A Galaxy Quest series is reportedly under development for Paramount+. A new show based on the 1999 cult-classic film — a spoof of Star Trek and its fandom — will land on the streaming home of five original Trek series, according toThe Hollywood Reporter.

The sci-fi comedy followed a cast of washed-up actors making a meager living from the convention circuit after their television series — also called Galaxy Quest — was canceled. The plot involves aliens who picked up transmissions of the show from Earth, believing it to be a real-life documentary. The socially awkward extraterrestrials, gelatinous creates who take on humanoid forms, seek the actors’ leadership as their planet faces extinction. The cast eventually finds itself transported to outer space, where they reluctantly face the threat and eventually learn to live up to their TV personas. Galaxy Quest was a critical and commercial success, grossing over $90 million at the box office and gaining cult-classic status.

Paramount

If the series brings back the film’s original cast, it will have to make do without star Alan Rickman, who died of cancer in 2016. In addition to his scene-stealing turn as Alexander Dane, the movie starred Tim Allen as narcissistic William Shatner equivalent Jason Nesmith, Sigourney Weaver as Gwen DeMarco, Tony Shalhoub as Fred Kawn, Daryl Mitchell as Tommy Webber and Sam Rockwell as Guy Fleegman (a spoof of Star Trek’s expendable “redshirts”).

The new Paramount+ series is in its “early development stages.” Mark Johnson, an executive producer of the movie, returns for the upcoming series. No casting or writing decisions have been reported. Paramount TV Studios will develop the film for its streaming counterpart.

The upcoming series isn’t the first attempt to revive the IP. It was reported in 2021 that Simon Pegg and Succession writer Georgia Pritchett were helming a new series; it’s unclear whether the new project includes them. Before that, in 2015, an adaptation with the original cast was also under development. However, that one never advanced beyond the development stage after Rickman’s death and scheduling conflicts with Allen. In a 2016 interview, Rockwell told the Hollywood Reporter, “We were ready to sign up, and [then] Alan Rickman passed away and Tim Allen wasn’t available — he has [Last Man Standing] — and everybody’s schedule was all weird. It was going to shoot, like, right now. And how do you fill that void of Alan Rickman? That’s a hard void to fill.”

It has been a year since Panic started shipping the Playdate, its charming handheld console. To mark the occasion, the company has revealed just how many units players have bought to date. Panic says it has sold 53,142 Playdates so far. That's more than two and a half times the number of units the company initially expected to make.

When Panic opened pre-orders in mid-2021, it wasn't certain whether it would sell the first batch of 20,000 consoles at a reasonable pace. Eager customers snapped all of those within 20 minutes.

While there is clearly a demand for the console with a crank, getting the Playdate into players' hands has been a tricker problem. Panic came across a "critical" battery issue while manufacturing the first batch, leading it to switch suppliers and delay the console from late 2021 into 2022.

Not only have parts shortages slowed down deliveries, manufacturing costs forced Panic to increase the price of the Playdate by $20 to $199 earlier this month. Panic has shipped more than 27,000 Playdates and it expects to fulfill all preorders by the end of 2023. After that, it hopes to make Playdate available on an ad-hoc basis and to finally start shipping the Playdate Stereo Dock.

Every Playdate user gets access to a library of 24 games, while there are more than 400 titles available for the console on Itch.io. Panic says almost 40 percent of users have sideloaded at least one game or app. Meanwhile, the company recently rolled out Catalog, a built-in store. So far, users have installed Catalog games and apps more than 19,500 times.

No matter how you feel about it, Star Trek: Picardis a bonafide hit so you know what that means: more Star Trek. Paramount+ is finally making the long-rumored Section 31 project, starring recent Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh. However, this is not a TV show, as previously surmised, but a feature-length movie.

A Yeoh-led Star Trek: Section 31 has been in development since 2019, transitioning from a series to an “event film” with this latest announcement, according to Variety. Production starts later this year, led by writer Craig Sweeny and frequent Star Trek: Discovery director Olatunde Osunsanmi. Producers include Alex Kurtzman, who is behind every iteration of modern Trek, and Rod Roddenberry, son of franchise creator Gene Roddenberry.

In this film, Yeoh reprises the character of Emperor Philippa Georgiou from Star Trek: Discovery, a sort-of evil, sort-of-lovable dictator from a parallel universe. (It’s a long story.) The official logline says that the movie starts when “Georgiou joins a secret division of Starfleet tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets and faces the sins of her past.”

