The Jewish Cemetery is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael. Painted in 1654 or 1655, it is an allegorical landscape painting suggesting ideas of hope and death, while also being based on Beth Haim, a cemetery located on Amsterdam's southern outskirts, at the town of Ouderkerk aan de Amstel. Beth Haim is a resting place for some prominent figures among Amsterdam's large Jewish Portuguese community in the 17th century. Ruisdael presents the cemetery as a landscape variant of a vanitas painting, employing deserted tombs, ravaged churches, stormy clouds, dead trees, changing skies, and flowing water to symbolize death and the transience of all earthly things. The known provenance for the painting dates back only to 1739 and its original owner is not documented; since 1926, it has been owned by the Detroit Institute of Arts. Painting credit: Jacob van Ruisdael Recently featured: Gatekeeper Florence Price Blue-ice area Archive More featured pictures

April 11 Mary II and William III 1689 – William III and Mary II (both pictured) were crowned joint sovereigns of England in a ceremony at Westminster Abbey. 1809 – Napoleonic Wars: A hastily assembled Royal Navy fleet launched an assault against the main strength of the French Atlantic Fleet; an incomplete victory led to political turmoil in Britain. 1951 – U.S. president Harry S. Truman relieved General of the Army Douglas MacArthur of his commands for making public statements about the Korean War that contradicted the administration's policies. 2001 – In a FIFA World Cup qualifying match, Australia defeated American Samoa 31–0, the largest margin of victory recorded in international football. Romanos III Argyros (d. 1034)Ewelina Hańska (d. 1882)Trevor Linden (b. 1970) More anniversaries: April 10 April 11 April 12 Archive By email List of days of the year About

Hey everyone, Just wanted to say hi and share a 3D environment piece I’ve been working on. It was a fun project and a solid opportunity to dive into some new techniques. Full piece (with video!) here: ArtStation - Land…

See the Face of a Royal Woman Who Lived in Greece 3,500 Years Ago Created by digital artist Juanjo Ortega G., the digital reconstruction depicts a woman who died in her mid-30s during the late Bronze Age Digital artist Juanjo Ortega G. created an image of the woman's face based on a clay model created in the 1980s. Juanjo Ortega G. Roughly 3,500 years ago, a woman was buried in a royal cemetery in present-day Greece. Now, we can imagine what she might have looked like during the late Bronze Age. Digital artist Juanjo Ortega G. has created an image of the woman’s face that allows historians to “peer back into the eyes of the past,” says Emily Hauser, who commissioned the artwork, to the Observer’s Dalya Alberge. Hauser, a historian and classics scholar at the University of Exeter, writes about the woman in her forthcoming book, Penelope’s Bones: A New History of Homer’s World Through the Women Written Out of It. In the book, which comes out later this year, Hauser tells the often-overlooked stories of women in ancient Greece—including the mysterious royal woman. “Too many of the faces we see peering back at us from the ancient world are those of men,” Hauser writes in a social media post. While working on the book, she hired Ortega G. to create a digital model of the woman’s face, based on a clay reconstruction made by researchers at Manchester University in the 1980s. The artist also drew on wall paintings from the time, particularly those from Santorini, where researchers discovered “a striking image of a woman with red-gold hair and blue eyes—which he used as his inspiration here,” Hauser tells Smithsonian magazine. The woman’s remains were discovered in the 1950s at the Mycenae archaeological site in Greece. In Greek mythology—including Homer’s epic poems—Mycenae was ruled by Agamemnon, the king who led the attack on Troy during the Trojan War. “For the first time, we are looking into the face of a woman from a kingdom associated with Helen of Troy—Helen’s sister, Clytemnestra, was queen of Mycenae in legend—and from where the poet Homer imagined the Greeks of the Trojan War setting out,” Hauser tells the Observer. Though the woman died “several hundred years before the supposed date of the Trojan war,” Hauser adds, “such digital reconstructions persuade us that these were real people.” An analysis revealed the woman was in her mid-30s at the time of her death and was suffering from arthritis in her hands, probably due to a repetitive activity like weaving. She died during the late Bronze Age, between the 16th and 17th centuries B.C.E. The woman was found buried with a death mask and a warrior kit that contained various weapons, including three swords. But because she was interred next to a man, researchers long thought those artifacts belonged to him, not her. They also suspected she was married to the man. But DNA analysis later revealed that the man was her brother, not her husband. Researchers now suspect the grave goods may have belonged to the woman, who was “buried there by virtue of her birth, not her marriage,” Hauser tells the Observer. “The remains from the ancient world are telling us a different story from the one we always thought,” she writes in the Conversation. “A woman didn’t have to be a wife to make a difference.” More broadly, the woman is a “fascinating case study” of the various ways archaeologists have misread the women of the ancient past, Hauser tells Smithsonian magazine. “She’s doing a lot to tell us more about women in the Late Bronze Age world—and to push against the biases not just of her own ancient world, but of the later archaeologists who uncovered her, too,” she adds. “And that’s a fascinating story to tell in how it opens up a previously unknown side of the prehistoric Greek world.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

DeepCoder-14B competes with frontier models like o3 and o1—and the weights, code, and optimization platform are open source.Read More

Microsoft is starting to gradually roll out a preview of Recall, its feature that captures screenshots of what you do on a Copilot Plus PC to find again later, to Windows Insiders, according to a blog post published Thursday. This new rollout could indicate that Microsoft is finally getting close to launching Recall more widely. Microsoft originally intended to launch Recall alongside Copilot Plus PCs last June, but the feature was delayed following concerns raised by security experts. The company then planned to launch it in October, but that got pushed as well so that the company could deliver “a secure and trusted experience.” The company did release a preview of Recall in November to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel for Qualcomm Copilot Plus PCs and made a preview available to Intel- and AMD-powered Copilot Plus PC shortly after. And after a couple weeks of testing, my colleague Tom Warren said that Recall is “creepy, clever, and compelling.” In Thursday’s blog post, Microsoft spells out that you have to opt in to saving snapshots with Recall, and you can pause saving them “at any time.”

