Adaptations of popular books are all the rage these days, and Apple TV+’s newest entry into that space is the upcoming series Silo. It still feels like the show is flying under the radar, but Apple TV’s recently begun to show more of the dystopian show ahead of its release in May, and that includes releasing a new clip to draw interested viewers in.
Silo Episode 1 Clip: This could be the key
Silo Episode 1 Clip: This could be the key
Like the books they’re based on, the Silo show is set in a post-apocalypse where the last 10,000 humans on the planet have formed community established deep underground in the titular silo. In the lead role is Dune’s Rebecca Fergusson as Juliet, an engineer looking for answers regarding the murder of one of her co-workers who ends up stumbling onto a larger conspiracy. Naturally, that conspiracy goes fairly high up; in the clip above, Rashida Jones’ Allison is looking to bury some secrets, and her husband Holston (David Oyelowo) is the sheriff of the town.
“The Winchesters” Star Meg Donnelly’s First Comic Con
Silo is based on Hugh Howey’s series of sci-fi novels that he wrote and self-published back in 2011 with the short story Wool. From there, Howey published multiple books in the series at three or two books a year, with the series’ final book, Dust, releasing in December 2013. Or rather, that was the last book in the series; back in 2021, Howey revealed he was at work on another book, with this one centering on a new group of characters. You can read his thoughts on the show’s first two episodes on his website, along with some pictures from the premiere.
Also starring Common, Iain Glen, and Tim Robbins, Silo will begin its 10-episode run May 5 on Apple TV+.
One of the big video games of the spring is Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. The game released this weekend and has largely garnered glowing praise across the board, which isn’t entirely surprising, given how successful 2019’’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Orderwas and Respawn’s general output. But in addition to being called one of the best Star Wars games in recent years, some have taken to calling it one of the brand’s best games ever.
Spoilers of the Week: July 1st
Star Wars and video games have been friends for decades, dating all the way back to 1979 with a licensed tabletop game from Kenner. From there, the series went further into games with tie-in releases for Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, then expanded into a much larger enterprise. Some are based on the films (or set in the same relative time period), other older titles went into the Expanded Universe, but to date, there’s over 100 video games that bear the Star Wars name in fashion.
The LucasArts era that ran from 1993 to 2013 is generally considered the strongest, as it produced well-beloved titles such as Star Wars: Dark Forces, the Knights of the Old Republic series, and the two original Star Wars Battlefront games by Pandemic Studios. Back then, a lot of those games (if not all of them) were considered canon in some shape or form, which definitely made them more regarded in the eyes of fans. But when Disney elected to make its own canon and relegate the EU into Legends material, that also put Star Wars’ video game endeavors in a weird spot. EA had exclusive rights back then, resulting in two rebooted Star Wars Battlefront titles that had their fair share of controversies, the flight sim Star Wars Squadrons, and Respawn’s two Jedi games. EA’s exclusivity with the franchise has since ended: not only are we getting an eventual game from Ubisoft, there’s also Star Wars Eclipse, a game set during the High Republic era from Detroit Beyond Human developer Quantic Dream.
Since there’s been so many Star Wars games, and plenty more to come in the years ahead, we’d like to know some of your favorite from the long list of titles. Even if it’s been quite some time since you’ve played one, we’ve all got a game or two that we still fondly remember from our childhoods. (Star Wars Battlefront II and Force Unleashed 1, no one did it quite like you!) Let us know down in the comments below.
Here at CNET, we continue to be impressed by Google’s Pixel phones. All three of the latest model have earned a spot on our best phones overall for 2023, and with prices ranging from $449 to $1,099, there’s an option for every need and budget. And below, we’ve rounded up the best deals and offers from both carriers and retailers available right now so you can get one in your hands for less.
The Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro are the latest in Google’s flagship lineup, and they’re great choices if you already use Google services to help organize your life. There’s also the Pixel 6A, which is our overall favorite Android phone under $500 on the market right now.
Andrew Lanxon/CNET
But no matter which model works best for your needs, there’s no reason to pay more than you have to. Below, you’ll find our roundup of all the best deals on all Pixel phones that you can shop for right now, from both carriers and retailers.
