Gizmodo

A small indie bookseller in Chicago is taking on Amazon with a new class action alleging that the e-commerce giant conspired with major publishers to keep prices high and competition low.Read more...

Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have detected X-rays coming from Uranus, revealing a previously unknown dimension of this majestic ice giant.

As 5G connectivity becomes more widespread—fueled by its great hype machine—the wonders promised seem incomprehensible at times. Remote control of fleets of vehicles from hundreds of miles away. Squads of cars or trucks that move in perfect synchronicity, communicating with not just one another but with the road…Read more...

A new survey released this week suggests that more than 46 million American adults avoided getting the medical care they needed because they couldn’t afford it in 2020. Sadly, the results reflect a long-running problem in the U.S.

When people think of Industrial Light and Magic, they obviously think of great visual effects, as well as the countless classic movies the company has worked on. But what you might not realize is that for many of those films, some of the effects were completely impossible until ILM specifically created the technology…Read more...

As the lights went out during last month’s cold snap, Texas politicians turned to talking points from Alex Epstein, a regular on the climate denial circuit, to explain their way out of the mess. NBC reported Thursday that Epstein’s propaganda found its way into the inbox of Gov. Greg Abbott and that the chairman of a…Read more...

The Ever Given is no longer stuck in the Suez Canal, but we’re still dealing with the fallout of the near-weeklong blockage. One of the saddest effects is that thousands of animals will die untimely deaths.Read more...

Amtrak released its new map today, and the trainscape is looking good, toot toot. After a year of service cutbacks due to the pandemic, the rail company has drawn new lines connecting dots all over the country. The expansion is hopeful, a “2035 vision” that hinges on securing a proposed $80 million investment from Joe…Read more...

In late 2018, Microsoft struck a $480 million deal with the U.S. Army to deliver augmented reality headset prototypes based on its HoloLens system. Well, it appears the military is a fan because it’s inked a contract to get a whole lot more of them. As in, over 120,000 headsets worth up to $21.88 billion over 10…Read more...

Scientists at Harvard University say they might have figured out how stress can cause us to lose our hair. In mice, they found evidence that a major hormone linked to stress made it harder for hair follicles to regenerate. The findings could very well lead to more effective treatments for hair loss someday, though…Read more...

Normally April 1 is a day for jokes and pranks, but this year it also marks a funeral of sorts: the death of Cortana on mobile devices.Read more...

Samsung Galaxy Buds Live and Outriders lead Thursday’s best deals.

A major milestone has been reached on Mars, as the Ingenuity helicopter—still attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover—has fully deployed its four legs in preparation for its upcoming flight.

Christopher Eccleston transformed Doctor Who forever. Sixteen years ago, the actor—headlining a bold reboot of the beloved British sci-fi classic that had been off screens for nearly a decade—presented a tortured, compassionate take on a Time Traveler without a home. Then, as quickly as we met him, he vanished,…Read more...

Doctors in Florida made an odd discovery in a 20-year-old patient: a bifurcated uvula, perhaps better known as that dangly thing in the back of your throat. The “weird” body part, as the patient himself described it, doesn’t seem to be causing its owner any trouble, but it’s still a very rare occurrence, made even…Read more...

Kyle MacLachlan teases his connection to David Lynch’s next TV project. Charmed finds a new recurring character. Plus, what’s to come when Riverdale returns, and Alan Tudyk teases the second season of Resident Alien. Spoilers, away!

There are people so obsessed with trains that they’ll travel the world just to spot a rare locomotive. And then there’s Jason Shron, who’s not only built a replica of a passenger train car in his basement, he’s also found a clever way to simulate a train ride by strapping a tiny video camera to his model railway.Read more...

At the start of our new work-from-home normal and before I was able to get my home office in order, the thing I immediately noticed was that I missed my office’s monitor setup. I have one now, but it’s a little hefty and doesn’t easily move around the various workstations of my apartment I switch between throughout…Read more...

Matt Lorion, a 17-year-old TikTok influencer known for promoting cryptocurrencies online, has released a new video apologizing for a Star Wars-themed scam he promoted. Last week, Lorion sang the praises of a new cryptocurrency called Mando that turned out to be a pump-and-dump scam. But Lorion says he had no idea it…Read more...

Papua New Guinea’s health minister, Jelta Wong, spoke with an Australian think tank over videochat on Thursday about challenges PNG faces in combatting the covid-19 pandemic. PNG is seeing a resurgence of the disease along with a growing wave of misinformation being spread online about vaccines, and the talk is an…Read more...

Look out, n00bs. Hackers are apparently deploying fake game “cheats” for Call of Duty: Warzone. They sure won’t help you merk your opponents, but they will inject a crapload of malware onto your computer.

Now’s the time of year when it pays to be extra wary of pranks and promotions that seem too good to be true. But starting tomorrow, yes, on April 1, Verizon has some big discounts on phones and trade-ins for broken devices that are totally legit.Read more...

The sex trafficking scandal surrounding Florida U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz is getting gnarlier by the day, both because of the circus sideshow of supporting characters it brings with it and the good questions it raises about why we, as a country, insist on electing people to our federal government who seem like…Read more...

For the first time ever, scientists have shown that lakes on Greenland’s ice sheet can drain during the winter months, in a phenomenon that could accelerate the rate of glacial melt.Read more...

Analogue just announced its Analogue Pocket handheld console will miss its original May 2021 shipment date and will slip to October instead.Read more...

