Gizmodo

The ongoing megadrought in the American West is bringing about a new kind of patrol. Workers with the Department of Water and Power walk around the city looking for sidewalk puddles—a potential sign of misused water—and investigating community complaints about water waste.

There are new details about M. Night Shyamalan’s next mysterious movie. Matthew Modine wants in on more Stranger Things. Get another close look at Prey’s newest Predator. Plus, what’s coming on Westworld, and our first look at the new Quantum Leap. Spoilers now!

Amazon has filed lawsuits against the administrators of over 10,000 Facebook groups that are allegedly part of a network to recruit individuals to leave fake reviews for products on Amazon in exchange for money or free products.

Foam darts have been Nerf’s mainstay for decades, but in recent years, the company has been expanding to other foam projectiles, like the tiny balls its powerful Rival blasters fire. But today, Hasbro revealed a new twist for Nerf: a blaster that instead fires tiny pre-hydrated super absorbent polymer rounds that…Read more...

Is it a bad sign for an industry when technical issues and ending a little-known promotional campaign lead to immediate concerns that one of the biggest players in the crypto game is in financial danger? Let me just answer that question: yes, of course it is.Read more...

Marjorie Taylor Greene, an anti-trans bigot and congresswoman from Georgia, sent a hateful tweet on Monday, using the deadname of U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health, Rachel Levine, and referring to gender-affirming surgery using a derogatory phrase. And while Twitter has affixed a warning on the tweet saying that it…Read more...

In a recently released featurette for HBO Max’s Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon, showrunners Ryan J. Condal and Miguel Sapochnik along with book series creator George R.R. Martin dove behind the scenes into what some of the prequel series is all about.Read more...

Globally we are in the midst of the sixth wave of the covid epidemic, and with visitors to San Diego Comic-Con International coming from all over the world for the latest in pop culture, the convention has underlined its safety protocols for attendees.Read more...

Federal agents have identified 244 victims who lost some $42.7 million to fake cryptocurrency apps during the past year, according to a Monday announcement from the FBI. There are plenty of ways to lose money on the internet, and, unfortunately, there are tons of people who fall for these scams, forking over ungodly…Read more...

A novel nasal spray treatment appears to show promise in quickly clearing the coronavirus that causes covid-19 from our nostrils. In a recent Phase III trial in India, the spray was found to significantly reduce people’s nasal viral load within days and at a faster rate than those who received a placebo. Treated…Read more...

I certainly hope that Peter Dinklage enjoys a tipple or two. Otherwise, I’m not especially sure why the actor, after playing Tyrion Lannister, the fan-favorite lush of Westeros, in Game of Thrones would want to play an arguably more infamous boozehound in another major genre series.

The British Isles were a very different place some 10,000 years ago. For one thing, the land mass was still connected to mainland Europe. The last ice age was ending, and glaciers were receding. And bison may have been roaming—specifically, a now-extinct species known as the steppe bison. (Even farther back, in the…Read more...

If Intel’s long-in-the-pipe lineup of discrete GPUs were like childhood fantasies of Santa, then the most wise amongst us would ascribe to the axiom that “seeing is believing.” As far as the rumored Arc A780 graphics card is concerned, it’s pretty much confirmed nobody’s going to be getting one in their stocking this…Read more...

Firefighters across southern Europe and northern Africa have been battling intense wildfires this week as areas across the region have experienced record-setting temperature spikes.Read more...

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Apple Inc. is planning to slow down hiring and spending next year in some sectors, to better manage the looming economic downturn, according to a report from Bloomberg News. An unnamed number of anonymous sources with “knowledge of the matter” reportedly told Bloomberg about the forthcoming stall.

Harley Quinn (Kaley Cuoco) and Poison Ivy (Lake Bell) bring their blooming love for villainy back to Gotham with new master plan in the violent red band trailer for Harley Quinn. Get a kick out of the bombastic brutality as Ivy hopes to ascend by terraforming the city with a Green new plan which doesn’t seem too bad…Read more...

