Desperately

Most modern technology, including smartphones, runs on GPS. But the system might be more vulnerable to failures than you think. The U.S. lacks backup geolocation technology, meaning outages or interference could be catastrophic. Russia has threatened to destroy GPS satellites, and recently faulty GPS signals temporarily closed a Dallas airport. Thankfully, companies are stepping in to help guard GPS. NextNav recently signed a deal to provide new technology called TerraPoiNT that serves as a backup for GPS, using…

Given that it launched the film careers of the then little known Rosanna Arquette, the entirely unknown Aidan Quinn and some singer called Madonna, 1985’s Desperately Seeking Susan still stakes a good claim to be one of the canniest casting jobs of all time. And that’s before you get to the then even less known supporting actors: Laurie Metcalf as Arquette’s tacky sister-in-law! John Turturro as the cheesy club MC! John Lurie barely visible as a saxophone-playing neighbour! Giancarlo Esposito in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it…

Elizabeth Holmes during her court appearance on Oct. 17. Photo: Justin Sullivan (Getty Images)We may be finally drawing close to the end of the migraine-inducing episodic Theranos drama, and we’re not even talking about the Hulu show. Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes nowhas a sentencing date after being convicted of scamming close to $900 million from investors with her company’s blood testing startup.Though the now-visibly pregnant Holmes was convicted back in January, she put a lot of blood, sweat, and quite a few…

So its current strategy seems to be to release a string of updates to see what might get people interested—a “throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks” approach, if you will.  Besides the Meta Quest Pro, the company also announced at the event that it was going to open up Horizon Worlds, the social media platform within Meta’s metaverse, to mobile and desktop users, so people without a headset will be able to access the virtual world. That’s a notable step: it’s a tacit admission that VR headsets aren’t taking…

Kids these days, am I right? With the video games, and the couches? But seriously, what are they to do? The pull of the screen is irresistible, as they'll remind you if they catch you reading New Atlas on your phone instead of being immersed in a moment you'll never be given again. Denmark's Udu Console is a desperate, last-ditch effort to weaponize the screen in service of getting your kids to stand up, go to parks and wave their arms around like manic street preachers. It's a hand-held portable game controller – think…

Image: Nintendo Nintendo is still one of the biggest names in the gaming world, even despite their arguably limited back catalog compared to competitors like Sony and Microsoft, but their characters have a far bigger reach. The result of having so many recognizable brands within your portfolio is the urge to make movie adaptations. With the likes of Detective Pikachu and soon-to-be The Super Mario Bros. Movie coming out, there’s a whole new world ahead of adaptations ahead for one of gaming’s first publishers.…

This documentary following one boy’s life in Afghanistan feels like a brutal, desperately sad companion piece to Richard Linklater’s Boyhood. Its co-directors, the British documentary-maker Phil Grabsky and Shoaib Sharifi, first started filming Mir Hussein aged seven in 2002, and they haven’t stopped. They have already made two previous films – The Boy Who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan (2004) and The Boy Mir: Ten Years in Afghanistan (2011) – and this third gives us the complete picture: Mir pulled along by time’s…

If there’s one thing people haven’t been interested in during the age of COVID, it’s movies and TV shows revolving around viral outbreaks. Sure, Stephen Soderbergh’s Contagion gained a new lease of life during the first wave, but everything from Songbird to Locked Down has been viewed with derision, with last year’s The Survivalist also falling into a similar camp. Jonathan Rhys Meyers and John Malkovich take top billing in the action thriller that resolutely failed to read the room by…

Dir: JJ Perry. Starring: Jamie Foxx, Dave Franco, Snoop Dogg, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Meagan Good, Karla Souza, Steve Howey, Scott Adkins. 18, 113 minutes.Day Shift made me yearn for the Eighties, a decade I wasn’t even alive for. And that’s not because there’s any consciously crafted nostalgia at the core of this vampire-comedy, though its final line references a pinnacle of the genre, Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys (1987). Day Shift made me yearn for an era when this sort of original, light-horror filmmaking would be…

via Saban Films Henry Cavill remains a hugely popular star, with the success of Netflix’s The Witcher keeping him in the public eye, even if Warner Bros. continue to ignore the fans that have been demanding his return as Superman for years. Despite his status, handsome visage, and chiseled frame, though, movies like The Night Hunter are part of the reason why the actor has never really been viewed as a viable action star. Sure, Geralt of Rivia can swing a sword with the best of them and he’s a dab hand at…