Gizmodo

Alex Jones, the bloviating founder of conspiracy website InfoWars, has lost two defamation lawsuits over his hoax claims about the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting—having bungled the case so hard the judge ruled he must pay up by default.Read more...

Microsoft has already confirmed that Office 2021 will launch on Oct. 5, along with Windows 11, but now we know more about its new features—and, most importantly, how much it will cost you.

Well, the iPhone 13 has been on sale for a whole week, which means the iPhone 14 rumors are about to ramp up. Case in point: New rumors (sob) indicate that the iPhone 14 may have a 2TB storage option.Read more...

Biographies and documentaries about actors tend to focus on scandalous stuff—their tumultuous family life, tragedies, addiction problems...whatever personal turmoil helped (or hindered) them as they built their career. Dark Shadows and Beyond: The Jonathan Frid Story has none of that. Instead, it offers a thoroughly…Read more...

A team of conservation scientists recently went through 230-year-old correspondence between Marie Antoinette and her close friend (and rumored lover) Axel von Fersen, a Swedish count, and were able to reveal redacted portions of eight letters exchanged between the two.

Boats: They are vessels of ancient Solomon Islanders who charted a now-fantastical journey 2,000 miles into the unknown. They contain drunk people while idling with the engine running on the East River as the toilet floods the lower deck, penetrating nauseated passengers’ nostrils with sewage, an event which I can…Read more...

A scathing essay written by nearly two dozen current and former Blue Origin employees paints a grim picture of work conditions at the company and how the burgeoning space race among billionaires is compromising flight safety.

For the past several years, we’ve been delighted to share a preview of Mark Russell and Peter Snejbjerg’s “Monster Serials,” their ongoing tale of the Marquis du Cocoa and other copyright-infringement-free icons of breakfast cereal. Last year, the Marquis and his wife hosted the ousted king of the Leprechauns. The…Read more...

Research shows that kids under the age of 7 can’t recognize that advertisements are trying to sell them something. One analysis found that even middle school kids can’t distinguish between news stories and advertorials.Read more...

We’ve all been spammed by robocalls and faced the threat of SIM swap attacks for years, and now the FCC is finally planning to do something about it.Read more...

McFarlane Toys has been releasing The Witcher action figures for a little while now, but they’ve all been based on The Witcher III: Wild Hunt video game. It was a smash hit, but let’s be honest with ourselves—all we’ve really been waiting for are toys based on Netflix’s wonderful live-action adaptation of The Witcher,…Read more...

Oil will begin flowing through the controversial Line 3 pipeline on Friday, after years of legal challenges and resistance that saw more than 900 arrests since construction began in November.Read more...

There’s at least one player who’s not particularly happy about the success of the Netflix hit Squid Game—and that’s SK Broadband, a South Korean internet provider. According to Reuters, the ISP is suing Netflix to pay up for using so much bandwidth and the maintenance costs due to traffic surges stemming from the…Read more...

A pill that can effectively prevent the worst outcomes of covid-19 may finally be on the way.Read more...

In Disney’s upcoming animated feature Encanto—from co-directors Byron Howard and Jared Bush—almost every member of the Madrigal family is blessed with a unique ability that comes from the powerful connection to the magic that their family tree as a whole has always had. So growing up without powers is hard for Mirabel…Read more...

After a drawn-out public showdown over a contract dispute that could have resulted in 14 NBC Universal channels being yanked from YouTube TV, the two services announced in a Thursday night statement that they’ve worked out a short-term fix.

In 2016, Mark Rober created what was easily the world’s largest dart blaster capable of launching foam projectiles at speeds of up to 40 MPH. Five years later, Michael Pick has come along to steal that record from Rober with a monstrously massive dart rifle powerful enough to tear soda cans to shreds.Read more...

There are few places I’d rather be less than the eye of a Category 4 storm in the middle of the ocean. But I have always been curious to know what it would be like, what with monster waves, squalls of rain, and whipping winds turning the ocean into a frothy mess.Read more...

