Gizmodo

The United Kingdom’s Royal Mint will honor the work of Stephen Hawking with a commemorative coin featuring the physicist’s name above concentric circles representing a black hole. It looks pretty awesome.Read more...

Walmart’s letting you build your own Nintendo Switch bundle for just $330. Choose a console, either the neon blue/red or the gray Joy-Cons and a Mario game (Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe, Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Tennis Aces or Super Mario Party), and Walmart will throw in some sweet pins and a…Read more...

Senate lawmakers on Tuesday introduced new bipartisan legislation that gives kids under 16 years old and their parents substantially more control over their data while further limiting the data-collection practices of apps, websites, and online services.Read more...

Scott Gottlieb’s immediate replacement as head of the Food and Drug Administration will be Norman “Ned” Sharpless, the current director of the National Cancer Institute, according to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. Sharpless will serve as the FDA’s interim chief once Gottlieb departs in less than a…Read more...

As Game of Thrones comes to an end, many of us find ourselves looking back to the beginning. Why did the show become so huge? What were our favorite moments? How did it all happen? Like the show itself, those are rather large questions, but the “how” is getting a suitably large answer in a new book.Read more...

The most effective way to block an annoying sound is to simply build a barrier—the thicker, the better. But instead of everyone living in sound-blocking caves in a few years as noisy drones criss-cross the skies, researchers at Boston University have engineered an acoustic metamaterial that’s designed to silence…Read more...

I’ve been using Allo since the day it was released. At first, it was simple curiosity. Google’s got another messaging app, so how is it going to screw this one up? But even with its flaws, the more I used it, I grew to appreciate its slick interface, baked in gif engine, and its general ease of use. But today, March…Read more...

During the Apollo missions, NASA smartly set aside some lunar materials knowing future scientists would likely be better equipped to analyze them. Now, nearly 50 years later, the space agency is giving a select group of researchers the extraordinary opportunity to study these unopened and untarnished samples.Read more...

On Monday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk filed his response to an SEC request to that a federal court hold him in contempt for violating a settlement agreement. In the filing, Musk argues that restrictions on his tweeting amount to an “unconstitutional power grab” by the SEC and that he didn’t even violate the agreement anyway.

The White House released its record-breaking 2020 budget request yesterday, and once again, it sucks if you care about science.Read more...

Have you seen that viral video doing the rounds of President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago lifting up his hat? According to the caption, the president “forgot” that he’s “not wearing his toupee,” and it’s getting passed around Twitter like crazy today. In reality, the video has been digitally manipulated to make Trump…Read more...

I eat meat. Not every day but most days. I also eat out at least twice a week. That means take-out containers and plastic. I ride the New York City subway just about every day, and I try to avoid cabs. However, I also plan to own a car one day, and I fly for work often enough.

Thirty years ago, Sir Tim Berners-Lee submitted a proposal for what would become the world wide web. Now, for many reasons, the man widely credited with inventing the web is less than thrilled with how we’ve treated it in the intervening decades.Read more...

If you’re a Verizon customer and had a hard time texting this morning, you weren’t imagining things. The company had a widespread texting outage that left customers up and down the East Coast unable to send or receive messages.Read more...

I’ve had my iPhone XS for a little over three months, and it’s driving me crazy. Not the whole thing. The phone is beautiful, fast, a joy to use. What’s driving me crazy is an increasingly complex network of scratches on the display glass. The first ones were small, almost unnoticeable at a glance. Then, about six…Read more...

The U.S. government has sent a warning to Germany that it may limit what information is handed over via intelligence-sharing agreements if the latter country allows Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei to build its next-generation 5G networks, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

There are new rumors about the comics that could influence James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. Kaley Cuoco gives us a tease of the Harley Quinn animated series. Plus, Danny DeVito meets Dumbo in new clips from the Disney remake, get a glimpse of Arrow’s far future, and even more What We Do in the Shadows teasers.…Read more...

