Another year has come and gone and with it so, so, so many nerd blogs. Here are the ones you, dear io9 readers, clicked on the most. A big thank you and a Happy New Year to all of you.
On Monday, Microsoft announced that it had taken control of 50 domains associated with a hackers believed to be operating out of North Korea. Unsealed court documents show that the domains include “hotrnall.com,” “office356-us.org,” and “mai1.info,” among other copycat URLs.
Lots of people have two arms. Far fewer can say they have one on a shelf by their sink. A 37-year-old Canadian man recently joined this exclusive club, turning his amputated limb into a unique conversation piece thanks to a helpful taxidermist—and a hungry colony of beetles.
Scientific warnings about the risks of unchecked global warming have reached a crescendo in the past couple of years, with urgent messages from researchers on social media, in congressional testimony, and even directly in the text of research papers.
President Donald Trump on Monday signed into law a bill that aims to curb annoying spam robocalls that have saturated our recent-call lists over the past few years. And it might help! At the very least, it will make us feel like someone is trying to do something about this relentless mess.
In the last week and a half, two Star Wars sagas have come to a close. First The Rise of Skywalker wrapped up the sequel trilogy, followed this past Friday by season one finale of the first live-action Star Wars TV series, The Mandalorian. Only one of these stories managed to unite and delight the bulk of the…
As far as we can tell, the 2010s were nothing close to what most of us expected. Instead of flying cars, we got half-baked semi-autonomous vehicles. Instead of social media birthing kumbaya, it fueled genocide and helped erode the foundations of democracy and reality itself. Rather than tackle the impending doom of…
Last year after a somewhat lackluster product cycle, I said Samsung couldn’t afford to hold back anymore. And in 2019, it seems Samsung took that message to heart because it released some of the most exciting phone tech we’ve seen in the last 12 months.
This is the time of year when we talk about nice things. Hopeful things.
The world of fantasy has been one of the few genres to regularly include disabled characters, though this inclusion has always come with the concept of disfigurement and grotesquerie. One of the most famous disabled fantasy characters, George R.R. Martin’s Tyrion Lannister, is described in the first volume of the A…
When asked to be interviewed for this blog, a team of emoji designers for a major emoji platform requested to see the text of the article before publication, for fear of violating their company’s contract. This isn’t rare; media representatives and other employees potentially facing reprisal do this all the time (and…
Over a decade in, the value proposition of Twitter as a medium is murky, not easily defined—though one area it undoubtedly excels is allowing important people to show every embarrassing contour of their entire ass to the rest of the world. Albeit buried under months or years of less interesting posts, miraculously,…
Gadgets have to work a lot harder to suck in 2019 than they have in years past. They have to bankrupt companies, reveal our data, or be so overpriced they even make Apple look cheap. The gadget below did all that, but some went even further. Some were pointless Skymall dreck, and some nearly ruined much nicer and…
Much like its protagonist, Nathan Drake, the Uncharted movie keeps falling off a cliff.
Science fiction would not be what it is today without the influence of Syd Mead. Mead, a futurist and industrial designer whose work on films such as Blade Runner, Tron, and Aliens, died early this morning at the age of 86. Curbed confirmed the sad news.
The ongoing Australian bushfire crisis has forced thousands of people in the southeast part of the country to flee towards waterfronts, Bloomberg reported, with an estimated 4,000-5,000 individuals in Mallacoota in Victoria state sheltering on beaches and piers as flames swept in on Tuesday.
There were a lot of interesting video games that came out in 2019, with deep and complex stories that are begging for the big screen. Of course, seems like even the popularity of shows like The Witcher might not be enough to break the video game movie curse...but could one of 2019's games finally succeed?
Democratic presidential contender and Joe Biden has some advice for the recently disrupted: learn to program.
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Researchers working in the Outer Hebrides island chain off the west coast of Scotland have uncovered evidence of a previously unknown rock monument located within a stone’s throw of the iconic Calanais Standing Stones.
Star Wars has dominated much of the pop culture landscape in the past several years, but 2019 was ridiculous. With one saga of films ending, a whole new era of TV starting, the hype leading to both, and then all matter of other media, there’s a chance we’ll never have as much Star Wars as 2019 provided. Then there was…
In its quest to create new ways to make its denizens dissociate from reality, Snapchat is launching a cartoon series that puts user avatars in the episodes.
Geralt of Rivia has his own way of doing things. Whether it’s killing monsters, inspiring ballads, or accidentally attending orgies. Yes, even his accent, which (when not just grunts) exists somewhere between gruff assistant cricket coach and cigarette-smoking great-aunt. In an interview with Polygon, Cavill shared…
Over the past ten years, smartwatches have gone from futuristic tech relegated to sci-fi flicks to something so common, it’s not a surprise to multiple people sporting them on your daily commute. These wrist-sized computers can’t do quite as much as your smartphone, but these days the modern wristable can do…
An Indiana woman who poisoned her 15-year-old son with his own feces while he was on chemotherapy in 2016 is now set to spend more than a half-decade behind bars.
