Gizmodo

As part of a new feature that’s expected to get a wider release later this fall, Google’s new “Quick Phrases” will soon allow people to perform a ton of voice commands without saying “OK, Google” or “Hey Google,” first.Read more...

A WandaVision spinoff with breakout evil witch of 2021, Agatha Harkness? Now this is chaos magic, Wanda.Read more...

While What If’s season one finale finally brought into the fold one of its most promising characters, a variant of Gamora known for slaying Thanos, there was something rather curious about how the character arrived. As planned-out in advance as Marvel projects tend to be, there was no way that What If’s creative team…Read more...

It’s been rumored for a while, but today Lego officially revealed the largest model it’s ever released: a replica of the famed and ill-fated Titanic that measures over four-and-a-half feet long when fully assembled. It’s a stunning replica—both inside and out—because it breaks into multiple sections to reveal its…Read more...

DC Comics superstar writer Scott Snyder feels like a man spinning a billion plates at once, but the last few weeks have proven monumentally busy. Having launched his own substack about comics writing and announced one of multiple new original series for Comixology Originals with long-time collaborator Greg Capullo,…Read more...

Marvel’s She-Hulk writer’s room adds a Robot Chicken alumni. Netflix kicks off its holiday programming push with A Boy Called Christmas. Plus Riverdale hypes its season six return by going somehow even more bonkers than usual. To me, my spoilers!

Got a rebellious pup that won’t sit still for photos in highly Instagrammable locales without a collar and leash? The next version of Photoshop Elements will include intelligent tools that make it easy to erase unsightly elements on your pets with just a couple of simple brush strokes.Read more...

I’ve been on a quest to find the perfect E Ink device that combines all the best features and applications of electronic ink while still being small enough that I’ll actually want to carry it around all day. For my needs, that device is the new Onyx Boox Nova Air, which packs enough flexibility to make it more than…Read more...

If you just bought a brand new iPhone 13, you might want to check out your options in Settings. If you restored your new phone from a backup of your old one, you may want to fine-tune it to better suit your needs. If you’re setting up the iPhone 13 as a brand new phone, well, you’ll have plenty to dive into. The iOS…Read more...

Pharmaceutical firm Moderna plans to build a vaccine factory in Africa that will cost as much as $500 million, according to a press release from the company early Thursday. Moderna will soon start the process of site selection on the continent and it’s already been narrowed down to about five unnamed countries,…Read more...

A phone system glitch linked to Verizon made it impossible for countless customers to call their banks and other companies.

The U.S. Justice Department has announced the launch of a new investigative team focused on disrupting “criminal misuse” of cryptocurrency. Dubbed the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, or NCET, for short, the team will target crooked crypto exchanges, money launderers, and other unsavory elements that occupy…Read more...

From the looks of this trailer, documentary series The Center Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek will consist mostly of interviews with cast and crew members across the beloved, long-running franchise—providing sort of an oral history of the show. A spicy oral history of the show, if the intriguingly fun soundbites in its…Read more...

The European Parliament has called for EU lawmakers to institute a ban on law enforcement’s use of facial recognition, as well as other surveillance tools commonly used in the course of algorithm-driven predictive policing.Read more...

Though it’s been some time since Legends of Tomorrow counted villain-turned-begrudging hero Captain Cold among its ranks following his death in the show’s season one finale, it’s never taken all that much for characters to be miraculously resurrected in the CW’s universe of DC superhero shows.Read more...

Scientists have shown that an obsidian hand-mirror once owned by the Renaissance polymath John Dee has Aztec origins, thus confirming a longstanding mystery.

Though director William Eubank’s Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin is meant to be a narrative reboot separate from the overarching tale established in the original films, the movie’s latest trailer definitely makes it seem like the new story’s going to have quite a few unsettling details in common with its…Read more...

Deleting a third-party app on your Apple device isn’t exactly rocket science—in fact, it’s as easy as clicking a button. But just because you delete the app doesn’t mean that the account you set up within that app is gone for good. Starting Jan. 31, 2022, Apple will be requiring third-party developers to streamline…Read more...

The past two years have seen a huge amount of buyouts and mergers in the gaming industry, and now GN—parent company of well-known audio brand Jabra—has agreed to purchase gaming peripheral maker SteelSeries.

As vaccination rates have increased, I’ve been able to do something in the past few weeks I’ve not been able to do for over a year and a half: go sit in a dark room for several hours that is not in my own house, and see a movie. Things have changed, of course—there are still masks (albeit fewer than you’d hope),…Read more...

Facebook is in the midst of its biggest crisis to date—an impressive feat, no doubt, given the litany of crises preceding it. It’s a safe bet that trust in the company has hit its lowest point in its 17-year history. Still, anyone second-guessing the significance of the recent whistleblower revelations about Facebook…Read more...

The fight against malaria, one of the world’s worst diseases for decades, is likely to get much easier as the World Health Organization has endorsed the wide use of a malaria vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline, the first ever to win such approval. The vaccine will be recommended for children in sub-Saharan Africa…Read more...

Medical device maker Medtronic has expanded its recall of remote controllers for its MiniMed 508 and MiniMed Paradigm insulin pumps. The reason? The devices are a potential cybersecurity risk. According to the Food and Drug Administration, unauthorized people could hijack the devices to alter how much insulin is…Read more...

The Russian government is moving to clamp down on reporting about its state space corporation Roscosmos or its space program in general, Ars Technica first reported on Wednesday, by forcing any journalists who touch a laundry list of topics to declare themselves as “foreign agents.”

