Gizmodo

The last time I used a PC as small as Microsoft’s Surface Go 3 was a similarly-sized netbook more than a decade ago. And oh my God, how far the Windows platform has come.

While Game of Thrones’ sprawling cast of characters were all chiefly concerned with the events of the world that were playing out in real time, fans of George RR Martin’s books and the projects adapted from it have always understood that the actual story being told in A Song of Ice and Fire actually reaches much, much…Read more...

There are plenty of reasons why you might wait to upgrade to Windows 11. In many cases, your machine might not be ready for the update, but upgrading to a new operating system can be a significant disruption to your daily life. The last thing some of us can take right now is the loss of routine.

A Texas man has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for posting hoaxes on Facebook that falsely claimed he had paid someone with covid-19 to lick items at two grocery stores in San Antonio, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

After more than 126,000 barrels of crude oil spilled out of a broken pipeline in Huntington Beach, California, this weekend, the first reports on affected wildlife were released Monday. Cautiously, it’s so far, so good—but there’s still a long way to go.Read more...

If there’s one thing Tinder was missing, it’s of course some kind of unnecessary in-app economy. Well, good news: Now you can spend Tinder Bux on your ceaseless quest to get laid, so long as you’re in the land down under.Read more...

The first V/H/S movie came out in 2012, arriving at the tail end of the low-budget found-footage horror craze (Paranormal Activity and REC came out in 2007; Cloverfield was 2008) and capturing the last moment in culture before VCRs became totally obsolete. Two sequels followed, with 2014's V/H/S: Viral embracing phone…Read more...

China’s ByteDance has already seen wild success with TikTok, its social media subsidiary that’s turned into a massive thorn in Facebook’s side. Now, it looks like the company is stepping into Amazon’s turf, too. Insider was first to report on Monday that ByteDance is planning on building an international shopping…Read more...

Welcome to yet another confusing software rollout from Google: After months in beta, Android 12 has officially been released. However, it’s not rolling out to smartphones everywhere just yet. If you’re expecting the update to Android 12, hang tight: it’s coming in the next few weeks.

If you’ve ever sat helpless in front of the hundreds and hundreds of movie and TV show options on Netflix, unable to decide which specific type of mindless content to settle into for the night, you’re in luck: After launching its “Play Something” instant-streaming shuffle feature on connected TVs last April, Netflix…Read more...

Reebok is no stranger to pop culture collaborations, having partnered with both Jurassic Park and Alien. Heck, the company even released Ghostbusters sneakers last year, inspired by the full uniforms of Venkman, Spengler, Zeddemore, and Stantz. The collection must have done well, because Reebok has debuted a much…Read more...

Gadget makers have come up with a couple of tactics to curb e-waste and prevent plastic from heading straight to the landfill. On the one hand, you have devices like the Fairphone 4 and the Framework laptop, which seek to reduce waste by making gadgets easier to upgrade and repair. On the other, you have systems like…Read more...

More than six years after the release of Windows 10, Microsoft is releasing the next big chapter in its ubiquitous OS on Oct. 5. A recent survey suggests that more than 60% of people aren’t even aware that Windows 11 is coming out, which indicates there probably won’t be a mad rush to upgrade.Read more...

Sketchy face recognition company Clearview AI has inflated its stockpile of scraped images to over 10 billion, according to its co-founder and CEO Hoan Ton-That. What’s more, he says the company has new tricks up its sleeve, like using AI to draw in the details of blurry or partial images of faces.

Over 100 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, an ecosystem of salt-tolerant trees is flourishing along a freshwater river. A team of researchers recently investigated how this verdant oasis got so side-tracked from its typical habitat, and they found that the forest was stranded inland during the last interglacial period…Read more...

In a move that’s likely going to escalate tension throughout the film and TV industries, an overwhelming majority of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees members voted in favor of approving a nationwide strike that could bring all productions to a grinding halt.Read more...

