Gizmodo

On August 18th, Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast released Unearthed Arcana: Character Origins, a free document that provided fans of the tabletop roleplaying game with their first look at a new, updated ruleset currently called “One D&D.” It is game design in flux: 21 pages of preview material…Read more...

An all-time hall-of-fame NSFW spam event occurred this week: a hacker broke into a school messaging app to send a picture of a guy’s gaping sphincter to the parents of young school children across the country.Read more...

The Apple Watch remains a connectivity tool more than anything else, putting important information on your wrist that you can choose to address or ignore at a glance. But as it gets more powerful, it’s also slowly becoming a source of entertainment, and it’s now capable of playing some mindless but entertaining games.Read more...

The Blade Runner-aissance is nigh, especially now that we’re getting a new live-action series from Prime Video. After Denis Villeneuve’s 2017 film Blade Runner 2049, starring Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling, brought replicants back onto the big screen, it was only a matter of time before a TV show came on the horizon.…Read more...

South Korean officials are reportedly taking steps to revoke Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon’s passport less than 24 hours after courts issued a warrant for his arrest for allegedly violating the country’s capital-markets law. Kwon’s company developed the Luna and TerraUSD so-called “stable coins” which collapsed in…Read more...

150 million years ago, a prehistoric reptile unlike modern lizards slinked around what is now Wyoming. An ancient rhynchocephalian, the insect-eating animal’s discovery could shed light on the persistence of its living relative, the tuatara.

When people think of Stan Lee, they think of Marvel. Thanks to his cameos in many of the biggest movie blockbusters of all time, they likely always will. But there was a time when Stan the Man didn’t work for Marvel, and created his own projects hoping to replicate his success. The most shocking one was, undoubtedly,…Read more...

Apparently, all it took for unionized freight rail workers to finally force their companies to let them see a doctor without being penalized was to threaten to upend the entire supply chain. In tense, near-day long negotiations, White House and rail company trade groups both announced there is a deal, and all they’re…Read more...

For 12 years, camera and microscope manufacturer Nikon has hosted an annual contest of the best videos showing life and nature on a microscopic scale. On Tuesday, it presented the latest winners of the Nikon Small World in Motion Video Competition, along with many more dazzling entries.Read more...

Chad Coleman is joining Superman & Lois. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Teen Wolf spinoff adds another star. Ernie Hudson really wants the new Quantum Leap to bring Sam Beckett home. Plus, Halo season 2 begins filming, and what to expect from Rick & Morty. Spoilers now!

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Executives at four social media giants appeared yesterday before a Senate committee to receive what’s become a traditional biannual walloping on CSPAN over the host of horrors their products routinely visit upon their users and the rest of world.

The Ethereum network, which powers the second largest cryptocurrency in the world, completed a long-planned upgrade known as “The Merge” early Thursday, moving from a proof-of-work system to a proof-of-stake system. And nothing catastrophic has happened yet, despite plenty of dark predictions by an army of…Read more...

Fun and festive frights can be found at Oogie Boogie Bash at Disney California Adventure during Halloween time, as well as at Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. Disney Parks recently invited io9 to attend both Halloween experiences on a tour filled with tricks and treats; we…Read more...

Jeff Loveness—the screenwriter who penned Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which features Kang as its villain—is keeping on the beat of the Jonathan Majors character. He’s just been tapped to write Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, due as part of Marvel’s Phase Six slate of films.Read more...

California is suing Amazon, the state’s attorney general announced Wednesday in a press release. The focus of the lawsuit, filed in the state’s Superior Court in San Francisco County, is on how Amazon allegedly crushes competition and inflates prices through restrictive agreements with its third-party sellers.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced late Tuesday that he’d signed a “first-of-its-kind” bill into law designed to “protect Californians from hate and disinformation spread online.”

In a world full of fantastical mysteries, there are few things more mysterious in Middle-earth than the Istari: the powerful sorcerers who helped, in ways big and small, shape the very fate of the world. But for all we know of Gandalf and Saruman, the wider world of Lord of the Rings’ wizards is worth learning about…Read more...

After making the first TikTok video while aboard the International Space Station, Samantha Cristoforetti is making history once again as she’s been chosen to command the orbital outpost, making her the first European woman to do so.Read more...

Carnegie Mellon professor Uju Anya, who unleashed a social media storm last week when she wished the late Queen Elizabeth II “excruciating pain” in death in a tweet, is back on Twitter. In an update, she thanked the people who supported her, and assured them that nothing was going to happen to her job at the…Read more...

It’s been so long since Avenue 5's first season aired (and a lot has happened in the world since March 2020), but we do remember a) we enjoyed the near-future comedy’s batty characters, most of whom are trapped aboard a disastrous luxury space cruise; and b) the plot ended on a hell of a cliffhanger.

Major household brands are ensuring that we flush an important climate resource down the toilet. The Natural Resource Defense Council recently released its Issue with Tissue report and scorecard, rating how sustainable (or unsustainable) toilet paper, facial tissue, and paper towel producers are. Procter & Gamble, the…Read more...

Period tracking app Flo is hoping its newly released “Anonymous Mode” will give users the confidence to continue using their product even as state law enforcement authorities around the country appear increasingly interested in soliciting data from apps to prosecute alleged abortion seekers. Privacy experts speaking…Read more...

A virus that can rarely cause a polio-like paralysis in children has resurfaced in the U.S. after mostly disappearing during the covid-19 pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that it has spotted a surge of cases linked to enterovirus D-68. Based on recent past outbreaks, officials expect…Read more...

