Gizmodo

The Federal Aviation Administration is upping its “zero tolerance” war on pandemic passengers who disrupt flights by refusing to wear masks. In a press release on Wednesday, the agency proposed fines of $9,000 to $32,750 against three violators of the mandatory policy.

TikTok, a gathering place for the victims of moldavite’s curse and misfired hexes, is now also your source for mystic strings of numbers 4 manifesting the elusive blessings of the universe. The kids are sharing Grabovoi numbers, the cheat codes 2 the universe. If you think on them hard enough, the numbers will bring…Read more...

A recently discovered vulnerability inside Qualcomm-produced phone chips could be exploited to gain access to data on affected devices, allowing an intruder to snoop on phone calls and text messages.Read more...

This week a new Star Wars animated series on Disney+, The Bad Batch, re-introduced us to the last days of the Clone War and the rise of the sinister Empire. But amid the blaster fights and familiar faces, some fans have shown concern that the show’s major characters have had their skin tones adjusted, pushing them…Read more...

A new printer called Forust is using scrap wood to 3D print wooden objects that are as structurally sound as regular carved wood. Created by Andrew Jeffery and a team of researchers at Desktop Metal, the printer prints using fine sawdust that is formed into solid objects.Read more...

Informants working for the FBI committed more than 9,600 crimes under the bureau’s supervision during President Trump’s first two years in office, according to unclassified government reports.

A group backed by the largest internet service providers in the U.S. secretly funded the submission of millions of fraudulent comments opposing federal net neutrality rules, according to a report published Thursday by the New York Office of the Attorney General that surprises absolutely no one. The campaigns were, the…Read more...

Star Trek’s world raises a lot of ethical questions—but its transporter technology has always been one that strikes at some of the most existential. Are we the same people if all our molecules are mapped, broken down, and copied into a different location? What happens if that process is disrupted? And what happens if…Read more...

For those who find reading a foreign film’s subtitles too distracting, movies are often dubbed into different languages. But that can be equally distracting when the movements of an actor’s mouth are completely out of sync with what they’re saying. So a company called Flawless has created an AI-powered solution that…Read more...

Google maintains it is “very confident” it will face no consequences for firing three workers involved in unionization efforts, despite the acting top counsel of the National Labor Relations Board’s opinion that the tech giant may have violated labor law.

Google is taking a page from Apple’s playback with a new safety section in the Google Play Store to help users better identify the kinds of data access and permissions that Android apps have in the background. It’s not immediately clear what the section will look like or where you should look for it, but it’s coming,…Read more...

A genetic and genealogical analysis has allowed a team of archaeologists to identify the skeletal remains of a sailor who died during the ill-fated Franklin Expedition to map the Northwest Passage in 1845.

New sci-fi movie Infinite—starring Mark Wahlberg and directed by Antoine Fuqua—is coming out a few months ahead of schedule, but you won’t see it in theaters. Paramount just announced that the film, most recently scheduled for release in September, will now debut on Paramount+ sometime in June.Read more...

DuckTales may have ended on TV (sigh), but the adventures of Huey, Dewey, and Louie will continue in a new middle-grade book series from author Tommy Greenwald and illustrator Elisa Ferrari: the mystery-themed Duckscares. The first entry, The Nightmare Formula, is out now, and io9 has a peek inside.

Last year, in a feat of astonishing greed, Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash poured $200 million into buying a law that safeguards their profits and screws their struggling workers. Their sinister ballot measure Prop 22 passed, it’s practically unrepealable; now they’re lining New York state politicians’ pockets, and yet…Read more...

Bits and pieces of Microsoft’s sweeping aesthetic changes to Windows 10, codenamed Sun Valley, have dropped over the last few months. The OS is getting support for the Advanced Audio Codec (AAC) codec over Bluetooth, new folder icons, and reportedly a much-needed overhaul to its Microsoft Store user interface. (There…Read more...

io9 is proud to present fiction from LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE. Once a month, we feature a story from LIGHTSPEED’s current issue. This month’s selection is “Hypnopompic Circumstance” by Gene Doucette. You can read the story below or listen to the podcast on our website. Enjoy!Read more...

In some parts of California, the fires from last year never stopped. The National Park Service said this week it found a giant sequoia tree still burning from last year’s wildfire season, which was the worst on record in the state.Read more...

Mother’s Day is coming up this weekend, so to help make it just a bit easier to organize the family for a celebration, Google is giving the Google Assistant a handful of new features including Family Broadcast.Read more...

Eden Prime. Ilos. The Suicide Mission. The Battle of London. A small apartment with one hell of a party on the Citadel. There are many moments and places in the Mass Effect universe to turn to as some of the most memorable, definitive pieces of its story. But few can encapsulate what Mass Effect was, and what it would…Read more...

At a park in the Italian Alps, researchers have unearthed a trove of World War I relics that was previously hidden beneath layers of ice and frost. The fascinating discovery is also a sign of a scary climate future.

A small new study found remarkable improvements in communication and behavior in three patients with severe Alzheimer’s disease after they received a low-dose radiation treatment. More research will have to be done to confirm these results and to test whether similar benefits could be achieved in people with milder…Read more...

Lucasfilm values its secrecy. It’s so worried about and vigilant against leaks about their upcoming Star Wars projects, they keep scripts locked away until actors come to them to audition, and lock them back up when the actors leave. It’s a process that gives actors virtually no time to prepare—which is a huge problem…Read more...

Security experts have been banging the drum about password managers and enabling two-factor authentication for what seems like an eternity. Probably because year after year, hordes of you keep using “123456" and “password” to secure your shit online. Well, Google’s not having it anymore. So long as you provide a…Read more...

