Gizmodo

New research suggests a hacking tool previously developed by the National Security Agency was stolen years ago by a prolific Chinese cyber group and was subsequently used against a variety of U.S. targets.

Dish Network is doubling down on its intention to launch its 5G network in major cities by September, The Verge reports. Since Dish acquired Boost Mobile last year, that puts the company in a unique position to compete with existing mobile carriers, and Ergen said during the company’s earnings call today that Dish can…Read more...

How does a service stay competitive while also continuing to hike up the cost of its subscription? A bundle, of course.

Social media has long been the bane and the muse of anyone suffering from an eating disorder. To exist online with a pulse in the year 2012 was to understand the cesspool of “thinspiration”-style content that proliferated on platforms like Tumblr, Xanga and Pinterest, and more recently, the rise of “influencer”…Read more...

Traeger pellet grills and smokers are the centerpieces of many suburban barbecues, and those lucky enough to be able to tend these machines are considered gods among the brisket set. Now, after years of only being able to check and tweak your grill via your phone, Traeger is now offering an Apple Watch app for…Read more...

A tiny ear bone belonging to a cave bear that died some 360,000 years ago has yielded the oldest genome not sourced from permafrost. The newly sequenced genome is offering new insights into the evolution of cave bears and how climate change can precipitate the emergence of entirely new species.

Megan Thompson-Munson, a geologist and climate scientist, has seen your drawings of icebergs and had enough. It’s time for a scientific reckoning.Read more...

NASA has released stunning footage of the Perseverance rover landing on Mars, in what is a seminal achievement for the space agency.

A new malware strain has infected Mac devices all over the world—most prominently in the U.S. and parts of Europe—though experts can’t decide where it came from or what it does.Read more...

Foldable phones still aren’t quite mainstream, but Huawei’s new Mate X2 looks like it may just be real competition for Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 2.Read more...

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, the rabidly pro-Trump pillow magnate who bafflingly became one of the key figures in the ex-president’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 elections, is now facing a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit from election tech manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems. While the suit appears to…Read more...

A robot built out of Lego can solve a Rubik’s Cube in about 3.2 seconds, but some 40 years after I first picked up the iconic puzzle, I’ve yet to solve it on my own. I assumed that successfully unscrambling a cube would forever remain on my bucket list, but a smart Rubik’s Cube is finally teaching me the strategies to…Read more...

An Arizona law helping people with drug possession convictions earn early release from prison is being effectively ignored in many cases due to flaws in state’s inmate management software, according to a Phoenix-area public radio station citing multiple government sources.

Real-world data is offering hope that mRNA vaccines are highly effective at limiting infection and presumably transmission of the coronavirus, in addition to their already-known ability to prevent symptoms of covid-19. The findings, based on research from Israel and elsewhere, are good news for containing the pandemic…Read more...

Throttling is the not-so-secret way traditional “unlimited” cellular data plans keep you from tapping into all that data. T-Mobile’s new Magenta Max Plan, which is designed to maximize the potential of faster 5G speeds, is promising to make unlimited data truly unlimited for the first time in a long time.Read more...

If you haven’t seen the latest episode of WandaVision yet, you might want to click away. Heck, even if you have seen it you might want to be careful. If you don’t, a certain song is about to be stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

Audiophiles, rejoice. Spotify announced today during a media event that starting later this year, Premium subscribers will get the option of streaming CD-quality, lossless audio via a new paid tier dubbed Spotify HiFi.Read more...

Netflix just made offline viewing a whole lot simpler.

Clubhouse—the invitation-only audio app best known for courting everyone from Elon Musk to Mark Zuckerberg—has promised to implement new safeguards after suffering its second high-profile security snafu this month.Read more...

It’s been a little over a week since former-President Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate in the impeachment trial surrounding his role in inciting a riot at the Capitol in January, and Google thinks it’s time we get back into the political swing of things.Read more...

Every day, the Arctic slips further into an unstable state. The latest sign: A Russian icebreaker and liquid natural gas ship have traversed the Northern Sea Route in February for the first time due to exceptionally low and weak sea ice cover.

Folks across Texas are receiving outrageous energy bills in the wake of widespread utility shutoffs during last week’s cold snap. Thankfully, state officials issued some stopgap measures on Sunday to protect them from those ridiculous financial burdens.

We’ve reviewed a ton of laptops and played around with even more. While we have an entire guide dedicated to laptops, we know some people just want to game, and so no matter your budget, we’ve curated some of the best gaming laptops currently on the market. Many of them are great for other tasks besides gaming, too,…Read more...

One of the many, many things that’s made WandaVision so compelling to watch are the ways it has poked and prodded at the format of television to tell the story of Scarlet Witch and Vision’s unlikely love. But in an episode that was all about the fakeness of that metatext finally breaking down, a sincere turning point…Read more...

Israel is scrambling to clean up black tar that has washed ashore on its beaches following an oil spill that officials are calling one of the worst environmental disasters in years.Read more...

Despite being considered one of the greatest handheld consoles of all time, every version of the Nintendo Game Boy Advance had a problematic design flaw, from missing headphone jacks to screens that were either too small or dark. They can now all be fixed with mods, and a new aluminum housing from Boxy Pixel can even…Read more...