That brings us to the titular Section 31. The shadowy organization was introduced in the beloved 1990s series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, as a foil for Starfleet, testing the boundaries of the idealism depicted in the future world of Star Trek. Since then, it has popped up in most modern Trek installments, including the animated Star Trek: Lower Decks and in movies like Star Trek: Into Darkness.

Star Trek: Section 31 joins multiple forthcoming Trek projects, such as that just-announced Starfleet Academy show and upcoming seasons of Star Trek: Prodigy, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Lower Decks. Star Trek: Picard finishes its three-season run this week and Star Trek: Discovery returns for a final season sometime next year. In other news, we only have 40 more years until we make first contact with the Vulcans, so there’s that to look forward to.

YouTube already bans videos that directly promote eating disorders, but now it's clamping down on content that may unintentionally encourage that behavior. To begin with, the service banning videos on eating disorders that feature "imitable" behavior or weight-oriented bullying. The company will also restrict informative and artistic videos containing disorders (such as someone discussing their recovery) to users 18 and older.

You'll also see crisis resource panels for eating disorders in more places. While they already appear in search results in nine countries (including the US, Canada and UK), you'll now see them underneath relevant videos in those areas. Viewers in the US may be encouraged to call or chat with the National Eating Disorder Association in the US.

The new approach will initially be viewable today and reach more people in the weeks ahead. YouTube says this is an "ongoing" effort.

The addition is an acknowledgment that videos can affect people in "different ways," YouTube says. Ideally, this will minimize the chances of helpful video creators inadvertently fostering eating disorders in at-risk viewers.

Whether or not this works as intended is another matter. YouTube's enforcement hasn't always been consistent, and it has occasionally had to reverse policies (such as one limiting profanity in monetized videos) that inadvertently punished certain creators. Gaming and LGBTQ video producers, for instance, have complained that YouTube has demonetized clips that aren't harmful. With that said, the updated policy is focused on limiting access to videos, not removing their money-making potential.

After years of resistance, Instagram is allowing users to add more than one link to their profile page. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the change on Tuesday through his broadcast channel. “You can now add up to five links in your Instagram bio,” he said. “Probably one of the most requested features we’ve had.”

As a refresher, you can add a link to your Instagram profile by tapping the “Edit profile” button that appears above your photo grid and highlights. With the change rolling out to users, Instagram will even prompt you to add multiple links. The interface Meta designed for displaying the links isn’t the most elegant thing the company has ever released but it’s functional. If you put more than one link on your profile, Instagram will truncate the first one and state how many more follow. Tapping the first link that appears brings up a selection screen that allows you to see all the links at once.

If I had to guess, those who were already using services like Linktree to direct people to their other social profiles will continue doing so because those platforms offer more customization and allow you to include more than five links. In filling out my profile page, I didn’t run into any restrictions where Instagram told me I could not add a specific link, though I only attempted to link to my Engadget page and Twitter profile. I’ve reached out to Meta for more information.

Apple’s HomePod and HomePod mini can now alert you if an alarm goes off at home while you’re away. Sound Recognition, a feature announced alongside the latest full-sized version of Apple’s speaker, is finally available beginning today.

After setting up Sound Recognition in the Home app on an Apple device, your HomePod(s) will listen for smoke or carbon monoxide alarms. If it hears one, it will send an alert to your iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch; you’ll also see a banner in the Home app in case you accidentally dismiss the notification. At that point, you can quickly check in, using your iPhone or iPad, to hear the alarm and call emergency services or otherwise act accordingly.

In addition, if you have a HomeKit camera connected in the same space, the notification will include a video feed of the incident. Apple says all audio analysis occurs on the device as a privacy safeguard, and checking in to hear the audio is end-to-end encrypted. Finally, Siri will announce to anyone at home that you’re checking in.

Apple recommends adding an extra layer of protection by setting up an automation that will turn on any HomeKit-compatible smart fans and open smart blinds if your indoor temperature rises above a certain threshold. That feature uses built-in temperature and humidity sensors on the smart speakers.

Apple launched the latest HomePod in January after discontinuing the first-generation (full-sized) model in March 2021. The company snuck temperature and humidity sensors into the HomePod mini but didn’t unlock that capability until January, nearly a year and a half after the smaller speaker’s launch.

