Nicole Schmitz

This article is part of our new women in gaming series Makers of Now.Come rain or shine, Twitch streamer and gamer Mayichi always welcomes her community with the same message: “Hi beautiful people. The stream is starting.” The message, simple and sweet, largely reflects the philosophy she applies to her channel, where she aims to make people feel like family and have a good time while playing video games, chatting about the day, and joking around.The 29-year-old, whose legal name is Maite Carrillo, is one of the…

This article is part of our new women in gaming series Makers of Now.Jessica Boddy isn’t your typical Twitch steamer. The Chicago resident spends half of her days working as a multimedia editor at the magazine Popular Science, where she’s spent years helping craft health and science coverage, including at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. When she’s not working as a journalist, she’s better known as JessCapricorn, a rapidly growing Twitch streamer on a journey through some of the industry’s most notoriously…

Womb City, the debut novel from acclaimed short fiction writer Tlotlo Tsamaase, is described as “The Handmaid’s Tale meets Get Out” and a “cyberpunk body-hopping Africanfuturist ghost story.” In other words, this is not your typical dystopian mystery, and io9 is thrilled to share a first look.Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard Nerd Out About Jurassic Park's Returning HeroesHere’s a description of the story: Nelah seems to have it all: fame, wealth, and a long-awaited daughter growing in a government lab. But, trapped in…

When Marvel Comics canceled The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl in 2019, it might not have seemed like a surprise. After all, for a publisher that puts out 60-plus comics each month, canceling one book doesn’t seem like anything to write home about—especially when that book was centered on one of the most oddball, unusual, and formerly obscure characters in the entire Marvel Universe. But Squirrel Girl’s artist-writer team of Erica Henderson and Ryan North had done something almost unheard of at a major comic company: ended a…

Photo: Yejin ChoiYejin Choi declined the call that would transform her life—several times.The MacArthur Foundation announced last week that University of Washington computer science professor, 45, was one of 25 recipients of its eponymous fellowship, commonly known as the “Genius Grant.” Choi thought the foundation’s attempts to contact her were spam calls, and then, when the organization was finally in touch, that the calls concerned consulting work. She’s not alone. Multiple fellows told the Washington Post that they…

That there’s a brand new Marvel Studios movie coming to Disney+ this week is kind of amazing all on its own. That the film introduces several brand new characters as well as a whole new section of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is even better. And that the film’s director just so happens to be one of this generation’s most accomplished and prolific filmmakers is just the cherry on top.However while Michael Giacchino, director of Werewolf By Night, has worked on everything from Spider-Man and Thor to The Batman, The…

Google released a new tool to help you scrub its search results of certain sensitive information, like your phone number and email address.Photo: Evan Lorne (Shutterstock)As our lives become more digital, they’ve also become more searchable. Today, lots of people can find out personal information about you—phone number, physical address—with a simple Google search. This is not always ideal, or, frankly, comfortable. Google knows this, and it’s giving ordinary people the chance to scrub this information from its…