The Matt Damon-led spy thriller series based on the Robert Ludlum books could find a new home away from Universal.

Things have gotten a little wild in the Chicago suburb of Orland Park, Illinois, where local cops accused a former cop of impersonating a current cop on Facebook. The department also noted that a top police official had “a glitter bomb sent to him anonymously at the Police Department” and “was contacted by a suicide prevention hotline as a result of a spoofed call.”

So, in a bit of a freak-out over this alleged harassment and impersonation, the Orland Park police investigated and eventually sought charges against the former cop—who said that all he had done was to create a parodic Facebook page critiquing the current departmental leadership.

The whole case was eventually tossed by a judge, who said that the Facebook page wasn’t criminal, and now the former cop is suing the current cops for going after him.

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Scientists at Zhejiang University have created the world’s smallest LED display, featuring pixels just 90 nanometers wide — roughly the size of a typical virus and too tiny to be seen with optical microscopes. The breakthrough, described in Nature this week, uses perovskite semiconductors that maintain brightness even at microscopic scales, giving them an advantage over conventional LEDs.

The research team, led by Baodan Zhao, also demonstrated a larger display with pixels measuring about 100 micrometers (human hair width) that successfully rendered images including a spinning globe.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

30 years ago today, the ending of ‘Prime Factors’ wrote a check that Voyager‘s episodic nature could rarely cash–but it was still worth writing anyway.

Amazon has the EcoFlow River 3 portable power station (including solar panels) for 44% off for a limited time.

A United States District Court judge has approved a settlement between HP and customers who sued the company for firmware updates that prevented printers from working with non-HP ink cartridges.

The class-action lawsuit, filed in December 2020, alleged HP “wrongfully compels users” to buy only HP ink by issuing updates that block competitors’ cartridges. Under the settlement, HP admits no wrongdoing and won’t pay monetary damages to affected customers, though it will pay $5,000 each to the three plaintiffs and $725,000 in attorneys’ fees.

HP has agreed to allow users of specific printer models impacted by the November 2020 update to decline firmware updates containing “Dynamic Security” features — HP’s term for technology that blocks cartridges using non-HP chips. The settlement applies only to 21 specific printer models, leaving numerous other HP printers subject to Dynamic Security restrictions. HP has previously paid millions in similar cases in Europe, Australia, and California related to printer bricking.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

And just in time for Snow White‘s release, we’re getting an appropriately schlocky horror twist on the classic tale.

On May 9, AMC Theatres will start showing a sci-fi movie that was shot in Swedish but will look like it was made in English instead. Watch the Skies, which was released in its home country as UFO Sweden, had undergone “visual dubbing” with the help of artificial intelligence. An AI company called Flawless used its technology to digitally alter the film’s images, making the actors look like they were truly speaking in English. Notably, the original actors recorded their own dialogues in English in a sound booth — Flawless AI’s technology merely altered the movements of their lips in the movie. 

On its website, Flawless says its TrueSync AI technology “captures every nuance of an actor’s performance and generates new lip movements that perfectly map to the new language audio, providing the perfect visual dub.” Variety says the tool is compliant with the rules set by SAG-AFTRA, which ended a four-month strike in 2023 after securing a deal with studios that protects members “from the threat of AI.”

Flawless AI’s technology could lower the barrier of entry into foreign films. It could make them more appealing to audiences resistant to watching subtitled movies and could provide a better experience for audiences in countries that normally dub movies in their native language. “Showing our materials to filmmakers, especially over the past year, they realize the potential from going to a local stage to a global stage,” the company’s co-founder, Scott Mann, told Variety. “It’s a huge opportunity to get your work out and it’s been invigorating. They are so excited about showing their work in a wider audience, and especially in America.”

Watch the Skies revolves around a teenager who believes that her missing father wasn’t dead but was abducted by aliens. To uncover the truth about her father’s disappearance, she teams up with UFO Club to look for him. AMC Theatres has committed to showing the film in 100 locations across America. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/amc-theatres-will-screen-a-swedish-movie-visually-dubbed-with-the-help-of-ai-130022232.html?src=rss

The government’s argument for why the DOGE minions needed millions of Americans’ sensitive data was unpersuasive.

