Gizmodo

Usually, when people think of wearables, their mind conjures an image of a smartwatch. Fair! But at CES, wearables are a much, much broader category. They include everything from “hearables” and smart rings, to futuristic proof of concept devices that may never actually see the light of day.

NASA has given up on the mole—a device that was supposed to dig deep into the Martian surface—after repeated failed efforts to make the system work. It was meant to be a major part of the InSight lander mission, but unfortunately Mars had other ideas.

On November 14, 2014, a telescope spotted a burst of light in a galaxy 570 million light-years away. It was thought to be a supernova, an arrestingly bright explosion that marks a star’s death. This week, astronomers revealed that the burst was not a supernova after all, but rather a black hole having dinner—one of…Read more...

President Donald Trump’s tenure in the White House is ending the way it began, with a slapdash effort to make everything a little (or lot) worse than he found it while trying to burn down the planet in the name of conservative grievances.Read more...

The idea of using your phone or smartwatch as a car key has been kicking around for a while, and some vehicles — usually more expensive ones — are already outfitted to let you do it. However, the implementation has been wildly inconsistent across car brands, and sometimes even require certain phone models to work. Up…Read more...

Ring, the Amazon-owned friend to nosy police departments everywhere, has suffered another embarrassing security stumble. The surveillance company’s Neighbors app—which was launched in 2018 as a kind of “neighborhood watch” feature—apparently left users exact geographical data and home address information exposed to…Read more...

From games like Wii Tennis to accessories like the Wii Balance Board, Nintendo has mad it possible to turn its consoles into fitness devices to help gamers get active. But hardware hacker Mike Choi may have just come up with the ultimate way to stay fit with the Switch by turning Mario Kart 8 Deluxe into a full-body workoutRead more...

Former Presidential candidate Andrew Yang commenced his run for New York City mayor yesterday with an ad indicating that he’s familiar with the subway system, pizza, and—ayyy—the Knicks. Yang, who’s never held public office in New York City, or anywhere, is staring down a maelstrom of once-in-a-generation crises:…Read more...

Officials in Australia are worried that a racing pigeon, which recently completed an 8,000-mile trek from the United States, carries potentially dangerous diseases. This unintentional breach of Australia’s quarantine laws could now cost the bird its life.

Intel focused much of its time at this year’s virtual CES on its new desktop and mobile processors, as well as spotlighting the laptops that will feature its new hardware debuting in the next few months. But what didn’t get much attention was Intel’s line of mini PCs, or NUCs, and NUC kits. Intel’s giving those a …Read more...

Soccer is the world’s most popular sport partly because the only piece of equipment you need is a ball. But to maximize the sport’s accessibility, particularly in impoverished communities where a deflated ball can mean game over, Japanese design studio nendo created a non-inflatable soccer ball alternative that…Read more...

You are not experiencing déjà vu. A huge percentage of films from our 2020 movie preview are once again here on our 2021 preview. But the good news is, there’s still a lot of great stuff to look forward to.Read more...

A U.S. government-funded study has provided evidence of a hopeful treatment for people struggling with methamphetamine use. People given a combination therapy of medications were more likely to avoid the drug and report improvements to their life than those given standard support and placebo, the study found. The…Read more...

More portable projectors, please!

One of the biggest issues with smart lights is the way they interact with traditional wall switches, which is exactly what Philips Hue is hoping to fix with its new Wall Switch Module.

Starting today, Google is issuing a pause on all political ads—as well as any ads referencing to the US Capitol siege—until “at least” January 21st, according to an email the company sent to its advertising partners that was obtained by Axios. In it, Google described taking this stance “following the unprecedented…Read more...

Beginning next month, Oculus will roll out multi-user accounts and app sharing, in a move meant to make it easier for multiple people to share a single headset. The feature will first launch on the Quest 2 before rolling out to all Quest devices, and yes, you will have to do this using your Facebook accounts.Read more...

Over a year since announcing the deal and after months of regulatory scrutiny, the Google-Fitbit merger is finally official.Read more...

If you subscribe to the Peloton app or own one of the company’s bikes or treadmills, you know part of the fitness service’s appeal is the variety of class lengths it offers. You can take a 30-minute ride, run, or cardio class, then follow it up with a 20-minute upper body workout, 10-minute core, and a 5-minute…Read more...

CES was very different this year. Show floors in Vegas hotels were swapped for an entirely virtual event and back-to-back Zoom presentations. That can make demoing the technology powering new OLED or 8K TVs a little tough. But from what we did get to see coming out of this year’s CES, there’s plenty to be excited…Read more...

For the past 23 weeks, every Thursday a new episode of Star Trek has appeared on CBS All Access, delivering us Lower Decks’ surprising debut season and the third, strongest chapter of Discovery. A lot happened in nearly half a year of boldly going, but looking back, all I can think about was how refreshing it was to…Read more...

Samsung kicked off 2021, and interrupted CES, with its live-streamed product launch, Galaxy Unpacked. The event featured an overhauled trio of smartphones, a pair of intelligent wireless earbuds, and Samsung’s own “one more thing,” the long-rumored Bluetooth item-tracking Smart Tags (beating Apple to the punch). Let’s…Read more...

Electric eels were already exceptionally weird fish. These eels—actually three different species of giant, South American knifefish—pack as much as an 860-volt punch used to stupefy prey and defend themselves. Long thought to be exclusively solitary predators of slow, murky rivers, new research suggests electric eels…Read more...