In today’s enterprise landscape—especially in insurance and customer support —voice and audio data are more than just recordings; they’re valuable touchpoints that can transform operations and customer experiences. With AI audio processing, organizations can automate transcriptions with remarkable accuracy, surface critical insights from conversations, and power natural, engaging voice interactions. By utilizing these capabilities, businesses can boost efficiency, uphold compliance standards, and build deeper connections with customers, all while meeting the high expectations of these demanding industries. Boson AI introduces Higgs Audio Understanding and Higgs Audio Generation, two robust solutions that empower you to develop custom AI agents for a wide range of audio applications. Higgs Audio Understanding focuses on listening and contextual comprehension. Higgs Audio Generation excels in expressive speech synthesis. Both solutions are currently optimized for English, with support for additional languages on the way. They enable AI interactions that closely resemble natural human conversation. Enterprises can leverage these tools to power real-world audio applications. Higgs Audio Understanding: Listening Beyond Words   Higgs Audio Understanding is Boson AI’s advanced solution for audio comprehension. It surpasses traditional speech-to-text systems by capturing context, speaker traits, emotions, and intent. The model deeply integrates audio processing with a large language model (LLM), converting audio inputs into rich contextual embeddings, including speech tone, background sounds, and speaker identities. The model achieves nuanced interpretation by processing these alongside text tokens, essential for tasks such as meeting transcription, contact center analytics, and media archiving. A key strength is its chain-of-thought audio reasoning capability. This allows the model to analyze audio in a structured, step-by-step manner, solving complex tasks like counting word occurrences, interpreting humor from tone, or applying external knowledge to audio contexts in real time. Tests show Higgs Audio Understanding leads standard speech recognition benchmarks (e.g., Common Voice for English) and outperforms competitors like Qwen-Audio, Gemini, and GPT-4o-audio in holistic audio reasoning evaluations, achieving top scores (60.3 average on AirBench Foundation) with its reasoning enhancements. This real-time, contextual comprehension can give enterprises unparalleled audio data insights. Higgs Audio Generation: Speaking with Human-Like Nuance   Higgs Audio Generation, Boson AI’s advanced speech synthesis model, enables AI to produce highly expressive, human-like speech essential for virtual assistants, automated services, and customer interactions. Unlike traditional text-to-speech (TTS) systems that often sound robotic, Higgs Audio Generation leverages an LLM at its core, enabling nuanced comprehension and expressive output closely aligned with textual context and intended emotions. Boson AI addresses common limitations of legacy TTS, such as monotone delivery, emotional flatness, incorrect pronunciation of unfamiliar terms, and difficulty handling multi-speaker interactions, by incorporating deep contextual understanding into speech generation. The unique capabilities of Higgs Audio Generation include: Emotionally Nuanced Speech: It naturally adjusts tone and emotion based on textual context, creating more engaging and context-appropriate interactions. Multi-Speaker Dialogue Generation: This technology simultaneously generates distinct, realistic voices for multi-character conversations, as Boson AI’s Magic Broom Shop demo Accurate Pronunciation and Accent Adaptation: Precisely pronounces uncommon names, foreign words, and technical jargon, adapting speech dynamically for global and diverse scenarios. Real-Time Generation with Contextual Reasoning: This technology produces coherent, real-time speech outputs responsive to conversational shifts, suitable for interactive applications like customer support chatbots or live voice assistants. Benchmark results confirm Higgs Audio’s superiority over top competitors, including CosyVoice2, Qwen2.5-omni, and ElevenLabs. In standard tests like SeedTTS and the Emotional Speech Dataset (ESD), Higgs Audio achieved significantly higher emotional accuracy, while being competitive or superior in word error rate (~1.5–2%). This performance demonstrates Higgs Audio’s ability to deliver unmatched clarity, expressiveness, and realism, setting a new benchmark for audio generation. Under the Hood: LLMs, Audio Tokenizers, and In‑Context Learning   Boson AI’s Higgs Audio models leverage advanced research, combining LLMs with innovative audio processing techniques. At their core, these models utilize pretrained LLMs, extending their robust language understanding, contextual awareness, and reasoning abilities to audio tasks. Boson AI achieves this integration by training LLMs end-to-end on extensive paired text–audio datasets, enabling semantic comprehension of spoken content and acoustic nuances. Boson AI’s custom audio tokenizer is a critical element that efficiently compresses raw audio into discrete tokens using residual vector quantization (RVQ). This preserves linguistic information and subtle acoustic details (tone, timbre) while balancing token granularity for optimal speed and quality. These audio tokens seamlessly feed into the LLM alongside text, allowing simultaneous processing of audio and textual contexts. Also, Higgs Audio incorporates in-context learning, enabling models to adapt quickly without retraining. With simple prompts, such as brief reference audio samples, Higgs Audio Generation can instantly perform zero-shot voice cloning, matching speaking styles. Similarly, Higgs Audio Understanding rapidly customizes outputs (e.g., speaker labeling or domain-specific terminology) with minimal prompting. Boson AI’s approach integrates transformer-based architectures, multimodal learning, and Chain-of-Thought (CoT) reasoning, enhancing interpretability and accuracy in audio comprehension and generation tasks. By combining LLM’s strengths with sophisticated audio tokenization and flexible prompting, Higgs Audio delivers unprecedented performance, speed, and adaptability, significantly surpassing traditional audio AI solutions. Benchmark Performance: Outpacing Industry Leaders   Boson AI extensively benchmarked Higgs Audio, confirming its competitive leadership in audio understanding and generation compared to top industry models. In audio understanding, Higgs Audio matched or surpassed models like OpenAI’s GPT-4o-audio and Gemini-2.0 Flash. It delivered top-tier speech recognition accuracy, achieving state-of-the-art Mozilla Common Voice (English) results, robust performance on challenging tasks like Chinese speech recognition, and strong results on benchmarks such as LibriSpeech and FLEURS.   