Gizmodo

Star Wars’ next chapter of The High Republic’s flashback phase II is about to be upon us, as the situation between the ancient Jedi Order and the Path of the Open Hand—a mysterious group that believes the Force is not for anyone to use, especially Jedi—gets worse. So it’s probably a sign of things to come that the…Read more...

California lawmakers introduced new legislation this week aimed at pressuring tech companies like Google and Facebook into paying news publishers for content posted on their platforms. The measure comes amid a brewing battle between tech firms and lawmakers over similar legislation in Canada and on the heels of a…Read more...

What if we could mimic how plants, algae, and bacteria harvest sunlight to create better solar panels? New research published Wednesday in Nature explores the molecular nitty-gritty of photosynthesis, and it may help us get closer to making this a reality.

Our first look at the new horror comedy Renfield kept its biggest selling point hidden. That being the fact the title character, played by Nicholas Hoult, is the servant of Count Dracula, played by legendary Oscar winner Nicolas Cage, who was revealed only at the end. This latest and apparently final trailer does the…Read more...

No two ears are the same, and headphones that sound amazing to one user may completely disappoint another. That’s why it’s always important to try before you buy. But headphones or earbuds with customizable sound profiles allow you to tune your listening experience even after purchase. It’s an increasingly popular …Read more...

Although we’ve had a few glimpses here and there, today Netflix gave us our first proper good look at Power Rangers: Once and Always, a new reunion special to celebrate 30 years of teens with attitude and brightly colored Spandex. But here’s the surprising thing: not only does it look extremely good, it looks like…Read more...

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is set to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday. If there’s anyone left in Congress or the American public who hasn’t made up their minds about the ultra-popular short-form app, the executive will attempt to sway them to his side.Read more...

At least eight people have been infected and five are dead (including one healthcare worker) in a new outbreak of the Marburg virus in Tanzania, according to a Monday statement from the World Health Organization. It is Tanzania’s first-ever confirmed outbreak of the deadly disease.

Things may be looking up for Richard Branson’s private launch business Virgin Orbit, with reports suggesting the company may have secured new funding and is preparing for an upcoming rocket launch.Read more...

Nearly 200 years after Ludwig van Beethoven died, a team of researchers has managed to sequence the German composer’s genome from locks of his hair, revealing surprising details of his health and genealogical history.

For years, Instagram users wandered aimlessly through the app hoping to see just one more ad, scrolling past annoying posts from friends, family, and exes in a desperate hunt for marketing content. It seems Instagram heard our pleas. The company announced that it’s found a way to fill the app with even more ads, this…Read more...

Director Chad Stahleski talks John Wick: Chapter 4 and Odysseus, as one does. Behind-the-scenes Marvel reports give us Coven of Chaos music, Vision Quest writers, and more sneak peeks at Daredevil: Born Again. Plus, what’s coming on Quantum Leap. Spoilers, away!

Read more...

Panera Bread isn’t telling its legion of customers to shove their hand directly into their broccoli and cheese bread bowl, but a few Missouri franchisees are letting their customers know they can throw their palm onto the kiosk to pay for their meal. It’s not the first time Amazon’s palm-reading payment tech has been…Read more...

At this weekend’s WonderCon 2023, JAKKS Pacific will host a panel to reveal its line for The Super Mario Bros. Movie. io9 got an exclusive sneak peek of the iconic Mario Kart, inspired by Nintendo and Illumination’s new animated adaptation, which will be part of JAKKS Pacific’s 2023 toy and collectible releases.Read more...

In an effort to reshape the growing satellite market, a group of private companies led by Arkisys is preparing to test a system that would enable the construction of spacecraft directly in orbit.Read more...

I like my AI like I like my foreign cheese varieties, incredibly weird and full of holes, the kind that leaves most definitions of “good” up to individual taste. So color me surprised as I explored the next frontier of public AI models, and found one of the strangest experiences I had since the bizarre AI-generated …Read more...

Last year, io9 featured A Fractured Infinity, the debut novel from Nathan Tavares. The sci-fi fantasy author has a new release coming later this year, and it’s another mind-bending tale with a queer romance at its center. Read on for an excerpt from Welcome to Forever, as well as the full cover reveal.

We return to tabletop with clear eyes and fingers itching to roll some dice. As reviews and social reactions start rolling in for the Dungeons & Dragons film, we’ve begun collecting creative, unique, and independent games from across the community. Crack open a tome of Shakespearean drama, solo psychological horror,…Read more...

Read more...

In yet another late-night video, former President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social claiming that there is a “witch hunt” against him, even as he claims he will be arrested on Tuesday. No arrest has been made, nor has it been confirmed by authorities, and Trump’s lawyer says the former president isn’t afraid of the…Read more...

The loudest voice calling for dramatic Big Tech break up in the upcoming 2024 presidential election might not come from President Joe Biden or progressive lefties, but rather, from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The conservative governor and probable presidential candidate revealed his views at a private event caught…Read more...

Like her titular protagonist, when Mary Shelley published Frankenstein in 1818, she knew not what she had wrought into the world. Her tale of science taken too far birthed what many consider the first science fiction novel… and what some don’t. As it turns out, there are several tales told before the 19th century that…Read more...

Allergies plague millions of people each year once spring hits, the trees bud, and the flowers bloom, but the worst areas for allergy sufferers have been narrowed down to 20 locations in a study by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.Read more...

After Elon Musk’s Boring Company received approval to construct one-lane tunnels in the bowels of Las Vegas last year, the company has recently submitted plans for an expansion that will bring a total of 65 miles (105 kilometers) of criss-crossing tunnels beneath the Nevada city.

