Gizmodo

Get excited, space enthusiasts. A long-period comet discovered in March 2022 has recently brightened in the night sky, just in time for its closest approach to Earth in a few weeks. Once it passes us by, it won’t return again for tens of thousands of years.

Any time George R.R. Martin gets to write a history of fantasy people being absolutely terrible to each other, you know the man’s going to get up to some messed-up murdering at some point, and Fire & Blood, his retelling of House Targaryen’s long, messy history, was no exception. Which means, of course, House of the…Read more...

State officials say California currently has one the best snowpack levels covering its mountain ranges in four decades, the Associated Press reported.Read more...

This story was originally published by Grist. You can subscribe to its weekly newsletter here.

The CW’s major superhero players will reunite in the final season of the The Flash. Fitting, as Arrow’s Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) was there when it all started for Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) in their shared DC universe.Read more...

Scientists in China believe they may have found a better way to fix an injured penis. In research published this week, a synthetic material developed by the team was able to restore normal erectile function when implanted in pigs. The material may offer important advantages over existing methods, and it may even have…Read more...

Major financial regulators consisting of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) warned banking organizations against cryptocurrency scams and fraudulent activity in a joint…Read more...

The EU issued a €390 million (about $414 million) fine against Meta Wednesday, a decision that suggests Europe may be in its final days of widespread targeted advertising. One thing is certain: EU citizens are going to see even more pop-ups asking for consent to track them online than they already do.

Admit it: your inner child has always wanted to talk to Mickey Mouse. Later this year, you’ll be able to do so through an Amazon Alexa-powered speaker in your home. Disney and Amazon are bringing the “Hey Disney!” voice assistant to more users. Right now, it’s only available in hotel rooms at Disney resorts. But soon,…Read more...

M3GAN is going to surprise a lot of people. From the trailers and slightly tongue-in-cheek internet hype, many are probably expecting a bonkers murder-fest starring a dead-eyed, artificially intelligent killer doll in the mold of Child’s Play. And, okay fine. It is that, to an extent. But the majority of the movie is…Read more...

With any big movie, there are three key dates: the first trailer, the theatrical release, and then the streaming debut. For Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the first two are long past. Now, we finally have the third one.Read more...

SpaceX’s sixth dedicated rideshare mission lifted off from a Florida launch pad on Tuesday, delivering a whopping 114 payloads to low Earth orbit. It’s a promising start to 2023, as the company strives for 100 orbital launches in a single calendar year.

Mack DeGeurin covers breaking news for Gizmodo with an emphasis on politics and tech policy. For this year ahead, Mack spoke to seven experts spanning the political and policy milieu and pressed them to predict some of the top trends likely to occur in 2023. You can follow Mack’s coverage here and email story ideas…Read more...

Thanks to a tease yesterday by Bruce “Ash Williams” Campbell himself (who gently reminded us that he’s not actually in the movie, though he is one of its producers), we’ve been eagerly anticipating the first trailer for Evil Dead Rise, the fifth film in the series created by Sam Raimi and his collaborators in 1981.

A college student has created an app to help us humans decipher whether text was written by a human or generated by OpenAI’s crazy new chatbot, ChatGPT.

Even as I dread the day I’ll finally eclipse the age of 30, I am already well on my way to being a crotchety, craggy faced old cretin. I have dealt with random bouts of back pain from sleeping on many brick-like mattresses. I have tried some massage therapy to deal with these issues, but in all these years of…Read more...

Jody Serrano covers online communities for Gizmodo. Since Elon Musk decided to buy Twitter earlier this year, it seems she has been cursed (blessed?) to write about Twitter or Musk daily. She has covered medical misinformation on social media extensively on topics ranging from herbal abortions to antidepressants.Read more...

Although a spokesperson for Wizards of the Coast told Bloomberg that the company remains “committed to using digital games,” they have decided to cancel five previously-planned D&D games. None of these games have been announced, so while Baldur’s Gate 3 is still coming, there’s no real indication of what video game…Read more...

