© Kenny Holston/The New York Times
© Yves Herman/Reuters
Enlarge / Fisker CEO Henrik Fisker introduces the all-electric compact hatchback Pear during its inaugural "Product Vision Day" in Huntington Beach, California, on August 3, 2023.
It was the last week in June, and José De Bardi hadn’t gotten much sleep. The trouble had really kicked off on June 18, about a week earlier, when the electric vehicle company Fisker announced it had filed for bankruptcy protection. Now some 6,400 Fisker owners like De Bardi wondered: What will happen to their cars in the future?
The bankruptcy “lit a fire,” De Bardi says. “We had to get organized if we had any chance of representing owners’ interests.” Within days, he and a handful of other Fisker vehicle owners had established a nonprofit organization called the Fisker Owners Association, dedicated to keeping their cars running. (Hence, the lack of sleep.) By the end of the month, 1,200 owners—representing nearly a fifth of total Fisker cars sold—had registered through the group’s website, De Bardi says.
Enlarge / The Tianlong-3 rocket as seen on its test stand before the anomaly. (credit: Space Pioneer)
One of the most promising Chinese space startups, Space Pioneer, experienced a serious anomaly this weekend while testing the first stage of its Tianlong-3 rocket near the city of Gongyi.
The rocket was undergoing a static fire test of the stage, in which a vehicle is clamped to a test stand while its engines are ignited, when the booster broke free. According to a statement from the company, the rocket was not sufficiently clamped down and blasted off from the test stand "due to a structural failure."
Video of the accidental ascent showed the rocket rising several hundred meters into the sky before it crashed explosively into a mountain 1.5 km away from the test site. (See various angles of the accident here, on the social media site X, or on Weibo.) The statement from Space Pioneer sought to downplay the incident, saying it had implemented safety measures before the test, and there were no casualties as a result of the accident. "The test site is far away from the urban area of Gongyi," the company said.
Enlarge / If your right hand starts typing "delve," you may, in fact, be an LLM. (credit: Getty Images)
Thus far, even AI companies have had trouble coming up with tools that can reliably detect when a piece of writing was generated using a large language model. Now, a group of researchers has established a novel method for estimating LLM usage across a large set of scientific writing by measuring which "excess words" started showing up much more frequently during the LLM era (i.e., 2023 and 2024). The results "suggest that at least 10% of 2024 abstracts were processed with LLMs," according to the researchers.
In a pre-print paper posted earlier this month, four researchers from Germany's University of Tubingen and Northwestern University said they were inspired by studies that measured the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by looking at excess deaths compared to the recent past. By taking a similar look at "excess word usage" after LLM writing tools became widely available in late 2022, the researchers found that "the appearance of LLMs led to an abrupt increase in the frequency of certain style words" that was "unprecedented in both quality and quantity."
To measure these vocabulary changes, the researchers analyzed 14 million paper abstracts published on PubMed between 2010 and 2024, tracking the relative frequency of each word as it appeared across each year. They then compared the expected frequency of those words (based on the pre-2023 trendline) to the actual frequency of those words in abstracts from 2023 and 2024, when LLMs were in widespread use.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
I've scoured the new releases of Amazon's Prime and FreeVee platforms this month to present the best new, and new-to-streaming, movies and shows the services have to offer, plus a couple older choices for extra flavor.
If you're into fresh comedy, Amazon original movie Space Cadet could be your jam, and so could the new animated series Sausage Party: Foodtopia. If you're into domestic drama, check out Tyler Perry's Divorce in Black. Action fans can choose between recent action flicks The Beekeeper or Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning. So there's a lot to watch this month. Below are some suggestions.
Remember that episode of The Simpsons where Homer is chosen to fly in a space shuttle mission? Space Cadet is like the training montage made into a fish-out-of-water comedy. It stars Emma Roberts as Tiffany “Rex” Simpson, a Florida party girl who’s always dreamed of being an astronaut. Her background is in bar-hopping instead astrophysics, so she lies on her LinkedIn and gets into NASA’s competitive astronaut training program. Surrounded by ambitious PhDs and engineers, Simpson tries to keep up her “smart and accomplished” ruse long enough to be blasted into space. If you like female-led comedy and jokes about science, Space Cadet might be your favorite movie.
Starts streaming July 4.
Based on 2016’s CGI feature Sausage Party, Foodtopia details the efforts of sentient hot dogs, bananas, and other foods to create a society where they won’t have their heads bitten off just because someone is peckish. It’s sure to be packed with the scatological and raunchy humor audiences enjoyed in the original film, so it’s definitely not for kids. The eight-episode series features the return of voice talent from the original, including Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Michael Cera, David Krumholtz, Edward Norton, Sam Richardson, and Will Forte. If you like your comedy uncut, this might be your new summer show.
Prolific writer/director/producer Tyler Perry takes on divorce in this drama starring Meagan Good and Cory Hardrict. Good plays Ava, a bank professional, whose life is upended when her husband (Hardrict) walks out of their home. She’s set on fighting to save her marriage until she uncovers secrets that suggest her husband has a very dark side and sabotaged a past relationship with Ava’s true soulmate.
Starts streaming July 11.
The Beekeeper should be terrible. The premise makes you picture a slimy producer at a Hollywood development meeting saying, “It’s John Wick—but with bees!” But miraculously, The Beekeeper is not terrible. People like this Jason Statham-led action movie enough that it’s sitting at 92% audience approval at Rotten Tomatoes. Even finicky critics like The Beekeeper enough for a 71% fresh rating. It’s not going to change your life or anything, but it you’re looking for a dumb-fun action flick about a British badass who beats everyone up, The Beekeeper is for you.
Starts streaming July 2.
In case you haven't heard of him, Tom Cruise is a national treasure and the world’s greatest movie star who does his own stunts even though he’s 112 years old. In Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Cruise turns his charisma up to 15 million gigawatts in his recurring role of Ethan Hunt, agent of the Impossible Mission Force. The plot has something to do with an evil mastermind trying to take over the world with artificial intelligence or something, but it really doesn’t matter. Mission Impossible movies live or die based on the quality and quantity of their over-the-top action set-pieces, and Dead Reckoning over-delivers. It takes action to such ludicrous, even critics like it—the movie has a 96% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Starts streaming July 25.
Released in 2020, My Spy is one of a fair number of action/comedies where a tough guy and a little kid become unlikely partners. The sequel explores this rarely-misses formula by reuniting stars Dave Bautista and Chloe Coleman for a feel-good family adventure. It begins with JJ volunteering to chaperone his new daughter’s choir group on a trip to Rome to perform for the Pope. Things go south when the pair run afoul of International terrorists. Hilarious character actors Ken Jeong and Kristen Schaal return, and are joined by Anna Faris, Craig Robinson, and Flula Borg. Eternal City is full of stars, laughs, and exciting-but-not-distressing action—a perfect summer flick.
Starts streaming July 18.
Gravel-voiced stand-up Sam Morril takes the stage in a stand-up special where he drops hot takes on everything from the worst person he's ever dated, to the challenges of aging, to the dangers of social media, all delivered in the laid-back style Morril is known for. If you like people making ha-ha jokes at you, Sam Morril: You’ve Changed will make you laugh, or at least say “heh” a few times.
Starts streaming July 9.
Cirque du Soleil, the circus that costs $100, had a rough time during the pandemic lockdown—it’s a cool show and all, but is it worth contracting Covid? Without a Net documents the struggles of Cirque's crew and performers as they dust off the trapeze and harnesses and work toward a grand re-opening in Las Vegas. With that famous the-show-must-go-on ethic driving it, the world’s most high-class circus journey’s back from the brink in an inspiring story.
Starts streaming July 25
If you’re looking for a summertime movie binge, consider hitting play on the first five Rocky movies and following the career of the Italian Stallion from his unlikely title fight shot in 1976’s Rocky to his brief career as a trainer in 1990’s Rocky 5. The Rocky franchise follows an arc as dramatic and erratic as its main character’s: It goes from a downbeat beginning about a palooka whose redemption comes through surviving a beating instead of winning a fight, to the over-amped, montage-heavy live-action cartoon Rocky IV, where Rocky KOs Ivan Drago in a battle that’s really about America-brand Freedom beating up Communist oppression. Then there’s the coda, Rocky V, where Rocky doesn’t even box.
Starts streaming July 1.
There are few film franchises better than Sergio Leone’s “Dollars trilogy” (Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good the Bad and Ugly), Steely-eyed Clint Eastwood defines cool as a nameless antihero locked in epic struggles against black-hatted adversaries (usually played by Lee Van Cleef) in a mythic version of the The American West. These aren’t really stories about cowboys as much as legends of Gods from some unfamiliar pantheon. So watch all these movies instead of doing anything else, please.
Starts streaming July 1.
