Gizmodo

Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender saw Aang and the rest of Team Avatar travel the world so he could master all four elements from different bending masters. For all they went through, there was always a looming threat overhead in the form of Sozin's Comet, a celestial phenomenon which served as a massive power...Read more...

The latest iOS 17.3 update will make it harder for thieves to log into your phone, but only if you turn on this feature. The Samsung Galaxy Ultra S24 is out next week, and we've got our review of the flagship phone right here. Click through for our top product news and reviews from this week.Read more...

After months of fighting with two stubborn fasteners, NASA scientists finally cracked open the canister containing precious pieces of an ancient asteroid. Click through for our top science stories from this week.Read more...

This year, at least some countries will have to say goodbye to the Netflix Basic subscription tier, the last cheap(ish) way to watch Netflix without ads. While the streaming giant had already severed the $12 Basic subscription tier for new or returning subscribers, anybody who chose to keep paying their monthly tithe...Read more...

This week on io9 The Bad Batch got us thinking about Dark Disciple, the Battle of Boz Pity, and so much Nightsister magic with the reveal that Asajj Ventress is the latest Star Wars character to cheat death. Read on for more on that, plus even more of our most-read stories of the week! -James WhitbrookRead more...

The Taylor Swift AI porn debacle seems to be snowballing into a full-blown national emergency and now the White House is involved. Yes, our nation's executive branch weighed in on Taylor's fake nudes on Friday, with the top WH spokesperson claiming that the government is concerned about the whole thing but isn't quite...Read more...

Earlier in io9's 2024 Sundance Film Festival coverage, we reviewed In a Violent Nature, one of the most unconventional slasher movies ever made. That theme continues with Handling the Undead-a most unusual zombie movie, and one that offers proof (yet again) that the genre still has the ability to innovate.Read more...

Elon Musk's brain implant company Neuralink has been in more trouble with the federal government than previously known. A Reuters report published Friday says that the U.S. Department of Transportation recently fined Neuralink for violating rules governing the movement of hazardous materials. The DOT has since settled...Read more...

We already knew the world of Alien was returning both on TV and at the movies. But now, it's returning to the world of comics too, in a very unexpected way. Marvel just announced that Aliens, James Cameron's 1986 sequel, is getting a five-issue What If...?" spin-off focusing on Carter Burke, the evil company man...Read more...

Astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) are about to make a new cyborg friend in the form of two short mechanical arms that will do their bidding in the cold, dark vacuum of low Earth orbit.Read more...

Grand Admiral Thrawn's return at the climax of Ahsoka heralds the beginning of a Star Wars story long in the making-whatever Dave Filoni has planned in adapting one of the most famous stories in the old Expanded Universe, Heir to the Empire, across TV shows and even a movie. But another element from that saga could...Read more...

Pornhub notified performers last week that the platform is requiring proof of consent from anyone featured in its videos moving forward, according to emails seen by 404 Media. The policy update is Pornhub's latest effort to verify that its performers are not being abused or sexually trafficked.Read more...

Welcome to AI This Week, Gizmodo's weekly deep dive on what's been happening in artificial intelligence.Read more...

The National Security Agency (NSA) is purchasing Americans' internet records, according to government documents made public on Friday. U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, wrote a letter claiming the NSA goes through backchannel avenues to purchase your browsing records and location data, which government...Read more...

A dangerous fungal infection has seeded its spores farther across the United States than previously assumed. Research out this week details evidence that cases of blastomycosis are regularly showing up in Vermont, outside of the established areas of the U.S. where it's thought to be endemic.Read more...

Apple has been relatively absent from last year's AI hype cycle, and Microsoft even briefly surpassed it as the most valuable company in the world. But don't count out the iPhone maker as some analysts expect the move into AI will happen with iOS 18 at this summer's Worldwide Developers Conference, according to the Fin...Read more...

A modern folk horror tale that draws upon Australia's troubled history to enhance its monstrous elements, The Moogai also includes an exploration of postpartum depression. Unfortunately, its one-dimensional plot ultimately detracts from the elements that make it an otherwise unique story.Read more...

