Gizmodo

Usually when companies make major changes to their services, a little advanced notice is a good thing. Unfortunately, when AT&T recently began sending out emails telling customers that their phones would no longer work on its network when AT&T phases out support for 3G, the carrier forgot to include one important…Read more...

As part of a series of security updates to G Suite announced this week, Google says it’s piloting a new standard for email authentication that will display a company or brand icon next to email that Google has verified as legit—a measure that may help curb phishing and other malicious activity from bad actors.Read more...

Dreaming of other planets, other realities, or other timelines? So far, 2020 has us wishing we could be literally anywhere else. Here’s a temporary escape hatch: these awesome new short films, all of which share glimpses of a future where so much more has gone wrong. At least we aren’t there... yet?Read more...

Hurricane season is unfortunately alive and well, folks. As of Wednesday, two storms are brewing: Hurricane Douglas in the Pacific and Tropical Storm Gonzalo in the Atlantic. A third is also likely to spring up in the Gulf of Mexico later this week.

According to a public letter from the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, the federal group responsible for the security of the banking system, banks are now allowed to hold cryptocurrencies.Read more...

Democratic Party officials put together a draft of the 2020 platform which includes several pages on the climate crisis, but contains barely any mention of the biggest cause of that crisis: burning fossil fuels.Read more...

The U.S. Army has dealt with sustained backlash over the past few weeks against its recruitment-oriented Twitch channel, which has banned viewers for asking about war crimes and hosted supposed giveaways that just dumped people out onto a recruitment page (which the Army has since claimed did enter viewers into a…Read more...

Buried deep within a leaked 79-page draft of the Democratic National Committee’s 2020 platform are promises to “recommit” to net neutrality and bridge the digital divide once and for all. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders had already outlined similar plans in a joint task force…Read more...

When Uber sold off its e-transportation offshoot, Jump, earlier this year, the company was left with hundreds of employees that needed to be let go, and tens of thousands of electric bikes that, well, also needed to be let go... directly into the trash.Read more...

DC Universe’s excellent $75 year-length subscription is reportedly dead. New subscribers will be limited to only the monthly $8 plan, which averages about $21 more annually than the defunct annual plan. It’s a major bummer and another significant hint that DC Universe, one of the absolute best deals in streaming, is…Read more...

Workplace messaging software company Slack is accusing Microsoft of monopoly behavior in an antitrust complaint filed today to European Union regulators. Unsurprisingly, the accusations hinge on the same practice that helped make Microsoft rich in the first place.

This first-of-its-kind image reveals a star system just 300 light-years from Earth. It was captured by the Very Large Telescope (VLT), which is managed by the European Southern Observatory and located in the Atacama desert of Chile. This is considered the first direct image of multiple exoplanets in orbit around a…Read more...

I never planned to be the weirdo walking her cat around on leash during a global pandemic. But stuck inside for months, there’s nowhere for the difficult truths in your life (cat-related or otherwise) to hide.

San Diego Comic-Con has begun, but it’s looking a little different this year. Thanks to the novel coronavirus pandemic, all the panels, cosplay competitions, and merchandise areas have moved online. Normally, this would be the time we’d take you onto the show floor during preview night but instead, we’re giving you an…Read more...

The hype behind Apple’s rumored augmented reality headset and glasses just won’t die. Every few weeks, almost like clockwork, some sort of Apple AR rumor or news makes its way through the tech blogosphere, even as other smart glasses and AR companies are capsizing left and right. This has always irked me, but it…Read more...

A new paper suggests that the East Antarctic ice sheet may not be as stable as we thought. Looking at ancient melting, the study finds evidence that this piece of the Antarctic experienced melting 400,000 years ago when the world was 1.8 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 2 degrees Celsius) warmer. Enough ice melted…Read more...

If you’ve ever shopped for office furniture, you’ve undoubtedly drooled over Herman Miller’s fancy chairs, and then turned away in disappointment at their Dyson-like pricing. Still a staple of well-funded startups, the furniture maker now assumes that gamers who’ve already spent thousands on a spec’d-out PC are happy…Read more...