If you’re having a hard time deciding which Pixel model is going to work best for you, we’ve compared the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro to their previous-gen counterparts for a full breakdown of their specs and performance. If affordability is your top priority, you’ll probably want to opt for the budget-friendly Pixel 6A.
Pixel 7 and 7 Pro deals
The Pixel 7 and 7 Pro hit shelves back in October of last year, and you’ll find them in stock and available at most major retailers and carriers at the moment. And there are tons of offers out there, whether you’re looking for an unlocked model, have an older device to trade in or are in need of a new service plan through a carrier.
There are a few benefits that come with buying your Pixel 7 from Google directly. For one, all models and colors are in stock, so you don’t have to worry about getting your ideal configuration, and Google allows you to buy your phone outright, as opposed to an installment plan required by some retailers and carriers.
At the moment, Google isn’t offering any straightforward discount on the Pixel 7 series. But if you have an older older device from Google, Apple or Samsung, you can save up to $400 with a trade-in, with the latest iPhones netting you the biggest discount.
Amazon is one of the few retailers offering a no-strings-attached discount on the Pixel 7 series that won’t require a trade-in or new line of service. Right now, you can save $77 on the basic Pixel 7, or $66 on the Pixel 7 Pro. Just note that the discount does jump around between different colors, with the obsidian variant featuring the best price for both models right now. Amazon also has its own trade-in program, and you can earn up to $401 off in exchange for your old devices.
You’re receiving price alerts for Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro at Amazon
AT&T’s offers vary a bit depending on which Pixel 7 model you’re looking at. If you want the base model Pixel 7, you can save up to $380 when purchasing on an installment plan and with activation on a qualifying unlimited plan — no trade-in required. And if you’re looking for a Pixel 7 Pro, you can cash in on recycling your former device with a trade-in credit of up to $800 (with the flagship phones for Apple, Samsung and Google bringing in the highest values) — and there is no new line required.
Verizon is offering deals for both new and existing customers at the moment. If you’re adding a new line of service, you can get the Pixel 7 for free, or save $720 on the Pixel 7 Pro, which drops the price down to just $5 per month. If you don’t need a new line, you can still save up to $800 with a qualifying trade-in, including old and damaged devices, as long as you’re eligible for an upgrade.
Verizon is also offering some other bonuses, including 50% off a pair of Pixel Buds Pro and $400 off select smartwatches with the purchase. New customers will also get a free $200 Verizon gift card when they switch their existing number over from another carrier.
Both new and existing customers can save $500 on both the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro right now at T-Mobile. New customers will save $500 when adding a new line of service on qualifying service plan, or, if you’re already a T-Mobile customer, you can also save $500 when trading in your old phone as long as you already have or switch to a qualifying service plan. The discount is applied in the form of monthly bill credits over a 24-month period.
Best Buy is offering a fairly misleading deal on unlocked Pixel 7 phones right now. While you can technically save $100 on an unlocked Pixel 7, or $150 on an unlocked Pixel 7 Pro, you’ll have to choose same-day activation and sign on with a carrier to get the discount, essential defeating the point of an unlocked phone.
But if you’re a Verizon customer, you can save up to $800 with an eligible trade-in and activation on a qualifying service plan. Verizon even accepts old and damaged devices, so you may be surprised what your old phone is worth.
Pixel 6A deals
CNET’s Lisa Eadicicco called Google’s affordable next-gen Pixel 6A the “best Android phone under $500.” It’s slightly smaller than the full-size Pixel 7, and features a 6.1-inch OLED display with a refresh rate of 60Hz. It’s equipped with 128GB of storage and 6GB of RAM, which is slightly less than the standard Pixel 7 has, but is still more than sufficient for most people’s needs. It also boasts 5G capabilities and support for Wi-Fi 6 for lightning-fast browsing. It’s already a solid value at its usual price of $449, but we’ve rounded up some of the best deals and offers out there so you can pick one up for even less.
Like with the Pixel 7 series, Google isn’t offering any straightforward discount on the Pixel 6A at the moment. But if you have an old device from Apple, Google, Samsung and more, you can still save up to $350 with a trade-in.
