Gizmodo

Sex, war, and getting insanely high: Society might’ve changed in the last 60,000 years or so, but these interests have remained constant. In a way, this is a kind of golden age for the aspiring recreational drug user: putting aside the public health consequences of a market flooded with mass-produced speed,…Read more...

One of the darkest aspects of our technologically advanced world is how new advancements are inevitably used to sexually exploit people online. Perhaps few know this better than Scarlett Johansson. Speaking to the Washington Post for a story about the rise of deepfakes and how they are being used to harass women onlineRead more...

While you were baking cookies and binging Netflix shows over Christmas, a team of about 50 scientists, drillers, and support staff was attempting to punch through nearly 4,000 feet of ice to access an Antarctic subglacial lake for just the second time in human history. And folks, they did it.

When rapper Soulja Boy dropped his line of game emulator consoles, the internet arched a collective eyebrow. This, we knew, probably would not end well and lo, less than a month after launch, both the SouljaGame Handheld and SouljaGame console have been pulled from the rapper’s online store.Read more...

The Doctor Who New Year’s Day special is almost upon us and a bunch of new images have dropped, much like that giant, sparkly ball in Times Square. Plus, the first image arrives from DC Universe’s Swamp Thing series, and what’s coming up on Gotham, Cloak & Dagger, and more. Spoilers can be found in this general…Read more...

Apple wants you to use your iPad or your iPad Pro like a proper computer: But how do you go about doing that? And does it actually work? Here are the apps, software tweaks, and accessories you need to turn your Apple tablet into a makeshift laptop—and some of the annoyances you’re still going to come across.Read more...

iTunes credit is useful for a lot more than just music downloads. You can use it to pay for apps, movies, Apple Music subscriptions, and even iCloud storage. So if you own an Apple device, you should never miss a chance to get a $50 gift card for $40, with email delivery. Limit two per customer.Read more...

Lawrence “Larry” Roberts, one of a small handful of people who can truly be called the grandparents of the internet, died of a heart attack on December 26 at his home in Redwood City, California. He was 81 years old.Read more...

You might have noticed the Japanese zombie horror film, One Cut of the Dead, is currently available for free on Amazon Prime both here in the United States and in the United Kingdom. It’s not supposed to be.Read more...

Hotel slipper magnate Justin Bieber caused a bit of a ruckus on Sunday when he left a cheeky comment on 15-year-old former Dance Moms star JoJo Siwa’s Instagram photo. What did he say? Why did he do it? Who are these people? Why do we care? Let’s dig in.Read more...

Well, we did it. In spite of everything, we made it through 2018, a year that felt eternal. Even the last week of 2018 was trying it with that “super blood wolf moon” bologna. There were definitely some fantastic comics and great movies, though—including Bird Box, our review of which you definitely shouldn’t miss.

After A Quiet Place came out, writer/director/star John Krasinski was adamant he wouldn’t be returning for a sequel. He’d be happy to see one made, but his involvement was going to be minimal.Read more...

Amazon is reportedly looking to expand Whole Foods stores across the country, including in suburban areas, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. News of the rumored expansion comes after Amazon acquired the grocer last year.

A cyberattack affected newspapers across the country and delayed the Saturday editions of several prominent publications, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

Miles Morales, breakout hero of Into the Spider-Verse and one of the best and most memorable Spider-people around, was created by two people: writer Brian Michael Bendis, and artist Sara Pichelli.Read more...

Using state public-records laws, The Arizona Republic has obtained video from surveillance cameras showing staff at a now-shuttered Southwest Key shelter for migrant children in Arizona physically dragging and pushing children in their care. But authorities determined that the physical aggression used against the…Read more...

It is now time for part two of Kotaku Splitscreen’s Game of the Year discussions. Except we don’t really want to pick a Game of the Year. We want to pick every Game of the Year.

A reckless drive, a bunker, and two new gods on the brink. Seems routine, right?Read more...

I don’t know your life, but I bet there’s something you need in today’s Gold Box of AmazonBasics electronics and accessories. Maybe you’ve been meaning to buy a UPS and just haven’t gotten around to it. Maybe, like me, you’re a peripheral junkie, and you need a USB hub to support your habit. Perhaps your New Year’s…Read more...

Nancy Grace Roman, a former NASA executive who is often described as the “mother” of the Hubble Space Telescope, has died at 93.

Thousands upon thousands of people are expected to pack into New York’s Times Square for the annual New Year’s Eve ball drop, as they have for more than a century. But this year will mark the first that the city’s officials will deploy drone technology as part of its increased security.Read more...

Norman Gimbel, an Oscar- and Grammy-award-winning lyricist and songwriter, has passed away, Comic Book Resources reports. He was known, among other things, for the Wonder Woman theme song from the popular 1970s series starring Lynda Carter.Read more...

The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, the nation’s top telecommunications regulator, has ordered mobile providers to shut down all 3G and 4G services until midnight on Dec. 30, effective immediately, Al Jazeera reported on Saturday.

The MCU’s special effects get more and more impressive, from de-aging that looks actually realistic to Josh Brolin’s impressive performance as a half-human half-CGI Thanos.Read more...

