E-Technology

A policeman hands back the travel permit to a commuter after checking at a street checkpoint in Vung Tau, Vietnam on Monday, Sept. 6, 2021.Photo: Hau Dinh (AP)A man in Vietnam has been sentenced to five years in prison after he broke strict covid-19 quarantine rules in the country, contracting the disease in a large…

A crop of the cover to House of LeavesImage: Random HouseDid you hear that one about the book that’s about a man reading a manuscript about a movie that doesn’t exist? I first read House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski after its original publication in March 2000 and have been itching to revisit ever…

Photo: Martin Meissner (AP)Don’t worry, humans—artificial intelligence systems aren’t taking over the world yet. They can’t even appear as inventors on U.S. patents.U.S. federal judge Leonie Brikema ruled this week that an AI can’t be listed as an inventor on a U.S. patent under current law. The case was brought forward by Stephen Thaler, who…

Image: Bandai and HasbroWelcome back to Toy Aisle, io9’s regular round-up of the best toys and merchandise news you can shake your bank savings at. This week: Todd McFarlane delivers the Todd McFarlane-iest Batman yet, Figuarts swings into Spider-Man town for No Way Home, and new Avatar figures get… very Aang-ry. Check it out!Hasbro Marvel…

Blade introducing himself as the new sheriff of vampire town.Image: Luca Maresca, David Curiel, Cory Petit/MarvelOf all the Marvel announcements made at San Diego Comic-Con back in 2019, none were quite as surprising as the news of a new Blade movie starring Mahershala Ali which director Bassam Tariq signed onto a few months later.In the…

Inset of the Injustice: Year One – The Complete Collection cover by Jheremy Raapack.Image: DC ComicsWe’re big fans of Tom Taylor’s Injustice: Gods Among Us comics, dubbing it the greatest “Superman goes evil” story ever written. So by extension, we’re looking forward to WB Animation’s upcoming movie adaptation—especially now that the first details have been…

Five years ago, a couple of astronomers declared they had found evidence for another planet in our solar system, a so-called “Planet X.” Though now commonly referred to as Planet Nine, the cosmic object—much bigger than Earth and lurking somewhere in the solar system’s outer reaches—is still very much theoretical, though the same pair has…

The left image is a CT scan taken of the patient, with the arrow pointing to her IUD and the asterisk denoting an nearby abscess. The right image is of the IUD after removal, with the yellow substance thought to be the bacteria that caused her infection.Image: Noriko Arakaki and Yusuke Oshiro/NEJMAn intrauterine device (IUD)…

This actually happens in the game and it is both awesome and dumb as hell.Image: EA GamesThe Lord of the Rings movies came out at arguably the height of video game movie tie-ins. The series got everything from traditional hack-and-slash action games to strategy titles, but one of the weirdest and most interesting of them…

The demon invasion can wait, Carol’s gotta scroll through TikTok first.Screenshot: Marvel/2K GamesIf you were excited about last week’s announcement of a tactical RPG video game starring Marvel’s superheroes, good news—you’re going to continue to be excited! 2K Games has revealed the Midnight Suns’ first gameplay trailer, which pits an unlikely assortment of Avengers, X-Men,…

Jadis (Pollyanna) McIntosh) radios the Rick ex machina.Image: Jackson Lee Davis/AMCNot a ton of people are watching The Walking Dead, and even fewer are watching its second spin-off series, World Beyond. So little, in fact, that its soon-to-premiere second season will also be its last. But the show is clearly trying to draw some extra…

Photo: Andrew Liszewski/GizmodoI am honestly too tired to clean my house. I used to pride myself on being the tidiest, bleached-out house on the block. It always smelled like Fabuloso in here. But then I had a child, and that all went out the window as I reclaim what little time I have to myself…

Photo: Adrian Dennis (Getty Images)In the Netherlands, officials ruled that Shell has to halt ads that claim customers can render their fuel purchases “carbon neutral” by paying for carbon offsets. The reasoning is pretty straightforward: Shell has, uh, no proof that their claims were true.The decision isn’t legally binding, but it’s still a good sign.…

Inset of the cover of Dune: House Atreides #10 by Evan Cagle.Image: Boom Studios/Herbert ProductionsIf you’re slavering in anticipation of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune movie—and you should be—hopefully, you’ve reading Boom Studios’ comics adaptation of the prequel, House Atreides, based on the novel by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, to whet your appetite. If so,…

Screenshot: AppleIt looks like we’re just weeks away from the official rollout of iOS 15, which is expected to be available when the iPhone 13 launches later this month. But if you’re impatient, you can still try the next-gen version of the iPhone operating system before it’s fully baked by downloading the public beta. We’ve…

Photo: Lynda M. Gonzalez-Pool (Getty Images)The Texas Heartbeat Act, which has outlawed abortions after six weeks in the state of Texas, has many alarming angles to it, but one of the less obvious ones is the potential role large tech companies may play in facilitating upcoming legal cases against healthcare providers. The law, which critics…

A gorgeous Lord of the Rings stamp by Sacha Lees.Image: New Zealand PostThere are many, many reasons to think about moving to New Zealand. The gorgeous scenery. The wonderful people. The impressive response to the covid-19 pandemic. And, now, add to that list you can send your mail with some of the most gorgeous Lord of…

Photo: Scott Olson (Getty Images)Christine Verdin, 62, serves on the recovery committee for the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe, of which she is a member. Since Sunday, she’s been hard at work gathering data on the damage Hurricane Ida wrought in her corner of southeast Louisiana.“It’s like a bomb went off in our community,” she wrote in…

The next generation of Avatar might look a bit different from what we know, and that’s OK.Screenshot: Paramount+When ViacomCBS announced it had big plans for Avatar: The Last Airbender once more—establishing an entire studio dedicated to future projects that drew back original Avatar creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko from Netflix’s own remake plans—we…

Samples being prepared for a blood test.Photo: Attila Kisbenedek/AFP (Getty Images)New research indicates that over 80% of American adults now have antibodies to the coronavirus, earned either through infection or vaccination. The study, based on data collected from blood donors, estimates that over 80% of Americans over the age of 16 had these antibodies as…

Dune feels like a product from another time in Hollywood history. A movie with the scope and vision of modern blockbusters that tells a complex, mature story usually reserved for independent dramas. It’s hugely ambitious, not always straightforward, but accessible and lived-in in a way that makes watching it completely engrossing, even when the thrills…

A false-color satellite view of New Orleans on August 31, 2021. Image: NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using Black Marble data courtesy of Ranjay Shrestha/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.Satellite images taken before and after Hurricane Ida swept through Louisiana this week are showcasing the upsetting…

Illustration: Thana Wong / Adobe Stockio9 is proud to present fiction from LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE. Once a month, we feature a story from LIGHTSPEED’s current issue. This month’s selection is “Fanspell: Flowers in Spring (RobYung, NSFW)” by Anya Ow. You can read the story below. Enjoy!Fanspell: Flowers in Spring (RobYung, NSFW)I am ashamed of the way…

The Perseverance rover had a bit of a false start to its science campaign on Mars last month, when it appeared to have successfully collected a rock only to find its sampling tube empty. In its second coring attempt, NASA directed the rover to a different patch of rock, and images received on Earth today…

A prototype of China’s Mars cruise drone. Image: CNNSCChina’s National Space Science Center is working on an aerial drone that bears a striking resemblance to NASA’ Ingenuity helicopter, currently on Mars. It’s got four outstretched wiry legs, two rotors stacked atop each other, and a simplified fuselage. It’s China’s take on NASA’s wildly successful aerial drone.A…

