Facepalm: In what has become a weirdly common occurrence, restricted military documents have once again been leaked on the War Thunder forum. The latest reveal saw classified data related to the Eurofighter Typhoon's radar systems being posted by a user, who has been suspended for their actions. War Thunder added the Eurofighter Typhoon to the multiplayer game earlier this month. In the real world, the twin-engine, supersonic fighter is primarily used by the UK, German, Italian, and Spanish air forces.As is so often the case when new vehicles are added to the excellent free-to-play game (download it safely here), there were arguments on the War Thunder forum about just how realistically the Typhoon is represented.The scanning capabilities of the aircraft's CAPTOR radar system were one point of contention, leading to a certain user posting restricted material in an attempt to prove their argument.As reported by UK Defence Journal, the Italian Ministry of Defence, whose documents may have been cited, has previously stated that manuals like these are excluded from public access for both security and commercial reasons.As with similar previous incidents, the material was quickly removed and the poster has been banned from the forum. A community manager warned of the consequences of these actions. // Related Stories"I will take this opportunity to again remind everyone here, please do not, under any circumstances, try to post, share any sources unless you are 100% certain they are legally declassified and publicly safe for use," they wrote. "We will never handle or use them, and all it does is actively harm any possible future changes being possible by trying to use them. Do not do it. No good will ever come from it for you or the vehicle you are trying to post for."There are so many classified/export-restricted military vehicle documents posted on the War Thunder forum that these incidents have become a common sight. PC Gamer notes that September saw a technical manual for an AH-64D Longbow, an attack helicopter mostly used by the US Army, posted.Forum users have also posted the manual for the Eurofighter Typhoon DA7 and technical details on the F117 Nighthawk on the forum this year all export-restricted information.These sorts of leaks go back a few years now. Schematics of a Challenger 2 tank were posted in 2021. In 2023, restricted intel about the F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft appeared on the forum, as did more than a dozen technical manuals for the F-15E US strike fighter, a vehicle that wasn't even in the game at the time.In 2021, the War Thunder Instagram page probably said it best: "Please don't send us classified documents, we really don't want to end up chained at the bottom of a disguised CIA cargo ship in international waters."

Imagery from Googles Street View has reportedly helped to solve a murder case in northern Spain.Street View is the online tool that lets you view 360-degree imagery captured by cameras mounted on Googles Street View cars that travel the world.Recommended VideosA number of Street View images that were recently uploaded to Googles online service gave Spanish police an important lead in a case involving a Cuban man who went missing last year, the BBC reported. One of the pictures captured from a Street View car as it drove through the tiny hamlet of Tajueco about 90 miles (142 kilometers) northeast of Madrid shows what appears to be a body-sized bundle being loaded into the trunk of a car. You can still view the image on Street View.Another series of Street View images taken in the vicinity at around the same time show someone transporting a large bundle in a wheelbarrow, the BBC said. After examining the images and other evidence, police arrested two individuals last month, accusing them of involvement in the disappearance and murder of the man, whose remains were found in a cemetery two weeks ago.What makes the story all the more remarkable is that the images were captured during the first visit to the town by a Google Street View car in 15 years.The appearance of Googles car was terrible luck for the person loading the bundle into the back the vehicle, but a wonderful turn of events for the police. Its not certain if the man handling the bundle saw the Street View car pass by, but if he did, he will have immediately realized that images from the cars cameras would soon be viewable by anyone around the world with an internet connection. Including the local police.Its not the first time that Google Street View imagery has helped law enforcement with their investigations. In 2022, an Italian mafia figure whod been hiding in Spain for years was apprehended after being recognized on Street View, while in 2009, twin brothers whod committed a robbery in the Netherlands were also caught on camera by a car taking photos for Googles Street View service.Editors RecommendationsApple Maps for web adds Look Around, its Street View-like feature

lighting up the silver screen Film Technica: Our favorite movies of 2024 This year's list features quite a bit of horror mixed in with the usual blockbuster fareplus smaller hidden gems. Jennifer Ouellette Dec 23, 2024 7:00 am | 1 Credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images Credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreEditor's note: Warning: Although weve done our best to avoid spoiling anything too major, please note this list does include a few specific references to several of the listed films that some might consider spoiler-y.This was the year that Marvel Studios hit the pause button on its deluge of blockbuster superhero movies, after rather saturating the market in recent years. It proved to be a smart move: the only Marvel theatrical release was the R-rated Deadpool & Wolverine, a refreshingly irreverent, very meta take on the genre that delighted audiences and lit up the global box office. Perhaps audiences aren't so much bored with superhero movies as becoming more discriminating in their choices. Give us a fun, fresh take and we'll flock back to theaters.Fewer superhero franchise entries meant there was more breathing room for other fare. Horror in particular had a stellar year, with numerous noteworthy offerings, touching on body horror (The Substance), Satanic Panic (Late Night with the Devil), psychological horror (Heretic), hauntings (The Oddity), a rom-com/revenge mashup (Your Monster), an inventive reimagining of a classic silent film (Nosferatu), and one very bloodthirsty child vampire with a wicked sense of humor (Abigail). Throw in a smattering of especially strong sequels (Inside Out 2, Dune: Part 2), a solid prequel (Furiosa), and a few hidden gems, and we had one of the better years for film in recent memory.As always, we're opting for an unranked list, with the exception of our "year's best" vote at the very end, so you might look over the variety of genres and options and possibly add surprises to your eventual watchlist. We invite you to head to the comments and add your favorite films released in 2024.The Fall Guy Credit: Universal Pictures I love to mentally check out with a good movie when I fly. So, on a recent trip to New York City for Technicon, I settled into my narrow, definitely-not-my-couch airline seat and fell in love with The Fall Guy, a movie based on the TV show I remember watching as a teen back in the 80s.Directed by David Leitch (Deadpool 2, the John Wick franchise), The Fall Guy is pure entertainmentpart rom-com, part action, funny as heck, and super meta. Leitch is perfectly suited to direct a film about a stuntman, having been one himself (he was Brad Pitts stunt-double five times). And the actors clearly are having a ton of fun roasting the industry, while also paying tribute to the invisible heroes of any movie: the stunt performers.A year after a nearly fatal fall (yeah, pun apparently intended), stuntman Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) is persuaded by his former producer, Gail (Hannah Waddington), to come to the rescue for a film his ex-girlfriend, Jody (Emily Blunt), is directing after the lead actor and his stuntman disappear. Gail asks him to find them to save the film and Jodys career. The exaggerated stunts, meta jokes (Tom Cruise, I do my own stunts), unicorn, callbacks to favorite films (Notting Hill etc.), and unflagging plot made for a quick flight for me. The chemistry between Blunt and Gosling makes the movie and provided an at-times hilarious-yet-believable romantic tension. (Ill never forget the giant monster hand nor the air pistols.) And the cameo by the real fall guy left me elated.A few years back, also on a flight, I remember watching Goslings comedy chops in The Nice Guys and laughing aloud several times (Always awkward. Sorry seat mates.). I did the same with The Fall Guy as well. But could my enthusiasm for the movie get anyone in my family to watch it with me on our giant COVID-purchase TV with the surround sound and subwoofer on high?? Not for a solid month. But once I did, they were sold.Kerry StaursethHit Man Credit: Netflix I grew up in Richard Linklaters Texas, and there seems to be somethingthe characters, the story, the setting, or the aestheticthat resonates with my personal experience in most of his films. I cant say the same for Hit Man, but this isnt meant to be a criticism. Instead, Linklaters Hit Man offers nearly two hours of pure escapism that many of us need. Its smart, with witty dialogue, more than a few moments of side-splitting humor, and a story that is too good to be true, although the premise is based on true events.Gary, played by Glen Powell (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Linklater), is a chameleon. Gary starts the film as a meek, somewhat nerdy college professor, but circumstances quickly force him into the uncomfortable position of becoming an undercover police informant. As we learn early in the film, this involves portraying a fake hitman to rope suspects into contract killing schemes and then prosecution. While I may question the legality or ethics of this setup, it creates a canvas for Linklater and Powell to create funny, sympathetic characters thrust into situations that, while far-fetched, somehow seem believable.Ultimately, Hit Man provides a laboratory for character development for the audience and within the film itself. In the film, Garys academic background helps him craft characters to match the circumstances and attitudes of each of his targets. Garys hitman personas can turn up the charm, abrasiveness, or faux bravado as the situation requires it. Gary reinvents himself at every turn, showcasing Powells acting range. That is, until Gary runs into Madison, portrayed by Adria Arjona. Then, things become a little too real for Gary, and youll have to watch the film to see what happens next.Stephen ClarkHeretic Credit: A24 Hugh Grant launched his career playing charmingly self-effacing rom-com heroes (cf. Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill). But in recent years, he's embraced his darker side, playing roguish villains in films like The Gentlemen and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, as well as for the BBC miniseries A Very English Scandal. Heretic gives him his most disturbing role yet.Grant plays Mr. Reed, a reclusive man who invites the Mormon missionaries who come knocking on his door inside for some of his wife's blueberry pie. But Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) soon realize there is no Mrs. Reed, that delicious blueberry smell is from a candle, they have no cell phone signal, and they are locked inside with a lunatic. They must figure out how to escape from the basement dungeon in which Reed traps them, a torturous environment in which to test their faith.Heretic has its share of blood and violence, but the focus is more on the psychological trauma inflicted on the young women. And its treatment of the Mormon faith is surprisingly nuanced for the horror genre. Still, it's Grant's subtly sinister performance that really makes the film: He brings just a hint of his trademark rom-com charm to the role, which somehow makes everything he says and does doubly chilling.Jennifer OuelletteTuesday Credit: A24 This quietly devastating indie fantasy drama stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Zora, a mother whose 15-year-old daughter Tuesday (Lola Petticrew) is confined to a wheelchair with an incurable terminal disease. The fantastical element is Death, who comes to release Tuesday from her suffering in the form of a talking macaw that can alter its size at will. But Zora isn't ready to let her daughter go; she swallows Death to keep her daughter alivewith the added complication that now nobody can die.At its heart, Tuesday is an unsettling fable about human mortality and learning not just to confront, but to embrace, Death. That's a pretty heavy theme, and the film offers no pat, easy answers in its resolution. But first-time director DainaO.Pusibrings a light touch to the melancholy, bolstered by Louis-Dreyfus' courageous performance.Jennifer OuelletteThe Substance Credit: Mubi Listen, I'm not here to convince you that The Substancechanged my life, but it's been a while since a modern sci-fi/horror movie fixated on the fear of death and aging made my skin crawl, so like many viewers in 2024, I was itching to press play. Demi Moore stars as Elizabeth Sparkle, a 50-year-old fitness icon who foolishly injects an experimental drug to maintain her celebrity and quickly regrets birthing a younger double (played by Margaret Qualley), whom she now must split her life with.Between firm butts flexing and gory mutations emerging, Moore's and Qualley's characters clash, forgetting they are "the one" and spiraling toward doom. And while most body horror movies are viewed as gratuitous, The Substance lives up to its title. Somehow, through a nauseating cascade of increasingly grotesque distortions of the human form, the movie morphs into a meaningful satire on society's stance that older women are irrelevantblowing a kiss into the camera at the genre's past tendency to objectify female characters.Ashley BelangerRez Ball Credit: Netflix This is a classic feel-good sports movie that manages to seem both familiar and fresh, thanks to its setting on a Navajo reservation. (It's based on the nonfiction novel Canyon Dreams by Michael Powell.) Rez Ball follows one season of the Chuska Warriors, a Native American high school basketball team competing for the state championship. Their star player is Nataanii (Kusem Goodwind), whose mother and sister were killed by a drunk driver the prior year. Nataanii has been struggling with his grief ever since, and when he doesn't show up for practice one day, the team learns he committed suicide.It's up to coach Heather (Jessica Matten), a former WNBA player, to help her team recover from the shocking loss and regroup to finish the season. She names Nataanii's best friend, Jimmy (Kauchani Bratt), as team captain and employs some novel team-building exercisesmost notably a shepherding task in which the team must work together to bring sheep down from a mountain and back into their enclosure. Then there's her clever strategy of training the team to call all their plays in their native languageshades of the World War II "code talkers." (There's even a sly humorous reference to the 2002 Nicolas Cage movie Windtalkers in between all the frybread jokes.)Director Sydney Freeland hits all the familiar notes of this genre and ably captures the basketball sequencesis there really any doubt we'll have a happy(ish) ending? Yet the film earns its payoff, driven not by genuine suspense, but by the sheer determination of the team members and how they bond to overcome their grief and bring some joy out of their shared tragedy.Jennifer OuelletteOddity Credit: Shudder Oddity is a pitch-perfect supernatural thriller that never should have worked. Writer-director Damian McCarthy hasexplainedthat the movie comprised "a mix of a lot of old ideas" that he "could never find a home for." That hodgepodge storytelling approach could have been a forced recipe for disaster if McCarthy wasn't such an undeniable master of tension. Telling the story of a psychic medium-antiques dealer desperate to divine the events leading to her twin sister's shocking murder in an abandoned Irish manor, the movie managed to feel fast-paced while drawing out an unrelenting sense of dread.The bulk of that tension comes from a haunted wooden man that remains onscreen and barely ever movesleaving the audience painfully stuck anticipating the moment when the nightmarish figure will spring to life. With slasher movie elements and twists as jarring as the wooden man's startling features,Oddityhad some horror fans within minutes smashing pause to recover from the brutal opening scene before returning to finish McCarthy's curious haunted house tour de force.Ashley BelangerAbigail Credit: Universal Pictures Six criminals get more than they bargained for when they are hired to kidnap the young daughter of a wealthy underworld kingpin: budding ballerina Abigail (Alisha Weir). Joey (Melissa Barrera) is the only member to be kind to their captive, clearly bothered by the fact that their target is a child. Abigail responds to that kindness with an ominous sweetness: "I'm sorry about what's going to happen to you."So begins one of the goriest and funniest vampire rampages to find its way to the big screen, as the Undead Abigail takes brutal revenge on each of her kidnappers in turn. The carnage is truly next-level, including one infamous scene in which Joey wades through a literal pool of bloody, rotting dead bodiesall victims of Abigail's ferocious killer instincts. There are some insane plot twists, plenty of perfectly timed humorous moments, and terrific performances from the ensemble cast, especially Weir. If horror comedies are your jam, Abigail is an excellent addition to the genre.Jennifer OuelletteFuriosa: A Mad Max Saga Credit: Universal Pictures A nine-year wait between franchise films is, more often than not, an indication that the follow-up can't meet some lofty expectations of what came before it. But that's not the case for Furiosa.Although it's not the same white-knuckle thrill ride as 2015's Fury Road, Furiosa gives us another mostly mute protagonist in an expertly crafted action film that overlaps as a revenge flick. While Anya Taylor-Joy delivers a cold, steely interpretation of the eponymous protagonist, it's the object of her revenge, Chris Hemsworth's villain Dementus, that offers a new variation to the typically bleak wasteland: levity.Hemsworth relishes his chance here to show another side of his acting chops, and the result is one of the funniest and zaniest villainous performances in recent memory. Dementus' malice is matched by his penchant for delivering self-aggrandizing speeches, which are a nice reminder that, even as the world fell, not everyone lost their sense of humor.Jacob MayI Saw the TV Glow Credit: A24 As anyone who's spent years rewatching a beloved sci-fi/fantasy show could likely glean from its ethereal title,I Saw the TV Glowwas made to immerse viewers in the sort of complex mythology that keeps the most engaged superfans glued to the screen. Surreally blurring the lines between TV fiction and reality, the A24 film follows an alienated teen boy who deeply bonds with an older female classmate over a monster-of-the-week TV show that comes on past his bedtime.What starts at a sleepover evolves into an existential nightmare suggesting that the boy's truth might be a fiction constructed by the "Big Bad" villain from his favorite TV show. This absurd possibility follows the boy as he grows into a man with his own family, all while continuing to take comfort in his all-time favorite TV show. The mesmerizing conclusion injected a disturbing sense of wonder into 2024, leaving some viewers as slack-faced as the boy was when he finally got to watch the late-night TV show that he somehow knew would light him up inside.Ashley BelangerThelma Credit: Magnolia Pictures Elderly people are so often invisible in our youth-oriented society, so it's nice to see two 90-something characters take center stage in this charming comedy-drama written and directed by Josh Margolin. June Squibb plays the titular Thelma, who gets taken in by a phone scammer pretending to be her grandson Danny (Fred Hechinger) to the tune of $10,000. The police won't help, but Thelma has a P.O. box address as a clue and sets out to get her money back.Thelma enlists the help of her estranged friend Ben (Richard Roundtree, in his final role), who is eager to escape his assisted living facility for one last adventure, and the two set off on Ben's two-person scooter. Wacky hijinks and personal growth and enlightenment ensue. The film was inspired by a conversation Margolin had with his own now-deceased grandmother, and that personal experience is the key to Thelma's warmth, humor, and authenticity. It's a lovely twist on the classic road movie and well worth a watch.Jennifer OuelletteWoman of the Hour Credit: Netflix In the late 1970s, serial killer Rodney Alcala interrupted his murder spree to make a 1978 appearance on The Dating Game and actually went out on a date with bachelorette Sheryl Bradshawwho naturally had no idea the charming man who'd won her over with his answers was, in fact, a psychopath. It might seem like an odd bit of trivia on which to base a film, but Anna Kendrick came across Ian MacAllister McDonald's initial screenplay as the actress was gearing up to make her directorial debut with Netflix and snatched it up.Kendrick also stars as Sheryl, a struggling LA actress who is persuaded to go on The Dating Game by friends, and her typically winsome, spunky performanceand able direction lifts Woman of the Hour to the next level. Perhaps the best part of the film is that it doesn't linger overmuch on the killer or glorify his horrific deeds. The focus stays squarely on Sheryl and a woman in the audience named Laura (Nicolette Robinson), who recognizes Rodney (Daniel Zovatto) as the man last seen with her missing best friend. It's a well-done, quietly thrilling period piece that bodes well for Kendrick's future as a director.Jennifer OuelletteYour Monster Credit: Vertical Entertainment It's been quite a year for Melissa Barrera, who followed up her standout Final Girl performance in Abigail with another star turn in the decidedly offbeat Your Monsterpart romantic comedy, part horror/revenge fantasy, weaving in such disparate influences as the late '80s TV series Beauty and the Beast and classic Broadway musicals like A Chorus Line. It's based on a 2019 short film by writer/director Caroline Lindy, inspired by Lindy's one-time boyfriend breaking up with her when she received a cancer diagnosis.Barrera plays Laura, an actress who also loses her boyfriend after a cancer diagnosisplus he reneges on his promise to let her audition for the musical she co-wroteand goes back to her childhood home to recuperate. There she encounters the proverbial Monster in the closet (Tommy Dewey), who is none too pleased about suddenly having a "roommate" again. At first he tries to scare her, but soon they're bonding over old movies and Chinese takeout; Monster might just be the ideal boyfriend she's been looking for.Of course, Monster is also very much a manifestation of Laura's psyche, particularly her subsumed rage. Naturally they plot revenge on her selfish ex, and when it comes, it's everything a jilted lover could want from the experience. Your Monster can't quite decide on a tone, shifting constantly between comedy and horror, love and