Gizmodo

Netflix reveals the voice cast for Arcane, its League of Legends animated series. Chris Columbus and Ned Vizzini are turning House of Secrets into a live-action show. Plus, what’s next on Star Trek: Lower Decks, and what’s to come on Stargirl and Supergirl. Spoilers go!

Apple’s cheapest iPad is the iPhone SE of tablets. On the surface, there are no bells or whistles. It has chunky bezels, a physical home button with Touch ID, and a design that calls to mind mid-2010s iPhones. It is, safe to say, boring. And people still love it.

Bill Gates is currently doing a media tour to talk about his $1 billion clean energy partnership with large corporations. But after countless softball interviews on various TV networks, Gates clearly wasn’t prepared to be asked about any sensitive topics when he sat down for an interview with PBS on Tuesday night.…Read more...

Amazon is ramping up its pro-weed campaign, announcing on Tuesday that it is actively lobbying for legislative reforms aimed at decriminalization and reaffirming its commitment to not screening job applicants for cannabis.

Created by Toff Mazery and Edward Jesse, and executive produced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, also a noted Magic: The Gathering fan), Wolfboy and the Everything Factory is that (seemingly) increasingly rare thing: an animated series based on an original idea. The Apple TV+ series is about…Read more...

Fans who were unable to head to a theater to see Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings should make an 11th ring around November 12 on their calendars. That’s the day the latest Marvel Studios film will make its streaming debut on Disney+, and it’s only one of a long list of exciting things happening that day.Read more...

In Sunrise’s anime s-CRY-ed, which originally aired on TV Tokyo back in 2001, the future is a chaotic time—the world is still reeling from a mysterious geological phenomenon known as “The Great Uprising” that absolutely devastates a chunk of Japan. Though life continues to find a way in the Kanagawa Prefecture,…Read more...

The Kaseya ransomware attack, which occurred in July and affected as many as 1,500 companies worldwide, was a big, destructive mess—one of the largest and most unwieldy of its kind in recent memory. But new information shows the FBI could have lightened the blow victims suffered but chose not to.

As much fun as Doom was, it felt more like a gory cartoon with most of the scares coming from enemies hidden behind doors and blind corners. Quake, on the other hand, felt endlessly creepy and scary thanks in part to its real-time lighting that helped set the mood. To make any room feel as spooky, Rodrigo Feliciano…Read more...

Did you think that just because the Undertaker retired from the WWE last year—to the extent you think about the Undertaker at all—meant the league’s wrestlers wouldn’t still feel his steel-like, black leather-clad hand around their throats? Alas for Big E, Xavier Woods, and Kofi Kingston—the trio known together as the…Read more...

In remarks made at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that the country would move away from financing coal projects abroad—a huge move that would take away the largest remaining source of support for new coal-fired power.Read more...

Facebook bet big on connecting people via video with the original Portal smart display, and the company is back with two new Portals: a bigger Portal+ for large group calls and a battery-powered Portal Go that can tag along as you move about the house.

A sweeping outbreak of Salmonella bacteria has sickened people in at least 25 states, health officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have reported. So far, though, the exact source of the foodborne illness remains a mystery, and officials are asking for people with a suspected stomach flu to…Read more...

The U.S. just went through its hottest summer on record. Searing heat killed hundreds and sickened countless more, including some people who were on the job. While summer is officially over, the heat is set to continue this week across the parts of the country this week.Read more...

Gumball may have come to an end on Cartoon Network a few years ago, but the series is back in style—there and on HBO Max, for two new projects out of Warner’s European-based revitalization of the Hanna-Barbera name.

After you install iOS 15 on your iPhone, you’ll be able to store verifiable versions of your covid-19 vaccination and test results records in the Health app. Later this year, an iOS 15 update will also allow you to add and present a verifiable covid-19 vaccine card to your iPhone Wallet app and lock screen.Read more...

This Christmas, get ready to wash your hands repeatedly, see daggers before yourself, and take questionable advice from some witches. Especially if you’re Denzel Washington, apparently.