The Hollywood Reporter published a story today about the industry’s divided and frustrated response to keeping casts and crews safe during filming when certain members of projects forgo receiving covid-19 vaccinations—and the chaos positive cases are having on productions over and over. The trade alleged that Letitia…Read more...

A There Will Be Blood-style drama unfolds in Canada, where a Bitcoin mining operation illegally tapped an unused natural gas well near a wealthy neighborhood in Alberta. The company Link Global might have gotten away with pilfering gas, if not for noise complaints from area hot tub owners. This story has everything.

Though Wayne Family Adventures, DC and Webtoon’s weekly comic that follows the adventures of Batman and his unruly children, only began publishing online a few weeks ago, the Webtoon-exclusive series quickly amassed the sort of gargantuan readership that traditional comics publishers dream about.Read more...

One America News, the network for conservatives that have wriggled down the far-right rabbit hole so deep they think Fox News is anti-Donald Trump propaganda, is reportedly largely run on the dime of AT&T and its former subsidiary DirecTV.

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen has rocked the company with distrubing revelations about how the social media giant knows it harms its users, speaking to the media and in front of members of Congress this week to lay out the case that Facebook is doing damage to its users.

Surprisingly, the season one finale of Marvel’s animated Disney+ series—“What If... the Watcher Broke His Oath?”—managed to bring the show’s debut to a satisfying close by foregoing any pretense of being about what might happen. Instead, the episode shifts focus to what’s actually happening in the moment... at a time…Read more...

Archaeologists recently analyzed partially cremated remains from a necropolis on the north side of Ischia, a volcanic island off the coast of Italy. In new research published in PLoS ONE, the team reveals that a tomb once thought to belong to one person actually contained three.Read more...

A newly developed bipedal robot can seamlessly switch between walking and flying, and it’s the combination of these two skills that really sets this futuristic machine apart.

After a brief hiatus last year due to, y’know, *gestures wildly at the state of The Earth*, io9's mostly-annual Halloween Costume Show is back and ready for action—and most importantly, for you!

In a glimpse of what could bring a big boost to mobile graphics, Samsung just teased an image showing support for ray tracing on one of its upcoming Exynos processors.Read more...

A woman who was hospitalized with a life-threatening disease in 2019 has her aquarium to blame, say experts with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a recent report, they detail how her freshwater home aquarium was contaminated by the same bacteria that caused her illness, known as melioidosis. Hers is…Read more...

Paranoid about spilling food or drinks on your computer or keyboard? You can always not eat at your desk, but back here in reality, a more complicated solution is to build yourself a cup wrapped in a working version of Google’s mobile Gboard keyboard. After all, if the keyboard is already in hand while you’re…Read more...

There’s a very good reason why Dune, one of the most influential sci-fi books of all time, has never had a great adaptation. Basically, it’s just a lot. The story is set across multiple planets; follows several families, factions, and belief systems; and is less about action than it is about persuasion—diplomacy or…Read more...

The Flanagan Cinematic Boo-niverse is continuing to expand at Netflix. After his latest television series, Midnight Mass, the streamer has announced Mike Flanagan’s involvement in two more frightful works.

When we first got a glimpse of Locke & Key season two, we were teased that the Locke kids’ acceptance as the fabled guardians of the magical keys and their family estate was going to create some pretty big problems for them—and a sinister threat was already in their midst. Now, we can see just how bad that’s going to…Read more...

If you’re a regular Google Maps user, you might be able to use the app to make less emissions-intensive choices in the future. Google announced on Wednesday that it is adding options to show drivers less carbon-intensive routes on the Maps app, along with a slew of other individual-focused tools like showing the…Read more...

It’s official: 480 Otis is 2021's burliest bear. Bow down.

Back at WWDC, Apple said expanded FindMy integration was coming for AirPods in iOS 15. Now, Apple is delivering on that promise with a firmware update that gives you more options if you lose track of your AirPods Pro or AirPods Max.Read more...

It feels like Joby’s GorillaPod tripods have been around unchanged since the dawn of time—but for good reason. Their design is very clever, with flexible legs that hold any shape allowing them to grip random objects for the ultimate flexibility in where a photographer or videographer can perch their camera. Fifteen…Read more...

Keanu Reeves hypes up the movie spin on his comic-collaboration BRZKR. AMC’s Interview With the Vampire has found its Claudia. Plus, new footage from Eternals, and what’s next on Star Trek: Lower Decks. Spoilers now!

The real reason many people buy houses isn’t for the extra room or because it’s a sound financial investment. It’s so that every October they have a place to go completely overboard with Halloween decorations and turn their front lawns into haunted horrorscapes.

The Windows 11 rollout is underway, with brand new PCs and newer hardware the first in line. If you’re on an older machine, you might have to wait a few months to see an option to upgrade.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg released a new statement defending his company late Tuesday in the wake of U.S. Senate testimony from whistleblower Frances Haugen. And while comparing Facebook in the 2020s to Big Tobacco in the 1990s isn’t new, it really is striking to see Zuck make the same arguments that companies like…Read more...

Polar’s always been a brand for the more hardcore fitness buffs among us. Case in point: When everyone was hunkering down at home last year, the company launched three new fitness smartwatches. Truly inspirational. Now, in 2021, Polar is doubling down on the fact that we’re sick of staying at home by launching yet…Read more...

A new study might provide some comfort to those who suffer from allergies. The research found little evidence that having allergies directly raises the risk of developing mental health problems, or vice-versa, something that previous research had suggested might be the case. Though it’s still possible that treating…Read more...

Members of the hacker collective Anonymous claim to have leaked a large cache of data belonging to the Republican Party of Texas. The leak, the size of which is unclear, is said to include the “private documents” of the organization.Read more...