Take-Two's Strauss Zelnick on game prices, Civilization 7's launch and Switch 2 "This is our broadest, most robust support ever for a Nintendo launch, so clearly we believe" Feature by Samuel Roberts Editorial Director Published on May 16, 2025 Following an FY25 that landed at the upper end of guidance, Take-Two Interactive has entered FY26 with GTA 6 having shifted out of it. Take-Two CEO and chairman Strauss Zelnick caught up with GamesIndustry.biz on the year ahead, including game pricing, Borderlands 4, and Civilization 7's post-launch. The interview below has been edited for brevity and clarity. 2K has a number of Switch 2 ports on the way. What do you see as the opportunity with that console for both new releases and catalogue titles? We feel very good about it. We're supporting Nintendo's Switch 2 at launch with four titles. This is our broadest, most robust support ever for a Nintendo launch, so clearly we believe. What was the strategy behind announcing the GTA 6 release date as early as you did? Our labels will typically announce dates when they believe that's the date they're going to deliver the product, and it meets within a marketing window, [so] all the stars essentially align. But that's always resided with our labels. Civilization 7 got a mixed community response at launch, but the results note that updates are ongoing and a long sales cycle is expected, as with previous entries. Can you talk about how you see the journey of that game playing out? I think you actually captured it pretty well. We definitely had some challenges at launch. Every time we've come out with a new platform iteration of Civilization, there's been some consternation on the part of consumers who love the franchise and are beholden to its prior iteration. Then, we will occasionally do updates, make changes, address concerns, and the sales cycle ends up being very long, and people – once again – fall in love with it. I see that happening right now. We've addressed some of the initial changes, we probably have a bit more work to do, but sales are strong and we're really happy with how it's going – and I think in the fullness of time, it'll be just great. I was wondering if you could talk about game pricing and the decision to make Mafia: The Old Country a $50 product. What was the strategy there, and what are your thoughts about where pricing is at more generally? We've always had variable pricing here, and our job as an entertainment [company] seeking to bring the biggest and best hits to all consumers around the world is always to deliver more value than what we charge. Always. We think Mafia: The Old Country is absolutely extraordinary – it looks just great. We wanted to get it into as many hands as possible. This was one way to do it. Our job is not to turn a consumer upside down, shake them, and see how much change comes out of their pockets. Our job is to create the very best entertainment. If we do that, the revenue will take care of itself. Image credit: Take-Two Interactive What about the upper end of premium game pricing? Obviously we've seen Nintendo and Xbox increase pricing on their side – what do you make of the response to that, and where do you see Take-Two going with future premium game pricing? Look, undoubtedly on a real basis, that is to say adjusted for inflation, topline pricing has been coming down for years. Probably two decades. Which is to say, on an inflation-adjusted basis, every year topline pricing has been further and further discounted. Consumers look at their entertainment through a lens of, 'how much time am I going to spend with this, and how much am I going to like it?' The more time they spend, and the more they're going to like it, the more value is being delivered to those consumers. Again, our job is to maximise the value being delivered, and then offer that value at a meaningfully reduced cost, so that the experience of consumption is optimised across both how it feels when you're actually playing our games, as well as how it feels when you're paying your credit card bill. That's our job. I do think that the value that is offered is massive and growing, and that is our job. Borderlands 4 has huge Steam wishlist numbers. What's kept that franchise so evergreen over almost two decades now? Randy Pitchford and the team at Gearbox do amazing work. It is a phenomenal property, and I think the most recent trailer shows that no matter what you think, Gearbox has always been a step ahead of you. They capture that tone. They're not slavishly devoted to what came before. What came before informs what they do, and then they [ask], 'how do we take this to the next level?' Or the next planet, as the case may be. It was a great year for Zynga. What's the key to that level of performance in such a competitive market? I'm so proud of what the team at Zynga has been able to accomplish, because really, Zynga is the only mobile company out there that's generating multiple new hits in the marketplace. We have Match Factory, which is now profitable, we have Color Block Jam which has been enormously successful in a short period of time. Toon Blast, which is a legacy title that's booming. We have Empires & Puzzles which is a huge title that's stabilised, and is now poised for growth. What's special? Honestly? Take-Two aims to have among our colleagues the very most talented people in the business, on the creative side, and on the executive side. It's self-serving, but I believe that's the case. Match Factory comes to us from Peak, Color Block Jam comes to us from Rollic. These studios are phenomenal, led by phenomenally talented people. In the results, you mentioned the massive success of GTA 6's second trailer. In the short term, what kind of effect has that had on the existing Rockstar catalogue of titles? In the quarter we just announced, GTA Online and Red Dead Online both did better than expectations. As for the trailer, it generated 475 million views in the first 24 hours, setting a record. So I think we're in a pretty good place. What's exciting you about the year ahead? We have a great release schedule coming up, I'm really looking forward to Mafia: The Old Country, Borderlands 4, both of which we've discussed. We've a lot of other great releases coming, of course our annualised titles WWE and NBA. Across the board, there's a lot of very exciting titles coming. We have our live-ops titles we just discussed. Zynga has new releases coming. It's always hard to say what a mobile title will do, but I feel really good about a number of those titles. And we have our catalogue. This company has the opportunity to perform all of its various divisions, all of its various business channels, and our recent results reflect the fact that we're doing so.

