Gizmodo

Apple hasn’t given up on its HomePod smart speaker. According to a new Bloomberg report, the company has hired a new software head for the device in a bid to make a speaker that can compete with Google and Amazon’s. But the HomePod needs a lot more than new leadership (though that might help) to be a smart speaker…Read more...

After two years of offering car insurance to drivers across California, Tesla’s officially bringing a similar offering to clientele in its new home state of Texas. As Electrek first reported, the big difference between the two is how drivers’ premiums are calculated: in California, the prices were largely determined…Read more...

On Thursday, a strange scene unfolded at the International Conference Centre in Edinburgh. Shell CEO Ben van Beurden took the stage with a prominent climate scientist and Christiana Figueres, the woman who negotiated the Paris Agreement, at a TED Countdown conference. Van Beurden was there to ostensibly talk up the…Read more...

Encouraging results from a computer simulation point to the use of nuclear devices as a viable defense against Earth-threatening asteroids that suddenly appear out of the blue.

What’s more Christmassy than tickets to a Broadway show, family LARP events, or even a new friend to meet? The chance to shoot exploding arrows at truckloads of goons for punching you about, of course.

Engineers at Stanford University have attempted to improve the standard white cane, used to help visually impaired people move around independently and safely. In a new study this week, their design, simply named the Augmented Cane, seemed to improve the walking speed and navigation skills of both sighted and visually…Read more...

Hot Toys has revealed its uncanny action figures of the two true stars of Marvel and Disney+’s Loki TV series: Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino). But if you’ve seen the show, you know she’s a variant of Loki just like the Cosmic Cube-stealing version from Avengers: Endgame, so she’s earned the name…Read more...

I don’t know much about teenagers at this point in my life, but I do know that they love photos. From scrupulously documenting their adventures on visual platforms like Instagram and VSCO to setting their chillest summer memories to music for 15-second clips on TikTok, the teens love to wax nostalgic about their very…Read more...

Through the myriad twists and turns of Locke & Key’s first season—and all the magical keys that led to said twists and turns—we’ve gotten glimpses of Scot Cavendish (Petrice Jones) making his a cinematic masterpiece. It’s a horror film (because of course it is) starring Kinsey Locke (Emilia Jones) and as Netflix’s…Read more...

Palm probably wasn’t a name you were expecting to hear from again, but to the surprise of many, the company recently posted some teasers on Twitter foreshadowing a new gadget coming out later this month.Read more...

Still catching up on the last major wifi standard to be announced? Sorry, but the next one is here. Wi-Fi 6E routers are beginning to pop up, and you should know that the new standard is a more substantial jump up from Wi-Fi 6 than that ‘E’ might suggest.

Yes, friends, there’s another Apple event ahead of us. It kicks off Oct. 18 at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET, to be exact. And while we saw new iPhones, the Apple Watch Series 7, and two iPads last month, there are still a few things Apple has in store for its next event, which offers the vague tagline: “Unleashed.”Read more...

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a tentative and halfhearted approval to cryptocurrencies like bitcoin on Thursday, signaling that it’s something he may accept as a legitimate payment option in the future. Perhaps the very distant future, if we’re being honest.

Roughly 6,900 Specialized brand bicycles sold in the U.S. have been recalled because the bike’s frame can crack, according to a new announcement from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

As Facebook weathers an ongoing PR shitstorm composed of various interlocking crises, a number of public advocacy groups have launched a website that asks Americans to help put the screws to the tech giant.

We just got a trailer for the new Scream movie, and here’s another horror trailer involving a ringing telephone that’s perfectly timed for spooky season (even if the movie itself isn’t out until next year): The Black Phone. It’s the latest from Scott Derrickson, whose biggest credit is 2016's Doctor Strange but whose…Read more...

From the makers of Star Wars: The Theme Park: The Comic Book, now comes Star Wars: The Theme Park: The Hotel: The Comic Book!

