Gizmodo

The Trump administration was reportedly all set to purchase the Salineño Wildlife Preserve, a 2.5-acre stretch of Texas so popular among birders that it’s been called “hallowed ground,” to make way for its infamous border wall. But the deal fell apart at the last minute on Friday after the land’s owner bowed to…Read more...

Another week,another interesting Star Trek: Discovery interview.This one is about the visual effects.Read more...

Uber is in talks to sell its scandal-ridden self-driving vehicle branch, Advanced Technologies Group, according to a Friday TechCrunch report. And it looks like Aurora Innovation, a startup founded by veterans of the autonomous vehicle industry, is first in line to scoop up the “prize.”Read more...

Ska Tune Network isone of my favorite YouTube channels. They take some great music and combine itwith the most earnest genre of modern times, ska, to create vibrant,entertaining covers and lots of great new tunes to boot. In their latest video,they tackle a really great choice: “Change Your Mind” from Steven…Read more...

No relation to thereal Space Force. I mean, probably. Who knows with that thing.Read more...

I think there’s onething we, as a society, need to come together and agree on: no one wants to seea “realistic” CGI version of Stitch, the little blue gremlin of deathand friendship that stars in the Disney animated movie Lilo & Stitch. Put it on the next election ballot as areferendum, get some data. Because we…Read more...

Everyone’s favorite screw-up hero is finally getting his own show again.Read more...

Some sculptors work in marble; some in clay; and some in microscopic dots of resin shaped by lasers.Read more...

GoWISE 11.6 Quart Air Fryer Oven w/ Rotisserie & Dehydrator | $79 | MehRead more...

The clock is officially ticking.Read more...

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (Xbox) | $54 | Eneba | Promo VALHALLAXBOX

Another one of Google’s virtual reality ventures is biting the dust. The company says it’s ending support for its VR educational app, Expeditions, next year, though it’ll fare far better than Google’s shuttered Daydream VR platform. Instead of discontinuing Expeditions completely, Google’s folding many of the app’s…Read more...

Though you might have foregone it in favor of other video games, Nintendo’s Animal Crossing is still one of the most charming, relaxing titles to drop just when people across the world needed (and still need) a way to take their minds off the hellscape that is our reality. Animal Crossing encouraged all sorts of…Read more...

In the four years since it implemented an agreement to promote equitable treatment of its users, Airbnb claims that 1.4 million individuals have been barred from the platform because they declined to refuse bigotry. In an email to Gizmodo, a spokesperson confirmed that this is the number people who were asked to…Read more...

If your budget doesn’t allow for dropping hundreds of dollars on a pricey soundbar, smart devices that double as home theater speakers could offer a way to upgrade your setup on the cheap.Read more...

The covid-19 pandemic is possibly at its most dire moment yet, especially in the U.S. Reported cases and hospitalizations continue to reach new record highs here, while daily deaths may soon threaten to approach or surpass the record death tolls seen in the spring. Despite this, at least according to the findings of a…Read more...

Bonkers update on the Trump administration’s TikTok ban plan: TikTok says that the Trump Administration has extended (for the umpteenth time) the deadline for its force sale of its U.S. assets by 15 days, setting the date now for November 27 at honestlywhocares o’clock. Before you read further, I warn you, this is hot…Read more...

I wish I had never used the iPhone 12 Pro Max.Read more...

Ticketmaster’s UK wing has been fined £1.25 million pounds (roughly $1.6 millions) following an investigation into the company’s lackluster response to a massive 2018 data breach affecting more than nine million customers.Read more...

This week has felt like an eon, one that encompassed both dance-in-the-street euphoria and an out-of-control deadly pandemic raging amidst an attempt to subvert democracy.Read more...

In terms of pure revelations, Chapter 11 of The Mandalorian may be the show’s most significant episode yet. Short of introducing the Child in the first episode, the characters and ideas introduced this week have the potential to shake the world of Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) to the core. They might just change the galaxyRead more...

On Thursday, a new study came out warning that even if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide, the world has reached the “point of no return” for climate change. The paper claims that’s because Arctic permafrost—carbon-rich, permanently frozen earth made of rocks, water, and dead wildlife—is melting irreversibly, and it…Read more...

Microsoft researchers have found evidence that Russian and North Korean hackers have systematically attacked covid-19 labs and vaccine makers in an effort to steal data and initiate ransomware attacks.Read more...

Police were outside the Peck building, which houses some of Ubisoft Montreal’s offices, responding to a possible hostage situation Friday afternoon.

Veterinary researchers in the U.S. say they’ve discovered a new disease-causing, tickborne bacteria in dogs. So far, only three cases, with one possibly linked to a dog’s death, have been documented since 2018. But it’s likely that cases of this mystery pathogen have gone unnoticed for some time, and the researchers…Read more...

The best streaming device for you is the one that fits your needs—which is to say, you probably don’t need to overpay for features that your TV doesn’t support, or worse yet, buy a device that fails to prop up some of the best features of your existing TV. There are dozens of sticks, dongles, and boxes that will…Read more...

The Homeland Security Department’s council on election cybersecurity and its industry-led partner association issued a joint statement late Thursday declaring the 2020 presidential race “the most secure in American history.”

The weather outside is turning frightful, and that means it’s time for the Mozilla Foundation to scare the crap out of you with its annual “Privacy Not Included” buyer’s guide. Each year, the Mozilla Foundation judges a handful of gadgets based on their privacy chops, giving shoppers an easy way to judge whether a…Read more...

