Want to get in space shape? UK is set to open world’s first private astronaut training gym

Why it matters to you

Private astronaut training facility will give you everything you need to get in space shape, without requiring you to be handpicked by NASA.

Want to train as an astronaut, but don’t work for NASA or have SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on speed dial? Then you might want to start saving for a flight to the UK, where the first’s first private astronaut training center is set to open in a couple years time. Called Blue Abyss, it’s a $130 million facility built on an air force base — and boasting exactly the kind of high-end performance equipment necessary to, you know, teach your body to cope with the cold, dark expanses of space.

Plans for the new facility were announced at an event attended by representatives of the European Space Agency (ESA), Romanian cosmonaut Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu (who doubles as Blue Abyss’ non-executive director), and various government officials.

So far, only illustrations of the site have been released, but it will reportedly include a “human performance center” boasting equipment like a centrifugal base, a hotel, and a 50-meter-deep dive pool — which makes it four times the depth of the pool NASA uses at its Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston, TX. It is being designed by the same architect responsible for London’s iconic Gherkin tower — which kind of looks like a futuristic rocket ship itself, now that we think about it!

The center’s use-cases won’t only concern space travel, though. It will also be useful for anyone hoping to train in extreme environmental conditions, which could include deep sea divers or world-class athletes.

“It is aimed at various sectors, from the oil and gas industry, through offshore energy to underwater robotics companies, human physiology in extreme environments, and human spaceflight,” John Vickers, Blue Abyss’ managing director, told Digital Trends. “Increasingly, private companies — especially with regards to space — are demonstrating that they can offer better options to enable governments to continue funding what is appropriate for them, whilst also enabling a wider audience to see how they too can become involved in this area.”

According to Vickers, the goal is to “open in mid-2019, give or take a few months.” Details concerning a wide range of experiential “space preparation” packages for groups and individuals will be made public in the coming weeks and months.

Hey, it’s more interesting than telling your friends you’ve signed up for a ten-week pilates course, right?

Ingenious bandage seals up wounds without stitches, promotes scar-free healing

Why it matters to you

This innovative wound closure device means no more needles or unsightly scars. Coming soon to a gaping wound near you.

If you’ve ever received an open wound that requires closing up with a bit more vigor than a regular bandage, you may have come across butterfly closures. These adhesive bandage strips can be used to close small wounds by pulling the skin on either side of the skin break together, and then holding them in place. Their big advantage over stitches is the fact that they’re easier to care for and lessen the risk of scarring.

Well, move over Steri-Strips — because there’s a new solution in town, and it’s pretty darn neat!

Called ClozeX, it’s a needleless, adhesive-based wound closure that’s incredibly easy to apply and can used to treat both trauma lacerations and surgical incisions. It’s reportedly been used in more than 10,000 surgeries in fifty hospitals — with surgeries including appendectomies, hernias and pediatric heart surgery. Eleven different sizes are available, and these can be placed side by side in situations requiring larger closures.

“The applications in the real world include closing surgery incisions in every hospital,” Michael Lebner, founder of ClozeX Medical, told Digital Trends. “For the emergency department, patients — especially children — fearful of needles can have a better ClozeX closure without the fear of a needle for the anesthetic and the suture closure. Because it is easy to learn and use there will be significant use outside the hospitals. It begins with health-care trained: medics, first responders, nurses [and] EMTs, and will become a standard in mini-clinics.”

Lebner, who isn’t a trained physician, created ClozeX after his daughter suffered a snowboarding knee injury and his wife suffered a hand laceration: both resulting in unsightly looking scars after they were sutured. In the aftermath, he turned his invention skills to coming up with an alternative. Since then, development has been a decade-long process, although Lebner said that the resulting product is ready to roll out to the general public.

“We expect [the] ClozeX product to be available in about eight weeks,” he said. Information about product pricing, training and the like will follow in the coming days and weeks. Between this, 3D-printed skin and smart bandages that use nanosensors to track how a wound is healing, it’s like an ER department from the future.

Provided ClozeX works as well as it looks like it does, this could turn out to be a real game-changer. At the very least, we’ve got this oddly satisfying video to enjoy!

Facebook successfully lands its Aquila drone for the first time

Facebook has been testing its solar-powered unmanned aircraft, Aquila, for the past couple of years. The internet-providing drone made its first full flight last June, though it crashed on landing after the 96-minute flight in Yuma, Arizona. The accident prompted a US investigation, which found that the autonomous plane went down due to windy conditions. The second full flight, just announced by Facebook, took place on May 22, ran for one hour and 46 minutes and landed successfully.

