Castlevania: Nocturne’s Opening Explores the Bloody Belmont Legacy

Screenshot: NetflixNetflix’s new Castlevania show, Nocturne, is set hundreds of years after the events of the original series, with a long-line descendant of heroes Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades, Richter, headlining the cast. What better way to connect the Belmont Clan bloodline across shows than immediately giving the poor young lad tragedy, violence, and monsters

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Update: With a New Commissioner, FCC Will Finally Try to Reinstate Net Neutrality

Update 9/26/23 at 6:06 p.m. ET: On Tuesday afternoon, Federal Communication Commission chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced the agency would indeed be rolling up its sleeves and would finally attempt to reinstate net neutrality rules. Meet Microsoft’s New Surface LaptopsRosenworcel said she shared a proposal with her fell commissioners that would potentially reestablish many of the

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What to Expect from Microsoft’s Surface Event: New Surface Laptops, or Perhaps Tablets?

‘Tis the season for pre-holiday tech showcases, and Microsoft isn’t done with laptops and tablets by any stretch. Microsoft’s event this Thursday will likely be a Surface-palooza, at least based on leaks being drip-fed to us in the weeks leading up to the official launch.Warning! Microsoft Wants ChatGPT to Control Robots NextEver since the company

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Get Ready For Halloween Early With Our Superhero and Fantasy Costume Guide

Image: Spirit Halloween, ShopDisney, ChewyHey, Halloween costumes have been getting better since cosplay hit the scene and in case you haven’t seen we’re drawing closer and closer to monster mashing in our fave fandom inspired looks.Here’s io9 first costume roundup of the season for everyone (that means pets, too) and we’re focusing on Superhero, Fantasy

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SpaceX’s Vacuum Raptor Engine Aces Cold Space Test for Artemis Moon Missions

In preparation of landing humans on the Moon as part of the ongoing Artemis program, SpaceX recently ran a test of one of its lunar lander engines while simulating the cold temperatures of space.Astronomers Could Soon Get Warnings When SpaceX Satellites Threaten Their ViewThe private space venture demonstrated a vacuum-optimized Raptor, evaluating the engine’s performance

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An Experimental Antibody Could Someday Make Organ Transplants Less of a Hassle

A lab-made antibody could one day make organ transplants less of an ordeal, recent research suggests. In experiments with nonhuman primates, the antibody appeared to be safe and effective at preventing the rejection of transplanted kidneys and pancreatic cells. Scientists hope that this treatment could reduce or even eliminate the need for lifelong anti-rejection drugs

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Salacious Chinese Disinformation Campaign Blames Maui Fires on Deadly American ‘Weather Weapon’

Researchers say they’ve discovered 85 social media accounts and blogs originating from China and working in tandem to amplify a conspiracy theory claiming the deadly fires in Maui were caused by a secretive “weather weapon” unleashed by the US military. NewsGuard, which has previously uncovered other online influence operations from China and Russia, claims the

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Stranger Things,The Last of Us, and More Spooky Treats at Halloween Horror Nights

Photo: Sabina Graves/GizmodoAt Halloween Horror Nights Orlando, Eddie Munson fans can eat their hearts out with Stranger Things treats, while The Last of Us survivalists can collect their FEDRA rations. This year’s HHN Orlando houses and original mythology delve into the fantastical, the post-apocalyptic, the Upside Down, and the slashers, with Chucky, Stranger Things, and

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Arrowverse Creator Greg Berlanti Sets Up Generous Fund for Strike Relief

Legends of Tomorrow characters cosplaying as other Arrow-verse heroes.Photo: Katie Yu (The CW)As the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes continue with seemingly no end in sight, members of those unions—as well as workers in adjacent entertainment fields—are feeling the sting of being without incomes. Fortunately, some of Hollywood’s highest-paid figures have stepped up to help, including

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Dictionary.com Adds AI-Related Words That ‘Marked a Tipping Point for Mainstream Awareness’

Dictionary.com sashayed into AI territory on Tuesday when it announced it is adding five related terms to its ever-growing roster of definitions. The site added a total of 566 words to its “fall new words drop” to reflect updated mainstream terms.This Giant Company Owns Almost Every Dating AppThe update includes newly revised words like “hallucinate”

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Record-Low Ice Levels in Antarctica Killed Thousands of Penguin Chicks, Study Says

Thousands of penguin chicks in four emperor penguin colonies likely died after Antarctic ice broke up earlier than usual last year, creating a “catastrophic breeding failure.”In a study published this week in Communications Earth & Environment, researchers from the British Antarctic Survey outlined the very high probability that most chicks from four out of the

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Putin’s War Against Ukraine Is Slaughtering Dolphins in the Black Sea

Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine has destroyed infrastructure and displaced about 5 million people from the country since last spring. The country’s conservationists have also noticed that the war is killing endangered Black Sea dolphins and harbor porpoises.Even Twitter Can’t Kill Twitter | Letter From the EditorHarbor porpoises and bottlenose dolphins have washed up dead

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Check Out These Winning Pics of Plants, Fungi, Whales, and Dinosaurs

