Gizmodo

E-book revenues are up by 15.2% from 2019, hitting $1 billion last year, according to a report by the Association of American Publishers. December figures should reach at least $100 million if the organization’s estimates are correct.Read more...

The first Amazon One palm readers are officially hitting more retail stores in the Seattle area. The readers, announced last summer, are completely touchless and instead read the lines on the palm of your hand to identify you for checkout.Read more...

Some 163,000 light-years from the Milky Way is a much smaller, much more ancient galaxy: Tucana II, so named for the tropical bird-resembling constellation in which it sits. Sitting at the periphery of our galaxy’s gravitational pull, Tucana II provides researchers with the opportunity to understand the composition of…Read more...

The European Union wants the $15.8 billion in back taxes it says Apple owes and is appealing a July 2020 court ruling that let the tech giant off scot-free, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

One of our biggest gripes with Apple’s new Fitness+ service when it launched was that it didn’t support AirPlay, which means you couldn’t stream workouts from your iPhone, for instance, to your (non-Apple) TV. It was a baffling choice, because Apple Watch and iPhone owners without an Apple TV were forced to stream…Read more...

Popular Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is suing the Department of Defense, the U.S. Treasury, and both agencies’ top officials, after having been deemed a security threat by the U.S. government and cut off from American investments.Read more...

Thanks to Ryan Coogler, Wakanda will certainly be forever. The Black Panther director, who is getting ready to film the sequel to his hit Marvel movie later this year, is now also developing a Disney+ show set in the fictional, technologically advanced African country.Read more...

The exhausting saga of Apple vs. Facebook continues.

One of the things people crave most about Marvel’s cinematic output? Connection. Where is this character during this moment, how does this event connect to a hundred other narratives? WandaVision, Marvel Studios’ first crack at bringing its movieverse to streaming television, is no exception, but it’s doing so in a…Read more...

Last week, Facebook finally announced it would stop recommending so-called “civic” (see: political) Groups to users in the wake of the violent siege on the U.S. capitol. But according to a new Wall Street Journal report, this decision only came well after data scientists within the company had raised the alarm that…Read more...

In a massive shift for Ford’s in-car infotainment systems, the car maker announced today that it will be partnering with Google to bring a new Android-powered OS to millions of Ford cars in 2023.

Google Stadia, the late 2019 streaming platform that promised to revolutionize gaming by letting users stream games without needing to own a powerful PC or console, is altering course, getting out of the game-making business and will now offer its platform directly to game publishers alongside offering Stadia Pro to…Read more...

Made during a pandemic, with a fictional pandemic slithering around a story that taps into both the spiritual powers of nature and the mental effects of isolation, In the Earth uniquely captures the mood we’ve been clawing our way through for nearly a year now. It’s freaky, but it feels alarmingly relatable too.Read more...

Volkswagen announced a pilot program for EV battery recycling in Salzgitter, Germany, and it’s about time one of the biggest carmakers started addressing the inevitable EV question: What about the batteries?Read more...

Oil companies have had a rough go since the pandemic sent their main product into a tailspin. In an effort to maintain dominance in a rapidly changing world, Exxon and Chevron, the two biggest oil companies in the U.S., apparently weighed a blockbuster merger.

Although I hated the “keyboarding” class I took in high school, I’ll admit it did put me on the path to being an effective touch typist today. If you still employ the inefficient hunt-and-peck typing technique and want to break those bad habits, you can apparently build a negative reinforcement keyboard that …Read more...

Prehistoric teeth found over 100 years ago are some of the best evidence yet for hybridized communities of Neanderthals and modern humans.

As police struggled futilely to fend off a wave of rioters outside the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, Joel Valdez, an aide to Congressman Matt Gaetz, made his way to the rooftop of his boss’s office building across the street on Independence Ave. Surveying the mob as it surrounded the complex, he captured a…Read more...

While Apple is still working on its big two-year transition to homegrown Apple chips, even in these early days software developers are already porting their apps over, with Nvidia having just added support for M1 Macs to its GeForce Now game streaming client.

In a world where cryptids are real but misunderstood, a trio of women (one of whom happens to be a Gorgon) join forces to protect the strange beasts that lurk among us. But as we see in Dash Shaw’s gloriously colorful adult animation Cryptozoo, sometimes the best intentions aren’t always what’s best in the end.Read more...

As soon as the GameStop short squeeze unfolded, making millionaires of youthful pirates staging a raid on Wall Street, a cabal of billionaires and institutions have been grappling with the more important question, which is: Yeah, but where do I fit in? At least one person asked how soon he can write the book that…Read more...

Bending down to put on and lace up a pair of sneakers is a simple action that many of us take for granted. For those with mobility and movement challenges, Nike has created its first hands-free sneaker called the GO FlyEase that also happens to arrive in the middle of a pandemic when minimizing touch is an important…Read more...

Some not-so-great legal news for Apple. For starters, a judge has concluded that Apple CEO Tim Cook should sit for a seven-hour deposition in the upcoming case against Epic Games. Second, Apple’s attempt to subpoena Samsung in the case has also been denied. Womp womp.Read more...

