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SpaceX lost contact with Starship during its launch in March. | Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP via Getty Images

SpaceX is getting ready to launch its Starship into space again. On Friday, the company announced that the massive rocket’s fourth flight test could happen as soon as June 5th, so long as regulators approve it.
Starship successfully launched into space during its last test flight in March, but SpaceX lost contact with the vehicle as it reentered Earth’s atmosphere. The company says the booster had “lower than expected landing burn thrust” during reentry, which was likely caused by “continued filter blockage.”

The fourth flight test of Starship could launch as soon as June 5, pending regulatory approvalhttps://t.co/XjreI7nQOp pic.twitter.com/2tv2s1yJ5F— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 24, 2024

Despite this, the test still marked the first time SpaceX could test its payload door in space and complete a propellant transfer demonstration. Starship’s first two launches ended with fiery explosions. SpaceX first began developing Starship in 2012 as part of its goal of creating a fully reusable spacecraft. Eventually, the 165-foot-long Starship will be able to shuttle crew and cargo into space.
During Starship’s next flight, SpaceX will focus on the ability to return and reuse Starship and its Super Heavy booster, adding that it has made several hardware and software updates to achieve this. The fourth flight will follow a similar path as the previous one and aim for a splashdown of Starship in the Indian Ocean.
The US Federal Aviation Administration still has to sign off on the next test flight, so the June 5th date is not yet set in stone.

SpaceX lost contact with Starship during its launch in March. | Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP via Getty Images

SpaceX is getting ready to launch its Starship into space again. On Friday, the company announced that the massive rocket’s fourth flight test could happen as soon as June 5th, so long as regulators approve it.

Starship successfully launched into space during its last test flight in March, but SpaceX lost contact with the vehicle as it reentered Earth’s atmosphere. The company says the booster had “lower than expected landing burn thrust” during reentry, which was likely caused by “continued filter blockage.”

Despite this, the test still marked the first time SpaceX could test its payload door in space and complete a propellant transfer demonstration. Starship’s first two launches ended with fiery explosions. SpaceX first began developing Starship in 2012 as part of its goal of creating a fully reusable spacecraft. Eventually, the 165-foot-long Starship will be able to shuttle crew and cargo into space.

During Starship’s next flight, SpaceX will focus on the ability to return and reuse Starship and its Super Heavy booster, adding that it has made several hardware and software updates to achieve this. The fourth flight will follow a similar path as the previous one and aim for a splashdown of Starship in the Indian Ocean.

The US Federal Aviation Administration still has to sign off on the next test flight, so the June 5th date is not yet set in stone.

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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. | Image: Netflix

Benoit Blanc is tackling another mystery very soon. Director Rian Johnson has teased the next outing of the detective, which will be called Wake Up Dead Man and is set to premiere sometime in 2025. In addition to the return of Johnson to write and direct, Daniel Craig will be reprising his role as Blanc. For now, that’s all the information we have to go on.
The first Knives Out mystery premiered in 2019, and after that, Netflix scooped up the rights to its sequels for a reported $450 million. The first sequel, Glass Onion, premiered in 2022; it had a brief theatrical run before eventually streaming on Netflix. (It also featured a guest appearance from this very website.) It seems likely that Wake Up Dead Man will follow a similar release trajectory.
While Johnson is known in part for sci-fi fare like Looper and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, he has also made a name for himself with mysteries. In addition to the Knives Out franchise, he also created the excellent whodunit series Poker Face on Peacock, starring Natasha Lyonne.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. | Image: Netflix

Benoit Blanc is tackling another mystery very soon. Director Rian Johnson has teased the next outing of the detective, which will be called Wake Up Dead Man and is set to premiere sometime in 2025. In addition to the return of Johnson to write and direct, Daniel Craig will be reprising his role as Blanc. For now, that’s all the information we have to go on.

The first Knives Out mystery premiered in 2019, and after that, Netflix scooped up the rights to its sequels for a reported $450 million. The first sequel, Glass Onion, premiered in 2022; it had a brief theatrical run before eventually streaming on Netflix. (It also featured a guest appearance from this very website.) It seems likely that Wake Up Dead Man will follow a similar release trajectory.

While Johnson is known in part for sci-fi fare like Looper and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, he has also made a name for himself with mysteries. In addition to the Knives Out franchise, he also created the excellent whodunit series Poker Face on Peacock, starring Natasha Lyonne.

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Illustration: The Verge

An unusual document appeared last week in the docket for the Department of Justice’s second antimonopoly lawsuit against Google. It included a photocopy of a check that Google claimed was good for the “maximum amount of damages” claimed in the case for its alleged anticompetitive actions in its ad tech business. Google said it had written the check to the Department of Justice.
Legal experts say the photocopy of a cashier’s check was definitely strange. But the DOJ took things to a weird place first. According to experts, although it might not strike a layperson as such, the DOJ’s decision to demand a jury trial is just as bizarre as, say, waving around a cashier’s check for maximum damages in an attempt to escape a jury trial.
“It is a creative response to an unusual strategy,” Howard University School of Law professor Andrew Gavil wrote to The Verge. “Like chess: move and countermove.”
Eileen Scallen, who teaches civil procedure at UCLA School of Law, said she was “surprised” by the government’s request for a jury in this case. “This case will be highly technical and pretty dull in parts,” she said in an email. “But having the potential for a jury adds a ‘wild card’ into Google’s calculations, so it would make them more likely to settle.”

A photocopy of a cashier’s check for maximum wears, filed to the court docket for the DOJ’s ad tech antitrust action against Google.

