Gizmodo

There’s a famous story (also proven false) that NASA spent millions of dollars inventing a pressurized pen that could work in the zero gravity of space, while Soviet cosmonauts just used pencils. A new lens filter for cameras with a mirror finish allowing subjects to see themselves feels like the pencil, while cameras…Read more...

A lot of device makers like to throw the word “Pro” around to attract people looking for more premium devices, but when it comes to the $2,500 Xperia Pro, Sony really means it.Read more...

Richard Kelly still wants to get his Rod Serling biopic off the ground—and a sequel to Donnie Darko. Gaten Matarazzo teases big scares for the next season of Stranger Things. Plus, Jeff Nichols talks about his Alien Nation reboot, and what’s to come on Nancy Drew and Charmed. Spoilers, away!

I never heard of a 2-in-1 gaming laptop prior to CES 2021. Did one even exist? Convertible laptops and gaming laptops are two incredibly different things with unique thermal and performance needs—not to mention they are designed for two different consumer bases. But it looks like we’ve finally shrunken GPUs small…Read more...

Just when I was starting to eye the new MacBook Pro for its incredibly fast processing speeds, AMD just pulled me back to the Windows side with its Ryzen 9 5980HS. Like its latest desktop processors, AMD took advantage of its Zen 3 architecture and brought the same impressive performance to its newest H-series mobile…Read more...

Smartphone audio is getting a little more advanced with two new features: Apple’s Spatial Audio for AirPods Pro and AirPods Max, which was pushed out with iOS 14, and Samsung’s 360 Audio feature, available on the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro, which works similarly to Spatial Audio but under a different name.

Despite building a toy empire on interlocking plastic bricks, Lego hasn’t shied away from modern technologies. Lego’s video games have been immensely popular for years, and last year it introduced the first interactive Lego figure with Lego Super Mario. This year, the toymaker has partnered with Universal Music Group…Read more...

Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and an unofficial advisor to former president Donald Trump, was permanently booted from Twitter late Monday. Why? Lindell was reportedly spreading too many lies about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, something that can still get you banned from Twitter.

With millions of students now attending school from home, affordable laptop alternatives like the Chromebook are more popular than ever. The cheaper price point does come with some trade-offs including limited support for some software and hardware, but artists on a budget can now use a Wacom tablet with their…Read more...

Amazon’s assistant can now power on your robot vacuum or turn off your smart lights all on its own. Yes, you heard that right.Read more...

Twitter announced on Monday that it had officially launched Birdwatch, a program designed to combat misinformation on the platform by deploying a small group of users to flag potentially misleading content.

The phone numbers (and corresponding site IDs) of some 500 million Facebook users now appear to be for sale on a dark web cybercrime forum.

Data gathered by NASA’s Cassini probe has allowed scientists to estimate the depth of Kraken Mare—the biggest methane sea on Saturn’s moon Titan.

An unusual mortality event of gray whales off the coast of Mexico is disturbingly persistent, according to a study published this week in the Marine Ecology Progress Series. The die-off began in 2019, and the gray whale death count is currently at 384, though the actual number may be higher.

In a fascinating example of the physical world entering the digital and then hurtling itself back out again, the now-famous photo of Sen. Bernie Sanders looking like a petulant seventh-grader waiting for his mom to pick him up after band practice is now a 3D-printable trinket.Read more...

After getting off to a rocky start, TNT’s Snowpiercer ultimately found its footing over the progression of its first season. Years of post-apocalyptic simmering class conflict between the titular train’s cars erupted in its climax, setting the stage for a second season that wants to try and explore those conflicts…Read more...

White House physician Dr. Sean Conley will have to find a new patient to give wildly optimistic press conferences about.

On Monday, Google released a few more details on its proposed tracking alternative to third-party cookies, a “privacy-first” technology that, from any angle, seems like just another way for the company to maintain its stranglehold on digital ad sales.

A group of scientists have worked as a veritable atmospheric detective agency and dug into a new mystery of more ozone-damaging substances. Two years ago, they identified rogue sources of ozone-depleting chemicals. In a new study out Monday they found sources of new potentially damaging chemicals while highlighting…Read more...

The Mythbusters proved that shooting bullets in a dramatic curve like Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy did in the movie Wanted is actually impossible. But tiny foam balls? That’s very doable with the latest additions to Nerf’s Rival blaster line.Read more...

We talk about ice a lot here on Earther—or more specifically, the growing absence of it. A new study puts what’s happening to the planet in striking perspective. While I can tell you the results show 1.2 trillion tons of ice disappeared every year since 1994, it’s a lot easier to grasp as a visual.

Theater giant AMC has narrowly avoided bankruptcy—a small miracle, really.

Smartwatches have added incredibly sophisticated health features in recent years, with the ability to take electrocardiograms to diagnose atrial fibrillation and monitor your blood oxygen levels. But if rumors are to be believed, the next iteration of Samsung’s Galaxy Watch and the Apple Watch Series 7 could attempt…Read more...

The ultimate goal to making virtual reality feel more like reality is letting users physically touch non-existent objects in a VR world. Until we figure out the technology behind Star Trek’s Holodecks, researchers from the University of Tokyo are experimenting with steerable helium balloons that VR users can safely…Read more...

A unique planetary system located 200 light-years from Earth hosts five exoplanets with orbits locked together in a repeating pattern, despite their very different sizes and densities. The discovery is challenging astronomers’ notions of the kinds of planetary systems that can exist and how they form.

