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In mid-January, the Hawaiian state Emergency Management Agency sent out an erroneous text to all cell phones in the state warning of a “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII,” sending many residents into an hour-long panic as they ran for cover from what they feared was a North Korean nuclear bomb. Though it first appeared…
After Reddit and image-hosting platform Gfycat began removing porn videos digitally altered via machine-learning techniques to swap performers’ faces with those of someone else’s—a genre known as deepfakes—porn site Pornhub is following their lead. Per Motherboard, Pornhub said that it considers generating deepfakes of other people to be clearly non-consensual. It compared deepfakes to revenge…
In December, 17 people were injured after a trolley car collided with another in Boston, which was initially attributed to an “operator error.” But more details have now emerged, with authorities saying the trolley driver was trying to delete a Reddit post right before the crash. Police say the driver, 42-year-old Leroy H. Mattison, also…
No matter what you do for a living, there’s a very good chance that at least some part of your job involves pecking away at a computer keyboard. That’s not going to change anytime soon, but watching a plastic keyboard melt away in a pool of acetone at least provides some cathartic satisfaction. You might…
There’s no shortage of meticulously crafted illustrations and animations out there if you’re looking to tax and perplex your brain, but sometimes optical illusions can happen naturally in the real world. Like when someone put two copies of this same photo side-by-side, resulting in a bizarre illusion where your brain thinks these two roads actually…
In a few short days the Olympics will descend upon the Earth, and with it will come hundreds of stories of triumph and failure that you need to be able to watch—or at least talk about the next day. Your best friend is about to turn into an ice skating expert, and your brother is…
Amazon’s “Prime Exclusive” phones always seemed like a tantalizing deal, because if you were already a Prime subscriber, you could save $25, $50, $100, or more on handsets from well-known manufacturers like LG and Motorola. But until now, there was always a catch, because those savings came with lock screen ads and offers that Amazon…
A dating policy instituted by Facebook can be best boiled down to this: take the L. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the company has a rule that employees can only ask out a colleague once, and, if rebuffed, cannot ask them out again. Facebook’s global head of employment law told the Journal that…
The heads of the Securities Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sat before a congressional committee this morning to restate their intent to regulate—but not stifle—cryptocurrency and its related offerings. During questioning, however, it became clear that foundational issues are stalling progress in cracking down on fraudsters. Following opening remarks from the SEC’s…
With less than three weeks to go until Samsung officially unveils it next flagship Galaxy S phone, leaks and rumors have already given us what seems like a pretty good look at the phone. And despite a body that’s almost indistinguishable from last year’s phone—especially from the front—the Galaxy S9 is shaping up to be…
At its own discretion, the Federal Communications Commission has chosen to block the release of records related to a video produced last year in which FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and a Verizon executive joke about installing a “Verizon puppet” as head of the FCC. In a letter to Gizmodo last week, the agency said it…
This morning, a spokesperson from the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) emailed Gizmodo a Very Serious Statement™. They wanted us to include this Very Serious Statement™ in our blog post about the CFPB not giving a shit about the Equifax hack. And it’s so hilariously vague that it only supports the conclusion that the…
All things considered, the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon is an amazing laptop. It’s crazy light and powerful with a retro design that will warm your nostalgic little heart. But there is the possibility it could burst into flames, the company announced today. Which is, you know, a bad thing for a laptop. The recall notice…
When Uber first announced its flying taxi project last April, the ride-hailing service said it would begin testing the aircrafts in Dubai and Texas by 2020. Now, the company responsible for making the vehicles that may help bring Uber’s Jetsonian vision to life has provided its take on when we could actually see large, people-filled…
A powerful earthquake struck Taiwan today, causing damage and a partially collapsed hotel building, sources report. The USGS reports that the magnitude 6.4 quake struck 21 kilometers (13 miles) north of the city of Hualien at 10:50 U.S. Eastern Time, at a shallow 9.5 kilometers (6 miles) below the surface. No tsunami warnings have been…
One of the coolest things about city living in 2018 is that, if you have enough money, you can use an app to order essentially anything, and an underpaid courier will deliver it to your door in a matter of minutes. Seamless is the giant amongst this futuristic new set of services that cater to…
Two men were charged yesterday for allegedly hacking ATMs to make them vomit bills. The hacking method, known as ATM “jackpotting” recently spread to the United States after being an issue in Asia and Europe for years. The security blog Krebs on Security first reported in January that the US Secret Service had been alerting…
Here is an ice cube you do not want to put in your Diet Coke: A solid lattice of oxygen atoms with protons whizzing around inside of it. This ice is not normal on Earth, but might be elsewhere. And scientists have created it in a lab. Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Lab report that…
The first thing to know about dogs is that they’re perfect and beautiful and all of them, all of them, are going to Heaven. The second thing to know is they occasionally start house fires. Home security footage uploaded to Facebook last week shows a flapjack-loving pup in Massachusetts nearly setting his owners’ house alight. While…
It’s been three years since Google, Facebook, and other major tech platforms introduced ways for users to report and remove revenge porn, two years since a bill was introduced in Congress to criminalize the distribution of non-consensual pornography. And yet, advocates say the problem is just as bad, if not worse, for victims—and survivors of…
