Gizmodo

India recorded 4,529 new deaths from covid-19 on Wednesday, a grim new world record in a country that’s reeling from uncontrolled spread of the disease. India also reported 267,334 new coronavirus infections for the day.

Horror movies are scary, but things get downright terrifying when objects in real life seem to have horrifying powers. Zak Bagans’ Haunted Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada, is a 14,000 square foot mansion filled with actual artifacts, all of which have their own creepy stories attached. Whether you choose to believe them…Read more...

Google I/O is back, baby, and that means a metric crap-ton of updates for the Google ecosystem. Although it was virtual, the annual developers’ conference did not fail to be a spectacle that featured opera-singing digital blobs, a bizarre cameo from Michael Peña, and AI bots pretending to be Pluto.

Law enforcement officials are still banned from using Amazon’s facial recognition technology “until further notice,” the company said on Wednesday, a decision that effectively extends a yearlong moratorium that had been set to expire on June 1.Read more...

Android is used on 3 billion smartphones worldwide, but most of the cameras on Android phones don’t accurately capture people of color. This is why Google announced it’s striving to develop a “more accurate and inclusive camera” for its next batch of smartphones.

Once people born in the early-to-mid ‘80s started having fits on TikTok over literal children telling them their hairstyles were dated, it was only a matter of time before the internet coalesced around the term “geriatric millennial” as part of our larger conversation about the current generation of 25-to-35-year-olds.Read more...

Project Hail Mary, the third book by Andy Weir, finds the author going back to what made him famous in the first place. Weir rose to fame with The Martian, a book (and eventually a movie) about a man stranded on Mars who uses complicated, compelling science to get himself home. While Weir’s second book, Artemis, …Read more...

We’re officially entering the second week in a row of fighting between Israel and Palestine, which means we probably haven’t seen the last of the hundreds of deaths and countless injuries inflicted on Gaza residents thus far. If you’re looking for a way to donate to the victims, then a quick word of advice: maybe…Read more...

There’s lots of talk from the GOP and fossil fuel companies these days about changing their tune and finally getting really serious about climate change. But new research shows that not much has changed in the world of organized climate denial: It’s still massively funded by mostly anonymous donors shielding major…Read more...

New research into the ransomware gang who attacked the Colonial Pipeline shows just how much money they were able to extort during a fairly short crime spree: about $90 million in approximately seven months.Read more...

Charles Grodin, one of the great comedic actors of all time, died this week at the age of 86. When people hear Grodin’s name, the first movie they probably think of is Midnight Run. The 1988 Martin Brest action comedy is a classic of the genre and showcases Grodin’s smug, everyman persona beautifully.Read more...

It’s reasonable to think of nuclear bombs in terms of their destructive capabilities; splitting the atom means obliteration for anything in the blast radius. But, as a team of geologists and physicists recently figured out, it also means creation: specifically, the transfiguration of ordinary crystalline structures…Read more...

Everything you’ve never heard of could kill you. It is statistically unlikely that you will die by space crystal or poltergeist, but how do you know that you won’t? TikTok has every single detail about catastrophes looming beyond the event horizon, threatening to wipe you off the face of the Earth unless you eat some…Read more...

One of the most popular YouTube videos of 2020 was from former NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineer Mark Rober who attempted to build a squirrel-proof obstacle course. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t, so a year later he’s trying again, and this time taking inspiration from movies like Mission Impossible and Ocean’s Eleven…Read more...

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates appears to have hopelessly lost control of his efforts to do damage control on his once-budding bromance with fellow billionaire and notorious serial child abuser Jeffrey Epstein.

The 1983 vampire movie The Hunger didn’t exactly win over critics when it was first released, but since then it’s become a cult film for its stylish looks, its bisexual lead character, and its influence on goth culture. These are presumably three of the reasons Warner Bros. has decided to reboot the movie, with the…Read more...

