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Each day, our Sun pours its energy down onto the Earth’s surface, turning vast expanses of open water into vapor. New research shows the surprising degree to which this clean and renewable process could be used to produce electricity—enough, perhaps, to meet 70 percent of US energy needs. But before this energy solution makes it…
Unless you’re shelling out big bucks for business or first-class tickets, your in-flight entertainment system probably looks like something from the last decade. The monitors airlines put in the back of headrests are typically cheap, low-resolution, and have a pretty pathetic selection of content. That means you’re usually better off pulling out your phone or…
Earlier this month, a Mother Jones investigation revealed that faculty and former students at the University of Rochester filed a 111-page complaint with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the University and brain and cognitive sciences professor T. Florian Jaeger, among others. The complaint listed several accusations of Jaeger’s sexual misconduct and harassment,…
As North Korea and the US keep escalating their war of words, the world sits on the brink of nuclear destruction. So you’d hope that the people in charge of America’s nukes are keeping a cool head under pressure. But the latest tweet from US Strategic Command doesn’t give much confidence in that. US Stratcom,…
Sometimes, space offers a striking vantage for visualizing the scale of a crisis. Satellite photos of Puerto Rico at night before and after Hurricane Maria roared through show an island stripped of its electricity—and they remind us just how long it’s going to take the battered US territory to recover. Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico last…
Richard Smith has retired as CEO and chairman of Equifax in the wake of his company’s gross mishandling of one of the worst data breaches in history, which compromised the data of an estimated 143 million Americans. One of the first plans he has during his retirement is an appearance at Senate Banking Committee hearing…
Years after it first appeared, wireless charging has finally arrived on the iPhone—but what is this magical charging method that’s been on other big phones for a couple of years now? And is it really all that superior to just plugging your phone into the wall every night? Here’s what you need to know about…
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is expanding the kinds of information that it collects on immigrants to include social media information and search results. The new policy, which covers immigrants who have obtained a green card and even naturalized citizens, will take effect on October 18th. First spotted by Buzzfeed News, the announcement…
Over the weekend, Iranian state TV released a video showing a new missile launch in the country. President Trump then fired off an angry tweet, implying that the so-called Iran Deal wasn’t working. The only problem? The US intelligence community now says that there’s no evidence Iran conducted a new missile test. And that video?…
Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s golden boy son-in-law and nepotism hire as a senior White House adviser, is not the only administration official using private email accounts to conduct official government business. Just one day after Kushner was reported to have been using a personal email associated with a family domain, the New York Times…
Frankly, the existence of strollers designed specifically to allow people to dash around with babies and toddlers at grown adult speeds is slightly concerning—though somehow safe for children at least eight months old. Not so with at least one brand of strollers, though, which announced a major recall over concerns its supposedly rugged products could…
President Donald Trump loves to tweet. Sometimes he tweets about how upset he is that NFL players are protesting police violence during the national anthem. Sometimes he tweets about Hurricane Maria, but not nearly as often as people expect the president to tweet about a devastating natural disaster. Sometimes he tweets about bombing North Korea.…
Over the weekend, a user on Twitter pointed out that two of Showtime’s websites had a script running in the background that’s used to hijack visitors’ CPUs to mine cryptocurrency. Other users and outlets later confirmed that the code was present. Now it’s gone, and Showtime refuses to answer questions. https://gizmodo.com/how-to-stop-pirate-bay-and-other-sites-from-hijacking-y-1818549856 Cryptocurrency miners have been…
Chris Mendiola loves his dog Bear so much, he decided to get the same tattoo the dog bore when Chris adopted him six years ago. When he shared his mark of devotion with the internet, he knew he’d get some heat, but he had no idea just how far the images would go. “[T]hose of…
Less than a day after it was revealed that presidential son-in-law and White House senior advisor Jared Kushner used a personal email account to conduct government business, Ivanka Trump, daughter of and special advisor to President Donald Trump, is facing the same scrutiny. On Monday, legal watchdog group American Oversight published a batch of emails…
Back in July, Air France announced plans to launch an airline that specifically targets millennials, raising the question of what, exactly, that actually means. Well today, Air France shared some new details: “Joon” will offer young folks various lifestyle innovations, like surprise destinations, “Airbnb experiences,” and VR headsets for in-flight entertainment. https://gizmodo.com/theres-now-an-airline-for-millennials-because-sure-wha-1797157173 There’s a whole…
Apple’s latest macOS, High Sierra, rolls out today with plenty of nice security upgrades, including invasive ad tracker blocking in Safari and weekly firmware validation. But the new OS apparently comes with a security problem, too—a security researcher at Synack has already discovered a way to snatch passwords from High Sierra. Patrick Wardle, the head…
Satellite images taken this past weekend show a new 100-square-mile iceberg emerging from Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier. The calving event did not come as a complete surprise, but it’s a troubling sign with regards to future sea level rise. Pine Island Glacier (PIG) is the fastest melting glacier in Antarctica—one that’s responsible for a quarter…
Last year brought some rare good conservation news: the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the folks who determine which species are endangered and which aren’t, bumped pandas from endangered to vulnerable. That’s a sign that conservation efforts have begun to reverse the effects of the human activity that wiped out the original bamboo-filled…
Former New York congressman Anthony Weiner has been sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for sexting with a 15-year-old girl. Weiner was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and will have to register as a sex offender. In May, Weiner pleaded guilty to sending obscene material to a minor. More details of…