Driving can be infuriating. As more people get back into the groove of commuting, popular navigation app Waze is teaming up with meditation app Headspace to help you calm the hell down while you’re on the road. Or at least that’s the goal.

A huge owl named Gladys escaped from the Minnesota Zoo earlier this month, and zoo officials need help tracking her down.

Even if you put aside its decidedly bug-eyed appearance, the leaked HTC Vive Flow is a baffling headset. By all accounts, it’s supposed to be a standalone consumer VR device that’s made for activities like meditating and streaming media. It also will allegedly come with its own take on the metaverse. In a somewhat…Read more...

Microsoft basically invented the detachable 2-in-1 with the Surface RT and the original Surface Pro, and over the years, the company has been steadily iterating on the Surface’s design, while being cautious not to make any radical changes that make scare away longtime owners or picky enterprise customers. With the…Read more...

Boeing will require all 125,000 of its U.S.-based employees to be vaccinated against covid-19, according to a new statement from the company and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Boeing employees will need to show proof of vaccination by December 8, when President Joe Biden’s executive order for vaccine requirements at…Read more...

The U.S. will open its land borders to nonessential travel from Canada and Mexico in November, according to a new announcement from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. But there’s one catch: Only people who are fully vaccinated against covid-19 will be allowed into the U.S.Read more...

If you love gadgets, next week is going to be a pretty big deal. Samsung just announced that its next event, Galaxy Unpacked part two, is on Wednesday, Oct. 20. Apple’s second fall event, where we expect to see new MacBooks and AirPods, is Monday, Oct. 18, and Google will officially launch the Pixel 6 on Tuesday, Oct.…Read more...

If you use an Android phone and are (rightfully!) worried about digital privacy, you’ve probably taken care of the basics already. You’ve deleted the snoopiest of the snoopy apps, opted out of tracking whenever possible, and taken all of the other precautions the popular how-to privacy guides have told you to. The bad…Read more...

Early into FX’s Y: The Last Man series, it’s clear that there wasn’t all that much that made Yorick Brown particularly interesting in the time before the entire planet’s mammalian population born with a Y chromosome—aside from Yorick and his pet monkey—suddenly succumbed to an unknown disease.Read more...

Google’s Pixel 6 smartphone is amassing a ton of buzz over its design and features ahead of next week’s event, but the launch might also bring the official debut of Android’s digital car key support.

Peter Parker’s had a famously rough life, but if he’s had it any easier than his clone Ben Reilly, it’s only because Ben hasn’t been around as long. Since he came to prominence during the Clone Saga of the mid-’90s, he’s died, been resurrected, tortured, murdered, resurrected, tortured, again, rinse, repeat. He’s…Read more...

Facebook has banned thousands of individuals and organizations allegedly involved in terrorism, according to a Tuesday report by the Intercept, as part of a sprawling blacklist called Dangerous Individuals and Organizations (DIO) that appears to mirror the interests of the U.S. government and military.

From spawning fish and ravenous grizzly bears to battling reindeer and kissing ravens, the year’s best wildlife photography will leave you breathless.

David Gordon Green’s Halloween Kills arrives this Friday, and two of its most important characters have a couple of big things in common: they’ve both spent most of their lives haunted by Michael Myers, and they’ve both had just about enough of it. But the similarities mostly end there for Karen (Judy Greer), the…Read more...

For most, the whole point of splurging on truly wireless earbuds is getting rid of annoying wires and cords. But with V-Moda’s first truly wireless earbuds, the company is including a neck strap cord that can be attached to each bud making them harder to lose when not stuffed into a user’s ears. We’ve officially come…Read more...

John Deere workers are inching precipitously close to a strike after they overwhelmingly voted to reject a new six-year collective bargaining agreement that had been recommended by the union representing them, the United Auto Workers (UAW).Read more...

Earlier this fall, the European Union designated USB-C as the common charging port for future phones. While we wait for Apple to get with the program, an enterprising engineer went ahead and made what might be the world’s first iPhone with USB-C.Read more...