Every now and then, NASA’s rovers spot things that don’t seem to fit with the usual Martian landscape: Just a few months ago, Curiosity imaged what appeared to be a doorway. A new image from the Perseverance rover is grabbing similar attention for capturing what appears to be a tangle of string.Read more...

The M2 processor is certainly impressive, as we covered in our recent MacBook Air review, but there is more powerful Apple silicon on the horizon. In Bloomberg’s Power On newsletter, originally surfaced by 9to5Mac, Mark Gurman writes that Apple plans to launch new M2 Pro- and M2 Max-equipped MacBook Pros as soon as…Read more...

Craig McCraken, most well known for creating both the Powerpuff Girls and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, has announced that he will be returning to these properties in a deal with Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe. Both shows are set for new animated series, with McCraken expected to lead both shows as as creator,…Read more...

A micrometeoroid that hit the Webb Space Telescope in late May caused permanent damage to the spacecraft, according to a Space Telescope Science Institute report.Read more...

Now you can be as creepy as Resident Evil 4's famed, hunching merchant when talking with people on Instagram. “Over here, stranger. What’re ya buying?” Instagram’s parent company Meta announced Monday you can now buy directly from small business owners when chatting with them on Instagram.Read more...

A deadly cousin of the Ebola virus has made its way to a new part of the world. This week, World Health Organization officials announced that the African nation of Ghana is now experiencing its first documented outbreak of Marburg. At least two people have contracted the disease so far, both of whom have died.Read more...

There are a lot of different factors that combine to make a successful Airbnb trip, from scouting the most suitable location, to finding the lowest price, to ensuring everything is smoothly set up for your trip. We’ve got a few suggestions for tweaking every part of your Airbnb booking and travel process, so you can…Read more...

This week nerddom descends on San Diego for the long-awaited return of Comic-Con, after several years away. But what is it that keeps people of all stripes, from comics creatives to actors and directors, coming back year after year—except for all those times we couldn’t in recent years? A new oral history about SDCC’s…Read more...

According to reports from SkyNews in the United Kingdom, the country’s largest Royal Air Force base—RAF Brize Norton—has ceased all incoming and outgoing flights as severe heat has allegedly caused the runway to melt.

When Godzilla wades ashore, he usually leaves a swath of destruction behind him. But if you’re traveling to San Diego Comic-Con, the only swath of destruction might be to your wallet, courtesy of Mondo’s many Godzilla and Godzilla-adjacent releases. Don’t worry if you’re not attending the con: some of these will also…Read more...

Google came under fire from Russian authorities yet again on Monday for the company’s ongoing flubs in removing content that the country had deemed illegal. Specifically, according to an official Telegram post from the Roskomnadzor, Russia’s telecom regulator, the company had failed to pull down clips from Russian…Read more...

Would you like to play a game? Once the San Diego Comic-Con schedule is out, you can begin to figure out what news might break at the event. For example, no Star Wars panel? There won’t be Star Wars news. A big Marvel panel is happening? There will be big Marvel news. When you have that information, you can look at…Read more...

It’s been a rocky few months for U.S.-Russia relations, with discord between the two nations arising both on the ground and in space. Despite the current bad feelings, NASA and Roscosmos have finalized an agreement in which NASA astronauts and Russian cosmonauts will fly aboard each other’s spacecraft.Read more...

A desert and a world that seems like our own form the backdrop of The Book of Sand, the sci-fi debut of bestselling author Mo Hayder (Birdman, The Treatment). Sadly, Hayder passed away last year, but The Book of Sand is getting a posthumous release this week—and io9 has an exclusive excerpt to share.Read more...

Google’s throwing up its hands when it comes to app store data privacy. Apparently thinking that only app developers themselves really know the totality of the info they’re siphoning from their users, the platform is now relying solely on those same developers not to lie about how they use all that data. Good luck…Read more...

Trash your PC and throw out your consoles. You won’t need them now that Tesla is planning to bring more games to its cars. After all, why play video games from the comfort of your couch or computer chair when you could sit inside a parked Tesla and use a 17-inch dashboard screen instead?

