Fresh off a blockbuster deal with Amazon, the celebrity hosts of the podcast SmartLess are taking their show to Discovery+. Actors Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes are going on the road with their hit podcast. Two 75-minute specials featuring highlights of interviews with stars from their North American tour will hit Discovery+ next year.
Bateman, Arnett and Hayes are the creators and hosts of the show. During each episode, one of the trio brings on a mystery guest and their conversation flows from there. Guests so far include Vice President Kamala Harris, George Clooney, Jennifer Aniston, Paul McCartney, Awkwafina, W. Kamau Bell, Stacey Abrams, Billie Eilish and Megan Rapinoe.
Amazon picked up exclusive rights to SmartLess in June in a three-year deal worth a reported $80 million. As of the beginning of this month, new episodes premiere on Amazon Music and Wondery+, where they remain exclusive for a week before hitting other podcast platforms.
Wikipedia vandalism is hardly a new phenomenon, but one user was able to add swastikas to tens of thousands of articles. Among the pages that were defaced included ones for leaders such as President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Justin Trudeau, Canada's prime minister. Articles for celebrities including Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck and Madonna were also affected.
The person responsible edited a template that's used on around 53,000 pages, Gizmodoreported. As such, the vandal defaced pages that are locked and supposed to have greater protection from such attacks. Wikipedia administrators fixed the problem soon after it emerged on Monday morning. The user has been banned indefinitely.
One admin noted that most widely used templates are locked, but it seems that some of them remain editable by anyone, or as in this case, a newish user who makes some good-faith edits first. Admins protected some more common templates in the wake of the vandalism.
The "unacceptable" attack "violates a number of Wikipedia’s policies," a Wikimedia Foundation spokesperson told Gizmodo. "Most vandalism on Wikipedia is corrected within five minutes, as we saw today." Even though the site is enormous and ever-evolving, it's encouraging that administrators are able to detect and resolve major defacement incidents swiftly.
We knew Google was readying another phone ahead of its new own-chip Pixel 6 flagships, but the company’s cheaper A series might reappear earlier than we thought. The Pixel 5a could appear any day now, according to the latest reports from, of all places, repair shops. The latest rumors include a larger battery (4,680mAh battery up from 3,800mAh) and an August 17th release date — which would be tomorrow.
We’re already expecting the Pixel 5a to land with a dual-camera system and a headphone jack, the latter of which is rare in 2021. Older rumors suggested the 5a might cost $450, a hair less than the Pixel 4a 5G but well above the $350 of last year’s Pixel 4a.
I’ve said it before, but Google’s Pixel A series is often a more compelling device than its highest-priced phones, striking a good balance between specs and performance — especially when it comes to camera performance. Similarly priced phones may look the same on paper, but the Pixel’s imaging capabilities, which lean hard on AI and software, typically produce great images in most situations. I’m sure the Pixel 5a is likely to continue this winning formula — even if it lacks that homemade Google chip.
— Mat Smith
NASA sends a 3D printing system for lunar soil to its space station
It could help plan for future Moon and Mars habitats.
NASA's latest International Space Station resupply mission included a machine meant to demonstrate 3D printing regolith (loose soil or rock) on the Moon and similar extraterrestrial surfaces.
The Redwire Regolith Print (RRP) project will work in tandem with an existing printer system (ManD) to try 3D printing simulated regolith. If that succeeds, the ISS crew will gauge the strength of the resulting material to see if it can handle the harsh conditions beyond Earth and work as a possible building material for future habitats.
The promo for Warner Bros.’ upcoming Reminiscence movie uses deepfake technology to embed you into a short video sequence with its star, Hugh Jackman. You can upload the photo of anybody you want, and the experience will conjure an animation for the face in it. You might have to wait your turn, however. When I tried it out, I got stuck at the waiting screen for a while. Test it for yourself here.
