Gizmodo

Carbon fiber, the high-tech material that now makes up everything from car hoods to iPhone cases, is light and strong. When Bowers & Wilkins designed a Carbon Edition of its PX7 headphones, the goal was to create a pair of headphones that were rugged and streamlined with solid audio quality. They pulled it off.Read more...

Scientists have released an analysis of a meteorite fragment gathered after a 2008 asteroid near-collision with Earth. They show the parent asteroid was huge, and the results suggest that special, water-holding type of asteroids can be larger and have different mineral compositions than previously thought.

Telegram, the encrypted messaging app and longtime drug-dealer haven, is planning to monetize in 2021, founder Pavel Durov said on Wednesday.Read more...

Samsung’s mobile chief recently said the Korean electronics giant wants to bring the Galaxy Note experience to more phones, and now a new FCC filing seems to have confirmed that at least one model of the Galaxy S21 is getting S-Pen stylus support.Read more...

Once, there was an app called Yo. All it did was send your friends the message, “Yo.” It was one of the best mobile apps ever made, and while it still exists, everyone deleted it years ago and there’s no one to Yo anymore. Now, a new app, Honk, would like us to Yo again, but this time we’ll say, “Honk.”Read more...

Americans will have more opportunities to get their hands on the authorized covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech. On Wednesday, the companies announced having reached a deal with the U.S. government with an additional 100 million doses by July 31, up from the initial 100 million doses ordered already. The…Read more...

Disney recently unveiled its slate of upcoming animated films, including a brand-new musical from Lin-Manuel Miranda, Charise Castro Smith, and Zootopia’s Jared Bush and Byron Howard. Encanto might be coming just a few years after Miranda’s previous work with Disney on Moana but it’s a whole new experience for him.Read more...

After more than three years of drifting through the Southern Ocean and taking a run at an biodiverse island, iceberg A68 is beginning to fall apart. The latest satellite imagery shows massive cracks forming along the surface of the biggest iceberg on Earth in what could be a sign of the iceberg finally losing its…Read more...

My biggest beef with Fossil’s latest smartwatch, the Gen 5E, was that it felt like a filler for the holiday season—something to pad out Fossil’s extensive catalog of Wear OS watches until it could release a new army of wearables powered by the new Snapdragon Wear 4100 platform. Now, a recent FCC filing hints that we…Read more...

Last week, President-elect Joe Biden nominated Michael Regan, who now heads North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. One of the top issues he grappled with in North Carolina could also be prominent at the EPA as the Biden administration tries to reduce…Read more...

A Russian TV station is hoping to beat Tom Cruise in the space movie race. The last season of Lucifer launches with a scandalous episode title. Plus, a new look at Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead. To me, my spoilers!

A few years back, a lot of major laptop makers began quietly paring down the number of 17-inch laptops they made (aside from monstrously large gaming rigs), with Apple and Dell dropping the 17-inch MacBook Pro and XPS 17 respectively. However, thanks to improvements like smaller bezels and improved energy efficiency,…Read more...

Battery life is a priority for most of us, whether it’s on a phone we picked up three years ago or a brand new handset. The older your phone (and its battery), the more difficult it is to squeeze out extra time between charges, but if you just bought a new iPhone 12, there are a few ways to make sure the battery lasts…Read more...

Blurams 1080p WiFi Security Camera | $20 | Amazon | Use Code YVDLYVDL

Electric car maker Tesla is soaring high, with a $606.9 billion market cap and a stock price that’s up 813% this year. But Elon Musk really wanted to sell the company to Apple back in the days when Tesla was struggling. Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple since 2011, wouldn’t even sit down for a meeting with Musk to discuss…Read more...

Lawmakers in China are considering new legislation that would impose fines against anyone who creates videos where people eat large quantities of food or binge drinks, according to a new report from Chinese state media outlet China News. The proposed media rule, part of broader legislation to discourage food waste,…Read more...

The American Civil Liberties Union announced on Tuesday that it plans to sue for information related to the FBI’s shadowy and relatively new ability to break into encrypted devices at will.

The FBI joined with other law enforcement agencies from around the world on Tuesday to take down the web domains and server infrastructure of three VPN services, stymying efforts by cybercriminals who had long favored them for their “bulletproof hosting” services.Read more...

For 25 years, I’ve held a long, deep-seated grudge against the New York Times Crossword puzzle. It started when a family friend gifted me a daily calendar of NYT Crossword puzzles because I was a “smart kid.” I don’t know what possessed this woman to think a 7-year-old would enjoy the NYT Crossword—a puzzle famed for…Read more...

Welcome back to Gaming Shelf, io9's column all about board games and tabletop roleplaying games. ‘Tis the holiday season, and with it comes an exciting set of Unmatched Marvel games, a brand-new Root expansion, and some possibly good news about Gen Con 2021.

AmazonSmile, which launched in 2013, would seem to be one of the mega-corporation’s less overtly awful functions: it’s a simple service that adds a surcharge to Amazon purchases and donates it to a participating charity of a shopper’s choice. However, UK-based media organization openDemocracy has found among those…Read more...

In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, the Department of Justice accused Walmart of being a reckless drug peddler who put profits over the nation’s health and said the retail giant was a key player in the opioid crisis that resulted in 50,000 overdoses in 2019 alone.Read more...

Holidays mean happiness. Whether that’s a chance to laugh with your friends and family in a normal year, or just be as safe and healthy as you can in 2020, everyone can use a little extra joy as we reach the end of any year. Movies can absolutely help with that, but sometimes it’s hard to pick one that hits the right…Read more...

Here’s a big fuck you from Congress to everyone else: The coronavirus relief bill passed this week removes a requirement that employers provide at least two weeks of paid sick leave at full salary if their employees contract the coronavirus.

It only took 15 years after the now-infamous World of Warcraft raid for someone to Frankenstein a PC and a fried chicken warmer together, but if anyone was going to do it, I’m glad it was KFC. Bless Colonel Sanders—the KFConsole is going to be an actual thing!

If you’re reading this, you might have read the juicy piece that Elle dropped this weekend chronicling how a former Bloomberg reporter torched her entire career after falling for the longtime subject of her reporting—professional-tool-turned-convicted-securities-fraudster Martin Shkreli. And if you know about that…Read more...

It’s a good time to be a Mac user. The MacBook Air, Mac Mini, and MacBook Pro all have a stellar new processor that’s pretty damn zippy with native ARM apps for the same price as their entry-level Intel predecessors. I do all my work and play on PC, but Apple’s M1 processor has me wondering if I really need a Windows…Read more...

The virus responsible for covid-19, SARS-CoV-2, has now reached all seven continents on Earth, with Antarctica reporting its first batch of cases.Read more...

Back in January 2019, as I huffed and puffed on the Peloton Tread (now Tread+), I thought to myself, “This thing is really nice, but I don’t know in what world the average person would fork over $4,000 for this.”Read more...

U.S. government scientists have shown in the lab, for the first time, that pigs can become severely sick from a particular species of the Ebola virus, called Reston ebolavirus (RESTV). The virus is known for being the only species of Ebola not to sicken people so far. But the discovery suggests that it can still pose…Read more...

In July, Harry “hbomberguy” Brewis shared a video on his popular YouTube channel called “RWBY Is Disappointing, And Here’s Why.” The two-and-half-hour video — a sharp, detailed critique of the cartoon RWBY — was the result of a lot of work by Brewis and his producer, Kat Lo. It also took an extra week and a half of…Read more...

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...