Photo: Spencer Platt (Getty Images)It’s been a while since the last Apple mixed reality headset rumor, but the latest news hints the device will likely need to wirelessly connect to an iPhone. You know, like every other VR headset or pair of smart glasses that has ever existed.The news comes via an exclusive Information report,…

Joby’s eVTOL aircraft at the company’s Electric Flight Base, located near Big Sur, California. Image: NASAThe first official tests of Joby Aviation’s all-electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle have begun. NASA is leading these tests, which it’s doing to foster the development of similarly advanced aircraft. This marks the first inclusion of an eVTOL…

GIZMO!Image: Russ Martin/FXThe world probably doesn’t need any more aftershows, no matter how good the show itself is—and FX’s brilliant supernatural comedy What We Do in the Shadows is one of the very best around. However, we could all do with more Harvey Guillén in our lives, so we’ll be happily tuning in for After the…

Clean up from flooding on Baldwin street in Bridgeville, Pa. continues after downpours and high winds from the remnants of Hurricane Ida, hit the area Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2021.Photo: Gene J. Puskar (AP)Even when a hurricane is all but a zombie, it can still do serious damage. The remnants of Hurricane Ida, now a tropical…

From now on, our troubles will be far away…Image: Warner Bros.Sunday evenings aren’t for sitting around in existential dread of the week to come anymore! Instead, they’re for families, both kids and adults, to come together and watch Warner Bros.-produced content. Specifically, families should come together starting at 6:00 pm ET on September 19, because…

Photo: Rachel Murray/Getty (Getty Images)A few months after Nia DaCosta officially signed on to direct the new Candyman—which has gone on to become the first movie directed by a Black woman to premiere at the top of the box office—the director happened to bump into New York Times columnist and illustrator Julia Rothman, who was…

Photo: Scott Olson (Getty Images)In states like Florida and Georgia, hospitals and morgues are buckling under the weight of a new sudden surge in COVID cases with no end in sight. You might be thinking that people should focus on wearing masks and getting vaccinated to flatten the curve, but Sweetgreen CEO Jonathan Neman thinks…

Stop staring and start running, you nitwits.Image: 20th CenturyAlien 3 has some issues. Even the movie’s most ardent fans have to admit this, given that it went through countless story, script, director, and editing changes, leaving what many feel is the most muddled of the four classic Alien films. Legendary Neuromancer author William Gibson was…

Screenshot: Lucas Ropek/TwitterPaul Gosar, Republican representative from the state of Arizona and, some say, a friend to white nationalists, recently posted a picture of himself on Twitter that appears to show a long green arrow pointed at his penis. The rightwing congressman, who has never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like and is a…

Kamille Bidan gets a thumbs up from us, too.Gif: SunriseLast year, Funimation brought the iconic original Mobile Suit Gundam to streaming for the first time, giving people the chance to experience what makes the franchise so influential and special in the first place. Now, at long last, they’re also going to get a chance to…

Google employees won’t be returning to the office this year.Photo: Spencer Platt (Getty Images)It looks like Big Tech workers won’t be returning to a physical office this year after all. After exhaustively detailing the measures it would be taking to help ease employees back into the office, Google is pushing back the official return date…

The classic EVA-02 is ready for her close-up.Image: Studio KharaThe announcement of the Neon Genesis Evangelion: Ultimate Edition Blu-ray set a couple of weeks ago was a bit of a mixed blessing. It was wonderful to finally have Hideaki Anno’s seminal TV series come to HD, and the extras it came loaded with managed to…

Photo: LUIS ROBAYO (Getty Images)A judge in Ohio has issued an emergency order telling a hospital to treat a coronavirus patient with ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug being promoted widely by right-wing personalities as a covid-19 treatment and prophylactic. Though it’s being studied for that purpose, ivermectin currently doesn’t have good data to back it up…

As part of a broader effort to make its platform safer for young users, Instagram will now require everybody to share their birthday. If you don’t want to give that data to Instagram, you eventually won’t be able to use the app at all.Instagram says the goal is to create a safer, more privacy-oriented experience…

Bridget Regan at San Diego Comic-Con 2017 promoting The Last Ship.Photo: Kevin Winter (Getty Images)The seemingly never-ending roster of DC characters coming to the CW just added a classic one. Poison Ivy, the iconic villain who has been known to make Batman’s life a living hell, is coming to Gotham City on the small screen.…

The Rocketeer is making his return.Photo: DisneyFans of Joe Johnston’s 1991 Disney film The Rocketeer have been waiting 30 years for this news: a new, live-action Rocketeer film is officially in the works. It’s called The Return of the Rockeeter and it’s being developed for Disney+.According to Deadline, David Oyelowo (Selma, Star Wars Rebels) is…

People make their way along the park connector at Marina Bay East in Singapore on August 9, 2021.Photo: Roslan Rahman/AFP (Getty Images)Singapore has decided to give up on the dream of covid-zero and will instead learn to “live with the virus,” according to the country’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong on Sunday. The decision comes…

Photo: Maddie Meyer (Getty Images)If you needed a reminder that we’re still living in the middle of a global pandemic, here’s one courtesy of CVS. On Friday, the pharmacy chain told Business Insider that the company’s supply of take-home COVID tests is so in demand that it will need to start limiting the number that…

Image: FossilWhen you picture a Wear OS watch, you’re probably thinking of a Fossil, or one of the many designer brands under the company’s umbrella (Kate Spade, Michael Kors, etc.). So of course when Google and Samsung announced they had teamed up on an overhauled Wear OS platform, it was only a matter of time…

Illustration: Benjamin Currie/GizmodoThere are people who argue, persuasively, that Hollywood films are worse than they used to be. Or that novels have turned inward, away from the form-breaking gestures of decades past. In fact, almost anything can be slotted into a narrative of decline—the planet, most obviously, but also (per our former president) toilets and…

See the full cover for Moon Witch, Spider King by artist Pablo Gerardo Camacho below!Image: Riverhead BooksMarlon James began his Dark Star trilogy—aka “the African Game of Thrones”—with 2019’s highly acclaimed Black Leopard, Red Wolf, which is currently being adapted for the screen by Michael B. Jordan. The second book in the series, Moon Witch, Spider…

The Golden City may host a new hero soon enough.Screenshot: Marvel StudiosNew pictures from Venom: Let There Be Carnage give us a look at new and returning friends. Manifest will, well, manifest for one last time on Netflix. The streamer’s new Wednesday Addams show rounds out its cast. Plus, what’s coming on Fantasy Island’s finale…

Hurricane Ida as it approaches the Louisiana coast as a Category 4 hurricane.Gif: NOAA/CIRAThe worst has come to bear with Hurricane Ida. The storm has rapidly intensified into a Category 4 beast and is in the process of making landfall on Grand Isle, Louisiana.Ida strengthened over the course of Saturday and has 150 mph (241…

Photo: Nicolas Asfouri / AFP (Getty Images)Tesla’s Autopilot system—which, contrary to its name, does not enable the car to drive itself—has been involved in an accident yet again. This time, a 2019 Tesla Model 3 with Autopilot activated crashed into two parked cars on the side of a highway near downtown Orlando in Florida.Early Saturday…

Isolation precautions are posted on a door of a patient suffering from covid-19, in an intensive care unit at the Willis Knighton Medical Center in Shreveport, Louisiana.Photo: Gerald Herbert (AP)Hurricane Ida has officially made landfall in Louisiana. There’s never a good time for one of the worst storms to ever strike the state to make…