Facebook says that it improved Aquila based on the lessons the drone crew learned from the first unsuccessful flight. The team included new “spoilers” to the wings to increase drag and reduce lift while landing. The plane now has hundreds of new sensors to gather data with, modified autopilot software, new radios, a “smoother finish” and a horizontal propeller that helps stop the plan when landing. The takeoff in May was normal, according to Facebook, and climbed at a rate twice as fast as the original test flight. The craft has no landing gear and lands on Kevlar pads attached to the motor pods. The Aquila landed on a 500-foot circle of level gravel, which is about 6 inches deep with the consistency of rough sand.

Facebook says this second flight, also in Yuma, was all about gathering data. “We flew lengthy test points at constant speed, heading, and altitude to measure the airplane’s drag,” the company writes in a blog post. “The data from these ‘trim shots,’ as they’re called, will be used to refine our aerodynamic models, which help us predict the energy usage and thus optimize for battery and solar array size.” The successful launch and subsequent successful landing in this second full test flight bodes well for Faceboook, who wants to use the planes to provide internet connectivity to places in the world without it.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Facebook

Mexican court halts sales of Roku devices due to hackability

Roku’s legal battle in Mexico has taken a hit. Last week, a judge ordered importation and sales of Roku devices to cease in the country, but Roku later won a suspension of that ruling. This week, however, a Mexico City tribunal overturned that suspension, reinstating the stop to Roku sales and distribution.

The initial request for a sales halt came from cable provider Cablevision, a company owned by the media giant Televisa. It claims that hackers in Mexico frequently open Roku devices up to pirated content, cutting into cable companies’ sales. Hackers often use WhatsApp to make their deals.

“Cablevision cannot allow the content that it licenses from domestic and foreign companies to be illegally used. We would also like Roku Inc. to better supervise the use of its software so that it’s not used inappropriately,” a Cablevision spokesperson told Reuters.

Roku plans to fight the ruling and its general counsel, Steve Kay, said in a statement, “Today’s decision is not the final word in this complex legal matter, and it is not expected to prevent consumers from purchasing Roku products in Mexico at this time.” As of writing, Roku products were still available for purchase through Mexico’s Amazon website.

Source: Reuters

IBM’s Watson will analyze Wimbledon to suggest the best matches

IBM’s Watson can apparently do everything. From manufacturing and medical treatment planning to portrait drawing and filing your taxes, there seems to be no limit to what the Jeopardy-winning AI can do. And next week, Watson will be offering its services to the Wimbledon tennis tournament.

Those attending the event will be able to access a Watson-driven digital assistant named Fred via a mobile app. Fred will be able to help them navigate the courts, find food stands and vendors as well as figure out who is playing at any given time.

IBM, along with club that hosts Wimbledon, has also created a technology that can predict how close a match will be based on a metric they developed called “competitive margin,” which compares the players’ ratios of forced to unforced errors. This will help attendees find matches that are likely to be particularly exciting to watch. The company’s tech will also point out what strategies each player might use in a given match and who’s most likely to win.

Highlight reels will also be compiled automatically by IBM’s AI. It will take into account the importance of a gained point to the overall outcome of a game, the scale of the crowd’s reaction, the volume and tone of social media posts along with facial analyses of the players. From that, it will determine what should be included in the game’s highlight reel, which it will be able to compile in less than 30 minutes — nearly half the time a human would take.

IBM has sponsored the Wimbledon tournament since 1990 and Watson has been a part of the event before. Last year, IBM used Watson to analyze faces in the crowd to see if the AI could learn over the course of the event how to predict which players a person supported based on facial expressions alone.

Source: Bloomberg

How to Install the macOS High Sierra Public Beta

Apple today released the first public beta of macOS High Sierra, the next major version of its operating system for Mac computers that will officially be released in the fall. The beta of the upcoming OS is compatible on all Macs that are able to run macOS Sierra.

The availability of the public beta means users who aren’t signed up for the Apple Developer Program can test the software update ahead of its official release. Bear in mind that Apple’s intention is to act on user feedback to iron out remaining bugs and issues, so the stability of the beta isn’t guaranteed and probably shouldn’t be installed on a Mac that you use every day.

Note that if you decide you want to revert back to your previous setup after testing the High Sierra beta, you will need to erase the beta partition and perform a fresh installation of macOS Sierra.

With those caveats out of the way, here’s a step-by-step breakdown describing how to download and install the macOS High Sierra Public Beta on a Mac.

Enroll in the Apple Beta Software Program

To install the macOS High Sierra public beta, you need to enroll your Mac in the free Apple Beta Software Program.

