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On Wednesday, ProPublica published dozens of startling training documents reportedly used by Facebook to train moderators on hate speech. As the trove of slides and quizzes reveals, Facebook uses a warped, one-sided reasoning to balance policing hate speech against users’ freedom of expression on the platform. This is perhaps best summarized by the above image…
It’s hard to say how long The Metal has been around. This is because The Metal does not care for the laws of linear time. What we do know is that for thousands of years, humanity has both feared and revered The Metal, as evidenced once again by the recent discovery of an ancient skull…
Samsung caught a whole mess of bad press last year after numerous reports of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone exploding. The company, however, apparently believes there’s still a rabid fanbase demanding a defused version of its mobile time bomb. So a refurbished version of the phone is going back on shelves next month—bearing what might…
You can finally add “swimming pools” to your running list of seemingly mundane-but-murderous-pastimes. At around 7pm EDT on Monday, local authorities in Tampa responded to an emergency call involving five sick children at a local pool. As reported by ABC News and others, a “cloud of chlorine gas” appeared in the Calypso Pool hours after…
Humans don’t like dying, they don’t like the idea of dying, and most have made not dying an important part of their life. Lots of folks are interested in making us not die for longer, so it was a real bummer last year when a team of researchers said that the maximum human lifespan has…
In an apparent attempt to discredit The Washington Post the day after it published a report on fake Donald Trump Time magazine covers hanging up at his golf courses, the president posted one of his most confusing tweets since taking office. Syntax issues aside, this sentence makes absolutely no sense. Of course, there is no…
What if all those apps you rely on at work weren’t trapped on your smartphone’s tiny screen? They may not be for much longer. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Future Interfaces Group lab have come up with a novel way for your smartphone to spill out onto your desk while still letting you interact with…
We’d say this video is another good example of why it’s important to look both ways before crossing the street, but this out-of-control bus in Reading, England, comes around the corner so quickly that local badass Simon Smith wouldn’t have been able to avoid, even if he saw it coming. Remarkably, and probably all thanks…
Scott Pruitt seems like the kind of guy who would dunk his first born in toxic waste just to demonstrate that it would survive. Still, his decision to reject a ban on a popular pesticide that’s been shown to harm children’s brains was a little surprising. On Tuesday, we found out that a cozy relationship…
Well, we all saw it coming. Online prices for Nintendo’s Super Nintendo Classic Edition are already out of control. Just give up hope now. Life is short. https://gizmodo.com/the-super-nintendo-classic-edition-arrives-with-21-game-1796419063 Retailers in the US currently have landing pages for pre-orders, but Americans can’t technically reserve one yet. Pre-orders did go live in the UK yesterday and they…
Wolves and dogs are separated by 15,000 years of evolution, during which time the species have veered off into radically different directions. Dogs still retain many of their ancestral behaviors, but less is known about any latent “dog-like” tendencies among modern wolves. A new study of human-raised wolf pups suggests wolves can become attached to…
In the wake of President Trump’s travel ban earlier this year, tech companies scrambled to return their employees who were traveling to the United States. But most major tech firms have offices around the globe, which means their employees are going to keep getting caught up in the country’s ever-evolving travel policies. The latest example…
Sarah Huckabee Sanders is slowly taking over Sean Spicer’s duties as the public face of the Trump administration, and she’s already inheriting his penchant for using the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room’s lectern as a bully pulpit against the media. Today she went so far as to encourage the gathered reporters, and Americans as…
Gaslighting victims around the world blinked on Tuesday when The Washington Post revealed that a fake Time magazine cover with the president’s face is hanging up at Trump golf courses around the world. Donald Trump’s administration would not explain this glaring example of fake news. The facts lead to even weirder questions. The Time cover…
If Marvel’s Spider-Man always seemed a little too far-fetched, you’re going to have an even harder time wrapping your head around the Darwin’s Bark spider. It’s no bigger than a thumbnail, but it can shoot a web at distances of over 80 feet, allowing it to cross rivers and spin massive traps. Only just discovered…
Another major cyberattack is quickly spreading across Europe and has now infected systems in the US as well. Researchers at Symantec and other leading security firms are confirming that ransomware is being spread via EternalBlue, an exploit leaked in April by the ShadowBrokers hacking group, which is said to have been stolen from the US…
Remember Yahoo Mail? That email service famous for undergoing the largest breach of user data ever—and then outdoing itself a few months later with an even larger breach? Well, the company is now offering a paid version of its mail service in hopes that you’ll shell out cash to use the most-pwned email service ever.…
If the internet has one positive attribute, it’s that it connects people: coworkers building the future together; families living on opposite sides of the world; future lovers flirting over instantaneous chat programs; and, late last week, Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor and me. The famously gruff-voiced singer was back in the news after Chad Kroeger (of…
Look, you give me a robot—even one that exists merely as a screen, speaker, camera, and microphone—and my first order of business is going to be screwing with it: trying to elicit the most explicit response I can. But Alexa, as found in the Echo and new Echo Show, is not prone to being explicit.…
Behold: the Jindallae 3. Designed and manufactured locally by North Korea’s Mangyongdae Information Technology Corporation, the new smartphone is “versatile and multifunctional” and comes in white or black, according to state-sponsored news agency DPRK Today. It also looks just like an iPhone. With a name that roughly translates to “azalea,” the Jindallae 3 does indeed…
