Gizmodo

If you’ve decided your tastes are too refined to work on a sheet of plywood precariously balanced on a couple stacks of cinderblocks, Teenage Engineering is back with another peculiar product with a barebones design: the minimalist Field Desk you build yourself using a modular aluminum rail system.Read more...

Google announced its much-hyped AI-powered chatbot this week as part of a rapidly intensifying AI arms race between tech heavy-hitters. The tool is the company’s response to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s swift maneuvering to incorporate that large language tool into its Bing search engine. But there’s one big…Read more...

The global release of Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey is happening in a week, and ahead of the premiere, writer/director Rhys Frake-Waterfield told The Hollywood Reporter that “he’s planning to create an entire universe filled with bloodied X-rated adaptations of beloved childhood stories.”

There’s only a little more than a month before the sixth installment of the Scream franchise stalks its way into New York City and theaters, but no movie with a generously-sized budget would miss the chance to promote itself during what sponsors have to generically call “the big game.” But rather than discuss the …Read more...

Twitter owner and chief micromanager Elon Musk stepped in to unlock the account of Republican Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, who got sent to blue bird jail after changing his profile picture to a selfie of him and his wife with a dead antelope on a hunting trip.Read more...

We can chalk up another victory for food scientists this month as Toronto-based New School Foods debuted a plant-based salmon alternative that delivers the experience of eating the fish—including the flavor and texture of a cooked filet—without needing you to consume any actual salmon.Read more...

Google plans to begin including AI-generated text answers to search queries in the coming months. The announcement came at the company’s (kind of slapdash) live event in Paris on Wednesday, along with numerous other updates to Search, Maps, and more.

Remember last August, when an ex-Twitter executive Peiter “Mudge” Zatko accused the blue bird app of routinely failing to delete users’ information from the platform when they deleted their accounts? Well, it seems under the new stewardship of billionaire Elon Musk, Twitter is still failing to delete users’…Read more...

Will I ever truly understand why I love Constantine (2005) so much? No. But this was a weird time for a lot of comic films, nestled in between awkward, over-CGI’d family films like Hulk and rated-R weirdness like Blade and Blade 2. Something about Constantine, which merged a hardboiled detective story and an eternal…Read more...

Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are a result of the movement of large swaths of Earth’s crust, but while the theory of plate tectonics has been widely accepted as a fundamental law of geology, there are still things to be discovered. New research from the University of Texas Austin points to the presence of a…Read more...

Google’s search engine is getting an upgrade—yes with AI, but also with a blur filter. In a bid to shield its user’s eyes, Google announced yesterday that it will blur explicit images in search results, even when SafeSearch isn’t turned on.

ChatGPT has taken the world by storm. Within two months of its release it reached 100 million active users, making it the fastest-growing consumer application ever launched. Users are attracted to the tool’s advanced capabilities – and concerned by its potential to cause disruption in various sectors.

Where does Wikipedia, the world’s most-visited repository of information on the internet, stand without guaranteed digital liability protections? It’s a question weighing heavy on the people who make up the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that administers the site containing 58 million articles in…Read more...

If you’ve ever been scrolling through Twitter and thought to yourself, ‘I wish all of these posts were SO MUCH longer,” then today is your lucky day. If, however, you are a reasonably well-adjusted internet-user, I unfortunately come bearing bad news. Twitter appears to be officially experimenting with 4,000 character…Read more...

Japanese zookeepers have finally figured out how Momo, their 12-year-old white-handed gibbon, got pregnant even though she lived by herself and had never had a male visitor. The key? A literal hole in the wall.Read more...

New research suggests that users of top-of-the-line Android devices sold in China are getting their personal data pilfered left, right and center, according to new research. The collection, which is happening without notification or consent, could easily lead to the persistent tracking of users and the easy unmasking…Read more...

President Joe Biden took direct aim at tech companies during his second State of the Union address Tuesday evening. Over the course of an hour, the president railed against Big Tech’s data collection practices, its use of targeting ads on young users and anti-competitive business practices. For all of those issues,…Read more...

A computer scientist, a musician, and a physicist enter the archives of a national library. It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but the punchline is a serious one: Researchers of various backgrounds managed to find and decipher 57 letters written by Mary, Queen of Scots during her imprisonment by her cousin Queen…Read more...

With the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, audiences are about to really get a glimpse of the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. His name is Kang and he’s played by Jonathan Majors. Majors made his Marvel debut last year in Loki as He Who Remains, a version of a supervillain who is going to have such…Read more...

Headphone enthusiasts can be a fickle bunch, but if you manage to pull a group of them away from their amps and Super Audio CD players to ask them to recommend a pair of cans, most would point you towards the Sennheiser 600-series. Over the past 25 years, Sennheiser has been trickling out minor updates to the line,…Read more...

Praise Beebo, my friends. While a lot of familiar faces are returning for The Flash’s ninth season, it won’t just be the friends and family members of the Iris West clan. Showrunner Eric Wallace has revealed that the fan-favorite Legends of Tomorrow cast will make an appearance, almost certainly for the final time.

HBO’s The Last of Us might be stepping aside for the Superbowl (catch the next episode this Friday, rather than the usual Sunday), but it’s still becoming a force of nature as far as ratings are concerned on its own. After the massive buzz around episode three, episode four boasted the highest numbers to date.Read more...

Last week, an unidentified object appeared 60,000 feet above the ground in Montana. Originating from China, the balloon gave all the appearance of being a spying aircraft.Read more...

Spain is introducing its own digital nomad visa, adding it to the list of nearly 50 countries that have implemented it in recent years. The country’s parliament approved the visa in November last year and will allow non-EU citizens to remain in Spain for up to five years.Read more...

