Annalee Newitz

Massive Online Protests in India Over Net Neutrality

Just as the United States seems on the brink of accepting net neutrality regulations, protests over a similar issue are erupting in India and Europe. Though net neutrality looks a little different in these regions, the issues are still fundamentally the same. According to Jayadevan PK, writing in The Times of India: In one of…

HBO Now Review: It Passed the Game of Thrones Test, But Is That Enough?

I still remember that terrible night in 2011 when millions of fans screamed in agony as Game of Thrones started, stuttered, and died on HBO Go. We all felt burned by HBO’s crappy internet service. But HBO Now, launched just in time for last night’s GOT premiere, promised to be better. Was it? Yes. What…

Wearables Are All About Giving You a “Rich Person Experience”

Over the weekend, economist Paul Krugman wrote an interesting column for the New York Times that explains why Apple is emphasizing wealth and luxury in its Apple Watch campaigns. Krugman believes that’s because all wearables are aimed at giving you an experience that only super rich people can have. Krugman starts by talking about how…

Why the Hell Can’t I Watch Murphy Brown Online?

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer saysthat without the 1990s TV series Murphy Brown to inspire her, she wouldn’t have gotten where she is today. The show was so influential that Vice President Dan Quayle turned the main character, played by Candice Bergen, into a political meme. And yet this series isn’t available anywhere online. In her…

This Craigslist Ad for a Genetic Engineer Is Pure Wonderful Madness

I have loved a lot of Craigslist ads in my time, but I truly love this one the most. It sounds like a plot ripped from The Avengers or Fantastic Four, crossed with VC-funded biotech startup madness. Here’s what the ad says: I am a billionaire who needs help creating a mouth wash.solution.gum with CRISPR-Cas9…

Game of Thrones Was Pirated 7 Million Times in the Last 3 Months

Citing a study from anti-piracy service Irdeto, Hollywood Reporter claims that episodes of Game of Thrones were illegally downloaded 7 million times in a three month period this year. Pirates love dragons, obviously. Those numbers are up from last year, when the show was downloaded 8 million times in twelve months, according to Torrent Freak.…

Edward Snowden Tells John Oliver How to Generate the Best Passphrases

On Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, a long conversation with Edward Snowden wound up turning into advice on coming up with good passwords. The upshot? Passwords of 8 characters or less are basically crackable in seconds. And the best (memorable) password that Snowden could come up with was margaretthatcheris110%SEXY. Contact the author at [email protected].…

All the Ways That Your Livefeed Is a Lie

There’s nothing new about streaming video from your phone, or posting live news updates from important events. But now companies are trying to make the experience of streaming your life more real than ever before — and they’re doing it by telling us very dangerous white lies. Image by Alexander Supertramp via Shutterstock Livestreaming started…

45 Percent of People Featured in Memes are White

It turns out that memes are something that white people like. At least, that’s one possible way to understanda recent study of 50 popular memes, which found that there are an awful lot of white people in these widely-shared internet joke cycles. Over at the Washington Post, Caitlin Dewey explains this aspect of the study:…

The Guerrilla Movement To Deploy Sensors All Over Your City

“You want to see our sensor?” Pierre Forcioli-Conti gestures at a high window that leads to the roof. “You’ll have to climb over Matt’s desk and go out the window.” No problem. I wriggle through the window and climb out on top of the the refurbished 1940s movie theater on Mission Street in San Francisco.…

​How Autodesk’s Experimental Lab Gave Us an Odd Little Star Wars Movie

The long rectangles of San Francisco’s famous piers gave the city a blocky, geometric border with the Bay over a century ago. Now these abandoned remnants of the Barbary Coast are being rejuvenated by companies like software giant Autodesk, whose Pier 9 Workshop is so experimental that it feels like science fiction. On an early…

I Paid a UX Expert $100 to Get Drunk and Evaluate Gizmodo’s Design

It happened late on Tuesday night. Of course I was working. “Have you seen this?” my colleague Chris Mills texted. He followed up with the link to a site where a rather devilish-looking UX professional promised to get drunk and evaluate the website of your choice. Only $75! I knew I had to do it,…

30 Previously-Unknown Species of Fly Discovered in Los Angeles

Nature doesn’t end at the borders of a city — it’s just transformed. That’s why scientists are finding new animal species in urban areas, where the ecosystems favor scavengers, hardy weeds, and junk-eaters. It probably comes as no surprise that the sprawling city of Los Angeles is home to its own unique fly species. Today,…

Head to the Robogames Next Weekend to Greet Your New Overlords

Do you like to watch expertly designed robots smash and grind each other to bits? What about watching them compete to solve mazes, or win a game of soccer? If you’re a normal person and said yes to all these questions, then you need to be at Robogames — and it’s coming up next weekend.…

This Woodcut from 19th Century Japan Reveals Deep LOLcat History

This video is an animation based on a Japanese woodcut called “Popular Hotspring Spa (of Cats).” It’s from 1880, but artist Utagawa Yoshifuji’s imaginary world of spa cats looks like something that’s unfolding at the intersection of LOLcat and internetville. This woodcut is just one of many on display at New York’s Japan Society right…

Using Origami to Make a Shape with No Volume and Infinite Surface Area

It should surprise no one that MIT has an origami team whose goal is to create a third level version of a 3-D fractal known as a Menger Sponge, whose ultimate incarnation is a shape with zero volume and infinite surface area. Here’s how they do it. Working with business cards and some kids, the…

Video About Newt Sex Shows Just How Boring Human Sex Really Is

Sure, humans have invented fancy sex toys and internet sexbots, but we have nothing on newts when it comes to humping. That’s because getting horny doesn’t cause our bodies to change shape and grow fins so that we can make babies underwater. Newts do that and more. This video is part of KQED’s awesome series…

Why is the Times quoting this quack on the danger of Apple Watches? [Gawker]

Social Graph Reveals Disturbing Connections Between Subreddits

The people who moderate some of Reddit’s most popular forums, including ones that have been defaults, are also the same people creating forums for nonconsensual pornography and snuff pictures. In a story about Reddit’s new CEO Ellen Pao in The Guardian, Alex Hern and Helena Bingsston explore the commonly-held idea that there is a “mainstream”…

How did this Arabic-inscribed ring wind up in a 9th century Viking grave? [io9]