revenge. But that's part of what makes this quirky film so appealing: Lindy isn't afraid to take creative risks, and she makes it all work in the end.Jennifer OuelletteWill and Harper Credit: Netflix A few years ago, comic actor Will Ferrell was on-set filming a movie when he received a surprising text from Harper Steele, a close friend of some 30 years, dating back to their time together on Saturday Night Live. Steele informed him of her gender transition. Ferrell's response was to organize a road trip for the two of them, starting in New York City, where they first met, hitting stops in Washington, DC, Indiana, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Amarillo, Texasdocumenting the journey all along the way.The result is Will and Harper, a surprisingly sweet, refreshingly frank, and thought-provoking film that celebrates an enduring friendship. There's never a question of Ferrell not accepting his friend's transition, but there are some awkward growing pains. The pair don't shy away from more difficult conversations, peppered with humor, while downing cans of Pringles, and it's that well-meaning honesty that keeps the film grounded and centered on their relationship, without falling into didactic preachiness.Jennifer OuelletteWicked Little Letters Credit: StudioCanal Trolling didn't begin with social media. Back in the 1920s, several residents of the seaside town of Littlehampton in England began receiving poison pen letters rife with obscenities and false rumors. It became known as the Littlehampton libels, with the culprit revealed to be a 30-year-old laundress named Edith Swan, who tried to pin the blame on her neighbor, Rose Gooding, until she was found out. (Poor Gooding actually served over a year of jail time before she was exonerated.)Wicked Little Letters is the fictionalized account of those events, starring Olivia Coleman as Edith and Jessie Buckley as Rose, emphasizing the complicated relationships and psychological foibles of the central characters. Even if you know nothing about the case, we learn early on who the true culprit is, and the film then becomes a cat-and-mouse game as Rose's allies try to prove Edith is the true poison pen. The true enjoyment is watching everything play out with equal parts humor and pathos.Jennifer OuelletteNosferatu Credit: Universal Pictures Director David Eggers can be a polarizing figure for moviegoers. How much you enjoyed The Witch, The Northman, or 2019's The Lighthouse (inspired by a real-life 1801 tragedy involving two Welsh lighthouse keepers trapped in a storm) likely depends on your taste for Eggers' dark mythic sensibility and penchant for hallucinatory imagery. With Nosferatua daring reinvention of the seminal 1922 German silent film by F.W. Murnau, based in turn on Bram Stoker's 1897 novel DraculaEggers leans fully into supernatural gothic horror, with spectacular, genuinely scary results.It's hard to go wrong with Bill Skarsgrd in the lead role of the vampire Count Orlok; his portrayal of Pennywise the Clown in It is still giving people nightmares. Lily-Rose Depp and Nicholas Hoult also shine as Ellen (the unfortunate object of Orlok's murderous pursuit, slowly driven mad as he closes in) and her hapless fianc, Thomas, as does Willem Dafoe as the eccentric Professor von Franz. The basic outlines of Stoker's plot remain, but Eggers has also infused his film with a visual language that evokes both Murnau's distinctive German expressionism and the Eastern European folklore that inspired Stoker. This is not so much a remake as an innovative re-imagining by a director whose sensibility is perfectly suited to the task.Jennifer OuelletteMonkey Man Credit: Universal Pictures Dev Patel's latest film completely missed me when it got a limited cinematic release this spring. Instead, I stumbled across it streaming on Peacock and went in cold with nothing more than good vibes toward the actorand now directorbased on his performances in films like Chappie. Which made the initial fight, with Patel wearing a monkey mask, a little confusing at first.Monkey Man is a good old revenge film, following Patel's character as he negotiates the underworld of the fictional Indian city of Yatana in a quest to avenge his mother, who was brutally murdered when their village was ethnically cleansed by Hindu nationalists. The fight scenes are frenetic and visceral, influenced by films like John Wick but also The Raid, and the hand-to-hand combat in Marvel's Daredevil. But it's also a film with a political message or two. Perhaps the best way to describe it is like a cross between John Wick and RRRif you liked both of those films, you'll probably love Monkey Man.Jonathan GitlinThe Three Musketeers Part 2: Milady Credit: Pathe Last year, The Three Musketeers Part 1: D'Artagnan made our annual list, in which we celebrated finally having a quintessential French adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' classic 1844 novel to rival Richard Lester's iconic two-part 1970s US adaptation. Part 2: Milady covers the events of the second half of the novel, as D'Artagnan (Francois Civil) and his compatriots rush to rescue his kidnapped lover, Constance (Lyna Khoudri), and prevent the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) by Eva Green's deliciously wicked Milady de Winter.Both films were shot back to back, so the same top-notch storytelling and able performances are present. And director Martin Bourboulon heard the complaints about how dark the first installment was in places and corrected the colorimetry. My only quibble: unlike Part 1, Part 2 actually deviates quite substantially from the source material, particularly with regard to the fates of Constance and Milady. In fact, the finale is left open-ended. Could a third installment be in the offing? (An adaptation of Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo is releasing soon by the same team.) Still, it's a magnificent, hugely entertaining film that pairs beautifully with its predecessor.Jennifer OuelletteLate Night with the Devil Credit: IFC Films Framed as a documentary with behind-the-scenes found-footage elements, Late Night with the Devil tells the story of a late-night talk show, Night Owls with Jack Delroy, and its producers attempts to put on an unforgettable Halloween night show in 1977. Things start out in an appropriate-for-TV spooky tone, and the movies 70s aesthetic really sells the vibe.But as the show goes on, the guests get progressively weirder, the segments become more sinister, and it starts to be difficult to tell if the guests are putting on an act or if something darker is going on. Is the host really going to try to commune with the devil on a late-night variety hour? That quickly becomes the plan. I wont spoil more than that, but I found the ride compelling from start to finish.This was a good year for horror movies, and Late Night with the Devil was one of my favorites. David Dastmalchians performance as the host was a real standout. The whole package is great fun, and everything wraps up in a blessedly tight 95 minutes (man, movies are way too long these days). Genre fans shouldnt miss this one.Aaron ZimmermanWicked Part 1 Credit: Universal Pictures I was lucky enough to see Wicked on Broadway near the end of Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth's iconic runs originating the characters of Elphaba and Glinda for the stage. Since then I've seen the live version of the musical five more times at various points and listened to the soundtrack hundreds of times more. Despite all that, the unavoidable marketing for this movie had me worried it was going to be an overproduced cinematic flop on the order of Cats or Dear Evan Hansen.Happily, my worries were overblown. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande bring real chemistry and pathos to the show's main roles and have the pipes to pull off some extremely difficult songs without breaking a sweat. I was also impressed with the movie's top-notch choreography, which evokes the golden age of silver screen musicals and demands to be seen in a theater with as big a screen as possible.My only quibble with this adaptation is the pacing, which suffers thanks to a few unnecessary backstory additions and a few too many long, lingering shots and pregnant pauses that even mess up the flow of some iconic songs. Why they decided to shoot "Defying Gravity" like an action movieand decided not to cut to the credits right after Erivo's soaring final notewill always be a huge mystery to me. A version of this movie that was about 45 minutes shorter would have been perfect. The version we got was instead just a very good adaptation of a very good musical.Kyle OrlandThe Wild Robot Credit: Universal Pictures This is the final film to be animated entirely in-house at DreamWorks, based on the 2016 novel of the same name by Peter Brown. It features a plucky service robot called ROZZUM unit 7134, aka "Roz" (voiced by Lupita Nyong'o), who gets shipwrecked on a desert island and must learn to adapt. Along the way, Roz befriends some of the local wildlifePedro Pascal voices a mischievous red fox named Fink, with Bill Nighy voicing an elderly goose named Longneckand adopts an orphaned goose named Brightbill (Kit Connor).Director Chris Sanders was inspired both by classic Disney animated movies and Hayao Miyazaki, creating what he described as "a Monet painting in a Miyazaki forest" for the visual CGI style of The Wild Robot. It makes for quite a striking combination. Plot-wise, there are elements of E.T. and Pixar's Wall-E here, but Sanders has created a unique take on those tropes and standout characters that are all his own. Along with Inside Out 2 (see below) this is one of the best animated movies of the year.Jennifer OuelletteDeadpool & Wolverine Credit: Marvel Studios The Deadpool & Wolverine movie was a long time coming. Thats not just because Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) has been making comically obsessive requests to hang out with Hugh Jackmans Wolverine since the first Deadpool. But the movie itself feels like an homage to the comic book movies before it, combining fan service with a true, sensible (for a comic book movie) plot and a satisfying conclusion that leaves the characters more mature and content than when we last saw them.Some may be concerned about the return of Jackman, considering his version of Wolverine was supposed to come to a dramatic and spectacular conclusion with the 2017 movie Logan. In fact, the movie is about Deadpools universe crumbling (as related by the Time Variance Authority from the show Loki) due to that version of Wolverine no longer being around. But Deadpool & Wolverine handles this well by visiting the end location of Logan and establishing that Jackman is now playing a Wolverine from an alternate universe and is still highly capable of playing the fierce, acrobatic, and iconic X-Man.Deep down, the movie is about two men who have typically felt alone and unworthy of the people they love finding new paths to manhood, self-respect, and acceptance of their roles in the world. But for comic book fans, its really about action-packed nostalgia. The good feels are bolstered by epic cameos of characters you might have forgotten were Marvel-related at all (if possible, I highly recommend seeing this movie spoiler-free).Unexpectedly one of the best parts of the movie comes from the ending credits. It features behind-the-scenes footage from 12 X-Men movies going back 24 years. With clips featuring the likes of a young Jackman, Halle Berry (who has played Storm), and Patrick Stewart (who has played Professor X), its a reminder of a time when comic books felt new and bold and a tribute to how long all of usfrom the actors, to the crew, to the audiencehave been on this journey. Ultimately, Deadpool & Wolverine provides a