Gizmodo

A team of astrophysicists has calculated the number of stellar-mass black holes in the observable universe to be 40 quintillion, accounting for 1% of the total ordinary matter in the universe.

After Donald Trump got canned from virtually every major social media site, conservative pundits and personalities urged the MAGA crowd towards a mass exodus to so-called “alt-tech” venues promising freedom from a supposed plague of left-wing censorship. This hasn’t worked out quite as well as planned, according to…Read more...

When Nicola Bryant left Doctor Who in the mid ‘80s, like a lot of things in Doctor Who circa the mid ‘80s, it was kind of weird. One minute she’s the sixth Doctor’s companion, the next her head’s shaved and a weird ugly green slug man’s gone and implanted his brain in her body. Rude! But now, three and a half decades…Read more...

Temperatures are dropping in central and south Texas Thursday through Friday morning as the state sees a cold front that may send temperatures plummeting as low as 18 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-8 degrees Celsius) in the Permian Basin on Thursday. These unusually chilly temperatures come just before the one-year…Read more...

To be alive in 2022 is to know we could shuffle off this mortal coil at any given moment. To paraphrase the prophet Phoebe Bridgers: All the billboards say the end is near.

Action fans know when you hear the names Iko Uwais and Lewis Tan, it’s time to pay attention. Uwais is the jaw-dropping star of The Raid series who has become a Hollywood mainstay with supporting roles in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Snake Eyes, and Stuber. Tan, best known for Into the Badlands and Deadpool 2, …Read more...

A few years ago, Dungeons & Dragons’ creators promised change was coming to the way the game’s massively popular fifth edition approached race. Years on, there has been iteration—but as the latest sourcebook looks to the game’s future, there’s still plenty of changes to be made.

A band of cybercriminals recently hacked the Red Cross—one of the world’s most well-known charities—in an effort to steal sensitive location and contact information on approximately half a million “highly vulnerable” people.Read more...

The concept of the metaverse has gained an army of supporters over the past year, ranging from Big Tech companies to fashion brands and even dating apps. However, one major tech heavyweight isn’t as convinced: PlayStation inventor Ken Kutaragi.Read more...

The Webb Space Telescope completed its complex mirror deployment this week, and the observatory is getting tantalizingly close to completing its journey to L2, where it will orbit the Sun a million miles away from Earth.

The latest Scream film, which is currently in theaters, is the first in the series not directed by horror legend Wes Craven, who passed away in 2015. It was a burden the new film’s directors, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, had on their minds throughout the entire production.Read more...

With the release of Windows 11, Microsoft took a big step toward modernizing its desktop OS by redesigning outdated interfaces. But when the update arrived, the reception was mixed. Some things looked great, others were wonky (a centered Taskbar, really?!), and then there were some areas that seemed completely…Read more...

L’Oréal is always experimenting with ways to make beauty a more tech-savvy industry, with a personalized makeup dispenser, a home hair dye device, wearable UV sensors, and more. Weird gadgets aside, the company is now partnering with Verily, Google parent Alphabet’s biotech subsidiary, with a goal of making beauty and…Read more...

Just because you can play an instrument doesn’t necessarily mean you have a great singing voice. For vocally-challenged musicians, Casio’s latest digital keyboard features a built-in vocal synthesizer. Basically, a musician can play a voice in the same way they’d play notes.Read more...

The Riverdale incarnation of Archie Comics is so popular, it can be tough sometimes to remember that the original Archie rarely if ever dealt with serial killers, ritual sacrifice, and whatever the hell this was. This means there’s a good chance that you—like me—have been sleeping on the adventures of the even more…Read more...

The debut novella from Persian American author Naseem Jamnia, The Bruising of Qilwa follows a nonbinary refugee who’s just fled a homeland where they faced persecution for being a practitioner of blood magic. Their promising new life faces its first challenge when a strange new disease begins to appear—and blood magic…Read more...

