Oh, the GoBots. That poor, ridiculous, terrible toyline and animated series that somehow managed to be a crappy knock-off of the Transformers, despite the fact that both the toys and the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon came out before Transformers. While I’ve talked about how the action figures sucked before, it’s time to take a … Continued

Science fiction makes flying cars and hoverbikes seem like the ultimate way to get around town, and one day they might be. But for now, the limits of technology mean you really want to avoid climbing aboard a flying bike, as this unfortunate crash of the Russian Hoversurf Scorpion demonstrates. A couple of years ago, … Continued

On Wednesday, a new report United Nations report urged governments to pour money into renewable energy to pull us out of economic depression driven by the coronavirus and jumpstart the transition away from fossil fuels. The analysis was undertaken by the United Nations Environment Program, the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Center, and BloombergNEF, which looked at … Continued

Production on Into the Spider-Verse 2 has officially begun. Kenneth Branagh teases the spy-fi action of Artemis Fowl. Jonathan Frakes will be back behind the camera for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Plus, what’s to come on Stargirl and The 100, and Rick Riordan has high hopes the Disney+ Percy Jackson will outdo the films. … Continued

It’s rare for a company like Nintendo to release a console that isn’t at least popular amongst its fans—even the Wii U sold over 13 million units. But the Virtual Boy was one of the company’s biggest flops, delivering a disappointing 3D experience that left gamers seeing red: literally. Despite its bizarre hardware limitations and … Continued

Troubleshooting your wifi can be an exercise in frustration. Why aren’t you getting the speeds you promised? Why does your phone lose connection behind the fish tank? Just how much of a difference is your new mesh router making? To answer these and more questions, you need to install a wifi analyzer app on your … Continued

The Department of Justice has brought charges against the president of a Silicon Valley-based pharmaceutical firm, Arrayit, alleging a scheme to profiteer off the coronavirus pandemic with a shoddy covid-19 test it tried to bundle with an expensive, unrelated allergen finger stick test. The DOJ said the charges are its first securities fraud case brought in … Continued

If you’re worried about losing the respect of your co-workers with a collection of die-cast miniature Batmobile toys parked on your desk, don’t worry, Swarovski’s got your back. This $600 crystal Batmobile replica is described as a totally acceptable and normal “decoration object” on the Swarovski website and is definitely not a toy. In recent … Continued

Star Trek’s infamous technobabble as its heroes boldly go about exploring all kinds of weird and wonderful alien beings, technologies, and worlds means that, for us mere contemporary humans, it’s often hard to equate just what futuristic weirdness they’re dealing with. And so, we get to one of the most useful phrases in the Starfleet … Continued

As cities are making big pledges for police reform, the viral #8CantWait campaign has become city officials’ go-to atonement manual. When Campaign Zero launched it on June 3rd, they initially made the striking claim that the proposed set of eight policies could reduce police killings by 72 percent, by, among other action items, banning chokeholds, … Continued

Welcome to Gaming Shelf, io9’s column all about board games and tabletop roleplaying games. The past week of protests against racism and police brutality had a huge impact on the national conversation, and that’s not expected to change anytime soon. We’ve provided a few resources for game companies that are helping out during the protests, … Continued

Arkady Martine made a huge splash with her debut, A Memory Called Empire, racking up Hugo and Nebula nominations as well as tons of critical acclaim. Early next year, she’ll release a sequel, A Desolation Called Peace, but io9 has the cover and a juicy exclusive excerpt to share exclusively today. First up, here’s a … Continued

Avatar: The Last Airbender gave us many beloved characters during its three-season run, but none may be more surprising than the merchant who occasionally showed up to have his livelihood destroyed. Now, the actor who gave us “Cabbage Man” says he’d love to come back for Netflix’s adaptation. It wouldn’t be hard to reprise the … Continued

As theaters in California near reopening after weeks of lockdown, we finally have a clearer idea of what a post-pandemic theater experience might look like in more densely populated cities. And it’s not going to look or feel like the movies did before—not for a while, at least. Movie theaters in some California counties may … Continued