Microsoft and NASA say they're applying artificial intelligence to a challenge that has become all too pressing in the past couple of weeks: how to cope with flooding and other nightmares brought about by extreme weather events. That's where Hydrology Copilot comes in: The platform, which is powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and Microsoft Foundry, lets researchers and others query NASA's data using straightforward questions — for example, “Which regions may be facing elevated flood risk?” NLDAS-3 matches up satellite measurements with state-of-the-art computer models to present a detailed, continuously updated, continental-scale view of the water cycle. The dataset can provide a wealth of insights for drought monitoring, agricultural planning, water resource management, flood risk assessment and emergency preparedness. This month's flooding in Western Washington, brought on by an onslaught of storm systems, shows how important it can be to gain such insights — and how useful Hydrology Copilot can be. To take a test spin through other, more publicly accessible hydrology datasets, check out King County's Hydrologic Information Center and the interactive map provided by the National Water Prediction Service. Microsoft collaborates with NASA on Earth Copilot, an AI guide to our planet's data Microsoft Copilot will show the underlying web search terms that contribute to AI chat responses Microsoft adds Anthropic's Claude AI models to 365 Copilot as OpenAI relationship evolves Microsoft unveils ‘multiplayer AI collaboration' tool for work, trying to overcome Copilot qualms

As the U.S. races against China to land astronauts on the Moon, two American spaceflight titans are locked in their own competition to secure NASA's victory. Jared Isaacman was sworn in as NASA's 15th administrator on Thursday. On his first day on the job, he told Bloomberg TV that he's going to let competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin propel NASA back to the Moon. “I don't think it was lost on either vendor that whichever lander was available first to ensure that America achieves its strategic objectives on the Moon is the one we were going to go with,” Isaacman said. SpaceX and Blue Origin, led by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, respectively, are developing landers designed to carry astronauts to the lunar surface. The first NASA mission to do so will be Artemis 3, which is now slated to launch sometime in 2028 after being pushed back several times. The latest delay is largely due to stagnant progress on SpaceX's crew lander—the Starship Human Landing System (HLS)—which NASA contracted for Artemis 3 back in 2021. In October, Acting Administrator Sean Duffy opened up the contract to other companies in an attempt to spur competition and accelerate lander development. Since then, Blue Origin has emerged as the worthiest opponent for SpaceX. The company has taken a two-pronged approach to lander development, working on both cargo- and crew-rated versions of its Blue Moon spacecraft. The cargo lander, Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1), is expected to perform a demonstration landing on the lunar surface in early 2026. After Duffy opened it up to other vendors, the company presented NASA with a simplified mission architecture but still said it probably won't be able to land astronauts on the Moon until 2028. Dangling the Artemis 3 carrot in front of two industry leaders is exactly the type of strategy he believes will usher NASA into a new era of commercial partnership and accelerated innovation. He plans to run NASA more like a business than a bureaucracy, leaning heavily on private companies to expedite the agency's goals. The competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin will serve as a proof of concept for this strategy—and one with very high stakes. On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order committing the U.S. to a crewed lunar landing by 2028. With this deadline looming, both companies are under serious pressure to get their landers off the ground. This will be your best chance to see 3I/ATLAS in the night sky. For more than a decade, scientists have accepted that Titan, Saturn's biggest moon, has a subsurface ocean of liquid water. A new look at the data suggests otherwise.

