Technology

At its big Tudum event, Netflix showed off a nice, two-minute-long look at one of its most exciting upcoming movies: Don’t Look Up. Don’t Look Up is one of the more interesting films in Netflix’s slate, a story about astronomers trying to save the world from an impending asteroid collision. it also happens to have a stellar cast. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence play the aforementioned astronomers, while Meryl Streep is the president, Jonah Hill is her chief of staff, and the rest of the lineup includes Ron Perlman, Timothée Chalamet, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, Cate Blanchett, and Tyler Perry. Adam McKay is writer and director. Don’t Look Up is due to hit Netflix on December 24th but will be in select theaters before that on December 10th.

There was a lot of Geralt of Rivia at Netflix’s Tudum event. The upcoming second season of The Witcher was a major presence at the streamer’s big showcase; fans were able to check out a pair of very short teasers, that gave a good look at what life is like on the Continent, and what we can expect from Ciri in particular. Additionally, we got a first glimpse at the prequel series Blood Origin with a behind-the-scenes tour of the set, and a trailer to catch fans up on a season 1 — which also has some new footage from the upcoming season. [embedded content] The first season of the show debuted in 2019 and became a huge hit for Netflix, with the company claiming it was its most-watched first season of television. A second season was inevitable — we got the first proper trailer for it in July —...

At its big Tudum event, Netflix confirmed that it will make a third season of The Witcher. No other details were shared, so we don’t know when we might expect it just yet. Netflix also said that it would continue to expand The Witcher with a second anime film and, surprisingly, a series designed for kids and families. The announcements further expand Netflix’s ever-growing slate of Witcher content. At the event, Netflix also shared new clips from the second season ahead of its December 17th premiere and a behind-the-scenes look at The Witcher: Blood Origin, the upcoming live-action prequel series. The new content joins the first anime spinoff, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, released in August, and the hugely popular first season of The Witcher. Toss a coin to our growing Witcher unive...

Netflix held its first Tudum event today, a three-hour livestream that featured, well, a lot of stuff. That means more than 70 series and 28 movies, which is more than anyone should have to keep track of. So we’ve curated the biggest announcements and best trailers right here, from a new look at Stranger Things and a whole lot of The Witcher, to premier dates for the likes of new seasons of Tiger King and Bridgerton. Here’s everything you may have missed. [embedded content] The next project from Studio Colorido Ahead of the main Tudum event, Netflix spent some time outlining its anime lineup, and the biggest reveal was the next feature from Studio Colorido, best-known for 2020’s A Whisker Away. The studio’s latest feature is called Drifting Home, and it’s described as a “story about two ch...

Apple told the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) that its Apple TV Plus streaming platform had fewer than 20 million subscribers, which allowed it to pay lower rates to IATSE workers than bigger streaming platforms, CNBC reported. Apple has never publicly released subscriber numbers for its streaming network, which launched in November of 2019. But Apple TV Plus has fewer original shows than larger, more established streaming rivals like Netflix, which said in August it had 209 million subscribers. “Workers on certain ‘new media’ streaming projects get paid less, even on productions with budgets that rival or exceed those of traditionally released blockbusters,” according to a press release IATSE posted on Tuesday. The release didn’t mention any streaming platfor...

Netflix debuted a new teaser trailer for Stranger Things season 4 as part of its Tudum event on Saturday. It opened on a family going into an old-timey house, but in classic Stranger Things fashion, things quickly got spooky and, well, strange. The new season will premiere sometime in 2022. The fourth season has been a long time coming. Stranger Things’ third season debuted more than two years ago, on July 4th, 2019, so fans have been waiting for quite a while to see what happens next in Netflix’s hit series. (Season 3 was quite popular — just four days after it launched, Netflix said that 18.2 million accounts had watched the whole season.) The company has already shared a few very fleeting hints about what to expect in season 4, though. In February 2020, a teaser revealed that a fan-favo...

The team at iFixit has a new teardown of the iPhone 13 Pro, finding it has an enormous battery and some small internal changes to how the components are laid out to accommodate the smaller notch on this year’s models. First, the battery. After conducting battery swap tests, on the iPhone 13 Pro, iFixit found its tests succeeded, but still got a warning notification. The L-shaped battery echoes the iPhone 12 Pro Max, iFixit notes: This beefy L caps out at an expected 11.97 Wh compared to the 10.78 Wh obelisk found in the iPhone 12 Pro (and non-Pro), but loses out to the standard’s 12.54 Wh rectangular cell. An X-ray image of iPhone 13 Pro and Pro MaxiFixit/Creative Electron iFixit posits that Apple was able to shrink the screen notch partly by moving the earpiece speaker from the back of th...

Kicking off these deals on the smart home lighting front, the Nanoleaf Elements light-up wall panels — just released in the summer — have a nice discount at Best Buy. The wood accent hexagon-shaped panels are $50 off for a seven panel kit, bringing them down to $250. If you want to go beyond seven you can opt for a three panel expansion kit for $80 (saving you $20). These panels are customizable and you can connect up to 22 of them in one contiguous pattern. You may be familiar with the colorful Nanoleaf panels that are popular with Twitch streamers and YouTubers, but the Elements promise a more refined look with their wood grain and white illumination that ranges from cool to warm tones. When turned off their subtle wood aesthetic still complements a room without looking like light panels...

Netflix is kicking off a massive fan event today. Tudum — named for the ubiquitous chime that plays before Netflix titles — is a global event that will feature a huge slate of news, trailers, celebrity appearances, and more. It’s essentially the Lollapalooza of Netflix news, and anyone hoping to stay ahead of the streamer’s biggest upcoming announcements will definitely want to tune in. What is Tudum? Tudum is a global mega-event — the first of its kind for Netflix. It kicks off Saturday and will feature more than 145 celebrities, 70-plus series, and 28 films over the course of several hours. Expect exclusive clips and news for forthcoming titles like Stranger Things, The Sandman, Tiger King, Cobra Kai, The Witcher, Red Notice starring Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds, and more. Tudum will...

Apple’s iPhone 13 lineup launched Friday, and one of the key features of the 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max are their ProMotion displays with variable refresh rates that can top out at 120Hz. But as spotted by 9to5Mac, some app animations in third-party apps are currently only running at 60Hz. That might be frustrating if you were expecting to see buttery-smooth animations across all of your apps with the new phones, but when we asked Apple what was going on, the company shared two reasons why this might be happening. One reason is that developers will need to update their apps to declare that they use the higher refresh rate. This can be done by adding an entry to the app’s plist, Apple tells The Verge, and the company says it plans to share documentation about the entry you need to add soon. But ...