Insomniac’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales follows the fledgling webhead as he steps out from under Peter Parker’s shadow. He’s defending New York City on his own for the first time just as a bitter ground war breaks out between the nefarious Roxxon Corporation and the tech-powered Underground movement. New as Miles is to…Read more...

Virtual makeup is not a particularly new use of augmented reality. There are plenty of those kinds of filters on Snapchat (remember that app?) and Instagram. Sephora also launched an AR mirror and app ages ago. But L’Oreal’s new series of filters is part of its first “digital makeup line,” the idea being that, during…Read more...

In what seems to be his first major foreign policy move since losing the 2020 electoral race to Joe Biden, Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday barring American investors from holding shares in companies with suspected ties to the Chinese military.Read more...

Since we got our first look at the new generation of video game consoles, the most prominent topic of discussion has been the fact that both the Xbox Series X and PS5 are gigantic. The shock of the consoles’ physical appearance made it easy to forget that the next generation’s biggest footprint will be on the…Read more...

Last year, the man behind one of Deep Space Nine’s most fascinating characters—Ferengi delinquent turned war-wounded Starfleet officer Nog—Aron Eisenberg, sadly passed away at 50. Just over a year since his passing, Star Trek: Discovery has honored him with a touching tribute in the far future.

Realizing that 2020 has given people lots and lots (and lots) of free time at home, today Lego announced the largest set the toymaker has ever released: the 9,036-piece Roman Colosseum letting anyone visit one of Italy’s most historic landmarks without risking their health by traveling.Read more...

Your feeds are not currently full of news about the ongoing civil war between the Real American Front and the Alliance to Restore Democracy. In fact, there’s barely any Second American Civil War going on at all, which is to say that things could theoretically be going a lot worse after November 3 than your relatives,…Read more...

The world is getting hotter, and the most common technologies to cool down our homes are making things worse. In a new special issue of the journal Science, researchers have identified key ways to get us out of that catch-22. They include cutting-edge technologies and materials that could fundamentally change air…Read more...

Last week, as electoral returns began strongly favoring Joe Biden, commenters on a political discussion board for members of Reddit’s notoriously misogynistic The Red Pill sounded the alarm over the inevitability of a woman president. “Biden will either step down, be killed, or be unfit to serve within 2 years of his…Read more...

The Resident Evil movie brings another location from the classic games to life. Young up-and-coming actor David Cronenberg lands himself another TV role. Ryan Murphy offers a small tease of the American Horror Story spinoff. Plus, what’s to come on Star Trek: Discovery, and a look at the final end of Supernatural.…Read more...

As exciting as it is to retro gamers to see Nintendo resurrect its earliest handheld consoles, with just three games on the new Game & Watch—two of which being Super Mario Bros.—it’s not surprising to see hackers already cracking the hardware open to see if there’s the potential to add more titles.Read more...

Apple’s big annual software updates, iOS 14 and macOS Big Sur, include plenty of new privacy and security features to lock up your data and protect your devices. These are all the ways that your iPhone and Mac are now being kept safer than ever.Read more...

Elon Musk has been tested for the novel coronavirus and received conflicting results, according to the tech mogul’s Twitter account. The 49-year-old founder of SpaceX wrote that he was given a rapid covid-19 antigen test four times, with two tests coming back positive and two coming back negative on the same day.…Read more...

The nation’s top cybersecurity official, Chris Krebs, has led the charge to debunk the flurry of voter fraud conspiracy theories pushed by the president and his supporters. And soon he expects to lose his job over it, according to multiple reports.

Former Trump advisor and felony fraud defendant Steve Bannon sure has been making headlines this month. First, he called for the murder and public dismemberment of two of the nation’s top officials in his WAR ROOM: Pandemic podcast, leading Facebook and several other social media platforms to remove the episode or ban…Read more...

Disney+ has unsurprisingly blown subscriber expectations out of the water, and Disney executives made clear during the company’s earnings call this week they plan to grow those figures by throwing money at more content for the platform. But if Disney brings more premium titles to the service as it did with Mulan, we…Read more...

A resounding silence echoed throughout the tech blogs today, the date of the long-hyped TikTok ban. It seemed to indicate that the government had hoped that the hypothetical event had already fizzled out in the recesses of public memory like so many flash-bang Trump pronouncements. But no: the Department of Commerce …Read more...

When Apple announced macOS Big Sur earlier this year with its big iOS-inspired icons, revamped menus, and its own version of Control Center, I along with a lot of other folks thought for sure that Apple’s next macOS update was paving the way for the long-awaited arrival of a touchscreen MacBook. However, according to…Read more...

After cribbing some of Snapchat’s other distinctive features, it looks like Facebook is officially bringing disappearing messages to its platform. As of today, “vanish mode” is available on Messenger for users across the U.S., and a “handful” of other countries, according to Facebook—and those same features will be…Read more...

Noted presidential-election loser Donald Trump is having a hard time coming to grips with reality. After losing bigly in both the Electoral College and the popular vote, Trump is refusing to concede, waging baseless lawsuits, sending bad tweets, and generally doing his best to corrode democracy.Read more...

A new report from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlights a bleak reality: Measles, the highly contagious but vaccine-preventable viral illness, infected at least 860,000 people and killed over 200,000 worldwide in 2019—a roughly 50% jump in deaths from 2016. Sadly,…Read more...

Many members of Facebook’s legion of moderators—contractors hired through companies like Accenture, CPL, Hays, and Voxpro—are leaving to work for competitor TikTok, according to an analysis by CNBC.