Gizmodo

The Federal Trade Commission put health apps on notice this week with a brand new policy statement aimed at protecting the sometimes super-sensitive data that they collect from their users. In a 3-2 vote held on Wednesday, the Commission agreed to clarify a decade-old rule in order to mandate that these apps—and any…Read more...

We’ve got screams. We’ve got dark, sinister tunnels. We’ve got severed heads, walking corpses, coffins doing things they definitely should not be doing, strange weapons, and explosions. All of it’s captured from the grainy, glitchy, shaky-as-hell point of view of a freaked-out filmer who somehow manages to hold onto…Read more...

The former employer of “RoaringKitty,” the online trader who helped spark off a Reddit-fueled short squeeze on hedge funds betting against Gamestop stock, has agreed to shell out a $4 million fine.Read more...

The peaks of Mount Shasta are typically covered in snow year-round, but intense heat and extreme drought have rendered the mountain unrecognizable. Experts worry that glaciers on the dormant volcano are at risk of disappearing forever, should climate trends continue.Read more...

The new version of Microsoft Office for Windows and macOS is dropping Oct. 5—the same day Microsoft will officially release Windows 11.

On Tuesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced it was charging App Annie—a major mobile data provider—with securities fraud, alleging that the California-based company made “material misrepresentations” to customers and investment firms over the data it was collecting and pawning off. App Annie has…Read more...

While the Sacred Timeline’s Erik Killmonger may be dead, a variant is alive and kicking in the latest episode of Disney+ and Marvel’s animated What If series. Michael B. Jordan reprises his role as the prodigal Wakandan son in “What If... Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?”, a story that condenses and remixes the beats…Read more...

Democratic lawmakers are calling on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to abandon his plans to launch an “Instagram for Kids,” citing internal research by the company declaring the platform has inflamed mental-health problems, including suicidal ideation, among its teenage users; most notably, young girls.Read more...

New data from the UK suggests that some vaccinated people, particularly seniors, experience a greater loss in protection over time against covid-19 symptoms and severe illness than the general public. The findings were enough for the country’s vaccine experts to recommend booster shots for higher-risk groups,…Read more...

Movies studios are usually coy about films with surprise post-credit sequences, but apparently not Sony in 2021. Earlier today, rumors began circulating online about one such scene in the studio’s Marvel superhero sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage—and by this afternoon, the studio had turned a tweet about it into a…Read more...

When Melissa Breyer packed up her bag on Monday night for her Tuesday morning volunteer shift with NYC Audubon, she decided to seriously prepare.

An international team of researchers has reported the discovery of hand and foot prints from Quesang, in the Tibetan Plateau. The fossil impressions, which date to between 169,000 and 226,000 years ago and seem to have been created intentionally, could represent the earliest known art of its kind.Read more...

Look, I admit that sweaty thumbs aren’t even one of my top 10 concerns while gaming, but for those worried about thumb sweat wrecking your KDA in Fortnite or Call of Duty: Mobile (????), then Razer’s got you covered.Read more...

In a way, Doctor Who getting it right out of the gate with the Daleks—a monster design so instantly iconic it sparked a wave of hysteria that helped catapult the show to radical success—means that any attempt at recapturing that is always going to stumble out of the gate. But hoo boy did the “‘stars” of the series’…Read more...

Entering a password each time you need to access an account can get cumbersome over time, especially if you’ve been working from home in the same pair of sweatpants for the last two years, going through the same routine from morning to night. Isn’t life dragging on enough? I digress.

Until recently, Autumn Johnson thought that criticizing utilities that were putting more dirty energy on the grid was all in a day’s work. “As an environmentalist, it is my job to be calling attention to doubling down on fossil fuels when we’re in the midst of a climate crisis,” she said.Read more...

Twenty-four hours, one creation, two Lego Masters. Tuesday was the second season finale of Fox’s Lego Masters, a rather unique building competition show. The final three teams—Zack and Wayne Macasaet, Caleb and Jacob Schilling, and Steven and Mark Erickson... yes, three sets of brothers—were given near-total freedom.…Read more...

