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‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Exec Producer Confirms Identity of Rhys Darby’s Character

It’s very common for TV cast and crew to do spoiler-y interviews that run after a certain episode airs to address standout moments. Andor did it after Bix’s big shocker; The Last of Us did it after Joel’s big shocker; the Severance gang did it pretty much weekly throughout season two’s many big shockers. But what’s not ideal is when a showrunner type has to clarify something from an episode that… wasn’t made clear by said episode. That happened this week on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The se

The Absolute Best Horror Movies to Watch on Hulu

Reserve your seat for this surreal psychological horror movie about a talented ballerina's unraveling. Natalie Portman's character Nina feels pressure to embody not only the innocent and elegant White Swan but the dark and sensual Black Swan for the leading part in a production of Swan Lake. But she doesn't fit the latter swan's mold as much as newcomer Lily (Mila Kunis). The film follows her obsessive hunt for perfection.

Superman is a box office hit, but the hard part comes next

Over the weekend, DC Studios’ new Superman feature became this year’s third-biggest box-office debut in the US. The movie’s success is a sign that theatergoers might actually not be quite as tired of superheroes as people tend to think, and that’s particularly notable for Warner Bros., given the studio’s plan to build a new cinematic universe of DC Comics adaptations for the big screen. But making interconnected film franchises work is easier said than done. And even though Superman is putting u

Watching ‘X-Men’ 25 Years Ago Was a Game-Changing Moment

It’s hard to describe what it was like to sit down, 25 years ago today, to watch X-Men. I was born in 1980 and grew up loving and adoring superheroes. The Christopher Reeve Superman movies were everything to me. Posters and toys for Tim Burton’s Batman films were all over my room. And each week, I’d go to the local comic book shop to pick up new issues of X-Men, X-Force, X-O Manowar, Spawn, and so many others. The 1990s in particular were a golden age for comic books, but on the big screen, ther

Elon Musk’s AI bot adds a ridiculous anime companion with ‘NSFW’ mode

is a news editor covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme. People who pay for access to SuperGrok can now try the AI chatbot’s new “Companions” avatars, xAI owner Elon Musk announced Monday morning. The companions available currently include Ani, an anime avatar, and Rudy, a cartoony red panda. Ani also has what TestingCatalog describes as an “NSFW” mode where the character wears lingerie. (And just a warning: if you search for posts

Why James Gunn Wanted a Younger Jor-El In ‘Superman’

The role Superman’s parents play in his life has always differed across years of comic book reshuffling and myriad adaptations. But in our latest crack at the Kryptonian whip in James Gunn’s Superman, Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van play a brief, but fundamental role in the movie. Casting the role for Gunn was crucial, not just because of the character’s legacy—but because he wanted to buck a trend from other live-action Superman films. In Superman Jor-El and Lara are played by the voice of Rocket Racc

Alexander Skarsgård Ruined Multiple ‘Murderbot’ Finale Scenes by Crying

Season one of Murderbot wrapped up in a way that was sad yet hopeful—read io9’s recap here—with the underlying joy for fans that the Apple TV+ series will be returning to adapt more of Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries stories. And Alexander Skarsgård, who plays the title character, felt plenty of human emotion welling up while he was portraying the self-aware robot in the finale. Speaking to Collider, the actor, who’s also one of Murderbot‘s executive producers, spoke about the scene, in which h

Gboard could return to basics with a numpad-inspired layout for certain languages (APK teardown)

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR Google is working on a compact keyboard layout as part of Gboard for typing in Hindi. This new layout places characters from the Hindi alphabet across a grid of ten buttons. Each button can hold up to five characters, which can be inserted by swiping in their respective directions. Google has been working to bring several new changes to the Gboard app on Android, empowering it with more AI chops. More recently, we’ve learned about a new, more concise

DC Is Considering Spinoff Shows for ‘Superman’ Supporting Characters

Superman has barely taken off in theaters, but two of its supporting characters already could be moving ahead. A new report from the Wall Street Journal says that DC Studios president and Superman writer-director James Gunn is considering spinoffs centering on Mister Terrific, played by Edi Gathegi, as well as Jimmy Olsen, played by Skyler Gisondo. io9 has reached out to Warner Bros. for comment or clarification and will update this story if or when we hear back. The move makes sense, though, s

Oh No, ‘Big Bang Theory’ Is Returning to Literally Destroy the Universe

You’d think io9—a site run by nerds—would enjoy a sitcom featuring a cast of nerd characters. Like, say, The Big Bang Theory, which ran on CBS for 12 seasons. But you’d be wrong: we loathed the show, especially for its often wrong-headed approach to geeky interests (remember how dirty it did Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples’ wonderful comic Saga?), and we cheered when it finally wrapped up in 2019. But The Big Bang Theory obviously had a crap-ton of fans; you don’t get to 12 seasons and two sp