As much as video-calling technologies like Facetime and Zoom have helped the world stay connected over the past year, they’ve also demonstrated their severe limitations, as it’s hard to feel emotionally connected to someone through a low-quality video feed. Today, Google revealed a technology that’s not quite ready…Read more...

Well, folks, the rumors that Samsung is abandoning Tizen for Google’s Wear OS smartwatch platform turned out to be true. Sort of. At the Google I/O keynote today, Google revealed it’s partnering with Samsung to create a new unified platform that mashes together Wear OS and Tizen OS.

While Ta-Nehisi Coates’ run on Marvel’s Black Panther solo comic may be coming to an end just as the writer turns his sights to the future of DC’s Superman, the Wakandan King’s story is anything but over.Read more...

Android 12 is the next major update to Google’s ubiquitous mobile OS, and at Google I/O 2021 we got a preview of all the big new features headed our way later this fall including a focused push for increased privacy, revamped notifications, an updated design language, and more.

When we last saw John Diggle (David Ramsey), he had regained his family, and come across a mighty mysterious but also mighty familiar box with some sort of glowing green object inside (cough, Green Lantern ring, cough). We’ve known Diggle would be returning to take a tour of the CW’s other DC shows—except now there…Read more...

If you lose your Chromecast remote, there’s another way to control your TV. Google announced today that it’s it’s bundling a host of remote control features directly into Android. Once the new version of Android 12 rolls out, it should be as easy as dragging and tapping around your phone’s interface to change the…Read more...

Google wants to replace the humble car key and make it easier to pair all of your gadgets together.Read more...

The steady march of time has caused Darwin’s Arch—an iconic rock formation in the Galápagos Islands—to collapse.

Google’s Chrome browser already has the ability to detect when your passwords have been compromised, but now Chrome will be able to fix those vulnerable passwords with a single click.Read more...

Many of the effects of climate change are obvious, like bizarre weather patterns, rising sea levels, and species loss as a result of deforestation and habitat degradation. Some, though, are a little bit weird.

There are a lot of horror movies set at boarding schools—almost always all-girls’ boarding schools—and they tend to follow the same template: a new student realizes something is off about her surroundings. Seance starts down that same path... but it sprinkles in some unexpected elements once it gets going.Read more...

Now that Apple’s begun rolling out its M1 product lineup, it’s now reportedly gearing up for the next wave of computers powered by the chip’s multiple successors. And readers, we’re talking about a lot of computers and chips here.

While Monsters Inc. did have a second movie, the new Disney+ show Monsters at Work is the first full-fledged sequel. That’s because the first follow-up, Monsters University, was a prequel. So now Mike (Billy Crystal) and Sulley (John Goodman) will finally get to put into practice the revelation they discovered at the…Read more...

While oil and gas companies ramp up the PR around their net zero commitments and try to convince us that fossil fuels can coexist with climate action, the science has long been clear that we need to quit dirty fuels pretty much immediately. One of the world’s biggest energy arbiters now says it agrees.Read more...

Tesla’s infamous Autopilot mode faced its latest reckoning this past weekend after it caused a driver to careen straight into a Washington state deputy’s vehicle that was parked at the side of the road.

After launching the Quest 2 last fall, Oculus has returned to give its flagship VR headset some major upgrades for both work and gaming thanks to new support for 120Hz refresh rates, updates to Infinite Office, and wireless tethering for PCs.Read more...

A re-examination of fossils from central Australia has led to the discovery of a previously unknown species of crocodile. Now extinct, the giant reptile likely preyed on animals of equally formidable size.

At Shell’s annual general meeting on Tuesday, a company executive told a heartwarming story. Shortly before taking the role six years ago, the fossil fuel giant’s outgoing chairman, Charles Holliday, said he had a conversation with one of the company’s employees.

Last month, Apple introduced the new Apple TV and with it, a new color calibration feature in tvOS 14.5 for its streaming boxes. The way it works is you hold a compatible iPhone against the screen as it flashes through a series of colors and then voila—you’re supposed to get a properly balanced TV in a super-easy way.…Read more...