When should Twitter have banned QAnon, the conspiracy theory that has thoroughly convinced people, mainly Trump supporters, of an omnipresent threat of Satanic child abusers? Was it when Reddit banned their QAnon subreddit for making “violent threats” in 2018? Was it when a group of armed Arizona veterans stormed a…Read more...

A lot of gaming phones fail to differentiate themselves from standard smartphone fare. But that’s not a problem for Asus’ new ROG Phone 3, which has massive specs, in your face RGB lighting, and possibly the most responsive performance I’ve ever experienced in a phone.Read more...

Looks like Gen Z is at it again with the climate lawsuits, this time in Australia. Kathleen “Katta” O’Donnell, a 23-year-old college student in Melbourne, launched a world-first lawsuit against the Australian government on Tuesday, alleging that it has misled investors in sovereign bonds by failing to disclose…Read more...

These days, if you’re talking about movies, you’re probably talking about Christopher Nolan. Oh sure, some really good movies have premiered on streaming during the pandemic, but all eyes have been on the latest blockbuster from Nolan, Tenet, which many expect to usher in a return to movie theaters post-covid-19.Read more...

Archaeological discoveries in a Mexican cave suggest humans reached North America some 30,000 years ago, which is a whopping 10,000 to 15,000 years earlier than previous estimates. The new research means it’s all but certain that the first people to reach the continent did so by following a Pacific coastal route.Read more...

Despite companies desperately trying to come up with reasons to add a screen to every appliance in your house, your fridge and toaster probably work just fine the way they are. And while a drill with a touchscreen also seems like complete overkill, the creators of the xDrill have at least come up with some genuinely…Read more...

Every year, San Diego Comic-Con gives us a bunch of cool toys that we desperately sigh about because we’ll never get our hands on them without paying hand over fist, either at the con or on the aftermarket. This year’s a bit different: there’s no actual physical con, but there are still exclusives—and they’re a bit…Read more...

We know the planet is getting hot. Just how hot it will get is one of the biggest questions of the 21st century, tying up the fate of humanity and the biosphere in one neat hand basket to hell.Read more...

We tend to marvel at the abilities of our canine companions, but let’s face it: Dogs are basic beasts who depend on humans for pretty much everything. So instead of uncritically celebrating these good boys and girls during Gizmodo’s Dog Week, let’s explore all the things they suck at.Read more...

M. Night Shyamalan’s mystery thriller gets another cast member. Skydance animation shuffles a few of its upcoming release dates. There is yet another Stephen King adaptation on the way. Plus, what’s to come on Stargirl, and robot ruminations about in the look at Quibi’s new sci-fi series Don’t Look Deeper.

For years I’ve considered the Razer Blade 15 to be the closest thing you can get to a MacBook Pro for gamers. Sure, it doesn’t run macOS, but no other non-Apple computer does either, at least not legally. Like a MacBook Pro, the Razer Blade 15 has an understated, minimalist design and excellent build quality, but it…Read more...

For the longest time, one computer has been enough to do it all. But it’s never been easier to get a cheap computer, and a second machine can do everything from help you code across multiple platforms to run lots of taxing programs at once, or just give you a nice change of digital scenery throughout your day. If…Read more...

President Donald Trump’s latest Facebook ad campaign uses a photo of protesters clashing with police, and suggests there will be “chaos and violence” if the president isn’t re-elected in November. Facebook users who see the new ad will probably assume the photo was taken in the United States sometime this year. In…Read more...

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Federal Communications Commission chief Ajit Pai is urging that states impose caps on the price of intrastate prison phone calls—ones that existed on the federal level until Pai’s FCC abandoned them in court.

This year could have been special. A year after Marvel Studios announced the bulk of the Phase 4 slate in Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con, odds were high that a 2020 panel would have been even bigger. We might have seen footage from Eternals and trailers for the Disney+ shows, and gotten some juicy news about Captain…Read more...

