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Microsoft announced it is entering a third-round partnership with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI in a new multibillion-dollar investment. The company first entered a partnership with OpenAI in 2019 and confirmed its second round two years later as it endeavored to expand its AI-related products.Read more...

The ad-supported tier of Disney’s child-distraction/video streaming service Disney+ goes for $7.99 a month. That’s great for families on a budget and, up until now, has been great for fans of digital privacy: Disney didn’t allow advertisers to target those ads at specific children or households. That’s changing,…Read more...

The governor of Virginia is blocking a potential Ford battery factory that would have provided thousands of jobs in an impoverished area—based on fearmongering about China.

The cost of living throughout the U.S. is on the rise, including what households must pay to stay warm throughout the winter. This has pushed more Americans to rely on firewood from wood banks to heat their homes, a new report from the Guardian outlines.Read more...

For now, there’s really only one way to capture an HDR image when lighting conditions vary wildly across the frame: you take multiple shots with different exposures, and then assemble a final composite using the properly exposed areas from the various images. But that could soon be on the way out, with a new Canon…Read more...

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As founding cast members of Critical Role, Matt Mercer and Marisha Ray are some of the most influential Dungeons & Dragons players in the world. Currently they act as the Chief Creative Officer and Creative Director for Critical Role, and have always centered their fans in their creative endeavors. When asked about…Read more...

The FDA is set to propose a major change to coronavirus vaccine strategy, according to documents released online on Monday. Instead of the confusing, multi-booster advice currently in place and an “update when possible” free-for-all for pharmaceutical companies, the federal agency is hoping to shift to an annual…Read more...

The “gushiest, mushiest, most romantic day of the year” gets its due in Harley Quinn: A Very Problematic Valentine’s Day special, a festive (and, naturally, foul-mouthed) new special featuring our favorite animated DC lovebirds, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. But it’s not all hearts and moonbeams for these two,…Read more...

Exercise is generally good for your body and brain, no matter how you do it. But research out this month suggests that even brief outdoor activities can be especially stimulating for your noggin. The study found that people’s cognitive function on a test improved after a short walk outside, but not after they walked…Read more...

Messenger users may finally have a fully encrypted chatting service, though these folks may have to wait a few months before every single one of their group chats are finally secure.Read more...

After only two weeks, it should be pretty clear that HBO’s The Last of Us is catching on with audiences. From its spot-on adaptation of elements of the video game, to its dark extensions of that lore, to the terrifying reality of its world, fans and non-fans of the game alike seem to be eating it up. And, in the…Read more...

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One single case coming up in front of the highest court in the U.S. could singularly determine how the internet can operate going forward, and you can bet your bottom dollar there’s a few tech companies, civil liberties groups, and politicians on both sides of the aisle willing to offer an opinion on the matter.Read more...

Last week, astronomers at a Hawaiian observatory spotted a spiral-like structure over Maunakea. A SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage is the likely source of the strange atmospheric feature, as this sort of thing has happened before.

The Webb telescope team has detected water ice and frozen complex molecules in a molecular cloud about 630 light-years from Earth. By the scientists’ measure, the frigid findings are the deepest, coldest yet found in such a cloud.Read more...

In the summer of 2017, reports of American and Canadian diplomats developing an unusual illness while stationed at their embassies in Havana, Cuba first emerged.

The year is 2023 and, yes, we’re still talking about the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Specifically, the disconnect between Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi and J.J. Abrams’ The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker. Star Daisy Ridley has a new movie at Sundance and there, she was asked what she thought about the reveal…Read more...

CNET told staff it would halt the publication of articles generated via artificial intelligence, in a Friday call, according to a report from The Verge. Or, at least, the company said it would pause the AI-article practice “for now,” as it waits out a stream of media criticism.

The Razer Kishi V2 is already an effortless way to upgrade your smartphone into a handheld gaming machine, but a new software update for both the Kishi V2 hardware and its accompanying Nexus app now makes the clamp-on controller compatible with games that only support touchscreen inputs. At least if you’re on Android.

Observers along the U.S. East Coast could be in for a treat this week, as Rocket Lab is set to perform the first launch of an Electron rocket from its new Virginia launch pad.

Elon Musk’s Starlink is getting even closer to a widespread reality. The satellite internet constellation from SpaceX is now steadily beaming information to and from Antarctica, according to scientists currently stationed on the remote continent.

Elon Musk will stand before a nine-person-jury in California today and try to explain a series of tweets from 2018 that could cost the Tesla billions. A group of burned Tesla shareholders are suing Musk, and they argue the billionaire misled investors, costing them tens of millions when he published his now infamous “…Read more...

If you’ve been paying attention to Dungeons & Dragons at all over the past few weeks, it likely hasn’t been because the new D&D film, Honor Among Thieves, is nearing its release date. The real excitement (in the agitated sense, not the happy sense) is about Wizards of the Coast attempting to change its Open Gaming…Read more...

Columbo. Kojak. Murder, She Wrote. These are the shows most commonly mentioned when describing Peacock’s new show, Poker Face. And, it being from Rian Johnson, the mastermind behind the Knives Out films (as well as The Last Jedi), the comparisons are accurate and logical. Poker Face is, at its core, about a woman…Read more...

Spotify informed its employees on Monday that it will be cutting jobs this week, making it the latest in a wave of mass layoffs following hiring surges during the height of the covid-19 pandemic. CEO and Spotify co-founder, Daniel Ek, announced the change in a memo to staff, saying the company was forced to cut costs…Read more...

