Gizmodo

No matter what happened on Disney+’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, there was no way it was going to match Mustafar. Back in 2005, audiences saw Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) and Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) fight to the near-death on the lava planet in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. George Lucas’ visuals in the…Read more...

Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's regular round up of the latest toy news on the internet. This week, Transformers finally makes what should’ve been the most obvious toy vehicle crossover ever, Thor: Love and Thunder comes to Hot Toys, and EXO-6's latest Star Trek figure gives us a Borg queen (no, not that one). Plus:…Read more...

Feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of unsettling Supreme Court decisions coming down this summer? You are definitely not alone. While today, most of the nation will be focused on the court’s decision to set the clock on reproductive rights back to Leave It to Beaver hour, Roe v. Wade isn’t the only case this…Read more...

Jordan Peele’s Nope is one of the most anticipated movies of the summer—and that’s something the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind the similarly buzzed-about Get Out and Us anticipated from the start.Read more...

On June 25, 1982, a strange thing happened. Two movies, now considered to be masterpieces of their genres, premiered on the very same day… and tanked. Both received middling to genuinely harsh reviews, both failed to make a significant dent in the box office, and both seemed destined to be minor footnotes in the…Read more...

Sometimes, advance planning just isn’t possible: you need a room in a hotel, and you need it as quickly as possible. Open up your web browser or smartphone and you’ve got a range of options for getting a place to lay your head in the next few days, without also paying over the odds to book it.Read more...

Mobile Suit Gundam is a decades-old franchise examining the costs of war and imperialism over eons of interstellar conflict between decaying, corrupt governments. It’s also an anime show about giant robots made to sell toys, so sometimes you get the very peculiar sensation of one of the series’ most iconic characters …Read more...

Chess, Go, and now—Minecraft. Artificial intelligence models have added a new victory to their gaming kill list.Read more...

Earlier this month, Sega Japan announced a follow-up to its game-filled Mega Drive mini console, but apparently the company’s got more in store for the day the Mega Drive Mini 2 is officially released and today revealed it’s also reviving a classic lap-busting flight stick controller along with it.Read more...

If we take a step back from Obi-Wan Kenobi, the series feels like a narrative waypoint. We know Kenobi’s past, we know how he ends up, so where is the movement in this series? How does Obi-Wan Kenobi push the arc of the galaxy far, far away towards its predetermined end?Read more...

Every time I clicked “next,” I felt a rush: The roll of the dice, the spin of the roulette wheel. What incredible, horrific array of distorted images would the internet spit out at me next? And, more importantly, would I be able to surmise the exact recipe that created such monsters? Could I, once again, beat the…Read more...

Leaks from the pipelines that supply gas to your home and stove are happening more often than you may think—with deadly consequences. A new report from a group of environmental nonprofits finds that, over the past decade, there were around 2,600 reported cases of methane leaks in the U.S. gas pipeline system, adding…Read more...

Although indicated for weeks following the unprecedent leak of Supreme Court documents in May, today’s official ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade—the landmark 1973 case that granted constitutionally protected access to reproductive healthcare—has caused an outpouring of fury. Across the…Read more...

Desperate drought conditions across the United States are messing with drinking water, recreational water use, and even food production. The dry period is making what used to be fertile ground for growing staple crops into parched patches of ground with lower-quality yields. The drought has especially affected corn…Read more...

When Game of Thrones aired, much hay was made about the showmakers’ refusal to allow star Kit Harington to cut his long hair because of his role as Jon Snow, a rule that Harington himself vocally hated. Apparently, the actor has gotten over it since Thrones went off the air in 2019, because it turns out the idea for…Read more...

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Juul Lab’s e-cigarette products have become “tobacco non grata” as federal regulators ordered the company to pull all its vape products from shelves and stop selling its wares Thursday. Just one day later, the vape company filed a last ditch effort to stop themselves from going up in smoke.Read more...

J.K. Rowling found out that all’s fair in love and war the hard and awkward way on a Zoom call. The author of the Harry Potter series spoke to someone she thought was Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. The person behind the call wasn’t the Ukrainian statesman at all, though, rather the Russian comedic duo Vovan…Read more...

Mel Brooks’ brilliant, goofy sci-fi send-up Spaceballs turns 35 years old this week. Watching it now, you realize it’s more than just a movie. It’s a time machine. At least that’s the case for me.Read more...

A beleaguered Twitter really wants its billionaire suitor to get this deal over with already.Read more...

We don’t know for sure just when audiences outside of Japan will be able to feast their eyes on Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno and his Shin Godzilla partner Shinji Higuchi’s riff on Ultraman, one of the most iconic Japanese superheroes of all time. But in the meantime, we can spend the next few days in awe over the…Read more...

Although the sensitivity and performance of microphones has improved quite a bit since Alexander Graham Bell first patented them, they still have one big drawback that researchers from Carnegie Mellon University may have finally overcome by using a pair of run-of-the-mill video cameras.Read more...

Apple’s mixed reality headset will “likely be announced” in January 2023, according to reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. In a state of the VR industry blog posted to Medium, Kuo predicts that Apple’s entry into the space will be a catalyst for the growth of virtual and augmented reality, and dubs the company a…Read more...

NFT-based play-to-earn game Axie Infinity is back, and developers are promising on hands and knees that things will be different now. So please, hop back on your computer and grind, grind for that sweet ether.Read more...

Observations made by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter have allowed scientists to identify the spot where a mystery object—likely a discarded rocket body—smashed into the Moon several months ago.Read more...