Cruise, the self-driving car company whose robotaxi dragged a pedestrian, shared footage from the graphic incident with regulators using a bad internet connection, according to an independent review. Cruise didn't explicitly say that a pedestrian was dragged 20 feet, and hoped screen sharing a video would speak for...Read more...

Earth's orbit will be monitored by a watchful set of robotic eyes, the first commercial constellation of satellites with the ability to keep track of objects in space to avoid collisions between spacecraft.Read more...

The next version of the Nintendo Switch might be released later this year and feature an 8-inch LCD display, based on reporting from Bloomberg.Read more...

The world was already a pretty excellent place for Godzilla fans considering a) Godzilla Minus One exists and is in theaters, and b) its black and white version, Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color, is also in now in theaters for a limited time. One thing could make it better though. Maybe, say, a new limited edition...Read more...

Some of our posts include links to retailers. If you buy something from clicking on one, G/O Media may earn a commission. Because editorial staff is independent of commerce, affiliate linking does not influence our editorial content.The smartphone audience is so wide that it's difficult to settle on just one of the best phones of 2024. Some of us want huge screens, fast processors, and tons of memory. Others want the very best camera. And then there are the folks who want the best budget phone and/or best small phone (they're often the same...Read more...

Everything about the moviegoing experience is merchandisable, and long has been. But the rising trend of increasingly complex and elaborate collectible popcorn buckets might have finally reached the apex with Dune: Part Two, which invites you to place your hand in a very different kind of Gom Jabbar test.Read more...

Earlier this week, AI-generated porn featuring Taylor Swift started circulating on X (formerly Twitter). Swifties were scandalized. Polite society was incensed. Swift herself hasn't publicly commented on the scandal but it's easy to imagine she's probably not thrilled about it.Read more...

A series of AI-generated images of Taylor Swift in suggestive and pornographic situations are causing an uproar on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Though some of the images have been taken down, others remain on the platform. Swift's army of fans have embarked on a campaign to bury the images by flooding...Read more...

Do not scratch your eyes: the Moon is slowly shrinking, causing quakes on its surface that complicate NASA's plans for landing Artemis 3, the first Artemis mission that will make a crewed landing on the Moon, and more ambitious missions geared towards maintaining a prolonged human lunar presence.Read more...

Being the space nerd that I am, I often imagine a museum filled with the most important objects ever sent to space. We couldn't possibly build a place like this, but we can speculate as to which human artifacts deserve a place in our imaginary spaceflight museum.Read more...

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has a lot going for it just in terms of the smorgasbord of AI software it's packing, but under the hood, it's also a very interesting specimen. It didn't take long before the first DIYers pried back the shell on Samsung's latest premium phone, and from the looks of things, the South Korean...Read more...

Netflix wants to make a sequel to Leo already. Go behind the scenes on Ghosbusters: The Frozen Empire. Plus, Wolf Pack will howl no more at Paramount. Spoilers, away!

A conservation group released a report in 2023finding that more than 40% of all animal species in the U.S. are at risk of going extinct. Most in danger were small, not-so-exciting animals-snails, crayfish, mussels-that nevertheless make up key cornerstones of our ecosystems.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched an inquiry into the billion-dollar AI deals of OpenAI, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Anthropic on Thursday. Throughout the inquiry, cloud providers must disclose details about the nature of their partnerships and investments with AI startups. Of particular interest is the...Read more...

If you've still not had a chance to experience a real, large gaming OLED display, then jumping in front of Alienware's AW3225QF QD-OLED monitor is akin to submerging your eyes in a warm bath of color. It's a pleasant feeling, the kind of thing you hope to get from an ultra-premium device. Like a massage, the first...Read more...

The EnVision mission to Venus was officially adopted by the European Space Agency on Thursday, which means the organization has committed to getting the spacecraft Venus-bound by the early 2030s.Read more...

