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Appearing before the House Select Committee on Intelligence today, FBI director James Comey couldn’t offer a shred of evidence to support Donald Trump’s outlandish and totally unsubstantiated claim that former President Obama wiretapped his phones at Trump Tower during the election. “I have no information that supports those tweets,” said Comey. That’s right, the head…
There’s a group of people who’ve lost trust in scientists, professors, academics, and pretty much anyone who is paid to establish and dispense facts. Some of these people are rejecting a fact established hundreds of years ago that sits at the core of most modern biology, geology and astronomy: We live on a big, round,…
When you strap on all of the gear required for a modern, immersive, virtual reality experience, you’re all but completely blind to the real world. But interacting with real world objects can often enhance a virtual experience, so Disney’s researchers came up with a way to let users catch a real ball without leaving a…
It’s hard to know exactly what’s going on inside the White House these days. Is Jared Kushner still pouting the corner? Probably. Is Kellyanne Conway still putting her feet on the furniture? Surely. Is Trump still eating Big Macs on silver platters while he tweets from an old, unsecured Android phone? Actually, maybe not. March…
Scientists in China have discovered male damselflies caught in the act of trying to court females inside a piece of 100-million-year old amber. It’s an extremely rare find, providing a glimpse of insectoid peacocking behavior during the age of dinosaurs. Paleontologists have found fossilized insects in all sorts of interesting predicaments, from an ant with a…
As you stare at your computer screen on a slow Monday morning, you’re probably wondering why your job doesn’t involve majestic dolphins and stunning background scenery. We don’t have any answers for you, but at least there’s a fullscreen option so you can temporarily forget all those emails you’re avoiding. Shooting with the Sony F5…
Have you ever found yourself listening to some classic 70s funk, rock, or disco and suddenly recognized a portion of the song you swear you’ve heard elsewhere? As YouTube’s Daftworld reveals, it was probably in a Daft Punk track, given the duo’s almost bizarrely impressive ability to turn classic samples into electro hits. The whole video…
Whether it’s a winter storm on the East Coast, or tornadoes in middle America, or just some simple rain in California, sometimes your power goes out and takes your internet with you. Any way you look at it, when the internet is down your life is effectively on hold until it’s back up again. However,…
Remember last month when we told you about how Senator Chuck Grassley was tweeting randomly, hoping that someone at the White House would see it? Well, it’s happening again. Because everything is weird and this is just how our fucked up government works now. The whole ordeal starts with Chuck Grassley tweeting about something he…
What would you do if you were a billionaire? Elon Musk is trying to get to Mars. Peter Thiel wants to live forever. And Jeff Bezos, well, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos apparently wants to rule the world in a gigantic robot. At least that’s the impression you might get from the photos and video taken…
President Trump claims that the British were spying on him at President Obama’s request—a substantial charge to be making of an American ally, let alone a former president, without any proof. But do you want to hear a dirty little secret about Trump’s allegations? An identical scenario to the one Trump describes actually happened in…
Germany announced this week that it will begin testing voice recognition software in its screening of refugees seeking asylum. The approach may help speed up the processing of hundreds of thousands of migrants, but some experts fear that the imperfect technology could cause more harm than good. https://gizmodo.com/tv-report-on-accidental-amazon-orders-triggers-attempte-1790958217 In 1998, Germany began to use speech…
Dr. Shaquille O’Neal is no longer a professional basketball player, he’s a podcaster. That means he has unlimited opportunities to stick his size 22 foot in his mouth. On the latest episode, he threw his support behind the ridiculous belief that the world is flat. Why? He drives, and when he does, it’s flat to…
While everyone complains about the fact that they don’t have a jetpack or a flying car yet, the military has patiently waited for its killer laser beams. Lockheed Martin says that it will hand off exactly that to the Army in the next few months. https://gizmodo.com/air-force-leaders-say-its-high-time-our-planes-shoot-de-1792974927 The weapons manufacturer says it has successfully tested a…
Daniel Boria was not the first person to see Up and think it would be a great idea to fly around in his own balloon chair. But he’ll stand as an eternal example of how thoughtless this kind of stunt can be. A judge in the Canadian city of Calgary did not find Boria’s actions…
Pixar may be known for its eye-popping animation and airtight storytelling these days, but in 1988 it was a struggling high-end computer manufacturer with a demo video aimed at boring government bureaucrats. The Pixar Image Computer was cutting edge tech in the late ‘80s and it cost $135,000 a pop. Users also had to buy…
The saga of Russian cyber-ties to Trump just gets more complicated. Reports of contact between an Alfa Bank server and one belonging to the Trump organization have been circulating for months. Now, the bank says that US-based hackers have been attempting to make it appear that its servers are communicating with Trump since mid-February. https://gizmodo.com/what-does-trump-mean-when-he-says-obama-had-his-wires-1792971883…
Friday evening, disturbing new details emerged in the case of a Maryland man accused of sending a seizure-inducing GIF to Newsweek journalist Kurt Eichenwald, including private Twitter messages where the suspect allegedly wrote “I hope this sends him into a seizure” and “let’s see if he dies.” https://gizmodo.com/fbi-arrests-man-for-allegedly-sending-journalist-seizur-1793375081 According to the Department of Justice, 29-year-old…
OK, you think you like the Legend of Zelda? You don’t. Not compared to this guy. His entire goddamn house is ocarina-operated now, and if he forgets to bring a plastic toy instrument with him he’s probably locked out. So suck on that, I guess. In all seriousness, this is a really impressive and complicated…
Anyone who’s ever visited YouTube and ventured into the comments knows that the site struggles with how to deal with offensive content, and now it seems one of its content filtering features might have gone a bit too far. Over the past few days, several LGBT vloggers have accused YouTube of hiding their material through…