The United Nations wants Big Oil to have a seat at the table when it comes to climate solutions—an idea kind of like inviting a fox into a henhouse.

Journey back to sixth-century England—by way of 1981 fantasy-movie aesthetics—with Dragonslayer, the tale of a sorcerer’s apprentice (Peter MacNicol) who must tangle with the local fire-breathing menace, delightfully named Vermithrax Pejorative. The cult-classic film has a sparking new 4K Ultra HD release, and io9…Read more...

HBO’s post-apocalyptic show about society destroyed by a devastating fungal pandemic, The Last of Us, is fiction. However, lethal fungi that can infect humans are very much a reality, and one of the biggest threats today is Candida auris.

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket is being readied in anticipation of the Artemis 2 mission, with engineers putting the rocket together at a facility in New Orleans.Read more...

The identity of who mothered Goofy’s son Max remains an unsolved mystery. While attending a preview of Disneyland’s revamped Toontown, io9 investigated Goofy’s home and small-batch candy factory, hunting for answers left out of A Goofy Movie and the Disney Channel series Goof Troop.Read more...

After an initial announcement in February, Google has officially opened limited beta access to its AI chatbot, “Bard,” which it describes as a companion to its primary service, search. Google calls the chatbot an “experiment” and has reminded users that it is still very much a work in progress and may not always…Read more...

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

It hasn’t quite been two years since season one of Sweet Tooth, based on the post-apocalyptic comic by Jeff Lemire, ended, but it must seem longer to fans who’ve been wondering what happened to Gus and his hybrid friends after they were captured by General Abbott and Last Men. As this first trailer for the…Read more...

Scientists have spotted a relict glacier on Mars, near the equator—far from the parts of the planet where water ice is known to exist today. While this leftover glacial structure may not contain any water now, the fact that it exists where it does suggests that water ice had a more expansive footprint in the Red…Read more...

A new report claims Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam may have actually changed the hierarchy of power in the DC universe as he claimed it would, but not in the way it was originally attended. Instead, he may have blown it up completely, whether he planned to or not.Read more...

A planned Gears of War universe is about to be unleashed on Netflix. Game developers the Coalition have partnered with the streamer and Dune adaptation scribe Jon Spaihts to kick off the franchise with a live-action film.

We need to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by more than half over the next decade in order to stave off the worst impacts of climate change, says a blockbuster new report. The next few years represent a crucial crossroads, the international group of scientists said, as the choices we make could make or break our…Read more...

The U.S. Space Force has submitted a budget for the upcoming fiscal year, and in it the military branch is asking for $60 million over the next two years for tactically responsive space, which could see Space Force partners launching satellites within a 24 hour window.

Organizers of the 2024 Paris Olympics are hoping to keep world athletes cool during the summer without relying on air conditioners. Their goal is to use an underground water cooling system beneath the Athletes Village instead.Read more...

Glass can be cleaned and reused many times, but it doesn’t break down in the environment and can sit in landfills for thousands of years. A team of scientists tried to tackle this problem by developing biodegradable glass that can safely break down over a much shorter period of time.Read more...

Taking to social media to assuage concerns and quash rumors, Oscar winner Daniel Kwan (one part of the Daniels, alongside Daniel Scheiner) posted on an Instagram story that the Daniels were only directing one episode of upcoming Star Wars Disney+ series Skeleton Crew... and that it had, in fact, already happened.

Researchers at Stanford University have taken down their short-lived chatbot that harnessed Meta’s LLaMA AI, nicknamed Alpaca AI. The researchers launched Alpaca with a public demo anyone could try last week, but quickly took the model offline thanks to rising costs, safety concerns, and “hallucinations,” which is the…Read more...

After traveling through space for more than three months, Japan’s Hakuto-R lander has entered lunar orbit, as it prepares to land on the dusty surface of the Moon.Read more...

The Biden Administration considered looking into Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter over national security concerns, Bloomberg first reported. Musk bought the company for $44 billion in October which lead to questions about whether any of the foreign investors involved in the acquisition could gain access to users’ data.Read more...

On Tuesday, Adobe introduced its own generative AI model family called Firefly, claiming—like young people tend to do in the throes of pubescence—it’s not like the other scrappy AI image generators. Instead of using training data dredged up from the internet, Adobe said its crafted its service only using images on its…Read more...

Eighty years ago Peter Kien and Viktor Ullmann, imprisoned in the Nazis’ Czechoslovakian ghetto at Terezín, wrote Der Kaiser Von Atlantis, a one-act opera that imagined a world where the famous underwater kingdom never actually sunk. While the two didn’t live to see their work performed, now it’s been transformed into…Read more...

Cryptocurrencies and crypto exchanges have gotten all sorts of federal attention in recent years. From the Securities and Exchange Commission to the Department of Justice to the U.S. Senate—many government agencies and lawmakers have begun to weigh in on blockchain business. Now, for the first time, the Supreme Court…Read more...

Late last night, Above the Line reported that screenwriters Damon Lindelof (Watchmen, The Leftovers) and Justin Britt-Gibson are no longer attached to the Star Wars universe. They were originally tied to an untitled Star Wars project alongside Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. Obaid-Chinoy is an Emmy and Oscar winning…Read more...

With a nationwide TikTok ban on the table, the app that has brought us so much comfort (and endless scrolling) is shifting its approach to content moderation. Today, TikTok unveiled new content moderation policies that vaguely target AI-generated content and climate misinformation ahead of CEO Shou Zi Chew’s…Read more...

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse teases a secret dimension for Miles and friends to visit. Seth McFarlane still has hopes for another season of The Orville. Plus, what’s coming on Syfy’s The Ark. To me, my spoilers!Read more...