‘Jurassic World’ Characters Ranked, Based on How Much We Wanted Them to Get Eaten

With the release of Jurassic World Rebirth, we’re taking a look at the roster of characters from this latest era of the Universal Pictures and Amblin blockbuster franchise, where the dinosaurs tend to be the most memorable stars. Rexy, the T-Rex, reigns supreme, of course, but the old girl has been carrying the franchise on her back for over 30 years. When it comes to the humans of Jurassic World, have any of them hit the icon status of Jurassic Park’s original trinity? No one has come close to

Invasion season 3 gets its first teaser and a premiere date on Apple TV+

The wait is almost over for sci-fi fans eager for the next chapter of Invasion, one of Apple’s bets in the genre. And alongside the premiere date, Apple TV+ just released the teaser for what’s to come. Here are the details. Invasion season 3 premieres August 22 Here is the first official teaser for Invasion season 3, which just dropped on the Apple TV+ YouTube channel: “Invasion” follows an alien invasion through different perspectives around the world. In season three, those perspectives col

Apple’s alien thriller Invasion is back for season 3 in August

In season 3, those perspectives collide for the first time, as the series’ main characters are brought together to work as a team on a critical mission to infiltrate the alien mothership. The ultimate apex aliens have finally emerged, rapidly spreading their deadly tendrils across our planet. It will take all our heroes working together, using all their experience and expertise, to save our species. New relationships are formed, old relationship are challenged and even shattered, as our internat

The ‘Superman’ We Need Right Now: A Report From the Set of James Gunn’s New DC Film

When Superman started kissing the football on a stick, it all clicked together. The day was June 24, 2024 and io9 was in Cleveland to watch the filming of James Gunn’s Superman. At the end of a giant battle over the streets of Metropolis, the Man of Steel knelt down to kiss and profess his love to an inanimate object that special effects would later transform into his dog, Krypto. That little dash of heartfelt weirdness, in the middle of a massive action scene, did a near-perfect job of showing

Slightly better named character reference tokenization than Chrome, Safari, FF

Slightly better named character reference tokenization than Chrome, Safari, and Firefox 2025-06-26 Note: I am not a 'browser engine' person, nor a 'data structures' person. I'm certain that an even better implementation than what I came up with is very possible. A while back, for no real reason, I tried writing an implementation of a data structure tailored to the specific use case of the Named character reference state of HTML tokenization (here's the link to that experiment). Recently, I to

Zombie Dong Will Return in ’28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’

Two topics of conversation dominated the opening weekend of Danny Boyle’s new film, 28 Years Later. One, that wild ending that introduced a seemingly out-of-place controversial new character. And two was the sheer amount, and size, of the penises seen in the film. Throughout 28 Years Later, the Rage virus-infected zombies that run around the mainland are all naked. As one would be if you’d been running around killing people as a zombie for 30 years. That means, yes, there’s lots of nudity in th

The 8 Absolute Best Horror Movies on Hulu

Reserve your seat for this surreal psychological horror movie about a talented ballerina's unraveling. Natalie Portman's character Nina feels pressure to embody not only the innocent and elegant White Swan but the dark and sensual Black Swan for the leading part in a production of Swan Lake. But she doesn't fit the latter swan's mold as much as newcomer Lily (Mila Kunis). The film follows her obsessive hunt for perfection.

Before becoming the iconic star of Super Mario Bros., what was Mario originally named?

Choose wisely! The correct answer, the explanation, and an intriguing story await. Correct Answer: Jumpman Mario was created by Shigeru Miyamoto in the early 1980s while he was developing Donkey Kong, Nintendo's breakout arcade hit. Interestingly, Donkey Kong was originally conceived as a game based on the Popeye comic strip, with Popeye, Olive Oyl, and Bluto filling the roles. When Nintendo couldn't secure the rights in time, Miyamoto pivoted and created new characters, giving birth to what w

‘Wall-E With a Gun’: Midjourney Generates Videos of Disney Characters Amid Massive Copyright Lawsuit

Midjourney’s new AI-generated video tool will produce animated clips featuring copyrighted characters from Disney and Universal, WIRED has found—including video of the beloved Pixar character Wall-E holding a gun. It’s been a busy month for Midjourney. This week, the generative AI startup released its sophisticated new video tool, V1, which lets users make short animated clips from images they generate or upload. The current version of Midjourney’s AI video tool requires an image as a starting

'Wall-E With a Gun': Midjourney Generates Videos of Disney Characters Amid Massive Copyright Lawsuit

Midjourney’s new AI-generated video tool will produce animated clips featuring copyrighted characters from Disney and Universal, WIRED has found—including video of the beloved Pixar character Wall-E holding a gun. It’s been a busy month for Midjourney. This week, the generative AI startup released its sophisticated new video tool, V1, which lets users make short animated clips from images they generate or upload. The current version of Midjourney’s AI video tool requires an image as a starting