In 1978, a young boy mysteriously goes missing. In 1986, he reappears having not aged a day. Where did he go? Well, an alien spaceship zipped him around the galaxy so fast time didn’t change for him, but eight years passed on Earth. That’s the set-up for Disney 1986 film Flight of the Navigator and after multiple…Read more...

Two fires sparked last week by lightning strikes in Sequoia National Park have caused the park to close to visitors and are threatening the endangered trees as the fires continue to spread, the National Park Service said Tuesday. They add to California’s increasingly dire season of flames.Read more...

The state of Arizona is preemptively suing Joe Biden’s administration over its forthcoming vaccine mandate, even though the text of the rule isn’t published yet and it remains unclear when that will happen.

I don’t know if Tim Burton’s Wednesday TV series will be any good, but it has been already been immensely successful in one regard: the casting. Somehow, it only gets more impressive—especially now that Game of Thrones star Gwendoline Christie will join Luis Guzman’s Gomez and Catherine Zeta-Jones’ Morticia.

History could be made on Wednesday, September 15, as four civilians prepare to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for a three-day mission to low Earth orbit. You can watch the action live right here.

After being proposed as a draft back in July, this week 37 new emoji have been officially approved for use as part of the recent Unicode 14.0 update.Read more...

Yesterday’s Apple product launch, where we saw the overhauled iPad Mini, made me think of Microsoft’s long-rumored Surface Duo 2, which we may see at next week’s Surface event. The new Mini looks kind of like the original Duo when it’s folded in half backward, and now I can’t stop thinking about what I want from the…Read more...

In a surprise twist, Backpage co-founders have scored a temporary victory in a federal prostitution and money laundering case that’s been ongoing since 2018. The Associated Press reports that the judge has sided with their request for a mistrial after they spent days arguing that the prosecution tainted the jury by…Read more...

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Beginning on September 15, anyone who once subscribed to HBO via their Amazon Prime Video account will have their subscription terminated as part of a deal cut by HBO’s parent company, WarnerMedia, to remove the channel from Prime Video’s Channels service.Read more...

Imagine coming from a long line of psychics blessed with the lucrative ability to predict the future—only to realize that the “Gift” has skipped a generation, and you’re out of luck. In Elijah Kinch Spector’s debut novel Kalyna the Soothsayer, the title character has to use her smarts (and a bit of outside help) to …Read more...

The ever-increasing popularity of Disney’s theme parks, fuelled by new attractions like Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, has resulted in most visits requiring hours and hours of standing in line for rides. But a Florida man found a clever solution to the problem by using an official Disney World app that allows VIPs to skip…Read more...

Based on a large new Pew poll out today, about three-quarters of American adults know someone who has been hospitalized or killed by covid-19. Most Americans also believe that the pandemic remains a serious threat, though this belief appears to be influenced by people’s political affiliation, the poll suggests.Read more...

Earlier this year, Fitbit was reportedly working on launching a snore and noise detection feature. Now, according to 9to5 Google, that feature is currently rolling out for Sense and Versa 3 smartwatch owners.Read more...

Warner Bros. still wants to explore the world of Mortal Kombat. Welcome to the Blumhouse teases its next set of stories. The world of Grendel is getting a revival at Netflix. Plus, new photos from Titans, and what’s to come on Star Trek: Lower Decks and Stargirl. Spoilers go!

With the death of LG’s phone biz, OnePlus’ repeated price hikes, and the disappearance of HTC, finding a mid-range phone in the U.S. that packs impressive specs for the price just isn’t as easy as it used to be, which is what makes the Xiaomi 11T’s launch even more disappointing.Read more...

This time, you can even sell the spork. Anyone who followed the opening of the real-world Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland back in 2019 may remember a minor fiasco where fans were stealing the specially designed sporks and selling them online at exorbitant costs. Well now, as a bit of an inside joke, you can do…Read more...