There are many, many tablets out there to choose from and even among just Apple's options, picking the best iPad for your needs may require some research. But sometimes, a deal pops up that makes such decisions much more straightforward. Right now, you can snap up Apple's 2022 iPad Air for just $500. That's $100 off and the lowest price we've seen for the tablet all year. Amazon lists the device for $559, but it's currently applying a $59 coupon at checkout.

The deal is valid on all colors, including blue, purple, pink, starlight and space gray. It's for a WiFi-only model with 64GB of storage. Of note, this iPad Air has Apple's M1 chip. Combined with the lower price, that may make the Air a more compelling option than the regular iPad, which also has a 10.9-inch screen but a less-advanced A14 Bionic chip (that device currently starts at $449).

The iPad Air comes with a 12MP wide camera and a 12MP front-facing camera that supports Apple's Center Stage feature. This harnesses machine learning to detect your head and keep it centered in the frame during your FaceTime calls.

We gave the latest iPad Air a score of 90 in our review, lauding it for the M1-powered zippiness, upgraded camera and battery life (it lasted for up to 12 hours between charges in our testing). We remain fans of the design and build quality as well.

On the downside, Apple stuck with Touch ID instead of incorporating Face ID, while the base storage of 64GB isn't a lot to work with these days. Plus, be prepared to shell out quite a bit if you want to use Apple's official keyboard or the Apple Pencil. On the whole, though, the Air is perhaps the best iPad option for most folks right now, especially bearing in mind the solid discount.

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A few months ago, it seemed like every cooking account I followed on Instagram was using a Pizzaiolo. I stumbled upon Breville’s dedicated pizza oven a while ago at the suggestion of a colleague, but it was a bit outside of our coverage area to review. Now that we have an annual week of kitchen-focused reviews, buyer’s guides and how-tos, it was time to finally put a Pizzaiolo through its paces for this website.

Breville’s Pizzaiolo may look a bit like its toaster ovens, but the larger unit is designed for one thing: pizza. From handy presets to a full manual mode for advanced users, this oven offers just about anything you’d want – so long as your pizzas are round and 12-inches or smaller. But even with all of its cooking chops, is the Pizzaiolo worth the nearly $1,000 price tag? Or perhaps the better question is: Do you really need a dedicated pizza oven inside your house?

Design

Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget

The Pizzaiolo looks like many other Breville countertop appliances. Available in stainless steel and black finishes, the pizza oven has a design akin to the company’s multi-function toaster ovens and air fryers – namely the Smart Oven line. At 18.1 x 18.5 inches though, the Pizzaiolo is much bigger than all of those compact kitchen accessories. Like Breville’s Smart Oven lineup, this pizza-focused model has a silver door handle up top, though the one here is more robust than what’s on the smaller ovens. There’s also a wide viewing window that allows you to observe the cooking area from edge to edge.

All of the controls are on the front, situated at the bottom right. Two large main dials control the timer and style presets while a tiny third selector lets you adjust the “Darkness” or power of the top heating element. There are also two lights: one to indicate you’re in manual mode and one that glows when the oven has reached your desired temperature and blinks slowly while it’s preheating. Manual mode lets you control the temperature of both the top and bottom heating elements independently, rather than relying on Breville’s style presets. The company includes a magnet that lays over the time numbers and preset labels so you know what temps you’ve chosen for manual mode.

Inside, the 12-inch cooking area is a round stone that doesn’t quite go all the way to the sides of the cooking area. The Pizzaiolo has reflectors around the baking stone that send heat from the top heating element to the crust. This means you can only use the oven for pizza or things baked in smaller round pans since there isn’t any extra room to work with. There also isn’t an interior light to help you see how things are progressing. However, Breville says the radiant heat is controlled by the oven so you don’t need to worry about rotating pizzas for even cooking. Lastly, the deck that holds the stone is connected to the door, so when you open it, the cooking surface moves closer to you. This makes launching and removing pizzas slightly easier.

Setup and use

Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget

Before you use the Pizzaiolo for the first time, you’ll need to wipe down the inside and the top of the stone with a damp cloth or sponge. Once everything is dry, you have to run the oven wide open at 750 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes to season it. When the time is up, the Pizzaiolo is ready to cook your first pie. By default, the style selector picks all of the oven settings for you, so you make the choice there first and the recommended time will show on the other dial automatically. Of course, you can adjust this as needed.