Should you care about the suffering of bugs? For most people, it’s a laughable question. But for those who really, really care about animal welfare, there’s a certain intellectual journey that might lead them to take it seriously. It goes something like this: First, they learn that the vast majority of the 84 billion birds and mammals raised for food are kept on factory farms, where animals are routinely mutilated and intensively confined. They become passionate advocates for these neglected and abused creatures. Then they learn that over 90 percent of those land animals are poultry birds — chickens and turkeys raised for meat, and hens raised for eggs — who are treated worse than pigs and cows, and have even fewer legal protections. They become, more or less, advocates for chickens. But then they might learn that fish and shrimp are farmed (or caught from the ocean) on an even greater scale — trillions annually compared to a measly 76 billion chickens. If their compassion for animals extends equally to marine life, they might come to advocate primarily for these sea creatures. Go even further, and they’ll discover the emerging industry of insect farming, which works much like chicken, pig, or fish factory farming, with the aim of producing as many animals as possible as cheaply as possible. On these insect factory farms, vast numbers of bugs are confined in trays or other containers until, at several weeks old, they’re frozen, cooked, shredded, or suffocated alive. Most are then sold as feed for farmed fish, poultry, and pigs, as food for pets, or to a lesser degree, direct human consumption. For the animal advocates who take this journey and wind up at the bottom of this animal suffering rabbit hole, a new report from the research organization Rethink Priorities will be pure nightmare fuel. According to the group, humanity is on track to farm and kill nearly 6 trillion animals annually by 2033, a near-quadrupling from 2023. And almost all of the growth in animal farming will come from tiny animals: shrimp, fish, and most of all, two insect species (mealworms and black soldier fly larvae). While humans farm and slaughter an astonishing 3 billion pigs, sheep, goats, and cattle each year, these animals are so dwarfed in numbers by farmed chicken, fish, and bugs that Rethink Priorities didn’t even include them in its calculation, nor did it include the 1 to 2 trillion wild fish scooped out of the ocean every year. The forecast starkly illustrates how a transformation in global agriculture patterns have ratcheted up animal suffering to mind-boggling proportions. The reason is that we’re increasingly eating really small animals. In the 1990s, chicken overtook beef as America’s meat of choice, and US chicken consumption continues to climb every year. And it takes about 127 chickens to produce the same amount of meat as one cow, because cows are enormous, while chickens weigh only about 6 pounds at slaughter. So, as Americans shifted toward eating animal species that are smaller in size, the total number of animals raised on US factory farms shot up. The same logic applies to an even greater extent to fish and shrimp — you’d have to kill about 28,500 shrimps to get the same amount of meat as you would from one cow. These animals are being farmed and eaten in increasingly massive numbers around the world, with both fish and shrimp typically confined in crowded, disease-ridden ponds or tanks that animal advocates liken to underwater factory farms. The world now eats more fish from these farms than from the ocean. Even worse, small animals, like chickens, fish, insects, and shrimp, tend to be treated worse and have fewer protections than larger animals like pigs and cattle.Concern for the welfare of insects — and even fish and shrimp — might bemuse or even offend many people. Humans already kill untold numbers of bugs annually by simply going about our daily business — driving, walking, exterminating ant infestations from our homes, and spraying pesticides on our crops. Americans eat tens of billions of individual shrimps each year with virtually no worry that they might feel pain. While farmed chickens and pigs have received the sympathetic Hollywood treatment, like the Chicken Run movies, Charlotte’s Web, and Okja, similar films about shrimp or mealworms don’t seem to be in the offing. But Rethink Priorities, along with a growing chorus of scientists and philosophers, believe that invertebrates like shrimp and insects could be sentient, meaning they possess the capacity for pain, pleasure, and other sensations. They’re not arguing that these animals are equivalent to a chicken, cow, or human, but that they may be worth some moral consideration given emerging research on their potential for sentience and the massive scale on which they’re farmed.History has long shown us that today’s laughable moral concern could be tomorrow’s tragedy. That could be the case for these tiny, unfamiliar, uncharismatic animals the more we come to understand who they are and what they might be capable of feeling. What can a shrimp or an insect feel?There had long been relatively little research into whether invertebrates like shrimp and insects are sentient, but that’s begun to change in recent years.