Gizmodo

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...

With the pandemic pushing more holiday shoppers online this year, business is booming for major shippers like Amazon, FedEx, and UPS. Malls around this time are already veritable Petri dishes with crowds packing into stores and willing to elbow the ever-loving Christmas cheer out of each other over gifts. And to cash…Read more...

Twitter has gone one step further in its efforts to dispel election misinformation, especially the nonsense spouted by one of the most powerful people in the world, President Donald Trump. In fact, its latest initiative may be a particularly painful whack at Trump since it does something that even he hasn’t been able…Read more...

A slew of companies and federal agencies including the Departments of Homeland Security, Energy, State, Commerce, and Treasury as well as the National Institutes of Health are among the many reported victims of the SolarWinds hacking scandal so far, but don’t worry guys, the president says it’s no big deal.Read more...

The emergency use authorization of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines against covid-19 could mark the beginning of the end of a pandemic that has ravaged and terrorized the world for almost a year. But if we are to be successful in stomping out infection rates, we must first address another barrier: people that don’t…Read more...

And it’s anadaptation of a graphic novel! Classic stuff.Read more...

For a brief moment on Friday night, spectacularly bored and homebound Twitter users marveled in delight at a strange phenomenon on the social network: Everyone was tweeting the word “carp.” Questions abounded. What? Why? Huh? I’m missing something, right?

Listen, goodstop-motion is good stop-motion, even if it’s just trying to get you to buysome Hasbro toys.Read more...

If you’re a big fanof Locke & Key’s first season, getexcited, because there’s even more coming than you thought.Read more...

It’s been a coupledecades, now, I think we can all just admit it: for a certain version ofBatman, Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin kindof rules. A cheesy fever dream, it’s an incredible exercise in ‘90s Blockbusterexcess and the sort of Batman that fans of Adam West’s ‘60s series wouldrecognize and enjoy. The…Read more...

You know that special person in your life, the one who thinks technology is all around us. Who can taste the stink of it, as it were, and worries they’ll be infected by it? The result? Their anger at modernity creates a sense of absolute horror at what the world has become, and, worse, makes them really hard to shop…Read more...

An executive at the videoconferencing company Zoom schemed with Beijing officials to leak user data and squash video meetings discussing the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre earlier this year, according to federal prosecutors. The Justice Department’s case races a fresh wave of concern about Zoom’s…Read more...

Carp.Read more...

Medical residents flooded Stanford Hospital on Friday in protest after executives there reportedly used a faulty algorithm to triage its first wave of vaccinations and overwhelmingly left out caregivers working on the front lines of the covid-19 pandemic.

Santa Claus runs a pretty tight ship up at the North Pole, so it’s reasonably safe to assume most of his elves belong on the nice list. But as Christmas movies over the years have shown us, sometimes the holidays bring out some awfully naughty behavior, too. Here’s how 13 of Santa’s cinematic elves stack up.

On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration authorized the emergency use of a covid-19 vaccine developed by the Massachusetts-based biotech company Moderna. It’s the second such good news in as many weeks, following the FDA’s authorization of Pfizer and BioNTech’s similar mRNA vaccine. Both vaccines look to be highly…Read more...

The entire iPhone 12 lineup is capable of connecting to lightning fast 5G networks, which is great news for when those networks are actually lightning fast. But tapping into those gigabit speeds requires a sacrifice: battery life. But Apple baked a Smart Data Mode setting into new iPhones to give you more control over…Read more...

Outbound Vice President/gynophobe-in-chief Mike Pence announced at a press conference on Friday that enlisted personnel in the Space Force will be referred to as “Guardians.”

Seems like Microsoft isn’t going to sit back and let Apple take all the glory with its new M1 processor. According to The Verge (via Bloomberg News), Microsoft is reportedly designing its own ARM processor for its Azure cloud servers and possibly even a future Surface device.

This year, we have to find the silver linings wherever we can. One of those glimmering plus-sides is a sudden rise in chicken ownership—at least, I’d call that a silver lining. Chickens are great! (Salmonella outbreaks aside, of course.) And plenty of others seem to think so, too. According to My Pet Chicken, which…Read more...