Gizmodo

NASA's diligent lunar orbiter transmitted a laser beam to a dome-shaped aluminum device the size of a billiard ball on India's Vikram lander, pinging its location on the Moon. This laser-enabled technique could one day help NASA astronauts find their way on the lunar surface.

This month, OpenAI launched what it calls the GPT Store, a platform where developers can sell custom-built AI apps and tools. The millions of GPTs on offer include games, productivity helpers, graphic design tools, tools for specific writing projects, and more. One thing OpenAI doesn't want you to find, however, is an...Read more...

Tech companies are infamous for torturing career hopefuls with mind-melters during interviews. This week, you'll try your hand at one without the stress of job prospects on your shoulders. Google is rumored to have used this puzzle over the years, although it has since retired the practice altogether.

Big Tech's trend of the week is the incessant talk about AI subscriptions. Silicon Valley cannot stop throwing money into AI, but they're a bit stuck figuring out how AI will throw money back at them. Now, Big Tech thinks it found a solution: they're betting you will pay a monthly subscription for their AI service....Read more...

A new year means new movies to watch in theaters or at home. And while we've got an idea of the bigger franchise tentpoles, some films are building up their presence the old-fashioned way: with some pretty effective marketing that sells you on the movie's vibe first and foremost.

Just a few months ago, actor Melissa Barrera was fired from Scream 7 over her pro-Palestinian stance in the Israel-Hamas conflict. The shockwave of that firing has basically upended that franchise in various ways, while Barrera herself has been focused on doing promo for her next film, the upcoming horror musical Your...Read more...

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One finally came to theaters last year after a longer than expected wait due to COVID. If you decided to wait for it to hit streaming, good news: it's hitting Paramount+ next Friday, January 25.

Like with Tron 3, the upcoming Daredevil: Born Again is getting back into production starting next week. The series, which was originally slated to come out this spring, found itself in need of a creative reboot with new hands behind the wheel, and it seems Disney's liked what writer Dario Scardapane and directors...Read more...

Longtime horror alum Greg Nicotero, of The Walking Dead and Creepshow fame, has found his next project to tackle: a TV adaptation of Robert McCammon's Swan Song.

Scientists scrutinizing the fine dust covering the Moon have identified a handful of boulders on the lunar surface that they believe may be covered with uniquely magnetized dust.Read more...

Meet the dorado octopus, a newly described deep sea cephalopod with some seriously alien features. A remotely operated vehicle took incredible images of thisspecies and its habitat, including just-hatched babies and a field brooding females. Click through for our top science stories from this week.Read more...

As Ncuti Gatwa's just beginning his tenure on Doctor Who, his newest companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) won't be along for his full ride. Per Variety, Gibson will be on the show after a single season, after which she'll be succeeded by Verada Sethu, last seen as Cinta Kaz over on Andor.Read more...

Ever since Sony revealed it was working on a solo movie for Madame Web, folks have had questions. Why her? How is this going to connect to whichever Spider-Man is swinging around now?

Now that we're a few weeks into 2024 and the Hollywood strikes are in the rearview, the upcoming Tron: Ares has just started filming.Read more...

For the past 26 years, the Guthman Competition at Georgia Tech's Department of Music has introduced the world to strange and innovative instruments. The contest welcomes inventors from all over the world to build and explore the future of music, and together, they've produced some truly weird and exciting sound...Read more...

2024 is barely a few weeks old and already the future of Star Wars is driving people mad with speculation and rumormongering. io9 got you the scoop of the week with what's really up with Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Daisy Ridley's Rey movie, but here's the rest of our big hits you may have missed-James WhitbrookRead more...

Tech is having a moment where everyone is wondering if it's all that great. AI is the hot trend right now, but Big Tech wants you to pay for something that hasn't really been shown to make your life easier. Don't worry though, the Silicon Valley billionaires are planning their own utopia, but you're not invited....Read more...

Fresh off the heels of CES 2024 comes another huge January tech event, in which Samsung officially launched its highly anticipated Galaxy S24 AI-powered smartphone. Ubisoft turned some heads this week when the French gaming publisher said gamers should be more comfortable not owning their digital games. Catch up on...Read more...

Boeing, one of the world's largest aircraft manufacturers, has been in the news a lot lately but not in a good way. Safety incidents involving the company's planes keep cropping up and this week brought yet another example of that unfortunate trend. On Thursday, an Atlas Air 747 cargo plane was forced to make an...Read more...

A cult animated short with over 92 million views made a dark darling out of Hazbin Hotel, and its popularity inspired a legion of fans to raise a little hell so it could get picked up to series. It's now a Prime Video animated (and very adult) musical comedy, and io9 got a chance to talk with creator Vivienne Medrano...Read more...

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

OpenAI's mission is to develop a god-like artificial intelligence, but it might never get there without the help of Microsoft. U.S. regulators are reportedly clamoring over who can investigate OpenAI and Microsoft's relationship over antitrust concerns, according to Politico on Friday. If the partnership is broken up,...Read more...

If I ever happened to direct a really great Godzilla movie that also happened to become a record-breaking blockbuster of international kaiju cinema along the way, I would personally be pretty content. But I'm very glad that Takashi Yamazaki, who did exactly that with Godzilla Minus One, is going beyond that and just...Read more...

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The internet is quickly becoming a slurry of AI-generated garbage, and Google has decided to just let us all marinate in it. Anyone online can see that Google Search is getting worse, but now it's becoming clear why. Google News is boosting AI-generated content over real, human journalism, according to a report from 40...Read more...

The new Samsung Galaxy S24 is all in on AI, so much so that the phone maker made a big deal about how its new AI watermark is meant to dissuade users from spreading AI-altered or purely faked images online. The problem is that the S24 boasts so many AI capabilities that a simple Magic Eraser-like tool can remove that...Read more...