You’ve probably watched Disney Gallery: Star Wars: The Mandalorian by now (or read our post about the coolest things we learned from it), but there’s always more story to tell. Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker cameo in the finale of The Mandalorian season two wasn’t just a surprise, it was a triumph after a whole lot…

Photo: Tim Boyle / Staff (Getty Images)Alleging the exact type of slimy business practices one might expect from a pair of food delivery apps best known for scamming restaurants out of their hard-earned money during a pandemic, the city of Chicago filed two separate lawsuits against DoorDash and Grubhub on Friday to accuse them of…

Time to get reacquainted with the Ten Rings.Photo: Marvel StudiosAre you ready to see Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings? Are you sure? Obviously, everyone is excited to check out the next chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And, for the most part, Shang-Chi tells its own standalone origin story. However, there are…

Science fiction author Howard Waldrop is set to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award in November from the World Fantasy Convention and his pal George R.R. Martin is celebrating a bit early. The Song of Ice and Fire writer announced he’s adapted Waldrop’s short story “Night of the Cooters.” What’s one more non-Game of Thrones project…

Screenshot: Marvel via 100Bombs StudiosWe got the first, highly-anticipated trailer this week for Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home. If that wasn’t enough to satisfy you, a YouTuber has recreated it (yes, already!) using animation from Spider-Man: The Animated Series—with a little helping hand from the animated The Incredible Hulk.YouTube channel 100Bombs Studios published this incredibly…

Photo: Ming Yeung (Getty Images)While some of us have mostly abandoned calls for endless text messages, there are others who actually like or need to make and receive phone calls. That’s kind of hard to do with some iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro models right now though, which Apple says emit no sound when…

Elijah Wood has had a long career—Sin City, The Faculty, Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings just to name a few—but there’s one entry at the start of his resume we’ll never forget.Wood played “Video Game Boy” in Back to the Future II in a brief but classic scene. Upon entering Cafe ‘80s—in 2015—Michael…

Image: Mattel, Hasbro, and BandaiWelcome back to Toy Aisle, io9’s regular round up of the latest and greatest in shiny bits of plastic. This week, No Way Home’s trailer means we’re not quite done with Spider-Man yet, Playmobil gets in on one of the all time great Bond cars, and the Boba Fett you’ve been…

Far-right rioters who organized on social media breaking into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; used here as stock photo.Photo: John Minchillo (Getty Images)The internet doesn’t turn people into assholes so much as it acts as a massive megaphone for existing ones, according to work by researchers at Aarhus University.In a study published in…

Photo: Lionel Bonaventure / AFP (Getty Images)If you’re dying to get into someone’s Twitter Space, and are willing to pay for it, you might be in luck.Twitter announced on Thursday that it was rolling out Ticketed Spaces, or live audio rooms with pre-paid tickets people can buy, to some iOS users. Spaces is Twitter’s version…

Photo: Denis Charlet / AFP (Getty Images)Amazon wants you to buy, buy, buy, so it’s making it easier for you to do that. The company has rolled out a buy-now-pay-later option at checkout for select customers in the U.S. and plans to expand access to this payment method in the coming months. Amazon is joining…

Get ready for more Immortal action.Image: NetflixDavid F. Sandberg offers a Shazam: Fury of the Gods update. David Cronenberg chills in new footage from Shudder’s Slasher: Flesh & Blood. Get a look at Disney’s Up spinoff, Dug Days. Plus, what’s to come in Walking Dead: World Beyond’s final season. Spoilers now!The Old Guard 2Deadline reports…

Doctor Strange begins the spell that will wipe Peter Parker’s public identity from the world.Image: Paolo Rivera and Joe Caramagna/Marvel ComicsAt the center of Spider-Man: No Way Home’s explosive trailer is a simple request from Peter Parker that seemingly turns the Marvel universe upside down: can magic make the world forget he’s Spider-Man? It’s a…

Illustration: Elena Scotti (Photos: Getty Images, Shutterstock)Paleolithic hunters built mammoth traps in what is now Mexico some 14,700 years ago. An unknown sea creature left footprints in sand some 550 million years ago, making them the oldest known footprints on Earth. The mysterious Denisovan humans reached southeast Asia 160,000 years ago, as evidenced by a…

Photo: Yasin Akgul/AFP (Getty Images)This story originally appeared in The Guardian and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.Personal virtue is an eternally seductive goal in progressive movements, and the climate movement is no exception. People pop up all the time to boast…

As if you don’t already have enough to worry about, murder hornets are now an annual problem in the U.S. The Washington State Department of Agriculture on Thursday announced that it located and eradicated the first nest of Asian giant hornets, better known by the much more catchy murder hornets, in the state this year.…

Lukę Skywalker emerges.Photo: Disney PlusYou have no idea how much went into that surprise you saw on December 18, 2020. That was the day the eighth and final episode of The Mandalorian season 2 was released and, with it, a reveal of epic proportions. None other than Jedi Master Luke Skywalker himself arrived to take…

A forecast map for expected Hurricane Ida. Gif: Earth Wind MapWe’re heading into the peak of Atlantic hurricane season with a storm on the horizon. And unfortunately, it could be a very serious one.Tropical Storm Henri brought plenty of rain to the Northeast and parts of the Caribbean last week, but what’s forecast to become…

Photo: Caitlin McGarry/GizmodoAs we enter the last (hopefully) stretch of iPhone 13 rumors before Apple’s September event, it appears that upgrading might cost more than usual.According to DigiTimes (via MacRumors), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TMSC)—one of the top chipmakers in the world and an Apple supplier—plans to up its production costs by as much as…

Photo: Matthew Brown (AP)Denmark and Costa Rica want to make extra sure the world quits fossil fuels as soon as possible. The two countries are reportedly launching an alliance of nations that are committed to setting a date to phase out both fossil fuel production and use. Details aren’t totally hammered out for this idea,…

Photo: Lam Yik Fei (Getty Images)Sheriff’s deputies in Colorado tracked down and arrested a man using Apple’s Find My iOS app, claiming that an officer had “lost” his work phone in the bed of the man’s truck after the suspect fled the scene. The unique case could serve as a constitutional test of warrantless location…

Barry’s gonna need to get his phonebook out.Image: The CWThe Flash is about to become one of the longest-running DC/CW shows around now, as Supergirl prepares to bid farewell with its final sixth season. But when The Flash returns, it’s doing so in speedster style to kick off a major event that ties together DC…

They’re coming to get you, Barbara!Image: Blumhouse Television/Amazon StudiosLast week, we shared the first look at Black as Night, one of four new horror movies arriving on Amazon Prime in October as part of the “Welcome to the Blumhouse” series. Today, there’s a very fun trailer showing footage from all of the films, which also…

Artist’s interpretation of a Hycean world in orbit around a red dwarf. Image: Amanda Smith, University of CambridgeAliens, should they exist, likely inhabit rocky planets like ours, but new research proposes an entirely new type of habitable world—one that scarcely resembles Earth. Earth is the only functional model we have of a habitable world. It…

Val (Thandiwe Newton) looks skeptical, as well she should.Image: LucasfilmSolo is not the most well-respected of Star Wars movies, but there’s one moment that felt especially egregious: the weird, confusing sacrifice of Val, played by Thandiwe Newton.In the film, she’s a pragmatic criminal and sharpshooter in Tobias Beckett’s crew who helps stage a heist to…

Jurassic World: Dominion is coming next year.Image: Universal PicturesAnyone lucky enough to see F9 in Imax earlier this year saw the first footage from next year’s Jurassic World: Dominion. The film opens 65 million years ago at the moment where a certain mosquito gets caught in amber, setting up everything that comes next. What came…

