This post contains major spoilers for season two, episode seven of ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks.’

Artificial intelligence has been baked into the Star Trek universe since the original series. Kirk and his crew occasionally faced off against computers gone amok, including Nomad, Landru and the M-5. The only way to defeat these digital villains was to outwit them using logic, which caused them to self-destruct. But in The Next Generation, the franchise became more interested in exploring the personhood of artificial beings like Data and hisfamily, Voyager’s holographic doctor or the exocomps. This week, Lower Decks dredges up the old-style megalomaniacal AI and asks, are you really sure about those rights?

The USS Cerritos is once more called upon to help out a civilization enslaved by an evil computer, this one called Agimus (voiced by long-time Trek actor Jeffrey Combs). Disconnected from his network of drones, he’s actually pretty pathetic, desperately begging the organic beings around him to just hook him up to a computer. All that’s left for Starfleet to do is to drop him off at the Daystrom Institute, which isn’t the most glamorous of jobs, so of course Beckett Mariner and Bradward Boimler end up on this particular babysitting gig.

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A gravimetric shear complicates things for the pair, forcing their shuttle to crash on a barren world with only the pleading voice of Agimus to keep them company. The computer uses this opportunity to pit the two against each other, continuing a plot thread that we thought had been settled two episodes ago. Beckett still doesn’t trust Brad's abilities despite all they’vebeen through. It feels like a regression or perhaps even a mis-scheduled episode, except that we the audience still see his growth while his supposed best friend doubts him. It’s a plot line unlikely to go away after a few episodes, reaffirming this show’s commitment to character-driven storytelling.

However, that breadth of characterization doesn’t really apply to Agimus. He’s really just… kind of a jerk, and he doesn’t have the ability to directly influence anything due to his lack of arms and legs. Boimler and Mariner spend the entire episode lugging his box around: a sentient MacGuffin. If you’re not familiar with that term, it means an item (or person) that moves the plot forward and motivates the characters, but is not actually important in itself. With Agimus’s reign over, he really just serves here to get Mariner and Boimler at each other’s throats.

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His status as a sentient being is never in question, but the problem of what to do with him as his behavior worsens goes in directions that would never come up for an organic individual. Mariner suggests burying him, a suggestion turned down by Boimler because he’s a sentient being and that’s not what Starfleet does. So it seems we have made some progress from the ol’ “destroy them with their own logic” days of TOS. But then the two ensigns end up burying him anyway, while Agamus protests that “he has rights!”

And yet Star Trek has always been a bit sketchy about what those rights are. While episodes like “The Measure of a Man” and “The Offspring” have reaffirmed Data’s humanity, it’s been contradicted since by events on Voyager and Picard. The Doctor asserted his authorial rights to a holonovel he created and won, but wasn’t actually recognized as a person. The question remained unanswered nearly 20 years later on Picard, with us only being shown holograms of limited capabilities, or those based on the personalities of other sentient beings (Rios’ crew). And fully synthetic beings like Data, ones with brains and bodies, were illegal after the attack on Mars.

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Lower Decks takes place a mere year after the end of Voyager, so it’s free to pick up and explore some of those plot threads without that later baggage. But without a synthetic crew member on the USS Cerritos it can only glance off the subject. Agamus is dumped in a storage facility as just another “self-aware megalomaniacal computer,” not too dissimilar from the warehouse where the Ark of the Covenant is dumped at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Is it a prison? Did he get a trial? Are he and the other computers just going to sit there until the end of the Federation? From an ethical perspective it isn’t great, but it’s unlikely to ever be fully addressed, because who in Starfleet is really going to fight for the personhood of a computerized fascist dictator?

Well, well, well. We meet again, Razer Huntsman. The company's first opto-mechanical keyboard was an interesting experiment, one I wasn’t too fond of thanks to its unpleasant key feel and noise. After three years (and a mini edition) later Razer is back with a new $190 version, and it does seem the designers finally nailed it.

Kris Naudus / Engadget

First, a refresher: opto-mechanical keys have a small laser beam under each switch. When you press a key, it blocks the light path, sending a signal to the computer of what you just pressed. Because it doesn’t need to fully actuate (go up and down) on a physical level, it’s supposedly faster than traditional mechanical keyboards. In practice I didn’t really notice the difference and even now I can’t really distinguish the nanoseconds shaved off with each key press on the Huntsman V2. 