However, Higgs Audio Understanding truly differentiates itself in complex audio reasoning tasks. On comprehensive tests like the AirBench Foundation and MMAU benchmarks, Higgs outperformed Alibaba’s Qwen-Audio, GPT-4o-audio, and Gemini models, scoring an average of 59.45, which improved to above 60 with CoT reasoning. This demonstrates the model’s superior capability to understand nuanced audio scenarios and dialogues with background noise and interpret audio contexts logically and insightfully. On the audio generation side, Higgs Audio was evaluated against specialized TTS models, including ElevenLabs, Qwen 2.5-Omni, and CosyVoice2. Higgs Audio consistently led or closely matched competitors on key benchmarks: Seed-TTS Eval: Higgs Audio achieved the lowest Word Error Rate (WER), indicating highly intelligible speech, and demonstrated the highest similarity to reference voices. In comparison, ElevenLabs had slightly lower intelligibility but notably weaker voice similarity. Emotional Speech Dataset (ESD): Higgs Audio achieved the highest emotional similarity scores (over 80 versus mid-60s for ElevenLabs), excelling in emotionally nuanced speech generation. Boson AI also introduced the “EmergentTTS-Eval,” using advanced audio-understanding models (even competitors like Gemini 2.0) as evaluators. Higgs Audio was consistently preferred over ElevenLabs in complex scenarios involving emotional expression, pronunciation accuracy, and nuanced intonation. Overall, benchmarks clearly show Higgs Audio’s comprehensive advantage, ensuring users adopting Boson AI’s models gain superior audio quality and insightful understanding capabilities. Enterprise Deployment and Use Case: Bringing Higgs Audio to Business   Higgs Audio Understanding and Generation function on a unified platform, enabling end-to-end voice AI pipelines that listen, reason, and respond, all in real time. Customer Support: At a company like Chubb, a virtual claims agent powered by Higgs Audio can transcribe customer calls with high accuracy, detect stress or urgency, and identify key claim details. It separates speakers automatically and interprets context (e.g., recognizing a car accident scenario). Higgs Audio Generation responds in an empathetic, natural voice, even adapting to the caller’s accent. This improves resolution speed, reduces staff workload, and boosts customer satisfaction. Media & Training Content: Enterprises producing e-learning or training materials can use Higgs Audio Generation to create multi-voice, multilingual narrations without hiring voice actors. Higgs Audio Understanding ensures quality control by verifying script adherence and emotional tone. Teams can also transcribe and analyze meetings for speaker sentiment and key takeaways, streamlining internal knowledge management. Compliance & Analytics: In regulated industries, Higgs Audio Understanding can monitor conversations for compliance by recognizing intent beyond keywords. It detects deviations from approved scripts, flags sensitive disclosures, and surfaces customer trends or pain points over thousands of calls, enabling proactive insights and regulatory adherence. Boson AI offers flexible deployment, API, cloud, on-premise or licensing, with models that adapt via prompt-based customization. Enterprises can tailor outputs to domain-specific terms or workflows using in-context learning, building intelligent voice agents that match internal vocabulary and tone. From multilingual chatbots to automated meeting summaries, Higgs Audio delivers conversational AI that feels truly human, raising the quality and capability of enterprise voice applications. Future Outlook and Strategic Takeaways   Boson AI’s roadmap for Higgs Audio indicates a strong future pipeline of features to deepen audio understanding and generation. A key upcoming capability is multi-voice cloning, allowing the model to learn multiple voice profiles from short samples and generate natural conversations between the speakers. This will enable use cases like AI-powered cast recordings or consistent virtual voices across customer touchpoints. This goes beyond current one-speaker cloning, with Boson AI’s TTS demo already hinting at its arrival. Another development is explicit control over style and emotion. While the current model infers emotion from context, future versions may allow users to specify parameters like “cheerful” or “formal,” enhancing brand consistency and user experience. The Smart Voice feature previewed in Boson AI’s demos suggests an intelligent voice-selection system tailored to script tone and intent. On the understanding side, future updates may enhance comprehension with features like long-form conversation summarization, deeper reasoning via expanded chain-of-thought capabilities, and real-time streaming support. These advancements could enable applications like live analytics for support calls or AI-driven meeting insights. Strategically, Boson AI positions Higgs Audio as a unified enterprise audio AI solution. By adopting Higgs Audio, companies can access the frontier of voice AI with tools that understand, reason, and speak with human-level nuance.  Its dual strength in understanding and generation, built on shared infrastructure, allows seamless integration and continuous improvement. Enterprises can benefit from a consistent platform where models evolve together, one that adapts easily and stays ahead of the curve. Boson AI offers a future-proof foundation for enterprise innovation in a world increasingly shaped by audio interfaces. Sources Thanks to the Boson AI team for the thought leadership/ Resources for this article. Boson AI team has financially supported us for this content/article. Asif RazzaqWebsite |  + postsBioAsif Razzaq is the CEO of Marktechpost Media Inc.. As a visionary entrepreneur and engineer, Asif is committed to harnessing the potential of Artificial Intelligence for social good. His most recent endeavor is the launch of an Artificial Intelligence Media Platform, Marktechpost, which stands out for its in-depth coverage of machine learning and deep learning news that is both technically sound and easily understandable by a wide audience. The platform boasts of over 2 million monthly views, illustrating its popularity among audiences.Asif Razzaqhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/6flvq/Interview with Hamza Tahir: Co-founder and CTO of ZenMLAsif Razzaqhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/6flvq/OpenAI Open Sources BrowseComp: A New Benchmark for Measuring the Ability for AI Agents to Browse the WebAsif Razzaqhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/6flvq/Google Introduces Agent2Agent (A2A): A New Open Protocol that Allows AI Agents Securely Collaborate Across Ecosystems Regardless of Framework or VendorAsif Razzaqhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/6flvq/OpenAI Introduces the Evals API: Streamlined Model Evaluation for Developers

Last updated April 10, 2025: Checked for new Five Nights TD codes!Need some extra units to help vanquish the nightmares lurking in Five Nights TD? We've rounded up all of the Roblox strategy game's active codes, so you can earn some tokens, souls, and other useful goodies.Active Five Nights TD Codes (April 2025)Below, you'll find all of the currently active and working Five Nights TD codes that you can redeem for free rewards in April 2025:UPDATE42 - 2000 Space Tokens (NEW)APRILFOOLS - 2000 Tokens (NEW) BEAR5 - 15 Souls (NEW)SPACEENDLESS - 15 Souls (NEW) SPACEAPEX - 3000 space tokens (NEW)NEBULA - 2,000 Space TokensFREDDYINSPACE - 15 Souls ALIENHELPY - 15 Souls SEASON7 - 1x Exclusive Pack 7 RUIN - 30 SoulsPIRATEFOXY - 15 Souls SECURITYBREACH - 1x Exclusive Pack 7 FIVENIGHTSTD - 1,000 TokensExpired Five Nights TD CodesBelow, you'll find a list of expired Five Nights TD codes that can no longer be redeemed as of April 2025:UPDATE41UPDATE40AUCTIONSPLAZAREVAMP GREEKENDLESS OLYMPUS FOXSEIDON ZEUSFREDEUSGLAMROCKSEASON6TITLES VALENTINEUNITMANAGERUPDATE35 UPDATE34ARG2UPDATE33CHRISTMASSANTASHOPGOLIATHEVONEWQUESTSUPDATE32UPDATE30ENDLESS7HAPPYNEWYEARUPDATE29PIZZASIMSEASON5CHRISTMASENDLESSUPDATE28UPDATE27CALENDERGIFT