The once-sacrosanct halls of Wordle are adding new ads. When you hit “Play” on the Wordle mobile app, you’ll now be treated to what advertising boys call an “interstitial” ad, meaning the video or the image takes up your entire screen.
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Companies Think Their Idiot Customers Will Accidentally Cancel Their Subscriptions if It's Too Easy
The Federal Trade Commission’s recent proposal to require that companies offer customers easy one-click options to cancel subscriptions might seem like a no-brainer, something unequivocally good for consumers. Not according to the companies it would affect, though. In their view, the introduction of simple unsubscribe…
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Insidious: The Red Door Is a Better Drama Than a Horror Movie
What happens after the horror movie ends? Once the heroes have killed the monster and lived to fight another day, what is life like? What does that kind of fear and trauma do to a person or a family? Those are the questions at the center of Insidious: The Red Door, the fifth film in the Insidious franchise and first…
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Sega Boss Says the Company Might Be Done With that Dumb NFT Game
With crypto becoming a hell of a lot less appetizing over the last few months thanks to numerous crimes and scandals, game companies that were once so hungry for ballooning crypto profits have been creeping their chairs away from the dinner table, inch by squeaking inch.
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Astronomers Surprised By a Distant Black Hole Roaring Back to Life
Black holes often sit at the centers of galaxies, where they can gorge themselves on the superheated material that falls into their abyssal event horizons. Now, a team of astronomers have observed the beginning of one such meal.
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BookTok Might Have Been a Mistake, But Sometimes It's Still Good
Publishing is brutal. Writing a book is difficult enough, but selling it is another challenge that most authors feel unprepared for. Social media has always been a bit of a crapshoot when it comes to selling anything,but somehow TikTok has amassed a massive cohort of readers and authors who have the power to make any…
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AI Systems Could Help Us Speed Up Extreme Weather Forecasting, Studies Show
As climate change makes extreme weather more likely, and more unpredictable, meteorologists and government agencies need new tools to keep up. Two studies published this week in the scientific journal Nature suggest that artificial intelligence can be used to support accurate and faster forecasting and extreme weather…
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Is Threads a Threat to Twitter? | Future Tech
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Star Trek: Prodigy's Missing Episodes Might Be Making Their Way Home
Appropriate for a show with so many connections to Star Trek: Voyager, the second half of Prodigy season one might make it home the long way round. Weeks on from from the streamer’s shocking decision to reverse renewal and pull the series from its service, there could be a chance fans will get to physically own what…
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Creator of ElonJet Moves His Musk Flight-Tracking Account to Threads
Jack Sweeney, the college student behind the Twitter account @ElonJet, has moved his platform to Threads after he was banned last year. Elon Musk banned Sweeney’s account from tracking his private flights and threatened to take legal action against him, claiming that tracking his flights put his son at risk.
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Snikt! Lego's X-Men Wolverine Claw Set Trades Adamantium For Plastic
Ahead of the premiere of X-Men ‘97—the follow-up to the popular ‘90s cartoon series—early next year, Lego is releasing another Wolverine set next month which focuses on the iconic Marvel character’s most recognizable and most dangerous feature: those retractable adamantium claws.
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Shazam Expands iOS Integration to YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok
Shazam is one of those genius apps that has stood the test of time and then some. Now, it’s getting a huge improvement on iOS. You can now use the music-identifying app on your phone while you have TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram open.

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Deadpool 3 Set Pictures Tease an Upgraded Costume
Mark Ronson teases some wild additions to Barbie’s soundtrack. The long-delayed Uzumaki adaptation is still happening. Strange Planet’s animated adaptation sets an August release date. Plus, what’s coming on My Adventures With Superman and Riverdale. Spoilers, away!

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You're Going to Need an Appointment to Get Your Hands on Apple's Vision Pro
Apple’s planned early 2024 launch of the Vision Pro headset is already shaping up to be a tangled, complicated hullabaloo. Not only will customers need to drop $3,500 on Apple’s first “spatial computer,” but you’ll need to schedule an appointment and sit down for a skull measuring session just to get your hands on the…
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Shell Backtracks on Greenwashing, Renews Commitment to Drill, Baby, Drill!
Oil and gas giant Shell has walked back the greenwashing image that it had worked so hard to foster over the last few years. The company has moved away from its previous strategy to slowly decrease oil production this decade. It’s back to (openly) drilling the planet dry for profit.
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Louisiana Outlaws Sexual Deepfakes of Children
Louisiana has become one of the first states to pass legislation explicitly criminalizing the creation of deepfaked child sexual abuse material. The legislation, called SB175, makes it a crime to knowingly create or possess an AI-generated image or video depicting a person under the age of 18 engaged in a sexual act.…
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The Super Mario Bros. Movie Streams on Peacock in August
Going by its staggering box-office haul, it doesn’t seem like too many fans waited around to watch The Super Mario Bros. Movie—but those who did can now set their countdown calendars for August 3, when the movie arrives on streamer Peacock.

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NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour Will Stand Tall Once More
The Space Shuttle is going to look launch ready once again, although this time the retired spacecraft won’t be firing its engines.
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Biden Appeals Judge's Ban on Government Asking for Social Media Takedowns
The Biden administration is appealing a bombshell ruling from a federal judge barring government agencies from contacting social media companies to make takedown requests or recommend other content moderation. State Department officials had already halted routine meetings with Facebook in response to the July 5th…
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LIGHTSPEED Presents: 'Six Months After All Life on Titan Died' by JB Park
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 “Six Months After All Life on Titan Died” by JB Park. You can read the story below or listen to the podcast on LIGHTSPEED’s website. Enjoy!
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