In the city that's home to Microsoft, Redmond Police Chief Darrell Lowe isn't just watching technological innovation from the sidelines — he's integrating it into his department's daily operations. Lowe, a 30-year law enforcement veteran, views Redmond as the ideal staging ground for a new era of policing that capitalizes on advancements ranging from drones as first responders to artificial intelligence. Lowe, who also runs his own public safety tech consultancy, primarily seeks tools that increase staff efficiency and simplify officer tasks. An AI-powered investigative platform from San Francisco-based Longeye fits that bill. Longeye ingests digital information such as surveillance video, phone records, crime scene photos and interviews to analyze data at speeds that exceed human review. “It's really important for law enforcement agencies and officers not to get lazy and think AI is the answer, because you still have to corroborate whatever that is,” Lowe said. He equates their impact on modern policing to the era when handheld radios replaced police call boxes. With a current staff of approximately 85 officers, Lowe employs two full-time drone pilots operating from a flight control center equipped with autonomous drones from Seattle-based Brinc and Skydio. “Typical police response is you send an officer on the ground to make contact. From 250 feet, a pilot observed the individual, determined no crime was occurring and no one was in danger, and watched as the person eventually walked away. To address privacy concerns, Lowe implemented a “horizon-first” policy: drone cameras are pointed at the sky during transit and only tilt down once they reach the specific GPS coordinates of a call. Redmond PD started deploying Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) this summer to alert officers and analysts when a vehicle linked to a crime, missing person, stolen vehicle, or other critical incident is detected. Lowe pushed back on what he calls “hysteria” surrounding the technology, arguing that cameras have a proven, valuable place in law enforcement. “There is no expectation of privacy in a public place on a tax-funded road,” Lowe said, noting that Washington's tolling cameras often capture more personal data (including driver faces) for longer periods than his ALPR systems. Now he laughs at how much the job description has evolved. But even with modern advances, Lowe insists technology will never replace an officer's empathy. “When people contact the police, it's often not on their best day. It's the reason why most of us got into this profession — to help others.” Microsoft's mission: empowering every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. Learn how Microsoft is thinking about responsible artificial intelligence, regulation, sustainability, and fundamental rights. Washington joins lawsuit opposing $100K fee for H-1B visas allowing foreign STEM and medical workers Crypto ATM startup Coinme hit with cease-and-desist order in Washington state Redmond, Wash., police roll out more public safety tech with license plate reader cameras Redmond, Wash., police partnering with Brinc on drone tech as part of first responder program Here are the 18 members of Washington state's new Artificial Intelligence Task Force Washington state cities turn off license plate reader cameras amid ruling on data access

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. LG has clarified how Microsoft Copilot appears on its webOS smart TVs following recent coverage that described the feature as a non-removable app bundled into the operating system. According to the company, Copilot is not installed as a native application and does not run as an embedded service within webOS. In a statement provided to Tom's Hardware, Chris De Maria, Director of Public Relations at LG Electronics North America, said the Copilot presence on LG TVs is implemented as a shortcut icon designed to improve accessibility. LG says features such as microphone input are not enabled by default and are only activated after a user explicitly grants permission through the browser interface. De Maria said, “LG Electronics respects consumer choice and will take steps to allow users to delete the shortcut icon if they wish,” addressing complaints that the Copilot tile appeared on home screens without a clear option to remove it. LG has not yet shared a timeline for when or how that change will roll out. Those reports raised questions about whether LG had begun preinstalling third-party AI services at the OS level, particularly given Microsoft's broader push to integrate Copilot across Windows, browsers, and consumer devices at the behest of CEO Satya Nadella. He recently made headlines after warning executives that those who don't embrace AI within Microsoft must leave the company. LG's explanation suggests a more limited implementation, at least for now. By keeping Copilot confined to a browser shortcut, the company avoids deeper integration with webOS services, data, or system resources. It is not currently known whether additional Copilot integrations are planned for the Linux-based webOS or whether similar shortcuts could appear for other web-based services in future updates. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds. Although his background is in legal, he has a personal interest in all things tech, especially hardware and microelectronics, and anything regulatory. Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher.

It's a silly idea, but one that's immediately appealing if you've spent any time within the constrained jail cell walls of your gaming laptop's screen bezels. Lenovo, the one company that would do something so eccentric, is reportedly gearing up to launch a rollin' gaming laptop. The leaks come from Windows Latest, which includes several renders of what seems to be a 16-inch Lenovo Legion Pro 7i but with an OLED screen that can extend horizontally in both directions up to 24 inches. The supposed Legion Rollable would also sport an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 and a “maxed-out Intel Core Ultra processor.” This could refer to an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, which came in many of the top-end gaming laptops in 2025. However, perhaps it could refer to one of the specific Intel Panther Lake chips built for lightweight laptops. That's with a supposed “tension-based mechanism” and two motors to let it extend from both sides at once. Windows Latest suggests the device is being targeted to esports pros or wannabe hardcore gamers who need to brush up on their skills when on the move. Instead, I can imagine it would appeal to the more sedentary types who don't have the space for a bigger screen. Lenovo's Legion Pro 7i was not an easily transportable laptop, especially since it came packed with a 400W power brick nearly half the size of its folded-up chassis. – RTX 5090 + maxed-out Intel Core Ultra for top-tier competitive performance– 16-inch PureSight OLED… pic.twitter.com/ns4f5Bk6w0 Lenovo isn't the kind of company to keep things subtle. At nearly every tech conference, the major PC brand shows up with a few radical designs. Some of those weird and wild concept devices actually become real products, which is how we got the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable. Believe it or not, that extra screen space is a boon if you're doing any writing tasks or are just looking to read an internet article without having to scroll past a mountain of ads. A Legion Pro 7i already sells for around $3,000 with the higher-end specs that don't include an RTX 5090 GPU. The “Legion Pro Rollable” will likely be very expensive. Lenovo is expected to show off the new rollable laptop at CES 2026 next month. Sure, the rolling gaming laptop won't be for everyone. Still, Lenovo has other gaming products it could show off soon. Of course it will still have that big, beautiful 8.8-inch OLED display. Still, with RAM prices completely out of control right now, who knows what next year's devices may cost? Windows users can't go back to 8GB of RAM, but laptop makers may not have a choice. Can the latest flavor of LCD screen technology finally beat OLED? Dell says it will take 'targeted pricing action, when necessary.' Here's YOUR chance to tell us which gadgets were the best.