An Al Jazeera reporter did not call White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany a “lying bitch” on Tuesday, despite claims to the otherwise by sizable contingent of pro-Donald Trump Twitter accounts.

The ominous mention of “an incident in space” opens this eerie trailer for Egor Abramenko’s Sputnik, and it soon becomes clear that the very worst of all that loaded phrase implies is about to come true—namely that something alien has tagged along back to Earth, and containing it is going to be a nightmarish task.

Adding to TikTok’s litany of woes, the House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to prevent government employees from installing TikTok on government-issued devices—inching closer toward the transnational goal of eradicating the Chinese-owned company from the face of the earth. TikTok clapped back with the announcement…Read more...

As part of its hard-lean pivot to Podcast King, Spotify is now bringing video podcasts to its platform, complete with seamless multitasking support if you prefer to listen instead.Read more...

Even if you’re not an avid follower of conspiracy theories, there’s a good chance you’ve heard the recent one about Wayfair trafficking underage girls through some overpriced cabinets, or as some of us like to call it, “Wayfairgate.” The fact that it’s been debunked by multiple outlets hasn’t stopped the theory from…Read more...

Welcome back to Gaming Shelf, io9's column all about board games and tabletop roleplaying games. San Diego Comic-Con at Home and Gen Con Online 2020 are right around the corner, and with those events we might see some new announcements and releases. In the meantime, there’s plenty of cool stuff on the horizon,…Read more...

When not fighting invaders, Ghost of Tsushima gives players peaceful ways to catch their breath. The island is littered with scenic spots that host a haiku-composing mini-game, and by the end of the journey players should have “written” quite a few of these short poems. Unfortunately, they probably won’t be very good.

With an aesthetic that is reminiscent of Mugatu’s Derelicte, fashion house Volleback has announced the Garbage Watch, a timepiece made entirely of e-waste.Read more...

My cats have totally opposite personalities. Charlie, my mild-mannered, slightly chonky, gray tabby will paw at a toy as she lays lazily on her back. Katniss, my sassy tuxedo cat, is still a kitten despite being nearly eight-years-old. For five years, it was just me and Charlie, until Katniss came into our lives two…Read more...

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence & Analysis has been authorized to conduct social media surveillance of protestors in order to protect statues and monuments, according to an unclassified three-page document obtained by Lawfare and the Washington Post. The undated document appears to offer…Read more...

Amazon’s dopey looking delivery robots—which have been roving around parts of California and Washington—are now being deployed in two more states, and they’re bringing their human babysitters along with them.Read more...

LinkedIn might be a platform full of milquetoast networking memes, quasi-inspirational posts about networking, and bizarrely catchy networking-themed playlists, but even all of this (questionable) business savvy couldn’t save the platform from the scourge of seemingly endless layoffs brought on by the current hell…Read more...

Looks like the U.S. Army and Navy might not be able to squash the pacifist resistance that’s been rising up in its Twitch streams, mostly visitors dropping into the chats to reference war crimes (or “w4r crimes” or “war c rimes”). Over the past few weeks, we’ve heard about how the U.S. Army’s esports team has been…Read more...

The digital divide in the U.S. was apparent long before the pandemic forced many of us to go about our usual work/school day from our home computers. ISPs responded by waiving late fees, removing data caps, and opening up hotspots for free, but only temporarily. If you’re lucky enough to have more than one ISP in your…Read more...

The FBI arrested Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and a number of Republicans on Tuesday on charges of bribery tied to the state’s passage of a nuclear and coal bailout bill last year.Read more...

A recent research paper provides a better picture of the serious damage that covid-19 can cause throughout the body, not just in the lungs. It highlights heart, kidney, liver, and neurological complications, among others. This long list of symptoms may be the result of direct damage caused by the virus, as well as by…Read more...

The Arctic is normally a cold, cold place. But lately, due to the climate crisis, it’s literally been on fire. A new analysis took a deeper look at the recent Arctic fires to paint a clearer picture of where exactly all this burning is happening.Read more...