Gizmodo

Meteor lovers, rejoice. The year's first big shower is upon us. Here's everything you need to know if you want to catch a glimpse of these fireballs.

Robot vacuums have always used sensors to detect furniture and identify your spaces, but of course, you'd expect one coming out in 2024 to be significantly more intelligent. In the era of AI-powered everything, Samsung just announced the Bespoke Jet Bot Combo, a smart vacuum/mop/steamer robot that knows when it needs...Read more...

The Exorcist: Believer was one of the big horror letdowns of 2023. But it's a new year, and a different 1970s horror classic is looking to expand its world-and this time, it looks very promising. The first trailer for The First Omen, a prequel to 1976's The Omen, is here, and it's bringing Satanic conspiracies galore.Read more...

SpaceX is gearing up to test its Starlink satellites' ability to connect directly to cellphones in the U.S., launching the first six satellites under a temporary license with the hopes to expand its connectivity reach beyond that of traditional cell signals.Read more...

Doctor Who viewers are willing to accept a lot of things-fascist pepperpots, farting skinsuit aliens, children-kidnapping goblins with Christmas number 1 ambitions, the existence of travel in time and space in general. But some of them just couldn't deal with a singular trans character appearing in recent episodes. To...Read more...

Microsoft is trying to rebrand its Edge internet browser. No longer should its name remind you that its icon shortcut sits alone and forgotten at the edge of your Windows desktop. Now Microsoft is trying to claim Edge is on the cutting edge of AI. The Redmond tech giant has started calling its native internet explorer...Read more...

Adam Wingard teases some major Kaiju easter eggs in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. The cast of Madame Web look forward to this, the year of Madame Web. The First Omen teases its deadly delights. Don Lee goes hunting in the apocalypse in a new Netflix series. Plus, Echo squares off against Daredevil in a new clip....Read more...

GE Profile's new indoor smoker will let you enjoy the pleasures of having a smoker in your kitchen instead without all the fuss of owning an outdoor smoker.Read more...

What you've heard is true: The Walking Dead alum Steven Yeun is no longer in the cast for Marvel's upcoming Thunderbolts movie.

A decade ago, Facebook's internal motto was move fast and break things." There is now an important, wordy update to that motto as a holistic piece of advice: move fast on exploiting Mickey Mouse's public domain status and... don't maybe do some anti-Semitism along the way?Read more...

Classic puzzle game Tetris has been around for over three decades, and in that time, plenty of people have reached its various endings, usually by clearing four rows of bricks at once like a digital demolitioner. That's a challenge in and of itself, but now, someone has taken the concept of beating Tetris" to the...Read more...

After months of edging, Montana and North Carolina lawmakers have finished off Pornhub. Users in those states lost access to the adult site on Jan. 1 as new laws require people to verify their age to watch porn. That would have meant uploading a picture of your ID before you watch sorority sisters figure out how to...Read more...

Over the holiday weekend, Ana Ofelia Murguia, Mexican actress and voice of Mama Coco from Pixar's award-winning animated feature Coco, passed away. Deadline confirmed the death of the 90-year-old national treasure, whose performance in the film won the hearts of audiences worldwide.Read more...

The Korea Institute of Fusion Energy has installed a new diverter in the KSTAR tokamak, allowing the artificial sun to sustain high-ion temperatures exceeding 100 million degrees Celsius for longer.

Trying to draw attention back to its Metaverse ambitions, Meta dropped the price of its 128 GB to $250. That's exactly half of what the company's latest Quest 3 costs. An extra $50 will net you the 256 GB Quest 2, but if you're looking to get one even cheaper, the company is advertising refurbished headsets starting...Read more...

A Chinese teenager has been returned to safety after being cyber kidnapped." Never heard of cyber kidnapping"? Well, it's an early front-runner for the hot new cybercrime trend of 2024.Read more...

The UK is facing an eruption of scabies, an itchy skin infestation caused by mites. Dermatologists across the country are reporting a rise in scabies cases, fueled by shortages of the medications most commonly used to treat it. These cases are disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations, such as those living...Read more...