• Visit the Apple Beta Software Program website in a browser on your Mac.
• Tap on the Sign up button, or sign in if you are already a member.
• Enter your Apple ID credentials and tap on the Sign in button.
• Agree to the Apple Beta Software Program terms and conditions if necessary.
• On the Guide for Public Betas screen, with the Mac tab selected, scroll down to the Get Started section and tap on enroll your device.

Download the macOS High Sierra Public Beta

After enrolling in the Apple Beta Software Program, you need to grab the profile installer and run it on your Mac. Here’s how:

• In the same Get Started section on the beta site’s Mac tab, click the profile button under where it says Download macOS High Sierra public beta access utility, and wait for the file to download.
• Open the downloaded file in your Downloads window and double-click the package to run the installer.
• When the installer has completed the download, the Mac App Store should open automatically showing the Updates screen. Click Update to download the public beta software. (If it doesn’t show the public beta in the Updates list, manually restart your Mac and navigate back to the Updates section in the Mac App Store.) When the download is complete, your Mac should restart automatically.

Install the macOS High Sierra Public Beta

If the macOS High Sierra installer doesn’t automatically open upon restart, launch it from your Applications folder using the Finder.

• Click continue at the bottom of the installer.
• A dropdown prompt will appear advising you to back up your Mac. Click Continue – assuming you’ve already backed up. If not, click Cancel and do that now.
• Click Continue at the bottom once you’ve finished backing up, or if you already performed a backup.
• Click Agree to accept the terms and conditions and then click Agree again to confirm.
• Select the drive on which you want to install the public beta.
• Click Install, enter your administrator password, and click OK.
• Click Restart, or wait for your Mac to reboot automatically.

Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
And that’s it. Your Mac should now be running the macOS High Sierra Public Beta. For a complete picture of all of the new features you can expect to see when macOS High Sierra is released in the fall, make sure to check out our full macOS High Sierra roundup.

Related Roundup: macOS High Sierra
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Fugoo Style-S review

Over the last few years we’ve come to test a number of speakers from Fugoo. Whereas we previously had never heard of the brand, we now look forward to each new product. Why? Consistency. Its various speakers all have a similar, somewhat distinctive design, can be accessorized and enhanced with clamps, mounts, and straps. Moreover, Fugoo’s products are built well and feature quality materials.

We’ve spent a few weeks with one of Fugoo’s latest releases, the Style-S. A portable Bluetooth speaker with an IP67 rating, the unit is is designed to go wherever you do. Able to withstand being in three feet of water for up 30 minutes, it can also stand up against dust, sand, mud, and pretty much anything else that might be considered messy.

Unlike the new-ish Fugoo Go, the Style-S doesn’t look like the sort of speaker that wants to play outside. The fiber-reinforced resin case gives off a semi-casual, almost beach life appearance, but it would be right at home in an office or kitchen. Don’t be fooled, though, this speaker loves to get wet and dirty.

One of the cooler features of the Fugoo Style-S is its ability to pair to another unit for true stereo sound. Conversely, it can also simply double the existing playback, giving equal sound to both. The former works great in an environment where you plan to listen to music with interesting audio mixing and engineering; the latter suffices for podcasts, audiobooks, and other less ambitious sources.

According to Fugoo, the Style-S will deliver around 15 hours of continuous playback at fifty percent volume levels. This is about five hours longer than what you’ll get out of the Fugoo Go and amounts to a good two or three days at the beach.

As a matter of practice, we charge our devices up just about any chance we get. Even when we’re testing things out, we find ourselves plugging in when possible. Our thought is much like teaching children how to use the restroom: go when you can, not when you have to. As such, we charge at night, even if we know we only used a fraction of the battery.

Charging is done via microUSB cable and takes around three to four hours if the speaker is at near zero. This is also a little faster than what we experienced in the Fugoo Go.

Whether going it alone or paired with another unit, music sounds great with these speakers. We recommend the stereo if you’re in smaller areas or where you can listen to appreciate the dynamics in music. Adding a soundtrack to a pool party? Go with the Double mode and just crank it.

We found ourselves treating the speaker as if it didn’t belong outside. To us it looks like a more fashionable unit. It definitely deserves the Style moniker. But, when fitted with a bike mount or clamp, it quickly becomes more utilitarian and practical. In other words, we’ve seen much uglier or boring speakers with less functionality.

Another feature we appreciate seeing in a portable speaker is the ability to take calls in speakerphone. To us, a Bluetooth speaker that’s designed to go anywhere should, listeners should be able to keep their phones tucked away and still take phone calls. We don’t want to be out on the river, in a kayak, only to take our phone out of a waterproof carry case. Indeed, the Style-S lets us use voice-enabled speakerphone, giving us peace of mind.

