Gizmodo

Paizo, the games company that created fantasy tabletop RPG Pathfinder, announced at Gen Con that it is actively updating sci-fi TTRPG Starfinder. The first playtest is actually available now. It will be published under the ORC license and will use the three-action economy system, which will allow Starfinder to be...Read more...

A groundbreaking demonstration by the European Space Agency (ESA) suggests it's possible to deorbit satellites safely and in a reasonably controlled manner, even for those not originally designed for such maneuvers.

Buenos Aires in Argentina saw an especially hot start to this August, and temperatures spiked above 30 degrees Celsius throughout the capital for the first time in years.Read more...

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) reported an increased drop in subscribers since it rebranded its streaming service to Max earlier this year, the company said in its quarterly report on Thursday. The company lost 1.8 million subscribers in its second quarter, bringing it down to a total of 95.8 million subscribers from...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 The Blade and the Bloodwright" by Sloane Leong. You can read the story below or listen to the podcast on LIGHTSPEED's website. Enjoy!

Gone are the days of collecting pay stubs, receipts, and government forms...hopefully. For the first time, the IRS will give taxpayers the option to go paperless for the 2024 tax season ahead of a more widespread digitization effort for the 2025 season.Read more...

We're getting closer and closer to a world where we might be able to punch Mark Zuckerberg... virtually, of course. That's because a UFC-like experience is coming to the Meta Quest through a simulated stadium-side experience.

George Romero's final Living Dead script is now in development. Get another good look at the latest cinematic take on Godzilla. Harley Quinn's producers remain uncertain about the future of the show. Plus, a musical look at today's episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Spoilers, away!Read more...

Richard Branson's space tourism venture is set to launch its second commercial trip to suborbital heights in less than two weeks but the company is not too optimistic about the revenue generated by its private orbital tours.Read more...

Nobody has been trimming the hedges of Google and Apple's walled gardens. I should know. I've straddled the hedgerows separating the iOS and Android ecosystems and had my nethers pricked by some oddly-placed thorns.Read more...

Alienware has not been the type of company to shy away from outlandish, expensive, and sometimes gaudy case designs. That being said, Alienware is trying something a little more quaint compared to previous years, as the latest in its Aurora mid-sized desktop PCs, the R16, now features a boxier design that the company...Read more...

When Pixar's Elemental opened in June to under $30 million on its first weekend, most Hollywood types considered it dead on arrival. And why wouldn't they? Pixar hadn't had a hit in years-largely due to the pandemic, but still-and after releasing several titles on Disney+, most assumed the once infallible animation...Read more...

The ongoing feud continues: Ron DeSantis has doubled down on denying Disney's First Amendment and constitutional rights through the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.Read more...

When Marvel relaunched the Star Wars comics line, the world was a simpler place. Lucasfilm had just rebooted its official continuity, there was room for new stories, new insight into familiar faces, new opportunities to flesh out the space between the Star Wars movies. And now, we come to this: zombie droids.Read more...

Ghostface will have a new master for Scream 7. Radio Silence, the directing team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who helmed the two most recent Scream films, won't be returning for the next installement. Instead, in their place is Christopher Landon, the horror veteran who directed the Happy Death Day...Read more...

Agricultural officials in California placed parts of Los Angeles County under a produce quarantine last week after several invasive Tau fruit flies were discovered.

Scientists in Japan may be at the start of a truly monumental accomplishment: a vaccine that can slow or delay the progression of Alzheimer's disease. In preliminary research released this week, the vaccine appeared to reduce inflammation and other important biomarkers in the brains of mice with Alzheimer's-like...Read more...

The Cult of the Dead Cow, one of the most influential hacktivist groups on the web, announced plans Wednesday to launch an end-to-end encrypted protocol that can be used for app development. cDc is calling its new tool Veilid and, from the initial descriptions, it sounds pretty friggin' cool. On the group's website,...Read more...

