Gizmodo

It has been a year of weirdness, especially when it comes to wrangling the kinds of media we’ve been watching. Though there’s been new things to read, watch, listen to, and play, 2020 has seen many of us revisit familiar favorites as well as things we missed when they first came out. Here’s the media of years past…Read more...

Following an opinion piece in the New York Times which called out both Pornhub for hosting nonconsensual and often illegal material, and the credit card companies for enabling the site to profit from it, Mastercard has terminated its relationship with Pornhub. For now though, Mastercard will continue to do business…Read more...

A new study out Thursday suggests that Tasmanian devils are starting to adapt to one of the strangest diseases known in nature: a contagious cancer spread by biting. The study has found evidence that the disease is spreading more slowly and becoming endemic in the devil population, rather than the very fatal and…Read more...

One of the more interesting features of the new iPhone 12 lineup is the return of the MagSafe power connector. It doesn’t only make wireless charging easier, as Apple demonstrated with a $60 wallet, it can also expand the usefulness of the device that’s always in your pocket. But MagSafe has even more potential than…Read more...

Experiments on the International Space Station suggest spiders can weave normal-looking webs in space—they just need a surprising resource.

Borrowing its microLED technology from “The Wall,” Samsung’s latest monster display was announced this week in Korea.

Noise cancelling headphones are a Godsend in 2020. As I try to type this, a car alarm is blaring outside, which has been happening for 20 minutes straight with no end in sight. That’s probably a familiar story for anyone who’s had to readjust to a work from home environment in 2020. There’s a lot of unexpected audio…Read more...

Attacks by giant hornets, relatives of murder hornets, on honeybee hives are absolutely horrifying. Worker hornets identify bee hives and then bring in reinforcements of two to dozens of others, slaughtering bees at a rate of up to one per 14 seconds and sawing off their heads to gather protein-rich thoraxes and…Read more...

A person behind a October 2016 cyberattack that temporarily crippled Sony’s Playstation Network and other online services has pleaded guilty to committing the act as a juvenile, Justice Department officials in New Hampshire said Thursday.

A thorough re-analysis of a skeleton belonging to a 2-year-old Neanderthal and the archaeological site in which it was discovered some 50 years ago is providing some of the strongest evidence yet that Neanderthals deliberately buried their dead.

The National Weather Service’s data budget is hitting a ceiling, and it apparently doesn’t have the money to fix the situation. Now, the agency is considering throttling users who access its essential forecast data.Read more...

The day after the FTC and dozens of Attorneys General filed two separate suits against Facebook over it anticompetitive track record, the company’s being slammed with yet another antitrust probe—this time, from Germany’s antitrust regulator. Specifically, the country’s Federal Cartel Office (otherwise known as The…Read more...

Rumors have been swirling around claiming the Galaxy S21 could get announced as early as January (possibly a month sooner than S20's debut last year), and now it appears some official teasers have leaked out giving us a glimpse at the S21's unique design.

That’s the thing about streaming debuts—you don’t actually have to wait to get to the post-credits stuff!

Future vaccines might involve a deep breath rather than an injection, if technology detailed in research published Thursday pans out. The proof-of-concept study in mice and primates suggests that vaccines can be safely absorbed through the lungs into the bloodstream in order to do their job of training the immune…Read more...

Somehow, Spider-Man 3 rumors continue to expand its cast. George Miller is contemplating honoring Mad Max legend Hugh Keays-Byrne in the Furiosa prequel. Even more Hawkeye set pictures tease Clint Barton’s old ties. Plus, Riverdale continues to Riverdale. Spoilers, away!

Since the final episodes of Star Trek: Discovery’s first season, a ticking time bomb has lurked in the show’s background, a time bomb that began to tick faster when talk of series spinoffs emerged. Whatever can we do about Emperor Georgiou? The show’s decided that it’s time to answer and see if it and Michael’s…Read more...

Although they enjoyed a surge in popularity when products like Google Cardboard made VR more accessible, 360-degree cameras have always been a niche product, if only because viewing and sharing 360-degree imagery is a challenge. Vecnos wants to change that with a slick 360-degree camera called the IQUI and a new app…Read more...

Insignia 2.1-Channel 80W Soundbar & Wireless Subwoofer | $80 | Best Buy

Johns Hopkins, the 19th century philanthropist whose name graces some of the most prestigious scientific and academic institutions in America, was long thought to be a man who deplored slavery and fought to abolish the ownership of human beings in the U.S. But as it turns out, Hopkins actually owned other people over…Read more...

Pharmaceutical company AvKare issued a recall on Wednesday for two different medications after pills were inadvertently mixed during bottling, according to a new report from the FDA. The generic drugs being recalled are sildenafil, used to treat erectile dysfunction, and trazodone, an antidepressant and sedative.…Read more...

NASA announced on Wednesday the team of 18 astronauts — nine men and nine women — who have been selected to participate in the upcoming Artemis Moon landing missions.Read more...

Ahead of the launch of Paramount+ early next year, ViacomCBS has announced new kids-focused programming and features are arriving on CBS All Access.Read more...

After more than 2,200 employees signed a letter on Monday condemning Google’s reported decision to terminate a Black artificial intelligence ethicist, the company’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, apologized on Wednesday for the way the departure had been handled and said that the incident was being investigated.

What to do with Boston Dynamics? That’s seemingly the question a few companies have been unable to answer because for the third time in seven years the robotics research company has a new owner as The Korea Economic Daily is reporting that Hyundai Motors has spent almost $1 billion dollars to buy the R&D company from…Read more...

