Alex Morgan, one of the most decorated players in U.S. women's soccer history, was left off the American roster headed to the Olympics in France, the team announced Wednesday.

The Supreme Court threw out claims that the Biden administration unlawfully coerced social media companies into removing contentious content.

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Mozilla has announced it’s adding easy access to tool like ChatGPT, Gemini, and so to Firefox.

Whether it’s a local or a cloud-based model, if you want to use AI, we think you should have the freedom to use (or not use) the tools that best suit your needs. With that in mind, this week, we will launch an opt-in experiment offering access to preferred AI services in Nightly for improved productivity as you browse. Instead of juggling between tabs or apps for assistance, those who have opted-in will have the option to access their preferred AI service from the Firefox sidebar to summarize information, simplify language, or test their knowledge, all without leaving their current web page. 

Our initial offering will include ChatGPT, Google Gemini, HuggingChat, and Le Chat Mistral, but we will continue adding AI services that meet our standards for quality and user experience.

↫ Ian Carmichael

My biggest worry is not so much Mozilla adding these tools to Firefox – other browsers are doing it, and people clearly want to use them, so it makes sense for Firefox, too, to integrate them into the browser. No, my biggest worry is that this is just the first step on the way to the next major revenue agreement – just as Google is paying Mozilla to be the default search engine in Firefox, what if OpenAI starts paying to be the default AI tool in Firefox?

Once that happens, I’m afraid a lot of the verbiage around choice and the ability to easily disable it all is going to change. I’m still incredibly annoyed by the fact I have to dive into about:config just to properly remove Pocket, a service I do not use, do not want, and annoys me by taking up space in my UI. I’m afraid that one or two years from now, AI integration will be just another complex set of strings I need to look for in about:config to truly disable it all.

It definitely feels like Firefox is only going to get worse from here on out, not better, and this AI stuff seems more like an invitation for a revenue agreement than something well thought-out and useful. We’ll see where things go from here, but my worries about Firefox’ future are only growing stronger with Mozilla’s latest moves. As a Linux user, this makes me worried.

Having a well-defined jawline has become an aesthetic obsession for some boys online — and a wellspring of products and techniques have claimed to help.

The case, one of several this term on how the First Amendment applies to technology platforms, was dismissed on the ground that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue.

© Eric Lee/The New York Times

Rattled by tech’s latest trend, businesses have turned to advisers at Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey and KPMG for guidance on adopting generative artificial intelligence.

© Philip Keith for The New York Times

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It’s been almost 20 years since the founding of Alphabet’s YouTube, and Hollywood still doesn’t really know what to do with it.

Three Republican state senators in South Carolina who filibustered an abortion ban in the state have lost in their primary elections this month.

Artificial intelligence is doing everything from helping landlords communicate with tenants to managing energy use.

© Lucy Engelman

The best suitcases, bags and accessories tested by NBC Select editors. Shop NBC Select Travel Award winners from Away, Apple, Thule, Bagsmart, Patagonia, Calpak and more.

© Kara Birnbaum / NBC News

YouTube is negotiating with major record labels to license songs for AI tools that clone popular artists' music, according to Financial Times. The Google-owned platform is offering upfront payments to Sony, Warner, and Universal to secure rights for training AI software, aiming to launch new features this year. But there are roadblocks to the deal, the story adds: However, many artists remain fiercely opposed to AI music generation, fearing it could undermine the value of their work. Any move by a label to force their stars into such a scheme would be hugely controversial. [...] YouTube last year began testing a generative AI tool that lets people create short music clips by entering a text prompt. The product, initially named "Dream Track," was designed to imitate the sound and lyrics of well-known singers. But only 10 artists agreed to participate in the test phase, including Charli XCX, Troye Sivan and John Legend, and Dream Track was made available to a just small group of creators.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected to impose limits on the way President Joe Biden's administration may communicate with social media platforms, overturning a lower court decision in a case brought by Missouri, Louisiana, and five individuals. In a 6-3 ruling, the court found plaintiffs lacked legal standing to sue, unable to show a "concrete link" between officials' conduct and harm suffered. The case centered on whether the administration coerced platforms to censor disfavored speech when alerting them to content violating their policies, particularly regarding elections and COVID-19. The administration argued it sought to mitigate online misinformation hazards. Plaintiffs claimed platforms suppressed conservative-leaning speech under government pressure. The Justice Department contended that government officials have long used their platform to express views on public matters.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I’m going to be first in line to see Fly Me to the Moon when it opens on July 12. Judging from the trailer, the movie tells a lighthearted, but believable tale of how and why NASA might have faked the moon landing. The clip even offers a tongue-in-cheek nod to the conspiracy theorists who are going to eat this movie up like buttered popcorn.

By creating fictional characters based on real people and mixing actual details of the governments’ attempts to “sell” the moon landing to the public with fanciful elements and a “they faked the whole thing” conclusion, Fly Me to the Moon will keep soft-headed people saying “That’s exactly how it happened!” for years, even if the movie is clearly intended as a joke. (Conspiracy theorists are not famous for their senses of humor.)

Five movies that have shaped conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theorists usually aren’t very creative either, so they’ve always borrowed heavily from movies when it comes time to build out their paranoid worldviews. Where you and I see entertainment, they see veiled revelations and covert agendas—confirmation that their weirdest ideas are the truth. To get ready for next month's disinformation campaign, let's delve into five science fiction films that have significantly influenced conspiracy theorists and explore the connections between these cinematic tales and real world beliefs .

Metropolis (1927)

Fritz Lang’s vision of a world where the careless elite live in glittering skyscrapers while the lowly proles toil in misery below has been influencing conspiracy theorist for nearly 100 years. While I don’t imagine most modern conspiracy theorists are actively checking out silent German cinema from the 1920s, Metropolis influenced every science fiction film that followed, and the whole conspiracy theory blueprint is laid out in the movie: There's the way robot-Maria controls the citizenry’s minds, the simplified portrayal of the class system meant as illustration but taken as literal truth, the use of esoteric imagery of the Tower of Babel and the Whore of Babylon—fringe thinkers love connecting things to misunderstood antiquity. It's all there.

Where to stream: The Roku Channel, Tubi, Pluto TV, Plex, Kino Film, digital rental

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

This 1962 film heavily shaped the public’s idea of “brainwashing." Shadowy actors covertly influencing the minds of innocent people through nefarious mechanisms is present in just about every conspiracy theory, usually because it’s the only explanation for why the SHEEPLE don’t see the TRUTH that’s right in FRONT OF THEM. (All-caps is another dead giveaway.) But The Manchurian Candidate’s portrayal of brainwashing and mind control isn’t especially accurate or useful. How people’s thoughts can and can’t be manipulated is way more complex and nuanced than the film portrays. It’s a shame that the CIA destroyed (or HID) most of the results of its (very real) research on mind control, because if you do a deep dive on “Project Paperclip” and other covert influence programs, it starts to feel like the research actually came to the depressing conclusion that esoteric methods like hypnosis, “truth serums,” secret LSD dosing, and similarly gross human rights violations don’t work as well as just beating confessions out of people.

Where to stream: MGM+, The Criterion Channel, Tubi, digital rental

Capricorn One (1978)

Moon landing conspiracy theories began with the publication of Rockedyne employee Bill Kaysing's pamphlet “We Never Went to the Moon." It was popular enough to inspire the release of 1978 O.J. Simpson vehicle Capricorn One, a movie in which the government fakes a mission to Mars to ensure the space program will continue to be funded. (A quaint idea; why would they even care what the public thought?) The film went on to inspire further moon landing conspiracy theories in an unholy feedback loop, including one that posited the film The Shining was Stanley Kubrick's covert admission that he'd helped NASA create the footage of the astronauts bouncing across the lunar surface. Capricorn One is cheesy treat for fans of 1970s science fiction, but seen through modern eyes, it disproves moon landing conspiracy theories by demonstrating how impossible it would have been to convincingly fake footage of a space mission—this was a big budget production where they really tried for realism, but Capricorn One’s Mars mission looks fake as hell. 

