MoviePass, the movie-ticketing startup whose whole business model is essentially subsidizing enough impossibly cheap tickets with investors’ money that it gains leverage over theaters, is fast hemorrhaging cash. But with the firm possibly running out of funds by the end of next month (or turning to a line of credit)…Read more...
by Julie Muncy on io9, shared by Tom McKay to Gizmodo on (#3SF5R)
Well, this is a strange new chapter in one of the strangest stories in modern film. For decades, famed genre director (and former Monty Python, uh, snake) Terry Gilliam struggled to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, his own surreal take on the classic Spanish novel. He succeeded, finally, with a rendition starring…Read more...
by Yesha Callahan on The Grapevine, shared by Tom McK on (#3SF5S)
Netflix has found its niche when it comes to their Marvel series. But not all of their series are created equal. Most people were left unimpressed with Iron Fist, partly because of the blandness of Danny Rand. Although I was initially excited about Jessica Jones’ second season, I found it hard to get to the end. But…Read more...
Officials with California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) have intervened to nullify a recent court ruling saying coffee sold in the state—say, like at a local Starbucks—must be accompanied by warning labels saying brewed coffee contains the carcinogen acrylamide.
Foxconn, the giant Taiwanese electronics manufacturer that works with everyone from Apple to Amazon, now has a North American headquarters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin after purchasing a large office building in the city, according to the Associated Press.
Axiom Zen’s CryptoKitties, which is essentially a digital version of Beanie Babies based on the Ethereum blockchain, sucked in a massive amount of funding just a few months ago. But it looks an awful lot like people bought into CryptoKitties looking for a quick return on their investment and are finding that digital…Read more...
by Julie Muncy on io9, shared by Tom McKay to Gizmodo on (#3SE7P)
Yesterday, allegations surfaced claiming that Chris Hardwick sexual assaulted and emotionally abused his ex-girlfriend, the model, cosplayer, and actress Chloe Dykstra.Read more...
There were 332,198 robberies in the US last year according to the FBI, but (probably) only one of them involved a man trying to forcibly steal a domain name. Now the man responsible for the bizarre instance of domain hijacking will spend 20 years in prison.Read more...
by Julie Muncy on io9, shared by AJ Dellinger to Gizm on (#3SE43)
Marvel securing the rights to use Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was a minor triumph for the company, and before it happened, Captain America: Civil War would’ve been a little different.Read more...
by Julie Muncy on io9, shared by Tom McKay to Gizmodo on (#3SEAY)
Music is an essential part of Luke Cage, because it’s an essential part of Harlem. In this behind-the-scenes featurette, Netflix runs down the history of African-American music and how that history comes to bear on Harlem’s Paradise, the fictional music venue and community hub in Marvel’s version of Harlem.Read more...
Cambridge Analytica, the shady political consulting firm best known for obtaining a whole heap of personal information from Facebook users without their consent, might be dead and gone. But some of its former employees are reportedly hard at work on the re-election campaign of President Donald Trump.
Tech giant Apple has scored a huge victory in its $1 billion original programming push, signing a multiyear deal with host and media magnate Oprah Winfrey to produce as-of-yet unspecified streaming content. According to the Wall Street Journal, the signing of Winfrey is expected to play into its long-rumored launch of…Read more...
Twitter recently “accidentally†banned a whole lot of users for joining the service before they were thirteen years old. The users, now “old enough†to use Twitter “responsibly,†have been upset, and Twitter has a whole thread on steps its taking to bring these “not children†back online. But here is something that is…Read more...
A California judge decided Thursday not to throw out a lawsuit filed against Twitter that accused the company of violating the free speech rights of white supremacist Jared Taylor when Twitter banned him from the platform late last year.Read more...
For the past month or so, inboxes the world over have been awash with emails about updated privacy policies and new permissions required by the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). You probably haven’t been reading those emails, and that’s bad news for email marketers.