Urban heat is more dangerous—and even deadly—than ever. That’s true for two reasons: Globally, more people are flocking to cities, and cities themselves are getting hotter due to the climate crisis.

A Roscosmos Soyuz rocket is scheduled to launch Tuesday morning from the Baikonur cosmodrome, sending a Russian film crew and one cosmonaut to the International Space Station. Here are the details of the mission and how you can watch the launch online.

If you’ve ever used your phone to listen to music on YouTube and wished so badly that the tunes would keep cranking while you navigate to other apps, then you know how delighted Canadian YouTube users will probably be when they soon get to experience that exact joy. And hopefully, that’s a sign it’s coming for the…Read more...

Destin Daniel Cretton—director of the biggest movie of 2021: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings—has settled on his next project. He’ll direct and executive produce a Disney+ adaptation of American Born Chinese, a 2006 graphic novel written and illustrated by Gene Luen Yang. Kelvin Yu (Bob’s Burgers) will serve…Read more...

After a summer of opulence and excess comes the lean time—the long, dark winter, when resources must be hoarded and stretched. No one knows this better than the fat bears of Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve.Read more...

“Elephant, octopus, T-rex”—those are the three inspirations that helped VFX designers craft the Galanthi, the giant, glowing alien that was maybe the weirdest part of HBO’s overall rather weird The Nevers. In a new clip from the special features of the forthcoming home video release, VFX supervisor Johnny Han, series…Read more...

When Apple announced the Series 7 last month, it left out exactly when you’d be able to buy it. That made sense, given murmurs of production delays related to the Series 7's new design. But now we know: The Apple Watch Series 7 will be available for preorder starting at 5 a.m. PDT/8 a.m. EDT on Oct. 8, with general…Read more...

Ever since the first picture of Ben Affleck in the Bat-suit was released from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, in which the Dark Knight looks forlornly at the ground directly before him, one thing was obvious: Ben Affleck did not seem thrilled to be wearing a cape for a slew of DC superhero flicks. Knowing what we…Read more...

In the wake of one of the worst PR crises Facebook’s faced in recent years, all of the company’s platforms—Facebook proper, Instagram, and WhatsApp—are suffering mysterious outages on Monday morning.Read more...

For some people with difficult-to-treat depression, a personalized, implanted device for the brain might provide relief when nothing else can, a new case study published Monday suggests. Researchers claim, for the first time, to have used custom-fitted deep brain stimulation to substantially alleviate a patient’s…Read more...

Though the official line on 2007's Bee Movie has always insisted that there was never any sexual energy humming between its two leads—Vanessa, a human woman voiced by Renée Zellweger, and Barry, an anthropomorphic bee voiced by Jerry Seinfeld—anyone who’s actually seen the Steve Hickner-directed film knows that…Read more...

I just heard an endearing interview on NPR mentioning that William Shatner likes to frequent the fan-constructed Star Trek bridge in Ticonderoga, New York and say stuff like “take me to the bridge!” It’s that characteristic sentimentality and the down-for-anything spirit that makes me feel okay about this news:…Read more...

Over the course of his decade in the Senate, it’s no secret that Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin has been an ardent supporter of fossil fuels. The barely-blue-dog-Democrat is now almost singlehandedly responsible for holding up progress on the $3.5 trillion Build Back Better bill, as he pushes for major changes to the way…Read more...

Even though MWC 2021 happened months back in the summer, new leaks have revealed a device that looks like Lenovo’s attempt to create its own Android-based portable gaming handheld.Read more...

You’d think with almost all of the men in the world gone, people could learn to trust one another. But that doesn’t make good television, does it? In the sixth episode of FX on Hulu’s Y The Last Man, titled “Weird Al Is Dead,” there’s not a hint of trust or happiness to be found. Not between politicians, not between…Read more...

The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for their research on temperature and touch receptors. Their discoveries both contributed to what we know about the way our bodies take in sensory information from the world and make sense of it.Read more...