As it relates to sound, we never really had to get the volume levels up above half. Pairing it to another speaker gave us more than enough to provide ample backing music for a day next to the pool. And, if you’re taking this on a hike or bike ride, you won’t want to be that loud, lest you desire to look foolish.

The Fugoo Style-S is compatible with a number of accessories, including the Bike Mount, Strap Mount and Multi-Mount. In a related note, if you purchase the speaker from Fugoo’s website, you can currently receive a free Mount Pack which includes the aforementioned items. Alternatively, you can save 30 percent on a second Style-S speaker.

The Style-S runs about $140 if you purchase through Fugoo’s website; Amazon lists it for $150 and there are plenty of retailers around the country who offer Fugoo products.

Are the #1 Bluetooth Headphones on Amazon actually good? We review the MPOW M3

When looking for a new pair of Bluetooth headphones, we’re often faced with a few choices. Do we want to spend more money for better audio quality? Does it need water resistance? How much do we care about looks?

While some audio companies are trying to compete on price alone and some are trying to compete on features alone, MPOW is trying to straddle the line of both of those segments to provide a pair of Bluetooth headphones that look great, sound great, and don’t cost an arm and a leg. Recently, MPOW sent over a pair of headphones, the MPOW M3 headphones for us to take a look at.

While doing research for this review, I came away honestly surprised that MPOW sent them over to us. Right now, the M3’s are listed at the #1 option on Amazon for Bluetooth Headphones. It seems like they’re doing pretty well on their own, but more credit to MPOW to send them over to use for a critical look regardless.

When taking the headphones out of the box, you’re greeted by plenty of accessories with it. We received a charging cable, a 3.5mm cable, and a carrying case as well. While the M3 is marketed as a budget Bluetooth headphone option, you can use it wired too. This is great if you run out of juice on a long car trip or on your way to work on the subway in the morning.

The headband offers a ton of soft padding.

The M3’s have a hard plastic shell on the outside of a very soft plastic inside. Everything that touches your head, ears, or skin is a soft material, while the exterior of the headphones consists of hard plastics that will stand up to bumps, bruises, and being thrown into gym bags. The headphones also have a hinge on both sides so they can collapse down taking up less room in your bag.

The earcups are a soft material that honestly feels pretty decent after long (2+ hour) listening sessions. The cups are just big enough to encompass my entire earlobe which I appreciate. I’m not a big fan of on-ear headphones. I was also pleased by how tightly the headphones held onto my head and my earlobes. I did my fair share of trying to shake them off and only the most violent of shaking could dislodge them.

The second component of headphone quality is audio quality. Here, I was a little less impressed with the MPOW M3’s, but I still thought they were pretty quality. You definitely get a LOT of bass in these things. I wouldn’t say they’re quite Beats-level bassy, but they certainly provide more bass than your standard Bluetooth earbuds. But, all that shimmers isn’t gold. The bass is pretty muddy and not the most enjoyable of experiences. While I did get more used to it as time went on, the initial listening periods were pretty rough.

MPOW did much better in the mids and highs than it did in the lows. I was pleasantly surprised how good voices, guitars, and other instruments sounded in music. The soundstage isn’t huge (we are talking about $35 Bluetooth headphones here) but it does well regardless. I listened to several podcasts and had zero qualms about how the audio came across. If you’re looking for something to wear while listening to podcasts in your hammock on a lazy summer day, I definitely don’t think you could go wrong here.

The controls on the side are pretty easy to learn, but sometimes hard to locate

Battery life is another strong point of the MPOW M3’s. MPOW rates the headphones at about 13 hours, but I got more along the lines of ten hours at higher volumes. Don’t get me wrong, ten hours is a really long time on battery and I was pretty pleased with that number. The M3’s took about 3.5 hours to recharge from the first low-battery warning so I’d assume that from completely dead you’re looking at 4 to 4.5 hours. That’s a pretty long time to recharge, but if you throw them on a charger overnight once a week, you’ll never have to worry about it.

I made five test calls with the headphones and four of the five said I sounded fine with one person saying I was a little quiet. These are perfectly serviceable headphones for taking calls while you’re on your run or commute, but I wouldn’t recommend setting up business conference calls or anything where the call quality is uber important. Stick to your business solutions for that.

All-in-all, I was pretty impressed with the MPOW M3’s. I can see why they’re the #1 seller on Amazon right now. While not perfect, they’re a great option for someone looking for half-decent sound and great build quality without breaking the bank. If you’d like to grab a pair, head on over to Amazon and pick a pair up.