UPDATE26RANKED2V2470MVISITSSTEAMPUNKENDLESSSTEAMPUNKUPDATE25RANKEDVERSUSUPDATE24KRONOSUPDATE23NEWLOBBYSPROCKETPOTIONSHow to Redeem Five Nights TD CodesBelow, you'll find all of the currently active and working Five Nights TD codesTo redeem Five Nights TD codes, boot up the Roblox Experience and, once you’re in, follow the steps below:Look at the icons running along the bottom of the screen. You’ll see three icons.Click the gear icon to access the settings menu.Scroll to the bottom of this menu and you'll see a codes bar. Input your code here, being careful to make sure it’s in the right case and spelt correctly.Hit GO and your chosen code will be redeemed.Why Isn’t My Five Nights TD Code Working?If your Five Nights TD code isn’t working, it’s likely due to one of two scenarios. The first is that the code was inputted incorrectly. Make sure you have the code inputted exactly as it is in the Active Codes section above. You can even copy and paste codes directly from this article over to Roblox if you want to make sure you’re inputting them correctly.The other possibility is the code has expired or you’ve already used it. If you’ve used it, you’ll get a message inside the code bar reminding you that the inputted code has already been redeemed. If you’ve inputted it and it doesn’t recognise the code at all, it likely means it's no longer available to use and is expired.How to Get More Five Nights TD CodesIf you’re looking to scout out some Five Nights TD codes yourself, you should go ahead and join the game's Discord server. Once you're in, you'll find a channel titled "codes". The devs will post new codes in here as they add them, so keep an eye on it for the latest codes as they drop.What is Five Nights TD in Roblox?Five Nights TD is a tower defense game based on the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise. Like most tower defense games, the idea is to engage in strategic battles where iconic FNAF animatronics attack your home base. To defeat them, you need to place units to stop them in their tracks, tactically assigning familiar faces like Freddy, Chica, Bonnie, and more to quell the oncoming waves of robotic enemies.Along the way, you'll purchase new units, take on tougher difficulty levels, and face bosses, with the game pitting you against some of the franchise's most notorious antagonists.Callum Williams is an IGN freelancer covering features and guides. When he's away from his desk, you can usually find him obsessing over the lore of the latest obscure indie horror game or bashing his head against a boss in the newest soulslike. You can catch him over on Twitter at @CaIIumWilliams.

Early adopters of sci-fi anthology series Black Mirror were once able to rattle off their list of favorite episodes with ease. Back in the show’s Channel 4 days in the U.K., there were only six installments (“The National Anthem,” “15 Million Merits,” “The Entire History of You,” “Be Right Back,” “White Bear,” and “The Waldo Moment”) so it wasn’t too challenging to gather them all up in one’s brain and spit them out in a preferred order. Since 2016, however, Netflix has stepped in to start mass producing new episodes of Black Mirror as fast as creator Charlie Brooker can write them. The episode number (now at 34 with season 7) has become a bit more unwieldy so making sense of where they all rank is a taller order. Thankfully, it’s a a challenge we’re happy to take on. What follows is our official list of every Black Mirror episode from worst to best. You will disagree with it because how could you not? Just be sure to let us know how foolish we are in the comments. 34. Shut Up and Dance Season 3 Episode 3 The third installment of season 3 does indeed present a worthwhile original concept, as most episodes of Black Mirror do. Hackers contact teenage boy Kenny (Alex Lawther) and instruct him to perform an increasingly complicated series of chores or they’ll release an incriminating video taken from his webcam. He teams up with Hector (Jerome Flynn, who has been sent on a similar mission from the same hackers). Unfortunately, “Shut Up and Dance” is simply too ugly for its own good. While the episode is able to tap into modern anxieties about loss of privacy and autonomy well, it introduces a depressing third act twist that unwittingly argues we’re all terrible animals who don’t deserve our stupid privacy anyway. 33. The Entire History of You Season 1 Episode 3 “The Entire History of You” was a popular choice for fan favorite following the show’s tiny three-episode first season. The concept of being able to literally watch one’s own memories Dumbledore’s Pensieve-style was definitely appealing. The episode struck such a chord that Robert Downey Jr. even optioned it to make a still as of yet unproduced movie. Problem is: “The Entire History of You” has aged incredibly poorly. The initial concept remains appealing – so much so that the mind projection “nubbin” has recurred several times – but the story wrapped around it is just awful. Lead character Liam (Toby Kebbell) is such a monstrous prick that it negates any salient point the episode may try to make. It’s hard to be taken in by the episode’s fascinating technology when it’s presented within the most standard and boring infidelity plot imaginable.  32. The Waldo Moment Season 2 Episode 3 “The Waldo Moment” is a popular choice for worst Black Mirror episode ever and it’s not hard to see why. Central “character” Waldo is just absolutely unfunny and insufferable. The plot introduces tortured comedic genius Charlie Brooker…I mean Jamie Salter (Daniel Rigby), whose animated bear-like creation Waldo embarks upon a satirical run for office. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! In a more modern context when we’ve seen creatures far worse than cartoon characters elected to office, “The Waldo Moment” isn’t quite as ridiculous. The notion of co-opting sarcastic revolutions from frustrated voters is pretty right on. Still, Waldo is just the fucking worst. He’s like how Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was a show that wanted to depict a comedic variety show but was completely unable to write believable sketches. 31. Men Against Fire Season 3 Episode 5 “Men Against Fire” is actually pretty solid. Its biggest issue, however, is that it’s nearly impossible not to guess its big twist very early on in the episode. Once the episode gets that inevitability out of the way, a lot falls into place and “Men Against Fire’s” central message is effective and disturbing. Still the ease in which the narrative trickery is worked out holds it back – as does its clear lack of a necessary budget. It’s a story and a concept that just needed some more time and money to marinate. 