Chinese officials will begin cracking down on internet users liking social media posts that are deemed illegal or harmful amidst nationwide protests against China’s zero-Covid policy.
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Latest Test of Gigantic Starship Booster Takes SpaceX Closer to Launch
Yesterday, SpaceX performed a static fire test of a prototype booster in which 11 of its 33 Raptor engines were briefly engaged. The private company could very well be on target to launch the fully stacked Starship system next month.
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Biggest Questions After Watching the Original Willow
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Twitter's Ads Problems Are Even Worse Behind the Scenes
Among Twitter’s multiform ongoing disasters, the one that threatens its financial prospects the most is perhaps fleeing advertisers. Elon Musk’s latest complaint on the topic finds him picking a public fight with Apple, suggesting the iPhone maker pulled its Twitter ads because “they hate free speech in America.”…
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Andor Was Ready to Drop Star Wars' First F-Bomb
One thing that always confused me about Andor was why Fiona Shaw—a Shakespearean actor extraordinaire and multiple award-winning star of stage, screen, and TV—would have accepted the small, muted role of Maarva Andor, Cassian’s adoptive mother. That is, until I saw the series finale, where Shaw’s massive talents were…
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It's Time to Make Apple Pay for Its Faulty Butterfly Keyboards
Apple’s poor keyboard design, which the company spent half a decade shoving into its MacBooks has finally, officially, come to bite the company in the posterior, at least financially.
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Amazon Satellite Experiment Puts the Cloud in Low Earth Orbit
Satellite operators are often challenged by the horrendous amounts of data that satellites collect and transmit back to Earth. A recent experiment with prototype Amazon Web Services (AWS) software suggests cloud-based solutions, when used way above Earth’s actual clouds, can lessen the data load.

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Bright Flash Detected in February Was a Black Hole Jet Pointed Straight at Earth
On February 11, astronomers saw a distant flash of light that seemed to come from a source as bright as a quadrillion suns. They alerted other scientists to the event, and several telescopes quickly pivoted to focus on the flash. Now, two teams of researchers have identified its source: a black hole feasting in the…
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Airbnb Reinvents Feudalism
Airbnb has launched a new long-term listing service intended to make it easier for would-be-renters to find apartments where they’re allowed to sublet short-term. The site, similar to Zillow or StreetEasy, currently shows listings for about 175 buildings in more than 25 U.S. locations.

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Disney Made a Movie Quality AI Tool That Automatically Makes Actors Look Younger (or Older)
Further demonstrating the power of artificial intelligence when it comes to photorealistically altering footage, researchers from Disney have revealed a new aging/de-aging tool that can make an actor look convincingly older or younger, without the need for weeks of complex and expensive visual effects work.

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Spotify Wrapped Is Finally out—Here's How to See Yours
Sorry Apple Music fans, it’s the most wonderful time of the year for insufferable Spotify users—it’s time for Spotify Wrapped.
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Updates From Indiana Jones 5, Supernatural Spinoff The Winchesters, and More
Jon Kasdan talks about the importance of the Willow RPG and Ghostbusters 2 to the new series. Jeffrey Dean Morgan teases his arrival on The Boys. Plus, Terry Matalas talks about making Picard’s final season feel even more like Star Trek: The Next Generation. To me, my spoilers!

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Photos Show Eruption at Mauna Loa, World's Largest Active Volcano
Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, began erupting earlier this week after nearly 40 years of no activity—the longest quiet period for the volcano in recorded history. I’ve been fascinated by the eruption since it began on Sunday and realized I had a lot of questions, including some that seemed pretty…
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European Central Bank Says Bitcoin Is On 'Road to Irrelevance'
We can now add the European Central Bank to the ranks of high-ranking crypto skeptics, with high-ranking execs going further to say that crypto shouldn’t be legitimized by any government or major financial institution.
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San Francisco Votes to Give Cop Robots Explosives—and Permission to Kill
In the near future, police in San Francisco may be able to deploy robots armed with explosives and instruct them to kill a human being.
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FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried Says He Made Secret Donations to Republicans
Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, says he donated equally to both Democratic and Republican politicians before his cryptocurrency platform filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, wiping out billions of dollars in customer deposits. And that fact is going to come as a real shock to right-wing political operatives…
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Eufy Cameras Have Been Uploading Unencrypted Footage to Cloud Without Owners Knowing
Eufy, the company behind a series of affordable security cameras I’ve previously suggested over the expensive stuff, is currently in a bit of hot water for its security practices. The company, owned by Anker, purports its products to be one of the few security devices that allow for locally-stored media and don’t need…
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Company Successfully Tests World's First Hydrogen-Powered Jet Engine
Rolls-Royce and easyJet, a European-based airline, have successfully tested a hydrogen-powered jet engine, the two companies announced in a press release on Tuesday. The pair say the goal is to curb emissions by 2050 and said the ground test marks “the world’s first run of a modern aero engine on hydrogen.”
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10 International Holiday Cult and Horror Movies to Chill You in Any Language
You could spend every night of December watching a different Christmas horror movie—heck, there are almost enough Silent Night, Deadly Night entries to fill up an entire week by themselves!—but most of those would hail from America, with maybe a few British and Canadian entries tagging along. This yuletide season, why…
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The Flu Is Definitely Back
The influenza virus has finally returned in earnest. Flu season activity is high throughout the U.S., and experts expect many more cases and hospitalizations to occur in the weeks ahead. One bright spot is that this year’s vaccines appear to be well-tuned to the currently circulating flu strains, so they should…
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Arma 3 Devs to Public: Stop Using Our Game to Spread Fake News
Video games depicting armed military combat have come a long way from the rudimentary, textureless early iterations of Call of Duty and Medal of Honor. But what happens when graphics and gameplay collide and progress to a point where they can fool casual observers into mistaking gameplay for reality? While Fox News…
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