Largely maintained for now, it is set to go in the future. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Being concerned that TSMC's expansion into the United States could dilute Taiwan's semiconductor leadership, Taiwanese authorities are mulling setting a new export rule that would only let the world's number-one foundry export technologies that are two generations behind its leading-edge production node, reports CNA. The core of this new export policy is the government's N-2 rule, which permits offshore deployment only of process technologies that trail Taiwan's leading-edge by two generations. The new framework is much stricter; depending on how one counts generations, it means that TSMC may only be allowed to export nodes that are two or even four years behind its best technology. Under this approach, if TSMC were to develop a 1.2nm or 1.4nm-class fabrication process domestically, then only its 1.6nm-class production would be eligible for use abroad, according to Lin Fa-cheng, Deputy Minister of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC). For now, TSMC's Fab 21 phase 1 in Arizona is capable of making chips on N4/N5 fabrication technologies (which belong to the same generation). Domestically, TSMC has several fully ramped fabs capable of 3nm-class manufacturing processes (N3B, N3E, N3P, etc.) However, once TSMC begins to make chips on 3nm-class technologies at Fab 21 phase 2 in 2027, the facility will not be compliant with the N2-2 rule because N3 is formally just one generation behind N2/N2P/A16. Yet, while A16 is N2P with a backside power delivery network, if one considers A16 an all-new generation, then Fab 21 phase 2 will comply with the new high-tech export framework. Lin also emphasized that most of TSMC's research and development workforce remains in Taiwan and noted that the company's R&D footprint aligns with government requirements. In practice, this concentration of engineers and scientists ensures that future process development stays anchored domestically, even as the company builds manufacturing capacity and R&D centers overseas. Lin also emphasized that all qualified personnel employed in the semiconductor industry are subject to regulatory oversight, which extends protection of IP and hardware to human capital. In addition, any future U.S. investments by TSMC will be examined under existing laws, and projects exceeding certain thresholds must be reviewed by the MOEA's Investment Commission, said Chou Yu-hsin, Deputy Director-General of the Industrial Development Administration under the MOEA. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Users of Google and its offshoot services including YouTube and YouTube TV are reporting issues with the services as of Friday morning. Google did start rolling out a core algorithm update on December 11. Otherwise, its service page is currently all quiet, possibly indicating a more modest outage. If you were having trouble with any of the aforementioned services, its possible they might be back online shortly. The spike for reports of an outage on YouTube are much higher than Google and Google TV, with nearly 10,000 reports in the last hour of problems on the popular video service. As noted, a trio of Google services being affected by spikes this significant points to an in-house problem at Google. But there are also Downdetector spikes for The Weather Channel and Target. YouTube users are reporting problems with the website and streaming videos. On Google itself, users are reporting problems with both the website and trying to search for issues. My own Google is working just fine right now, for instance. Some early Cloudflare disruption was reported on Friday morning. Clouflare says it has been monitoring a network performance issue, but a fix for that was implemented about an hour ago. It is unclear at this stage if these are confined to Google's services, or part of a larger outage of a service like Cloudflare or Azure. Morning folks, users of Google, YouTube, and more are reporting issues with the services. Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. © Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York,

Plus: TikTok has finally signed a deal to keep operating in the US Buying an electric car has gone from a novel decision to a routine one; by late 2025, nearly 60% of new cars sold were electric or plug-in hybrids.But as the batteries in China's first wave of EVs reach the end of their useful life, early owners are starting to retire their cars, and the country is now under pressure to figure out what to do with those aging components.The issue is putting strain on China's still-developing battery recycling industry and has given rise to a gray market that often cuts corners on safety and environmental standards. National regulators and commercial players are also stepping in, but so far these efforts have struggled to keep pace with the flood of batteries coming off the road. It's a weird time to be an AI doomer.This small but influential community believes, in the simplest terms, that AI could get so good it could be bad—very, very bad—for humanity.The doomer crowd has had some notable success over the past several years: including helping shape AI policy coming from the Biden administration. Talk of an AI bubble has overwhelmed the discourse as tech companies continue to invest in multiple Manhattan Projects' worth of data centers without any certainty that future demand will match what they're building.So where does this leave the doomers? We decided to ask some of the movement's biggest names to see if the recent setbacks and general vibe shift had altered their views. See what they had to say in our story.