The Connectivity Standards Alliance has delayed Matter's rollout from late 2021 to the first half of 2022. Smart home standards (and a lot of smart home news) can be a snoozy affair, but Matter could be what we need to get anything with WiFi and/or Bluetooth to speak to each other in our homes. Amazon, Apple, Google and many smart home device makers (such as Nanoleaf and Signify) are already committed to it, so you can see why a smart home standard like this might… matter.
Every game on Famitsu's August 8th weekly Top 30 chart was a Switch title, ranging from Super Mario Maker 2 in 30th place to Minecraft at the top. It's reportedly the first time a platform has swept the chart since November 1988, when Nintendo's own Famicom (the NES for the rest of us) dominated the list.
If you want to see yourself on screen with Hugh Jackman, this is your chance. The promo for Warner Bros. upcoming Reminiscence movie uses deepfake technology to turn a photo of your face — or anybody's face, really — into a short video sequence with the star. According to Protocol, a media startup called D-ID created the promo for the film. D-ID reportedly started out wanting to develop technology that can protect consumers against facial recognition, but then it realized that its tech could also be used to optimize deepfakes.
For this particular project, the firm created a website for the experience, where you'll be asked for your name and for a photo. You can upload the photo of anybody you want, and the experience will then conjure up an animation for the face in it. The animation isn't perfect by any means, and the face could look distorted at times, but it's still not bad, considering the technology created it from a single picture.
Reminiscence is a sci-fi thriller about Nick Bannister, a "private investigator of the mind." The idea behind the promo is that you're a client looking into your memories to solve a case. The movie will be shown in theatres on August 20th, but like most new releases these days, it will also be available for streaming on HBO Max.
Apple has given a release date for the second of two Tom Hanks films it acquired during the pandemic. Finch, a futuristic tale about a reclusive inventor and his canine and robot road buddies, hits Apple TV+ on November 5th. Like Hanks' war movie Greyhound before it, the film became a casualty of the pandemic, mired by release date delays until Apple swooped in to acquire it from Universal. The robot (pictured above) is played by Caleb Landry Jones, fresh off a best actor win at Cannes.
Hanks plays the titular character, an ailing robotics engineer who emerges from his self-imposed underground exile to journey across a desolate American wasteland. Along for the ride are his dog, Goodyear, and an android who names himself Jeff. Together, they make a dysfunctional family, but can they learn to get along? I guess we'll have to wait till November to find out.
Finch is also loaded with offscreen talent. The good-natured sci-fi flick is directed by Emmy-winning Game of Thrones lead Miguel Sapochnik, with Alien scribe Ivor Powell and newcomer Craig Luck on screenwriting duties. While director Robert Zemeckisserves as an exec-producer and the film hails from Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, which may explain why the plot gives off major Cast Away and AI vibes.
The November release date also signals Apple's possible confidence in the film's awards chances. Either that or it's just looking to add a major movie to its fall line-up, which is already stocked with big hitters like sci-fi series Foundation, the second season of The Morning Showand current affairs show The Problem with Jon Stewart.
Disney has apparently found "ways to fairly compensate" talent, even if it continues its hybrid release strategy. Company CEO Bob Chapek said during an earnings call that Disney has "entered hundreds of talent arrangements with [its] talent and by and large, they've gone very very smoothly." Chapek's statement comes in the wake of the lawsuit Black Widow star Scarlett Johansson filed against the company over its streaming strategy.
Johansson's salary was tied to the movie's box office success, and her original contract didn't cover earnings from a hybrid release. According to her complaint, she could lose over $50 million due to the company's decision to simultaneously launch Black Widow in theaters and on Disney+, where it made $60 million during its opening weekend. Back then, Disney released a statement calling the lawsuit "especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the Covid-19 pandemic."
Now, Chapek said Disney is "trying to do the best thing for all [its] constituents and make sure that everybody who's in the value chain... feels like they're having their contractual commitments honored both from a distribution and a compensation standpoint." He didn't talk about specifics, however, or Johansson's lawsuit in particular. In Johansson's complaint, she said her camp tried to renegotiate her deal with the company upon learning about the simultaneous release. However, Disney and Marvel were allegedly unresponsive.