Earlier this month, Polish hackers known as Dragon Sector accused one of Poland's largest train makers, Newag, of intentionally bricking its own trains when they're repaired by third parties. Newag threatened to sue Dragon Sector, but the story exploded as an example of why we deserve the right-to-repair and the...Read more...

TV maker Vizio is being taken to task for making big claims of excessive refresh rates on its TVs when, in reality, an effective frame rate" is based on software meant to give the impression of smoother viewing. While folks who bought a Vizio TV shouldn't expect any big payout, it's a strong reminder not to take big...Read more...

Facebook recently rolled out a new Link History" setting that creates a special repository of all the links you click on in the Facebook mobile app. Users can opt-out, but Link History is turned on by default, and the data is used for targeted ads. As lawmakers introduce tech regulations and Apple and Google beef up...Read more...

Zack Snyder's homage-a-thon Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire came out with a bang for Netflix, but as of today it's barely clinging to the streamer's top 10. If you've been holding out on watching (maybe you're waiting for a binge when Part Two: The Scargiver releases April 19?), here are 10 other Netflix sci-fi...Read more...

For almost as long as Star Wars: The Clone Wars has been around, there have been fans asking to see their versions of the prequel characters get a chance to adapt the material of the live-action movies. We've had tiny tastes of what that might be thanks to video games, but this remarkable new animated short film gives...Read more...

Germain Lussier is a senior reporter covering entertainment on the io9 section of Gizmodo. He lives in Los Angeles, specializes in film coverage, and is also our lead film critic. You can follow his coverage here, and email story ideas and tips to germain.lussier@gizmodo.com.Read more...

LG recently announced a new 4K projector, the CineBeam Qube, and I'm pretty smitten with it. It supports 4K and can projectup to 120 inches, but its eye-catching minimal aesthetic" is what the company seems most proud of. The CineBeam Qube is pretty cute.

The start of 2024 saw a major milestone in U.S. copyright law as Steamboat Willie-and with it the very first versions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse-entered public domain for the first time. As with classics before it, in record time people took to announcing what is now inevitable for any new public domain work: what if...Read more...

The mutilated surface of Jupiter's moon Io was revealed in great detail by the Juno spacecraft, which has been exploring the Jovian system since 2016 and recently pulled off the closest flyby of the volcanic world.Read more...

You most likely have dozens and dozens of apps on your phone, and it's not easy to keep up with every single feature added to every single one of those apps over time-like, for example, the real-time voice translation feature that you can make use of inside the Google Translate app for Android or iOS.

Could Coyote vs. Acme make its way to public viewing this year? Get a glimpse of Echo's arrival. Plus, updates on M3GAN 2.0 and Black Phone 2, plus what to expect on For All Mankind and Percy Jackson. To me, my spoilers!

A mutual fund that helped Elon Musk buy X now says the platform is worth 71.5% less than the $44 billion it was purchased for in 2022, according to Axios Sunday. Fidelity cut the valuation of Musk's social media platform by more than 10% in November when Elon Musk shared his thoughts on Jews and told advertisers to go...Read more...

Star Wars can often feel culturally ubiquitous, but sometimes even the people operating in its space find themselves inside a world they have little experience with (as they should: Star Wars thrives on the perspectives of many, and that includes people unfamiliar with it!). But for Eman Esfandi, going back and...Read more...

Mickey Mouse is finally in the hands of the public, to do whatever they want with him.Well, in part. After Disney infamously helped delay the moment, today is the day Steamboat Willie, the first Disney animated short to star Mickey and Minnie Mouse, become public domain. But what does that mean? Simultaneously a lot...Read more...

New year, new... Lego? That's how that saying goes, right? After a few quiet months to round out 2023, Lego is starting 2024 with a bang with tons of new sets. Marvel! Star Wars! Sonic! Jurassic Park! Bouquets and Polaroids! Truly, something for everyone.

A new year is upon us, but don't say goodbye to the old one just yet! For the past 3 weeks io9 has been delivering our Year in Review for all things 2023-our favorite films and shows, cool toys, people we lost, the trends that defined a year of sci-fi, fantasy, and genre pop culture, and so much more. Why not take a...Read more...