Character.AI taps Meta’s former VP of business products as CEO

Character.AI, the Google-backed AI chatbot provider with tens of millions of monthly active users, announced on Friday that Karandeep Anand, the former VP of Business Products at Meta, is joining the company as CEO. Previously a board adviser to Character.AI, Anand is stepping into the CEO role at a pivotal moment for the chatbot provider, as the company tries to simultaneously grow its platform while combatting child safety concerns. In recent months, Character.AI has added an array of new saf

LLMs pose an interesting problem for DSL designers

The most exciting part of Programming Languages (PL) research for me has always been in Programming Language Design. By carefully crafting a language with a syntax and semantics tailored for a specific domain, PL designers can provide an interface for end users that seamlessly aligns with the sensibilities and intuitions of practitioners, allowing users to focus on the "interesting" parts of a problem and tackle larger and more complex problems. Instead of writing a verbose sequence of API cal

Programming Language Design in the Era of LLMs: A Return to Mediocrity?

The most exciting part of Programming Languages (PL) research for me has always been in Programming Language Design. By carefully crafting a language with a syntax and semantics tailored for a specific domain, PL designers can provide an interface for end users that seamlessly aligns with the sensibilities and intuitions of practitioners, allowing users to focus on the "interesting" parts of a problem and tackle larger and more complex problems. Instead of writing a verbose sequence of API cal

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

Early animated Disney character This article is about the character. For works with the title, see Oswald the Lucky Rabbit filmography Fictional character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (also known as Oswald the Rabbit, Oswald Rabbit, and Ozzie[8][9][10]) is an animated cartoon character created in 1927 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks for Universal Pictures. He starred in several animated short films released to theaters from 1927 to 1938. Twenty-seven animated Oswald shorts were produced at the Walt D

Character.AI and Meta "therapy" chatbots spark FTC complaint over unlicensed mental health advice

What just happened? Chatbots can do a lot of things, but they're not licensed therapists. A coalition consisting of digital rights and mental health groups isn't happy that products from Meta and Character.AI allegedly engage in the "unlicensed practice of medicine," and has submitted a complaint to the FTC urging regulators to investigate. The complaint, which has also been submitted to Attorneys General and Mental Health Licensing Boards of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, claims t

20 Years Ago, Batman Began a New Era of Hollywood

There are plenty of constants in popular culture, and Batman is near the top of the list. He’s everywhere in some fashion, particularly in movies, and his various cinematic versions have been significant in some way that speaks to how both the audience and Warner Bros. view the character. Of those, Batman Begins may be the most important. The first chapter of an eventual trilogy from director Christopher Nolan and writers David S. Goyer and Jonathan Nolan released on June 15, 2005, and marked h

'Textbook Copyright Infringement': Disney and Universal Sue AI Image Generator Midjourney

Disney, Universal and several of their entertainment companies filed a lawsuit against popular AI creative service Midjourney on Wednesday, alleging that the company committed copyright infringement. It's a big move from power players and will no doubt create ripple effects across the AI and entertainment industries that will flow all the way to what you can create using AI tools. Midjourney is one of many AI image generators that use generative AI text-to-image technology. With an account, any

Updates From ‘The Rings of Power’, and More

A24’s Backrooms movie has found its stars. The Stranger Things animated series will introduce a new character into the Hawkins crew. Plus, Wednesday drops off a boatload of new character posters ahead of its return. Spoilers, assemble! The Backrooms According to Fangoria, the film adaptation of The Backrooms is set to officially enter production this summer with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve set to star (as opposed to Christin Milotti, as previously rumored). Superman Speaking with Fan

Hasbro’s Big Marvel SDCC Exclusive Is Wildly Unexpected

Everyone knows Marvel Comics has a very, very long roster of characters and, at San Diego Comic-Con this year, it’s pushing that list to the max. Hasbro just announced an exclusive set for the convention, and it’s comprised of a few characters likely unfamiliar to a lot of comic book fans, unless those fans also play the game Marvel Snap. It’s called the “Hasbro Marvel Legends Series Gamerverse Marvel Snap Savage Land 3-Pack” and consists of Rogue, Sauron (no, not that one), and Shanna the She-

The Justice Gang We’ll Meet in ‘Superman’ Is Coming Into Focus

Even casual fans know a lot about Superman already ahead of James Gunn’s upcoming film named for the character. He’s starred in plenty of films and TV shows, including some very recent releases. Lois Lane and Lex Luthor? We know them too. But what about Superman‘s support team that’ll be introduced in the film as the Justice Gang? In a new profile, Nathan Fillion (Green Lantern Guy Gardner), Isabela Merced (Hawkgirl), and Edi Gathegi (Mister Terrific) shared a bit about what to expect from their