Amazon Dash Wand: What you can and can’t do with this Alexa device

A few years ago, Amazon quietly announced a new gadget, the Dash Wand, but it’s taken until now for it to get a wider, official launch.

It’s basically giving the Dash Wand away for free. Prime members who spend $20 on the Dash Wand get a $20 Amazon credit and 90 days of free AmazonFresh grocery delivery, which costs $15 per month. But this Dash Wand is different from the original one. It looks different, and it comes with Alexa, so you can not only use it to order goods but also query Alexa and control your home.

That said, is it really something you need? Can anyone use it? Does the fun wear off after a while? And does it really have full Alexa? We’ve spent the last week playing with Dash Wand, and to be honest, we’re pretty impressed at what this gadget can do, considering it essentially costs nothing to get ahold of, and the ability to easily scan and add stuff to our Amazon cart is absolutely thrilling.

Amazon Dash Wand: What’s the point?

To state the obvious, Amazon wants consumers to buy everything through Amazon.com. Just think about how often you say to yourself, “Oh, I need to get paper towels”, or “I gotta remember to buy a new fan for the bedroom” or whatever. Now, with the Dash Wand, you can just scan a barcode to add that item to your cart or press about and ask Alexa to do it for you.

However, Amazon’s marketing around the Dash Wand seems to be entirely focused on groceries. In fact, the default shopping cart when you use Dash Wand is AmazonFresh, not your actual Amazon.com account. Now, keep in mind Amazon just acquired the grocery chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. It’s clear that Amazon is poised to digitally transform how we get our groceries.

Eventually, Amazon will start delivering groceries from Whole Foods. But let’s also not forget that the Dash Wand is yet another way for Amazon to get Alexa into our homes and using it as our default voice assistant. At next to nothing, you can have a portable version of Alexa that you can use in a number of ways — not just for ordering groceries or products or whatever on Amazon.

Amazon Dash Wand: Look and feel

The Dash Wand has come a long way since the original Amazon Dash, which was a voice-enabled barcode scanner. It’s a 5.6-inch, remote-like flat cylinder with a rubbery black top-half and a glossy white bottom-half. There’s a hook on the top for hanging, and magnets on the back so you can stick it to your fridge. It also has a single button surrounded by an LED ring. Just press it to activate Alexa.

Unlike the original Dash Wand, this version uses Alexa for voice recognition, voice commands, and answering queries, while the original had a different system. The device itself looks great, is lightweight, and seems thoughtfully made. Every person we’ve shown it to, including the people who have spotted it in our home, has asked us about it and immediately expressed interest in getting one.

Lastly, the bottom of the device has the barcode scanner. There’s also a built-in speaker, of course, so you can hear Alexa respond. It’s not overly loud, but it’s loud enough. We could hear bloops easily enough after we scanned items and it recognised them, and we could hear Alexa just fine when she told us dumb jokes and served up info. But that doesn’t mean it can play music (more on that later).

Amazon Dash Wand: Getting started

It’s super easy to set up and begin using, too, so even your grandparents can get started with it in no time. It runs two AAA batteries, which come in the box, and then all you have to do is open the Amazon app on your phone, hold down the button on the wand until the light turns orange, and add the wand to your Wi-Fi so it’s connected to your network and registered to your Amazon account.

Amazon Dash Wand: How does it work?

Simple: you point it at bar codes. If it recognises an item, the wand will make a noise, then the light will turn off, and the item will be in your AmazonFresh or Amazon cart. From there, all you have to do is check out. If you scan the same item several time, it’ll realise you only meant to add it once. And if the Dash Wand doesn’t recognise something, Alexa will tell you it couldn’t find it.

It may also ask you to say what you scanned, if it can’t recognise the item. You can also add things to your cart by holding down the button and speaking to Alexa. Ask for “apples” or “socks” or “milk” — whatever your heart desires. However, in our experience, it works best for groceries and makes a lot of mistakes otherwise Amazon also selects brands and types for you, if you don’t specify.

Also, if you don’t say “Macintosh apples”, you may see Gala apples in your cart instead. Amazon also chooses a vendor for you. So, once you’ve added everything to your cart, you still have to open the Amazon app on your phone to check out everything, including whether items are coming from Amazon or AmazonFresh. That means you really do need Amazon Prime as well as AmazonFresh.

AmazonFresh has rolled out its services gradually. It’s available in US cities like Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Sacramento, Boston, Dallas, Chicago, and Denver. Elsewhere, it’s available in London, Berlin, Tokyo. It costs $14.99 per month for Amazon Prime members. At launch, London AmazonFresh customers paid £6.99 per month.