The overall winning image shows an invasive orange pore fungus (Favolaschia calocera).Image: Cornelia SattlerThe BMC Ecology and Evolution photo competition has come to an end, and the winners and runners-up cover a diverse sweep of the animal and fungal kingdoms.From ongoing conservation efforts to investigations of life long extinct, these images show how humans interrogate

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David Harbour Talks Stranger Things End and Creature Commandos Future

In a previously recorded appearance on Josh Horowitz’s podcast Happy Sad Confused promoting Gran Tourismo, the film’s star David Harbour discussed the Stranger Things finale and joining James Gunn’s Creature Commandos for DC Studios. Both projects are currently being paused as the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes continue as studios are dragging their feet.TEST- Where’s the

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Hulu’s The Other Black Girl Looks Like a Solid Entry in the Office Dystopia Trend

Image: HuluWhen editorial assistant Nella (Sinclair Daniel) meets her new co-worker Hazel (Ashleigh Murray), she’s thrilled that her otherwise jarringly all-white company has hired another Black person. But as the trailer for new Hulu series The Other Black Girl reveals, sometimes it’s better to be careful what you wish for.Rainn Wilson on Seeing People Watch

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Elemental’s VFX Crew on How to Make a Hero Out of Water

Elemental’s VFX Crew On How to Make a Hero Out of WaterShare SubtitlesOffEnglishAn exclusive clip from Pixar’s Elementals home release explores how the team created the character of Wade.PublishedYesterdayWe may earn a commission from links on this page.Video Program GuideMost PopularLatest VideosTech NewsScienceio9EartherMost PopularSlide 1 of 16Now playing02:59Samsung Galaxy Flip 5: Hands-on First Impressions of

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Republican Congressman Says China Hacked His Emails Thanks to Microsoft Bug

Nebraska Republican Congressman Don Bacon says his emails were hacked as part of a suspected Chinese espionage campaign exploiting a “vulnerability” in Microsoft software. The China-skeptical representative believes his hawkish views towards the Chinese Communist Party and public support for Taiwan made him a prime target for the attack, which occurred around the same time

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Blue Beetle Reactions Blast Low Expectations With Resounding Praise

Image: DC StudiosSocial reactions for Blue Beetle buzz with excitement, marking an auspicious future for DC Studios’ clean cinematic start for its upcoming James Gunn and Peter Safran-led superhero slate.Harvey Guillén on the DC’s Upcoming Blue Beetle Movie | io9 InterviewFrom director Angel Manuel Soto (Charm City Kings) and starring Cobra Kai breakout Xolo Maridueña

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Disney Has a New Task Force to Spread AI Throughout Its Not So Magic Kingdom

Photo: LouiesWorld1 (Shutterstock)Disney is jumping on the artificial intelligence bandwagon. The conglomerate has formed a task force to determine how the technology can be strategically deployed across various parts of its vast entertainment and media empire. Reuters reports that the team is currently discussing how AI can be used to augment in-person experiences at Disney

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem’s Director on Making ‘a Monster Movie for Kids’

Image: ParamountTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a delight for many reasons: the energetic teens who voice the Turtles, its fun embrace of ‘90s culture, its unique animation style, and the way it both honors and advances TMNT lore. But the movie’s more than just a light-hearted nostalgic trip.Turtle Power with Melissa Navia |

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Twitch Star’s NYC Event Devolves Into Chaos, Transforming Union Square Into Thunderdome

Screenshot: Lucas Ropek/YouTube/ABC7NYA social media influencer’s event spun wildly out of control in downtown Manhattan on Friday. For some reason, thousands of people who had turned out to Union Square park to to see Youtube star and Twitch streamer Kai Cenat began rioting, obstructing traffic, and antagonizing police. The unruly crowd eventually spilled out into

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Talk to Me’s Directors Hope to Terrify Us Again With More Talk to Me Movies

When io9 interviewed Danny and Michael Philippou—the siblings behind Talk to Me, the summer’s scariest movie—they described the “mythology bible” they assembled to keep track of the story’s many creepy spirits. Now, it seems they also picked up their cameras to create additional contextual material.Spoilers of the Week March 30-April 1If you’ve seen Talk to

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Pixar’s Elemental Has Gone From Cold to Hot, Crossing Another Box Office Milestone

Elemental is still shining at the box office.Image: Disney/PixarWhen Pixar’s Elemental opened in June to under $30 million on its first weekend, most Hollywood types considered it dead on arrival. And why wouldn’t they? Pixar hadn’t had a hit in years—largely due to the pandemic, but still—and after releasing several titles on Disney+, most assumed

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FBI Ordered to Find Out Which Agency Disobeyed White House in Secret Deal, Finds Out It Was Itself

Earlier this year, the New York Times reported that an unknown federal agency had breached official White House policy and used secretive methods to conduct a business deal with the NSO Group, a blacklisted spyware vendor known for selling powerful surveillance tools. The agency in question not only brazenly disobeyed the government’s official policy, but

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Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider Verse and Kraven the Hunter Officially Delayed at Sony

