Search headlines

MacBook Neo is So Popular That Apple Reportedly Doubled Production

On an earnings call in late April, Apple's CEO Tim Cook said that customer response to the MacBook Neo was "off the charts," and the popularity of the laptop has reportedly led the company to significantly boost production. Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo this week said he believes that MacBook Neo shipments to Apple were doubled from an initial target of 5 million units to 10 million units in 2026 at some point after the laptop launched in March.

Jun 3 • 12:24 PM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com

A first look at Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Ultra and Surface Dev Box

Microsoft has focused on performance, battery life, and display for its Surface Laptop Ultra.

Jun 3 • 9:22 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

The cult of objectivity has broken consciousness science

With 22 competing theories and no consensus in sight, the science of consciousness is lost. In this exclusive IAI interview, Berkeley psychedelics researcher and bestselling author of a new book on consciousness Michael Pollan insists that even though consciousness lies beyond traditional forms of scientific investigation, we should resist becoming dualists who see it as something radically different from ordinary stuff in the world. Instead, he makes the case for reimagining science itself: it must stop reaching for objective descriptions of physical reality, and instead embrace subjectivity as the indispensable core of all inquiry. Alasdair Craig: How did your experiences with psychedelics get you interested in consciousness?Michael Pollan: One of the things that happens on psychedelics is that they foreground consciousness. What formerly seemed perfectly transparent and ever present—and yet, non-existent, as water is to fish—suddenly you see it. The metaphor I use in the book is that psychedelics sponge the windscreen. Suddenly you realize: wow, there’s a windscreen, there is this phenomenon that’s mediating my relationship to reality. This is not an unusual realization on psychedelics. I think a lot of people are called to think about consciousness after psychedelic experiences. So that was the proximate inspiration for A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness (2026).And then there was a more specific way in which psychedelics influence the book. That was a particular experience I had on psilocybin. I had the sensation that the plants in my garden were conscious and returning my gaze, with their own point of view and agency, and I got curious as to how to evaluate an insight like that. I mean, what’s the truth quotient of insights you have on psychedelics? And I was reading William James—who, of course, wrote beautifully about mystical experience—and he said, we can’t judge the metaphysics here, but we should pay attention to two criteria: (1) How useful is it to think this is true? He was a pragmatist, of course. And (2) can we subject it to other ways of knowing to validate it? Because maybe we should treat these insights as hypotheses. And that’s kind of how I approach psychedelics, as a great generator of hypotheses, but they need to be tested against other ways of knowing. And so that led me down this long path exploring the science of plant intelligence and plant sentience.AC: I love your phrase, “smudging the windowpane of conscious experience.” So do you now start to think, actually, even when I’m not on psychedelics, I’m just seeing a screen all the time, which is not reality, but rather is my conscious experience, behind which reality is hidden?MP: Well, you know, not when I’m brushing my teeth and making breakfast! But yes, in meditation, certainly. I mean, one of the things you realize is that my experience happens to be this way now, but it could be another way. And many things can affect it. My morning coffee changes the screen in various ways, sharpens certain things.___The only tool we have to understand consciousness is consciousness.___There’s this wonderful metaphor in Aldous Huxley’s book, The Doors of Perception, where he thinks we channel consciousness, and that what the brain does is edit it, and there’s a reducing valve. And psychedelics open the reducing valve wider. I don’t know that I’m ready to buy into the idea that consciousness exists outside brains, but I do love that metaphor because there are times when you are more conscious than others. I know I’ve switched from window pane to valve, but you know, a camera aperture can open wider or narrower. And I do have a sense of that. I have a sense of when I’m being less conscious, and when I’m being more conscious, by which I mean, you know, more present, taking in more sensory information. So when you start thinking about consciousness as a matter of degree, that changes things also.I think when we scroll on social media, obviously, we’re conscious. But minimally so, because we don’t have to generate our own thoughts. We’re basically taking these little hits from other people and thinking their thoughts.The process of writing this book made me kind of relativize everyday consciousness as just one type, which is exactly what William James said. Normal consciousness is one type, separated by the flimsiest