Despite what wearables makers would have you think, it’s not just all smartwatches. There’s still a place for the humble fitness tracker. For starters, they’re much cheaper than smartwatches, provide accurate fitness tracking, have better battery life, and are perfectly adequate at delivering push notifications. This…Read more...

Buying a smartwatch can be intimidating. They’re expensive, most of them come with similar features, and it can be difficult for first-timers to navigate the technobabble marketing speak to find a smartwatch that suits their needs. That’s exactly the issue Fitbit is trying to solve with its Versa Lite Edition. At…Read more...

Depending on how you feel about the CG trickery used to bring us Will Smith’s take on the iconic character, you may still be wary. But finally, they showed us some of the songs in this movie!

Amazon has a Sony 60-inch smart 4K TV for under $800 right now, as part of its Gold Box. This LED unit offers lots of the features you’d want in a TV, such as HDR10, Alexa compatibility and Chromecast built-in, and a 120hz refresh rate. Better still, this current price about $350 off its average price.Read more...

Boeing announced overnight that the company would release a software update for its 737 Max planes “no later” than next month. The announcement, which was posted to Boeing’s website, calls the software release an “enhancement” and explains that it’s related to the October crash of Lion Air Flight 610 which killed 189…Read more...

E-commerce giant Amazon has long been reported to be an unpleasant place to hold down a job. Article after article has relayed claims of an ultra-competitive workplace culture, employees being treated like soulless robots, sweatshop-esque performance requirements, and long hours of monotonous work. That includes …Read more...

The UK’s disastrous plan to implement a nationwide system blocking web users from viewing pornography unless their age and identities are confirmed by a verification service—an astonishingly ill-conceived idea being spearheaded by doddering Brexiteer Theresa May’s Tory government—is nearly a year behind schedule. But…Read more...

There are certainly many, many things to celebrate on Game of Thrones. The grandiose directing, sharp writing, intense performances, and gorgeous costumes are just a few elements that come to mind. But one that probably doesn’t get instantly recognized is the prosthetic work.Read more...

Facebook removed advertisements by Senator Elizabeth Warren calling for the breakup of Facebook and other American big tech companies, a newly major issue for Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign.

Following two devastating crashes involving the Boeing 737 Max-8 aircraft, China and Indonesia have grounded the model from commercial flights pending further investigation. As the general public has become increasingly concerned about the safety of flying on one of the most popular airplanes in the world, the Federal…Read more...

A sobering new study out Monday suggests that many preteens who visit the emergency department could be in dire need of help to address their suicidal ideation. It found that a substantial number of children between the ages of 10 to 12 who went to the hospital screened positive for suicide risk.

Following the revelations of a $90 million golden parachute to Andy Rubin, a former Google executive accused of sexually harassing a subordinate, a recently unsealed complaint shows the company approved a further $45 million send-off to Amit Singhal, the company’s former senior vice president.Read more...

Dating back more than 12,000 years, this extraordinary example of rock art features a scene involving birds and humans—a rarity for the Paleolithic Period on several accounts.Read more...

The Hubble Space Telescope has just released some spectacular new cosmic eye candy. This wild image shows NGC 6052, a pair of colliding galaxies 230 million light-years away.

23andMe has added a new option to its health-focused genetic testing array: type 2 diabetes. This week, the company announced it will begin offering customers a report meant to predict their inherent risk of developing the chronic disorder. The report was created through in-house research conducted entirely with the…Read more...

The internet-connected gadgets, devices, baubles, and geegaws we fill our homes with to perform menial tasks and surveil our every move are often times wildly insecure. And so, members of Congress are taking yet another stab at setting device and reporting standards with companion bills set to be introduced in the…Read more...

Continuing our country’s rich tradition of semi-legal highs with embarrassing names and dangerous side effects, New Jersey police say they are now contending with people drinking something called “Catnip Cocktail,” which is sold as an anti-anxiety supplement for pets.Read more...