After last year’s winter without a winter, New York is making up for it. A major nor’easter is crawling up the coast, the second big storm of the season to hit the city. It could bring nearly two feet of snow to New York and wreak havoc up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

To some, the sound of plastic Lego bricks rustling as someone combs through a bin in search of the piece they need is like nails on a chalkboard. To others, it’s as satisfying as a Mozart symphony. If you’re in that latter group, Lego has created a playlist of white noise made from plastic bricks you can play in the…Read more...

Ernie Hudson talks Winston’s role in Ghostbusters: Afterlife. The Matrix 4's real title may have been uncovered. Get a look at Umbrella Academy’s mysterious new Sparrows. Plus, what’s to come on Riverdale and Batwoman, and new WandaVision posters. Spoilers, assemble!

It was time to die.Read more...

Logitech G Pro Hero Gaming Mouse | $50 | AmazonRead more...

Apple’s watchOS platform doesn’t have quite as many customization options as other smartwatches, such as those built on Google’s Wear OS, do. But there are numerous ways to make your Apple Watch your own, beyond picking your watch color, size, and strap. Here are the top features to know and how to use them.

75" TCL 4K TV | $590 | Best BuyRead more...

It used to be a joke, but it’s not so funny anymore. Google is threatening to block searches in Australia if the country implements a compulsory profit-sharing deal that would force tech giants like Google and Facebook to pay media companies for their content. But Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, isn’t…Read more...

It’s no secret that New York City, like many other places in the U.S., has been having a hard time with covid-19 vaccine distribution. One of the problems is its messy online sign-up website, which some city officials have denounced as “complex, burdensome, and buggy.” Officials said that this would create an obstacle…Read more...

If you have an Amazon Ring smart doorbell, there’s something you should know. A growing number of fire and police departments are interested in your doorbell—or to be frank, in its camera footage—especially if they feel it can help them in their investigations. In fact, there are now 2,014 departments in the program…Read more...

You know, 3D printing has produced some wild stuff over the years, from itty bitty spacecraft and candy-firing wrist cannons to entire homes and personal protective equipment. But while some creations have been absolutely cursed (I’m looking at you, tongue brush), this safety hoop made to help a senior pup get around…Read more...

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As many of you probably already know, WhatsApp’s announcement on the changes to its privacy policy confused and angered a lot of people, who were given the impression that the messaging app would begin sharing their personal data with its parent company, Facebook. Since then, WhatsApp has been running up and down…Read more...

Google temporarily yanked Element’s Android chat app from the Play Store this week for allegedly hosting abusive content. The decision’s particularly baffling given that Element is only a client for the federated chat protocol Matrix and not a service in and of itself. Meaning that Element can (and does) moderate its…Read more...

If you ever wanted to own a piece of computer history, now is your chance. There is currently what’s billed as a working Apple-1, a model from the first line of computers launched by the company in 1976, up for sale on eBay. It’s not exactly cheap though, and will set you back a good $1.5 million.Read more...

Recently, we reported on the Nielsen streaming numbers for the end of December, which included a big success story for Disney’s release Soul. In that post, we noted that Nielsen didn’t include HBO Max on its streaming chart numbers. But now, it’s released those numbers anyway— at least, for Wonder Woman 1984.Read more...

The self-proclaimed democratic financial app Robinhood came under fire on Thursday for temporarily halting trading on GameStop stocks and other stocks favored by Reddit’s WallStreetBets community. But while critics accused the stockbroker of foiling amateur investors to shield major Wall Street firms from mounting…Read more...

Ah, data breaches. The stuff of internet nightmare. In recent years, we’ve seen more and more of them—to the point where it seems like wherever you store your data, most of it is just breach-material that hasn’t been breached yet. However, weird as it may sound, 2020 actually saw a lot fewer publicly reported data…Read more...

You might know him from a couple li’l Netflix shows we dig around here.Read more...

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At first glance, the photo above can look like a still from a science fiction movie, but rest assured: The guy and his face mask are very real. While the first thing that came to my mind was, “oh wow that’s creepy,” I was then immediately intrigued.Read more...

In the 1950s, when physicists were racing to invent the first laser, they found that the rules of quantum mechanics restricted how pure the color of their light could be. Since then, physicists and engineers have always built lasers with those restrictions in mind. But new theoretical research from two independent…Read more...

POVO Multifunctional Car Tool| $10 | Amazon | Promo code WF6FCFTWRead more...

A small cluster of pro-Huawei Twitter bots reportedly launched a smear campaign attacking the Belgian government’s plan to box out “high-risk” suppliers like Huawei from building the country’s 5G network, according to the latest report from social media research firm Graphika.Read more...

Researchers have made a smart school of robotic fish that swarm and swim just like the real deal, and they offer promising insights into how developers can improve decentralized, autonomous operations for other gizmos like self-driving vehicles and robotic space explorers. Also, they’re just pretty stinking cute.

A cyber unit believed to be associated with the Shiite militant group Hezbollah has been conducting stealthy espionage missions all over the globe, hacking into internet service providers and telecoms to gather data.Read more...

The hacker group behind the ongoing SolarWinds scandal found other ways to intrude on U.S. firms and public agencies than just compromising the titular software company. In fact, nearly a third of the victims of the hack—approximately 30%—have no connection to SolarWinds at all, said a senior federal security official…Read more...