An interesting result in the long-running Friday the 13th lawsuit has emerged. Chris Columbus will no longer direct Five Nights at Freddy’s. Rob Zombie teases The Munsters’ haunted abode. Plus, Doom Patrol takes on Dada, and a new look at R.L. Stine’s Disney+ horror anthology. Spoilers get!

Many of us experience a moment of sheer terror when we accidentally drop our phones, even when it’s wrapped in a protective case. But the makers of the AER TYP want us to deliberately throw our smartphones like a football, and promise they’ll survive the flight, even in the event of a crash landing.

Europe’s energy market has descended into chaos. A gas shortage has sent prices spiraling to shocking highs with knock-on impacts on everything from electricity to meat production.Read more...

When Tau Bennett was a child, he started as a puppet builder, making one monstrously hilarious Frankenstein after the next, he got to explore his imagination in a way many kids don’t get to. It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise when at the ripe age of 16, he got to learn from some of the top puppeteers in the…Read more...

Try as it might, TCL is having a hard time expanding its presence outside of TVs, despite owning notable phone brands like Alcatel, Blackberry, and Palm. It’s tough to be a major player in a smartphone market dominated by Apple and Samsung. Even LG got out of the game. But TCL is still trying, and for the second year…Read more...

Spooky Season is upon us! Growing up, I was terrified of scary movies. These days, the stuff of my nightmares is mundane by comparison, though no less disconcerting. Namely, those off-the-wall, bizarre products that seem to exist for no other reason than to leave you wondering, “Why is this a thing?”

Film distributor Kino Lorber is launching a movie streaming service today called Kino Cult, with dozens of genre movies just in time for the spooky season. The service is completely free and supported by ads, with new titles promised each month.

It’s not just you. Slack has been down for many people worldwide since late Thursday afternoon and some people are still struggling to access the messaging service via mobile app or even just slack.com on early Friday morning.

More than two weeks after Apple proudly unveiled its new Apple Watch Series 7, fans have still not gotten their hands on the device. This is because the company did not issue a specific release date, saying cryptically that the device would be “available later this fall.” That might be changing.Read more...

Although people got excited when the USB-C’s power output more than doubled from 100 watts to 240 watts earlier this year, there was still a mighty big problem at hand: How would consumers be able to tell these new USB-C cables apart from the old ones?Read more...

One of Hollywood’s most contentious, high-stakes lawsuits of late—between Marvel star Scarlett Johansson and Disney, in the wake of Black Widow’s release on Disney+—has been settled. The suit, filed in late July, alleged that the pivot to both theatrical and streaming releases (via Disney+’s “Premiere Access”) …Read more...

After renewed outrage over a hacking scandal involving former federal operatives, U.S. lawmakers are considering adopting new restrictions that would limit the kinds of work ex-intelligence officials could do for foreign governments after leaving the service.Read more...

The world of Bungie’s shooter-MMO Destiny has evolved significantly since it first touched down in 2014. The game’s seasonal models that debuted with 2019's Shadowkeep expansion have featured their own mini-stories that have made the original black-and-white narrative the game launched with more complicated. Where…Read more...

Police officers are killing more Americans every year than official statistics indicate, new research out Thursday concludes. The study compared government data to other records maintained by outside organizations and found a wide gap, suggesting that more than half of police killings have been unreported by the…Read more...

Shudder’s Behind the Monsters is a documentary series paying tribute to some of the biggest and most bloodthirsty names in the game. The first trailer is here and it looks like a lot of fun, with Tom Savini, Heather Langenkamp, Doug Bradley, Tony Todd, and other well-known figures chiming in to share their experience…Read more...

Earlier this week, Amazon unleashed a cute robot nightmare in the form of Astro, a $1,000 robot that patrols your home, though some leaked documents hint it’s basically a dumb but invasive spy. Let’s face it, this little guy is doomed. How do we know? Because if you’ve been around gadgets long enough, we’ve seen this…Read more...