Depending on the style and temperature, Breville says the preheating process can take up to 20 minutes. I only timed this on the hottest possible option – 750 degrees – since it would take the longest. The Pizzaiolo took 17 minutes to reach that number. When you turn the oven off, the fan will run for another 15 minutes to cool the “sensitive electronics.”

One thing that’s nice about the Pizzaiolo is that the outside stays relatively cool during the cooking process. Breville says this is due to the double-pane front window and “multi-material insulation” that keeps as much of the heat inside as possible. Indeed, the top stays cool to the touch when in use, but the bottom of the sides where the vents are located and the door (not the handle) get hot.

The only issue I had was a small fire from excess semolina on the bottom of one pie. It wasn’t a big deal as it went out quickly and wasn’t all that big, but it left a mess on the stone I didn’t want to put another pizza on top of. With outdoor ovens from Ooni, for example, this would just burn off and you’d use a brush to push the extra burned bits to the side or rake them to the front.

On the Pizzaiolo, there’s nowhere to brush any debris as the opening around the stone goes underneath it where the heating element resides. The fact that the cooking deck is attached to the door also makes sweeping out any bits difficult. Even when the oven is off the inside is awkward to clean since the interior isn’t very tall. In a few spots, it’s hard to see the grime you might’ve missed.

Making the pizza

Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget

Breville’s presets come in handy when you just want to make good pizza and not worry about the exact numbers for time and temp. As promised, the full-heat and “Wood Fired” options produce the leoparding that’s desired for Neapolitan-style pizza. The former option also adjusts the top heating element so that just the outer crust is getting direct heat during baking (pictured in the gallery below). I was also impressed by the even cooking on the New York setting, where the crust and toppings were evenly cooked but there was still a pleasant chewiness to the bite.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was the Frozen option, which puts the stone at 425-475 degrees and the top at 350-400 with even heat for the Darkness. In full disclosure, I splurged on Newman’s Own stone-fired pizzas which are supposedly imported from Italy, but the results were seriously impressive. The Pizzaiolo also did well on thin cauliflower crust pies from Milton’s – a Steele family favorite.

The competition

An alternative to the Pizzaiolo is the Ooni Volt 12. It’s much larger than the Breville pizza oven, but it does have a square stone that gives you a bit more versatility. There’s also an interior light that stays on the whole time so you can see clearly what’s happening inside. The Volt 12 looks a lot like Ooni’s recent outdoor ovens with completely manual controls that give you the ability to select an exact temperature and manage the balance between the top and bottom heating elements. What’s more, Ooni includes a boost feature that can get the stone back to your desired temp in about 45 seconds. Like the Pizzaiolo, though, the big downside is cost as the Volt 12 is $999.

Wrap-up

You don’t need a dedicated pizza oven to make great pizza at home. With some affordable accessories like a baking stone or steel, you can cook excellent pies inside the main oven in your kitchen. There are also tons of more affordable wood- and gas-burning outdoor options. Breville’s Pizzaiolo does offer a lot of tools for cooking pizza, from the convenient presets to the full manual mode for endlessly adjusting the variables. That Frozen setting alone is no joke. Since it’s slightly smaller than Ooni’s Volt 12, and looks more like a kitchen appliance, I could see the Pizzaiolo permanently sitting on someone’s counter. You’d have to really love making pizza at home though, and even then, the price will be prohibitive for most.

Mrs. Davis is a deeply silly show deeply committed its silliness. And that's precisely what makes it so much fun. The new Peacock series from Tara Hernandez (The Big Bang Theory) and Damon Lindelof (Lost, The Leftovers), pits a nun with a mysterious past against an all-powerful, seemingly omniscient artificial intelligence. Her mission: to find the Holy Grail. You know, another one of those stories. Along the way, there are a slew of messy beheadings, a cheesy '90s-era car chase and a group of villainous German henchman spiritually descended from The Big Lebowski's trio of Nihilists.

If you were looking for another complex genre exercise like Lindelof's excellent Watchmen series or The Leftovers, Mrs. Davis ain't it. But from the first scene of the show, you can tell that he probably had a lot more fun making this. Initially based on a spec script by Hernandez, who also served as showrunner, Mrs. Davis is practically a live-action cartoon, filled with colorful set-pieces and a never-ending slew of zany characters, all set in a world where humans willingly subject themselves to the demands of an AI via wireless earbuds.

