Gizmodo

Only a few months after they officially became available, a security researcher and his friends have managed to pwn California’s new digital license plates.Read more...

Nearly seven months have passed since Meta agreed to settle a Department of Justice lawsuit accusing the company of illegally allowing discrimination against its users based on race and other characteristics in its housing advertising system. Now the company says it’s finally ready to release a new machine learning…Read more...

Star Trek: Picard was represented at the Paramount+ event for the Television Critics’ Association today, but not much news was shared about the series—unsurprisingly, since it kicks off its third and final season next month. Or does it? Despite what it clearly says on the new poster seen below, Jean-Luc Picard himself…Read more...

The iPhone Analytics privacy setting promises that Apple won’t collect usage data if you turn it off. In early November, Gizmodo exclusively reported on research demonstrating that Apple collects that analytics data whether or not the setting is on. We reached out to Apple, but the company didn’t respond.

The AI chat bot ChatGPT can do a lot of things. It can respond to tweets, write science fiction, plan this reporter’s family Christmas, and it’s even slated to act as a lawyer in court. But can a robot provide safe and effective mental health support? A company called Koko decided to find out using the AI to help…Read more...

Architects designing the living space for the upcoming lunar Gateway did their best to make it comfortable for astronauts, but technical constraints forced them to create a tiny, noisy corridor with no windows and barely enough room to stand upright.Read more...

The first Latine and queer-led book to hit #1 on the New York Times Bestsellers list for YA is getting a Netflix series brought to you by music superstar Bad Bunny and Chris Van Dusen (the creator of Bridgerton).Read more...

House Republicans, as early as this week, could have a powerful new panel at their disposal to grill Big Tech companies over long-alleged, but largely unproven accusations of conservative censorship and government collusion. Though Democrats and tech industry experts refute the committee’s premise, the panel could…Read more...

In the quest to find the outer limits of our galaxy, astronomers have discovered over 200 stars that form the Milky Way’s edge, the most distant of which is over one million light-years away—nearly halfway to the Andromeda galaxy.

Instagram announced on Monday that it’s removing the Shop tab from its app, revealing a new navigation bar on the way. The change will come next month and will redirect the Reels tab (because everyone loves Reels!) to the bottom of the screen to replace the Shop tab in addition to the new post button, which will also…Read more...

“The mystery of a missing translator sets three lives on a collision course that will have a ripple effect across the stars in this powerful new novel by award-winning author Ann Leckie,” reads the official release for Translation State. “Masterfully merging space adventure and mystery, and a poignant exploration…Read more...

The Artemis 1 demonstration mission ended with a Pacific Ocean splash on December 11, but the task of evaluating the returned capsule, including its heat shield and internal payloads, has only begun.Read more...

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A new medical advisory suggests doctors ask patients about cannabis use prior to undergoing surgical procedures. Surgical patients are now advised to disclose weed-smoking habits to their doctors who warn of potential adverse effects when combined with anesthesia.Read more...

Analysis of Stephan’s Quintet, a vivid set of galaxies in the distant universe, by two telescopes has revealed details of how the galaxies (and the hydrogen gas within them) interact.Read more...

This week, London-based insurance giant Beazley announced the launch of the first ever “catastrophe bond” for cybersecurity insurance. Given how disastrous the average cyberattack has become, that pretty much tracks.

New year, new you! Time to sign up for a gym membership, hit the weights, join exercise classes, and take your workouts seriously in 2023! But.. what if we told you bloodthirsty maniacs also enjoy the pursuit of fitness—and often pick their targets from among the buff and beautiful? Here are 10 cautionary tales…Read more...

Leave it to Apple to make headlines during CES 2023 even though it wasn’t exhibiting with the rest of the tech world. While we were covering the conference, Apple made moves in iPhone manufacturing. We learned that the iPhone SE probably won’t be getting a refresh next year and that the iPhone 15 has already started…Read more...

She’s already danced her way into the hearts and minds of audiences and now she may be boogieing back to the big screen. Everyone’s new favorite killer doll, M3GAN, debuted in theaters this weekend—and building off great social media buzz and awareness, grossed well above studio projections. As a result, it seems, a…Read more...

Logan Paul is again in the crosshairs of the public after a video series published by a fellow YouTuber accused him of scamming his followers. Shying away from controversy for perhaps the first time in his life, Paul posted a video response five days ago and then promptly scrubbed it from the Internet.Read more...

The federal government may consider a ban on gas stoves thanks to mounting concerns about the health impacts of the appliances, Bloomberg reported Monday.

When it comes to the health of our environment, it can often feel like everything is falling apart. But a recent assessment from the United Nations environment program offers a rare bit of relief: The ozone layer is on track for a full recovery by 2066. The Montreal Protocol, an international treaty to protect our…Read more...

Marvel Studios really moved quickly to find an actor to step into the role of Colonel James Rhodes after Terrence Howard was recast. Before his debut in Iron-Man 2, Don Cheadle explained in a video interview with GQ, his journey to becoming Rhodey involved a fateful call at a most unexpected place.Read more...

China’s Zhurong rover went into hibernation mode in May 2022 to avoid the harsh winter season on Mars, but communication issues, both with the rover and orbiter, suggest something’s now very wrong with the mission.Read more...

After more than a week of successive storms that have brought floods, landslides, and high winds, California is facing down new flood warnings and widespread power outages. The state is set to get more rain today and tomorrow, according to a forecast from the National Weather Service.