Pangolin scales, African elephant tusks, bones, and animal skulls were among the many items found in a container seized by Malaysian authorities. On July 18 the Royal Malaysian Customs Department said that they discovered the contraband after checks on a ship coming from Africa on July 10. The entire container of…Read more...

Text messages between members of the Secret Service sent the day before and the day of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol have been subpoenaed by the committee of elected officials investigating the insurrection. This development comes after the Department of Homeland Security had said last week that the texts…Read more...

Did you watch that jaw-dropping episode of Westworld last night? HBO Max’s sci-fi series proved that, even in its fourth season, it still has the ability to yank the rug out from under its viewers. io9 got a chance to talk to Aurora Perrineau (Truth or Dare), whose character was at the center of the big reveal.Read more...

The James Webb Space Telescope is not just a remarkable feat of engineering; it’s a beautiful one too. Take its 18 hexagonal mirrors made from gold-plated beryllium, which inspired YouTube’s Cellar Nerd to create a replica to hang on their wall as a piece of functional art, accented with actual images captured by the…Read more...

A team of scientists at Sichuan University in Southwest China created a small fish robot that can “eat” microplastics out of the water.Read more...

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Ms. Marvel’s co-director talks about how their Batgirl adaptation will feel much different than Ms. Marvel. Get a few tiny more looks at Prey. The first poster for the (*checks notes*) Winnie the Pooh horror movie will terrify you. Plus, what’s coming on Riverdale, American Horror Stories, and more. To me, my spoilers!Read more...

The 1939-40 New York World’s Fair had amazing robots, futuristic rides, and tech-inspired fashion. It was also television’s coming out party, with a very cool public demonstration of TV. But did you know there was also a terrorist incident when someone placed a time-bomb there? The explosion killed two police officers…Read more...

If you thought Westworld peaked in season one... you’re probably right. But if you’ve been waiting for Westworld to give you a great twist again, or perhaps despaired that the show would never thrill you like it used to, or that it had completely lost its way during the mediocre third season, tonight’s episode proved…Read more...

The new Resident Evil series on Netflix dropped earlier this week. The conceit of the show, based on Capcom’s long-running survival horror franchise, is the franchise’s long running baddies, the Umbrella Corporation, have established a utopia haven called New Raccoon City in the year 2022. But in 2036, where the…Read more...

For fans of comics and graphic novels, the Eisner-award publisher Oni Press is best known for works such as Jonna & the Unpossible Monsters, Scott Pilgrim, and plenty more. But just days ahead of this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Oni has announced its plans to not attend the convention. And following that sudden news,…Read more...

Several of the retrospectives we’ve done this month have been focused on Marvel or other Disney IP. It’s just the nature of the beast, but Marvel’s Distinguished Competition—aka DC—has a pretty big landmark of its own to celebrate in the year of 2022. That’s right, it’s time to talk about our old pal, Batman.

With how popular The Boys has become over its three-season run, it’s no surprise that Amazon wants to do even more of it. The first taste of this was Diabolical, an animated anthology featuring a star studded cast and bloody action on par with the core series. And now, after talking about the series for quite some timeRead more...

Summer’s officially here, which means—for a good chunk of you— you’re taking some well-deserved time off to do a bit of traveling. If you’re doing that, then let’s be honest, you’re going to take a few shots of yourself while you’re away, and you wanna get your selfie game on lock.Read more...

Leading up to the release of Ms. Marvel on Disney+, the big point of discussion surrounding the show was the way it revamped Kamala Khan’s (Iman Vellani) powerset. Rather than being an Inhuman with the ability to polymorph and grow or expand her body, Kamala came into possession of a family heirloom that allowed her…Read more...

With how much Hollywood loves casting hot, young actors to inhabit the roles previously held by veterans, it seems inevitable that we will get ourselves a new Indiana Jones. After all, Harrison Ford turned 80 earlier this week, and the upcoming Indiana Jones 5 is very likely going to be the last time he dons that hat…Read more...

By now, it’s basically an open secret that