Iranian hackers with ties to the nation’s military are responsible for carrying out “hundreds” of ransomware attacks on victims in the U.S. and other countries over multiple years, U.S. federal authorities said Wednesday. The attacks are said to have targeted nearly every kind of organization you could think of—from…Read more...

President Joe Biden announced in a speech today that $900 million of federal funding will go toward increasing the number of electric vehicle chargers nationwide. This funding is the first chunk of money allocated to building EV chargers from a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law signed last year.

I am so over yelling in complete sentences to the Google Assistant. Although I run all the digital assistants—it’s my job, you know—Google primarily controls my smart home. There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to yell out a complete command while strapping down your toddler during a full-blown meltdown.…Read more...

It’s been a month and a half since devastating floods tore through Eastern Kentucky. A historic, so-called thousand-year rainfall overflowed rivers and streams, and it carried strip mining waste down into valley communities across the region.

Rail workers could be going on strike soon for the first time in nearly 30 years, which could result in enormous impacts on the wider economy and supply chains.Read more...

Fans of the Scarlet Witch might still be bummed that the Wanda Maximoff of the Marvel Cinematic Universe turned evil, killed a lot of people, and buried herself under a mountain at the end of Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Magic. But perhaps they can take some solace the Scarlet Witch of Marvel Comics is doing a…Read more...

It’s a well-known fact that British people love queueing – and millions of them are expected to try to tackle the boss level of queueing as Queen Elizabeth II lies in state in the Palace of Westminster in London today.

In a show about the villain of the first Karate Kid movie that features the villain from the Karate Kid sequel, you just knew the villain of Karate Kid part three had to show up eventually. And this year? Cobra Kai delivered. The fifth season of the hit show is now on Netflix and it includes a surprising story arc for…Read more...

Suborbital flights of Blue Origin’s space tourism rocket are suspended pending a Federal Aviation Administration review of Monday’s in-flight anomaly. No passengers were aboard at the time, but the apparent booster failure triggered the vehicle’s capsule escape system.Read more...

We got a glimpse of Chucky season two thanks to a San Diego Comic-Con teaser, but the killer doll now has a full trailer ahead of the much-anticipated return of Don Mancini’s hit horror series. It offers our best look yet at Lachlan Watson as Child’s Play fan-favorites Glen and Glenda, not to mention some delightful…Read more...

Big Oil wants you to believe that, because climate change was mentioned in children’s cartoons and a Batman movie in the 1990s, companies like Chevron hold no responsibilities for the current climate crisis.

Twitter banned a user who shared a modified, racist clip from Disney’s new live action The Little Mermaid Wednesday. The tweaked video turned the skin of singer and actress Halle Bailey, who plays Ariel, from Black to white.

After having to cancel launches aboard Russian Soyuz rockets, British satellite company OneWeb has reached a settlement agreement with Arianespace that could see a resumption of the suspended launches.

A brand new Joker film made its world premiere last night but that might be the only time it ever plays. It’s called The People’s Joker and is described as “a queer coming-of-age story complete with a copyright-defying array of villains and heroes.” And that’s the problem right there. Future screenings of the film…Read more...

One of Uber’s self-driving food delivery robots did not take kindly to the yellow caution tape surrounding a crime scene in Los Angeles as it plowed through the area, according to a video shared on Twitter Tuesday.

Amazon is trotting out new benefits and higher pay for some of its drivers, the company announced in a Tuesday afternoon press release. Specifically, it is putting more funding towards its “Delivery Service Partners”, which are independent businesses that manage a fleet of vehicles and drivers under the Amazon banner…Read more...

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Where I’m from, there are really just two reasons to eat a cup of instant noodles: you’re either a cash-strapped student who can’t afford to eat better, or you’re too tired to make anything more elaborate to eat. It’s just about the easiest meal to prep, but the gadget wizards at Japan’s Thanko think it could be even…Read more...

Is there a comic writer who possibly loves spooky season as much as Hellboy’s Mike Mignola? Perhaps not, which is why the beloved creative is teaming up with artist Rachele Aragno to introduce a whole new spooky delight—and giving them terrifying tales not just for Halloween, but for Christmas too.

NASA needs to know what’s going on with all of the junk that’s orbiting our planet. The space agency announced yesterday that it would be funding three proposals from various universities to better understand orbital debris and sustainability in space.

Over four months after the collapse of TerraUSD tore down the crypto marketplace, South Korean police are currently on the hunt for Do Kwon (and other top people behind Terraform Labs) over allegations of fraud and tax evasion.Read more...

Space is getting a little too crowded, increasing the risk of orbital collisions. Slingshot Aerospace, a company specializing in space data analytics, is now offering a solution to regulate some of the traffic up there. The company announced on Tuesday that it is rolling out a free version of its space traffic control…Read more...

Marvel’s line-up for the Thunderbolts is weird. It’s been bugging me ever since it was announced this past weekend. U.S. Agent and Bucky Barnes? Three characters from the Black Widow movie? Hell, only three of the six (Ghost, Taskmaster, and U.S. Agent) could technically be called villains in their latest Marvel…Read more...

Google and Meta have yet another privacy regulator breathing down their necks and scrutinizing their advertisement business.Read more...

There are lots of incredibly capable robots in research labs around the world, but very few handling real world jobs. Purpose-built bots, like robovacs, have so far been the most successful, but HP’s new robot does the exact opposite of cleaning floors. It instead draws all over them, on purpose, and could potentially…Read more...

The Museum of Modern Art mission statement is to “connect people from around the world to the art of our time.” Unfortunately, it seems like New York’s most prominent purveyor of “thought-provoking art” has some abstract reasons for considering snapping up a few digital artworks in the form of NFTs.Read more...