Gizmodo

If you build it, they will come. But there’s an exception to every rule and to every Kevin Costner movie misquote. The European Union reportedly built a nearly $400,000 digital metaverse, and only 6 people showed up to the gala celebrating it. On Tuesday night, journalist Vincent Chadwick went to the party and found…Read more...

Amazon’s CEO announced the company will not remove the antisemitic movie, Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America, from its store or include a disclaimer on the site explaining the context of the film’s discriminatory viewpoints. Instead, the company will rely on customer reviews about the movie as a form of content…Read more...

Twitter apparently thinks everybody’s very satisfied with their Instagram feed that’s so loaded with “suggested” content users have to scroll and scroll and scroll before they see posts from their friends or the folks they follow. Now in the post-Musk world, the blue bird app might be going the same way.Read more...

Nimona, set to be released on Netflix in 2023, is now officially the flagship movie for Annapurna Animation. Robert Baird and Andrew Millstein—both former Disney animation execs—are leading the newly-established animation division at Annapurna Inc., which is best known for its video games, including the 2022…Read more...

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Like it or not, for many people around the world, summer is already a distant memory and winter’s arrival is less than a month away. It’s about to get real unpleasant for those who complain about being cold all the time, but if you plan ahead, you can stay one step ahead by surrounding yourself with gadgets designed…Read more...

Dwayne Johnson just keeps hyping up his new Christmas movie Red One. Elsewhere in the festive cinematic universe, David Harbour’s bloody Santa reigns in new Violent Night pictures. Plus, a new look at Disney+’s manga adaptation Gannibal. ‘Tis the season for some spoilers!

Revenge porn is a form of abuse where someone’s intimate photos are used against them, usually by an ex, to extort, manipulate, or just make their life a living hell. In the age of the Internet, it’s everyone’s worst nightmare, and TikTok and Bumble are trying to do something about it.

Citing cost overruns, NASA has made the decision to terminate the GeoCarb mission, a satellite that would’ve measured greenhouse gas emissions above the Americas. The space agency will now consider newer, alternative ways of monitoring climate-impacting pollution.Read more...

The ease with which we can snap dozens of photos every day has created a problem: Many of us are now carrying around so many digital images that they can easily get forgotten and ignored, gathering dust or whatever the virtual equivalent is as we move on to new adventures and new photos—after all, when is the last…Read more...

It happened in less than 10 seconds, two years ago today: The Arecibo Observatory’s 1,000-foot radio dish collapsed, eliminating one of the world’s most renowned sources of radio observations.Read more...

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX and former CEO, spoke with New York Times and CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin in a highly anticipated interview on Wednesday that had been booked before FTX imploded. And it was a master class in spin.

If there’s a genre that won’t die, it’s survivors doing their best (and sometimes their worst) amid a zombie apocalypse. Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us PlayStation games offer a particularly compelling take on the story—which is why the series is soon making the jump to HBO Max. Today, we’ve got close-up looks at the …Read more...

Do you prefer a happy shot of polar cub frolicking among flowers, or a frightening close-up of a wasp’s attack on a spider? The National History Museum in London is asking for the public to vote on its top nature photos of 2022. On Wednesday, it opened up the People’s Choice portion of its annual Wildlife Photographer…Read more...

In the wake of HBO’s new leadership slashing the Warner Bros. Animation department and its shows on HBO Max and Cartoon Network, the possibility of DC animation finding new life on other streamers has been floated as an ideal outcome. That may now be happening, with a little help from Amazon.Read more...

James Cameron knew everything about his Avatar sequels was going to be epic. The stories, the effects, even the sheer number of them. He also predicted that the first sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, would be about three hours long and made Fox agree to it long before Disney bought the company. He’s a confident man—…Read more...

Disney’s Strange World released over Thanksgiving weekend, and despite mainly solid reviews, it’s on track to be one of the studio’s biggest box office disappointments. Its opening weekend was a bust, and it stopped just shy of earning $12 million in its first three days. As it stands, Disney will ultimately be fine…Read more...

How do you hack a car? Through its infotainment system, apparently.Read more...

A number of El Salvador-based journalists are suing the notorious makers of the prolific Pegasus spyware suite in U.S. court, alleging the company sold the repressive Bukele regime spyware used to hack their phones.Read more...

YouTube users reported the app on iPhones and iPads went down today at about 12:30 p.m., with many saying it repeatedly crashes when they try to open a video. More than 7,500 users reported issues with the app on DownDetector by 3 p.m. and 75 percent of complaints said the issues were with the app itself.Read more...

As portable as the Nintendo Switch is, its dock, used for charging the console and connecting it to a TV, isn’t. It might be convenient for home use, but it’s a pain to travel with, so anyone hoping to connect the Switch to a TV while on the road absolutely needs to add the Genki Covert Dock Mini to their kit.Read more...

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Every day, people all across the world breathe in poison. Outdoor air pollution kills an estimated 7 million people annually, according to the World Health Organization. Most of that toxic, deadly pollution is fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, which comes from industry, agriculture, burning fossil fuels, dust…Read more...

The brain integration tech called Neuralink from chronic over-promiser and under-deliverer Elon Musk has been shrouded in mystery recently, but not for much longer. Musk announced on Twitter today that his company behind the implant, aptly named Neuralink Corp., will be giving us an update on the goings-ons behind…Read more...

