Gizmodo

Even though it probably didn’t feel like it before release, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is finally in theaters. The final installment in James Gunn’s sci-fi comedy series (and his last Marvel movie for the foreseeable future) has had a longer than expected wait, but that hardly seems to matter. With solid…Read more...

It’s been six years and a longer than expected wait, but the MCU’s group of sci-fi misfits return with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Famously, the movie was backburnered after the firing of franchise writer/director James Gunn in 2018, followed by his rehiring the following year. During that window where he was no…Read more...

It may be easy to forget, but Matt Groening’s Disenchantment still exists as one of Netflix’s big adult animated series. While not as big a hit as The Simpsons or Futurama, it seems to have found its own niche over the years and managed to survive Netflix’s multiple cancellation sprees to compete its 40-episode order.…Read more...

Production on the fifth and final season of Netflix’s Stranger Things has been paused.

There has been a tenfold increase in sexual abuse imagery created with webcams and other recording devices worldwide since 2019, according to the the Internet Watch Foundation.Read more...

On March 22, 2023, thousands of researchers and tech leaders – including Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak – published an open letter calling to slow down the artificial intelligence race. Specifically, the letter recommended that labs pause training for technologies stronger than OpenAI’s GPT-4, the most…Read more...

There comes a point in every movie franchise where new installments don’t feel quite as special as they usually do. Maybe it’s because the series has become annualized, or maybe it’s just that so many entries have diminished the magic—either way, this has happened before, and Star Wars was one of its most recent…Read more...

Right now, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) is going on strike to secure better compensation and equity structures for TV and film writers across Hollywood. As parts of the efforts to draw attention to their cause, writers are picketing at various studio lots on both the east and west coasts. Even though it’s only…Read more...

There’ve been over a thousand episodes of the Pokémon anime since its premiere in 1997. In that time, several episodes (eight, according to Wikipedia) have been pulled for various reasons, like giving children seizures or a frequent use of firearms. Other times, an episode has been pulled for having events be similar…Read more...

Since his 1996 series Dexter’s Laboratory premiered on Cartoon Network, Genndy Tartakovsky has become a household name in animation. His new show, Unicorn: Warriors Eternal, feels like a natural extension and endpoint of his previous work up to now.Read more...

The artist known as Grimes (real name Clare Boucher) has said that you’re totally free to use an AI-generated version of her voice to make new music, just as long as you give her a healthy 50 percent of the royalties that the track generates.Read more...

Earlier this week, the Writers Guild of America voted to go on strike after negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) fell through. Because the WGA represents TV and film writers in Hollywood, most shows and films have halted production entirely in a move of solidarity with the…Read more...

Scientists in France might have just found the most effective way to catcall an unfamiliar cat. The team discovered that cats living at a cat cafe responded most quickly to a human stranger when the stranger used both vocal and visual cues to get their attention. The cats also appeared to be more stressed out when the…Read more...

After turning traditional men’s soccer on its head with his Kings League, ex-professional soccer player Gerard Piqué now has his eyes set on transforming women’s soccer using the same formula: streamers, drama, and video game-like rules.Read more...

At the tail end of 2022, screenshots of bizarre app features started going viral on Twitter. They rested just on the line between plausible and absurd. Google isn’t going to add punctuality scores to calendar invites, but it could if it wanted to. Or what if Instagram sent a warning if you accidentally like a three…Read more...

NASA is finally, once again, scheduled to get its constellation of small, storm-monitoring satellites into space after a 2022 launch failure tanked two of the six planned cubesats. Launch of the TROPICS mission is set for May 7, at 9:00 p.m. ET from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s North Island.

When Queen Elizabeth II died September 2022, her son Charles III became the new king of England. Immediately, headlines advised on how he could brand himself as the climate king. Publications lauded him as the potential “activist king” or recalled his works as the “climate prince.”Read more...

Fox Corp., the parent company of Fox News, would very much appreciate it if Media Matters for America would stop monitoring media. The Rupert Murdoch-owned network sent Media Matters a cease and desist letter on Friday, demanding that the non-profit watchdog take down leaked, behind-the-scenes footage of Tucker…Read more...

It’s May, meaning the summer movie season is about to kick into high gear, but sci-fi fans have their sights on something else. Something distant. The month of November. Because that’s when Denis Villeneuve will finally unleash the sequel fans have been eagerly anticipating—Dune: Part Two—on the world.Read more...

Alex Jones—the bloated, misanthropic mannequin that spews hate and conspiracies with robotic efficiency—found himself at the mercy of a prank call earlier this week by a man claiming to be ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson. The jig was up, according to Jones, when the fake Carlson started saying “lewd, sexual things.”Read more...

Star Wars: Visions is back, and Lucasfilm’s second volume of animated shorts made by outside studios expands the canon with fresh perspectives for tales that build out that galaxy far, far, away.

The Israeli government is taking action against crypto accounts it has deemed suspicious, closing down dozens on one of the largest platforms for the digital currency.Read more...

It was a Wednesday morning, I’m burned up in midweek blues, and there was a subtle drumming building to a four-on-the-floor on my temples. I spotted a small press release for a new AI chatbot, just one of so many that have scrolled across my screen since the advent of ChatGPT a little over half a year ago. The first…Read more...

A new edition of Warhammer 40K means new models—and for some of the 40-year-old wargaming franchise’s creatures and characters, that means updates they’ve not had in generations. For one big new beastie in particular, it’s a glow up almost 30 years in the making.

New Jersey residents were in for a surprise after finding hundreds of pounds worth of pasta in the woods of Old Bridge, a small suburban town. Community advocate Nina Jochnowitz, who unsuccessfully ran for city council several years ago, received a message about the cooked pasta and headed to the woods to see for…Read more...

