Gizmodo

The covid-19 pandemic is clearly and rapidly losing ground in the U.S. Daily new cases have continued to drop over the past few weeks, even as much of the country has begun to lift restrictions on distancing and mask-wearing. And while the vaccine rollout had slowed since its peak in April, it’s more recently picked…Read more...

The refinery in St. Croix that literally rained down oil onto residents not once, but twice over the past three months has been shut down by the federal government. On Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency said it has ordered the Limetree Bay oil refinery to pause all operations as it investigates the serious…Read more...

In Marvel’s upcoming Loki series, the Asgardian god of mischief who appeared to peace right on out of the timestream in Avengers: Endgame somehow ends up being apprehended by the Time Variance Authority, an extradimensional organization in charge of maintaining the ordered flow of time. In a new clip from his very own…Read more...

In a quick turnaround after rumors of a merger surfaced this weekend, AT&T has announced that it is spinning off WarnerMedia (which includes HBO) and joining forces with Discovery to create a new media company as part of a massive $43 billion merger.

Not long after Tesla unveiled its brutalist take on an electric pickup truck, Mattel made it possible to not only take the vehicle for a test drive but also actually own one—if you were content with a 1:10th-scale RC replica. A year later, the toymaker is releasing an updated version that adds a matching RC Cyberquad…Read more...

Rumors had it that Apple would soon launch hifi audio streaming for Apple Music—and they were true. Today, Apple announced it’s bringing both spatial audio with Dolby Atmos and lossless audio to its music streaming service in June.Read more...

HBO’s The Nevers—the show about Victorian ladies with superpowers—hinted from the beginning that it was about much more than that. The show, perhaps, even undersold what was to come. With the six-episode first part of season one now complete, we finally have actual insight into some of the biggest mysteries... as well…Read more...

Looking for a more hygienic way to roast a hot dog that doesn’t involve it rolling around on a rarely cleaned grill? Taking advantage of the Coandă effect, YouTube’s NightHawkInLight has created a bizarre BBQ alternative that instead levitates a wiener inside a red hot coil.Read more...

DC’s Hawkman may have some cool tech in Black Adam. A new look at Adult Swim’s pickup of Tuca & Bertie. Billy Porter looking like a dream in Cinderella. Plus new looks at Legends of Tomorrow, Fear the Walking Dead, and more. Spoilers save us from this Monday!

CEO pay at some of the country’s top oil and gas companies last year stayed more than 100 times above the median salary of workers at that company, a new analysis has found. In some cases, that gap increased—even as those companies laid off workers and took in federal aid money.Read more...

Plumage. An incredible world, for an incredible phenomenon. Say it with me now: plumage. Picture the colors, their variety and richness. Picture, while you’re at it, some other stuff relevant to this week’s Giz Asks, such as bugs that look shaped from stained glass and sea creatures that look like they’ve been doused…Read more...

It’s been a few years since we’ve seen something genuinely innovative in a pair of wireless earbuds that goes beyond improved battery life or better noise cancellation. But Bowers & Wilkins’ new PI7 earbuds allow you to stream audio from any device with a headphone jack using a neat trick, and while it’s a useful…Read more...

Disneyland Paris, the only Disney park in Europe, will reopen on June 17, according to a new statement published on Twitter from the Euro Disney Group.

How many times did Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates meet with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein before Epstein died in 2019? Just a few months after Epstein’s death, we learned about three meetings between Gates and Epstein from an article in the New York Times. But an explosive new report from the Daily Beast claims…Read more...

Snake Eyes has always been one of the most recognizable, popular characters in the G.I. Joe franchise, and now we’ll find out how he got there. The brand new film Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins hits theaters July 23 and io9 was lucky enough to talk to the man behind the mask, Henry Golding, about the character’s…Read more...

When you think of Snake Eyes you think of the mask, the swords, the unstoppable ferocity. But how did the popular G.I. Joe character become that guy we’ve seen in comics, cartoons, and toy aisles for decades? We’re about to find out, in a whole new way. The first trailer for Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins is finally…Read more...

A Space Force lieutenant colonel has been removed from his post after claiming on a conservative podcast that Marxist ideologies are overrunning America’s armed forces, CNN and Military.com reported Sunday.Read more...

Over the past year and then some, one of the unorthodox ways to gauge the severity of the pandemic has been to look at one tech giant: Apple. That might be changing, though. A recent report states that Apple will maintain a mask mandate in its U.S. Apple Stores despite the new guidance from…Read more...

AT&T and Discovery Inc. may soon join forces to improve their chances against leading competitors like Netflix and Disney in the streaming wars. According to multiple reports, the two companies are in talks to merge Discovery’s reality TV empire with AT&T’s catalog of cable channels and other media holdings to create…Read more...

A new season of Lucifer arrives on May 28 with the second half of season 5 and a full eight-episode order.

Faced with plummeting app downloads on iOS in recent months, Clubhouse has one thing to say: Hello, Android.Read more...

Before Charlize Theron took the mantle as the queen of action cinema, that title belonged to Angelina Jolie, starting with the role of Lara Croft in Simon West’s Tomb Raider (2001).

Whenever deepfakes make the news, it’s almost always for the latest terrifying way bad actors have figured out how to spawn hoaxes or cyberbully people using the AI-powered technology. However, the media industry has found some more practical (and less sinister) applications, such as using face swaps to craft more…Read more...