You can look at the words “Cocaine Bear” and think you know what they mean. But until you’ve seen those words through the eyes of director Elizabeth Banks, you won’t truly be prepared for what they actually entail.Read more...

A former SpaceX employee said the company is rife with a kind of “frat bro mold” that has no place for any experienced person over 40 years old.Read more...

While promoting his new Disney+ series, Willow, which brings back a beloved character he first played in the 1980s, star Warwick Davis was asked about another beloved character of his from that era, Return of the Jedi’s Wicket the Ewok. Specifically: mockumentary Return of the Ewok, shot behind the scenes of the Star…Read more...

The eruption Mauna Loa in Hawaii has temporarily disrupted one of the most important tools we have to keep track of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere.Read more...

I devoured C.L. Clark’s The Unbroken last year—it was part of the sapphic trifecta that came out in 2021, which also included The Jasmine Throne (Tasha Suri) and She Who Became the Sun (Shelley Parker-Chan). So I am thrilled to be able to reveal not only the cover for the second book in the Magic of the Lost Trilogy,…Read more...

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has signed an executive order officially banning the social media app TikTok from state-owned devices that can access the internet, like phones and laptops. The move comes as concerns over the platform’s alleged infringement on national security grows.Read more...

Chinese officials will begin cracking down on internet users liking social media posts that are deemed illegal or harmful amidst nationwide protests against China’s zero-Covid policy.Read more...

Yesterday, SpaceX performed a static fire test of a prototype booster in which 11 of its 33 Raptor engines were briefly engaged. The private company could very well be on target to launch the fully stacked Starship system next month.Read more...

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Among Twitter’s multiform ongoing disasters, the one that threatens its financial prospects the most is perhaps fleeing advertisers. Elon Musk’s latest complaint on the topic finds him picking a public fight with Apple, suggesting the iPhone maker pulled its Twitter ads because “they hate free speech in America.”…Read more...

One thing that always confused me about Andor was why Fiona Shaw—a Shakespearean actor extraordinaire and multiple award-winning star of stage, screen, and TV—would have accepted the small, muted role of Maarva Andor, Cassian’s adoptive mother. That is, until I saw the series finale, where Shaw’s massive talents were…Read more...

Apple’s poor keyboard design, which the company spent half a decade shoving into its MacBooks has finally, officially, come to bite the company in the posterior, at least financially.Read more...

Satellite operators are often challenged by the horrendous amounts of data that satellites collect and transmit back to Earth. A recent experiment with prototype Amazon Web Services (AWS) software suggests cloud-based solutions, when used way above Earth’s actual clouds, can lessen the data load.

On February 11, astronomers saw a distant flash of light that seemed to come from a source as bright as a quadrillion suns. They alerted other scientists to the event, and several telescopes quickly pivoted to focus on the flash. Now, two teams of researchers have identified its source: a black hole feasting in the…Read more...

Airbnb has launched a new long-term listing service intended to make it easier for would-be-renters to find apartments where they’re allowed to sublet short-term. The site, similar to Zillow or StreetEasy, currently shows listings for about 175 buildings in more than 25 U.S. locations.

Further demonstrating the power of artificial intelligence when it comes to photorealistically altering footage, researchers from Disney have revealed a new aging/de-aging tool that can make an actor look convincingly older or younger, without the need for weeks of complex and expensive visual effects work.

Sorry Apple Music fans, it’s the most wonderful time of the year for insufferable Spotify users—it’s time for Spotify Wrapped.Read more...

Jon Kasdan talks about the importance of the Willow RPG and Ghostbusters 2 to the new series. Jeffrey Dean Morgan teases his arrival on The Boys. Plus, Terry Matalas talks about making Picard’s final season feel even more like Star Trek: The Next Generation. To me, my spoilers!

Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, began erupting earlier this week after nearly 40 years of no activity—the longest quiet period for the volcano in recorded history. I’ve been fascinated by the eruption since it began on Sunday and realized I had a lot of questions, including some that seemed pretty…Read more...

We can now add the European Central Bank to the ranks of high-ranking crypto skeptics, with high-ranking execs going further to say that crypto shouldn’t be legitimized by any government or major financial institution.Read more...

In the near future, police in San Francisco may be able to deploy robots armed with explosives and instruct them to kill a human being.Read more...

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, says he donated equally to both Democratic and Republican politicians before his cryptocurrency platform filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, wiping out billions of dollars in customer deposits. And that fact is going to come as a real shock to right-wing political operatives…Read more...

Eufy, the company behind a series of affordable security cameras I’ve previously suggested over the expensive stuff, is currently in a bit of hot water for its security practices. The company, owned by Anker, purports its products to be one of the few security devices that allow for locally-stored media and don’t need…Read more...

Rolls-Royce and easyJet, a European-based airline, have successfully tested a hydrogen-powered jet engine, the two companies announced in a press release on Tuesday. The pair say the goal is to curb emissions by 2050 and said the ground test marks “the world’s first run of a modern aero engine on hydrogen.”Read more...

You could spend every night of December watching a different Christmas horror movie—heck, there are almost enough Silent Night, Deadly Night entries to fill up an entire week by themselves!—but most of those would hail from America, with maybe a few British and Canadian entries tagging along. This yuletide season, why…Read more...

The influenza virus has finally returned in earnest. Flu season activity is high throughout the U.S., and experts expect many more cases and hospitalizations to occur in the weeks ahead. One bright spot is that this year’s vaccines appear to be well-tuned to the currently circulating flu strains, so they should…Read more...