1981’s The Evil Dead is one of the best horror movies ever made, but sadly, it’s only on streaming on AMC+. Prime subscribers get a tasty consolation prize with Evil Dead Rise, a thoroughly enjoyable, suitably bloody, modern addition to the franchise. Evil Dead Rise drops the isolated cabin-in-the-woods location in favor of a deadite invasion in a city. It also features characters that are interesting enough that you might think they exist for reasons other than to be killed and eaten by undead monsters. They don’t, of course, because this is an Evil Dead movie. Like all the Evil Dead movies, it’s a gory, scary, silly, and fun treat for fans of horror mayhem.
Starts streaming July 2.
Christopher Nolan's biopic about the inventor of atomic weapons took home seven Oscars, including best picture, and it also made over $900 million at the box office. Cillian Murphy stars as physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, a complex, driven visionary tasked with creating the most destructive weapon in human history to fight the Axis powers during World War II. Spoiler: he succeeds, but Oppenheimer, both the movie and man, end up wondering if atomic weapons were actually such a great idea.
Starts streaming June 18.
The Boys, as they say, are back in town. In season four, the world is on the brink of collapse as evil Victoria Neuman gets closer to the Oval Office. If this were a normal superhero show, weirdos wearing underwear and capes would spring into action on behalf of mankind, but this is The Boys, so the corrupt, arrogant superheroes are causing the trouble in the first place, and only the titular team of un-super-powered CIA agents can stop them.
Starts streaming June 13.
In Skyfall, director Sam Mendes jettisons the campy gadgets and goofiness and goes for a "modern Bond" blend of intensity and breeziness that works perfectly with Daniel Craig's nuanced portrayal of the secret agent. The third James Bond movie starring Craig, Skyfall's Rotten Tomatoes score is 92%, and the Bond fan community generally places this flick in the company of the best films in the long-running series. If you know anyone who hasn't seen a Bond movie, this is a great way to jump in.
Starts streaming June 1.
This original Prime documentary explores singer Celine Dion's struggle with Stiff Person Syndrome, a rare neurological disease. Described in a press release as an "emotional, energetic, and poetic love letter to music," I Am: Celine Dion takes viewers from the dressing room to the recording studio to the stage and captures an intimate look at the superstar singer's private life and struggles.
Starts streaming June 25
The real Lady Jane Grey was a Tudor noblewoman who became Queen of England in 1553 but only ruled for nine days before being beheaded. This Prime original series explores what might have happened if The Nine Days' Queen had kept her head. Based on the best-selling YA novel of the same name by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows, My Lady Jane is "an epic tale of true love and high adventure set in an alt-universe of action, history, fantasy, comedy, romance, and rompy-pompy," according to Amazon's promotional material.
Starts streaming June 27.
I'm intrigued by this upcoming Prime talk show. Based on host Nick Cannon's podcast of the same name, Counsel Culture is billed as a "safe space and a brave place for men to be vulnerable," but is a panel of dudes discussing mental health, masculinity, dating, and other dude topics the kind of thing men want to watch? Time will tell. Cannon is joined by therapist Dr. Mike Dow and psychiatrist Dr. Ish Major, and guest co-hosts include Howie Mandel, Lamar Odom, DeSean Jackson, and more.
Starts streaming June 6.
Speaking of men sharing their feelings, in his new special Good Grief, stand-up comedian/actor/maker Marlon Wayans gets real about the death of his parents, but does it in a funny way. Filmed at Harlem's famous Apollo theater, Wayans's comedy-meet-therapy performance is based on the motto that "all grief is good grief," and touches on topics like which Wayans brother is funniest, and how remarkable it is that the matriarch of the Wayans family raised "five millionaires but only one crackhead."
Starts streaming June 4
Written by and starring the supernaturally talented Tina Fey, this Gen-Z remake of the beloved 2004 movie adds original songs to the teen comedy mix. Up-and-comer Angourie Rice plays Cady Heron, a new girl at North Shore High School who is forced to navigate the backbiting cliques that make high school such a fantastic time. The cast includes Reneé Rapp, Jon Hamm, Auli'i Cravalho, Jaquel Spivey, Tina Fey, and Tim Meadows, so if you like crowd-pleasing comedies with can't-miss performances, check out Mean Girls.
Judy explores the over-sized life of iconic movie star Judy Garland, specifically, her last years in London, when films like The Wizard of Oz were a distant cultural memory and Garland was too broke to pay her hotel bill. Trying to stage another in an endless series of "comebacks," Garland juggles her professional responsibilities with her fierce protectiveness over her children, all while battling alcoholism and drug addiction. Darci Shaw plays young Judy, but the movie really belongs to Renée Zellweger, whose portrayal of time-has-caught-up-with-her Judy is heartbreaking.
Starts streaming June 26.
I associate Godzilla movies with the 1960s and 1970s, but there's more in the Godzilla cinematic universe than cheesy, guy-in-a-rubber-suit flicks from 50 years ago: There's cheesy guy-in-a-rubber-suit flicks made more recently! In June, Prime is streaming eight made-in-Japan Godzilla movies released between 1999 and 2004, including Godzilla Vs. Spacegodzilla (1999), Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2004), Godzilla Vs. Destoroyah (1999), and Godzilla, Mothra, And King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2003). All of these, I assume, are amazing.
Starts streaming June 1.
Hulu's schedule this month is a bit summertime light, but there are some gems premiering if you dig a little. There's a new season of Futurama, for instance, and a grip of shark-based specials streaming as part of National Geographic's Sharkfest. If you're a ghoul like me, you can check out a couple of interesting looking new true-crime shows too: Sasha Reid and the Midnight Order and Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer.
Matt Groening and David X. Cohen's iconic sci-fi cartoon Futurama is back this month for a 12th season, with 10 new episodes coming. Fry, Bender, Leela, and everyone else will be back to discover the secret of Bender's ancestors, learn the story behind coffee, and make sardonic jokes about the present even though it takes place in the year 3,000 or so. If you've never seen Futurama, you'll have nearly all month to catch up on the previous 12 seasons—they're also available on Hulu.
Starts streaming July 29.
You know why they don't call it "Shark Week" anymore? Because it's expanded to an entire damn month. Hulu will feature a ton of streamable specials in July concerning Mankind's underwater enemies, including Attack of the Red Sea Sharks, Baby Sharks in the City, Shark Attack 360, Shark Beach with Anthony Mackie, Shark vs. Ross Edgley, Sharks Gone Viral, Supersized Sharks, and When Will We Finally Kill all these Goddamn Sharks? (I made that last one up).
Starts streaming July 1.
If you're a true crime fan, do not miss Sasha Reid and the Midnight Order. Reid is a psychologist with a singular obsession: catching killers. So she recruited a cadre of women that share her passion from various disciplines and backgrounds, dubbed them "The Midnight Order," and started tracking down criminals. The Midnight Order works outside the system and uses cutting-edge data skills and forensic knowledge to heat up cold cases—like Batman, but not fake. This series takes viewers inside their most intriguing investigations and introduces us to the women who have made Justice their profession.
Starts streaming July 10.
In 1978, psychiatric nurse Ann Burgess received a call that would change her life. It was the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, and they wanted her help digging into the minds of serial killers. Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer explores this unsung woman who helped create criminal profiling as well as digging into the details of the killers who informed Burgess's work including infamous criminals like Ed Kemper and Ted Bundy, as well as lesser-known monsters like the Ski Mask Rapist.
Starts streaming July 11.
The hero of Hit-Monkey is a Japanese snow monkey who teams up with the ghost of an American assassin to become the "killer of killers" and take out the most fearsome assassins in Japan. Season 2 finds the strange duo in New York trying to escape their shadowy existences, but it's not easy to give up that kind of life. Hit-Monkey is based on a Marvel comic, and the first season of the animated action show earned rave reviews from both critics and fans, so if you like heroes, action, cartoons, or just things that are awesome, check this one out.
Starts streaming July 15.
Hulu’s critically acclaimed, audience-favorite series The Bear is returning for a third nerve-jangling, poignant season. Now that they’ve opened The Bear, their ideal high-end restaurant, Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and the rest of crew must navigate the treacherous, cutthroat Chicago culinary scene. Expect things to get stressful.
Starts streaming June 27.
Before he became a fashion legend and fashion icon, Karl Lagerfeld was just some guy named Karl; this Hulu original bio-series Becoming Karl Lagerfeld explores this remarkable transformation. The series follows Lagerfeld, played by Daniel Brühl, as he navigates the 1970s Parisian high fashion scene. He encounters fierce rival Yves Saint Laurent (played by Arnaud Valois), forms a business partnership with Pierre Bergé (Alex Lutz), and develops a more personal relationship with bon vivant Jacques de Bascher (Théodore Pellerin). If you’re fascinated by fashion or the jet-set lifestyle, Becoming Karl Lagerfeld is a must-watch.
Starts streaming June 7.