The nerve of Warner Bros. Discovery will never cease to amaze me. Today’s personal grievance comes from none other than the company’s CEO and president David Zaslav, who shared a curious point of view regarding the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike.

With Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 completing a trilogy of films, obviously there were going to be lots of payoffs. Writer-director James Gunn delivers with sometimes satisfying, sometimes sad, but equally excellent endings for basically all of your favorite characters. But did you realize that you, the audience…Read more...

The 2021 Mortal Kombat movie (which was much better than it had any right to be) ended with a tease and a promise: the film’s main character Cole (Lewis Tan) says he’s going off to Hollywood. “What’s in Hollywood?” he’s asked. “Not what... who,” he says, before the camera pans to a poster for a movie starring Johnny…Read more...

New scrutiny of Uranus’ largest moons suggest the bodies may contain ocean layers that could be dozens of miles deep.Read more...

Ncuti Gatwa’s debut season of Doctor Who is continuing its big-name casting streak, this time landing Jonathan Groff fresh off Knock at the Cabin for a mystery major role.

Nearly five decades after The Muppet Show debuted, The Muppets Mayhem—a new 10-episode Disney+ series—aims to flesh out those intriguing weirdos who’ve provided so much of the Muppets’ all-important music over the years: Dr. Teeth, Janice, Floyd, Zoot, Lips, and Animal, together known as the Electric Mayhem. The…Read more...

A handful of ByteDance employees in the US and China tracked a cat’s TikTok account in order to find the IP address of its owner, a reporter covering the company. Buffy, a black and white Maine Coon-looking kitty named after the vampire slayer, reportedly had 170 followers and 20 posts when the employees viewed the…Read more...

Remember when Avengers: Endgame didn’t have an end-credits scene? It was a semi-shocking moment because the Marvel Cinematic Universe had been so dependent on them for so long. That time though, the film was, as evidenced by the title, an ending. There was no need to tease what was next.

Public transit shouldn’t be a roller coaster ride but, if you follow New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority on Twitter, the past week may have felt like one. The MTA, which runs the U.S.’s largest rapid transit network, is back to posting real-time service alerts and updates on the social media platform.

Google AI releases lack a spark, that certain “je ne sais quoi” that would give Google an edge in the hamster wheel rat race that is AI development, and even the engineers inside the company know it. According to Bloomberg, a leaked internal document from a senior software engineer shares concerns that the company…Read more...

Can you make a meme into a movie? More to the point, would you watch a half-hour mockumentary about a 2015 Facebook meme?Read more...

A new Blair Witch project might have found its director. New Flash movie posters give us a look at the next trinity. New details about Ke Huy Quan’s mystery Loki season 2 character have been revealed. Plus, a new look at Secret Invasion, and Riverdale hints at a deadly dance. Spoilers now!

Update 05/05/23: Late on Thursday, federal judge William Orrick declared Uber’s former head of cybersecurity Joseph Sullivan would suffer no prison time for covering up a massive security breach at the ride-hailing company seven years ago. He is instead being put on probation and must complete 200 hours of community…Read more...

Spanish Twitch streamer Ibai Llanos started the countdown for La Velada del Año III, his yearly streamer vs. streamer boxing match slash summer concert, on Thursday night—selling out all the tickets for the event just an hour after they went on sale online.Read more...

Magic mushrooms might have helped alleviate color blindness in at least one case. In a paper this week, doctors describe a man who experienced modest, long-lasting improvements in his red-green color vision after a single dose of psilocybin-containing mushrooms. The report is only an anecdote at this point but should…Read more...

Star Wars’ relationship with droids has always been weird. Their portrayal has run the gamut from revolutionary to servant underclass, to killer foes and straight-laced allies. But no droid has ever felt more true to the ragtag heroic ethos of Star Wars than Hera Syndulla’s very own little freak, Chopper.

The directing-producing team of Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, and Kevin Feige, which minted money for Marvel in the form of Captain America movies The Winter Soldier and Civil War, and Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, apparently came very close to teaming up in another cinematic galaxy—the one far, far away.Read more...

io9 is proud to present fiction from LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE. Once a month, we feature a story from LIGHTSPEED’s current issue. This month’s selection is “One Heart, Lost and Found” by Kat Howard. You can read the story below or listen to the podcast on LIGHTSPEED’s website. Enjoy!Read more...

Star Wars Day, May 4, always brings with it lots of fun activities. This year, though, the Star Wars galaxy centered on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, CA—where Princess Leia herself, Carrie Fisher, was finally given a star on the iconic Walk of Fame.Read more...

A new poll of more than 1,200 registered voters provides some of the clearest data yet illustrating the public’s desire to reign in AI.Read more...

New York has become the first state in the country to ban gas hook-ups in new buildings. A section of the state’s recently passed, long-delayed 2024 budget includes a policy known as the All Electric Buildings Act. Under the law, signed by Governor Kathy Hochul on Wednesday, New York is headed for a climate-friendlier…Read more...

Workers at one of only two unionized Apple stores in the country are in the throes of contract negotiation. One of the many ideas on the table: introducing the option to tip into customer transactions.

Google co-founder Larry Page can be served with court papers related to a case over Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking, a federal judge ruled on Thursday. The U.S. Virgin Islands filed a civil lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase, where Epstein was a longtime customer, claiming the bank knew of his sex trafficking of…Read more...

Hollywood headlines have been all about the writer’s strike happening between the Writers Guild of America, representing film and television writers, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, representing various networks and streaming services—including Amazon’s Prime Video and Warner Bros’ HBO. As …Read more...

Satellites flying overhead in Earth’s orbit largely provide a two-dimensional view of our planet, but a Florida-based company is hoping to change that by using satellites to routinely build 3D maps of Earth’s entire surface.Read more...