Amazon is offering the best deal out there on an unlocked Pixel 6A at the moment. Right now, you can save up to $134, which drops the starting price down to just $315. The best deal is on the charcoal variant, but the other colors are discounted as well.
Both new and existing AT&T customers can grab the Pixel 6A for just $2 per month when purchasing on an installment plan and with activation on a qualifying unlimited plan. That locks you into a 36-month plan, but saves you $398 compared to AT&T’s price, or $377 compared to the price from Google. It’s also worth noting that AT&T only has the charcoal variant available at the moment, so you’ll have to shop elsewhere if you have your heart set on a different color.
Customers adding a new line of service at Verizon can get the Pixel 6A completely free with a new line on a qualifying 5G unlimited plan. And if you’re an existing Verizon customer who qualifies for an upgrade, you can pick it up for $200 off. Both new and existing customers can save 50% on a pair of Pixel Buds A-Series, and $400 on select smartwatches, though you’ll need a line of service for that as well.
Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro deals
The previous-gen Pixel 6 is almost two years old at this point, and it’s getting pretty tough to find new models in stock. But if you’re committed to snagging one of these older flagship phones, Amazon still has a few available that you can pick up for hundreds less than the original price. Google no longer carries the Pixel 6 and most retailers and carriers have shifted their offers over to the newer Pixel 7 models, so this is just about the only deal you’ll find out there at the moment.
If you don’t need the latest and greatest, Amazon is still offering some discounts on the previous-gen Pixel 6. Right now you can save $199 on the 128GB model and $270 on the 256GB model compared to the original list price. Amazon does have a few Pixel 6 Pro models in stock, but they’re either renewed or being sold through third-party retailers that we haven’t vetted, so we’d recommend steering clear.
You’re receiving price alerts for Pixel 6 at Amazon
The Super Mario Bros. Moviedidn’t just hit make $1 billion dollars, it also had the honor of being uploaded to Twitter for several hours. And it wasn’t the only one—James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water got the same treatment.
Mr. Tweet Fumbles Super Bowl Tweet
Per Forbes, Illumination’s animated movie got posted on the website on late Saturday evening. Split across two parts, viewers were able to watch the full 92-minute movie at no extra cost, thanks to the efforts of Twitter user vidsthatgohard. (And from the sound of things, it was a pretty good quality rip overall.) Those two videos were up for several hours and through Sunday morning before they were finally deleted. But it definitely didn’t go unnoticed, as according to Forbes, over nine million people watched the movie prior to its deletion. The Way of Water was uploaded earlier in the evening sometime prior to the Mario movie from the same account, and also split into multiple parts since it’s a 3-hour movie. Unlike with Mario, though, it’s not clear how many people decided to watch Avatar before Twitter took it down.
Though vidsthatgohard did the uploading, the real culprit here is Twitter Blue. The premium subscription service lets users upload videos up to an hour at length, something that’s been taken advantage of before. Along with those two films, I can personally confirm that I saw high quality uploads on Twitter of the original Fast and Furious movie some weeks back. It’s not a good look for Twitter as a website or its moderation team, but it is a good example of just how little of a shit that people who use Twitter give nowadays.
At time of writing, it doesn’t look like the vidsthatgohard account has suffered any consequences for posting two whole movies onto its feed. In fact, checking their account, they’re not only tweeting like nothing’s happened, they’ve just started to upload Bee Movieonto their account. And honestly, that may just be the most Twitter thing to happen out of this whole ordeal.
Update: 1:38 PM ET: This post has been updated to add information regarding Avatar: The Way of Water getting uploaded onto Twitter in the same timeframe as the Mario movie.
Full-time Twitter CEO and part-time Tesla enthusiast Elon Musk said on Saturday that users of his social media platform will be able to avoid media subscriptions and pay per article starting “next month.” Musk says that Twitter’s forthcoming “one-click” service “should be a major win-win for both media orgs & the public” by allowing media companies to charge a higher per article price to readers who wouldn’t necessarily pay a full subscription rate.
Musk didn’t say what percentage Twitter would pocket for itself or what conditions media publishers would need to abide by.