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However, what I can feel and hear is the layer of foam padding under the keys that mutes each stroke, which makes it a much more agreeable auditory experience — the first version had this annoying metallic echo that I could pick up even with my admittedly poor hearing. Granted, if you’re wearing a headset and listening to gunshots or music you probably won’t notice, but if you work in an office as I do, or share a small space with others, the comfort of those around you matters.

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Now the keystrokes are still crisp but instead of hearing a metallic scratching sound it’s more a muffled thud. (You can choose clickier keys at checkout.) And the switches aren’t the only improvement Razer made toward comfort. There’s a larger, squishier wrist rest available at extra cost for those who like having one, which connects to the Huntsman v2 magnetically so you can easily pull it off when it gets in the way — the spacious rest adds another four inches to the 5.5-inch keyboard’s depth.

Kris Naudus / Engadget

However, if you find yourself really crunched for space, Razer is also releasing a $130 tenkeyless version of the Huntsman V2. Same opto-mechanical switches, but no number pad or media buttons on the right side. It’s similar in feel to the 60-percent Huntsman Mini I used earlier this year, but the keys on the V2 feel slightly looser and require just a bit less effort to press. For most use cases the difference is negligible, but for people who take their gaming seriously, the effort you save — and the nanoseconds you shave off — matter.

This post contains light spoilers for season two, episode six of ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks.’

In last week’s episode, Lower Decks wrapped up the first half of its second season by addressing some leftover plot threads from season one, namely Rutherford’s memory loss and the fallout between Mariner and Boimler. With those issues out of the way the series is free to move forward. But first, this week’s “The Spy Humongous” takes some time to look at an average day onboard the USS Cerritos. It’s not quite the TNG classic “Data's Day,” but it’s close enough for fans of smaller, more intimate Trek stories.

There’s no strict division between A-plot and B-plot this time, with both upper and lower decks crew starring in four loosely connected stories. The bridge crew is attempting to negotiate a ceasefire with the Pakleds, while the ensigns have been assigned to “artifact reclamation duty,” which is a fancy way of saying “clearing out weird space junk.” Boimler is thrilled, but he gets pulled away by a group of career-driven “redshirts” who think his time on the USS Titan makes him prime command material. And Ransom ends up babysitting a Pakled defector/tourist/spy. It’s a grab bag of jokes and Star Trek lore, sure to please any long-time Trekkie.

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However, it’s still remarkably newcomer friendly, in that it doesn’t require too much background to understand the basic plot, while also illustrating the show’s core concept as a show about the nuts and bolts of Starfleet. If this were a live-action show it would be what’s called a “bottle episode,” one shot on a limited budget using pre-built sets and the regular cast. Even on the one exotic locale we’re shown — Pakled Planet — we never actually go inside any buildings. It’s an interesting contrast to last week’s expansive tour of Starbase 25.

In live action programming, bottle episodes exist because a show blew through its guest star or special effects budget on a big important story, and “An Embarrassment of Dooplers” would fit that bill. But as I pointed out last week, Lower Decks is not limited by what a set designer can build or how much makeup an actor will wear or how long would it take to render a sentient gaseous anomaly on a green screen. The animators can draw whatever needs to be drawn. So there’s no reason to follow the trope of a bottle episode except that… they want to.

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Lower Decks has made no secret that it’s essentially a giant love letter to Star Trek. What was initially predicted to be “Family Guy in space,” ended up treating the franchise with a lot of respect, and was packed full of jokes for the fandom to discuss and catalog in places like Reddit and Trek wiki Memory Alpha. But this week’s adventure illustrates that attention to Star Trek tropes and backstory can go beyond showcasing little-seen alien species or getting justice for murdered characters.

It’s also about the love of how Star Trek tells its stories, with a strong emphasis on the personal aspect. Here we get to see Freeman, Mariner and the others simply do their jobs. We know they’re not going to die, especially not mid-season, so it’s really about seeing how they handle adversity and ultimately, what made them Starfleet material in the first place.