The case — which is the second matchup in a year between the DOJ and Google — is over the government’s claims that Google illegally monopolized the advertising technology market, effectively boxing out competition. The DOJ just finished wrapping up its case against Google’s alleged search monopoly and is currently awaiting a decision from the judge who oversaw the bench trial. But neither the DOJ nor Google will have time to catch their breath, so to speak — they’re headed to trial this fall in the ad tech case.
Only a judge can decide on injunctive or equitable requests for relief — like the forced divestment of parts of Google’s ad business, which the DOJ has asked for in this case. But when damages are also part of a case, parties can often seek a jury trial, if that’s what they want. A jury demand in an antitrust trial isn’t unheard of — in fact, a jury unanimously handed Epic Games a victory in its antitrust trial against Google in California, though it’s still up to the judge to decide what exactly Epic will get. The DOJ also demanded a jury in its new antimonopoly suit against Ticketmaster and its owner, Live Nation, but that stems from the state laws of some of the state AGs who have joined the case.
DOJ called its own case “highly technical, often abstract, and outside the everyday knowledge of most prospective jurors”
But unlike those cases, where Epic’s splashy campaign and the Eras Tour debacle attracted public attention long before the suits, the DOJ’s ad tech case is less well-known. It’s also arguably more technical in nature, with the nitty-gritty of ad tech systems at its center. Google even quotes DOJ counsel from an earlier motion, when the DOJ called its own case “highly technical, often abstract, and outside the everyday knowledge of most prospective jurors” in advocating for 15 trial days. The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“This much is clear: it was an unusual strategy in an antitrust case for the government to add a claim for damages as a way to seek a jury trial,” said Gavil, who teaches antitrust and civil procedure.
Google spokesperson Peter Schottenfels said in a statement that “DOJ manufactured a damages claim at the last minute in an attempt to secure a jury trial.” In the filing, Google says it learned through discovery “that DOJ’s damages claim was an afterthought,” saying it was late in the process when the agency began inquiring about relevant information. And even with the photocopied cashier’s check for damages on file, the company still disputes any liability in the case.
Gavil said it’s important to note that the company’s check shouldn’t be construed as a pay-off, however, since the civil rules of procedure explicitly allow an “offer of judgment.”
“So, the idea that a defendant might offer to satisfy a claim as a way to dismiss it is not at all unusual,” Gavil wrote. “Such offers are not viewed as ‘pay offs.’ They are a method for resolving disputes, just like a settlement in which the defendant does not agree to any liability but pays the plaintiff a sum in return for dismissal of a claim. No one would bat an eye at this if it were a settlement agreement.”
But it’s not a settlement agreement, and eyes are, in fact, being batted. Google’s check is not exactly an offer of judgment, Gavil said, because the government has not agreed or declined to drop the damages claim in return, and Google isn’t agreeing to enter the damages claim against it. “Rather, it is seeking to moot the damage claim which is the sole basis for DOJ’s request for a jury trial by paying the maximum amount that DOJ could possibly recover on that claim. The theory is if the claim has been fully satisfied, there is no claim.”
The ad tech trial is set to begin September 9th in the eastern district court of Virginia.

Illustration: The Verge

An unusual document appeared last week in the docket for the Department of Justice’s second antimonopoly lawsuit against Google. It included a photocopy of a check that Google claimed was good for the “maximum amount of damages” claimed in the case for its alleged anticompetitive actions in its ad tech business. Google said it had written the check to the Department of Justice.

Legal experts say the photocopy of a cashier’s check was definitely strange. But the DOJ took things to a weird place first. According to experts, although it might not strike a layperson as such, the DOJ’s decision to demand a jury trial is just as bizarre as, say, waving around a cashier’s check for maximum damages in an attempt to escape a jury trial.

“It is a creative response to an unusual strategy,” Howard University School of Law professor Andrew Gavil wrote to The Verge. “Like chess: move and countermove.”

Eileen Scallen, who teaches civil procedure at UCLA School of Law, said she was “surprised” by the government’s request for a jury in this case. “This case will be highly technical and pretty dull in parts,” she said in an email. “But having the potential for a jury adds a ‘wild card’ into Google’s calculations, so it would make them more likely to settle.”

A photocopy of a cashier’s check for maximum wears, filed to the court docket for the DOJ’s ad tech antitrust action against Google.

The case — which is the second matchup in a year between the DOJ and Google — is over the government’s claims that Google illegally monopolized the advertising technology market, effectively boxing out competition. The DOJ just finished wrapping up its case against Google’s alleged search monopoly and is currently awaiting a decision from the judge who oversaw the bench trial. But neither the DOJ nor Google will have time to catch their breath, so to speak — they’re headed to trial this fall in the ad tech case.

Only a judge can decide on injunctive or equitable requests for relief — like the forced divestment of parts of Google’s ad business, which the DOJ has asked for in this case. But when damages are also part of a case, parties can often seek a jury trial, if that’s what they want. A jury demand in an antitrust trial isn’t unheard of — in fact, a jury unanimously handed Epic Games a victory in its antitrust trial against Google in California, though it’s still up to the judge to decide what exactly Epic will get. The DOJ also demanded a jury in its new antimonopoly suit against Ticketmaster and its owner, Live Nation, but that stems from the state laws of some of the state AGs who have joined the case.

But unlike those cases, where Epic’s splashy campaign and the Eras Tour debacle attracted public attention long before the suits, the DOJ’s ad tech case is less well-known. It’s also arguably more technical in nature, with the nitty-gritty of ad tech systems at its center. Google even quotes DOJ counsel from an earlier motion, when the DOJ called its own case “highly technical, often abstract, and outside the everyday knowledge of most prospective jurors” in advocating for 15 trial days. The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“This much is clear: it was an unusual strategy in an antitrust case for the government to add a claim for damages as a way to seek a jury trial,” said Gavil, who teaches antitrust and civil procedure.

Google spokesperson Peter Schottenfels said in a statement that “DOJ manufactured a damages claim at the last minute in an attempt to secure a jury trial.” In the filing, Google says it learned through discovery “that DOJ’s damages claim was an afterthought,” saying it was late in the process when the agency began inquiring about relevant information. And even with the photocopied cashier’s check for damages on file, the company still disputes any liability in the case.

Gavil said it’s important to note that the company’s check shouldn’t be construed as a pay-off, however, since the civil rules of procedure explicitly allow an “offer of judgment.”

“So, the idea that a defendant might offer to satisfy a claim as a way to dismiss it is not at all unusual,” Gavil wrote. “Such offers are not viewed as ‘pay offs.’ They are a method for resolving disputes, just like a settlement in which the defendant does not agree to any liability but pays the plaintiff a sum in return for dismissal of a claim. No one would bat an eye at this if it were a settlement agreement.”

But it’s not a settlement agreement, and eyes are, in fact, being batted. Google’s check is not exactly an offer of judgment, Gavil said, because the government has not agreed or declined to drop the damages claim in return, and Google isn’t agreeing to enter the damages claim against it. “Rather, it is seeking to moot the damage claim which is the sole basis for DOJ’s request for a jury trial by paying the maximum amount that DOJ could possibly recover on that claim. The theory is if the claim has been fully satisfied, there is no claim.”

The ad tech trial is set to begin September 9th in the eastern district court of Virginia.

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Photo by Patrick George for The Verge

Electric vehicle sales may be in a bit of a slump, but Hyundai isn’t deterred. The South Korea-based automaker is “doubling down” on its EV investment, including a $7.6 billion dedicated manufacturing facility in Georgia, said Hyundai Motor America CEO Randy Parker.
“While other manufacturers are pulling back on their electrification strategy, we continue to be focused on our products,” Parker said in an interview this week with The Verge. “And our products have done extremely well in the marketplace.”
Those products include the popular Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 as well as a recently refreshed Kona Electric. And there’s also the recently released performance-based Ioniq 5 N, which recently won the 2024 World Performance Car award.

Image: Getty
Hyundai Motor America CEO Randy Parker.