Imagine that you were granted one wish, and that wish were that America got to watch a real-world Hollywood switcheroo involving Jeff Bezos and an Amazon warehouse worker. And now hold onto that pleasant thought so you can stomach this news: According to a new Oxfam study, the spare change that the world’s top ten…Read more...

SpaceX is scheduled to launch Starship prototype SN9 later today, in what will be the second high-altitude test of the company’s next-gen rocket. You can watch the action live right here.Read more...

A screen protector that does its job well is also a screen protector that you never see. It’s a product you want to be completely invisible, or maybe you don’t? A smartphone case is no longer the only way to personalize your device as a company has come up with a way to infuse glass screen protectors with images and…Read more...

The covid-19 vaccine developed by Moderna can likely fend off worrying variants of the coronavirus first found in the UK and South Africa, the company announced Monday. Moderna’s preliminary data appears to show that its covid-19 vaccine produces a strong immune response to these variants. However, the company still…Read more...

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter may be coming to streaming. The Hollywood Reporter says WarnerMedia is actively seeking out writers and ideas to bring the franchise to its HBO Max streaming service.Read more...

Scientists found a 34-year-old grizzly bear in southwest Wyoming, identifying him by a mark on his lip made by biologists in 1989. That’s the oldest grizzly ever known in the Yellowstone region that includes parts of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. Respect your elders.Read more...

Despite losing more than 80 lawsuits in the aftermath of the 2020 Presidential election, Republican lawmakers continue to insist that their claims of election fraud haven’t been given proper consideration by the courts. But it seems that conservative claims about rigged voting machines will be getting a thorough legal…Read more...

When Fitness+ launched last month, one of the big omissions was the lack of audio-guided outdoor walks or runs—a staple in other fitness and wellness apps like Peloton, Calm, and Aaptiv. Well, you still can’t run (yet) but today, Apple’s introducing guided walks to the service in an aptly named “Time to Walk” feature.

Even more movies are facing delays into late 2021 (and out of it entirely). Colin Trevorrow teases the scale of Jurassic World: Dominion. The new Batwoman battles a familiar face. Plus, Neil Gaiman teases an important moment on the set of Sandman, and what’s to come in Black Lightning’s final season. Spoilers now!

While more TVs are poised to get HDMI 2.1 features this year, understanding how those features are implemented on each display can be overwhelming. From a consumer standpoint, it’s frustrating as hell! And companies should frankly be doing more to make the process feel less arduous.

Earlier this month, a kind of chirping, rainforest-y sound sprung up in my apartment. It came from my roommate’s room. At first, I took it for a video game, but then realized the sound materialized even when my roommate was asleep. For days, I wondered about this. At any point I could’ve asked him what the deal was,…Read more...

Millions of users of the dating site MeetMindful got some unpleasant news on Sunday. ZDNet reported that the hacker group ShinyHunters, the same group who leaked millions of user records for the company that listed the “Camp Auschwitz” shirts, has dumped what appears to be data from the dating site’s user database.…Read more...

Tesla is reportedly taking one of its former employees to court over allegedly stealing company information and breaching contract, CNBC reports.Read more...

Although Apple has long acknowledged that its iPhone 12 lineup and MagSafe accessories may interfere with medical devices, such as pacemakers and defibrillators, it released additional guidance for people who use medical devices on Saturday. The message: Keep your iPhone 12 and MagSafe accessories a safe distance away…Read more...

Parler, a veritable breeding ground of far-right extremists, has arguably come under the most fire for its part in the Capitol riots, but let’s not forget that the internet is a big place, and violent radicalization on the scale we saw on Jan. 6 doesn’t develop in a bubble. Case in point: The Federal Bureau of…Read more...

Henry James, queer romance, and ghosts. These are the DNA of Haunting of Bly Manor, and they’re the subject of this great (if long) video essay.Read more...

Over the past couple of weeks, staff at the Inbursa Aquarium in Mexico City have had their eyes glued to a single animal. In a way, it’s reminiscent of parents checking in on their newborn baby; aquarium staff made sure the animal’s mother didn’t squish him, watched so that other animals didn’t harm him, and…Read more...

The King of all Kaiju. The King...er, Kong. Only one monarch may rule the monsterverse—and if our first look at Godzilla vs. Kong is any indicator, then it might be our simian pal who manages to eke out an early win.

Machine learning algorithms serve us the news we read, the ads we see, and in some cases even drive our cars. But there’s an insidious layer to these algorithms: They rely on data collected by and about humans, and they spit our worst biases right back out at us. For example, job candidate screening algorithms may…Read more...

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On Friday, Microsoft announced that it was going to raise prices for Xbox Live Gold during a pandemic, a statement that rightfully ignited anger among Xbox fans. Just a few hours later, Microsoft furiously backtracked and said it had “messed up.” No price hikes would be coming at this time, the company said. It…Read more...

Facebook users took Twitter and other social media platforms on Friday to report that they had, for no explicit reason, been logged out of the big blue app. Memes and the phrase “So Facebook” quickly popped up during the incident, which the company apologized for on Saturday.Read more...

Nearly 600 light-years from Earth, the exoplanet known as WASP-62b whips around its host star at a breakneck pace. The planet is a hot Jupiter, and despite its gassy constitution, its atmosphere is completely cloudless, according to a study published this month in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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Video game retailer GameStop, that store you stumble into at the mall while trying to figure out why you’re at a mall, is having quite a moment on Wall Street. The company went on a rollicking market run Friday, skyrocketing nearly 70 percent before trading was briefly halted due to online drama involving its stock.Read more...