Gizmodo

A ransomware variant called NetWalker is doing surprisingly well, even in this economy. The malware, which takes computers hostage and asks for a Bitcoin ransom, raked in $25 million in the last five months, a solid haul for what amounts to a solid ransomware-as-a-service platform.Read more...

A genetic analysis of ice age cave lions shows this species to be distinct from modern lions, ending a long-standing mystery. What’s more, the new evidence suggests these fearsome creatures diverged into two distinct lineages.

Baby boomers are experiencing a sharper drop in cognitive function as they age, relative to previous generations. The findings not only suggest that boomers will be more likely to develop conditions like dementia than past cohorts, but future aging generations may be at a similar heightened risk.Read more...

If the world does not curb the rate at which it spews out climate-warming greenhouse gases, the death toll from extreme heat could nearly meet the current death rate of all infectious diseases combined, according to a new study from Climate Impact Lab, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research on Monday.Read more...

This morning, way too early if you ask me, the Gizmodo Slack channel was dosed with acid reality, momentarily shattering a cozy illusion of purpose and the structure of days spent on the internet. I stared down my life, past, present, and future—thanks to The Endless Doomscroller.

Just five months ago I called the original Retro Game 350 the best portable retro gaming machine you could buy. It’s still an excellent device, but if you haven’t pulled the trigger yet, the new RG350P includes a handful of subtle but excellent upgrades that make it a better handheld in every way, and well worth…Read more...

This week, Star Trek returns to the world of animation with Lower Decks, a new series dedicated to the motley officers who make up the bottom rungs of Starfleet’s finest. It’s a chance to goof on the series at large from the perspective of its unsung heroes—but going back to The Next Generation episode that inspired…Read more...

WhatsApp is piloting a new feature meant to support fact-checking of in-app messages by searching their contents on the web, the company announced this week.Read more...

Following months of deliberation and delays, the city of Portland in Southern Maine became the thirteenth city to issue a blanket ban prohibiting its city officials—including local police—from using facial recognition technology.Read more...

I need you to sit down. Take a few deep breaths. This news will be tough to hear, but it will be alright with time. I promise you we’ll get through this together.

Welcome back to Gaming Shelf, io9's column all about board games and tabletop roleplaying games. Gen Con Online has come and gone, along with San Diego Comic-Con—but they weren’t the only sources of games announcements this time around. We’ve got a new card game about The Umbrella Academy, along with a tabletop…Read more...

Chinese state media has responded to Donald Trump’s decision that he’s the president of TikTok now, accusing him of stealing. Reuters quoted the state-backed paper China Daily, in which the editorial board wrote that China won’t tolerate Donald Trump’s “bullying” and outright “theft” of TikTok, and that China had…Read more...

On July 23, Garmin’s entire network went offline in what was later confirmed to be a cyberattack. Now, Sky News is reporting that the company paid millions in ransom via Arete IR, a ransomware negotiation firm, to get its services up and running again.Read more...

Even though Olympus is planning to sell off its camera business later this year, it’s still pumping out new mirrorless shooters with the latest being the refreshed OM-D E-M10 Mark IV.Read more...

Get a new look at Disney+’s Kate Bishop for Hawkeye. Denis Villeneuve discusses the race to finish Dune. New Star Trek: Discovery art gives us a small glimpse of future Starfleet tech. Plus, Sam Neill’s got a hat, and the heroes of the DC-CW universe just want you to wear a mask. To me, my Spoilers!

The White House has yanked its nomination to give GOP Federal Communications Commissioner Mike O’Rielly another term at the agency, offering no explanation as to why.

LG is forever pushing the boundaries of zany display technology, and it’s not stopping with rollable TVs. This week, the company is showing off a 65-inch, 4K bendable OLED TV that looks truly delightful—until you consider what such innovation will eventually cost when it trickles down to consumers.Read more...

Oh wow, a highly anticipated third film in a big-time animated franchise? What could it be? The Incredibles? There are two of those. A third Frozen? That would make sense. The Secret Life of Pets 3? Dare to dream.Read more...

Thousands of miles away from Hollywood, a new heroine is being born. Her name is Isaura. She’s from Mozambique, can breathe underwater and talk to turtles, and wants to save the planet.Read more...

A re-analysis of a shin bone belonging to a horned dinosaur from the Cretaceous period has revealed signs of a malignant tumor, in what’s considered a first for dinosaur paleontology.

Donald Trump is demanding the U.S. government somehow get a juicy cut of any deal for Microsoft to buy Chinese-owned video app TikTok—or else.

If you’ve ever thought to yourself: I could really use a pair of binoculars that could be separated into two monoculars and could then be combined into one telescope, well, you’re in luck. Today Ricoh announced the Pentax VD 4X20 WP—just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?—which is a 3-in-1 device that the company…Read more...

A new study out Monday seems to confirm anecdotal reports from health care workers: Emergency rooms across the U.S. saw a massive decline in visits in March and April, possibly because people feared contracting covid-19 if they sought medical care.Read more...

If you have not recently updated your FuboTV app, you should think about doing that ASAP—particularly if you’re a sports fan.Read more...

The next generation of video game consoles are coming—is your entertainment center prepared? Mine sure as hell isn’t, which means it’s time to begin considering what to do with my current-gen consoles. I’m not too keen on selling them, at least not quite yet, as there are plenty of PlayStation 4 titles I want to play,…Read more...