While other automakers are struggling with sluggish demand, Hyundai’s EVs have been selling robustly. The company sold 14,798 EVs in March 2024 across all three of its battery-electric models — a 53 percent increase over the number sold the previous year. Other companies have seen their sales decline, spurring them to delay factory plans or pull back investments.
But that said, the company — which has recently emerged as No. 3 in the world in terms of sales, behind Toyota and Volkswagen — isn’t totally immune from the external forces scrambling the shift to an all-EV future. Globally, Hyundai sold 153,519 electrified models in the first quarter of 2024, including hybrids, plug-in hybrids, battery-electric vehicles, and fuel cell electric vehicles. That’s down 4.8 percent compared to the same period last year. And its global operating profits were down 2.3 percent year over year.
Parker said that the domestic outlook was still looking optimistic. “I’m not in a position to talk about the balance sheet globally, but let me just say that we’re doing okay in the United States.”

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge

In the US, Parker said the company is working to address the frustrations that many people have said are holding them back from an EV purchase, namely around price and charging availability. He cited a “very aggressive 24 month lease program” for the Ioniq 5 and 6. The vehicles themselves have “class-leading range” — up to 303 miles for the Ioniq 5 and as much as 360 miles for some versions of the Ioniq 6 — to address anxiety around charging. And both vehicles feature 800-volt architectures, which can add 100 miles of range in as little as seven minutes, depending on the speed of the charger.
“We’re trying to make driving an EV affordable”
“We’re trying to make driving an EV affordable,” Parker said, “but at the same time removing some of those objections when it comes to range and charging.”
Also on the horizon is Hyundai’s partnership with Tesla to give its customers access to the company’s Supercharger network. Parker said existing Hyundai EV owners will get access to Tesla Superchargers at the end of 2024 but that adapters won’t start getting mailed out until the first quarter of 2025.
Tesla recently went through a major round of layoffs, with its Supercharger team being hit particularly hard. Experts have voiced concerns about future reliability of the company’s EV chargers given the loss of expertise and workforce, but Parker said Hyundai is “still committed” to its partnership with the company. “I haven’t been given any reason to doubt our strategy moving forward,” he added.
There are other obstacles. Hyundai’s EVs are made in South Korea, which makes them ineligible for the $7,500 federal EV tax credit. But that could be short-lived as the company’s plant in Georgia finishes construction, with the first EVs expected to come off the assembly line in the fourth quarter of this year. In addition to Hyundai, the factory will produce electric vehicles for Kia and Genesis as well.
There could be labor challenges on the horizon as well. The United Auto Workers, fresh off their victory over the Big Three domestic automakers as well as a successful unionization vote at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee, are targeting more Southern factories for organizing — including Hyundai’s. Parker said that Hyundai prides itself on its “very strong culture” but said any unionization vote would ultimately be up to the workers.
“The decision to be represented by a union is purely up to the team members and so far, they’ve spoken and I’ll just leave it at that,” he said.
Regardless of how that shakes out, Hyundai’s future will be electric. The company may need to sell a lot of hybrids and gas cars before the full switch can be realized, but Parker is convinced that it’s heading in the right direction.
“It’s a transition just like anything else, you know what I mean?” he said. “People transition from the rotary phone to the iPhone. I mean, it’s just going to happen. And, to me, I would say the future is electric and in some regards, we’re already late.”

Photo by Patrick George for The Verge

Electric vehicle sales may be in a bit of a slump, but Hyundai isn’t deterred. The South Korea-based automaker is “doubling down” on its EV investment, including a $7.6 billion dedicated manufacturing facility in Georgia, said Hyundai Motor America CEO Randy Parker.

“While other manufacturers are pulling back on their electrification strategy, we continue to be focused on our products,” Parker said in an interview this week with The Verge. “And our products have done extremely well in the marketplace.”

Those products include the popular Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 as well as a recently refreshed Kona Electric. And there’s also the recently released performance-based Ioniq 5 N, which recently won the 2024 World Performance Car award.

Image: Getty
Hyundai Motor America CEO Randy Parker.

While other automakers are struggling with sluggish demand, Hyundai’s EVs have been selling robustly. The company sold 14,798 EVs in March 2024 across all three of its battery-electric models — a 53 percent increase over the number sold the previous year. Other companies have seen their sales decline, spurring them to delay factory plans or pull back investments.

But that said, the company — which has recently emerged as No. 3 in the world in terms of sales, behind Toyota and Volkswagen — isn’t totally immune from the external forces scrambling the shift to an all-EV future. Globally, Hyundai sold 153,519 electrified models in the first quarter of 2024, including hybrids, plug-in hybrids, battery-electric vehicles, and fuel cell electric vehicles. That’s down 4.8 percent compared to the same period last year. And its global operating profits were down 2.3 percent year over year.

Parker said that the domestic outlook was still looking optimistic. “I’m not in a position to talk about the balance sheet globally, but let me just say that we’re doing okay in the United States.”

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge

In the US, Parker said the company is working to address the frustrations that many people have said are holding them back from an EV purchase, namely around price and charging availability. He cited a “very aggressive 24 month lease program” for the Ioniq 5 and 6. The vehicles themselves have “class-leading range” — up to 303 miles for the Ioniq 5 and as much as 360 miles for some versions of the Ioniq 6 — to address anxiety around charging. And both vehicles feature 800-volt architectures, which can add 100 miles of range in as little as seven minutes, depending on the speed of the charger.

“We’re trying to make driving an EV affordable,” Parker said, “but at the same time removing some of those objections when it comes to range and charging.”

Also on the horizon is Hyundai’s partnership with Tesla to give its customers access to the company’s Supercharger network. Parker said existing Hyundai EV owners will get access to Tesla Superchargers at the end of 2024 but that adapters won’t start getting mailed out until the first quarter of 2025.

Tesla recently went through a major round of layoffs, with its Supercharger team being hit particularly hard. Experts have voiced concerns about future reliability of the company’s EV chargers given the loss of expertise and workforce, but Parker said Hyundai is “still committed” to its partnership with the company. “I haven’t been given any reason to doubt our strategy moving forward,” he added.

There are other obstacles. Hyundai’s EVs are made in South Korea, which makes them ineligible for the $7,500 federal EV tax credit. But that could be short-lived as the company’s plant in Georgia finishes construction, with the first EVs expected to come off the assembly line in the fourth quarter of this year. In addition to Hyundai, the factory will produce electric vehicles for Kia and Genesis as well.

There could be labor challenges on the horizon as well. The United Auto Workers, fresh off their victory over the Big Three domestic automakers as well as a successful unionization vote at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee, are targeting more Southern factories for organizing — including Hyundai’s. Parker said that Hyundai prides itself on its “very strong culture” but said any unionization vote would ultimately be up to the workers.

“The decision to be represented by a union is purely up to the team members and so far, they’ve spoken and I’ll just leave it at that,” he said.

Regardless of how that shakes out, Hyundai’s future will be electric. The company may need to sell a lot of hybrids and gas cars before the full switch can be realized, but Parker is convinced that it’s heading in the right direction.