Amazon Dash Wand: What you can and can’t do

The Dash Wand is Alexa-enabled, which means you basically have a portable version of Alexa. It can do basic things like figure out math problems and unit conversions. It can also provide information, tell jokes, and even control your smart home devices. However, when we asked Alexa to play a song, we were told it couldn’t do that. It also couldn’t set timers or reminders or connect to our calendar.

It therefore doesn’t have full-fledged Alexa. Nonetheless, we were impressed. It’s not like you’d want to hear music playing out of the tiny speaker anyway, though setting timers and reminders seem like obvious features, considering this is a shopping tool. Why not have the Dash Wand remind us to check our cart — or, since it hangs on our fridge, set timers for us while we cook the food we ordered with it?

You also have to press the button to use Alexa, so it’s it doesn’t have voice activation like you’d find on the Echo or Echo Dot. However, Amazon did recently enable always-on listening for the Tap speaker, so it’s not like this feature can’t come to the wand down the road.

First Impressions

Amazon Dash Wand: Should you get it?

If you’re a Prime member, it’s basically free. So, why not? It definitely makes adding things to your Amazon cart easier. And if you’re lucky enough to be in an AmazonFresh region, it’ll make life easier, too, as you’ll never have to go to a grocery store again, especially once Amazon leverages its Whole Foods acquisition. And let’s not forget it offers a portable, limited version of Alexa for almost nothing.

There is so much potential with this thing. And because it’s so inexpensive, we can’t help but think of the original Google Chromecast. Some critics dismissed it, but because it was cheap, many people picked it up, and it quickly became popular and critically acclaimed. Amazon could easily achieve that with the Dash Wand, which would help it to push Alexa, Prime, and AmazonFresh.

Also, Amazon’s decision to allow third-party app access, providing us with smart home controls, is a much-welcomed feature. It’s so cool to use one tool to order milk, shut off the kitchen lights, and ask Alexa for a unit conversion. The only gripes we have is that AmazonFresh isn’t widely available, the wand isn’t hands-free, and it uses drugstore batteries instead of a rechargeable pack.

Maybe the third-generation Dash Wand will change all that, but until then, you have nothing to lose if you decide to try this version of the Dash Wand. It’s a great conversation starter, if nothing else.

What we’ve been watching in June

After putting together any home theater setup big or small, there’s always one last question: What are you going to watch? Our editors have already opened up about some of the games they’re playing and what they’re listening to, but this edition of IRL is all about video.

Sometimes we’ll talk about the latest series we’ve binge watched, or maybe a new movie that you just can’t miss. Today we have a little bit of everything as one editor revisits the roots of his anime fandom, another powers through Jenji Kohan’s latest release on Netflix and, finally, one of us is watching Jurassic Park for the very first time.

Dana Wollman
Executive Editor

2017 was the year I decided to get myself some culture. I’ve been trying one recipe a week. I discovered I love podcasts. And I’ve been streaming a lot of movies and television. If that sounds unimpressive, you have to keep in mind: Until recently (and particularly in the months following the election), I had only been watching HGTV. (That and Mean Girls or Legally Blonde, which you can always seem to catch on cable.) At a time when the news cycle can keep me glued to Twitter until late into the night, there’s something comforting about watching a rerun of Fixer Upper, where nothing goes wrong in the renovation and you know just how beautiful the house will be by the bottom of the hour.

I can’t remember exactly when I had a change of heart, but I’m pretty sure it stemmed from a conversation with my colleague Devindra, who was a movie reviewer in a previous life and still co-hosts a film podcast. He likened my brand of passive re-run watching to mindlessly scrolling through Twitter, seeing but not necessarily engaging. Sufficiently shamed, I agreed to what has been a one-sided challenge: If I can’t catch up with Dev’s years of movie watching, I will have fun trying.

I started with a list of classic movies, curated mostly by my co-editor Terrence, with the idea that I would turn my weekly “assignments” into a recurring segment on the Engadget podcast. The list is over 100-strong, with submissions spanning multiple genres and decades. There is enough material for more than two years’ worth of viewings, and that’s if I kept a consistent schedule, which I don’t.

So far, I’ve crossed off my list Jurassic Park, Jaws, Little Shop of Horrors, Heathers and Caddyshack. I was less impressed with Jurassic Park than I thought I’d be, and sparked the ire of several coworkers when I suggested it has a generic narrative arc, similar to Armageddon. Re Jaws: I didn’t think I could be so scared by a movie with 42-year-old special effects, and I know now that they never did get a bigger boat. Heathers and Little Shop of Horrors are both darker than I realized: Heathers could not possibly be billed as a dark comedy if it were released today, and why is no one talking about the fact that Rick Moranis in Little Shop is basically a serial killer?