of screens from the other types.AC: If we stick with the metaphor of the smudge on the window that you get when you take psychedelics, it seems like we’re saying that consciousness has become like an object that you’re looking at, right? You’re looking at the smudge and that just is consciousness. But sometimes we’ll talk about consciousness as a state that you’re in, rather than an object you can perceive. You’re either conscious or you’re not conscious. So it’s difficult to really know what sort of thing we’re talking about when we talk about consciousness, right?MP: Yeah. When you say that consciousness is an object, what’s the subject? Consciousness also? The only tool we have to understand consciousness is consciousness. So we’re in a closed loop and when we get a perspective on consciousness, we’re not achieving any distance from it. That’s one of the problems with studying consciousness. Science is predicated on an objective, God’s eye view of things, and you never get that. There’s no such thing. SUGGESTED VIEWING The brain filters consciousness With Àlex Gómez-Marín But, yeah, there is this sense, I think, that consciousness is something you can approach. Certainly, when you’re writing and trying to recreate a conscious experience, it’s a fiction, but you’re standing back from it, and looking at it. But there’s no real subject-object distinction.AC: That’s so interesting, because when philosophers start talking about consciousness, they often talk about what they call “qualia”, which is their word for the felt experience of, say, the color red. And I think that way of speaking often makes us think of the qualia as an object, which you can see out there: the redness of red. But, as you say, we also want to collapse the subject-object distinction when we talk about consciousness. So there’s something strange going on here…MP: Oh, yeah, there are many strange things going on! *AC: Let’s talk about the varieties of consciousness. Apart from perceptions, there are, pains, emotions, thoughts, and so on. What is it that holds all this diversity together so that they all count as instances of consciousness? What is it that they all have in common?MP: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I mean, there is sensory information, right? Which we perceive coming from the world outside ourselves. And then there’s internal information, which is what’s called interoception. And this is very important too. This is where feelings come from—what are sometimes called homeostatic feelings—that are intended to get the brain to keep us in these narrow ranges of temperature and glucose and so on. That’s a very important part of consciousness. And according to some researchers, who I think are probably right, this is where consciousness begins, with these very primal feelings, like hunger and thirst and warmth and itch, and things like that. And then there’s this third thing, which is our thinking about thinking.And what holds all this together is, I think, the sense of self. Consciousness generates a self: it is probably an organizing principle. All this stuff is happening to the self. It’s a construct, I think, but it is very useful. It can connect all these different streams of consciousness to a single being or a place, metaphorically speaking.* AC: The first half of your book is about the science of consciousness. Is consciousness just another thing, like black holes or the origin of life, which we don’t yet understand, but which we should have every hope that science will one day get to the bottom of, or is there something special about consciousness that makes this unlikely?MP: It depends how you define science. As we define science now, it’s going be very difficult. Science since Galileo has had a set of rules or assumptions, which is that the proper remit of science is to deal with the objective, quantifiable, third-person world. And the physical sciences have done amazing work under that set of limitations. Galileo—for tactical reasons, not for philosophical reasons—said science should not deal with the soul, which at the time was what consciousness was considered to be. So what is subjective, what is qualitative, what is first person, we’re going to leave to the church, he said. And this was a good agreement, and it probably kept many scientists from getting burned at the stake. But it leaves science in an awkward spot, now that it wants to venture into that territory of qualities, of first-person experience. And I don’t think it has the proper tools. I think it will have to add to its toolkit in some way, and find a way to bring in phenomenology, or lived experience and introspection, which science is usually dismissive of.The challenge—we alluded to it earlier—is that the only tool you have to study consciousness with is consciousness. And what I mean by that is, the whole scientific enterprise is a manifestation of consciousness. As much as scientists like to flatter themselves with this idea that they attain a godlike perspective on what they study, when it comes to consciousness, there’s no such thing. And it’s fine for all the things you can step outside of and study from that perspective. But two areas it won’t work are consciousness and cosmology.