Gizmodo

Rising sea levels can submerge the backbone of the internet, increasingly powerful storms can destroy the cell networks phones need to work, and high-intensity winds can tear down the critical infrastructure that makes 21st century America go.Read more...

The season eight premiere of Game of Thrones was a barrage of shocking reunions and reveals. It also showed Bran staring creepily at people. His face may have inspired a lot of memes, but one of his meetings was actually a big deal. Allow us to explain why Bran’s final reunion of the episode, while the shortest, ended…Read more...

If there is one thing no one needs, it’s additional spaces for brands to overwhelm humanity with even more advertising. But thanks to capitalism, the sky is evidently the limit.

Some peaks throughout the Pyrénées Mountains of France stand more than 10,000 feet tall. Across the mountains’ ridges and valleys, adventurous visitors may spot a brown bear or a yellow lily, one of the wildflowers of the Pyrénées. But this mountain range is home to something else too, something not always visible to…Read more...

The Galaxy Fold represents more than eight years of design, engineering, and brand new tech, just to realize a phone with a flexible screen that works. We’re talking new malleable adhesives and complicated composite polymers made specifically to support the bendy display. And now after months of teasing, I’ve finally…Read more...

Construction work in Oxfordshire, England has resulted in the discovery of 26 skeletons dating back to the Iron Age. Archaeologists suspect some of the 3,000-year-old remains may have been victims of human sacrifice.

A series of security reports published over the weekend have raised serious concerns about Microsoft’s transparency in the wake of a recent data breach.Read more...

Compared to other apps, Facebook can seem downright antiquated. One blogger described it recently as “a dopey website that sucks to use and look at.” Facebook seems to be aware of this problem, and is now reportedly testing an interface tweak that’s so aggressively dumb I sincerely hope they go for it.

As a fire raged inside the historic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Monday, people across the world turned to livestreams to watch flames destroy the 850-year-old structure.Read more...

Facial recognition technology can target entire populations of a specific demographic, and in the wrong hands, can be used as a powerful tool for discrimination. In China, this isn’t a cautionary tale, it’s already happening.

It’s not uncommon for new technology to spawn a new sport: Drone racing has become hugely popular around the world, and Segway Polo is apparently still a thing. It’s now artificial intelligence’s turn to give us a new pastime, but will the sport it invented, Speedgate, take the world by storm, or will it be relegated…Read more...

Like with all drugs we take, there are good and bad effects that come with cannabis. But a new study out Monday suggests that one of these bad side effects could be a strange tolerance to anesthesia. It found that Colorado residents who regularly use cannabis needed up to twice as many powerful sedatives before a…Read more...

Engineers in Japan reached an important milestone today, as they began removing fuel rods from one of three reactors that experienced meltdowns in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.Read more...

Internet privacy laws are coming fast and furious in the EU. For those who also feel Online has impaired their sense of time or ability to form new memories, GDPR passed less than a year ago, widely-protested copyright directives passed a vote last month, and the UK put forth broad measures to regulate social media…Read more...

Scientists have found a cometary building block in an unexpected place: deep inside a meteorite, according to a new paper.Read more...

Following reports of problematic braking that in some cases resulted in rider injury, Lyft is pulling its recently acquired network of e-bikes from service in three major cities. Those include Citi Bike in New York, GoBike in San Francisco, and Capital Bikeshare in Washington.Read more...

Sometimes, a barrage of bad reviews can do little to dent the opening of a blockbuster film—just look at the vicious critical reaction to Batman v Superman and its initially-impressive take at the box office. But it seems like Hellboy, fresh off of a critical drubbing, couldn’t escape the level of hell Anung Un Rama…Read more...

It was wet, it was windy, and in less than three hours, I think I had experienced the entire gamut of bone-chilling Chicago weather: rain, sleet, and snow. And I did it all to finally get a taste of those sweet super fast 5G speeds on a real, live functioning network. While my short time testing the next generation of…Read more...

Protesting climate change and treating it like it’s an emergency, isn’t just for children. On Monday, thousands of protesters around the world took to the streets as part of a wave of coordinated action led by climate activism organization Extinction Rebellion. The most visible protests took place in London where…Read more...

Some AT&T customers were able to watch the first episode of the final season of Game of Thrones earlier than everyone else.

Time is moving on, as it tends to do, and iTunes—a media suite that made its debut in 2001, almost two decades ago—is potentially on Apple’s chopping block. This year’s macOS refresh has been being tipped to feature separate apps for TV, music, podcasts, and ebooks, with iTunes maybe hanging around, Internet…Read more...

The challenge of trying to draw anything even partially recognizable using just two spinning knobs has somehow made the Etch A Sketch a popular toy for almost 60 years now. Some artists have managed to master the unique medium with endless hours of practice, but Martin Fitzpatrick opted to hack together a shortcut…Read more...

Twitter is home to some of the vilest neo-Nazis, racists, and homophobes on the planet. But don’t even think about discussing the one topic that’s apparently taboo on the platform: Piracy of TV shows.

There could be a very interesting addition to Bond 25's scriptwriting team. Fullmetal Alchemist’s Yasuhiro Irie is helping to make a new anime for Netflix. Get a look at iZombie’s final return. Plus, what to expect on Doom Patrol and the next episode of Game of Thrones, and Godzilla: King of the Monsters introduces us…Read more...

There might be some contrarian physiologist I’m neglecting here, but it does not feel controversial to say that, among people who study exercise, there is 100 percent consensus re: working out being good for you. Yet for those of us who have adjusted to feeling physically awful all the time, “good for you” might not…Read more...

Bowflex’s SelectTech adjustable dumbbells have been a hit with our readers for years, but Amazon has never flexed its discount muscles on them quite like this before.

