Gizmodo

New research from the UK provides the clearest indication yet of how protected fully vaccinated people are from the Delta variant of the coronavirus. Based on ongoing surveillance data, researchers estimate that the vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford University/AstraZeneca are 50% to 60% effective at…Read more...

The Walt Disney Company—worth an estimated $122.18 billion—would like you to pay $6,000 to take a family of four to its new, immersive Star Wars hotel for two nights.

A lawyer in Portland, Oregon, suspected that a city contractor was illegally trashing property belonging to people living at an encampment for people experiencing homelessness, so he covertly attached Apple AirTag tracking devices to some of the items. Sure enough, the items ended up in a landfill, and now there may…Read more...

As part of its ongoing efforts to build out its 4G and 5G coverage, T-Mobile has announced that it will be shutting down Sprint’s old LTE network next year in June.Read more...

In each episode of What If, different characters from the MCU and Marvel’s comics are spotlighted in self-contained stories that reimagine them as distinctly different versions of themselves than we’re used to seeing on either the big or small screens. What if, the show asks, T’Challa was abducted by the Ravagers?…Read more...

Smartphone photography has improved by leaps and bounds over the years, but if there’s one thing that’s annoyingly remained, it’s that damn green dot that randomly pops up in certain photos. However, there’s some good news for iPhone users. It appears that the latest iOS 15 beta has quietly added a feature that…Read more...

Scream (aka Scream 5) is apparently going to take some “risks.” Joe Manganiello gives some more details on Moonhaven. Plus, updates from all the Ws: Westworld, What We Do in the Shadows, What If, and more. Spoilers away!

There’s not a whole lot innovation happening in kitchen appliances these days (unless you count wifi connectivity, voice assistant integration, or the addition of an unnecessary screen). That’s why Heatworks’ Tetra countertop dishwasher that doesn’t require any plumbing connections was so exciting when it was first…Read more...

Like most kids at the turn of the century, my two sisters and I were obsessed with Pokémon. We had the GameBoy games, the VHS tapes, binders bursting at the seams with trading cards— you name it. And when we finally got our first video game console in 2000 (after years of begging our mom), it was Pokémon-themed too:…Read more...

An 84-year-old man in Germany has been hit with heavy fines after a Nazi-era tank and other weapons from World War II were discovered in his garage, according to a report from Germany’s DPA news agency. The tank and assorted weapons were uncovered after a tipster told authorities there might be art stolen during World…Read more...

Citizen, the self-proclaimed crime-fighting app, has launched a new premium service that, for $20 a month, lets you do something you can already do for free.Read more...

The dead speak! On the official Star Wars website in fact! In a new blog post on the site today, Lucasfilm Story Group member Emily Shkoukani explained “The Contingency”—the canon name for exactly how Emperor Palpatine died, came back to life, and returned to power in Star Wars. A plan that was, according to the site,…Read more...

Whether you’re running it for a nostalgic feel or you’ve held on to a device for too long, it’s time to say goodbye to the decade-old Android Gingerbread. Google is officially laying it to rest.

Martial arts movies that double as historical epics are supposed to be set in Asia. They’re not supposed to take place in the opulent, luxurious, ostentatious mansions of the bewigged aristocracy of 1760s France. Yet 2001’s Brotherhood of the Wolf has the audacity to take these wildly incohesive elements, along with…Read more...

Zoe Saldana has starred in some of the biggest, most successful films in history. Next up, she’ll try to make more history by teaming up with the hugely successful anime brand Crunchyroll to create a franchise of her own.Read more...

If you follow tech news, you may have been wondering to yourself—what the hell is a metaverse? That’s fair. But if you are wondering what the metaverse is, please, do not go to Jim Cramer for answers.Read more...

Giraffes are way more socially competent than we give them credit for, a team of scientists from the University of Bristol say. They’re calling for an updated understanding of the incredibly tall artiodactyls.

Henry Bonsu’s Lazor Wulf, an off-kilter animated series about a talking wolf armed with a laser gun, was one of Adult Swim’s most refreshing shows. It switched up the usual late-night cartoon bloc by spotlighting a bevy of Black talent and creativity. Though the show met its untimely end earlier this year after just…Read more...

A NASA flight director has provided new details about last week’s scary incident in orbit, in which a freshly docked Russian module inadvertently fired its thrusters, causing the International Space Station to roll backwards.Read more...

He’s played J.R.R. Tolkien, the X-Men’s Beast, and a romantic zombie—plus, we all witnessed him in Mad Max: Fury Road. Now Nicholas Hoult is adding another notch to his already impressive genre resume, signing on to star as the title character in Chris McKay’s Dracula-adjacent Universal monster movie Renfield.Read more...

The United States is at no risk of being confused for a country with serious cybersecurity defenses.

Recent preliminary research from India may offer some more good news for people who have gotten covid-19 vaccines, even in the face of the more virulent Delta variant. The study found that fully vaccinated people who ended up hospitalized—itself a rare risk among the vaccinated—still had a lower chance of becoming…Read more...

Last fall, Apple reimagined its classic MagSafe magnetic charging tech in the form of a slim puck for charging the iPhone 12. Now Realme is bringing wireless magnetic recharging to the Android ecosystem for the first time with its new MagDart chargers.

Maybe it’s just us, but when we see people in period clothing singing catchy modern pop songs, we’re instantly transported back to 2001. That was when a young actor named Heath Ledger (along with Paul Bettany, Alan Tudyk, and others) gave us A Knight’s Tale, a fun medieval adventure film filled with modern music. What…Read more...