Microsoft will make it harder for Chromebook users to work with offline Office documents. Photo: Florence Ion / GizmodoMicrosoft plans to end support for its Android-based Office apps for Chrome OS users. Beginning Sept. 18, Chromebooks that rely on the Android versions of Office, Outlook, OneNote, and OneDrive will need to migrate over to the…

Neo is back in the fourth Matrix.Image: Warner Bros.Of the major 2021 blockbusters still on the release schedule, there’s one big title that fans know very little about: the much-anticipated fourth Matrix, which is currently scheduled to release December 22 in theaters and on HBO Max. Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss are returning, along with…

The Pixel 6 Pro will probably have an under-display fingerprint sensor. Image: GoogleWe already know the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are on their way. We know about the revamped Tensor processor, which is capable of translating another language in real-time and quickly editing high-resolution photography. Google also confirmed that it would be adding…

Photo: Al Drago (Getty Images)President Joe Biden and other White House officials plan to meet with a cadre of business, tech, and education leaders on Wednesday to discuss a pretty pressing issue: How exactly to keep America from getting hacked so much. After a year of increasingly catastrophic cyberattacks (on everything from our beer and…

Screenshot: Disney+/MarvelAfter spending two episodes in wildly alternate universes where Marvel’s important, but not quite as central, heroes like Peggy Carter and T’Challa were the leads, What If’s latest went back to basics. The third episode of the animated Disney+ series is a story about the MCU’s original team of Avengers and the superspy who…

The Nihil Twi’lek Lourna Dee strikes a pose on the cover of The High Republic: Tempest Runner audio drama. Image: LucasfilmAlthough she’s only played a small role in the Star Wars: The High Republic saga so far, we know a few things about the Nihil’s Tempest Runner Lourna Dee. She’s incredibly opportunistic, preferring to only…

Photo: Dan Kitwood (Getty Images)It looks like the hacker behind Poly Network’s historic heist has had a change of heart. The crypto platform confirmed in a company blog post on Monday that the anonymous hacker (or hackers) who successfully stole roughly $610 million in crypto assets from its platform had finally surrendered the final tranche…

Photo: Spencer Platt (Getty Images)Will Apple be the next front in the tech labor movement? In tandem with an informal pay transparency survey, a group of employees posted a website on Monday for #AppleToo, an initiative devoted to collecting stories from Apple workers, from retail to corporate, and address an alleged pattern of discrimination. “For…

A uranium cube in a protective case at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington.Photo: Andrea Starr/Pacific Northwest National LaboratoryA research team based at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington is working to certify that mysterious uranium cubes in American laboratories were once part of Nazi Germany’s efforts to build a successful nuclear program.…

Brandon Routh contemplates his deck build.Image: The CWIt was only last week that we learned that longtime Transformers cartoon producer Jeff Kline would be replacing Marvel Cinematic Universe architects Joe and Anthony Russo as the showrunner for Netflix’s animated series based on the venerable Magic: The Gathering card game. Apparently, Kline’s determined to hit the…

Artist’s interpretation of woolly rhinos. Image: Beth ZaikenNew research details the evolutionary history of rhinoceroses, exposing a surprising lack of genetic diversity throughout their long history. Given that all living species of rhinos are currently endangered and facing their own genetic bottlenecks, the new research could improve conservation efforts.At a scientific meeting held a few…

British Library digitized image from page 203 of Hartmann the Anarchist, etc.Image: British Library“Sir! Direct hit! The balloon’s canvas has been ruptured and is falling to the Earth from a height of approximately 18 kilometers. They will hit the ground in approximately one minute—unless the gentlemen have jetpacks on board, there’s no chance they’ll survive…

An electronic billboard flashes instructions on the train platform at the Archives station in Washington D.C. on March 25, 2020. Photo: Chip Somodevilla (Getty Images)Researchers warn that the next major pandemic may not be too far away. In a new paper out Monday, they estimate that a pandemic as deadly as covid-19 is expected to…

Welcome home!Image: October CoastAs any folk horror fan who revels in the ways of ancient magic, long-forgotten traditions, and strange rituals involving twigs and animal masks can attest, these stories often start the same way, with an outsider entering a community that immediately lets them know how not-welcome they are. So begins Australia’s Witches of…

Get to know Vesemir as a young Witcher before he returns older and wiser in The Witcher season 2.Image: NetflixAfter Netflix found it had a new hit on its hands with the grim fantasy of The Witcher in late 2019, work quickly began on plans to expand the series beyond the realm of simply getting…

Image: Wizards of the CoastThe Dungeons & Dragons movie has wrapped production!Director John Francis Daley announced on social media that the shooting has wrapped on the film. From its looks, the new D&D film is going all out to bring the best adaptation of the tabletop role-playing game (RPG) to life. The cast features A-list…

Image: Hot Toys, Hasbro, MezcoWelcome back to Toy Aisle, io9’s regular roundup of the latest and greatest threats to your bank account. This week, The Suicide Squad’s King Shark gets the Hot Toys treatment, Hasbro has new reveals for Fantastic Marvel Legends and deceptive Transformers toys, and Mezco reveals one of its best Superman figures…

Members of the New Market Volunteer Fire Company perform a secondary search during an evacuation effort following a flash flood in Helmetta, New Jersey, on August 22, 2021, as a result of Tropical Storm Henri.Photo: Tom Brenner (Getty Images)Heavy rains, storm surges, and dangerous winds from Tropical Storm Henri have left more than 120,000 people…

Photo: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Macy’s (Getty Images)It seems that the days of drinking bleach to treat or prevent covid-19, a dangerous and bogus practice promoted by former President Donald Trump, are not over. However, this time the hot faux cure on the market is a drug called ivermectin, which is used in animals to…

Photo: Josh Stringer/AMCAMC has touted tonight’s premiere of The Walking Dead as “The Beginning of the End.” Technically, that’s true…but that’s about it. It’s not a bad episode of TWD, just a very middle-of-the-road one. After 10 seasons of wildly veering over that metaphorical, zombie-filled highway, that’s fine with me.Nothing truly begins in “Acheron, Part…

Photo: Win McNamee (Getty Images)The U.S. State Department was purportedly the victim of a serious cyber attack in recent weeks, according to a Fox News report published on Saturday. The extent of breach and when it was discovered are currently unknown.Citing an unnamed source, the outlet stated that the Department of Defense’s Cyber Command had…

Elizabeth Olsen in WandaVisionImage: Disney/MarvelWandaVision actress Elizabeth Olsen didn’t quite know what to make of the series pitch. In a post-Thanos-snap world, she wasn’t sure how a show that starts in the 1950s relates to anything that previously happened to the Avengers. However, once Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and Jac Schaeffer told her their…

Photo: Presley Ann / Stringer (Getty Images)Beginning on August 20, Cricket Wireless will begin offering the ad-supported tier of HBO Max for free to new and existing customers that subscribe to the service’s $60/mo. unlimited plan.“We are always looking for ways to bring our customers the best value possible. We know they are hungry for…

Candyman 2021 posterImage: Universal PicturesCandyman director Nia DaCosta, Monkeypaw Productions, and Universal Pictures have launched #TellEveryone, a social media initiative connected to the film.According to Variety, this hashtag focuses on the social justice elements of the Candyman story and stars Candyman stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, and Colman Domingo. The film is set to…

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, to capture this 360-degree view near “Rafael Navarro Mountain” on July 3, 2021.Image: NASA Mars Exploration ProgramJust because you can’t catch a shuttle to Mars quite yet doesn’t mean you can’t still tour the Red Planet. This week, NASA released a video showcasing a panoramic…