In a year marked by economic downturns and layoffs plaguing tech, two of the industry’s biggest heavyweights both lost more in terms of valuation than any other company before it. First came Amazon, and now, Apple. Combined, the two companies have shed roughly $2 trillion worth of valuation in around 12 months. If…Read more...

The Food and Drug Administration has made a temporary change permanent. The agency officially scrapped a long-standing requirement that people seeking abortion pills pick up their prescriptions from a medical provider in person. With the change, the FDA has finalized expanded access to medication abortion, allowing…Read more...

After almost four years, Twitter is reversing its ban on political advertising. The company announced Tuesday it was “relaxing” its policy for “caused-based” advertising, which relates to political and social issues, and would make a similar move with overtly political ads in the coming weeks.Read more...

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has reached a $100 million settlement with the New York State Department of Financial Services after the department’s investigation revealed that Coinbase failed to properly vet users before opening an account, leading to criminal activity on the exchange.

Microsoft is really hoping you’ll be interested in using Bing after the company soups up the search engine with popular artificial intelligence tech ChatGPT. The tech company is reportedly rolling out the AI-supplemented search engine in just a few months.

As happy as we are for robovacs to add floor mopping to their cleaning skillsets, we also know that a soggy mop head parked in a charging dock for hours on end is a recipe for bacteria, mold, and odors. To ensure the new Roborock S8 Pro Ultra isn’t just spreading dirty water across your floors, its charging dock not…Read more...

We are really starting off this new year with good horror:Takashi Shimizu, the director of The Grudge, returns with a trailer for his newest film, Immersion, which looks incredibly prescient and haunting. There’s also a trailer for Wolfkin, which looks like my new favorite werewolf film. Don’t forget that The Bad BatchRead more...

When cooking, you can be creative and impulsive, throwing almost anything into a dish that will (potentially) still turn out delicious. But baking is an exact science, and if you want those scones or muffins to turn out perfectly, you need to be more precise about your measurements: an approach that’s less of a pain…Read more...

A 41-year-old man from California, was arrested on Tuesday on charges of attempted murder and child endangerment after police concluded that he had intentionally driven a Tesla with his family inside over a 250-foot cliff. Although the car was left mangled, all four people in it—the driver, his wife, and their two…Read more...

Over the years, a few different companies have stepped up to the plate to take a swing at making digital board games a thing. Arcade1Up’s Infinity Game Table has been one of the more successful attempts, thanks to partnerships bringing classic games like Risk, Ticket to Ride, and Monopoly to the table, which is more…Read more...

Walking through a Las Vegas casino is an assault on the senses, with rows and rows of slot machines packed with lights and speakers designed to lure in players. One of the most popular, which seems to be everywhere in sin city, is a machine based on the iconic game show, Wheel of Fortune, which Arcade1Up has now …Read more...

Roku has announced it’s launching a TV brand. Roku Select and Roku Plus Series TVs will be available in 11 different sizes later this spring. The launch includes a new wireless soundbar and an OLED reference design for Roku’s manufacturing partners.

Following in the footsteps of other traditional watchmakers, Citizen introduced its first smartwatch, the CZ Smart, a couple of years ago, but it was lacking any of the innovative features the company is often known for. Its follow-up, however, is leaning more into health metrics, helping users know when they’re tired…Read more...

The smartphone came along and singlehandedly replaced countless devices we used to fill our pockets with—cellphones, cameras, MP3 players, and more. So why shouldn’t we be demanding the same level of multi-tasking from other devices? JBL’s Bar 1300X soundbar seems like a good start. It will replace a surround sound…Read more...

Want custom keycaps for your keyboard? Usually, you’d have to scroll through Etsy shops or buy through specialist brands like Drop. Especially if you want 3d keycaps—say, a little kitty cat that sits on top of your Escape key. You can find good and reasonably priced results this way, but the search can be time…Read more...