___It could be that we live in this anomaly of not believing nature is conscious. And maybe psychedelics are teaching us something we’ve forgotten.___With cosmology, too, you have to study the universe from inside the universe. It’s not that cosmologists haven’t made progress. We know a lot about the age of the universe and expansion and things like that. But we can’t penetrate what happened before the Big Bang. We just don’t have the tools because we can’t stand outside.The fact that there are 22 full-scale theories of consciousness tells you all you need to know: we’re kind of lost. And I was surprised to find that we are more lost than I thought we were when I started this. I thought that there’d be leading theories, or that we had experiments that we could conduct that would nail some of this down. And the fact is, we don’t.So, I don’t know if science can solve it. But, of course, we can change the rules of science. A really influential book for me was a book called The Blind Spot, by two physicists, Marcello Gleiser and Adam Frank, and a philosopher, Evan Thompson. It’s a reminder that science is a social practice. It’s organized in a certain way and it can be organized in a different way. But it has this huge blind spot at the center of it, which is its failure to recognize that it is a form of consciousness itself, and it doesn’t have a good way of taking account of lived experience.AC: On the one hand, I think you want to resist traditional dualism, which would say that consciousness is something magical, something supernatural, right? But on the other hand, you’re accepting that there is this division in reality between the stuff that you can investigate objectively and measure, and so on—the stuff that science has been good at finding out about—and consciousness, which, for some reason, you can’t objectively measure. Some would take this to suggest that the dualism is actually right. Is there a way of reconciling these two strands of your thinking?MP: To call it magical is full of value judgement. I mean, you could just say immaterial. The interesting thing is, I think, that intuitively we’re all dualists. And I don’t know whether that’s because we’re children of Descartes and other cultures are less dualist than we are. Or it may be because that’s how consciousness feels. It feels different than the body. It feels separate from the body. But I don’t think we should trust that intuition.AC: So let’s think about ways that science might be changed to get at consciousness. I suppose the starting point would be the way that you begin the second half of your book. You have this nice line from William James, where he says, “We now begin our study of the mind from within.” Could you give us some sense of the ways of studying the mind from within? What does this involve?MP: I don’t know what that science looks like. But one of the points I’m making is that it depends on the humanities. I found that I learned as much, if not more, about consciousness, from reading novels and poetry. There is a sense of the fullness and complexity of consciousness that you don’t get in any scientific account. I interviewed this stream-of-consciousness writer and I approached her as an expert on consciousness, and she is. So I think that dialogue is really important.I’m reading Ben Lerner’s new novel, Transcription. Just read the first page of this novel: it’s a man falling asleep on a train, going to conduct an interview, and there is the experience of being in the train, facing backwards, there’s the view outside, but there’s a reflection of himself through which he’s seeing outside. There’s the memory of dropping his kids off at school. All this is going on in one moment of consciousness. Scientists aren’t going anywhere near that. But I think it’s useful for them to think about. That’s where we’re trying to go: like, how does such a layered experience happen? You know, it also makes you wonder, could a computer ever do this? And it gives you some doubt.*AC: Before we get to computers, perhaps we could talk briefly about plants. How did you come to feel that they are sentient?MP: Well, it was a psychedelic experience, and it’s not unusual on psychedelics. In fact, there’ve been studies about how people become animists during psychedelic experience. Their belief in animism arises after a single psychedelic experience.You know, most scientists would say this is all a myth. But we have only 400 years of the age of enlightenment and science. Before that, we were animists, and if you go around the world, most indigenous cultures are still animists, and children are animists, by and large, until they go to school. So it could be that we live in this anomaly of not believing nature is conscious. And maybe psychedelics are teaching us something we’ve forgotten.As I said, I wanted to test this idea, and see whether there was conventional scientific evidence for it. And there’s fascinating work going on in a field that calls itself—in a rather cheeky way—plant neurobiology. These are people who fully realize there are no neurons in plants, but they’re trolling conventional botanists! And they’re doing experiments that are demonstrating that plants can learn and remember, which is kind of amazing: how do you store a memory without neurons? They’re finding plants that can solve problems, that can hear and see. In fact, they have 