The beautiful shame
The beautiful shame

While European tourists marvel at ranch dressing, Buc-ee’s, and other wonders of Middle America, would-be World Cup attendees from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East have experienced a different American pastime: exclusion. President Donald Trump’s nakedly racist immigration policies have prevented scores of people from traveling to the United States for the event – even, […]

Anthropic’s Mythos mess is only getting worse
Anthropic’s Mythos mess is only getting worse

It’s been two weeks since Anthropic took its Mythos-class models offline after a Friday evening ultimatum from the Trump administration. The company sprang into action immediately, sending a barrage of executives to Washington, DC. But updates have been suspiciously lacking, with no resolution in sight. Anthropic declined to comment multiple times this week about the […]

With GTA looming, consoles are getting expensive at the worst possible time
With GTA looming, consoles are getting expensive at the worst possible time

The release of Grand Theft Auto VI is a singular moment, the kind of massive cultural phenomenon that makes people want to go out and buy a console to play it. It is the preeminent modern example of what’s known as a “system seller.” There’s almost certainly a large audience of people who were waiting […]

EverQuest Legends is a powerful nostalgia machine
EverQuest Legends is a powerful nostalgia machine

I wasn’t surprised when I got the call that my dad was dying, even though we’d been estranged for many years. He’d suffered addiction for decades and eventually ran out of time, which also meant he ran out of time to reconcile with me. About 15 years after we stopped talking, my aunt and uncle […]

Charlie Kirk’s legacy is a 30-year sentence for moving zines
Charlie Kirk’s legacy is a 30-year sentence for moving zines

Just days after a gunman killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk, it became clear that President Donald Trump would use the assassination to fuel a crackdown on free speech. To avenge Kirk’s death, the administration vowed to go after so-called “antifa” (otherwise known as antifascist) terrorists. Now that promise is bearing fruit. This week, eight Texas […]

Netflix’s next TV gaming experiment will scare the hell out of you
Netflix’s next TV gaming experiment will scare the hell out of you

As part of the latest evolution of its gaming initiative, Netflix has made a big push into cloud-based games you can play on your TV, much in the same way you’d watch a movie or show on the service. So far, these games have been pretty tame. Things like trivia, party games, and a weirdly […]

Something’s off with Midjourney’s pivot to body scanners
Something’s off with Midjourney’s pivot to body scanners

Last week, Midjourney, an AI startup best known for its image generator, made an unusual pivot: medical imaging. The company announced a futuristic ultrasound scanner that would dunk users into a vat of water and, hopefully, produce “something as powerful as MRI” yet “as casual as a trip to the spa.” Midjourney says the goal […]

How much would the Steam Machine cost to build?
How much would the Steam Machine cost to build?

The Steam Machine is here, with a base price of $1,049. Yes, that’s nearly twice the price of a PS5, but what you’re buying here isn’t a console but a full-on PC – and a tiny one at that. Valve says it’s selling the Steam Machine basically at cost. So we asked ourselves: What would […]

Sony’s AI Camera Assistant is exactly as bad as it looks
Sony’s AI Camera Assistant is exactly as bad as it looks

When Sony announced the Xperia 1 VIII last month, it promoted the phone by sharing some of the worst photos taken on a Sony camera in years. These weren’t just any photos, though: they were taken with Sony’s new AI Camera Assistant. After a week with the Xperia 1 VIII, I’m here to tell you […]

Elon Musk and the plot to hijack America’s broadband
Elon Musk and the plot to hijack America’s broadband

At 9PM ET on the night of May 28th, a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket sat on the launchpad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The craft was in the middle of a hot-fire test awaiting the arrival of Amazon Leo satellites, the first of 24 batches to be shuttled into low Earth orbit […]