Where to stream: Prime Video, Peacock, Hulu, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV, Freevee, digital rental

Alternative 3 (1977)

British pseudo-documentary Alternative 3 is another conspiracy theory blueprint movie. Not many people saw the original broadcast—it was only aired in the U.K. and Australia— but its ideas are still resonating in conspiracy circles. The film begins with an investigation of the mysterious disappearance of 24 British scientists and ends with a shadowy secret government program that sees the elites running off to colonies on the moon and Mars to escape global warming. In Alternative 3, the moon landings are legitimate, but are only undertaken as a smoke screen to cover up the real space program. So Alternative 3 has secret space programs, a shadowy cabal of rich people pulling the strings, slave colonies on the moon, and even aliens, all of which became gospel to a certain variety of fringe thinkers. It’s easy to see why it's been so influential. It’s a really well done film (check out how this movie brilliantly faked a Mars landing.) Here in the U.S., the “novelization” of the film was released in the form of (fictional) secret documents and quickly became a bestseller. Due to an error involving the publication date that affected some bookstore chains, it was put on store shelves early, then quickly removed, leading to hysteria among the fringe newsletters and reactionary radio shows that made up the pre-internet conspiracy theory community. It sure looked like the government censored the book’s release. 

Where to stream: YouTube

The Matrix (1999)

Unlike Alternative 3, few people believe 1999’s The Matrix is literally a documentary, but if you accept the premise of the film—that reality itself is suspect so you can’t trust even your own senses—that doesn’t matter. The idea of alternative realities wasn’t invented by The Matrix, but the movie packaged it so attractively that it spread even among people who normally wouldn’t be considering such esoteric ideas. The idea that you have “taken the red pill” and can see the real reality where the rest of us are stuck in our pods being fed a stream of fake sensory information is intoxicating to some, both because it removes the cognitive dissonance that comes from having your beliefs challenged, and it helps explains why everyone backs away from you when you start telling them about how they faked the moon landing.

Where to stream: Netflix, digital rental

Apple has extended its self-service repair diagnostics tool to 32 European countries, including the UK, France, and Germany. The software, previously limited to technicians, allows customers to perform system configuration after self-repairs on iPhones, Macs, and Studio Displays. Launched in the U.S. last year, the tool is part of Apple's Self Service Repair program, which provides access to genuine parts, tools, and manuals for select models. The expansion supports 42 Apple products in 33 countries and 24 languages, furthering the company's efforts to extend product lifespan.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The whole point of cloud-based devices like Chromebooks is to give you a window on to the web that's as uncluttered and straightforward to use as possible. That means ChromeOS doesn't come with the masses of software and settings options that you'll find packed into Windows or macOS. However, it still offers a number of settings you can adjust to make it work better for you.

These customizations cover everything from making ChromeOS a little easier on the eyes with themes, to boosting your productivity by putting your most-used apps within easy reach. Spend a little while working on these tweaks, and you'll end up with a Chromebook that feel much more your own.

How to change wallpapers and themes on Chromebook

Desktop wallpaper is perhaps the most obvious way to customize your computer, and it's not difficult to switch up your backdrop on ChromeOS: Click with two fingers on the touchpad while the cursor is on a blank area of the desktop, then choose Set wallpaper and style from the menu that pops up.

The next screen lets you customize the ChromeOS wallpaper and screensaver in a variety of ways. For the wallpaper, for example, you can pick a new image from your Google Drive or opt for a solid color—and if you're using a Chromebook Plus laptop, you can also use generative AI to create something completely new.

Next, adjust the theme of the Chrome browser in ChromeOS (you can do this in Chrome on Windows and macOS too). Click the three dots in the top right corner of any browser window, then navigate to Settings > Appearance > Themes. These themes change the colors of the Chrome menus, toolbars, tab header bar and more, and you can cycle between them as often as you like.

How to pin your most used apps in ChromeOS

Gathering your most-used apps front and center can be hugely useful, saving you a little bit of time every time you access one of them. ChromeOS allows you to accomplish thin using the Pin setting. When you've got an app open on the ChromeOS shelf, click on it using a two-finger press on the touchpad, then choose Pin—that app will henceforth remain available on the shelf, even when it's not open.

You can do something similar with the apps in the app drawer that opens up when you click the circular Launcher button on the far left of the shelf: Click and drag the icons around to change their positions, putting your most-used ones up at the top, perhaps (the apps you've recently used are at the very top by default). You can also create folders by dragging app icons on top of one another.

One other taskbar tweak you might consider is changing where it appears on your screen. Place your cursor over the taskbar and click it with two fingers, then choose Shelf position. This allows you to move the taskbar to the left or right of the screen, rather than having it at the bottom. The Autohide shelf option on the same menu will hide the taskbar, Windows style, when it's not in use.

How to change your touchpad and keyboard settings in ChromeOS

You're spend a lot of time using the touchpad and keyboard while you're operating your Chromebook, so you should customize them to your tastes. Click the time widget down in the bottom right corner, then the gear icon to access Settings and the Device menu, which has entries for the Touchpad and Keyboard.

Under Touchpad you can reverse the scrolling direction—absolutely essential for some, depending on what you're used to—and change the speed of movement registered by the touchpad too. There are also options for changing how a right-click is registered if you find two-finger clicking awkward

Head to the Keyboard menu to find more customization options: You're able to treat the top row of keys as function keys if you'd like, and change the actions that special keys such as Ctrl and Alt help to trigger. The keyboard repeat rate can also be configured from the same screen.

More ChromeOS settings you can adjust

There are various other ways to customize ChromeOS. Click the time widget (bottom right), then the gear icon, then choose Search and Assistant; here it's possible to change your default search engine. Under Security and privacy, meanwhile, you can modify how the lock screen works (your can set Chromebook to automatically lock when the lid is shut, for example).

From the Apps screen, further down in settings, you can opt to have the apps that are open when you close down your Chromebook reappear when you boot it up again. Click Notifications to tailor the alerts that apps and ChromeOS itself are able to show you (and find a full guide to managing notifications on your Chromebook here).

The Accessibility menu has some useful customization options as well. It's possible to change the colors and zoom level used by ChromeOS, bring up an on-screen keyboard, change the size and color of the cursor, and more.

And one final customization worth mentioning: Click Advanced and Date and time from Settings, and you can switch between a 12-hour and 24-hour clock.

Max has an extensive lineup of new documentary content coming to the platform in July, starting with a new season of Hard Knocks (July 2), the unscripted sports series that goes behind the scenes of the NFL. This five-episode season, narrated by Liev Schreiber, follows the New York Giants during the 2024 offseason.

There are three HBO Original documentary films premiering on Max this month. First up is Quad Gods (July 10) about the world's first-ever fully quadriplegic e-sports team followed by Faye (July 13), a biographical film about the life and work of Oscar-winning actress Faye Dunaway featuring interviews with Dunaway and her family and friends. Finally, there's Wild Wild Space (July 17), which chronicles the race between the founders of Rocket Lab and Astra to send rockets into low-earth orbit.

On the Max side, catch the original three-episode docuseries Teen Torture Inc. (July 11), which gives voice to more survivors of the troubled teen industry, including rapper Bhad Bhabie.

Aside from documentaries, there's animated comic series Kite Man: Hell Yeah! (July 18), a Harley Quinn spinoff (with Cheers vibes) featuring the Batman villain and his girlfriend Golden Glider. The show is executive produced by Harley Quinn star Kaley Cuoco. On the film side, catch Love Lies Bleeding (July 19), a romantic dark comedy from A24 starring Kristen Stewart as a reclusive gym manager—and member of a crime family—who falls in love with a bodybuilder played by Katy O'Brian.

Here’s everything else coming to Max in July, including an extensive Shark Week 2024 lineup beginning on July 7 (and hosted by John Cena).

What’s coming to Max in July 2024

Arriving July 1

• !Three Amigos! (1986)

• 17 Again (2009)

• 90 Day Fiance: The Other Way, Season 6 (TLC)

• America’s Best Towns to Visit

• As Good as It Gets (1997)

• Babe (1995)

• Batman and Harley Quinn (2017)

• Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One (2021)

• Batman: The Long Halloween, Part Two (2021)

• Beowulf (2007)

• Blended (2014)

• Black Adam (2022)

• Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

• Brokeback Mountain (2005)

• Butterfield 8 (1960)

• Candyman 3: Day of the Dead (1999)

• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

• Chinatown (1974)

• Cleopatra (1963)

• The Company You Keep (2013)

• The Craft (1996)

• Cyrus (2010)

• Deep Blue Sea (1999)

• The Express (2008)

• The Eyes of My Mother (2016)

• Firestarter (1984)

• Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

• Frank (2014)

• Garden State (2004)

• Gattaca (1997)

• Giant (1956)

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

• Girl, Interrupted (1999)

• The Glass Castle (2017)

• Gods of Egypt (2016)

• Good Luck Chuck (2007)

• Grand Piano (2014)

• Inside Job (2010)

• Lady Bird (2017)

• Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love (2019)

• The Meg (2018)

• Melancholia (2011)

• Mortal Kombat (1995)

• A Most Wanted Man (2014)

• National Velvet (1944)

• Network (1976)

• Out of the Furnace (2013)

• Panic Room (2002)