The FBI just got its hands on a whole lot of Michael Cohen’s encrypted communications. In a letter submitted Friday, the United States Attorney’s Office revealed that it obtained a treasure trove of messages and call logs from a BlackBerry that belonged to President Donald Trump’s personal attorney.Read more...
by Germain Lussier on io9, shared by AJ Dellinger to on (#3SD2Y)
Movies like Ready Player One and The Matrix have done it, but what about TV? Well, Netflix is about to launch a new series called Kiss Me First, and it’s also partially set in a fully functional virtual world.
Earlier this week, Nintendo delighted Fortnite fans by announcing that the game, which might just be the most popular game being played right now, was coming to the Switch immediately. Even better, Switch players would be able to compete with PC and Xbox players, too—instant digital distribution and multiplayer open…Read more...
Elizabeth Holmes and Ramesh “Sunny†Balwani, the former key executives of blood-testing startup Theranos, have been indicted by a grand jury on nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, The Washington Post reports.Read more...
After a 20-day journey, China’s Queqiao lunar communications relay satellite has made it to lunar orbit. Its companion, the Longjiang-2 microsatellite, wasted no time, taking some neat pics of Earth and the lunar surface.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has abruptly halted its $100 million study meant to examine whether moderate drinking can be good for your heart. The decision, announced Friday, comes in the wake of a report commissioned by the federal agency that reaffirmed allegations first reported by the New York Times…Read more...
The rate at which deepfake videos are advancing is both impressive and deeply unsettling. But researchers have described a new method for detecting a “telltale sign†of these manipulated videos, which map one person’s face onto the body of another. It’s a flaw even the average person would notice: a lack of blinking.Read more...
Lawmakers in the U.S. have taken a greater interest in the failures of tech companies lately but most of the focus has been on Facebook and Google while Jeff Bezos has been busy making a reported $230,000 a minute. Now it’s Amazon’s turn in the barrel.Read more...
Black holes are already some of the strangest objects in the universe, and scientists sometimes dream up some pretty wild theories about their behavior. Like maybe they can accumulate dark matter particles and turn into black hole lasers, beaming radiation out into space.Read more...
At this point, anytime you see the word unlimited in relation to phone plans, you should probably just assume you’re being misled. And after seeing the hijinks Verizon is trying to pull with its latest “unlimited†cell phone plan, it seemed like a good time to check in on the other major carriers to get a sense of how…Read more...
A key vote is taking place in California next week. Amid intense lobbying pressure, experts say it could eventually impact efforts by other states to reestablish net neutrality in the wake of the FCC’s decision to repeal the 2015 Open Internet Order.
Walking around Amsterdam, at times, feels like strolling through the city of the future. Solar panels abound. Electric vehicles fill the roads, and everybody else is on a bike. Meanwhile, tucked away in the western part of town, some 50 families have agreed to turn their houses into living laboratories to figure out a…Read more...
There are eight planets in our Solar System (sorry Pluto), but collectively, these planets host over 175 moons, one or two of which may even harbor life. Indeed, our galaxy, based on what we observe here, could be bursting with exomoons, a significant number of which may be capable of fostering life, according to new…Read more...
There were rumors of a Playstation 5 and news on the next generation of Xbox, but this E3 was ultimately pretty light on the cool hardware. We knew that was the case given the sheer amount of VR accessories most of us can’t or won’t use any time soon.Read more...
Let’s talk about how you’re perceiving color. The idea came to me when a coworker asked if they should get the computer with 100-percent sRGB or 100-percent Adobe RGB, which displays more shades of green. I jokingly told him to take this X-Rite color perception test to see if he could even perceive color well enough…Read more...
Steven Seagal and DJ Khaled have taught us that if a celebrity endorses a cryptocurrency project, you should immediately assume it might be a scam. But William Shatner seems to be backing a pretty interesting crypto-mining initiative.Read more...
A bullet train en route to Tokyo reportedly struck and killed a 52-year-old man on Thursday afternoon, but the man’s death wasn’t uncovered until some 20 miles later, where authorities made a grisly discovery.Read more...
