A few weeks ago, without a lot of fanfare, Netflix dropped one of the most exciting and gritty YA series of 2022: The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself. Adapted from Sally Green’s series of novels that started with Half Bad, the show follows a young witch, Nathan (Jay Lycurgo), as he attempts to escape the clutches of a …
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Man in Alaska Rescued With New iPhone 14 Satellite Emergency Feature
With the release of the Apple iPhone 14 comes the release of one of the company’s newest features: Emergency SOS. Emergency SOS allows you to connect with emergency services via a satellite connection as opposed to cellular data or wifi, which are sparse in remote areas. The feature saved a man lost in the Alaskan…
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Webb Telescope Turns Its Eye on Saturn's Mysterious Moon Titan
The Webb Space Telescope snapped images of Saturn’s moon Titan last month, which are now released for our viewing pleasure. The images offer a newly detailed view of Titan’s atmospheric makeup and even elements of its strange surface.
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Google Messages is Finally Encrypting Group Chats
Google’s on an update kick this week. After bringing sharable digital car keys to Android and Adidas app integration to Wear OS, the company announced that end-to-end encryption for group chats is coming to Messages by Google, the default messaging app for most Android smartphones.

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Netflix Cancels The Midnight Club Hours After Creator Moves to Amazon
The horrors stalking the terminally ill, teenage patients living at Brightcliffe Hospice can’t compare to the horror of a streaming network scorned. Mere hours after it was announced yesterday that Midnight Clubcreator Mike Flanagan and his producing partner Trevor Macy would be exiting their deal at Netflix and…
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Turn Your Apple Watch Into a Cordless Alarm Clock With Otterbox's New Power Bank
You can complain all you want, but if you want the benefits of a smartwatch, you’re going to have to get used to charging your timepiece almost every night. But as with every Apple device, there are plenty of accessories that promise to make this more convenient, and with Otterbox’s new power bank, you can even leave…
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Is David Harbour Worried About Typecasting as Santa?
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Hate Speech on Twitter Skyrocketed While Elon Said He Was Winning, New Research Shows
On November 23rd, Elon Musk tweeted that hate speech “impressions” were down by one third on the platform, along with a graph and a victorious congratulations to his employees. During the same period, the actual use of hate speech on Twitter rose exponentially, according to new research.
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10 Ugly Sweaters That'll Bring Holiday Cheer to the Nerd in Your Life
‘Tis the season to bust out the box of holiday-themed sweaters. I have about five that I cycle through every year, and each represents a different side of me. This year, I’m showing off my nerdy side with Microsoft’s Holiday Clippy sweater, which the company sent over to promote its existence. It’s a fine sweater, but…
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Updates From Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, and More
Guillermo del Toro waxes lyrical about what he’d do with At the Mountains of Madness. The cast of Dune: The Sisterhood keeps growing. Plus, what’s to come on the series finale of Stargirl, and The Boys casts a mysterious figure. Spoilers, go!

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Alex Jones Files for Second Bankruptcy: This Time, It's Personal
Alex Jones, the main face of the conspiracy flinging and hate spewing Info Wars, has all the charisma of a trash fire. Just like an enormous pile of burning garbage, Jones is certainly hard to ignore, even as the rank perfumes pervade the air. As many people shut their windows at the sight and smell, a fair few people…
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Huawei Made a Smartwatch That Pops Open to Reveal a Pair of Wireless Earbuds Inside
It looks like the type of device you’d stumble across while shopping for gadgets from an airplane magazine, but the Huawei Watch Buds are very real, turning a smartwatch into a charging case for wireless earbuds that are accessible by lifting up the screen.

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Disney Will Close Splash Mountain Next Month For Its Princess and the Frog Overhaul
A new Princess and the Frogattraction is closer to becoming a wish come true at Disney Parks. According to the company, the re-theme will begin with the closure of the flume ride’s current Splash Mountain incarnation on January 23 at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, making way for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
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Newly Discovered Dinosaur Looks Like a Nightmare Goose
Paleontologists discovered a 71-million-year-old carnivorous dinosaur in Southern Mongolia that they believe had a body built for swimming and diving for prey. Though it looks a lot like a modern bird, it’s actually a non-avian dinosaur, meaning it’s likely an example of convergent evolution, a phenomenon in which…
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The SLS Moon Rocket Exceeded Expectations With Its Historic Liftoff, NASA Says
NASA has conducted a preliminary review of the inaugural Space Launch System launch, saying the rocket met and even exceeded all expectations.
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Behold, the Brands: YouTube Releases Top 10 Ads of 2022
YouTube just published its year-end review, rounding up the top trending content for 2022. Sure, you could check out their list of top videos, most popular creators or trendiest Shorts (the platform’s response to TikTok-style short form videos), but honestly, who cares about all that junk? We all know what you want to…
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Kanye West Banned From Twitter After Posting Swastika and Texts With Elon Musk
Kanye West has been banned from Twitter after posting a swastika designed to look like a Star of David and sharing personal text messages the rapper had with Twitter owner Elon Musk. It’s not immediately clear if West was actually banned for the swastika or for publicly sharing his texts from Musk, who purchased…
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Apple Spent $84,000 on Twitter Ads the Same Day Elon Tweeted It 'Mostly Stopped' Advertising There, New Data Shows
On Monday, Elon Musk picked a public fight with Apple, accusing the company of freezing its advertising on Twitter and wondering aloud if the alleged pause was because “they hate free speech in America.” In fact, Apple spent $84,615 on Twitter ads that very same day, according to data from Pathmatics, a digital ad…
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Everything We Saw in the Trailer for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Now that we know a fifth Indiana Jones film actually exists, is coming out, and even has a real title, it’s time to dig a little deeper. Thursday’s reveal of the first trailer for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was chock full of recognizable Indy action with plenty of Nazi punching, cave exploring, and train…
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LIGHTSPEED Presents: 'Last Stand of the E. 12th St. Pirates' by L.D. Lewis
io9 is proud to present fiction from LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE. Once a month, we feature a story from LIGHTSPEED’s current issue. This month’s selection is “Last Stand of the E. 12th St. Pirates” by L.D. Lewis. You can read the story below or listen to the podcast on LIGHTSPEED’s website. Enjoy!

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Facebook Is Failing to Remove Brutal Death Threats Targeting Election Workers
Meta, despite repeatedly committing to ramping up security policies ahead of the 2022 midterms, appears to fare far worse than its competing social media services in detecting and removing death threats targeting election workers.
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Google Shows Off the 10 Most-Watched YouTube Vids for 2022
As annoying as existing on YouTube seems to be in this day and age—when you’re halted ever three to five minutes by a State Farm ad—I still come back to the platform regularly.

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