Astrobotic bid farewell to its Peregrine lunar lander on Thursday as the spacecraft plunged through Earth's atmosphere, thereby preventing the failed mission from colliding into other spacecraft.Read more...

Even before The Last of Us became one of HBO's biggest hits in recent memory, fans of the source material all wondered the same thing: would a potential second season follow the plot of the game? It seems like an obvious question with an obvious answer... unless you know the story's spoiler-y, inciting event. Once you...Read more...

Welcome to the first installment of Gizmodo's Animal Crime of the Week, a regular exploration of animals and their bad behavior (but hey, it's only natural). And what better place to start than by highlighting an animal crime ring so notorious that it's now being intensively studied by scientists? Meet the...Read more...

Since CES 2024, we have seen this adorable little bright orange (Leuchtorange, to be exact) device everywhere. Despite all the hype, many are still confused about what it is, who it's for, and why it couldn't have just been an app.Read more...

After finding success with its 2021 Fear Street trilogy, Netflix is plotting its next R.L. Stine adaptation, taking on the prolific author's 1992 YA release The Prom Queen. The book's plot and setting evoke one of horror's favorite traditions: turning high-school dances into bloodbaths.Read more...

Once upon a time, I became a meme and didn't even know it. It was the summer of 2016 and I was hanging out with friends after a long day of work. A few drinks in, we're joking around and my friend Mike said to me, in an odd, cheeky way I didn't quite understand-almost like he didn't want to mention it but the booze...Read more...

Japan's SLIM is on the Moon and sending data to Earth, in what is a monumental achievement for Japan-it's now the fifth country to accomplish the feat. The successful soft landing notwithstanding, the situation looks grim; officials with Japanese space agency JAXA say the lander's solar cell is not generating...Read more...

Uze, a brand that primarily makes power banks, sent me its first-ever graphene-heated jacket this winter. After wearing it for a couple of days, I'll admit I was left wanting for way more.Read more...

A disturbing cyberattack on Discord reportedly sent some University of California, Irvine students to the hospital on Wednesday, according to a CBS News report. Hackers infiltrated student Discord servers and bombarded them with graphic images that reportedly traumatized students, causing them to cry, vomit, and even...Read more...

Japan chooses to go to the Moon, and it's doing so with a strong emphasis on accuracy. With SLIM, the nation's space agency is aiming for an autonomous, high-precision landing within an impressive 328 feet (100 meters) of its intended target inside Shioli Crater.

Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan are getting ready to make their fifth movie together and, for the first time ever, this one is going to suck. That's because it's about vampires. Or so the rumors say.Read more...

In April 2023, SpaceX's massive Starship rocket lifted off for the first time, sending chunks of debris thousands of feet across the South Texas landscape and sparking a fire in a nearby state park. It was an environmental nightmare; the launchpad is surrounded by a wildlife habitat that's home to endangered species....Read more...

Tired of dealing with popups begging you to accept cookies? Blame the EU. In 2018, Europe unleashed a groundbreaking privacy law called the GDPR that, among a billion other things, makes websites ask permission before tracking you with cookies. A lot of companies switched their whole systems over rather than building...Read more...

Star Trek's idyllic utopia might try to move past it, but it is defined by conflict. From the long moral question of whether or not Starfleet is a military or scientific organization at its core, to the deadly wars that have pushed it to defend its greatest ideals, Star Trek as we know it cannot exist without battle-an...Read more...

Those diving into Apple's new mixed reality headset might be missing a few of their favorite apps as they navigate the Cupertino company's new spatial" environment. Pre-orders for the Vision Pro go live Friday, but if you're considering dropping $3,500 on this big-budget headset, you should know what kinds of virtual...Read more...

Another year, another round of inscrutable price increases for many prescription drugs. Over 700 medicines are seeing their list prices shoot up this January, according to an analysis by the organization 46brooklyn Research. The average price increase is slightly below the trend of recent years, but includes popular...Read more...

Christopher Landon next film after exiting Scream 7 is a werewolf horror. Get a look at Slimer's return in Ghostbusters: The Frozen Empire. Schmigadoon is no more. Plus, Clone High returns for round two of its revival. To me, my spoilers!

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The earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on February 6, 2023 caused widespread devastation and killed more than 50,000 people. Now, a team of geoscientists have released striking images and drone footage of the fault line that shifted the ground across the region, and used it to map how the quake started and spread.Read more...

On average, smartphone users take about 20 photos a day. While that number seems low, I know there have been plenty of times I've looked back at photos I've taken and thought, That'd make a nice printout," and never followed through because printing is a bit of a hassle. I spent a few weeks with the HP Sprocket 3x4...Read more...

The legacy of invention and technology that comes out of Disney Imagineering is some of the closest we'll get to a sci-fi future. And two of Disney Parks' most recent incredible projects come from Lanny Smoot, a Disney legend who has already patented over 100 inventions, 74 of which are at Disney...Read more...

The arrival of Steamboat Willie-and with it, the first steps of Mickey Mouse himself-into the public domain at the start of 2024 has been a milestone that, in just under three weeks, already seen a bevy of horrifying riffs and a look ahead to what other stalwarts of culture will join him next. At Warner Bros., just as...Read more...

Walt Disney World's best and most underrated festival is going on right now at Epcot. Disney Parks' International Festival of the Arts happens at the start of the year and showcases amazing artists debuting Disney-inspired art-and it's truly any fandom print collector's dream destination.Read more...

California Forever, the quixotic, billionaire-backed project to build a new city in the Bay Area, is chugging along. Despite the fact that locals seem to hate it, the Silicon Valley dreamers behind the project remain undeterred. The team planning the city released more details about their proposed development this...Read more...