Today, workers at the world’s largest atom smasher are breaking ground on a performance-enhancing upgrade that will allow scientists to conduct even bigger and better physics experiments.
A woman in Arizona filed a lawsuit against the University of Central Florida’s Delta Sigma Phi fraternity as well as five of its members after she says she discovered intimate photos and videos of her had been shared in the fraternity’s secret Facebook group “Dog Pound.†According to the lawsuit, frat brothers…Read more...
There are two ways of listening to music: you can shut everything out and focus purely on the tunes, or you can use music to enhance other activities in your life. Headphones and earbuds, especially those of the noise-canceling variety are quite good at the first; you just put some on, turn up the volume, and let…Read more...
Hot off a contemptuous meeting at the G7 Summit after which Trump seemed intent on starting a trade war with Canada—and following whatever the hell just happened in Singapore—Trump turned his sights back to China on Friday by announcing $50 billion in tariffs on Chinese “high-tech†goods.Read more...
One current and five former Fitbit employees accused of knowingly stealing trade secrets from former employer Jawbone, which ceased operation in 2017, have been indicted. The two companies have gone to court in the past over similar allegations. If convicted, the defendants could face up to 10 years in prison.Read more...
DNA tests can be easily fooled and different tests may draw wildly different conclusions about the supposed heritage of participants. One thing the current rash of these startups have in common, however, is how their saliva testing kits are not supposed to come with spit already included.
It’s been over six weeks since lava fissures began erupting on Hawaii’s Big Island, and there’s still no end in sight. New videos taken by the US Geological Survey reveal the dramatic extent to which the encroaching lava has reshaped the surrounding landscape, turning once gorgeous beaches into a smoldering pile of…Read more...
AT&T and Time-Warner wasted no time completing their merger after the Department of Justice decided not to seek an injunction against the deal on Thursday. It is now complete. AT&T is the proud new owner of Game of Thrones, DC Comics, CNN, Harry Potter, and numerous other properties to leverage in its quest to crush…Read more...
by James Whitbrook and Gordon Jackson on io9, shared on (#3SBMQ)
Ryan Murphy says American Horror Story’s big crossover is happening this year. Could Lucasfilm be reviving Seth Green’s weird Star Wars comedy shorts? Plus, Brie Larson hypes up the strength of Captain Marvel, what’s to come on Cloak & Dagger, and our first look at the new Rocketeer animated series. Spoilers, away!
by David Nield on Field Guide, shared by Alex Cranz t on (#3SBMR)
There you are just wanting to get on with some casual Facebooking but all of a sudden you can’t get into your account—and what you thought were your username and password aren’t working any longer. If you find yourself locked out of one of your social media accounts, take a deep breath, and follow these steps.Read more...
The Kellogg Company has announced that it’s recalling Honey Smacks cereal with “use by†dates between June 14, 2018 and June 14, 2019. The cereal has been linked to America’s current salmonella outbreak which currently affects at least 31 states and follows an announcement this week that consumers should avoid pre-cut…Read more...
Apple and the law enforcement community have been stuck in a back-and-forth over encryption for the last few years, and it’s heated up considerably this month since Apple announced a feature that would thwart a popular iPhone cracking method used by police. Now, the companies that work with law enforcement have…Read more...
The New York State Public Service Commission is doing something that just about every consumer wishes they could do to their internet service provider: telling them to actually provide the service promised or get bent. The agency ordered Charter to pay a multi-million dollar fine and complete required expansion of its…Read more...
by Ryan Felton on Jalopnik, shared by AJ Dellinger to on (#3SAS3)
Dockless bike-sharing, like dockless e-scooter renting, has proliferated across the U.S. at a rapid clip that hasn’t always gone over so well. Nowhere has it developed into such an issue like the City of Seattle, Wired contends today in a deeply-reported feature.Read more...
Creepers, rejoice: after several months of testing, Instagram has killed a feature that alerted users when someone took a screenshot of their Stories. Long live the ability to discretely throw shade at all of your online frenemies!Read more...