Gizmodo

Cave bears were hulking beasts you wouldn’t want to run into in the dark (even if they were mostly vegetarians). But it seems a human got the better of one of these now-extinct ursids, according to an assessment made by Russian paleontologists last month.Read more...

Federal agents have tracked and seized over half of the $4.4 million ransom paid by Colonial Pipeline to the cybercriminal gang DarkSide following May’s cyberattack, the U.S. Justice Department announced Monday.Read more...

The Walt Disney Company is famously secretive about the creation of many of its most popular rides, but if anyone can get to the bottom of it, it’s the Rock. Dwayne Johnson’s production company, Seven Bucks, is teaming up with Disney for a new documentary series called Behind the Attraction, which hits Disney+ on July…Read more...

The ongoing crackdown on cryptocurrency throughout China took one step further over the weekend, with popular social media site Sina Weibo terminating a number of major crypto accounts.

Google was fined a hefty 220 million euros (or roughly $268 million) on Monday after France’s competition authority found the company abusing its outsized role in the world of digital advertising.Read more...

In both of Capcom’s video games Resident Evil Village and its 2017 predecessor Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, you play as Ethan Winters, a man desperately fighting through terrifying, monster-filled locales in search of his family whose lives are in danger. But the story behind both games presents an intriguing idea that …Read more...

It wouldn’t be an Apple event without a nod to the company’s pro-privacy stance. As part of its annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) keynote this year, the company announced some major privacy upgrades that will come with iOS 15 and iCloud—here are some of the biggest.Read more...

Apple’s new macOS got a new California-inspired name at WWDC on Monday. That was to be expected. But it still had some surprises in store for us with a lot of quality of life improvements and at least one big new feature.

As part of its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote, Apple announced it’s finally opening up its Siri digital assistant to work with third-party smart home devices. The news came as part of a batch of new features for the smart home, including a new ability to watch TV with friends and a way to use an Apple HomePod…Read more...

The FBI announced Saturday it had withdrawn a subpoena seeking to identify readers of a USA Today story concerning a Florida shooting that left two of its agents dead. The decision to do so, however, is purportedly unrelated to allegations raised in court last week by USA Today’s publisher, which accused the FBI of…Read more...

Loki has done some horrible things in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including murdering Phil Coulson and leading an alien invasion of Earth in which countless people died. But now the Norse god of mischief has gained control of Lucky Charms cereal, and this crime is beyond the pale.

The best part of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference is getting a sneak peek into all the new features Apple’s got planned for its product lineup. In the case of the Apple Watch, today’s keynote gave us a look at all the updates coming later this fall—and maybe a few hints at what Apple’s got in mind for the…Read more...

Though AMC’s new sitcom dramedy Kevin Can F**k Himself isn’t strictly genre, it tells the story of a woman doing everything in her power to warp her bleak reality into a picturesque vision of domestic bliss. Much like WandaVision’s Westview, there’s a troubling chaos bubbling up in the show’s take on Worcester,…Read more...

The world ground to a halt for parts of last year, but carbon dioxide continues to set records. Concentrations in the atmosphere of the greenhouse gas peaked last month, scientists said Monday, reaching a new historic monthly average high of 419 parts per million. That’s the highest average level in millions of years.…Read more...

NASA’s Juno spacecraft, in orbit around Jupiter since 2016, made a close flyby of the planet’s moon Ganymede at 1:35 p.m. ET on Monday. Its goal: to take stock of the icy orb’s composition and magnetic field, among other measurements.Read more...

It’s been nearly four months since the devastating Texas blackouts. And thanks to a relatively speedy peer review process, we now have an academic accounting of what exactly went wrong—and how to prepare the grid for future extreme weather.

Apple’s decision to spin-off a separate version of iOS for the iPad (and to stick its M1 processor inside the devices) makes even more sense with the arrival of iPadOS 15 that continues to push the tablets away from being just media consumption devices to serviceable laptop replacements with improved multi-tasking,…Read more...

We’re all hopelessly addicted to our phones, and we’re all incredibly irritated by the way our devices suck up so much of our time and attention. Apple just showed off iOS 15, a software update coming to iPhones this fall that will solve some of those annoyances.

For season three, Amazon’s The Boys is diving into its past and there is no past without Soldier Boy. As was previously reported, Soldier Boy is being played by none other than Supernatural’s Jensen Ackles; in the world of the show, he was basically the original superhero, long before the Seven were a thing. Now we’ve…Read more...

The hat. The whip. The ability to take a punch. It was 40 years ago this week that audiences fell in love with Indiana Jones’ best attributes in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Released June 12, 1981, this brainchild of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas (with plenty of Lawrence Kasdan, Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy,…Read more...

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved the drug aducanumab as a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, the first ever intended to slow the progression of the incurable dementia. The go-ahead marks a rare case in which the FDA went against the recommendations of the outside panel it solicited for advice, who…Read more...

For the second year in a row, Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference keynote will be all virtual. And while we miss the rush of a swarm of developers and journalists swarming Cupertino, that won’t stop us from liveblogging the hell out of this keynote from the comfort of our couches.Read more...

