Gizmodo

It’s no secret that ChatGPT, the large language model-powered artificial intelligence from OpenAI, has taken the internet by storm. Everyone is talking about it, everywhere online—Gizmodo included. The AI chatbot can almost instantly generate paragraphs of human-like, fluid text in answer to basically any prompt you…Read more...

Central Texas has been frozen since earlier this week after an Arctic front rolled into the Southern U.S. Parts of central, west, and north Texas and nearby states Arkansas and Tennessee were under ice storm warnings, per the National Weather Service Prediction Center. The freezing temperatures and sleet should end by…Read more...

Author Laline Paull scored a hit with her 2015 debut The Bees, dubbed “The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Hunger Games,” but with bees as its characters. Her latest, Pod, dives into a different aspect of the natural world—the ocean—by introducing an adventurous dolphin who follows an unconventional path. io9 has an excerpt…Read more...

Astronomers just directly measured the mass of a lone white dwarf using the Hubble Space Telescope for the first time. The dwarf—the core remnant of a star—is named LAWD 37, and it burned out about a billion years ago.Read more...

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2022 was a year Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook in its healthier years, would rather forget. A combination of stalling user growth on its primary social networks, continued regulatory skirmishes, and a near total collapse of investor confidence in the company’s metaverse ambitions left Meta, valued at…Read more...

Here’s the good news for Netflix’s upcoming reality game show based on the hit Korean thriller Squid Game: unlike the original series, no one involved appears to have been brutally murdered. The bad news, however, is that on top of reports that its contestants claimed to have suffered intensely during filming, now…Read more...

State officials say California’s snowpack is the highest it’s been in decades for early February, the Los Angeles Times reported.Read more...

Everyone who has seen episode three of The Last of Us has been absolutely weepy about the romance at its center. “Long Long Time”—named after Linda Ronstadt’s 1970 hit, which plays a key part in the story—sent the internet into collective hysterics over its tender old men surviving during the apocalypse. But while the…Read more...

A first generation iPhone in its original box is going up for auction and an estimate says that the tech could go for as much as $50,000.

Although Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves comes out in less than two months, Wizards of the Coast is still trying to buff the party after the Open Gaming License fiasco in January. The newest adventure book—Keys from the Golden Vault—features 13 heist-themed adventures for levels 1-11, and is a “serendipitous” …Read more...

“What did the fish say when it hit the wall?” the pixilated and jerking form of Jerr—sorry, I mean “Larry,” asks the invisible audience. Then there’s a pregnant pause that lasts too long, even for an amateur stand up comedy act. Finally, the punchline: “…dam”Read more...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported an outbreak of extensively drug-resistant bacteria linked to contaminated eye drop products. Over 50 cases have been found to date, with most patients having reportedly used EzriCare Artificial Tears, while the CDC has found the bacteria in opened bottles of…Read more...

A small radioactive capsule has been found more than three weeks after it went missing in Western Australia while being transported from a Rio Tinto mine to a facility in Perth. The cesium-137 capsule was found under extraordinary circumstances, and WA Emergency Services Minister Stephen Dawson said in a press…Read more...

When Star Wars: Visions debuted in 2021, it was justly celebrated for how it allowed some of Japan’s greatest anime studios carte blanche to create their own, well, visions of how the Star Wars galaxy could look. The results were frequently stellar, but season two will be made beyond just Japan. The next series has…Read more...

Elon Musk’s Twitter has debts to pay. And in the billionaire’s quest to monetize everything about his recently acquired social media site, Twitter is set to start charging for access to its Application Program Interface (API).

From the outside, the community of self-described “involuntary celibates” AKA “incels” is depressingly nihilistic as much as it is misogynistic. Beyond the recent reports about so-called “incel culture’s” bogus links to movies like Joker that borders on moral panic, there is something incredibly sad about a group of…Read more...

The cast and crew of Cocaine Bear cannot emphasize enough that their movie features a bear on cocaine. James Gunn says Harley Quinn will continue in his new vision for DC. Plus, what’s coming when La Brea returns. Spoilers get!

Amazon’s drone delivery service was all talk and no action for nearly a decade, until this past December, when customers were finally able to purchase their favorite products and have them shipped via Amazon Prime Air. However, sources close to the project told The Information this week that Amazon’s drones have only…Read more...

Super Bowl LVII is coming up fast, with the Kansas City Chiefs taking on the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, February 12—the action gets underway at 4.30pm MST, at the home of the Arizona Cardinals, the State Farm Stadium in Glendale.

Dallas Zoo officials set the internet at ease this week when they shared that their two missing emperor tamarin monkeys had been found safe and unharmed by police one day after they were taken. The story isn’t done yet, though. The Dallas Zoo wants justice, and it’s offering a $25,000 reward for information that leads…Read more...

OpenAI has announced the launch of a paid version of ChatGPT that, for $20 a month, will allow you to...uh, keep using ChatGPT, I guess.

We hardly knew ye, Pennyworth: The Origin of Batman’s Butler on HBO Max, formerly known as just Pennyworth on Epix. The origin series for the Wayne family’s confidant and eventual keeper of the Batcave is coming to an end after its third season. Wait, it got three seasons?Read more...

Meta has released its final quarterly and full year financial results for 2022, and the results are...mixed for the company formerly known as Facebook. Meta’s revenue slightly exceeded analyst’s expectations, but nonetheless the tech giant hasn’t fully recovered from what’s been a difficult past 12-months.

Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein’s work is instantly recognizable: the giant, colorful canvases; the Ben-Day dots; the distinctively comic book-inspired images. That last element has caused controversy over the years, as critics point out “inspired” can sure look a lot like “ripped off.” A new documentary digs in.Read more...