“Evidence is building that there’s a form of sentience there in insects,” Jonathan Birch, a philosopher at the London School of Economics who leads the Foundations of Animal Sentience project at the university, told me. Historically, this line of inquiry has focused on bees, he said, who have demonstrated signs of sentience by engaging in wound-tending behavior, complex decision-making in weighing pain versus pleasure, and even play. Some research has shown that fruit flies may have the capacity to feel pain and enjoy play.According to Birch and several of his colleagues, adult flies and mosquitoes, along with cockroaches and termites, satisfy six of eight key criteria for sentience, while several other orders satisfy three to four. He’s now collaborating with researchers to study pain indicators in black soldier fly larvae and crickets.What little research has looked at shrimp sentience has found mixed results, and much of it has been conducted on Caridean shrimp, not penaeid shrimp, the group that’s most commonly farmed (shrimp are not a single species, but a massive category comprising more than 2,000 known species across several taxonomic groups).Fish thrash inside a tightening net on a fish farm. Havva Zorlu/We AnimalsSome research has shown that shrimp have nociceptors, sensory neurons that detect and respond to potentially harmful stimuli — an important indicator of sentience — but their efforts to avoid threats could be merely reflexive. In one study, shrimp engaged in wound-tending behavior when researchers poured acid onto their antennae, but when they treated it with an anesthetic, the shrimp increased that behavior. This suggests they may not feel pain the way other animals do because the pain relief should have caused them to reduce wound tending.But Birch believes there is strong evidence of sentience in another crustacean species: the crab.Despite our limited understanding of invertebrates’ capacity for pain, our understanding of other animals’ capacities can quickly evolve. Just a couple of decades ago, it was largely thought that fish (which are not invertebrates) couldn’t feel pain, but scientific consensus has significantly shifted toward the belief that they can — and that they could experience many other physical and mental states. Given everything humans have learned about animals’ capacities in recent decades, there’s a strong argument to be made in favor of assuming that other animals are sentient unless proved otherwise, rather than assuming that they aren’t as the starting point.And if shrimp and insects are sentient, it would exacerbate an already emergency situation for global animal welfare, raising the number of farmed sentient animals by well over a trillion creatures today, and potentially many trillions in the decade ahead. The proposition to include these animals in humanity’s moral circle can lead some, Birch said, to throw up their hands in exasperation. “We lack ethical frameworks that tell us how to think about them, but to me, that’s not an excuse for ignoring the issue,” Birch said. “I think people sometimes imagine, well, if the sentient world is so vast — if all ways of feeding ourselves cause harm — then there can’t be any ethical constraints. And I think that’s entirely wrong. I think we do need to take the harm seriously, and think about what we might do to conduct ourselves more ethically.”A question of strategyMost people who advocate for factory-farmed animals focus on pigs, cows, chickens, and turkeys. Only the most quantitatively minded number-crunchers, like Birch and the folks at Rethink Priorities, look at the data and focus on fish, shrimp, and insects.Some in the animal advocacy movement might consider this expansion of moral concern — especially for insects — a major strategic error, one that will make an already fringe movement seem even more strange and scolding. It’s something, if I’m being honest, I’ve felt myself. A worker disinfects crickets’ watering trays in the final grow room at Entomo Farms in Ontario, Canada. James MacDonald/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesBut the general public might be more open to having some ethical consideration for these animals than we might think. Hannah McKay, a research analyst at Rethink Priorities who co-authored the new report, pointed me to recent surveys from the UK and Brazil in which a majority of participants said that they believed that shrimp can feel pain. In the UK and the Netherlands, food companies are phasing out particularly cruel practices in their shrimp supply chains, “even in the absence of high public pressure,” McKay said. Last month, a post about eyestalk ablation — the common, disturbing practice of tearing out female shrimp’s eyes to make them breed faster — made it to the front page of Reddit, whose users were overwhelmingly horrified by it.In 2022, the UK passed the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act, which included decapod crustaceans (shrimp, lobsters, crabs, and crayfish) among the animals that should be considered sentient, in large part on the advice of Birch and colleagues.The aim of Rethink Priorities, Birch, and their ilk isn’t necessarily to start a campaign for worldwide shrimp and insect liberation, but rather to, at the very least, secure some minimum welfare standards.Many animal advocates today wish that their predecessors in the 1950s, who were more focused on the welfare of pets, had devoted more attention to cows, pigs, and chickens. Instead, the quiet rise of factory farming in mid-20th-century America went largely unchallenged, and has now led to the confinement, abuse, and slaughter of tens of billions of mammals and birds each year. Sagar Shah, a senior researcher at Rethink Priorities who co-authored the report with McKay, feels the same way about fish and shrimp farming, telling me that if he could turn the clock back 30 years to when these industries were relatively small, he would’ve pushed for “more resources into thinking about these questions: Are [fish and shrimp] sentient? What does good welfare mean for these animals if we’re going to use them?”“Collectively, we missed the boat a bit, and we’ve already got a huge scale of farming for fish and shrimp, and we’re catching up now,” Shah said. “But for insects, the industry is in its infancy, and that means we’ve got an opportunity to figure out what good welfare means and shape the growth of the industry.” It’s a cause that few animal advocates are willing to dedicate themselves to, and it may not win them many allies anytime soon. But that doesn’t deter Shah, who says “that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.” You’ve 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. 