• Parenthood (1989)

• Please Stand By (2018)

• Posse: The Revenge of Jessie Lee (1993)

• Raging Bull (1980)

• Rescue Dawn (2007)

• The Rider (2018)

• Saw (2004)

• Saw 3D: The Final Chapter (2010)

• Saw II (2005)

• Saw III (2006)

• Saw IV (2007)

• Saw V (2008)

• Saw VI (2009)

• Signs (2002)

• Single White Female (1992)

• The Sixth Sense (1999)

• The Smurfs (Movie) (2011)

• Spy Kids (2001)

• Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams (2002)

• Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003)

• Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011)

• The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

• To Sir, with Love (1967)

• To the Wonder (2012)

• Twister (1996)

• Unbreakable (2000)

• West Side Story (1961)

• Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

• Woodshock (2017)

Arriving July 2

• Contraband: Seized at the Border, Season 4 (Discovery)

• Hard Knocks: Offseason with the New York Giants (HBO Original)

• Mecum Full Throttle: Indianapolis IN 2024 (Motor Trend)

Arriving July 3

• Barnwood Builders, Season 18 (Magnolia Network)

Arriving July 5

• Beachfront Bargain Hunt Renovation, Season 9 (Magnolia Network)

• Care Bears: Unlock the Magic (Specials): The Star of a Thousand Wishes (2024)

• Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, Season 48 (Food Network)

• King of Zanzibar (Max Original)

Arriving July 7

• Belly of the Beast: Bigger and Bloodier (Discovery)

• Jaws vs. Leviathan (Discovery)

• Makozilla (Discovery)

• Sydney Harbor Shark Invasion (Discovery)

Arriving July 8

• BBQ Brawl, Season 5 (Food Network)

• Big Shark Energy (Discovery)

• Bodies in the Water (ID)

• Great White Serial Killer: Sea of Blood (Discovery)

• Shark Frenzy: Mating Games (Discovery)

• Signs of a Psychopath, Season 7 (ID)

• Two Guys Garage, Season 23 (Motor Trend)

Arriving July 9

• 6000-Lb Shark (Discovery)

• Bobby’s Triple Threat, Season 3 (Food Network)

• Deadliest Bite (Discovery)

• Monster Hammerheads: Species X (Discovery)

• My Big Fat Fabulous Life, Season 12 (TLC)

• Mecum Main Attractions: Indianapolis IN (Motor Trend)

Arriving July 10

• Alien Sharks: Ghosts of Japan (Discovery)

• Expedition Unknown: Shark Wrecks of WWII (Discovery)

• Great White North (Discovery)

• Quad Gods (HBO Original)

Arriving July 11

• Caught! When Sharks Attack (Discovery)

• Christina on the Coast, Season 5 (HGTV)

• Great White Danger Zone (Discovery)

• MILF of Norway, Season 1 (Max Original)

• Monster of Oz (Discovery)

• Teen Torture Inc. (Max Original)

Arriving July 12

• Shark Attack Island (Discovery)

• Sharks of the Dead Zone (Discovery)

• The Real Sharkano (Discovery)

Arriving July 13

• Faye (HBO Original)

• Mothersharker: Hammertime (Discovery)

• Sharktopia (Discovery)

Arriving July 14

• Alex vs. America, Season 4 (Food Network)

• In the Eye of the Storm, Season 1 (Discovery)

• Mary Makes It Easy, Season 4 (Food Network)

Arriving July 15

• Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Two (2024)

Arriving July 16

• The Black Widower: The Six Wives of Thomas Randolph, Season 1 (ID)

• Welcome to Plathville, Season 6 (TLC)

Arriving July 17

• Wild Wild Space (HBO Original)

Arriving July 18

• Kite Man: Hell Yeah! Season 1 (Max Original)

• The Commandant's Shadow

Arriving July 19

• Love Lies Bleeding (A24)

Arriving July 21

• Forbidden Love, Season 1 (TLC)

Arriving July 22

• Fatal Affairs, Season 1 (ID)

Arriving July 23

• Chopped, Season 58 (Food Network)

• Secrets & Spies: A Nuclear Game (CNN Originals)

Arriving July 24

• Charlie Hustle & The Matter of Pete Rose (HBO Original)

• Guy’s Grocery Games, Season 36 (Food Network)

Arriving July 25

• Full Custom Garage, Season 4 (Motor Trend)

• Mecum Full Throttle: Kissimmee Summer Special 2024 (Motor Trend)

Arriving July 26

• Knox Goes Away (2024)

• Walker, Season 4 (2024)

Arriving July 30

• Violent Earth with Liev Schreiber (CNN Originals)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The proportion of workers who expect to switch employers in the next 12 months is higher than that from the "Great Resignation" period of 2022, a PwC survey of the global workforce found. Around 28% of more than 56,000 workers surveyed by PwC said they were "very or extremely likely" to move from their current companies, compared to 19% in 2022, and 26% in 2023. PwC's 2024 "Hopes and Fears" survey also showed workers are embracing emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and prioritizing upskilling amid rising workloads and heightened workplace uncertainty. Pete Brown, global workforce leader at PwC UK, said employees are placing an "increased premium" on organizations that invest in their skills growth, and so, businesses must prioritize upskilling and employee experience. About 45% of the workers surveyed said they have experienced rising workloads and an accelerating pace of workplace change in the last 12 months, with 62% saying they have seen more change at work in the past year than the previous 12 months. Among employees who use GenAI daily, 82% said they expect it to increase their efficiency in the next 12 months. Reflecting confidence that GenAI opportunities would support their career growth, nearly half of those surveyed by PwC expected GenAI to generate higher salaries, with almost two-thirds hoping these emerging tools will improve the quality of their work. Carol Stubbings, global markets and tax and legal services leader at PwC UK, said: "The findings suggest that job satisfaction is no longer enough." In order to retain talent and mitigate pressures, Stubbings said employers must invest in staff and tech platforms.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hulu's original content in July is rich for true crime lovers, beginning with Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer (July 11), which goes behind the scenes of the work of psychiatric nurse, professor, and expert serial killer profiler Dr. Ann Burgess. The series is executive produced by Dakota and Elle Fanning.

Then, watch How I Caught My Killer (July 18), a docuseries highlighting unique homicide cases ultimately solved by the victims—and the systems that failed them. Finally, there's Betrayal: A Father's Secret (July 30), the second season based on the podcast of the same name. The docuseries follows Ashley Lytton as she uncovers the truth about her husband Jason.

Game show fans may enjoy the series premiere of Lucky 13 (July 19), a high-stakes trivia contest hosted by Shaquille O’Neal and Gina Rodriguez on ABC. For animated content at the beginning of the month, catch the three-episode series premiere of Land of Tanabata (July 4), adapted from the Hitoshi Iwasaki manga. At the end, there's the season 12 premiere of Futurama (July 29), which was revived in 2023 and is returning for an additional ten episodes.

Here’s everything else coming to (and leaving) Hulu in July, including the premiere of season 21 of The Bachelorette (July 9).

What’s coming to Hulu in July 2024

Arriving July 1

• Attack of the Red Sea Sharks: Special Premiere

• Baby Sharks in the City: Special Premiere

• Shark Attack 360: Special Premiere

• Shark Beach with Anthony Mackie: Special Premiere

• Shark vs. Ross Edgley: Special Premiere

• Sharks Gone Viral: Special Premiere

• Supersized Sharks: Special Premiere

• Blippi Anniversary Compilations

• Blippi NASA Episodes

• Blippi Wonderful World Tour

• Oshi no Ko: Complete Season 1

• (500) Days Of Summer, 2009

• 2012, 2009

• Alien: Covenant, 2017

• Aliens, 1986

• Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, 2007

• Alita: Battle Angel, 2019

• Angels & Demons, 2009

• Aniara, 2018

• Behind Enemy Lines, 2001

• The Big Wedding, 2013

• Bohemian Rhapsody, 2018

• The Cable Guy, 1996

• Couples Retreat, 2009

• Courage Under Fire, 1996

• Cry Macho, 2021

• The Da Vinci Code, 2006

• Ford v Ferrari, 2019

• Funny People, 2009

• Garden State, 2004

• Get Out, 2017

• The Guilty, 2018

• Hail Satan?, 2019

• Just Go With It, 2011

• The Man Who Knew Too Little, 1997

• Margaret, 2011

• The Monuments Men, 2014

• Mortal Engines, 2018

• The Namesake, 2007

• Predators, 2010

• The Predator, 2018

• Rough Night, 2017

• The Salt Of The Earth, 2015

• Sex Tape, 2014

• Shanghai Knights, 2003

• Shanghai Noon, 2000

• Sonic the Hedgehog 2, 2022

• Source Code, 2011

• Step Brothers, 2008

• Super Troopers, 2002

• Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, 2006

• Tangerine, 2015

• Tragedy Girls, 2017

• Wrath Of The Titans, 2012

Arriving July 2

• The Tunnel to Summer, The Exit of Goodbyes, 2022

Arriving July 3

• Red Swan: Two-Episode Series Premiere

• After The First 48: Season 8B

• Dark Gathering: Complete Season 1 (Subbed & Dubbed)

