Gizmodo

Twenty-twenty has been a year of seeking comfort in media, both in the nostalgia of old favorites and the exciting discovery of new and excellent stories. This year, more than any recently, we’ve looked for new bonds and new characters to fall in love with. Here are the heroes who kept us going as this long, long year…Read more...

Late Tuesday night, Congress finally found the time to work out a modest covid-19 relief package that was tucked into a must-pass spending bill. Also included in the package was a pair of controversial copyright bills that will make the web a more dangerous place for sharing. What are you gonna do about it?Read more...

Do you ever hear a new song and realize it’s unlike anything you’ve heard before? I felt that a few times this year, mostly with Phoebe Bridgers and Polo G. It happened to scientists recently, too. But it wasn’t a new singer or rapper they discovered; it’s a new population of whales.Read more...

While much of Samsung’s attention is probably focused on the upcoming arrival of the Galaxy S21 and Galaxy Buds Pro, a new leak suggests Samsung is also prepping for the release of its next Chromebook.Read more...

Though it’s only been a few years since Hollywood last made a go at capitalizing on Warner Bros.’ Exorcist IP with a short-lived Fox series, it won’t be long before audiences are invited to watch yet another story about priests trying to save unsuspecting people who are possessed by malevolent beings from hell.Read more...

This year may not have started off so great for Peloton, but the company’s fortunes have since reversed thanks to a surge of interest in at-home fitness during the pandemic. Popularity can be a double-edged sword, however, as Peloton has struggled to keep up with demand, resulting in delivery delays and long wait…Read more...

Engineers from NASA and Boeing have added cryogenic propellants to the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS), reaching a major milestone in the development of this advanced rocket.

Congress’s embarrassingly slow and insufficient response to the still-surging pandemic, you might have heard, will be $600 checks—dropping into mailboxes as soon as next week. If you don’t need that money, some or all of it should be going to people that do. And one of the shortest paths to depositing it straight into…Read more...

The Switch’s 6.2-inch screen is fine for playing by yourself, but despite what Nintendo claims, it’s not great for multiplayer when you’re not near a TV. The Genki ShadowCast solves this by turning another portable device you probably travel with, your laptop, into a larger screen for any almost any device with HDMI.Read more...

Patty Jenkins talks about what she’d need to come back for a third Wonder Woman movie. Kevin Feige teases how She-Hulk will do things Marvel Studios hasn’t done before. Riverdale is weaving in a real-life pregnancy to Toni’s story. Plus, a tiny tease for Netflix’s animated Witcher spinoff. Spoilers, assemble!

Guitar picks are pretty low-tech. They’re usually little pieces of plastic and you buy a few dozen and keep them for years or promptly lose most of them and then buy another few dozen.Read more...

The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to sue Ripple in federal civil court for selling unregistered securities, according to a news release published online by the cryptocurrency company late Monday. Ripple defended its cryptocurrency, known as XRP, as a valid currency but then drifted into conspiracy-laden…Read more...

After five consecutive years of decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, California saw an increase in its planet-warming pollution. That’s according to a new report from the nonprofit Next 10 and research firm Beacon Economics.Read more...

When it comes to the sky, here are the things we know for certain to be true: We know that birds are allowed up there and humans are not (suspicious). We know that the sky acts as the sort of sacred lid to the world, and also that it contains the atmosphere and the air, the same air that our friends and pets and…Read more...

Apple Inc. is joining the self-driving car game.Read more...

Jins today launched a new line of Pokémon-themed eyeglasses and blue light blockers. The collection, released in partnership with the Pokémon Company, will feature frames for both children and adults in a variety of designs and colors specific to fan-favorite Pokémon.Read more...

You don’t need to have seasonal affective disorder to be depressed this holiday season. There’s plenty to be bummed out about, first and foremost that most of us won’t be able to spend time with our friends and family thanks to the pandemic, but then there’s also [gestures at everything]. It sucks, but most Christmas…Read more...

Upsetting but strangely satisfying new research documents octopuses punching fish during collaborative feeding sessions. The octopuses primarily do it for practical reasons, but sometimes these underwater jabs seem to be purely spiteful.

Slavery is rampant on fishing vessels around the world. Just how rampant, though, is an open question, given the challenges of cataloging what happens onboard thousands of vessels that spend weeks out at a sea and move from port to port, including in countries with lax regulations.Read more...

AT&T is having a hard time trying to find a buyer to take DirecTV off its hands. Ars Technica (via the New York Post) reports the telecom is not happy with the $15 billion offers it has received since opening up auctions in October, and may “cancel the auction altogether if it doesn’t get better offers.” As of now,…Read more...

China’s efforts to purge its government of CIA moles has been aided significantly by a massive database of personnel information stolen from the U.S. government nearly a decade ago, as well as other hacked or leaked data sets, Foreign Policy reported on Monday.Read more...

How much would the first schematics of the printing press be worth today? What would you pay to own the original designs for the telephone? For some people, Steve Wozniak’s simple sketches for the Apple II hold a similar sort of historical significance as those hypothetical artifacts of tech history. And we now know…Read more...

Scientists in the UK and elsewhere are reporting the discovery of new, potentially important mutations found in local strains of the coronavirus. These strains may pose a real added danger to people, with early research suggesting that they’re more transmissible than the classic version. And though there’s much about…Read more...

The Mandalorian’s season finale took Din Djarin’s small slice of the Star Wars universe and exploded it into smithereens—smithereens with much larger ties to the vast Skywalker Saga than any of us could’ve imagined when this show first started last year. But now that its adventures are inextricably linked, here’s some…Read more...

Hackers have released over 270,000 email addresses associated with customers of the popular hardware-based cryptocurrency wallet Ledger. The leak, which allegedly stemmed from a company hack last July, appears to contain over 270,000 customer emails and other identifying information.Read more...