Welcome to another installment of Gizmodo's Animal Crime of the Week. Last week, we admired the trash-stealing parrots of Australia. This week features a bitey, cake-stealing iguana that added injury to insult by giving its victim a nasty, rare infection.Read more...

The excitement over Dune: Part Two's March 1 arrival is building-so much so that other movies are trying to capitalize on it. Christopher Nolan's Tenet is returning to theaters accompanied by a special tease of Denis Villeneuve's sequel-but first, David Lynch's take on Dune will be getting its due.Read more...

Apple is granting more access to its manicured walled garden to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in the European Union (EU). In a press release, the company announced a heaping of forthcoming iOS, Safari, and the App Store changes, including support for apps from third-party app stores and the ability to set...Read more...

Sometimes you just want a portrait of your favorite characters from TV and movies on your wall. And when that happens, artist Dakota Randall is there. In conjunction with the Hero Complex Gallery, Randall has been creating beautiful, affordable, realistic-looking portraits for a few years now, inspired by dramas,...Read more...

The new movie Love Me takes place over 10 billion years and stars only two actors who don't play humans. It's part nature film, part animation, part stage drama, and incredibly ambitious and dense both in scope and theme. Written and directed by Sam and Andy Zuchero, it's a film that attempts to capture the entire...Read more...

After nearly three years of flying across the Martian terrain, the Ingenuity helicopter has finally ended its mission. NASA declared Thursday that Ingenuity had sustained damage to a blade during its most recent landing and would not make another flight.Read more...

It's not quite her dream sci-fi role, but until Killers of the Flower Moon breakout Lily Gladstone's Star Wars Ewok aspirations come true, The Memory Police sounds like an excellent entry into the genre. The team behind this project is ridiculous; besides Gladstone as the lead, it includes director Reed Morano (The...Read more...

iPhone apps including Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, and X/Twitter are skirting Apple's privacy rules to collect user data through notifications, according to tests by security researchers at Mysk Inc., an app development company. Users sometimes close apps to stop them from collecting data in the background, but this...Read more...

The Screen Actors Guild prevents two actors from claiming the same name, for obvious reasons; that's why, for instance, we know Emily Stone as Emma Stone. Actors with very similar names don't have that issue-though as veteran performer Tom Hollander has revealed, that can still lead to confusion.Read more...

If you're not familiar with them before asking, you might be surprised if an X-Men comic reader declares Hank McCoy-the fuzzball genius Beast-one of the most evil characters in the franchise. This is not a new twist, either, even in the wake of X-Men: The Animated Series and the Fox films paving his mainstream...Read more...

You can now check your temperature with your Pixel 8 Pro thanks to the new updates Google recently added to its flagship phone. The newly added temperature sensor allows you to simply put your phone to your forehead and check how you're doing.Read more...

Stay calm, everybody stay calm. But it's finally happening: The European Space Agency is committing itself to the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a gravitational wave observatory that will study some of the universe's most enigmatic phenomena.Read more...

Netflix is on everything. It's on your phone, computer, and game console, going all the way back to the Nintendo Wii. Hell, you can get your Netflix fix on a Peloton if you really need to work off the vicarious carbo loads of Paul Hollywood while watching the latest season of The Great British Bake Off. One place...Read more...

The miracle-pregnancy theme is right there in the title-Immaculate-but the conception in question in Sydney Sweeney's new nun horror movie feels way more malevolent than anything involving Mary, Joseph, and a manger. The film's first trailer is here, and the plot appears as devilish as you'd imagine.Read more...

EV buyers are often motivated by a desire to save money on gas and/or drive something more environmentally friendly. But, a recent story out of Florida in The Miami Herald details how EV owners there have been blindsided by how fast they're having to change the tires on their EVs.Read more...

The saga of Japan's lunar lander continues to unfold, with the first images of SLIM on the surface of the Moon revealing the unfortunate position the spacecraft has ended up in.

On Wednesday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced the Big Apple would be the first city to officially classify social media as a public health risk. Social media is an environmental toxin," Adams said in a speech, comparing the problem to guns and tobacco. The mayor then promptly went on-where else-social media...Read more...