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The Beats Fit Pro are a solid choice for anyone who wants Apple’s seamless connectivity without shelling out for AirPods Pro. Right now, Woot is offering them for just $109.99 (down from $159.99), marking their lowest price ever, according to price trackers. This deal runs for the next six days or until stock runs out. Prime members get free shipping, while others pay $6. One catch—Woot only ships within the contiguous U.S.

Beats Fit Pro

$109.99
at Woot

$159.99
Save $50.00

$109.99
at Woot

$159.99
Save $50.00

Fit is the focus, here. The built-in earfins keep the earbuds secure without the need for extra attachments. The sound leans toward Beats’ signature style—deep bass, crisp highs, and a slightly recessed midrange. Noise cancellation does an above-average job with lower frequencies but struggles a bit with sharper sounds (like clinking dishes in a café), according to this PCMag review.

Apple users get the most out of these earbuds, with their H1 chip making pairing seamless, along with access to features like Find My tracking, Spatial Audio with head tracking, Adaptive EQ, hands-free Siri, and automatic switching between Apple devices. Android users can still use the Beats app for features like the Ear Tip Fit Test (to get the best seal), firmware updates, and listening mode controls, but they miss out on Spatial Audio, Find My, and hands-free Siri.

The IPX4 rating of the Fit Pro is less impressive for workout-ready earbuds—they’ll handle sweat and light rain, but they’re not exactly built for heavy downpours, and the case isn’t water-resistant. That’s a bit of a letdown for fitness buds. These earbuds support Bluetooth 5.0 and AAC/SBC codecs, but not AptX. That might not be a dealbreaker unless you’re really picky about audio quality. As for battery life, you get six to seven hours per charge (depending on ANC use), with up to 23 extra hours in the case.

Overall, the Beats Fit Pro packs in a lot for the price, especially if you’re in the Apple ecosystem. But if you want something even more fitness-focused, the new Powerbeats Pro 2 promises heart rate monitoring during workouts.

The Tesla CEO continues to take a chainsaw to everything.

The Hypershell X Skeleton revolutionizes outdoor adventure by making each step, run, and pedal more efficient and powerful.

Save about 50% on the WD 20TB Elements desktop external hard drive for a limited time at Amazon.

NVIDIA’s GTC event, particularly Jensen Huang’s keynote, should be mandatory watching for anyone interested in working for, buying or building tech. The event is as well orchestrated as an old Steve Jobs event, and while Huang isn’t as charismatic as Jobs was (few are), the content is less about pitching products and more about pitching a very different future. 

At these events over time, I’ve seen the future of drones, robots, autonomous cars, AI simulation (up to world scale), gaming and video conferencing, though this last, which used photorealistic digital background built from components, was unintended. 

This month’s event was no exception. I’ll focus on what was interesting.

The Birth of Next Generation AI

The keynote opens up how AI can be used to create predictive models, views into the future, turn knowledge into what looks to me like magic, improve our knowledge of the human body to make us healthier, protect critically endangered wildlife, turn ideas into positive scientific and social revolutions, help make people better both physically and mentally, and take that leap to where no one has gone before. 

As a background, Huang used his headquarters building in simulation, and as many know, that building was first fully simulated before it was built (something everyone should do). NVIDIA has been so successful with AI and artificial intelligence it can’t build its graphics cards fast enough, and its Blackwell-based 5090 cards are sold out worldwide. 

This event has grown from one of the smallest of its type in the industry to one of the largest, arguably growing beyond the capabilities of the resources in Silicon Valley. And this isn’t the only thing pushing resources. According to Huang, a year ago we were 100x off in terms of the resources needed to run AI at scale largely because a year ago we weren’t as focused on quality as we are now. DeepSeek was one of the big examples of this shift, and it caught the world sleeping. 

NVIDIA’s Blackwell processor would have seemed like an insane product to create two years ago because the performance requirements back then seemed more than adequate. But even Blackwell may not be enough to meet the emergent needs of AI users, and no one else is close to providing a Blackwell solution let alone something stronger. Part of this is because AI has moved from something people create to something that is created by AI. This is already forcing a massive change in datacenter design. That is the basis of the announcement at the event of Blackwell Ultra and advances in photonics that increase Blackwell’s capabilities to address these new and growing needs.

Huang spoke to targeted AI from manufacturing to automobiles.