30. Crocodile Season 4 Episode 3 “Crocodile” is one of Black Mirror‘s best-looking episodes. Director John Hillcoat (The Road) makes the absolute best of the setting’s still, disquieting Icelandic landscapes. And that interesting concept of accessing memories comes up again – only this time in a more primitive form. The technology being developed and primarily used by insurance investigators is entirely logical and intelligent on the show’s part. The plot that Brooker creates around it is again just too bleak. It’s not clear what the episode is trying to say other than that the truly monstrous walk among us – which is a lazy theme for a show this good. 29. Hated in the Nation Season 3 Episode 6 At this point in the list, we enter into a series of episodes that are flawed but still mostly enjoyable. “Hated in the Nation” has two big factors working against it: it is both season 3’s longest and last episode, carrying an added level of import that it just doesn’t earn. There’s too much going on here with the show combining a modern social media terrorism plot with….robot bees? It’s all a bit much and at times flat out silly. It’s still a fun episode that combines moments of sharp humor and real intensity. It’s also one of the few Black Mirror episodes to tackle social media and does so in a pretty smart way. 28. Mazey Day Season 6 Episode 4 “Mazey Day” feels like it should be a more consequential Black Mirror episode than it ends up being. This season 6 installment about a troubled actress and the paparazzi who want to make their riches off of her goes in an ultimately unprecedented direction for the anthology. While that direction is pretty clever, and the episode’s breezy running time is inoffensive, Mazey Day can’t really elevate itself beyond those two slight adjectives. You’ll have some fun here but for the most part this Zazie Beetz-starring installment isn’t Black Mirror at its best. 27. Black Mirror: Bandersnatch Bandersnatch is a bit of an odd duck in the Black Mirror oeuvre. Released late in 2018 as a standalone, Bandersnatch is Netflix’s first ever “choose-your-own-adventure” showcase for adults. The story follows young programmer Stefan Butler (Fionn Whitehead) as he attempts to create a videogame based on the works of his favorite author. Sadly that author went crazy and killed his family, and as the choices for Stefan began to develop, it becomes clear that the viewer may be guiding him to a similar fate. Bandersnatch works surprisingly well as a pure Black Mirrorepisode, devoid of the narrative tricks. Stefan and Colin Ritman (Will Poulter) are both strong characters and the episode’s warped version of 1984 comes across quite nicely. It’s those darn choices though that get in the way of the things. In a way that’s fitting, as Bandersnatch might be about how choice is an illusion anyway. 26. Arkangel Season 4 Episode 2 Like its season 4 companion “Crocodile,” “Arkangel” is another episode that looks flat out beautiful. Jodie Foster is clearly in her element as a director, creating a richly realized portrait of a near-future small-town America. Not only that but she creates a touching portrayal of mothers and daughters. So much of “Arkangel’s” runtime is staggeringly poignant, with a mother doing truly destructive things to her daughter all in the name of love. Rarely has an episode of Black Mirror fallen apart so precipitously in its third act, however. 25. Smithereens Season 5 Episode 2 “Smithereens” follows Chris (Andrew Scott) a rideshare driver who spends most of his days outside of social networking app company Smithereen, waiting to pick an executive up. When Chris finally gets his wish (or thinks he does) he springs his hostage plan into action with one singular goal in mind: talk to the Smithereen CEO (Topher Grace) on his phone. “Smithereens” is perfectly fine, but unremarkable. It joins other episodes like “Shut Up and Dance” and “The Entire History of You” that help establish dark sci-fi bona fides of the show in the public consciousness but aren’t the most compelling statements Black Mirror has to offer. 24. Black Museum Season 4 Episode 6 Considering that Black Mirror itself is an anthology, maybe it’s no surprise that it’s able to handle anthologies within a single episode pretty well. “Black Museum” is the “finale” of season 4, and it’s an easter egg bonanza for Black Mirror fans wrapped around a pretty compelling story. An unnamed woman (played by Black Panther‘s Letitia Wright) pulls into a desert U.S. rest stop where she enters a creepy museum curated by the bombastic Rolo Haynes (Douglas Hodge). Rolo takes his visitor on a tour of the museum, telling stories about how he came to acquire its many technological curiosities. “Black Museum” is in some respects just as dark as the brutal “Crocodile,” but it comes along with a winking Twilight Zone black humor that makes it all the more palatable and engaging. 23. Common People Season 7 Episode 1 Season 7 opener “Common People” isn’t the best episode of Black Mirror, nor is it the worst, but it might just be the most Black Mirror episode of Black Mirror yet. Rashida Jones and Chris O’Dowd star as Mike and Amanda, a working class American couple just looking to get by. That goal becomes even more challenging when Amanda falls into a tumor-induced coma, only to be resurrected by the tech firm Rivermind. There’s no catch here! The good folks at Rivermind bring Amanda’s brain back online for free. All it costs to keep it that way is $300 a month via the subscription model. Wait, did we say $300? It’s actually closer to $1300 now, you know with the upgrading of the cell towers and all. Also, can we interest you in Rivermind Luxe? It’s the only way to remove ads. Blessed with a creative concept and saddled with a typical ending, Common People is as close to a “replacement level” episode of Black Mirror as you’re likely to find. 22. Rachel, Jack, and Ashley Too Season 5 Episode 3 Each successive season of Black Mirror feels like it works harder and harder to subvert viewers’ expectations in logical yet thrilling ways. The show has indulged in Star Trek-like adventure in “U.S.S. Callister,” post-apocalyptic horror in “Metalhead,” and basically straight up romance in “San Juinpero.” Season 5’s “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” might be the series’ most striking tonal departures yet. If not for the occasional F-bomb, this is basically a madcap childrens’ movie. “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” follows sisters Rachel and Jack, who are struggling to fit in at school and come to terms with their mom’s death. Ashley O (played by Miley Cyrus naturally) is a pop star who finds herself under the thumb of her evil aunt. When Ashley O’s aunt makes a truly wild and destructive power play, Rachel, Jack, and a robot named Ashley Too seek to defeat her. Many a lesson is learned along the way. “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” doesn’t have the depth of many other Black Mirror episodes and takes far too long to get really rolling. Still, it’s hard not to fall for the charms of this strangely wholesome installment. 21. Playtest Season 3 Episode 2 There’s quite a bit of time-padding in “Playtest.” Despite a reasonable running time of 57 minutes, the first act feels like it’s nine hours long. Once that hurdle is cleared, however, no episode of Black Mirror is able to more succinctly accomplish what it sets out to accomplish. In “Playtest’s” case, that’s to be the first flat out techno horror movie episode of Black Mirror. It’s hard to imagine the episode succeeding in this goal more effectively. “Playtest” is far scarier than one could reasonably expect. The episode’s success is tempered yet again by having more endings than The Return of the King but the meaty middle portion is enough to place “Playtest” firmly in Black Mirror‘s middle class. 20. Loch Henry Season 6 Episode 2 Black Mirror does true crime in “Loch Henry” and it does so quite well! The episode picks up with young filmmakers Davis (Samuel Blenkin) and Pia (Myha’la) returning to Davis’s native Scotland to film a Herzog-ian documentary about a guy who defends endangered bird eggs. When Pia stumbles upon the story of a grueling double murder that Davis’s cop father investigated, she rightfully decides that’s their angle instead. Loch Henry works as both an engaging crime saga and a criticism of our own seedy fascination with pop culture murder. The twist is fairly easy to guess but the absolute human devastation it eventually reaps certainly makes up for that. In an increasingly bleak series, Loch Henry might just offer up one of Black Mirror‘s bleakest-ever endings. 