• The Eminence in Shadow: Complete Season 2 (Subbed & Dubbed)

• Kennedy: Complete Season 1

• Kocktails with Khloé: Complete Season 1

• Neighborhood Wars: Complete Season 5

• Reincarnated as a Sword: Complete Season 1 (Subbed & Dubbed)

• The Toys That Built America: Complete Season 3

Arriving July 4

• Land of Tanabata: Three-Episode Series Premiere

Arriving July 5

• 20/20 True Crime Collection: Betrayed: Special Premiere

• Cellphone, 2024

• The Monk and the Gun, 2023

• Muzzle

Arriving July 7

• Ip Man: Kung Fu Master, 2019

Arriving July 8

• 13 Assassins, 2010

• Jesus Camp, 2006

• The Queen Of Versailles, 2012

Arriving July 9

• The Bachelorette: Season 21 Premiere

• Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, 2021

Arriving July 10

• Celebrity Family Feud: Season 10 Premiere

• Family Feud: Decades of Laughs: Special Premiere

• Sasha Reid and the Midnight Order: Series Premiere

Arriving July 11

• Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer: Complete Docuseries

• Claim to Fame: Season 3 Premiere

• Who Wants to Be a Millionaire: Season 23 Premiere

• The Animal Kingdom, 2023

• Tyrel, 2018

Arriving July 12

• Casey Anthony's Parents: The Lie Detector Test: Special Premiere

• HIP - High Intellectual Potential: Complete Season 1-3

• Inmate to Roommate: Complete Season 1

• The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard: Complete Season 1

• Road Wars: Complete Season 2

• Fast Charlie, 2023

• Fern Brady: Power & Chaos, 2021

• Iliza's Locals (Ep. 1), 2023

• Iliza's Locals (Ep. 2), 2023

• Iliza's Locals (Ep. 3), 2023

• Mark Normand: Out To Lunch, 2020

• Scrambled

Arriving July 15

• Hit-Monkey: Complete Season 2

• Bloom Into You: Complete Season 1 (Subbed & Dubbed)

• I'm Quitting Heroing: Complete Season 1 (Subbed & Dubbed)

• Ya Boy Kongming!: Complete Season 1 (Subbed & Dubbed)

Arriving July 17

• Unprisoned: Complete Season 2

Arriving July 18

• How I Caught My Killer: Complete Season 2

• Girl in the Video

• I Killed My BFF: Complete Season 4

• MeetMarryMurder: Season 1B

• Mountain Men: Complete Season 12

• The Quake, 2018

Arriving July 19

• Epcot Becoming: Inside the Transformation: Special Premiere

• Lucky 13: Series Premiere

• Press Your Luck: Season 6 Premiere

• The American, 2023

• Bring Him to Me

• Cult Killer, 2024

Arriving July 23

• Dress My Tour: Complete Season 1

• Femme, 2023

Arriving July 25

• Wayne Brady: The Family Remix: Series Premiere

• Court Cam: Complete Season 6

• The Return of Shelby the Swamp Man: Complete Seaason 1

• The UnXplained Special Presentation: Special Premiere

• Lousy Carter, 2023

Arriving July 26

• Playground: Complete Season 1

• Ben Roy: Hyena, 2023

• Brittany Schmitt: From Ho To Housewife, 2022

• Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song, 2021

• Kyle Kinane: Shocks & Struts, 2023

• The Origin of Evil

• Sleeping Dogs, 2024

• Tim Heidecker: An Evening With Tim Heidecker, 2020

Arriving July 29

• Futurama: Season 12 Premiere

Arriving July 30

• Betrayal: A Father's Secret: Complete Docuseries

What’s leaving Hulu in July 2024

Leaving July 2

• The Clovehitch Killer, 2018

• The Deer King, 2021

• Disappearance at Clifton Hill, 2019

• The House That Jack Built, 2018

• The Nightingale, 2018

• Personal Shopper, 2016

• Sweet Virginia, 2017

• Trespassers, 2018

Leaving July 4

• Ginger's Tale, 2020

Leaving July 12

• Automata, 2014

• Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, 2009

Leaving July 13

• Bernie, 2011

• Blitz, 2011

Leaving July 14

• Centurion, 2010

• Filth, 2013

• Hobo With A Shotgun, 2011

• I'm Still Here, 2010

• Ragnarok, 2013

• SAS: Red Notice, 2021

• Sex, Guaranteed, 2017

• Venus And Serena, 2012

• Viva, 2015

Leaving July 17

• The Autopsy of Jane Doe, 2016

• The Babadook, 2014

• Backcountry, 2014

• The Death of Stalin, 2017

• Made in Italy, 2020

• Official Secrets, 2019

• The Salvation, 2014

• Sleeping with Other People, 2015

• Swallow, 2019

• True History of the Kelly Gang, 2019

• Werewolves Within, 2021

• Would You Rather?, 2012

Leaving July 19

• Day of the Dead, 1985

Leaving July 20

• The Code, 2009

• Edison, 2005

Leaving July 21

• The Iceman, 2012

• Killing Season, 2013

Leaving July 27

• Isn't It Romantic, 2019

• The Paperboy, 2012

• Rampart, 2011

Leaving July 28

• Stolen, 2012

• Trespass, 2011

Leaving July 30

• Betsy's Wedding, 1990

• Jiro Dreams of Sushi, 2011

Leaving July 31

• 13 Going On 30, 2004

• About Last Night, 1986

• The Beach, 2000

• Black Hawk Down, 2001

• Blue City, 1986

• Cast Away, 2000

• The Darjeeling Limited, 2007

• Fantastic Mr. Fox, 2009

• Ferris Bueller's Day Off, 1986

• Fresh Horses, 1988

• The Hunter, 2011

• The Joy Luck Club, 1993

• The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, 2004

• Meet the Spartans, 2008

• My Name Is Khan, 2010

• The Negotiator, 1998

• Once, 2007

• Once Upon a Time in America, 1984

• The Power Of One, 1992

• The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001

• Rushmore, 1999

• School For Scoundrels, 2006

• Sideways, 2004

• Skyscraper, 2018

• St. Elmo's Fire, 1985

• Taps, 1981

• Those Who Wish Me Dead, 2021

• Van Helsing, 2004

• Walk the Line, 2005

• The Wedding Ringer, 2015

• Weird Science, 1985

• White Chicks, 2004

• White House Down, 2013

In iOS 15.1, Apple introduced the SharePlay feature, which added a slew of content sharing options to FaceTime, allowing users to watch movies and television together. Now, in iOS 18, Apple is expanding those options to include screen sharing and even the option to pass off control of the screen to others within your call. Here’s how to use it.

How to use SharePlay’s Screen Share feature

First and foremost, SharePlay’s latest features are currently only available as part of the iOS 18 (or iPadOS 18) developer beta. More specifically, you’ll need to have at least beta 2 or newer installed to take advantage of the new features, as Apple only made them available recently.

I recommend only installing these betas on backup devices, as they could introduce instability to your main device. Once you have a device you're comfortable putting a beta on, follow these instructions to install it.

With the beta installed, you can now share your screen in Facetime, but with some caveats:

1. The screen sharing functionality does not appear to allow you to share you screen with Macs just yet. This will likely change in future betas.

2. Other users within the call must also be on iOS 18 (or iPadOS 18) dev beta 2 or newer.

Once you've met these requirements, you can start sharing your screen by beginning a FaceTime call with someone using a supported device.

Next, tap the Share icon, which is at the top of the screen, next to the End button.

Tap Share My Screen and then swipe out of Facetime. Your iPhone’s display should now appear on the other person’s device.

Once you're sharing your screen, there are two main functions at your disposal. First, you can annotate parts of the screen by drawing on the display using your finger or the Apple Pencil. This allows you to point specifically to areas you might want the person you're calling to tap on, and could be helpful in tech support.

Second, you can try the new Remote Control option.

How to use SharePlay’s Remote Control feature

To use SharePlay’s Remote Control feature, the user not sharing their screen will need to request control from the sharer. Just tap on the small hand-shaped icon located in the top-right corner of the shared screen (it’s right next to the magnifying glass icon). The sharer will receive a notification, where they will be able to approve or deny the control request.

