Gizmodo

Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's regular round up of the shiniest plastic tempting our wallets on the internet. This week, The Batman slips into Bandai’s S.H. Figuarts line, NECA goes full on retro assault with a new TMNT Turtle Van for its classic figures, and Steven Grant gets his time to shine with Hasbro’s latest…Read more...

I’m not very far into playing through all nine Star Wars movies in this week’s Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, but I’m already convinced it’s one of the definitive takes on the franchise for a single reason: Padmé Amidala’s best decoy being a guy in a beard.

The DC Universe continues to expand on HBO Max, and it has an Oscar winner attached to its next project: Charlize Theron is on board to executive produce You Brought Me the Ocean, a series adaptation of the graphic novel based on Aquaman characters.Read more...

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is cracking down on unruly passenger behavior, handing two airline passengers the largest fines yet as part of its “zero tolerance” policy towards disruptive behavior. They’re being hit with fines of $81,950 and $77,272 for their alleged unruly behavior.Read more...

The next Star Wars streaming show to go into production centers Ahsoka Tano, and the show just added a director from a whole other multiverse. The Hollywood Reporter says that Peter Ramsey, one of the three Oscar-winning directors of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, is joining the Ahsoka show as a director on at…Read more...

Although Shane Wighton might have something to say about the creators of the Huupe claiming it’s “the world’s first smart basketball hoop,” the device looks like it could be an interesting (and equally expensive) alternative to Peloton’s offerings for those who prefer to shoot hoops to exercise instead of cycling…Read more...

In another multiverse where the entire world wasn’t put on hold due to a deadly pandemic, we’re all in a theater right now, seeing what’s next for Miles Morales. The hilarious Twitter account @PoorlyAgedStuff pointed out that back in 2019, when Sony officially announced a sequel to the Oscar-winning Spider-Man:…Read more...

Those recent on-set photos of Nicolas Cage’s flashy interpretation of Count Dracula for Renfield were glorious—and made us think back on previous portrayals of the world’s most celebrated vampire, which run the gamut from eerie and scary to campy and ridiculous. Here are 24 memorable big-screen takes on Bram Stoker’s…Read more...

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has closed an application from SpaceX to expand its Boca Chica launch site in south Texas, saying the company failed to provide the necessary information.

Elon Musk will soon be facing a tough crowd as Twitter plans on hosting a town hall with its newest board member to address disgruntled employees, giving them a chance to air-out their grievances over Musk’s new role in the company.Read more...

When you think of Star Trek, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? A character? A ship? A particular series or episode? Whatever your answer is, we’re willing to guess it wasn’t friendship, but maybe it should be. Think about it. Ultimately, all iterations of Star Trek are about the bonds of friendship, and now…Read more...

Forgot all about Curiosity, didn’t you? The veteran Mars rover spent most of last month climbing a gentle slope known as the Greenheugh Pediment, but now it has to turn back after encountering sharp rocks that could damage its wheels.Read more...

Measurements taken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases, is rising at a rate faster than any other time in recorded history. Great!Read more...

Google is joining Samsung in offering parts for the Pixel smartphone through iFixit. The company announced in a blog post that it would make parts available for the Pixel 2 through Pixel 6 Pro later this year.

In DC and Marvel’s comic book worlds, the concept of time and aging is basically nonexistent until it needs to matter, like for a particular AU. For the many adaptations featuring these heroes, animated or otherwise, that same ethos largely holds true: these characters exist in a nebulous space where they’ve certainly…Read more...

The ground is shifting beneath Amazon’s mammoth-sized feet. Just days after workers at a Staten Island, New York warehouse voted to create the first Amazon union in the U.S., securities regulators authorized a shareholder vote on an investigation into its treatment of warehouse workers.Read more...

New research from Sweden is the latest to show that people who contract covid-19 are then more susceptible to other serious health problems down the road. The study found that covid-19 survivors were more likely to experience blood clotting issues in the weeks and months following their infection than those not…Read more...

If you’re sad that Jodie Whittaker has only two more outings as the Thirteenth Doctor left before she regenerates into a new (and as yet undisclosed) incarnation, I have some solace for you: there’s actually one more story coming very soon, it’s just not on TV.

A team of astronomers have compiled 12.5 years of data from the Fermi Gammy-ray Space Telescope to form a gamma-ray pulsar timing array, a system of cosmic lighthouses that could help reveal ripples in spacetime.

U.S. hypersonic weapons systems are becoming the military’s perpetual late kid, leading to growing frustration among some lawmakers who worry Uncle Sam’s ceding ground to Russia.Read more...

You’ve known Spock as, well, Spock, ever since the the original Star Trek. We’ve seen him aboard the Enterprise, we’ve seen him as the would-be unifier of the Vulcan and Romulan peoples, an ambassador, and thanks to Discovery, in his Panic! At the Disco rebellious phase. Now Strange New Worlds is giving a little new…Read more...

The first time that Patrick Comer tweeted about tabletop roleplaying games was in October 2021. He asked, “Who are hands down the best DND character illustrators out there?” He got one response.Read more...

You can play virtual pinball on everything from your smartphone to your tablet to your laptop. But the best experience is, oddly enough, on an actual standup pinball machine with a giant screen replacing the mechanical guts. These usually offer a simulated pinball experience at a cheaper price point than the real deal…Read more...

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Fears of an unprecedented Russian cyberwar began to germinate around the same time Russia began amassing troops on its border with Ukraine. Some people pictured a Russian digital assault not just on Ukraine but on all of the West. At least a few people thought the Kremlin might team up with ransomware gangs to punish…Read more...