On the same day that Governor Andrew Cuomo fully legalized recreational weed use across New York, YouTube quietly lifted a few of its own restrictions regarding the drug, too.Read more...

So gorgeous! So depressing! The cherry blossoms in Kyoto, Japan hit their peak bloom last week—the earliest date recorded in official records and, some say, the earliest date of bloom for the trees in more than 1,200 years. And climate change definitely has a hand in the trees’ early beauty show.Read more...

The latest update to the iOS 14.5 beta won’t fix all of our gripes with Siri, but it does introduce a few major changes for Apple’s digital assistant. For starters, Siri will no longer be feminine by default for English speakers. Instead, once iOS 14.5 is officially pushed out, iOS users will be prompted to pick their…Read more...

It must be hard, getting 86'ed from a venue, watching as 2.7 billion people stroll past a skinny, pale bouncer. Maybe you mull around the dumpster outside, in a cloud of cigarette smoke with the Nazis and Laura Loomer, talking about how much that party sucks, actually, that this alley area is way better, and we should…Read more...

Internal Amazon documents show that the company’s widely-derided Twitter “ambassadors” program was intended to be a different sort of laugh riot, according to the Intercept.

For a little more than a week in July 2018, a team of physicists at CERN tried a new technique to slow down antimatter particles zipping around at breakneck speeds. Those 10 days of observation were the culmination of 10 years of development in an international collaboration called ALPHA, which oversaw the design and…Read more...

He may be the Internet’s meme du jour, but John Walker is no joke—he’s the new Captain America in Marvel’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and he’s fascinating. io9 had a chance to speak with Wyatt Russell, the actor behind the mask, and discuss his great venture into the MCU.Read more...

Xbox announced this morning that 16 original Xbox and Xbox 360 games are now available on its cloud gaming service. Anyone with an active Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription can play well-loved classics like Banjo-Kazooie, Fable 2, and Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind as of today.

Asteroids that smash directly into Earth’s surface can cause extensive damage, but, as new evidence uncovered in east Antarctica suggests, asteroids that explode on entry can be equally devastating.

When he wasn’t busy searching for Ritz Carlton lotion, former Environmental Protection Administrator Scott Pruitt also gutted the agency’s science advisory boards. But after forcing out impartial scientists and installing people who literally denied air pollution’s adverse impacts on public health, the agency is…Read more...

This month we’ve got teenage telekinetics, magical twins, shapeshifters, supernatural detectives, space adventures, palace intrigue, fantasy epics, monsters, and more—plus the first-ever YA fantasy novel by io9 co-founder Charlie Jane Anders. Read on!

Wireless chargers have a dark secret that’s never addressed in the brochures and other promotional materials: You still have to deal with wires. But with Humanscale’s new NeatCharge wireless charger, at least those cords are hidden away out of sight underneath a desk or table.Read more...

President Biden set out to Pittsburgh on Wednesday to roll out a sweeping infrastructure proposal that could completely revamp—among many other things—the way the country gets online.Read more...

Rumors that Samsung might be ditching its proprietary smartwatch operating system for Google’s neglected Wear OS platform aren’t new. However, it’s looking increasingly likely that Tizen OS is not long for this world.Read more...

There’s no question that we’re messing up the oceans big time. But shocking new research shows the world’s addiction to fossil fuels is changing the bodies of big ocean predators like narwhals. A study published this month in Current Biology uses narwhal tusks to examine how the animals store mercury over time,…Read more...

Let’s face it. We’re all old. Even if that’s not technically true, there’s always something a person can say or do to make you feel that way. One of those is when we realize a movie we feel an affinity for is way older than we remember it being. The best course of action? Use the fact that your favorite movie is about…Read more...

Doctors in Canada are puzzled over a cluster of people coming down with a dementia-like brain disorder with no known diagnosis. Over the past half-decade, dozens of residents in New Brunswick are thought to have developed the condition, which includes symptoms such as memory loss, behavioral changes, and…Read more...

With covid-19 vaccination rates on the rise, the airline industry has a plan to help facilitate air travel with the launch of a digital travel pass app slated to arrive as soon as mid-April.Read more...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has just legalized recreational weed in New York.Read more...

The world can be broken down into essentially two groups: those who prefer a symmetrical layout on a video game controller (with the analog joysticks side-by-side like the PlayStation uses) and those who don’t. The opposing layouts have surely destroyed friendships, families, and even torn nations apart, but Cyber…Read more...

The Last of Us Part II | $30 | Best BuyRead more...

Why spend $250 on Amazon’s new face-tracking, auto-rotating Echo Show 10 smart display when Belkin’s new Magnetic Phone Mount with Face Tracking turns your iPhone 12 into a self-standing screen with similar smart functionality (minus Amazon sneaking a camera in your home) for just $65?Read more...

You’ll have to wait a little longer for Mortal Kombat and Venom 2. Get a tiny little taste of more The Suicide Squad footage. The cast of Lucifer shares their thoughts as the show wraps production. Plus, Teen Titans Go! recruits an old foe for a new Easter special. Spoilers, Go!

A UK-based team says they were able to pull genetic material from the air and correctly identify the species it belonged to, an exciting leap for the field of environmental DNA. The technique of sampling an environment for DNA to figure out what organisms inhabit it, known as environmental DNA or eDNA, is regularly…Read more...

We’re coming up on the 20th anniversary of Mozilla’s Firefox web browser next year, and a lot of features have come and gone in that time. If you’re using Firefox as your daily driver, make sure you’re using it to its full potential by checking out some of these lesser-known tools, options, and features.