19. Bête Noire Season 7 Episode 2 Oftentimes it’s the simplest of human emotions that lead to the most incisive Black Mirrors. Case in point is “Bête Noire,” the second episode of the show’s seventh season. Things are going well enough for food researcher Maria (Siena Kelly) until an old face from her past stops by work. Soon enough Verity (Rosy McEwen) is brining the concept of gaslighting to new sci-fi heights. At the center of it all is the bête noire, or black beast, herself: jealousy. Turns out you can travel a whole multiverse of possibilities and never get over your childhood pain. 18. Beyond the Sea Season 6 Episode 3 It’s hard to find the right spot for “Beyond the Sea” on this list. Technically-speaking, it’s one of Black Mirror‘s most impressive episodes. Beautifully-shot by director John Crowley and capably acted by leads Josh Hartnett, Aaron Paul, and Kate Mara, this brings the show’s sci-fi concept back to the 1960s space age where it fits quite well. But then there’s that ending. Is the hard turn that Beyond the Sea takes in the end coldly logical or the result of Charlie Brooker hitting the “we’re at 80 minutes and must self-destruct” button? Opinions vary at Den of Geek and we suspect they might vary out there as well. 17. Plaything Season 7 Episode 4 While “USS Callister: Into Infinity” was touted as Black Mirror‘s first-ever direct sequel, it is actually sneakily beat to the punch two episodes previously with “Plaything.” Bandersnatch‘s Will Poulter returns as video game developer Colin Ritman in this short and sweet ode to mankind’s love for fuzzy little guys. The fuzzy little guys in this equation are Thronglets, digital critters created by Ritman but not in any way under his control. All the Thronglets want is to be given the chance to create their own Throng and Cameron (Peter Capaldi) is going to help them out. Despite featuring one of Black Mirror‘s many trademark bleak endings, there’s something endearing about Plaything. Maybe it’s the Thronglets themselves or the open question of who’s really the “plaything” here but this installment is firmly enjoyable. Season 4 Episode 5 “Metalhead” is beautiful in its simplicity. It’s among the shortest, most direct, and most exciting episodes of Black Mirror. Brooker presents us with a simple black and white story of survival. Black and white literally and black and white figuratively: man (in this case woman) vs. machine. Maxine Peake is phenomenal as our protagonist in a Walking Dead-style future in which humanity is pursued by terrifying packs of robotic “dogs.” “Metalhead” never gives us straightforward answers (though those robots do seem to like to gather around Amazon-like fulfillment centers) but what it does give us is a careful, straightforward examination of the human spirit’s drive to survive. 15. Hang the DJ Season 4 Episode 4 Frank (Joe Cole) and Amy (Georgina Campbell) meet through a dating service app that dictates the entire direction of your dating life. “The System” takes users from relationship to relationship, gathering information to find the user’s one true love. Problem is: Frank and Amy believe they’ve already found it and yet The System isn’t ready to let them quit just yet. “Hang the DJ” is the rare episode of Black Mirror (or anything else for that matter) that features a twist that both elevates and reinforces the original premise. It’s a wonderful, clever, and emotional love story. 14. Hotel Reverie Season 7 Episode 3 “Hotel Reverie” is what you get when you combine a timely tech topic with some resonant emotional storytelling. That is to say: a great Black Mirror episode. Issa Rae stars as famous actress Brandy Friday, who jumps at the opportunity to play the male lead in a remake of her favorite black and white film, Hotel Reverie. Of course, like many Black Mirror characters in season 7, she doesn’t quite read the instruction manual. Even before things go inevitably, terribly wrong, Hotel Reverie’s premise of inserting modern day actors into classic films is queasy enough. In addition to capably exploring that topic (in a post-SGA strike landscape no less), this episode makes room for a compelling, offbeat love story that transcends time, space, and celluloid. 13. White Bear Season 2 Episode 2 “White Bear” may rely a bit too much on its third-act twist but damn, what a twist it is. Folks who have never seen Black Mirror may be under the mistaken impression that the show thrives on “tricking” its audience. That’s obviously not always the case. But it is in “White Bear” and the results are incredible. Black Mirror is able to manipulate us into believing it’s a much simpler, maybe even derivative show with the first two-thirds of “White Bear.” That last third, however, presents a fundamental truth about the all-consuming human desire for vengeance that’s as uncomfortable as anything the show has produced thus far. 12. The National Anthem Season 1 Episode 1 Black Mirror‘s first episode is among its most polarizing. It’s incredible that this is what Brooker chose to lead off with. Granted, he couldn’t have known what the franchise would eventually become, but the story of an English Prime Minister blackmailed into copulating with a pig on national television remains as bold and darkly funny as ever. The prime minster in question is the uninspiring Michael Callow (Rory Kinnear). After a domestic terrorist kidnaps a beloved princess, Callow has a chance to be the hero…by doing the unthinkable. Even all these years later, “The National Anthem” serves as a fitting, and bizarrely prescient, introduction to this TV institution. 11. Joan Is Awful Season 6 Episode 1 The cultural conversation surrounding Black Mirror in its latter seasons always seems to comes down to the question: “do we even need this show anymore? Reality has basically become an episode of Black Mirror.” Brooker himself has copped to occasionally feeling hamstrung by the world’s increasingly dystopian tendencies. But then you get an episode like season 6 opener “Joan Is Awful” and realize why this project has plenty left in the tank. Joan Is Awful uses the Black Mirrorification of our reality to its advantage. This disturbingly plausible hour finds the titular Joan (Annie Murphy) discovering that Netflix Streamberry has finally put all that data it collected on her to good use and just made a TV show about her life. It’s a perfectly Black Mirror concept that episode writer Brooker knows just what to do. And thanks to the star power of Murphy and Salma Hayek Pinault, it’s all marvelously entertaining with an unexpectedly empowering conclusion. 