20 senses to our five or six. For example, a bean plant looking for something to twine, and given a pole within eight inches or so of it, knows where that pole is and will aim its spiraling reach at that pole. What is that about? Is it bouncing signals off of it?One of the spookiest things is the fact that the same anesthetics that put us out put plants out. You might think that plants are already out, but they’re not. They’re just slow. If you take a plant with a fast behavior, like a Venus flytrap, and give it an anesthetic, it will stop reacting. So you have to ask yourself, what is lost when the plant is anaesthetized? Some state of alertness, of awareness, of its environment, of reactivity. I’m not prepared to call that consciousness, but maybe it’s sentience—which is a simpler form of consciousness, and involves the ability to sense what’s going on in your environment and assess what’s good and bad for you and act appropriately. That may be a universal quality of life.AC: Let’s turn from plants to AI. You point out that LLMs are trained on the internet rather than direct interactions with reality. You put this really nicely when you say the internet is not the world so much as a shadow cast by the world. So LLMs are living in this kind of shadow world, or in Plato’s cave, as you put it. What’s the significance of this for AI consciousness and moral consideration? And, to recall the beginning of our conversation, if we’re stuck behind a veil or screen of consciousness, are we also stuck in a kind of shadow world?MP: I don’t think they’re the same shadow worlds because our world includes nature and other people. And even if it’s mediated in some ways... There is a reality out there, and we are in relation to it, through consciousness. There’s friction with it. What’s missing from the LLMs is that friction with the real world. There’s more to the world than human representation, which is what they’re dealing with. And that means that so far, AI is a cultural technology for combining thoughts we’ve already had. SUGGESTED VIEWING Cracking the code for thought With Roger Penrose, Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski, Max Tegmark, Güneş Taylor Genuine creativity is more than collage. A lot of what AI does now is tantamount to collage, putting this with that and you know, that’s part of art, certainly. But there are also genuinely new ideas that come into the world that don’t come in through manipulating the representations we already have. So it remains to be seen whether AIs can be truly creative in that more radical sense.But my arguments against AI becoming conscious have to do with the fact that the idea of AI consciousness is based on this faulty metaphor that the brain is a computer. There are dimensions in which the brain is like a computer—it certainly does its share of computation. But computers have this sharp distinction between hardware and software, and brains don’t. In a brain, hardware and software are identical. Every memory is a physical change to the brain. Brains are not interchangeable in the way computers are. So this idea that you could take the consciousness out and somehow run it on another substrate, a silicon substrate, seems foolhardy.Anyway, it’s a more extended argument, and I may be wrong. And when we move to computers that aren’t based on silicon—neuromorphic computers and things like that—all bets may be off.AC: Regarding your point about LLMs being stuck in the world of our representations—the internet or whatever—and not being able to interact with reality, are these representations, the world of the internet, themselves part of reality? We’ve created the internet, but it’s still a real thing that exists. And so while the LLMs may be trapped within that part of reality, they’re nevertheless within reality and interacting with it and so on. So it’s not obvious that there’s a barrier there to them becoming conscious and being creative.MP: Yeah, I mean, if our consciousness is built out of human culture, which is what we’re talking about with all those representations. But I tend to think consciousness comes a bit more out of nature and friction with the natural world, but...AC: So there’s a fundamental divide between the natural world and human artefacts?MP: And we lose track of that, and especially people in this computer world. You know, the people who are creating these AI systems, my guess is they’ve been into video games since the age of three, and they didn’t go outside a lot. And their own contact with nature is somewhat limited. I could be wrong, it’d be a very interesting thing to ask, all the wizards of AI, whether they like to go fishing and hiking and do things like that. Or were they on computers from a very early age? I interviewed Blake Lemoine, the Google engineer who came to believe that LaMDA, the Google LLM out at the time, was conscious and deserved personhood. It was very clear that he didn’t see a distinction between this bubble in which he lived and the real world. And I think we’ve all been distanced from the natural world, and this is taking us even further away. But it’s still there, you know, and we still have bodies, and we’re still mortal, and we don’t live in a simulation.AC: I think that’s a great place to finish. Michael Pollan, thank you very much!