fulfilling and happy goodbye to all those pieces.Scharon HardingNickel Boys Credit: Amazon MGM Studios Colson Whitehead won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for his 2019 novel The Nickel Boys, based on Florida's infamous Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, a relic of the Jim Crow era. The school's staff inflicted all manner of abuse, beatings, rapes, and torture on its unfortunate charges and even murdered many of them; as of 2012, nearly 100 deaths had been documented, along with 55 burial sites on school grounds. (There could be as many as 27 more burial sites, based on ground-penetrating radar surveys.)A young Black boy named Elwood (Ethan Cole Sharp) in 1962 is a promising student until he is mistakenly arrested for being an accomplice to car theft. He's sent to the segregated Nickel Academy, where he makes friends with Turner (Brandon Wilson). (Daveed Diggs plays a grown Elwood, now a successful businessman in New York City.) The two witness and experience so much abuse that Elwood finally decides to fight back, despite the risk of retaliation by the school's administrators.This is powerful subject matter, deftly handled by director RaMell Ross, who manages to tell a compelling story without turning it into what's become known as "Black trauma porn." The most controversial aspect of the film is Ross' choice to shoot it from a first-person point of view with a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. So we see either Elwood speaking in a scene, with Turner off-camera, or vice versa, and the two are only occasionally onscreen at the same time. Some might find this choice annoying, but I found it kept me centered on one boy's perspective at a time, which served to make the final plot twist all the more satisfying.Jennifer OuelletteInside Out 2 Credit: Pixar/Disney I cried multiple times the first time I saw Inside Out in the theater, and still tear up when I watch it at home. So I was prepared to be even more emotional at Inside Out 2, especially given that I'm now the parent of a tween child myself.I wasn't quite moved to tears by this tale of Riley struggling with newfound feelings of Anxiety, pushing her to more and more desperate plans to ingratiate herself with a group of "cool" kids. But I will admit that my heart did break a little during the climactic scene, which shows the inner turmoil inherent to a true panic attack in a way that can resonate with both children and adults.There were a couple of inconsistent attempts at comedy in Inside Out 2 that felt like they came from a completely different movie. And I found myself missing the original voice actors for Disgust and Envy, as well as Lewis Black's original Anger voice (which has noticeably diminished as he's aged). But none of this was enough to diminish the strong emotional core of a movie that will be relatable to anyone who's busy growing up or just remembers doing the same.Kyle OrlandAnd now... our pick for the best movie of 2024:Dune: Part 2 Credit: Warner Bros. David Lynch's 1984 Dune was a huge chunk of my high school experience, being as I was part of a small group of friends obsessed with the moviewith its incredible visuals, its outsize but seemingly earnest camp, and its absolutely endless quotability. We sprinkled the movie's words throughout our conversations, experimented with re-creating portions of it with video cameras and action figures, and reveled in exploring something that felt truly ourslargely because the movie was rejected and forgotten by so many others.If anything, Lynch's Dune put paid to the notion that Frank Herbert's novel could be successfully ported to film. It's a heroic effort, but it's a bloody mess. And I would have gone to my grave thinking that Dune remained one of the most unfilmable classic bits of 20th-century science fictionuntil Denis Villeneuve went and made the dang thing anyway.The viscerally visual filmmaker who famously hates dialog did something I genuinely believed was impossible: He gave us a (two-part) translation of the book to screen that is both faithful to the original, and also shows us new things that feel like they've been there all along, waiting to be discovered.Dune: Part Two is a masterpiece. It is the product of craftsmen at the top of their crafts, including and especially the craftsman in the director's seat. Dune gives us a peek at exactly what Villeneuve means when he talks about the "paradise" of a movie without dialoguethere are long, almost Tarkovsky-esque stretches where vast cyclopean imagery juxtaposes itself against tiny human tableaus, underpinned by nothing but Hans Zimmer's transcendent music. And it's not just that these stretches workthey work fantastically well!it's that in many ways they carry the movie to places that rapid-fire Aaron Sorkin-style banter could never reach. The visuals show us thingsthings words never could.Speaking of Hans Zimmerlet's talk about that score. It's an absolutely masterful creation that figures so prominently in our experience of Arrakis that it becomes a character itself, a second unseen narrator who alternates with poor unloved Irulan as the voice of the world. Paul and Chani's love theme, a composition titled "A Time of Quiet Between the Storms," is one of the most powerfully emotional pieces of music I've ever heard, embodying almost the platonic ideal of pure, mournful longing; the emotional hammer-blow delivered by its apocalyptic, civilization-ending reprise "Kiss the Ring" left me speechless and wide-eyed in the theater.Folks, Dune: Part Two is a good movie. It (and its prequel) is one of the best movies I've ever seen, successfully adapting a difficult book into a movie and retaining the bits that mattered most. Villeneuve was born to make these films, and Zimmer was born to score them. They are true art. If anything, I'm even more excited now about another of Villeneuve's upcoming projects: he's taken over the reins for the long-stalled, long-rumored, finally-happening-for-real adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, a book that heavily imprinted itself on me in fourth grade and that I've reread at least once a year for most of my life. If Villeneuve brings his A-game, I have the highest hopes for Rama.Lee HutchinsonJennifer OuelletteSenior WriterJennifer OuelletteSenior Writer Jennifer is a senior reporter at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban. 1 Comments

As enterprises race to implement AI and automation, one often overlooked factor can make or break their success: data quality. In fact, 72% of enterprises have adopted AI for at least one business function. The success of these AI and automation initiatives hinges on quality data. What separates effective automation from costly failures often boils down to the quality of the data feeding these systems. To achieve effective automation, enterprise leaders must rely on high-quality data. In this article, Ill outline simple strategies for gathering and sharing data that drives success.Data Quality: Impact Across IndustriesThe implications of poor data quality can vary across industries, but the underlying risks remain similar. For instance, in healthcare, poor data can lead to poor patient care, putting their safety at risk. Financial services are another sector where data accuracy is paramount -- poor data quality leads to flawed financial reports and increased operational risks, eroding trust, and potentially incurring regulatory penalties. Even retail isnt immune, as inaccurate inventory data can lead to poor stock management decisions, resulting in costly stockouts or excess inventory.Data Quality ChecklistHigh-quality data empowers automation and AI to provide outputs that are accurate, reliable, and context-rich, enabling users -- from data analysts to business leaders -- to make informed, confident decisions. This requires data to meet a checklist of criteria, which are as follows:Related:Timeliness: Is your data up to date? Timely data ensures relevant decision-making. For example, relying on outdated customer data in retail can lead to inaccurate personalization, missing opportunities for sales.Accuracy: Does your data accurately represent real-world conditions? Eliminating biases or errors is critical. For instance, biased healthcare data can lead to improper diagnoses, directly impacting patient outcomes.Completeness: Are your datasets comprehensive? Incomplete data can distort AI outcomes or even lead to hallucinations, where algorithms generate inaccurate or misleading results. For example, missing sales data could result in flawed revenue forecasts.Consistency: Do your records align across datasets? Inconsistent data creates errors that can ripple across automation systems. Imagine a supply chain scenario where mismatched product IDs lead to shipping delays and increased costs.Building a Foundation of Quality DataEnsuring data quality is not just about data cleansing; it requires robust data governance and management practices. Implementing a framework that prioritizes data quality across the organization is essential to achieving reliable outcomes from AI and automation investments. Here are a few best practices:Related:Data stewardship: Designate individuals responsible for monitoring and maintaining data quality across its lifecycle. This ensures that the integrity of the data is preserved.Automated data validation: Proactive detection and correction of errors in real-time is essential for organizations that rely on up-to-date data for fast-paced decision-making.Data lineage tracking: By tracking data from its origin through its transformations, organizations can better understand its reliability and accuracy.Hyperautomation as a Data Quality Use CaseHyperautomation, as defined by Gartner, is reshaping business by automating end-to-end processes across the entire IT landscape. This process merges AI, machine learning, and robotic process automation (RPA) to streamline operations, cut costs, and elevate customer experiences. However, the effectiveness of hyperautomation depends on one crucial factor: data quality. This is because the intelligence behind hyperautomation -- AI and ML models --relies on data.Related:In hyperautomation, data-driven decisions are vital for optimizing processes. Poor data quality can lead to less effective choices, undermining efficiency gains. Analyzing historical data allows organizations to forecast trends and proactively automate, yet the accuracy of these predictions is only as good as the data theyre based on.Hyperautomation also requires integrating data from multiple sources, and inconsistent formats or quality issues can impede seamless integration and scalability. High-quality data helps ensure the reliability and robustness of hyperautomation initiatives, minimizing errors and system risks.For customer-facing hyperautomation projects, such as applications like AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants, these depend on accurate, current data to respond effectively to inquiries. Organizations that focus on data integrity while deploying hyperautomation projects -- both internal and customer-facing -- can fully harness its potential, enhancing operational efficiency and gaining a competitive advantage.Long-Term Impact of Quality Data on Business StrategyAt the strategic level, high-quality data doesnt just make AI and automation systems work better -- it enhances business outcomes. With data that is complete, accurate, and timely, companies can leverage AI and automation to improve efficiency, reduce operational risks, and foster more data-driven decisions that strengthen competitive advantage.Organizations that prioritize data quality today will be the ones to define industry benchmarks tomorrow. The question is: Is your data strategy ready to meet the demands of AI and automation?