10. White Christmas “White Christmas” is the first and superior of Black Mirror‘s two anthology episodes. Jon Hamm stars as Matt Trent, a proprietor of a home-helper technology, dating expert, and all-around creep. “White Christmas” follows Trent through three seemingly unrelated stories before they cross in fascinating and terrifying ways. White Christmas is just terrifying, good science fiction and in many ways the technological concepts presented in it have resonated throughout future seasons of the show. 9. Striking Vipers Season 5 Episode 1 Even before the “turn” in “Striking Vipers,” this is still a beautiful and bittersweet episode of television. Anthony Mackie, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Nicole Beharie brilliantly capture the anarchic sense of freedom and joy of youth and then just as capably capture the nostalgic sadness of adulthood. At first glance, this is an episode about growing old, growing apart, and not being able to reconcile your new self and your old self. Then the twist hits. Suddenly “Striking Vipers” explodes into a whole host of philosophical, emotional, and sexual questions that the episode invites you to ponder. Through a silly little Mortal Kombat style videogame, Black Mirror makes the audience reconsider their own relationships and values. Just like all the truly great Black Mirror episodes this is a love story. But who loves who, how do they love them, what does that love mean, and where do we all go from here? 8. USS Callister: Into Infinity Season 7 Episode 6 When it comes to Black Mirror episodes, fans and critics sometimes get hung up in trying to Figure Out What It All Means. What’s the technology here? What’s the message? What’s the parable? Sometimes, however, Charlie Brooker and company opt to craft an episode with the mission of “what if we just make something that rips?” Enter: “USS Callister: Into Infinity,” the follow-up to season 4’s “USS Callister” and the Black Mirror franchise’s first-ever direct sequel. While this Cristin Milioti-led installment contains some timely commentary about the nature of digital identities and mankind’s heart of darkness, it’s seemingly just an excuse for the show to revisit a cast and concept that everyone had a ton of fun exploring the first time. Lo’ and behold, it’s a ton of fun the second time around too. 7. Nosedive Season 3 Episode 1 Bryce Dallas Howard stars as Lacie Pound, a woman living in a near future that is even more obsessed with social media and status than we are. Lacie decides she wants to get into a hip new neighborhood but to do so she must maintain a 4.0 score on the dominant social media app. The effort to do so sends her into a … well, a nosedive. A fun aspect of Black Mirror is being able to recognize certain plot points and themes in real life. Ok, so it’s not always fun. Usually it’s terrifying. For “Nosedive,” though it’s somehow both. Despite its too close for comfort premise, the episode is a lot of fun and it will forever change the way you view your Uber rating. 6. Demon 79 Season 6 Episode 5 “Demon 79” represents the Black Mirror‘s attempt to do something completely new. In fact, this was initially written by Brooker (alongside co-writer Bisha K. Ali) to be an installment of an entirely separate companion show called Red Mirror. As such, it is an unabashedly fantasy horror experience complete with a literal demon and a grim prophecy of the world’s end. And it all works! Anjana Vasan and Paapa Essiedu both shine as the human-demon duo who are tasked with killing three people to avoid the apocalypse. Despite its non-Black Mirror origins, Demon 79 has every spiritual element of the original show in place: it’s violent, it’s political, it’s angry, it’s funny, and it’s clever. It’s a hell of a fun watch that operates as a much-needed reset and fresh beginning for the franchise overall. 5. Eulogy Season 7 Episode 5 If you’re bringing one of planet Earth’s best actors aboard for an episode of your silly sci-fi anthology show, you’d better know what to do with him. Thankfully, Black Mirror not only knows what to do with Paul Giamatti, it gives him an incredibly meaty role in “Eulogy.” The technology of Eulogy is simple and certainly not what you’d call dystopian. Giamatti’s Phillip is granted a nubbin and an AI assistant to guide him through some old photos and prompted to remember some material for his old flame’s eulogy. What the episode lacks in flash, however, it makes up for his heart. This is a touching, bittersweet installment that stands out as one of Black Mirror‘s best. 4. 15 Million Merits Season 1 Episode 2 “15 Million Merits” is all over the place. It satirizes talent shows like The Voice and American Idol. It satirizes the app culture that’s invading our phones and computers. It satirizes the weight loss industry. It’s a lot, and it’s hard to fully categorize. Instead of all these elements detracting from the story at hand, they enhance it. “15 Million Merits” is genius dystopian fiction. It’s Brooker’s sense of humor placed neatly over Orwell’s 1984. It’s only the second episode of the entire series and it’s as auspicious a beginning as possible. 3. USS Callister Season 4 Episode 1 “Wait, this was supposed to be the fun Star Trek parody” a viewer might think to themselves as they watch Captain Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons) use God-like powers to remove the mouth of his crewmate Nanette Cole (Cristin Milioti) so she can neither breathe nor scream. Well, “USS Callister” is Black Mirror‘s “fun” Star Trek parody. It’s also a compelling examination of bad men and the damage they do. “USS Callister” is one of the most complete and exciting stories the show has told yet. We know TV types get testy when episodes are compared to movies, but “USS Callister” really is just a fantastic movie. Brooker has a stronger sense of story and wonder here than ever before, and “USS Callister” marks an exciting new direction for the show altogether. 2. San Junipero Season 3 Episode 4 The success of “San Junipero” seemed to catch Brooker and Netflix by surprise. Black Mirror was always a bleak, sometimes ugly little show that had fun doing its Twilight Zone schtick in the shadows. And then season 3 debuted on Netflix and nestled within it – in the unassuming position of the fourth episode – was a romantic masterpiece. A show that was sometimes about things that go viral suddenly had a “thing that went viral.” San Junipero won the show its first Emmy and took up more server space of discussion on the internet than any other episode. It’s all more than well earned. San Junipero is near perfect. It’s the story of the love between two people, Kelly (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), and Yorkie (Mackenzie Davis), who are only able to meet because of technology. For once technology brings people together on Black Mirror instead of tearing them apart. 1. Be Right Back Season 2 Episode 1 “Be Right Back” is Black Mirror‘s smallest episode – its quietest, its most intimate. Domhnall Gleeson and Hayley Atwell (before they were the Domhnall Gleeson and the Hayley Atwell) star as married couple Ash and Martha. They are happily, comfortably in love, even if Ash does have a bit of a problem pulling himself away from his phone. One night, Ash heads out for a drive on a snowy road and the unthinkable happens. Martha is faced with a lifetime on her own until one of her friends puts an idea in her head. There does exist the technology now where a company can recreate the personality of a lost loved one through all of their social media posts and online presence. So Martha goes through with it and tries to fall in love again with a facsimile of Ash. As we all know, however, technology can get pretty close to human but can it get all the way there? “Be Right Back” is beautiful and sad because it’s human. It’s imperfect. And it gets to a truth about all technology. Life is a race to experience love against the clock of death. So much of our technology and our innovation is about extending that clock, enhancing our capacity to love or in the rarest of instances: defeating death. Death, life, love, grief, technology, and time all come together for a bittersweet little parable in “Be Right Back.” It’s Black Mirror‘s best episode.