Jun 3 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • iai.tv

Nvidia’s RTX Spark Laptops Look Hell-Bent on Disruption

The company’s RTX Spark chips might finally turn the “AI PC” into reality.

Jun 3 • 7:00 AM EDT • Technology • wired.com

USDA Cuts Dismantled a Program Helping Local Food Economies

Without federal support, a nascent regional network that was building businesses and consumer support has collapsed.

Jun 3 • 4:01 AM EDT • Business • civileats.com

The Nvidia RTX Spark Era Starts Here: Hands On With Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra

Microsoft's new flagship Surface is the poster child for Nvidia's agentic-AI-first laptop platform. Here's what we learned from our first encounter with the hardware.

Jun 2 • 8:10 PM EDT • Technology • pcmag.com

Nvidia wants to supercharge your laptop

Jensen Huang is bringing the firm’s AI act to the PC

Jun 2 • 1:14 PM EDT • Technology • economist.com

Microsoft's Surface RTX Spark Dev Box will handle tougher AI workloads

Microsoft is making a Surface AI dev desktop for people who don't want a laptop.

Jun 2 • 12:45 PM EDT • Technology • engadget.com

Apple's MacBook Neo is winning over a new generation of buyers

The MacBook Neo shipped 1.1 million units in its first weeks on sale, IDC estimates, as Apple pushes deeper into the mainstream laptop market.

Jun 2 • 10:39 AM EDT • Technology • techcrunch.com

Dunlap unveils healthcare priorities

Dunlap’s healthcare plan also includes measures to protect abortion access and require “safe nurse-to-patient staffing ratios.”

Jun 2 • 7:31 AM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com

PlayStation's First-Party Sales Collapse Paints a Picture of Concern

PlayStation saw a massive 50% drop in first-party sales between 2020 and 2024, prompting many to wonder how the firm recovers from here.

Jun 2 • 1:42 AM EDT • Technology • insider-gaming.com

At Computex, Dell’s $700 XPS 13 Sets Its Sights on the MacBook Neo

To compete with Apple's MacBook Neo and other 'cheapium' budget laptops, Dell transforms its high-end 13-inch XPS 13 into an entry-level system for $699.99. It's pricier, but Dell's laptop has some key edges over the Neo that justify the extra cost.

Jun 1 • 2:04 PM EDT • Technology • pcmag.com

Dell Says Its New $699 Laptop Has Features 'You Won't Find on a MacBook Neo'

Dell this week introduced a new version of the XPS 13, a laptop that it said is "contending with the MacBook Neo on price, and exceeding it on features". In the U.S., the XPS 13 starts at $699 for the general public and at $599 for eligible students, which is $100 more than the MacBook Neo on both fronts. However, Dell said the XPS 13 offers the following six features "you won't find on a MacBook Neo".

Jun 1 • 1:04 PM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com

FICO Names Eric Lapin VP, Head Of Strategy And Market Intelligence For Scores Business

FICO has appointed Eric Lapin as vice president and head of strategy and market intelligence for its Scores business, adding a longtime mortgage and fintech executive to a leadership role at the company behind the credit scores used throughout the mortgage industry.Lapin announced the move in a LinkedIn post, describing it as "a new and inspiring chapter" in his career.

Jun 1 • 10:25 AM EDT • Business • nationalmortgageprofessional.com

Nvidia launches ‘superchip’ putting AI power into laptops and PCs

Firm says its RTX Spark PC chip for Microsoft Windows will let AI agents replace the mouse and keyboard

Jun 1 • 7:01 AM EDT • Technology • theguardian.com

Nvidia Shows Off First Windows Laptops And Desktops Powered Entirely By Its Own Chip

The new line of Windows laptops and desktops will be the first ever to run solely on an Nvidia-made chip, the RTX Spark, as the AI giant looks to take on rivals Intel and AMD.

Jun 1 • 2:01 AM EDT • Technology • forbes.com

The Surface Laptop Ultra is the most powerful Surface yet, thanks to NVIDIA's RTX Spark

Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra is basically a MacBook Pro clone (that's powered by NVIDIA's RTX Spark).

Jun 1 • 12:43 AM EDT • Technology • engadget.com

This is the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra with Nvidia RTX Spark

Nvidia inside.

Jun 1 • 12:36 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra announced with NVIDIA RTX Spark chip

Microsoft's new Surface Laptop Ultra gets NVIDIA RTX Spark 15-inch Surface uses NVIDIA's Arm-based PC processor. Microsoft has revealed the Surface Laptop

May 31 • 8:00 PM EDT • Technology • videocardz.com

Dell Rivals Apple’s MacBook Neo With $699 Touch-Screen XPS 13 Laptop

Dell Technologies Inc. introduced a redesigned XPS 13 laptop, positioning the device as a direct answer to Apple Inc.’s popular MacBook Neo, which stunned the budget PC market upon its debut in March with its features and price.

May 31 • 7:00 PM EDT • Technology • bloomberg.com

Everyone Has Their Targets Set on the MacBook Neo

Dell, Microsoft, and others are unveiling new laptops to compete directly with the Neo, but not all are learning the right lessons from Apple.