This week, a team at the University of Alabama said they were able to transplant two kidneys from a genetically modified pig into a brain-dead patient, a step beyond previous experiments that transplanted only one pig kidney. The Alabama doctors say the kidneys were able to function as expected and weren’t immediately…Read more...

As effortless as Apple’s Face ID is at allowing you to securely authenticate your identity, the feature comes with several drawbacks, not the least of which being a hideous notch at the top of your iPhone’s screen. Metalenz, a company spun out of Harvard University, believes it has a better approach to facial…Read more...

Critical aid is just now making its way to Tonga nearly five days after an earth-shaking volcanic eruption rattled the small Pacific island nation. And while telephones service and other basic communication are starting to slowly come back online, a major disruption to an undersea fiber-optic table could leave…Read more...

It’s easy to watch this glorious, six-minute-long gameplay video of TT Games’ much-anticipated game Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga and think, “This is definitely worth the wait.” Hell, we said the same thing back in August of 2021, when the second trailer arrived. Unfortunately, things regarding the game have…Read more...

Walmart, Target, Home Depot, and other box stores are home to acres and acres of sweet, flat rooftop space. That veritable sheet metal prairie is ripe for many uses, but there may be none better than as solar farms.Read more...

Apple might not be interested in the “metaverse” just yet, but that won’t stop its products from finding their way in.

Facebook parent company Meta might be the latest entrant into the wild world of non-fungible tokens. Citing “several people familiar with the matter,” a new report in the Financial Times claims that teams across Facebook and Instagram are planning for features that would allow users to display the tokens on their…Read more...

Aardman Animations’ relationship with Netflix—from Shaun the Sheep to last year’s Robin Robin—has been in overdrive since the announcement of a long-awaited sequel to the studio’s poultry-liberation epic Chicken Run. Now the streamer and the worker-owned animation studio are teaming up to return to Aardman’s most…Read more...

Jack Quaid promises The Boys will continue to be even more messed up in season 3. The shadow of Q lingers in a new Star Trek: Picard poster. Plus, what’s to come on Legends of Tomorrow and Batwoman. Spoilers, away!

The iPad is a capable laptop replacement in many ways, and iPadOS multitasking features and Apple’s Magic Keyboard take that to the next level. iPadOS differs from iOS in several ways, and includes keyboard shortcuts and trackpad gestures that unlock functionality you can’t get on an iPhone.Read more...

In the 1950s, a visionary college student might have pursued a degree in computer science, and helped create our modern digital world. In the 1990s, that same student might have studied biotechnology, and developed genetic engineering techniques that are solving today’s health crises.

Trading platform Crypto.com lost about $34 million worth of cryptocurrency in a hack on Monday, according to a new blog post by the company published overnight. The company had previously declined to say much about the hack, which forced users to stop withdrawals for most of the day, and only reassured customers they…Read more...

Havana Syndrome, the name for a variety of illnesses reported by U.S. spies and diplomats working overseas, isn’t caused by Russia or any other foreign adversary, according to an interim report by the Central Intelligence Agency covered by multiple news agencies late Wednesday. But people who insist Havana Syndrome is…Read more...

The Department of Defense will spend tens of millions of dollars this year on a number of “surveillance blimps”—high-tech balloons that will be sent to the U.S. border with Mexico for the purposes of ferreting out drug smugglers.Read more...

Star Wars shows are generally very secretive about what’s coming in the future. However, the latest episode of The Book of Boba Fett gave its audience as clear a clue as one can hear. It happened at the end of the fourth episode, “The Gathering Storm,” which means we’re going to have to talk spoilers.Read more...

Binge-watching your favorite series isn’t so good for your circulation, a new review of the research suggests. The study found that people who regularly watched TV four or more hours a day were more likely to develop a blood clotting condition that can lead to serious health problems and even death. What’s more, this…Read more...