From there, both users can share control of the device. This means you can now directly walk your aunt through the steps to solve her iPhone problems anytime she has them. However, be aware that there is a slight pause when handing control over to someone else. This should hopefully help avoid unintended swipes from the user who isn't in control. It could also just be a limitation of the beta at its current moment. Future updates will hopefully provide a bit more clarity there.

There are quite a few use cases for SharePlay’s Remote Control functionality—most notable being walking people through tech issues on their devices, as I mentioned above. As someone who has become the default “tech support guy” in my family, I’m very happy to see Apple making it so easy to interact with friends and family’s devices through Facetime.

During college when the weather would warm up for three whole seconds in upstate New York, my friends and I would journey out to get garbage plates. Yes, this dish looks a lot like the name suggests—opening the trash can after a backyard party—but for a certain type of person, this dish is a menagerie of summer delights. I am that person, and maybe you are too. I’d like to invite you into a world where all of your favorite BBQ foods can live together on one plate. Join me, won’t you?

The Rochester garbage plate, also called a trash plate, is a point of pride for upstate New York. It’s said to have originated at Nick Tahou Hots, though I don’t know if anyone else is competing for the title. My friends and I would get it at a random roadside drive-in-esque situation.

A garbage plate consists of all the classic yard party favorites: a grilled cheeseburger, hot dog, or sausage nested upon some home fries (or French fries), sharing space with a mound of macaroni salad, and a scoop of baked beans. Beef chili is ladled over the top along with chopped raw onions, and a streak of yellow mustard. This combination may be horrifying for some, but others have been eating barbecue sides in this manner their whole lives. 

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A garbage plate grocery list:

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While you might not subscribe to the original version of the garbage plate (I get it, baked beans, mustard, and macaroni salad might be a tad offensive), I do believe that a garbage plate is completely open to interpretation. Even Nick Tahou Hots’ order form shows a wide variety of options, including a grilled cheese or fried ham. No matter the person, there is some glorious combination of side dishes out there for everyone. Which means that hosting a build-your-own-garbage-plate station at your next cookout is a good and smart idea. 

To make a great garbage plate consider the formula: a grilled protein + a salad of sorts (preferably mayonnaise-coated)+ fried or roasted potatoes + sauce. Serve up some barbecued chicken thighs, fried fish, tofu planks, or soy sauce glazed pork belly. I love macaroni salad, but you could offer a German-style potato salad instead or even coleslaw. I don’t know who’s going to argue with fries or roasted potatoes—they’re gluten-free and vegan—so those can stay, and the sauce is up to you. The classic “hot sauce” is like a spicy ground beef chili, but you could offer a vegetarian chili, or for a lighter take, I’d recommend pico de gallo or salsa verde.

If you decide to have the classic garbage plate offerings available, there’s no need to stress it—you can buy almost all of the components pre-made from the deli section of your grocery store. However, if you’re doing parts of it homemade, the best tip I ever took was from A.A. Newton on macaroni salad: Make sure to overcook your pasta. 

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Supershoes are reshaping distance running

Since 2016, when Nike introduced the Vaporfly, a paradigm-­shifting shoe that helped athletes run more efficiently (and therefore faster), the elite running world has muddled through a period of soul-searching over the impact of high-tech footwear on the sport.

“Supershoes” —which combine a lightweight, energy-­returning foam with a carbon-fiber plate for stiffness—have been behind every broken world record in distances from 5,000 meters to the marathon since 2020.

To some, this is a sign of progress. In much of the world, elite running lacks a widespread following. Record-breaking adds a layer of excitement. And the shoes have benefits beyond the clock: most important, they help minimize wear on the body and enable faster recovery from hard workouts and races.

Still, some argue that they’ve changed the sport too quickly. Read the full story. 

—Jonathan W. Rosen

This story is from the forthcoming print issue of MIT Technology Review, which explores the theme of Play. It’s set to launch tomorrow, so if you don’t already, subscribe now to get a copy when it lands.

Why China’s dominance in commercial drones has become a global security issue

Whether you’ve flown a drone before or not, you’ve probably heard of DJI, or at least seen its logo. With more than a 90% share of the global consumer market, this Shenzhen-based company’s drones are used by hobbyists and businesses alike for everything from photography to spraying pesticides to moving parcels.

But on June 14, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would completely ban DJI’s drones from being sold in the US. The bill is now being discussed in the Senate as part of the annual defense budget negotiations. 

To understand why, you need to consider the potential for conflict between China and Taiwan, and the fact that the military implications of DJI’s commercial drones have become a top policy concern for US lawmakers. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

This story is from China Report, our weekly newsletter covering tech in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The EU has issued antitrust charges against Microsoft 
For bundling Teams with Office—just a day after it announced similar charges against Apple. (WSJ $) 
+ It seems likely it’ll be hit with a gigantic fine. (Ars Technica)
+ The EU has new powers to regulate the tech sector, and it’s clearly not afraid to use them. (FT $)

2 OpenAI is delaying launching its voice assistant 
 (WP $)
+ It’s also planning to block access in China—but plenty of Chinese companies stand ready to fill the void. (Mashable)

3 Deepfake creators are re-victimizing sex trafficking survivors
Non-consensual deepfake porn is proliferating at a terrifying pace—but this is the grimmest example I’ve seen. (Wired $)
+ Three ways we can fight deepfake porn. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Chinese tech company IPOs are a rarity these days
It’s becoming very hard to avoid the risk of it all being derailed by political scrutiny, whether at home or abroad. (NYT $)
+ Global chip company stock prices have been on a rollercoaster ride recently, thanks to Nvidia. (CNBC)

5 Why AI is not about to replace journalism
It can crank out content, sure—but it’s incredibly boring to read. (404 Media)
+ After all the hype, it’s no wonder lots of us feel ever-so-slightly disappointed by AI. (WP $)
+ Despite a troubled launch, Google’s already extending AI Summaries to Gmail as well as Search. (CNET) 

6 This week of extreme weather is a sign of things to come
Summers come with a side-serving of existential dread now, as we all feel the effects of climate change. (NBC)
+ Scientists have spotted a worrying new tipping point for the loss of ice sheets in Antarctica. (The Guardian) 

7 Inside the fight over lithium mine expansion in Argentina 
Indigenous communities had been divided in opposition—but as the cash started flowing, cracks started appearing. (The Guardian)
+ Lithium battery fires are a growing concern for firefighters worldwide. (WSJ $)

8 What even is intelligent life?
We value it, but it’s a slippery concept that’s almost impossible to define. (Aeon) 
+ What an octopus’s mind can teach us about AI’s ultimate mystery. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Tesla is recalling most Cybertrucks… for the fourth time 
You have to laugh, really. (The Verge) 
+ Luckily, it’s not sold that many of them anyway. (Quartz $)

10 The trouble with Meta’s “smart” Ray Bans 
Well… basically they’re just not very smart. At all. (Wired $)

Quote of the day

“We’re making the biggest bet in AI. If transformers go away, we’ll die. But if they stick around, we’re the biggest company of all time.”

—Fighting talk to CNBC from Gavin Uberti, cofounder and CEO of a two-year-old startup called Etched, which believes its AI-optimized chips could take on Nvidia’s near-monopoly.

The big story

This nanoparticle could be the key to a universal covid vaccine

September 2022
Long before Alexander Cohen—or anyone else—had heard of the alpha, delta, or omicron variants of covid-19, he and his graduate school advisor Pamela Bjorkman were doing the research that might soon make it possible for a single vaccine to defeat the rapidly evolving virus—along with any other covid-19 variant that might arise in the future.

The pair and their collaborators are now tantalizingly close to achieving their goal of manufacturing a vaccine that broadly triggers an immune response not just to covid and its variants but to a wider variety of coronaviruses. Read the full story.

—Adam Piore

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Happy 80th Birthday to much beloved Muswell Hillbilly Ray Davies, frontman of the Kinks.
+ Need to cool your home down? Plants can help!
+ Well, uh, that’s certainly one way to cope with a long-haul flight. 
+ Glad to know I’m not the only person obsessed with Nongshim instant noodles. 

This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.

Whether you’ve flown a drone before or not, you’ve probably heard of DJI, or at least seen its logo. With more than a 90% share of the global consumer market, this Shenzhen-based company’s drones are used by hobbyists and businesses alike for photography and surveillance, as well as for spraying pesticides, moving parcels, and many other purposes around the world.  

But on June 14, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would completely ban DJI’s drones from being sold in the US. The bill is now being discussed in the Senate as part of the annual defense budget negotiations. 