The world might seem to be on the brink of a humanoid-robot heyday. New breakthroughs in artificial intelligence promise the type of capable, general-purpose robots previously seen only in science fictionrobots that can do things like assemble cars, care for patients, or tidy our homes, all without being given specialized instructions. Its an idea that has attracted an enormous amount of attention, capital, and optimism. Figure raised $675 million for its humanoid robot in 2024, less than two years after being founded. At a Tesla event this past October, the companys Optimus robots outshined the self-driving taxi that was meant to be the star of the show. Teslas CEO, Elon Musk, believes that these robots could somehow build a future where there is no poverty. One might think that supremely capable humanoids are just a few years away from populating our homes, war zones, workplaces, borders, schools, and hospitals to serve roles as varied as therapists, carpenters, home health aides, and soldiers. Yet recent progress has arguably been more about style than substance. Advancements in AI have undoubtedly made robots easier to train, but they have yet to enable them to truly sense their surroundings, think of what to do next, and carry out those decisions in the way some viral videos might imply. In many of these demonstrations (including Teslas), when a robot is pouring a drink or wiping down a counter, it is not acting autonomously, even if it appears to be. Instead, it is being controlled remotely by human operators, a technique roboticists refer to as teleoperation. The futuristic looks of such humanoids, which usually borrow from dystopian Hollywood sci-fi tropes like screens for faces, sharp eyes, and towering, metallic forms, suggest the robots are more capable than they often are. Im worried that were at peak hype, says Leila Takayama, a robotics expert and vice president of design and human-robot interaction at the warehouse robotics company Robust AI. Theres a bit of an arms waror humanoids warbetween all the big tech companies to flex and show that they can do more and they can do better. As a result, she says, any roboticist not working on a humanoid has to answer to investors as to why. We have to talk about them now, and we didnt have to a year ago, Takayama told me. Shariq Hashme, a former employee of both OpenAI and Scale AI, entered his robotics firm Prosper into this arms race in 2021. The company is developing a humanoid robot it calls Alfie to perform domestic tasks in homes, hospitals, and hotels. Prosper hopes to manufacture and sell Alfies for approximately $10,000 to $15,000 each. Why are we enamored with this idea of building a replica of ourselves? Guy Hoffman, associate professor, Cornell University In conceiving the design for Alfie, Hashme identified trustworthiness as the factor that should trump all other considerations, and the top challenge that needs to be overcome to see humanoids benefit society. Hashme believes one essential tactic to get people to put their trust in Alfie is to build a detailed character from the ground upsomething humanlike but not too human. This is about more than just Alfies appearance. Hashme and his colleagues are envisioning the way the robot moves and signals what hell do next; imagining desires and flaws that shape his approach to tasks; and crafting an internal code of ethics that governs the instructions he will and will not accept from his owners. In some ways, leaning so heavily on the principle of trustworthiness for Alfie feels premature; Prosper has raised a tiny amount of capital compared with giants like Tesla or Figure and is months (or years) away from shipping a product. But the need to tackle the issue of trustworthiness head-on and early reflects the messy moment humanoids are in: Despite all the investment and research, few people would feel warm and comfortable with such a robot if it walked into their living room right now. Wed wonder what data it was recording about us and our surroundings, fear it might someday take our job, or be turned off by its way of moving; rather than elegant and useful, humanoids are often cumbersome and creepy. Overcoming that lack of trust will be the first hurdle to clear before humanoids can live up to their hype. But on the road to helping Alfie win our trust, one question looms larger than any other: How much will he be able to do on his own? How much will he still rely on humans? New AI techniques have made it faster to train robots through demonstration datausually some combination of images, videos, and other data created by humans doing tasks like washing dishes while wearing sensors that pick up on their movements. This data can then coach robots through those tasks much the way that a large body of text can help a large language model create sentences. Still, this method requires lots of data, and lots of humans need to step in and correct for errors. Hashme told me that he expects the first release of Alfie to handle only about 20% of tasks on his own. The rest will be assisted by a Prosper team of remote assistants, at least some of them based in the Philippines, who will have the ability to remotely control Alfies movements. When I raised, among other concerns, whether its viable for a robotics business to rely on manual human labor for so many tasks, Hashme pointed to the successes of Scale AI. That company, which processes training data for AI applications, has a significant workforce in the Philippinesand is often criticized for its labor practices. Hashme was one of the people managing that workforce for about a year before founding Prosper. His departure from Scale AI was itself set off by a violation of trustone for which he would serve time in federal prison. The success or failure of Alfie will reveal much about societys willingness to welcome humanoid robots into our private spaces. Can we accept a profoundly new and asymmetric labor arrangement in which workers in low-wage countries use robotic interfaces to perform physical tasks for us at home? Will we trust them to safeguard private data and images of us and our families? On the most basic level, will the robots even be useful? To address some of these concerns around trust, Hashme brought in Buck Lewis. Two decades before Lewis worked with robots, before he was charged with designing a humanoid that people would trust rather than fear, the challenge in front of him was a rat. In 2001, Lewis was a revered animator and one of the top minds at Pixar. His specialty was designing characters with deep, universal appeal, a top concern to studios that fund high-budget projects aimed at capturing audiences worldwide. It was a niche that had led Lewis to bring trucks and sedans to life in the movie Cars and create characters for many DreamWorks and Disney films. But when Jan Pinkava, the creative force behind Ratatouille, told Lewis about his pitch for that filmthe story of a rat who wants to be a chefthe task felt insurmountable. Rats evoke such fear and apprehension in humans that their very name has become a shorthand for someone who cannot be trusted. How could Lewis turn a maligned rodent into an endearing chef? Its a deeply ingrained aversion, because rats are horrifying, he told me. For this to work, we had to create a character that rewires peoples perceptions. To do that, Lewis spent a lot of time in his head, imagining scenes like a group of rats hosting a playful pop-up dinner on a sidewalk in Paris. The result was Remy, a Parisian rat who not only rose through the culinary ranks in Ratatouille but was so lovable that demand for pet rats surged globally after the films release in 2007. Two decades later, Lewis has made a career change and is now in charge of crafting every aspect of Alfies character at Prosper. Much as the appealing Remy rebranded rats, Alfie represents Lewiss attempt to change the image of humanoid robots, from futuristic and dangerous to helpful and trustworthy. Prospers approach reflects a foundational robotics concept articulated by Rodney Brooks, a founder of iRobot, which created the Roomba: The visual appearance of a robot makes a promise about what it can do and how smart it is. It needs to deliver or slightly overdeliver on that promise or it will not be accepted. According to this principle, any humanoid robot makes the promise that it can behave like a humanwhich is an exceedingly high bar. So high, in fact, that some firms reject it. Some humanoid-skeptic roboticists doubt that a helpful robot needs to resemble a human at all when it could instead accomplish practical tasks without being anthropomorphized. Why are we enamored with this idea of building a replica of ourselves? asks Guy Hoffman, a roboticist focused on human-robot interactions and an associate professor at Cornell Universitys engineering school. Early prototypes of Prospers robotic butler, which could perform household tasks like cleaning a kitchen table, rinsing dishes, and discarding trash.DAVID VINTINER The chief argument for robots with human characteristics is a functional one: Our homes and workplaces were built by and for humans, so a robot with a humanlike form will navigate them more easily. But Hoffman believes theres another reason: Through this kind of humanoid design, we are selling a story about this robot that it is in some way equivalent to us or to the things that we can do. In other words, build a robot that looks like a human, and people will assume its as capable as one. In designing Alfies physical appearance, Prosper has borrowed some aspects of typical humanoid design but rejected others. Alfie has wheels instead of legs, for example, as bipedal robots are currently less stable in home environments, but he does have arms and a head. The robot will be built on a vertical column that resembles a torso; his specific height and weight are not yet public. He will have two emergency stop buttons. Nothing about Alfies design will attempt to obscure the fact that he is a robot, Lewis says. The antithesis [of trustworthiness] would be designing a robot thats intended to emulate a human and its measure of success is based on how well it has deceived you, he told me. Like, Wow, I was talking to that thing for five minutes and I didnt realize its a robot. That, to me, is dishonest. But much other humanoid innovation is headed in a direction where deception seems to be an increasingly attractive concept. In 2023, several ultrarealistic humanoid robots appeared in the crowd at an NFL game at SoFi stadium in California; after a video of them went viral, Disney revealed they were actually just people in suits, a stunt to promote a movie. Nine months later, researchers from the University of Tokyo unveiled a way to attach engineered skin, which used human cells, over the face of a robot in an attempt to more perfectly resemble a human face. Through this kind of humanoid design, we are selling a story [that this robot] is in some way equivalent to us or to the things that we can do. Guy Hoffman, roboticist Lewis has considered much more than just Alfies appearance. He and Prosper envision Alfie as an ambassador from a future civilization in which robots have incorporated the best qualities of humanity. Hes not young or old but has the wisdom of middle age, and his primary function in life is to be of service to people on their terms. Like any compelling character, Alfie has flaws people can relate tohe wishes he could be faster, and he tends to be a bit obsessive about finishing the tasks asked of him. Core tenets of Alfies service are to respect boundaries, to be discreet and nonjudgmental, and to earn trust. Hes an entity thats nonhuman, but he has a sort of sentience, Lewis says. Im trying to avoid looking at it as directly comparable to human consciousness. Ive been referring to Alfie as heat the risk of over-anthropomorphizing what is currently a robot in developmentbecause Lewis pictures him as a gendered male. When I asked why he pictures Alfie as having a gender, he said its probably a relic from the archetypal male butlers he saw on television shows like Batman growing up. But in a conversation with Hashme, I learned there is actually a real-life butler who is in some ways serving as an inspiration for Alfie. That would be Fitzgerald Heslop. Heslop has decades of experience in high-end hospitality training, and for seven years he was the only person within the United States Department of Defense qualified to train household managers who would run the homes of three- and four-star generals. Heslop now runs the household of a wealthy family in the Middle East (he declined to get more specific) and has been contracted by Prosper to inform Alfies approach to service within the home. Shortly into my conversation with Heslop, he elaborated on what excellent service looks like. Thats the level of creativity the good butler deals in: the making of beautiful moments to put people at their ease and increase their pleasure, he said, quoting Steven