It looks like Apple and Facebook aren’t the only tech giants developing a pair of augmented reality smart glasses. Over the weekend, Twitter user @WalkingCat leaked two videos allegedly from Samsung showcasing a pair of AR glasses dubbed “Glasses Lite” and what appears to be the company’s vision for “Next Wearable…Read more...

Marvel Studios productions are chugging along with new casting and fun filming details. Discovery of Witches gets a few new castmembers. Plus updates from The Flash, Batwoman, Black Lightning, and more. Spoilers away!

Laptops are fantastic for portable computing on the go, letting you move from the home to the office, or from the study to the bedroom, or from planes to trains with ease. They’ve got a lot of advantages, but if you’re going to be stuck in one place for an extended period of time (sound familiar?), the disadvantages…Read more...

Cyberpunk 2077 (PS4) w/ SteelBook Case | $30 | Best Buy

The Neanderthal of popular imagination is a hideous, ape-like being, lumbering around with his or her crude spear. Rarely do we picture this person, or pre-person, engaged in any kind of conversation, beyond the occasional grunt-off over a spoiled piece of meat. But—depending on which archaeologist/linguist you happen…Read more...

Have you seen those viral videos on TikTok and Twitter where users are burning snow to “prove” that it’s actually fake? Needless to say, the snow is real. The viral videos actually show a perfectly normal reaction to placing the flame of a lighter or match against a snowball. But that hasn’t stopped these videos from…Read more...

As if gig workers didn’t have it hard enough already, they now have to be on the lookout for possible phishing scams from malicious actors that pretend to represent their company.Read more...

The Federal Aviation Administration has ended its investigations into SpaceX’s last two Starship prototype tests, dubbed SN8 and SN9, according to CNN’s Jackie Wattles. News of the federal probes threw the launch of SpaceX’s SN10 prototype into legal limbo, but on Sunday CEO Elon Musk seemed confident that the matter…Read more...

On Saturday, residents of a Colorado suburb witnessed a scene straight out of a disaster movie: The sound of an explosion overhead followed by huge chunks of metal raining down from above.Read more...

After causing a huge virtual meltdown with the announcement of its new privacy policy, and then postponing the implementation of said policy due to online fury, WhatsApp has spent the last few weeks trying not to stir up trouble. However, it has just revealed what will happen to users who do not accept its new privacy…Read more...

Tacklife Fire Pit Table | $270 | Amazon | Use code 40919XJ8 + Clip coupon

After years of everyone being all “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia” about his Justice League cut, I almost forgot about Zack Snyder’s return to the zombie genre. But since everything’s coming up Snyder this month, we’ve got a poster and an upcoming teaser.Read more...

Fans on the official Twitch gaming stream hoping to enjoy Metallica’s virtual performance at BlizzCon, Blizzard’s annual gaming convention, on Friday heard something that was, uh, definitely not Metallica.Read more...

Huge metal chunks of debris rained down on a Colorado suburb Saturday afternoon after the engine on a United Airlines plane overhead burst into flames.Read more...

As if freezing for days and living with power outrages weren’t bad enough, some Texans now have to deal with the steep financial consequences from the storm. The latest blow came via the electricity bills, some of which have reached outrageous sums that can reach $5,000 or even $17,000 for just a few days.Read more...

It’s hard to believe that almost a year into the pandemic pushing everything virtual, there are people still struggling to get the hang of Zoom. And yet here we are.Read more...

Google has fired another top artificial intelligence researcher, Margaret Mitchell, in the latest escalation of internal tensions at the company following December’s controversial ouster of Timnit Gebru, a Black AI ethicist. As if the PR fire with Google’s AI ethics team didn’t have enough fuel already.Read more...

Paul Feig continues on his personal mission to give us gifts in the form of powerful lady team-ups. This time, it’s Kerry Washington and Charlize Theron playing best friends and the Deans of The School of Good and Evil.Read more...

On Monday night, the temperature in Lake Charles, Louisiana dipped to 14 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-10 degrees Celsius), more than 30 degrees Fahrenheit (16.7 degrees Celsius) below average. Hours later, just before the sun rose on Tuesday morning, the city’s power supply abruptly shut off, taking the six local water…Read more...

Unfortunately, it’s not hard to find information about the disturbing, unhealthy, and inhumane conditions that immigrants face in ICE detention centers, many of which are privately-owned. It is, however, more complicated to find photos of these detention centers. Access to photographers is often not on the table.Read more...

A new J.J. Abrams-created thriller is coming to HBO Max. No, not that one, another one.Read more...

Nyan Cat is turning 10 years old in April (feel old yet?), and to celebrate the anniversary of one of the internet’s most wholesome memes, the artist behind the gif, Chris Torres, put a newly remastered version up for auction. On Friday, the piece sold for 300 Ether on the crypto art platform Foundation, which…Read more...

Plex appears to be exploring an integration with Apple’s streaming app.

If you’re anything like me, the last year of social distancing and lockdowns has not been good for your social life, hobbies, or generally doing interesting things at all. Going to movies, restaurants, bars, concerts, or events are for the most part non-starters; parties and other social gatherings involving more…Read more...