Does your smartphone feel like it's too smart for you? Try Nokia. The company unveiled two new phones Wednesday, and they aren't less worthy for their lack of apps. The fact that they're so light on distractions might be what entices you to one. They're also great as a secondary phone if you have two numbers but want...Read more...

The Expanse-both the beloved Prime Video series, and the beloved book series by James S.A. Corey (authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck)-may be over, but the story lives on in new video game The Expanse: A Telltale Series. Its story focuses on fan-favorite character Camina Drummer, and Telltale has just released a fun...Read more...

On Wednesday, China published new draft regulations to monitor the amount of time minors spend on the internet each day. The Cyberspace Administration of China's (CAC) proposal introduces a minor mode," which would restrict the type of content the minor sees, depending on their age, and will limit their mobile usage...Read more...

This month marks the 10th anniversary of The World's End-the final entry in the Cornetto Trilogy of films directed by Edgar Wright starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. That was the last time Pegg and Wright, who also co-wrote the films, worked together on a project, and according to Pegg, that'll change in the near...Read more...

U.S. Space Command finally has a permanent home in Colorado after President Joe Biden succeeded in reversing a decision by the former administration to relocate the military branch to Alabama.Read more...

Microsoft and Discord want your friends to tear apart your gaming skills, now from the comfort of your home. Soon, Xbox players will be able to stream their gameplay from the Xbox Series X/S as well as the Xbox One to friends on Discord with a simple button press on the Discord app.Read more...

Objectively, Slotherhouse is an incredible title for a horror movie. The combination of phrases instantly clues you into what it's about, even if you can't actually fathom your thought process to be accurate. Is this a movie about a house where a sloth kills a bunch of people?" you think. And the answer is Yes, it...Read more...

July is supposed to be a hot summer month for the northern hemisphere, but last month was especially hot even for mid-summer. According to a new report released by science nonprofit Climate Central this week, climate change has made this July hotter for billions of people around the globe.Read more...

Before anyone says anything-no, you cannot yet stream Tommy Wiseau's Big Shark. Still a theater-only situation with that one. But there are plenty of other movies out there featuring ridiculously large sea creatures, with hapless humans scrambling to survive them. With Ben Wheatley's The Meg 2: The Trench arriving...Read more...

The dual strikes of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA unions have highlighted the need for solidarity across the swaths of workers represented in them-and the necessity of their highest-profile members to support the rights needed by the lowest. And now, at least some of them are stepping up.

Artificial intelligence could be as good as two human radiologists at reviewing breast cancer scans, a new study shows. The trial, published in The Lancet Oncology, revealed that AI could reduce the amount of time doctors spend reading mammograms in half, and early testing found it could alert doctors to more breast...Read more...

If you left Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem before its end credit scene, turn off your phone, get back in your car, and head back to the theater. What you missed was not just a tease for the future of the franchise, but a crucial ending to the film's story.Read more...

The feud between YouTuber James Donaldson, more commonly known as MrBeast, and ghost kitchen company Virtual Dining Concepts continues to rage on. After MrBeast filed a lawsuit against the company's poor performance in scaling up MrBeast Burger, Virtual Dining Concepts is now accusing him of greed and bullying.Read more...

Peoples of Middle-earth, take heed: the One Ring has a new master, not dark but beautiful, and terrible as the dawn, treacherous as the sea, stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love him, and despair.

A team of paleontologists has announced the discovery of an Eocene-era whale it believes may be the heaviest animal to ever live, surpassing the extant blue whale in mass.Read more...

James Gunn and Peter Safran are ready to relaunch the DC cinematic universe-helmed by a new, younger version of the Man of Steel, and a new Batman to go alongside Matt Reeves' take. But for all the newness, at least one current DC start insists they're sticking around.Read more...

