Gizmodo

Following a series of setbacks that has hindered the next-generation Vega launcher, the European Space Agency (ESA) is looking into what caused the rocket's motor to fail during a recent static fire test.Read more...

If you're a longtime Spotify Premium subscriber, your account could be set for a shake-up. Spotify is ending all support for payments made via Apple's App Store billing system, and consequently, some subscribers are slated to get the boot.

It's that time of year again: Chengdu WorldCon has released the full list of nominees for this year's Hugos, the premiere science fiction and fantasy awards ceremony highlighting the best in books, film, TV, and criticism in genre material.

Amidst ongoing protests in France, the country has just passed a new bill that will allow police to remotely access suspects' cameras, microphones, and GPS on cell phones and other devices.

Foundation, a gloriously over-the-top space epic from Apple TV+, is back for a second season. Based on the series of stories by science fiction legend, Isaac Asimov, the series takes the original ideas and tweaks them to fit in with contemporary sci-fi considerations, creating a massive saga about the inevitable...Read more...

The U.S. ecosystem is riddled with PFAS. And a new study released this week by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) revealed that these toxic chemicals are in almost half of the country's tap water.Read more...

Ken discusses his job description in a new Barbie clip. Seth Rogen promises shocks aplenty for his Boys spinoff and the Sausage Party sequel. Netflix wants its Stranger Things play to herald clues for the show's final season. Plus, a new look at The Nun 2. Spoilers, now!

Update: July 6, 9:24 a.m. ET: Ariane 5 successfully lifted off at 6:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday, delivering its payloads to space. The mission lasted for 33 minutes, ending a spectacular 27-year run for the European rocket.

Meta released its hotly anticipated Twitter copycat, Threads, yesterday, moving the app's release up from Thursday morning to early evening on Wednesday night. According to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, 10 million users flocked to the app in its first few hours. Things on Threads were, to be frank, pretty boring....Read more...

The Little Mermaid's iconic sunset poster art inspires what'll be a must-have for Disney movie collectors: the SteelBook release of the live-action fairy tale's home media release.Read more...

On Wednesday, New York City imposed a new law regulating companies that useartificial intelligence to screen candidates for open positions. The city's Automated Employment Decision Tools (AEDT) law requires companies to prove their AI tool is free from racial and gender bias before it can be used.Read more...

Star Wars is just one of those things everyone knows. Whether you love it, hate it, or are indifferent about it, you're almost surely aware of it. You know Darth Vader, you know lightsabers, you know John Williams' music. So, when talking to Conan O'Brien, one of the other people everyone knows, Harrison Ford, ...Read more...

When we say that Star Wars has a complicated relationship with death, it's usually about how the franchise isunwilling to let go of its own past, or how a desire to cheat the final end has driven much of the series' theological explorations recently. Sometimes, it just means you have to be persistent as hell to...Read more...

After months of secretive work, Facebook owner Meta released Threads on Wednesday, a Twitter clone that could cause an upheaval in the world of social media. Threads was originally slated for release at 10 a.m. on July 6th, but the company moved up the launch to 7 p.m. Wednesday evening.

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Justin Bieber has seemingly lost more than 1.2 million real, fungible U.S. dollars on a single digital image of a sad chimpanzee. The multihyphenate pop sensation and mega-star joined in on the crypto/NFT celeb-endorsement hype train in January 2022, when he purchased one of Yuga Labs' notoriously shitty-looking Bored...Read more...

Canadian officials say the federal government will suspend all of its advertising on Facebook and Instagram following Meta's drastic decision to block access to news links in the region as retaliation to the country's passage of the Online News Act. Major Canadian corporations like Quebecor and Cogeco Communication ...Read more...

It appears that the artificial intelligence fatigue is upon us: OpenAI's website traffic has fallen for the first time since the company launched the viral chatbot ChatGPT in November.

Superman has always had a strong pop culture presence, but in the last decade and change, Warner Bros. has put a greater focus on the character's live-action prospects (for both film and TV). The character's appeared in several animated movies over the years, but it's been a long time since he had an animated TV show...Read more...

There's nothing I would like more than for Nothing's Phone (2) to actually look like a major upgrade from the company's first cellular device to hit the market. But instead, all the hints we now have about CEO Carl Pei's jump into a more premium phone market seem to be a slight upgrade from the much-hyped, LED-backed...Read more...

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Facebook owner Meta is set to release Threads on Wednesday, a long-awaited Twitter copy-cat app poised to cause major problems for Elon Musk. Meta just pushed up the launch data for the app, and Threads is scheduled to be available at 7 p.m. Eastern Time on July 5th, . Here's how to get the app, and steps to sneak an...Read more...

SpaceX is denying allegations that its Starship rocket poses a threat to surrounding wildlife habitat in Boca Chica, Texas, hoping to dismiss a lawsuit that could potentially delay the anticipated launch of its megarocket.Read more...

This past weekend The Witch From Mercury brought a surprisingly rapid-fire end to the latest Gundam show-and in one of its most satisfying moves, finally delivered on the sapphic love story it set up from the get-go. But in truly making queer love the heart of its endgame, the series also pushed a closer examination...Read more...

Just like some people, elephants seem to prefer a rich palette of foods, research out this week suggests. Studying decades-old poop, researchers found that elephants tend to have diverse diets that can differ significantly from others in the same community. These diets are further influenced by the time of year and...Read more...

Science fiction promises us all sorts of sentient automatons once artificial intelligence becomes a part of our daily lives-not hockey puck-sized speakers. Determined to breathe more life into Amazon's smart assistant, Thomas Burns hacked together a CRT TV and a pair of moving eyes to make Alexa feel more engaging-or...Read more...