The reason? While its market dominance has attracted scrutiny for years, it’s increasingly clear that DJI’s commercial products are so good and affordable they are also being used on active battlefields to scout out the enemy or carry bombs. As the US worries about the potential for conflict between China and Taiwan, the military implications of DJI’s commercial drones are becoming a top policy concern.

DJI has managed to set the gold standard for commercial drones because it is built on decades of electronic manufacturing prowess and policy support in Shenzhen. It is an example of how China’s manufacturing advantage can turn into a technological one.

“I’ve been to the DJI factory many times … and mainly, China’s industrial base is so deep that every component ends up being a fraction of the cost,” Sam Schmitz, the mechanical engineering lead at Neuralink, wrote on X. Shenzhen and surrounding towns have had a robust factory scene for decades, providing an indispensable supply chain for a hardware industry like drones. “This factory made almost everything, and it’s surrounded by thousands of factories that make everything else … nowhere else in the world can you run out of some weird screw and just walk down the street until you find someone selling thousands of them,” he wrote.

But Shenzhen’s municipal government has also significantly contributed to the industry. For example, it has granted companies more permission for potentially risky experiments and set up subsidies and policy support. Last year, I visited Shenzhen to experience how it’s already incorporating drones in everyday food delivery, but the city is also working with companies to use drones for bigger and bigger jobs—carrying everything from packages to passengers. All of these go into a plan to build up the “low-altitude economy” in Shenzhen that keeps the city on the leading edge of drone technology.

As a result, the supply chain in Shenzhen has become so competitive that the world can’t really use drones without it. Chinese drones are simply the most accessible and affordable out there. 

Most recently, DJI’s drones have been used by both sides in the Ukraine-Russia conflict for reconnaissance and bombing. Some American companies tried to replace DJI’s role, but their drones were more expensive and their performance unsatisfactory. And even as DJI publicly suspended its businesses in Russia and Ukraine and said it would terminate any reseller relationship if its products were found to be used for military purposes, the Ukrainian army is still assembling its own drones with parts sourced from China.

This reliance on one Chinese company and the supply chain behind it is what worries US politicians, but the danger would be more pronounced in any conflict between China and Taiwan, a prospect that is a huge security concern in the US and globally.

Last week, my colleague James O’Donnell wrote about a report by the think tank Center for a New American Security (CNAS) that analyzed the role of drones in a potential war in the Taiwan Strait. Right now, both Ukraine and Russia are still finding ways to source drones or drone parts from Chinese companies, but it’d be much harder for Taiwan to do so, since it would be in China’s interest to block its opponent’s supply. “So Taiwan is effectively cut off from the world’s foremost commercial drone supplier and must either make its own drones or find alternative manufacturers, likely in the US,” James wrote.

If the ban on DJI sales in the US is eventually passed, it will hit the company hard for sure, as the US drone market is currently worth an estimated $6 billion, the majority of which is going to DJI. But undercutting DJI’s advantage won’t magically grow an alternative drone industry outside China. 

“The actions taken against DJI suggest protectionism and undermine the principles of fair competition and an open market. The Countering CCP Drones Act risks setting a dangerous precedent, where unfounded allegations dictate public policy, potentially jeopardizing the economic well-being of the US,” DJI told MIT Technology Review in an emailed statement.

The Taiwanese government is aware of the risks of relying too much on China’s drone industry, and it’s looking to change. In March, Taiwan’s newly elected president, Lai Ching-te, said that Taiwan wants to become the “Asian center for the democratic drone supply chain.” 

Already the hub of global semiconductor production, Taiwan seems well positioned to grow another hardware industry like drones, but it will probably still take years or even decades to build the economies of scale seen in Shenzhen. With support from the US, can Taiwanese companies really grow fast enough to meaningfully sway China’s control of the industry? That’s a very open question.

A housekeeping note: I’m currently visiting London, and the newsletter will take a break next week. If you are based in the UK and would like to meet up, let me know by writing to zeyi@technologyreview.com.

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Now read the rest of China Report

Catch up with China

1. ByteDance is working with the US chip design company Broadcom to develop a five-nanometer AI chip. This US-China collaboration, which should be compliant with US export restrictions, is rare these days given the political climate. (Reuters $)

2. After both the European Union and China announced new tariffs against each other, the two sides agreed to chat about how to resolve the dispute. (New York Times $)

• Canada is preparing to announce its own tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles. (Bloomberg $)

3. A NASA leader says the US is “on schedule” to send astronauts to the moon within a few years. There’s currently a heated race between the US and China on moon exploration. (Washington Post $)

4. A new cybersecurity report says RedJuliett, a China-backed hacker group, has intensified attacks on Taiwanese organizations this year. (Al Jazeera $)

5. The Canadian government is blocking a rare earth mine from being sold to a Chinese company. Instead, the government will buy the stockpiled rare earth materials for $2.2 million. (Bloomberg $)

6. Economic hardship at home has pushed some Chinese small investors to enter the US marijuana industry. They have been buying lands in the States, setting up marijuana farms, and hiring other new Chinese immigrants. (NPR)

Lost in translation

In the past week, the most talked-about person in China has been a 17-year-old girl named Jiang Ping, according to the Chinese publication Southern Metropolis Daily. Every year since 2018, the Chinese company Alibaba has been hosting a global mathematics contest that attracts students from prestigious universities around the world to compete for a generous prize. But to everyone’s surprise, Jiang, who’s studying fashion design at a vocational high school in a poor town in eastern China, ended up ranking 12th in the qualifying round this year, beating scores of college undergraduate or even master’s students. Other than reading college mathematics textbooks under her math teacher’s guidance, Jiang has received no professional training, as many of her competitors have.

Jiang’s story, highlighted by Alibaba following the announcement of the first-round results, immediately went viral in China. While some saw it as a tale of buried talents and how personal endeavor can overcome unfavorable circumstances, others questioned the legitimacy of her results. She became so famous that people, including social media influencers, kept visiting her home, turning her hometown into an unlikely tourist destination. The town had to hide Jiang from public attention while she prepared for the final round of the competition.

One more thing

After I wrote about the new Chinese generative video model Kling last week, the AI tool added a new feature that can turn a static photo into a short video clip. Well, what better way to test its performance than feeding it the iconic “distracted boyfriend” meme and watching what the model predicts will happen after that moment?

可灵上线图生视频了，演绎效果很到位！ pic.twitter.com/MgcO3CCl9o

— Gorden Sun (@Gorden_Sun) June 21, 2024

Update: The story has been updated to include a statement from DJI.

Stijn Lemmens has a cleanup job like few others. A senior space debris mitigation analyst at the European Space Agency (ESA), Lemmens works on counteracting space pollution by collaborating with spacecraft designers and the wider industry to create missions less likely to clutter the orbital environment. 

Although significant attention has been devoted to launching spacecraft into space, the idea of what to do with their remains has been largely ignored. Many previous missions did not have an exit strategy. Instead of being pushed into orbits where they could reenter Earth’s atmosphere and burn up, satellites were simply left in orbit at the ends of their lives, creating debris that must be monitored and, if possible, maneuvered around to avoid a collision. “For the last 60 years, we’ve been using [space] as if it were an infinite resource,” Lemmens says. “But particularly in the last 10 years, it has become rather clear that this is not the case.” 

Engineering the ins and outs: Step one in reducing orbital clutter—or, colloquially, space trash—is designing spacecraft that safely leave space when their missions are complete. “I thought naïvely, as a student, ‘How hard can that be?’” says Lemmens. The answer turned out to be more complicated than he expected. 

At ESA, he works with scientists and engineers on specific missions to devise good approaches. Some incorporate propulsion that works reliably even decades after launch; others involve designing systems that can move spacecraft to keep them from colliding with other satellites and with space debris. They also work on plans to get the remains through the atmosphere without large risks to aviation and infrastructure.

Standardizing space: Earth’s atmosphere exerts a drag on satellites that will eventually pull them out of orbit. National and international guidelines recommend that satellites lower their altitude at the end of their operational lives so that they will reenter the atmosphere and make this possible. Previously the goal was for this to take 25 years at most; Lemmens and his peers now suggest five years or less, a time frame that would have to be taken into account from the start of mission planning and design. 

Explaining the need for this change in policy can feel a bit like preaching, Lemmens says, and it’s his least favorite part of the job. It’s a challenge, he says, to persuade people not to think of the vastness of space as “an infinite amount of orbits.” Without change, the amount of space debris may create a serious problem in the coming decades, cluttering orbits and increasing the number of collisions.  

Shaping the future: Lemmens says his wish is for his job to become unnecessary in the future, but with around 11,500 satellites and over 35,000 debris objects being tracked, and more launches planned, that seems unlikely to happen. 