Saw movies are like comfort food to horror fans. From its humble beginnings with James Wan’s low-budget, indie horror movie Saw in 2004, the gritty franchise has grown into a horror mainstay with 10 feature films, a (bad) AAA video game, and more merchandise than you could collect in 10 lifetimes. Some are better than others, but all the Saw movies are variations on the theme of a madman putting people into devious traps so we can watch them die, escape, and/or enact revenge on their tormentor. Hulu is streaming the first seven movies in the series to celebrate the start of summer, a fact that will delight horror fans, even if horrifies everyone else.
Starts streaming June 1.
Queenie Jenkins, the hero of Hulu original comedy series Queenie, is a British Jamaican woman in the U.K. who is suffering from a quarter-life crisis, a bad breakup, and the general horror and annoyance of urban life in 2024 all at once. With the vibrant yet challenging landscape of South London as a backdrop, Queenie struggles to navigate her dual cultural identity and find her place in the world. If you enjoy witty, contemporary character studies that tackle themes of race and identity, Queenie is a must-watch.
Starts streaming June 7.
This documentary tells the story of how the Black and brown kids from New York’s poorest neighborhoods spawned a worldwide musical and cultural revolution through dance, music, and fashion. On August 15, 1981, New York breakdance crews the Rocksteady Crew and the Dynamic Rockers appeared at the Out-of-Doors Festival to settle their differences through a breaking battle. Ripples from the showdown reverberated all over the world, and Breaking on The One explores that epic breakin’ battle and the significance of breakdancing and hip-hop through archival footage and interviews with the dancers, DJs, MCs and B-boys and girls who were there. If you’re into hip-hop, or fascinated with how cultural revolutions begin, check out Breakin’ on the One.
Starts streaming June 24.
Trans icon Candis Cayne hosts a gardening show like none other. In her “literally groundbreaking” comedy/DIY/gardening show, Cayne and her friends will teach you how to transform your home and garden into a magical place. Billed as a whimsical and visually stunning experience that combines the real-life gardening expertise of Candis Cayne with a playful and imaginative world, each episode of Secret Garden presents a different DIY project designed to inspire your imagination and motivate you to make your backyard and home magical.
Starts streaming June 9.
To teenagers in the 1980s, no one was cooler, sexier, or more famous than The Brat Pack, that cadre of young actors that starred in every teen movie and seemed to rule Hollywood. Directed by original brat packer Andrew McCarthy, Brats gives us a view from inside the fame fishbowl through interviews with brat packer Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, Emilio Esteves, Ally Sheedy and more. (Spoiler: being in the Brat Pack wasn’t as much fun as you probably imagined.)
Starts streaming June 13.
This National Geographic docuseries examines the history, impact, and people behind Jim Jone’s terrifying People’s Temple cult. Told through never-before-scene footage and interviews with survivors and eyewitnesses, Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown explores the group’s rise and eventual mass murder/suicide in Guyana, shedding light on the causes of the grisly day that shook the world.
Starts streaming June 17.
I've pored over Netflix's release schedule to bring you the best movies and TV shows premiering on the service this month. Netflix is packed in July. The month starts with Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, the long-anticipated sequel to 1984's Beverly Hills Cop; a few weeks later, the first part of the final season of Cobra Kai drops; and the month closes out with a new season of Unsolved Mysteries.
Not everything on the streaming service is based on intellectual property from the 1980s, though. There's a new season of "very-now" reality show Too Hot to Handle, Exploding Kittens (based on the card game), and a pair of getting-ready-for-the-Olympics documentaries: one on gymnast Simone Biles and one about the world's top sprinters.
It's been almost 30 years since cop-out-of-water Axel Foley busted bad guys in Beverly Hills, and Eddie Murphy returns to the title role with some world-weariness to add to his panache. Old pals Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Taggart (John Ashton) are on hand, but there's some new blood too: Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Axel's partner, and Taylour Paige plays his daughter, whose life is in danger until Pop F. comes to save the day. The mixture of action, comedy, and Eddie Murphy worked in the 1980s, but will it in 2024? Watch Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F to find out.
Starts streaming July 3.
Cobra Kai's mix of 1980s nostalgic meta-comedy, teen soap opera cheese, and martial arts shouldn't work so well, but somehow, the charm of its cast and its breezy, "none of this is important in any way" tone make it a must-binge series. This is the first part of the sixth and supposedly final season for the show, and it sees the members of the Miyagi-Do dojo pondering “if and how they will compete in the Sekai Taikai—the world championship of karate." So the plot is whatever, but the original cast are all expected to return to their places in the karate-based alternate universe in which they live, which is reason enough to watch.
Starts streaming July 18.
The hook of Too Hot to Handle is brilliant: the reality-competition show puts a gaggle of extremely attractive and sexed-up 20-somethings together in an exotic location, makes them sleep in pairs, then penalizes them for hooking up—the only way anyone can win the $250,000 prize is through abstinence. It's dumb reality show spectacle, perfect as a mid-summer guilty pleasure, and I promise I won't tell anyone you watched it all.
Starts streaming July 19.
If you're interested in the future of Humanity, check out docu-series The Man with 1000 Kids. It tells the story of Dutch musician Jonathan Meijer who is accused of fathering hundreds, maybe thousands, of children through sperm donation. If the accusations are true, Meijer's DNA will have more influence on succeeding generations than just about anyone else's on Earth, and he's a super-creepy YouTuber who eats raw meat, stares directly at the sun, and makes absolutely terrible music. Good luck, human race!
Starts streaming July 3.
Based on the popular card game, Exploding Kittens is a cartoon-for-adults in which God and the Devil are sent to Earth in the form of house cats. That's not in the game, but it does capture the oh-so-random tone of the source material. Whether it'll work or not remains to be seen, but producers Mike Judge (King of the Hill, Beavis and Butt-Head) and Greg Daniels (The Office) know something about making comedy, so it's a solid bet.
Starts streaming July 1
Sprint: the World's Fastest Humans takes us into the world of elite sprinters so we can learn what motivates someone to devote their lives to the pursuit of speed. If you're planning to watch the track and field events at the Olympics later in the month, this is a perfect way to get to know some of the top athletes competing.
Starts streaming July 2.
Last summer's Quarterback followed three of the NFL's best quarterbacks; in this summer's Receivers, we learn about the dudes they throw to. This Netflix original documentary series details the 2023 seasons, both on and off the field, of Davante Adams, Justin Jefferson, George Kittle, Deebo Samuels, and Amon-ra Saint Brown, five best-of-the-best players that football fans either totally love or begrudgingly admit are awesome, even though they hate them, depending on their team loyalty.
Starts streaming July 10.
Back to the Future is a perfect movie, and the other two entries in the series are alright too. If you have a few rainy days this summer, there are a lot worse ways to spend them than gathering the family and basking in the '80s glow of this trilogy. It still works all these years later.
Starts streaming July 1.
Lost's ending was so epically terrible, it's easy to forget that its first few seasons were as good as any prestige television that has ever been produced—and it was made before "prestige television" even existed. Co-created by J.J. Abrams, and co-written by Damon Lindelof, Lost features a talented cast that includes Evangeline Lilly, Terry O'Quinn, and Dominic Monaghan, and mind-bending plot that ultimately doesn't make much sense, but it's still a fun trip.
Starts streaming July 1.
Jennifer Lopez stars in good, old-fashioned domestic thriller The Boy Next Door. She's a teacher who has an affair with her much younger new neighbor, but he turns out to be one of her students, and he's a psycho who sets out to destroy her family and her life. You know the drill—it's a potboiler, but with the always charismatic J-Lo at its center.
Starts streaming July 16.
Gymnast Simone Biles grabbed the world's attention when she withdrew from the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. But the shocking move, partly in response to Biles' mental health concerns, didn't end her career. Biles is back for another go at Olympic glory this year, and Simone Biles Rising details her hard road back to potential greatness at the 2024 Olympics. This docuseries is a pre-Olympics must-watch.
Starts streaming July 19
If you've been looking for a first Star Trek series to watch with your children, Star Trek: Prodigy is for you. The CGI-animated series captures the thoughtful adventure-and-exploration vibe that makes Star Trek great, and does it in a kid-friendly way that isn't adult-unfriendly. The first season of the CGI series earned a 94% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes for taking the dusty franchise in unexpected directions; hopefully season two measures up.
Starts streaming July 1.
If you like white-knuckle cinema, Skywalkers is for you. It chronicles the life and relationship of Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, a young couple who live to climb the world's tallest buildings. Skywalkers: a Love Story follows the couple's elaborate plans to conquer Malaysia’s Merdeka 118 super-skyscraper without harnesses, ropes, or permission. It makes me nervous just thinking about it.
Starts streaming July 19
Lou Pearlman, the impresario behind The Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, and Britney Spears might not have been a super honest guy—shocking, I know. Dirty Pop details how Pearlman changed music while building his personal empire, and doesn't shy away from the dark side of the business of fame, power, and exploiting talented young artists.
Starts streaming July 24.
