring a wireless connection to your phone, or the watch to be charged every night.Read more...

A few years ago, the team at ILMxLAB teased that it was bringing the Dark Lord of the Sith to virtual reality. Now, we’ve got our first look at it in action, and well, it’s more like Vader is bringing you to him.

The irony of transitioning to clean energy is we’re going to have to mine the shit out of the Earth to do it. Much like our computers and smartphones, wind turbines and solar panels are high-tech devices whose production demands a smattering of metals and minerals from across the periodic table and the planet.

Last week, I ran an ad on Facebook that was targeted at a computer science professor named Alan Mislove. Mislove studies how privacy works on social networks and had a theory that Facebook is letting advertisers reach users with contact information collected in surprising ways. I was helping him test the theory by…Read more...

The cast of Birds of Prey finally has more to report than rumors and “Margot Robbie returns as Harley Quinn.”

It’s all but impossible to keep phallic comparisons out of your head when staring up at a towering skyscraper, but residents of the Guangxi region in southeastern China have a new addition to their skyline that seems unmistakably penis-inspired—and a fake viral video isn’t helping to dissuade opinions.Read more...

VR is in a tricky spot. Devices like the Rift and the Vive have proven that immersive virtual worlds are within our reach, and yet, no one cares. The problem is that current VR headsets still have a lot of rough edges. They aren’t quite precise enough and the good ones are too expensive for most folks. But with the…Read more...

The first wave of routine genetics testing has already helped millions of people learn about their hereditary risk for certain diseases like cancer. But a new study published Tuesday in JAMA suggests that as our knowledge of genetics expands, these initial results sometimes need to be revised.Read more...

Tesla’s issues with delivering new Model 3s to their customers are quite well-known, since Elon Musk himself tweeted about it, and earlier this week Musk clarified the issue, stating that it was based on an “extreme shortage of car carrier trailers.” The weird thing is that if there is such an “extreme shortage,”…Read more...

Uber will pay a $148 million fine as part of a settlement reached with state law enforcement officials over allegations it attempted to conceal a 2016 data breach affecting millions of its users, the company said.

Scientists disproved a widely accepted idea about neutron stars with a recent observation of a high-energy particle jet.

Sweden’s advertising watchdog ruled that an employer’s recruitment post on Facebook and Instagram discriminated against women. The offending content was the inclusion of the Distracted Boyfriend meme.

Executives at six of the nation’s largest internet and technology companies gathered Wednesday on Capitol Hill for a data-privacy hearing called in response to growing concerns over the comparatively inadequate protections offered to consumers under U.S. law.

India’s Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that the country’s sweeping biometric database does not violate privacy rights. But the panel of five judges did decide to place restrictions on the program, according to the Times of India.Read more...

Earlier this week, controversy arose around the latest release of Google’s Chrome web browser because it’s far too easy for users to be forced to log in without realizing they’re doing it. Google now says it’ll be making some changes to solve the problem.Read more...

Scientists across the world are working together to make the most detailed map of the human body—one that will show how the tissues and organs of the body function and interact with one another on a cellular level.Read more...

My first memory begins with popcorn. I’m sitting in the back seat of a station wagon and there, lodged between the passenger’s seat and the middle armrest, is a kernel of popcorn. We’re at the drive-in watching a movie and I’m four-years-old. I know this not because I remembered my age, but because the drive-in was…Read more...

According to a new report, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) broke a record last year by flying more drone missions along America’s borders than ever before. CBP completed 635 missions in the 2017 fiscal year, totaling over 5,625 hours of flight. The agency uses unarmed MQ-9 Predator B drones that are equipped…Read more...

Fortnite did it. The battle royale game, which has become wildly popular over the last year, appears to have finally led to Sony’s capitulation. Because Sony, which has refused to play nice with other gaming platforms, will now offer cross-play, and the first game getting support is Fortnite.Read more...

With attendance hovering around 200,000, Photokina is the largest camera and imaging trade show on the planet. And since it’s held just once every two years (until 2019 when it switches over to being an annual event), cameras company often save major announcements for the show so they can all duke it out together…Read more...

Today, representatives from tech companies including Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Facebook, Twitter, and Google will testify before the Senate Commerce Committee on issues of consumer data privacy at a hearing with the limply stated purpose of finding “what Congress can do to promote clear privacy expectations without hurting…Read more...

It’s been 107 agonizing days since NASA last heard from Opportunity, raising fears that the 14-year-old rover has finally expired after being battered by a massive dust storm. The Martian probe may be quiet, but a new photo taken of Opportunity from space is providing some much-needed solace.Read more...

You might be familiar with Facebook regularly throwing heartwarming (or heartbreaking) memories in your face every once in a while, but if you want to take a serious dive into your digital past,. Here’s a guide to dredging into your your digital past on some of the most popular apps and services out there.

Google, which banned cryptocurrency advertisements from its platform earlier this year, will be partially rolling back that policy as of October.