BP is raking in a huge amount of cash these days on oil, so it wants you to ignore all those lofty promises it made about the climate just a few years ago.Read more...

NASA is “redirecting” a private partner’s first mission to the lunar south polar region, and with very little time to spare. The company, Texas-based Intuitive Machines, is handling the new assignment with grace, saying it’s a “significant win” for the Artemis program.Read more...

Every year at Epcot kicks off with the International Festival of the Arts, a haven for Disney art collectors that showcases an extensive line-up of work from an array of unique perspectives. The Walt Disney World-exclusive Artful Epcot fest has steadily become one of the best reasons to visit Disney Parks during the …Read more...

A woman’s active case of tuberculosis has prompted health officials in Washington state to alert the public. The woman has reportedly turned down treatment for over a year and disobeyed multiple court orders to stay isolated from others. The health department may pursue further legal action against the woman should…Read more...

It’s 2023 and financial crimes and their consequences have officially come to cryptocurrency. Relatively new on the laundry list of blockchain-based offenses that can lead directly to jail: insider trading. A former product manager at the crypto exchange Coinbase pleaded guilty to insider trading charges on Tuesday.…Read more...

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Microsoft reps came out swinging Tuesday in a massive press blitz, though they were acting more like an artificial intelligence-driven Terminator than any live human being. Sure, the product folks at the company’s conference held at Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington headquarters and on the company blog talked with all…Read more...

Silicon Valley layoffs have become commonplace in the last several months as one after another announced they were letting staff go. This time, the latest round of layoffs will affect Zoom employees, as CEO Eric Yuan cited an unpredictable economy and the possibility of a recession.Read more...

After allegations of abuse were revealed earlier this year, Adult Swim and Hulu parted ways with Justin Roiland (Rick and Morty, Solar Opposites, Koala Man). Now, a new investigation by the Hollywood Reporter says that Roiland’s offbeat work ethic and flaky attention span made him a lot less important to his projects …Read more...

The Mandalorian, the show that helped launch an entire streaming service, is coming off that streaming service for one night only. With the third season of the hit Star Wars show quickly approaching, the very first episode will make its broadcast debut, airing on ABC, Freeform, and FX on February 24.Read more...

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There are arguably already too many ways to order food for delivery right to your door. You can call a restaurant. You can open up your laptop and go online. You can click through an app on your smartphone. Heck, you can summon a drone, if you’re willing to endanger your local power grid. Now, for better or worse, the …Read more...

In 2021, author Stephen Graham Jones (The Only Good Indians) released My Heart Is a Chainsaw, giving horror fans a memorable heroine in high school misfit Jade Daniels. Don’t Fear the Reaper, its sequel and the second entry in Jones’ Indian Lake Trilogy, is out today—and i09 got a chance to talk to him about it.Read more...

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

To celebrate the Disney100 Funko Pop! has been adding to its parade of animation collectibles for the studio’s centennial. In this exclusive with io9, we’re unveiling two new artistic Disney movie poster releases. Take a look at the just-released Cinderella and Dumbo posters with pop figures of their stars and rodent…Read more...

The Lone Star State is charging ahead with a TikTok ban. On Monday, Governor Greg Abbott unveiled a new statewide model security plan to prohibit the app from government issued devices and networks in order to address potential “vulnerabilities,” presented by its use. Predictably, the Republican governor also used the…Read more...

Royal Mail in the UK has reopened following a cyber attack last month that has since been identified as Lockbit, a Russia-linked ransomware gang. The gang has demanded a ransom in exchange for data stolen on January 10 and threatened to release it to the public if Royal Mail does not comply, TechCrunch reported.Read more...

A Falcon 9 lit up the Florida skies Monday night in what is now a very familiar scene. The rocket successfully deployed Hispasat’s Amazonas Nexus communications satellite into a trajectory that will take it to a geostationary orbit, from where it will expand the Spanish company’s coverage across the Americas, the…Read more...

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Nothing has been more of a spectacle to watch than Meta’s bet on the metaverse—more specifically Horizon Worlds, a virtual reality video game platform from the company. It appears Meta isn’t ready to give up on Horizon Worlds just yet, as internal documents from the company reveal a revamping strategy of the platform…Read more...

We’re only now starting to feel the effects of an avian flu outbreak last year that decimated flocks and put a strain on egg stocks, resulting in boosted prices. But there’s good news if all you care about is the egg experience, and not where the eggs actually come from, as a vegan alternative has finally reached the…Read more...

Twitter-like apps don’t seem to be doing too hot as of late. Ever since billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk bought the blue bird app back in October, a wave of controversy has caused a massive decline in users. Worse still for Twitter and Musk, few seem willing to pay for features like Twitter Blue. While some users have…Read more...

It’s Jonathan Majors’ (quantum) realm. and we’re all just living in it. The amount of hype that the trailers are giving Kang the Conqueror is truly out of this world and honestly; he deserves it. We’ve got some early social reactions coming out, and people are very interested in seeing Kang show up again and again …Read more...

It is officially new smartphone season, and we’re starting this year’s corral with value. The OnePlus 11 isn’t as flashy as the Samsung Galaxy S23 series, nor does it have proprietary hardware like the AI-focused Tensor chip found in Google’s Pixel 7 lineup. It’s just a good Android smartphone that’s competitively…Read more...

A new Marvel movie is just weeks away, and that means it’s time for Marvel movie merch. As always, Hasbro is leading the charge with a new Marvel Legends wave dedicated to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and io9 has the first look at the toys from the movie.

When Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit came out in 2020, we were quick to praise the AR toy’s gameplay, but were put off by how much it cost for what was on offer. Now, developer Velan studios is back in the bucket seat again, and while it hasn’t managed to lower the cost of entry for its AR RC car tech, the new Hot…Read more...