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Founded in 2008 in Madrid, Bertone Studio is powered by the creativity of Eduardo Bertone and Michiyo Sato. Their collaboration has led to the studio's unique illustration and animation style, which has been labelled psychedelic folk art but really entails so much more. Stunning in terms of both colour and detail, the looping animations Michiyo and Eduardo create aren't just loopy – the work is a labour of love, the result of a dedication to the craft of animation. Every frame and every detail is carefully considered and drawn by hand, and the results are dazzling. Whether it's a self-initiated project released on social media or animation created for a major commercial campaign, the animation doesn't get much more mesmerising. Triumph of Colour over Darkness Juxtaposed Nature Giant Robots "Working frame-by-frame is time-consuming and requires much effort, but I enjoy every second," says Eduardo. "The same goes for the complex artworks I create, occasionally leading to horror vacui. Nonetheless, I believe this kind of artwork possesses a beauty that only arises when it is handmade." Eduardo and Michiyo are a couple as well as artistic collaborators. Originally from Argentina, Eduardo's background is in graphic design, though he was drawn to illustration in the early 2000s. Meanwhile, Michiyo came to Madrid after completing her Fine Arts degree in Kyoto and began with internships with design studios but felt more comfortable with her illustrative work. Complementing Eduardo's obsession with detail, Michiyo oversees the creative direction of each project they tackle. Mobile Vikings artwork in Brussels. Artwork created for McDonald's. "We both enjoy blending elements from different worlds, attempting to establish a feeling of unity when we combine them. From Japanese ukiyo-e (浮世絵) to pre-colonial Argentinian culture, as well as manga, anime, cartoons, and spontaneous doodles with realism, this approach adds dynamism to the artwork. It takes you on a journey through different times and places." When tackling a creative brief for a major brand – McDonalds, Honda or Adidas, for example – Bertone Studio aims to create something genuinely unique. The eclectic style, wild ideas, and diverse range of influences lead to projects their clients would never have imagined, sometimes pushing the boundaries of what global brands might feel comfortable with. Many of their works challenge our perception of beauty with the Japanese busa Kawai (ブサ可愛い) coming to the fore – 'ugly yet cute'. Nintendo animation. Hyakki Yagyo Osaka Of course, there is overlap when it comes to inspiration, but the psychedelic aspects tend to come from Eduardo, who is interested in altered states of mind, psychedelic art and Art Brut. He sees them as areas untouched by globalisation or prejudice. Meanwhile, Michiyo appreciates the authenticity of folk art. "It doesn't aspire to penetrate the art market, which can sometimes be arrogant," she explains. "Folk art is modest and authentic, rooted in distinctive histories and traditions. It varies from nation to nation, and you can find numerous fresh perspectives on the world via folk art, which expand the boundaries of your creative mind." At a time when many feel tempted to generate animation using AI and other digital procedures, Bertone Studio remains devoted to creating by hand and ensuring the results are fresh and different each time. "I'm not opposed to technological advancement, and I value artists who utilise innovative methods for self-expression," says Eduardo. "Still, I love spending hours and hours drawing and animating. I love the whole process, and I don't want to miss that, so I don't see the point in using AI to do that for me."

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning carries the weight of a meaningful farewell but lacks the courage to commit. The eighth film in the series begins with a sincere American president (Angela Bassett) entreating IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) to take one last mission to save the world. This time, he must defeat a scheming AI called the Entity, which is hell-bent on wiping humans off the face of the earth through computer hacking and nuclear war. As fans have come to expect of this espionage franchise, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning will deliver globe-trekking, tense twists, jaw-dropping action sequences that make grown-ups feel like kids again, the unrelenting star power of Tom Cruise, and a sentimental belief in the righteousness of one noble man playing by his own rules. But amid these treasures, The Final Reckoning is a film at war with itself. Rather than a fitting send-off to a film series rich in stunts and thrills, it feels like an exquisite corpse of warring artistic goals that is incredible to behold, but never really comes together. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning delivers a plot that refuses to make sense. Ethan is still on the mission from Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One.not to capture this AI wonder and hand it over to any government. He wants to destroy it, even though stern American counselors to the president insist that killing the Entity would mean destroying cyberspace. How? Despite much, much exposition dropping in brow-furrowing war room scenes, that's never remotely clear. You May Also Like Actually, the script by Christopher McQuarrie (who also directs) and Erik Jendresen makes a lot of declarations about the Entity's intentions, powers, and drawbacks without giving much sense of how any of it is possible. This has the effect of making the movie feel less like a sci-fi espionage thriller and more like flat-out fantasy adventure. The Entity becomes effectively an evil spirit that must be captured to end its reign of terror and its influence on the power-hungry or weak-minded. Final Reckoning even offers a doomsday cult devoted to the Entity to unfurl a thin thread. At 2 hours and 49 minutes, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning takes off running with the plot line from Dead Reckoning, but runs it into the ground by losing sense of what made audiences so excited about the last installment. This fuzzy focus on AI as some vague but almost inescapable demon makes