NVIDIA Halos

This is basically a logical shield for automobiles, creating a protective layer between the car and the environment around it. When it comes to autonomous driving, NVIDIA is well ahead of everyone else in terms of safe performance. With Omniverse being the safest and more comprehensive simulation, to Cosmos, a learning model where a teacher is created, and then subsequent tuning automatically optimizes the results. This could be particularly useful for fringe events like extreme weather shifts, black ice or occluded visibility which have all been problematic to this technology. 

I think future cars should tell you what tech is in them so you can better trust the result with your family. 

Robotics

This is one of the segments that I personally find the most interesting. NVIDIA has been at the forefront of this. It’s ironic that the company that first argued that robots would eventually outstrip both PC and smartphones was Dell Technologies which still has made no move toward this massive opportunity. NVIDIA has been on top of this from the start with Omniverse training so it can, like autonomous cars, be safely trained for even extreme fringe events, making them both safe and performant with more and more capabilities, greater safety, and massively improved performance. 

This next generation of robots will be able to work more as a system and learn real-time as they operate. They announced Mega, which tests robots at scale, and Isaac GROOT N1, which is inspired by human cognitive processing, making these robots vastly easier to spin up and apply to new environments.  

And they closed with an update on a Disney Star Wars robot that pretty much works like the simulations in the movies. They announced Newton, a collaboration between Deep Mind, Disney Research and NVIDIA. If they can get the cost of this thing down to something affordable, I can see variants in most every home, particularly those that don’t allow pets. 

Wrapping Up:

NVIDIA GTC is where you go to see the future of computing, but increasingly, it is where you go to see the future of the developed world. From pervasive AIs to pervasive robotics to simulation and everything in between, if you want to see the future, check out the GTC keynote. It doesn’t cost you anything but your perception of what is possible and how amazing the future will become. Particularly during times like this, a bit of “amazing” can help restore hope for a better tomorrow. 

European Central Bank Chief Economist Philip Lane warned that Europe must develop a digital euro to counter growing American influence over the continent’s financial system [alternative source] amid escalating geopolitical tensions. Lane specifically cited Europe’s “current dependence on US payment-card providers Visa and Mastercard, as well as technology companies including PayPal, Apple and Google” as a vulnerability requiring urgent action.

His comments come as President Donald Trump’s administration promotes dollar-backed stablecoins worldwide as part of a broader cryptocurrency strategy, alarming European officials. ECB Governing Council member Francois Villeroy de Galhau recently cautioned that “the US risks bringing about the next financial emergency through its support of cryptocurrencies.”

“The digital euro is not just about adapting to the digital age. It is about ensuring Europe controls its monetary and financial destiny,” Lane told a conference in Ireland, noting that a digital currency would “limit the likelihood of foreign-currency stablecoins gaining a foothold” in Europe.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There’s a bidding war for the film adaptation of Split Fiction, according to the information Variety has gathered at this year’s Game Developers Conference. Split Fiction is a split-screen multiplayer co-op game by Swedish indie developer Hazelight, which was also the studio behind the genre-defining game It Takes Two. The publication says Story Kitchen, the same media company that pieced together the It Takes Two film adaptation package until it was picked up by Amazon, is already looking for actors, writers and a director for the project. 

Variety didn’t mention specific companies bidding for the game’s rights, but offers are reportedly coming in from “multiple top Hollywood studios.” Split Fiction was specifically designed for split-screen gaming through local or online play. You can control either one of the two main characters, Zoe and Mio, as they navigate multiple worlds and overcome various obstacles. The game’s story revolves around the two authors who were invited by a company called Rader Publishing to test a new simulation technology that allows players to experience their own fictional stories as reality. 

Due to an accident, Mio fel into Zoe’s story, which created a glitch that allowed them to travel to and from each other’s science fiction stories featuring dragons, cyberpunk motorcycles and other sci-fi and fantasy elements. The game was released on March 6, 2025 and is currently available on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/a-split-fiction-movie-is-reportedly-in-the-works-121528148.html?src=rss

The Apple TV+ sci-fi series will be back for more after this week’s thrilling season two finale.

The Apple iPad Mini makes for a solid tablet and is a solid 20% off over at Amazon

The updated Gen 2 Garmin Epix has built-in free expert training apps, incredible battery life, huge GPS range, and an awesome $409 price tag.