If you like unconventional comedy, check out The Decameron. Loosely based on Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron, published in the 14th Century, this Netflix period comedy is set in Florence, Italy, in 1348 among a rag-tag group of nobles and their servants who are camped out in an opulent villa as the plague rages outside. To pass the time, they tell each other stories that range from from touching to ribald, while the social order descends into chaos. Seems relatable. Netflix describes it as "Like Love Island, but Back in the Day," and that's enough for me to give it a watch.
Starts streaming July 25.
The first three seasons of Netflix's revival of Unsolved Mysteries are excellent. Netflix hasn't released a ton of details about volume four yet, but if previous seasons are any indication, it will feature a mixture of unexplained deaths, strange disappearances, paranormal activity, UFOs, and other "what the hell?" content presented in a thorough, thoughtful way.
Starts streaming July 31.
Tickled is one of the strangest documentaries I've ever seen. Journalist David Farrier starts off hunting a quirky story about the "sport" of competitive tickling, but uncovers a strange underworld that's not funny at all. I don't want to spoil any of the twists and turns in this narrative, so I'll just urge you to watch this movie.
Starts streaming July 10.
Directed by the supremely talented Richard Linklater, Hit Man tells the real story of a fake Hit Man. Gary Johnson's job is pretending to be a professional killer for police sting operations (where can I send a resume?) but he puts everything on the line when he falls in love with a potential client. Co-written by and starring Glen Powell, Hit Man takes a darkly comedic look at an unusual lifestyle. If you're looking for a funny, perfectly crafted, and intelligent movie, look no further.
Starts streaming June 7.
Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, and Joey King lead the cast of A Family Affair, a romantic comedy that begins with Zara (King) walking in on her mom (Kidman) and her ex-boss (Efron) in the middle of a passionate tryst. The ex-boss is an impossibly self-centered celebrity—so Zara is not at all sure how to deal with the new relationship. This exploration of love, sex, and identity is the kind of charisma-powered, crowd-pleasing movie that romantic comedy fans can't get enough of.
Starts streaming June 28.
David Letterman's in-depth interview series My Next Guest Needs no Introduction returns for a fifth season where Dave chops it up with basketball legend Charles Barkley and pop-singing legend Miley Cyrus. If you care about these specific people, or you're interested in larger-than-life people in general, Letterman's long-form, deep-dive interviews are worlds better than five minutes of banter on a late-night show's couch.
Starts streaming June 12.
At the risk of starting a sentence with "You have to hand it to the Nazis for..." Hitler and company inspired more compelling documentaries than anyone else in history. This one examines the post-World War II trials of the Nazi leaders who survived. Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial explores our failing cultural memories of the Third Reich and asks if forgetting about the past dooms us to a hellish repeat. It's not a lighthearted movie, but it is an important one.
Starts streaming June 5.
For her role as Parker in Netflix original action movie Trigger Warning, Jessica Alba learned Indonesian knife fighting skills to make the flick's intense hand-to-hand combat scenes extra real. Parker is a Special Forces commando who returns to her home town her father's funeral, only to discover a dangerous conspiracy that might be responsible for his death. Does she confront the evil men behind the plot with Indonesian knife-fighting skills? Goddamn right she does. Mark Webber, Tone Bell, Jake Weary, Gabriel Basso, and Anthony Michael Hall also appear in this treat for action movie fans.
Starts streaming June 21.
Learning that a second season of Worst Roommate Ever was coming to Netflix is the best news I've heard in months. If you're not familiar, this documentary series tells the stories of bad roommates through interviews with victims and animated re-enactments. If you're like, "Why would that even be interesting?" you're not grasping how monumentally, spectacularly, and unbelievably horrific these people are. Imagine your worst college roommate, now multiply their awfulness by 100; these people are worse than that. If you like well-made freak show TV as much as I do, you'll be hitting "play" at midnight on the 25th, too.
Starts streaming June 26.
I love true crime movies, especially when they're not about murderers, so I'm looking forward to How to Rob a Bank. This Netflix original documentary tells the story of the stylish and prolific bank robber Seattle cops nicknamed "Hollywood." His real name is Scott Scurlock, and he pulled off a string of audacious bank robberies in the 1990s, often using tricks and techniques inspired by action movies. How to Rob a Bank promises all the cat-and-mouse thrills of heist movies like Point Break with the added bonus of it all having actually happened.
Starts streaming June 5
In dark-fantasy series Sweet Tooth, Christian Convery plays Gus, a half-human, half-deer chimera who lives in a future where everything went to hell after a contagious disease killed 98% of humanity. Humanimals like Gus are seen as either abominations to be stamped out or as keys to a cure for the sickness. With the help of pig/girl Wendy (Naledi Murray), Gus will face off against the First Men, a paramilitary group that wants all the hybrids dead.
Starts streaming June 6.
Keith Robinson is a very funny comic, but his new Netflix stand-up special should be extra hilarious and/or poignant because of its subject matter. In 2020, Robinson popped a Viagra on an airplane and had a stroke, and in Keith Robinson: Different Strokes he tells the whole story with his distinctive, no-bullshit style.
Starts streaming June 11.
Even if you don't care about bicycle racing, check out Netflix's excellent documentary series on the Tour de France. The annual race has been a national obsession in France since 1903, and Tour de France: Unchained explores the people, passion, fame, athleticism and power that makes it so fascinating. Understanding the backstory makes watching a bunch of European guys pedal fast riveting.
Starts streaming June 11.
This Netflix original documentary tells the story of LGBTQ+ stand-up comedy through interviews, stand-up performances, archival materials, and verité footage featuring huge comedians like Lily Tomlin, Sandra Bernhard, Wanda Sykes, Eddie Izzard, Hannah Gadsby, Tig Notaro, and Rosie O'Donnell. Outstanding explores the history of queer comics, the societal changes that came from their work, and the future of LGBTQ+ stand-up.
Starts streaming June 18.
Set 15 years after That ‘70s Show’s ending, That '90s Show continues the comic adventures of parents Red (Kurtwood Smith) and Kitty (Debra Jo Rupp), but now they're grandparents, and they have a new group of teenagers to wrangle, harass, and joke around with. But these are '90s teenagers, so expect lots of flannel shirts and Pearl Jam jokes. Season two sees the return of That '70s Show's Laura Prepon reprising her role as Donna. (Topher Grace, Mila Kunis, and Ashton Kutcher will not be returning.)
Starts streaming June 27.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Norton 360 antivirus protects you out of the box, automatically blocking malware and even preventing suspicious-looking programs from accessing your webcam without your permission.
Those are just basic security features, though. Some of Norton 360’s most useful features—cloud backups, VPN, dark web monitoring, built-in software updater—won’t do anything until you set them up.
Here are the first settings you should change after installing Norton 360 if you want to take full advantage of this security suite.
Note: To find these settings, open the Norton 360 application from either your Start menu or system tray. You’ll see a My Norton window, where you can find Norton’s features and options for controlling them.
Like other security suites, Norton 360 can be a little noisy out of the box. This is a matter of personal taste: some like seeing these notifications, others would prefer to see as few as possible.
Want to take control? You can customize your Norton 360 notifications by clicking the gear icon in the middle of the My Norton window to access settings, and then click Notifications.
Chris Hoffman / IDG
Chris Hoffman / IDG
Chris Hoffman / IDG
Look under Display Preference. The “Alert categories” box is set to All Alerts out of the box. To see fewer notifications, click that box and select either Warning or Critical Only.
By default, Norton 360 will show you occasional offers, too. Uncheck the Special offers box if you don’t want to see those.
You can also customize Silent Mode here, if you like, but the default settings are pretty good. For example, Norton 360 automatically activates Silent Mode whenever you’re in a full-screen application and won’t interfere with activities like gaming or video streaming.
Norton 360 has a built-in Norton Secure VPN feature, which can route all your internet traffic through a secure tunnel. This means you don’t need a separate VPN service or subscription—but Norton doesn’t automatically activate its VPN after installation, so you have to do it.
Note: The Norton Secure VPN is included with most versions of Norton, including Norton 360 Deluxe and Norton 360 Standard. However, it’s not included with the baseline Norton Antivirus Plus subscription.
To control how the Norton Secure VPN works, click the gear icon in the My Norton window and select VPN, or click the down arrow to the right of “Secure VPN” in this window and select Settings.
From here, you can control how you want the VPN to work. Here are the VPN features you can tweak:
Chris Hoffman / IDG
Chris Hoffman / IDG
Chris Hoffman / IDG
If you’re not sure what to configure here, I’d personally recommend activating Auto VPN for protection on more dangerous networks and Kill Switch to ensure nothing can accidentally slip through the VPN when you do decide to use it.
Of course, no matter what you select, you can open up the Norton 360 window and use the Turn On button to connect to the VPN at any time.
Norton 360 offers a built-in cloud backup tool that automatically backs up your important files to its online storage so you can access them if you have a computer problem.
If you aren’t using cloud backups yet, you probably should. Those online backups can come in handy when malware takes over your PC, your internal storage drive fails, or you misplace your laptop.