Marvel’s latest Disney+ series could start filming soon. Raffi and Seven uncover a Borg mystery in a new clip from Star Trek: Picard. Angela Basset has joined Netflix’s latest fantasy adventure Damsel. Plus, Moon Knight’s mysterious scarab gets its own poster, and what’s coming on Kung Fu. Spoilers now!

The waters of Lago d’Averno, a volcanic crater lake in Southern Italy, have transformed since early March to become a murky blood-red due to an overgrowth of algae. The European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite and local photographers have captured the lake’s eerie new vibe.Read more...

After revealing a new and improved version of its e-paper color displays for use in signage and digital posters a few weeks ago, E Ink is now giving us a look at a new version of its color e-paper designed for use in e-readers and e-notes. The latest upgrades could make the new display tech an interesting alternative…Read more...

Recently we got a chance to speak with Disney Imagineer Alex Lee, an entertainment producer for Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. In the first part of io9's interview, conducted over video chat, Lee shared how guests have been influencing the ongoing evolution of Walt Disney World’s first fully immersive experience. In…Read more...

The first wholly privately funded and crewed mission to the International Space Station is scheduled to blast off from Kennedy Space Center on Friday. You can watch the action live right here.

Peter Thiel is a lot of things—a Republican megadonor, an avowed fan of monopolies, and the guy responsible for this website’s former parent company, Gawker Media, going bankrupt some years ago. And if his latest public appearance is any indicator, he’s ready for war.Read more...

One of the most powerful and fascinating details of the X-Men’s current revitalization on the living island Krakoa is that their new, ever-splintering yet still-idealistic sovereign nation is a home to all mutants, not just X-Men and their former allies. The rehabilitation of—or uneasy Entente Cordiale between—former…Read more...

Today the Hugos released its list of nominations for a variety of awards in science fiction and fantasy excellence, and each year, the Hugos get closer and closer to achieving real diversity and inclusion within the nominees. Standout categories that include some incredibly deserved nods are Short-Form Editor, Fan…Read more...

Spotify announced today that it’s pushing through a bundle of new features to the Car Thing, its borderline-useless in-car accessory that goes for $90. While the device is supposed to help enlarge the Spotify controls to put them front and center while you’re behind the wheel—but in practice, it offers little utility…Read more...

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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 “Advice From the Civil Temporal Defense League” by Sandra McDonald. You can read the story below or listen to the podcast on LIGHTSPEED’s website. Enjoy!

Shudder’s documentary series Cursed Films returns this week, and since season one got the heavy hitters out of the way (Poltergeist, The Omen, The Exorcist, The Crow, Twilight Zone: The Movie), season two allows for a somewhat looser interpretation of the series theme—though Hollywood nightmares still abound.

It’s a bird. It’s a plane. Actually, it’s a bus.

In a few months, Android users in Japan will be able to try their hand at one of the most iconic and infuriating arcade games of all time: the claw machine.Read more...

I want to thank whatever stars aligned that surfaced this video of the Windows 95 launch event in my algorithm. While clips from the presentation have floated around online for decades, the full 90-minute keynote has been harder to track down. Uploaded this week by the angels over at the Blue OS Museum YouTube account…Read more...

Here’s some more casting news for the highly anticipated Amazon series based on the 2005 novel Anansi Boys from author Neil Gaiman: Whoopi Goldberg has been announced to play the book’s main antagonist, the God of Birds.Read more...

A collaboration of hundreds of scientists have precisely measured the mass of the W boson, an elementary particle responsible for the weak nuclear force. The researchers found, to their surprise, that the boson is more massive than predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics, the working theory that describes…Read more...

Groups associated with the Russian and Belarusian governments are employing a bevy of shady cyber tactics to target Ukrainians on Facebook, according to a new report from the social network’s parent company Meta. The company notes that in just the past few days, it’s seen an uptick in attacks targeting public figures,…Read more...

Way back in 2018, what feels like roughly six decades ago, a German company revealed an over-engineered rechargeable self-filling water gun that fired single blasts of water instead of long streams. The new SpyraLX does the same thing, but replaces batteries and an electric motor with a manually-operated mechanism for…Read more...

Paleontologists have long speculated that the horns and frill of Triceratops, in addition to providing a formidable defense against predators, were also used to fight members of the same species. Scientists say they’ve found the most compelling evidence yet in favor of this intriguing possibility.

As many people continue to condemn Disney’s lack of action regarding Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, Lucasfilm has quietly announced that transgender British actress Talisa Garcia has been cast in the Disney+ series Willow. Deadline reports that Garcia will play a cisgender woman with only a few speaking lines, and…Read more...

At one point near the climax of this week’s Star Trek: Picard, a character exasperatedly says “Fine, why not? Burrow into his psyche, what could go wrong!? Tons, obviously.” And honestly? If that’s not the mood of this entire episode of television, I don’t know what it is.

A fire that broke out at the Costa Sur power plant in Puerto Rico late Wednesday forced an island-wide outage, the biggest blackout this year so far due to an ailing electric grid. Power may not be restored to some parts of the island until Friday, according to Puerto Rico’s electricity grid operator.

If you slept on the first season of Netflix’s Russian Doll, you missed a wonderfully dark and occasionally poignant comedy about a woman named Nadia who discovers she’s stuck in a time loop where she keeps dying but then returning to the night of her birthday party. I highly recommend you give the Natasha…Read more...

Bad news for everyone who loved watching Bill Nye the Science Guy during middle school science class: your fave is problematic. This week, Coca-Cola, one of the world’s biggest plastic polluters, teamed up with TV’s favorite scientist for a campaign to create a “world without waste,” a joke of a corporate greenwashing…Read more...