Researchers used data from the Dark Energy Survey and the South Pole Telescope to re-calculate the total amount and distribution of matter in the universe. They found that there’s about six times as much dark matter in the universe as there is regular matter, a finding consistent with previous measurements.Read more...

The phrase, “you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain” comes to mind with Hasbro’s latest addition to its Transformers toy line, as longtime Autobot leader, Optimus Prime, is now trading his alternate truck mode for a dart-firing Nerf blaster.Read more...

A federal judge in California has rejected the Federal Trade Commission’s attempt to block Meta from acquiring virtual reality startup Within for an estimated $400 million. The decision, which all but greenlights one of Meta’s largest acquisitions in years, marks a major victory for the company and a stinging defeat…Read more...

To paraphrase Luke Skywalker, “If there’s a nice center to the universe, Mandalore is the planet it’s farthest from.” The home planet of Jango Fett, Bo-Katan Kryze, and Sabine Wren is a hellhole, and it has been throughout the entirety of Star Wars’ main continuity. So much so, in fact, that I don’t think anyone…Read more...

Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced he was making his Twitter account private early on Wednesday to determine the level of engagement his tweets received.Read more...

The universe has no shortage of oddities, and researchers at the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab have observed another one in the form of a particular binary star system. The system, called CPD-29 2176, will eventually trigger a kilonova, a celestial event in which two neutron stars collide in a massive…Read more...

Big deviations in the source material for adaptations can be a scary thing. The history of movie/TV adaptations is littered with examples of where this has gone horribly wrong. Every now and again the right combination of magic comes along that sees such changes not only succeed, but manage to transcend the original…Read more...

Preparations for the crewed Artemis 2 trip to the Moon are in full swing, with NASA rolling-out various fixes, upgrades, and new technologies to support the mission, which could happen as soon as 2024. Among the more exciting developments are a gigantic new hydrogen fuel tank and an updated escape system that harkens…Read more...

One of the main defenses used by those who are bullish on AI art generators is that although the models are trained on existing images, everything they create is new. AI evangelists often compare these systems to real life artists. Creative people are inspired by all those who came before them, so why can’t AI be…Read more...

The HP Envy 16 is a laptop aimed at creators who want a more affordable alternative to other premium models. While this laptop may seem like just another workhorse offering from HP, it’s actually a machine you can have a little fun with. With a stunning 16-inch, 16:10 4K display with touch capabilities, high power…Read more...

Into every generation a powerhouse is born, one who will save us from the plague, bring knowledge to children, and defeat demons like Jolene. Country legend Dolly Parton is that chosen one—who without whom we would not have gotten Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as it it turns out.

PagerDuty CEO Jennifer Tejada, the author of the worst tech layoff email in recent months, wants you to know that she’s sorry. She refused to use the word “layoffs” and quoted Martin Luther King Jr., perhaps not right thing to do when laying off 7% of your employees.Read more...

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An Arctic front has frozen much of Central Texas, and it’ll probably linger there for another day.Read more...

Tesla’s big, bold billion-and-a-half-dollar bet on bitcoin’s “long-term-potential” is starting to look more and more like a dud. The company, at the behest of CEO Elon Musk, purchased $1.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency back in February. Now, according to new fillings with the SEC, the company says it walked away…Read more...

Historical finds of elephant remains alongside stone tools have long prompted speculation among researchers that early humans or other hominin species may have relied on the massive mammals for food.Read more...

If there’s one thing M. Night Shyamalan is great at, it’s keeping the audience guessing. Shyamalan’s best films almost always center on some big mystery, or reveal by the end that it was a mystery all along. To that end, his new film Knock at the Cabin is right in the filmmaker’s wheelhouse. The film succinctly and…Read more...

On the long and ever-growing list of streaming services, NBC Universal’s Peacock managed to stand out for more than its silly name. The online home of cable classics like Parks and Rec and The Office distinguished itself, not just through its wide array of programming and user-friendly interface, but also through its…Read more...

Barely a single day has passed since James Gunn and Peter Safran revealed their slate of upcoming DC Universe films, but already one of the highest-profile titles may have an equally high-profile director. James Mangold, currently putting the finishing touches on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, is reportedly…Read more...

An artificial intelligence tool used by a child protective services agency in Pittsburgh is under scrutiny for its alleged racial discrimination against families. The Associated Press first reported on the concerns following an investigation revealing transparency issues and potential bias caused by the AI algorithms…Read more...

It’s the time of year when Samsung trots out the latest in its flagship lineup of smartphones at its annual wintertime Unpacked event. This year’s Galaxy S23 flagships are merely incremental updates to Samsung’s smartphone portfolio, but they’re still quite promising. The Galaxy S23/S23+ even received a slight…Read more...

Samsung has introduced the third generation of its Galaxy Book laptops to coincide with the arrival of the new Galaxy S23 smartphones. Like the three smartphone offerings, each Galaxy Book 3 model has its own special marketing sauce. The Galaxy Book 3 Pro Ultra is the “ultimate” tier in the lineup, while the Book 3…Read more...

Samsung has officially revealed its flagship lineup for the year. The Galaxy S23 Ultra, S23, and S23+ will go on sale on Feb. 17. Each phone starts at a different price point, with the Ultra being the ultimate model. The Galaxy S23 and 23+ will also pack punches of their own, and they’re looking more refined compared…Read more...

Earlier this week, Google announced that user accounts for its cell network service, Google Fi, had been compromised. The breach appears to have been the result of the hack on Google’s service provider, T-Mobile, which suffered a massive breach earlier this month that impacted some 37 million customers.Read more...

Though there are notable exceptions—Jordan Peele’s Get Out is the biggest recent example—the Academy Awards tend to give horror a very wide berth. Horror fans have learned not to care much about what Oscar says, but it still stings, especially when outstanding performances get overlooked.