As for Caddyshack, I didn’t think I liked Rodney Dangerfield, but now I want to watch all his movies.

My next assignment was supposed to be Being John Malkovich, but I’ve been busy — first with new episodes of House of Cards (was this really filmed pre-Trump?) and binge-watching all three seasons of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (why wasn’t I watching this earlier?). By now, I have a dedicated page in my Notes app where I jot down things of interest, with one thing invariably bumping another out of the top spot. I even take occasional trips to the movies, though, with outings like the bad new King Arthur movie, you could argue that I (or my dates) need better taste. In any case, I’m sure I’ll get to both Being John Malkovich and Citizen Kane eventually.

Bloodline

Billy Steele
Senior News Editor

Bloodline doesn’t get the same buzz that surrounds other Netflix original series like House of Cards, Narcos, Orange is the New Black and others. However, the show one of the best in the streaming service’s lineup. In fact, Ben Mendelsohn (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) won an Emmy for his role as Danny Rayburn and Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights) has also been nominated. The critics agree that it’s worth your time.

‘Bloodline’ deserves recognition as one of Netflix’s best. It’s a shame the third installment will be its last.

The show centers on a well-known family in the Florida Keys. Despite running a popular waterfront inn, not everything is as it seems. Bloodline goes back and forth between past and present, revealing bits of the backstory at a time as to why this family’s issues run so deep. It makes for really interesting storytelling, especially during the first season. There are some parts where you realize that these people are terrible criminals, but it doesn’t matter. Events continue to spiral out of control straight through the third season that debuted last month. It’s like watching a car wreck at times — you just can’t look away.

It starts a little slow, but if you stick with it, you’ll be hooked about three of four episodes into season one. Both Mendelsohn and Chandler give stellar performances as brothers at odds, battling each other to keep the family’s secrets from coming to light. I’ll admit to being a little partial to Coach Taylor (I’m only human), but Bloodline deserves recognition as one of Netflix’s best because it’s certainly worthy of the honor. It’s a shame the third installment will be its last.

Operator

Richard Lawler
Senior News Editor

While many films and series have dived into the disturbing possibilities of technology that evolves beyond what its human creators intended (Her, Ex Machina, most of Black Mirror, Morgan), I’m more intrigued by the people building that dystopian future. The 2016 direct to video release Operator focuses on Martin Starr (Freaks and Geeks, Silicon Valley), playing a programmer tasked with building an AI assistant for his company’s customer service app. A decision to use his wife, played by Mae Whitman (Parenthood, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) as its voice becomes more complicated once he prefers the controlled, comforting program to its messy real-life equivalent.

Starr brings something very different to this role than what we’ve seen from his sarcastic characters like Silicon Valley programmer Gilfoyle, or Party Down’s tortured sci-fi writer Roman DeBeers. Instead, the character suffers from crippling anxiety that is exacerbated by a nearly impossible to meet deadline for the project. Still, he’s excellent here, as is Whitman, who is realistically qualified for the voice job, thanks to her extensive voice over credits on projects like Johnny Bravo and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

This movie isn’t quite the comedy that Netflix primarily tags it as — despite a few really funny moments thanks to actors like Retta and Nat Faxon — and could disappoint viewers looking strictly for laughs or a darker technology spin. If you’re wondering why it scored 100 percent fresh with critics on Rotten Tomatoes but only 61 percent from audiences, misguided expectations may play a big part.

Instead, it’s a romantic comedy where Pygmalion builds his own manic pixie dream girl in a more believable way than other takes like Ruby Sparks. Given how the movie ends, I’m not completely sure if I found it as good as it is interesting, but at just 87 minutes it doesn’t take long to check out yourself.

Operator is currently available on Netflix in the US, Canada and UK, as well as video on-demand.

GLOW

Andrew Tarantola
Associate Editor

I did something I don’t normally do this past weekend: I sat down and binged an entire season of a Netflix series, specifically the ’80s women’s wrestling comedy, GLOW. And given how so enthrallingly entertaining it proved to be, I’d have gladly sat through six more.

You can immediately, almost viscerally, feel Jenji Kohan’s influence on this show. It has the same hectic energy seen in early Orange is the New Black episodes — as if the show runners had too much story to pack into GLOW’s initial ten episodes. And like OITNB, even though the main arc began by focusing heavily on the antagonistically symbiotic relationship between Alison Brie and Betty Gilpin’s characters, the supporting cast was far more than set dressing.

