Gizmodo

A state appeals court in Texas has struck down a 2015 revenge porn law, arguing that it was written too broadly and infringed on free speech protections.

Eerie similarities unite vastly different scientific ideas in sometimes utterly surprising ways. One of these similarities may have allowed scientists to recreate the expanding universe—on a countertop.

Tesla contract workers aren’t receiving legally required overtime pay or mandated work breaks, according to a new lawsuit filed in California state court. The employees faced “pressure” from a temp agency that hires workers at Tesla’s California factory to take a debit card to accept their compensation, rather than a…Read more...

It’s Friday, and that means you’ll soon get some sleep, wake up refreshed, pour a cup of Joe, and finally read Paul Ford’s 38,000-word article about coding from 2015. But wait, Facebook just stepped in and dropped its new data policy. And now that it’s a full 1,500 words longer, you’re going to want to set aside a…Read more...

Citing accusations of ties between Kaspersky Labs and Russian intelligence, Twitter has moved to ban the Moscow-based security and antivirus provider from continuing to advertise on its platform.

I bought the FitDesk 2.0 on a whim a couple of years ago, and was surprised both by how viable it was to work at, and how compact it gets when folded up. It fits easily into a closet, or opens up for use while working, gaming, or marathoning Netflix, and is particularly nice out on the balcony. Today’s price is the…Read more...

Captain America: The Winter Soldier’s elevator brawl is one of the best fights in a movie filled with some of the best fights in 10 years of Marvel films, full stop. But while Captain America may have superpowers to lean on, actor Chris Evans just has sheer determination*, that he shows off with aplomb in this…Read more...

Earth Day is nearly upon us, which means it is time for brands to declare their love for Mother Earth in corporate reports and Medium posts. On Thursday, Lyft did the latter, announcing the company was buying carbon offsets for all rides.

ELAC makes some of the most popular home theater gear out there, and you can pick up a pair of B5 bookshelf speakers, an F6 floorstanding speaker, or a S10EQ subwoofer for the best prices ever on Amazon today. All three pieces are from ELAC’s Debut series, which offers exceptional sound for the money, but you can of…Read more...

This year, the Food and Drug Administration is joining stoners the world over in celebrating 4/20.Read more...

Daniel José Older’s new Star Wars novel, Last Shot, was bundled up with the recent wave of Solo: A Star Wars Story-themed book announcements. But while there are parts of it that deal with the early lives of Han and Lando, it’s at its best when it’s set decades after the upcoming movie, as the two come to terms with…Read more...

On Friday, SunTrust bank announced it was offering identity protection services at no charge to all of its clients in the form of Experian IDnotify. Perfect timing, as the company also announced—in the very same press release—a possible data breach affecting approximately 1.5 million customers.Read more...

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) filed a lawsuit in federal court on Friday alleging the Trump campaign conspired with WikiLeaks and the Russian government to sow chaos during the 2016 election and advantage Trump in the race for the White House.

It might take just one puff of cannabis to quickly if temporarily dull depression, depending on the strain, suggests a new study published this month in the Journal of Affective Disorders. But smoking weed for too long might also make you sadder over time, the researchers found.Read more...

Marijuana can make a bad movie good and a good movie great. But it’s got to be the right movie, one with ideas you can explore more deeply, or absurdity you can appreciate more naturally. The balance is delicate, just like picking the right kind of weed. As today is 4/20, we’ve created a list of films to watch when…Read more...

Two students at an elementary school in Louisiana were arrested on Wednesday for distributing child pornography. According to the Slidell Police Department, the female student sent nude photos of herself to the male student, who then sent the photos of her to “numerous other students at the school” through Snapchat.

As you raced through your locker combination four or five times a day during high school, did you ever stop to wonder how those seemingly random rotations actually worked to protect your lunch and textbooks? The lock’s mysterious inner workings were always hidden away under a metal case, but this clear plastic replica…Read more...

Update: Back in stock. That’s the first time we’ve seen it since March.Read more...

This week, a Nasdaq Nordic stock exchange data center in Finland was taken down by its fire suppression system. But these systems don’t use water to quench the flames, so how can they knock out a bunch of hard drives?

In recent years, vaping has come into its own as a hobbyist community, cigarette-quitting alternative, and industry. There’s a vape or vape product for just about every type of smoker or vaper. From people who want to recreate the tight draw and high nicotine content of a cigarette, to the famed cloud-chasers and…Read more...

After last year’s delayed iPhone X release, Apple is trying to snag a few extra screens for its 2018 batch of iPhones. Unfortunately, the company is apparently running into trouble with its OLED display manufacturing partners, according to a Wall Street Journal report.Read more...

In the dying days of World War II, a German sub was reportedly sunk near the Danish coast, but the wreck was never found, leading to speculation that high-ranking Nazi officials—even possibly Adolf Hitler himself—used the high-tech vessel to escape to South America. A museum in Denmark has finally found the missing…Read more...

The labor union representing Hollywood’s actors, singers and other media artists wants to make sure its members aren’t digitally manipulated into porn stars without their consent. In the most recent issue of its union magazine, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA)…Read more...

If we’re being honest, the best thing about TSA Pre-Check isn’t that you spend $85 to keep your shoes on when you go through airport security. It’s that, for a brief moment, you get to be a Have, filing past the miserable Have Nots in the general security line. Sure, some of them might get to cut ahead in that line…Read more...

Last week a nerdier segment of the music world was abuzz with the news that an Austrian company Rebeat had taken a $4.8 million dollar investment to help bring its “HD vinyl” records to market by mid 2019. Huh? HD vinyl? How does one make the last analog music storage format (that people still care about)…Read more...