After soliciting opinions from its users via survey earlier this month, OpenAI has apparently settled on a price of $42 per month for the premium version of ChatGPT, the viral AI chatbot.

New reboots of House and Friday the 13th could be on the way. A few more guest stars join Doctor Who’s next season. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania screenwriter Jeff Loveness teases the Quantum Realm as Marvel’s Jodorowsky’s Dune. Plus, get a tiny sneak peek at Picard’s final season. Spoilers now!

Former President Donald Trump has a problem. He wants to run again in 2024, and he’s going to need another blowout time on social media to give him that public and media attention he entirely craves. The thing is, he has already agreed to a “social media exclusivity term” with Truth Social, the platform he helped get…Read more...

Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's regular roundup of all the coolest nerdy toy news—now on Mondays! This week, we’re taking a look at Michelle Yeoh’s plastic Transformers debut. Also, the perfect collector action figure comes with a Toy Story twist, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’s coolest rides get very tiny.

Alarmed by all the plastic packaging you see when you go shopping? You’re not alone. An interactive art exhibit called The Plastic Bag Store showcases what an entire grocery store may look like if everything—including the food itself—was made of plastic.

If you’ve ever been offered the opportunity to donate money to plant a tree to offset a purchase, you’ve probably guessed that trees naturally store carbon. Forests are an invaluable source of carbon storage around the world; one would assume that forests that have been cut down but are regrowing trees are also…Read more...

About 20 to 40 million years ago, entelodonts—immense, snaggletoothed, pig-like beasts—trotted throughout Eurasia and North America. But despite their 3-foot jaws studded with an alarming number of triangular teeth, these barnyard nightmares apparently had a typically porcine diet.Read more...

The second episode of The Last of Us was all about beginnings: the beginning of the viral outbreak that would basically end the world, and the beginning of Joel and Ellie’s story as the pair, along with Tess, set out into the open world of Boston. Helmed by Last of Us game director and series co-showrunner Neil…Read more...

Every couple of years, Marvel Comics’ Avengers shakes up its roster so the creative team on hand can tell new stories that will eventually rise to cataclysmic heights. Since 2018, Jason Aaron and Ed McGuinness’ run has put Earth’s Mightiest Heroes through the ringer, but that run’s on its way to winding down after the…Read more...

The success of Universal and Blumhouse’s M3GAN during the month can be attributed to a few factors, but it definitely resonated with queer audiences. Maybe it was because of her hair, the way she always looks like she’s throwing shade, or maybe just that she’s doing murders: call it what you want, she found that niche.

At the start of the month, A-1 Pictures premiered Nier Automata Version 1.1a, an animated adaptation of the popular action-RPG. Only a handful of episodes have come out, and now that’ll be all viewers have for the foreseeable future, as the series is taking a little hiatus.

Jason Momoa’s heart still belongs to the seas of DC. Despite everything going on in the DC movie landscape, the actor recently (and boldly) declared that he’ll “always be Aquaman. Ain’t anyone coming in there and taking shit.”

Movies often use alien abductions to set up the extraterrestrial danger to come. In the aftermath of those abductions, the witness or person left behind is often portrayed as an outcast who may or may not be fully right; it’s a well-worn trope, but when it works, it works.

We left 2022 behind in the dust weeks ago, but there’s still awards to be given for the previous year’s top movies and TV shows. It’s the same for anime too, as Crunchyroll finally unveiled the list of nominees for its annual Anime Awards ceremony.

Marvel’s upcoming 2024 flick Captain America: New World Order is mostly comprised of MCU alums such as Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson and Tim Blake Nelson as the Leader. But it’s got a few notable newcomers sprinkled in, such as Harrison Ford’s Thaddeus Ross and Shira Haas as Sabra. The movie’s now gained another cast…Read more...

Earlier in the week, Netflix revealed its slate of tentpole films for 2023, and Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon was featured among that prestigious lineup. Snyder’s movies tend to catch folks’ attention, and that’ll likely be the case for this film, especially as it’s being split into two movies that are being filmed…Read more...

When Kylee Gray first laid eyes on the creature, she couldn’t help it: She gasped aloud. Then, the Australian park ranger picked up the cane toad and the surprises kept coming. Gray simply “couldn’t believe how big and heavy it was.” And she was right to be shocked.Read more...

It’s hard to believe that the mighty, stone-faced U.S. Army would ever adapt adorable cat babies as its representatives, but this is the internet in the year of our lord 2023. Anything is possible.Read more...

Deep in the Stone Age, when Neanderthals still lived alongside Homo sapiens, our ancestors might have been agog at a green light in the night sky. Now, that light—C/2022 E3 (ZTF) (more familiarly, the Green Comet)—is back.Read more...

The Lunar New Year kicks off with centennials for Disney at its parks and Warner Bros. with special global events, but it’s Universal Studios that’s shaking things up with the announcement of two theme experiences opening outside of the coasts. And yes, one is a year-round Halloween Horror Nights project in Sin City’s…Read more...

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At one point in this week’s Immortal X-Men #10, Charles Xavier ponders the the true nature of his X-Men—and how he shaped warriors out of children to police his own people. It’s a chilling re-examination for a “practical idealist” like Charles to make, framing the question of why Mutants are always fighting each other…Read more...

HBO’s Game of Thrones set many of its stars on the path to fame, including Emilia Clarke. Over eight seasons she played Daenerys Targaryen, becoming one of the show’s most memorable and controversial characters. Now that HBO has a prequel series focusing on Dany’s family, you’d think Clarke would be eagerly tuning in,…Read more...