M. Ferrys book Butlers & Household Managers: 21st Century Professionals. He spoke with conviction about the impact great service can have on the world and about how protocol and etiquette can level the egos of even top dignitaries. Citing a quote often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, he said, The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. Though he has no experience in robotics, Heslop is drawn to the idea that household robots could someday provide impeccable levels of service, and he thinks that Prosper has identified the right priorities to get there. Privacy and discretion, attention to detail, and meticulous eyes for that are mission critical to the overall objective of the company, he says. And more importantly, in this case, Alfie. It is one thing to dream up an Alfie in sketchbooks, and another to build him. In the real world, the first version of Alfie will depend on remote assistants, mostly working abroad, to handle approximately 80% of its household tasks. These assistants will use interfaces not unlike video-game controllers to control Alfies movements, relying on data from his sensors and cameras to guide them in washing dishes or clearing a table. Hashme says efforts are being made to conceal or anonymize personally revealing data while the robot is being teleoperated. That will include steps like removing sensitive objects and peoples faces from recordings and allowing users to delete any footage they like. Ideally, Hashme wrote in an email, Alfie will often simply look away from any potentially private activities. The AI industry has an appalling track record when it comes to workers in low-wage countries performing the hidden labor required to build cutting-edge models. Workers in Kenya were reportedly paid less than $2 an hour to manually purge toxic training data, including content describing child sexual abuse and torture, for OpenAI. Scale AIs own operation in the Philippines, which Hashme helped manage, was criticized in 2023 by rights groups for not abiding by basic labor standards and failing to pay workers properly and on time, according to an investigation by the Washington Post. In a statement, OpenAI said such work needs to be done humanely and willingly, and that the company establishes ethical and wellness standards for our data annotators. In a response to questions about criticisms of its operation in the Philippines, Scale AI wrote, Over the past year alone, weve paid out hundreds of millions in earnings to contributors, giving people flexible work options and economic opportunity, and that 98% of support tickets regarding pay have been successfully resolved. Hashme says he was not aware of the allegations against ScaleAI during his time there, which ended in 2019. But, he said in an email, we did make mistakes, which we quickly corrected and generally took quite seriously. I asked him what lessons he takes from the allegations against Scale AI and other companies outsourcing sensitive data work and what safeguards hes putting in place for the team hes building in the Philippines for Prosper, which so far numbers about 10 people. Shariq Hashme, a former employee of both OpenAI and Scale AI, entered his robotics firm Prosper into the humanoid arms race in 2021.DAVID VINTINER A lot of companies that do that kind of stuff end up doing it in a way which is kind of shitty for the people who are being employed, Hashme told me. Such companies often outsource important HR activities to untrustworthy partners abroad or lose workers trust through bad incentive programs, he said, adding: With a more experienced and closely managed team, and a lot more transparency around the entire system, I expect well be able to do a much better job. Its worth disclosing the nature of Hashmes departure from Scale AI, where he was hired in 2017 as its 14th employee. In May 2019, according to court documents, Scale noticed that someone had repeatedly withdrawn unauthorized payments of $140 and transferred them to multiple PayPal accounts. The company contacted the FBI. Over the course of five months, approximately $56,000 was taken from the company. An investigation revealed that Hashme, then 26, was behind the withdrawals, and in October of that year, he pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud.Ahead of his sentencing, Alexandr Wang, the now-billionaire founder and CEO of Scale AI, wrote a letter to the judge in support of Hashme, as did 13 other current or former Scale employees. I believe Shariq is genuinely remorseful for his crime, and I have no reason to believe he will ever do something like this again, Wang wrote, and he said the company would not have wanted the wrongdoer prosecuted if it had known it was Hashme. Hashme lost his job, his stock options, and Scales sponsorship of his green card application. Scale offered him a $10,000 severance payment before leaving, which he declined to accept, according to Wangs letter. Hashme paid the money back in 2019, and in February 2020, he was sentenced to three months in federal prison, which he served. Wang is now a primary investor in Prosper Robotics, alongside Ben Mann (cofounder of Anthropic), Simon Last (cofounder of Notion), and Debo Olaosebikan (cofounder and CEO of Kepler Computing). I had a major lapse in judgment when I was younger. I was facing some personal challenges and stole from my employer. The consequences and the realization of what Id done came as a shock, and led to a lot of soul-searching, Hashme wrote in an email in response to questions about the crime. At Prosper, he wrote, were taking trustworthiness as our highest aspiration. There are some real upsides to being able to control robots remotely, but the idea of large-scale robotic teleoperation by overseas workers, even if it takes years for it to be effective, would be nothing short of a seismic shift for labor. It would present the possibility that even highly localized physical work that we perceive as immune to moving offshorecleaning hotel rooms or caring for hospital patientsmight someday be conducted by workers abroad. It also seems antithetical to the very idea of a trustworthy robot, since the machines effectiveness would be inextricably tied to a faceless worker in another country, most likely receiving paltry wages. Hashme has spoken about using a portion of Prospers profits to make direct payments to people whose jobs have been affected or replaced by Alfies, but he doesnt have specifics on how that would work. Hes also still thinking through issues related to who or what Prospers customers should be trusting when they allow its robot into their home. We dont want you to have to place as much trust in the company or the people the company hires, he says. Wed rather you place trust in the device, and the device is the robot, and the robot is making sure the company doesnt do something theyre not supposed to do. He admits that the first version of Alfie will likely not live up to his highest aspirations, but he remains steadfast that the robot can be of service to society and to people, if only they can trust him.

Silicon Valley tech firms are reportedly looking to unite to win more defense contracts.Palantir and Anduril have held talks with a dozen companies to form the group, the FT reported.Companies that could participate include Sam Altman's OpenAI and Elon Musk's SpaceX.Defense tech firms Palantir and Anduril are in talks with Elon Musk's SpaceX, Sam Altman's OpenAI, and others to form a new group in Silicon Valley to bid for Washington's lucrative defense contracts, according to a new report.Palantir and Anduril, some of Silicon Valley's most notable defense companies, have held discussions with around a dozen firms to create a group that can take a larger share of the US government's roughly $850 billion defense budget, the Financial Times reported Sunday.The group, which could announce strategic partnerships next month, would seek to bring Silicon Valley-style disruption to an industry dominated by so-called "prime" contractors, such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.Musk, who is leading a newly formed Department of Government Efficiency under the direction of President-elect Donald Trump, used X last month to criticize Lockheed Martin's crewed F-35 fighter jets. He has previously advocated for autonomous drones."We are working together to provide a new generation of defense contractors," one person close to the group told the Financial Times. Others involved in the group include A16zbacked startup Saronic and AI data firm Scale AI, the report said. The consortium could announce agreements with some tech firms as soon as January, the report said. The move to form a group involving rival firms would mark one of the most coordinated efforts in Silicon Valley yet to edge further into the defense sector and shake-up a system that tech leaders have criticized for being too slow to adopt new technologies.Palantir, cofounded in 2003 by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, has previously won several government contracts. In May, the Pentagon awarded the firm a $480 million contract to use its data analytics platform on Project Maven, an AI tool for analyzing battlefield data.Discussing his new book in a conversation with investor Stanley Druckenmiller at JPMorgan's Asset Managers CEO Forum this month, Palantir CEO Alex Karp argued that Silicon Valley needs to work more closely with the US government.Defense startup Anduril, founded by Palmer Luckey the tech mogul who founded and sold virtual reality startup Oculus to Meta has also won contracts for its autonomous and air defense systems.Palantir, Anduril, SpaceX, Saronic, Scale AI, and OpenAI did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment outside regular working hours.

Javier Milei, the Argentine leader who has inspired Elon Musk, says he plans to cut how many taxes there are.He said he was planning to "eliminate 90% of taxes not revenue, but the number of taxes."Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, co-heads of DOGE, are looking to radically trim the US federal government.Argentina's President Javier Milei says he will reform the Argentine tax system to have no more than 6 taxes.In a clip from an interview with Forbes Argentina, published on Sunday, Milei said: "We'll advance privatization, deepen labor reforms, and eliminate 90% of taxes not revenue, but the number of taxes moving to a simplified system with no more than six taxes at most."It would be the latest sweeping move by a firebrand president who has inspired members of the incoming Trump administration.Since taking power on December 10, 2023, Milei has presided over sweeping cuts. He fired tens of thousands of public employees, shut down half the country's 18 ministries, and reduced state spending by an estimated 31% in his first 10 months alone making good on his pledge to take a "chainsaw" to the state.Milei's actions caught the attention of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the men now charged with a similar task under President-elect Donald Trump.Last month, Musk said Argentina had made "impressive progress,'" while Ramaswamy said that the US needed "Milei-style cuts on steroids."In the interview, Milei said his administration had only accomplished the "first step" of its plan, and that what was coming next was the "deep chainsaw.""It is not only a question of deregulating and removing these obstacles, but it also implies a new reform of the state to make it even smaller," he said.Milei added that his administration has so far only implemented a quarter of the reforms it wants to pursue.Argentina's latest economic figures suggest the country may be turning a corner after struggling economically.Argentina's inflation dropped from25.5%in December 2023 to2.4%in November 2024. However, unemployment rose to 6.9% in Q3, from 5.7% in the same period last year.Economic activity, meanwhile, grew 3.9% in Q3, compared to Q2.According to BBVA projections, Argentina will achieve a fiscal balance in 2024 for the first time in 15 years. It also said that it expects Argentina's GDP to rebound strongly next year, from a 3.8% deficit in 2024 to 5.5% in 2025, driven by investments and private consumption.However, Facundo Nejamkis, director of Opina Argentina, a political consultancy firm, told Reuters this month that Milei's cuts had ignited a "major" recession, and according to Argentina's statistics agency, the country's poverty rate rose to 52.9% in the first half of 2024, the highest rate in 30 years.Speaking at an event at Argentina's Chamber of Commerce and Services last month, Milei said the recession was "over," after the country had gone through "a difficult period of effort and pain."And in an episode of the Lex Fridman podcast last month, Milei advised Musk and Ramaswamy to go "all the way" in cutting US federal spending.Reacting to Milei's latest interview on X, where he talked about eliminating the taxes, Musk wrote one word: "Impressive."