Déjà pandemic: with Hollywood experiencing a sudden shutdown of work—this time due to the ongoing actors and writers strikes—release dates are being delayed. The first studio to officially announce movies shifting on the calendar is Sony, and it affects highly anticipated releases like Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse and (the slightly less anticipated) Kraven the Hunter.Spoilers

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Bugs Bunny Actor Jeff Bergman on New Tiny Toons and That Space Jam 2 Prophecy

Jeff Bergman will soon be back as Bugs Bunny in Max’s Tiny Toons Looniversity. While promoting his upcoming documentary Looney Legends in Conversation, the voice actor discussed playing the Looney Tunes icon for the past few decades, including Space Jam: A New Legacy.Bugs Bunny’s Howl-O-Skreem Spooktacula Exclusive ClipBergman’s life changed when he happened upon a talk

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Disneyland Won’t Bring Back Robot Dragon After Fire, But Will Bring More Booze

You’ll soon be able to raise a glass to the memory of the defunct Fantasmic dragon on the Rivers of America at Disneyland.Samsung Galaxy Fold 5: Hands-on first Impressions of Samsung’s Big-Screen Flagship FoldableGoodbye, Murphy—as the dragon, which accidentally incinerated itself in April, was nicknamed by the Disney Parks community. In case it’s not obvious

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“Multi-Decade” Coverup Includes “Non Human Biologics,” UFO Whistleblower Tells Congress

Is the government hiding alien bodies in a vault under the Pentagon? Have Americans been killed to protect our weirdest extraterrestrial secrets? Nothing was off the table at Congress’s much anticipated hearing on UFOs Wednesday, making for quite the show. The House Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs convened what was at

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Mastodon Has a Child Abuse Material Problem, Like Every Other Major Web Platform

A new report suggests that the lax content moderation policies of Mastodon and other decentralized social media platforms have led to a proliferation of child sexual abuse material. Stanford’s Internet Observatory published new research Monday that shows that such decentralized sites have serious shortcomings when it comes to “child safety infrastructure.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t make

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Fossil Discovery Reveals Two Previously Unknown Species of Sabertooth Cats

Paleontologists recently revisited a trove of fossils found in a South African quarry and found two previously unknown species of sabertooth cats in their mix.Inspiration Behind Immortal Longings | io9 InterviewThe 5.2-million-year-old cats are just the latest sabertooths known in Africa; the recent team of researchers also found two previously known species of cat in

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Birth/Rebirth’s Tense New Trailer Warns Against Tinkering With the Dead

Image: Courtesy of Shudder/An IFC Films ReleaseAfter making its debut at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year—read io9’s review here—director and co-writer Laura Moss’ Birth/Rebirth arrives in theaters next month. It’s a sci-fi horror tale about two very different women who realize they have a particularly grim fascination in common.Alan Cumming on playing King

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Director Chris McQuarrie Is on a Mission With Tom Cruise to Get Us in Theaters

Getting butts into movie theater seats is an assignment Tom Cruise has taken upon himself, one cinema-revitalizing blockbuster at a time. In partnership with director-writer Chris McQuarrie, the star is hitting the screens with the latest thrilling chapter of the Mission: Impossible franchise, Dead Reckoning Part One.Finding Uhura’s Confidence in Strange New Worlds | io9

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Judge Claims Biden’s Contacts With Tech Platforms Amount to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’

A US federal judge handed the censorship-obsessed wing of the Republican party a major win on Tuesday by blocking Biden officials from contacting social media firms to suggest content moderation takedown requests. The preliminary injunction, delivered by way of a 155 page-ruling on Independence Day, marks the most significant policy outcome to date stemming largely

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Mission: Impossible

When a film’s biggest stunt is not even its most exciting, you know you’re in for a good time and that’s exactly what happens with Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. It’s a film that not only sends the Mission franchise in an exciting new direction, it grounds things with a story that feels

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Breakthrough Gravitational Wave Findings Suggest Supermassive Black Holes Are Constantly Warping Spacetime

Astronomers and astrophysicists at five different pulsar timing array collaborations today announced data that strongly suggests the presence of a gravitational wave background: a constant murmur of low-frequency ripples in spacetime that emanates from some of the universe’s most exotic objects.Grace Byers on Horror and Comedy in The BlackeningThe discovery is an affirmation of previous

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‘Misused with Wild Abandon’: How FTX Reportedly Exploited Some $8.7 Billion in User Funds

Ever since ill-fated crypto exchange FTX went bankrupt last year, evidence has been building of rampant criminal activity on the part of the firm’s top executives. A new report on the company’s finances does nothing to dispel that notion, revealing instead new allegations about how the exchange misspent billions in customer funds, splurging on everything

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Here’s a Breakdown of the Ongoing Disney Vs. DeSantis Battle—and the Latest Updates

As the battle between Disney and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis continues to notch regular updates, anyone who hasn’t been following from the beginning might be a bit confused. Why is this Republican presidential hopeful openly fighting with his state’s biggest taxpayer? Let’s take a look.We Rode the New Disney Coaster Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic

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