Gizmodo

As more companies realize it costs quite a bit to create generative AI content, we may be coming to the end of free, open source AI models. One of the biggest companies that once proclaimed open source from the rooftops to all that would hear is quickly trying to sell a bigger, badder, more deep fake-capable AI model…Read more...

A Massachusetts service member who has been described as both a “young, racist gun enthusiast” and an internet “troll” has been arrested in connection with the series of national security leaks that have roiled the U.S. government over the past week.Read more...

Agricultural equipment makers like John Deere will be legally required to give Colorado farmers manuals for diagnostic software and other repair tools thanks to the state’s new right-to-repair law. The first-of-its-find legislation could have wide-reaching ripple effects, especially in the tech industry where consumer…Read more...

Obi-Wan Kenobi won’t be saying “Hello there” again anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen eventually. At Star Wars Celebration last week, fans of the franchise heard all about upcoming movies and shows in a galaxy far, far away. One title that was absent from that list was Obi-Wan Kenobi, a show that…Read more...

In need of some extra cash? Well then, dust off your meteorite hunting boots and get yourself to rural Maine. A geology museum in the Pine Tree State has a mission for you, and if you succeed the prize is pretty big.

A series of swatting calls that have occurred over several months across the United States have been pinned down to a Telegram user, who claims to have left explosives in locations like high schools using a digitally synthesized voice.

A NASA probe sent to observe Jupiter’s swarm of asteroids recently caught the first glimpse of its rocky targets, capturing deep-space images of four of the mysterious Trojans.Read more...

If you’re using a Mac, take a quick peek at your desktop. It’s probably filled with lots of confusingly labelled folders full of random files as a result of a half-hearted attempt to organize your digital life. You can now add one more unlabelled blue folder to the chaos, except this one slips into your pocket.Read more...

This year has seen leakers saying the new Apple iPhone SE would be scrapped, then walking that back, and now reasserting that it’s not coming after all, at least for a while. It’s a lot of back-and-forth for what’s not even the best phone Apple makes.Read more...

Matt Taibbi, one of the “Twitter Files” reporters selected by Elon Musk himself, no longer tweets. Instead, the journalist once-hell bent on holding Wall Street to task, now “truths” on Donald Trump-affiliated social platform, Truth Social.

We all know how Stranger Things season four breakout Eddie Munson meets his end: heroically facing beasties in the Upside Down while powered by tasty riffs. But how did Eddie, who was played by Joseph Quinn in the hit Netflix series, get to be so rad in the first place? A new tie-in novel will reveal all.Read more...

It’s hard to believe you could write a computer program you can’t control. But with the latest generation of AI chatbots developed by OpenAI, that seems to be the situation. The recent chapter in this unsettling story comes from the nonprofit Allen Institute for AI. In a new study, researchers found they could…Read more...

In new video game Tron: Identity, the story of Tron and Tron: Legacy continues in a whole new Grid of Kevin Flynn’s making.Read more...

Even with the Xbox being over 20 years old (let that sink in), Microsoft has yet to jump into the booming gaming handheld console market. Still, at least its employees—both past and present—have made it clear that the company is more than capable of creating a dedicated platform for gaming handhelds, which is…Read more...

Womb City, the debut novel from acclaimed short fiction writer Tlotlo Tsamaase, is described as “The Handmaid’s Tale meets Get Out” and a “cyberpunk body-hopping Africanfuturist ghost story.” In other words, this is not your typical dystopian mystery, and io9 is thrilled to share a first look.

BeReal, a popular new spontaneous image-sharing app designed to show life, “without filters,” had the highest proportion of child users exposed to sexual content of any major social media app, according to a new survey shared with Gizmodo. Larger apps like YouTube and TikTok had more overall incidents of exposure to…Read more...

Insider’s global editor-in-chief Nicholas Carlson has announced to both the newsroom and the public that the outlet will begin experimenting with ways to leverage ChatGPT for journalism.

Lower Decks as a Star Trek show already has the huge vibes of playing a tabletop roleplaying campaign in a world far more serious than the main players. So it makes perfect sense, at long last, for Modiphus’ excellent Star Trek Adventures RPG to get on the fun in an official capacity.Read more...

A large new randomized clinical trial should put people who are ever in need of a blood transfusion more at ease. Scientists in Canada have found that the sex of a blood donor had no significant effect on the recipient’s chances of survival. Several past studies had suggested a possible risk, but this appears to be…Read more...

Italy, the first country in the world to ban ChatGPT, said OpenAI could restore access to the chatbot if it adopts a series of measures to protect data privacy, including allowing users to correct or delete the incorrect things ChatGPT says about them.Read more...

When animation studios are asked to be a part of Star Wars: Visions, they have free rein to tell any story they want, as long as it’s set in a galaxy far, far away. To a point. While it’s not against the rules to make films with established characters, that’s not the intention of the series.Read more...

Even our ancient ancestors managed to figure out that, to comfortably get from point A to point B without walking, you needed wheels that were perfectly round. And yet, the determined engineers behind the YouTube channel The Q (no, not that Q) managed to build a bicycle with square wheels that rolls as comfortably as…Read more...