Apparently OnePlus is turning its habit of releasing concept phones every winter into a tradition. Following last year’s Concept One, OnePlus has just revealed the OnePlus 8T Concept.Read more...

“Bipartisan climate policy” is a unicorn of phrases when it comes to Congress, let alone “bipartisan climate policy instructing the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases.” Yet on Monday, this mythical creature appeared after senators agreed to include a plan to phase down production and use of…Read more...

Researchers with the Breakthrough Listen project have detected a curious signal originating from Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun. The signal has been designated as a possible alien transmission, but like so many examples in the past, this latest detection is probably another dead end.

As enjoyable as the holidays are, there are parts that you’re happy to be done with—like wrapping presents. It’s a process that seems overly complicated, especially when your hard work is going to just be torn to shreds, which is why I desperately want this giant Lego machine as my gift-wrapping assistant.Read more...

This past summer, dozens of major brands pulled their ad dollars from Facebook in a protest of the company’s handling of the hate speech and disinformation. Apparently the company has done enough to win back one of its biggest fish: Unilever, which announced late last week that it would be picking up its ad campaigns…Read more...

Anyone curious to see how a native version of Adobe Premiere Pro runs on Apple Silicon now has the chance. Last week, Abode released a beta version of Premiere Pro for M1 systems, reports The Verge, joining the already released beta versions of Photoshop and Lightroom.

We’ve heard rumblings about Samsung’s next-gen flagship wireless earbuds before, but now an unreleased APK has just revealed a ton of details about which features Samsung is planning to include in the upcoming Galaxy Buds Pro.Read more...

If there’s one thing stores are now well stocked with, it’s Baby Yoda toys. And while you can shell out hundreds of dollars for a startlingly lifelike replica of Grogu, this DIY does what all the others can’t: automatically follow you everywhere you go like a curious 50-year-old toddler.Read more...

It appears that 36 Al Jazeera journalists reportedly had their personal iPhones hacked using spyware created by NSO Group, a sketchy Israeli security firm. The terrifying thing is the zero-day, zero-click exploit, which abuses a vulnerability in iMessage, went undetected for about a year—and likely originated from…Read more...

Her life was short. Scientists estimate she lived for about six or seven weeks in the underground den, before it collapsed around her. This tragedy and the permafrost that preserved her body are the reasons we know of this wolf pup’s existence approximately 57,000 years later. Zhùr, or ‘wolf’ in the Hän language, is…Read more...

On their own, each of the numerous weather calamities that befell the world in 2020 would be a crisis. But hurricane, floods, and wildfires intersected with the pandemic in ways that tested emergency response systems in ways they haven’t before. Piling the climate crisis on top of a public health crisis not only put…Read more...

If 2020 hasn’t already turned your brain into a barely functional pile of gray mush, the Best Illusion of the Year Contest has just the thing to push it over the edge. Every year a group of neurologists, visual scientists, ophthalmologists, and artists create and judge the best mind-benders of the year, and this year…Read more...

In Hawaii, this cursed year is going out with even more horror. The volcano Kīlauea on the state’s Big Island erupted Sunday night.Read more...

David Cronenberg is looking to make three new projects for film and TV. Emma Paetz teases a wild time for Martha Wayne in Pennyworth season two. Plus, get a look at Snowpiercer’s return, and Javicia Leslie’s debut in the new season of Batwoman. To me, my spoilers!

So, that thing Disney decided to keep fans in suspense over this past weekend? They just confirmed it.

The Fossil Gen 5E was doomed from the start.Read more...

With the arrival of iOS 14.3, Apple’s ProRAW format is here, and it could significantly change the way iPhone users take photos—not just for this generation of handsets, but with the iPhone 13 and beyond. If you’re wondering what this new capability is and how you can use it on your iPhone, we’re about to explain it…Read more...

Is your body perfectly toned? Are your workdays marathons of effortless achievement? Do your relationships proceed from a place of maximal openness/empathy? Have you, through therapy or nootropics, trained your brain away from thoughts of sadness/despair? If you’ve answered yes to all of these questions—and frankly I…Read more...

Over 550,000 Americans have received their first dose of the vaccine against the coronavirus as of Sunday night, according to new figures released online by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of vaccinated Americans is encouraging news as covid-19 continues to devastate the U.S., a country that…Read more...

If you, like me, were addicted to Netflix’s The Crown and didn’t leave the comfort of your couch for many hours because you were binging it, you might also gasp in delight at this news. On Christmas day, you’ll be able to have your own The Crown moment with the real Queen Elizabeth II, courtesy of Alexa.Read more...

With only days left before Christmas, millions of people in the United Kingdom received disheartening, though not unsurprising, news on Saturday. They were under a strict lockdown again, and would in general not be allowed to mix with other households for the next two weeks. The reason was related to a new strain of…Read more...

Congressional leaders have reached a bipartisan deal on an almost $1 trillion covid-19 economic relief package Sunday afternoon that would establish a temporary $300 per week bump in unemployment benefits and send $600 stimulus checks to most Americans, the Associated Press reports.Read more...

Besides the official reports from states, the federal government, and entities like Johns Hopkins, there’s always been another, unorthodox way to gauge the severity of the pandemic: Apple Store closures. The company was one of the first major retailers to close its stores during the pandemic and has been opening and…Read more...

If you’ve ever wondered why you still have to pay your internet provider rental fees for a modem even after you bought it, I have some good news: A new U.S. law is shutting that shit down from here on out.Read more...

Peter Lamont, a veteran of the film industry, was one of the most respected and accomplished production designers and art directors around. Now, the Oscar-winner has passed away.Read more...