From the opening scene of Iron Man back in 2008, the military-industrial complex has been stitched into the fabric of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Captain America, the Hulk, War Machine and Captain Marvel are all involved in it to some extent. But the portrayal has always tilted toward the positive due to Hollywood’s long-standing partnership with the US military. This week’s What If…? uses the freedom offered by animation to go a little dark on the subject and show us how easily the business of war could have overrun the narrative.

The point of divergence this time around is that Erik Killmonger is apparently assigned to an undercover mission with the Ten Rings and, in the process, ends up saving Tony Stark’s life. So Tony is never injured and forced to build the Iron Man suit, instead continuing his war profiteering ways — though now with a new BFF at his side. Instead of becoming someone who buries himself in his work (and builds a literal suit of armor to protect himself) Tony instead lashes out, with Killmonger all-too-ready to point him in the direction of taking down Wakanda.

This pulls Wakanda into the narrative a lot sooner than its main-timeline debut in 2006’s Captain America: Civil War. The country’s isolationist policy has been used as the retcon for why we never heard a peep from Wakanda sooner but it quickly comes to the forefront here, in lieu of all the stories that spun out of the initial attack on Stark: the conflict with Obadiah Stane and Tony’s palladium poisoning in the first two Iron Man films, and then later the attack on Sokovia in Age of Ultron and Baron Zemo’s revenge scheme in Civil War. General Ross even makes an appearance here, casting doubt on whether the events of The Incredible Hulk even still happened the same way. Instead of being introduced to Wakanda through a UN peace conference, instead they’re a country on the defensive against a horde of mechanical forces.

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The episode makes it quickly apparent how much of the MCU was dependent on Tony Stark’s participation, though not in a feel-good George Bailey It’s a Wonderful Life way. In Civil War, Vision points out that the power shown since Iron Man’s debut invites challenge. Here, we end up in a major conflict anyway, showing that the aggressive energy that created the MCU’s Heroic Age already existed, spurred on by advancing technology. Without superheroes to pick up the banner, it’s the military that becomes the beneficiary of all that power.

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However, the military is a system as much as it is people, and there’s a weird sense throughout the episode that responsibility isn't in any particular person’s hands, even Eric Killmonger’s. We’re clearly shown where he’s pulling the strings, but characters like Tony Stark and General Ross are all too willing to be tugged along. But even they don’t feel fully in control of what happens. The conflict just escalates quickly and disproportionately in the episode’s half-hour runtime, perhaps a victim of the show’s need for expedited storytelling.

It’s no coincidence that the war that started the MCU was the conflict in Afghanistan, though it is happenstance that this episode aired only a month after the US brought its involvement to a messy close. It’s been a way of life for so long that it’s easy to feel swept away by the whole thing, especially if you were born after 9/11. This episode reinforces the MCU’s role as escapism during this era, a place where we could move beyond all this ugly terrestrial conflict and address more cosmic issues. By removing the heroes from the equation, the MCU becomes a grim mirror of the mindset we’ve been living in for two decades.

Another Apple event, and another set of Pro-styled phones to tempt you, now with Super Retina XDR screens and Pro Motion. But the company doesn't command the larger-display market, facing off against Android stalwarts like the Galaxy S21 Ultra and OnePlus 9 Pro. Below you’ll find the specs of these four phones all lined up for your perusal, though to get a full review you’ll need check back here at Engadget later this fall.

By this time most kids have gone back to school and, here at Engadget, it’s time to get back to the phone grind. First up on the slate of fall announcements is Apple with the latest iteration of the iPhone, and this time around it’s got A15 Bionic and a bigger batter to tempt you to upgrade. But for dedicated Android users, are those enough to make the switch? We’ve squared off the specs of the iPhone 13 against Samsung’s Galaxy S20 and the OnePlus 9, though you’ll have to wait for our full review in a few weeks for the final verdict.

Companies are starting to take console gaming more seriously, building headsets and controllers designed explicitly for Xbox and PlayStation systems. Razer’s been at the forefront of the pack for a few years now thanks to its line of Wolverine controllers, which gains a new member of the family today, the Wolverine v2 Chroma.

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While the name would seem to suggest it’s just a color upgrade, it’s not just the addition of Razer Chroma RGB lighting that makes this a step up from last year’s V2. It keeps the two multifunction buttons at the top but now they’re joined by four triggers on the back of the gamepad. They’re not paddles like the ones you’d find on Microsoft’s Elite or Scuf’s line of controllers, but they are equipped with 2-stage stop-switches that let you choose between a short and long pull distance depending on what type of game you’re playing.

