Gizmodo

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...

Last month, Apple released a snazzy new music video commercial directed by Spike Jonze with music by Anderson Paak and starring FKA Twigs. So far it has been viewed roughly 8,725,000 on YouTube. I can’t be the only one that noticed this incredibly dark switcheroo it pulls right in front of your eyes.

In 2012, a ruling by Britain’s High Court found that keeping the mugshots of innocent people in police databases was unlawful. But almost six years later, the country’s Home Office has defended the continued retention of such images, saying, basically, the problem is too expensive to fix.Read more...

Amazon wants you to use that tax return money on some new classy furniture. Today, they’ve discounted some pieces of their most popular brands by $75 or more.Read more...

Edward Minor had a paper due for his English class on income inequality at Wayne County Community College in Detroit. He’d completed all the research and knew what he wanted to write. The main issue was time—he only had a few hours.Read more...

There is some confusion around New York City’s “trafficking hotline.” But the mess isn’t as dumb and bad as a recent report makes it seem.Read more...

Are you a billionaire suffering from wrist cramps brought on by the endless stacks of checks you need to endorse? A two-dollar rubber stamp is one solution, but more befitting of your fiduciary status could be Jaquet Droz’s Signing Machine, which uses sophisticated clockwork mechanisms to flawlessly recreate your…Read more...

Amazon bills itself as a creator of jobs. Look no further than the ludicrous subsidy packages offered by cities in competition to host its second headquarters. But according to public records requests obtained by the Intercept, Amazon can drain public coffers in other ways, with five states listing Bezos’s empire as a…Read more...

The Bajau people of Malaysia and the Philippines are renowned for their free-diving abilities, often working eight-hour shifts in search of fish and other sea critters. Underwater sessions can last upwards of two minutes, with accumulated daily totals of breath-holding often reaching five hours. New research suggests…Read more...

It was the worst military aircraft of all time. Developed by a man described as “the greatest charlatan ever to see his name associated with an airplane,” the Christmas Bullet was the rare kind of fighter which had a perfect kill ratio: it killed everyone who ever tried to fly it.Read more...

A Canadian woman who was caught smuggling a fuck-ton of cocaine after posting ritzy photos of herself on Instagram was just sentenced to minimum four years and nine months in prison.Read more...

Despite the fact they are flesh-eating guerilla warriors capable of thoroughly thrashing a vastly technologically superior foe, everyone’s takeaway about the Ewoks is that they’re cute, stress-lowering, fuzzy teddy bears. But Star Wars: Battlefront II has added a new mode that reminds us that these teddies can be…Read more...

If there’s one thing I know about human males, it’s that they love ejaculating. It can sometimes seem like their entire existence is motivated by a need to shoot sperm and seminal fluid from their genitalia. But have you ever wondered from where they acquired such a desire?

If you’re a gamer who doesn’t want to haul a PC with you on vacation, you could book your next trip to Panama City where the local Hilton has packed a ridiculously customized hotel room full of high-end gaming gear and accessories. The beanbag chairs, VR goggles, and racing seat all make sense to me, but why did the…Read more...

It’s shaping to be one of the most convenient excuses to avoid ordering a salad yet: An outbreak of Escherichia coli linked to chopped romaine lettuce has now spread to 16 states and sickened over 50 people since mid-March, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Read more...

The term “Asperger’s syndrome” will never be heard the same way again, owing to new research showing that Hans Asperger—the Austrian pediatrician for whom the disorder was named—was an active participant in the Nazi eugenics program, recommending that patients deemed “not fit for life” be sent to a notorious…Read more...

When Krypton was first announced, many people dismissed it as a simple prequel starring Superman’s grandfather. Then it was revealed that the stakes were much higher: Brainiac had gone back in time to attack the planet and prevent Superman from ever being born, while space adventurer Adam Strange traveled back to stop…Read more...

I’ve been waiting for this to happen for a long time, and I’m actually a little surprised it’s only happening now. But with the launch of the Nubia’s Red Magic, there’s finally a gaming phone with built-in RGB lighting.Read more...

Damn, I’ve never seen a tech company give up on a project so quickly since Microsoft bet big on the Kin, but Intel may have taken the cake as it announces the closure of the division responsible for its intriguing Vaunt smart glasses. Just five years after creating the New Devices Group, Intel is shuttering it, and…Read more...

Moronic YouTube personalities commonly have a problem discerning what goes into a funny prank. For Barcelona-based YouTuber ReSet, his lack of a sense of humor could cost him two years in prison. Spanish prosecutors reportedly intend to throw the book at him for giving a homeless man Oreos filled with toothpaste.Read more...

For years, Motorola has been the leader in making cheap phones feel like quality products, instead of gadgets designed only to hit a certain price point. And while the next generation of Moto’s low cost handsets don’t seem super exciting, from what I’ve seen so far, they should continue Motorola’s legacy of making,…Read more...

David Cope didn’t set out to make anyone mad. In 1980, the composer envisioned a tool to help cure his creative block: a machine that could keep track of all the sounds and loose threads running through his mind, find similarities, and produce an entire piece of music inspired by it. So he built it.Read more...

If, for you, Halloween is less about trying to score free candy, and more about terrifying every last adult and child that crosses your path, then a company called VFX Crates has the perfect prank for you. What looks like an empty (suspiciously blood-splattered) box breaks open to send a screaming, heart…Read more...