On August 19th at 7:07PM, Tyler Johnston received a message from his roommate. A man, the text said, was knocking on their door with legal documents to serve. Johnston is the founder and sole employee of The Midas Project: a nonprofit that monitors the practices of “leading AI companies to ensure transparency, privacy, and ethical […]
By the time I arrived, the waterfront park in downtown Portland, Oregon was already awash with people as far as the eye could see. The No Kings protest in June had turned out around 10,000 people across the city; this one saw several times that number just downtown, with thousands more choosing to join localized […]
The trick to understanding Opera’s Neon browser is recognizing that it’s not just a browser with an AI bot added to it, but a browser with three AI bots all living side by side. This is both a strength and a weakness, because while you don’t have to leave to do all the AI things […]
In the 2000s, TiVo reached heights few companies ever achieve. Like Google and Xerox, its name became a verb. People had to “TiVo” the new episode of Battlestar Galactica or game 4 of the Red Sox vs. Cardinals, not “record” it. While it didn’t invent the DVR, TiVo popularized it and many of the features […]
Pokémon Legends: Z-A hadn’t been out even a few hours before the tweets started rolling in: Shiny pokémon don’t despawn. You can walk away from a shiny, and it’ll still be there when you come back. To shiny collectors, this is big news. In other Pokémon games, like Scarlet and Violet, pokémon despawn after you […]
Kelly Reichardt has been called one of America’s greatest filmmakers, and also one of its quietest. But her latest, The Mastermind, centered on an art heist that goes off the rails, is probably her loudest movie yet and definitely her biggest budget to date. Reichardt even set out to make something different from her previous […]
It’s been more than a decade since there was a proper Splinter Cell game. So when Derek Kolstad, a writer best-known for creating the John Wick series, approached making the new animated Netflix adaptation, he treated it as if the story continued as the games were dormant. “I wanted to do it almost like the […]
This week the Pew Research Center published a study about how parents managed screen time for their kids 12 and under. The results were not particularly surprising (or enlightening, if we’re being honest). A full 90 percent of parents said their children watched TV, and 61 percent said their kids interact with smartphones at least […]
Last week, Amazon launched a major update of its line of Alexa-enabled Echo smart speakers and displays. The redesign – led by former Microsoft design chief Ralf Groene, whom Amazon Devices & Services head Panos Panay coaxed out of retirement – included two new Echo Show smart displays. According to Panay, these new models are […]
Battlefield 6 is one of EA’s most important launches in years. As the company becomes laser-focused on big, bankable franchises and looks to compete with the beast that is Activision’s Call of Duty, EA needs Battlefield 6 to be a hit when it debuts on October 10th – especially after the previous game in the […]