A cyberattack on servers belonging to the European Medicines Agency—the EU regulatory body responsible COVID-19 vaccine approval—has resulted in the “unlawful access” of internal documents detailing the development of a potential COVID-19 vaccine.Read more...

A report released today by BroadbandNow reveals the FCC grossly overreported the availability of gigabit internet in the U.S. As of 2020, the FCC reported gigabit internet was available to 84% of Americans, up from just 4% in 2016. But according to BroadbandNow, those numbers are closer to 56% in 2020, up from 2.4% in…Read more...

The impact of covid-19 lockdowns on wildlife living on land has been clear, but emerging research shows the quiet has extended to the oceans, too.

Pantone has announced its Color of the Year for 2021. Typically, we only get one annual champion, but the purveyor of proprietary color spaces decided that 2021 deserves two colors because 2020 was the worst.Read more...

Microsoft announced in a blog post this morning that its cloud gaming platform with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is coming to iOS and PC in spring 2021.

Perhaps the true meaning of the season is getting to watch the best Christmas movie as it was always intended to be.

When Amazon released a cheap microwave with built-in Alexa integration, most of us scratched our heads for a second and then quickly moved on. But now Sharp has created its own microwave powered by Amazon’s digital assistant, and somehow it’s even more confounding than the original.Read more...

After a last-second abort yesterday, SpaceX is back on track to send a prototype of its Starship rocket to a high altitude. You can watch the action live right here.

On the same Wednesday that Facebook is reportedly facing a major state-led suit over its anticompetitive practices, the company seems to be falling back on the tried-and-true tactic of pointing at Apple instead.

Dozens of attorney generals, as well as the Federal Trade Commission, filed two separate lawsuits against Facebook on Wednesday which attempt to break the social media giant into its component parts: specifically, the divestiture of WhatsApp and Instagram.

On Wednesday, Canada became the third country in the world to grant approval for Pfizer and BioNTech’s covid-19 vaccine. The decision comes just as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to make its own call this week, following a meeting of independent experts on Thursday who will recommend whether or not …Read more...

YouTube has announced that it’ll finally start removing baseless election fraud claims, over a month after virtually every major news outlet called the election for Joe Biden and the Trump camp lost or withdrew from over 30 election-related lawsuits. According to YouTube, election results were only certain after…Read more...

Donald Trump has spent the weeks since his humiliating loss in the Nov. 3 presidential elections to Democrat Joe Biden lying about the outcome and urging various Republican governors and GOP-controlled state legislatures to burn democracy to the ground and cast their electoral votes for him instead. Since he’s had…Read more...

It’s portrait season in Washington, DC. The latest Trump official to get the official portrait treatment is scandal-plagued former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. He unveiled his official portrait (as well as an unofficial joke one) that will serve as a reminder of his greatest accomplishment during his tenure:…Read more...

The glory of love is alive and well in the world of Cobra Kai. After a long delay where the show went from YouTube to Netflix and became a fan favorite all over again, the first trailer for the highly anticipated third season is here. And in it, we see the return of two familiar faces from a certain international…Read more...

A month ago, when we first covered App Craft Studio’s Retro Widget that gave the iPhone and Apple Watch a Nokia make-under using iOS 14's widget tools, we lamented that for two bucks it should have included Nokia’s classic Snake game, too. A month later, Retro Widget has been updated and our wishes have come true: …Read more...

Evidence is mounting that certain bacteria spread by cat scratches and other animal exposures can sometimes have startling effects on our brain. In a new study, researchers detail a group of patients with psychiatric illness who simultaneously showed signs of infection from bacteria called Bartonella, including…Read more...

Amazon’s new Fire TV experience will begin rolling out to users today.Read more...

Pollution kills some 200,000 Americans every year, since exposure to toxins makes people more vulnerable to respiratory and heart diseases, cancers, and other illnesses. But the Trump administration has finalized a rule to base pollution restrictions on cost, not on human safety.Read more...

As 2020 comes to a close, do you find yourself noticing that nothing ever seems to end? Is the election still going? Are we still fighting about Star Wars? The Supreme Court’s looking at Obamacare, you say? Every little topic just seems to go on and on. Well, friends, allow me to inform you that something has…Read more...

Each time Mario and Luigi journey off for the Mushroom Kingdom—or any one of the other countless worlds found within Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. franchise—the pair of titular brothers get down to the nitty, gritty business of protecting the innocent from those who would do them harm. The plumbers also happen to look…Read more...

Right now the laptop industry is at a crossroads. Traditional clamshells aren’t going anywhere anytime soon (for good reason), and over the last decade convertible machines like Microsoft’s Surfaces, Apple’s iPad Pros, Lenovo’s Yogas, and others have helped address the needs of people who need flexible computers that…Read more...

Pterosaurs are among the most recognizable creatures from the dinosaur age, yet scientists know very little about their origins. New research finally pinpoints a possible precursor to these flying reptiles.Read more...

Personally, I’ve never been interested in cars that were “blacked out,” nor have I ever wanted to blackout anything I’ve driven. The culture is pretty much lost on me. But, as I’ve just discovered, there’s an ongoing search for the blackest of black paint, and I think the folks over at the DipYourCar YouTube channel…Read more...

When Apple software chief Craig Federighi first announced in June that the company would be issuing app-specific “nutrition labels” as part of its privacy-focused iOS14 update, there was reason to be cautiously optimistic. The basic pitch—that these labels would give us a chance to peruse an app’s data-collecting…Read more...