—Garrison Lovely This story is part of our new Hype Correction package, a collection of stories designed to help you reset your expectations about what AI makes possible—and what it doesn't. Take our quiz on the year in health and biotechnology In just a couple of weeks, we'll be bidding farewell to 2025. Artificial intelligence is being incorporated into more aspects of our lives, weight-loss drugs have expanded in scope, and there have been some real “omg” biotech stories from the fields of gene therapy, IVF, neurotech, and more.Jessica Hamzelou, our senior biotech reporter, is inviting you to put your own memory to the test. So how closely have you been paying attention this year? This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review's weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here. I've combed the internet to find you today's most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 TikTok has signed a deal to sell its US unit Its new owner will be a joint venture controlled by American investors including Oracle. (FT $)+ The deal is slated to close on January 22 next year. (Bloomberg $)+ It means TikTok will sidestep a US ban—at least for now. (NYT $)+ The shooter's motivation is still unclear, police say. (WP $)3 Tech leaders are among those captured in newly-released Epstein photosBill Gates and Google's Sergey Brin are both in the pictures. (FT $)+ They've been pulled from a tranche of more than 95,000. 5 YouTube has shut down two major channels that share fake movie trailersScreen Culture and KH Studio uploaded AI-generated mock trailers with over a billion views. (Deadline)+ Google is treading a thin line between embracing and shunning generative AI. 6 Trump is cracking down on investment in Chinese tech firmsLawmakers are increasingly worried that US money is bolstering the country's surveillance state. (WSJ $)+ Meanwhile, China is working on boosting its chip output. (Ars Technica)+ Southeast Asia seeks its place in space. (Rest of World)+ How Indian health-care workers use WhatsApp to save pregnant women. Americans deserve to know if the president struck another backdoor deal for this billionaire takeover of TikTok." Earlier this summer, I visited the AI company Synthesia to create a hyperrealistic AI-generated avatar of me. The company's avatars are a decent barometer of just how dizzying progress has been in AI over the past few years, so I was curious just how accurately its latest AI model, introduced last month, could replicate me.I found my avatar as unnerving as it is technically impressive. It's slick enough to pass as a high-definition recording of a chirpy corporate speech, and if you didn't know me, you'd probably think that's exactly what it was.My avatar shows how it's becoming ever-harder to distinguish the artificial from the real. And what might interacting with AI clones do to us? A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. + You can keep your beef tallow—here are the food trends that need to remain firmly in 2025.+ The Library of Congress has some lovely images of winter that are completely free to use.+ If you've got a last minute Christmas work party tonight, don't make these Secret Santa mistakes.+ Did you realize Billie Eilish's smash hit Birds of a Feather has the same chord progression as Wham's Last Christmas? Plus: OpenAI is sounding the "code red" alarm Plus: China is considering cutting its native data centers a deal Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time.

All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers. If you buy something through links on our site, Gizmodo may earn an affiliate commission. I'm curious about the folk with deep-pockets who dare hope to remain budget conscious, even while they're considering a $4,000 laptop like the MSI Raider 18 HX. Will those same consumers balk at spending another $100? Because the 18-inch gaming laptop certainly has its share of drawbacks—many of the same flaws shared between practically every large gaming laptop released this year. I started out 2025 by reviewing the MSI Titan 18 HX, a monstrous and monsterously powerful gaming laptop that packed in everything I could ever want in a desktop replacement device. Its more-than $5,000 price tag is what helps you come back down to earth. So now, the Raider 18 HX costs closer to $4,000 (it's $3,740 on Amazon at the time of this writing) for a model whose specs include an Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 GPU, and a whopping 64GB of RAM and 2TB of storage. Laptops on the whole cost more now than they did in January. When you only care about having a great gaming suite in laptop form, and you don't much care about a lame shell, MSI's Raider 18 HX will more than suffice. There are glaring obvious reasons why the Raider 18 HX is appealing. You don't see that too often, even on this size of laptop (probably because it just makes the whole thing cost more). It's the main reason you go for the Raider 18 HX above something like an Alienware 18 Area-51 or an Asus ROG Strix Scar 18, even though those laptops feel better to use. In that way, the Raider 18 HX feels like a one-trick pony. It's for gamers who want to feel like gamers, never mind whether you're getting the best possible experience for your rmoney. We don't know what next year's laptop designs may yield, but I'm not expecting anything spectacular. The jump to RTX 50-series GPUs brought us our most powerful gaming laptops yet. Unless AMD makes a Ryzen 7 9850X3D CPU for notebooks, that probably won't change. Do you need a 4K screen on a laptop when the mini LED isn't going to offer you the best image quality? Will taking up so much space on your desk matter if the keyboard doesn't feel that premium? If all you want is