“It’s a transition just like anything else, you know what I mean?” he said. “People transition from the rotary phone to the iPhone. I mean, it’s just going to happen. And, to me, I would say the future is electric and in some regards, we’re already late.”

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The Ring Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam comes in pink and rocking some moves. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

It’s pretty in pink, and its 360-degree view is handy. But while Ring’s new pan-tilt cam has the moves, it lacks innovation. Earlier this month, smart home security company Ring announced its first indoor camera that can pan and tilt to see more of your home. I got an exclusive first look at the Ring Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam at Amazon’s Day 1 HQ in Seattle. Here are some of my early impressions.
Functionally, there’s really only one thing new about the wired Ring Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam ($79.99): it pans and tilts. This means it can rotate 360 degrees from side to side and move 169 degrees from top to bottom. While this flexibility is useful for eliminating blind spots and keeping an eye on everything from pets to people, the pan-tilt cam is missing some features I think are really useful in a camera like this. Still, if you’re in the Ring ecosystem, it’s a much-needed addition to the lineup.

Besides The Exorcist-style movement, in almost all other respects, the pan-tilt cam is the same camera as the $60 Ring Indoor Cam. All Ring has done here is add a very large motorized base.
The wired camera has the same 1080p HD video quality, color night vision, two-way talk, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi connectivity, and manual privacy cover that shuts off the camera and microphone. It also similarly requires Ring’s subscription plan ($4.99 a month/ $49.99 a year) for features like person detection and recorded video. It does use a USB-C power cable though, which is a nice upgrade from the micro-USB on the Indoor Cam.
All Ring has done here is add a motorized base
The pan-tilt cam comes in some new colors, which are also coming to the Ring Indoor Cam. I really like the new pink look. In person, it’s a nice dusky rose color and has a much softer look than the black or white versions. There are also new gray and off-white options (which I didn’t get to see in person).
Google Nest’s indoor camera comes in similar soft colors, but the Ring cam’s matching manual privacy cover is something the Nest doesn’t have, and I like how it hides the black lens. Even though you can shut off a Nest Cam, there’s still the black eye peering at you. While this makes the Ring cam look better, I wouldn’t go so far as to say it looks good. That’s something no camera company has managed to pull off yet.

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What some camera companies have managed to do is make their pan and tilt cameras much more functional. Ring’s pan and tilt feature has to be manually initiated; there’s no automation at all, which feels like a miss. I had to open the app, tap on the camera to open a live view, and then use arrows to move the lens and see around the room.
While this worked well, with the camera responding quickly and moved silently, there’s no automation. The camera can’t automatically track motion and follow someone if they enter your house — a very useful security feature. There’s no option to set the camera to periodically rotate looking for motion and no quick action buttons to send the camera to predefined vantage points. These are all features I’ve seen on cameras from companies like Aqara and Eufy.

This makes the pan-tilt cam mainly useful if you are specifically looking for something, such as checking to see if you left the stove on or the back door open, or if your pet is sleeping on the sofa. While it can alert you to motion in its main field of view, if you want to see where that motion ends up, you have to be quick enough to drop in on a live view and manually control the camera. Still, it does solve the problem of needing one or two cameras inside a room to see all angles, something you might want to do if you’re away on vacation or have a pet to keep an eye on.
The camera’s settings do include an option to set a home position — the view the camera returns to after you manually move it. And if you pay for a Ring Protect plan, you can get alerts when the camera spots a person. This is handy to cut down on notification fatigue, but for this to be much use as a pet cam, it would be great if Ring would finally offer animal detection.

Ring’s Indoor Cam that doesn’t move is smaller and more discreet than the new model, but has a more limited view. This is the first-gen model, the second-gen adds a privacy cover.

While I was visiting Amazon, I spoke with Liz Hamren, CEO of Ring, and she said that the team is working on animal and vehicle detection. The latter is coming this year, but she didn’t have a timeline for animals. I asked what was taking so long — almost all of Ring’s competitors have vehicle and animal detection — and she said they are working on making sure it’s a “high quality experience.”
The other disappointment here is that I couldn’t remotely control the privacy cover — which shuts off all audio and video when it’s closed. Ring added a motor to this camera, so why not also motorize the cover and allow you to open and close it remotely? I get that some people might feel more comfortable with a manual-only privacy cover, but when you leave for that two-week vacation and realize you left the privacy cover closed on your security camera, you’re going to wish you could reach in digitally and open it up.
There is one more big difference from the Ring Indoor Cam: the mounting system. The camera comes with two mounts in the box: one for the ceiling and one for the wall. To allow the pan-tilt cam to rotate 360 degrees, the wall mount is much bigger and more fiddly than the neat solution Ring has for wall-mounting its Indoor Cam. The end result is something a bit too big and chunky on your wall for my tastes. Ceiling mounting — or just putting it on a flat surface — is definitely the more discreet way to go.

It’s worth noting that as a Ring camera, the device falls under the company’s policy to allow the authorities access to recorded videos without a warrant in emergencies. (The company recently ended its controversial feature that allowed police to request video directly from users). However, you can enable end-to-end encryption in the Ring app, meaning no one but you would have any way of accessing your footage.
The pan-tilt cam fills a gap in Ring’s lineup, but not in an innovative or exciting way. It literally just adds a motor to an existing product. And while I’m glad to see some new colors, I really hope the innovation Ring is known for hasn’t left with its founder, Jamie Siminoff.
While Hamren, who has been in the role for over a year now, told me she’s mainly focused on innovating the company’s core product line and service offerings, she did confirm that the autonomous security drone — the Always Home Cam — is still being developed. “We’re making a ton of progress on it. It’s a really exciting product that we’re continuing to invest in,” she said. “But our bar is really high. It has to work in every home, for every individual.” She also shared that the drone is quieter than the demo I saw at CES last year. Where the pan-tilt cam is useful but iterative, the autonomous drone is nothing if not innovative. I for one would like to see much more of the latter from the company.
Photos and video by Allison Johnson / The Verge

The Ring Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam comes in pink and rocking some moves. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

It’s pretty in pink, and its 360-degree view is handy. But while Ring’s new pan-tilt cam has the moves, it lacks innovation.

Earlier this month, smart home security company Ring announced its first indoor camera that can pan and tilt to see more of your home. I got an exclusive first look at the Ring Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam at Amazon’s Day 1 HQ in Seattle. Here are some of my early impressions.

Functionally, there’s really only one thing new about the wired Ring Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam ($79.99): it pans and tilts. This means it can rotate 360 degrees from side to side and move 169 degrees from top to bottom. While this flexibility is useful for eliminating blind spots and keeping an eye on everything from pets to people, the pan-tilt cam is missing some features I think are really useful in a camera like this. Still, if you’re in the Ring ecosystem, it’s a much-needed addition to the lineup.

Besides The Exorcist-style movement, in almost all other respects, the pan-tilt cam is the same camera as the $60 Ring Indoor Cam. All Ring has done here is add a very large motorized base.