Chapek also talked about implementing an experimental release strategy for Shang-Chi. Unlike Black Widow, it will be a theater-exclusive for 45 days before making its way to Disney+. Further, subscribers may be able to watch it for free instead of having to pay extra for it like they've had to do with Mulan.
Disney’s upcoming Home Alonereboot will arrive just in time for the holidays. 20th Century Studios announced today Home Sweet Home Alone will debut on November 12th. Archie Yates, best known for his role in Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit, plays main character Max Mercer. The Disney+ exclusive also stars several Saturday Night Live alumni, including Kenan Thompson and Chris Parnell, as well as Devin Ratray, who played Buzz in Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
Three months until we’re #HomeSweetHomeAlone. The all-new Original Movie starts streaming November 12 on @DisneyPlus starring Ellie Kemper, Rob Delaney, Archie Yates, Aisling Bea, Kenan Thompson, Tim Simons, Pete Holmes, Devin Ratray, Ally Maki, and Chris Parnell. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/ifcE544tAD
Home Alone is just one of several Fox franchises Disney plans to reboot in the coming years. It is also working on bringing back Cheaper by the Dozen, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Night at the Museum.
The following contains some spoilers for the second season premiere of ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks.’
The first season of Lower Decks was a pleasant surprise to many in the Star Trek fandom. What a lot of people had written off as Family Guy- or Rick and Morty-Trek ended up being a wholesome love letter to the history of the franchise. It was filled with plenty of low-brow humor, sure, but it also showcased characters who genuinely cared about each other and what they do. Thankfully, season two is more of the same.
Lower Decks takes its name from a season-seven The Next Generation episode that revolved around the lives of four ensigns, and the parts they played in a mission that only the bridge crew really understood the full scope of. It’s generally considered one of the best episodes of the franchise, which meant that anything that even vaguely referenced it had a lot to live up to. Luckily, Lower Decks creator and executive producer Mike McMahan was a big fan with deep knowledge of Trek. He is also the creator of the @TNG_S8 parody Twitter account, as well as a veteran of animated shows like South Park, Axe Cop and, yes, Rick and Morty.
CBS
The conceit of a Lower Decks series was that the stories would focus on a core group of four ensigns on the USS Cerritos: Beckett Mariner, Brad Boimler, D’Vana Tendi and Sam Rutherford, also known as “beta shift.” There was a bridge crew, voiced by stars such as Jerry O’Connell and Dawnn Lewis, but their storylines would always be what’s going on in the background, and the ensigns wouldn’t always be privy to what’s happening with the ship.
Unlike the TNG episode, however, even the audience has been kept out of the loop on many occasions, with the ensigns even being forced to testify on their commanders’ behalf in an unexplained trial. (It turned out to be a party in honor of the senior officers, which confused our protagonists even more.)
CBS
It’s a pretty great idea for a show, one that’s yielded hilarious results. But Star Trek doesn’t have a good track record of sticking to a concept. The majority of shows since TNG have started out as one thing and become something else over the course of their runs. All shows evolve, but the changes in Trek have been obvious and purposeful. Deep Space Nine was intended to be a “frontier outpost” type of show, showing the long-term relationship between the Starfleet and one of the planets it encountered, Bajor. By season three they were given a warship, and season four brought in TNG-veteran Worf and a war with the Klingon Empire.
Star Trek: Voyager operated on the premise of “what if a Starfleet ship was lost far from home?” And it stuck with that, sure, but it also continued to operate like any other Starfleet vessel over seven seasons, and the ship remained in surprisingly good condition despite the lack of spacedocks for repair — something that frustrated writer Ronald D. Moore and later spurred him to create the Battlestar Galactica reboot (the title ship was a wreck by the finale). They also ended up re-establishing contact with the Federation in later seasons, which dampened the whole “alone in a strange quadrant” theme.