performance, then the Raider 18 HX has your back. And considering what's on the horizon, maybe all high-end gaming laptops will cost $4,000 not long from now. When I first tipped open the lid of the Raider 18 HX, the first word that came into my head was “plastic.” First time buyers are greeted with black plastic bezels and a black plastic palm rest. Even the small red fan embellishments that scream “gamer” aesthetic are plastic. The plastic parts don't make this laptop any less weighty at 7.94 pounds. When you factor in the 400W power brick that comes with the laptop, you come to realize quickly that this is not a machine for taking out on the town—at least not if you don't want a back and shoulders workout. The keys feel fine to type on, but they're on the squishy, less impactful side with their shallow travel. Also, surprisingly for a laptop of this size, the per-key RGB behind the keyboard really isn't as bright as I would want, even in dimly lit environments. At least, the Raider 18 HX is free of other bloatware except for MSI Center, which is one of a few ways you can change the laptop's performance settings. That means the laptop can accept 240W of power delivery through its sides if you don't want to go for the 400W brick (however, you'll still need it for gaming). There's an additional SD card slot, a headphone jack, and an HDMI and Ethernet port on the rear panel. But that's not the only thing you should consider about screens, especially for a premium. That being said, mini LED is the type of screen with a matte layer that doesn't so much as reduce glare as it diffuses it and spreads it across the screen. In a room with a few lights in the background, you may see distortion that could completely mar the viewing experience, depending on your desk placement. The laptop contains four 2W speakers alongside two 2W woofers made by Dynaudio. What came out of the laptop's audio suite can be both loud and bassy, without any of the unnecessary spine-tingling lows that don't actually impact immersion. The speaker setup is so good I didn't imagine I'd need to reach for anything but the more expensive soundbars to enhance it. If you do, it will offer a solid miniature theater so long as you can ignore the fan sounds blasting out the back. RAM is going for such a premium, you're probably wondering how much 64GB of RAM makes a difference compared to many other laptops from this year that only have 32GB. In my tests, the Raider 18 HX does slightly better for base productivity tasks. For instance, in Geekbench 6 and Cinebench 2024 tests, the CPU scored just above that from other laptops like the ROG Strix Scar 18. And yet, in 3DMark tests, the Raider 18 HX underperformed slightly compared to many of the other 16- and 18-inch gaming laptops I reviewed this year—all with very similar specs. An Alienware 16 Area-51 hit about 200 points higher in 3DMark “Speed Way” test and 100 points more in the “Steel Nomad” test. It did even worse compared to a Lenovo Legion Pro 7i. Both those gaming laptops were running with the same RTX 5080 GPU and an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU, a step down from the Raider 18 HX's Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX. Compared to MSI's own Titan 18 HX with RTX 5090 GPU, the Raider 18 HX does around 500 points worse in both these 3DMark tests. I can't stress enough how little differences in synthetic benchmark actually matter for real-world performance. Throughout all my benchmarks testing games like Cyberpunk 2077, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, and Assassin's Creed Shadows, I could get more than playable frame rates with high settings at 4K, though it necessitated some amount of upscaling in every case. In Cyberpunk 2077, when set to “Ray Tracing Ultra” settings with DLSS on balanced mode, the Raider 18 HX netted me around 49 average fps with a low of 41 fps. That may not be enough for some, so if you drop the ray tracing settings down a smidge, you can equal the fabled 60 fps. In tests for some other titles, like Black Myth: Wukong, the Raider 18 HX excelled. That's with DLSS enabled and set to its default “balanced” setting. Total War: Warhammer III was an excellent experience at 4K, especially at “Ultra” settings, proving I could do 92 fps in battle scenes and just under 90 fps in the campaign map. When rendering our test scene of a BMW on the CPU using Blender, it takes a few seconds less than on similarly sized gaming laptops with a lesser Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX. The only ever reason to not push the GPU is if you're trying to save what little battery you have. There is no gaming laptop you want to leave without a plug. It's packing a 99.9Wh battery, which sounds good enough on paper. The Raider 18 HX is also plenty loud when it starts going. Still, it wasn't enough to cause any real discomfort. When you spend so much money on a laptop, the last thing you want to feel is that you're leaving something behind—especially for the sake of a desktop replacement computer as big as this one. In the same vein, if all I wanted was performance in games, these specs help me reach the fabled land of 4K, and I may not feel the need to buy an extra monitor or soundbar for that premium experience. So many different flavors of the same crusty lollipop combine in the mouth until all I can taste is sugar. Everybody likes sugar, but I'm craving something distinct. At least the sugar high is just as good with MSI's devices. Windows users can't go back to 8GB of RAM, but laptop makers may not have a choice. Get ready for even more game-key cards on Switch 2. I never want to sideload anything ever again. No matter what, consumers are going to lose.