The wired camera has the same 1080p HD video quality, color night vision, two-way talk, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi connectivity, and manual privacy cover that shuts off the camera and microphone. It also similarly requires Ring’s subscription plan ($4.99 a month/ $49.99 a year) for features like person detection and recorded video. It does use a USB-C power cable though, which is a nice upgrade from the micro-USB on the Indoor Cam.

The pan-tilt cam comes in some new colors, which are also coming to the Ring Indoor Cam. I really like the new pink look. In person, it’s a nice dusky rose color and has a much softer look than the black or white versions. There are also new gray and off-white options (which I didn’t get to see in person).

Google Nest’s indoor camera comes in similar soft colors, but the Ring cam’s matching manual privacy cover is something the Nest doesn’t have, and I like how it hides the black lens. Even though you can shut off a Nest Cam, there’s still the black eye peering at you. While this makes the Ring cam look better, I wouldn’t go so far as to say it looks good. That’s something no camera company has managed to pull off yet.

What some camera companies have managed to do is make their pan and tilt cameras much more functional. Ring’s pan and tilt feature has to be manually initiated; there’s no automation at all, which feels like a miss. I had to open the app, tap on the camera to open a live view, and then use arrows to move the lens and see around the room.

While this worked well, with the camera responding quickly and moved silently, there’s no automation. The camera can’t automatically track motion and follow someone if they enter your house — a very useful security feature. There’s no option to set the camera to periodically rotate looking for motion and no quick action buttons to send the camera to predefined vantage points. These are all features I’ve seen on cameras from companies like Aqara and Eufy.

This makes the pan-tilt cam mainly useful if you are specifically looking for something, such as checking to see if you left the stove on or the back door open, or if your pet is sleeping on the sofa. While it can alert you to motion in its main field of view, if you want to see where that motion ends up, you have to be quick enough to drop in on a live view and manually control the camera. Still, it does solve the problem of needing one or two cameras inside a room to see all angles, something you might want to do if you’re away on vacation or have a pet to keep an eye on.

The camera’s settings do include an option to set a home position — the view the camera returns to after you manually move it. And if you pay for a Ring Protect plan, you can get alerts when the camera spots a person. This is handy to cut down on notification fatigue, but for this to be much use as a pet cam, it would be great if Ring would finally offer animal detection.

Ring’s Indoor Cam that doesn’t move is smaller and more discreet than the new model, but has a more limited view. This is the first-gen model, the second-gen adds a privacy cover.

While I was visiting Amazon, I spoke with Liz Hamren, CEO of Ring, and she said that the team is working on animal and vehicle detection. The latter is coming this year, but she didn’t have a timeline for animals. I asked what was taking so long — almost all of Ring’s competitors have vehicle and animal detection — and she said they are working on making sure it’s a “high quality experience.”

The other disappointment here is that I couldn’t remotely control the privacy cover — which shuts off all audio and video when it’s closed. Ring added a motor to this camera, so why not also motorize the cover and allow you to open and close it remotely? I get that some people might feel more comfortable with a manual-only privacy cover, but when you leave for that two-week vacation and realize you left the privacy cover closed on your security camera, you’re going to wish you could reach in digitally and open it up.

There is one more big difference from the Ring Indoor Cam: the mounting system. The camera comes with two mounts in the box: one for the ceiling and one for the wall. To allow the pan-tilt cam to rotate 360 degrees, the wall mount is much bigger and more fiddly than the neat solution Ring has for wall-mounting its Indoor Cam. The end result is something a bit too big and chunky on your wall for my tastes. Ceiling mounting — or just putting it on a flat surface — is definitely the more discreet way to go.

It’s worth noting that as a Ring camera, the device falls under the company’s policy to allow the authorities access to recorded videos without a warrant in emergencies. (The company recently ended its controversial feature that allowed police to request video directly from users). However, you can enable end-to-end encryption in the Ring app, meaning no one but you would have any way of accessing your footage.

The pan-tilt cam fills a gap in Ring’s lineup, but not in an innovative or exciting way. It literally just adds a motor to an existing product. And while I’m glad to see some new colors, I really hope the innovation Ring is known for hasn’t left with its founder, Jamie Siminoff.

While Hamren, who has been in the role for over a year now, told me she’s mainly focused on innovating the company’s core product line and service offerings, she did confirm that the autonomous security drone — the Always Home Cam — is still being developed. “We’re making a ton of progress on it. It’s a really exciting product that we’re continuing to invest in,” she said. “But our bar is really high. It has to work in every home, for every individual.” She also shared that the drone is quieter than the demo I saw at CES last year. Where the pan-tilt cam is useful but iterative, the autonomous drone is nothing if not innovative. I for one would like to see much more of the latter from the company.

Photos and video by Allison Johnson / The Verge

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Photo: Cameron Allan McKean / The Verge

The face of one of the defining memes of the 2010s, the doge meme, died on Friday. Kabosu, the shiba inu with the knowing face that launched a million internet jokes, was 18 when she died, her owner posted on Instagram.
Kabosu’s life story feels like an unlikely fairy tale for the internet age. In 2008, she was a rescue dog adopted by Atsuko Sato, a kindergarten teacher. Sato kept up a blog where she shared pictures of her pets, and in February 2010, she posted what at the time was an ordinary update. Little did Sato know, one of the pictures of her dog would eventually be seen by the entire internet.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by かぼすママ (@kabosumama)

The doge meme has been used by everyone from government agencies to weather apps, and last year, the Reddit user who discovered Kabosu went to Japan for the first time for International Doge Day.
Kabosu’s suspicious, amused, almost human face was eventually used as the logo for Dogecoin, a joke cryptocurrency that was promoted by Elon Musk on Saturday Night Live in 2021. Musk was also sued by Dogecoin investors, who accused the billionaire of pumping up the value of the cryptocurrency and then letting it nosedive.
But it seems Kabosu lived a quaint, happy life away from crypto lawsuits and internet crowds. Sato has organized a goodbye party for the beloved dog, to be held this weekend.
“Kabosu is very different from the typical temperament of Shiba,” Sato told The Verge in 2013. “She’s very gentle and calm; she loves being photographed.” Wow. Much perfect, very missed.

Photo: Cameron Allan McKean / The Verge

The face of one of the defining memes of the 2010s, the doge meme, died on Friday. Kabosu, the shiba inu with the knowing face that launched a million internet jokes, was 18 when she died, her owner posted on Instagram.

Kabosu’s life story feels like an unlikely fairy tale for the internet age. In 2008, she was a rescue dog adopted by Atsuko Sato, a kindergarten teacher. Sato kept up a blog where she shared pictures of her pets, and in February 2010, she posted what at the time was an ordinary update. Little did Sato know, one of the pictures of her dog would eventually be seen by the entire internet.

The doge meme has been used by everyone from government agencies to weather apps, and last year, the Reddit user who discovered Kabosu went to Japan for the first time for International Doge Day.