As with all Musk timelines, it’s best to take the “next month” estimate as an absolute best case scenario for the arrival of Twitter’s pay-as-you go micro-transaction service. But I don’t doubt Musk’s urgency. Twitter is in a race to grow revenue even as it alienates long-time users and antagonizes media organizations — both of whom are actively testing waters elsewhere. The latest Twitter alternative du jour is Bluesky, which recently added Twitter royalty Darth, Dril, and AOC to its ranks.
Musk is desperate to add new monetized eyeballs and other revenue sources to pay off debt, while valuing the company at less than half of what he paid for it. Twitter Blue subscriptions aren’t doing well enough to offset the loss of advertisers who have reportedly fled the platform since Musk’s takeover. The company has also introduced a new fee structure for API access that could cost some enterprises as much as $42,000 per month for what was previously free.
Over the last few years, Sony has made it quite clear it wants its PlayStation games to pull double duty as TV/movie successes. So far, that’s given us the Tom Holland-led Uncharted from 2022, and the recent HBO adaptation of The Last of Us. But there’s plenty more adaptations on the horizon (Zero Dawn), from recent blockbusters like Days Goneand Ghost of Tsushima to…Twisted Metal.
The Hunger Games | The Last of Us Episode 8 Review
Just before the weekend started, Peacock released the first trailer for the show ahead of its release in late July. It doesn’t really give you an idea about what the show will be about, though: the footage is just Anthony Mackie in a car and driving through an apparent battlefield, and there’s also an ice cream truck driven by a guy with a clown mask. The show’s premise sees Mackie playing an amnesiac milkman named John Doe, who’s tasked with driving a mysterious package through the post-apocalypse. At some point, he’ll cross paths with Quiet (Stephanie Beatriz), and the two will do car combat as they endeavor to get Doe’s package to the finish line.
Twisted Metal | Official Teaser Trailer
For those who didn’t have a PlayStation console growing up, Twisted Metal was a car combat series that first started on the PlayStation 1 in 1995 from developer SingleTrac. The general premise across all the games is that contestants blow each other up to amuse a reality-warping man (demigod?) named Calypso, and whoever’s left standing is granted a single wish, but with some dark twist attached. The series was well-liked back in the day and one of PlayStation’s marquis franchises over the years thanks to multiple sequels and spinoffs from other studios after SingleTrac closed down.
But Twisted Metal as a series has been MIA ever since the PlayStation 3’s 2012 reboot of the same name. The same month the reboot came out, Sony announced its plans to turn the series into a feature film, which never came to fruition. With this show on the horizon, it’s not entirely clear what’s happening on the game side of things; there was a rumor in early 2022 that a new installment was in the works from Horizon: Call of the Mountain developer Firesprite, one that the studio apparently took over from Motorstorm creator Lucid Games. Nothing’s come of that, but maybe Sony will be more forthcoming when the show is closer to the finish line.
Also starring Neve Campbell, Thomas Haden Church, Samoa Joe, and Will Arnett, Twisted Metal will premiere July 27 on Peacock.
Like many great products, the Elgato Stream Deck wasn’t exactly a new idea.
When the very first one debuted six years ago this month, we instantly compared it to Art Lebedev’s legendary Optimus Maximus keyboard, which promised an array of swirling OLED screens under your fingertips an entire decade earlier. Razer, too, pioneered LCD keys before their time, tacking them onto a keyboard and the company’s very first Blade laptop.
In today’s digital age, it sometimes feels like hardware has taken a back seat to the software that drives our devices. Button of the Month is a monthly column that explores the physical pieces of our phones, tablets, and controllers we interact with every day.
But today, we’re celebrating the simple genius of Elgato — the company that finally turned them into a viable product by making them relatively cheap, comfy, and most importantly: peripheral.
Art Lebedev and Razer both believed we wanted a new keyboard that morphs, where our primary computing input mechanism should be replaced with one that intelligently adapts to our needs.
Even today, the idea feels grand: “Why would Photoshop and Quake present you with the same boring keyboard?” you can practically hear Art Lebedev’s concept images ask.