A broken pipeline off the coast of Orange County, California, has crews scrambling to contain a major oil spill that’s left crude oil all over local beaches, threatening local wetlands and killing wildlife.

When True Blood first hit HBO in 2008, it came at just the right time. The adaptation of Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire Mysteries featured vampires and werewolves being sexy in Louisiana and was an extremely easy sell at the time. It’s hard to say if it was actually good, but it was certainly watchable enough for…Read more...

Now that more semi-grounded heroes like Shang-Chi and Black Widow have gotten their solo films, it’s the Eternals’ time to shine. The new batch of cosmic weirdos making their way to the Marvel Cinematic Universe gets their grand debut in a month from director Chloé Zhao, which means it’s time for the commercials to…Read more...

Good news, YouTube TV subscribers: Sunday Night Football isn’t going anywhere. After a contentious public face-off over a contract dispute, YouTube TV and NBCUniversal have finally worked out a deal that will keep NBCU’s programming on the platform.Read more...

Like other Marvel movies before it, Venom: Let There Be Carnage made a boatload of money.Read more...

A space mission jointly launched by the European and Japanese space agencies has captured its first, up-close look at the planet Mercury.Read more...

The weeklong soap opera starring Ozy Media came to a dramatic finish on Friday when the media outlet announced it was shutting down. Ozy’s finale unfolded in only five days and was fueled by its own lies and misrepresentations. Nonetheless, one question remains: Why did it take so long for the company’s deceptions to…Read more...

New research released this weekend might comfort or unnerve you, depending on your perspective. An international survey of thousands suggests that just about everyone often feels gassy, with farting being the most common symptom experienced daily. The findings also indicate that these symptoms can affect people’s…Read more...

Just like your misguided boomer parents and estranged family members, Rudy Giuliani gleaned his supposed “evidence” of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election from unvetted posts on Facebook and other social media platforms.Read more...

The Child’s Play franchise is making a leap to the small screen with its first TV show. Chucky, set after the seventh film Cult of Chucky, sees the murder-happy doll continue his reign of terror. After gay teen Jake Wheeler (Zachary Arthur) picks up the Good Guy doll at a yard sale, it doesn’t take long for things to…Read more...

Netflix’s Midnight Mass was a deeply personal story for creator Mike Flanagan. Fresh off his successful Haunting duology, the new horror series represented a chance to delve into his past as a Roman Catholic and explore the terror that can come from religion and faith. In a pair of new featurettes, Flanagan and…Read more...

Venom: Let There Be Carnage has a mid-credits scene, and it’s a pretty big deal. The sequel to 2018's surprise superhero hit starring Tom Hardy and Tom Hardy, but in a slightly deeper voice, takes a mighty swing with its sequel bait in a way that is both sort of surprising and yet not entirely unexpected. But…Read more...

Stephen King’s 1975 horror novel Salem’s Lot is getting a big-screen adaptation next year. The author’s been on a tear lately with his various books and short stories being adapted, from It and Pet Sematary. Heck, another one just got announced on Friday. Salem’s is the story of a writer returning to his hometown to…Read more...

Flying during pandemic times just got a bit more convenient for iPhone users traveling on United Airlines.Read more...

The Biden administration plans to meet with officials from dozens of countries later this month in an effort to better coordinate a crackdown on cybercriminal gangs—particularly ransomware.Read more...

With five (soon to be six!) seasons and two movies under its belt, it’s hard to think of what new things My Hero Academia’s anime can do as it continues adapting Kohei Horikoshi’s superheroic shonen manga. The upcoming third movie, World Heroes’ Mission, answers that question easily: plant the Japanese heroes we’ve…Read more...

Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's regular round up of all things good and plastic in the world of merchandise. This week: Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool gets inducted into the world of S.H. Figuarts, we’re very perturbed about the lack of a chair in an action figure, and things get downright martial with replica staves and…Read more...