Enterprise wasn’t even called Star Trek until its third season. But still, though it was a show that promised to show us the early origins of Starfleet and the Federation, the first two seasons got bogged down in a “Temporal Cold War” and later episodes brought in 24th-century-era baddies like the Borg and Ferengi.
The latest concept switcheroo was the premiere Paramount+ Trek show, Discovery. The producers touted it as the first series where the captain was not the main character, with the program focusing on Commander Michael Burnham instead. This sounded great in theory, as it could show us a different side of Starfleet. In practice, however, even if Burnham wasn’t the captain the entire universe seemed to revolve around her anyway: the mysterious “Red Angel〞of season two turned out to be her mother (and her). The show ended up jettisoning its 23rd century setting after that, traveling to the 32nd century to a galaxy with a Federation in tatters. As of the end of season three Burnham became the captain anyway. So much for any Lower Decks-esque perspective on that show.
CBS
Season two of Lower Decks starts off a bit shaky in that regard — after the events of the last few episodes, Mariner is now BFF with the captain (who is also her mother) and Boimler is a bridge officer on the USS Titan. Neither of them feel like the scrappy underdog anymore. At least Tendi and Rutherford are still pretty minor players, though Tendi is alarmed at sudden changes in Rutherford’s personality and worries she may be losing his friendship.
The premiere finds Mariner having the carte blanche to go on any side missions she wants, and in one of these authorized-unauthorized missions she accidentally turns first officer Jack Ransom into a god-like being set on taking over a planet. The latter event is, at least, a pretty standard plot contrivance for Star Trek. Where Lower Decks stands apart is that as Ransom is threatening the Cerritos and banging away at its shields, the camera cuts to Tendi attacking Rutherford in a corridor, afraid that his new personality traits mean he’s suffering a serious disease, or that he just doesn’t like her anymore. The larger existential threat is background color in this scene (literally, as you can see rainbow beams blasting outside the window) while the show chooses to focus on the individual struggles of these two characters.
CBS
By the end of the episode Rutherford and Tendi sort things out, and even Mariner gets put back in her place, with the partnership between her and her mother dissolved and Beckett back in the brig. The only missing piece of the fabulous four is Boimler and well, he’s not having a great time on the Titan, because maybe things are a bit too exciting up on the bridge. The lower decks of the USS Cerritos are the still place to be, with season two off to a solid start.
Well, we knew the next Sonic the Hedgehog movie would include Knuckles, but we must admit never in our wildest dreams did we think Idris Elba would voice the red echidna. Yet here we are with the famed actor announcing on Tuesday that he’s been cast to the role.
All of this is another surprising development in one of the most unusual Hollywood success stories in recent memory. After a nightmare-inducing first trailer, we were almost sure the first Sonic the Hedgehog would be a complete trainwreck. And yet, it turned out decent and was one of the last box office hits before the pandemic shut down theaters globally. None of that is to say the series will catch lightning in the bottle twice. After all, Elba has burned through some of his goodwill, attaching his name to projects like Cats. However, at the very least, we’re curious to see how this one turns out.
Roku is still busy giving Quibi shows a second life as Roku Originals. The media device maker has revealed that 23 more shows will come to the free Roku Channel on August 13th, including a few that might just catch your attention thanks to their critical acclaim or star power. Memory Hole has Will Arnett revisiting the poorly-aged elements of pop culture, while Mapleworth Murders is an Emmy-nominated spoof of the mystery genre (such as the sheer body count in shows like Murder, She Wrote).
Other picks include Skrrt with Offset (a car enthusiast show starring its namesake rapper), the Reese Witherspoon-hosted nature documentary Fierce Queens and the celebrity stunt show Elba vs. Block.
As before, Roku is focused on filling the gaps Netflix, Amazon and other streaming heavyweights tend to leave in their catalogs. Quibi's shows not only didn't get much exposure during their ill-fated initial run, but offer short (roughly 10 minutes per episode) bites that you're unlikely to find on rival services.These new offerings may be easy choices if you're either pressed for time or just want an alternative when you run out of things to watch on paid services.