Gif: NOAA/CIRAHurricane Henri is expected to make landfall “at or near hurricane strength” somewhere around New York’s Long Island or southern New England by Sunday afternoon, according to the National Hurricane Center. Henri strengthened from a tropical storm on Saturday as it built up steam over the Atlantic with maximum sustained winds near 75 mph…

Magic: The GatheringImage: HasbroNetflix’s animated adaptation of Magic: The Gathering has a new creative team.Deadline states that Joe and Anthony Russo were first involved when the project was announced in 2019, with head writers Henry Gilroy and Jose Molina. However, the Russo’s and their creative team have moved on, and executive producer Jeff Kline (Transformers:…

A thermometer in the sun on the sidewalk indicates a temperature of 120 degrees Fahrenheit as people eat ice cream on the Upper West Side August 2, 2006 Photo: Chris Hondros (Getty Images)New research this week highlights one of the frightening effects climate change is already having on our health: creating bursts of weather extreme…

Neon Genesis Evangelion has ended. It’s done this before, of course—it’s done it several times, from its original TV series to its movie continuation End of Evangelion, its manga adaptation, and now, with the release of 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, its “Rebuild” theatrical self. To end Evangelion is no longer a radical concept, and…

Photo: Ronald Martinez (Getty Images)A prolific hacker gang claims to be selling data on 70 million AT&T customers, the likes of which would appear to include names, phone numbers, social security numbers, DOBs, home addresses, and more.On Thursday, RestorePrivacy broke the news that ShinyHunters, a well-known threat actor, was advertising the apparent database on RaidForums,…

Boba Fett and his starship, they just keep getting in trouble for all the wrong reasons lately.Image: Paolo Villanelli/Marvel ComicsWho thought a Lego set could ever cause this much back and forth? I guess it is the world of Star Wars we’re talking about.A few months ago, certain Star Wars fans found themselves up in…

Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP (Getty Images)In an unexpected win for gig workers, a California judge on Friday evening found the controversial 2020 ballot measure known as Proposition 22 unconstitutional on the grounds that it is unenforceable. The ruling mounts a victory for gig workers whom the law exempted from state labor laws and a setback…

Screenshot: Lucas Ropek/AcornsHave no fear, Acorns users. Your accounts have not been hacked. Probably. On Friday, droves of users of the investment app received weird emails telling them that they had been locked out of their accounts due to “unusual activity.” However, the company says those messages were sent by mistake. The mayhem began sometime…

Photo: Sean Gallup (Getty Images) This week, a Swedish firm announced it had delivered carbon-free steel to a customer—a world-first. It’s a huge step in the race to clean up one of the most carbon-intensive activities on Earth.On Wednesday, HYBRIT, a partnership between steel company SSAB, state-owned mining firm LKAB, and state-owned utility Vattenfall, said…

You know the world is churning out some depressing headlines when news that Takara Tomy has created a robotic talking grandchild to provide comfort and companionship to Japan’s elderly isn’t anywhere near the saddest news of the week—but it definitely comes close.Using robots to give the elderly something to engage with is far from a…

“braaaaAAAAAaaaaa (solar) AAAAAAiiiiiinnssss”Photo: AMCWhen it comes to gore, I am a really big baby—my weak stomach and low startle point have kept me far away from The Walking Dead for the decade it’s been on TV. But after a year and a half of mostly staying inside and binge-watching everything else worth watching, the arrival…

Lupin’s on the case… of his own framing for murder!Screenshot: TMSAfter making a bold leap into 3D CG animation with Lupin III The First last year, Monkey Punch’s iconic gentleman thief is going back to more traditional TV routes this year, with Lupin III Part 6 set to celebrate the character’s 50th anniversary. Bad news…

The cross-platform games suite would have been united by a universal game controller, just like on Stadia.Photo: Alex Cranz / GizmodoLast week, the seal on the sack of secrets began busting open in the Epic Games lawsuit against Google. We learned that Google had once admitted sideloading was a less-than-desirable experience for some users and…

Photo: Robyn Beck (Getty Images)A quick PSA for unvaccinated folks looking for a weekend getaway: if you try forging your records to travel, you might wind up with a hefty fine instead.That’s what happened to one Florida couple that was arrested after they stepped off the plane in Honolulu last week. NBC Miami first reported…

Photo: Tali Arbel (AP)OnlyFans on Thursday released its first transparency report, providing insight into the number of times law enforcement agencies asked for information about its users over the past month. The report also details the number of accounts suspended by the company as well as the number of accounts believed to have posted child…

On August 19th, 1921, Eugene Wesley Roddenberry was born in El Paso, Texas. He grew up to become a member of the Air Force during World War II, a member of the LAPD afterward, and a burgeoning TV screenwriter. And, oh yeah, he created one of the most beloved and enduring science fiction franchises of…

Gif: NintendoDuring this week’s Pokémon Presents announcements, the Pokémon Company revealed a number of new details about Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the upcoming Nintendo Switch game set in the distant past at a time when humans and Pokémon did not yet live in “harmony” with one another. While Arceus is set to introduce multiple new kinds…

An activist wears a mask depicting Mark Zuckerberg outside the European Commission building in December.Photo: Kenzo Tribouillard (Getty Images)A Berlin-based nonprofit studying the ways in which Instagram’s algorithm presents content to users says parent company Facebook “bullied” its researchers into killing off experiments and deleting underlying data that was collected with consent from Instagram users.Algorithm…

Then-New York Observer editor Ken Kurson attending a NYC event in Nov. 2014.Photo: Astrid Stawiarz (Getty Images)The one-time editor of the New York Observer, Kenneth Kurson, is facing felony charges in New York tied to long-standing allegations that he digitally stalked and harassed his wife as his marriage was falling to pieces. Kurson had previously…

Photo: Olivier Douliery (Getty Images)Facebook really, really wants you to know that it isn’t the hub of hate speech, divisiveness, and straight-up misinformation you might think it is. It wants you to know badly enough that on Wednesday, the company published its first-ever report detailing what Facebook claims are the most-viewed pages, posts, and domains…

Guests ride the Mad Tea Party teacups at the Disneyland Resort on April 30, 2021 in Anaheim, California. Photo: Richard Harbaugh/Disneyland Resort (Getty Images)Last month, Disney announced that it would be offering “Disney Premiere Access” to visitors at Paris Disneyland, a pay-per-ride service allowing guests a “designated fast lane” for certain rides. Avoiding long lines is…

It’s nearly time to enter the world of The Wheel of Time.Image: AmazonIt feels like it’s been a million years since Amazon started doling out cryptic, miniscule teases of its lofty adaptation of Robert Jordan’s iconic fantasy saga, The Wheel of Time. Back at Comic-Con, we got a vague release date and a similarly vague…

Sir Gawain (Dev Patel) receives an uninvited quest in The Green Knight.Image: Eric Zachanowich/A24David Lowery’s The Green Knight has been justly acclaimed for its striking imagery, beautiful cinematography, Dev Patel’s fantastic performance as the knight Sir Gawain, and more. Its lack of financial success means we probably won’t be getting any more adaptations of medieval…

Suicide Squad promo image of Rick FlagImage: Warner Bros.James Gunn is revealing his innermost secrets involving his new film The Suicide Squad. On the Script Apart podcast, Gunn talks about why Rick Flag (Joel Kinneman) is on Team one and the deleted scene that helps us understand why he’s even on this mission.“We realize that…

