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A department of the US State Department dedicated to diplomatic security has reportedly procured a $15,000, Apple TV-sized device its manufacturers advertise as being able to break iPhone encryption in anywhere from two hours to three days. Per Motherboard, public federal procurement documents show that the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security purchased a GrayKey…
Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg seem increasingly worried about the fallout of the Cambridge Analytica data-scraping scandal, which has put a renewed focus on the terrifying amount of info it has accumulated on its users, and specifically how doling all that information out to third parties for profit is its real business model. The…
Self-declared Flat Earth researcher and DIY steam rocket enthusiast “Mad” Mike Hughes has finally managed to prove the haters wrong about his ability to blast himself some 1,875 feet into the sky without being crushed or scalded to death, the Associated Press reported on Sunday. After the failure of two previous attempts to launch his…
Mark Zuckerberg and his data-hoarding creation Facebook remain in the crosshairs this week as scrutiny over its Cambridge Analytica profile-scraping scandal continues to mount, with the social media giant’s stock price falling by over 13 percent this week. So it’s not surprising that some of his fellow tech moguls are taking Zuckerberg’s moment of vulnerability…
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have churned out across the country on Saturday to support the March for Our Lives movement demanding action on gun control and that politicians begin standing up to the National Rifle Association. That movement is spearheaded by student survivors of mass shootings, particularly those who attended the Parkland, Florida high…
UK authorities with the Information Commissioner’s Office raided the offices of Cambridge Analytica, a shady election-data firm that allegedly partnered with an app to take advantage of mile-wide loopholes in Facebook policies and run off with 50 million users’ data, on Friday. Per the AP, the much-awaited raid took place after a High Court judge…
This week was full of startling, scary news about how carelessly Facebook treated user data, and how Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy previously led in part by Steve Bannon, abused access to that data, possibly for Trump’s presidential campaign. The news was all but obvious to those who follow the company closely, yet the implications…
A grand jury in Wyandotte County, Kansas has returned an indictment against waterpark and resort operator Schlitterbahn and one of its managers, charging them with “involuntary manslaughter, aggravated battery, and reckless endangerment of a child” over the 2016 death-by-decapitation of 10-year-old Caleb Schwab on the world’s tallest water slide, the Kansas City Star reported. Per…
Anyone who’s had to read the words “circling back on this…” will appreciate a newly proposed bill in New York City. NYC Councilman Rafael Espinal introduced a bill Thursday that would fine employers $500 if they force employees to check emails after work. While officially titled as “Private employees disconnecting from electronic communications during non-work…
Humans need food to survive. Many of the characters of the Star Wars universe, human or otherwise, are depicted eating for just that reason. Despite being mostly human, however, there is no clear way for Darth Vader to get sustenance to the part of his face that accepts food. This is, of course, a mystery…
It has no inherent value and causes observers to rotate between feelings of fascination and anger. We’re talking about cryptocurrency, but also art. In a new series, artist Andy Bauch is bringing the two subjects together with works that use abstract patterns constructed in Lego bricks. Each piece visually represents the private key to a…
It’s been a rough 2018 for Huawei, and we’re not even a full quarter in yet. First AT&T, then Verizon, and most recently BestBuy have all canceled deals to carry Huawei phones in their stores, an arrangement the Chinese phone maker desperately needed as it seeks to gain traction in the US. Now, it seems…
My apologies to anyone who doesn’t happen to live in the Northeastern United States. I don’t want you to feel bad for us. But I do want you to recognize the fact that we’ve been walloped with four enormous snowstorms in three weeks. Adding insult to injury, the most recent one occurred the day after…
On Friday, Apple submitted a proposal to Emojipedia for a suite of new accessibility emoji. There are 13 in total, which expands to 43 when you take into account skin tone options. They include a guide and service dog, a person with a cane, a person in both mechanical and manual wheelchairs, a person signing,…
British election authorities have reportedly acquired a warrant to search the London offices of Cambridge Analytica. The UK’s Information Commission said on Saturday that it had launched an investigation into Cambridge Analytica following confirmation by Facebook last week that the political consultancy had acquired data on 50 million users without their consent. In a breaking…
As this year has dragged on, science fans have probably thought, dang, this federal government hates funding research and scientists. We also thought that. But despite the White House’s initial proposal, science agencies will be getting a somewhat surprising funding boost across the board for research. There’s a whole lot here. Matt Hourihan, director of the…
Luca, a 12-year-old student at Mt. Tabor Middle School in Portland, Oregon, first learned about net neutrality through an Instagram post. “Before it was repealed, I was just trying to tell people about it,” Luca tells Gizmodo. Soon, she’d gotten her two friends, 12-year-old Athena and 13-year-old Lola, interested in net neutrality—an issue that is…
America was the target of broad, state-sponsored disinformation campaigns waged through social media platforms. Tumblr, one of the less popular targets, released a list of 84 accounts it believes to be associated with this nefarious plot, which the company plans to maintain as more information becomes available. (It also alerted uses via email if they…
You ever look at the heaving bosom of a man—say Michael B. Jordan or Chris Hemsworth—and think “I want to grind up in there with my face for years and years?” Japanese artist Shirane apparently has. The artist, a recent graduate of the Ochanomizu Institute of Art in Tokyo, has launched a crowdfunding campaign on…
Elon Musk just deleted the Facebook pages for his companies SpaceX and Tesla in the wake of backlash against the social media company this week. And it’s a really bad sign for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. SpaceX had over 2.6 million likes on Facebook before it was ordered taken down by the billionaire founder. Tesla…