How often have you had a night out ruined after spending most of the evening worrying about what’s happening to the car that you left in a sketchy parking lot? Garmin’s new Dash Cam Live is like a baby monitor for your car, leveraging an always-on LTE data connection so you can see what’s happening around your vehicle…Read more...

When FTX halted withdrawals on November 8, at least one unlucky soul had made their first deposit into the crypto exchange the very same day, praying for a profit. But by the time the money had been deposited, the platform had shut down all trades, leaving this person unable to do anything. It’s just one sad story of…Read more...

Sabina Graves covers genre television for Gizmodo, with a focus on inclusion in front of and behind the camera. You can follow her coverage here, and email story ideas and tips to sgraves@gizmodo.comRead more...

You know that extreme paranoia you have about dropping your favorite device in the toilet? Withings wants you to forget all that for its latest health-tracking device, the U-Scan, which is not only specifically designed to be used in a toilet bowl, but to be urinated on as well. Stick with us; it’s not as gross as it…Read more...

There is no shortage of disturbing dashcam videos of Uber and Lyft drivers being attacked by irate passengers, and while the footage can be used to prosecute offenders after the fact, Bosch has developed a new dashcam that can help rideshare drivers stay safer during an incident, even when they’re unable to contact…Read more...

California Democrat Robert Garcia—former mayor of Long Beach, proud representative of the LGBTQ+ community, proud immigrant, self-proclaimed “comic book nerd”—was scheduled to be sworn into Congress today accompanied by some important personal touchstones... including a very rare Superman comic.Read more...

At least one person died, more than 1,000 prison inmates were evacuated from a county jail, and a levee broke amid flooding on New Year’s Eve in Northern California. A so-called “atmospheric river” brought more than five inches of rain to downtown San Francisco on December 31, making it the second wettest day in over…Read more...

When looking back at Deep Space Nine’s challenging legacy, it’s often the later seasons of the show—where the series and Star Trek at large was flung into the dark heart of the Dominion War—that people turn to as the point that the series really showed itself as something different. But 30 years ago today, the show…Read more...

The Department of Homeland Security says it’s taking already controversial gunshot detection technology and making it portable. Though the agency hopes its newly announced mobile monitoring system could add a sense of safety and security at music venues and other live events, a privacy expert speaking with Gizmodo…Read more...

Lucas Ropek covers cybersecurity and privacy for Gizmodo. You can follow his coverage here, and email story ideas and tips to lropek@gizmodo.com.

Watch the rise of a hero from Down Under in Koala Man, which stars creator Michael Cusack (Smiling Friends) along with Hugh Jackman in his animated series debut. The series comes from Cusack’s eccentric brain, with Justin Roiland (Rick and Morty, Solar Opposites) and Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit (both writers on…Read more...

Microsoft’s first labor union in the U.S. was formed by a group of video game testers who work for the company’s subsidiary, ZeniMax Studios. The subsidiary consists of about 300 workers with the majority voting to join the union, making it the largest union in the video game industry in the U.S., according to the…Read more...

China’s crewed lunar program is starting to take shape, with plans to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030. A new simulation shows what that lunar landing could look like, revealing the next-generation spacecraft and lunar lander that would make the future journey to Earth’s satellite.Read more...

ASMR stands for “autonomous sensory meridian response” and refers to the tingling sensation that certain sounds can generate in your body. For example, the tender whisper of a lover in your ear may send shivers down your spine—that’s ASMR.

A 2,500-year-old sarcophagus illegally removed from Egypt was repatriated to the country in a ceremony held yesterday in Cairo.Read more...

Cheryl Eddy is a senior writer for io9 as well as its news editor; she covers horror, books, sci-fi, fantasy, and weird culture, sometimes all at once. You can follow her coverage here, and email tips to cheryl.eddy@gizmodo.com.Read more...

Even cryptocurrency’s most accomplished tech wizards apparently aren’t immune from the occasional wallet-draining hack. Luke Dashjr, one of the original core developers for Bitcoin, claims that someone swiped hundreds of BTC from his accounts late last year—leaving him to start 2023 with nothing but an empty wallet…Read more...