As is the case with low-rise jeans, combat boots, and bucket hats in the world of fashion, there are plenty of once-celebrated interior design trends that have finally left the building. One such trend that designers are happy to see disappear? Accent walls. California-based interior designer Kristen Peña even went so far as to say, “I wish everyone would read the memo that one wall of color is not the way to go. Be bold and be brave!” So, what’s the hot new design element that’s seeing accent walls out?We asked six experts for their thoughts on the matter and, to our surprise, they had different answers, but they all focused on the same place: the ceiling, an area of the room that often goes unnoticed because, generally speaking, people tend to look forward, not up—until now. The ceiling is quickly becoming the new place to incorporate some visual interest, and these designers are breaking down exactly how to do it. Related StoriesVisually IllusiveRyann FordAs is the case with plenty of interior designers, Austin, Texas-based Sara Malek Barney doesn’t skip the ceiling when she’s designing a room—any room. “I consider it the fifth wall, and when it is treated with equal regard to the vertical walls of a room, it can elevate the space and create a sense of balance over all,” she explains. “In a room with high ceilings, bringing the height of the room down a bit to make it less visually overwhelming is a good idea. I like to do this by adding a wallpaper with gentle colors and a unique pattern to both the ceiling and a few feet of the walls beneath it.” What’s more, having some fun with the ceiling is just another expression of personal style. “I love incorporating color, even if it’s super subtle,” the designer adds.Color-DrenchingChristopher Stark Design enthusiasts are hardly strangers to the idea of color-drenching, but some professionals are more keen on it than others. One such designer is San Francisco, California-based Kristen Peña, who is quite fearless when it comes to color-drenching, as shown here. “I like to understand the psychology behind a client ask. To me, an accent wall is about the desire for visual interest, but just by dipping your toe in,” she explains. “Our job, as designers, is to portray confidence in spaces, so I always encourage a client to jump in with both feet and drench the whole room—even the ceiling! Lime paint, wallpaper, plaster… just go for it!”Related StoryColor-BlockingThomas KuohWhile some prefer to swath the walls in an easy, soft neutral that doesn’t draw much attention, others like to go big with not one but two bright hues that are painted in a way that complements one another. “Accent ceilings are the only accent ‘walls’ that our team specifies on projects. They have unique visual weight, add unexpected mood, and are a powerful tool in defining spaces within a larger array of rooms in the home,” says San Francisco, California-based Emilie Munroe, the designer behind this color-blocked room. If you want to try color-blocking, go for two shades that oppose (read: complement) each other on the color wheel.Related StoryWallpaperRead McKendreeIf you’re committing to dressing up the ceiling in a luxurious wallpaper, don’t do something boring that no one will notice. Go with a pattern that commands some love. “I prefer a wallpapered ceiling over a wallpapered accent wall any day. Whereas wallpapering accent walls can look like you ran out of money to complete the room, an accent ceiling looks complete and purposeful,” explains West Hartford, Connecticut-based Jeanne Barber, who designed the room shown here. “It also helps draw the eye up to an area that is so often ignored and creates interest and height in any room,” she adds.Dark and MoodyEric LuceroDenver-based Miranda Cullen, founder and principal at Inside Stories, is known for her bold and dramatic interiors that exude utter sophistication, so it should come as no surprise that her preferred palette leans dark rather than bright, as seen in this dining room. “Go bold with black for a moody, modern vibe, or keep it classic with silvers, golds, or warm tones that bounce light around the room,” she advises. “The beauty of metal is how it interacts with light—natural or artificial—creating a dynamic look that changes throughout the day.” In order to draw the eye upward, Cullen says that incorporating a metallic element is always a good idea. “While wallpaper and paint are still great options (and can even be used alongside metal for layered interest), nothing catches the eye—or the light—quite like a metallic ceiling. It’s unexpected, elevated, and just the right amount of extra.”Related StoryWraparound Erin KestenbergIf your home isn’t fitted with unique architectural elements, you can create them yourself. “One of the coolest new design tricks we’re seeing is faking architectural details with paint and wallpaper—the effect is anything but fake!” insists Fairfield, Connecticut-based Diane Rath, who employed that technique in the room above. “Wraparound wallpaper treatments call attention to ceiling height changes, making the architecture feel intentional and sculptural. Painted lines that mimic wainscoting or paneling add a timeless, grounded feel—even in contemporary spaces. It’s bold, creative, and far easier than a full renovation. Proof that smart design can be both stylish and simple.”Follow House Beautiful on Instagram and TikTok.