President Donald Trump this morning offered some branding advice for American aircraft manufacturer Boeing. And while the advice wasn’t necessarily bad, it was strangely passive-aggressive.Read more...

It’s taken nearly two years, but the game is finally entering its final round. Last night’s long-awaited eighth season premiere was full of moments fans have been dying to see since the series began, and it advanced the story with ruthless efficiency towards its epic conclusion, too. So why did it feel so…Read more...

We’ve been waiting long enough, but at long last: Game of Thrones is back, for one last time. Want to hang out with fellow io9 commenters and discuss the season premiere in all its detail? You can do so at your leisure in this blog post, right here!

Wow, it’s finally here: The last season of HBO’s Game of Thrones premieres tonight. In a matter of mere minutes, viewers will have the chance to re-experience the magical world of Westeros, spending a final few episodes in the company of fan favorites like Dragon Owner, The Explosion Doer, Grizzled Conscience Man, …Read more...

Sources say Apple is spending hundreds of millions of dollars, and may exceed half a billion dollars in total funding, for its upcoming Arcade game subscription service, the Financial Times reported this weekend.

Their journey didn’t quite end the way we wanted it to. It didn’t quite end the way perhaps even Lucasfilm had wanted it to, considering there were plans for plenty more stories to tell. But now, six years after it concluded, the Clone Wars animated series is back to tell Anakin, Ahsoka, and Obi-Wan’s tales once more!

The Nenana Ice Classic, a betting match on when ice on Alaska’s Tanana River breaks up enough to tip a tripod linked to a clock, set a record this weekend by ending nearly a week earlier than ever recorded, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.

Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ groundbreaking sci-fi epic Saga has been, err, well.. a saga. But all things have an end, and now we know that Saga itself is beginning the path to its own—it’s just going to be a little while until we get there.

Fans who watched The Mandalorian panel online during Star Wars Celebration Sunday missed one key thing: never-before-seen footage for the first ever live-action Star Wars TV series. In the room, executive producers Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni showed a behind the scenes featurette as well as full scene and trailer.…Read more...

Facebook and its subsidiaries Instagram and WhatsApp experienced widespread outages on Sunday for the second time in the past month (and the third time this year), with issues reported starting at around 6:30 a.m. ET and extending until around 9:00 a.m. ET.

A movie as bold and intriguing as scope as Avengers: Endgame—the culmination of plot threads, character arcs, relentless post-credit teases, and actor contracts across over a decade of blockbuster film making—naturally invites with it the hushed procedure of secrecy. But that doesn’t just apply to avoiding leaks: it…Read more...

Star Wars Celebration may be best known for its huge breaking news, but the heart of the convention is in the past. Nowhere was that better on display this weekend than the “Star Wars Rebels Remembered” panel, where executive producer Dave Filoni, along with actors Vanessa Marshall, Tiya Sircar, and Taylor Grey spoke…Read more...

August’s Smart Lock Pro lets you lock and unlock your door from anywhere using your phone, it’s even compatible with Siri, and you can get it for just $165 today, when bundled with a Connect Hub.

Stratolaunch, the world’s largest plane by wingspan and the brainchild of late Silicon Valley billionaire Paul Allen, finally took off at around 10:00 a.m. local time on Saturday for a two and a half hour inaugural flight, the Washington Post reported.

Law enforcement queries of Google’s massive mobile device Location History database, which employees call Sensorvault, has “risen sharply in the past six months,” the New York Times reported on Saturday, citing sources at the company.

Those adorably tame goats and other animals you love to touch at your local petting zoo might not be so harmless after all, according to some early research out this weekend. It suggests that many petting zoo animals could harbor and potentially spread dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria, including two strains of …Read more...

Neil Marshall’s Hellboy is a reboot that does the source material little justice in terms of the quality of the adaptation, but it is jam-packed with nods and references to the comics, one of which suggests that, at least in theory, there might (have) been plans for future films.Read more...

At this year’s Star Wars Celebration the creative team behind Respawn’s upcoming Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order took to the stage to debut the game’s first trailer and discuss Star Wars’ newest Jedi: Cal Kestis.

Westworld’s last season ended with the power dynamics between the titular park’s human guests and cybernetic hosts shifting in a radical way as the inorganic beings moved forward on their path to wrestling freedom from their creators. But for the show’s next season, the cast is getting larger in order to tell even…Read more...

The Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge attractions coming to Disney’s theme parks are designed to look and feel as if you’ve stepped right into a world filled with all manner of alien creatures from far-off star systems and space wizards waving their laser swords about with reckless abandon. But part of Disney’s plan to make …Read more...

Carrie Fisher’s sudden death in 2016 surprised the entire world, but it hit the Star Wars fandom particularly hard given the actress’ connection to the franchise and the plans for General Leia Organa’s involvement in future films. After initial uncertainty whether Fisher would appear in Episode IX, it was eventually…Read more...

Hackers have stolen data from “several FBI-affiliated websites” and are distributing it, TechCrunch reported on Friday, with details on “thousands of federal agents and law enforcement officers” now floating around on the web.

All it takes is listening to a few tracks of Janelle Monáe’s music (or watching her music videos) to grasp hold of the multifaceted, Afrofuturistic energy coursing through nearly every aspect of the artist’s work. For her set at this year’s Coachella, though, Monáe made a point of making sure that her numerous costume…Read more...

There’s a good chance that like millions of Americans, you’re currently procrastinating on filing your taxes despite the fact Tax Day is less than 48 hours away. That makes sense. After all, technology gave us e-filing, thereby enabling all of our worst impulses to leave this very important legal obligation to the…Read more...