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Feds are eager to exchange a bitcoin haul seized from the leader of an opioid drug operation because they are worried the digital booty could devalue at any moment. The US government seized more than 513 bitcoins and 512 Bitcoin Cash from Aaron Shamo last year after arresting him for selling synthetic pharmaceuticals containing fentanyl…
For several months, Google has teased some updates for Chrome that aim to make surfing the web slightly less annoying. And on Thursday, Chrome developers announced that you can now update your browser and choose to mute those annoying autoplay videos on websites. The update, Chrome 64 beta, also prevents malicious redirects, and a whole…
A former Facebook executive is trying to sprinkle some niceties onto his ruthless drag of social media—at least when it comes to one social media company in particular. Former vice president of user growth Chamath Palihapitiya recently told an audience at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, “I think we have created tools that are…
People like to believe that Apple is a company that never makes mistakes. Never has that logic been so obviously flawed as it was in 2017. This year, it seemed like Apple couldn’t make it through a single week without some big, embarrassing screw up. So, for the sheer joy of it, we made a…
Maybe it’s the Courier part two, a new member of the Surface family, or the long-rumored Surface phone, but whatever is being shown in a recently discovered patent filing by Microsoft looks pretty interesting. Filed by Microsoft earlier this year, the patent describes a device with reversible hinges. But a few sections in the document…
Archaeologists in Egypt have uncovered four unique child graves at Gebel el-Silsila—the site of a former Egyptian quarry that dates back some 3,500 years. The discovery is shedding new light on what life was like at this ancient work site, and the complex social hierarchy that likely existed. The Gebel el-Silsila quarry dates back to…
It’s the season for the giving and receiving of gifts, and whether someone else has generously bought you a smartphone or you’ve decided to treat yourself, it’s time to bid farewell to your old handset and face the future with your new one. But wait—we’ve got a few checks you need to make first. We’re…
An Amazon AWS server believed to contain files on all of California’s registered voters was left exposed this year due to a misconfigured database, according to researchers at the Kromtech Security Center. The database was later stolen by cybercriminals demanding a ransom only payable in bitcoin. Kromtech told Gizmodo that it collected samples from the…
Elon Musk’s SolarCity acquisition played a large part in breaking the solar industry’s five-year winning streak, according to a report released Wednesday from the Solar Energy Industries Association and Greentech Media. Overall, residential solar sales are down 13 percent in the US this year, following five straight years of gains. After being acquired by Tesla,…
As 2017 wheezes to its merciful end and the social media titans reckon with growing backlash, Twitter’s largely forgotten video streaming app Periscope has gained an insidious second life as a hub for seekers of child pornography. Gizmodo’s search of the platform over the course of a single afternoon uncovered dozens of accounts—50 in total—which…
Yes.
One of Alphabet’s crazier attempts to bring the internet to more rural and isolated areas was Project Loon. Using what is called Free Space Optical Communication (FSOC), Alphabet proved it’s possible to reliably send data wirelessly between balloons floating thousands of feet in the sky. Emboldened by the results, Alphabet’s Team X then looked for…
After the Republican-majority FCC voted Thursday morning to repeal the net neutrality rules adopted in 2015, Democrats in Congress mobilized quickly to introduce legislation that could, with enough support, reverse the outcome. The Congressional Review Act (CRA) empowers Congress to use a “resolution of disapproval” to overturn rules passed by federal agencies, and to pass…
New York City will be among the first cities in the US to earnestly tackle black box algorithms, the automated decision-making systems that are rarely made public, but have greater and greater influence over lives. A bill passed by the city council this week orders the creation of a local task force to monitor and…
Shervin Pishevar released a statement on Thursday announcing his resignation from Sherpa Capital, “effective immediately.” The venture capitalist had taken a leave of absence from the firm earlier this month, following a report detailing sexual harassment and assault allegations made against him. In both statements, Pishevar said it was his own decision to leave, and…
On October 19, 2017, astronomers witnessed the first known interstellar asteroid—a bizarre, cigar-shaped rock that, just as quickly as it entered into our Solar System, exited in a hurry. Not satisfied that ‘Oumuamua, as it’s been named, is just an odd asteroid, astronomers from Breakthrough Listen recently tuned their Green Bank telescope into the object…
Nuclear test films from 1945 to 1962 are literally rotting away in US government storage facilities. But those highly classified films are now being restored, declassified, and released on YouTube thanks to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. And 62 more never-before-seen films were just released today. The first batch of these classified US nuclear test…
Sometimes it feels like we’re inching closer to a future like the movie Her, where humans spend their time wandering around, constantly chatting to their own personal AI assistants. Today, services like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are getting better at responding to some types of requests, but because they can misunderstand questions and aren’t…
It feels only natural that 2017 would be the year we experienced one of the worst security breaches of all time. The Equifax hack affected 145.5 million U.S. consumers, but what’s really shady is that the credit report company suffered another breach months before the one they disclosed in September. And trying to keep users…
Let’s face it, even though phones continue to get faster and companies continue to cram even more tech into people’s pocket computers, you wouldn’t be wrong if you said smartphones have gotten a little boring to the casual consumer. Much of the time, it seems people are much more concerned with making sure there’s a…