The Justice Department’s antitrust case opposing the merger of media giants Time Warner and AT&T is in its final stages. And on Thursday, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson took the witness stand to argue that the deal couldn’t hurt competition because the company will launch a new skinny bundle for just $15-per-month!Read more...

The only thing better than Westworld itself are all the fan theories. Some have turned out to be true—others are, let’s say, a tad less plausible. In this latest video, I, io9 writer Beth Elderkin, and Gizmodo social editor Joe Tonelli share five of the weirdest fan theories that haven’t actually been disproven yet.

Whether you’re sharing photos on Instagram or working on an art project, the quality of the final image matters. Even if you don’t have something like Photoshop installed, you can get your pictures looking their best with the help of some free, simple-to-use web apps—and we’ve picked out seven of the best for your…Read more...

One of the many inconveniences that doomed wearable products like Google Glass and Snap’s Spectacles was the need to charge them every night. Streaming video and data requires a lot of power, and that takes a tremendous toll on a tiny battery. But engineers at the University of Washington say they’ve found a way to …Read more...

NASA has released incredible new images of the Lagoon Nebula taken by the Hubble space telescope, in honor of its 28th anniversary and presumably 4/20. Dude... have you ever like... thought about how small we are... and how big the universe is...?Read more...

The He-Man movie has found new directors. Joe Mangianello discusses Deathstroke’s movie future. Amazon is re-making the excellent UK series Utopia. Peter Dinklage’s role in Avengers: Infinity War may have been revealed. Plus, more Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom footage. To me, my spoilers!Read more...

Former FBI director James Comey is scheduled to speak at Amazon headquarters in Seattle on Monday. And so far, President Trump hasn’t tweeted about it. That will probably change once Fox News gets the memo.

The Nintendo Switch is better with friends, and you can add an extra player (or two, for certain games) by picking up an extra set of Joy-Con. $63 is the best price Amazon’s ever listed, but we don’t expect it to last long.

Google, apparently unsatisfied with the already incredibly long list of short-lived communications solutions that it has produced, is taking one more shot messaging. According to The Verge, the latest attempt is called Chat.

As the National Transportation Safety Board continues to investigate what caused an engine explosion on a Southwest flight that led to the death of a passenger earlier this week, Reuters reported the airlines fought against new inspections rules proposed by the engine manufacturer.

A recent change to Google’s App Engine will discontinue a practice called domain-fronting, an essential technique used by dozens of internet freedom tools designed to allow users to work around state-level internet censorship.Read more...

It’s a tough race to be the most crooked bank in America, but Wells Fargo, God bless ‘em, has been making a strong case for quite some time now.Read more...

Google employees have spent the past few months pushing back against their company’s involvement in Project Maven, a Department of Defense initiative to enhance image processing of drone footage using artificial intelligence. As Gizmodo first reported, Google is contracted with the DoD to provide artificial…Read more...

When confronted by an enemy, Southeast Asian “exploding ants” do exactly what their name implies: they explode. Ignored for decades, researchers have completed a detailed survey of these enigmatic ants, discovering over a dozen species that fit into this group, including one that’s completely new to science.Read more...

The latest and final trailer for Deadpool 2 added a new member to the X-Force: Peter. He doesn’t have any powers, he just responded to the ad. And, as it turns out, he’s also got a dad-tastic Twitter presence.

Ever since researchers first discovered that bacterial immune systems could be hijacked to selectively change DNA in living creatures, CRISPR gene-editing technology has been limited by the boundaries of the cell wall. CRISPR allows scientists to cut and paste little bits of DNA, swapping out even single letters of…Read more...

When Mark Zuckerberg appeared before Congress last week, several lawmakers grilled him on Facebook’s failures to comply with a 2012 consent decree that required the social media company to submit routine privacy audits to the Federal Trade Commission.Read more...

A Phoenix news station reports a bizarre incident involving a $500,000 check mistakenly deposited into the bank account of a recent law school graduate.

A team of physicists has figured out how to bend diamonds, according to a new paper. Okay, we’re talking about nano-scale diamond needles here. But it’s an impressive feat, because while diamonds are known for their hardness, these rocks will break if they are bent even a tiny bit.Read more...

EarthNow is a new company looking to provide satellite imagery and live video in virtually real-time. Its unsettling pitch describes a network of satellites that can see any corner of the globe and provide live video with a latency of about a second. And a look at the startup’s top investors gives a lot of confidence…Read more...

Hawaii’s Department of Natural Resources released footage this week of a monk seal pup brandishing a knife. It’s equal parts menacing, adorable, and depressing as hell.

The US Senate voted to confirm Jim Bridenstine as the NASA administrator in a 50-49 vote today. The position has been vacant since January 2017. President Trump first nominated Bridenstine this past September.Read more...

Netflix wants to get into the movie theater business, according to a new report from The Los Angeles Times. Anonymous sources told the paper that the Los Gatos-based entertainment giant pursued a deal to buy the Mark Cuban-owned Landmark Theaters but ultimately backed out due to a high sale price. While it might sound…Read more...

Admit it, you dun goofed. You hemmed and hawed and reasoned that no one else would buy them, but now they’re gone. The last of the remaining Windows Phones are finally out of stock, and you can be pretty damn sure they aren’t coming back.Read more...

Jupiter’s sandy swirls and blue-hued poles are visible even from Earth. But the Juno spacecraft’s crisp and colorful images begin as warped and dull raw files. The fantastic finished visuals are the result of enthusiastic amateur astronomers, software developers, and artists communicating over message boards. They…Read more...