Photo: Drew Angerer (Getty Images)A nagging mystery involving MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell appears to have finally been solved. The voter fraud conspiracy theorist and Trump ride-or-die held his goofy “Cyber Symposium” in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, last week, spending a coma-inducing 72 hours availing Americans of his unsubstantiated theory that Chinese hackers and deep state…

Photo: Lynda M. Gonzalez-Pool (Getty Images)Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has tested positive for covid-19, the Governor’s Office announced on Tuesday afternoon less than a day after attending a campaign event filled with unmasked attendees. The governor, who banned mask mandates in the state even as the Delta variant of the deadly virus spreads, is vaccinated,…

Denis Villeneuve and Timothée Chalamet on the set of Dune.Photo: Warner Bros.There was a moment a few months ago where it felt possible Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming film, Dune, would be released only in theaters. Oh sure, it was one of Warner Bros.’ big 2021 releases that was announced to debut both on HBO Max and…

Mr. Krueger is thrilled by the news.Screenshot: New Line CinemaFreddy, Jason, Michael, Chucky, Pinhead, and Candyman (Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman)—all slasher monsters that horror fans are totally comfortable referencing on a first-name basis. Shudder will dig into their enduring yet terrifying appeal in a new six-episode series, Behind the Monsters, which kicks off just before Halloween…

Tinder will start offering ID Verification to all its users worldwide. Image: TinderTinder will start rolling out an ID Verification feature in its popular hookup app. ID Verification relies on a government-issued piece of paper, like a passport or driver’s license, for proof of identity. The feature has been in use on Tinder in Japan…

Photo: JOSH EDELSON / Contributor (Getty Images)As the Dixie Fire continues to spread unabated in California, Pacific Gas & Electric—the largest utility company in the state—said that it was mulling potential power cuts in the areas closest to the blaze in an effort to proactively control its spread. In a Sunday night Facebook post, the…

Ryan Reynolds in Free Guy.Photo: FoxEven without a slew of fun surprises, the new Ryan Reynolds movie Free Guy probably would’ve been a hit. The story of a video game character who becomes self-aware and has to save his world is one of those perfect, marketable ideas, Hollywood loves. And, of course, a movie set in…

Carol and Daryl sitting in a tree, K-I-L-L-I-N-G.Photo: AMCThis week may mark the beginning of the end for The Walking Dead, but like the zombies on the show itself, it’s pretty damn hard to kill. The final season is broken into three eight-episode arcs that will air into next year. Fear the Walking Dead is…

In this Sept. 6, 2018 file photo, Cardinal Raymond Burke applauds during a press conference at the Italian Senate in Rome.Photo: Alessandra Tarantino (AP)Cardinal Raymond Burke, a leader in the Catholic church, has been placed on a ventilator after contracting covid-19, according to the cardinal’s Twitter account. Burke has repeatedly made bizarre comments about the…

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks to media during a press conference at Parliament on August 17, 2021 in Wellington, New Zealand.Photo: Hagen Hopkins (Getty Images)The government of New Zealand announced Tuesday the entire country will go into lockdown after the first mystery case of covid-19 since February was detected in the city of Auckland. The…

Photo: Christopher Furlong (Getty Images)The Dallas Police Department has announced that a city employee accidentally deleted eight terabytes of its data—a fuck-up that has now endangered an unknown amount of court cases that relied upon the data as evidence.Worse still, the law enforcement agency and the city IT department took months to disclose the episode…

Three generations of Captains Carter.Image: Marvel Games, David Marquez/Marvel Comics, and Marvel StudiosThe arrival of What If on Disney+ has brought with it a new shieldbearer that Marvel Studios seems pretty keen on making the face of a multiverse of superheroics: Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter. No longer just an Agent of SHIELD, as we best know…

Screenshot: Shoshana Wodinsky (Yik Yak)Good news, fellow millennials. Yik Yak—the anonymous messaging app once popular with college students across the country—is back. Roughly four years after the company’s co-founders announced the app’s shutdown, the company’s Twitter account sprang back to life on Monday to announce the app was back for a new generation of Yakkers.…

James Earl Jones in Field of Dreams.Photo: Universal Pictures“If you build it, he will come” just got a whole new meaning. A week after Major League Baseball unveiled a newly constructed baseball stadium inspired by 1989’s Field of Dreams, a new TV show based on that sports fantasy movie has been announced from Good Place and…

Black Panther in Marvel’s AvengersImage: Marvel Entertainment/Square EnixMarvel’s Avengers DLC pack will feature War for Wakanda, where gamers can fight as T’Challa, aka Black Panther. Hannah MacLeod and Scott Walters, members of Marvel’s Avengers development team, spoke with the website Comic Book Resources and shared some details about the game’s scale and what they are…

Guillermo de la CruzImage: FXOver the first and second seasons of FX’s vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows, fans have learned more and more about vampire enthusiasts and familiar Guillermo de la Cruz. Deadline reports that at the end of season one, we learn that he is a descendant of famed vampire slayer…

Photo: Jeff Chiu (AP)Facebook wants you to know that Messenger is getting a little more secure and private (or as private as anything built by the company can be considered). In a nutshell, users now have the option to make voice and video calls end-to-end encrypted on Messenger. But wait, weren’t those already end-to-end encrypted?…

Photo: John MacDougall/AFP (Getty Images)A hacker is claiming to have data related to more than 100 million T-Mobile customers in the U.S. and is selling access to part of the information for roughly $277,000.Motherboard reported on Sunday that the hacker revealed they had the data on an underground forum, although they didn’t specify the information…

Sven Spichiger, a Washington State Department of Agriculture entomologist, displays a canister of Asian giant hornets vacuumed from a nest behind him on October 24, 2020 in Blaine, Washington.Photo: Elaine Thompson / Pool / AFP) (Getty Images)Humanity just can’t catch a break, and it looks like the honeybees in Washington state can’t, either. In recent…

Photo: Mladen Antonov/AFP (Getty Images)Last week, Apple announced new tools to detect and report child pornography and sexually explicit materials. It’s a noble mission and no one’s going to argue against catching child predators. That said, the rollout has turned into a debacle of epic proportions.The controversy centers around two features Apple says it will…

Photo: Lionel Bonaventure / AFP (Getty Images)A few days after it released some new design changes meant to make it more accessible, Twitter is going back to the drawing board, and for a very good reason. The design choices were literally hurting some users’ eyes and giving them headaches. Twitter on Friday announced that it…

The Suicide Squad crewImage: Warners Bros.Who would have thought that Kal-El might have appeared in The Suicide Squad? Well, James Gunn wanted to make this a reality. Gunn reveals Superman was the initial big bad for the film instead of Starro the Conqueror in a new interview.On the latest episode of the Script Apart, a…

Sam Reid in Lambs of GodImage: Lingo PicturesAustralian actor Sam Reid has been cast as Lestat in AMC’s Interview with the Vampire show.The show is based on the Anne Rice novel of the same name, which follows French aristocrat Louis de Pointe du Lac. In the book, he’s interviewed by a news reporter who seeks…

Soldier termites marching along a rope in Malaysia.Image: Roberto García-Roa (CC BY 4.0)The science journal BMC Ecology and Evolution recently held an image competition to showcase the dramatic diversity of Earth’s ecosystems. From the tiny tragedy of a wasp easting a spider to the anticipation just before a snake strikes, these photos show a range…

King Spawn CoverImage: Image ComicsAfter being put on the back burner, the long-awaited Spawn film is back in play.The Hollywood Reporter claims Broken City writer Brian Tucker has been hired to write the script for the film. Blumhouse productions is pushing the film along with Spawn comic and character creator Todd McFarlane attached to direct…

