The next time you open Uber Eats, you might see a new delivery option: a way to have flowers dropped off at your door swiftly with just a few taps. Uber has teamed up with flower industry stalwart FTD for its first nationwide florist partnership as part of its latest on-demand delivery venture.

Folks in New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami and some other locations can now order flower arrangements from FTD’s ProFlowers locations. Uber expects to roll out the option nationwide by early 2022, so it should be available almost everywhere by Mother's Day next May. You can see the available options by tapping the flower icons in the Uber Eats app and selecting a ProFlowers location. Uber Pass and Eats Pass subscribers will get discounts and no-free deliveries on eligible orders of at least $15.

Deliveries have become an increasingly important part of Uber's business over the last couple of years. One key reason is that far fewer people took rides amid COVID-19 restrictions. The company recently doubled its grocery delivery markets to more than 400 US towns and cities, and it just started delivering Costco orders in Texas.

Lollapalooza is once again an in-person festival after a switch to a streaming-only gig in 2020, but that's not the only big change for fans. Hulu has become the exclusive streaming partner for Lollapalooza 2021, and will stream the Chicago event to on-demand subscribers between July 29th and August 1st starting at 2PM Eastern (1PM Central). Yes, that means what you think it does — Lollapalooza won't be streaming on YouTube like it has in recent years.

There's no extra charge, and you can watch if you sign up for a free trial. The Lollapalooza 2021 lineup includes plenty of big names, including Illenium (July 29th), Tyler, the Creator (July 30th), Post Malone (July 31st) and Foo Fighters (August 1st).

Hulu has streamed concerts before, including a Black History Month show in February and a Summer of Soul tribute on Juneteenth. However, this is the service's first exclusive live event. It's a big bet that livestreams like this can translate to more customers, not to mention draw attention away from free services like YouTube.

Whether or not music fans follow is another matter. YouTube is still a go-to destination for live festivals like Coachella, and that may be what virtual concertgoers are expecting. There's a real possibility that many would-be viewers will just skip Lollapalooza altogether rather than sign up for Hulu, no matter how easily they can cancel service afterward.

CBS has shared the first trailer for Prodigy, its first-ever fully computer-animated Star Trek series. The clip introduces us to the show’s cast of disparate characters. They’re stuck on what looks like a mining colony and trying to find a way to escape. As it just so happens, they discover a grounded Starfleet vessel known as the USS Protostar, and it’s their ticket to adventure.  

Before the trailer ends, a familiar voice declares, “We’ve only just begun.” Star Trek: Prodigy will see Kate Mulgrew reprise the role of Captain Kathryn Janeway, albeit in holographic form. If you live outside of the US, you can see the clip on the official Star Trek Twitter account. We’ll note here CBS Viacom also shared a trailer for the second season of Lower Decks. Star Trek: Prodigy will debut this fall on Paramount+, before it eventually airs on Nickelodeon.

Uber's grocery deliveries will soon include Costco's bulk-sized foodstuffs, provided you live in the right state. The internet giant is launching a pilot that will deliver Costco groceries from 25 warehouses in Texas, with seven more locations available in the "coming weeks." Uber and Uber Eats app users will initially find the option available in Austin, Dallas and Houston.

You'll need to place at least a $35 order, and you'll have to pay for delivery unless you're an Uber Pass or Eats Pass member. A virtual storefront in the Uber and Uber Eats apps will focus on your "favorite" essential items.

This is Uber's first experiment with an American food wholesaler. It's not certain if the pilot will translate to a full-fledged expansion, but it would represent a major move if so. While Uber recently doubled the scale of its US grocery deliveries with over 400 new cities, a larger team-up with Costco would improve the depth of that service — you'd have more shopping choices, particularly if you need to make large orders.

HBO Max has a new way for people to check out its library of content. Starting today, you can watch the pilot episodes of select series, including Game of Thrones, Lovecraft Country and Gossip Girl, on Snapchat and do so while chatting with up to 63 other people.

The ability to watch HBO Max content through Snapchat comes courtesy of the Minis functionality Snap introduced last June. The tool allows third-party developers to offer pared-down versions of their apps within Snapchat. So far, some of the more popular developers to offer Minis include Headspace, but HBO Max is the first major streamer to use the feature to let people view its content.

You can start the HBO Max Mini by tapping on the rocket icon in chat or using the search feature to find it. Before you can see a list of available episodes, the app will ask you to verify your age. You don't need an HBO Max subscription to watch any of the pilots, but the Mini will prompt users over the age of 18 to sign up for the service. Once a session is underway, up to 63 other people can join one, and you can chat with everyone else watching the episode and share Bitmoji reactions.

HBO Max isn't the first streaming service to use another platform to attract users. Before its all too predictable death, Quibi let people watch pilots of its originals on YouTube.

Uber has announced the first major expansion of its grocery delivery service in the US. The company is more than doubling the number of service areas this week to north of 400 cities and towns. It now serves several major markets through the Uber and Uber Eats apps, including San Francisco, New York City and Washington DC.