many of the decisions by Ethan and his crew hard to follow if not impossible. Worse yet, McQuarrie and Jendresen's overstuffed plot forces too many of Ethan's allies into a dull box, where they become tools of the plot over engaging characters. Tom Cruise is in top form, but Hayley Atwell is criminally misused in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. Cruise is a producer and star of this movie, and that's clear even without the title card announcing "A Tom Cruise Production." In Final Reckoning, he is an American action star in full, able to drop a powerful glower to underscore a dramatic moment better than any orchestra swell. He can perform a complicated and astonishing stunt with seeming ease. And truly, no one in cinema history can run as intensely as Cruise; his every speedy step seems to propel the iconic Mission: Impossible theme. At 62, his latest mission pulls him into the depths of the ocean and into a sky-high dogfight. Whether pummeling cronies with his bare hands or leaping from one in-flight plane to another, Cruise (and his stunt team) make Ethan a one-of-a-kind hero, capable of anything, yet able to express keenly his own morality through a powerful glance. This works even amid Final Reckoning's meandering plotting. Unfortunately, all the Ethan-centered heroics leave little room for his expansive crew to shine. Reprising their roles as IMF agents Luther Stickell and Benji Dunn, Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg have little screen time, but solid impact. They've mastered the art of making the most of these brotherly supporting roles. But more recent additions — like Hayley Atwell as pickpocket turned agent Grace and Pom Klementieff as assassin turned ally Paris — have achingly little to do. Mashable Top Stories Stay connected with the hottest stories of the day and the latest entertainment news. Sign up for Mashable's Top Stories newsletter By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up! Klementieff gets a fun opening fight scene and a tender sequence in the third act. But frankly, that finale feels in conflict with her chilly character, as everywhere in between her dialogue is the same one-note joke of being apathetic, in French. Atwell, who was established as Cruise's next love interest in Dead Reckoning, becomes an unrecognizable nag in Final Reckoning. Her spirited banter and self-assurance has been swapped for tedious dialogue filled with worry or bizarrely out-of-character proclamations, like that Ethan should take over Entity and effectively rule the world! A collection of critically heralded actors, from Academy-Award winner Bassett to Emmy-winner Nick Offerman to Morales, Hannah Waddingham, Shea Whigham, and Janet McTeer, are similarly underused in scenes that involve a lot of furrowed brow-talking, but too little logic. Their intensity might have better sold the absurdity if McQuarrie didn't linger so long in these preposterous war room discussions. Tramell Tillman steals Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. The underwhelming dialogue, which veers from exposition dumping to near-religious proclamations, proves a stumbling block for much of the Final Reckoning ensemble. Even Cruise struggles with comically dramatic lines like, "We can deceive the Lord of Lies!" But Severance star Tramell Tillman strides where others stumble. It's not that he gets better dialogue. Many of his lines are unremarkable, like, "Oh, OK" in response to some intense Ethan declaration. But Tillman builds a world with his curious delivery. Playing a smooth submarine captain, Tillman delivers every line as if he is welcoming Ethan into an exclusive resort. There's an almost seductive attitude to Tillman's captain, who moves suavely in the tight confines of the submarine and addresses his crew with a magnanimous warmth. As if he had not a concern in the world, he oozes charisma, which is reflected by his invitingly smirking crewmate Kodiak, played by Love Lies Bleeding's Katy O'Brian. Together they weave an underwater world of camaraderie and personality that had me wishing Ethan would abandon his mission and just hang out there for a spell. This series has offered scads of compelling characters. But I was sad to see the plot plunge away from this submarine crew so soon. I'd follow Tillman's captain anywhere, just because of the beguiling way he says "OK." Related Stories Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is bloated but very fun. The final hour of Final Reckoning is jam-packed with suspense as action sequences between Ethan and his crew are cut across each other. Editor Eddie Hamilton masterfully creates tension while underlying how everything in the impossible plan to defeat the Entity must come together in "the blink of an eye." When the action scenes are hitting as they should, it's hard to imagine anything better to experience in a theater than a Mission: Impossible movie. Even Cruise's old-school sincerity is contagious, as Ethan throws his life on the line one more time for life, liberty, and an idealized American way. Very likely, you'll walk out of the cinema with a rush and joy, marveling over the stunts and heroics. But if you linger on the details of Final Reckoning, you begin to notice plot holes and dangling threads. You may get hung up on the tonal shifts that feel less like a flowing dance — as they did in Dead Reckoning — and more like a frenzied battle between ideas. In some ways, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning feels like the final chapter. Ethan's colleagues praise him so intensely that several scenes feel like a premature eulogy for the still (ass-)kicking agent. The title and the snarling threats of the antagonist Gabriel — who promises a "final reckoning" — suggest this is Ethan's last mission, should he choose to accept it. Cruise's drive to top himself with not one but two absolutely bonkers action set pieces feels like an encore before he retires the character for good. Plus, a reprisal of a character long forgotten in the franchise is not only a welcome surprise, but also suggests