Wildfires are raging out of control amid blistering heat in Turkey and Greece. New data shows that ground temperatures in parts of Greece and Turkey reached more than 127 degrees Fahrenheit (53 degrees Celsius) on Tuesday.Read more...

Not to be outdone by the young upstart Perseverance, NASA’s Curiosity rover has spent recent days imaging interesting rocks at the base of Mount Sharp on Mars, near which the rover landed in August 2012. One of those features is an arch, similar to some of the towering geology present on parts of Earth—but this arch…Read more...

China’s state propaganda institutions are urging companies like ByteDance, the owner of music app TikTok/Douyin, and Tencent Holdings, owner of messaging app WeChat and numerous streaming platforms, to limit the role of algorithms in content promotion, the South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday.Read more...

Passengers aboard American Airlines flights will soon have an in-flight entertainment option that’s not “La La Land, but you fall asleep 20 minutes in and don’t rewind it so now you’ll never really know the plot of that movie”: TikTok, which just became available for free in 30-minute increments.Read more...

While companies like Nothing are working to deliver a fully-featured set of wireless earbuds for less than $100, companies like JLab are lowering the bar even further. Its new GO Pop AIR wireless earbuds promise eight hours of battery life, or 32 when paired with its charging case, for just $20.Read more...

NASA is scheduled to launch a Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft on Tuesday, August 3, in what will be the second uncrewed test of the commercial crew vehicle. You can watch the action live right here.

Windows 11 is arriving later this year, and with it, a new refreshed version of MS Paint and Photos. Initially spotted by Windows Latest, Microsoft has quietly posted pics of the two refreshed apps on Unsplash.Read more...

Regardless of how you feel about Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, it’s difficult to deny that the movie could have used just a little bit more of Poe Dameron, everyone’s favorite space-bound hothead with excellent hair. While Poe’s live-action adventures might be done for the time being, Lucasfilm’s set to bring him…Read more...

In an effort to expanding its offerings and potentially give customers more flexible pricing, Spotify has begun testing out a new super-cheap subscription that starts at just $0.99 a month.Read more...

Apple finally brought Touch ID to its desktop computers earlier this year with an upgraded version of its wireless Magic Keyboard featuring an added fingerprint sensor. To date, it’s been exclusively available with Apple’s new M1-powered iMac, but it now finally appears to be available as a standalone accessory…Read more...

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ next live-action feature film just picked up a pair of writers. Marvel’s What If cast is missing at least one popular actor. Plus, the Munsters are going to be looking pretty swank when they return to the screen. Spoilers right this way...

The Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Con controllers are capable of more than just gaming. If Joy-Con drift hasn’t made you bananas, then you can detach the controllers (on the bigger, non-Lite Switch) and use them in a variety of different ways. Here are three of the most useful ones we’ve found.

An official at the National Labor Relations Board has recommended workers at Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse in Alabama be allowed to vote again on unionization after the formation of a union was rejected in April. At least that’s the claim being made by the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, which tried and…Read more...

At least seven new cases of covid-19 has been detected over the past two days in Wuhan, China prompting city officials to declare that everyone in the city will be tested for coronavirus. Again.Read more...

It finally happened. After 27 years, millions of dollars and a few lucrative book deals between them, Bill and Melinda Gates finalized their divorce on Monday, marking the end of one of the most wholesome power couples of our time—or at least, formerly wholesome. Ever since the two announced their impending split last…Read more...

In 2015, fans walked into Star Wars: The Force Awakens with many questions—and near the top of the list was “What’s up with Luke Skywalker?” Fans would only get hints in that film, and have to wait two more years to find out his fate in 2017's Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Still, this was an old Luke. A battered Luke. A…Read more...

YouTube Premium is a solid option if you want to pay to skip through its often harrowing advertising. But it’s about $12 a month on top of a whole host of other subscription services you’re probably already paying for. The price includes access to YouTube Music, offline downloads, and background playback. But for…Read more...

The cryptocurrency lobby won some major concessions in the $1 trillion infrastructure bill just approved on a bipartisan basis in the Senate, the New York Times reported on Monday, but are still pressing for more.

A woman who’s been declared dead suddenly awakens—and the weirdness only amplifies from there in Post Mortem: No One Dies in Skarnes, a new Norwegian horror series that’s arriving soon on Netflix. Things become even more complicated by the fact that the not-so-dead woman’s brother runs the local funeral home—and…Read more...

Both versions of Howl’s Moving Castle—Diana Wynne Jones’ novel and director Hayao Miyazaki’s animated feature film of the same name—tell the story of Sophie Hatter, a young woman whose fate as a future hatmaker is all but decided for her due to her being the eldest sister. To everyone around Sophie, her working in the…Read more...

DirecTV has officially spun out from under AT&T, cementing a separation that was first announced in February and clearing a path forward for the satellite television company to absorb all of AT&T’s streaming assets.Read more...

Two spacecraft will fly past either side of Venus next week in the span of just 33 hours. The rare double flyby gives researchers an opportunity to observe the planet from multiple vantage points at nearly the same time.

Well, it’s finally infrastructure week and not a moment too soon. On Sunday, Colorado’s crucial east-west artery of I-70 shut down indefinitely “due to extreme damage from the latest round of flooding” to hit the state.Read more...

Outside of military and aerospace applications, there’s not yet a lot of practical uses for the incredibly black paints created in research labs, unless you consider recreating the slapstick comedy of a Looney Tunes cartoon in real life an important application. But there’s no denying these non-reflective paints look…Read more...

The Shazam sequel may be welcoming back another familiar face. Fantasy author Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children will be coming to a theater near you sometime in the future. New clips from The Suicide Squad plus updates from Rick and Morty, Schimagadoon, and more. Spoilers, hooooooo!