Google has had a lawsuit in Illinois over its facial-recognition software thrown out, with a judge dismissing the case on the grounds that the plaintiff in the case did not suffer “concrete injuries,” Bloomberg reported on Saturday. The ruling puts to rest one of three lawsuits against major tech companies for alleged…Read more...

Seemingly incapable of any sense of empathy, the president of the United States has chosen to politicize on Twitter the deaths of two young children this month while they were in the Border Patrol’s custody.Read more...

One of the most interesting ways of exploring the craft of a film is to read the screenplay. A good screenplay is a blueprint for the film based on it: it tells you so much of what you need to know, lets you visualize the building without actually fully encompassing it. It lets you understand what decisions were made…Read more...

The developers of RetroArch, an all-in-one emulation front-end that allows users to download emulator “cores” for a huge number of older consoles and which recently came to the Nintendo Switch, say it is coming to the Xbox One—and unlike other consoles, users might not need to risk jailbreaking their systems to set it…Read more...

The partial government shutdown now certain to stretch through into the new year will have sweeping effects, from stalling important scientific research to vast economic impacts. But according to the Washington Post, the partial shutdown could also affect an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission…Read more...

You know that cliche about how no one is impressed with Aquaman? Well, it might be time to retire it, because people apparently love Aquaman.

Loveable, wonderful baby brother Loki. How bad a guy were you, really?Read more...

If you’re a Magic: The Gathering player, you know that lands are the way that you generate mana, the resource that allows you to play cards. In a new video, YouTuber SaffronOlive explains how to get that balance of lands correct.

OxyLED is best known for its battery-powered light strips, but this discounted kit plugs into an AC outlet, and is designed specifically for under-cabinet installation.

Physical storage always goes on sale for New Year’s, but modern life requires more than plastic totes. Adequate digital storage is also necessary, and luckily, Amazon has a bunch of PNY flash drives and SDXC cards on sale today. If your goal for 2019 has anything to do with organization or productivity, it would…Read more...

Tesla announced two new additions to its board on Friday: Kellogg alum Kathleen Wilson-Thompson and Oracle co-founder and CTO Larry Ellison, who has described himself as a close pal of Elon Musk.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission tweeted Friday that consumers should be on the lookout for a phishing scam disguised as a routine email from streaming giant Netflix that appears to have been making the rounds for months.Read more...

Mark Zuckerberg appears to be taking the “this is fine” route on the way out of what was arguably the worst year in his company’s decade-plus history.

It’s been over a year since the first-season finale of The Orville, and while the sci-fi comedy doesn’t require a lot of backstory to enjoy, we still thought it’d be worth whipping together a primer so you can hit the ground running (and catch onto any inside jokes) ahead of Sunday’s season two premiere.

Twitter is claiming to have resolved a bug that allowed a group of London-based security researchers to post unauthorized tweets to the accounts of British celebrities and journalists. But the hackers who initially disclosed the vulnerability says that’s rubbish.

Everyone hates spam texts, but only some Android users are reporting they’re seeing alerts about a new spam protection feature from Google in their Messages app.Read more...

In 2016, a mysterious illness spread inside the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center, the U.S. government’s most prominent research hospital, in Bethesda, Maryland. Patients were somehow being sickened by an antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria that practically never causes disease in humans. Two years…Read more...

Gene therapies are very much at their preliminary stages of development, so it would make sense to keep tabs on patients whose DNA has been modified via the innovative CRISPR technique. For some scientists in China, however, this is apparently not a priority.

The Hulu-Blumhouse holiday horror anthology series Into the Dark returns today with a new episode in honor of New Year’s Eve, a searing takedown of social media, toxic friendships, and wellness culture titled “New Year, New You.” It’s a suspenseful entry with an all-female cast, directed by Sophia Takal.Read more...

In one of the clearest signs yet that House Democrats might try doing something, anything at all, about climate change come January, incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Friday that Congress would be establishing a new “Climate Crisis” committee, to be chaired by Florida Representative Kathy Castor.Read more...

If you were were hoping to enjoy that new Black Mirror movie Bandersnatch on your fancy Apple TV, then apologies. You can’t.Read more...

Volunteer rescuers working on beaches along Sundra Strait have rescued more than 30 stranded sea turtles, following the Indonesian tsunami that has killed hundreds of people, the Guardian reports.

Kilauea’s historically huge 2018 eruption didn’t just transform the southeastern corner of Hawaii’s Big Island. Most of the lava wound up spilling into the ocean, creating an enormous new undersea delta that hardy ocean microbes are already colonizing.

You’ve surely heard about Thursday’s incident at a Con Edison substation in New York City that temporarily knocked out power at LaGuardia airport and set the night skies glowing with an eerie aquamarine. We wondered: What made it so BLUE?Read more...

A CenturyLink outage that started on Thursday has left customers across the country without internet and shut down vital services including 911 emergency calls. And now the federal government is launching an investigation.

If you own external monitors and they can be VESA mounted, there’s really no reason not to. It raises them to an ergonomic height, gives you lots of positioning options, and most importantly, clears up some valuable real estate on your desk. This mount can hold two screens up to 32" each, and it’s just $24 today with…Read more...