this story is coming to a comforting close. (Cheers to Rolf Saxon and Lucy Tulugarjuk, who are splendid scene partners.) However, McQuarrie also refuses to shut doors that seem to be closing. Without giving away third-act spoilers, I can say Final Reckoning pulls its punches, seemingly to allow for a IMF story to continue. Yet what might make for a happy ending isn't satisfyingly resolved either. Rather than providing a sense of resolution, McQuarrie ends the film with a sequence meant to speak to enduring connection, but it feels jarringly isolating because of how disjointedly it is presented. Essentially, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning feels like the filmmakers were both trying to make this the final movie in a successful franchise — and also leaving the door open for more. In waffling over that, they deliver a final chapter that is in turns thrilling and frustrating. Rather than going out with a bang, Mission: Impossible may go out with the fizzled whimper of a message self-destructing in a tape deck. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning opens exclusively in theaters on May 23. Topics Film

Carrie Pallardy, Contributing ReporterMay 14, 20255 Min ReadWavebreakmedia Ltd IFE-240918 via Alamy StockJoel Klein, MD, senior vice president and CIO of University of Maryland Medical System, did not start his career in IT. He practiced as an emergency medicine physician, thriving in that chaotic and demanding environment. In the early days of electronic medical record systems, he started looking for ways to leverage data to understand performance in his hospital group. When it came time to upgrade the health system’s EMR systems, he was tapped to lead that process.  “That’s really what started accelerating that part of my career, and from there it was just one thing leading to another, and I became our CIO. I’ll have finished six years in July,” Klein shares.  He started his career in emergency medicine at North Arundel Hospital in Maryland. In 2000, that hospital joined the University of Maryland Medical System. Today, that system has 11 hospitals. As CIO, Klein has a team of 800 people, plus consultants.  He tells InformationWeek about the early days of his career, navigating the fallout of a third-party ransomware attack during COVID, and the satisfaction of being able to deliver impactful IT solutions.  From Emergency Medicine to IT Klein discovered a passion for medicine in college. He worked a series of work study jobs, one of which happened to be as a student athletic trainer. “That was my first exposure to really taking care of people,” he recalls. Related:He found his fit in emergency medicine. As he started to take on more IT responsibilities while still practicing, Klein felt himself pulled in two different directions.  “At first when I became the CIO, I didn’t want to stop seeing patients. I had done all this training. and I liked working in the ER,” he explains. Joel Klein, MDSo, he would split shifts in the ER with his colleagues. He started his day seeing patients at 5 a.m. and then went on to begin his day as CIO at 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. He worked like that through the initial years of COVID, seeing patients into 2022. But that split became unsustainable. He has a family, and the physical demands of being an ER doctor became hard to ignore.  He envisions the rest of his career in IT, but he sees ways in which his experiences in medicine and IT complement each other.  “I really don't think they’re different roles at all,” says Klein. “It’s huge variety from meeting to meeting or patient to patient. It’s the kind of variety that some people would call whiplash where you have to quickly code switch from issue to issue or stakeholder to stakeholder very, very quickly. But I’ve always loved that.” Related:A Day in the Life  Klein is still an early riser. He starts his day around 4 a.m., reading the news and catching up on email. By 7 a.m., he might be on the phone with the health system’s compliance team or its CTO. After that, he’s in the car heading to one of the system’s hospitals. Throughout the day, he will be talking to plenty of different people and teams who make a hospital run: the head of the OR, other executives, other IT workers, lab leaders.  “There are so many different walks of life and experts and professionals and therapists and clinicians and business folks in a healthcare organization, and you're responsible for their ability to do their job,” says Klein. CIOs in any industry need to be able to understand the needs of different positions and their workflows, but this can be particularly challenging in health care given the complexity and diversity of roles. “Add on the fact that you’ve got a lot of really opinionated people; doctors and nurses are not known for being shy about telling you what they think and what they need,” says Klein. “Sometimes that’s great because when you can deliver what they want, it’s really gratifying. But sometimes it feels like they’re asking for magic, and you can’t always do that given all the constraints.” Related:Resource constraints are a constant challenge, especially in an industry that is still working through the aftermath of a pandemic.  Navigating a Major Incident  Not every day for a CIO is typical. There are days, and weeks, devoted to handling the unexpected.  In December 2021, Ultimate Kronos Group was hit with a ransomware attack, impacting its customers’ payroll, staff attendance, and timekeeping capabilities.  “So, we had to stand up a way of tracking time: clock in, clock out time for 30,000 employees during the holidays, during COVID,” says Klein.  That ordeal stretched out over six weeks, a total of three pay periods. Within two weeks, IT was able to get a backup time and attendance system in place, Dr. Klein shares.  “[It meant] standing up a whole new piece of infrastructure and connecting it to the thousands of [time and attendance] clocks that we have all over Maryland,” he says. “Then, we had to convert everything back over after the third pay period when our systems came back online.” The Best Part of the Job  Much of a CIO’s role is invisible to other people in the organization. That is until something goes wrong. But there are some opportunities to bring new developments into the hospital that make it easier for people to do their jobs.  Right now, Klein’s team devoted to new technology is working on a project to place video screens in operating rooms. The screens display information on patients, current procedures, and other case details. “It’s the scoreboard and the current status of the case,” says Klein. “It can be incredibly helpful to orient people back to these fundamental safety attributes to the case you're doing. So, the feedback that we've gotten from our surgical team on that has been fantastic.” The team is currently figuring out how to bring this technology to the hundreds of operating rooms across the health system.  “You hear a need, and you engineer something, and you deliver something that just nails the need and that just makes my day when that happens,” he says.  About the AuthorCarrie PallardyContributing ReporterCarrie Pallardy is a freelance writer and editor living in Chicago. She writes and edits in a variety of industries including cybersecurity, healthcare, and personal finance.See more from Carrie PallardyWebinarsMore WebinarsReportsMore ReportsNever Miss a Beat: Get a snapshot of the issues affecting the IT industry straight to your inbox.SIGN-UPYou May Also Like

Carrie Pallardy, Contributing ReporterMay 14, 20255 Min ReadWavebreakmedia Ltd IFE-240918 via Alamy StockJoel Klein, MD, senior vice president and CIO of University of Maryland Medical System, did not start his career in IT. He practiced as an emergency medicine physician, thriving in that chaotic and demanding environment. In the early days of electronic medical record systems, he started looking for ways to leverage data to understand performance in his hospital group. When it came time to upgrade the health system’s EMR systems, he was tapped to lead that process.  “That’s really what started accelerating that part of my career, and from there it was just one thing leading to another, and I became our CIO. I’ll have finished six years in July,” Klein shares.  He started his career in emergency medicine at North Arundel Hospital in Maryland. In 2000, that hospital joined the University of Maryland Medical System. Today, that system has 11 hospitals. As CIO, Klein has a team of 800 people, plus consultants.  He tells InformationWeek about the early days of his career, navigating the fallout of a third-party ransomware attack during COVID, and the satisfaction of being able to deliver impactful IT solutions.  From Emergency Medicine to IT Klein discovered a passion for medicine in college. He worked a series of work study jobs, one of which happened to be as a student athletic trainer. “That was my first exposure to really taking care of people,” he recalls. Related:He found his fit in emergency medicine. As he started to take on more IT responsibilities while still practicing, Klein felt himself pulled in two different directions.  “At first when I became the CIO, I didn’t want to stop seeing patients. I had done all this training. and I liked working in the ER,” he explains. Joel Klein, MDSo, he would split shifts in the ER with his colleagues. He started his day seeing patients at 5 a.m. and then went on to begin his day as CIO at 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. He worked like that through the initial years of COVID, seeing patients into 2022. But that split became unsustainable. He has a family, and the physical demands of being an ER doctor became hard to ignore.  He envisions the rest of his career in IT, but he sees ways in which his experiences in medicine and IT complement each other.  “I really don't think they’re different roles at all,” says Klein. “It’s huge variety from meeting to meeting or patient to patient. It’s the kind of variety that some people would call whiplash where you have to quickly code switch from issue to issue or stakeholder to stakeholder very, very quickly. But I’ve always loved that.” Related:A Day in the Life  Klein is still an early riser. He starts his day around 4 a.m., reading the news and catching up on email. By 7 a.m., he might be on the phone with the health system’s compliance team or its CTO. After that, he’s in the car heading to one of the system’s hospitals. Throughout the day, he will be talking to plenty of different people and teams who make a hospital run: the head of the OR, other executives, other IT workers, lab leaders.  “There are so many different walks of life and experts and professionals and therapists and clinicians and business folks in a healthcare organization, and you're responsible for their ability to do their job,” says Klein. CIOs in any industry need to be able to understand the needs of different positions and their workflows, but this can be particularly challenging in health care given the complexity and diversity of roles. “Add on the fact that you’ve got a lot of really opinionated people; doctors and nurses are not known for being shy about telling you what they think and what they need,” says Klein. “Sometimes that’s great because when you can deliver what they want, it’s really gratifying. But sometimes it feels like they’re asking for magic, and you can’t always do that given all the constraints.” Related:Resource constraints are a constant challenge, especially in an industry that is still working through the aftermath of a pandemic.  Navigating a Major Incident  Not every day for a CIO is typical. There are days, and weeks, devoted to handling the unexpected.  In December 2021, Ultimate Kronos Group was hit with a ransomware attack, impacting its customers’ payroll, staff attendance, and timekeeping capabilities.  “So, we had to stand up a way of tracking time: clock in, clock out time for 30,000 employees during the holidays, during COVID,” says Klein.  That ordeal stretched out over six weeks, a total of three pay periods. Within two weeks, IT was able to get a backup time and attendance system in place, Dr. Klein shares.  “[It meant] standing up a whole new piece of infrastructure and connecting it to the thousands of [time and attendance] clocks that we have all over Maryland,” he says. “Then, we had to convert everything back over after the third pay period when our systems came back online.” The Best Part of the Job  Much of a CIO’s role is invisible to other people in the organization. That is until something goes wrong. But there are some opportunities to bring new developments into the hospital that make it easier for people to do their jobs.  Right now, Klein’s team devoted to new technology is working on a project to place video screens in operating rooms. The screens display information on patients, current procedures, and other case details. “It’s the scoreboard and the current status of the case,” says Klein. “It can be incredibly helpful to orient people back to these fundamental safety attributes to the case you're doing. So, the feedback that we've gotten from our surgical team on that has been fantastic.” The team is currently figuring out how to bring this technology to the hundreds of operating rooms across the health system.  “You hear a need, and you engineer something, and you deliver something that just nails the need and that just makes my day when that happens,” he says.  About the AuthorCarrie PallardyContributing ReporterCarrie Pallardy is a freelance writer and editor living in Chicago. She writes and edits in a variety of industries including cybersecurity, healthcare, and personal finance.See more from Carrie PallardyWebinarsMore WebinarsReportsMore ReportsNever Miss a Beat: Get a snapshot of the issues affecting the IT industry straight to your inbox.SIGN-UPYou May Also Like

Macworld Super-weird bugs in Messages are nothing new, but this latest one is a real head-scratcher: If you try to send an audio message with the phrase “Dave and Buster’s,” it won’t work. Why would that specific phrasing cause a problem? A coding expert has cracked the case. I won’t say “and the reason will shock you,” but if you’re anything like me, you’ll find it interesting. First, let me explain what happens when the bug triggers. At first, the audio message (“I’m off to eat lunch at Dave and Buster’s,” as an example) appears to send normally. It shows up in the Messages thread to the recipient, along with a transcript of the content. No problem is flagged. It’s at the recipient’s end that we spot the issue. Initially the recipient sees the ellipsis icon, indicating that something is being typed or sent… but this carries on, and carries on, and eventually disappears. And at this point there is no indication that anything has been sent at all: no message, no message transcript, no message failed notification. In fact, if the recipient didn’t happen to have the app open, or had it open but was in a different conversation thread, they never would have known something was supposed to be on the way. This bug is new to me, and the first time I heard about it was when it was discussed on Monday in the blog run by Guilherme Rambo, a coding and engineering expert. Rambo, in turn, heard about the bug on the Search Engine podcast, which devoted its May 9 episode to the subject. Rambo reproduced the bug, guessed the problem must be at the recipient end, then plugged that device into his Mac and started looking at logs. And from that point it doesn’t appear to have taken long for him to work out what was going on: iOS’s transcription engine was recognizing the name of the U.S. restaurant chain, changing it to the correct corporate branding (“Dave & Buster’s,” with an all-important ampersand), and then passing that into the XHTML code used to send a transcript with the audio message. The problem isn’t being caused by the words Dave and Buster’s, but by the ampersand character between them, which has a special purpose in coding and prevents the code from being parsed correctly. The phrase “Dave and Buster’s” doesn’t cause a problem in the U.K. because iOS doesn’t add an ampersand (or even an apostrophe).David Price / Foundry As you can see in the image at the top of this story, a seemingly successfully sent audio iMessage ending with the phrase “Dave & Buster’s” appears as sent but never actually appears on the recipient’s phone. After a while, the audio message disappeared from the sender’s phone, and the recipient was completely unaware that the message had ever been sent. With that in mind, it’s a short leap to recognize that other brands could cause the same issue—they just haven’t been spotted doing so up to now. Rambo notes that “M&Ms” will do the same thing. For U.K. iPhone owners, in fact, “Dave and Buster’s” doesn’t trigger the bug because that chain is evidently not well enough known here and doesn’t get its ampersand added by autocorrect. To reproduce the issue, I had to ask a friend to send me a message about the supermarket chain M&S. Sure enough, this caused the hanging ellipsis followed by an unsent message. At the time of writing, it seems almost certain that any phrase iOS would recognize as containing an ampersand would cause an audio message to fail, and when I put it like that, it’s surprising the bug hasn’t been more widely reported. But here’s what happens when a U.K. user tries to send a message about the supermarket chain M&S, complete with ampersand.Karen Haslam / Foundry On the plus side, one would imagine it’s a bug that should be easy to patch in an iOS update. The transcription feature in Messages simply needs to be told to “escape” special characters so they don’t mess up the parsing process. And as Rambo notes, this isn’t a bug with any security vulnerabilities; indeed, it shows Apple’s BlastDoor mechanism working correctly. “Many bad parsers would probably accept the incorrectly-formatted XHTML,” he writes, “but that sort of leniency when parsing data formats is often what ends up causing security issues. By being pedantic about the formatting, BlastDoor is protecting the recipient from an exploit that would abuse that type of issue.”