Last year, there was a rumor floating around that Tom Cruise was just about done with the Mission: Impossible franchise. The thought was that with everything that went into making the next two films in the franchise, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One and Part Two, his character Ethan Hunt would slowly ride...Read more...

Huy Fong Sriracha prices are soaring as people become increasingly desperate to get their hands on a bottle one year into its chili shortage. Now online sellers are appealing to consumers' needs to get the highly coveted sauce... but at a steep price.Read more...

Two supernovae 22 million light-years away ejected dust into their region of the universe, Webb Space Telescope observations reveal, indicating that violent stellar deaths could give rise to new star systems.Read more...

Yup, that happened at the end of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Director James Mangold and the team took Indy to a place fans probably never dreamed we'd see him. And while there's been plenty of debate and discussion about the hows and whys, really only one person can definitely speak about them: Mangold...Read more...

The climate crisis has changed weather patterns, and this could increase crop failure in multiple agricultural regions around the world, a new study says. In a report published in Nature Communications this week, researchers in the U.S. and Germany outline how food-producing regions of the world will see significantly...Read more...

On Monday, the world reached a new milestone. July 3, 2023, was Earth's hottest day on record. Averaged across the whole planet, and all 24 hours, the composite surface temperature was 17.01 Celsius (~62.62 Fahrenheit), according to the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute, which compiles and assesses data...Read more...

A group of astronomers comprising the Pristine Inner Galaxy Survey (PIGS) just found a large group of ancient stars circling the galaxy's center in surprisingly orderly fashion.

We're back! It's Secret Invasion, episode three: Betrayed," and I have three guesses for who is going to be betrayed, and they're probably all right. This episode, like every episode in Secret Invasion, is directed by Ali Selim. No individual writers are credited with this episode, but the staff writers are Beto ...Read more...

Dear users of aging hardware, even Firefox is ready to stop supporting your out-of-date tech. On Tuesday, the Mozilla-owned browser released its latest update, claiming it was the last one that users of aging Mac and Windows users will see outside of an extended-release schedule that's set to end by September next...Read more...

When a film's biggest stunt is not even its most exciting, you know you're in for a good time and that's exactly what happens with Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. It's a film that not only sends the Mission franchise in an exciting new direction, it grounds things with a story that feels timely and...Read more...

A US federal judge handed the censorship-obsessed wing of the Republican party a major win on Tuesday by blocking Biden officials from contacting social media firms to suggest content moderation takedown requests. The preliminary injunction, delivered by way of a 155 page-ruling on Independence Day, marks the most...Read more...

Although we've only just got access to the first half of Henry Cavill's swansong as Geralt of Rivia in Netflix's Witcher adaptation, we've known for a good while yet the actor was on his way out of the Continent for good. But Netflix is, bizarrely, using that fact to lure viewers back-while feeling like it's negging...Read more...

Although it can't compare to the performance of flagship devices from Apple or Samsung, our biggest complaint with the user-repairable Fairphone 4 was that it's not available in the United States. That's about to change, but those who've been patiently waiting two years for the Fairphone 4 to come to the US might be ...Read more...

ChatGPT can be used for a wonderfully broad variety of applications-with mixed results, of course. Less than a week after introducing its integration with Bing, ChatGPT pulled the plug on the collaboration as users discovered they could use it to bypass paywalled websites.

8BitDo's wireless-ification of classic video game controllers continues with a new wire-free version of a gamepad that is still divisive amongst retro gaming fans. Unlike other recent recreations, 8BitDo went to great lengths to ensure its NEOGEO CD Wireless Controller still included a joystick relying on...Read more...

A New Jersey judge is being investigated over inappropriate" videos he posted on his TikTok account, according to a complaint filed by the Supreme Court advisory committee on Friday. Superior Court Judge Gary Wilcox reportedly filmed and posted more than 40 TikTok videos under the alias Sal Tortorella between April...Read more...

Planetary protection is, more than ever, a major responsibility for humankind. Ensuring that no alien matter is carried back to Earth by spacecraft returning from an interplanetary mission is not the whole issue, however, as planetary protection also involves making sure that the planets and other celestial bodies...Read more...

Meta's Twitter clone, called Threads, is a hair away from release, and already the discussion rages on whether Mark Zuckerberg's latest attempt to copy what already exists will do what few bird app imitators have yet to accomplish. From what we know so far, Threads will be a relatively pared-down version of Twitter to...Read more...

Gal Gadot talks playing Disney's latest evil Queen for Snow White. Walking Dead's Rick and Michonne spinoff gets an incredibly unsurprising title. Plus, what's coming on the really real (for real this time) last episodes of Attack on Titan. Spoilers, away!

Like that one restaurant that manages to thrive in a strip mall that died years ago, Barnes & Noble's Nook line clearly has enough devoted fans for the company to continue to release updated e-readers, including the new GlowLight 4 Plus which finally brings audiobook support to E Ink-based Nook devices.Read more...

ChatGPT is a hot topic at my university, where faculty members are deeply concerned about academic integrity, while administrators urge us to embrace the benefits" of this new frontier." It's a classic example of what my colleague Punya Mishra calls the doom-hype cycle" around new technologies. Likewise, media...Read more...

After your July 4 re-watch of Independence Day, your next move should be to stream 1996's other patriotically themed release: Uncle Sam, a movie so up-front about its intentions as a satirical horror comedy that its poster, a ghoulish parody of a military-recruiting ad, has the tag line I Want You... Dead."