The U.S. Supreme Court has officially overturned Roe V. Wade, the landmark ruling that’s been defending abortion rights nationwide since 1973. The court’s decision also includes the repeal of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which separately re-affirmed the contents of Roe in 1992.

Guess who’s back (back again) in Riverdale. Get a new look at Westworld’s return. Plus, Scream 6 expands its cast again, and cryptic teases for the return of American Horror Story. Spoilers now!

For the past 10 years, the Curiosity rover has traveled across the Martian terrain, looking for clues to the planet’s potentially habitable past. Recently, the car-sized robot drove through a transition zone, going from an area that may have once hosted lakes on the surface to one that signifies drier conditions for…Read more...

The Chinese government issued a long list of new guidelines for internet livestreamers and so-called influencers this week, according to a new report from the South China Morning Post and rules posted online. The new rules prohibit influencers from talking about topics like law, medicine, and finance, unless those…Read more...

House Republicans want to drastically change a federal privacy bill that Democrats in the Senate are also threatening to murder. The American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA) is one of the few pieces of privacy legislation to get the time of day on Capitol Hill in the last few years—even if looks now like it’s…Read more...

Marvel Studios’ Thor: Love and Thunder, helmed by Taika Waititi, brings more of the director’s signature wild flair to the franchise with the return of Natalie Portman as Jane Foster—finally wielding Mjolnir as the Mighty Thor—and the addition of Christian Bale as the villainous Gorr the God Butcher.Read more...

If the world were to end, you’d probably want to be as sequestered as possible—preferably underground with a freshly stocked pantry, your loved ones close by, and plenty of stuff to distract you from the fiery inferno outside your door. Apocalypse media loves a good bunker plotline, but the fallout shelters we see in…Read more...

The great crypto implosion of 2022 is starting to look more and more like a classic run on the banks.Read more...

The only real limits to DALL-E Mini are the creativity of your own prompts and its uncanny brushwork. The accessible-to-all AI internet image generator can conjure up blurry, twisted, melting approximations of whatever scenario you can think up. Seinfeld nightmares? You got it. Court room sketches of animals, vehicles…Read more...

Star Wars, on many levels, exists in series of parallels and couplets—a cycle of the rise and defeat of darkness, the fall and rebirth of light, an echo of a story told over and over across generations of families and civilizations. “It’s like poetry, they rhyme,” George Lucas says in the Phantom Menace documentary …Read more...

Legendary composer John Williams is 90 years old. He’s written music for over 150 movies, with several pieces becoming so iconic and recognizable, people know them even if they haven’t seen the film. He’s largely regarded as the greatest composer in the history of cinema, but his career may soon be coming to an end.Read more...

In an attempt to curb local emissions, some in Los Angeles hope to ban the construction of new gas stations in the city.Read more...

Instagram revealed Thursday it was testing two new age verification methods that aim to ensure adolescents experience an age appropriate version of the app.Read more...

It’s always a gamble leaving the house with your smartphone. Even as batteries get bigger, the threat of being out in the world with little time left on your device can create a panic akin to witnessing a natural disaster. And the worst part is when you go to someone to ask for a charging cord only to find that they…Read more...

There’s a good chance you’ve got more than one laptop or desktop computer hooked up to your home wifi, and that means you might well need to share files between these devices. How to set this up has changed quite a bit in recent years, and you’ve now got more options than ever if you need certain files and folders…Read more...

If the story of Netflix’s ongoing financial issues were one of their shows thrown onto its streaming platform, most audiences would already find the whole thing was getting pretty repetitive.Read more...

In yet another example of T-Mobile being The Worst with its customer’s data, the company announced a new money-making scheme this week: selling its customers’ app download data and web browsing history to advertisers.Read more...

The Pentagon’s marching forward with AI weapons of war… responsibly.Read more...

Apple’s proprietary messaging standard hit a snag in the latest iOS 16 beta. The ability to edit and retract messages in iMessage isn’t as seamless as Apple described it would be at its WWDC 2022 keynote. And while that’s to be expected in software that’s still in development, it’s a reminder that even the most…Read more...

The largest wildfire in New Mexico’s history is still burning. The Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon fire, which began in April, has covered more than 341,471 acres so far. The fire has destroyed hundreds of homes, burned through important cultural sites and resources, and forced thousands of people to evacuate—some whom are…Read more...

While fans of smart, snarky sci-fi animation wait for fresh episodes of Rick and Morty (season six when?) and Star Trek: Lower Decks (season three when?), another option will be crash-landing onto Hulu soon: the third installment of Justin Roiland and Mike McMahan’s other show, Solar Opposites.Read more...

The fourth and most recent attempt at a full launch rehearsal of NASA’s Space Launch System went reasonably well, and despite some lingering issues and uncertainties, the agency is sending the rocket back to the hangar for final preparations in advance of its first flight. That inaugural launch will represent Artemis…Read more...

The Spy Kids franchise is back with its original creator Robert Rodriguez in a reboot of his film series for Netflix, with some new faces along for the ride: Deadline reports that Shazam’s Zachary Levi and Miss Bala star Gina Rodriguez have been cast as the spy kids’ spy parents.Read more...

A little bit of legalese goes a long way. The Joe Biden administration striking a single sentence from the Trump-era definition of “habitat” allows the federal government to broadly protect endangered species in any habitat where they could potentially reside.Read more...

A team of scientists discovered a macroscopic species of bacterium living in the waters off Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, shifting the scales of how big we thought bacteria could be. The newly discovered species is named Thiomargarita (sulfur pearl) magnifica, and it is so large that its single cells are visible to the…Read more...