For all of the cat videos and spicy GIF’s tech actors have brought into the world, there’s no denying that being very online hasn’t been the best thing for anyone’s mental health. We’re anxious and angry from our time spent on social platforms, we’re overwhelmed by our email inboxes, and the depressingly common…Read more...

Do you have plans for 5:00 p.m. today? You might want to keep that hour open for important news, at least if a report out of Australia has any truth to it.

North Korea and South Korea both tested ballistic missiles overnight, Eastern time, within just hours of each other. And while North Korea’s test is likely to get the most attention in western media on Wednesday, South Korea’s test was arguably the most notable for being conducted from a submarine, an incredibly…Read more...

For a console designed to be played almost anywhere, the Nintendo Switch has mysteriously lacked support for wireless headphones, despite having Bluetooth connectivity. You’ve either had to connect headphones using a wire, or attach a wireless headphone adapter. But with the 13.0.0 Switch update that just rolled out,…Read more...

Former U.S. intelligence operatives are facing federal charges after allegedly having worked as cyber-mercenaries for the United Arab Emirates. The men, all of whom are ex-employees of the National Security Agency, are accused of helping the UAE government to break into computer systems all over the world, including…Read more...

In two weeks, audiences will watch as two of Spider-Man’s most legendary villains go toe to toe, but the web-slinger himself won’t be anywhere in sight. Venom: Let There Be Carnage opens October 1 and it picks up where the 2018 mega-hit Venom starring Tom Hardy left off. Down-on-his-luck news reporter Eddie Brock is …Read more...

The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor were such big hits for Netflix that it’s only natural that fans would expect another installment. And while in-demand creator and director Mike Flanagan has been keeping busy (his latest Netflix horror series, Midnight Mass, drops next week), he has gone on the…Read more...

The next huge upgrades of iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS are almost here. Following Apple’s annual iPhone event, the company announced that iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and watchOS 8 will be available as free over-the-air upgrades on Sept. 20. The next big upgrade for Macs, macOS Monterey, does not yet have a release date.Read more...

For its recent live-action Rick and Morty shorts, Adult Swim easily could have opted to drop Christopher Lloyd and Jaeden Martel in front of a green screen, made the actors read their lines, and built out a completely digital set around them in post production, and viewers probably wouldn’t have batted an eye.Read more...

For a brief period of time, control of the U.S.’s capacity to murder millions of people and destabilize the globe in the process was secretly taken out of Donald Trump’s hands by maneuver of the nation’s highest-ranking general—at least according to the two Bobs selling a new book about his presidency (Bob Woodward…Read more...

A new report surveyed hundreds of delivery workers in New York City and found that many experienced unsteady wages, long hours, theft, and costly injuries. On top of that, they often described harsh treatment from restaurant owners, customers, and even the apps they work with.Read more...

Members of the hacktivist collective Anonymous claim to have hacked web registration company Epik, allegedly stealing “a decade’s worth of data,” including reams of information about its clients and their domains.

Another fall Apple event is in the books, and despite a few minor surprises—no AirPods 3 and no post-show “Donda” performance by Kanye West!—what we saw didn’t stray too far from pre-event expectations. A redesigned iPad Mini, a new iPhone 13 lineup (with smaller notch!), and larger Apple Watch Series 7 were all among…Read more...

It’s been four years of peace since Netflix cursed the world with the David Ayer/Max Landis orc cop nightmare Bright. The streamer has threatened since, in fits and starts, to bring us more, but in spite of the movie’s success on the platform, it’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about a continuation of its…Read more...

Facebook served dangerous “abortion reversal” ads viewed 18.4 million times since January 2020, according to a new report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate. Abortion reversal, deemed unethical and unscientific, is so concerning that accredited researchers were unable to subject patients to a study.

As Star Wars re-expands its gaming ambitions, there’s going to be more and more titles that are less self-serious takes on the struggles and conflicts of the galaxy far, far away, and more that embrace current gaming trends with a bit of Star Wars flavor. Case in point? Our first really good “look” at Star Wars:…Read more...