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Also new to the V2 Chroma are interchangeable thumb stick caps. The default sticks on pretty much any gamepad you can buy are short and concave, and Razer still includes a pair of those in the box. But the package also lets you swap in a tall, concave cap for sniping or a short, convex one for running-and-gunning. You don’t need special tools to swap them out either, just give either thumb stick a good tug.

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If you’re thinking that all these improvements don’t come cheap, you’d be correct, with the Razer Wolverine V2 Chroma going for $150, a $50 increase over the regular V2. But then again, competing options from Microsoft and Scuf will run you $170 to $200, and none of them have snazzy lighting.

The following contains spoilers for episode five of 'What If...?' (and a tiny spoiler for 'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings').

The fifth episode of Marvel’s alternate universe anthology program on Disney+ is a star-studded affair, bringing back Chadwick Boseman, Sebastian Stan and Mark Ruffalo to voice their characters surviving in a world overtaken by the undead. (No Tom Holland, though.) This adventure’s point of divergence takes place during the events of Ant-Man and the Wasp, leading up to the events of Infinity War. It’s the biggest What If...? yet, in both cast and concept, and it also sheds a light on some characters still waiting for their day in the spotlight.

Janet Van Dyne contracts the zombie plague in the Quantum Realm and, when rescued, ends up spreading it to her husband and Scott Lang and things escalate from there. Even the Avengers end up infected, leaving the task of saving the world to characters who weren’t officially part of the team, like Wasp, Winter Soldier and Spider-Man. They’re joined by supporting characters like Sharon Carter, Okoye, Kurt and Happy Hogan. Bruce Banner is there too, but without the help of the Hulk. Just like in Infinity War, he refuses to emerge, leaving Bruce mostly defenseless.

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The episode also gives us a darker take on the Vision and Scarlet Witch, one that has a lot more meaning if you’ve watched all of WandaVision. There’s also a nod to The Falcon and Winter Soldier, when zombie Sam Wilson gets cut in half. Bucky finds himself unfeeling about the whole thing, likely because this version of the characters haven’t had time to bond the way their live-action counterparts have.

Without Captain America and Iron Man to take the reins, the role of leader falls to, well, no one, really, with this motley group of heroes and side-characters operating as a collective. It seems to work for the team for the most part, though they ignore Peter Parker’s advice not to split up with disastrous results.

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In fact, Peter is the star of the show here, despite his actor being unavailable to voice him. Just as he was in Infinity War, the kid is a solid team player who more than pulls his weight in combat. But this is also the first time we get to see other heroes interact with him on a more personal level. He isn’t just Tony Stark’s mascot here, instead the team ends up looking to him for moral support, the way they might have once admired Steve Rogers. It’s a nice glimpse of what Peter can be free of Iron Man’s shadow, a thread that will be more fully explored in this December’s No Way Home.

Marvel Studios

In the teaser for the upcoming Eternals film, one of the characters, Sprite, asks who will lead the Avengers now. Though the answer is unlikely to come out of that particular movie, this most recent What If…? suggests a few intriguing possibilities. While Peter forms the heart of the team here, a lot of the thinking falls to Bruce Banner. He’s a character that’s gone underused in the MCU thus far, thanks to Universal holding the film rights. A lot of his development has had to happen off-screen, but starting with 2018’s Thor: Ragnarok and continuing with the upcoming She-Hulk show, he’s gently getting nudged to the forefront of the Avengers. With Captain America, Iron Man and Black Widow dead and Thor off in space, he’s the natural choice to take the reins as one of two OG team members left (and if you’ve seen Shang-Chi, it seems he may already have).

Marvel Studios

Ultimately, like all What If…? episodes this installment doesn’t actually matter to the grander MCU, though its open-ended nature raises the possibility of a sequel — and given how many Marvel Zombies comics are out there, it’s almost guaranteed we’ll see this reality on Disney+ again. But for fans who don’t care for this week’s horror elements the story is still a valuable tease for how a post-blip, second generation Avengers roster could function.

The following contains spoilers for season two, episode five of 'Star Trek: Lower Decks.'