The exact amount of storage you get depends on your Norton 360 plan, but you may have up to 250GB of cloud backup space available. (Some Norton 360 subscriptions offer only 2GB, which can still be plenty for backing up simple but important files.)
Chris Hoffman / IDG
Chris Hoffman / IDG
Chris Hoffman / IDG
To set it up, use the Set Up button to the right of “Cloud Backup” in the My Norton window. (Norton will also show you how much cloud storage you have available right under “Cloud Backup” in the window.)
Norton 360 chooses sensible defaults for the backup settings, so you can immediately click Save Settings to accept. But you could also dig in to see exactly what Norton wants to do.
By default, Norton will back up files like your Pictures and Office Documents, and it will create these backups automatically when you aren’t using your computer. Feel free to customize exactly how you want your backups to work.
Norton 360’s features include Dark Web Monitoring, which alerts you whenever your personal information and/or account credentials appear to be shared on the dark web. To make it truly useful, though, you’ll want to add some extra details.
Note: Most versions of Norton 360, including the Deluxe and Standard plans, include Dark Web Monitoring. However, the basic Norton Antivirus Plus plan doesn’t include this feature.
Chris Hoffman / IDG
Chris Hoffman / IDG
Chris Hoffman / IDG
In the My Norton window, activate the Dark Web Monitoring option. Then, you’ll need to click View Alerts and sign in on the web.
Once you’ve done so, you can add additional details to Norton 360’s Identity Protection: email addresses, street addresses, phone numbers, driver’s license numbers, credit cards, bank account numbers, passport numbers, your mother’s maiden name, and even your gamer tag. You’ll get a notification if any of these details are found on the dark web.
You don’t have to add everything, but at the very least you should add your most commonly used email addresses. The more details you provide, the more useful Norton’s Identity Protection will be.
Norton 360 automatically updates itself—no surprise there. But it can also scan your computer for applications that need updates and tell you about them. Better yet: Norton 360 can automatically update those very applications for you in the background.
Chris Hoffman / IDG
Chris Hoffman / IDG
Chris Hoffman / IDG
To scan for desktop application updates, just click the Scan button to the right of “Software Updater” in the My Norton window. You’ll then see any applications that have updates available, and you can click Update to install the updates all at once.
To save time in the future, flip the Auto-Update switch near the top-right corner of the Software Updater pane. Norton 360 will then automatically look for these updates and install them for you in the background.
Want more security advice? Check out this list of outdated security practices you can stop using. You’ll save time and boost your security. And, if you’re not already using a password manager, be sure to give Norton 360’s password manager a try, too.
At a glanceThis Snapdragon X Elite-powered laptop combines a beautiful 14.5-inch OLED display with long battery life. But Snapdragon laptops without an OLED screen will get even longer battery life, and application compatibility still isn’t perfect on these new Arm PCs.
$1,199
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x is one of the first Copilot+ PCs. While Microsoft is talking up AI features, the real story here is the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite hardware inside this PC. Microsoft has been releasing Arm-based Windows PCs since the Surface RT, but this is the first time that Arm-based Windows PCs have finally become seriously competitive.
Yes, this Snapdragon X Elite-powered 14.5-inch laptop delivers extremely long battery life with snappy performance and cool and quiet operation in day-to-day use. The experience with day-to-day productivity applications is beautiful – just like the OLED display this machine has. (Despite the “Yoga” name, however, this is not a 2-in-1 laptop).
Of course, the Windows on Arm experience isn’t perfect. Microsoft’s Prism translation software offers much improved compatibility with traditional x86 apps. Most existing x86 applications “just work,” but not everything “just works” at the moment. And, while gaming performance is decent thanks to both the Prism translation layer and the impressive integrated GPU, this can’t deliver as much graphical horsepower as a discrete Nvidia or AMD GPU in a more traditional gaming laptop.
Looking for more options? Check out PCWorld’s roundup of the best laptops available today.
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x is part of the first wave of Copilot+ PCs, and it includes an Arm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chip. All Snapdragon X Elite chips include a neural processing unit (NPU) capable of 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS) as well as a Qualcomm Adreno GPU. This particular machine has Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 hardware.
There are four Snapdragon X packages at launch, from lowest-end to highest-end:
It’s unclear how much the differences between these chips will matter in the real world until we see more reviews and have a chance to benchmark more laptops with the different models ourselves.
Qualcomm
Qualcomm
Qualcomm
There aren’t a lot of other hardware options when configuring this $1,199 machine. Our review model came with 16 GB of LPDDR5X-8448MHz RAM, but you can get this machine with 32 GB of RAM for an extra $69. Like many modern PCs, the RAM is soldered. You have to make your decision when buying the machine — you can’t upgrade it later.
Additionally, our system included a 512 GB PCIe Gen4 SSD for storage. You can upgrade to a 1 TB SSD for an extra $45. Those are very reasonable prices for the upgrades. At that price, I’d recommend it.
This machine has a neural processing unit (NPU) that can deliver 45 TOPS (trillion operations per second) of performance. That means it gets access to a variety of Copilot+ PC AI features. Unfortunately, with the splashy and controversial Recall feature delayed, the AI features on Copilot+ PCs aren’t particularly compelling at launch. They may become compelling in the future, especially when Recall launches, or if third-party application developers start using the NPU to power AI features in their Windows applications.
IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
While there are transformational changes under the hood, Lenovo didn’t reinvent the wheel with the Lenovo Slim 7x’s design. The chassis is a spitting image of the Lenovo Slim 7 14 we reviewed just a few months ago.
Like that laptop, this machine is made of aluminum and has a nice smooth metallic finish with lots of rounded edges and a small bezel around the display. Lenovo calls this laptop’s color scheme “Cosmic Blue.” It’s a nice, dark, professional-looking metallic finish. It has the “communications bar” at the top of the laptop’s display. That bar gives the webcam and IR camera a place to live, letting Lenovo shrink the bezel around the screen – and giving you a convenient handhold when opening the laptop.
While this machine bears the “Yoga” name, it doesn’t have a 360-degree hinge. This laptop does have a touch screen, but it’s not a convertible “2 in 1.” In fact, the screen doesn’t even lie flat. That’s fine, but I do think it’s a little confusing considering what the Yoga name has meant in the past. I showed this machine to another person who expected it to be a 2-in-1 thanks to the “Yoga” name. Lenovo says that it’s moving forward with using the “Yoga” name for more laptops in the US and that it’s already been using the name in this way internationally. Once again, that’s fine – just don’t be misled by the name.
At 2.82 pounds, this is a nice light laptop. The build quality feels nice and premium – the laptop is solid and doesn’t flex in any strange ways. The hinge action feels great. Lenovo says this “durable aluminum design” is tested to MIL-STD 810H military-grade standards, and it feels solid and sturdy while remaining lightweight.
Software-wise, this is a familiar Lenovo laptop experience. Bloatware is very restrained, but Lenovo does install a trial of McAfee antivirus, which will show you popups with a “welcome offer.”
Unlike Microsoft’s Surface Laptop, however, which omits the stickers below the keyboard, Lenovo chose to stick a variety of stickers to the left of the touchpad. It would be nice to see manufacturers move on from those stickers, but maybe we’ll be stuck with them going forward.
IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x’s keyboard feels very nice to type on. The specs sheet says it has 1.5mm of key travel, which is nice for a laptop – especially one this thin. With plenty of travel, the keys are enjoyable to type on. They’re pleasantly snappy. This is no surprise as we spoke positively about this keyboard in our Lenovo Slim 7 14 review, too. The keyboard also has a nice white backlight.
The touchpad here is good. It’s a fairly standard touchpad with a reasonable size, accurate tracking, a good click, and solid palm rejection. These days, a standard touchpad on a PC laptop is pretty good. Lenovo hasn’t gone above and beyond the average ultrabook when it comes to the touchpad – but that makes sense, as this is a pretty good price. In addition to the touchpad, this machine also has a touch screen.
IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x’s display is the star here. Lenovo included a 14.5-inch 2944×1840 OLED display with a 16:10 aspect ratio, 90Hz refresh rate, and a touch screen. It’s a bright, beautiful display. An OLED display means deep dark blacks and vivid colors, and you’re getting that here.
Really, it bears repeating: That display is one of the big reasons you’d pick this machine out of the first Copilot+ PC lineup. Microsoft’s Surface Laptop isn’t available with an OLED display, so you have to go for a Surface Pro tablet or a laptop from another manufacturer.
In our review of the Intel Core Ultra-powered Lenovo Slim 7 14 from earlier this year, we noted that its 1920×1200 OLED display was a step behind the competition. The upgraded display is awesome. And, thanks to the Snapdragon X Elite hardware here, Lenovo managed to deliver a higher-resolution OLED display and longer battery life versus than the Intel-powered Lenovo Slim 7 14.
The OLED display is a little on the glossy side and can pick up reflections, as you’ll notice in some of the photos in this review. But it’s bright enough that it was plenty readable even in the direct sunlight outdoors, which is a worst-case scenario for any laptop.
