StarCraft returns in 2030 as an open-world shooter
Blizzard originally tried to bring the StarCraft universe to the world of 3D shooters way back in 2002 with StarCraft: Ghost. It sat in development hell for years until Blizzard president Mike Morhaime confirmed that it had been canceled in 2014. Now Blizzard is giving it another go with the simply titled StarCraft. Dan Hay, a VP at Blizzard, took the stage at BlizzCon today to reveal that after more than a decade of lying dormant, StarCraft would be returning in 2030. But, rather than another top-down real-time strategy installment, the new title would be an open-world shooter.
He then showed off a cinematic trailer for the title that fo …
Sylvan Esso think you should splurge on good-quality yogurt
Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn, better known as Sylvan Esso, have been bringing their low-key electro-pop to the masses since 2014, bursting onto the scene with their self-titled debut album and the single "Hey Mami." Over the years, they've put out a number of excellent records, dabbling in dustier, more fragile textures on Free Love, going dancier and glitchier on No Rules Sandy. The two are constantly pushing at the edges of their sound while retaining the core of what makes a Sylvan Esso record sound like a Sylvan Esso record.
Their new album Ow ∞, released this past Friday, represents perhaps the boldest reinvention of their sound, how …
Anthropic CEO says it’s time to pump the brakes on AI
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says the time has come to slow down AI development and will give third-party evaluators like METR access to its models to help ensure its "adherence to safety practices and commitments." In a winding essay, Amodei proposed a three-step plan to "pace the frontier" - jargon that simply means to slow the pace of training and development to give companies time to build safeguards and regulators to evaluate models.
Amodei says that giving external evaluators wide-ranging access is just the first step, and one it is taking now unilaterally. Step two would involve the industry coming together as a whole, likely with gove …
LG responds to TV spying allegations
Earlier this week, Gamers Nexus, Level1Techs, and independent security researchers detailed some alarming findings about how LG's TVs are logging and uploading data on its users. Now the company is pushing back against those allegations, saying that "Some recent media coverage may have contributed to misconceptions about how LG smart TVs work."
LG released a statement in which it claims that its "TVs do not continuously record or transmit users' conversations," and that wake-word detection is all processed locally. However, the word "continuously" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here as Gamers Nexus demonstrated an LG TV keeping extensive l …
Trump is giving data centers a pass to pollute
President Donald Trump is weakening environmental regulations in the name of speeding up the construction of AI data centers, raising health risks for Americans, a cadre of former EPA officials said this week in a briefing and new report. They are urging - perhaps futilely - the president to adopt a "Data Center Health Protection Pledge" to signal that the administration is taking the environmental threat seriously.
At the start of his term, Trump's EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, proclaimed his goal of making America "the AI capital of the world" through deregulation. Since then, Zeldin and the White House have rolled back dozens of rules …
Laika’s stop-motion fantasy Wildwood looks so smooth
Due to a scheduling mishap, I was only able to check out two movies on my second day at the Toronto International Film Festival - but I did manage to get an early look at and some fascinating details on one of my most anticipated films this year.
Even if you don't know the name Laika, you probably know the studio's work; it's the animation house behind stop-motion hits like ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, and Kubo and the Two Strings. Over the years Laika's films have steadily gotten more impressive on both a technical and artistic level. Which brings us to the incredible-looking Wildwood, hitting theaters next month. If you're unfamiliar, here' …
Where to preorder the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max
The iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max are almost here. Announced at Apple's September 2026 "Sunrise and shine" event alongside the iPhone Duo and other new gear, the two upgraded phones feature the faster A20 Pro processor with more GPU power as well as more neural cores for AI-related tasks, plus some welcome improvements to the camera.
The phones will arrive on Friday, September 18th, and preordering one is never a bad idea if you want to ensure you get the color and storage capacity configuration you're seeking. Speaking of, preorders are officially open.
The 6.3-inch iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199 for the 256GB model, and goes all the way u …
OpenAI just wants to win
OpenAI has spent the last few years planting flags across the increasingly difficult terrain in mathematics. This week, it claimed one of its biggest prizes yet: a solution to a legendary Millennium Prize problem. In normal circumstances, this would have been celebrated as a historic achievement.
Instead, many mathematicians have watched OpenAI's relentless advance with growing unease. To them, the company appears less like an enthusiastic newcomer than an impossibly well-resourced interloper, charging into problems they have dedicated their lives to studying with little apparent regard for long-standing norms or the consequences for those …
Lawyer fined $5K over AI-hallucinated witnesses in a murder case
New Mexico's Supreme Court is punishing a lawyer for including AI-fabricated witnesses and fake police testimony in an appeal for his client's murder conviction, according to a report from Reuters. In a filing on Wednesday, the court fined Stephen Aarons $5,000 and held him in contempt for failing to "verify the factual claims and legal authority in his AI-generated brief."
The filing says the brief "contained false testimony from wholly fabricated witnesses," along with "false testimony" about the shooter's clothing and appearance. Justice C. Shannon Bacon questioned how Aarons wasn't aware of the risks posed by AI during an August hearing …
Matt Mullenweg returns as Automattic CEO two days after getting booted
Two days after being placed on a paid leave of absence, Matt Mullenweg says he has been reinstated as CEO of Automattic, according to a Slack message seen by TechCrunch. WordPress Executive Director Mary Hubbard confirmed Mullenweg's return to the CEO role in a Friday post on X, which the official WordPress account shared and Mullenweg reposted.