Researchers from the US-based University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass), in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of Mechanical Engineering, have applied cold spray to repair the deteriorating “Brown Bridge” in Great Barrington, built in 1949. The project marks the first known use of this method on bridge infrastructure and aims to evaluate its effectiveness as a faster, more cost-effective, and less disruptive alternative to conventional repair techniques. “Now that we’ve completed this proof-of-concept repair, we see a clear path to a solution that is much faster, less costly, easier, and less invasive,” said Simos Gerasimidis, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “To our knowledge, this is a first. Of course, there is some R&D that needs to be developed, but this is a huge milestone to that,” he added. The pilot project is also a collaboration with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT), the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MassTech), the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the Federal Highway Administration. It was supported by the Massachusetts Manufacturing Innovation Initiative, which provided essential equipment for the demonstration. Members of the UMass Amherst and MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering research team, led by Simos Gerasimidis (left, standing). Photo via UMass Amherst. Tackling America’s Bridge Crisis with Cold Spray Technology Nearly half of the bridges across the United States are in “fair” condition, while 6.8% are classified as “poor,” according to the 2025 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. In Massachusetts, about 9% of the state’s 5,295 bridges are considered structurally deficient. The costs of restoring this infrastructure are projected to exceed $190 billion—well beyond current funding levels.  The cold spray method consists of propelling metal powder particles at high velocity onto the beam’s surface. Successive applications build up additional layers, helping restore its thickness and structural integrity. This method has successfully been used to repair large structures such as submarines, airplanes, and ships, but this marks the first instance of its application to a bridge. One of cold spray’s key advantages is its ability to be deployed with minimal traffic disruption.  “Every time you do repairs on a bridge you have to block traffic, you have to make traffic controls for substantial amounts of time,” explained Gerasimidis. “This will allow us to [apply the technique] on this actual bridge while cars are going [across].” To enhance precision, the research team integrated 3D LiDAR scanning technology into the process. Unlike visual inspections, which can be subjective and time-consuming, LiDAR creates high-resolution digital models that pinpoint areas of corrosion. This allows teams to develop targeted repair plans and deposit materials only where needed—reducing waste and potentially extending a bridge’s lifespan. Next steps: Testing Cold-Sprayed Repairs The bridge is scheduled for demolition in the coming years. When that happens, researchers will retrieve the repaired sections for further analysis. They plan to assess the durability, corrosion resistance, and mechanical performance of the cold-sprayed steel in real-world conditions, comparing it to results from laboratory tests. “This is a tremendous collaboration where cutting-edge technology is brought to address a critical need for infrastructure in the commonwealth and across the United States,” said John Hart, Class of 1922 Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. “I think we’re just at the beginning of a digital transformation of bridge inspection, repair and maintenance, among many other important use cases.” 3D Printing for Infrastructure Repairs Beyond cold spray techniques, other innovative 3D printing methods are emerging to address construction repair challenges. For example, researchers at University College London (UCL) have developed an asphalt 3D printer specifically designed to repair road cracks and potholes. “The material properties of 3D printed asphalt are tunable, and combined with the flexibility and efficiency of the printing platform, this technique offers a compelling new design approach to the maintenance of infrastructure,” the UCL team explained. Similarly, in 2018, Cintec, a Wales-based international structural engineering firm, contributed to restoring the historic Government building known as the Red House in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. This project, managed by Cintec’s North American branch, marked the first use of additive manufacturing within sacrificial structures. It also featured the installation of what are claimed to be the longest reinforcement anchors ever inserted into a structure—measuring an impressive 36.52 meters. Join our Additive Manufacturing Advantage (AMAA) event on July 10th, where AM leaders from Aerospace, Space, and Defense come together to share mission-critical insights. Online and free to attend.Secure your spot now. Who won the2024 3D Printing Industry Awards? Subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry newsletterto keep up with the latest 3D printing news. You can also follow us onLinkedIn, and subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry Youtube channel to access more exclusive content. Featured image shows members of the UMass Amherst and MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering research team, led by Simos Gerasimidis (left, standing). Photo via UMass Amherst.

Image: NintendoNintendo mentioned how there were all sorts of surprises to discover in Mario Kart World and a week after the game's launch it looks like Totaka's Song has been discovered. As highlighted on social media and elsewhere online (via Nintendo Everything), you can hear Yoshi humming this Nintendo tune in the game's character menu. Here's a story and video shared over on the Mario Kart subreddit by the user 'charizardtelephone': "I was idling on the character select screen when I noticed Mario began humming after enough time passed. I thought, “Huh, they could totally hide hidden tunes like that.” Wait. Hidden music? In a Nintendo game? With Yoshi? It was too good to be true. But after a few seconds, lo and behold, yoshi begins humming Totaka’s song like the idle yoshis do in Mario Kart 8. Very cool Easter Egg. Not sure if anyone else has noticed it yet."When we tried this out ourselves, Yoshi started humming the same song just seconds later. It might also be a bit harder to hear depending on the music playing in the background. This famous song by the Japanese Nintendo composer Kazumi Totaka is often slipped into many of company's games. And if you're wondering why it's specifically Yoshi that hums this tune, it's because Totaka also happens to be Yoshi's voice actor, and once again voices the character in Mario Kart World. This Easter Egg has also popped up previously in Mario Kart 8 along with series like Animal Crossing and Zelda, and was inserted into titles such as Mario Paint back in the day. Have a listen Have you heard this tune in Mario Kart World yet? Let us know in the comments. [source nintendoeverything.com] Related Games See Also Share:0 0 Liam is a news writer and reviewer across Hookshot Media. He's been writing about games for more than 15 years and is a lifelong fan of many iconic video game characters. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment... Related Articles Mario Kart World: All Costume Unlocks & Complete Outfit List It's a fashion race Best Nintendo Switch 2 Cases To Carry And Protect Your Console Look after your Switch 2 in style

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 now shows you microtransaction ads when you swap weapons "Actively witnessing Call of Duty become the Krusty Krab." Image credit: Eurogamer / Activision / u/whambampl News by Vikki Blake Contributor Published on June 1, 2025 Eagle-eyed Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 players have spotted a new feature on the weapon selection menu. Right at the top there now sits advertisements promoting premium weapons and skins, so players get exposed to ads for microtransactions in-game. As some players point out, it's not an advert in the classic sense, and no one's trying to flog you a cheeseburger or a pair of jeans every time you swap a weapon. Nonetheless, it's a new and insidious addition that we haven't seen in Call of Duty games before. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Opening Scene and Gameplay (4K).Watch on YouTube "One of the unwelcome changes I’ve noticed with Season 4 is that they’ve now inserted a new ad spot at the top of the list of your weapon specifics builds," wrote one player. "So now every time you toggle between weapon builds you get to stare at ads for $20-$30 skins. I’m sure the Activision developer who suggested this terrible feature is very proud of themselves. "This change is especially unneeded because you could already toggle from Builds to Shop on any given weapon and apparently not being thrown directly in our faces didn’t make them enough money. Many of us payed [sic] $60-$100 for a feature game and don’t want to be bombarded with additional ads." "Actively witnessing Call of Duty become [SpongeBob SquarePants'] the Krusty Krab," replied another. Season 4 brings new ad spot in game for weapons byu/whambampl inblackops6 To see this content please enable targeting cookies. "Well guys looks like COD can suck a fat one," replied someone else. "This ad mess is ridiculous. They make huge bank already for them to even do this should be illegal. I've never been done with a COD this fast ever. But she's getting deleted. You can't scrounge people for money and not have a decent game. I'm not asking for a great game, just not a buggy game." In a separate thread that's been upvoted almost a thousand times, one player opined: "I wouldn't even be mad if this was just in warzone, a free game, but putting it in a pay-to-play premium title, with how expensive they're getting?" "Agree 100%, it really feels like one of those free cell phone games from a tiny indie studio begging you for money at every turn. Pathetic for a full price, stand alone game from a huge developer," replied another. Earlier this year, in a update shared on social media, developer Treyarch said it recognised cheaters "are frustrating and severely impact the experience for our community" but insisted it was addressing the issue, and will continue to do so "throughout 2025". At the same time, it confirmed 136,000 ranked play accounts were banned for cheating across both Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Warzone.

Intrauterine devices, or IUDs, are an extremely effective and convenient form of birth control for many people—but it can also very painful to get one inserted. Current medical guidelines say that your doctor should be discussing pain management with you, and they also give advice to doctors on what methods tend to work best for most people. The newest set of guidelines is from ACOG, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. These guidelines actually cover a variety of procedures, including endometrial and cervical biopsies, but today I'll be talking about the IUD insertion portions. And in 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's released new contraceptive recommendations that include a section on how and why providers should help you with pain relief. Before we get into the new recommendations and what they say, it’s important to keep in mind that that not everybody feels severe pain with insertion—the estimate is that insertion is severely painful for 50% of people who haven't given birth, and only 10% of people who have, according to Rachel Flink, the OB-GYN I spoke with for my article on what to expect when you get an IUD. (She also gave me a great rundown of pain management options and their pros and cons, which I included in the article.)  I’m making sure to point this out because I’ve met people who are terrified at the thought of getting an IUD, because they think that severe pain is guaranteed and that doctors are lying if they say otherwise. In reality, there’s a whole spectrum of possible experiences, and both you and your provider should be informed and prepared for anything along that spectrum.Your provider should discuss pain management with youThe biggest thing in both sets of guidelines is not just the pain management options they discuss, but the guideline that says there is a place for this discussion and that it is important! You’ve always been able to ask about pain management, but providers are now expected to know that they need to discuss this with their patients. The ACOG guidelines say: "Options to manage pain should be discussed with and offered to all patients seeking in-office gynecologic procedures." And the CDC says: Before IUD placement, all patients should be counseled on potential pain during placement as well as the risks, benefits, and alternatives of different options for pain management. A person-centered plan for IUD placement and pain management should be made based on patient preference.“Person-centered” means that the plan should take into account what you want and need, not just what the provider is used to doing or thinks will be easiest. (This has sometimes been called “patient-centered” care, but “person-centered” is meant to convey that you and your provider understand that they are treating a whole person, with concerns outside of just their health, and you’re not only a patient who exists in a medical context.) The CDC guidelines also say: “When considering patient pain, it is important to recognize that the experience of pain is individualized and might be influenced by previous experiences including trauma and mental health conditions, such as depression or anxiety.” The ACOG guidelines, similarly, say that talking over the procedure and what to expect can help make the procedure more tolerable, regardless of how physically painful it ends up being. (Dr. Flink told me that anti-anxiety medications during insertion are helpful for some of her patients, and that she’ll discuss them alongside options for physical pain relief.)Lidocaine paracervical blocks may relieve painThere’s good news and bad news about the recommended pain medications. The good news is that there are recommendations. The bad news is that none of them are guaranteed to work for everyone, and it’s not clear if they work very well at all. The CDC says that a paracervical block (done by injection, similar to the numbing injections used for dental work) “might” reduce pain with insertion. Three studies showed that the injections worked to reduce pain, while three others found they did not. The CDC rates the certainty of evidence as “low” for pain and for satisfaction with the procedure. The ACOG guidelines also mention local anesthetics, including lidocaine paracervical blocks, as one of the best options for pain management. Dr. Flink told me that while some of her patients appreciate this option, it’s often impossible to numb all of the nerves in the cervix, and the injection itself can be painful—so in many cases, patients decide it’s not worth it. Still, it’s worth discussing with your provider if this sounds like something you would like to try.Topical lidocaine may also helpLidocaine, the same numbing medication, can also be applied to the cervix as a cream, spray, or gel. Again, evidence is mixed, with six trials finding that it helped, and seven finding that it did not. The ACOG guidelines note that sometimes topical lidocaine has worked better than the injected kind. Unfortunately, they also say that it can be hard for doctors to find an appropriate spray-on product that can be used on the cervix.The CDC judged the certainty of to be a bit better here compared to the injection—moderate for reducing pain, and high for improving placement success (meaning that the provider was able to get the IUD inserted properly). Other methods aren’t well supported by the evidence (yet?)For the other pain management methods that the CDC group studied, there wasn’t enough evidence to say whether they work. These included analgesics like ibuprofen, and smooth-muscle-relaxing medications. The ACOG guidelines say that taking NSAIDS (like ibuprofen) before insertion doesn't seem to help with insertion pain, even though that's commonly recommended. That approach does seem to work for some other procedures, though, and may help with pain that occurs after an IUD insertion. So it may not be a bad idea to take those four Advil if that's what your doc recommends, but it shouldn't be your only option. Or as the ACOG paper puts it: "Although recommending preprocedural NSAIDs is a benign, low-risk intervention unlikely to cause harm, relying on NSAIDs alone for pain management during IUD insertion is ineffective and does not provide the immediate pain control patients need at the time of the procedure." Both sets of guidelines also don't recommend misoprostol, which is sometimes used to soften and open the cervix before inserting an IUD. The ACOG guidelines describe the evidence as mixed, and the CDC guidelines specifically recommend against it. Moderate certainty evidence says that misoprostol doesn’t help with pain, and low certainty evidence says that it may increase the risk of adverse events like cramping and vomiting. What this means for youThe publication of these guidelines won’t change anything overnight at your local OB-GYN office, but it’s a good sign that discussions about pain management with IUD placement are happening more openly. The new guidelines also don’t necessarily take any options off the table. Even misoprostol, which the CDC now says not to use for routine insertions, “might be useful in selected circumstances (e.g., in patients with a recent failed placement),” it writes.Don’t be afraid to ask about pain management before your appointment; as we discussed before, some medications and procedures require that you and your provider plan ahead. And definitely don’t accept a dismissive reply about how taking a few Advil should be enough; it may help for some people, but that shouldn't be the end of the discussion. You deserve to have your provider take your concerns seriously.

View of the south façade before construction of a new residential project that now conceals Le Christin from Boulevard René Lévesque. PROJECT Le Christin, Montreal, Quebec ARCHITECT Atelier Big City PHOTOS James Brittain   PROJECT Les Studios du PAS, Montreal, Quebec ARCHITECT L. McComber in collaboration with Inform  PHOTOS Ulysse Lemerise   Nighttime, April 15, 2025. A thousand volunteers are gathering in Montreal, part of a province-wide effort to try and put numbers on a growing phenomenon in cities like Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and many others. The volunteers are getting ready to walk around targeted areas in downtown Montreal and around certain subway stations. Temporary shelters are also visited. First conducted in the spring of 2018, this survey showed that 3,149 people were in a vulnerable situation at the time. Four years later, a similar effort revealed that Montreal’s homeless population had risen to 4,690 people—and that there were some 10,000 people experiencing homelessness in the whole of the province. The 2025 numbers are expected to be significantly higher. For the organizers, this one-night snapshot of the situation is “neither perfect nor complete.” However, for nonprofit organizations and governmental bodies eager to prevent a vulnerable population from ending up on the streets, the informal census does provide highly valuable information.  Two recent initiatives—very different from one another—offer inspiring answers. The most recent one, Le Christin, was designed by Atelier Big City (led by architects Anne Cormier, Randy Cohen, and Howard Davies) and inaugurated in 2024. Studios du PAS, on the other hand, was designed by Montreal firm L. McComber, and welcomed its first tenants in 2022. Both projects involved long-standing charities: the 148-year-old Accueil Bonneau, in the case of Le Christin, and the 136-year-old Mission Old Brewery for Studios du PAS. Le Christin was spearheaded, and mostly financed, by the Société d’habitation et de développement de Montréal (SHDM), a non-profit, para-municipal corporation created in 1988. Studios du PAS was first selected by the City of Montreal to be built thanks to the Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI) program run by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). Le Christin also received a financial contribution from the CMHC towards the end of the process. Boldly coloured blind walls signal the presence of Le Christin in the center of a densely occupied city block, with entrance to the left along Sanguinet Stree. Le Christin Although sited in a very central location, near the buzzing St. Catherine and St. Denis streets, Le Christin is hard to find. And even when one suddenly spots two seven-storey-high walls, coloured lemon-zest yellow and mango orange, it’s difficult to figure out what they are about. A stroll along the tiny Christin Street finally reveals the front façade of this new facility, now home to some of Montreal’s most vulnerable citizens.  View of Le Christin’s modulated front façade. Galvanized steel panels at ground level add a soft touch while protecting the building from potential damage caused by snow plows. Le Christin is unique for a number of reasons. First among them is its highly unusual location—at the centre of a dense city block otherwise occupied by university buildings, office towers, and condo blocks. Until a few years ago, the site was home to the four-storey Appartements Le Riga. The Art Deco-style building had been built in 1914 by developer-architect Joseph-Arthur Godin, who was a pioneer in his own right: he was one of the first in Montreal to experiment with reinforced concrete structures, a novelty in the city at the time. A century later, Le Riga, by then the property of SHDM, was in serious need of repair. Plans had already been drafted for a complete renovation of the building when a thorough investigation revealed major structural problems. Tenants had to leave on short notice and were temporarily relocated; the building was eventually demolished in 2019. By that time, Atelier Big City had been mandated to design a contemporary building that would replace Le Riga and provide a “place of one’s own” to close to 150 tenants, formerly homeless or at risk of becoming so.    Le Christin – Site Plan and Ground Floor Plan The entire operation sparked controversy, particularly as Le Christin started to rise, showing no sign of nostalgia. The architects’ daring approach was difficult to fathom—particularly for those who believe social housing should keep a low profile.  The program, originally meant for a clientele of single men, gradually evolved to include women. In order to reflect societal trends, the architects were asked to design 24 slightly larger units located in the building’s east wing, separated from the rest of the units by secured doors. Thus, Le Christin is able to accommodate homeless couples or close friends, as well as students and immigrants in need. A tenants-only courtyard is inserted in the south façade. In order to provide the maximum number of units requested by SHDM, each of the 90 studios was reduced to 230 square feet—an adjustment from Atelier Big City’s initial, slightly more generous plans. In a clever move, an L-shaped kitchen hugs the corner of each unit, pushing out against the exterior wall. As a result, the window openings recede from the façade, creating a sense of intimacy for the tenants, who enjoy contact with the exterior through large windows protected by quiet Juliet balconies. Far from damaging the initial design, the added constraint of tightened units allowed the architects to modulate the building’s façades, creating an even stronger statement. On the unit levels, corridors include large openings along the south façade. Each floor is colour-coded to enliven the space; overhead, perforated metal plates conceal the mechanical systems. An extra floor was gained thanks to the decision to expose the various plumbing, electrical, and ventilation systems. Well-lit meeting rooms and common areas are found near Le Christin’s front entrance, along with offices for personnel, who are present on the premises 24 hours a day. Apart from a small terrace above the entrance, the main exterior space is a yard which literally cuts into the building’s back façade. This has a huge impact on the interiors at all levels: corridors are generously lit with sunlight, a concept market developers would be well advised to imitate. The adjacent exit stairs are also notable, with their careful detailing and the presence of glazed openings.  The fire stairs, which open onto the exterior yard at ground level, feature glazing that allows for ample natural light. Le Christin has achieved the lofty goal articulated by SHDM’s former director, architect Nancy Schoiry: “With this project, we wanted to innovate and demonstrate that it was possible to provide quality housing for those at risk of homelessness.” The low-slung Studios du PAS aligns with neighbourhood two-storey buildings. Studios du PAS In sharp contrast with Le Christin’s surroundings, the impression one gets approaching Studios du PAS, 14 kilometres east of downtown Montreal, is that of a small town. In this mostly low-scale neighbourhood, L. McComber architects adopted a respectful, subdued approach—blending in, rather than standing out.  The project uses a pared-down palette of terracotta tile, wood, and galvanized steel. The footbridge links the upper level to shared exterior spaces. The financing for this small building, planned for individuals aged 55 or older experiencing or at risk of homelessness, was tied to a highly demanding schedule. The project had to be designed, built, and occupied within 18 months: an “almost impossible” challenge, according to principal architect Laurent McComber. From the very start, prefabrication was favoured over more traditional construction methods. And even though substantial work had to be done on-site—including the installation of the roof, electrical and mechanical systems, as well as exterior and interior finishes—the partially prefabricated components did contribute to keeping costs under control and meeting the 18-month design-to-delivery deadline. Les Studios du PAS The building was divided into 20 identical modules, each fourteen feet wide—the maximum width allowable on the road. Half the modules were installed at ground level. One of these, positioned nearest the street entrance, serves as a community room directly connected to a small office for the use of a social worker, allowing staff to follow up regularly with tenants. Flooded with natural light, the double-height lobby provides a friendly and inclusive welcome. The ground level studios were designed so they could be adapted to accommodate accessibility needs. Some of the ground floor units were adapted to meet the needs of those with a physical disability; the other units were designed to be easily adaptable if needed. All studio apartments, slightly under 300 square feet, include a full bathroom, a minimal kitchen, and sizeable storage space hidden behind cabinet doors. Most of the apartments include a small exterior alcove, which provides an intimate outdoor space while creating a subtle rhythm along the front façade. Inside the studio units, storage cupboards for clothes and belongings were added as an extension of the kitchen wall. Conscious of the tradition of brick residential buildings in Montreal, yet wanting to explore alternate materials, the architects selected an earth-toned terracotta tile from Germany. The 299mm x 1500mm tiles are clipped to the façade, allowing for faster installation and easier maintenance. All units enjoy triple-glazed windows and particularly well insulated walls. A high-performance heat pump was installed to lower energy demand—and costs—for heating and cooling needs. Wood siding was used to soften the upper-level balconies, which provide protected outdoor spaces for residents.   Pride and Dignity Le Christin and Les Studios du PAS have little in common—except, of course, their program. Architecturally speaking, each represents an interesting solution to the problem at hand. While Le Christin is a high-spirited, flamboyant statement, Studios du PAS is to be praised for its respectful attitude, and for the architects’ relentless search for interesting alternatives to traditional construction norms. Atelier Big City is one of few firms in Canada that has the guts—and the talent—to play with bold colours. Decades of experimentation (not just with public buildings, but also within their own homes), led up to Le Christin, which is perhaps their strongest building to date. Their judicious choices of colour, brick type, and materials transmit a message of pride and dignity. Both projects demonstrate enormous respect and generosity to their residents: they provide architecture that treats them not as an underclass, but as regular people, who need the stability of dignified housing to start rebuilding their lives. Odile Hénault is a contributing editor to Canadian Architect.   Le Christin CLIENT Société d’habitation et de développement de Montréal (SHDM) | ARCHITECT TEAM Anne Cormier, Randy Cohen, Howard Davies, Fannie Yockell, Gabriel Tessier, Sébastien St-Laurent, Lisa Vo | STRUCTURAL DPHV | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL BPA | CIVIL Genexco | LIGHTING CS Design | AREA 4,115 m2 | Construction BUDGET $18.9 M | COMPLETION November 2023   Les Studios du PAS  CLIENT PAS de la rue | ARCHITECT TEAM L. McComber—Laurent McComber, Olivier Lord, Jérôme Lemieux, Josianne Ouellet-Daudelin, Laurent McComber. Inform—David Grenier, Élisabeth Provost, Amélie Tremblay, David Grenier | PROJECT MANAGEMENT Groupe CDH | STRUCTURAL Douglas Consultants | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Martin Roy & associés | CIVIL Gravitaire | CONTRACTOR Gestion Étoc | AREA 1,035 m2 | BUDGET $3.4 M | COMPLETION September 2022 As appeared in the June 2025 issue of Canadian Architect magazine The post A Place to Call Home: Le Christin and Les Studios du PAS, Montreal, Quebec appeared first on Canadian Architect.

Billions of years from now, the Sun will swell into a red giant, swallowing Mercury, Venus, and Earth. But that’s not the only way our planet could meet its demise. A new simulation points to the menacing threat of a passing field star that could cause the planets in the solar system to collide or fling Earth far from the Sun. When attempting to model the evolution of the solar system, astronomers have often treated our host star and its orbiting planets as an isolated system. In reality, however, the Milky Way is teeming with stars that may get too close and threaten the stability of the solar system. A new study, published in the journal Icarus, suggests that stars passing close to the solar system will likely influence the orbits of the planets, causing another planet to smack into Earth or send our home planet flying. In most cases, passing stars are inconsequential, but one could trigger chaos in the solar system—mainly because of a single planet. The closest planet to the Sun, Mercury, is prone to instability as its orbit can become more elliptical. Astronomers believe that this increasing eccentricity could destabilize Mercury’s orbit, potentially leading it to collide with Venus or the Sun. If a star happens to be nearby, it would only make things worse. The researchers ran 2,000 simulations using NASA’s Horizons System, a tool from the Solar System Dynamics Group that precisely tracks the positions of objects in our solar system. They then inserted scenarios involving passing stars and found that stellar flybys over the next 5 billion years could make the solar system about 50% less stable. With passing stars, Pluto has a 3.9% chance of being ejected from the solar system, while Mercury and Mars are the two planets most often lost after a stellar flyby. Earth’s instability rate is lower, but it has a higher chance of its orbit becoming unstable if another planet crashes into it. “In addition, we find that the nature of stellar-driven instabilities is more violent than internally driven ones,” the researchers wrote in the paper. “The loss of multiple planets in stellar-driven instabilities is common and occurs about 50% of the time, whereas it appears quite rare for internally driven instabilities.” The probability of Earth’s orbit becoming unstable is hundreds of times larger than prior estimates, according to the study. Well, that just gives us one more thing to worry about.

Macworld At a GlanceExpert's Rating Pros Good speed, tools, and customization settings Stopped every piece of malware 30-day trial Cons Tricky installation Web Protection feature does nothing to warn or prevent access to problem websites A disk access error required reinstallation (twice!) Our Verdict When the application works, it’s impressive. There was almost no malware I could get past it, the level of customization is impressive, and while I wish its Web Protection feature added warnings for clear scams and phishing attempts, Trend Micro Antivirus meets the needs of the Consumer market it’s targeted towards quite well. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Trend Micro Antivirus for Mac Retailer Price Trend Micro 19,95 € View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket There’s a certain value in an application not trying to do everything under the sun, but honing in on a set of tasks and performing them well. And while Trend Micro Antivirus for the Mac hasn’t included a ton of revolutionary new features since the last time we reviewed it (in 2023), and while you’re less likely to hear about the program given the company’s focus on the business environment and lack of a marketing blitz towards consumer and home users, there’s something good to be had here. Trend Micro Antivirus for Mac requires macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) to download, currently retails for $29.95/£19.95 a year for one device for the first year (discounted from $39.99/£49.95 a year), and is also readily available as a 30-day trial with no credit or debit card needing to be sent along to Trend Micro. We have tested all the best Mac antivirus software options in our round-up of the Best antivirus software for Mac. Simply download the software, install it, and follow the prompts to add the iCore network extension, add the Safari and other web browser extensions, decide if you want to activate the Folder Shield feature, perform the initial virus definition updates, and allow the software to reboot. From there, Trend Micro will ask for permission to initiate full disk access to your Mac’s hard drive. The user interface is identical to its previous versions, with the home screen focusing on its Overview, Web, Scans, Folder Shield, and Logs modules. Trend Micro Antivirus continues to focus on its bread and butter with what is honestly excellent antiviral protection. Foundry Upon hurling the Objective See Mac Malware collection at it, there was almost nothing that got through, the application recognizing the malware and deleting it, save for a fake Adobe Flash Player extension that installed and was later removed by the macOS operating system. This, combined with a handy scheduling feature that allows for daily, weekly, or monthly setup and execution, allows for the application to run on its own without needing to be babysat.   There’s an interesting level of customization at work here, as Folder Shield offers boosted protection to assorted user folders (such as Documents, Music, Pictures, Movies, Dropbox, Mobile Documents, etc.), and you can create a Trusted Program list. It’s not crucial, but it’s fairly unique, and the application also scans inserted USB drives by default. Foundry The Web Protection module offers Privacy Scanner, Web Threat Protection, and Website Filter elements, which can block controversial content, such as pornography, etc., and users can also add trusted websites and blocked websites.  If there’s one thing that impressed me, it was the quick access to the logs, which cover scan results, unsafe websites found, websites filtered, updates received, folder shield, and dangerous notifications found. While this version of Trend Micro Antivirus isn’t designed for the sysadmin market, there’s nothing more useful than system logs to see what’s going on, and the fact that these logs are pre-sorted comes in handy.  For the final element of the Overview window, and as expected, the user interface hooks into ads for the company’s other wares from its home screen (“Privacy Tools” goes to Trend Micro VPN and “Utility Tools” hooks into its Cleaner One Pro, Unzip One, and AdBlock One utilities) which isn’t surprising, and is at least tucked out of the way as opposed to the application firing this into your eyeballs every two nanoseconds you use it.  Foundry Trend Micro has carved out something good here, even if there are a few wrinkles to iron out. The installation was a little trickier than expected, and you have to double-check the windows and options to make sure you’re enabling the right extensions, as opposed to an installer that does most of this for you. This gets a little bit tricky, but isn’t a deal breaker by any stretch of the imagination. Perhaps the most infuriating element to consider was the fact that the Web Protection feature, although well-hyped, does just about nothing to warn or protect you from websites associated with your spam folder, and I’m still able to go to sites offering me a free $1,000 prepaid Visa card, supposed free Bitcoin payouts, online casino gambling, etc. Finally, and I’m not sure exactly what led to this, but Trend Micro Antivirus stated twice that full disk access hadn’t been granted during testing despite the settings being correct, and needed to be uninstalled and reinstalled twice. This may be a bug between Trend Micro Antivirus and macOS Sequoia 15.5, but it would behoove Apple and Trend Micro to swap notes, brew a few pots of coffee, and see exactly what’s happening that could lead to this.  Should you buy Trend Micro Antivirus? I’m not sure what led to the error and the need for reinstallation, but when the application works, it’s impressive. There was almost no malware I could get past it, the level of customization is impressive, and while I wish its Web Protection feature added warnings for clear scams and phishing attempts, Trend Micro Antivirus meets the needs of the consumer market it’s targeted towards quite well, there’s ready access to Trend Micro’s help and feedback boards from the Overview window, and the options for the company’s additional tools are present but not overwhelming in the sense that a marketing department had gone out of control.

When you describe it in words, the Indianapolis 500 might seem like a boring watch: Cars go round and round an oval track 200 times, totaling 500 miles over the course of a few hours. But if you were a driver, you’d be having a hell of a different experience. Think screaming speeds of 230 miles per hour, pulling 4 Gs on corners, with one’s reflexes and split-second decisions drawing a thin line between victory and tragedy . . . over the course of a few hours. It’s a level of intensity that TV networks have been trying to bring viewers into for years with in-car cameras and things like driver radio communiques. It has been working. Last year, NBC—which covered the spectacle from 2019–2024—netted the most streams of the race ever and averaged 5.34 million total viewers, up from 4.9 million in 2023 and 4.8 million in 2022. This year marks FOX’s first time ever broadcasting it, and they likely want that trend to continue, so they’re throwing all the tech they have at it. And that includes the innovative, diminutive Driver’s Eye, dubbed the world’s smallest live broadcast camera, which brings fans directly into drivers’ helmets (quite literally) like never before. For the first time in Indy 500 history, viewers will have a view of the race exactly as its stars see it from within their helmets—from dramatic passes and vehicle-quaking jousts to the very mechanics of how they operate their cars at such speeds. [Photo: Bell Racing] “Driver’s Eye brings the human factor,” says Alex Miotto Haristos, COO of Racing Force Group, which owns the tech. “It brings the struggle.” And it could bring the ratings, too—especially if it catches on in the series like it has in Formula 1. [Photo: Bell Racing] MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE The UK-born, Italy-raised Haristos is perhaps an unlikely creator of racing gear. He began his career in management consulting and later real estate before acquiring an electronics company and launching it as Zeronoise in 2018 with Stephane Cohen of Bell Racing Helmets. Haristos doesn’t come from a racing background, but rather dubs himself a business engineer who saw it as an opportunity. He says he quickly found himself falling down the rabbit hole into a passion project given the sheer challenging nature of the Driver’s Eye tech, which they began developing in 2019. Ray Harroun driving his Marmon Wasp, the first winner of the Indy Race in 1911. [Photo: Bettmann/Getty Images] That challenge is very real when you’re working on a product meant to be inserted into a race-car driver’s most critical piece of safety gear, particularly in a sport where said driver’s head is sticking out of the car. Racing helmets are modern design marvels that evolved out of leather and cloth versions in the Indy 500’s early days to steel helmets in 1916. According to IndyCar, every driver has a primary and one or two backups, and they’re all custom-fit and produced per FIA (Federation Internationale de l’Automobile) standards. (Want to buy your own? Haristos says that’ll cost you between $5,000 and $8,000.) The outer shell features ultralight carbon fiber; there’s a fireproof liner; a built-in airbag to assist in helmet removal without neck strain; numerous elements to ensure maximum aerodynamics in 200+ mph runs; and audio insulation so drivers can communicate with their teams over the roar of 33 engines on the track.  “Your job is to not alter any feature of the helmet,” Haristos says. “The helmet you don’t touch. You have to work with what you have, and you have to manage to integrate everything seamlessly. This is the trick.” [Photo: Bell Racing] The team set out to capture exactly what a driver was seeing on the racetrack, raw and unfiltered, shakes and all—and quickly understood that they couldn’t work on the outer surface of a helmet because it would be a safety issue. So they homed in on the side padding of the helmet that Haristos says is around a centimeter away from the eye, which, given the sensitive proximity, went through the FIA for approval, as well. The organization mandated a minuscule size and weight for the camera, so rather than starting with what image quality they wanted to achieve and so on, “We started working backwards. And in the beginning it was like, No, this is impossible.” Ultimately, the team had to break apart camera design as we know it—a single unit—and separate the internal systems to make it work. They stripped out everything they could for what needed to go in the helmet, and were left with a tiny sensor with the ability to capture high-res video (in the case of the Indy 500, in 1080p, 60fps) in the smallest of real estate. Today, that unit clocks in at 8.8 x 8.8 mm, and weighs less than a dime. Then, they moved the rest of the camera’s guts to the car itself. Which is also a feat, particularly in Indy racing, which involves older cars that are already stuffed to the max from additions over the years.  “You can’t do one thing without affecting another,” says Michael Davies, FOX EVP of field and technical management and operations. “There’s no change that you can make on a car that doesn’t fuck something else up. And I’m always reminded of something a very smart man said, which is that when you solve a problem, you inevitably create another one, but you must make sure that the problem you create is smaller than the one that you solved.” Haristos says that for Indy, they were told that the only available space was on the side of the car by the radiator—not an ideal spot, given the high temperature and so on. So they had to develop a custom housing that was more efficient and could operate at a higher temp while still fitting into the tightest of spaces.  Ultimately, from the helmet camera to the housing, it was crucial that the additions all felt seamless to the driver.  “Comfort in motorsport translates into confidence,” Haristos says. “Confidence translates into performance.” [Photo: Bell Racing] CROSSING THE POND Safety equipment manufacturer OMP Racing acquired Zeronoise in 2019—and they also acquired Bell, a major purveyor of helmets to Formula 1 and the Indy 500, with 23 of the 33 drivers donning its headwear for the latter. (All the brands would eventually coalesce under the newly formed Racing Force Group in 2021; last year, it ​did $74.1 million in revenue, up 4.8% from 2023.) After they developed the first iteration of Driver’s Eye, the team got it into Formula E racing in 2020, and was able to finalize the development of the tech, testing it in Formula 1 in 2021—and giving race fanatics a new, visceral way to experience the sport. It gained ground, and in 2023 became mandatory in Formula 1. FOX tested Driver’s Eye in some NASCAR races that same year, and now on Sunday you’ll be able to watch the Indy 500 from the perspective of 2023/2024 winner Josef Newgarden, Scott Dixon, Alex Palou, Will Power, Marcus Ericsson and Felix Rosenqvist.  Josef Newgarden [Photo: Bell Racing] Of course, there’s more tech wizardry at play behind the scenes than merely hooking up a camera. The Driver’s Eye is mounted in a dark helmet with a massive underexposure—and the track is a massive overexposure. Drivers race with different filters and colors on their visors, which they can tear off in layers periodically throughout the race as they get dirty. Moreover, the Indy 500 is hours long, there are varying weather scenarios, the sun and shadows are moving, and everything is very much in a state of flux. Haristos says Driver’s Eye compensates for all of it, from white balance to the varying visor colors, with a mix of automatic and manual controls, making for a seamless sync with the rest of the program. (Which, let’s be honest, is critical—a director has to use the shots, lest Driver’s Eye be rendered obsolete.)  From a production standpoint, FOX’s Davies says that since the system allows for a view of drivers’ hands on the controls and exactly what they’re looking at in any given moment, it’s also a boon to race commentators, who have told him that’s it’s the most useful angle for them in being able to craft a narrative around what’s happening on the track. Moreover, he says the raw nature of the footage truly shows the athleticism at play on the part of the drivers, something that can get lost in traditional shots. “We can really cover the event from the inside out, instead of the outside in,” he says. And on top of that, he adds, it’s something sponsors like—and request. Thus a bevy of IndyCar racing’s household names. now driving with the cameras embedded in their helmets.  The Driver’s Eye is just one tiny tool in FOX’s arsenal, which seems designed to shock and awe—and plant a flag in their take on the race. For the first time, live drones will be deployed, including custom high-speed FPV drones; there are more than 100 cameras in play, 108 mics, 16 in-car cameras offering views of drivers’ faces and cockpits, and more (including 5.1 surround sound “that’ll blow your head off”). “We’re playing some pretty big hits here and looking forward to seeing how it enhances the big race,” Davies says. “You can see it in a completely different way—even if you’ve watched Indy for as long as it’s been on TV.”

Macworld There’s something of a misconception when it comes to the Mac: that Mac apps cost more, just like the computer itself. While powerful tools like Photoshop or Final Cut Pro certainly have price tags commensurate with their robust feature sets, many of the greatest Mac apps won’t cost you anything more than the time they take to download them. A quick note before we begin. Apple has changed its security settings in macOS, so you’ll need to allow your system to open a couple of these apps. A dialogue box may pop up telling you a certain app “is an application downloaded from the Internet. Are you sure you want to open it?” Click Open to proceed with the installation. These are the best free Mac apps we use, in alphabetical order. Amphetamine – free anti-sleep app Foundry Amphetamine will keep your Mac awake. Featuring a menu bar-based interface, the app lets you temporarily override your Mac’s sleep schedule (even when your MacBooks’s lid is closed) and even adds a few useful features like activating only when connected to specific Wi-Fi networks and keeping only certain drives awake. Download Amphetamine. Audacity – free audio editor IDG Amateur Mac recording engineers have known about the power of Audacity for years. A robust desktop client for recording and editing multi-track projects, Audacity will let you edit and add effects just like you would with Logic Pro X without needing to spend hundreds of dollars on a bunch of features you won’t need. Granted, the interface is quite a bit outdated, but you need only spend a few minutes with it to see just how powerful it is. A killer tool for podcasting, recording audio books, and creating video voiceovers, Audacity will turn your Mac into a multi-track recording studio, and it won’t cost you a dime. Download Audacity. Backup and Sync from Google IDG Even the most stalwart Mac fans have to admit that Google does photos better than Apple, despite Apple’s improvements over the years. While there ids no longer the unlimited free storage there once was, with instant syncing across virtually any device, and an amazing search engine, Google Photos is everything we wish Apple Photos would be. But you might not know that there’s a super easy way to get photos from your Mac into your Google Photos library. Google offers a small utility called Backup and Sync that will automatically upload images stored on your Mac. The simple menu bar app works with your Google Drive to continuously scan for images in folders of your choosing to keep your photo library in sync. And it’s so efficient, you won’t even know it’s working. But thats not all! Backup and Sync makes an extremely effective cloud storage solution for all file types. In fact, if you use more than just Apple gear, it’s probably the best cloud storage solution. Get Backup and Sync. BBEdit – free HTML and text editor BBEdit Professional software developers have been singing BBEdit’s praises for years, but you don’t need to spend a bundle to get on board. The free version of BBEdit is a full-featured editor in its own right, sporting powerful features such as multiple clipboards, automatic backups, live search and syntax-highlighting support for more than 20 programming languages. But you don’t have to be a Swift coder to appreciate it—anyone who writes and edits large chunks of text on their Mac should grab a copy. Download BBEdit. Google Chrome – free web browser Foundry The debate over which is the Bbst web browser for Mac is one that won’t be settled anytime soon, but in the meantime, every Mac user should have a copy of Chrome alongside Safari in their Dock. Fast, smart, and endlessly customizable, Google’s browser is an excellent alternative to Apple’s, with speedy surfing, smart syncing, and Google Assistant-style voice searches. And with a dedicated store filled with extensions and themes, finding ways to enhance it is way easier than it is on Safari. Google has even added some intelligence to Chrome on Mac with AI-based search tools in a Chrome for Mac update. Download Chrome. ClearVPN – free Mac VPN IDG There are lots of VPN clients available for the Mac, but few of them are as straightforward and effortless as ClearVPN, which has a free plan. Rather than let you choose from a complicated list of servers, ClearVPN’s straightforward interface will automatically route you to the best option based on what you want to do, whether it’s private browsing or watching Netflix outside the U.S. Everything else happens in the background—protocols, servers, and encryption are handled in real-time using MacPaw’s Dynamic Flow Technology that automatically selects the best server for your needs. Heavy users will want to subscribe for $13 a month, but the free plan—which offers few shortcuts including Netflix streaming and ad-free browsing—is a great addition to any Mac. Read our review of ClearVPN for more information. Download ClearVPN. Duplicate File Finder – free duplicate file remover IDG If you’ve been using your Mac for a while, there’s a good chance you have accumulated duplicate files along the way. And some of them could be eating up precious space on your drive. You could run a full disk cleaner to find and root them out, but if you want to quickly find double files and get on with your day, make space for Duplicate File Finder in your Applications folder. Simply drag a folder onto its window and within seconds you’ll have a full report of the duplicates on your machine, letting you see what they are and where they’re hiding, and letting you delete them in a snap. Unless you opt for the $5 pro version, you’ll have to deal with the occasional ad, but it’s an indispensable tool nonetheless. Duplicate File Finder is part of MacCleaner Pro, which features in our Best Mac Cleaner roundup. Get Duplicate File Finder from the Mac App Store or Nektony. Foxit PDF Reader – Free PDF reader Foundry Foxit PDF Reader is a free document viewer that supports advanced annotation tools. This lets you control the size, color, and style of inserted text or shapes. The app also packs some handy customization features, such as support for changing the document’s background shade, reversing and rotating pages, signing forms, and more. Beyond tweaking the PDF file, this Mac app can read the text aloud, measure distances, calculate areas, magnify selected spots, and have AI analyze your document. It’s certainly more capable than Apple’s Preview app and most free PDF readers we’ve used. See how Foxit PDF Editor compares to other PDF tools in our round-up of the Best PDF editor for Mac. Get Foxit PDF Reader. GarageBand – Apple’s music maker IDG If you want to make music on your Mac there’s no better place to start than GarageBand. Loaded with loads of instruments, sounds, loops, and beats, GarageBand will help you make killer tracks whether they’re bound for a stage, screen, or just your ringtone. And in true Apple fashion, its interface is drop-dead simple, letting you record, scrub, and mix just by dragging and dropping. You can use real instruments or virtual ones, and an array of pre-recorded tracks and samples will let you compose a great song even of you can’t hold a tune. And if you’re clueless about where to begin, there are even a couple piano and guitar lessons to get you started. Get GarageBand from Apple. Grammarly – free grammar and spelling checker IDG Spell-check on our iPhone is awesome, but it’s not so great on our Mac. That’s where Grammarly comes in. Available as a Mac app or a Safari extension, it adds a powerful spelling and grammar engine to Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else you type words. (It even works in our CMS, which is why this blurb is free of errors.) Easy to use and basically restriction-free for most people, Grammarly will be a lifesaver for anyone with clumsy typing fingers—especially if you’re stuck using one of the problematic MacBook keyboards. Get Grammarly from the Mac App Store. IINA – free Mac media player IDG While VLC (above) will always have a place on our Mac, IINA is making a strong case for supremacy. Its sleek, minimal design makes it feel like a fresh and modern video player, while features like dark mode and picture-in-picture put VLC to shame. But IINA’s best feature is its uncanny ability to play basically any file type you throw at it, from years-old local files to YouTube playlists. Plus, it’s written in Swift and open-source, so you can bet the features—including native M1 Mac support—will keep on coming. Download IINA. Kindle – free book reader IDG Sometimes you just want to curl up with your Mac and read a good book. With the Kindle app for Mac you can do just that. Like iBooks, but for all of your Kindle books, comics, and Kindle Unlimited subscriptions, you’ll be able to access all fo your Amazon.com purchases  right on your desktop. With a full-screen mode, five font options, a dark theme, and adjustable point sizes, brightness, and page widths, you can customize your reading experience just the way you like it. There’s also a built-in dictionary and easy annotating, and Amazon’s Whispersync tech will let you pick up right where you left off on any device. Except, you know, from an actual book. Download Amazon’s Kindle app for Mac from the Mac App Store. Onyx – free Mac cleaner IDG Mac maintenance might not be as vital to the day-to-day operation of your Mac as it once was, but slowdowns still happen. And when they do, Onyx will clear them up. A general-purpose utility with more tools than a Swiss Army knife, Onyx packages maintenance scripts, cache cleaning, and permissions repairers to keep your Mac in tip-top shape. Its simple interface makes it quick and painless to run all kinds of cleaning solutions, but its best feature might be the individual optimized versions Titanium Software offers, going way back. Onyx is one of a number of Mac cleaners we review in our Best Mac Cleaners group test. Read our review of Onyx. Another free Mac cleaner worth a look is Piriform Software’s CCleaner. Download Onyx. Pages/Numbers/Keynote – the free office apps on every Mac Foundry Apple’s productivity suite has been a benefit to new Mac buyers for years, but now everyone can get them. Previously available for $20 apiece, for a while now they have all been free, and you won’t find a better set of tools without opening your wallet. With professional features, powerful collaboration, and tremendous cross-platform versatility, Apple’s office suite of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with apps sporting much higher price tags. Things like Touch ID protection and real-time tracking belie its free status, and of course, there are iOS companion apps that are also free so you can work wherever you are. And don’t worry if you have a mountain of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files—it’ll work with those, too. Get Pages, Numbers, and Keynote from the Mac App Store. Polarr Photo Editor – free photo editor IDG While most photo storage apps offer a rudimentary set of editing tools, serious Instagrammers are going to need a little more creativity. Look no further than Polarr Photo Editor. The free version of Polarr offers the same great interface as the subscription version, with enough tools, filters, brushes, and slides to turn your bland selfies into social-media worthy masterpieces. You’ll be able to add text, tweak colors, remove spots, and apply masks like you can with Photoshop, just without the subscription to Creative Cloud. We look at the best free photo editing apps for Mac separately. Download Polarr Photo Editor from the Mac App Store. Raycast – free shortcut app Foundry While Apple’s Spotlight technology tends to do a good job of quickly finding files of all kinds via its indexed, system-wide search engine, Raycast may just do it better. Raycast, developed by Raycast Technologies, functions as a quick, on-the-fly application launcher, wherein you can quickly access files by typing in a few keywords, tell Raycast what function to perform (such as searching user folders, etc.), and then let Raycast go to work. While you’ll need to permit Raycast to search through local drives the first time using it, the program is intuitive, simple, and, for many people, everything they wish Apple’s Spotlight technology could be. Download Raycast. Shazam – free music recognition app IDG We all know how great the Shazam app is on our phones, but it might be even better on the Mac. It does the same thing—identify songs that it hears and direct you to where you can buy them—but on the Mac it’s always listening for music. And as soon as the Shazam app hears a song, it’ll identify it for you, whether it’s played on your Mac or somewhere else in the room. And now that Apple owns Shazam, It’s kind of like a peek at what is almost certain to be a future macOS feature that you can play with right now. Get Shazam from the Mac App Store. Simplenote – free note taking app IDG Don’t let Simplenote’s name fool you—the only thing simple about it is the decision to download it. No matter how or what you write, Simplenote promises to fit neatly into your workflow, with a syncing and organizational system that rivals the most powerful note-takers around. The deceptively powerful app puts a premium on speed and efficiency, offering a clean, lightweight interface that lets you breeze in and out of your notes, organize your thoughts, and quickly find things buried under a mountain of text snippets. Get Simplenote from the Mac App Store. Slack – free team collaboration and messaging app IDG Since its launch in 2013, Slack has quickly become the first name in business collaboration and messaging, and its free Mac app is the best way to keep in touch with your team. Bringing everything you love about the web interface to your Dock, the Slack desktop app lets you quickly switch between groups, change your status, drag and drop files, and, of course, communicate with your team members. A lightning-fast search gives you instant access to buried messages, and granular notifications will keep you apprised of only the most important correspondences. It’s so good, you might not want to turn it off at the end of the work day. Download Slack. Spark – free email app IDG Apple’s default email client gets better with each macOS revision, but if you’re looking for something different, Spark will be a refreshing change of pace. Smart, stylish, and speedy, Spark will help you get control over your inbox with powerful filters that help you focus on the messages that need your attention. It works with Gmail, iCloud, Outlook, and just about any other email address, and its companion iOS apps will keep all of them perfectly synced. With a deceptively powerful interface and a slew of advanced features, Spark just might ignite your passion for email again. Or at least make you not hate it as much. Download Spark from the Mac App Store. Spotify – free music streamer IDG Apple Music might come free with every new Mac, but unless you subscribe for $10 a month, it’s kinda useless for listening to anything other than your purchased music (although there are ways to get Apple Music for free). That’s not the case with the Spotify app. Whether you’re a premium subscriber or a free one, the Spotify app for the Mac is chock full of tunes to get you through your workday. It also makes an excellent podcast directory and player. Just like the iPhone app, you can listen to anything you want with two limitations: shuffle mode is always on and visual and audio ads occasionally pop up. Download Spotify. VLC media player – free media player IDG Video formats are constantly changing, and you no doubt have all sorts of movie files littering your Mac’s drive. But if they haven’t been encoded in 64-bit or MPEG, QuickTime might not be able to play them. That’s where VLC comes in. Open-source and omnipotent, the media player will play, stream, or convert just about any video format you can throw at it, while sporting a clean, minimal interface that strips away unnecessary controls and puts the focus on the content. It’s so good, you might forget it didn’t cost you anything. Download VLC. The Unarchiver – free unzipper ZIPs and RARs might not be as prevalent as they were when the Mac operating system was named after big cats, but if you still have expanding and extracting needs, The Unarchiver’s immediate and inconspicuous processing will help you quickly get at the files hidden inside. With dozens of supported formats and drop-dead simple one-click operation, the app will dutifully extract and expand all sorts of extensions, in numerous languages and virtually any compression method. Get The Unarchiver from the Mac App Store or direct from MacPaw. Wake Up Time – free clock app with alarms IDG With no Clock app, setting an alarm on your Mac isn’t quite as easy as it is on your iPhone. But with Wake Up Time, it is. Featuring a skeuomorphic design that looks like a modern clock radio, the app will let you choose an alarm time and one of eight pre-loaded sounds (including a rooster and a cow), or pick one of your favorite songs to play when the time arrives. You can even download a helper app that will put your Mac to sleep until the alarm is ready to go off—because machines need some down time too.  Get Wake Up Time from the Mac App Store. WhatsApp Desktop – free text messaging WhatsApp If you send a lot of WhatsApp messages, you need to get WhatsApp Desktop on your Mac. There’s not all that much to it—it basically mimics the web interface in a floating window—but it’ll sync your chats so you don’t have to reach for your phone every time you want to read or respond to a message. You will, however, need to have your phone within range and connected to Wi-Fi, and you won’t be able to make calls, but if you’re a chromic Whatsapper, it’s a must-have. If you have an iPad and want WhatsApp on that read: How to get WhatsApp on iPad. Download WhatsApp Desktop Zoom – free video conferencing IDG Since 2020 we all need a copy of Zoom on our Macs, alongside Teams, no doubt. The Zoom Mac app is the best way to get hooked up with your colleagues or family. It has an easy interface for both joining and creating meetings, with quick audio and video settings and easy view options. And you’ll get a bunch of options that aren’t available on the web, such as chats, contacts, and a status icon. Download the Zoom Mac app.

In The Electric State, based on a graphic novel by Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag, after a robot uprising in an alternative version of the 1990s, an orphaned teenager goes on a quest across the American West, with a cartoon-inspired robot, a smuggler, and his sidekick, to find her long-lost brother. Adapting this sci-fi adventure for Netflix were Joe and Anthony Russo; their film stars Millie Bobbie Brown, Chris Pratt, Stanley Tucci, Giancarlo Esposito and a cast of CG automatons voiced by the likes of Woody Harrelson, Alan Tudyk, Hank Azaria, and Anthony Mackie.  Overseeing the visual effects, which surpassed what the Russos had to deal with during their halcyon MCU days, was Matthew Buttler, who turned to the venerable Digital Domain. As the main vendor, the studio was responsible for producing 61 character builds, 480 assets, and over 850 shots. “It was one of the biggest projects that I’ve done in terms of sheer volumes of assets, shots and characters,” states Joel Behrens, VFX Supervisor, Digital Domain.  “Our wonderful asset team did the 61 characters we were responsible for and had to ingest another 46 characters from other facilities.  We didn’t do any major changes. It was pushing our pipeline to the limits it could handle, especially with other shows going on. We took up a lot of disk space and had the ability to expand and contract the Renderfarm with cloud machines as well.” In researching for the show, Digital Domain visited Boston Dynamics to better understand the technological advancements in robotics, and what structures, motions, and interactions were logical and physically plausible.  “There is a certain amount of fake engineering that goes into some of these things,” notes Behrens.  “We’re not actually building these robots to legitimately function in the real world but have to be visibly believable that they can actually pull some of this stuff off.”  The starting point is always the reference material provided by the client.  “Is there a voice that I need to match to?” notes Liz Bernard, Animation Supervisor, Digital Domain.  “Is there any physical body reference either from motion reference actors in the plate or motion capture? We had a big mix of that on the show.  Some of our characters couldn’t be mocapped at all while others could but we had to modify the performance considerably.  We were also looking at the anatomy of each one of these robots to see what their physical capabilities are.  Can they run or jump?  Because that’s always going to tie tightly with the personality.  Your body in some ways is your personality.  We’re trying to figure out how do we put the actor’s voice on top of all these physical limitations in a way that feels cohesive.  It doesn’t happen overnight.”  The character design of Cosmo was retained from the graphic novel despite not being feasible to engineer in reality.  “His feet are huge,” laughs Bernard.  “We had to figure out how to get him to walk in a way that felt normal and put the joints in the right spots.” Emoting was mainly achieved through physicality.  “He does have these audio clips from the Kid Cosmo cartoon that he can use to help express himself verbally, but most of it is pantomime,” observes Bernard.  “There is this great scene between Cosmo and Michelle that occurs right after she crashes the car, and Cosmo is still trying to convince her who he is and why she should go off on this great search for her brother across the country.   We were trying to get some tough nuanced acting into these shots with a subtle head tilt or a little bit of a slump in the shoulders.”  A green light was inserted into the eyes.  “Matthew Butler likes robotic stuff and anything that we could do to make Cosmo feel more grounded in reality was helpful,” observes Behrens.  “We also wanted to prevent anyone from panicking and giving Cosmo a more animated face or allowing him to speak dialogue. We started off with a constant light at the beginning and then added this twinkle and glimmer in his eye during certain moments. We liked that and ended up putting it in more places throughout the film. Everybody says that the eyes are the windows to the soul so giving Cosmo something rather than a dark black painted spot on his face assisted in connecting with that character.”  Coming in four different sizes that fit inside one another - like a Russian doll - is Herman. Digital Domain looked after the eight-inch, four-foot and 20-foot versions while ILM was responsible for the 60-foot Herman that appears in the final battle.   “They were scaled up to a certain extent but consider that the joints on the 20-foot version of Herman versus the four-foot version need to be more robust and beefier because they’re carrying so much more weight,” remarks Bernard.  “We were focusing on making sure that the impact of each step rippled through the body in a way that made it clear how heavy a 20-foot robot carrying a van across a desert would be.  The smaller one can be nimbler and lighter on its feet.  There were similar physical limitations, but that weight was the big deal.”  Incorporated into the face of Herman is a retro-futuristic screen in the style of the 1980s and early 1990s CRT panels. “It has these RGB pixels that live under a thick plate of glass like your old television set,” explains Behrens.  “You have this beautiful reflective dome that goes over top of these cathode-ray-looking pixels that allowed us to treat it as a modern-day LED with the ability to animate his expressions, or if we wanted to, put symbols up. You could pixelized any graphical element and put it on Herman’s face.  We wanted to add a nonlinear decay into the pixels so when he changed expressions or a shape altered drastically you would have a slow quadratic decay of the pixels fading off as he switched expressions. That contributed a nice touch.” One member of the robot cast is an iconic Planters mascot.  “Everybody knows who Mr. Peanut is and what he looks like, at least in North America,” observes Behrens.  “We had to go through a lot of design iterations of how his face should animate. It was determined that as a slightly older model of robot he didn’t have a lot of dexterity in his face. We were modelling him after Chuck E. Cheese and ShowBiz Pizza animatronics, so it was like a latex shell over the top of a mechanical under structure that drove his limited expressions. It allowed him to open and close his mouth and do some slight contractions at the corners, leaving most of the acting to his eyes, which did not have as many restrictions. The eyes had the ability to move quickly, and dart and blink like a human.”  The eyebrows were mounted tracks that ran up and down a vertical slot on the front of the face.  “We could move the eyebrows up and down, and tilt them, but couldn’t do anything else,” states Bernard.  “It was trying to find a visual language that would get the acting across with Woody Harrelson’s amazing performance backing it up.  Then a lot of pantomime to go with that.”  Mr. Peanut moves in a jerky rather than smooth manner.  “Here is a funny little detail,” reveals Bernard.  “If you think about a peanut shell, he doesn’t have a chest or hips that can move independently.  We realized early on that in order to get him to walk without teeter-tottering everywhere, we were going to have to cut his butt off, reattach it and add a swivel control on the bottom.  We always kept that peanut silhouette intact; however, he could swivel his hips enough to walk forward without looking silly!”  Other notable robots are Pop Fly and Perplexo; the former is modelled on baseball player, the latter on a magician.  “We decided that Pop Fly would be the clunkiest of all robots because he was meant to be the elder statesman,” states Behrens.  “Pop Fly was partially falling apart, like his eye would drift, the mouth would hang open and sometimes he’d pass out for a second and wake back up.  Pop Fly was the scavenger hunter of the group who has seen stuff in the battles of the wasteland. We came up with a fun pitching mechanism so he could actually shoot the balls out of his mouth and of course, there was his trusty baseball bat that he could bat things with.” An interesting task was figuring out how to rig his model.  “We realized that there needed to be a lot of restrictions in his joints to make him look realistic based on how he was modelled in the first place,” notes Bernard.  “Pop Fly couldn’t rotate his head in every direction; he could turn it from side to side for the most part.  Pop Fly was on this weird structure with the four wheels on a scissor lift situation which meant that he always had to lean forward to get going and when stopping, would rock backwards.  It was fun to add all that detail in for him.”  Serving as Perplexo’s upper body is a theatrical box that he pops in and out of.  “Perplexo did not have a whole lot going on with his face,” remarks Bernard.  “It was a simple mechanical structure to his jaw, eyes, and eyelids; that meant we could push the performance with pantomime and crazy big gestures with the arms.”               A major adversary in the film is The Marshall, portrayed by Giancarlo Esposito, who remotely controls a drone that projects the face of operator onto a video screen.  “We started with a much smaller screen and had a cowboy motif for awhile, but then they decided to have a unifying design for the drones that are operated by humans versus the robots,” remarks Behrens.  “Since the artist Simon Stålenhag had done an interesting, cool design with the virtual reality helmets with that long duckbill that the humans wear in the real world, the decision was made to mimic that head style of the drones to match the drone operators. Then you could put a screen on the front; that’s how you see Ted [Jason Alexander] or The Marshall or the commando operators. It worked out quite nicely.”   There was not much differentiation in the movement of the drones.  “The drones were meant to be in the vein of Stormtroopers, a horde of them being operated by people sitting in a comfortable room in Seattle,” observes Bernard. “So, they didn’t get as much effort and love as we put into the rest of the robots which had their own personalities. But for The Marshall, we have great mocap to start from Adam Croasdell. He played it a little bit cowboy, which was how Giancarlo Esposito was portraying the character as well, like a Western sheriff style vibe. You could hear that in the voice.  Listening to Giancarlo’s vocal performance gives you a lot of clues of what you should do when you’re moving that character around.  We put all of that together in the performance of The Marshall.”   Many environments had to either be created or augmented, such as the haunted amusement park known as Happyland. “The majority of the exterior of Happyland was a beautiful set that Dennis Gassner and his crew built in a parking lot of a waterslide park in Atlanta,” states Behrens.  “We would go there at night and freeze our butts off shooting for a good two and a half weeks in the cold Atlanta winter.  Most of our environmental work was doing distance extensions for that and adding atmospherics and fog.  We made all the scavenger robots that inhabit Happyland, which are cannibalistic robotics that upgrade and hot rod themselves from random parts taken from the robots that they kill.  Once we get into the haunted house and fall into the basement, that’s where Dr. Amherst has his lab, which was modelled off a 1930s Frankenstein set, with Tesla coils, beakers, and lab equipment.  That was initially a set build we did onstage in Atlanta. But when we got into additional photography, they wanted to do this whole choreographed fight with The Marshall and Mr. Peanut. Because they didn’t know what actions we would need, we ended up building that entire lower level in CG.”   At one point, all the exiled robots gather at the Mall within the Exclusion Zone.  “We were responsible for building a number of the background characters along with Storm Studios and ILM,” remarks Behrens.  “As for the mall, we didn’t have to do much to the environment.  There were some small things here and there that had to be modified.  We took over an abandoned mall in Atlanta and the art department dressed over half of it.” The background characters were not treated haphazardly. “We assigned two or three characters to each animator,” explains Bernard.  “I asked them to make a backstory and figure out who this guy is, what does he care about, and who is his mama?!  Put that into the performance so that each one feels unique and different because they have their own personalities.  There is a big central theme in the movie where the robots are almost more human than most of the humans you meet.  It was important to us that we put that humanity into their performances. As far as the Mall and choreography, Matthew, Joel and I knew that was going to be a huge challenge because this is not traditional crowd work where you can animate cycles and give it to a crowds department and say, ‘Have a bunch of people walking around.’  All these characters are different; they have to move differently and do their own thing.  We did a first pass on the big reveal in the Mall where you swing around and see the atrium where everybody is doing their thing.  We essentially took each character and moved them around like a chess piece to figure out if we had enough characters, if the color balanced nicely across all of them, and if it was okay for us to duplicate a couple of them.  We started to show that early to Matthew and Jeffrey Ford [Editor, Executive Producer], and the directors to get buyoff on the density of the crowd.”    Considered one of the film’s signature sequences is the walk across the Exclusion Zone, where 20-foot Herman is carrying a Volkswagen van containing Michelle, Cosmo and Keats on his shoulder.  “We did a little bit of everything,” notes Behrens.  “We had plate-based shots because a splinter unit went out to Moab, Utah and shot a bunch of beautiful vistas for us.  For environments, there were shots where we had to do projections of plate material onto 3D geometry that we built. We had some DMPs that went into deep background. We also had to build out some actual legitimate 3D terrain for foreground and midground because a lot of the shots that had interaction with our hero characters rocking and back forth were shot on a bluescreen stage with a VW van on a large gimbal rig.  Then Liz had the fun job of trying to tie that into a giant robot walking with them.  We had to do some obvious tweaking to some of those motions. The establishing shots, where they are walking through this giant dead robot skeleton from who knows where, several of those were 100 percent CG. Once they get to the Mall, we had a big digital mall and a canyon area that had to look like they were once populated.”  Modifications were kept subtle.  “There were a couple of shots where we needed to move the plate VW van around a little bit,” states Bernard.  “You can’t do a lot without it starting to fall apart and lose perspective.”  “The biggest challenge was the scale and sheer number of characters needed that played a large role interacting with our human actors and creating a believable world for them to live in,” reflects Behrens.  “The sequence that I had the most fun with was the mine sequence with Herman and Keats, as far as their banter back and forth. Some of our most expansive work was the Mall and the walk across the Exclusion Zone.  Those had the most stunning visuals.”  Bernard agrees with her colleague.  “I’m going to sound like a broken record.  For me, it was the scale and the sheer number of characters that we had to deal with and keeping them feeling that they were all different, but from the same universe.  Having the animators working towards that same goal was a big challenge.  We had quite a large team on this one.  And I do love that mine sequence.  There is such good banter between Keats and Herman, especially early on in that sequence.  It has so much great action to it.  We got to drop a giant claw on top of The Marshall that he had to fight his way out of.  That was a hard shot.  And of course, the Mall is stunning.  You can see all the care that went into creating that environment and all those characters.  It’s beautiful.”      Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer best known for composing in-depth filmmaker and movie profiles for VFX Voice, Animation Magazine, and British Cinematographer.