For a franchise that’s ostensibly about exploring, Star Trek has always been limited in how much of the galaxy it could actually show. Most of the alien species that Starfleet encountered were “humanoid” (i.e., actors with makeup and prosthetics stuck on their face). Away missions spent a lot of time in small villages that all looked alike because they were the same basic set redressed again and again. But with the franchise’s recent push into animation, the creators of Lower Decks and the upcoming Prodigy needn’t be limited by technology or budget; they showcase life in a universe we’ve heard about but only seen the barest glimpses of.

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This week’s Lower Decks is a great example of the power of animation to illustrate the writers’ dreams as most of the episode takes place on Starbase 25, where Starfleet is holding a party for some of its top crews. Captain Freeman hopes to attend with her senior staff, but first they have to finish delivering a Doopler delegate with an annoying tendency to duplicate when he’s upset. Because this is the USS Cerritos, things get out of control and he ends up overrunning the ship with clones. It’s the kind of cartoonish scenario that’s easier done in animated form, instead of having to build a phalanx of CG models to interact with live actors.

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But the real advantage to Lower Decks being an animated show comes in the A-plot of Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler heading down to the station to sneak in the party themselves (thanks to an unclaimed invite sent to Brad’s clone William). Most starbases we’ve seen were rather dark and cramped on the inside, with Deep Space Nine an exception due to the station being the entire setting of its show. Places like Starbase Earheart would get one or two rooms at best, with a handful of actors in makeup and costume milling about in the background.

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In “An Embarrassment of Dooplers,” our first view of Starbase 25’s interior is a spacious promenade with large overhead windows and neon signage everywhere. There are plenty of aliens to be seen, including Andorians, Bajorans and Klingons. Boimler’s first comment is how it’s “like a whole city,” and that he’s never been on a station “this old,” perhaps a bit of lamp shading for the fact that most of the bases we’ve seen carried much higher numerical designations. As long as it’s been around, Starbase 25 has had time to develop into something more than just a lonely outpost manned by a two person crew.

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It’s even developed its own black market, which is how Boimler and Mariner end up on a buggy chase throughout the station, charging through a casino, barber shop and men’s clothing store. They pass by rows of shops and dozens of people (including a cameo by executive producer Alex Kurtzman). It feels like an actual lived-in place, down to the angry avian couple sitting at home on their couch. If that wasn’t enough, Mariner even adds a bit of local color to a few of the locations, mentioning going on a date there once, and describing the location of a Quark’s Bar as a former empty lot where teens used to make bad choices. While a throwaway gag, that line feels like it could be a reference to the upcoming Nickelodeon show Star Trek: Prodigy, which features a bunch of teens piloting an abandoned Starfleet vessel.

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Science fiction has always been a bit of a sterile place; the original Star Wars films had no human children in them, with places like Cloud City always feeling a bit underpopulated. It took the special editions and the prequels to add a bit of cultural texture to that galaxy far, far away. The Next Generation added children to the ship for a little bit of family drama, but there was still a sense that there wasn’t much beyond Starfleet. Even as newer shows like Discovery and Picard can show more thanks to bigger budgets and better CG, everything still feels rather isolated: Picard retired to his vineyard, Riker’s family lives in a cabin in the woods and Michael Burnham ends up at an Orion work camp. Contrast that to our view of the Orion home planet in “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris,” where we get a little tour of the city and learn some things about Tendi in the process.

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Starbase 25 ends up providing some crucial character development for Mariner and Boimler as well, who end up reconciling in a bar once frequented by Kirk and Spock. It’s a nice way to connect the adventures of the Cerritos to the more famous Enterprise, but also a reminder that ultimately all of our heroes are people. Individuals who explore the galaxy and serve on ships and attend diplomatic conferences, but also who, like us, drink and fight and get thrown out of parties.

The first season of Picard picked up many years after the destruction of Romulus with a much darker, more depressing Federation. But just when things were starting to look better, it's about to get a lot worse in season two thanks to the machinations of Q. A fascist regime is now in control of Earth's history and it's up to retired Admiral Picard and the crew of La Sirena to travel back in time to stop this dystopic reality from coming into fruition.

This new Picard storyline will premiere in February 2022 on Paramount+ — likely right after Star Trek: Discovery finishes up its fourth season on the service. Picard has also been greenlit for a third season, now in pre-production.