Kabosu’s suspicious, amused, almost human face was eventually used as the logo for Dogecoin, a joke cryptocurrency that was promoted by Elon Musk on Saturday Night Live in 2021. Musk was also sued by Dogecoin investors, who accused the billionaire of pumping up the value of the cryptocurrency and then letting it nosedive.

But it seems Kabosu lived a quaint, happy life away from crypto lawsuits and internet crowds. Sato has organized a goodbye party for the beloved dog, to be held this weekend.

“Kabosu is very different from the typical temperament of Shiba,” Sato told The Verge in 2013. “She’s very gentle and calm; she loves being photographed.” Wow. Much perfect, very missed.

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Photo by JASON REDMOND / AFP via Getty Images, Image by Alex Parkin / The Verge

Did you think Sky, the new and newly personable voice of ChatGPT, sounded like Samantha from Her? Not everyone did, but enough people noticed a distinct Scarlett Johansson…ness in the chatbot that it became a story. And then Johansson herself decided that Sky sounded a little too close to home, especially given that she’d turned down offers from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to play Sky herself. We still don’t know all the details of the timeline here, who knew what, what Altman did when Johansson said no, and lots more. But it’s all just weird.
On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk a lot about what happened here, what it means that everyone immediately assumed the worst from OpenAI, and whether a case like this might actually go anywhere.

But first, we talk Build! Microsoft’s developer conference was this week, right on the heels of its Copilot Plus PC announcement, which is a bad name but a potentially very exciting moment for the Windows world. We try to make sense of the varied reactions to the AI-powered Recall app, the hybrid future of AI, and more. Then it’s ScarJo time.
After all that, we do one of our longest lightning rounds in a while, debating who might buy Humane, the Sonos Ace headphones, that weird Apple bug that resurfaced deleted photos, the Live Nation-Ticketmaster antitrust suit, and more. Also: SALT SPOON.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with Build:

Microsoft Build 2024: news and announcements from the developer conference
Microsoft’s big bet on building a new type of AI computer
Recall is Microsoft’s key to unlocking the future of PCs
How does the Microsoft Surface Laptop stack up to the MacBook Air?
Windows now has AI-powered copy and paste
Microsoft Edge will translate and dub YouTube videos as you’re watching them
Microsoft outage took down Copilot, DuckDuckGo, and ChatGPT search features

And on ScarJo vs. ChatGPT:

Scarlett Johansson told OpenAI not to use her voice — and she’s not happy they might have anyway
OpenAI is ‘in conversations’ with Scarlett Johansson over the ChatGPT voice that sounds just like her
OpenAI pulls its Scarlett Johansson-like voice for ChatGPT
Lawyers say OpenAI could be in real trouble with Scarlett Johansson
From The Washington Post: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show

From The Atlantic: OpenAI Just Gave Away the Entire Game

And in the lightning round:

Nilay Patel’s pick: The US government is trying to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster

Nilay’s other pick: The Sonos Ace headphones are here, and they’re damn impressive

Alex Cranz’s pick: There’s an electric salt spoon that adds umami flavor

Alex’s other pick: Apple needs to explain that bug that resurfaced deleted photos

David Pierce’s pick: Humane is looking for a buyer after the AI Pin’s underwhelming debut

Photo by JASON REDMOND / AFP via Getty Images, Image by Alex Parkin / The Verge

Did you think Sky, the new and newly personable voice of ChatGPT, sounded like Samantha from Her? Not everyone did, but enough people noticed a distinct Scarlett Johansson…ness in the chatbot that it became a story. And then Johansson herself decided that Sky sounded a little too close to home, especially given that she’d turned down offers from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to play Sky herself. We still don’t know all the details of the timeline here, who knew what, what Altman did when Johansson said no, and lots more. But it’s all just weird.

On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk a lot about what happened here, what it means that everyone immediately assumed the worst from OpenAI, and whether a case like this might actually go anywhere.

But first, we talk Build! Microsoft’s developer conference was this week, right on the heels of its Copilot Plus PC announcement, which is a bad name but a potentially very exciting moment for the Windows world. We try to make sense of the varied reactions to the AI-powered Recall app, the hybrid future of AI, and more. Then it’s ScarJo time.

After all that, we do one of our longest lightning rounds in a while, debating who might buy Humane, the Sonos Ace headphones, that weird Apple bug that resurfaced deleted photos, the Live Nation-Ticketmaster antitrust suit, and more. Also: SALT SPOON.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with Build:

Microsoft Build 2024: news and announcements from the developer conference
Microsoft’s big bet on building a new type of AI computer
Recall is Microsoft’s key to unlocking the future of PCs
How does the Microsoft Surface Laptop stack up to the MacBook Air?
Windows now has AI-powered copy and paste
Microsoft Edge will translate and dub YouTube videos as you’re watching them
Microsoft outage took down Copilot, DuckDuckGo, and ChatGPT search features

And on ScarJo vs. ChatGPT:

Scarlett Johansson told OpenAI not to use her voice — and she’s not happy they might have anyway
OpenAI is ‘in conversations’ with Scarlett Johansson over the ChatGPT voice that sounds just like her
OpenAI pulls its Scarlett Johansson-like voice for ChatGPT
Lawyers say OpenAI could be in real trouble with Scarlett Johansson
From The Washington Post: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show

From The Atlantic: OpenAI Just Gave Away the Entire Game

And in the lightning round:

Nilay Patel’s pick: The US government is trying to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster

Nilay’s other pick: The Sonos Ace headphones are here, and they’re damn impressive

Alex Cranz’s pick: There’s an electric salt spoon that adds umami flavor

Alex’s other pick: Apple needs to explain that bug that resurfaced deleted photos

David Pierce’s pick: Humane is looking for a buyer after the AI Pin’s underwhelming debut

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Turns out the “deleted” files may have been on devices this entire time. | Photo: Wes Davis / The Verge

We finally have a better understanding of why devices running iOS 17.5 started resurfacing long-deleted photos, courtesy of Apple and some third-party researchers. While Apple released the iOS 17.5.1 iPhone update to fix the issue earlier this week, attributing it to a “database corruption,” the company remained tight-lipped about what was specifically causing old files — including deleted nudes, in some reports — to start appearing on devices that never hosted them.
Elaborating on the issue to 9to5Mac, Apple says it was caused by a corrupt database entry on the device’s file system, impacting files on the devices themselves and not those that had been synced to iCloud. Those files may have been carried over from older devices when restored from a backup or during device-to-device transfer.
Apple says it doesn’t have access to photo or video files on users’ phones, and that only a small number of people were impacted
One Reddit user had previously claimed in a now-deleted post that the iOS 17.5 bug had resurfaced photos on an iPad that had been wiped and sold to a friend. Apple, however, claims this isn’t possible, telling 9to5Mac that all files and content are permanently deleted once a device’s data has been completely erased. Essentially, Apple is claiming this user either didn’t follow the correct device reset procedure or is simply lying for Reddit clout. The company said that only a small number of people were impacted by the database issue, and that Apple doesn’t have access to photo or video files on users’ phones.
Security researchers at Synactiv also expanded on the issue by reverse-engineering the iOS 17.5.1 update used to fix it. You can find a detailed explanation in their full report here, but in short, iOS 17.5 added a migration routine responsible for scanning and re-importing photos from the filesystem. The routine was deleted by Apple’s recent update because it caused old files to be re-indexed on the local file system and pushed back into photo galleries.
“Based on this code, we can say that the photos that reappeared were still lying around on the filesystems and that they were just found by the migration routine added in iOS 17.5,” said Synacktiv. “Based only on this analysis, it is not possible to conclude how the photos remained on the filesystem in the first place.” The Synacktiv article then directs readers to this comment on Reddit for a plausible explanation, which includes the possibility of users saving images to both the File app and Photos app and only deleting the latter.

