io9 is proud to present fiction from LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE. Once a month, we feature a story from LIGHTSPEED’s current issue. This month’s selection is “We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read” by Caroline M. Yoachim.
Apple apologized on Thursday for a new iPad Pro commercial that featured several creative objects—including a piano, video cameras, and cans of paint—being destroyed by an industrial crusher, telling Ad Age that it “missed the mark.” The ad was met with fierce backlash from people who thought Apple’s ad was at odds…
Pets are our loving companions and offer moments of levity even when times are tough. Though it’s hard to say whether they understand humor, they certainly provide us with plenty. From cats stuck in stone walls to dogs stuck in cat doors, our domesticated animals give us something to live for—and occasionally laugh at.
After some recent casting announcements that came with no details attached (Paul Walter Hauser, John Malkovich), Marvel’s Phase Six entry Fantastic Four—which already has Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the main heroes, plus Julia Garner as Silver Surfer—has just unveiled a doozy: g…
Universal Pictures’ latest horror release Abigail is now available to watch on-demand at home, for those who missed it in theaters or wanted to wait for a scary movie night in. The kidnapped vampire ballerina romp directed by Radio Silence filmmakers Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin is a bloody bonkers ride…
On Wednesday, OpenAI released a draft of its Model Spec sheet that details how it intends its AI models to behave. There is a section focusing on NSFW content that gives the impression that the company is exploring ways to makeAI porn, but the company says that is not happening.
The Asus ROG Ally is barelya year old, but the gaming handheld built to rival the Steam Deck (at least, the one that came the closest to dethroning Valve’s handheld goliath) is coming back with an upgrade. Details are rather sparse, but the update could include a new coat of paint, better storage, more RAM,…
The sonic background of Star Wars is almost unmatched for legendary, immediately recognizable callouts. The snap-hiss of an igniting lightsaber. The penetrating wail of a TIE Fighter shrieking into view, the alien cacophony of Mos Eisley cantina. The prequels added to this catalogue massively, from the quivering bass…
The Sun is a hot mess right now. Solar maximum is fast approaching, and a giant dark spot on the surface of the Sun keeps growing while spewing radiation out to space in the process.
Bumble Founder and Executive Chair Whitney Wolfe Herd defended her dating app’s new AI feature on stage in San Francisco on Thursday. She went on to describe a version of the future where “AI-dating concierges” message each other on a human’s behalf.
All the way back in 2011, Rise of the Planet of the Apes seemed like it’d be an unremarkable but potentially solid movie. No one really knew what to make of Fox doing a prequel/reboot of the classic sci-fi series, especially since it’d already tried a decade prior with Tim Burton’s divisive 2001 remake. That wariness…
“Do you have it in you to make it epic?” That’s the question Chris Hemsworth’s Dementus asks in Furiosa: A Mad Max Story, and for at least one person that answer is yes. George Miller, director of Furiosa, does have it in him to make it epic. And, before you even see the movie, there are literal numbers to prove it.
At least 224 people have been injured after an iPhone app called t:connect drained the battery on its accompanying insulin pump, called t:slim X2, causing the pump to fail to deliver insulin. The FDA issued a Class I recall of the app on Wednesday, according to a press release, the most serious type of recall issued…
Dario and Daniela Amodei, siblings and founders of Anthropic, fired indirect jabs at OpenAI while not stating the company’s name on Thursday. The founders told a San Francisco audience that Anthropic’s AI was the best in the world, and defended their competitive advantage over industry leader, OpenAI.
Evil doppelgängers can emerge from anywhere—they pop out of parallel dimensions, are crafted by alien technology, or burst into the present as time-traveling robots. Even worse, sometimes they just exist for no reason, other than to duplicate (and inevitably torment) a story’s main character.
The enormous Dali container ship has been stuck in Baltimore since it hit and destroyed the Francis Scott Key bridge way back in March. The ship lost power and careered into one of the supports for the bridge, bringing it crashing down and killing six workers on the bridge. Now, engineers are planning to blow up the…
We’re getting close to the end of Star Trek: Discovery, which means we’re getting close to a season finale. And if there’s one thing Star Trek: Discovery loves—more than love, more than time travel, more than being deeply unsubtle—it is presenting you with a scenario of hope that then has to come crashing down,…
Batman: The Animated Series remains an important, influential superhero show, even nearly 30 years after its final episode, and the loss of iconic voice actor Kevin Conroy. But Batman the character lives forever, and he’ll be launching into new adventures soon in a long-teased series from TAS creator Bruce Timm, as…
There’s more Bluey on the way in the form of Bluey Minisodes! A new batch of 20 shorts will be released on Disney Jr. and Disney+ this July.