The rapid expansion was partly fueled by a partnership with Albertsons Companies and its 1,200 grocery stores across the country. Albertsons owns brands including Safeway, Jewel-Osco, Acme, Tom Thumb and Randalls. Uber also offers delivery from regional chains such as Southeastern Grocers and New York’s Red Apple Group. Uber Pass and Eats Pass subscribers don't need to pay delivery fees on grocery orders over $30.

Grocery delivery became an important component of Uber's business during the toughest parts of the COVID-19 pandemic, because the number of rides people were taking dropped significantly. The company is also dealing with a driver shortage that led to higher prices for rides. Uber bought several delivery startups over the last couple of years to fuel its growth in that sector, such as Cornershop, Postmates and Drizly.

As protests continue in Cuba over the country’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the surrounding economic fallout, the Cuban government has moved to restrict access to social media and messaging platforms. According to NetBlocks, an organization that tracks internet access, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Telegram have all been at least partially blocked on the Caribbean island since Monday. As of Tuesday afternoon, it appears the restrictions are still in place, with Reuters reporting that people in Havana don’t have access to mobile data at the moment. We’ve reached out to Facebook and Telegram for confirmation on the outages, and we’ll update this article when we hear back from the companies.

Mobile internet access is relatively new to Cuba. It was only in late 2018 that the country’s socialist government started rolling service out across the island. At the time, President Miguel Diaz-Canel, the politician protestors are demanding resign, said greater internet access would help Cubans “defend their revolution.” However, Cuba to dissent is not new. We’ve seen governments in countries like Mynamar and Iran use similar strategies when they faced protests in the past.

For the second time in the span of less than a year, the price of ESPN+ is increasing. Starting on August 13th, an annual subscription will cost $69.99 per year, up from $59.99 previously. At the same time, the price of a monthly plan is going up as well. Come August 13th, ESPN+ will cost $6.99 per month, up from $5.99 as of last year. Opting for an annual subscription instead of a monthly one will save you about $13 over the span of a year. A Disney spokesperson told Engadget the company will start informing existing customers of the price increase as early as later today.

Since April 2019, Disney has allowed UFC fans to watch pay-per-view events through ESPN+. The price of that programming is not going up at the moment. The company is also not increasing the price of the Disney Bundle, which includes ESPN+, as well as Disney+ and Hulu. That package will continue to cost $13.99 per month, following a recent increase in March.

Later today, Virgin Galactic will attempt to fly its founder and billionaire Richard Branson, as well as five other individuals, to the edge of space. You can watch the entire Unity 22 mission unfold here, the company’s website, as well as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The company hasn’t released an itemized schedule for Sunday’s flight yet. But should Virgin Galactic stick to its usual flight plan, the entire mission should take about 90 minutes. Either way, the official livestream is currently slated to start at 9AM ET.

Unity 22 will be Virgin Galactic’s fourth crewed flight. Outside of beating Jeff Bezos to space, the stated purpose of the mission is to evaluate the SpaceShipTwo’s cabin environment, seat comfort and the overall experience it will offer to customers. If the flight is a success, the company plans to complete two additional test flights before starting paid flights next year.

The film that kickstarted (and nearly killed) Star Trek’s first second life is going to be remastered, once again. Star Trek.com (via Gizmodo), says that Paramount has green-lit a “full restoration” of Robert Wise’s 2001 “Director’s Edition” of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The site says that the project, which will take between six and eight months to finish, will be formatted in 4K, with Dolby Vision HDR and a new Dolby Atmos soundtrack. David C. Fein, Mike Matessino and Daren R. Dochterman, who worked with Wise on the 2001 DVD version, will all return to work on the 4K spruce up.

The Motion Picture (TMP)’s fraught production meant that the film was barely finished before it premiered, with Wise carrying the print himself to the premiere. Wise had said that the film was “unfinished,” and despite a healthy box office, took a pasting from critics who deemed it to be too slow and talky. At the dawn of the DVD era, Wise, Fein, Matessino and Dochterman collaborated on a re-edit of the film that better showed off Wise’s original vision. This included remastered visual effects and a remastered and re-edited score by Jerry Goldsmith. The effects for the 2001 version were produced by CGI pioneers Foundation Imaging, which was Star Trek’s (then) contractor for all computer generated work.

(After its theatrical run, ABC broadcast a “Special Longer Version” of the film that is notorious for including extra scenes with clearly unfinished effects. The most obvious of which is the start of Kirk’s EVA, where the airlock set is surrounded by studio scaffolding, intended to be replaced by a matte painting.)

It was a well-held myth in fan circles that a 4K version of the Director’s Edition was impossible because the CGI assets and film footage had been scanned and edited for standard definition. The bankruptcy of Foundation Imaging, which took place shortly after the film was released, also dashed hopes for any higher-definition re-releases. However, as Memory Alpha lists, producer David C. Fein confirmed in 2017 that the digital material necessary to facilitate a 4K remastering still exists.

Given how TMP’s reputation has been slowly rehabilitated over the last three decades, a 4K version of the film is very welcome. If only because, as well as a smart and interesting vision of the future, the model work and score are so good that they deserve to be seen in the best possible resolution. We can’t wait to experience this in 4K when it arrives at some point between December and next March.