It sure seems like Laika has another banger on its hands, at least based on the new trailer for the dark fairy tale Wildwood. The stop-motion movie hits theaters at just the right time of year, too, premiering on October 23rd.
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Google is sure to tell us that the web is healthier than ever next week at IO, but out here on the streets everyone knows search traffic is collapsing — a phenomenon we’ve been calling Google Zero for years now. Well, here’s Conde Nast CEO Roger Lynch on TBPN saying they are assuming all search traffic will be zero from now on. I’m just saying — give us credit for naming the concept, bro.


After being announced in August, 2024, Subvert opened its doors on May 12th, 2026. It’s a music co-op where over 20,000 artist members are the owners. They set the policies, and there are no fees. It’s also one of the few platforms to ban AI content and training. Definitely check it out.
I can still be easily sucked into a book of cross section artwork, so it’s fascinating to see the process of how the complex illustrations are made. Artist John R. Mullaney condensed the long process of creating a cross section of The Mandalorian’s N-1 Starfighter into a timelapse that’s four minutes well spent.
It joins a handful of other tech companies like Snap and Microsoft in supporting the bill, while major tech groups maintain opposition. The announcement comes as a key Senate committee prepares to move forward on its version of KOSA, after a House committee passed a largely overhauled version.

Chromebooks solved a real need 15 years ago. I’m not sure Google’s new Googlebook solves anything.
Discord has announced some big improvements available now in its Linux client. Phoronix notes that they include official support for more distros, support for hardware-accelerated video encoding, improved screen capture, better power efficiency on Steam Deck, support for Discord’s official auto-updater, and more.
Hopefully, this will mean smoother screen capture on my Fedora PC and better Discord performance overall for the record number of gamers using Linux.

This year’s Border Security Expo was a victory lap for Trump’s immigration policies. But with border crossings at record lows, what were vendors hawking next?
We’re still a ways out from Pokémon Wind and Waves’s release on the Switch 2 some time next year, but The Pokémon Company has just uploaded a video of the NHK Symphony Orchestra recording the games’ main theme to tide us all over.
The home security company launched two new products today: the Ring Spotlight Cam (2nd Gen) at $169.99 and the Ring Floodlight Cam (2nd Gen) at $199.99. Both feature Ring’s Retinal 2K video resolution, bringing higher-res support to Ring’s base models.
Increased resolution provides clearer video and better zoom capabilities and feeds richer data into Ring’s AI features, such as Search Party, AI-generated text descriptions, and search history. The cameras will be available on June 3rd.
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It’s been a while since we heard anything new about Disney’s Agatha All Along followup, VisionQuest, but Disney has just pegged the series for an October 14th premiere.
The new extended scene from episode 4 of Pluribus doesn’t include any major revelations, but it is an entertaining three minutes of Rhea Seehorn tripping out.


When it announced the new Googlebook laptops yesterday, a few commenters noticed the name seemed familiar, but only one realized just how familiar.
BlueClouds:
There is Google Play Books (to buy ebooks), Google Books (to search books), and now the Googlebook.
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The Studio Display is barely changed from 2022, but now it has competition.
That’s the pitch for the 17 Max, a new phone Xiaomi is teasing on Weibo. It looks exactly like the regular Xiaomi 17, but has a 6.9-inch display — the same size as the 17 Pro Max and Ultra. That’s all we know so far, but it launches in China this month.

And the jobs they promise don’t really exist.
In case you missed it, yesterday’s Android Show stream included a brief list of every phone with current and confirmed plans for AirDrop support in Quick Share. Google also told The Verge that Xiaomi is planning support this year, though we don’t yet know to which phones.


It seems that x86 hardware will be part of Google’s new laptop platform, although Intel doesn’t specify what processors it’ll be using:
We’re thrilled to partner with @Google on something we’ve been building with them - Googlebook. Premium, powerful devices designed for Intelligence. We can’t wait to get it into your hands this fall.
Googlebook is also expected to support ARM-based chipsets from other vendors, so perhaps the partnership isn’t exclusive.
It’s too late at night to eat, but you’ll still enjoy this Easter egg. Turns out if you drop Valve’s Steam Controller it will let out the legendary Wilhelm Scream — an unavoidable sound if you, like Dwight Schrute, have seen over 240 films. PCGamer verified this tiny joy, citing this Reddit post from RF3D19.


As originally reported by The Daily Princetonian and The Atlantic, Princeton University just decided to end a 133-year tradition of professors leaving the room when students are taking exams.
The dean of the faculty claimed in the proposal to amend the rules that both students and professors had “the perception that cheating on in-class exams has become widespread”, thanks in part to “the advent of generative artificial intelligence products.” At least AI has reinvigorated one job: student chaperone.

Elon Musk may have done more long-term reputational damage to the OpenAI CEO.
Lenovo is announcing a new ThinkPad X13 Gen 7, launching this month with Intel Panther Lake and AMD Gorgon Point chips. The X13 starts at $1,499 and weighs as little as 2.03 pounds / 0.93kg. Lenovo also boasts the X13 scores a 9/10 repairability rating from iFixit.
New ThinkPad L14 and L16 models are launching alongside the X13, primarily for enterprise deployments.
It’s partnering with an AI company called Simile and is “independently validating” the company’s method. “Our goal is to learn whether AI systems and emerging methods can help deepen, not replace, our understanding of how humans think and behave,” according to Gallup. Gallup also notes that its goal isn’t to use the methodology to substitute “for work that requires the rigor of probability-based sampling.”
[Gallup.com]
Star Wars is making its long-awaited return to theaters with The Mandalorian and Grogu next week, but the galaxy far, far away still has a home on streaming. Disney announced that season 2 of Mando spinoff Ahsoka will premiere in early 2027. That’s more than three years removed from when the show debuted.


During its annual upfront presentation today, Disney announced that Avatar: Fire and Ash will stream on Disney Plus beginning June 24th.
Last year, EchoStar agreed to offload 65Mhz of its spectrum to SpaceX for its direct-to-cell service, while AT&T snapped up 50Mhz of its spectrum to build out its 5G network. Now it’s official, with the FCC noting that SpaceX will be able to use its spectrum for “terrestrial, space-based, and hybrid network architectures.”
As the AI adoption in the legal field ramps up, Anthropic has announced that its AI chatbot can now connect to many of the apps used by lawyers, including DocuSign, Box, Thomson Reuters, Harvey, and more. “Claude reviews contracts, surfaces case law, and drafts across the tools your team already uses,” according to Anthropic.
Kolter laid out OpenAI’s different safety groups: the safety systems team, which works on guardrails and evaluations; the preparedness team, which deals with OpenAI’s preparedness framework; the alignment team, which helps train models on ways that “align with human values”; the model policy team, which develops the model spec; and other teams focusing on investigations. When speaking about the controversial dissolution of OpenAI’s superalignment team and AGI readiness team, he said some of that research is being done by other teams.























