Gizmodo

The European Space Agency has detailed its plan for a network of lunar satellites that will support a human presence on the Moon. The project, dubbed Moonlight, would fashion the Moon as a launchpad for deeper space exploration.

The CPU is classically considered “the brain” of a computer because, like the human head, it contains all of the circuits responsible for receiving and executing commands. However, like the rest of a machine, CPUs are not infallible. In fact, they can be fairly easy to hack. Recent years have shown egregious examples…Read more...

When Loki premieres on Disney+ June 9, the main character will not be the Loki you know and love. Yes he’s played by Tom Hiddleston, and yes the series takes place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But when the story starts, this Loki hasn’t been redeemed yet. He hasn’t lived through Thor: The Dark World or Thor:…Read more...

Looks like it’s once again time for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to play the role of buzzkill. In the midst of a new outbreak of Salmonella bacteria linked to pet birds, the CDC is warning feather lovers: Please don’t smooch or snuggle your backyard chickens, ducks, or other assorted poultry.Read more...

All is not well in Star Trek’s Mirror universe. Okay, things are never well in the Mirror universe—everyone’s evil there, and constantly scheming, murdering, and/or scheming about murder—but things are going to get much worse when IDW releases a new Trek comic event with the absolutely awesome title The Mirror War.

Microscopic tardigrades are among the toughest animals on Earth, capable of withstanding freezing temperatures, the vacuum of space, and intense radiation. As new research shows, they’re even able to survive high-speed impacts—but only to a point.

The FCC today unanimously voted to cut cruelly overpriced prison and jail phone call rates, imposed by telecom companies that have creatively fished for every last penny from incarcerated people and their families. In an announcement, the FCC said that interstate calls will no longer exceed $0.12 per minute for…Read more...

A team of Japanese astronomers recently peered way, way back in time using a telescope array in Chile. What they made out in the distant, early universe is a record-breaking galaxy, one that turns back the clock on when galaxies took on their classic spiral structures.Read more...

The Colonial pipeline has proven just how critical of a piece of infrastructure it is after it was shut down by a ransomware attack last week that sparked a gasoline shortage along the East Coast. But the company doesn’t want you to remember just how important it is to daily life. There’s a good reason: Anonymity has…Read more...

A bipartisan group of senators is pushing forward a privacy bill meant to offer some much-needed transparency on the data being hoovered by our digital devices. And for once, a bill like this actually has a chance of passing.Read more...

Edited by World Fantasy Award winner Lavie Tidhar, The Best of World SF: Volume 1 collects 26 new short stories from authors representing 21 countries, including France, China, Singapore, Nigeria, India, Japan, Italy, and Cuba. io9 has a first look at the entry by Tlotlo Tsamaase, who hails from Botswana.

As Earther’s resident Guy Who Has Opinions About Cars, I have taken much pride and joy talking shit about the Cybertruck (dystopian trash) and the Hummer EV (warmongering throwback nobody wants trash). With Ford officially unveiling its electric version of the F-150, I am here once again to pass judgment.Read more...

Last Halloween’s streaming Hocus Pocus reunion might have failed to, uh, put a spell on viewers (at least it was for a good cause?), but the long-awaited sequel to Disney’s beloved spooky classic finally has a release date for its Disney+ debut. And it’s official: Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy…Read more...

Season one of The Wheel of Time just finished filming and Amazon likes it so much, it’s already renewed it for season two—incredibly exciting news for fans of Robert Jordan’s sprawling, best-selling fantasy series. We just wish we could see what all the fuss is about as very, very little has been released to show…Read more...

I’ve never liked bugs. I frequently have nightmares about swarms of insects. So naturally, I’ve been anxious about the Brood X cicadas re-emergence for months, concerned that they’ll ruin the experience of eating at outdoor restaurants or hanging out on my deck on weekend afternoons. I know the bugs are harmless, but…Read more...