Emma Stone in CruellaImage: DisneyAmongst the ongoing turmoil between Scarlett Johansson and Disney over compensation for Black Widow, Emma Stone has signed on for Cruella 2!The Hollywood Reporter states that director Craig Gillespie and screenwriter Tony McNamara are returning for the prequel follow-up about the thief turned socialite villainess Cruella De Vil whose story is…

Imagine your Sonos speaker doing a little dance tonight for its little victory. Photo: Sam Rutherford / GizmodoSonos just won a small victory in its battle against Google. According to the New York Times, a trade judge has ruled preliminarily in favor of the speaker maker, saying that Google should not import products that violate…

Spider-Man, Michael Myers, and Neo should all be in theaters this year.Photo: Sony/Universal/WBIf you’ve experienced déjà vu in the last few days, you aren’t alone. Summer 2021 feels a little bit like spring 2020 when, with cases of covid-19 rising, one movie was delayed, then another, then another, then everything. This week saw the first…

The Twitter logo is seen on a sign at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco, California.Photo: Josh Edelson / AFP (Getty Images)This year, many of those longing for a blue checkmark on Twitter were filled with hope when the company reopened its public verification process for the first time in almost four years. That hope…

A wall mural painted on the wall of U.S. embassy in Kabul on July 30, 2021.Photo: Sajjad Hussain / AFP (Getty Images)It’s not exactly the best time to work at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan—and not only because it’s being evacuated. In recent weeks, the Taliban has rapidly seized many parts of the country…

Photo: Johannes Eisele / AFP) (Getty Images)Anyone who’s sent a private and important email to multiple recipients knows it can be complicated. You have to check the order of the recipients, cc assistants that remind the higher-ups to read and respond to said message, and, most importantly, make sure you don’t send the email to…

Venom 2 has been delayed by a few weeks.Photo: SonyLet there be carnage, indeed. Sony has decided to delay the release of its upcoming Marvel sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, by three weeks, from September 24 to October 15. It’s not a long delay but the fact there’s a delay at all is giving…

Image: dormakabaRoughly 2,400 fire exit locks have been recalled in the U.S. because they fail to open, even after being pressed for 15 seconds, potentially trapping people inside during an emergency, according to a press release from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on Thursday.The locks, made by Shanghai-based company dormakaba are known as delayed…

People wearing face masks walk on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter on August 12, 2021 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Photo: Mario Tama (Getty Images)The city of New Orleans, Louisiana will require all customers at bars, restaurants, stadiums, concerts, and other indoor venues to show their proof of vaccination or a negative covid-19 test taken…

Shang-Chi hitting us with the Friday mood.Screenshot: Marvel StudiosRobert Rodriguez has signed a big new deal with HBO Max. Get a look at Tom Hanks’ cute dog in the post-apocalyptic drama Finch. The My Little Ponys are here for a whole new show. Plus, what’s in store for Supergirl, Riverdale, Stargirl and more, and new…

Some of the most expensive TVs these days are huge microLED TVs designed to span entire walls. But the LG OLED R’s signature feature is being able to disappear (and reappear) on command. That’ll cost you $100,000.While that price tag puts the OLED R out of reach of pretty much everyone, that figure is less of…

The Ingenuity helicopter was imaging a dune-covered region of Jezero Crater on its 11th flight on Mars when the Perseverance rover was caught in the frame of its camera. Depending on how you see the craft, it either looks like an errant rock formation trying to fit in amid the Martian landscape or a deer…

Zendaya as Chani in Dune.Photo: Warner Bros.Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is finally, finally heading to theaters and HBO Max on October 22. But you’ll have to wait a little bit longer to get your hands on these collectible figures from Dark Horse and Legendary Entertainment, since they’re not releasing until spring 2022. However, good news! io9…

Launch of the GSLV-F10 rocket on August 12, 2021.Image: ISROIndia’s space agency says an unknown technical glitch prevented the upper stage of its GSLV-F10 rocket from igniting, in what is a frustrating setback for the burgeoning space power.India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-F10 (GSLV-F10) blasted off from Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota at 5:34 a.m.…

Rescuers at the site of a landslide in Kinnaur district in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021.Photo: National Disaster Response Force (AP)At least 13 people are dead, 14 are injured and more than 40 could still be trapped in the debris after a landslide slammed into a highway in northern…

Chloe Bennet at a YouTube Originals event in 2019.Photo: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for YouTube Originals (Getty Images)The jury’s still out on whether the world wants or needs a live-action version of Craig McCracken’s beloved Cartoon Network series The Powerpuff Girls—especially one that casts the li’l superheroes as resentful twentysomethings. But when and if the CW…

Screenshot: Anti-Police Terror ProjectAs we reported last month, Alameda County sheriff’s deputy David Shelby started blasting Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” on a phone in his lapel while talking to activists outside a courthouse. Seemed odd, until the officer clearly explained, on camera, that he was orchestrating a failsafe ruse to cloak himself from the internet.“You…

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II at the premiere of Watchmen in 2019.Photo: Chris Delmas/AFP (Getty Images)In the horror film Candyman, the killer appears when you say his name five times. In real life, though he’s not a villain, you will definitely be seeing the upcoming film’s star, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, many more times than that. In a…

Photo: Chip Somodevilla (Getty Images)In the latest chapter to the ongoing reckoning over Apple and Google’s tight-gripped app store practices, two senators introduced a bipartisan bill on Wednesday that seeks to loosen the stranglehold these companies have over the major app ecosystems.The Open App Markets Act, which is being spearheaded by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, and…

Bennu, as imaged by OSIRIS-REx.Image: NASA/Goddard/University of ArizonaData gathered during the years NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spent zipping around asteroid Bennu has allowed scientists to update the risk posed by this potentially hazardous near-Earth object.The spacecraft OSIRIS-REx is currently en route to Earth, carrying surface samples it collected from asteroid Bennu. From December 2018 to May 2021,…

Photo: JIM WATSON / AFP (Getty Images)Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, has launched a three-day “cyber symposium” aimed at providing incontrovertible evidence that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump by an evil cabal of hackers and politicos. Among the numerous rightwing figures in media, business, and GOP politics that have pushed…

Here comes a brand-new Superman: The Animated Series box set flying your way.Image: Warner Bros.Twenty-five years have passed since Warner Bros. Animation followed up its legendary Batman: The Animated Series the only way it could—with Superman: The Animated Series. Produced by Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, and Alan Burnett, the show debuted on September 6, 1996 and…

Tim Drake in action.Image: Belén Ortega, Alejandro Sánchez, Pat Brosseau/DC ComicsBecause there are multiple Batman books released by DC Comics in any given week, there’s always something going on with the Bat-family. Events might include a devastating death, the introduction of a new member, or, as is the case in this week’s Batman: Urban Legends…

Photo: Kirill KUurdyavtsev (Getty Images)Ah, ad blockers. Even if you aren’t among the growing number of people downloading one of these extensions, chances are you’ve heard people sing their praises for all sorts of reasons. They make the web a less cluttered, less laggy, less invasive place to be. So naturally, the money-hungry tech upstarts…

Screenshot: Lucas Ropek/InstagramCormac McCarthy, author of many a novel about dark, dark things, has never been on Twitter, but that hasn’t stopped other people from tweeting for him. A fake account for the writer, @CormacMcCrthy, recently enjoyed a brief wave of success—garnering more than 49,000 followers, grabbing attention from celebrities like Stephen King and Patton…