Netflix rolled out a new free mobile plan to users in Kenya on Monday, part of a larger effort by the streaming giant to lure in new African subscribers.Read more...

Teotihuacán in its heyday was one of the largest cities in the world, supporting over 100,000 people in an 8-square-mile stretch of what is now Central Mexico. Now, a team of archaeologists have used an aerial scanning technology to see how the landscape was modified on a sweeping scale by the people who lived there.Read more...

Netflix, which already has an animation deal in place with the Roald Dahl Story Co., is now hoping to level up by taking control of Dahl’s complete works. As Bloomberg reports, citing sources who wished to remain unidentified, “a deal could be announced in days” that gives Netflix ownership of the author’s full…Read more...

Uber says it’s set to break even or make an operating profit for the first time ever ahead of schedule—you know, on paper, so long as you squint your eyes at the books in the Uber-approved way.Read more...

Do you have a child who loved Marvel’s Black Panther movie and wants to know more about the character, but maybe isn’t ready to dive into the comics? Disney Books has just the thing. Author Ronald L. Smith is about to release Black Panther: Spellbound, a young adult novel that follows a young T’Challa on a trip to…Read more...

It’s clear e-bikes are having a moment. Sales in the U.S. grew by an astounding 145% last year, thanks, in large part, to the pandemic. But as e-bike models expand, it seems that more and more people are getting interested in their possibilities even as life—and work commutes—slowly return to some semblance of normal.Read more...

A shocking scene took place late last week in South Africa, as swarming honey bees laid waste to dozens of endangered African penguins. We’re learning more about what happened that day and why the deaths are a such big blow to conservationists.Read more...

It turns out Facebook’s apparent attempts to thwart investigations into its platform aren’t only harming ad blockers, researchers, and regulators, but users of its platform, too. That’s according to a new report in the Markup detailing how a recent tweak to Facebook’s News Feed meant to hamper researchers came with…Read more...

Cowboy Bebop’s lived-in fusion of sci-fi urban design, Western shantytowns, and interstellar mechanical design is so important to its tone and feel that any live-action adaptation has to nail it to “get” Bebop. But as Netflix’s upcoming series apparently learned, of equal importance was ensuring John Cho went through…Read more...

In a major stroke of innovative brilliance the likes of which Silicon Valley has never seen before, Slack announced this week that it will become the latest in a long line of tech companies to roll out a Stories-style feature.

The iPhone 13 was just announced last week, but that isn’t stopping noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo from releasing some very interesting predictions for future upgrades coming to the iPhone 14 and beyond.

Remote work isn’t going away, so to help getting work done at home a bit easier, HP just announced a slew of new devices, from laptops to tablets to all-in-ones. Let’s jump in.Read more...

There is no greater question in Star Wars than “What even is Star Wars?” That question—to break down what makes one of the most beloved sci-fi sagas in existence down to a core of ideals, imagery, symbols, and archetypes—has driven iteration upon iteration to add to its vast world since the franchise began. But in…Read more...

After much deliberation, NASA has selected an intriguing spot for its upcoming Artemis rover mission: the rugged edge of an impact crater near the Moon’s South Pole.

Royal Dutch Shell on Monday said it was selling off all of its oil and gas assets in Texas’s Permian Basin for $9.5 billion in cash to ConocoPhillips, one of the biggest recent transactions in the industry.

Dr. Sam Beckett theorized that one man could time travel within his lifetime, but could the beloved sci-fi series Quantum Leap return within star Scott Bakula’s lifetime? The actor offers a firm “maybe.”

It’s been widely reported that Apple is working on developing a number of advanced health tools, ranging from blood glucose monitoring to body-temperature-based fertility. Now, a new report claims that Apple is also working with the University of California, Los Angeles and pharmaceutical company Biogen to see if its…Read more...

