Latest

Our Favorite Android, iOS, and Windows Phone Apps of the Week

We’re busy preparing for all the new smartwatches, phones, and gadgets that will be coming out of IFA in Berlin next week, but let’s take a moment to remember all the neat software that will fill up those cases of aluminum, glass, and silicon. Here are the best apps from this week. Android Cortana Wait.…

Beach Stink Smells Bad Because It Went Through Two Different Animals

As much as we like to marvel at the power and majesty of the ocean, we have to admit that as beautiful as it is, it also stinks. It stinks because it’s shot through with sulfur. And that sulfur has seen the insides of two different creatues before it got to your nose. Our story…

120,000-piece Lego Erebor Is Twice the Size Of a Hobbit

Michał Kaźmierczak is the Lego super-builder responsible for the massive gates of Erebor build from The Hobbit. Well, he’s now added an insanely-large Lego interior to the build. And it’s incredibly cool. In total 120,000 bricks were used to build the 7-foot tall, 5.5-foot deep, 6-foot wide behemoth. And itweighs as much as two dwarves…

Nextwave Is A Bloody Brilliant Comic Book That Everyone Should Read

While researching my article on Monica Rambeau’s unfortunate history, I naturally re-read one of her standout series: Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen’s Nextwave: Agents of HATE. It’s a comic I already held dear to my heart, but it re-affirmed what I previously thought: It’s the most joyful comic Marvel have ever released. https://gizmodo.com/the-unfortunate-and-obscure-history-of-monica-rambeau-1726108988 Warren Ellis’…

American Drones Are Killing ISIS Hackers Now

ISIS talks a big talk when it comes to hacking, and United States forces just showed they’re not going to put up with it. The Obama administration just announced that a drone strike has killed the organization’s top cyber-terrorist, Junaid Hussain. At least one American leader says the rest of the ISIS hackers should watch…

How did H.P. Lovecraft conquer popular culture? In The Atlantic, writer Philip Eil examines the posthumous history of Lovecraft’s works and the current mania for all things Cthulhu. At the same time, he asks: How can fans reconcile their affection for Lovecraft’s fiction with the author’s virulent racism? [via Boing Boing]

Guillermo Del Toro Wants Pacific Rim 3 to Have Godzilla as a Guest Star

Guillermo Del Toro wants to move Pacific Rim from kaiju homage to straight-up kaiju canon. Good luck with that. Speaking with Movie Pilot, Del Toro said: So far with the sequel, what we’re writing, what we’re creating, is very different, so there are no plans. Hypothetically, I would love the fuck out of it. I…

Judge Dredd Explodes out of This Brand New, Exclusive Poster

Few non-superhero comic book characters are as iconic as Judge Dredd. I mean, the guy has had two movies made about him along with decades of great comics. Part of that is because, when John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra created the character in the late Seventies, his look was so unique and striking. That look…

Earth Is Probably Locked Into at Least Three Feet of Sea Level Rise

Global sea levels are expected to rise at least three feet in the coming generations, displacing hundreds of millions of people, NASA said this week. And the space agency is prepared to catalog the disappearance of Earth’s coastlines in rich scientific detail. Over at Motherboard, Becky Ferreira has a rundown of a recent NASA panel…

Will the Game of Thrones TV Series Actually Stand the Test of Time?

Greetings, folks! I’m in the desolate ruins of New York City, visiting the former Gawker offices for the first time (honestly, it’s hard to tell what was destroyed in the apocalypse and what is just unfinished construction). But there’s always time for mail, including why toy collectors are so bitter, whether movie Wolverine will ever…

The Best Operations Security Propaganda Posters From World War II

“Loose tweets destroy fleets.” That’s the slogan of the United States Air Force’s latest operations security (OPSEC) campaign, and if the phrase sounds familiar, don’t be surprised. We collected 50 propaganda posters from World War II that show an age when keeping military secrets was a matter of life or death. In the 1940s, operations…

How To Survive A Mass Shooting

As a kid, fire drills taught you fire safety. And you haven’t been killed by a fire. Your parents trained similarly for nuclear war. With 248 mass shootings in US in the 238 days of 2015, it’s time we began treating those the same way. This is how. That statistic is drawn from ShootingTracker.com, a…

Alienware’s Small Gaming Desktop Is Getting a Big Boost

Alienware generally makes giant honking gaming computers. There are two exceptions: The tiny Alpha, and the console-sized X51 desktop. And today, the X51 is getting some pretty huge additions—including custom liquid cooling, PCIe solid state storage, and external graphics. In other words: If you’re looking for all the power and upgradability of a full gaming…

This Urban Fantasy Story Will Make You Realize Just How Creepy Psychic Gifts Can Be

The Apex Book of World SF 4, available now as an ebook for just $4.49, contains 28 stories from all over the world. We’re proud to feature one of them, “The Good Matter” by Swedish author Nene Ormes, as an exclusive excerpt here at io9. Learn just how twisted someone with a psychic ability can…

Who causes more destruction in superhero movies, heroes or villains?

Lost in all those superhero comic book flicks that hijack too many screens in movie theaters is how in preventing a villain from let’s say, world destruction or universe domination, the superhero becomes responsible for a lot of damage to a city. Like seriously, cities get messed up. Imagine being a citizen of a world…

The FDA Is Cracking Down on American Spirit and So-Called “Natural” Cigarettes

If you’re a smoker looking for a “healthier” cigarette you may have turned to American Spirits in recent years. They’re marketed as “natural” and “additive-free,” leading many people to believe that they’re less harmful. This, of course, is bullshit. And now the FDA wants to finally crack down on them. For the first time ever,…

Neil deGrasse Tyson Describes NASA’s Mission in Latest Peek at The Martian

We’ve gotten a few looks at Ares 3, the mission at the heart of the upcoming film The Martian, and this one comes courtesy of astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Coming to us from the year 2035, Tyson explains the challenges that the crew of the Martian mission will face. It’s fun to see an actual…

Watch Gas-Guzzling Androids Battle in a Mad Max-Style Dystopian Future

The music video for The Chemical Brothers’ “Sometimes I Feel So Deserted” takes us to a literal desert, one that looks straight out of an Australian post-apolyptic movie. And when a woman finds herself on the run from some rather nefarious figures, it quickly becomes clear that it’s not just the cars that run on…

Ray Bradbury’s FBI File Shows That He Was a Threat To Our Emotional Security

Ray Bradbury’s FBI file is not newly uncovered—it first appeared online in 2012 at Muckrock—but it’s been making the rounds this week. And as Slate’s Future Tense points out, it seems particularly timely given all of the debates over politics in science fiction. The FBI actually investigated Bradbury twice, with more than a decade between…

Self-Repairing Material Could Prevent Spaceship Catastrophes

Orbiting the Earth is a bit like living in a minefield, with millions of tiny flecks of space junk whizzing about at thousands of miles per hour. If a rice-sized pellet whacked into the International Space Station, it could pack the punch of a hand grenade, causing precious oxygen to seep into space. So materials…