Microsoft has claimed that the Xbox One would be getting full, official mouse and keyboard support since June 2016, though the feature has long remained ephemeral beyond unsupported third-party workarounds. According to a company blog post on Tuesday, though, they are actually doing it this time and a preliminary…Read more...

Cody Wilson, the self-identified “crypto-anarchist” CEO of 3D-printed gun organization Defense Distributed, has resigned following his arrest in Taiwan over charges of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl in Texas.Read more...

Optimus Prime and Grimlock were among the most popular Transformers characters from the original animated series, but Soundwave, who spoke like he’d swallowed a synthesizer, was undoubtedly every kid’s favorite. I still have the original toy, but as an adult, I want this custom Soundwave-shaped boombox even more.Read more...

If you’ve seen one too many movies with Jason, Freddy, or Michael, may I suggest giving the Rain Ripper a shot? He’s the antagonist in the smart, tense film Open 24 Hours, which gives the classic stalker genre a personal touch.Read more...

As if the devastating effects of bombs dropped on European cities during the Second World War weren’t terrible enough, a surprising new study shows that the shockwaves produced by these bombing raids reached the edge of space, temporarily weakening the Earth’s ionosphere.Read more...

According to the president, Jeff Sessions is not the Attorney General of the United States. But he keeps showing up to work and doing something. On Tuesday, he held a much-anticipated meeting with state attorneys general to discuss “political bias” on tech platforms. The transparent move to please his boss didn’t go…Read more...

We see a lot of deals around the web over on Kinja Deals, but these were our ten favorites today.Read more...

There are six outstanding math problems that, if solved, will net you a $1 million reward. On Monday, a highly regarded mathematician claimed in a lecture that he has proven perhaps the most famous of these problems, called the Riemann hypothesis. But there’s reason to be skeptical.Read more...

People go crazy over their Instant Pots. Enthusiasts call themselves Instant Pot Heads, and we wouldn’t be surprised if they kept it under their pillows at night. Now comes news today that the Internet’s favorite don’t-you-dare-call-it-a-pressure-cooker is adding a blender to its multi-million-selling appliance. So…Read more...

Ambrosia—the startup that injects the plasma of young people into those 35 and older—is looking to open up shop in New York City.Read more...

Twitter is expanding its rules on hateful conduct and will soon police “dehumanizing speech” on its platform. The move that could help stamp out some of the vilest content on the social network—if the company can adequately enforce it.Read more...

The discovery of enigmatic dust storms on Titan means the Solar System’s most exotic moon just took it up a notch.Read more...

Look, I’m as sick of typhoons and hurricanes menacing humanity as you are. They’re planetary bullies and they suck. But I can take a begrudging moment to appreciate how they look from space.Read more...

LED strip lights can add a ton of personality to seemingly boring spaces, and this 2 meter model is just $29 today with promo code TCCDYAG5. This model has Wi-Fi built in (most inexpensive models use Bluetooth), meaning that you can control it with Alexa, Google Home, and even Siri, and can operate across the entire…Read more...

Scientists in the UK and Sweden believe they’ve come across an unprecedented advance in Alzheimer’s disease research: A method of developing new drugs that can target the roots of the fatal disease in a way that previous attempts couldn’t. But while the latest published work is genuinely intriguing, outside experts…Read more...

Even if it’s technically new, Nintendo Switch Online shouldn’t seem especially new to anyone. Like Xbox Live Gold for the Xbox One and PlayStation Plus on the PlayStation 4, the new $20 subscription for everyone’s favorite “hybrid” console confers a couple services gamers on other platforms would consider standard—the…Read more...

Well here it is, following the Nikon Z7/Z6 and Canon EOS R, Panasonic is treating photo fanatics to the third new line of full-frame mirrorless cameras in as many months in the form of the new Lumix S1 and S1R.Read more...

A puppet master who helped bring to life Disney’s vision of an African animal kingdom was arrested last week for allegedly 3D-printing guns in the prop room of the Broadway theater, court records show.Read more...

In October 2017, a pair of treasure-hunting metal detectorists made an extraordinary discovery near a Swiss lake: a sculpted bronze hand with a gold cuff dating back some 3,500 years. Archaeologists have never seen anything quite like it, and are at a loss to explain its purpose or function. And in an unfortunate…Read more...

On Monday, the founders of Instagram announced they were leaving to focus on new opportunities. To the surprise of no one, it’s looking like the problem was the CEO of Instagram’s parent company, Facebook. And with those meddlesome founders out of the way, users should worry about a Facebook-ified Insta.Read more...

It looks like nobody’s going to be shooting a Yellowstone grizzly bear for sport this year after all.

Facebook likes to outsource its most egregious issues, and weeding out the platform’s gruesome and graphic content is no exception. On Friday, a former Facebook content moderator sued the social network, alleging that she suffers from psychological trauma as a result of the job.