Researchers are looking into more drastic changes to the way space missions are run. We might one day, for instance, be able to dismantle satellites and find ways to recycle their components in orbit. Such an approach isn’t likely to be used anytime soon, Lemmens says. But he is encouraged that more spacecraft designers are thinking about sustainability: “Ideally, this becomes the normal in the sense that this becomes a standard engineering practice that you just think of when you’re designing your spacecraft.”

The United States has an official web design system and a custom typeface. This public design system aims to make government websites not only good-looking but accessible and functional for all.

Before the internet, Americans may have interacted with the federal government by stepping into grand buildings adorned with impressive stone columns and gleaming marble floors. Today, the neoclassical architecture of those physical spaces has been (at least partially) replaced by the digital architecture of website design—HTML code, tables, forms, and buttons. 

While people visiting a government website to apply for student loans, research veterans’ benefits, or enroll in Medicare might not notice these digital elements, they play a crucial role. If a website is buggy or doesn’t work on a phone, taxpayers may not be able to access the services they have paid for—which can create a negative impression of the government itself.  

There are about 26,000 federal websites in the US. Early on, each site had its own designs, fonts, and log-in systems, creating frustration for the public and wasting government resources. The troubled launch of Healthcare.gov in 2013 highlighted the need for a better way to build government digital services. In 2014, President Obama created two new teams to help improve government tech.

Within the General Services Administration (GSA), a new team called 18F (named for its office at 1800 F Street in Washington, DC) was created to “collaborate with other agencies to fix technical problems, build products, and improve public service through technology.” The team was built to move at the speed of tech startups rather than lumbering bureaucratic agencies. 

The US Digital Service (USDS) was set up “to deliver better government services to the American people through technology and design.” In 2015, the two teams collaborated to build the US Web Design System (USWDS), a style guide and collection of user interface components and design patterns intended to ensure accessibility and a consistent user experience across government websites. “Inconsistency is felt, even if not always precisely articulated in usability research findings,” Dan Williams, the USWDS program lead, said in an email. 

Today, the system defines 47 user interface components such as buttons, alerts, search boxes, and forms, each with design examples, sample code, and guidelines such as “Be polite” and “Don’t overdo it.” Now in its third iteration, it is used in 160 government websites. “As of September 2023, 94 agencies use USWDS code, and it powers about 1.1 billion page views on federal websites,” says Williams.

To ensure clear and consistent typography, the free and open-source typeface Public Sans was created for the US government in 2019. “It started as a design experiment,” says Williams, who designed the typeface. “We were interested in trying to establish an open-source solution space for a typeface, just like we had for the other design elements in the design system.”

The teams behind Public Sans and the USWDS embrace transparency and collaboration with government agencies and the public.

And to ensure that the hard-learned lessons aren’t forgotten, the projects embrace continuous improvement. One of the design principles behind Public Sans offers key guidance in this area: “Strive to be better, not necessarily perfect.”

Jon Keegan writes Beautiful Public Data, a newsletter that curates visually interesting data sets collected by local, state, and federal government agencies
(beautifulpublicdata.com).

The philosopher Karl Popper once argued that there are two kinds of problems in the world: clock problems and cloud problems. As the metaphor suggests, clock problems obey a certain logic. They are orderly and can be broken down and analyzed piece by piece. When a clock stops working, you’re able to take it apart, look for what’s wrong, and fix it. The fix may not be easy, but it’s achievable. Crucially, you know when you’ve solved the issue because the clock starts telling the time again. 

Cloud problems offer no such assurances. They are inherently complex and unpredictable, and they usually have social, psychological, or political dimensions. Because of their dynamic, shape-shifting nature, trying to “fix” a cloud problem often ends up creating several new problems. For this reason, they don’t have a definitive “solved” state—only good and bad (or better and worse) outcomes. Trying to repair a broken-down car is a clock problem. Trying to solve traffic is a cloud problem.  

Engineers are renowned clock-problem solvers. They’re also notorious for treating every problem like a clock. Increasing specialization and cultural expectations play a role in this tendency. But so do engineers themselves, who are typically the ones who get to frame the problems they’re trying to solve in the first place. 

In his latest book, Wicked Problems, Guru Madhavan argues that the growing number of cloudy problems in our world demands a broader, more civic-minded approach to engineering. “Wickedness” is Madhavan’s way of characterizing what he calls “the cloudiest of problems.” It’s a nod to a now-famous coinage by Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber, professors at the University of California, Berkeley, who used the term “wicked” to describe complex social problems that resisted the rote scientific and engineering-based (i.e., clock-like) approaches that were invading their fields of design and urban planning back in the 1970s. 

Madhavan, who’s the senior director of programs at the National Academy of Engineering, is no stranger to wicked problems himself. He’s tackled such daunting examples as trying to make prescription drugs more affordable in the US and prioritizing development of new vaccines. But the book isn’t about his own work. Instead, Wicked Problems weaves together the story of a largely forgotten aviation engineer and inventor, Edwin A. Link, with case studies of man-made and natural disasters that Madhavan uses to explain how wicked problems take shape in society and how they might be tamed.

Link’s story, for those who don’t know it, is fascinating—he was responsible for building the first mechanical flight trainer, using parts from his family’s organ factory—and Madhavan gives a rich and detailed accounting. The challenges this inventor faced in the 1920s and ’30s—which included figuring out how tens of thousands of pilots could quickly and effectively be trained to fly without putting all of them up in the air (and in danger), as well as how to instill trust in “instrument flying” when pilots’ instincts frequently told them their instruments were wrong—were among the quintessential wicked problems of his time. 

To address a world full of wicked problems, we’re going to need a more expansive and inclusive idea of what engineering is and who gets to participate in it.

Unfortunately, while Link’s biography and many of the interstitial chapters on disasters, like Boston’s Great Molasses Flood of 1919, are interesting and deeply researched, Wicked Problems suffers from some wicked structural choices. 

The book’s elaborate conceptual framework and hodgepodge of narratives feel both fussy and unnecessary, making a complex and nuanced topic even more difficult to grasp at times. In the prologue alone, readers must bounce from the concept of cloud problems to that of wicked problems, which get broken down into hard, soft, and messy problems, which are then reconstituted in different ways and linked to six attributes—efficiency, vagueness, vulnerability, safety, maintenance, and resilience—that, together, form what Madhavan calls a “concept of operations,” which is the primary organizational tool he uses to examine wicked problems.

It’s a lot—or at least enough to make you wonder whether a “systems engineering” approach was the correct lens through which to examine wickedness. It’s also unfortunate because Madhavan’s ultimate argument is an important one, particularly in an age of rampant solutionism and “one neat trick” approaches to complex problems. To effectively address a world full of wicked problems, he says, we’re going to need a more expansive and inclusive idea of what engineering is and who gets to participate in it.  

While John Downer would likely agree with that sentiment, his new book, Rational Accidents, makes a strong argument that there are hard limits to even the best and broadest engineering approaches. Similarly set in the world of aviation, Downer’s book explores a fundamental paradox at the heart of today’s civil aviation industry: the fact that flying is safer and more reliable than should technically be possible.

Jetliners are an example of what Downer calls a “catastrophic technology.” These are “complex technological systems that require extraordinary, and historically unprecedented, failure rates—of the order of hundreds of millions, or even billions, of operational hours between catastrophic failures.”

Take the average modern jetliner, with its 7 million components and 170 miles’ worth of wiring—an immensely complex system in and of itself. There were over 25,000 jetliners in regular service in 2014, according to Downer. Together, they averaged 100,000 flights every single day. Now consider that in 2017, no passenger-carrying commercial jetliner was involved in a fatal accident. Zero. That year, passenger totals reached 4 billion on close to 37 million flights. Yes, it was a record-setting year for the airline industry, safety-wise, but flying remains an almost unfathomably safe and reliable mode of transportation—even with Boeing’s deadly 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 and the company’s ongoing troubles. 

Downer, a professor of science and technology studies at the University of Bristol, does an excellent job in the first half of the book dismantling the idea that we can objectively recognize, understand, and therefore control all risk involved in such complex technologies. Using examples from well-known jetliner crashes, as well as from the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown, he shows why there are simply too many scenarios and permutations of failure for us to assess or foresee such risks, even with today’s sophisticated modeling techniques and algorithmic assistance.

So how does the airline industry achieve its seemingly unachievable record of safety and reliability? It’s not regulation, Downer says. Instead, he points to three unique factors. First is the massive service experience the industry has amassed. Over the course of 70 years, manufacturers have built tens of thousands of jetliners, which have failed (and continue to fail) in all sorts of unpredictable ways. 

