The FBI came very close to using commercial spyware to aid in its domestic criminal investigations, the New York Times has reported. The spyware was developed by the NSO Group, the notorious surveillance vendor from Israel whose products have been tied to spying scandals all over the world.Read more...

Marvel movies tend to have big box office openings, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is no exception. With the promise of Letitia Wright’s Shuri taking up the heroic mantle, the film being a tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman, and seeing Wakanda go to war with the underwater warrior Namor (Tenoch Huerta),…Read more...

The early days of Warner Bros. being acquired by Discovery saw the abrupt cancellation of two films that were well on their way to being done: Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt. Both films were killed simultaneously as part of WB Discovery’s efforts to cut costs following the merger, but understandably, it’s Batgirl’s …Read more...

The timeline of events starting from the hard confirmation of a sequel to 2018's Black Panther to said sequel’s actual release this weekend has been nothing short of odd, to say the least. With the sudden passing of Chadwick Boseman overwhelming nearly everything about the film’s production, it seemed like Black…Read more...

Just before the weekend started, it was reported that longtime Batman voice actor Kevin Conroy passed away at the age of 66 following a short battle with cancer. And similar to what part of nerd Twitter has been doing over the weekend, we asked you about some of your favorite scenes that encapsulated why Conroy’s take…Read more...

Hundreds of millions of dollars in funds were mysteriously siphoned out of the collapsing crypto exchange FTX on Friday, in what company executives have referred to as a potential hacking incident.Read more...

Thus far, every time you hear that Jordan Peele is cooking something up, it’s worth paying attention to. Just this year alone, he delivered a fun, occasionally grim look at the Hollywood and entertainment culture machinery with Nope back in July, followed by his reunion with longtime collaborator Keegan-Michael Key…Read more...

Ever since Stranger Things arrived on Netflix in 2016, folks have been enamored with David Harbour. While he’s been one of those actors who’ve always been around, you may not have realized it before his turn as Hopper in the Netflix series. That show gave his career a huge boost, and it’s only grown after he joined…Read more...

It’s been 18 since months since the death of Kentaro Miura, creator of the best-selling manga Berserk. In the time since his passing, the Young Animal manga responsible for publishing the high fantasy series has confirmed that it’ll live on past the recently released Volume 41. Mirua’s close friend Kouji Mori, who’s…Read more...

I hold up a little toy to the camera; it’s a Lorme, a resin art toy that my friend made. “Is that a plague doctor?” Jacob Anderson, star of AMC’s Interview With the Vampire, asks as I turn it around to show him the little details. Anderson has a collection of art toys himself, so I thought I’d share a few of my own…Read more...

Earlier in the week, and after double checking that it was the official account, everyone’s eyebrows raised when they saw Studio Ghibli use its Twitter to tease a collaboration with Lucasfilm. Followed by a single cryptic tease, speculation ran wild: did Disney convince Hayao Miyazaki to do a short for Star Wars…Read more...

Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk has essentially set the company on fire—and critical employees are running as fast as they can to escape the flames.Read more...

The world is filled with breathtaking natural landscapes and displays of life in movement. And the recently announced winners of the Nature Conservancy’s annual Photo Contest provide many dazzling examples of both.Read more...

In April, 2021, Apple dropped a nuclear bomb on the world of online advertising. The company rolled out a new iPhone privacy setting called App Tracking Transparency, or ATT, that shows you, an iPhone user, a popup asking if you want to “Allow this app to track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites?”…Read more...

Despite the fact that Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is basically the real-life equivalent of the “this is fine” meme, we just can’t look away. A train wreck in slow motion, it feels like we’re all paying witness to some horrible, once-in-a-lifetime spectacle, sorta like glimpsing the Hindenburg explode. From…Read more...

After attacking a major healthcare provider in Australia earlier this year, cybercriminals dumped a large selection of data to the internet this week, including customers’ personal health information. The leak reportedly includes sensitive documents related to some patients’ medical procedures, including pregnancies…Read more...

Apple is facing a class action lawsuit for allegedly harvesting iPhone user data even when the company’s own privacy settings promise not to. The suit, filed Thursday in California federal court, comes days after Gizmodo exclusively reported on research into how multiple iPhone apps send Apple analytics data,…Read more...

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has finally arrived, and to say that Marvel’s latest—the sequel to 2018’s smash hit Black Panther, which won three Oscars—at was highly, highly anticipated is putting it rather mildly. io9’s Germain Lussier and Cheryl Eddy and Gizmodo’s David Ewalt sat down to discuss the MCU’s return to…Read more...

Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's regular roundup of the most fun geeky merch around. This week, the Transformers get into the holiday spirit, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s new hero gets a new Hot Toys figure, and all hail the gooiest Star Wars toys around. Check it out!Read more...

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Ten years ago, in a cataclysmic rain of flaring energy, Final Fantasy XIV died. That’s both true in the sense that the land of Eorzea was raked with the almighty megaflare of one of Final Fantasy’s most powerful beings, the dragon Bahamut, and that developer Square Enix shut down the servers of its troubled MMORPG for…Read more...

Everybody’s two favorite extremely good and ethical industries, cryptocurrency and fossil fuels, are teaming up. Bitcoin Magazine, owned by Bitcoin Inc., announced a new partnership with Shell on Thursday. The oil and gas company reportedly signed a two-year deal, agreeing to sponsor the crypto publication’s 2023 and…Read more...

I hope you’re in the mood for more people trying to sell you stuff while browsing social media, because that’s exactly what you’re getting this Christmas. Semafor first reported that select businesses in the U.S. are being asked to participate in the TikTok’s new shopping experience just as the world tilts ever more…Read more...