Left: a Photoshop layout. Right: a Quake layout with fewer keys used.Image: Art Lebedev
Razer, perhaps inspired by that Quake keyboard layout, asked a follow-on question in 2011: “If your keys can morph, maybe you don’t need so many of them to play PC games on the go?” The result was the Razer Switchblade, a 7-inch concept handheld gaming PC prototype created through a partnership with Intel.
Razer didn’t sell that one, though. The final “Razer Switchblade” turned out to be far less exciting at the time: ten LCD keys and a touchscreen trackpad embedded into a regular keyboard. You can almost see a Stream Deck if you look closely — but still integrated, not yet peripheral.
That’s why the idea didn’t stick. Razer thought users would buy into a pricey keyboard ($250) or laptop ($2000+), give up the familiarity of the input devices they already owned, and trust that game developers would support its new Switchblade UI. It also didn’t help that the keys felt brutal — stiff, flat and brittle.
The Elgato Stream Deck asked for none of those tradeoffs.
Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge
The Stream Deck immediately pitched itself as a purpose-built tool right down to its name, giving you handy buttons to control Twitch, OBS, and Twitter right out of the gate. (It does far more today.) You place it alongside your favorite keyboard, instead of replacing it, and between that and the $80 starting price of the six-key Stream Deck Mini, I was easily sold.
The buttons on an Elgato Stream Deck, in profile.Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge
And the keys, those keys… soft, cushy, inviting, each jeweled press like popping a piece of bubble wrap. I’m not saying it’s anything like the satisfying crunch of a mechanical switch — it’s a different joy entirely.
Speaking of which… I have an little announcement to make, a treat for any Stream Deck owners who might be reading this story:
The Verge has its own official bubble-popping Stream Deck plugin!
Before he left on a 2600-mile hike — seriously, he’s walking the Pacific Crest Trail — my dear colleague Mitchell Clark coded the bubble popping app of my daydreams, complete with sound effects. (He actually submitted it to Elgato his first day on the trail.) It works with as many buttons as you like; Tom even tested a full page of bubbles on his 32-button Stream Deck XL.
I’m set to interview the head of Elgato in the near future, and I plan to ask how they managed to make these keys actually feel good. We already know there isn’t a tiny screen underneath each key:
The buttons are all lenses that sit on top of a single LCD screen. The more you know!
We Rode the New Disney Coaster Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind
Gunn is getting ready to release Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, his final film for Marvel Studios, next week and then move full time to not only directing Superman: Legacy, but molding the DC Universe as a whole with his DC Films co-president, Peter Safran. That move seemingly pushed everything happening at DC before their appointment back, which was disappointing for many reasons, but none more so than the rumored Ta-Nehisi Coates-written and J.J. Abrams-produced take on Superman. However, speaking with io9 this weekend, Gunn confirmed that just because his Superman movie is coming, doesn’t mean that one is completely off the board.
“Those two things are totally unrelated,” Gunn told io9. “That’s an exciting movie. I know that Chantal Nong, who is the executive on that project, is extremely excited about it. So if it comes in and it’s great, which I haven’t read the script, and if the timing is right, that could absolutely happen. That’s totally unrelated. It would be an Elseworlds tale like Joker.”
So there’s the loophole. Along with their announcement of the upcoming DC slate in January, Gunn and Safran said that movies that didn’t fall into their robust, ambitious shared universe – movies like Matt Reeves’ The Batman Part Two and Todd Phillips’ Joker Folie à Deux – will be clearly labeled “Elseworlds,” denoting those as separate from the main story. It sounds like, as Gunn said, if everything works out, the Coates and Abrams project could still see the big screen under that banner along with Robert Pattinson and Joaquin Phoenix.
News of the Coates/Abrams project broke way back in 2021 and, rumor had it, a script was supposed to be done by the end of that year. We aren’t sure if the script is finished and sitting there, or if it’s still being worked on, but early rumors did suggest it could star a black Superman and be set in the 1900s. A very different take than Gunn’s more modern one, for sure.
Do you hope we get to see this second Superman film from DC? How would you like it to be different? Let us know below and look out for the rest of our exclusive James Gunn interview later this week.