There's more to watch than ever before, but perhaps you still find yourself idly flicking through the “What's New” carousel on Netflix and not seeing anything that really grabs you … so then you do the same for Prime Video and Disney+ too. The reality is that there's so much on each one of these streaming services that we can never hope to get through the whole lot. The fix is to be a little more targeted in curating your viewing queue. By spending more time finding the stuff you actually like, you can spend less time cycling through the thumbnails. There are apps and sites that can help here, cataloging everything that's currently available on your streaming platforms of choice. Paying $2.49 a month, meanwhile, removes the ads from the JustWatch apps, and gives you access to more lists and more filters. These are split by streaming platform but also by how much you'll have to pay (if anything), and whether you can watch them as part of a subscription (like Netflix) or whether you need to buy or rent the title. Alternatively, just click around JustWatch to see what's good. Select a specific streaming platform, for example, and you can see what's new or popular on that service. Click through on any title and you get a host of information about it, as well as options to add it to your JustWatch lists. Reelgood is similar to JustWatch in a lot of ways, with up-to-date listings for all the big streaming services, and various options for creating your own custom lists of content. It's all free, with no subscription tier, and you don't even need to register an account to start searching for titles. When you find a match, you'll see key information about the movie or show—such as the running time, year of release, or number of episodes—as well as links to streaming services where you can watch it in your part of the world. In a lot of cases you can click through and start watching right away in your web browser, if you're signed up to the right service. Besides the general streaming searching sites we've already mentioned, you'll come across listings services dedicated to specific platforms, and there's no bigger platform than Netflix. New on Netflix is not an official, Netflix-run site, but it offers a comprehensive catalog of everything arriving on and leaving the platform. This isn't available for your mobile device, it's just the website, though you can sign up to get personalized email updates for the movies and shows you're interested in: You'll be pinged whenever something you want to watch either turns up on Netflix or is about to be removed (so you've got chance to catch it). The quick menu links at the top will lead you straight to everything that's new on Netflix in your region, titles that are coming soon on the platform, and to the full Netflix catalog—if you want to, you can see absolutely everything on Netflix in alphabetical order, though you'll probably want to use one of the genre filter options. Every listing comes with information such as release date, cast, running time, and ratings, and you can of course click through to watch the film or movie on Netflix. The search engine is smart enough to realize when you're looking for a movie or show and will adapt accordingly. Search for a title and you should see a number of different widgets appear, showing an overview of the film, the cast, its release date, and the average online ratings that it's been given (which you may or may not want to take any heed of). Look for a Where to watch widget up in the top right corner—click on this and you should see viewing options for the movie or show in your country, with direct links to start streaming. Further down on the right, look for a Watch film or Watch show box: This will be a more basic widget showing you exactly which streaming platform you can watch the selected title on (click through for the link). In this same box you'll see a Want to watch button, which you can click to start a basic watchlist that gets synced across Google services (as long as you're signed into your Google account). In your inbox: Maxwell Zeff's dispatch from the world of AI Livestream: What businesses need to know about agentic AI WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast.