Evidence of an unusually strong solar storm that hit Earth in 660 BCE has been detected in Greenland ice cores—a finding which shows we still have lots to learn about these disruptive events.

Most gaming mice look like futuristic EMP grenades or robotic pets, but Razer’s DeathAdder became one of your favorite gaming mice by keeping things clean and simple. Want to try one out? Walmart’s marked the Expert model down to $30 today, one of the lowest prices we’ve ever seen.

Derek was working at home from his sales job at a Tesla store on February 28. He wanted to have a leg up on some leads in anticipation of the big announcement to come at 5 p.m.. He surmised it would be the triumphant declaration that the Tesla Model 3 sedan would finally be available for the long-promised price of…Read more...

A white hat hacker discovered an unsecured database on Saturday listing the personal information of nearly 2 million women in China, which included a section titled, for some reason, “BreedReady.” The database was taken down as of Monday, but its existence still indicates that someone is collecting a wealth of deeply…Read more...

I was thrilled to read about the launch of Cinebench R20 last week. That’s one of the geekier things I’ve ever said, but it’s still true. This free benchmarking app is great for putting your PC through its paces, if you’ve been curious about how fast it runs (and how well it might stack up against other systems).Read more...

Remember back when 3D TVs, movies, live sporting events, and glasses were a thing? Yeah, well, Nvidia realizes you don’t either, and as a result, it’s pulling support for 3D Vision, its platform for gaming with 3D glasses.Read more...

A specific era of the world wide web will come to an end next month when Adobe officially discontinues its Shockwave multimedia platform. You might want to get in a final round in your favorite browser-based game—but, more than anything, you should use this moment to delete Shockwave from your computer once and for…Read more...

Tabloids reported over the weekend that a “bombshell” report found moving water on the Moon which could lead to “Moon colonization.” Obviously those headlines are misleading—there are no rivers flowing along the lunar surface. Let’s talk about what really happened.

The Boeing 737 Max-8 is one of the newest commercial airplanes in the sky. But after yesterday’s crash that killed 157 people in Ethiopia, it’s already involved in two of the deadliest crashes of the past few years. Sadly, another Boeing 737 Max-8 crashed in Indonesia this past October, killing 189 people.Read more...

When it comes to geoengineering the planet to cool the climate, there’s rightfully a lot of hesitation. Blocking incoming sunlight might seem like a quick fix to rising temperatures, but doing so could quickly tie up humanity in a decades-long project with alarming side effects like shifting precipitation patterns and …Read more...

New York City is very loud, as you might infer from a place whose principal mythology insists it never sleeps. Or you might know firsthand from having lived there and somehow never managed to stray more than three blocks from a clanging jackhammer or an incessant car alarm. It’s so loud that in 2014, a city…Read more...

It’s difficult to change someone’s mind if they have anything like a strong opinion on the risks of vaccination, or the usefulness of orbs and essential oils in the treatment of late-stage liver cancer. But if you’re ever going to stand a chance of doing so, you’re going to need to wipe the rage-spittle off your face…Read more...

Multiple airlines around the world, along with the countries of China and Indonesia, have decided to ground Boeing 737 Max-8 planes in the wake of a crash on Sunday that killed 157 people. The crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 was the second by a Boeing 737 Max-8 in the past five months. This past October, a…Read more...

Dark mode can make software easier on the eye, give you a refreshing change from the norm, and even save on battery life if you’re using an OLED display—here are all the apps and platforms offering the option of a dark mode right now, and how to enable it in each case.Read more...

If you own the Philips OneBlade—and we know a lot of you do—you can grab three replacement blades for an all-time low $26 with Subscribe & Save and a $7 coupon on Amazon right now. Philips claims these blades last about four months each, but I went nearly a year with my first one. Just be sure to cancel your…Read more...

Spending money on a good toothbrush can pay off many times over down the line by helping you avoid hefty dentist bills, and Philips’ Sonicare Diamond Clean is one of the best out there.