Gizmodo

Fans of genre movies had an absolute blast in 2023. Hollywood studios and streamers alike provided us with a seemingly never-ending slate of excellent fare. The animated films were fire. Some superhero films were super. And along the way, there were lots and lots of happy surprises. Below, you'll find io9's picks for...Read more...

If anybody remembers the old Can it run Crysis?" meme, the joke has long since fallen flat as more games have long exceeded the specs requirement on that 16-year-old game. On the flip side, Can it run Doom?" has a separate connotation. It belies the ingenuity of tinkerers and DIYers trying to find the most unique...Read more...

Google announced changes to the way it harvests your location data this week that will finally put a stop to its compliance with geofence warrants, a police surveillance technique that many say circumvents the Constitution.Read more...

There's little to no evidence suggesting that your devices are listening to you," but that hasn't stopped people from believing big tech is monitoring every word they say. Now, a marketing subsidiary of Cox Media Group is throwing fuel on the fire with claims that it can deploy active listening" through your...Read more...

Hideo Kojima will team with A24 on his Death Stranding movie. Alexander Siddig will join Foundation's third season, while John Waters will join Chucky's. Plus, another new look at the Doctor Who Christmas special. To me, my spoilers!

Do you like Star Wars? How about Lord of the Rings? Harry Potter? Dune? What about The Matrix? Would you like to see elements of all of those and more in the skeleton of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai? If the answer to any of that is yes, Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire is the movie for you.Read more...

MoviePass has a bit of a checkered history, but the theater subscription service relaunched last year and has continued to evolve, including the introduction of a virtual card earlier this month aimed at making buying movie tickets a smoother process. It has a long way to go if it wants to reach the heights of...Read more...

When Rebel Moon releases in theaters this week (and on Netflix next week) it'll mark the end of a 10-year journey. A journey that began with a 2013 rumor that director Zack Snyder was working on some kind of Star Wars movie. That rumor, it turns out, was not true. At the time, Snyder had the idea of taking one of his...Read more...

Good news, everyone! Scientists discovered additional evidence suggesting the potential habitability of a peculiar icy moon orbiting Saturn, one of the planet's 146 moons.Read more...

The big day is drawing near and so are those shipping cut-offs for getting everyone on your list a special fandom holiday gift. Don't worry, io9's latest gift guide inspired by the worlds of DC and the WB has some shopping tips at places that offer in-store pickup, including BoxLunch and Target.

Kanopy is one of the best streaming deals around: it's free and doesn't have any ads breaking up its content, though you must have a library card or be part of a college, university, or other institution to make an account. Released today, the service's 30 most-watched films of 2023 definitely reflect those academic...Read more...

For the past 40-plus years, Indiana Jones has meant nothing but fortune and glory. Each of the franchise's first four films was one of the top three highest-grossing films in the U.S. the year they were released. Raiders of the Lost Ark was #1 in 1981, Temple of Doom was #2 in 1984, Last Crusade was #2 in 1989 and King...Read more...

Intel's latest chips boast big performance gains, but never mind any of that. What would be a normal annual chip refresh announcement from one of the world's biggest silicon developers has put the biggest emphasis yet on onboard PC AI, with the latest Intel Core Ultra line as part of the current Meteor Lake chipsets...Read more...

Although it feels like it can be said every year recently, it's hard to imagine a better year in terms of its influence than 2023 has been for Dungeons & Dragons. A movie, TV channels, a video game that has dominated the world, and of course a not-insignificant glimpse toward the game's own future. But for all those...Read more...

Goodness gracious, has it really been five years already?

Grimes, the futuristic pop singer and mother of Elon Musk's children, is working on a plush AI toy named Grok" with the Silicon Valley startup Curio. The toy reportedly has no relationship or affiliation with Musk's AI chatbot from xAI, the woke" chatbot that's also named Grok, according to The Washington Post.Read more...

On Wednesday, Twitch's confusing policies regarding what kind of sexual content streamers can include-and what's an absolute no-go-got a rewrite and a very clear blog post explaining the changes. The company says it wants its content creators to feel confident they understand our rules" and viewers to feel confident...Read more...

We simply don't know what to make of the first trailer for If, John Krasinski's new movie starring Ryan Reynolds. On paper, the idea is beautiful. The imaginary friends you made as a child are real, everywhere, and require saving. The cast, which includes not just Reynolds and Krasinski, but Steve Carell, Emily Blunt, ...Read more...

GM sounds like it's not going to budge regarding its decision to replace Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with its in-house infotainment system on its future electric vehicles. The only difference is that it's making it about safety this time.

Despite an unfortunate anomaly nearly three months ago, Rocket Lab is ready to see its Electron rocket fly once again with a new mission slated for launch on Friday.Read more...

We are Sex Bob-Omb! One, two, three, four!"Read more...

The end is nigh, and Good Omens is preparing for it again. Having evolved from a limited series exploring the story of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's beloved novel into its own magical continuation of ideas from the pair left unpublished, now Good Omens is ready to call time on Amazon... and on the Apocalypse.Read more...

Threads finally launched for European users Thursday roughly five months after the X competitor rolled out in the United States. The rookie social media platform also received some fact-checking filters that might put advertisers' minds at ease. Meanwhile, Americans received AI-generated backgrounds for Instagram...Read more...

If you're irritated by the morning people in your life, you might have Neanderthals to blame for their existence, at least a little bit. New research suggests that our hominin relatives possessed genetic variations that predisposed them to waking up early and that they passed on these genes to our Homo sapiens...Read more...

Smile 2 is expanding its cast. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is bringing back a familiar spectral face. Moon Knight's screenwriter will join Captain America: Brave New World for new reshoot material next year. Plus, another look at what's coming in La Brea's final season. Spoilers, away!