I say this as someone who has dumbly adored James Cameron's Avatar movies for a long time. The original 2009 film was my first ever midnight premiere, which I attended along with a friend who sat in the theater shirtless with his entire body painted blue. I can't forget that experience, or the nearly three-hour bioluminescent journey that followed, and the series has kept me hooked since. People talk a lot of shit about Avatar. But the true Avatar sickos (hi) might ask, What if that experience could be even longer, actually? What if you could spend even more time trekking through the sprawling, glowing forests of a verdant alien moon? If that sounds appealing, boy, are you going to be excited to hear about the concept of video games. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, a game developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft in 2023, lets you cavort around in the form of a 10-foot-tall Na'vi, the tribal species who live on the alien moon Pandora. While the Avatar films are blockbusters that have melted the box office, the game was released to little fanfare and middling reviews, though it grew to become a sleeper hit. It has since garnered enough of a fan base that it has received significant updates in the two years since its debut, including downloadable content expansions and a free mode that switches the game's first-person view to a third-person view, letting players bask in all their character's big blueness. Where the movies have their own stories to tell (family, love, that kinda thing), the game plays very differently with your own custom Na'vi. It is a righteous ecoterrorism simulator wrapped in the most gorgeous botanical garden I've ever seen. Your gargantuan blue treehugger runs around a world where all the very pretty plants want to kill you. By wiping out the bad guys and demolishing their camps that gush pollution into the air and water, you can allow the world's foliage to grow back in its place. They are sad, angry creatures, and I will kill thousands of them if it makes the pretty forest look even a little prettier.) Then spend all the downtime you want just hanging out in Pandora's verdant paradise, bouncing across neon lily pads and running through spiral plants that go THOOOMP and shrink into the ground when you touch them. People have written off the game as a re-skinned Far Cry, another very popular Ubisoft title, but that misses the sheer amount of Avatar details that have been pumped into Frontiers. “Everything needs to be researched and correct for the world. We need to show on paper, how does this actually work? What's the small leap or change in evolution or biology that our brain could understand that this is actually possible on a moon somewhere else in the universe?” The game is gorgeously splendid to look at, but the plot is as dense as a floating rock and the characters slip from your brain almost immediately after you meet them. When you're controlling your own experience through that world, taking all the time you like to explore, hunt, or just stare at the glowing plants, it becomes clear that Frontiers is the superior Avatar experience. “We try to make sure that everyone gets to tell their own story,” says Amandine Lauer, the lead game designer of Frontiers of Pandora. Seth Wright, who goes by Mako, is the director of operations at Kelutral, an Avatar fanclub that has grown to around 12,300 members. (There's an online Na'vi dictionary for the rest of us.) Initially, Mako and the community were skeptical about an Avatar game. “Avatar as a franchise is really well suited to interactive experiences,” Mako says. Mako calls Avatar the ultimate escapist fantasy: It presents a gorgeous, alien world, grounded in a believable, but fantastical, peaceful culture. He also lauds how director James Cameron has bristled at using AI in favor of human-created technical artistry. “It is just so far removed from our actual reality,” Mako says. Not to be a real kalweyaveng about it, but Frontiers of Pandora feels like just the right amount of Avatar. I have not yet seen the third Avatar movie. I'll find out when I watch it on Christmas Day in 4DX with those moving seats that occasionally spray water at you. Maybe three-and-a-half hours of trying to get maximum immersion into the land of Pandora will be enough to satiate my Avatar fix. Update, December 19 at 11 am: After this story published, Mako reached out to correct some improper Na'vi language usage. In your inbox: WIRED's most ambitious, future-defining stories Mark Zuckerberg's illegal school, and the neighbors who revolted Big Interview: Bryan Johnson is going to die Our guide to protecting yourself from phone searches at the border WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast.

Rachel Reid didn't intend for anyone to write a dissertation about her horny little gay hockey series. The show, commissioned by Canada's Crave and distributed by HBO Max in the US, debuted in late November and quickly became a massive hit. It's the number one Crave original series of all time, and it also climbed to number 1 on HBO Max. (Full disclosure: I threw a Heated Rivalry–themed holiday party last week, which just meant playing it on mute in my apartment for the vibes.) From Reddit to BookTok, the show and its source material have also sparked a lot of discourse, ranging from speculation about lead character Shane's neurodivergence, commentaries about race in hockey, and accusations that Reid favors mischievous Russian Ilya over Shane. It's really just a hockey romance,” Reid, now a New York Times bestselling author, tells me over Zoom, laughing. Still, she's flattered at the time people have spent theorizing. “I'm impressed with some of the things that people have really dug into. The show also sparked criticism from I Love LA star Jordan Firstman, who told Vulture that the intimacy depicted on the show is “not how gay people fuck.” He went on to say that lead actors Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie should out themselves if they are gay. The actors, who Williams described as “best friends,” have been posting flirty videos with each other, and even have matching “sex sells” tattoos, but neither has disclosed his sexual orientation. “A gay guy would say it,” Firstman told Vulture. The comments prompted fellow Heated Rivalry actor François Arnaud to clap back on Instagram, commenting “Should the sex that closeted hockey players have look like the sex that sceney LA gay guys have?” (Firstman has since apologized and the spat seems to have blown over.) Here's what Reid had to say about all the discourse surrounding everyone's favorite hockey smut and why so many women are obsessed with the genre. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. MANISHA KRISHNAN: As a fellow Canadian, hockey is just in the air that we breathe. Is it a sport that you found inherently sexy or horny? RACHEL REID: No, I wouldn't say so. It's not really that I'm hot for hockey players. So that's a good backdrop for my story, but it's also a good backdrop for my story because of all the toxic masculinity there. How did you end up writing hockey smut? I just had this idea about what it might be like to be a closeted NHL player, and then to come out as the first openly gay NHL player. So it was just like something that had been on my mind for a while. I mean, the hockey romance genre has a big following on BookTok. When my first book came out, publishers were starting to look for hockey romance actively. I don't know the reasons, but I do think a big part of it is that a lot of people don't really know much about hockey, so it's not something that they're going to nitpick the details of. But it's also an exciting, dangerous sport with a really weird set of skills that you have to learn. I think if you're not somebody who grew up in hockey culture, it's almost a sci-fi thing. One of the Reddit posts referenced how you had mentioned that Ilya has grief and trauma and Shane does not. And some of the commenters were like, “How could Shane not have trauma as an Asian man in a very white-dominated sport, or being a closeted man?” People were saying that that is indicative of your blind spots as an author. I'm curious what you make of that criticism? I don't think Heated Rivalry is a, you know, excellent representation of an Asian-Canadian person. But for me, that specific note that they're referring to was from my own personal notes on the characters. Ilya has not had that, his father was really awful, and his mother died very young when he was young. And so he carries a lot of trauma that he doesn't talk about and hasn't processed and hasn't dealt with in a healthy way, whereas Shane hasn't had that sort of trauma. This is like another comment that I've seen quite a bit of. Shane is probably my—I mean, I don't want to pick favorites, but Shane, to me, has the hero arc of the series. If you take their two books, Shane, I think, has the hero's arc, and he's my favorite character to write, especially from his point of view. So no, I don't prefer one over the other. I think they're fun to write for different reasons, and there are different reasons to like them, and there are different reasons why they're sometimes very frustrating characters. I want to talk about Shane being neurodivergent. That was not expressed in the books, correct? But you have since said that he is. Because that's definitely something a lot of the fans have commented on. It's just not explicitly stated, because I don't think the character of Shane would be aware of it himself, or it's not something that he would be looking into. And I just don't think it's something that he's thinking about. I think it's plausible Shane might go the rest of his life without ever being diagnosed or even really thinking seriously about it. But to me, as the person who created him, that was definitely a part of his character, and it's something that, as I continued writing him, became clearer as I myself learned more about autism. There are a bunch of references to Shane being a boring Canadian and being teased for that. Do you think he is actually boring, or is that more just playing off a stereotype about us? I don't think he's as boring as the characters around him like to tease him for being, because I think he's quite funny. Let's talk about Jordan Firstman's comments that what the show depicts isn't how gay people have sex. I'm curious what you made of that and what you make of the conversation that's ensued around who gets to tell stories about queer people. I'm not super familiar with what he said. I didn't really look into it too much. But I've been hearing the conversation around it for years. I knew it would be amplified by this show. But you have to be careful and sensitive. Show creator Jacob Tierney said, with respect to the actors, that he didn't think that there was any reason to get into their sexual orientations. I know, generally women who write romances about two or more men get criticized. I haven't heard a lot of it directed at me specifically, but I agree with Jacob about the actors, and I extend that to myself and anyone else involved with the show or these books. I know that season 2 of the show has been announced. Do you have plans to write another book with these characters? Are you working on any books right now? Being Canadian and seeing this show blow up—it's all over every American publication—what's that aspect of it been like for you? I still can't really believe how much people have embraced the show. It's really joyful, and I know that some of the episodes are sad, but it is ultimately a joyful show. The wild story behind Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl halftime show Watch: How online scammers use AI to steal your money WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast.

TikTok has reached a deal to cede a substantial portion of its U.S. operation to a group of American investors, thus ending a years-long tussle in which the federal government has sought to force the platform to do just that. The new partnership is described as a “new TikTok U.S. joint venture” in an internal memo from ByteDance CEO Shou Chew, which was viewed by TechCrunch. That arrangement will see major American investors take over significant control of the U.S.-based business. The newly formed investor group includes cloud giant Oracle, the tech-focused private equity firm Silverlake, and MGX, an Abu Dhabi-based investment firm focused on AI. The new entity formed by this partnership has been dubbed “TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC.” That new entity will be responsible for overseeing the app, including data protection, algorithm security, content moderation, and software assurance, the memo states. That memo similarly approved the sale of TikTok's U.S. operations to an American investor group. The U.S. government has long sought to cleave TikTok's U.S.-based business away from its Chinese parent company, espousing national security concerns as the rationale. Tech provider for NHS England confirms data breach Hacking group says it's extorting Pornhub after stealing users' viewing data DoorDash driver faces felony charges after allegedly spraying customers' food