It’s a long-standing belief here at The Verge that copyright law is the only real law on the internet, because it’s the only speech regulation most people on most platforms will accept. (At least in the United States.)
Post something that blatantly infringes someone else’s copyright, and most platforms will spring into action to take it down, because they are protected from liability under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act if they take action in a reasonable amount of time upon request. And the way the DMCA influences user behavior on platforms is really well-known: we have been writing about “no copyright intended” for over a decade now. There are lots of and lots of people out there who know how it works.
Anyway, Elon Musk isn’t one of them, and he also fired the vast majority of Twitter’s trust and safety and compliance teams while simultaneously increasing the length of videos you can post to Twitter, so now you can just watch The Super Mario Bros. Movie on his slowly-decaying platform. One copy of the movie has been up since April 28th and has amassed… 9.3 million views as of posting.
A lot of those views came from this Tweet, which itself has 8.5 million views.
You can also find Avatar: The Way of Water on Twitter this way. Hey, why do you think the previous administration at Twitter never enabled 60-minute uploads before?
Social media can be mentally draining. And when mentally drained, you are more likely to be influenced by a high number of likes on posts – even to the point of clicking on ads for products you don’t need or want – according to our recent experiments on how social media affects behavior.
As a professor of advertising, I have studied social media behavior for years. In late 2022, my colleague Eric Haley and I conducted three online studies on Americans aged 18-65 to test how people under various mental loads respond to ads differently.
The control group in each study was given no introductory task – we just had them look at an ad. A second group had to memorize a nine-digit number and then look at the ad. The third group scrolled through their Instagram feed for 30 seconds and then looked at the ad. The first study used an ad for a meal prep service, the second was for ice cream and the third was for coffee beans.
The ad photo and caption were the same for everyone in each group, with only the number of likes manipulated. Participants randomly saw an ad with a few hundred likes or tens of thousands of likes. After viewing the ad, each participant rated how willing they would be to buy the product, and how much mental effort it took to think about the information. The group that used Instagram first were the most likely to want to buy the featured product when there were lots of likes or comments, and they also reported using the most mental effort to assess the ad.
In one study we asked people to explain why they wanted to buy a product, and those in the control group gave simple, rational answers for their choice: “I was thinking of the ice cream flavors and how they would taste.” Or, “I like the ad. It is simple and clean. It gets straight to the point …”
However, those who had just scrolled social media for 30 seconds often gave answers that made no sense. For example, some gave one-word answers like “food” or “plate.” Others explicitly told us it was difficult to process: “It had too many words and options in the picture.”
Why social media’s “cognitive overload” matters
Researchers refer to this mentally exhausted state as “cognitive overload.” Using social media puts you in this state because you are constantly evaluating different types of text, photo and video posts from so many different people. In the span of several seconds you can see a text from your spouse, a photo from a co-worker, a video from a celebrity and a meme from your brother. All of this scrolling and evaluating leaves us feeling frazzled and scattered.
Imagine asking your roommate if they want to go get pizza. Under normal conditions, the roommate might consider several factors such as cost, hunger, timing or their schedule. Now imagine asking your roommate the same question while they are on the phone with a sick relative after having stepped in dog poop and they also just got a text from their ex while remembering they were late for work. They no longer have the mental energy or resources to logically consider whether pizza for dinner is a good idea. They might just yell “Yeah, sure!” while running inside to clean their shoes.
The one exception to this is when a person has a lot of experience, history or knowledge with the particular product or idea. When this is the case, they are able to think about whether they will actually benefit from buying the advertised item. We confirmed this in the experiment with the ad for coffee beans. In general, coffee lovers will carefully consider many factors – type of bean, roast level, country of origin and more. So even when these people were in a mental fog, they were not persuaded by ads with high metrics.
By understanding how they might be influenced by social media in unconscious ways, consumers can be more thoughtful and deliberate in regulating their use – and hopefully not buy yet another water bottle they don’t need.
What still isn’t known about social media
We don’t yet know which social media platforms are the most draining.
Media-rich environments like TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube are presumably the most mentally taxing because they have text, photos, videos, animations and sound – often all at once and overlapping. These platforms are also where advertisers spend a lot of money, as they offer a high return on investment for brands.