For 19 years, the Mars Express spacecraft has orbited the Red Planet, providing breathtaking views and valuable insights of Mars. The hard-working orbiter has not only relayed its own data back to Earth, but also provided a communication line between other Martian missions and ground control.Read more...

Nicole made landfall on Florida’s east coast in the wee hours of Thursday morning as a category 1 hurricane, before weakening and sweeping across the whole peninsula as a tropical storm.Read more...

Capitalism has resulted in the creation of some truly soul-sucking ideas, including the cubicle: an office without the privacy, comfort, or permanence of a real room. But if the open office trend (which has its own problems) has given you a glimmer of hope that one day you might be able to escape corporate America’s on…Read more...

Some of Japan’s leading tech companies are joining forces as part of a $500 million push by their host government to cement Japan’s status as leader in the advanced semiconductor space.Read more...

The last two decades have given us four Spider-Men on the big screen, from Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker all the way to the vanguard lead in animation as Miles Morales swings across the Spider-Verse. In all that time, Sony’s Imageworks VFX house has been part of the team that’s breathed life into the Spidey universe,…Read more...

Less than a week after China’s Long March 5B rocket performed an uncontrolled reentry through Earth’s atmosphere, a Chinese official revealed plans to amp up the launch rate of these rocket within the next few years.Read more...

Many, many stories have been told about groups of friends banding together to defeat the forces of evil. In a way, almost all stories are about something like this. But in The Dead Friends Society, authors Peter Hall and Paul Gandersman flip that tried and true tale on its head. Not all of the friends are alive.Read more...

Gaming headphones with special features that make them suited to the trials of competitive gaming are everywhere, but gaming earbuds are few and far between. There are plenty of Bluetooth earbuds and wired earbuds that market themselves for gaming, but the EPOS GTW 270 Hybrid buds and HyperX Cloud MIX buds are two of…Read more...

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At the recent BoxLunch Holiday Gala in Los Angeles, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ Simu Liu was on hand as the pop culture retailer’s Giving Ambassador for the holiday season. io9 caught up with the Marvel Studios star to talk about the season of giving—the event celebrated 150 million meals donated to…Read more...

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The prospect of losing critically important satellites during war has led to “Victus Nox”—a rapid response experiment in which private Space Force partners will need to launch a satellite within 24 hours of receiving the “go” order.Read more...

Soon after bringing ads onto Netflix through its Basic With Ads tier, the streaming giant is now ready to introduce a brand new feature that will make “Netflix history.” Are you ready for this? Buckle up. It’s… it’s a livestream.

Earlier today, the news broke that Kevin Conroy passed away at the age of 66. Conroy was best known for being Batman—not just in the iconic ‘90s Animated Series and its fellow DCAU sequels Justice League and Batman Beyond, but nearly every Batman game within the last 20 years, a theatrical movie, and very briefly in…Read more...

In 1991, a pair of climbers encountered a human body sticking out of the ice high in the Italian alps. Though its skin was preserved—complete with tattoos—the body turned out to be 5,300-year-old remains, mummified by the frigid, dry conditions in which the man died. Now known as Ötzi, the famously well-preserved…Read more...

Believe it or not, the Microsoft Flight Simulator series, first released in November of 1982, is actually older than the company’s most iconic product: Windows. To celebrate its 40th anniversary, today the company released a free major update to the latest version of Flight Simulator that, among other aircraft,…Read more...

The smartphones that we carry around with us everywhere are fantastic little devices, capable of entertaining and informing and communicating with the rest of the world—but they can be incredibly distracting too. If you’ve decided that your phone is sucking up too much of your time and attention, there are numerous…Read more...

It turns out “effective altruism” isn’t so effective when a billionaire donor’s money dries up.Read more...

Studios have long realized that a great way to get people to interact with their intellectual properties, even offscreen, is to turn that IP into board games. With so many great creators out there—Ravensburger, Gale Force Nine, Renegade, Fantasy Flight—there are tons to choose from for your next game night.

A hodgepodge of Twitter’s worst individuals were sporting shiny blue check marks on Friday, including notorious punching bag and literal neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, thanks to the ill-conceived money grab of the platform’s new owner, Elon Musk.

In this exclusive clip from the finale episode of AMC’s Interview With the Vampire, Louis, Lestat, and Claudia approach local businessman, Tom Anderson, with a proposal. Episode seven airs on AMC this Sunday, November 13. The following clip isn’t all that spoiler heavy, but if you’re protecting your viewing…Read more...

Android Auto’s new look is rolling out to testers today, though it’s not ready for primetime just yet. The makeover teased earlier in the year is still only a beta. It won’t be available in full until 2023.

Journalists like me often seek out academics for comment and insight on stories related to the energy transition, since these professors have often done in-depth research into various fuel sources and their impacts. The hope is that these sources are relatively unbiased; their loyalty is to the data. But a study…Read more...

J.K. Simmons is Santa in Dwayne Johnson’s Red One. The Batman’s HBO Max spinoff for the Penguin will be set after the events of the movie. Plus, what’s coming on Stargirl, American Horror Story: NYC, and more. Spoilers now!

Kevin Conroy—the actor who became Batman for generations of fans when he voiced the Dark Knight in the iconic Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League cartoons, as well as a plethora of video games, including the Batman Arkham franchise—has died. He was 66.

Elizabeth Holmes and her legal defense team are asking for an 18-month period of house arrest, as opposed to the maximum 80 years of potential jail time the Theranos founder faces. In a lengthy memo pleading for leniency, Holmes requested that the court “look beyond that caricature,” of her in the media and “examine…Read more...

Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and sometimes you just want to stay at home and drink in silence. There’s no judgment here, but a night in doesn’t mean you have to serve yourself, not when a bit of over-the-top engineering can turn a side table and your favorite voice assistant into a…Read more...