Like the Darking himself, the Grishaverse lives another day. Netflix has announced that season two of the TV adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s fantasy novels has been summoned out of the darkness.

The new Locked Folder in Google Photos, which the company debuted at its developer conference last month, is officially rolling out today. It’s part of the latest feature drop for Pixel users, which includes a new way to take a video of the night sky, plus better copy and paste in Gboard and a Digital Wellbeing mode…Read more...

HBO Max just debuted a more affordable pricing tier with ads, and now Paramount+ is following suit with a new Essential plan that starts at just $5 per month.Read more...

Last week brought some good news for an at-risk desert flower. The Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday it will propose listing the Tiehm’s buckwheat flower, a cute little puffball-style plant with yellow-orange petals, as an endangered species. But doing so could make it harder to mine lithium, a key metal for…Read more...

A lone rotifer has awakened after spending the past 24,000 years in frozen hibernation. Scientists hope that further studies of this multicellular animal may lead to better ways of cryopreserving human cells, tissues, and organs.

Though Marvel’s WandaVision’s first few episodes evoked the aesthetics of previous eras of TV by relying on a variety of practical effects, one of the most impressive things about the Disney+ show is how the vast majority of its shots featuring Vision required a sizable amount of modern technology you’re not meant to…Read more...

One of the world’s longest-lived chimpanzees has died. Officials at the San Francisco Zoo announced Sunday that Cobby the chimp passed away this weekend at the ripe old age of 63. Cobby was the oldest male chimp living in an accredited North American zoo.Read more...

For the past month, Blue Origin has been auctioning off a ride to space. Previously billed as just an open “seat” on a “crewed trip.” Now, Jeff Bezos has slipped a little detail in the mix: he and his brother Mark will be coming. You would have thought they would have mentioned that earlier? Would have been nice. The…Read more...

The Toxic Avenger may have found its villain. Get a glimpse of Diggle’s return on Batwoman. Filming beings on Evil Dead Rise. Plus, new clips from Luca, and what’s to come on Legends of Tomorrow. To me, my spoilers!

There are only two things we absolutely know for sure about WWDC21. The first is that the all-virtual developer’s conference will kick off June 7, at 10 a.m. PDT/1 p.m. EDT. The second is we’ll hear what the company’s got in store for the latest versions of iOS, macOS, and its other software platforms.Read more...

If you’ve invested in a decent gaming PC, you’ll probably want to capture and share some of the highs and lows of your gaming exploits. If you haven’t gotten started yet, we’re here to introduce a few of the best software options available to you right now.Read more...

It appears that not just anyone will be able to make bank for the time they spend on Twitter. If you’re looking to get people to pay you for your “exclusive” Twitter content and become your Super Followers, you might have to meet a certain set of criteria and fill out an application.Read more...

Top officials in Turkey have vowed to defeat a plague of “sea snot” that has coated a shoreline near Istanbul in a slimy film of beige sludge that reeks.Read more...

[Editor’s Note: Sorry, folks! Happens to all of us. - Jill P.]Read more...

One day after it banned Twitter, Nigeria announced that authorities would arrest and prosecute users who attempted to use the social network, whose app and website were still available to some in the country on Saturday despite the ban.Read more...

What do Doctor Strange, Anthony Bourdain, and Indiana Jones have in common? Well, writer Michael Waldron, of course.

El Salvador may soon become the first sovereign nation in the world to adopt bitcoin as a legal tender, Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele announced Saturday.Read more...

The MCU is no stranger to time travel. It’s woven within the fabric of many of its stories, with Avengers: Endgame using it to change the course of Marvel.Read more...

A Quiet Place is becoming a cinematic universe as Paramount Pictures gave the greenlight to a spin-off film set in the same universe.

Fossil, the biggest Wear OS wearables maker, is planning to launch a new, premium Gen 6 smartwatch this fall that will run on Google’s revamped operating system for the devices.Read more...

Square, the digital payments firm led by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, is teaming up with blockchain technology provider Blockstream Mining to build an open-source, solar-powered bitcoin mining facility at one of Blockstream’s U.S. sites.

A group of Apple employees has written an internal letter to CEO Tim Cook and the company’s executive leadership team asking them to support employees that want to continue to work remotely or in location-flexible ways. The employees stated that many of them have thrived working outside the office and urged Apple…Read more...

Christina Ricci (Monstrous) is joining director Lana Wachowski’s fourth Matrix film.Read more...

The U.S. Department of Justice will no longer secretly obtain the records of journalists during leak investigations, the White House said in a statement Saturday.Read more...

Director Christopher MacBride is no stranger to pushing the limits of storytelling. His previous film, The Conspiracy, explores the world of conspiracy theories through its two protagonists. His new sci-fi thriller Flashback, starring Dylan O’Brien (Maze Runner), takes things to the next level.

One week after the successful premiere, Disney has greenlit a Cruella sequel.Read more...

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Dwayne Johnson are teaming up for the new Warner Bros. action film Emergency.