Gizmodo

In the summer of 1997, the only reason I survived a family road trip through western Canada was my trusty Walkman.Read more...

Xbox Elite Series 2 Wireless Controller | $160 | Microsoft StoreRead more...

Health authorities in China have deployed anal swab tests to detect covid-19 in the lead up to the Lunar New Year celebrations, according to the Chinese state media outlet the Global Times, a technique that some claim might be more accurate than traditional nasal swabs, throat swabs, and antibody tests. But not…Read more...

Do you have an iPhone or iPad? You should update your device right now to iOS 14.4. No, not later today or after lunch or whatever. Update now.

Do you hear that? It’s the last dying breaths of Adobe Flash, which might finally be rendered obsolete by Mozilla’s release of Firefox 85 on Tuesday.Read more...

The Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday that one of the garbage barges helping clear the federal Superfund site in Brooklyn’s infamous Gowanus Canal of toxic waste has itself sunk.

We’re now three trading days into some frothy drama between Reddit and Wall Street over the rocketing price of GameStop stocks. Largely believed to be the result of the subreddit WallStreetBets, pseudonymous Redditors are claiming absolutely bonkers returns on their Robinhood accounts from a company that has been in…Read more...

Last week, 160 members of Congress sent a letter to the FCC raising concerns about some Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) winners’ ability to provide rural America with the broadband access they promised. The letter did not call out individual internet service providers or organizations by name, but it did call on…Read more...

Consulting is a lucrative business if you can get it. Doubly so if you can traffic in conspiracy theories with no public accountability.

The rollout of covid-19 vaccines in the U.S. is finally starting to pick up steam, but as vaccination becomes more common, the antivax movement is pulling its same old tricks. The latest disturbing trend: blaming the coronavirus vaccine for deaths, illnesses, or injuries without any solid evidence.Read more...

Say hello to Twubstack. Twitter announced on Tuesday it is buying one of newsletter service Substack’s competitors, the smaller Revue, in a deal with undisclosed terms.

So far, Marvel’s WandaVision has very much been Wanda Maximoff’s show and a testament to how the studio was sorely underutilizing her in its movies. But it’s also been a very quirky character study of Paul Bettany’s Vision, the increasingly human-like synthezoid who began his existence as a shared twinkle in Tony…Read more...

When a colossal plume of ash and lava exploded from Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, few people probably had their minds on the animal life in the area, much less one species of rodent. The Pinatubo mouse was feared extinct after the eruption, but 30 years later, it turns out that the scrappy critters are…Read more...

Well, here’s something you don’t see every day.Read more...

On Monday, Target became the latest retailer to stop selling Chaokoh coconut milk, according to a statement from PETA. In recent months, the animal rights organization has led a boycott campaign against Chaokoh claiming that it uses forced monkey labor to manufacture its product.Read more...

Plex just added a new subscription tier to its live TV and media streaming services: Plex Arcade, a cloud gaming service like Amazon Luna and Google Stadia, but focused entirely on retro arcade games.

Forty-eight years after its debut, despite its antiquated two-dimensional graphics and gameplay, Pong remains a fun and challenging video game. But what happens when you strip it down to just a single dimension? Mirko Pavleski still managed to come up with a way to make 1D Pong a challenge when battling someone head…Read more...

A recent phishing campaign by North Korean nation-state hackers successfully duped a number of security professionals who were involved in vulnerability research and development, according to a new report from Google’s Threat Analysis Group.Read more...

President Joe Biden is using one of the most powerful tools at his disposal to speed up the electric vehicle transition: the purchasing power of the federal government. On Monday, he announced he’s phasing out the federal government’s use of fossil fuel-powered cars, replacing them with an all-electric fleet, during a…Read more...

A strange outage is impacting internet users in the Northeast U.S. It’s not entirely clear what is going on, but it sure is annoying.

As early as next year, these four men could make history by becoming members of the the first commercial crew to visit the International Space Station.

The new normal for California is no normal.

Not content just to launch a new 5G phone aimed at photo and video pros, today Sony is launching its latest flagship mirrorless camera in the new Alpha 1.Read more...

Sexually transmitted infections continue to be a major headache for Americans and their wallets, according to a new report released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About one in five Americans in the U.S. were thought to carry an STI in 2018, while there were 26 million new cases estimated…Read more...

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...