For most kids who are excited to drive one day, an electric Power Wheels vehicle is the ultimate toy, letting them cruise the neighborhood like a tiny adult. Unless that kid is part of the 1%. For them, The Little Car Company has created a painstakingly accurate miniature Aston Martin DB5 upgraded with all of James…Read more...

As of this week, covid-19 is officially the deadliest pandemic ever recorded in the U.S., trumping the 1918-19 pandemic influenza. It’s understandable for people to make the comparison between the two horrific diseases, but there are many reasons why they’re not so analogous, some of which only highlight the dismal…Read more...

Tom Hardy talks about Eddie and the Symbiote’s relationship in Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Ewan McGregor teases what to expect from Obi-Wan Kenobi. Michelle Gomez teases her return to villainy as Doom Patrol’s Madame Rouge. Plus, a tiny glimpse at Peacemaker. Spoilers, away!

The Kindle is a classic for a reason: Amazon’s small, simple, affordable ereader lineup may not have a lot of bells and whistles, but it’s been good enough to get the job done. Times have changed, though, and people have come to expect even their cheap devices to have the latest technology. The Kindle’s microUSB port?…Read more...

I should be more excited about Fitbit’s Charge 5 fitness tracker. Unlike last year’s iterative Charge 4, the latest model adds a snazzy new always-on color touch screen, an electrodermal activity sensor, electrocardiogram sensor, and a new metric called the Daily Readiness Score. On paper, this is a significant…Read more...

Political leaders from around the world are meeting this week at the United Nations in New York. And while there are plenty of important things on the official agenda, arguably the most interesting meetings are happening on the sidelines, like UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s meeting on Monday with Amazon founder…Read more...

The covid-19 pandemic has killed over 676,000 Americans, surpassing the estimated U.S. deaths from the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. And despite rising vaccination rates, it looks like covid-19 is going to kill a lot more Americans before this thing is over.Read more...

Apple TV+’s long-awaited adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s classic sci-fi saga Foundation is nearly upon us, and the streamer wants you to be both excited and prepared. We’ve gotten a few trailers so far, and now there’s a “First Look” that goes behind the scenes of the series. Prominently featured is showrunner, writer,…Read more...

Around 1,500 years ago, a powerful volcanic eruption laid waste to what is now El Salvador, sending the Maya civilization into a temporary period of decline. New research suggests a monumental pyramid located near the volcano was built by the Maya shortly afterward, as a response to the natural disaster.Read more...

Everything we’ve been expecting Microsoft to show off at its Surface event on Wednesday looks even more likely to appear. A handful of leaks out today indicate that the Windows-based Surface Pro X and Surface Pro 8 are on the horizon, as is Microsoft’s Android flagship, the Surface Duo 2.

While the Pokémon Company’s physical card game is regularly updated with new sets, it’s been years since there was a significant refresh of the digital companion platform, where collectors could scan their pulls and battle other players without worrying about damaging their treasured pieces of shiny cardboard. Soon,…Read more...

After a year-long investigation, police in Europe say they have arrested 106 people in connection with a large cybercrime ring with close ties to the Italian mafia.

Marvel’s Shang-Chi star Simu Liu has become one of the latest examples of why you should periodically delete old social media posts. Last week, fans began sharing screenshots of Reddit comments the actor allegedly made years before he was well known. To say they were “not great” would be an understatement.

While the world watched and waited anxiously for any development in the case of Gabby Petito, the 22-year-old woman who had vanished during a cross-country van trip with her 23-year-old fiancé, Brian Laundrie, TikTok sleuths had already rolled up their shirtsleeves and prepped their metaphorical string theory boards:…Read more...

More than 2,000 infants in the U.S. were born with syphilis in 2020, according to recent data presented by researchers with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The preliminary figures represent the highest annual toll of congenital syphilis reported in over 25 years. At least 139 children died from the…Read more...

After dropping its first three episodes in one chunk, this week Y: The Last Man got back on its regularly scheduled course, in a few different ways. First, from now through the end of October, the remainder of the episodes will release once per week. Second, the titular last man Yorick (Ben Schnetzer) and his…Read more...