I love the holiday season, but there are some things about it that stress me out.In the past, I've found myself doing too much and saying "yes" to too many things.This year, I'm approaching the season differently so I can enjoy it.I love visiting with family and friends, gift-giving, and all that comes with the holiday season. Most years, though, as this time of year approaches, I'm filled with a sense of contradiction: excitement for what's ahead and an unavoidable subtle sense of dread.As a mom for over 13 years now, I've finally pinpointed exactly the problem. I've been in the habit of saying, "Sure," "Yes," "I'll be there," or "I can help" too many times during the season, even if I didn't have the time or energy. It's left me frustrated, hurried, stressed, and downright exhausted.I started by creating boundaries around travelThe first time I vowed to seek more rest for myself during the holidays was 13 years ago. After several hours of travel and multiple stops to visit family, all with a newborn in tow, I knew the pace could not be kept. I will never forget the trauma of trying to find a quiet place to nurse my baby amid the chaos of family members I barely knew.Little by little, each year, I've pulled back on our Christmas Day travel. This might be the biggest and happiest change I've implemented for myself and my family. I'm saying "no" to hours of travel time this year, and we're staying home for Christmas.Miraculously, grandparents and family members have all been understanding. In fact, many of them lamented the same issues with travel on Christmas Day and are choosing to stay home, too. The good news is my door is open, and if anyone wants to see me or my immediate family on Christmas Day, they'll know exactly where to find us.But still, over the years even as I've created more boundaries around travel I've gotten in the habit of doing too much, and it's affected my ability to enjoy the holiday season.This year, I'm doing less cooking and baking, tooLast year, and for most years in the past, my husband would volunteer to cook the turkey for my side of the family for the Thanksgiving meal. But this year, we said we couldn't. We'd already planned a road trip for my son's birthday, so the time we had to spend on a homemade dish was significantly shorter.We simply didn't have the time to fry a large turkey and encouraged my family to have someone else cook it. My mom ordered one, and it was just as juicy as any home-cooked bird. It lightened the load, and I vowed to keep the momentum going.Leading up to Christmas Day last year, kind neighbors dropped off homemade items on our doorstep. We adore our neighbors, and the homemade goodies were a delight each time we opened the door. But each time I discovered a homebaked treat, I felt pressure to make or bake my own gift to reciprocate the kind gesture.In a panic, I whipped up some last-minute treats and hauled them to each neighbor's home. I love to cook, but there wasn't much joy in the process under the pressure. Looking back, I realize there was a better way, so I'm handling it differently this year. I now see that my neighbors actually don't expect a gift in return, let alone something homemade. So, to split the difference, I'm purchasing my favorite brand of store-bought shortbread cookies, plopping a bow on top, and wishing them all my merriment without baking anything.I'm also pulling back when it comes to volunteering at my sons' schoolsVolunteering at my sons' schools has always been a page from the same story. As with many parents, in years past, there's been the tug for me to attend the holiday sing-along, organize the holiday party snacks, or brainstorm and collect materials for a festive craft.While I do love attending and being involved at my sons' schools, the issue is that with work, appointments, and my own holiday goals of reading more and sitting by a fire more often this year, I'm just not raising my hand first to head it all up. Instead, I've opted to send in supplies or choose the events I truly enjoy being at. My sons are older now, and I'm resting easy knowing they're more concerned with the football game at recess than the reindeer craft they created during the holiday party.While my desire to do it all came from good intentions and expectations from myself and others, I didn't want the stress I had felt in the past by giving too during past holiday seasons. I realize now I do have a choice in the matter.I'm saying "no" more than ever in an effort to protect my time and my family's time, and I'm enjoying more that makes me happy: fireside reading time, a cup of coffee with extra whipped cream, and the twinkle of the lights on my own Christmas tree this year.

One fall day in 1856, a family of Eastern gray squirrels in rural New York uncurled from a cozy nest in a chestnut tree, looked around, and joined half a billion other squirrels on a multi-state walkabout. Waves of fur, claws, and sharp incisors swarmed like locusts in squirrel armies that could be up to 150 miles long, devouring on their way everything that is suited to their taste, wrote John Bachman, a 19th-century naturalist.Walls of Sciurus carolinensis pulsing across the landscape befuddled naturalists and frustrated farmers, but these movements were a survival strategy, says John Koprowski, the dean of the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming and a longtime squirrel expert. Squirrels have an amazing sense of smell. They often find fruiting trees, trees with good crops, from miles away, says Koprowski. When you had continuous forests with acorns or chestnuts that are all blooming or fruiting at the same time or producing seed crops, that had to be a pretty powerful smell moving through the forest.The strategy worked. By taking these mass rodent odysseys, squirrels settled new areas, found higher-quality munchies, and, in turn, made more squirrels. At one point, naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton estimates Eastern gray squirrels likely numbered in the billions. This is almost impossible to imagine today. But this emigration wasnt the only odd feat of dispersal by wild animals. The now-extinct Rocky Mountain locusts once migrated across the country in waves. Passenger pigeons, also extinct, moved in flocks so thick they darkened the sky. Jackrabbits still abundant today but more sedentary once moved en masse, ripping through crops so severely during the Dust Bowl that people drove them into pens and killed them by the thousands. Some species, especially birds and some large mammals like deer and elk, still make pilgrimages. But many more, including the Eastern gray squirrel, have lost their ability to move long distances, lacking large connected forests and unable to navigate through industrial parks and parking lots, over six-lane interstates or subdivisions. We dont have millions of animals in those places anymore, Koprowski says. Theyre giving us an early warning that these arent functioning the way they have historically, in the ways that animals have evolved to be using these spaces. And that warning is becoming more dire. A 2024 United Nations Report found that 44 percent of the worlds migratory species are declining, a result of overhunting paired with habitat destruction largely due to agriculture, sprawling housing and commercial development, pollution, and, increasingly, climate change. Yet as wildlife lose the freedom to move, biologists say the ability to shift from one place to another to find food or escape threats will become even more necessary as our planet continues to change. There are still some incredible feats of migration that are hanging on. These epic tours serve as a reminder that not all is lost.Arctic hares that run ultras North of those once-abundant Eastern forests with their once-abundant Eastern squirrels, theres another small mammal with a surprising penchant for long-distance quests: the Arctic hare. Protected by a special adaptation a dazzling coat of thick fur that turns white in the winter and thinner and blue-gray or brownish in spring and summer to camouflage to its surroundings the Arctic hare can survive frigid temperatures. But when the thermometer in the polar desert dips to below negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit, they begin hopping southwest sometimes for nearly 200 miles. This marathon feat was a surprise to scientists who discovered the journeys in 2019. Previously, researchers largely believed Arctic hares were sedentary species with little dispersal capacity. Researchers at the University of Quebec at Rimouski knew hares could travel quickly up to 40 miles per hour but they wanted to see just how far they could go.They were stunned to discover that the creatures regularly traveled hundreds of miles likely headed for warmer pastures with more abundant plants and glacial meltwater, says Ludovic Landry-Ducharme, a PhD student at the University of Quebec at Rimouski who is continuing the research.The Canadian researchers published their work in the journal Nature and underscored that climate change may well disrupt these patterns as snow comes later and spring melts come earlier, shifting where and when and how abundantly important plants grow. The propensity to look for good food and escape bad weather conditions is one of wildlifes oldest adaptations and most often documented in more visible species like mule deer in the American West, wildebeest in Sub-Saharan Africa, and caribou in northern Canada. Indigenous people long knew wildlife moved with the seasons, and many followed those movements, taking advantage of the weather and trailing along with a consistent food source. But it was only more recently that researchers with modern satellite technology began to map exactly where the wildlife moved. Those results made headlines with stories of mule deer faithfully following the same 150- or even 250-mile migrations up and over mountain ranges. Many animals from Arctic hares to mule deer use what researchers call stopover points. These are areas along the way where species can rest, take a breather, and eat. Wyoming migration researcher Hall Sawyer once described stopovers as pit stops on a long interstate road trip. Drivers who stop for gas, a cup of coffee, and a meal make better decisions and arrive better rested than those who power through. For animals, its no different. Their cross-country trips can look meandering and erratic, but according to scientists, they are critical and increasingly threatened by everything from highways and fences to drought, fires, and floods worsened by climate change to energy developments, subdivisions, and agricultural fields.A newts year (or seven) of self-discovery Anyone who has gone for a walk through a pocket of Eastern forest has likely spotted a burnt-orange eastern newt. Next time you see one, thank it not only for its mosquito-killing capabilities but also wish it well on what amphibian researcher JJ Apodaca likens to its Rumspringa. When a newt enters its eft stage, it experiences a fundamental physiological change. The newt starts its life journey in a pond looking like an olive salamander with feathery gills and a narrow tail before it crawls out onto land, turns orange, and swaps out its gills for a set of lungs as an eft. Once on land, the newt sets out for parts unknown, spending two to even seven years meandering sometimes for miles on its tiny legs to what it surely considers faraway lands. After years of roaming, it returns to a pond or wetland, dives back into the water, and looks for a mate. Those eft walkabouts are a critical time to look for the best food while the juvenile newt grows and matures. And the more fragmented their habitat, the less cover they can find on leafy, forested floors and the higher the chance for a run-in with a car tire.Theyre not the only amphibians that require room to roam. Instead of skittering horizontally, the green salamander looks upward for greener pastures. The salamanders climb trees for better food (and also likely to avoid becoming food). But as humans continue to chop down some trees and pests and disease targets other trees fewer and fewer salamanders remain. The ability to seek out new territory isnt just critical for a species overall population, but will become even more important as habitat shrinks and the climate changes. In March 2018, a female Arctic fox wearing a tracking collar traveled from a research site on a Norwegian archipelago to the Canadian Ellesmere Island, paddling more than 2,700 miles from start to finish in the span of just four months. And shes certainly not the only one. According to a study by Eva Fuglei, a Norwegian Polar Institute researcher, Arctic foxes have the ability to bridge continents, have crossed ice sheets, and have connected to distant populations keeping their genetics spanning generations robust. But as sea ice melts, those populations will likely become isolated.The problem with animal islandsEastern gray squirrels continued their periodic decampments, fewer and fewer each year, until naturalists reported some of the last major ones in the 1960s. Humans desire for timber and space for parking lots and shopping centers eventually proved too much for even the most industrious squirrel, and the long emigrations eventually ended. Today, a much smaller relative population of Eastern grays live in piecemeal habitat, islands locked in by roads or development. Wildlife, even those as small as salamanders or as big as wildebeests, dont function as well on islands as they do in connected landscapes. A 1987 paper published in the journal Nature showed that more species went extinct in 14 western American national parks than were naturally reestablished there. The island effect, as its called, shows that even if animals live in protected areas like national parks, those parks are often too small. The effect of habitat loss and fragmentation on populations, going from intact to fragmented, is as close as we have to a golden rule in conservation, says Matthew Kauffman, Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit leader and longtime migration researcher. Populations will be less robust when you go from a large, intact habitat to the same habitat but fragmented, where animals cant move.Fortunately, in recent years, there have been promising moves to reconnect habitat, even within an increasingly fragmented landscape.Across the country, states, nonprofits, and the federal government have worked together to install wildlife crossings over- and underpasses that provide safe passage for everything from salamanders to mountain lions from the forests of Massachusetts to the multi-lane interstates of Southern California.Apodacas organization, the Amphibian and Reptile Conservancy, recently completed work on a culvert under a highway to usher the increasingly endangered bog turtle from one side to another, giving the creature access to varied habitat it would otherwise seek by perilously waddling across the road. States like Wyoming and Colorado are using maps of deer, elk, and pronghorn migrations to tweak locations of oil and gas development or potentially even modify subdivisions. Wildlife managers also now understand the importance of those long-distance pit stops to wildlife abundance. Conservationists also praised efforts like President Bidens plan to conserve 30 percent of the countrys land, freshwater, and ocean by 2030 as a way to maintain critical habitat and migration pathways. The future of those efforts under the incoming Trump administration, however, remains murky.Eastern North America may never again see swarms of half a billion squirrels skittering through forests en route to lush acorn crops, but for other species, researchers say, its not too late.Youve read 1 article in the last monthHere at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change.We rely on readers like you join us.Swati SharmaVox Editor-in-ChiefSee More:

This story was originally published in The Highlight, Voxs member-exclusive magazine. To get early access to member-exclusive stories every month, join the Vox Membership program today.What does Latino mean? And is there still such a thing as the Latino vote?At first glance, both questions are simple to answer. Latinos are simply any of the 65 million people of any race living in the United States with cultural or ancestral ties to Latin America (and Spain, if you consider the term Hispanic). Overwhelmingly of Mexican descent (about 60 percent), they live primarily in two states, California and Texas, and make up about a fifth of the American population.The Latino vote, meanwhile, could simply be those Latino Americans who vote in elections. More than 30 million of these people living in the US are citizens who can, and more than 16 million turned out in the 2020 election the Latino electorate. These voters have tended to vote for Democrats in national elections, and, since 2004, have given near super-majorities of support to the Democratic presidential candidate.For a time, this vote remained pretty uniform in both its makeup and its support for one party. That stability fueled the idea that there was such a thing as a Latino voting bloc, leading parties to have Latino strategies aimed at winning these voters over. They could be thought of as Black voters tended to be: reached with appeals to racial and ethnic solidarity, reminders of discrimination and inequality, and in turn expected to behave like Black voters who, along with LGBTQ voters, have been Democrats most loyal cohort. By 2024, this assumption has been called into question. To say that Latinos are not a monolith is now a cliche the basic starting point for conversations about how these Americans vote. But now, is even the term Latino itself an oversimplification? Many strategists, academics, and activists agree, saying the category of Latino is too vague and amorphous to capture its diversity of race, language, national origin, and immigrant experience. And when it comes to politics, it can flatten the political ideology, partisan loyalty, and changing vote preferences of millions of people across 50 states.That idea is gaining momentum, but its not universal. There are those who think the term has value, pointing out that its still useful to have a broad and more visible descriptor for these people; its members are stronger together, and despite diversifying political views, still tend to behave in similar patterns. The implications are big: For the last 40 years, political organizing, power building, and business interests have relied on there being such a thing as a Hispanic or Latino community to count, to mobilize, and to market to. In short: This quandary matters for anyone hoping to win the votes of tens of millions of people.The case for specificity and that Latino is too broadThe best political example to stop thinking of Latinos as a bloc or collective is to see what has happened when campaigns have tried to appeal to them as a group. The outreach and persuasion operation that President Joe Bidens 2020 primary and general election campaigns ran is a prime example. In 2020, that was the focal point of criticism of Democrats Latino voter outreach. It was too generic, unsophisticated, and premised on outdated thinking about what matters to these voters: promises of immigration reform and humanitarian border policies for a community that was primarily native-born; reminders of Donald Trumps racism when these voters didnt necessarily think he was talking about them; and Hispandering with flourishes of Spanish and Latin celebrity endorsements when Spanish-language use rates were declining and those celebrities werent necessarily relevant.The most widely referenced example: When Biden campaigned in Florida with the Puerto Rican singer Luis Fonsi, and bopped along to the stars hit song Despacito. It went viral for the wrong reasons: seeming like a cringey last-ditch attempt to get in the good graces of a community he hadnt really been campaigning for.That campaign continued to be a special target of this criticism for beginning outreach too late in the cycle, for not investing enough resources in persuasion and turnout efforts, for leaning too much on immigrant-friendly appeals in that pitch, and for missing just how damaging Republican attacks describing Democrats as socialists actually were. Biden still won a majority of these voters, but his results were a decline from the share of support Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had gotten in previous presidential cycles. These approaches still fit within the old model of talking to and about a Latino vote: one that assumed it could operate as a voting bloc, and it would remain monolithic. At one point in time, it was. But as rates of college education rise, as incomes grow, as the share of foreign-born Latinos declines, and as they vote differently, perhaps Latino should give way for more specific reference points, like Mexican American, Cuban American, Southwestern voters, or Florida Latinos at least for the purposes of electoral politics.Since 2020, the conventional wisdom has settled on a more tailored, targeted approach what some Democratic Latino strategists and aligned groups call culturally competent campaigning. In 2024, that became the bedrock of Biden and Harriss early and improved Latino outreach what New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called a diaspora strategy.They care about the diasporas and looking at this from a diaspora strategy, as opposed to just an overall, monolithic strategy that we often hear discussed and unfortunately played out in a lot of different areas, Ocasio-Cortez told Politico in September. So I think that as time goes on, were going to see the results of that more refined approach.On the ground, that looked like tailored ads and campaign contact for Puerto Rican and Dominican communities in Pennsylvania and Florida, for Mexican Americans in the Southwest, and for using different surrogates, accents, and vocabulary in different media markets. After all, the thinking goes, what might sound familiar and credible to a first-generation naturalized Mexican American voter in Las Vegas is different from what appeals to the third-generation Puerto Rican voter who did not have to go through the same immigrant experience, even if they both speak Spanish.Republicans performed their own version of this new identity politics between the 2020 and 2024 cycles but it looked very different.Instead of appealing to a broad Latino or Hispanic vote, they doubled down on specific segments of the electorate in an attempt to chip away at Democratic dominance. They played up the specter of socialism, communism, and Marxism in both Trumps and other down-ballot candidates appeals to Cuban and Venezuelan American voters in Florida. Its here where one 2020 jingle that was recycled for the 2024 cycle stands out: A Cuban bands Latinos for Donald Trump salsa song that went viral four years ago was used by Trumps campaign this year to double down on a segment of the Latino electorate they thought was already likely to surge for him at the polls.They paired this with talk of the threat that illegal immigration posed to Mexican Americans and their safety in border communities in the Southwest in order to reach Trump-friendly working-class voters in Arizona, Nevada, and Texas a mirror image of the traditional Democratic appeal to working-class, first- or second-generation Latinos.These varying, hyper-specific approaches all demonstrated two things: Campaigning to Latinos was falling out of vogue the preference now was for direct appeals to subset within the bloc. And the Latino electorate was now large, complex, and varied enough to be examined and treated with the same degree of sophistication as white voters are.The case that Latino still serves a purposeIf Bidens 2020 run suggested it was a mistake to think of Latinos as a broad, workable category, Trumps 2024 victory suggests that maybe you can.Even if the Latino category is too diverse, and doesnt function as a monolithic voting bloc, reality suggests they still behave as a group. Thats the conclusion of early analysis conducted by the Latino research firm Equis, which found that the rightward shifts of these voters in the 2024 cycle cut across geographical location, population size, and country of origin.Broad-based shifts like these challenge the use of provincial theories to explain them, Equis co-founder Carlos Odio wrote in sharing those results.The implication? It might make theoretical and intellectual sense to think of and appeal to these voters with specificity and fragmentation. But as a whole, a broader category of people united by similar experiences as a minority in the US, primarily nonwhite, and which continues to assimilate, still exists on the ground.Those similar experiences, some shared language, and growth across the country do make this cohort of people distinct from non-Hispanic white, Asian, and Black people and therefore it makes sense to organize, mobilize, and campaign for the votes of these communities. Thats the premise that led to the formation of specific Hispanic- and Latino-focused advocacy groups and political organizations, and which continues to warrant specific data collection, policy work, fundraising, investment, and political outreach from institutions, businesses, politicians, and campaigns.In practice, across race, age, and gender, this group is still also mostly motivated by a similar set of priorities and concerns. When asked about issues that might affect their vote in 2024, the overwhelming majority of these voters described economic anxiety. Immigration tended to follow and for similar reasons: They were upset by the status quo of the post-pandemic migrant crisis. Though they may be becoming more of a swing voter group, by most metrics they are still siding with Democrats at higher rates than white voters. And above all, a majority of these people still conceive of themselves as distinctly either Hispanic or Latino.In other words, were overcomplicating this question. Whether Latino is still useful in the political realm reminds me of something the sociologist G. Cristina Mora, who has traced the history of the Hispanic and Latino labels, told me back in 2021.Sometimes people want to [say] that somehow Latinos are so different, like, Oh my god, theyre too diverse! Like, Latinos are not a thing. How is white a thing? How is Black a thing? How is Asian a thing? Somehow people think that theres something really uniquely diverse and special and in many ways were the same as others, she told me then. Weve never just had one term that everyone was into, weve never had one term that everyones happy with.For the never-Trump strategist Mike Madrid, the ambiguity is the point. Latino as a multiracial category distinct from the binary white and Black challenges both the nations political class and the greater American public to realize just how quickly the US is moving into a primarily multiracial, Latino-driven future. It might not be a label that is useful forever, but its useful now for carving out a distinct category of people who deserve attention.To talk about us as Mestizo [someone of Spanish and indigenous ancestry in Latin America] is more appropriate maybe than Latino, but we are multiracial and there has to be a new language for that that doesnt necessarily fit in this black and white paradigm, Madrid told me.How we should think of Latino in the futureFor now, the Latino label doesnt face the prospect of sliding out of relevance or usage soon, even if talk about the Latino vote seems to be on the decline.Sure, as this category of voters continues to assimilate, enmesh itself into the fabric of the nation, and change the nation just as we are being changed, Hispanic and Latino identity itself will change. Labels dont stick around forever. And thats where the challenge of defining Latino and Latino voters suggests something more uncomfortable too: The idea of Hispanic-ness, Latinidad, is likely to change quickly in the next two decades. Rates of interracial marriage continue to remain high; the role of Spanish continues to decline; US-born Latinos are driving the growth of this part of the population; and ideological sorting within this part of the electorate appears to be increasing. That suggests to political parties, and those seeking power, that they cant rest easy thinking alignments or realignments will stick around forever. But it also means Latinoness stands to lose its distinctiveness in the near future.Youve read 1 article in the last monthHere at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change.We rely on readers like you join us.Swati SharmaVox Editor-in-ChiefSee More: