Photo: Kotaku, Screenshot: Build A Rocket Boy / ExtraEmily / Kotaku, Nintendo / Kotaku, Image: Marvel / AMC / Kotaku, Nintendo / Kotaku, Wizards of the Coast / Joshua Raphael, 1047 Games / Kotaku, KotakuIt’s a little funny to consider the following stories “news” given the state of the world right now. I’m tempted to explain what I mean by that, but I’m just as happy to let that sentence be an inkblot test, revealing just what type of person you are based on the first thing that pops into your mind. (If the thought of that angers you, then I guess you have your answer.)Nevertheless, read on for very important information about expensive popcorn buckets, Switch 2 settings (and astronomical sales), a disastrous launch week for MindsEye, an editorial revolt at Wikipedia over AI (okay, that one actually is kind of important), and more.

Doing press for his latest movie, Chris Evans was flat-out asked by a journalist: Are you returning for Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday? That rumor has floated around the internet for months, no doubt buoyed by the fact that Evans made a surprise cameo in last summer’s Deadpool vs. Wolverine, despite the fact that he was supposed to be “retired” from the Marvel Cinematic Universe after the last Avengers movie, Endgame.Evans claimed he wasn’t involved. But he wouldn’t be the first Marvel star to lie about a role in an MCU movie — and he wouldn’t be the first “retired” Marvel hero returning for Doomsday either.Avengers: Doomsday video we look at the facts and speculate about whether Evans might or might not appear in the film (or, for that matter, its sequel, Avengers: Secret Wars)Watch our full discussion on Chris Evans and Doomsday below:READ MORE: The Weirdest Marvel Comics Ever PublishedIf you liked that video on whether Chris Evans is secretly in Avengers: Doomsday, check out more of our videos below, including one on the original plan for Madame Web and why it was so much better than what Sony actually made, one on the connection between Wanda and Doctor Doom, and one on the canceled X-Men vs. Fantastic Four film we never got to see. Plus, there’s tons more videos over at ScreenCrush’s YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe to catch all our future episodes. Avengers: Doomsday is scheduled to open in theaters on December 18, 2026.Sign up for Disney+ here.Get our free mobile appEvery Marvel Cinematic Universe Movie, Ranked From Worst to BestIt started with Iron Man and it’s continued and expanded ever since. It’s the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with 36 movies and counting. But what’s the best and the worst? We ranked them all.

San, ni, ichi… Hajime! 🎌 Welcome to Nippon Marathon 2: Daijoubu! 🏃🍌🐶Whether you're a total newbie, or still recovering from shiba-related injuries from the OG Nippon Marathon - welcome to the weirdest marathon you'll ever run!Get ready for Nippon Marathon 2: Daijoubu, where fruit is deadly, physics are on vacation, and Shiba Inu are kawaii but absolutely relentless.🛎️ P.S. If you’re liking the sound of this so far, hit that Wishlist button—it’s a huge help for tiny teams like ours!Never Played the Original? Daijoubu! (That’s Japanese for “It’s OK!”)The original Nippon Marathon was our love letter to game show absurdity - drawing inspiration from Takeshi’s Castle (or MXC, for our American pals), Micro Machines, and slapstick Saturday morning TV.The idea was simple: 🦞 Race across Japan dodging ridiculous obstacles, 🍌 Hurl fruit at your rivals,🌀 And flail gloriously through ragdoll chaos…All while dressed as a lobster. And, it clicked: 💬 89% Very Positive on Steam 🎥 Millions of YouTube views 🇯🇵 Even got airtime on Japanese TV Fans were very excited when we announced Nippon Marathon 2, here's some of our fave reactions: What’s New in NM2? So for Nippon Marathon 2, we rebuilt everything from the ground up, building on what you love from the first game: 🍌 All-new obstacle courses with totally unexpected hazards 🧼 Ridiculous power-ups (old favourites + chaotic new ones) 🤼 The return of SoraTheTroll's iconic commentary 📺 Brand-new Create-a-Contestant mode 🕹️ And yes… online multiplayer is coming Who’s Behind the Madness? We’re Onion Soup Interactive - a married two-person indie team from the UK. We grew up glued to Takeshi’s Castle, Wacky Races, and many other completely unhinged TV show/cartoon from the 90s! Now as adults, it’s clearly hardwired into our DNA—because our mission is simple: To make unapologetically weird games that’ll have you questioning your life choices… and definitely ours. Since our debut with Nippon Marathon, we’ve been spreading joyful chaos to players around the world with our weird games.Our first Kickstarter for NM2 didn’t quite land, but we we weren’t ready anyway.So we trained in the indie dojo, unleashed the mini-game mayhem of SUPER 56, and now…We’re back. Stronger. Sillier. More Daijoubu than ever.Join the Community! We’re just two humans and a dream (and a lot of coffee), but it's our community that makes it all possible.Whether you’ve been with us since the first Nippon Marathon, discovered us through SUPER 56, or just stumbled in for Nippon Marathon 2 - we’re so glad you’re here 💛Got ideas? Fan art? Power-up suggestions? Come say hi: 💟 Discord 🐦 Twitter 📺 YouTube 🦋 BlueSky 🔗 LinkTree We post behind-the-scenes chaos, memes, dev updates, and occasionally, beta invites. Wishlist Nippon Marathon 2: Daijoubu! Hit that Wishlist button now to stay updated-and help us defeat the Steam algorithm overlords. It’s the easiest way to support the game and get notified about new updates and Shiba-fuelled madness.Thanks for joining us on this ridiculous journey.That’s Daijoubu!!!💛 Amy & Andy

Remember that time when good ol’ Peter Parker called a drone strike on his classmates because another guy was flirting with MJ? Well, the artificial intelligence that made it happen is back, this time in snarky Canadian form! Deadline is reporting that Schitt’s Creek alum Emily Hampshire has been cast as E.D.I.T.H. in Vision Quest, the upcoming Disney+ series starring Paul Bettany as the synthezoid Avenger. E.D.I.T.H., of course, made her debut as a pair of ugly, gaudy sunglasses the late Tony Stark bequeathed to Peter in Spider-Man: Far From Home. Through E.D.I.T.H., Peter had access to vast technological resources, resources that Mysterio wanted to use for himself. At the end of Far From Home, Peter reclaimed the E.D.I.T.H. glasses and in Spider-Man: No Way Home, a screen readout assured us that they were inactive. Moreover, No Way Home ends with Peter having his secret identity wiped from everyone’s memory and a closing shot of him hand-stitching his own costume in a dingy New York apartment, suggeting that the MCU experiment of making working-class Peter Parker into the scion of a tech bro was done. That may still be true, in which case Vision Quest is a much better place for E.D.I.T.H. to exist. Created by Terry Matalas, showrunner of the Twelve Monkeys TV series and the third season of Star Trek: Picard, Vision Quest will follow the next phase in the life of the synthezoid Vision, who was killed in Avengers: Infinity War and resurrected as an initially evil clone in WandaVision. The title Vision Quest comes from a 1989-1990 arc of West Coast Avengers, written and penciled by John Byrne, in which the U.S. government dismantles Vision and recreates him into a mindless and easily controllable form, signified by his new bleach white look. Fans of the MCU will recognize that storyline from the last episodes of WandaVision, in which S.A.B.E.R. did the same thing to Bettany’s character. However, the Vision Quest comics continued to tell the story of Vision attempting to recover the humanity and personality he’d previously gained over the years, which will presumably be the plot of Vision Quest. However, E.D.I.T.H.’s casting is just the latest in a host of synthetic characters who will appear in the show. James Spader will return as Vision’s creator Ultron, and T’Nia Miller has joined the show as Jocasta, a female synthezoid originally created as Ultron’s bride. A few humans will show up as well, including the return of Faran Tahir as Raza, the leader of the Ten Rings terrorist cell, last seen in Iron Man, and frequent Matalas collaborator Todd Stashwick as a mystery man hunting Vision. That’s a packed cast, but as anyone who recalls the Picard season 3 episode in which androids Data and Lore merged, Matalas knows how to tell an interesting story about artificial intelligence. That episode also showed that Matalas knows how to add levity to heavy conversations about existence, making Hampshire’s casting as E.D.I.T.H. a wise choice. Just don’t let her anywhere near another school bus full of teenagers. Vision Quest is slated to appear on Disney+ in 2026.

Would you believe Google really wants to sell you on its AI? This week, we dive into the news from Google I/O 2025 with Engadget's Karissa Bell. We discuss how Gemini is headed to even more places, as well as Karissa's brief hands-on with Google's prototype XR glasses. It seems like Google is trying a bit harder now than it did with Google Glass and its defunct Daydream VR platform. But will the company end up giving up again, or does it really have a shot against Meta and Apple? Subscribe! iTunes Spotify Pocket Casts Stitcher Google Podcasts Topics Lots of AI and a little XR: Highlights from Google I/O 2025 – 1:15 OpenAI buys Jony Ive’s design company for $6.6B, in an all equity deal – 29:27 Fujifilm’s $850 X Half could be the perfect retro camera for the social media age – 39:42 Sesame Street is moving from HBO to Netflix – 44:09 Cuts to IMLS will lead to headaches accessing content on apps like Libby and Hoopla – 45:49 Listener Mail: Should I replace my Chromebook with a Mac or PC Laptop? – 48:33 Pop culture picks – 52:22 Credits  Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Karissa BellProducer: Ben EllmanMusic: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien Transcript Devindra: [00:00:00] What's up, internet and welcome back to the Engadget Podcast. I'm Senior Editor Devindra Hardawar. I'm joined this morning by Senior Writer Karissa Bell. Hello, Karissa. Karissa: Hello. Good morning. Devindra: Good morning. And also podcast producer Ben Elman. Hey Ben, I'm muted my dang self. Hello. Hello, Ben. Good morning. It's been a busy week, like it's one of those weeks where. Three major conferences happened all at once and a varying like relevance to us. Google IO is the big one. We'll be talking about that with Karissa who was there and got to demo Google's XR glasses, but also Computex was happening. That's over in Taipei and we got a lot of news from that to, we'll mention some of those things. Also, Microsoft build happened and I feel like this was the less least relevant build to us ever. I got one bit of news I can mention there. That's pretty much it. It's been a crazy hectic week for us over at Eng Gadget. As always, if you're enjoying the show, please be free to subscribe to us on iTunes or your podcast catcher of choice. Leave us a review on iTunes, drop us email at podcast@enggadget.com. [00:01:00] Those emails, by the way, if you ask a good question, it could end up being part of our Ask Engadget section, so that's something we're starting out. I have another good one. I'll be throwing to asking Eng gadgets soon. So send us your emails podcast@enggadget.com, Google io. It's all about ai, isn't it? I feel like Karissa, we were watching the keynote for this thing and it felt like it went on and on of the thing about the things, like we all pretty much expect more about Gemini ai, more about their newer models a bit about xr. Can you give me, what's your overall impression of IO at this point? Karissa: Yeah, it's interesting because I've been covering IO long enough that I remember back when it used to be Android. And then there'd be like that little section at the end about, AI and some of the other stuff. And now it's completely reversed where it's entirely AI and basically no Android to the point where they had a whole separate event with their typical Android stuff the week before. So it didn't have to go through and talk about any of yeah, the mobile things. Devindra: That was just like a live stream that was just like a chill, live stream. No real [00:02:00] effort put into it. Whereas this is the whole show. They had a, who was it? But they had TOIs. TOIs, yeah. They had actual music which is something a lot of these folks do at keynotes. It's actually really disconcerting to see cool musicians taking the corporate gig and performing at one of these things. I think, it was like 20 13, 20 14, maybe the Intel one, IDF or something. But the weekend was there. Just trying to jam to all these nerds and it was sad, but yeah. How was the experience Karissa like actually going there? Karissa: Yeah, it was good. That keynote is always kind of a slog. Just, live blogging for our almost two hours straight, just constant is it's a lot. I did like the music. Towa was very chill. It was a nice way to start much. I preferred it over the crazy loop daddy set we got last year. If anyone remembers that. Devindra: Yeah. Ben: Yeah. Oh, I remember that. Mark Rub was at audio. That was so weird. Devindra: Yeah. Yeah, it was a little intense. Cool. So what are some of the highlights? Like there, there's a bunch of stuff. If you go look on, on the site on Engadget, we [00:03:00] have rounded up like all the major news and that includes a couple of things like hey, AI mode, chat bot coming to search. That's cool. We got more, I think the thing a lot of people were looking at was like Project Astra and where that's gonna be going. And that is the sort of universal AI assistant where you could hold your phone up and just ask it questions about the world. We got another demo video about that. Which again, the actual utility of it, I'm weirded out by. There was also one video where they were just like I'm gonna be dumb. I'm gonna pretend I'm very stupid and ask ask Astro, what is this tall building in front of me. And it was like a fire hydrant or something. It was like some piece of street thing. It was not a really well done demo. Do you have any thoughts about that, Krista? Does that seem more compelling to you now or is it the same as what we saw last year? Karissa: I think what was interesting to me about it was that we saw Astro last year and like that, I think there was a lot of excitement around that, but it wasn't really entirely clear where that. Project is going. They've said it's like an experimental research thing. And then, I feel like this year they really laid out that they want to [00:04:00] bring all that stuff to Gemini. Astra is sort of their place to like tinker with this and, get all this stuff working. But like their end game is putting this into Gemini. You can already see it a little bit in Gemini Live, which is like their multimodal feature where you can do some. Version of what ASRA can do. And so that was interesting. They're saying, we want Gemini to be this universal AI assistant. They didn't use the word a GI or anything like that. But I think it's pretty clear where they're going and like what their ambition is they want this to be, an all seeing, all knowing AI assistant that can help you with anything is what they're trying to sell it as. Devindra: It is weird, like we're watching the demo video and it's a guy trying to fix his bike and he is pointing his phone at like the bike and asking questions like which, which particular, I don't know. It's which particular nut do I need for this tightening thing and it's giving him good advice. It's pointing to things on YouTube. I. I don't know how useful this will actually be. This kind of goes to part of the stuff we're seeing with AI too, of just like offloading [00:05:00] some of the grunt work of human intelligence because you can do this right now, people have been YouTubing to fix things forever. YouTube has become this like information repository of just fix it stuff or home plumbing or whatever. And now it's just like you'll be able to talk to your phone. It'll direct you right to those videos or. Extract the actual instructions from those. That's cool. I feel like that's among the more useful things, more useful than like putting Gemini right into Chrome, which is another thing they're talking about, and I don't know how useful that is other than. They wanna push AI in front of us, just like Microsoft wants to push copilot in front of us at all times. Ben: What is a situation where you would have a question about your Chrome tabs? Like I'm not one of those people that has 15 chrome tabs open at any given time, and I know that I am. Yeah, I know. Wait, you're saying that like it's a high. Like it's high. Yeah, no I know. So I have a abnormally low number of chrome tabs open, but can you still come up [00:06:00] with an idea of why you would ask Gemini anything about your own tabs open? Hopefully you have them organized. At least Karissa: they should. A few examples of like online shopping, like maybe you have. Two tabs of two different products open. And you can say Devindra: exactly, Karissa: ask Gemini to like, compare the reviews. Or they use like the example of a recipe video, a recipe blog. And maybe, you wanna make some kind of modification, make the recipe gluten free. And you could ask Gemini Hey, make this how would I make this gluten free? But I think you're right, like it's not exactly clear. You can already just open a new tab and go to Gemini and ask it. Something. So they're just trying to reduce Devindra: friction. I think that's the main thing. Like just the less you have to think about it, the more it's in your face. You can just always always just jump right to it. It's hey, you can Google search from any your UL bar, your location bar in any browser. We've just grown to use that, but that didn't used to be the case. I remember there used to be a separate Google field. Some browsers and it wasn't always there in every browser too. They did announce some new models. We [00:07:00] saw there's Gemini 2.5 Pro. There's a deep think reasoning model. There's also a flash model that they announced for smaller devices. Did they show any good demos of the reasoning stuff? Because I that's essentially slower AI processing to hopefully get you better answers with fewer flaws. Did they actually show how that worked? Karissa. Karissa: I only saw what we all saw during the keynote and I think it's, we've seen a few other AI companies do something similar where you can see it think like its reasoning process. Yeah. And see it do that in real time. But I think it's a bit unclear exactly what that's gonna look like. Devindra: Watching a video, oh, Gemini can simulate nature simulate light. Simulate puzzles, term images into code. Ben: I feel like the big thing, yeah. A lot of this stuff is from DeepMind, right? This is DeepMind an alphabet company. Devindra: DeepMind and Alphabet company. There is Deep mind. This is deep Think and don't confuse this with deep seek, which is that the Chinese AI company, and they [00:08:00] clearly knew what they were doing when they call it that thing. Deep seek. But no, yeah, that is, this is partially stuff coming out of DeepMind. DeepMind, a company which Google has been like doing stuff with for a while. And we just have not really seen much out of it. So I guess Gemini and all their AI processes are a way to do that. We also saw something that got a lot of people, we saw Ben: Nobel Prize from them. Come on. Devindra: Hey, we did see that. What does that mean? What is that even worth anymore? That's an open question. They also showed off. A new video tool called Flow, which I think got a lot of people intrigued because it's using a new VO three model. So an updated version of what they've had for video effects for a while. And the results look good. Like the video looks higher quality. Humans look more realistic. There have been. The interesting thing about VO three is it can also do synchronized audio to actually produce audio and dialogue for people too. So people have been uploading videos around this stuff online at this point, and you have to [00:09:00] subscribe to the crazy high end. Version of Google's subscription to even test out this thing at this point that is the AI Ultra plan that costs $250 a month. But I saw something of yeah, here's a pretend tour of a make believe car show. And it was just people spouting random facts. So yeah, I like EVs. I would like an ev. And then it looks realistic. They sound synchronized like you could. I think this is a normal person. Then they just kinda start laughing at the end for no reason. Like weird little things. It's if you see a sociopath, try to pretend to be a human for a little bit. There's real Patrick Bateman vibes from a lot of those things, so I don't know. It's fun. It's cool. I think there's, so didn't we Ben: announce that they also had a tool to help you figure out whether or not a video was generated by flow? They did announce that Devindra: too. Ben: I've yeah, go ahead. Go Karissa: ahead. Yeah. The synth id, they've been working on that for a while. They talked about it last year at io. That's like their digital watermarking technology. And the funny thing about this is [00:10:00] their whole, the whole concept of AI watermarking is you put like these like invisible watermarks into AI generated content. You might, you couldn't just. See it, just watching this content. But you can go to this website now and basically like double check. If it has one of these watermarks, which is on one hand it's. I think it's important that they do this work, but I also just wonder how many people are gonna see a video and think I wonder what kind of AI is in this. Let me go to this other website and like double check it like that. Just, Ben: yeah. The people who are most likely to immediately believe it are the, also the least likely to go to the website and be like, I would like to double check Devindra: this. It doesn't matter because most people will not do it and the damage will be done. Just having super hyper realistic, AI video, they can, you can essentially make anything happen. It's funny that the big bad AI bad guy in the new Mission Impossible movies, the entity, one of the main things it does is oh, we don't know what's true anymore because the entity can just cr fabricate reality at whim. We're just doing that. [00:11:00] We're just doing that for, I don't know, for fun. I feel like this is a thing we should see in all AI video tools. This doesn't really answer the problem, answer the question that everyone's having though. It's what is the point of these tools? Because it does devalue filmmaking, it devalues people using actual actors or using, going out and actually shooting something. Did Google make a better pitch for why you would use Flow Karissa or how it would fit into like actual filmmaking? Karissa: I'm not sure they did. They showed that goofy Darren Aronofsky trailer for some woman who was trying to like, make a movie about her own birth, and it was like seemed like they was trying to be in the style of some sort of like psychological thriller, but it just, I don't know, it just felt really weird to me. I was I was just like, what are we watching? This doesn't, what are we watching? Yeah. Ben: Was there any like good backstory about why she was doing that either or was it just Hey, we're doing something really weird? Karissa: No, she was just oh I wonder, you know what? I wanna tell the story of my own birth and Okay. Ben: [00:12:00] Okay, but why is your relate birth more? Listen its like every, I need more details. Why is your birth more important? It's, everybody wants lots of babies. Write I memoir like one of three ways or something. Devindra: Yeah, it's about everybody who wants to write a memoir. It's kinda the same thing. Kinda that same naval ga thing. The project's just called ancestral. I'm gonna play a bit of a trailer here. I remember seeing this, it reminds me of that footage I dunno if you guys remember seeing, look who's talking for the very first time or something, or those movies where they, they showed a lot of things about how babies are made. And as a kid I was like, how'd they make that, how'd that get done? They're doing that now with AI video and ancestral this whole project. It is kinda sad because Aronofsky is one of my, like one of my favorite directors when he is on, he has made some of my favorite films, but also he's a guy who has admittedly stolen ideas and concepts from people like Satoshi kh as specific framing of scenes and things like that. In Requa for a Dream are in some cones movies as well. So [00:13:00] I guess it's to be expected, but it is. Sad because Hollywood as a whole, the union certainly do not like AI video. There was a story about James Earl Jones' voice being used as Darth Vader. In Fortnite. In Fortnite. In Fortnite, yeah. Which is something we knew was gonna happen because Disney licensed the rights to his voice before he died from his estate. He went in and recorded lines to at least create a better simulation of his voice. But people are going out there making that Darth Vader swear and say bad things in Fortnite and the WGA or is it sag? It's probably sag but sad. Like the unions are pissed off about this because they do not know this was happening ahead of time and they're worried about what this could mean for the future of AI talent. Flow looks interesting. I keep seeing play people play with it. I made a couple videos asked it to make Hey, show me three cats living in Brooklyn with a view of the Manhattan skyline or something. And it, it did that, but the apartment it rendered didn't look fully real. [00:14:00] It had like weird heating things all around. And also apparently. If you just subscribe to the basic plan to get access to flow, you can use flow, but that's using the VO two model. So older AI model. To get VO three again, you have to pay $250 a month. So maybe that'll come down in price eventually. But we shall see. The thing I really want to talk with you about Krisa is like, what the heck is happening with Android xr? And that is a weird project for them because I was writing up the news and they announced like a few things. They were like, Hey we have a new developer released to help you build Android XR apps. But it wasn't until the actual a IO show. That they showed off more of what they were actually thinking about. And you got to test out a pair of prototype Google XR glasses powered by Android xr. Can you tell me about that experience and just how does it differ from the other XR things you've seen from who is it from Several, look, you've seen Metas Meta, you saw one from Snap, right? Meta Karissa: I've seen Snap. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen the X reel. Yeah, some of the other smaller [00:15:00] companies I got to see at CES. Yeah, that was like a bit of a surprise. I know that they've been talking about Android XR for a while. I feel like it's been a little, more in the background. So they brought out these, these glasses and, the first thing that I noticed about them was like, they were actually pretty small and like normal looking compared to, met Orion or like the snap spectacles. Like these were very thin which was cool. But the display was only on one side. It was only on one lens. They called it like a monocular display. So there's one lens on one side. So it's basically just like a little window, very small field of view. Devindra: We could see it in, if you go to the picture on top of Chris's hands on piece, you can see the frame out. Of what that lens would be. Yeah. Karissa: Yeah. And I noticed even when we were watching that, that demo video that they did on stage, that like the field of view looked very small. It was even smaller than Snaps, which is 35 degrees like this. I would, if I had to guess, I'd say it's maybe like around 20. They wouldn't say what it was. They said, this is a prototype. We don't wanna say the way I thought about it, the way [00:16:00] I compared it to my piece was like the front screwing on a foldable phone, so it's you can get notifications and you can like glance at things, but it's not fully immersive ar it's not, surrounding your space and like really cha changing your reality, in the way that like snap and and meta are trying to do later when I was driving home, I realized it actually was reminded me like a better comparison might be the heads up display in your car. Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Karissa: If you have a car that has that little hu where you can see how fast you're going and directions and stuff like that. Devindra: That's what Google Glass was doing too, right? Because that was a little thing off to the side of your revision that was never a full takeover. Your vision type of thing. Karissa: Yeah. It's funny, that's what our editor Aaron said when he was editing my piece, he was like, oh, this sounds like Google Glass. And I'm like, no, it actually, it's, it is better than that. These are like normal looking glasses. The, I tried Google Glass many years ago. Like the Fidelity was better. Actually I was thinking. It feels like a happy medium almost between, meta ray bands and like full ar Yeah, like I, I've had a meta ray band glasses [00:17:00] for a long time and people always ask me, like when I show it to someone, they're like, oh, that's so cool. And then they go, but you can see stuff, right? There's a display and I'm like. No. These are just, glasses with the speaker. And I feel like this might be like a good kind of InBetween thing because you have a little bit of display, but they still look like glasses. They're not bulky 'cause they're not trying to do too much. One thing I really liked is that when you take a photo, you actually get a little preview of that image that like floats onto the screen, which was really cool because it's hard to figure out how to frame pictures when you are taking using glasses camera on your smart glasses. So I think there's some interesting ideas, but it's very early. Obviously they want like Gemini to be a big part of it. The Gemini stuff. Was busted in my demo. Devindra: You also said they don't plan on selling these are like purely, hey, this is what could be a thing. But they're not selling these specific glasses, right? Karissa: Yeah, these specific ones are like, this is a research prototype. But they did also announce a partnership with Warby Parker and another glasses company. So I think it's like you can see them trying to take a meta approach here, which [00:18:00] actually would be pretty smart to say let's partner with. A known company that makes glasses, they're already popular. We can give them our, our tech expertise. They can make the glasses look good and, maybe we'll get something down the line. I actually heard a rumor that. Prototype was manufactured by Samsung. They wouldn't say Devindra: Of course it's Sam, Samsung wants to be all over this. Samsung is the one building their the full on Android XR headset, which is a sort of like vision Pro copycat, like it is Mohan. Yeah. Moan. It is displays with the pass through camera. That should be coming later this year. Go ahead Ben. Ben: Yeah. Question for Karissa. When Sergey brand was talking about Google Glass, did that happen before or after the big demo for the Google XR glasses? Karissa: That was after. That was at the end of the day. He was a surprise guest in this fireside chat with the DeepMind, CEO. And yeah, it was, we were all wondering about that. 'cause we all, dev probably remembers this very well the, when Google Glass came out and cereal and skydive [00:19:00] wearing them into io. Yeah. Speaker: Yep. Karissa: And then, now for him to come back and say we made a lot of mistakes with that product and. Ben: But was it mistakes or was it just the fact that like technology was not there yet because he was talking about like consumer electronic supply chain, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Devindra: He's right that the tech has caught up with what the vision of what they wanted to do, but also I think he fundamentally misread like people will see you looking like the goddamn borg and want to destroy you. They want you will turn into Captain Picard and be like, I must destroy whoever is wearing Google Glass because this looks like an alien trying to take over my civilization. And the thing that meta did right, that you've seen Karissa, is that make 'em look like normal glasses and Yeah, but nobody will knows, Ben: Karissa does not look entirely human in this picture either. Karissa: Yes. But listen from, if you see 'em straight on, they don't, they look transparent. That was I used that photo because I was trying to. Devindra: You get the angle, show The display. Karissa: Yeah. Devindra: [00:20:00] Yeah. There's another one like you. This looks normal. This looks totally normal. The glasses themselves look like, they look like typical hipster glasses. Like they're not like a super big frame around them. You're they look like the arms seem big. The arms seem wider than a typical pair of glasses, but you wouldn't know that 'cause it's covered in your hair. A lot of people won't notice glasses, arms as much. Ben: Yeah, Devindra: that is cool. The issue Ben: still is that all of these frames are so chunky. And it's because you need to hide all of the internals and everything, but you're not gonna get like the beautiful, like thin Japanese like titanium anytime soon. No, because this stuff needs to shrink way more. Devindra: This stuff that's not, those the kind of frames they are. I will say I had a meeting with the one of the I believe the CEO of X reel who. Came not, I did talk to them at c so they, they had like a lot of ideas about that. I talked to the the head of space top, which is [00:21:00] the, that's the company that was doing the sort of AR laptop thing. And then they gave up on that idea because AI PCs have the nmps that they need to do that stuff. And they're all in on the idea that, more people will want to use these sorts of glasses. Maybe not all the time, but for specific use cases. Something that co covers your field of vision more. Could be a great thing when you sit down at your desk. I could see people doing this. I could see people getting these glasses. I don't know if it's gonna be good for society, right? It feels when Bluetooth headsets were first popping up and everybody hated those people, and you're like, oh, we must shun this person from society. This one, you can't quite see the screen. So you can pretend to be a normal human and then have this like augmented ability next to you. If they can hide that, if they can actually hide the fact that you have a display on your glasses that would help people like me who are face blind and I walk around I don't, I know this person. I've seen them before. What is their name? What is their name? I could see that being useful. Ben: On the other side of it [00:22:00] though, if you have one standard look for glasses like this, then you know, oh, this person is, I. Also interacting with like information and stuff that's like popping up in front of their eyes. It's a universal signifier, just like having a big pair of headphones is Devindra: I think you will see people looking off to the distance. Krisa, did you notice that your eye line was moving away from people you were talking to while you were wearing these? Karissa: Yeah, and that was also one of the issues that I had was that the. Actual, like display was like, was it like didn't quite render right? Where I'm not a farsighted person, but I actually had to look farther off in the distance to actually get it to like my eyes to focus on it. And I asked 'em about that and they're like, oh it's a prototype. It's not quite dialed in. They weren't calibrating these things to your eyeballs. Like the way when I did the Meta Orion demo, they have to take these specific measurements because there's eye tracking and all these things and this, didn't have any of that. There. Yeah, there definitely was. You're, somebody's talking to you, but you're looking over here. Devindra: That's not great. That's [00:23:00] not great for society. You're having a conversation with people. I like how they're framing this oh yes, you can be more connected with reality. 'cause you don't have a phone in front of your face, except you always have another display in front of your face, which nobody else can see, and you're gonna look like an alien walking around. They showed some videos of people using it for like street navigation. Which I kinda like. You're in a new city, you'll see the arrows and where to turn and stuff. That's useful. But there is this, there was one that was really overwrought. It was a couple dancing at Sunset, and the guy is take a picture of this beautiful moment of the sun peeking through behind, my lady friend. And it just felt like that's what you wanna do in that moment. You wanna talk to your virtual assistant while you should be enjoying the fact that you are having this beautiful dancing evening, which nobody will ever actually have. So that's the whole thing. I will say my overall thoughts on this stuff, like just looking at this, the stuff they showed before they actually showed us the glasses, it doesn't feel like Google is actually that far in terms of making this a reality. Karissa the, like I'm comparing it to. Where Meta [00:24:00] is right now, and even where Apple is right now, like when Apple showed us the vision Pro. We were able to sit down and I had a 30 minute demo of that thing working, and I saw the vision of what they were doing and they thought a lot about how this was. How long was your demo with this thing? Karissa: I was in the room with them for about five minutes and I had them on for about three minutes myself. That's not a demo. That's not a demo. Ben: Oh, goodness. So all of these pictures were taken in the same 90 seconds? Yes. Yeah. God. That's amazing. Devindra: It's amazing you were able to capture these impressions, Karissa. Yeah, Karissa: I will say that they did apparently have a demo in December, a press event in December where people got to see these things for a lot longer, but it was, they could not shoot them at all. We, a lot of us were wondering if that was why it was so constrained. They only had one room, there's hundreds of people basically lining up to try these out. And they're like very strict. You got five minutes, somebody's in there like after a couple minutes, rushing you out, and we're like, okay. Like Devindra: They clearly only have a handful of these. That's like the main reason this is happening. I am, this is the company, that did Google Glass and that was too [00:25:00] early and also maybe too ambitious. But also don't forget, Google Cardboard, which was this that was a fun little project of getting phone-based vr happening. Daydream vr, which was their self-contained headset, which was cool. That was when Samsung was doing the thing with Meta as well, or with Oculus at the time. So and they gave up on those things. Completely. And Google's not a company I trust with consumer Hardaware in general. So I am. Don't think there is a huge future in Android xr, but they wanna be there. They wanna be where Meta is and where Apple is and we shall see. Anything else you wanna add about io, Karissa? Karissa: No, just that AI. A i a ai Devindra: a I didn't AI ao, A IAO a IO starline. The thing that was a, like weird 3D rendering teleconferencing video that is becoming a real thing that's turning to Google Beam video. But it's gonna be an enterprise thing. They're teaming up with AI to, with HP to bring a scaled down version of that two businesses. I don't think we'll love or see That's one of those things where it's oh, this exists [00:26:00] in some corporate offices who will pay $50,000 for this thing, but. I don't, normal people will never interact with this thing, so it practically just does not exist. So we shall see. Anyway, stay tuned for, we're gonna have more demos of the Gemini stuff. We'll be looking at the new models, and certainly Chris and I will be looking hard at Android XR and wherever the heck that's going. Let's quickly move on to other news. And I just wanna say there were other events, Compex, we wrote up a couple, a whole bunch of laptops. A MD announced a cheaper radio on graphics card. Go check out our stories on that stuff. Build. I wrote one, I got a 70 page book of news from Microsoft about build and 99% of that news just does not apply to us because Build is so fully a developer coding conference. Hey, there's more more copilot stuff. There's a copilot app coming to 360 [00:27:00] fi subscribers, and that's cool, but not super interesting. I would say the big thing that happened this week and that surprised a lot of us is the news that OpenAI has bought. Johnny i's design startup for six and a half billion. Dollars. This is a wild story, which is also paired with a weird picture. It looks like they're getting married. It looks like they're announcing their engagement over here because Johnny, ive is just leaning into him. Their heads are touching a little bit. It's so adorable. You're not showing Ben: the full website though. The full website has like a script font. It literally looks, yeah, like something from the knot. Devindra: It Is it? Yeah. Let's look at here. Sam and Johnny introduced io. This is an extraordinary moment. Computers are now seeing, thinking, understanding, please come to our ceremony at this coffee shop. For some reason, they also yeah, so they produced this coffee shop video to really show this thing off and, it is wild to me. Let me pull this up over here. Ben: While we're doing that. Karissa, what do you [00:28:00] have to say about this? Karissa: I don't, I'm trying to remember, so I know this is Johnny Ives like AI because he also has like the love from, which is still Devindra: this is love from, this is, so he is, let me get the specifics of the deal out here. Yeah. As part of the deal Ive and his design studio love form. Is it love form or love form? Love form. Yeah. Love form are gonna be joining are gonna work independently of open ai. But Scott Cannon Evans Hanky and Ang Tan who co-founded io. This is another io. I hate these. Yeah, so IO is his AI. Karissa: Focused design thing. And then love form is like his design Devindra: studio thing. Karissa: Sure. Yeah. I'm just, he Devindra: has two design things. Karissa: I'm trying to remember what they've done. I remember there was like a story about they made like a really expensive jacket with some weird buttons or something like Devindra: Yep. I do remember that. Karissa: I was just trying to back my brain of what Johnny Iiv has really done in his post Apple life. I feel like we haven't, he's made Devindra: billions of dollars courses. What's happened? Yes. [00:29:00] Because he is now still an independent man. Clearly he's an independent contractor, but love like the other side of io. Which includes those folks. They will become open AI employees alongside 50 other engineers, designers, and researchers. They're gonna be working on AI Hardaware. It seems like Johnny, I will come in with like ideas, but he, this is not quite a marriage. He's not quite committing. He's just taking the money and being like, Ew, you can have part of my AI startup for six and a half billion dollars. Ben: Let us know your taxes. It's all equity though, so this is all paper money. Six and a half billion dollars. Of like open AI's like crazy, their crazy valuation who knows how act, how much it's actually going to be worth. But all these people are going to sell a huge chunk of stock as soon as open AI goes public anyway. So it's still gonna be an enormous amount of money. Devindra: Lemme, let me see here, the latest thing. Open OpenAI has raised 57.9 billion of funding over 11 rounds. [00:30:00] Good Lord. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, a big chunk of that is going to, to this thing because I think what happened is that Sam Altman wants to, he clearly just wants to be Steve Jobs. I think that's what's happening here. And go, I, all of you go look at the video, the announcement video for this thing, because it is one of the weirdest things I've seen. It is. Johnny I have walking through San Francisco, Sam Altman, walking through San Francisco with his hands in his pockets. There's a whole lot of setup to these guys meeting in a coffee shop, and then they sit there at the coffee shop like normal human beings, and then have an announcement video talking to nobody. They're just talking to the middle of the coffee bar. I don't know who they're addressing. Sometimes they refer to each other and sometimes they refer to camera, but they're never looking at the camera. This is just a really wild thing. Also. Yet, another thing that makes me believe, I don't think Sam Altman is is a real human boy. I think there is actually something robotic about this man, because I can't see him actually perform in real life [00:31:00] what they're gonna do. They reference vagaries, that's all. It's, we don't know what exactly is happening. There is a quote. From Johnny Ive, and he says, quote, the responsibility that Sam shares is honestly beyond my comprehension end quote. Responsibility of what? Just building this like giant AI thing. Sam Alman For humanity. Yeah, for humanity. Like just unlocking expertise everywhere. Sam Altman says he is. He has some sort of AI device and it's changed his life. We don't know what it is. We dunno what they're actually working on. They announced nothing here. But Johnny Ive is very happy because he has just made billions of dollars. He's not getting all of that money, but he, I think he's very pleased with this arrangement. And Sam Malman seems pleased that, oh, the guy who who designed the iPhone and the MacBook can now work for me. And Johnny, I also says the work here at Open AI is the best work he's ever done. Sure. You'd say that. Sure. By the way. Karissa: Sure. What do you think Apple thinks about all this? Devindra: Yeah, Karissa: their AI [00:32:00] program is flailing and like their, star designer who, granted is not, separated from Apple a while ago, but is now teaming up with Sam Altman for some future computing AI Hardaware where like they can't even get AI Siri to work. That must be like a gut punch for folks maybe on the other side of it though. Yeah, I Ben: don't think it's sour grapes to say. Are they going into the like. Friend, like friend isn't even out yet, but like the humane pin? Yes. Or any of the other like AI sidekick sort of things like that has already crashed and burned spectacularly twice. Devindra: I think Apple is, maybe have dodged a bullet here because I, the only reason Johnny and I just working on this thing is because he OpenAI had put some money into left Formm or IO years ago too. So they already had some sort of collaboration and he's just okay, people are interested in the ai. What sort of like beautiful AI device can I buy? The thing is. [00:33:00] Johnny Ive unchecked as a designer, leads to maddening things like the magic mouse, the charges from the bottom butterfly Karissa: keyboard, Devindra: any butterfly keyboard. Yeah, that's beautiful, but not exactly functional. I've always worked best when he Johnny, ive always worked best when I. He had the opposing force of somebody like a Steve Jobs who could be like, no, this idea is crazy. Or reign it in or be more functional. Steve Jobs not a great dude in many respects, but the very least, like he was able to hone into product ideas and think about how humans use products a lot. I don't think Johnny, ive on his own can do that. I don't think Sam Altman can do that because this man can barely sit and have a cup of coffee together. Like a human being. So I, whatever this is. I honestly, Chris, I feel like Apple has dodged a bullet because this is jumping into the AI gadget trend. Apple just needs to get the software right, because they have the devices, right? We are wearing, we're wearing Apple watches. People have iPhones, people have MacBooks. What they need to do, solidify the infrastructure the AI [00:34:00] smarts between all those devices. They don't need to go out and sell a whole new device. This just feels like opening AI is a new company and they can try to make an AI device a thing. I don't think it's super compelling, but let us know listeners, if any of this, listen to this chat of them talking about nothing. Unlocking human greatness, unlocking expertise just through ai, through some AI gadget. I don't quite buy it. I think it's kind of garbage, but yeah. Ben: Anything else you guys wanna say about this? This is coming from the same guy who, when he was asked in an interview what college students should study, he said Resilience. Karissa: Yeah. I just think all these companies want. To make the thing that's the next iPhone. Yes. They can all just stop being relying on Apple. It's the thing that Mark Zuckerberg has with all of their like Hardaware projects, which by the way, there was one of the stories said that Johnny I thing has been maybe working on some kind of. Head earbuds with cameras on them, which sounded [00:35:00] very similar to a thing that meta has been rumored about meta for a long time. And and also Apple, Devindra: like there, there were rumors about AirPods with head with Karissa: cameras. Yeah. And everyone's just I think trying to like, make the thing that's like not an iPhone that will replace our iPhones, but good luck to them, good, good Devindra: luck to that because I think that is coming from a fundamentally broken, like it's a broken purpose. The whole reason doing that is just try to outdo the iPhone. I was thinking about this, how many companies like Apple that was printing money with iPods would just be like, Hey we actually have a new thing and this will entirely kill our iPod business. This new thing will destroy the existing business that is working so well for us. Not many companies do that. That's the innovator's dilemma that comes back and bites companies in the butt. That's why Sony held off so long on jumping into flat screen TVs because they were the world's leader in CRTs, in Trinitron, and they're like, we're good. We're good into the nineties. And then they completely lost the TV business. That's why Toyota was so slow to EVs, because they're like, hybrids are good to us. Hybrids are great. We don't need an EV for a very long time. And then they released an EV that [00:36:00] we, where the wheels fell off. So it comes for everybody. I dunno. I don't believe in these devices. Let's talk about something that could be cool. Something that is a little unrealistic, I think, but, for a certain aesthetic it is cool. Fujifilm announced the X half. Today it is an $850 digital camera with an analog film aesthetic. It shoots in a three by four portrait aspect ratio. That's Inax mini ratio. It looks like an old school Fuji camera. This thing is pretty wild because the screen it's only making those portrait videos. One of the key selling points is that it can replicate some film some things you get from film there's a light leak simulation for when you like Overexpose film A little bit, a ation, and that's something Ben: that Fujifilm is known for. Devindra: Yes. They love that. They love these simulation modes. This is such a social media kid camera, especially for the people who cannot afford the $2,000 Fuji films, compact cameras. [00:37:00] Wow. Even the Ben: screen is do you wanna take some vertical photographs for your social media? Because vertical video has completely won. Devindra: You can't, and it can take video, but it is just, it is a simplistic living little device. It has that, what do you call that? It's that latch that you hit to wind film. It has that, so you can put it into a film photograph mode where you don't see anything on the screen. You have to use the viewfinder. To take pictures and it starts a countdown. You could tell it to do like a film, real number of pictures, and you have to click through to hit, take your next picture. It's the winder, it's, you can wind to the next picture. You can combine two portrait photos together. It's really cool. It's really cute. It's really unrealistic I think for a lot of folks, but. Hey, social media kits like influencers, the people who love to shoot stuff for social media and vertical video. This could be a really cool little device. I don't, what do you guys think about this? Karissa: You know what this reminds me of? Do you remember like in the early Instagram days when there was all these [00:38:00] apps, like hip, systematic where they tried to emulate like film aesthetics? And some of them would do these same things where like you would take the picture but you couldn't see it right away. 'cause it had to develop. And they even had a light leak thing. And I'm like, now we've come full circle where the camera companies are basically like yeah. Taking or like just doing their own. Spin on that, but Devindra: it only took them 15 years to really jump on this trend. But yes, everybody was trying to emulate classic cameras and foodie was like, oh, you want things that cost more but do less. Got it. That's the foodie film X half. And I think this thing will be a huge success. What you're talking about krisa, there is a mode where it's just yeah. You won't see the picture immediately. It has to develop in our app and then you will see it eventually. That's cool honestly, like I love this. I would not, I love it. I would not want it to be my main camera, but I would love to have something like this to play around when you could just be a little creative and pretend to be a street photographer for a little bit. Oh man. This would be huge in Brooklyn. I can just, Ben: Tom Rogers says cute, but stupid tech. I think that's [00:39:00] the perfect summary. Devindra: But this is, and I would say this compared to the AI thing, which is just like. What is this device? What are you gonna do with it? It feels like a lot of nothing in bakery. Whereas this is a thing you hold, it takes cool pictures and you share it with your friends. It is such a precise thing, even though it's very expensive for what it is. I would say if you're intrigued by this, you can get cheap compact cameras, get used cameras. I only ever buy refurbished cameras. You don't necessarily need this, but, oh man, very, but having a Karissa: Fuji film camera is a status symbol anyway. So I don't know. This is it's eight 50 still seems like a little steep for a little toy camera, basically. But also I'm like I see that. I'm like, Ooh, that looks nice. Devindra: Yeah. It's funny the power shots that kids are into now from like the two thousands those used to cost like 200 to 300 bucks and I thought, oh, that is a big investment in camera. Then I stepped up to the Sony murals, which were like 500 to 600 or so. I'm like, okay, this is a bigger step up than even that. Most people would be better off with a [00:40:00] muralist, but also those things are bigger than this tiny little pocket camera. I dunno. I'm really I think it's, I'm enamored with this whole thing. Also briefly in other news we saw that apparently Netflix is the one that is jumping out to save Sesame Street and it's going to, Sesame Street will air on Netflix and PBS simultaneously. That's a good, that's a good thing because there was previously a delay when HBO was in charge. Oh really? Yeah. They would get the new episodes and there was like, I forget how long the delay actually was, but it would be a while before new stuff hit PBS. This is just Hey, I don't love that so much of our entertainment and pop culture it, we are now relying on streamers for everything and the big media companies are just disappointing us, but. This is a good move. I think Sesame Street should stick around, especially with federal funding being killed left and right for public media like this. This is a good thing. Sesame Street is still good. My kids love it. When my son starts leaning into like his Blippy era, I. I just [00:41:00] kinda slowly tune that out. Here's some Sesame Street. I got him into PeeWee's Playhouse, which is the original Blippy. I'm like, yes, let's go back to the source. Because Peewee was a good dude. He's really, and that show still holds up. That show is so much fun. Like a great introduction to camp for kids. Great. In introduction to like also. Diverse neighborhoods, just Sesame Street as well. Peewee was, or mr. Rogers was doing Ben: it before. I think everyone, Devindra: Mr. Rogers was doing it really well too. But Peewee was always something special because PeeWee's Wild, Peewee, Lawrence Fishburn was on Peewee. There, there's just a lot of cool stuff happening there. Looking back at it now as an adult, it is a strange thing. To watch, but anyway, great to hear that Sesame Street is back. Another thing, not so quick. Ben: Yeah, let me do this one. Go ahead, if I may. Go ahead. So if you have any trouble getting audio books on Libby or Hoopla or any of the other interlibrary loan systems that you can like access on your phone or iPad any tablet. That's [00:42:00] because of the US government because a while ago the Trump administration passed yet another executive order saying that they wanted to cut a bunch of funding to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the IMLS, and they're the ones who help circulate big quotation marks there just because it's digital files, all of these things from interlibrary loans. So you can, get your audio books that you want. The crazy thing about this is that the IMLS was created in 1996 by a Republican controlled Congress. What's the deal here, guys? There's no waste, fraud and abuse, but if you have problems getting audio books, you can tell a friend or if anybody's complaining about why their, library selection went down. By a lot on Libby recently, now you have the answer. Devindra: It is truly sad. A lot of what's happening is just to reduce access to information because hey, a well-formed population is [00:43:00] dangerous to anybody in charge, right? Terrible news. Let's move on to stuff from that's happening around in gadget. I wanna quickly shout out that Sam Rutherford has reviewed the ACEs RG flow Z 13. This is the sort of like surface like device. That's cool. This is the rise in pro Max chip. Sam seems to like it, so that's, it's a cool thing. Not exactly stealthy. He gave it a 79, which is right below. The threshold we have for recommending new products because this thing is expensive. You're paying a lot of money to get, essentially get a gaming tablet. But I tested out cs. It is cool that it actually worked for a certain type of person with too much money and who just needs the lightest gaming thing possible. I could see it being compelling. Let's see, what is the starting price? $2,100. $2,100 for a gaming tablet. Sam says it costs the same or more as a comparable RRG Zes G 14 with a real RTX 50 70. That is a great laptop. The RRGs Zes G 14, we have praised that laptop so much. So this is not [00:44:00] really meant for anybody ACEs lifts to do these experiments. They're getting there, they're getting there in terms of creating a gaming tablet, but not quite something I'd recommend for everybody at this point. All right. We have a quick email from a listener too. Thank you for sending this in, Jake Thompson. If you wanna send us an email, e podcast in gadget.com, and again, your emails may head into our Asking Gadget section. Jake asks. He's a real estate agent in need of a new laptop. He uses a Chromebook right now and it meets every need he has. Everything they do is web-based, but should they consider alternatives to a premium com Chromebook for their next computer, he says he doesn't mind spending $750 or more if he can get something lightweight, trustworthy with a solid battery life. What would we consider in the search? I would point to, I immediately point to Jake, to our laptop guides because literally everything we mention, the MacBook Air. The Asis [00:45:00] Zen book, S 14, even the Dell Xbs 13 would be not much more than that price. I think more useful than a premium Chromebook because I think the idea of a premium Chromebook is a, is insanity. I don't know why you're spending so much money for a thing that can only do web apps, cheap Chromebooks, mid-range Chromebooks fine, $500 or less. Great. But if you're spending that much money and you want something that's more reliable, that you could do more with, even if everything you're doing is web-based, there may be other things you wanna do. MacBook Windows laptop. There is so much more you can unlock there. Little bit, a little bit of gaming, a little bit of media creation. I don't know, Karissa. Ben, do you have any thoughts on this? What would you recommend or do, would you guys be fine with the Chromebook? Karissa: I like Chromebooks. I thought my first thought, and maybe this is like too out there, but would an iPad Pro fit that fit those requirements? 'cause you can do a lot with an iPad Pro. You Devindra: can do a lot that's actually great battery, Karissa: lightweight, lots of apps. If most everything he's doing is web based, there's. You can probably use iPad apps. Devindra: That's actually a good point. Karissa you can [00:46:00] do a lot with an iPad and iPad Pro does start at around this price too. So it would be much lighter and thinner than a laptop. Especially if you could do a lot of web stuff. I feel like there are some web things that don't always run well in an iPad form. Safari and iPad doesn't support like everything you'd expect from a web-based site. Like I think if you. There are things we use like we use Video Ninja to record podcasts and that's using web RTC. Sometimes there are things like zencaster, something you have to use, apps to go use those things because I, iOS, iPad OS is so locked down. Multitasking isn't great on iPad os. But yeah, if you're not actually doing that much and you just want a nice. Media device. An iPad is a good option too. Alright, thank you so much Jake Thompson. That's a good one too because I wanna hear about people moving on from Chromebooks. 'cause they, send us more emails at podcast@enggadget.com for sure. Let's just skip right past what we're working on 'cause we're all busy. We're all busy with stuff unless you wanna mention anything. Chris, anything you're working on at the moment? Karissa: The only thing I wanna flag is that [00:47:00] we are rapidly approaching another TikTok sale or ban. Deadline Yes. Next month. Speaker: Sure. Karissa: Been a while since we heard anything about that, but, I'm sure they're hard at work on trying to hammer out this deal. Ben: Okay. But that's actually more relevant because they just figured out maybe the tariff situation and the tariff was the thing that spoiled the first deal. So we'll see what happens like at the beginning of July, yeah. I think Karissa: The deadline's the 19th of June Ben: oh, at the beginning of June. Sorry. Karissa: Yeah, so it's. It's pretty close. And yeah, there has been not much that I've heard on that front. So Devindra: this is where we are. We're just like walking to one broken negotiation after another for the next couple years. Anything you wanna mention, pop culture related krisa that is taking your mind off of our broken world. Karissa: So this is a weird one, but I have been, my husband loves Stargate, and we have been for years through, wait, the movie, the TV shows, Stargate [00:48:00] SG one. Oh Devindra: God. And I'm yeah. Just on the Karissa: last few episodes now in the end game portion of that show. So that has been I spent years like making fun of this and like making fun of him for watching it, but that show's Devindra: ridiculously bad, but yeah. Yeah. Karissa: Everything is so bad now that it's, actually just a nice. Yeah. Distraction to just watch something like so silly. Devindra: That's heartwarming actually, because it is a throwback to when things were simpler. You could just make dumb TV shows and they would last for 24 episodes per season. My for how Ben: many seasons too, Devindra: Karissa? Karissa: 10 seasons. Devindra: You just go on forever. Yeah. My local or lamb and rice place, my local place that does essentially New York streetcar style food, they placed Arga SG one. Every time I'm in there and I'm sitting there watching, I was like, how did we survive with this? How did we watch this show? It's because we just didn't have that much. We were desperate for for genre of fiction, but okay, that's heartwarming Krisa. Have you guys done Farscape? No. Have you seen Farscape? 'cause Farscape is very, is a very similar type of [00:49:00] show, but it has Jim Henson puppets and it has better writing. I love Jim Henson. It's very cool. Okay. It's it's also, it's unlike Stargate. It also dares to be like I don't know, sexy and violent too. Stargate always felt too campy to me. But Farscape was great. I bought that for $15. On iTunes, so that was a deal. I dunno if that deal is still there, but the entire series plus the the post series stuff is all out there. Shout out to Farscape. Shout out to Stargate SG one Simpler times. I'll just really briefly run down a few things and or season two finished over the last week. Incredible stuff. As I said in my initial review, it is really cool to people see people watching this thing and just being blown away by it. And I will say the show. Brought me to tears at the end, and I did not expect that. I did not expect that because we know this guy's gonna die. This is, we know his fate and yet it still means so much and it's so well written and the show is a phenomenon. Chris, I'd recommend it to you when you guys are recovering from Stargate SG one loss and or is fantastic. I also checked out a bit of murderbot the [00:50:00] Apple TV plus adaptation of the Martha Wells books. It's fine. It is weirdly I would say it is funny and entertaining because Alexander Skarsgard is a fun person to watch in in genre fiction. But it also feels like this could be funnier, this could be better produced. Like you could be doing more with this material and it feels like just lazy at times too. But it's a fine distraction if you are into like half-baked sci-fi. So I don't know. Another recommendation for Stargate SG one Levers, Karissa Final Destination Bloodlines. I reviewed over at the film Cast and I love this franchise. It is so cool to see it coming back after 15 years. This movie is incredible. Like this movie is great. If you understand the final destination formula, it's even better because it plays with your expectations of the franchise. I love a horror franchise where there's no, no definable villain. You're just trying to escape death. There's some great setups here. This is a great time at the movies. Get your popcorn. Just go enjoy the wonderfully creative kills. [00:51:00] And shout out to the Zap lapovsky and Adam B. Stein who. Apparently we're listening to my other podcast, and now we're making good movies. So that's always fun thing to see Mount Destination Bloodlines a much better film. The Mission Impossible, the Final Reckoning. My review of that is on the website now too. You can read that in a gadget. Ben: Thanks everybody for listening. Our theme music is by Game Composer Dale North. Our outro music is by our former managing editor, Terrence O'Brien. The podcast is produced by me. Ben Elman. You can find Karissa online at Karissa: Karissa b on threads Blue Sky, and sometimes still X. Ben: Unfortunately, you can find Dendra online Devindra: At dendra on Blue Sky and also podcast about movies and TV at the film cast@thefilmcast.com. Ben: If you really want to, you can find me. At hey bellman on Blue Sky. Email us at podcast@enggadget.com. Leave us a review on iTunes and subscribe on anything that gets podcasts. That includes [00:52:00] Spotify. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/engadget-podcast-the-ai-and-xr-of-google-io-2025-131552868.html?src=rss

This article contains full spoilers for every Final Destination movie, INCLUDING Bloodlines. For more than a decade, we thought we’d finally made it. It’s been 14 years since the last Final Destination film, the last time Death started killing off those who escaped its plan in exceedingly gruesome fashion. We thought we were free to go to theaters in safety once more. But as the mortician William Bludworth, played by the late great Tony Todd, has taught us, there’s no escaping Death. The franchise is back with one of its best entries: Final Destination Bloodlines, written and directed by newcomers to the franchise Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein. Bloodlines has a shinier look and a different approach, focusing on a family instead a group of random teens. But it follows the well-established principles of a Final Destination movie, especially in its incredible kills. In celebration of Bloodlines bringing Final Destination back to screens, we’re ranking all of Death’s achievements across the franchise. Because Final Destination movies are ultimately about good, gory fun, we’re ranking them from the most boring to the most enjoyably incredible. Like Death itself, we do have a few rules here. We aren’t counting any deaths in the premonitions that open each movie, nor the mass casualties that occur in the actual events, which means that you won’t see the infamous pile-up from Final Destination 2 or the incredible tower sequence that opens Bloodlines. Also we’re focusing on Death’s kills, so kills done by human beings don’t count. Even with those restrictions, Final Destination gives us plenty of memorable kills, as Death always makes a show of getting even. 40. Alex Browning’s Off-Screen Demise (Final Destination 2) Is it a mark of respect that the first movie’s protagonist Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) doesn’t die on screen? Or is it the ultimate insult that we learn via newspaper clipping in Final Destination 2 that he was knocked in the head with a brick? Interpretations may vary, but no one can disagree that Alex’s death deserves the bottom spot. Played by comedy great David Koechner, paper plant boss Dennis Lapman of Final Destination 5 has one of the gnarliest premonition deaths. Dangling off a collapsing bridge, Dennis almost pulls himself back up when he’s doused with hot tar, burning alive as he lets go and drops to the water. That incredible end makes his actual expiration all the worse, as he goes out when a loose wrench on a shop floor gets hurled into his head, no real setup involved. 38. Wendy Cristensen, Julie Cristensen, and Kevin Fischer Crash Off-Screen (Final Destination 3) With the exception of the original Final Destination, the protagonists end their films thinking they’ve beaten Death only to realize that the Grim Reaper has one more trick up his sleeve, and the movies end with shocking cuts. The worst of them comes in Final Destination 3, one of the weaker entries overall, in which Wendy Cristensen (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), her sister Julie (Amanda Crew), and pal Kevin Fischer (Ryan Merriman) all perish in a train crash. Technically we see them meet their end in impressive carnage, but that all happens in a premonition, which this list rules out. So we have to go with the death that happens onscreen—well, on soundtrack, as the movie cuts to black with the sound of the crash. 37. Janet Cunningham, Lori Milligan, Nick O’Bannon Death By X-Ray Truck (The Final Destination) Easily the worst of the series, the fourth entry The Final Destination also ends with a sudden attack on the protagonists. In this case, Nick O’Bannon (Bobby Campo), his love interest Lori Milligan (Shantel VanSanten), and her friend Janet Cunningham (Haley Webb) meet in a coffee shop to celebrate life, only for a truck to crash into the building. It’s a lot like the third movie’s ending, but at least this movie gives us neat x-rays to look at and imagine what horrible things happened to our heroes. 36. George Lanter and the Very Quiet Ambulance (The Final Destination) Played by the great Mykelti Williamson, George Lantner is the only character who acts like a human being in The Final Destination. So it’s a bit lame that the movie kills him off with a gag when he steps onto the road and gets flattened by an oncoming ambulance. He mentions “deja vu” right before it happens because his end is a callback to a similar one from the first film, which will be talked about shortly. It’s an unimaginative death and a mean joke at the expense of a likable character, which lands it toward the bottom of the list. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! 35. Nadia Monroy Makes Nick’s Dream a Reality (The Final Destination) For the most part, this list is ignoring both the premonitions and the mass casualties that occur after a premonition. The one exception comes with Nadia Monroy (Stephanie Honoré) of The Final Destination, who dies in the immediate aftermath of a premonition. After Nick has a vision of a massive Nascar wreck, he panics, which gets a group of people kicked out of the race just as the accident begins. As the survivors try to make sense of what happened, a tire flies out of the stadium and through Nadia’s head, replicating her death from the vision. 34. Perry Malinowski Salutes the Flag (Final Destination 3) Final Destination loves its out-of-nowhere surprise kills. A character thinks they’re safe, they make some ironic statement and, bam, they’re immediately dead. Usually, these kills aren’t nearly as funny or clever as the movies think they are, especially compared to the elaborate sequences that have become the franchise’s calling card. One of the worst comes when Perry Malinowski (Maggie Ma) gets unceremoniously offed when a loose horse breaks of a flagpole that goes through her chest, a forgettable death for a forgettable character. Horse looks cool though. 33. Darlene Campbell Stays at the Cabin (Final Destination Bloodlines) Although not as meta as, say, a Scream movie, the characters in Final Destination: Bloodlines know how Final Destination movies work. To the filmamkers’ credit, the knowledge adds tension to the movie, underscoring how knowledge doesn’t give them power to evade Death. Nowhere is that more clear than at the climax of Bloodlines when Darlene Campbell (Rya Kihlstedt)—a mother who has estranged herself from her children—decides to hide in her own mother’s bunker, thereby stalling Death’s hit list and saving her children. Noble though the sentiment may be, Darlene’s proclamation of love for her children distracts her, and she gets smashed by a falling pole, rendering her heroism moot. 32. Carter Horton Finally Sees the Sign (Final Destination) Played by Kerr Smith, Carter Horton is the onscreen antagonist of the first film, an annoying preppie who bullies Alex and the others and somehow gets to survive. So while we don’t actually see Carter get killed before the screen cuts to closing credits, his demise does rank above those from the third and fourth movies just because we wanted to see this guy get it for so long. 31. Samantha Lane Has Her Eye on a Stone (The Final Destination) The overwhelming majority of Final Destination victims are obnoxious, good-looking teens who mostly deserve to die. Wife and mother Samantha Lane (Krista Lane) certainly isn’t a saint but she doesn’t irritate us like every other jerk in The Final Destination. So we’re a bit annoyed that she gets such a cruel death when a lawn mower kicks up a rock that flies through her eyes while her young kids watch in horror. The kill does get a few extra points, however, for all of the playfulness before it actually happens, as Death sets up a few options to off Sarah before finally picking the rock. 30. Ian McKinley Splits the Fair (Final Destination 3) The franchise has never done great with its human antagonists, the regular guys who get tired of all the dying and take things into their own hands by killing the other characters. Ian McKinley (Kris Lemche) stands out a little bit more than the others. Instead of showing all the things that could off him, the camera simply follows Ian through a crowd while he rants about his immortality. That’s a bit dull, but it pays off when a firework shoots by him, apparently sparing him, only for the explosion to knock over a cherry picker that splits him in half. That extra beat is enough to make his sudden surprise kill a bit more satisfying. 29. Stefani and Charlie Reyes in a Logjam (Final Destination Bloodlines) Although a bit glossier and a bit kinder with its characters, Final Destination Bloodlines follows the beats of most entries in the franchise. In fact, its final moment, in which protagonists Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) and Charlie Reyes (Teo Briones) realize that they did not, in fact, stop Death and are about to die, feels like a callback to the infamous log premonition in Final Destination 2. However, Bloodlines ups the stakes with a lucky penny leading to a train derailment. The amazing shot of Stefani and Charlie goes bigger than any of the other movies’ shock ending, undone some by the cheap effects when two logs from the train car come loose and flatten our heroes. 28. Sam Lawton and Emma Bell Die in a Callback (Final Destination 5) Final Destination 5 has the best ending of the series, in which protagonists Sam Lawton (Nicholas D’Agosto) and Emma Bell (Molly Harper) survive the ordeal and board a plane to celebrate. It’s only then that we realize that the movie has taken place in 2000 and that they’re boarding Flight 180, the one that explodes at the start of the first movie. Thus we have to watch as the characters who have gone through so much die, but we also get to see the original disaster that started it all. Emily splatters when she gets sucked out of the plane and sliced by the wing, but Sam’s death isn’t that spectacular outside of the fact that he burns up in the same manner as Alex did in his vision. 27. Tod Waggner Hung Out to Dry (Final Destination) The first “real” death of the series, Tod Waggner’s (Chad E. Donella) end feels like a first draft to the spectacular kills to come. When water leaks from a toilet, Todd slips into the tub and gets a laundry cord wrapped around his neck. Todd’s desperate attempts to stand up and save himself, frustrated by the slick tub floor, give the death a level of pathos rarely seen in the series, but outside of that, it’s a fairly rote kill for the overall franchise. 26. Iris Campbell Gets to the Point (Final Destination Bloodlines) Bloodlines gives Tony Todd a glorious final scene as Bloodworth, but it’s the elderly Iris Campbell (Gabrielle Rose) who tells her granddaughter Stefani the rules of Death’s design. Throughout the exposition dump, the camera points to various classic setups, but Iris catches them all. So when Death does finally take her, using a flying fire extinguisher to send a weathervane point through her face, it’s because Iris wants to show Stefani how Death operates. That intentionality makes Iris’ end stand out, even if it isn’t the most elaborate on this list. 25. Rory Peters Goes Fencing (Final Destination 2) Final Destination 2 has the best premonition in the series, an incredible accident and pile-up filled with ghastly incidents. Toward the climax of the movie, that road destruction gets sort of recreated when a series of events launched by a car crash suddenly kill off other characters. It’s mostly fun, and wide shots let us see Death’s composition, but it’s hard to get too excited when stoner Rory Peters (Jonathan Cherry) gets split into thirds by flying fencing. 24. Clear Rivers and Eugene Dix Go Up in Flames (Final Destination 2) It was a nice reveal to show Clear Rivers (Ali Larter) had survived even the post-credit carnage of the first Final Destination to provide information to the victims of the second film. But that surprise was completely undercut by the film then killing Clear in a sudden hospital explosion, taking teacher Eugene (T.C. Carson), one of the more compelling characters in the movie, out along with her. Multi-victim kills always feel like a bit of a cheat, but at least this one had a nice build-up. 23. Carter Daniels’ Hate Crime Backfires (The Final Destination) The Final Destination‘s unlikable cast goes to the extreme when white supremacist Carter (Justin Welborn) singles out George Latner as the cause of his wife’s demise. So it’s especially satisfying when Carter, in the midst of burning a cross on George’s lawn, gets dragged behind his truck and burned alive. Carter may not get the most creative of kills, but rarely do we see such an awful person get their full and just reward like that. 22. Isaac Palmer Meets the Buddha (Final Destination 5) Unlike most entries, Final Destination 5 limited its nastiness to one character, and even then, actor P. J. Byrne knows how to find light notes in his depiction of smarmy exec Isaac Palmer. Byrne sleezes it up as Isaac steals a spa coupon from recently-deceased co-worker, leers at spa workers, and then condescend to the worker who performs upon him. From then on, it’s a classic Final Destination sequence, as a fallen candle ignites spilled oil to send Isaac pin-first onto the ground, crawling away until he inadvertently pulls a Buddha statue on his head, his karma fully earned. 21. Kat Jennings and the Jaws of Death (Final Destination 2) Nervous wreck Kat Jennings (Keegan Connor Tracy) gets one of the better sudden deaths in the series, largely because Death puts all the pieces in place for a symphony of chaos and then sets it off suddenly. Kat initially survives the car crash, avoiding the pointy pipe that ran through her back window and continues to stick out behind her head. When firefighters use the jaws of life to pry open her car door, however, the impact is enough to set off the airbags, slamming Kat’s head into the spike and setting off more carnage. 20. Lewis Romero Loses Weight in the Gym (Final Destination 3) A lot of the kills on this list are preceded by a character declaring their immortality, but few do it with as much apblomb as Final Destination 3‘s aggro jock Lewis Romero (Texas Battle). Like many Lewis responds to Death’s machinations by asserting his own free will… loudly. At the end, he does it while pumping iron in the gym, and his protestations shake the walls, knocking free swords used as part of his team’s decor. The swords cut the bands of his machine as they fall, freeing the weights to smash his head. Given that it was his actions that made the swords drop, Lewis did kind of control his own fate. 19. Nora Carpenter and the Creepy Hook Hand (Final Destination 2) Of all the kills on this list, the death of nervous mom Nora Carpenter (Lynda Boyd) seems the easiest to avoid. Well, at first anyway, when she rushes into an elevator and gets her hair caught on a hook, part of the prosthetic limbs that a creepy guy holds in a box. If Nora just settled down for a moment, or if the creepy guy would put as much effort into untangling her as he does smelling her hair, then she probably could have wrestled free before the elevator decapitated her. All that aside, it’s a pretty amazing and gory kill, one that has enough shock value to overcome any logistical leaps. The Final Destination movies are big on dying, but not so big on suffering, which is a good thing. We don’t want to think of these people as human beings, because that would ruin the fun of watching them go out. Erin Ulmer’s (Alexz Johnson) end in Final Destination 3 veers a bit too much toward suffering, as the camera holds on her as she moans in her last moments. Up until that point, though, the scene has fun with misdirection, making us think that we’re about to see Ian McKinley get crushed by boards until Erin gets knocked into a nail gun, which perforates the back of her head. 17. Jonathan Groves Takes a Bath (The Final Destination) On one hand, Jonathan Groves (Jackson Walker) feels like he was added to The Final Destination late in production because the producers found out the movie’s running a bit too short. Groves does show up in the opening crash scene, but we lose track of him and assume he’s dead until Nick sees him on the news. But we can forgive the shoehorning for the purely absurd way that Groves goes out, with an overfilled bathtub from the hospital floor above crashing down onto his bed. 16. Nathan Sears and Flight 180’s Landing (Final Destination 5) In addition to its fantastic kills Final Destination 5 also has the most well-rounded characters in the series, characters like junior executive Nathan Sears (Arlen Escarpeta). Nathan is fundamentally a nice guy but he gets caught up in a dispute with an older union leader, a dispute that ends when the leader accidentally dies during a fight. Thinking that was Death coming for him, Nathan comes to the leader’s wake to pay respects, secure in the belief that Death has skipped him. That assumption adds some pathos to the moment with gear from Flight 180 falls from the sky and crushes him, taking both good people and bad people. 15. Frankie Cheeks Trapped in the Drive Thru (Final Destination 3) Frankie Cheeks (Sam Easton) is one of the most unlikable characters in the franchise (which is saying something) and we don’t even know that he’s dead until after it happens. So why does it rank relatively high on this list? Because of the way it’s set up, looking very much like protagonists Wendy and Kevin are going to get killed in an unbelievable but well-orchestrated drive-through accident. While our heroes escape in time, a collision still occurs, sending a huge engine fan into the back of Frankie’s head. At first it seems like the duo passed their death onto an innocent bystander until we see a bloody necklace in the shape of a naked lady, and we all breathe a sigh of relief that Frankie Cheeks walks the Earth no more. 14. Tim Carpenter Gets Squished By Glass (Final Destination 2) Tim Carpenter may be the weirdest character in the entire series. The script says he’s 15, and actor James Kirk sometimes plays him as a teen and sometimes as an eight-year-old, which ends up feeling like he’s the MadTV character Stuart. That childlike nature leads to Tim’s end when, like a dumb kid, he just decides to chase after some pigeons because… they were there? The pigeons take flight, knocking a giant pane of glass off of a crane and sending the glass on top of Tim, smooshing the little weirdo. 13. Andy Kewzer Goes Through a Chain Link Fence… in Tiny Pieces (The Final Destination) The biggest problem with The Final Destination is its reliance on CG blood, a scourge of 2000s horror. Still, sometimes the kills are so outrageous that we can forgive the poor effects. Such is the case when mechanic Andy Kewzer (Andrew Fiscella) gets blown into a chain link fence. It looks silly when his body collapses into goopy chunks, but the setup is satisfying, as is the sight of him getting blasted out of his garage into the instrument of his doom. 12. Terry Chaney Hit By a Silent Bus (Final Destination) For the first viewers of Final Destination, Terry Chaney (Amanda Detmer) had the standout death. Freaked out by Alex’s talk of Death coming for them all, Terry tells her friends to drop dead, steps into the street and gets splattered by a bus. It’s a funny moment, as long as you don’t think about it for a second (none of her friends have peripheral vision? The bus driver doesn’t see the gesticulating lady backing into the street?), and it got cheers in the theater. Over time, however, the sudden shock death has become a series trope, dulling the impact (pun intended) of Terry’s end. 11. Howard Campbell Gets a Trim (Final Destination Bloodlines) Patriarch Howard Campbell (Alex Zahara) gets the first classic-style death in Bloodlines, and what a glorious one it is. Occurring after the film has clearly laid out Death’s rules and process, the filmmakers luxuriate in the setup, taking time to highlight all of the things that could kill someone in Campbell’s well-appointed suburban backyard: a rake under a ripping trampoline, a shard of glass in an iced drink, a hose about to explode. After several minutes of anticipation, all of those things come together to set-off something we never saw coming, an electric self-propelled lawnmower, which runs over the face of the prone Howard. Iconic as it may be, Terry’s isn’t the best sudden shock death in the first Final Destination movie. That honor belongs to New York Rangers superfan Billy Hitchcock (Seann William Scott), who also dies without much obvious setup from Death. Billy goes after he and Alex confront the ever-jerky Carter, who decides to defy Death by parking on train tracks. Carter survives, but Billy can’t take it and starts having an angry meltdown, a meltdown cut short when the train kicks up a piece of shrapnel and sends it flying through Billy’s neck. Tod may be the first death in the Final Destination series, but Valerie Lewton (Kristen Cloke) gets the first great death of the franchise. Still shaken up over the explosion of Flight 180, teacher Mrs. Lewton spills some alcohol on the ground while making dinner. When her cooking goes awry, the alcohol ignites, setting her house ablaze. But it’s not the fire that kills her. Rather she dies when she accidentally pulls a knife down from the counter, which embeds itself in her chest. 8. Evan Lewis Slips on Spaghetti (Final Destination 2) Sometimes Death orchestrates events in such an improbable manner that we can almost see a physical hand onscreen, manipulating events. Sometimes dumb people do dumb things and pay for it. It’s the latter event that brings down lottery-winning bro Evan Lewis (David Paetkau) in Final Destination 2, who just tosses a pot of spaghetti out the window. That decision proves disastrous when Death’s meddling leads to a fire in Evan’s apartment. Evan climbs out to make an escape, but he slips on his own spaghetti, which leaves him vulnerable to the falling ladder that pierces his eye. 7. Brian Gibbons BBQ Bomb (Final Destination 2) Although it’s a sudden kill with little setup, the death of Brian Gibbons (Noel Fisher) ranks so high because of how funny it is. At the end of the movie, survivors Kimberly Corman (A.J. Cook) and Thomas Burke (Michael Landes) join the Gibbons family at a BBQ where they all let off a bit of steam. No sooner does Brian joke about his and his father’s near-death experience than the grill he’s using explodes, sending his severed arm flying through the air. The arm lands on his mother’s plate, a darkly funny beat that makes it one step better than the average out-of-nowhere kills in the series. 6. Erik and Bobby Campbell Bond in the Hospital (Final Destination Bloodlines) Erik Campbell (Richard Harmon) is truly a unique character in the Final Destination franchise. First of all, he seems to survive his own elaborate death, a hilarious incident in a tattoo parlor (featured heavily in teasers). Secondly he and his brother Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner) actually like each other, which makes their end so poignant. Off of Bludworth’s information, Erik decides to send the highly allergic Bobby into anaphylaxis so he can revive him, thus satisfying Death. But Erik gets too cute with his plan, and his action accidentally turns on and revs up an MRI machine in the room where the brothers are working. The intensified magnification first pulls in and crushes Erik, with his piercings in front and a wheelchair in back, and then snags a coil from a vending machine, sending it through Bobby’s head. 5. Olivia Castle’s Laser-Guided Fall (Final Destination 5) Okay, technically Olivia Castle (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) dies when she falls out of a window. But that’s not the part that sticks out in our mind. Instead we remember everything before that moment when Olivia gets laser eye surgery. As if torn from the worst thoughts of anyone about to get the surgery, we watch as Death shorts out the laser while the tech is out of the room and starts burning out Kimberly’s eye. No sooner does she escape than she slips on her beloved teddy bear and falls through the window, a somehow merciful end to the suffering. 3. Ashley Freund & Ashlyn Halperin’s Tanning Session Gone Wrong (Final Destination 3) As this list shows, great Final Destination deaths fall into one of three categories: memorably mean, patently absurd, or impeccably designed. Ashley Fruend (Chelan Simmons) and Ashlyn Halperin (Crystal Lowe) are the prime examples of the first category. A pair of stock mean mall girls, Ashley and Ashlyn go to their favorite tanning spa, giant-size sodas in hand. Death ups the condensation on the drinks, which creates enough water to short out the beds, which turns up the heat, while a fallen shelf keeps them trapped inside. The sight of them burning alive is nasty enough, but the real kicker is the match cut at the end, which replaces two tanning beds with two coffins. 3. Julia Campbell Takes Out the Trash (Final Destination Bloodlines) Final Destination movies love a good fake-out and Bloodlines has the best one yet. Armed with knowledge from Iris, Stefani walks down a suburban street with a skeptical Erik, Death’s next probable victim. As the two walk, Stefani points out all of the things that could kill him: leaves from a blower, a soccer ball kicked by kids, a trash compactor. But to Erik’s mocking glee, nothing happens. Nothing, that is, until Erik’s sister Julia (Anna Lore) goes for a run. In the background. And out of focus, all of those things come together to knock Julia into a roadside dumpster, which is then emptied into the garbage truck where Julia is compacted while Stefani watches. 2. Hunt Wynorski’s Guts in a Pool Pump (The Final Destination) The best patently absurd kill in the entire franchise occurs to obnoxious bro Hunt Wynorski (Nick Zano). After getting into an altercation with a little kid at a public pool, Hunt sits down to catch some rays when he hears his lucky coin fall into the water. Hunt dives in after it, just as Death starts messing with the equipment, causing the pump to malfunction and raise the pressure. The pump traps Hunt at the bottom and he gestures wildly for help, but no one sees him. Instead of drowning, Hunt gets his guts sucked out through his butt, a kill so wonderful that we don’t even care about the CGI viscera that caps off the scene. 1. Candace Hooper Doesn’t Stick the Landing (Final Destination 5) Easily the most glorious and well-composed kill of the entire franchise occurs early in Final Destination 5, when a standard routine for gymnast Candice Hooper (Ellen Wroe) goes horribly wrong. Director Steven Quale takes the time to show viewers the tools and space in which Death works, highlighting dripping water, a shaking girder, spilled dust, and other elements, before bringing them together as Candice goes through her flips. As a result, we understand every step in the system of catastrophes that leads to a ghastly end, with Candice’s crumpled body shuttering on the gym floor.

GTA 6 is a year away, but these are the most visually impressive games you can play on your PlayStation 5 Pro in the meantime, including exclusives and even a surprise Xbox entryTech15:56, 14 May 2025Demon Souls can tide you over until GTA6Sony’s PS5 Pro had a fair mountain to climb to convince players it was worth the eye-wateringly high price of £699 when it launched in November of last year.Lacking the easily describable “the same but 4K” focus of the PS4 Pro, it’s slowly come into its own as more and more games have launched with Pro features, or had them added retroactively.‌While we put together a list of the best games to show off the console, a lot has changed since then, so we’re running it back with a fresh, expanded list.‌Here are some of the best PS5 Pro games you can play right now to help the wait for GTA 6, which could end up being the best showcase of the console.Baldur's Gate 3 is even better on PS5 Pro(Image: Steam)Baldur’s Gate 3 is one of the best games of the last decade, and while its isometric perspective might have you thinking it’s not the ideal technical showcase, it really does look wonderful on PS5 Pro.Article continues belowNotably, co-op is drastically smoother on the PS5 Pro than on the base console, with a 60fps frame rate that makes it infinitely better for playing with a friend or partner.You can also hit a locked 30 FPS in Quality mode, or run it at 4K resolution and 60 FPS in Performance mode.Agent 47 has never looked better‌Hitman’s 2016 reboot and subsequent entries already looked great, even on PS4, but it’s reached new heights with PS5 Pro.The console runs IO Interactive’s huge, interconnected trilogy at 60fps with PSSR upscaling to 4K, and that makes spotting subtle details or smaller items that you can use to your advantage just a little bit easier.And, while we’re here, we’d just like to point out that considering this package contains three full games, interstitial DLC chunks, and a roguelike mode, this might be one of the most content-rich titles out there.‌Shadows is frequently stunningWe loved Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and a big part of that appeal was just how fantastic it looks at all times.On PS5, it’s a looker, but it’s on PS5 Pro where you can really see the incredible detail. The more powerful console enables ray-tracing to be enabled, while still running at a smooth 60fps.‌Considering the sheer breadth of its world, the fact it all looks so good is very impressive indeed, and shows how the PS5 Pro means developers no longer need to decide between frame rate and resolution.With the buff in resolution, you can see more projectilesA recently updated PS5 classic that got the Pro treatment four years after launch (no, we can’t believe it either), Returnal is well worth jumping back into and still marks one of PlayStation’s weirdest, most unusual exclusives.‌Selene’s roguelike adventure sees her exploring an unsettling alien world and constantly returning back to the start when she dies, and developer Housemarque has somehow managed to wring out even more pixels on PS5 Pro.In fact, it offers two-and-a-half times the resolution boost, while maintaining a frame rate that predominantly sticks to 60fps with some 55fps drops. In fact, just writing about it has me installing it again.Monster Hunter Wilds has been a huge success for publisher Capcom(Image: Capcom)‌One of 2025’s biggest commercial and critical hits so far, Monster Hunter: Wilds was, in many ways, the game I picked up a PS5 Pro for.The PS5 version is solid, but the ray-tracing and PSSR of the PS5 Pro make a huge difference to image quality. It’s pretty much the best way to play the game, too, with issues on PC.Not only that, but the PS5 Pro will hit a consistent 60 FPS which makes a huge difference when you’re tackling one of the game’s tougher monsters.‌The whole gang's here, and in an open world this time(Image: Square Enix / Creative Business Unit I)We know, we’re ready for Part 3, too, but if you’ve not played Rebirth yet and don’t have a powerful PC for it, PS5 Pro is a great choice.The magic of the PS5 Pro version is the Versatility Mode, which basically takes the Graphics Mode and ramps it up to 60fps.‌The result is a slicker, sharper version than you’d get in Performance Mode, while also being much more playable thanks to the improved frame rate.Spider-Man 2 offers double the fun with both Peter Parker and Miles Morales playable(Image: Insomniac Games/Sony)Insomniac Games sure knows how to wring every last bit of power out of Sony’s hardware, and after PS4 Pro was used to highlight how good the original Marvel’s Spider-Man could look, its sequel is one of the crown jewels of PS5 Pro.‌The Performance Pro mode aims for 60fps at 4K by using PSSR, and while we do love the fluidity, it’s hard not to be impressed by the Fidelity Pro mode.The idea of the latter is that it hits a consistent 30fps but with a huge amount of detail in reflections in puddles, windows, and even Spidey’s goggles. While the 4K 60fps Performance Pro mode is more fluid, you’ll struggle to find a better-looking game than the Fidelity Pro option.Forza Horizon 5 might actually look even better on PS5‌An Xbox game? On a PlayStation list? Yep, we get it, it still just feels… wrong somehow, but thankfully, Forza Horizon 5 is a stunning showcase of the PS5 Pro.It’s absolutely stunning in motion on any console, but the PS5 Pro adds much more foliage in Performance mode. That sounds like a small detail, but when you factor in that additional detail and the 4K resolution, it’s the best way to play–even over the Xbox Series X original.And that’s before we touch on the player’s cars offering ray-traced reflections. Seriously, play the game’s opening and prepare to be wowed.‌Demon's Souls remains one of the best-looking PS5 games aroundIf there’s one genre that you want high frame rates in, it’s the Soulslike. When even the slightest miscalculation can cost you dearly, you’ll want the PS5 Pro in your corner.In Demon’s Souls, the 2020 remake of the PS3 original, Bluepoint Games has somehow achieved what felt impossible when the PS5 version launched–it runs at 60fps, while also maintaining a 4K resolution.‌That means there is literally zero downside, and the team even managed to add in improved shadows, too. A must-play for action game fans on Sony’s Pro console.Alan Wake 2 is scarily pretty (get it?)Alan Wake 2 is one of the most impressive-looking games of the last few years, and Remedy continues to update it to incorporate new features.‌The survival horror game reaches new heights on PS5 Pro, though, adding in ray-traced lighting and reflections that make it feel even more at the bleeding edge of gaming visuals.You can also turn off ray-tracing and just enjoy a fantastic 60fps experience instead, which still looks even prettier than the PS5 version.Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a true showcase of the PS5 Pro(Image: Warhorse Studios)Article continues belowAnother heavy-hitter from 2025, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is absolutely massive in scale, offering two huge open-world maps, a whole host of NPCs and overlapping game systems.While PS5’s Quality Mode hits 4K resolution, it can only do so at 30fps. As you’d probably guess from this list, PS5 Pro doubles that to 60fps at 4K, which is no mean feat given how much of the game there is here.For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.‌‌‌

Saucycarpdog Member Oct 25, 2017 20,233 A dead MMO that launched with a now-cancelled TV show in 2013 is coming back 4 years after servers were shut down Defiance, indeed. www.pcgamer.com Trion Worlds' Defiance was an odd duck. It launched in 2013 alongside a TV show tie-in with the same name, set on a future Earth following an alien invasion—during which the planet was aggressively terraformed. Both the game and the show were a mix of grungy post-apocalyptic western and futuristic sci-fi. Only a couple of years later, the show was cancelled, but the MMO persevered. And it stuck around for a while, until 2021, when the servers were shut down. Defiance was never one of the heavy-hitters, and I haven't thought about it for a good long while, but it looks like it's been living in enough folks' heads that it's making a comeback. Fawkes, "an indie studio and publisher dedicated to reviving treasured titles", has decided that Defiance fits its brief, and has set itself the task of bringing the game back to life. It acquired the rights to both the original 2013 version of the game and the relaunched Defiance 2050 version that appeared in 2018. Defiance will make its comeback in April, with Fawkes launching the original 2013 version of the MMO. Its plan is to work with the community, starting small, with a PC launch, and then growing based on feedback. The return of the console version might be on the cards, too, but that ultimately depends on its reception on PC. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Not really sure who this is for but ok. I'm all for game preservation. Hopefully they can make an offline version of the game so people can always access it.   Slayven Never read a comic in his life Moderator Oct 25, 2017 102,176 Saucycarpdog said: A dead MMO that launched with a now-cancelled TV show in 2013 is coming back 4 years after servers were shut down Defiance, indeed. www.pcgamer.com Not really sure who this is for but ok. I'm all for game preservation. Hopefully they can make an offline version of the game so people can always access it. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Yeah I be down for an offline version   IDontBeatGames ThreadMarksman - Saved Transistor's sanity twice Member Oct 29, 2017 20,996 New York YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS, I have way too many fond memories of playing this game with Kaelan   Primus Member Oct 25, 2017 4,557 Well.....shit. From one of the first alphas all the way to server shutdown, I was in this game. I am more than happy to jump back in, especially if it's back to original launch version.  Haregan Member Aug 21, 2022 4,847 Serbia Had a lot of fun with it back in the day so I'll definitely check it out. Bring back MMO shooters.   masizzai Member Nov 28, 2017 2,340 Played this game at launch and jumped in and out of it through the years. Interesting to want to start with the 2013 version of the game though.   Kraken3dfx Member Oct 25, 2017 3,546 Denver, CO This is like the 3rd time they've tried to revive this I feel like. Having said that, as someone who bought it at launch and enjoyed it, sign me up  kurahador Member Oct 28, 2017 19,693 I actually followed the tv series, I thought it was pretty decent. Will def check this out.   Nax Hero of Bowerstone Member Oct 10, 2018 7,213 Oh damn. That'd be awesome. I got like 1 achievement on Xbox 360 and then forgot about it. Would be nice to get more time into it.   Shinobido Heart Member Dec 23, 2017 10,144 This sounds super familiar! I love seeing MMO's getting another chance. I'm watching some gameplay now.   Timu Member Oct 25, 2017 18,428 I almost forgot about it. Never played it so that is cool for them to try to bring it back.   TheBaldwin Member Feb 25, 2018 8,754 I was oddly enough just thinking about this game a few weeks back, so weird that it's poped up again. I watched the tv show and it was good for a nice little sci fi drama, but remember the game being quite mediocre. Odd that someone would try and bring it back  Beelzebufo Member Jun 1, 2022 5,819 Canada That's hilarious and pretty awesome. I remember my girlfriend at the time got weirdly invested in the show lol   bounchfx Member Oct 25, 2017 7,873 Muricas can't say I expected to read this headline Lol. worked on it for a bit and it was fun enough to play but certainly did not last long   EllaJay Member Dec 10, 2024 127 3rd time lucky? I remember playing it with some friends the first time it came out. It was a bit rubbish. The last time it came out it was still a bit rubbish. I expect it will a be a bit rubbish the next time it comes out too.   Kalentan Member Oct 25, 2017 50,562 I remember enjoying it, and I liked the show well enough, flawed as it was, but IIRC the game was pretty barebones and the 2050 launch was bad.   noodlesoup Member Feb 21, 2018 3,591 The world events in this game were so cool.   MerluzaSamus Member Dec 3, 2018 1,450 Argentina That game must have done something right.. This is like the third time it launches. Can't deny it has a fanbase.  Timu Member Oct 25, 2017 18,428 I totally forgot there was a TV show as well!   G-X Member Oct 28, 2017 1,565 Wasn't the original game director on this revealed to be highly toxic Edit i think i was incorrectly mixing up this and Firefall  Last edited: Mar 12, 2025 Bucca Member Oct 25, 2017 5,415 Never played the game but I remember binging the show lol   texhnolyze Shinra Employee Member Oct 25, 2017 26,286 Indonesia Just a re-release, not even adding anything substantial? What's the point then, third time is a charm?   TinTuba47 Member Nov 14, 2017 4,318 I remember kinda liking this back in the day   Charpunk Member Oct 25, 2017 12,499 This was actually not terrible but no one I knew played it.   Bansai Teyvat Traveler Member Oct 28, 2017 14,090 I remember fairly liking the show and having 0 interest in the MMO game. I doubt this is gonna work, but good luck to them nevertheless.  SCUMMbag Prophet of Truth - Chicken Chaser Member Oct 25, 2017 7,161 How many times does this game need to come back?   Mario_Bones Member Oct 31, 2017 3,755 Australia Hell yeah, it always bummed me out I didn't finish the story before it went kaput. The world events and PvP were a lot of fun   Vash Member Oct 28, 2017 2,446 I enjoyed it a lot when it came out, so I am definitely going to keep an eye on this.   DieH@rd Member Oct 26, 2017 11,998 The weirdest stuff is, the TV show Defiance ended up being really great. After OK s1, it really got much better in following seasons, which culminated in truly awesome ending.   MadMod Member Dec 4, 2017 4,771 Found it super bland and dropped it quick, even watched a few eps of the show too, good way to hype the IP at the time. Wild to bring it back tbh hahah.  GuitarGuruu Member Oct 26, 2017 7,652 I bought this on PS3, it was a really cool idea at the time but man that gameplay was extremely rough.   DocScroll Member May 25, 2021 706 I remember enjoying this! The public events were fun and the loot was pretty good for this sort of thing. PvP felt busted and the tie in the TV show felt cheesy despite enjoying the first season of the show at the time.   deadfolk Member Oct 25, 2017 6,471 Loved both the game and show. The game did a really good job of taking the rift mechanic from the Rift MMO (same dev) and applying it to a shooter.  LycanXIII The Fallen Oct 26, 2017 11,898 I played this on PS3, but I don't remember if I bought it, or if they gave it away with PS+. Edit: It could have been after it went F2P, but au feel like it was at launch with the show.  texhnolyze Shinra Employee Member Oct 25, 2017 26,286 Indonesia It's live now, by the way. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=defiance   Primus Member Oct 25, 2017 4,557 It was also laggy as hell when I popped in and went through the tutorial section this morning, so very much a Classic Defiance Experience(tm).   BizzyBum Member Oct 26, 2017 10,403 New York I was actually really into the 2013 MMO, never played the updated 2050 version. I even thought the show wasn't half bad. Maybe I'll give it a try again just for the nostalgia.  Shinobido Heart Member Dec 23, 2017 10,144 This came out already, right?   texhnolyze Shinra Employee Member Oct 25, 2017 26,286 Indonesia Shinobido Heart said: This came out already, right? Click to expand... Click to shrink... The launch was a mess lol, I was there. Never really pay attention to it after that. It's probably on its way back to the grave.  Shinobido Heart Member Dec 23, 2017 10,144 texhnolyze said: The launch was a mess lol, I was there. Never really pay attention to it after that. It's probably on its way back to the grave. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Damn, what happened? Too many people trying to get in?  SpellSwordFoxx Member Feb 27, 2025 305 I think my friend got me to try this with her once. I remember vaguely shooting something, and learning there was TV show tie in. I never got around to watching any of that lol  Primus Member Oct 25, 2017 4,557 Shinobido Heart said: Damn, what happened? Too many people trying to get in? Click to expand... Click to shrink... Servers were way overloaded and were more often down than up for the first couple weeks. It's fine now, no issues getting in and playing but I see very little population outside of major Arkfalls. Major Arkfalls which still have the same old problem of enemies or other players or both just vanishing constantly because the area's overloaded, thus making it impossible to do anything before getting blown up out of nowhere.  Shinobido Heart Member Dec 23, 2017 10,144 Primus said: Servers were way overloaded and were more often down than up for the first couple weeks. It's fine now, no issues getting in and playing but I see very little population outside of major Arkfalls. Major Arkfalls which still have the same old problem of enemies or other players or both just vanishing constantly because the area's overloaded, thus making it impossible to do anything before getting blown up out of nowhere. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I see, that's unfortunate to hear. I was checking out that Fawkes Games website, looks like they host other old games as well but most of the links don't work.  PLASTICA-MAN Member Oct 26, 2017 29,074 There was a TV series for this?   ReginaldXIV It's Pronounced "Aerith" Member Nov 4, 2017 9,768 Minnesota Season 1 of the show was pretty decent. But they never had the budget to really do what they wanted to do.  

Thunderbolts* introduces the Sentry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The character is like Marvel’s version of Superman, which means he is incredibly powerful, and incredibly damaged. The same abilities that make him special also make him dangerous, because he can transform into his own arch-nemesis, the Void.The movie does a good job of introducing Sentry, and giving us a little bit of his backstory as “Bob,” an ordinary guy who subjected himself to a mysterious experiment that gave him powers. But what exactly did Valentina Allegra de Fontaine do to Bob? And do his powers share a connection with the Super Soldier Serum that has sparked the creation of so many characters within the MCU? Or what about Extremis, the Iron Man technology that featured in Iron Man 3? Could the Infinity Stones be involved somehow?That’s the subject of our latest Thunderbolts* video. Using all the clues about the Sentry’s backstory in the film, we’ll put forward a pretty interesting theory about how he connects to Captain America, the Hulk, Iron Man, and other superheroes and villains of the MCU. Watch our breakdown below:READ MORE: The Weirdest Marvel Comics Ever PublishedIf you liked that video on how the Sentry might have gotten his powers, check out more of our videos below, including one on what Thunderbolts* means for the future of the MCU, one on the ending of Thunderbolts* and the future of the MCU, and one recapping all the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and shows that lead up to Thunderbolts*. Plus, there’s tons more videos over at ScreenCrush’s YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe to catch all our future episodes. Thunderbolts*  is now playing in theaters. The Sentry will next be seen in Avengers: Doomsday, which is scheduled to open in theaters on May 1, 2026.Sign up for Disney+ here.Get our free mobile appEvery Marvel Cinematic Universe Movie, Ranked From Worst to BestIt started with Iron Man and it’s continued and expanded ever since. It’s the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with 36 movies and counting. But what’s the best and the worst? We ranked them all.