A Quiet Place Part II is a quintessential great sequel. Everything that worked about the first movie remains intact: high tension, gross monsters, great characters, strong relationships, it’s all there. This time though, everything is bigger—the number of settings and characters, and the scale of the action set…Read more...

Though the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s take on Norwegian gods like Loki has shaped the way many people think of them, the first season of Netflix’s Ragnarok brought its own spins on the deities to the small screen meant to put more emphasis on the original myths and legends that first brought them to life. The season…Read more...

Like Sisyphus eternally rolling a boulder uphill, mowing the lawn is a chore that’s never really complete because grass always grows back. To make the task less of a slog, the next best thing to paving your lawn is to build a remote control lawnmower with a live-streaming camera that lets you cut the grass even while …Read more...

The Sakuu Corporation, a California-based company backed by Musashi Seimitsu, has announced a new 3D printing system that can print large electric vehicle batteries on demand. The system uses new techniques to create solid-state batteries that are lighter and smaller than traditional lithium-ion batteries.Read more...

Rick and Morty’s Dan Harmon reveals a new series with a ridiculous twist. Tomb Raider 2 is closer to fruition. Great news for fans of Disney’s The Owl House. Plus updates from Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania, Black Lightning’s swan song, and more. Spoilers away!Read more...

My early computing days were spent using the family PC, a hulking tower and beefy monitor that sat atop a desk in the dining room. It was not a cute machine and you had absolutely no privacy when you used it, but it belonged to everyone. My siblings and I took turns using it to work on papers for school, chat on AIM…Read more...

The Google I/O developers conference is taking place this week, with the keynote kicking things off today at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. Grab yourself enough water and snacks to last you two hours, because it’s going to be a whopper of an opening number.

Fox is jumping into the world of digital goods by launching a new company that will oversee a marketplace for NFTs, according to a report from the Hollywood Reporter.

If it feels like Dracula-inspired movies are coming out of the woodwork lately, it’s because that’s exactly true, with projects currently in various stages of production from Karyn Kusama, Chris McKay, and Chloé Zhao. Now you can add Jessica M. Thompson (The Light of the Moon) to that list of directors.Read more...

In lieu of allowing workers to take bathroom breaks, have reasonable productivity quotas or form a union, Amazon is reportedly seeking to boost morale and reduce workplace injuries in its warehouses by rolling out a new health and wellness program that taps into the ancient powers of deep breathing and positive…Read more...

When Kermit the Frog was revealed to be one of The Masked Singer’s contestants this past season, it was meant to be a delightful surprise twist in an already ridiculous show in which well-known celebrities dress up as unlicensed mascots. But instead, Kermit’s unmasking only underscored how far the Muppets have fallen…Read more...

The city of Fullerton, California, has agreed to settle for $350,000 in a lawsuit brought by two bloggers it falsely accused of breaking into the municipal government’s Dropbox account. In reality, administrators just sent the intrepid journalists a public link that the city would have preferred they didn’t click.Read more...

Working too long is a major contributor to early death across the globe, according to new research from the World Health Organization. The study, based on data from nearly 200 countries, estimates that over 700,000 people died in 2016 from heart disease and stroke linked to long working hours. Around half a billion…Read more...

Bald-headed and hunched over, the Griffon vultures of Bulgaria look like they’ve been put through the wringer—and they have. But now, nearly half a century since the animal was presumed gone, a team of conservationists have confirmed the skulking scavengers have a stable breeding population of around 80 birds in the…Read more...

Don’t let the fact that Oxygen is about a woman stuck in place for two hours fool you. The claustrophobic setting provides more twists and turns than most films with the whole world at their disposal. Directed by Alexandre Aja (Crawl, The Hills Have Eyes), the film stars Mélanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds) as a…Read more...