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko legalized piracy in the country without requiring the consent of the rights holder last week. The law states it will include computer programs, audiovisual work, musical works, and film, cinema, and entertainment organizations.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 “A Man Walks Into a Bar: In Which More Than Four Decades After My Father’s Reluctant Night of Darts on West 54th Street I Finally Understand What Needs to Be Done” by…Read more...

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Remember Carnival Row? Prime Video’s fantasy-meets-noir about a gritty city where humans oppress the magical creatures who live among them? It last aired in 2019 and a lot has happened since then, including a different and much more high-profile Prime Video fantasy series. But Carnival Row is soon to finish out its…Read more...

Kano, the company behind the $200 Stem Player that was once the only way to buy Ye’s Donda 2 album, is back with a de-Ye-tified version of the device, as well as a new Stem Projector that promises to offer the same remixing tricks for videos, but minus the problematic connection to a celebrity now best known for…Read more...

Seattle’s public school district is suing Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, and their parent companies. The lawsuit, filed on Friday in a U.S. District Court, alleges that these social media sites have been a primary factor in a “youth mental health crisis,” and that these platforms have knowingly…Read more...

Is there anything Riverdale’s scrappy teens haven’t faced by now? How about giant robots and kaiju monsters? Now this new one-shot Archie & Friends: All Action kicks off with a story written by Daniel Kibbelsmith (The Late Show With Stephen Colbert) titled “Super Mecha Teens”—and he binged all of Evangelion to prepare!

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

A 2.7-ton defunct satellite came down over the Bering Sea on January 8 near the Aleutian Islands, and while most of it burned up in the atmosphere, NASA says it’s likely that some pieces reached the surface.Read more...

Meta’s “Supreme Court” says posts calling for the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader do not violate the company’s policies against violent threats and should remain online. The “death to Khamenei” posts, the independent Oversight Board argues, should be viewed as a form of political expression rather than a direct call…Read more...

After some rumors around Jemma Redgrave’s return to the Doctor Who franchise, the BBC has confirmed that she will be reprising her role as fan-favorite Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, Chief Scientific Officer at the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce and daughter of classic Who’s even more beloved UNIT commander,…Read more...

Long a staple technology of electronic book readers, electronic paper is finally starting to expand its reach, finding its way into tablets, watches, and even cars, with a recent collaboration at CES between E Ink and BMW. But CES also saw the reveal of an even stranger device based on electronic paper: a wearable…Read more...

Elon Musk is having trouble letting go. Twitter needed to reassure its own laid off employees that an email sent in the early morning on Saturday was “not a phishing attempt” after it went directly to their spam inboxes. The email, sent from twitterseparation@cptgroup.com rather than from an @twitter.com address,…Read more...

The original 1997 action flick Face/Off isn’t necessarily a good movie by normal standards, but I would contend that it is a perfect movie. So I was understandably wary when it was announced that it would be receiving one of those 25-year+ sequels Hollywood is so intent on making from director Adam Wingard. But…Read more...

It’s sometimes easy to forget Las Vegas is built on a desert. It’s a long, flat plane that angles up toward the rim of multiple mountain ranges, like a high-rimmed plate. And as imagery from space shows, Las Vegas, sitting in the center of that plate, is an immense concentration of bright light surrounded by a stretch…Read more...

The Mega Millions multi-state lottery has hit an estimated jackpot of over $1.1 billion, making the upcoming drawing one of the largest lottery prizes in U.S. history.

Can an artificial intelligence go head-to-head with human lawyers in the highest court in the land? A legal services company says it’s willing to pay $1 million to fuck around and find out.Read more...

Although I thought I was invincible, the dreaded Joy-Con drift has finally come for my Nintendo Switch, which I bought on launch day almost six years ago. I’d be more upset about it were it not for the fact that I just discovered the NYXI Wizard: a replacement dockable Switch controller that looks like a perfect clone…Read more...

So much happened over the weekend! DC entertainment chief James Gunn teased a new, secret TV series. A mysterious cast member was added to the Dune sequel. Plus, Colin Farrell on the Penguin’s surprisingly big Batman future, Joel’s three simple rules for surviving The Last of Us, and much more. Spoilers, get to the…Read more...

A battle for progressive tech has been waged on America’s farmlands, and on Sunday it came to a head. United States farmers using John Deere equipment have the right to repair after the American Farm Bureau Federation and John Deere signed a Memorandum of Understanding.

It is an exceptional time to be a PC hardware enthusiast – especially when it comes to CPUs! This past fall, we saw AMD and Intel trade blows with their latest silicon. With benefits on both sides of the aisle, modern system builders have a tough decision when it comes to deciding on a CPU platform.Read more...

Though you’re likely to hear many odd sounds on the CES showfloor, the last I expected to hear was amateur sing-alongs. Singing Machine, a company that makes karaoke products, announced this week that it’s working with the entertainment company Stingray to turn cars into self-contained karaoke setups.

If you’re the kind of person who spins Rubik’s Cubes not to solve them, but just to feel the satisfying click-clack as you rotate their sides, then the WOWCube may be a more engaging way to fulfill your fidgety tendencies, as long as you’re willing to pay for it.Read more...

CES 2023 marked the annual tech expo’s triumphant return after it went virtual in 2021 and faced lackluster attention in 2022. The general vibe? Well, you know that feeling you get when you had three months to write an essay but only got it done the week it was due? Las Vegas was certainly packed this year, but…Read more...

If you watch anime, you’re used to intros that alternate between being deeply emotional and serious or cheesy and silly as all hell. Sometimes it’s neither of those and is purely running off of good vibes. (Usually this is after the show in question hits a new arc.) Video games don’t always get flashy intros, and it’s…Read more...