Google announced Thursday that it will start its long-anticipated slaughter of the internet's cookies starting on January 4th, when it will block them for 1% of Chrome users, or about 30 million people. It's the first major step in its Privacy Sandbox project, which aims to replace cookies with a different kind of...Read more...

In defense of English dubs, no one does it better than Studio Ghibli. It's not a matter of either-or; with the incredible global talents that span the original Japanese voices and the English casts, it just means we get more!Read more...

Unfortunately, I still have to lurk on X, formerly known as Twitter, to see when companies tease upcoming releases. As it turns out, Asus is still making its ROG-the Republic of Gamers-smartphone. It runs Android, and it will probably have some beefy innards. But all we know so far is that it'll be revealed at CES...Read more...

As we get closer and closer to the arrival of X-Men 97, the rallying cry of To me, my X-Men merchandise!" just gets louder and louder. Earlier this week we saw Lego get in on the X-mania with a new set, but now it's Hasbro's turn with its latest wave inspired by the cartoon series.Read more...

The rumors are true. If you need to replace or switch to a USB-C charging case for your Apple AirPods Pro, you will no longer have to spend $250 on a new pair. Apple is finally selling its new USB-C AirPods Pro USB-C charging cases separately for $99 (first spotted by The Verge).

Disney's Encanto has become one of the studios most beloved animated features on the strength of its fabulous songs (written by Lin-Manuel Miranda), amazing animation (directed by Byron Howard and Jared Bush), and a heartfelt story about a girl who doesn't feel special among her extraordinary family.Read more...

The legions of Elon Musk stans who have long dreamed of following in the unhinged billionaire's footsteps will soon have an opportunity to learn directly from the master. Or, rather, they'll have an opportunity to attend a university set up by Musk. And learn science. Or something. Maybe.

Three hackers in Poland were hired to fix the software of a broken train, and they were successful, but now the train company, Newag, is threatening to sue them, according to Polish outlet Rynek Kolejowy. The hackers allege that the trains were deliberately outfitted with software that would ensure they couldn't...Read more...

Talking on the Town podcast, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos-who, host Matt Belloni pointed out, has been reluctant to divulge ratings and audience numbers in the past-explained the timing of yesterday's What We Watched" engagement report, including why it's taken Netflix so long to offer this level of data transparency.

NASA's iconic space probe is having trouble communicating with its home planet due to a computer glitch, forcing engineers to resort to decades-old manuals to come up with a way tofix the 46-year-old mission.Read more...

Here's a scary lesson about why you shouldn't hold in your sneezes. In a case report this month, doctors in the UK describe a man in his 30s who tore open his windpipe by holding his nose and mouth closed while sneezing-apparently the first documented instance of such an injury. Though the man did have to spend some...Read more...

Have you ever wanted to wear the screen you play your Xbox games on? If you were desperately looking for yet another device to use your Game Pass Ultimate subscription, Meta and Microsoft told users Wednesday that they can start running through their cloud gaming library on Meta Quest headsets, including the Quest 2, Q...Read more...

After all this time, Hollywood still believes in The Lost Boys. After years of failed sequels and multiple attempts at TV reboots, the film is now going off the screen and onto the stage. It's being turned into a musical.

If Elon Musk's car company doesn't want its Nordic offices to get really smelly, really fast, it's going to have to put its tail between its legs and admit that it's officially been bested by the organized labor of Europe.Read more...

Twitter is officially dead. Since Elon Musk's $44 billion acquisition of it late last year, people have been saying it's dead or dying or will die. Musk ended the argument when he renamed the app X." And now, so many people seem to pine for the days when Twitter was good. But let me tell you, it was never good. It...Read more...

In the immortal words of Keanu Reeves in several of his movies: Whoa."

Apple's strategy, if there was one at all, for protecting your phone's data from theft has been pretty bad all along. If the thief can take a glance at your password before stealing your iPhone, you have handed him your entire digital life. With the iOS 17.3 beta that rolled out yesterday, the company finally added...Read more...

Netflix announced that it was branching into games back in November 2021, but so far the streamer remains far better known for its movies and TV series. The company hopes to change that in 2024, with four new games on the way it announced today, and dozens more in the works-as well as a push toward making Netflix...Read more...

So far, Monarch has done a fascinating job of exploring the legacy of Godzilla across its dual timelines, but actually getting glimpses of the big guy (and current box office darling) since we flashed back to G-Day have been hard to come by. But as io9 can exclusively reveal, we're getting a little taste this week.

Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' private space venture, is ready to fly its New Shepard rocket again after over a year of being grounded. The company this week announced the rocket's first cargo mission since its booster went up in flames in a liftoff malfunction back in September 2022.Read more...

Worldcoin, Sam Altman's cryptocurrency venture, is now integrating its verification services into popular apps such as Reddit, Discord, Shopify, Mercado Libre, Telegram, and Minecraft. The move is part of Altman's World ID 2.0, which describes itself as a human passport for the internet."Read more...

As 2023 draws to a close, the io9 staff has had to admit something about ourselves: we watch a lot of TV. From a starting list that was admittedly alarmingly long, we managed to winnow down our 20 favorites-including animation, sci-fi, horror, and fantasy, and titles both brand-new, some seasons in, and (in one case,...Read more...

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Christopher Eccleston has had a long road of private and publicly processing his time on Doctor Who-for many years, the actor simply refused to talk about why, having helped turn the series into a sensation when it returned in 2005, he left and never looked back. But, while still largely reserved, Eccleston is now...Read more...

Are you enjoying that new Deck smell a little too much? Valve's support staff are now telling users that they shouldn't be huffing the exhaust from the Steam Deck's grills for their health and safety, though there's no recorded issue with folks taking a hit off their electronics' cooling vents.Read more...