Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Cody Wilson, the self-identified “crypto-anarchist” CEO of 3D-printed gun organization Defense Distributed, has resigned following his arrest in Taiwan over charges of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl in Texas. Wilson is the activist behind Defense Distributed’s ongoing legal battle with the government over its plans to release free blueprints for small arms that can be…
According to the president, Jeff Sessions is not the Attorney General of the United States. But he keeps showing up to work and doing something. On Tuesday, he held a much-anticipated meeting with state attorneys general to discuss “political bias” on tech platforms. The transparent move to please his boss didn’t go as expected. Sessions…
There are six outstanding math problems that, if solved, will net you a $1 million reward. On Monday, a highly regarded mathematician claimed in a lecture that he has proven perhaps the most famous of these problems, called the Riemann hypothesis. But there’s reason to be skeptical. Plenty of people claim to have solved the…
Ambrosia—the startup that injects the plasma of young people into those 35 and older—is looking to open up shop in New York City. Chief operating officer David Cavalier told Gizmodo in an email that the company is looking at “several possible locations in Manhattan” and hopes to open up the clinic by the end of…
Twitter is expanding its rules on hateful conduct and will soon police “dehumanizing speech” on its platform. The move that could help stamp out some of the vilest content on the social network—if the company can adequately enforce it. The company announced the new rules in a blog Tuesday morning. In the post, Twitter trust…
Well here it is, following the Nikon Z7/Z6 and Canon EOS R, Panasonic is treating photo fanatics to the third new line of full-frame mirrorless cameras in as many months in the form of the new Lumix S1 and S1R. Unfortunately, as the shadowy image above implies, aside from providing a general megapixel count of 24-MP…
A puppet master who helped bring to life Disney’s vision of an African animal kingdom was arrested last week for allegedly 3D-printing guns in the prop room of the Broadway theater, court records show. New York Daily News reports that Ilya Vett’s printer was discovered when security officials were helping him clear out his possessions…
On Monday, the founders of Instagram announced they were leaving to focus on new opportunities. To the surprise of no one, it’s looking like the problem was the CEO of Instagram’s parent company, Facebook. And with those meddlesome founders out of the way, users should worry about a Facebook-ified Insta. For several years, Facebook was…
Facebook likes to outsource its most egregious issues, and weeding out the platform’s gruesome and graphic content is no exception. On Friday, a former Facebook content moderator sued the social network, alleging that she suffers from psychological trauma as a result of the job. Selena Scola was a content moderator contracted by Facebook from around…
Futuristic headlines here in the year 2018 might make you ask “why?” But back in the 1950s, illustrators in Detroit were asking “why not?” And perhaps nothing demonstrates that thinking better than this comic strip from 1958 by Arthur Radebaugh. The design of this taxi for the future is patently absurd. It has room enough…
It’s not going to set any world records, but this robotic Rubik’s Cube that’s filled with electronics and tiny electric motors is actually more impressive than watching someone race through the puzzle in a few seconds because it can solve itself without any assistance—aside from a human messing it up in the first place. A…
The HP Tango X, a compact home printer which is trying incredibly hard to be contemporary and relevant, is actually pretty cool. No, it is not 1999, and I am not typing this from a Gateway desktop tucked in a corner of my mom’s kitchen. This really is an inkjet printer to get excited about. Honestly.…
Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger plan to leave their jobs at the company in the coming weeks, according to a report in the New York Times on Monday. The co-founders later confirmed the news on Instagram’s blog. According to sources who spoke with the paper under the condition of anonymity, the two high-ups are…
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has been a frequent target of presidential vitriol as the Department of Justice official overseeing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference and its ties to Donald Trump’s administration. It’s only gotten worse since a report last week indicated Rosenstein may have suggested (jokingly or otherwise) that he…
In honor of its 20th anniversary, Google is making a load of changes to search, some you’ll notice and others will be more subtle. All will likely leave some users asking: “Do I really want this?” Google held a small press event in San Francisco and reportedly didn’t take any questions from journalists afterward. It…
When Apple announced the iPhone XS Max, there was a lot of simulated pearl-clutching from tech sites (including us), as people feigned shock and disbelief that Apple would make a handset that big, despite the XS Max’s screen being only marginally larger than what you get on a Galaxy Note 9. And when people started…
Earnings for gig economy workers in the transportation sector—think drivers for Uber, Lyft, or Postmates— plummeted by 53 percent, according to research from the JPMorgan Chase Institute. The study looked at banking data from 39 million Chase customers between 2013 and 2018. It found 530 percent growth in the number of people engaged in a…
The new and improved macOS 10.14 Mojave is rolling out to compatible Macs everywhere today. Here’s all the cool new stuff you can get busy with once you’ve installed the upgrade on your laptop or desktop. 1) Clean up your desktop Stacks is a new desktop feature that groups files on the desktop by type…
A new report from the Washington Post found that emergency rooms have seen a spike in incidents involving electric scooters. One particular hospital in Salt Lake City reported a 161 percent increase in scooter injuries—from eight injuries over a four-month time span in 2017 to 21 in that same time period this year. “Most of…
Once again, Google has rankled privacy-focused people with a product change that appears to limit users’ options. It’s easy to miss the fact that you’re automatically being logged-in to Chrome if you’re not paying attention. Chrome 69 released to users on September 5, and you likely noticed that it has a different look. But if…