Who’d have thought the company that developed a discreet and highly addictive nicotine product would have trouble preventing its very own employees from using it in the workplace?
Proles were enthralled to discover in the wee hours of this morning that Sharon Stone is on Bumble, the dating app where ~ladies~ make the first move. Around 1 AM EST, she tweeted a screenshot showing that her account had been disabled; after what must have been a furious few hours for the Bumble customer service team…
Disgraced Chinese scientist He Jiankui has been sentenced to three years in jail for creating the world’s first genetically modified human babies.
I can’t tell you exactly what inspired me to review the 1,000-odd crowdsourced edits made to the “call-out culture” Wikipedia page, which is something that I, idiotically, recently did. Maybe I imagined that somewhere in those crowdsourced edits I’d find a press representative trying to scrub a fallen figure off the…
Coal may continue to reign in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has proposed to skip a carbon tax on this dangerous fossil fuel, according to documents Reuters reviewed. Given how urgent the climate crisis is becoming, the world simply cannot afford any more handouts to the coal industry.
After four generations of Pixel phones, one might imagine that Google with its vast resources and massive reach would be enjoying a similar position to what Apple enjoyed following the launch of the iPhone 4, or at least something close to that. But even after accounting for a wildly different gadget landscape and the…
Making your own digital camera sensor isn’t as complicated as you’d think, as YouTube hardware hacker Sean Hodgins discovered. But you’ll need a solid understanding of electronics, an immense amount of patience, a steady soldering hand, and very low expectations of how your homebrew hardware will perform.
A swiveling surge protector, Calphalon cookware set, stainless steel straws, and a Star Wars LEGO sale lead off Monday’s best deals from around the web.
Venom 2 casting breakdown teases a possible Spidey cameo. Fiege promises more fear in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. Doctor Who gets a cool guest star for its upcoming season. Plus, an interesting flag has been spotted on the set of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and a new clip from Harley Quinn …
The injustice of our current contraceptive regime needs no elaboration. Enough to say that it’s bizarre, at this late date, that male birth control still does not exist. Every couple of years some scientist says they’re on the brink, and the same stale monologue jokes are hauled out of storage; afterwards they are…
Australia is experiencing some of the worst bushfires in the country’s history, but that’s not going to stop Sydney from enjoying an annual New Year’s Eve tradition. Fireworks in the country’s largest city will proceed like normal tomorrow night, despite the fact that the region is under a total fire ban and many…
This is it, everyone. 2020 begins this week. A new year, a new decade, a new physical form to inhabit . . .
There is entirely too much content out there—so much so that plenty of folks find it quite literally overwhelming. And trying to keep track of all those horror movies and melodramatic reality shows and whodunnits starring Chris Evans in a cable knit sweater (oh ok, fine. There’s only one of those. But I’m optimistic…
As we prepare to embark on a new decade, any fans of Fox programming still holding onto their cable subscription could soon be SOL. Hundreds of mid-range and local cable providers with millions of customers between them are locked in 2020 contract negotiations with Fox, and the broadcasting company’s allegedly holding…
Wait, where’s Rose? As anyone keeping up with the state of Star Wars discourse has undoubtedly heard, Rose Tico, the Resistance engineer introduced in The Last Jedi and played by Kelly Marie Tran, has a very small amount of screen time in The Rise of Skywalker. Like, compared to her role in The Last Jedi, where she’s…
Every time I think about Birds Of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, I think about the fashion. Its looks are just killer, with Harley herself taking the bedazzled cake as a decked-out Margot Robbie wearing some of the snazziest duds ever seen in a superhero film.
Twitch Streamer and former professional League Of Legends player Maria “Remilia” Creveling died on Friday at the age of 24, according to a tweet from her close friend and esports journalist Richard Lewis.
Have you hugged the Star Wars nerd in your life lately? Because they’re probably far, far more stressed out than is reasonable. Such is the nature of fandom, that it can end up with a lot of unnecessary frustration when something you love ends up differently than you imagined, or otherwise it doesn’t but other people…
A 55" Roku-powered Hisense TV, eufy doorbell camera, 8-week Washington Post subscription, and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle lead off Sundays’s best deals from around the web.
Samsung’s in-house incubator program, Creative Lab, has developed a reputation for brewing off-the-wall innovations it feels like few people, if any, asked for. Since opening its doors in 2012, it’s spawned projects like a 360-degree wearable camcorder, an AI-driven desk lamp, and a recording app specifically geared…
It’s 2019, almost 2020, and I haven’t gotten tired of bad lip readings. I’m sorry. (I’m not sorry.)
Are you tired of all these Galaxy S11 rumors yet? Well too damn bad. Because it looks like we’re rounding out the year with a purported first look at the Samsung flagship’s final camera configuration following other leaked details about its size and, possibly, a new naming convention to match the new decade.
