Chris Mills

AshleyMadison Confirms Hack, Purges Leaked Info From Internet

AshleyMadison, noted online home of serial adulterers, has confirmed that yes, someone did rummage through its 37 million-strong blackmail database. But the company also denies that it was swindling customers over the ‘paid-delete’ option, and has managed to take down any information leaked thus far. In a statement issued earlier today, AshleyMadison owners Avid Life…

Hackers Threaten to Expose 37 Million Cheating AshleyMadison Users

AshleyMadison—tagline “Life Is Short. Have An Affair”—is an online site that facilitates cheating among its 37 million users. It’s a service founded on confidentiality and privacy, which now seems to have all of its data in the hands of hackers. They’re demanding the company take down the site, or they’re going to out a lot…

Add Missiles To the List of Weapons You Can (Sorta) 3-D Print

3-D printing has already spawned dart guns, pistols, and rifles, but up until now, the 3-D printed arsenal has been lacking the firepower of a guided missile. That’s something that Raytheon, noted producer of things that go bang, wants to change. The company has been working on 3-D printing the component parts of its guided…

The Galaxy Tab S2 Is Samsung’s Next Flagship Tablet

Last year, Samsung redefined how many pixels you can cram into 10 inches with the Galaxy Tab S; this year, it’s back with a thinner and lighter second round. https://gizmodo.com/samsung-galaxy-tab-s-review-good-lord-that-display-1595179884 The Tab S2 will come in two sizes, just like the tablet it’s replacing: a smaller 8-inch model, and the full-size 9.7-inch version (a tad…

Instagram Hijacked An Account to Give It to Soccer Star 

Andres Iniesta is a Spanish soccer star, captain of FC Barcelona and player on the national team. A different Andres Iniesta is a regular guy from Madrid, and owner of the @ainiesta Instagram account. Or at least, he was. According to a post written by the non-sports-star Iniesta, his Instagram account was spontaneously frozen on…

Windows 10 Will Kill The Installation DVD, Finally

If you’re one of those quaint people who still uses ‘physical media’ to install new versions of operating systems, Windows 10 could have a big shock in store for you: USB drives replacing the clunky old reinstallation DVDs of yore. The idea that Windows 10 would be shipped (mostly) on USB drives rather than traditional…

Thanks to short supply and finicky invite system, getting your hands on the (excellent) OnePlus One has always been a bit of a struggle. For the imminent arrival of the updated OnePlus Two, the company is overhauling its invite system, with much more stock on hand, and a long-overdue reservation list. [OnePlus] Contact the author…

This Map Shows The Frightening Overlap Between Pollution and Poverty

The Enviornmental Protection Agency has a new tool called EJSCREEN, which lets you overlay the agency’s environmental data on a geographic map, along with layers of information showing poverty. The result is as depressing as you’d probably expect. The maps are color-coded to show poverty, and pollution (as measured by fine particle density). Grey is…

Zenfone 2 Review: Why Shouldn’t You Buy This Fantastic Budget Phone?

For the past year, if you wanted a cheap-but-good smartphone, the internet would point you firmly in the direction of OnePlus and its too-good-to-be-true One smartphone. Now, it has some competition: the ZenFone 2 from Asus. https://gizmodo.com/oneplus-one-review-an-unbelievably-fantastic-smartphon-1598476240 What Is It? An unlocked 5.5-inch Android handset, which you can easily buy off-contract and use on any…

You Now Have No Excuse Not to Email Your Member of Congress

When you have to go to three whole separate websites to find the names and email addresses of your representatives, it’s easy to pass on contacting them. But thanks to a new tool made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, that job now requires about five clicks (and just a little moral stamina). The EFF’s new…

Here’s the Home-Made Gun-Toting Quadcopter Nightmares Are Made Of

I’m not normally of the school of thought that quadrotors should be terminated with a shotgun, but then again, I’ve never seen a DIY drone just casually flying around with a handgun. Until now. The YouTube video doesn’t give much to go on, other than that this is a) a homemade drone, and b) very…

Missiles Are Literally Falling Off Britain’s Crumbling Jets

While Britain waits (and waits, and waits) for the F-35 to stop breaking, the mainstay of its ground-attack aircraft remains the Panavia Tornado, a ‘70s airframe that is not aging gracefully. Exhibit A: the two Brimstone missiles that accidentally ‘became detached’ during a landing in Cyprus today. Britain’s Akorotiri airbase on Cyprus is being used…

Best Buy Is [Update: Was] Selling $200 Gift Cards for $15

Thanks to an (assumed) technical glitch that will almost certainly get someone fired in the morning, Best Buy’s website is currently offering a $200 gift card for $15. Even if your order will almost certainly be cancelled, it’s probably worth a try. Update: And it seems to be gone, but still working for some people!…

How Shipping Containers (and Their Monster Cranes) Changed The World

Talk to a future-technology brand evangelist (sadly a real thing), and they’ll probably tell you that the Internet of Things is the next up-and-coming trend. But for the last 40 years, a very different kind of network of interconnected stuff has been quietly revolutionizing the global economy. Shipping containers, being at heart a 8x8x20 steel…

Uber has settled a lawsuit with the family of a 6-year-old killed by an UberX driver. Sofia Liu was hit on a San Francisco cross-walk on New Year’s Eve 2013; the driver had the Uber app running on his phone at the time. The terms of the settlement are under wraps, but given Uber’s billion-dollar…

The New Horizons Mission, From Pluto’s Point of View

Why You Should Care About Google’s New Open-Source Bluetooth Beacons

Back in 2013, Apple enthusiastically announced iBeacons, Bluetooth-powered beacons that would interact with your iDevice. They were enthusiastically forgotten about by everyone but Apple Stores and the Toronto Maple Leafs; but thanks to Google’s rival project, Bluetooth beacons might not be dead yet. Bluetooth beacons are tiny transmitters, which constantly beam out a signal to…

Go Get All the Patches To Fix the Hacking Team Exploits

In addition to definitively exposing Hacking Team as a spyware-shilling immoral bunch of crap, the recent dump of Hacking Team emails also revealed a bunch of zero-day exploits in Flash, Internet Explorer, and Java. If for some unfathomable reason you’re still using those programs, you should probably download today’s patches. https://gizmodo.com/hack-exposes-what-an-utter-piece-of-shit-this-spyware-c-1716075907 Adobe released a new…

Volcanic Eruptions Are Even More Impressive From Space

Volcanic eruptions are awe-inspiring if you’re standing nearby — no wonder the Romans thought an angry god lived under Etna — but to get a real sense of perspective, it helps to be a little higher up. The image above was captured by NASA’s Aqua satellite, and shows the plume of ash and gases drifting…

Apple Pay is now officially live in the UK, marking the first time the service has escaped outside the US. Starting today, iPhone 6 and Apple Watch-wearing Brits will be able to pay for stuff — and ride the subway! — without needing anything so 20th century as a wallet. [The Telegraph]