Screenshot: Shoshana Wodinsky (Ancestry.com)The Blackstone-owned genealogy giant Ancestry.com raised a ton of red flags earlier this month with an update to its terms and conditions that give the company a bit more power over your family photos. From here on out, the August 3 update reads, Ancestry can use these pics for any reason, at…

Vegeta and Goku performing the fusion dance.Gif: FunimationLast year, AT&T announced its plans to sell off Crunchyroll, its anime streaming service, to Sony, the entertainment megacorporation that also owns Funimation. This came after years of the two companies working together to release their respective programs on one another’s digital platforms. Synergy between the two companies…

Guests cosplay during Wizard World Comic Con Chicago 2016.Photo: Daniel Boczarski (Getty Images)Fans generally think of pop culture conventions as being tied to a specific city: San Diego, Chicago, New York, etc. But those conventions are usually run by larger companies—and now, after its latest acquisition, one company in particular has become the biggest of…

Photo: Cate Gillon (Getty Images)A depressing new report finds that kids and teens are eating even more ultra-processed foods than they were 20 years ago, with those foods now constituting over two-thirds of their diets.Ultra-processed foods are heavily altered, with numerous added ingredients like fats, starches, sugars, food dyes, and stabilizers. These added components can…

Photo: Sam RutherfordIf you’ve been reading Gizmodo for awhile, you’ve probably realized that I’m bullish on flexible displays, due in large part to their ability to expand or enhance the capabilities of smartphones, laptops, and even smartwatches (OK, that last one’s a little iffy). So after I reviewed Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 2 last year,…

A crop of an image from James Tynion IV’s upcoming Blue Book.Image: Michael Avon OemingIf things at DC Comics seem a little different in the coming months, it’s because writer James Tynion IV is leaving. He announced today that he’ll exit Batman after issue #117 in November and The Joker after issue #14 in April…

Photo: GIUSEPPE CACACE / AFP (Getty Images)After facing a whole lot of criticism, Apple has doubled down and defended its plans to launch controversial new tools aimed at identifying and reporting child sex abuse material (or CSAM) on its platforms.Last week, the company announced several pending updates, outlining them in a blog post entitled “Expanded…

Catherine Zeta-Jones at the 78th Annual Golden Globe® Awards on February 28, 2021 in New York City. Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Hollywood Foreign Press Association (Getty Images)Carolyn Jones and Anjelica Huston (and the voice of Charlize Theron) came before her, and now it’s Catherine Zeta-Jones’ chance to glam it up as spooky, ooky Addams…

Cast of Jumanji: The Next LevelImage: Columbia PicturesWith all the projects Dwayne Johnson is working on, when does this man find time to sleep? He does star in a lot of self-produced content through his Seven Bucks company. While he provides the resources, Seven Bucks President Hiram Garcia is the one that keeps the assembly…

Houseboats sit in low water on Lake Oroville as California’s drought emergency worsens.Photo: Robyn Beck/AFP (Getty Images)Lake Oroville is the latest reservoir across the West to sink to a new low. The reservoir is getting so empty that a major hydropower plant has had to shut down months ahead of what officials expected in late…

Photo: Denis Charlet (Getty Images)These days, most of the merchandise on Amazon’s online marketplace isn’t actually from Amazon. An estimated 56% of all products sold on the platform come from third-party sellers. Now, these sellers aren’t supposed to be able to email their Amazon customers directly, and doing so outside of Amazon’s official channels violates…

Photo: Stephen Lam (Getty Images)It’s crazy to think that in the U.S., officials have to offer bribes to people so they can get vaccinated against covid-19, especially given that folks in other countries would do anything to have access and would roll up their sleeves for free. Yet, considering the threat of the super contagious…

People take pictures of the newly unveiled all-electric battery-powered Tesla’s Cybertruck with shattered windows after a failed resistance test on November 21, 2019.Photo: Frederic J. Brown / AFP (Getty Images)By now Tesla fans are well aware that the company, and its CEO Elon Musk, aren’t very good at meeting targets and timelines. It therefore comes…

Still from Disney’s EnchantedImage: DisneyThe Enchanted sequel is coming! Disenchanted is set to be released in 2022. Disney confirmed the movie will be available to stream on Disney+. Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Idina Menzel, and director Adam Shankman are returning for the sequel.The director spoke with Usmagazine to relay his excitement about the…

Photo: Lionel Bonaventure / AFP (Getty Images)It’s been nearly an entire year since we started talking about how Google Hangouts was officially set to disappear. Since then, it seems like we’ve been repeating the same thing every few months, only for Hangouts to stubbornly persist living. If apps could talk, Hangouts would probably declare, “what…

Dwayne Johnson in Jungle CruiseImage: Disney+There was a moment in time we all thought Dwayne “The Rock Johnson” would join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After the first Avengers film, Marvel was looking to snag anyone with heavy star power. No one knows what roles he and Kevin Feige threw around. Whatever they talked about never…

A view of the Olympic rings flag during the Men’s Javelin Throw Qualification on day twelve of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on August 04, 2021Photo: Matthias Hangs (Getty Images)Recently, we finally got to see an Olympics that everyone can get behind. At these Games, there was no pandemic, no blistering heat, and no threat…

Flames rise from a fire spreading around Kapandriti, a town on the outskirts of Athens, Greece, on August 5, 2021.Photo: Louisa Gouliamaki (Getty Images)Flames tore through residential areas and threatened historic sites as wildfires burned across Greece for a fifth day on Saturday, a scene so apocalyptic that one local official described it as “a…

Cast of Netflix show Stranger ThingsImage: NetflixStranger Things creators/showrunner duo Matt and Ross Duffer always envisioned their supernatural horror show would have at least five seasons. While the two haven’t confirmed if season five is the last, the show’s executive producer Shawn Levy is on the record saying they do have an endgame plan in…

Luis Guzman in NarcosImage: NetflixComedian Luis Guzman is Gomez Addams in the Netflix Addams Family spin-off series, Wednesday.According to Variety, Wednesday has received an eight-episode order at the streaming service. Al Gough and Miles Millar will act as the executive producers and showrunners of the series. Tim Burton is also on board as executive producer…

Graphic: Federal Communications CommissionThe Federal Communications Commission has finally released an up-to-date mobile broadband coverage map, giving consumers a long-needed tool to find out what kind of cellular coverage they can expect in any given area across the U.S. The interactive tool shows 4G LTE broadband data and voice mobile coverage of four of the…

Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt in Jungle CruiseImage: DisneyWith a $90 million dollar opening weekend, Jungle Cruise has set the standard for the theme park ride to movie pipeline.Producers of the film John Fox, and John Davis, spoke with Forbes to discuss how they transformed Jungle Cruise into a theater-ready story for the whole family.…

Photo: Carl Court / Staff (Getty Images)Apple’s new tool to suss out potential child abuse in iPhone photos is already sparking controversy. On Friday, just one day after it was announced, Will Cathcart, the head of Facebook’s messaging app, WhatsApp, said that the company would decline to adopt the software on the grounds that it…

Photo: Noah Berger (AP)The West is currently facing its worst megadrought in at least 1,200 years. This has caused multiple states to impose water restrictions, and it doesn’t look like things are going to get better any time soon. Lake Mead’s water supply, which provides water to Arizona, Nevada, and part of Mexico, is currently…

Image: Hasbro, Sideshow Collectibles, LegoWelcome back to Toy Aisle, io9’s regular round up of the latest and greatest things in toys. We’re still preparing for the holiday festivities even as we sweat our way through a scorching summer, but we’ve also got a perfect Power Rangers meets the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover, some tempting…