The speakers here are similar to that Intel-powered model. There are upward-firing speakers on each side of the keyboard. In our review of the Slim 7 14, we said that the speakers were typical for a laptop of this size and price range, saying that they “provide acceptable audio with good volume and clarity, but they lack the depth and complexity available in Lenovo’s more expensive laptops and 2-in-1s.” That’s a spot-on description of this laptop’s speakers, too.
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x includes a 1080p webcam, which is on the “communications bar” that juts out a tiny bit above the display. It’s a nice webcam, and the quality seems a touch better than some other 1080p webcams I’ve used recently. It’ll be great for video meetings.
This machine has a physical webcam switch on its right side. Flip the switch and the webcam will be cut off. You might prefer a physical shutter that covers the laptop’s webcam if you’re a fan of webcam privacy tricks, but that’s often a more expensive feature for higher-end business laptops.
This machine has an IR camera for Windows Hello logins. It works very well: You can open your laptop, and it sees your face and signs you in. But this machine goes beyond that with an interesting presence sensor. If you activate the presence sensor, it will notice when you get up and walk away from your laptop, locking the laptop – which is great for both security and battery life. And, when you sit down in front of the laptop, the presence sensor will activate the laptop and sign you back in with Windows Hello. It’s a nice feature, and it’s something Microsoft’s Surface Laptop doesn’t offer.
IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x’s selection of ports feels simultaneously generous and skimpy.
If you’re looking for USB-C ports, it’s generous: You’re getting three USB-C ports, two on the left side of the laptop and one on the right side. They’re all “USB-C Full-Function ports” with USB4 Gen 3, Power Delivery 3.1, and DisplayPort 1.4. You will have to plug the charger into one of them to charge this machine, but you still have two USB-C ports to play with while it’s charging before you even have to think about a dongle.
That’s it, though. There are no other ports here: Not even a traditional audio jack or single USB-A port, and certainly not a microSD card reader or an HDMI port.
That’s fine if you’re willing to go all-in on USB-C! But it’s worth noting that some of these Snapdragon X Elite-powered Copilot+ laptops do offer more ports, so you do have the option of getting them along with this new Arm hardware. Asus’s larger Asus Vivobook S 15, for example, includes USB Type-A, an audio jack, HDMI out, and a microSD card reader.
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x includes Wi-Fi 7 support along with Bluetooth 5.4-capable hardware. The laptop’s Wi-Fi performed well, although I don’t have a Wi-Fi 7 network to test the latest standard on yet.
Lenovo lists Bluetooth 5.3 on this laptop’s spec sheet, but a Lenovo representative tells me that the company is a little conservative – other companies may list Bluetooth 5.4 as the hardware is capable of it, even though Windows doesn’t yet deliver it. Rest assured this laptop has just as much Bluetooth 5.4 capability as any other Snapdragon X Elite-powered laptop.
Windows on Arm’s application compatibility is now very good — but not perfect. Remember: We’re talking about a major architectural shift for Windows here. These Snapdragon X Elite-powered laptops are Windows on Arm PCs that can run traditional x86 Windows applications through a Prism translation layer.
For the most part, applications “just work” — either because they have a native Arm version already available or because the x86 version runs through Prism. If it does “just work,” you don’t have to think about it.
But not everything works. Some applications will show errors and refuse to install. For example, the official Google Drive sync tool doesn’t work on these machines. It has to integrate with File Explorer, and it can’t do that through the Prism translation layer. Google hasn’t ported it to Windows on Arm yet.
Applications that need low-level access will be a problem in general. If you have a very old printer lying around that needs a manufacturer printer driver, for example, that traditional printer driver was likely created only for x86 versions of Windows. It likely won’t work on an Arm-powered laptop.
While PC gaming has been a focus of Qualcomm’s marketing, Microsoft says productivity applications will work better than PC games. The Windows on Arm Ready Software website attempts to catalog PC game compatibility, and it notes that Fortnite doesn’t run at all on these machines thanks to anti-cheat support. That’s just one example: Wide game compatibility isn’t here yet.
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x delivered very snappy day-to-day performance while running on battery power in typical desktop applications, including web browsers like Edge, Chrome, and Firefox, as well as popular productivity applications like the Microsoft Office suite and Slack. While this laptop has fans for active cooling, it stayed cool and quiet in normal use.
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x is a great laptop for day-to-day use with typical desktop applications.
We ran the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x through our standard benchmarks to see how it performs.
IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
First, we ran a CPU benchmark with Geekbench 6. We normally run PCMark 10, but it doesn’t run on Arm computers like this one. Geekbench 6 runs natively on ARM, so we can get an idea of this machine’s CPU performance when running native Arm code without Microsoft’s Prism translation layer involved.
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x delivered an excellent score of 14013 in the multi-threaded CPU benchmark, beating both the Snapdragon X Elite-powered Microsoft Surface laptop and the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED with its Ryzen hardware. You can see the huge improvement from the older Arm-based Microsoft SQ3 processors in the Microsoft Surface Pro 9.
The fans stayed nice and quiet while this benchmark was running.
IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
Next, we run Cinebench R24. Cinebench R24 has a native Arm version, which means it isn’t running through the Prism translation layer. This is a heavily multithreaded benchmark that focuses on overall CPU performance. It’s a quick benchmark, so cooling under extended workloads isn’t a factor. But, since it’s heavily multithreaded, CPUs with more cores have a huge advantage.
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x delivered a score of 1023 in the multi-threaded benchmark, beating all the older machines we compared it to. It’s faster than recent Intel Meteor Lake CPUs here — in fact, it’s even noticeably faster than Microsoft’s Surface Pro 2-in-1.
The fans spun up while this multi-threaded benchmark was running — they kick in to provide extra cooling for intensive workloads like this one. (I didn’t notice them running much at all during day-to-day application use.) While Snapdragon X Elite laptops deliver cool and quiet operation in day-to-day use, they will run hotter and louder while performing CPU-intensive tasks.
IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
Next, we run a graphical benchmark. Despite Qualcomm talking a lot about gaming performance, this isn’t really a gaming laptop. It’s a laptop that can run some games in a pinch, but Microsoft says compatibility will be better with productivity applications than games. As always, we run 3DMark Time Spy, a graphical benchmark that focuses on GPU performance. We also run 3DMark Night Raid.
Time Spy is running through the Prism translation layer, while Night Raid is running natively on Arm. The pair of results shows the difference between x86 code translated with Prism and native Arm code.
The Yoga Slim 7x delivered a score of 1902 in the Time Spy benchmark. That’s faster than the Surface Laptop, once again. It’s noticeably slower than recent Intel and AMD chips. While Qualcomm is talking up gaming performance of existing PC games that haven’t been ported to ARM, one of the tricks it depends on is Auto Super Resolution, which uses the NPU to upgrade the image. That trick isn’t available to this laptop in this benchmark.
IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
When we ran the Night Raid benchmark, which runs natively on Arm, the Qualcomm Adreno GPU shot past the Intel Arc graphics in the Lenovo Slim 7 14, coming a close second to the AMD Radeon 780M graphics. While Prism works well, it’s clear these machines will perform best when running native Arm code.
While these graphical benchmarks hit the Yoga Slim 7x’s Qualcomm Adreno GPU hard, the laptop’s fans weren’t especially loud while they were running. The GPU can deliver its performance without a lot of noise or heat.
Overall, the performance was impressive. It’s exactly what I’d hoped to see: Nice snappy performance in desktop applications with competitive performance in traditional x86 applications running through the Prism translation layer. This machine also delivered slightly better performance than the Surface Laptop and Surface Pro across our benchmarks.
However, despite all the hype about gaming performance, I wouldn’t buy a Snapdragon X Elite with gaming in mind. Not all games run — and I was surprised to see that even Microsoft’s own Game Pass service for PCs won’t let you install PC games on these computers. It only offers the ability to stream Xbox games from the cloud. If these machines are great at running games, Microsoft’s Xbox team certainly hasn’t gotten the message yet.
For now, you’ll want a more traditional gaming laptop for maximum compatibility and maximum performance.
The entire industry has been talking up the battery life of these Snapdragon X Elite-powered laptops. Lenovo says the Yoga Slim 7x has “multiday battery life,” which the company describes as two 8-hour workdays of mixed workloads. Additionally, Lenovo says this machine has “Rapid Charge Express” technology and can get up to 3 hours of runtime in 15 minutes of charging time, and it seemed to charge nice and fast.
With a battery-sipping Snapdragon X Elite chip and a 70 Watt-hour battery, it should get pretty good battery life. We saw incredible battery life for a laptop with an OLED screen, although it’s not as much battery life as Microsoft’s Surface Laptop with its more energy-efficient display.
IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
To benchmark the battery life, we play a 4K copy of Tears of Steel on repeat in the Media Player app on Windows 11 with airplane mode enabled until the laptop suspends itself. We set the screen to 250 nits of brightness for our battery benchmarks, and it’s worth noting that OLED laptops have a bit of an advantage, as OLED screens use less power to display the black bars around the video. This is a best-case scenario for any laptop since local video playback is so efficient, and real battery life in day-to-day use is always going to be less than this.
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x lasted for an average of 951 minutes, which is a tad under 16 hours. That’s a truly incredible number for a laptop with an OLED display. In real use, too, the laptop delivered snappy performance in day-to-day computer usage — applications like Chrome, Edge, video meetings, Microsoft Office, and Slack — while the battery level dropped much slower than it would on the typical Intel or AMD laptop I’ve been reviewing.
Of course, that 14.5-inch OLED display is draining the battery a bit faster. Microsoft’s Surface Laptop beat this laptop in our benchmarks with an extra four hours of battery life — all while having a smaller 54 Watt-hour battery. If you’re looking for the longest possible battery life, you’ll likely want to look elsewhere. But you’ll be getting a less vibrant display. The trade-off is up to you — but, with battery life this good, sacrificing a little bit of it for a more beautiful OLED display feels like a reasonable move.
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x is a great laptop for day-to-day use with typical desktop applications. It offers nice, snappy performance even on battery power. Thanks to the incredible energy efficiency of the Snapdragon X Elite hardware and the reasonably large 70 Watt-hour battery in this machine, this PC gets great battery life – even though it has a high-resolution OLED display.
If you’re interested in this machine, you’re likely in one of two situations:
First, you may be curious about Snapdragon X Elite PCs in general. If so, you should probably do some research to see whether the applications you depend on run on Snapdragon X Elite PCs in general. The lack of Google Drive will be a big deal for some people — and that’s just one example. PC game compatibility isn’t perfect, either. Intel’s Lunar Lake may deliver an experience more like this one with full x86 compatibility later this year. But, if the applications you do rely on work on this hardware and you’re interested in the excellent day-to-day performance with long battery life without waiting to see Intel’s next hardware release, I think you’ll be happy with one.
Second, you might be comparing the various Snapdragon X Elite Copilot+ PCs available now. Compared to a Surface Laptop, for example, this machine trades some of that battery life for a big and beautiful OLED display. And it offers a good deal if you want more RAM and storage, too. If maximum battery life is all that’s important to you, look elsewhere — like the Surface Laptop. If you want more ports (like a USB-A port, HDMI port, or headphone jack, this also isn’t the machine for you.
Ultimately, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x is a beautiful machine. Its main problems are with software: Windows on Arm still doesn’t have perfect software compatibility, and these Copilot+ PC AI features aren’t all they’re hyped up to be at launch. But I can’t help but love this kind of performance and battery life combined with a vivid OLED display.
Hydropower is the world’s leading source of renewable electricity, generating more power in 2022 than all other renewables combined. But while hydropower is helping clean up our electrical grid, it’s not always a positive force for fish.
Dams that create reservoirs on rivers can change habitats. And for some species, especially those that migrate long distances, hydropower facilities can create dangerous or insurmountable barriers. In some parts of the world, including the US, Canada, and Europe, governments have put protections in place to protect ecosystems from hydropower’s potential harms.
New environmental regulations can leave older facilities facing costly renovations or force them to shutter entirely. That’s a big problem, because pulling hydropower plants off the grid eliminates a flexible, low-emissions power source that can contribute to progress in fighting climate change. New technologies, including fish-safe turbines, could help utilities and regulators come closer to striking a balance between the health of river ecosystems and global climate goals.
That’s where companies like Natel Energy come in. The company started with two big goals: high performance and fish survival, says Gia Schneider, Natel’s cofounder and chief commercial officer.
The company is making new designs for the turbines that generate electricity in hydropower plants as water rushes through equipment and moves their blades. Conventional turbine blades can move as fast as 30 meters per second, or about 60 to 70 miles per hour, Schneider says. When straight, thin edges are moving that quickly and striking fish, “it’s fairly obvious why that’s not a good outcome,” she says.
Natel’s turbine design focuses on preventing fast-moving equipment from making fatal contact with fish. The blades have a thicker leading edge that pushes water out in front of it, creating a stagnation zone, or “basically an airbag for fish,” Schneider says. The blades are also curved, so even if fish are struck, they don’t take a direct hit.
The company has tested its turbines with a range of species, including American eels, alewife, and rainbow trout. In the case of one recent study with American eels, scientists found that over 99% of eels survived after 48 hours of passing through Natel’s equipment. In comparison, one 2010 study found that just 40% of tagged European eels were able to pass through the turbines of a hydropower plant, though survival depended a lot on the size of both the eel and equipment in question.
Changing turbine designs won’t help fish survive all power plants: at some of the biggest plants with the tallest dams, rapid changes in water pressure can kill fish. But Schneider says that the company’s technology could be slotted into up to half of the existing US hydropower fleet to make plants more fish-safe.
Hydropower is one of the world’s older renewable energy sources. By 2030, more than 20% of the global fleet’s generating units will be more than 55 years old, according to the International Energy Agency. The average age of a hydropower plant in the US today is roughly 65 years.
In the US, privately held hydropower plants are licensed by an agency called the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a term of up to 50 years. Roughly 17 gigawatts’ worth of hydropower facilities (enough to power 13 million homes) are up for relicensing by 2035, according to the National Hydropower Association.
Since many of those facilities were started up, there have been significant changes to environmental requirements, and some plants may face high costs and difficult engineering work as they try to adhere to new rules and stay in operation. Adding screens to basically filter fish out of the intake for hydropower plants is one potential solution in some cases, but both installation and maintenance of such a system can add significant cost. In these facilities, Natel’s technology represents an alternative, Schneider says.
Natel has installed several projects in Maine, Oregon, and Austria. They all involve relatively small turbines, but the company is on the way to undertaking bigger projects and recently won a bid process with a manufacturing partner to supply a larger turbine that’s three meters in diameter to an existing plant, Schnieder says. The company is also licensing its fish-safe turbine designs to existing manufacturers.
Whether utilities move to adopt fish-safe design could depend on how it affects efficiency, or the amount of energy that can be captured by a given water flow. Natel’s turbine designs will, in some cases, be slightly less efficient than today’s conventional ones, Schneider says, though the difference is marginal, and they likely still represent an improvement over older designs.
While there’s sometimes a trade-off between fish-safe design and efficiency, that’s not the case with all novel turbines in all cases. A 2019 study from the US Army Corps of Engineers found that one new design improved fish safety while also producing more power.
Slotting new turbines into hydropower plants won’t solve all the environmental challenges associated with the technology, though. For example, the new equipment would only be relevant for downstream migration, like when eels move from freshwater rivers out into the ocean to reproduce. Other solutions would still be needed to allow a path for upstream migration.
Ideally, the best solution for many plants would likely be natural bypasses or ramps, which allow free passage of many species in both directions, says Ana T. Silva, a senior research scientist at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research. However, because of space requirements, these can’t always be installed or used.
People have been trying to improve fish passage for a long time, says Michael Milstein, a senior public affairs officer at NOAA Fisheries, part of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The solutions in place today include fish ladders, where fish swim or hop up into successively taller pools to pass dams. Other dams are too tall for that, and fish are captured and loaded onto trucks to go around them.
The challenge, Milstein says, is that “every river is different, and every dam is different.” Solutions need to be adapted to each individual situation, he adds; fish-safe turbines would be most important when there’s no bypass and going through a facility is the only option fish have.
The issue of protecting ecosystems and providing safe passage for fish has sparked fierce debates over existing hydropower projects across the western US and around the world.
Even with the current state-of-the-art technology, “it’s not always possible to provide sufficient passage,” Milstein says. Several dams are currently being removed from the Klamath River in Oregon and Northern California because of the effects on local ecosystems. The dams drastically changed the river, wiping out habitat for local salmon, steelhead, and lamprey and creating ideal conditions for parasites to decimate fish populations.
But while hydropower facilities can have negative environmental impacts, climate change can also be extremely harmful to wildlife, Natel’s Schneider points out. If too many hydropower plants are shut down, it could leave a gap that keeps more fossil fuels on the grid, hampering efforts to address climate change.
Reducing hydropower plants’ impact on local environments could help ensure that more of them can stay online, generating renewable electricity that plays an important role in our electrical grid. “Fish-safe turbines won’t solve everything—there are many, many problems in our rivers,” Schneider says. “But we need to start tackling all of them, so this is one tool.”
© Cyril Marcilhacy
© Spencer Platt
© Erik McGregor
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If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for July 1, 2024 read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is easier; I got it in three. Beware, there are spoilers below for July 1, Wordle #1,108! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Wordle game.
Wordle lives here on the New York Times website. A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight, your local time.
Start by guessing a five-letter word. The letters of the word will turn green if they’re correct, yellow if you have the right letter in the wrong place, or gray if the letter isn’t in the day’s secret word at all. For more, check out our guide to playing Wordle here, and my strategy guide here for more advanced tips. (We also have more information at the bottom of this post, after the hints and answers.)