Marc Maron’s grumpy, “I’m too old for this shit” attitude was pitch-perfect, as was his onscreen coke habit (note his use of stash bindles torn from magazine pages rather than glass vials). Gayle Rankin also impressed. Her depiction of “Sheila the She Wolf” was equally quirky and tear-jerking — not unlike Uzo Aduba as Suzanne in the first season of OITNB. Britney Young, however, stole the show. Though her arc was minuscule compared to the main one, Young’s character’s struggle to earn validation from her “wrestling royalty” family serves as the perfect palate cleanser against Brie and Gilpin’s near-constant fighting and helps guide viewers otherwise unfamiliar with professional wrestling through the subculture’s norms and mores.

It’s the same for the entire supporting cast. We were afforded small nuggets, mere glimpses, of their characters’ personalities and backstories this season. From Ellen Wong’s and Sunita Mani’s characters confronting the rampant, nearly casual, use of racist stereotypes in ’80s America to figuring out where Jackie Tohn’s character scored her sweet limo, there are plenty of stories spooled up for future seasons. The next one of which can’t arrive soon enough.

Attack on Titan

Aaron Souppouris
Features Editor

It’s difficult to like Attack on Titan sometimes. I’m not a massive fan of action-oriented anime, for starters, and the first season suffered from terrible pacing, both within individual episodes and the overall arc. The dialog was wooden at times, and anime over-exposition was everywhere. That’s not to mention the almost three-year wait for new episodes.

If you’ve never heard of Attack on Titan before, the plot isn’t exactly the easiest to summarize. The elevator pitch is that the last vestiges of humanity are holed up in cities surrounded a series of huge walls, constantly under attack by giant humanoid creatures called titans. Despite its issues, it had gorgeous art, a fascinating and mysterious world and, in spite of myself, I fell in love with the beautifully choreographed action.

Season two, which concluded last week, very nearly lost me completely a couple of times, though. Luckily, I don’t really have anything else left to watch on Crunchyroll, so I persisted and was rewarded. The second half of the latest run is fantastic, advancing the story while entertaining with the action that hooked me in the first place. There’s even titan MMA, in a neat coalescence of my disparate interests.

If you didn’t like the first series, I wouldn’t suggest you watch the second. But if you just haven’t gotten around watching the latest episodes, it’s well worth returning to. Especially now that season three is confirmed for next year.

Baby Driver

David Lumb
Contributing Editor

Edgar Wright’s newest flick about a young getaway driver is a seasoned evolution of the kinetic style he refined with The Cornetto Trilogy and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. The writer-director drops his usual frenetic shot sequences in favor of slower, extended takes that still deliver his signature clever audio-visual jokes, but in a more elegant synchronicity with the film’s wonderful, Motown-filled soundtrack.

The eponymous Baby, a young driver toting around revolving trios of bank robbers with baffling getaway skill, soft-shoes and rattle-taps around his world to the beat of whatever’s on his iPod. He keeps the tunes flowing because, as Kevin Spacey’s sinister heist-planning Doc puts it, he’s got “a hum in his drum” but don’t worry about it, because he’s “Mozart in a go-kart.” Even the dialogue — silly on paper, greased joy from every castmember’s mouths — is a melodic susurrus to the movie’s invisible groove.

Romance with waitress Debora kicks Baby out of neutral and he tries to get out of the game, but how can you stay away from the thrill of the drive? Even if Baby Driver doesn’t end up topping Wright’s high-water mark of Hot Fuzz, it’s wonderful to see him back at the cinematic canvas after he walked away from being the Ant-Man cog in the Marvel Cinematic Universe machine a few years ago. Baby Driver is worth forking over $15 for another great ride in Wright’s frenetic imagination.

Twin Peaks

Devindra Hardawar
Senior Editor

The Twin Peaks revival on Showtime is a miracle. Not just because it pays off a throwaway line from one of the original series’ iconic dream sequences — it also gives co-creator David Lynch full rein to deliver his surreal, enigmatic, hilarious and sometimes terrifying vision without any compromises. That’s incredible to see from an American auteur who hasn’t been able to direct a feature in 11 years.

Before you ask — yes, you need to see the original Twin Peaks episodes, as well as the prequel film Fire Walk with Me, to even begin to understand what’s going on. And even then, there’s no guarantee that you will. But placing you in a perpetual dream-state of wonder and confusion is precisely what Lynch does best. So far, the new episodes have built on the supernatural mythology of the series, while also giving us plenty of new mysteries to follow. And all the while, Kyle MacLachlan, along with the show’s plethora of guest stars and returning characters, are as compelling as ever.

It’s not for everyone, but it really doesn’t have to be.

“IRL” is a recurring column in which the Engadget staff run down what they’re buying, using, playing and streaming.