Turns out the “deleted” files may have been on devices this entire time. | Photo: Wes Davis / The Verge

We finally have a better understanding of why devices running iOS 17.5 started resurfacing long-deleted photos, courtesy of Apple and some third-party researchers. While Apple released the iOS 17.5.1 iPhone update to fix the issue earlier this week, attributing it to a “database corruption,” the company remained tight-lipped about what was specifically causing old files — including deleted nudes, in some reports — to start appearing on devices that never hosted them.

Elaborating on the issue to 9to5Mac, Apple says it was caused by a corrupt database entry on the device’s file system, impacting files on the devices themselves and not those that had been synced to iCloud. Those files may have been carried over from older devices when restored from a backup or during device-to-device transfer.

One Reddit user had previously claimed in a now-deleted post that the iOS 17.5 bug had resurfaced photos on an iPad that had been wiped and sold to a friend. Apple, however, claims this isn’t possible, telling 9to5Mac that all files and content are permanently deleted once a device’s data has been completely erased. Essentially, Apple is claiming this user either didn’t follow the correct device reset procedure or is simply lying for Reddit clout. The company said that only a small number of people were impacted by the database issue, and that Apple doesn’t have access to photo or video files on users’ phones.

Security researchers at Synactiv also expanded on the issue by reverse-engineering the iOS 17.5.1 update used to fix it. You can find a detailed explanation in their full report here, but in short, iOS 17.5 added a migration routine responsible for scanning and re-importing photos from the filesystem. The routine was deleted by Apple’s recent update because it caused old files to be re-indexed on the local file system and pushed back into photo galleries.

“Based on this code, we can say that the photos that reappeared were still lying around on the filesystems and that they were just found by the migration routine added in iOS 17.5,” said Synacktiv. “Based only on this analysis, it is not possible to conclude how the photos remained on the filesystem in the first place.” The Synacktiv article then directs readers to this comment on Reddit for a plausible explanation, which includes the possibility of users saving images to both the File app and Photos app and only deleting the latter.

Read More 

Image: Epic Games

Out with the gods, in with… a post-apocalypse. After some teasing, Fortnite just launched its latest battle royale season — we’re up to Chapter 5: Season 3 — and it’s heavily inspired by Mad Max and Fallout (in fact, Fallout is part of it). It’s called “Wrecked,” and it introduces a new wasteland region, a larger focus on vehicular combat, and, for some reason, Magneto.
First up, let’s talk about the island itself. In the game’s fiction, a massive sandstorm rolled in, completely changing the southern section of the map. There are three new locations: a refinery called Redline Rig, a vehicle arena called Nitrodrome, and a beach area called Brutal Beachhead. To go along with them are “Wasteland Warriors,” which are basically this season’s boss characters, with names like The Machinist and Ringmaster Scarr. Also: there are now two War Buses patrolling the island, which players can hijack and take over.
Here’s the new map:

Image: Epic Games

It appears there are two main gameplay updates. One is a substance called Nitro, which you can either drink or use on your vehicle: it’ll make players faster, stronger, and reload quicker, while cars will go faster, consume less gas, and be able to ram with increased power. To go along with this, vehicle mods are back, so you can outfit your car with gun turrets, bulletproof tires, and more. And since Fallout is now part of the Fortnite universe, Nuka-Cola is being added to the game. Drinking it will replenish health and slowly build your shield.
Speaking of Fallout, those who purchase this season’s battle pass will get themselves some T-60 Power Armor, along with other characters, including a sentient pea pod. Starting in July, X-Men’s Magneto will be unlockable as well. Here’s the full crew:

Image: Epic Games

This season will run until August 16th. And it follows a pretty busy period for the game, which included collaborations with everyone from Star Wars to Billie Eilish and Lofi Girl.

Image: Epic Games

Out with the gods, in with… a post-apocalypse. After some teasing, Fortnite just launched its latest battle royale season — we’re up to Chapter 5: Season 3 — and it’s heavily inspired by Mad Max and Fallout (in fact, Fallout is part of it). It’s called “Wrecked,” and it introduces a new wasteland region, a larger focus on vehicular combat, and, for some reason, Magneto.

First up, let’s talk about the island itself. In the game’s fiction, a massive sandstorm rolled in, completely changing the southern section of the map. There are three new locations: a refinery called Redline Rig, a vehicle arena called Nitrodrome, and a beach area called Brutal Beachhead. To go along with them are “Wasteland Warriors,” which are basically this season’s boss characters, with names like The Machinist and Ringmaster Scarr. Also: there are now two War Buses patrolling the island, which players can hijack and take over.

Here’s the new map:

Image: Epic Games

It appears there are two main gameplay updates. One is a substance called Nitro, which you can either drink or use on your vehicle: it’ll make players faster, stronger, and reload quicker, while cars will go faster, consume less gas, and be able to ram with increased power. To go along with this, vehicle mods are back, so you can outfit your car with gun turrets, bulletproof tires, and more. And since Fallout is now part of the Fortnite universe, Nuka-Cola is being added to the game. Drinking it will replenish health and slowly build your shield.

Speaking of Fallout, those who purchase this season’s battle pass will get themselves some T-60 Power Armor, along with other characters, including a sentient pea pod. Starting in July, X-Men’s Magneto will be unlockable as well. Here’s the full crew:

Image: Epic Games

This season will run until August 16th. And it follows a pretty busy period for the game, which included collaborations with everyone from Star Wars to Billie Eilish and Lofi Girl.