Earlier this week, Google announced it was partnering with Samsung to create a unified Wear OS-Tizen platform. It’s a bold move that could up-end the smartwatch landscape, and the next Samsung watches may be the first to offer the new Wear-Tizen mash-up experience.Read more...

As much as the Pokémon franchise goes out of its way to explicitly tell you how much most of the creatures love their trainers—who capture and conscript them into lives of battling their own kind for glory—we all understand how messed up a premise that is when you spell it out. Nintendo’s New Pokémon Snap gives fans a…Read more...

A group of scientists fear they may have discovered another coronavirus capable of infecting humans. The virus has been spotted in patients suffering from pneumonia in Malaysia and likely originated from dogs. At this point, though, it’s not certain whether the virus is truly causing illness or if it could spread…Read more...

Precocious, adventurous kids are a dime a dozen. Tony Hale? Less so. Yet somehow, Disney+’s upcoming adaptation of The Mysterious Benedict Society children’s books features Tony Hale recruiting a quartet of precocious, adventurous kids to stop the nefarious plans of... Tony Hale?

The first public beta for Android 12 was released earlier this week, and hidden in the code are some significant clues that may have just revealed Google’s plans for all the new Pixel phones coming in 2021, including a potential foldable Pixel.Read more...

An Angelina Jolie wildfire movie is every disasterologist’s dream, but Those Who Wish Me Dead ignores our current nightmare. Instead of leaving us with a high from an action-packed Jolie film, we were left wondering why Hollywood isn’t doing more to help us through our collective anxieties in the midst of a pandemic…Read more...

Poor Rose McIver. The New Zealand actor rose to fame as Liv, the undead star of the CW’s horror-dramedy iZombie. Now, she’s traded the undead for the regular dead in her new CBS sitcom Ghosts, where she sees...well, you know.

For over 70 years, a small population of African green monkeys has been thriving in a mangrove forest near Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Florida. A team of researchers recently conducted a genetic analysis to determine the monkeys’ origin story, and it turns out that they’re longtime Florida…Read more...

Under ideal conditions, common swifts can cover more than 500 miles per day for more than a week, report scientists. Seems like an unimaginable feat for such a tiny bird, but swifts have adopted a clever strategy that makes these epic migrations possible.

Andy Warhol famously turned a mundane can of Campbell’s soup into an iconic piece of pop art, and now Bang & Olufsen is elevating the kitchen staple to a luxe piece of personal entertainment with its new aluminum-clad Bluetooth speaker that’s lightweight, waterproof, and not exactly cheap.Read more...

Better almost five years late than never.Read more...

Too bad for you, edgelords, your big boy TikTok jabs will not stand. Today, the platform announced a new feature allowing TikTokers to wipe out up to 100 comments in one stroke. TikTok says that users will now be able to select tick boxes and mass-delete, much like an email inbox. The company expects to roll this out…Read more...

With new Intel and AMD laptop CPUs to use, HP is now overhauling its gaming laptop lineup with three new notebooks, an updated gaming hub, and a refreshed gaming monitor to boot.

Republicans in the Arizona Senate—obsessed with vindicating Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 elections—have been working with a shady, virtually unknown firm named Cyber Ninjas to audit 2.1 million votes in Maricopa County. This farce comes despite the objections of the county’s election officials, who…Read more...

There’s a new big ‘berg floating around Antarctica. The European Space Agency said Wednesday that a huge chunk of ice had broken off from the Ronne Ice Shelf into the Weddell Sea and formed the world’s largest iceberg.Read more...

Jason Momoa discusses the script for Aquaman’s sequel. Adam Wingard is hyping his ThunderCats film. Plus the Vampire Diaries Julie Plec has an exciting new bloodsucking project, the latest from Nancy Drew, and more. Spoilers away!

Head to the Apple website today and you’ll see four different iPad models, each with a variety of specs to choose from. Which one is right for you? Why does the iPad Pro cost so much more than the iPad Air when they look so similar? Does anyone really need an iPad mini? We’ll answer all these questions and more.