Ready for the hints? Let’s go!
We’ll define common letters as those that appear in the old typesetters’ phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Memorize this! Pronounce it “Edwin Shirdloo,” like a name, and pretend he’s a friend of yours.)
Four of today's letters are from our mnemonic. The other is fairly common.
Synonym for proverb.
There is one repeated letter today.
There are three vowels (one is used twice).
Today’s word starts with A.
Today’s word ends with E.
Ready? Today’s word is ADAGE.
I started with RAISE followed by BLOND. There were only a few possible solutions—EVADE and ADAGE seemed most likely, and I guessed the latter.
Wordle 1,108 3/6 ⬛🟨⬛⬛🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Yesterday’s Wordle was harder. The hint was “as a proper noun, the name of an elf” and the answer contained three common letters, one fairly common letter, and one uncommon letter.
The answer to yesterday’s Wordle was BUDDY.
The idea of Wordle is to guess the day’s secret word. When you first open the Wordle game, you’ll see an empty grid of letters. It’s up to you to make the first move: type in any five-letter word.
Now, you can use the colors that are revealed to get clues about the word: Green means you correctly guessed a letter, and it’s in the correct position. (For example, if you guess PARTY, and the word is actually PURSE, the P and R will be green.)
Yellow means the letter is somewhere in the word, but not in the position you guessed it. (For example, if you guessed PARTY, but the word is actually ROAST, the R, A and T will all be yellow.)
Gray means the letter is not in the solution word at all. (If you guessed PARTY and everything is gray, then the solution cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)
With all that in mind, guess another word, and then another, trying to land on the correct word before you run out of chances. You get six guesses, and then it’s game over.
What should you play for that first guess? The best starters tend to contain common letters, to increase the chances of getting yellow and green squares to guide your guessing. (And if you get all grays when guessing common letters, that’s still excellent information to help you rule out possibilities.) There isn’t a single “best” starting word, but the New York Times’s Wordle analysis bot has suggested starting with one of these:
CRANE
TRACE
SLANT
CRATE
CARTE
Meanwhile, an MIT analysis found that you’ll eliminate the most possibilities in the first round by starting with one of these:
SALET
REAST
TRACE
CRATE
SLATE
Other good picks might be ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO get more vowels in play, but you could argue that it’s better to start with an emphasis on consonants, using a starter like RENTS or CLAMP. Choose your strategy, and see how it plays out.
We have a few guides to Wordle strategy, which you might like to read over if you’re a serious student of the game. This one covers how to use consonants to your advantage, while this one focuses on a strategy that uses the most common letters. In this advanced guide, we detail a three-pronged approach for fishing for hints while maximizing your chances of winning quickly.
The biggest thing that separates Wordle winners from Wordle losers is that winners use their guesses to gather information about what letters are in the word. If you know that the word must end in -OUND, don’t waste four guesses on MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; combine those consonants and guess MARSH. If the H lights up in yellow, you know the solution.
One more note on strategy: the original Wordle used a list of about 2,300 solution words, but after the game was bought by the NYT, the game now has an editor who hand-picks the solutions. Sometimes they are slightly tricky words that wouldn’t have made the original list, and sometimes they are topical. For example, FEAST was the solution one Thanksgiving. So keep in mind that there may be a theme.
If you can’t get enough of five-letter guessing games and their kin, the best Wordle alternatives, ranked by difficulty, include:
Dordle and Quordle, which ask you to play two (Dordle) or four (Quordle) puzzles at the same time, with the same guesses. There is also Octordle, with eight puzzles, and Sedecordle, with 16.
Waffle, which shows you several five-letter words, scrambled in a grid; you play by swapping the letters around until you solve.
Absurdle, which changes the solution after each guess, but needs to stay consistent with its previous feedback. You have to strategically back it into a corner until there is only one possible word left; then you guess it, and win.
Squabble, in which you play Wordle against other people with a timer running. You take damage if you spend too much time between guesses; winner is the last one standing.
Antiwordle, in which you are trying not to guess the day’s solution. You’re required to reuse any letters that you (oops) guessed correctly, so the longer it takes you, the better you are at the game.
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Enlarge / The Polestar 4 is the latest entrant into the crowded midsize luxury electric SUV segment. We think it has what it takes to stand out. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)
"If you're going to make a car and use all that energy, it should be a good car," said Thomas Ingenlath, CEO of Polestar. Ingenlath was referring to the company's latest electric vehicle, a midsize SUV with striking coupe looks called the Polestar 4. While Ingenlath is on point from a sustainability perspective, it makes good business sense, too. The Polestar 4 needs to be a good car to stand out as it enters one of the most hotly contested segments of the market.
In fact, Polestar uses less energy to make its latest EV than anything else in its range—the company quotes a carbon footprint of 19.9 tonnes of CO2 from cradle to gate. Like some other automakers, Polestar is using a monomaterial approach to the interior to make recycling easier, choosing the same base plastic for all the components in a particular piece of trim, for example.
The carpets are made from, variously, recycled fishing nets or plastic bottles. The vinyl seats use pine oil instead of the stuff extracted from the ground, and the knitted upholstery fabric—also recycled plastic bottles—was designed to leave no off-cuts.
© Abbie Parr
© via Dateline
© Kayla Bartkowski
© Nancy Lane
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The web browser Vivaldi is taking a firm stance against including machine learning tools to its browser.
So, as we have seen, LLMs are essentially confident-sounding lying machines with a penchant to occasionally disclose private data or plagiarise existing work. While they do this, they also use vast amounts of energy and are happy using all the GPUs you can throw at them which is a problem we’ve seen before in the field of cryptocurrencies.
As such, it does not feel right to bundle any such solution into Vivaldi. There is enough misinformation going around to risk adding more to the pile. We will not use an LLM to add a chatbot, a summarization solution or a suggestion engine to fill up forms for you until more rigorous ways to do those things are available.
↫ Julien Picalausa on the Vivaldi blog
I’m not a particular fan of Vivaldi personally – it doesn’t integrate with KDE well visually and its old-fashioned-Opera approach of throwing everything but the kitchen sink at itself is just too cluttered for me – but props to the Vivaldi team for taking such clear and firm stance. There’s a ton of pressure from big money interests to add machine learning to everything from your operating system to your nail scissors, and popular tech publishers are certainly going to publish articles decrying Vivaldi’s choice, so they’re not doing this without any risk.
With even Firefox adding machine learning tools to the browser, there’s very few – if any – browsers left, other than Vivaldi, it seems – that will be free of these tools. I can only hope we’re going to see a popular Firefox fork without this nonsense take off, and I’m definitely keeping my eye on the various options that already exist today.
Straight from the arcade world, the Neo Geo was, without a doubt, the most expensive hardware of the 4th generation. This begs the question: how capable was it and how did it compare with the rest?
In this entry, we’ll take a look at the result of one company (SNK) setting budget restrictions aside and shipping a product meant to please both arcade owners and rich households.
↫ Rodrigo Copetti
Rich households, indeed. Back in the ’90s, when Nintendo was the only game in town – few people in my area cared one bit about Sega – Neo Geo was a name we only knew of vaguely. It was supposed to be a massively powerful console that was so expensive nobody bought one, and some of us even doubted it was real in the first place. Ah, the pre-internet playground days were wild.
Enlarge / Extreme sportsman Ross Edgley comes face to face with a great hammerhead shark in the waters of Bimini in the Bahamas. (credit: National Geographic/Nathalie Miles)
Ultra-athlete Ross Edgley is no stranger to pushing his body to extremes. He once ran a marathon while pulling a 1-ton car; ran a triathlon while carrying a 100-pound tree; and climbed a 65-foot rope over and over again until he'd climbed the equivalent of Mt. Everest—all for charity. In 2016, he set the world record for the world's longest staged sea swim around the coastline of Great Britain: 1,780 miles over 157 days.
At one point during that swim, a basking shark appeared and swam alongside Edgley for a day and a half. That experience ignited his curiosity about sharks and eventually led to his new National Geographic documentary, Shark vs. Ross Edgley—part of four full weeks of 2024 SHARKFEST programming. Edgley matches his athletic prowess against four different species of shark. He tries to jump out of the water (polaris) like a great white shark; withstand the G forces produced by a hammerhead shark's fast, rapid turns; mimic the extreme fasting and feasting regimen of a migrating tiger shark; and match the swimming speed of a mako shark.
"I love this idea of having a goal and then reverse-engineering and deconstructing it," Edgley told Ars. "[Sharks are] the ultimate ocean athletes. We just had this idea: what if you're crazy enough to try and follow in the footsteps of four amazing sharks? It's an impossible task. You're going to fail, you're going to be humbled. But in the process, we could use it as a sports/shark science experiment, almost like a Trojan horse to bring science and ocean conservation to a new audience."
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