This deep and constantly growing data set, combined with the industry’s commitment to thoroughly investigating each and every failure, lets it generalize the lessons learned across the entire industry—the second key to understanding jetliner reliability. 

Finally is what might be the most interesting and counterintuitive factor: Downer argues that the lack of innovation in jetliner design is an essential but overlooked part of the reliability record. The fact that the industry has been building what are essentially iterations of the same jetliner for 70 years ensures that lessons learned from failures are perpetually relevant as well as generalizable, he says. 

That extremely cautious relationship to change flies in the face of the innovate-or-die ethos that drives most technology companies today. And yet it allows the airline industry to learn from decades of failures and continue to chip away at the future “failure performance” of jetliners.

The bad news is that the lessons in jetliner reliability aren’t transferable to other catastrophic technologies. “It is an irony of modernity that the only catastrophic technology with which we have real experience, the jetliner, is highly unrepresentative, and yet it reifies a misleading perception of mastery over catastrophic technologies in general,” writes Downer.

For instance, to make nuclear reactors as reliable as jetliners, that industry would need to commit to one common reactor design, build tens of thousands of reactors, operate them for decades, suffer through thousands of catastrophes, slowly accumulate lessons and insights from those catastrophes, and then use them to refine that common reactor design.  

This obviously won’t happen. And yet “because we remain entranced by the promise of implausible reliability, and implausible certainty about that reliability, our appetite for innovation has outpaced our insight and humility,” writes Downer. With the age of catastrophic technologies still in its infancy, our continued survival may very well hinge not on innovating our way out of cloudy or wicked problems, but rather on recognizing, and respecting, what we don’t know and can probably never understand.  

If Wicked Problems and Rational Accidents are about the challenges and limits of trying to understand complex systems using objective science- and engineering-based methods, Georgina Voss’s new book, Systems Ultra, provides a refreshing alternative. Rather than dispassionately trying to map out or make sense of complex systems from the outside, Voss—a writer, artist, and researcher—uses her book to grapple with what they feel like, and ultimately what they mean, from the inside.

“There is something rather wonderful about simply feeling our way through these enormous structures,” she writes before taking readers on a whirlwind tour of systems visible and unseen, corrupt and benign, ancient and new. Stops include the halls of hype at Las Vegas’s annual Consumer Electronics Show (“a hot mess of a Friday casual hellscape”), the “memetic gold mine” that was the container ship Ever Given and the global supply chain it broke when it got stuck in the Suez Canal, and the payment systems that undergird the porn industry. 

For Voss, systems are both structure and behavior. They are relational technologies that are “defined by their ability to scale and, perhaps more importantly, their peculiar relationship to scale.” She’s also keenly aware of the pitfalls of using an “experiential” approach to make sense of these large-scale systems. “Verbal attempts to neatly encapsulate what a system is can feel like a stoner monologue with pointed hand gestures (‘Have you ever thought about how electricity is, like, really big?’),” she writes. 

Nevertheless, her written attempts are a delight to read. Voss manages to skillfully unpack the power structures that make up, and reinforce, the large-scale systems we live in. Along the way, she also dispels many of the stories we’re told about their inscrutability and inevitability. That she does all this with humor, intelligence, and a boundless sense of curiosity makes Systems Ultra both a shining example of the “civic engagement as engineering” approach that Madhavan argues for in Wicked Problems, and proof that his argument is spot on. 

Bryan Gardiner is a writer based in Oakland, California.

In a November 1984 story for Technology Review, Carolyn Sumners, curator of astronomy at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, described how toys, games, and even amusement park rides could change how young minds view science and math. “The Slinky,” Sumners noted, “has long served teachers as a medium for demonstrating longitudinal (soundlike) waves and transverse (lightlike) waves.” A yo-yo can be used as a gauge (a “yo-yo meter”) to observe the forces on a roller coaster. Marbles employ mass and velocity. Even a simple ball offers insights into the laws of gravity.

While Sumners focused on physics, she was onto something bigger. Over the last several decades, evidence has emerged that childhood play can shape our future selves: the skills we develop, the professions we choose, our sense of self-worth, and even our relationships.

That doesn’t mean we should foist “educational” toys like telescopes or tiny toolboxes on kids to turn them into astronomers or carpenters. As Sumners explained, even “fun” toys offer opportunities to discover the basic principles of physics. 

According to Jacqueline Harding, a child development expert and author of The Brain That Loves to Play, “If you invest time in play, which helps with executive functioning, decision-making, resilience—all those things—then it’s going to propel you into a much more safe, secure space in the future.”

Sumners was focused mostly on hard skills, the scientific knowledge that toys and games can foster. But there are soft skills, too, like creativity, problem-­solving, teamwork, and empathy. According to Harding, the less structure there is to such play—the fewer rules and goals—the more these soft skills emerge.

“The kinds of playthings, or play activities, that really produce creative thought,” she says, “are natural materials, with no defined end to them—like clay, paint, water, and mud—so that there is no right or wrong way of playing with it.” 

Playing is by definition voluntary, spontaneous, and goal-free; it involves taking risks, testing boundaries, and experimenting. The best kind of play results in joyful discovery, and along the way, the building blocks of innovation and personal development take shape. But in the decades since Sumners wrote her story, the landscape of play has shifted considerably. Recent research by the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on Early Childhood suggests that digital games and virtual play don’t appear to confer the same developmental benefits as physical games and outdoor play. 

“The brain loves the rewards that are coming from digital media,” says Harding. But in screen-based play, “you’re not getting that autonomy.” The lack of physical interaction also concerns her: “It is the quality of human face-to-face interaction, body proximity, eye-to-eye gaze, and mutual engagement in a play activity that really makes a difference.”

Bill Gourgey is a science writer based in Washington, DC.

For children, play comes so naturally. They don’t have to be encouraged to play. They don’t need equipment, or the latest graphics processors, or the perfect conditions—they just do it. What’s more, study after study has found that play has a crucial role in childhood growth and development. If you want to witness the absolute rapture of creative expression, just observe the unstructured play of children.

So what happens to us as we grow older? Children begin to compete with each other by age four or five. Play begins to transform from something we do purely for fun into something we use to achieve status and rank ourselves against other people. We play to score points. We play to win. 

And with that, play starts to become something different. Not that it can’t still be fun and joyful! Even watching other people play will bring us joy. We enjoy watching other people play so much and get so much joy by proxy from watching their achievements that we spend massive amounts of money to do so. According to StubHub, the average price of a ticket to the Super Bowl this year was $8,600. The average price for a Super Bowl ad was a cool $7 million this year, according to Ad Age. 

This kind of interest doesn’t just apply to physical games. Video-game streaming has long been a mainstay on YouTube, and entire industries have risen up around it. Top streamers on Twitch—Amazon’s livestreaming service, which is heavily gaming focused—earn upwards of $100,000 per month. And the global market for video games themselves is projected to bring in some $282 billion in revenue this year. 

Simply put, play is serious business. 

There are fortunes to be had in making our play more appealing, more accessible, more fun. All of the features in this issue dig in on the enormous amount of research and development that goes into making play “better.”  

On our cover this month is executive editor Niall Firth’s feature on the ways AI is going to upend game development. As you will read, we are about to enter the Wild West—Red Dead or not—of game character development. How will games change when they become less predictable and more fully interactive, thanks to AI-driven nonplayer characters who can not only go off script but even continue to play with each other when we’re not there? Will these even be games anymore, or will we simply be playing around in experiences? What kinds of parasocial relationships will we develop in these new worlds? It’s a fascinating read. 

There is no sport more intimately connected to the ocean, and to water, than surfing. It’s pure play on top of the waves. And when you hear surfers talk about entering the flow state, this is very much the same kind of state children experience at play—intensely focused, losing all sense of time and the world around them. Finding that flow no longer means living by the water’s edge, Eileen Guo reports. At surf pools all over the world, we’re piping water into (or out of) deserts to create perfect waves hundreds of miles from the ocean. How will that change the sport, and at what environmental cost? 

Just as we can make games more interesting, or bring the ocean to the desert, we have long pushed the limits of how we can make our bodies better, faster, stronger. Among the most recent ways we have done this is with the advent of so-called supershoes—running shoes with rigid carbon-fiber plates and bouncy proprietary foams. The late Kelvin Kiptum utterly destroyed the men’s world record for the marathon last year wearing a pair of supershoes made by Nike, clocking in at a blisteringly hot 2:00:35. Jonathan W. Rosen explores the science and technology behind these shoes and how they are changing the sport, especially in Kenya. 

There’s plenty more, too. So I hope you enjoy the Play issue. We certainly put a lot of work into it. But of course, what fun is play if you don’t put in the work?

Thanks for reading,

Mat Honan

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