Is read more books" on your list of New Year's resolutions? If it isn't, you'll surely be tempted to make room for it-and form a new habit that'll last through 2024-once you see all the new sci-fi, fantasy, and horror titles hitting bookshelves in January.Read more...

Jujutsu Kaisen wrapped up earlier this week after a long and fairly grim season. You won't be surprised to learn that it's got another season in the works, once again courtesy of MAPPA.

HBO's House of the Dragon is keeping the Game of Thrones train going along, but it's not the only spinoff for the fantasy series in the works. In a newly released blog looking back on 2023, author George R.R. Martin revealed he and HBO have a number of animated series in unofficial development-as in, they haven't been...Read more...

In terms of entertainment, 2023 was a big year all around. We got many wholly new things that were excellent in their own special way, while the majority of reliable brands and franchises stayed firm in greatness or took a few hits with their new entries. And on this, the final day of the year, it's time to think...Read more...

The year is ending, but the posting never stops. io9 wrote thousands of stories in 2023, from breaking news to analysis and critique of the biggest films, TV shows, comics, and games in our worlds. Here's a look back at the 100 you, our dear readers, read and shared the most. Thanks for sticking around for another...Read more...

British actor Tom Wilkinson died on Saturday. He was 75, and per the Hollywood Reporter, his family say his death was at home and sudden."

Before and particularly after the movie starring Halle Berry, it appears to be a rule that you don't have Catwoman in a live-action movie without Batman getting top billing. But that wasn't always the case-back in 2018, we learned the thief very nearly got her own spinoff film where she would've been played by...Read more...

Today marks the season two finale for Marvel's What If...?. I haven't watched it yet, but by several accounts, it sounds like this has been a pretty solid season with a standout episode that focuses on the Mohawk woman Kahhori. Ahead of this season's premiere, Marvel Studios revealed a third season was in the works,...Read more...

Whatever else you can say about X, previously known as Twitter, it's never really boring. The 17-year-old social media site that we've stuck around with always has something going on; in the best cases, it can be either funny or so odd that you can't help but laugh.

It's the final week of 2023, but the news hasn't stopped quite yet. As the year wound down, the io9 crew found time to look back on the year's events, say goodbye (and possibly hello?) to some old friends, and return to some haunts we left behind. Check them out here!-James WhitbrookRead more...

In 2023, I posed 23 challenges as part of the Gizmodo Monday Puzzle series. Some require a bit of math, and others a light familiarity with physics; but most can be solved through logic and creative thinking. For each of the following puzzles, I provide a link to the solution, but I suggest you resist the temptation...Read more...

JBL recently did something somewhat out-of-the-box and experimental: launching its first-ever wireless turntable. It's called the Spinner BT, and released it a couple of weeks ago, just in time for the holiday season.Read more...

The title Bloody New Year feels overly obvious: surely, this is yet another holiday-focused slasher movie in which shrieking teens get picked off one by one. And while there's a bit of that, this 1987 British release-also known as Horror Hotel and the far more spoiler-y Time Warp Terror-is also far, far weirder than...Read more...

Respawn's Star Wars Jedi games are firmly embedded in the years before the original trilogy, and keep the focus on a core cast of wholly new heroes and villains. It's what made Star Wars Jedi: Survivor from earlier this year so excellent: the games take advantage of that relative freedom from the timeline and offer up...Read more...

Happy New Year! Let's watch some movies. Welcome to io9's latest edition of the Nerd's Watch, where we pare down the enormous lists of new films and television shows arriving on all your favorite streaming services into the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror titles we think you'll like most. (And sometimes, just the ones...Read more...

Every year, io9 pays solemn tribute to actors, directors, artists, composers, writers, creators, and other icons in the realms of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy that have passed. Let us celebrate their everlasting impact on genre together. Here are the luminaries whose work has impacted the lives of so many and will live...Read more...

Christina Chong teases an epic return to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Robert Rodriguez could be bringing The Faculty back to life. Plus, get a look at Evil's return and a glimpse of What If's 1602-inspired episode. Spoilers, assemble!