Google on Wednesday took the next steps in its plan to bring Android games to PCs, opening sign-ups in select regions to beta test the feature a year after it was first announced.

AT&T and Verizon activated their C-band 5G spectrum today, a move that marks the long-awaited arrival of true 5G speeds for hundreds of millions of customers.

The 33rd annual GLAAD Media Award nominations are here, and—as is often the case—sci-fi and fantasy projects are well-represented on the list. Dubbed by the organization as “the most visible annual LGBTQ awards show in the world,” the event honors fair representations of LGBTQ issues and people in settings both…Read more...

Android tablets are a dime a dozen, but finding one that’s a real iPad rival is like scouring for a diamond in the rough. That’s why Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, which was unexpectedly leaked on an official Bixby support page, looks so intriguing.

Online tax filers will soon be required to submit a selfie to a third-party identity verification company using facial recognition tech in order to file their taxes or make IRS payments online.Read more...

After what’s felt like ages of waiting, Amazon revealed a little more about its plans for its Lord of the Rings prequel streaming series today, namely, its name: The Rings of Power. Sauron’s plans to ensorcell the Elves, Dwarves, and realms of Men with his magical trinkets has been at the heart of Tolkien’s universe…Read more...

Where the Cyber Ninjas tried to prove Donald Trump won the 2020 election and immediately faceplanted, a crowdsourced effort named Polaris Recount is bravely charging ahead. Unsurprisingly, given the complete and total lack of evidence that such fraud actually occurred during the race, history is repeating itself.

Halloween Ends finds itself another cast member. Shazam! Fury of the Gods producer Peter Safran teases the sequel’s bigger scope. Ming-Na Wen hopes fans will see The Book of Boba Fett’s bigger picture when it’s over. Plus, what’s coming on Superman & Lois and Naomi. Spoilers now!

AMD gave us only a sneak peek of the Radeon RX 6500 XT and RX 6400 when the chipmaker revealed the desktop graphics cards at CES earlier this year, but now that they are officially available—for what will likely be an extremely short time (at retail prices, at least)—we’re finally seeing the complete picture.

Hackers who made off with roughly $15 million in ethereum from Crypto.com are attempting to launder the funds through a so-called ethereum “mixer,” known as Tornado Cash, according to a new report from crypto security company Peck Shield. Mixers run interference on the blockchain to make it difficult for outsiders to…Read more...

Roughly 400 million high-quality N95 masks will be made available to Americans for free from the Strategic National Stockpile, according to an announcement from the White House picked up by countless news outlets early Wednesday. And while that’s great news, the question remains: Why did it take so long?

Former Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel star Charisma Carpenter has responded to recent comments from the creator of those shows, Joss Whedon. And she doesn’t seem too happy.Read more...

A set of gold and silver tubes found 125 years ago in the northern Caucasus are likely drinking straws, not scepters, according to a re-analysis of the ancient artifacts.

Last night, Marvel Studios properly lifted the lid on its next Disney+ streaming series, Moon Knight, starring Oscar Isaac as the titular avatar of moonlit justice. But the character of Moon Knight is arguably perhaps one of the more esoteric of the heroes coming in the studio’s slate this year—and with a very…Read more...

An app that visitors to the 2022 Olympics Games in Beijing are obligated to download is also a cybersecurity nightmare that threatens to expose much of the data that it collects, according to a new report.Read more...

Google has reportedly changed Google Assistant’s white noise audio track, and folks who rely on it to fall asleep are extremely unhappy about it.

California prosecutors have issued the first felony charge for a person using Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance feature. Two counts of vehicular manslaughter were levied against the driver who allegedly had Autopilot engaged when his vehicle ran a red light and killed two people in 2019. The charges, first reported…Read more...

Vampires, werewolves, rock bands, superheroes, even Nazis. Taika Waititi has made all of them funny. And next he’ll try and do it so on the seven seas with a very offbeat band of pirates.Read more...