When the new title of Black Panther dropped (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), everyone was lit. Since then, actors in the MCU have discussed the Black Panther experience.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is looking to stake her claim in the action genre with her new role in Netflix’s assassin revenge thriller Kate, directed by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan (The Huntsman: Winter’s War) and written by Umar Aleem.

Even porn sites are getting in on the craze around NFTs. Earlier this week, CamSoda held an online auction for a rare CryptoPunk 7060 NFT. Of course, given that we’re talking about a porn site, it’s no surprise that the winner’s username is NSFW.Read more...

It all started with a passing mention. On Friday, the New York Times published a feature story about what life was like in President Joe Biden’s White House. In the feature, the outlet noted that Biden had sent his grandchildren money using Venmo, which prompted an inquisitive “Oh?” from yours truly. I wasn’t the only…Read more...

Many of you are too young to know what Nickelodeon’s Legends of the Hidden Temple is, but those who do should remember how it was the most lit kid show on television. The CW is looking to tap into that nostalgia by reviving the show, but this time for adults.

Twitter hasn’t released many details about the paid subscription model it’s cooking up, but thanks to app researcher Jane Manchun Wong we may have some clues about what it will cost and be called. On Saturday, Wong tweeted that the subscription service Twitter Blue will cost $2.99 per month and allow users to undo…Read more...

Marvel’s Secret Invasion series is crazy stacked with A-Listers like Oscar winner Olivia Coleman (The Favorite), Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones), Kingsley Ben-Adir (Bridgerton), with Samuel L. Jackson reprising his role as Nick Fury, and Ben Mendelsohn coming back as Skrull shapeshifter Talos.

WandaVision writer Jac Schaeffer has been holding OUT!

California is in trouble.Read more...

There’s been speculation on the sequel floating around for years. After many doubted Edge of Tomorrow and its concept, it was the surprise action hit of 2014. It was undoubtedly one of my favorite films of the year and is also one of my favorite action films and one of the best action characters (Emily Blunt as Rita…Read more...

Former Apple employee Antonio García Martínez has refuted the company’s portrayal of his high-profile ouster this week and claims Apple knew about his past writings demeaning women and people of color, which came under fire from employees this week, before it made a job offer.Read more...

Fans have been waiting for Indiana Jones 5 for so long you wouldn’t blame them if they don’t believe it’s real until they sit down to watch it. But after years and years of delays, Steven Spielberg dropping out as director, Harrison Ford pushing 80, and more, it seems like it’s finally happening. Especially when the…Read more...

Not only is The Mitchells vs. the Machines one of the best movies of the year so far, it’s got an absolutely unforgettable ending. The way the family comes together to fight the villainous PAL, complete with flying robot skateboards, laser gauntlets, and a soundtrack by T.I and Rihanna? It’s epic and touching at the…Read more...

The taxi hurt itself in confusion!

It’s only been two days since the Doctor Who immersive experience Time Fracture announced actor John Barrowman’s role as Jack Harkness would be removed from the exhibition. Now, another upcoming Barrowman project has disappeared. The audio adventure publisher Big Finish has canceled the upcoming series Torchwood:…Read more...

According to a YouGov poll released on Friday, some humans have extremely poor judgment when it comes to determining which animals they could win a one-on-one, unarmed fight against. Namely, they think they can win those fights at all.

For roughly the past decade, Sci-Hub—aka, the “Pirate Bay of Science—has been giving researchers, reporters, and open-source advocates unfettered access to countless scientific papers across every discipline you can imagine. In return, it’s been hit with multiple lawsuits, a suspended Twitter account, and an …Read more...

Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's regular round up of the latest and greatest in giant hunks of plastic to go on your shelf. This week: He-Man returns in a revelatory manner, Lego heads back to New York and the ‘90s for a retro Friends treat, and Odin smiles upon you... distressingly. Check it out!

Scientists in several countries are calling for a serious investigation into the beginnings of SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that gave rise to the covid-19 pandemic. In an open letter released Thursday, the group says that there are still too many unanswered questions about how the pandemic started and that the…Read more...

In 1949, a 70-year-old Albert Einstein shot off a message to England-based radar researcher Glyn Davys. The topic wasn’t physics or radar—it was birds and bees and the way those animals navigate.

Google canceled last year’s annual Google I/O developers conference due to the pandemic, but this year, it’s back—virtually.

If a company can figure out how to perfectly toast a slice of bread, it can surely bring something to the table with regards to Android smartphone design. And anyway, some people think Android phones are nothing but chunks of carbs, so there’s clearly a market out there!

Seventy-seven years ago a man was born who would release a movie in 1977 that would change the face of the world. He’d do a few other things too. That man’s name is George Lucas. Today, May 14, is his birthday, and we’ve love you all to celebrate.Read more...

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The march of the horny bugs has begun. Brood X cicadas have started to emerge, though slowly thanks to spring temperatures that are slightly cooler and wetter than normal. After 17 years underground, the cicadas are coming up to a world both familiar and radically different.Read more...

The climate crisis has taken so much away from us that we’ll never get back: people, places, wildlife, even languages. Now, it’s destroying some of the oldest art on Earth, new research led by Griffith University shows.Read more...

Less than 24 hours after President Joe Biden announced that the U.S. would seek to disrupt the operations of those responsible for the Colonial Pipeline attack, the gang in question seems to be ducking for cover—and claims it will shut down its criminal operation, at least for now.