Sony’s quest to stamp out traces of leaked email across the web continues, with the company now threatening to sue Twitter if the social network doesn’t ban accounts that are sharing information from the leaks. In a letter obtained by Motherboard, sent from Sony lawyer David Boies to Twitter’s general counsel Vijaya Gadde, it’s stated…
Ever wondered what kind of lyrics define an era? In this visualization, David Taylor looked for words in Billboard song titles that appeared during a given decade more than other decades and then charted them. The results are pretty interesting. The chart shows the top five words most unique to that decade, stretching all the…
Apple has pushed out out its first-ever automated security update to Macs. The patch will fix a security flaw that could see hackers gain remote access to computers. The update first started rolling out on Monday. It fixes a component of the OS which relates to network time protocol (NTP), which is used for synchronizing…
Google now shows song lyrics with search results (for some songs). Christmas karaoke, anyone?
Yesterday, North Korea’s internet went dark, with security researchers claiming that internet was down entirely across the entire country. Now, the country’s connection seems to be at least partially restored. https://gizmodo.com/north-koreas-internet-is-totally-screwed-right-now-1674118374 A team from Dyn Research tell the BBC that Internet services were partly restored after a total outages of 9 hours and 31 minutes.…
South Korea’s nuclear power plant operator is conducting a two-day drill to test its resilience to digital attacks, following a series of posts on Twitter from a hacker claiming to have compromised power station computer networks. Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP), which runs 23 reactors and supplies around a third of the country’s electricity,…
Ever wondered how astronauts go about working out if organisms can survive the stresses of space? Largely by strapping them to the side of the International Space Station is how. In this image, you can see the European Space Agency’s Expose-R2 project. The unit, attached to the outside of the ISS, contains 46 species of…
A staggering 22,680 users have seen fit to award The Interview a perfect 10 on IMDb. Which is impressive for a film that virtually nobody is ever going to see. Update: Sadly, the score is now back down to 9.9. While the score for the film has been hovering at 9.9, Verge notes that today…
Over the weekend, the U.S. asked China to help it stop North Korean hackers. Now, China has publicly stated that, while it condemns cyberattacks, it believes that there is no proof that North Korea was responsible for the recent hacks of Sony Pictures. https://gizmodo.com/u-s-wants-china-to-stop-north-korean-hackers-with-a-b-1673612390 In the statement, reports Reuters, China made no reference to requests…
Next time you’re annoyed that someone tagged an unattractive picture of you on Facebook, just be thankful that you don’t weigh 13,170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds. [Doghouse Diaries]
Snapchat has decided to clamp down on third-party apps (for good reason). But now, Windows Phone users will find that they’re left without any way to sext—given that there’s no official app and all the other options have no been removed from the Windows Phone Store. Windows Central reports that third-party Snapchat apps have already…
North Korea isn’t happy with the U.S.. After the FBI pointed the finger firmly at North Korea and Barack Obama got on board, the country has warned that it will strike the White House and “the whole US mainland, that cesspool of terrorism”. https://gizmodo.com/obama-sony-made-a-mistake-pulling-the-interview-1673268761 Such rhetoric is hardly new from North Korea, but it does…
It may sounder counter-intuitive, but adding drops of humble old water into solid materials can actually increase their strength and changes their other properties in interesting and useful ways. Researchers from Yale have discovered that adding droplets of water into some solids can strengthen and stiffen them, by virtue of their surface tension. The force…
These distinctive underwater features of the Great Bahamas Bank are made of limestone, largely from the skeletal fragments of marine organisms, which has been accumulating for over 100 million years and is shaped by underwater currents. The image was captured the European Space Agency’s Landsat-8. [ESA]
Around Christmast, a lot of food comes laced with alcohol. But while the commonly held view is that much of it gets burned off in the cooking process, this video demonstrates that there’s plenty left in there to see you exceed the safe limits for driving. This responsible piece of journalism, put together by the…
The system of democracy is built on the rather more humble system of voting. And voting is built on the two fundamentals of anonymity and trust. This video explains why, right now, digital voting doesn’t provide over of those two things well enough. Tom Scott gives a pretty great run down here of the ways…
ICANN—the organization that looks after the names and domains of the Internet—has suffered a serious phishing attack that’s compromised its data. The attacks were initiated in November 2014, and used emails that appeared to originate from ICANN servers to dupe employees. The attack resulted in email credential being stolen, and now ICANN has also explained…
Amazon has announced that a new service called Prime Now will provide one-hour delivery for a range of “daily essentials.” The service launches in Manhattan today. The company says it plans to introduce Prime Now to additional cities in 2015. Prime Now—available just to Prime subscribers—will ship books, toys, and other everyday items to your…
Google’s Cardboard VR headset is great and getting better. Now, you can tour Street View using its budget virtual reality hardware, too. https://gizmodo.com/googles-cardboard-vr-headset-is-about-to-be-better-than-1669466017 A new feature in Google Maps for Android allows Cardboard users to use a VR mode in Street View. You just have to double-tap the navigation circle in the lower right corner…
Gamma ray bursts—powerful burst of electromagnetic radiation—are more common on Earth than previously realized. Scientists have discovered that they’re generated as many as 1,100 times a day in the storms that occur on the surface of our planet. The finding comes from new observations made by NASA’s Fermi satellite. It’s been measuring gamma-ray radiation emanating…
