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The sex robot community—the people who make the sex robots, and the people who want to have sex with the sex robots—suffered a blow this past week, when the Houston City Council voted to preemptively ban what would’ve been the first sex robot “brothel” in the U.S. But even those council members must know that…
The longest flight in the world right now is from Perth, Australia to London, clocking in at roughly 17.5 hours. But that’s all going to change this week when Singapore Airlines starts flying from Singapore to Newark, New Jersey. Total flight time? Just under 19 hours. The flights start on Thursday, October 11th, and will…
Halloween may still be most of a month away, but the scares have already begun. Urine-craved vampires. Genetically engineered insects that do their masters’ bidding. Algal monstrosities. Dark magicks. iPhone XS bugs. Ward yourself from these dangers and more with the ultimate talisman: knowledge. Gizmodo’s best stories of the last week will arm you with…
On October 2nd, 2018, Saudi journalist-in-exile and frequent critic of the country’s ruling monarchy Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. resident, entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to obtain routine documentation for his upcoming marriage to his Turkish fiancée Hatice Cengiz. He was never seen leaving—and, according to the New York Times, Turkish officials are anonymously confirming…
The Department of Homeland Security released a statement this weekend supporting Apple and Amazon’s denial of an explosive Bloomberg Businessweek report claiming that a Chinese military unit inserted microchips into Super Micro Computer Inc (Supermicro) server motherboards in widespread use at U.S. companies, saying “at this time we have no reason to doubt the statements…
Google has had a rough time ahead of its October hardware launch event—namely, spoilers about the upcoming Pixel 3 line keep leaking online via Russian tech bloggers, Imgur posts, and even the backseats of Lyft cabs. It’s gotten so bad some have cooked up wild theories Google is deliberately leaking inaccurate information about the phones.…
A framed canvas version of Girl with Balloon by Banksy, the pseudonymous street artist whose true identity remains unknown despite the best efforts of researchers and journalists alike, just sold at London auction house Sotheby’s for at least $1.1 million. At pretty much the exact moment the work was sold, a hidden device in the…
Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court in a 50-48 vote with just one Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin, voting in the affirmative on Saturday, despite massive protests and several allegations of sexual assault by the nominee. Facebook, whose vice president for global public policy Joel Kaplan supported Kavanaugh by appearing at Senate hearings in…
Microsoft has temporarily halted the rollout of its October 2018 update for Windows 10 (version 1809), writing in a page dedicated to the update that it would “investigate isolated reports of users missing some files after updating.” The update—a major revision to Windows 10 that includes tools like a cloud clipboard and a preliminary version…
As I was driving from Malaga to Cadiz for the unveiling of the first full-scale Hyperloop capsule, I got stuck on a simple math problem: “If it takes me two and a half hours to travel this 150-mile route, then the Hyperloop would take…” Oh, what does it matter? The road is steep and the…
According to an automated email distributed this afternoon, an Amazon employee was fired for sharing customer email addresses with an unknown seller. It reads: Hello, We are writing to let you know that your email address was disclosed by an Amazon employee to a third-party seller on our website in violation of our policies. As…
Chernobyl is producing power again—though not the kind that triggered a nuclear meltdown 32 years ago. Ukraine is now turning to solar power, and in the process, making good use of land that won’t be habitable to humans for another 24,000 years. A modest one-megawatt plant, located just a hundred yards from the infamous Chernobyl…
Silicon Valley has pissed off a great number of people, particularly in 2018, so promising to grab Mark Zuckerberg by the short hairs and rein in his company’s misuse of personal data seems like a pretty good way to rally the troops. It’s not Facebook alone, of course, but every company trading in the intimate…
Have you heard about the latest Apple-related scandal? No not the right to repair one, or the servers potentially infiltrated by the Chinese government one. I’m talking Beautygate! A growing number of iPhone XS and XS Max users have noted that the cameras on these devices are aggressive in their skin smoothing, and one Twitter…
A Michigan man recently learned that this 22-pound rock he used for decades as a doorstop on his farm was in fact a meteorite worth over $100,000. According to a Central Michigan University press release: The man, who asked to remain anonymous, obtained the meteorite in 1988 when he bought a farm in Edmore, Michigan,…
A Toronto-based “adult love dolls rent before you buy service” intended to open up what’s been called a “sex robot brothel” in Houston, Texas, but the city council just unanimously voted on a new regulation that throws a wrench into those plans. On Wednesday, the Houston City Council voted to amend a local ordinance, banning…
New reports from Motherboard and MacRumors suggest that Apple’s 2018 MacBook Pro, as well as the iMac Pro, can be bricked if the repairs are not performed by Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider. Both publications acquired documents distributed to Authorized Service Providers detailing the need to use diagnostic software, known as the AST…
Facebook could soon start gathering location information from users’ Instagram accounts, if it implements a feature that the company has prototyped. TechCrunch reports that Instagram has explored a new setting that enables the app to share users’ GPS coordinates with Facebook, which could allow Facebook to know Instagram users’ location even when they’re not using…
You might not know the name Will Vinton. But if you grew up watching TV in the 1980s and 90s, you definitely know his work. Vinton was the genius behind claymation characters like the California Raisins, the Domino’s Noid, and the M&M’s before they were taken over by CGI. Vinton died yesterday of cancer after…
An Italian winery, L’enoteca Zanardo Giussano in Conegliano, Veneto, lost approximately 8,000 gallons of bubbly on September 25, due to an overserved silo. The winery posted a short video of the outburst on Facebook. I feel drunk just looking at this deluge of Prosecco flowing out of the giant tank. The short clip shows a…