Read More 

Image: Netflix

You would think that a sci-fi movie where Jennifer Lopez partners with a smart-ass, sentient mech suit to fight against her evil AI brother would be a little more fun. Alas, Atlas — Netflix’s latest attempt at a hit streaming action movie — takes itself far too seriously. It also fails to really dig into the complexities of the AI debate, despite essentially being a conflict between a friendly AI assistant and machine intent on a doomsday scenario. There are some funny moments, particularly the banter between Lopez and her mechanical companion, but every other part of the movie seems to be fighting against Atlas’ true form. This is a buddy comedy trying too hard to be a serious action flick.
Atlas takes place almost three decades after an uprising that saw an advanced AI bot named Harlan (Simu Liu) help liberate other machines, who then proceeded to bypass their security protocols and start a war with humanity. It’s a setup that echoes plenty of real-world concerns. Except, in this case, the AIs lose, and Harlan heads off-planet to lick his wounds — but not before issuing an ominous threat to the human population. Atlas (Lopez), the daughter of Harlan’s creator who essentially grew up with him as a sibling, spends the ensuing 28 years trying to locate precisely where Harlan went so the threat can be eliminated for good. The movie kicks off when she discovers that location after interrogating the severed head of an AI henchman.

The most important thing you need to know about Atlas is that she has grown to absolutely loathe AI and, by extension, most futuristic tech. She has the same fears many of us do (along with sci-fi characters like Will Smith in I, Robot), which are exacerbated by the fact that the tech around her can be hacked and exploited by Harlan and his associates. At one point, while briefing a group of soldiers, she says, “You can’t trust AI,” while handing out plans printed on paper.
This fear extends particularly to a device called a Neural Link (not to be confused with the Elon Musk-backed Neuralink), which lets a human mind connect directly to an AI companion. It’s a cool idea, but the movie never slows down enough to explore it in depth. Inevitably, Atlas finds herself with no choice but to use a Neural Link to connect to an AI named Smith (Gregory James Cohan) who looks just like Siri and is housed inside of a mech suit ripped right out of Titanfall.

Image: Netflix
This is what Alexa could look like one day.

Contrived as it might be, the relationship between Smith and Atlas is easily the best part of the movie. Atlas is cranky and sarcastic, and because of his adaptive learning capabilities, Smith soon becomes exactly the same. The AI swears and makes jokes, dishing it out to Atlas the same way she does to him. The banter is genuinely funny, to the point that, even though you can see it coming a mile away, their inevitable friendship still feels touching. It’s almost worth watching the whole movie just for its heartwarming finale.
The problem with Atlas isn’t so much that it’s predictable (though that doesn’t help, nor does its painfully generic vision of a sci-fi future). It’s that the movie doesn’t lean into this strength. Outside of Smith and Atlas, everything else about Atlas is self-serious and dull. Harlan is the biggest offender, played with a stilted effect by Liu that makes him more boring than scary. In a future where AI bots can mimic human beings perfectly, it’s confounding that the most advanced machine sounds like an old GPS giving directions. Overall, there’s a lot of wasted potential. In particular, the movie’s premise is a perfect framing for current AI debates — Siri vs. Skynet — but doesn’t take the opportunity to say anything new.
There are already plenty of recent movies that explore a potential AI future with a heavy dose of sincerity, whether it’s The Creator, Dead Reckoning, or even Netflix’s own Jung_E. Atlas adds nothing to that extensive body of work. Even worse, it fails to capitalize on its one defining aspect. The comedic moments are the best part of the movie, and yet they can feel out of place buried under everything else. Atlas was a chance to take an urgent AI conversation and explore it in an approachable Hollywood package. It could’ve been fun and smart — instead, like a lot of AI right now, it’s neither.
Atlas starts streaming on Netflix on May 24th.

Image: Netflix

You would think that a sci-fi movie where Jennifer Lopez partners with a smart-ass, sentient mech suit to fight against her evil AI brother would be a little more fun. Alas, Atlas — Netflix’s latest attempt at a hit streaming action movie — takes itself far too seriously. It also fails to really dig into the complexities of the AI debate, despite essentially being a conflict between a friendly AI assistant and machine intent on a doomsday scenario. There are some funny moments, particularly the banter between Lopez and her mechanical companion, but every other part of the movie seems to be fighting against Atlas’ true form. This is a buddy comedy trying too hard to be a serious action flick.

Atlas takes place almost three decades after an uprising that saw an advanced AI bot named Harlan (Simu Liu) help liberate other machines, who then proceeded to bypass their security protocols and start a war with humanity. It’s a setup that echoes plenty of real-world concerns. Except, in this case, the AIs lose, and Harlan heads off-planet to lick his wounds — but not before issuing an ominous threat to the human population. Atlas (Lopez), the daughter of Harlan’s creator who essentially grew up with him as a sibling, spends the ensuing 28 years trying to locate precisely where Harlan went so the threat can be eliminated for good. The movie kicks off when she discovers that location after interrogating the severed head of an AI henchman.

The most important thing you need to know about Atlas is that she has grown to absolutely loathe AI and, by extension, most futuristic tech. She has the same fears many of us do (along with sci-fi characters like Will Smith in I, Robot), which are exacerbated by the fact that the tech around her can be hacked and exploited by Harlan and his associates. At one point, while briefing a group of soldiers, she says, “You can’t trust AI,” while handing out plans printed on paper.

This fear extends particularly to a device called a Neural Link (not to be confused with the Elon Musk-backed Neuralink), which lets a human mind connect directly to an AI companion. It’s a cool idea, but the movie never slows down enough to explore it in depth. Inevitably, Atlas finds herself with no choice but to use a Neural Link to connect to an AI named Smith (Gregory James Cohan) who looks just like Siri and is housed inside of a mech suit ripped right out of Titanfall.

Contrived as it might be, the relationship between Smith and Atlas is easily the best part of the movie. Atlas is cranky and sarcastic, and because of his adaptive learning capabilities, Smith soon becomes exactly the same. The AI swears and makes jokes, dishing it out to Atlas the same way she does to him. The banter is genuinely funny, to the point that, even though you can see it coming a mile away, their inevitable friendship still feels touching. It’s almost worth watching the whole movie just for its heartwarming finale.

The problem with Atlas isn’t so much that it’s predictable (though that doesn’t help, nor does its painfully generic vision of a sci-fi future). It’s that the movie doesn’t lean into this strength. Outside of Smith and Atlas, everything else about Atlas is self-serious and dull. Harlan is the biggest offender, played with a stilted effect by Liu that makes him more boring than scary. In a future where AI bots can mimic human beings perfectly, it’s confounding that the most advanced machine sounds like an old GPS giving directions. Overall, there’s a lot of wasted potential. In particular, the movie’s premise is a perfect framing for current AI debates — Siri vs. Skynet — but doesn’t take the opportunity to say anything new.

There are already plenty of recent movies that explore a potential AI future with a heavy dose of sincerity, whether it’s The Creator, Dead Reckoning, or even Netflix’s own Jung_E. Atlas adds nothing to that extensive body of work. Even worse, it fails to capitalize on its one defining aspect. The comedic moments are the best part of the movie, and yet they can feel out of place buried under everything else. Atlas was a chance to take an urgent AI conversation and explore it in an approachable Hollywood package. It could’ve been fun and smart — instead, like a lot of AI right now, it’s neither.

Atlas starts streaming on Netflix on May 24th.

Read More