Just a week after Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp suffered two major global outages, the company’s back with an update that will make its tech hiccups easier to stay on top of. On Tuesday, Instagram announced that it was testing a new feature that would alert users at the top of their Activity Feeds when the platform…Read more...

Amid the climate crisis, seas are rising faster than any other time in the past 3,000 years. How much faster and higher they rise is up to us, though.Read more...

It’s not a bad time to be a fan of the hit Dungeons & Dragons real-play podcast Critical Role. Season three begins in less than two weeks (on October 21, specifically) and the first official D&D guide to the fantasy world of Exandria was released just this past March. But soon you’ll be able to experience the first…Read more...

An elk that suffered for half its life with a tire stuck around its neck is now free. This week, wildlife officials in Colorado reported that they were able to corral the beleaguered beast long enough to get the tire off. The incident should be a reminder to clean up the environments we share with these important…Read more...

Maybe you’ve educated yourself a little bit about what COP26 is all about. You know what a COP is (that’s “conference of the parties” for those who didn’t do their 101 homework), you know why everyone is going to Glasgow, and you know that this conference is our last best chance at keeping global warming below…Read more...

Chucky’s back! The plastic-faced, orange-haired terror from the Child’s Play movies has his own TV show coming to Syfy and USA tonight, and good news for fans of the cult-beloved horror franchise: Chucky stays very true to the spirit of the movies, putting the focus on the young cast at its core while also making room…Read more...

Jason Reitman wants Afterlife to set up a whole new bunch of Ghostbusters movies. Get a glimpse of Edgar Wright’s latest, Last Night in Soho. The production company teaming with Russell T. Davies’ return to Doctor Who could be landing a major deal. Plus, behind the scenes on Halloween Kills. Spoilers, ahoy!

The phone is ringing, and horror-movie nostalgia’s on the line—bringing with it some favorite characters we haven’t seen in a decade, plus some new blood, too. Here’s the first trailer for Scream 5, simply titled: Scream.

Back at CES 2020, Withings threw down the gauntlet with the ScanWatch, a sleek smartwatch it claimed could take electrocardiograms and monitor for respiratory disorders during sleep. It was incredibly ambitious, but since then, we’ve heard nothing but crickets. Now, after nearly two years, the Food and Drug…Read more...

Until this whole pandemic thing is officially over, going to the movies will never be completely safe, so it’s as good a time as any to upgrade your home theater. Projectors are cheaper and more capable than ever, but there are some tough decisions to make, as XGIMI’s new Aura short-throw laser projector demonstrates.…Read more...

We live in a world built by capital, so of course Cheetos and Mountain Dew happen to be owned by the same conglomerate: PepsiCo. Both products have been part of the PepsiCo family since the 1960s, and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos have been a thing since 1990. So it’s slightly surprising that it took so long for someone to mix…Read more...

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order late Monday banning any entity in the state, including private businesses, from requiring customers or employees to get vaccinated against covid-19. Curiously, the order does not apply to the numerous other vaccinations that are required to participate in society, like…Read more...

When Apple’s AirTags launched earlier this year, it seemed like Apple had come to eat Tile’s lunch. So it’s not surprising that Tile’s revamping its Bluetooth tracker lineup with some awfully similar features, as well as a new ultra-wideband device called Tile Ultra.Read more...

A former senior Pentagon official recently quit his job over frustrations with the government’s apparent inability to make meaningful headway on artificial intelligence and cybersecurity—two areas he says China will likely surpass us in if we don’t get our shit together.Read more...

Cumbre Vieja’s eruption stepped up a notch over the weekend. The cone of the volcano erupting on one of the Canary Islands has partially collapsed, Spanish authorities said Saturday, sending rocks as big as three-story buildings tumbling down the hillside.Read more...

A new Google TV update should make Google’s TV platform more useful for everyone in your home.Read more...