The CEO of ByteDance, Zhang Yiming, is stepping down at the end of 2021 according to a memo posted to the ByteDance website on Thursday. And while most corporate transitions are filled with bland PR-speak, Yiming’s departure memo is an interesting case study in honesty.Read more...

Devices like the reMarkable tablet have been around for about five years now, so Kobo’s Elipsa, a new E Ink-based digital notebook, is a little late to the scene. But the device is bringing a feature that all e-note tablets have been missing so far: a robust, native e-book store, making it great for both taking notes…Read more...

The Resident Evil universe has always been a bit... dense, let’s say. There are twists upon twists and people dying and coming back and then dying again but also coming back again, good guys turned evil and vice versa, and a succession of about 18 people behind the scenes of every viral outbreak or genetic…Read more...

Five women who have worked at Amazon filed suit against the company in various U.S. district courts on Wednesday, each with distinct allegations of discrimination and retaliation they say they experienced during their time at the company.Read more...

Google is going all in with Matter, the new smart home standard the company has backed alongside Amazon, Apple, and other gadget makers, starting with its Nest devices.

Certain video games allow you to spend a few dollars to get add-ons that give you an advantage—and sometimes, it can go a little overboard. Disney is bringing that idea into its theme parks with the new Spider-Man ride opening in June—Web Slingers: A Spider-Man AdventureRead more...

If you’re fed up with apps and websites using shitty psychological tactics—aka dark patterns—to coerce you into clicking, then good news: there’s finally a way to put them on blast. Consumer Reports teamed up with a cavalcade of researchers and policy wonks to roll out the Dark Patterns Tip Line on Tuesday, a project…Read more...

Nina is a 9-year-old doggie from South Carolina who we adopted last March. She is also a runner. One evening, a week into her time with us, she wandered off for two days, freaking us out quite a bit.Read more...

A doctor who became one of the earliest victims of the covid-19 pandemic in the UK has now recounted her harrowing experience. In a new case report, she describes her illness and treatment, which included weeks of a last-resort intervention called ECMO that completely took over for her lungs and heart, along with her…Read more...

Meet “Bizarro.” It’s a new banking trojan currently sweeping through Europe and large parts of South America, attempting to pilfer consumer financial information and mobile crypto wallets as it goes.Read more...

With new movies featuring Batman, Superman, and Supergirl all on the way, one more name had to be added to the list. And now she has. After years in limbo, Batgirl is back and it just picked up its directors in Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah.Read more...

Apple’s always expressed a commitment to accessibility, but today it announced a plethora of upcoming features that could make a huge difference in how people with disabilities can interact with technology.Read more...

After years of neglect and incremental updates, yesterday Google dropped its most meaningful wearables announcement since it rebranded from Android Wear to Wear OS in 2018. Going forward, Wear OS will take the best parts of Samsung’s Tizen OS and Google-owned Fitbit to create a new unified platform for wearables. It’s…Read more...

It’s only May, but it feels like summer has arrived in my hometown of Baltimore. Since I woke up, I’ve been counting the hours until I can drink iced cocktails on my deck while wearing a sundress. Can you blame me? It’s 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26.7 degrees Celsius) out.

Seance—a ghostly thriller about a boarding school that starts racking up a body count soon after a mysterious new student (Suki Waterhouse) arrives—doesn’t end up being the movie you think it’s going to be based on its premise; it has layers while also feeling like an homage to horror films from decades ago. To learn…Read more...

The international uproar over WhatsApp’s new privacy policy got a jolt of energy this week, with a new letter reportedly from Indian authorities telling the company to walk back its changes to the platform—or else.

The easiest way to get kids interested in robots is to show them Star Wars, but that’s admittedly a limited experience. The next best thing might be Sphero’s new kid-friendly robot called indi which can be programmed using simple colored tiles dropped on the floor, or a mobile app as kids further develop their…Read more...

No, Google has not resurrected Google Reader, but it is working on a feature in Chrome that lets you follow multiple RSS feeds.