Finally, a movie will explore the age-old question “What would Dracula do on a boat?” It’s called The Last Voyage of the Demeter and the trailer is here.Read more...

A group of celebrities will soon have to leave the cozy confines of Earth and get transported to another world, competing against one another in a simulated Martian environment for a new reality TV series.Read more...

Snapchat is looking to expand its massive sound library—called SnapChat sounds—with a new deal between its parent company Snap and several major music distributors across the world.

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You know that classic zombie movie scene where the everyone thinks the monster is dead, but then suddenly it’s not?

If you thought big daddy Amazon would stay out of the AI rat race, then you’d be wrong. The online retail giant is initially staying away from any user-side generative AI to start and is instead offering a business-centric model through its Amazon Web Services.Read more...

The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy could make a comeback. Meet Jason Mamoa’s Fast X villain in new footage. Plus, Joe Chill comes to Gotham Knights, and a behind-the-scenes look at The Boys season 4. Spoilers now!

Using machine learning, a team of researchers has enhanced the first image ever taken of a distant black hole. Importantly, the newly updated image shows the full resolution of the telescope array for the very first time.Read more...

We need climate action. But just because something gets grouped under the umbrella of things that theoretically combat climate change doesn’t mean it’s actually good for the planet or people. In an alarming example, production of certain alternative “climate-friendly” fuels could lead to dangerous, cancer-causing…Read more...

One of the main questions surrounding humanity’s next giant leap into deep space is whether humans can thrive on missions far from Earth. A new theory says yes, but only in environments modeled deeply after our own planet.

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

The original model debuted in late 2014, but it’s been almost seven years since DJI announced the 4K Inspire 2: a beefy drone designed for serious movie-making. Today, DJI finally announced the latest upgrade to the line with the Inspire 3, which brings with it some serious upgrades including 8K video captures through…Read more...

Elon Musk’s Twitter, which the billionaire said this week is now being run by his dog, has closed a partnership deal with the online investing platform eToro, proving that the company might not be as radioactive as some people might think.Read more...

In the second half of the 20th century, computers went from chunky business calculators to a part of nearly every corner of human life. Along the way, we started using the terms and concepts that describe how these machines work. Just the other day I realized that even though say “URL” about once a day in my work…Read more...

China’s top digital regulator proposed bold new guidelines this week that prohibit ChatGPT-style large language models from spitting out content believed to subvert state power or advocate for the overthrow of the country’s communist political system. Experts speaking with Gizmodo said the new guidelines mark the…Read more...

Versatile and prolific author Adrian Tchaikovsky won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2016 for his sci-fi tale Children of Time, but he’s equally as well known for his Shadows of the Apt fantasy series. He returns to the fantasy genre with his next novel, City of Last Chances, and io9 has a first look today!Read more...

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It’s no secret that season one of HBO’s The Last of Us was very faithful to the video game it’s based on. There were some changes, additions, and tweaks, but in terms of overall intent and story, the game and the show were very similar. That would lead fans to assume subsequence seasons of the show would be equally…Read more...

This week’s episode of The Mandalorian was all about setting the stage, and the stakes, for an explosive end to a very mixed season three. But it also looked to Star Wars’ future with the presence of a face very familiar to fans of the old Expanded Universe.

The New York Times has a new web game out this week that, depending on how well you did in high school algebra, may or may not be your new favorite thing.Read more...

Just what the hell is happening with the iPhone 15’s external buttons? Despite numerous leaks and countless reports that premium iPhone 15s would ditch physical buttons and get new, trackpad-like touch-based controls, the Cupertino company may have made a last-minute change that has thrown all of that out the window,…Read more...

Set in the 1970s, Arthur C. Clarke’s 1953 sci-fi novel Childhood’s End explores an alien invasion that arrives just as the Cold War superpowers are about to venture into space. The “Overlords” create utopia on Earth—and all seems well, until it very much doesn’t. The Folio Society’s new edition of Clarke’s classic…Read more...

Let’s be honest: TVs have gotten so good that even the small and cheap ones look pretty great. But the decision of what TV to buy is more complicated than ever. There’s OLED screens and QLED and LED, smart TVs and not so smart, 8K and 4K, and a laundry list of inscrutable features like HDR and VRR. Where to start?

The hangover cure of the future just might be a chuggable probiotic. In research out this week, scientists in China detail the creation of bacteria that can produce an enzyme meant to help the body break down alcohol faster. Alcohol-fed mice that were given the probiotic beforehand experienced less drunkenness and…Read more...

Following the success of John Wick: Chapter 4, it was a given that Lionsgate would be continuing the assassin-heavy universe of the action series in some capacity. We’ve known for some time that a TV spinoff by the name of The Continental was in the works, and now we’ve got our first idea of what to expect from the…Read more...

After its rocket failed to reach orbit last month, California-based Relativity Space doesn’t want to dwell on the past. Instead, the company is leaping forward with its next launch vehicle, which promises to be bigger and better.Read more...

Creature Commandos is gearing up to kick off the new DC Studios canon. The animated show from James Gunn will star Indira Varma (Obi-Wan Kenobi, Game of Thrones) and Marvel veteran Frank Grillo, among others.Read more...