Don’t look. Mount Fuji is naked. The iconic volcano is usually known for having a cap of bright white snow from fall through spring, but this year, it’s largely missing.Read more...

Blue Origin is planning to launch an upgraded New Shepard spacecraft today, along with a test dummy named Mannequin Skywalker. You can watch the action live right here.

Every few years, Samsung’s premium Galaxy phones get a major redesign as they enter a new phase of development. The new Galaxy S21, S21+, and S21 Ultra continue that tradition—this year, it feels like Samsung’s flagship phone line just got its biggest overhaul since the Galaxy S8.Read more...

It seems like just a few months ago Samsung released its active noise-canceling Galaxy Buds Live. Oh, right, that’s because it did. And yet here we are with a brand new pair of active noise-canceling Bluetooth earbuds, Galaxy Buds Pro. They’re a little pricier than the Buds Live, but promise more intelligent (and…Read more...

Jennifer Connelly has some words for a Rocketeer sequel, even if she’s not involved. Frank Grillo says the future of The Purge franchise is still in play. Elizabeth Olsen is excited for Sam Raimi to get weird in the Doctor Strange sequel. Plus, casting for Moon Knight and The Flash. To me, my spoilers!

We’re barely into 2021 and it’s already been kind of a lot, to say the least. If you’re able to take a break from doomscrolling, we recommend it. We’ve also rounded up some of the best iOS and Android apps for calming your brain amidst the chaos. Close Twitter, take a break from cable news, and give your mind a…Read more...

If world leaders don’t seriously step up their game to adapt to the climate crisis, we’ll see catastrophic human and economic losses everywhere, a new report from the world’s top global environmental authority warns.Read more...

WD Easystore 4TB External Hard Drive | $90 | Best BuyRead more...

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey finally gave this thoughts on Wednesday about the decision to ban President Donald Trump from the platform, explaining that the move wasn’t easy and that he takes no pride in banning anyone. But Dorsey acknowledged there can be real harm from speech that happens online and he believes…Read more...

Bulgarian man Rossen G. Iossifov was sentenced to 10 years in U.S. federal prison January 12 for his role in a transnational scheme that stole millions of dollars from hundreds of Americans.Read more...

Members of a violent and deadly mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6 reportedly communicated with each other through the walkie-talkie app Zello — a company long criticized for its failure to moderate the far-right extremist content it sometimes hosts.Read more...

President Donald Trump, the apparent owner of a Snapchat account, will soon be permanently banned from Snapchat.Read more...

Checked bags aren’t the only things that cost extra: Under a new policy announced by the Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday, airplane passengers who act like giant assholes by threatening or assaulting crew members could soon be subject to $35,000 in fines or up to 20 years imprisonment.Read more...

Today in terrible ideas: an AI system that claims to be able to accurately predict your political affiliation using...your face. Yes, really.Read more...

Twitter has suspended Patrick Byrne, libertarian firebrand and former CEO of Overstock who’s been peddling Trump’s election fraud conspiracies.

Professional disinformation campaigns are a boom market, according to a new report from the Oxford Internet Institute (OII); researchers found “evidence of 81 countries using social media to spread computational propaganda and disinformation about politics,” up from 70 in 2019. Among them: Both sides of the civil war…Read more...

Portable or practice amps are a guitarist’s best friend. These tiny devices usually plug right into your guitar and let you listen to the audio without waking the neighbors or the baby in the next room. Fender, for its part, has made it easier to get great tone out of a box the size of a few packs of gum.Read more...

Featured Product: Amazon Fire 7 | $50 | AmazonRead more...

The first wave of Star Wars: The High Republic stories is upon us, painting the broad strokes of what we can expect to see in this era, centuries before the Skywalker saga. After checking in with the new books and comics that hit shelves last week, we’re already getting a picture of some intriguing connections—and a…Read more...

The Earth is saving our asses right now by sucking up a large hunk of humanity’s carbon pollution. But we may not be so lucky for much longer.Read more...

Apple introduced a new version of its classic MagSafe charging technology, previously used in MacBooks, with the iPhone 12. It works a little differently in the iPhone than it does in a laptop: a circular array of magnets embedded in back of the phone enables it to snap to a compatible accessory. It could be a…Read more...

Google’s smart speakers and displays, like Nest Audio and Nest Hub Max, have a new feature as of today: Guest Mode, which makes the devices act more like a public Google Assistant terminal rather than a personal assistant, says The Verge.

The photograph is arresting: a bearded man stands at the top of a staircase located in the Senate wing of the Capitol bearing uniquely American symbols, marking both time and ideology. He holds in his right hand a red flag with the phrase “Trump is my president” written across it in bold white lettering. He wears a…Read more...

Turtle Beach, a maker of popular gaming headsets, has acquired Neat Microphones, a company that made waves with its unique-looking microphones for broadcasters and podcasters.Read more...

I know it seems like forever ago, but think back to the early days of covid-19 when lockdowns first halted travel and industry in huge swaths of the world. It was devastating to the economy and was a symptom of a huge public health problem, but reports showed there was at least one good thing to come out of it: As…Read more...

A pig painting inside an Indonesian cave has been dated to 43,900 years old, making it among the oldest—if not the oldest—known figurative art piece in the archaeological record.

Want your infant to grow up and appreciate what a technological marvel a touchscreen tablet really is? Fisher-Price has revealed three additions to its preschool learning line: new educational toys inspired by retro gadgets of the ‘80s and ‘90s that will let parents teach their kids what life was like before streaming…Read more...