None of Mrs. Davis would work without Betty Gilpin (GLOW, The Hunt) as its heart and soul. As Simone, the nun being targeted by Mrs. Davis, she effectively juggles a hard-edged cynicism with an openness to pure devotion. It's hard enough to be a believable action lead, it's even tougher to make that same character seem believably devout. By the time we see Simone racing through city streets on a motorcycle, while also wearing her nun habit, we fully buy Gilpin in the role. It's like seeing Kill Bill's The Bride with a samurai sword — it's sure to be an indelible pop cultural image. (And of course, it hearkens back to Abel Ferrara's cult revenge classic, Ms. 45.)

As a piece of cultural commentary, Mrs. Davis is practically allergic to subtext. It's a nun versus AI, what else do you need? It's easy to draw parallels between religious devotion and the way we live with technology today. That's particularly true when it comes to the explosive rise of generative AI. Is there really a huge difference between plugging in a string into ChatGPT or Midjourney and hoping for an interesting result, compared to putting your hands together and praying for divine help? And if AI ultimately ends up fulfilling our needs more effectively, wouldn't people treat it with a certain amount of religious reverence?

These questions danced around my head as I watched Mrs. Davis, but the series itself is far more interested in goofy shenanigans and soapy plot twists than attempting any serious philosophical exploration. But I suppose even Damon Lindelof needs a vacation sometimes. Your enjoyment of the show will depend on well you sync up with its farcical wavelength. Why is there a group of well-funded, anti-AI militia bros, led by a shirtless buffoon? Don't worry about it, they're hilarious (Chris Diamantopoulos, one of the more memorable VC bros from HBO's Silicon Valley, truly commits.)

The idea for Mrs. Davis arrived in the early paranoid phase of the pandemic, Lindelof told us in an interview. During that time of sheer uncertainty — back when we were still wiping down groceries — Hernandez wished for an app that could just tell her what to do. "What if there was something that we trusted?" Lindelof said. He was also intrigued by the role of algorithms in our lives, something he noticed while going down YouTube and Tiktok rabbit holes with his teenage son.

Mrs. Davis was written and produced long before ChatGPT and other generative AI tools reached the public, but its release couldn't be better timed. Despite just making a show about an all-powerful algorithm, Lindelof is intrigued by the new AI tools. "Artificial intelligence is basically coded to give us what we want," he said. "And so, never before in the history of of technology have we had more of an opportunity to get clarity on what it is we want.... What is human existence? What is the meaning of life?"

Peacock

If Mrs. Davis more effectively wrestled with those questions, it would have been another prestigious series for Lindelof. Instead, it feels more like a creative exercise, one that gave Hernandez the opportunity to move beyond the world of sitcoms.  

"I think that we we have an unprecedented opportunity for the greatest therapist in the history of of of our species to tell us, here's what you really are like," he added. "For any fan of Douglas Adams, we now have that computer that's going to spit out "42" [Adams' comedic answer to the meaning of life]. I'm just curious to see what it says."

The first four episodes of Mrs. Davis premiere on Peacock on April 20th.

If you've been eyeing a new air fryer but don't want something too large or pricey, Instant's Vortex Mini is the top budget pick in our air fryer buying guide, and it's currently down to $40 as part of a new sale. While this isn't the lowest price we've seen, it's within $5, and it represents a roughly $10 drop from the 2-quart air fryer's typical street price. Just note the deal only applies to the aqua blue model.

As a refresher, an air fryer works like a smaller, pod-shaped convection oven. It can cook smaller foods better than a microwave, and it's typically faster and more energy-efficient than a traditional oven. The Vortex Mini is among the most compact models we've tested, so it can't cook a ton of food at once, but we've found it to perform well for single servings and side dishes like french fries, tofu, pizza slices or roasted veggies. It has four preprogrammed buttons — air fry, bake, roast and reheat — and we generally found it simple to operate. Because it's only about a foot tall and nine inches wide, it doesn't take up much countertop space, nor is it a hassle to clean. All of this makes the Vortex Mini a decent accessory for those living in smaller spaces who mainly cook for themselves.

This deal comes as part of a couple of wider sales on Instant kitchen accessories at Amazon. If you're looking for a larger air fryer, the top pick in our guide, the six-quart Instant Vortex Plus, is on sale for $130, which is about $20 less than usual. If you're after an electric pressure cooker, meanwhile, the Instant Pot Pro is the upgrade pick in our Instant Pot buying guide, and it's back down to $130 as well.