If you’re familiar at all with so-called Havana syndrome—the mysterious swath of neural disorders affecting a growing number of U.S. diplomats working abroad—you’re probably familiar with some of the wild speculation surrounding the potential source of the illness. At least for now, we can take microwave weapons off…Read more...

The James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to launch later this year, and NASA has no intention to rename the instrument despite complaints that it’s named after a man who presided over the firings of gay and lesbian government employees, NPR reports.

If you’re planning to upgrade your existing Nest cameras to the refreshed outdoor camera or battery-powered doorbell, a warning: If you have any old Nest hardware up and running, you’ll have to use two apps to manage the past Nests with the latest ones. It’s an issue I came across while reviewing the cameras, and it’s…Read more...

Jodie Whittaker is leaving Doctor Who. But she isn’t, at least not yet. The 13th Doctor is still in residence for another year, and the actor is still filming the special episodes that will form her farewell, before a new Doctor and a new (okay, new-ish) showrunner takes control of the TARDIS. Which makes the fact…Read more...

Aside from text-based adventures, Pong is just about the simplest video game you can imagine. The creators of Light Pong decided it could be even simpler, however, and in the process of reducing Pong from two dimensions down to just one, they’ve managed to create a game that somehow actually looks more fun to play…Read more...

Dinosaur researchers working on extremely well-preserved remains from the Jehol Biota in northeastern China recently reported that they had detected fossilized biomolecules in a duck-billed dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous.

British computer scientists have discovered a way to remotely hijack contactless Visa payments on a locked iPhone. Proper delivery of the exploit could allow a savvy hacker to make hefty financial transactions via the locked device without ever touching it or even being nearby.Read more...

Okay, it’s not news about the second season of the Amazon TV series, but it’s pretty damn good news anyway. Doctor Who’s David Tennant will voice the demon Crowley while The Good Fight’s Michael Sheen will voice the angel Aziraphale in an all-new recording of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s apocalyptic dark comedy …Read more...

A Senate hearing spurred on by a company whistleblower commenced Thursday with a barrage of allegations against Facebook, the company now implicated in burying internal research portraying its product Instagram as a blight on the mental health of teen users.

October is here! The days are shorter, you’ve already started plotting out your Halloween costume, and it’s time to re-stock your reading list for the weeks ahead. We’ve got you covered with tales of pirates, haunted houses, witches, wizards, magicians, dragons, evil farm animals, interstellar battles, and so much…Read more...

Many of the Bitcoin ATMs that have popped up everywhere from gas stations and smoke shops to bars and malls across the U.S. have major security vulnerabilities that render them susceptible to hackers, according to a new report by security researchers with crypto exchange Kraken.Read more...

The Canary Islands have a new partner in volcanic-erupting crime. On Wednesday afternoon local time, Hawaii’s Kīlauea volcano began to spew lava.Read more...

In the wake of The Mandalordian’s Gina Carano being dismissed from the show after posting anti-Semitic memes, spreading election conspiracy theories, and mocking the usage of pronouns, Star Wars fans wasted no time speculating who might replace the actress if her character, Cara Dune, was going to return to the series…Read more...

The Ingenuity helicopter will need to wait a couple of weeks for its next flight, as Mars is fully on the far side of the Sun from Earth, disrupting communications with spacecraft stationed there. But all solar conjunctions aside, the helicopter has another issue: It needs to adapt to a changing atmosphere.

Spooky season is upon us! For some that might mean a lot of stressful scares and gory horror, but for those among us who are a little more cowardly when it comes to getting in the seasonal spirit, alternate means are required. Thankfully, The Simpsons has been filling my Halloween need for the best part of three…Read more...

As part of a settlement agreement, Amazon will be compelled to pay an unspecified amount in back wages to two former workers who claimed they were unfairly fired from the company in retaliation for workplace activism.