A glistening image of China’s wayward Long March 5B rocket, which is expected to make an uncontrolled reentry into Earth’s atmosphere this weekend, has been captured by astronomers with the Virtual Telescope Project.

In Greek mythology, the hydra is a creature with many heads. In Norse mythology, Odin rides Sleipnir—a horse with many legs. And in the warm, coastal waters of Australia lives Ramisyllis multicaudata, the worm with many butts.

Dark Horse’s Lady Killer is being turned into a movie. Marvel offers vague teases for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and The Marvels. Emma Stone goes behind-the-scenes in new Cruella footage. Plus, what’s to come on The Handmaid’s Tale and Black Lightning. Spoilers now!

Given how catastrophic and traumatizing a dead smartphone can be, Ben Vessey has created a better alternative to the tiny, easy-to-miss battery icon in the corner of the iPhone’s screen: a set of colorful wallpapers that dynamically change based on how much battery life the device has left.Read more...

Unhealthy air pollution generally brings to mind coal-fired plants spewing black soot from a smokestack. But that image may quickly be becoming outdated. A study published on Wednesday in Environmental Research Letters found that using natural gas and biomass in sources like buildings and industrial boilers actually…Read more...

Hard to believe it’s been almost two years since we spent time with the kids from Hawkins, Indiana on Netflix’s Stranger Things. Harder to believe still that it was over a year ago Netflix released the first teaser for the upcoming fourth season, which saw Sheriff Hopper (David Harbour) in Russia, just where we…Read more...

If it seems like forever ago that we got the first teaser for A Quiet Place Part II, well—it was December 2019, with the first trailer dropping in January 2020. But the much-delayed, much-anticipated horror sequel seems set for its May 28 opening, and today’s final trailer suggests the wait will have been worth it.Read more...

It seems like only yesterday that Wi-Fi 6 routers really started to hit the market, and that’s true—the first products trickled out in late 2018, and the new 802.11ax standard is only now going mainstream. But the FCC has opened up the 6 GHz band to unlicensed use, so router manufacturers are taking the ax protocol to…Read more...

The U.S.-based cruise ship industry will need to prove it can operate safely with test cruises and volunteer passengers before normal operations can begin, the Centers for Disease Control said in a statement on Wednesday. All cruise volunteers will need to be fully vaccinated and must agree to be tested for covid-19…Read more...

Andrew Brenner, a state senator in Ohio, is getting some heat for driving while participating in a Zoom call earlier this week. The Ohio Senate is currently taking up a bill that would create additional penalties for distracted driving and a local newspaper, the Columbus Dispatch, pointed out the irony of the…Read more...

In Awake, a mysterious event causes all electronics to stop working... as well as people’s inability to sleep. I have no idea what could possibly cause both these things, and if there’s an answer, it’s absolutely not in the movie’s first trailer.

Billboard — the music industry’s stalwart chart resource — announced plans on Wednesday to team up with Twitter to give the people what they want: more charts.Read more...

New Starlink data out today shows where in the U.S. Elon Musk’s ambitious satellite internet service is exceeding expectations—and where it’s falling short.Read more...

Star Wars’ newest animated series, The Bad Batch, takes us right into the earliest days of the rise of the Empire. This means it starts getting to grips with a disconcerting question almost immediately: what happens when you say no to the Galactic Empire? But that’s not a question for most Clone Troopers... and maybe…Read more...

Twitter is (again) asking you to think a bit before you tweet. On Wednesday, the company announced that it is slowly rolling out prompts for English-speaking iOS and Android users that encourage them to “pause and reconsider” a particularly hateful tweet before they hit send.

On Wednesday, Facebook’s Oversight Board, the pseudo-legalistic, questionably independent body that the company claims has the power to review and potentially overrule official moderation decisions, issued its not-so-final proclamations regarding the status of Donald Trump’s account.

Of course, it seems like Mobius (Owen Wilson) might be slightly overselling the Norse god of mischief’s performance at his mandatory new job for the Time Variance Authority, straightening out the multiverse he helped create in Avengers: Endgame.

If the world is going to decarbonize, we’re gonna need a bigger supply of minerals, a new report says.Read more...

Last week, the real-play Dungeons & Dragons podcast Dark Dice announced that legendary actor Jeff Goldblum had amazingly, inexplicably, wonderfully signed on to play the Elven sorcerer Balmur for the series’ second season. It sounds like this roll of the die was a critical success.

Internet data usage is skyrocketing these days, to no surprise.Read more...

Early reports say that Ta-Nehisi Coates’ already much-anticipated Superman movie could take place in the 20th century, which offers some very interesting options for what’s going to be an extremely interesting movie.

After weeks of back-and-forth discussions within the Biden administration, the U.S. is now preparing to back the temporary waiving of patent rights over covid-19 vaccines—a policy that advocates say is needed to speed up the production and acquisition of vaccines for developing countries. As part of its support, the…Read more...

After years of delays, Blue Origin says it’s finally ready for a crewed launch of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle. Founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the company is aiming for launch in July, and an auction will be held to choose a member of the crew.Read more...

Playmobil continues to prove that when a company goes the extra mile, a toy line targeted at kids can be coveted by grown-up collectors too.Read more...

A cryptocurrency scam recently pilfered at least $2 million from WallStreetBets enthusiasts, convincing them that they were buying into a new crypto coin connected to the popular memestock, according to a report from Bloomberg News.Read more...

Like the movie industry, the realm of television is still in the process of clawing its way back from covid-related delays. While some new seasons, hiatus returns, and debuts will need a little more time to make it to the airwaves, rest assured there’s still plenty of fresh summer TV on the way.