A few weeks after the Titan submersible from OceanGate imploded, killing the five passengers on board, news is still trickling in about the bizarre history of the company. Leaked emails now reveal NASA's reaction after the implosion, as OceanGate had an agreement with the space agency to test the Titan submersible's...Read more...

Emma Corrin teases their Deadpool 3 villain. Elizabeth Banks wants more Cocaine Bear. James Gunn insists DC's future animated movies will come to theaters. Plus, take a look at early concept art for Trigun Stampede. Spoilers now!

Twitter-which Elon Musk has desperately tried to convince users is now called X"-wants users to display their $8 a month blue checkmark prominently on their page. Unfortunately for those who pay up, that checkmark has become a kind of Scarlet Letter analog that many app denizens use to denote a Musk bootlicker, or...Read more...

Update: August 2, 8:45 a.m. ET: Northrop Grumman successfully executed its 19th resupply mission (NG-19) to the ISS under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services-2 contract, using the company's Antares 230+ rocket. The launch vehicle blasted off at 8:31 p.m. ET, sending the Cygnus cargo spacecraft, named S.S. Laurel Clark...Read more...

Of Samsung's latest foldable mobile offerings unveiled at its latest Unpacked event, the most dramatic changes we've seen come via the Galaxy Z Flip 5. Not only do we finally have a fully flat silhouette and a redesigned hinge, but Samsung has caught on that people like more screens, so it stuck a larger display on...Read more...

Just as Futurama rises anew at Hulu, another Matt Groening creation is about to bid farewell. Netflix has announced the final season of Disenchantment will drop all 10 episodes on September 1. With this news comes a teaser recapping what's happened so far in Dreamland-and what awaits Queen Bean and company in the...Read more...

The wait till Spider-Man: Beyond The Spider-Verse is going to be a long one, but starting August 8 you'll be able to revisit Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse any time you want.Read more...

Elon Musk announced he was changing Twitter's name to X In the last week of July, reflecting the billionaire's life-long obsession with the letter, which is a very normal thing for an adult man to have. To celebrate, CEO Linda Yaccarino, whom Musk appointed in May, changed her username from @lindayaccs to @lindayaX. ...Read more...

Everyone certainly hopes that the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes are over long before December rolls around. However, if they aren't, actors who would like to attend and promote themselves at Los Angeles Comic Con will be able to do so.Read more...

Well, they actually did it. After months of tense bickering with Canadian lawmakers over a law forcing tech companies to pay publishers for news, Meta is following through on its threat to cut off access to news on Facebook and Instagram for the country's 40 million residents.Read more...

Great news: Lego saw all that sunny summer weather we've been having and decided that it's simply too much chance for heatstroke, so we should all stay inside well-ventilated rooms, hydrate, and build some new Lego sets. Lots of them. Lots and lots and lots of them.Read more...

Movie studios were served a big loss in their quest to take down pirates. This weekend, a federal court tossed a subpoena in a case against the internet service provider Grande that would require Reddit to reveal the identities of anonymous users that torrent movies.Read more...

A Chinese zoo is denying that its Malayan sun bears are humans dressed in costumes after visitors claimed the bears' behaviors strongly resembled that of a person. A video of the bear, named Angela, was posted on social media and went viral, showing the bear standing on her hind legs and facing onlookers before...Read more...

A weird, experimental debut novel, Oh God, the Sun Goes is set in a world where the sun has mysteriously, unexplainably disappeared. As an unnamed narrator heads west, the book takes a hairpin turn into a searing and eerie romance.Read more...

The summer of foldables may be over before we even see a release from Android's third-best brand, OnePlus. The company is reportedly delaying its folding smartphone debut due to dissatisfaction with its current display supplier. But the good news is that this might mean an upgrade for the folding display on the...Read more...

The high-powered handheld gaming market keeps on growing, and now Lenovo is reportedly getting in on the mix. The company had previously started on then dropped a handheld streaming device, but a new report says Lenovo has its eyes set on a full portable gaming machine akin to a Steam Deck.Read more...