Tropical Storm Isaias is making its way to the U.S. East Coast, and it looks like the region is about to get a lot of rain. After lashing the Bahamas on Friday and then weakening over Florida’s coast over the weekend, the storm is expected to pick up speed and strengthen back to hurricane status before bringing strong…Read more...

Since buying Nest back in 2014, Google hasn’t been shy about turning the hardware company into one of the biggest names in home security. Now, the company’s moving to bolster those security chops even more with the help of the home-automation giants over at ADT.Read more...

Last year, AI Dungeon debuted as a free text adventure game. Now the game’s AI system has been upgraded to GPT-3, or Generative Pre-trained Transformer, which has a language model that uses deep learning to produce human-like text. According to game creator Nick Walton, it’s “one of the most powerful AI models in the…Read more...

When Darth Vader said “What is thy bidding, master?” apparently he was onto something. The phrase had a certain dated quality. Medieval even. And now, after hearing actual medieval remixes of popular Star Wars themes, those two things definitely go hand in hand.Read more...

A poor black bear has been spotted in Asheville, North Carolina, donning a Trump 2020 sticker on its collar. What irony, indeed.Read more...

In 2020, it’s worth assuming that every status update and selfie you upload online can eventually make its way into the hands of an obscure data-mining third party, into the hands of national authorities, or both.

This monsoon season has been devastating East and South Asia since early June, and the rains are showing no signs of stopping—throughout the region, they are expected to continue into mid-August. Bangladesh has been especially hard it: The floods have left between 24% and 37% of the country underwater, the New York…Read more...

Poltergeist is fantastic because it somehow both includes, and subverts, seemingly every convention the horror genre has. The family doesn’t leave the haunted house, they stay. They instantly accept what’s happening. The ghosts are revealed early in the story. People actually capture them on videotape. What you think…Read more...

In the last few years, CBS has turned Star Trek from a dormant franchise on television screens into one of its biggest assets. We’ve gone from no shows to our fourth new Trek about to air in the U.S. and Canada this week (and more on the way!). And yet, despite its global appeal, there are still frustrations about…Read more...

A set of polar ice caps has literally disappeared. We don’t need any more evidence that the Earth is warming to the point of mass instability, but this latest discovery is unsettling, to say the least.

As smartphones continue to get more sophisticated and more expensive, there’s a question that becomes increasingly relevant: How much phone do you actually need? Features like a built-in stylus, a foldable screen, and wireless charging are certainly nice to have, especially when they’re built into the same device you…Read more...

Alongside the brand new Pixel 4a, after months of rumors and speculation, today Google is confirming the upcoming arrival of the Pixel 4a 5G and Pixel 5G sometime later this year.

If you’re on a desktop right now, you’re probably using a computer mouse. In which case, you should raise a glass to William English.Read more...

Shang-Chi is getting ready to return to filming. The New Mutants will still keep one important family connection. Tigress storms onto the scene in new Stargirl pictures. Plus, what’s to come on Wynonna Earp and NOS4A2. To me, my spoilers!

iOS 14 and Android 11 will add new “back tap” gesture controls when they roll out later this year, but you can get the feature early on any Android device running Android 7.0 or higher right now. (iPhone users can install the iOS 14 beta for an early taste of the back-tap life, too).

Photoshop has become so dominant that you can use its name as a verb, but if you want to get your hands on it you need to shell out at least $10 a month. Don’t worry! There are plenty of completely free alternatives to Photoshop; here are a few of the best.Read more...

Since the world is both metaphorically and, in some places, literally on fire these days, I’ve replaced doomscrolling through my feeds with something more wholesome to preserve my already perennially shaky mental state: farming sims. Nice try, depressing news, but I can’t hear you when I’m 100+ hours deep in Stardew…Read more...

In case we needed another reminded that climate change is burning up the planet, California officials reported this weekend that a fire in Cherry Valley has burned through 20,516 acres of land and is currently not contained.Read more...

The Washington State Department of Agriculture has successfully trapped its first Asian giant hornet, aka murder hornet aka 2-inch-long flying demon that rips off bees’ heads and haunts my nightmares.

Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, sent an alarming message about the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. on Sunday. Birx said that what the country is experiencing now is different than in March and April, which saw the rapid acceleration of virus transmission in the country.Read more...

Todd McFarlane is one of the most distinctive creators working in comics. His over-the-top, stylized artistry is recognizable a mile away, and had a defining impact on the era of comics he got his start in. He’s also, honestly, a very entertaining dude: frank, direct, and deeply in love with his own creations. Which…Read more...

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft splashed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico shortly before 3 p.m. ET on Sunday, marking the successful completion of both the first astronaut trip to orbit by a private company and NASA’s first water landing in 45 years. You can check out a clip of the historic moment in a tweet by…Read more...

This inexplicably-named laptop is the all-in-one electronics toolkit you’re probably looking for. Powered by a Raspberry Pi, the CrowPi2 features a screen and keyboard as well as a panoply of inputs and outputs that hearkens back to the 100-in-1 electronics kits of yore.Read more...

The Conjuring breakout star/creepy, creepy doll Annabelle is facing her own sort of quarantine: unable to shoot more spooky movies, she’s forced to live on the New Line Cinema lot, more or less entirely alone. How has she been coping? According to this filmed short, about as well as everyone else. Which is to say:…Read more...

Golly, I didn’t know Mickey was so generous.Read more...