May 31 • 7:00 PM EDT • Technology • wired.com

Dell unveils $699 XPS 13 laptop in challenge to Apple's MacBook Neo

Dell on Sunday unveiled its most affordable laptop, XPS 13, as ‌the PC maker aims to capture market share from Apple's MacBook Neo by attracting students and young professionals.

May 31 • 6:53 PM EDT • Technology • reuters.com

After Gaza, Israel is now causing the West Bank health system to collapse

Most Medications Are Missing From Public Pharmacies, and Many Patients Cannot Afford to Buy Them on the Private Market. Israel's Seizure of Customs Revenues Has Significantly Deepened the Palestinian Health Ministry's Debt, and It Warns: Soon We Will No Longer Be Able to Provide Essential Health Services

May 31 • 3:53 PM EDT • Health • haaretz.com

Versatile Dell XPS laptop boots up in a flash and is exceptionally affordable

How can a traditionally high-priced Dell XPS notebook compete with the MacBook Neo? An upcoming Dell launch demonstrates that this is indeed possible without sacrificing too many features for demanding users, such as up to 32 GB of RAM and a Panther Lake CPU option. However, almost all details have already been leaked ahead of time.

May 30 • 7:32 PM EDT • Technology • notebookcheck.net

Trevor Rogers Explains Late Inning Collapse After Encouraging Outing

Baltimore's left-hander reached the seventh for the first time since Opening Day.

May 30 • 6:45 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

CCC and AT&T Partner to Bridge Divide

Coahoma Community College collaborated with AT&T Mississippi and Digitunity on Wednesday, April 29, to distribute free laptops to students and residents during a launch event at Safe House on CCC’s campus, working to close the regional digital divide. The distribution program targets technology gaps across the college’s five-county service area, which includes Bolivar, Coahoma, Quitman, […]

May 30 • 12:59 PM EDT • Business • deltabusinessjournal.com

If Google nails the Googlebook, I'm gonna ditch my Windows laptop

I'm ready to leave Windows for Googlebook for these reasons

May 30 • 8:30 AM EDT • Technology • androidpolice.com

Scott Bessent says US seized roughly $1B in Iranian crypto as regime nears 'end of their tether'

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the U.S. has seized roughly $1 billion in Iranian cryptocurrency assets as Operation Economic Fury pushes Iran's economy toward collapse.

May 29 • 7:06 PM EDT • Business • foxbusiness.com

Nvidia, Microsoft, and Arm are all teasing Nvidia’s new N1X laptop processors

All eyes area now on Nvidia’s keynote at Computex on Sunday night.

May 29 • 7:03 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

Windows PC Industry Reacts to Apple's Most Affordable MacBook Ever

A few months ago, Apple released the MacBook Neo, its most affordable MacBook ever. At the time, an ASUS executive admitted that the laptop came as a "shock" to the Windows PC industry, which is now in the process of responding. Acer today introduced a Swift Air 14 laptop, with U.S. pricing starting at $699. By comparison, the MacBook Neo starts at $599 with a 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM, or at $499 for college students and educational staff.

May 29 • 11:30 AM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com

Acer’s answer to the MacBook Neo is a $699 laptop with Intel chips and 8GB of RAM

New Swifts, Aspires, Nitros, and Predators are debuting for Computex.

May 29 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics

Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.

May 29 • 1:00 AM EDT • Politics • politico.com

The Chrome browser is getting a big safety upgrade — if you use Windows

Chrome is making it safer to browse the web after logging in.

May 28 • 4:56 PM EDT • Technology • androidauthority.com

Intel makes a bid for handheld gaming PCs with new Arc G3 processors

Intel's Arc B390 integrated GPU has offered impressive performance in laptops.

May 28 • 1:10 PM EDT • Technology • arstechnica.com

MediaTek confirms Dimensity processors will power new Googlebooks, not Kompanio

With the official Googlebook announcement behind us, we finally have a clearer picture of these new AI-powered laptops. We now know which brands will be building the first Googlebooks for the fall...

May 28 • 12:26 PM EDT • Technology • chromeunboxed.com

Snapdragon C wants to be Windows’ answer to the MacBook Neo, targeting $300 laptops

Apple’s launch of the MacBook Neo has sent the world of Windows spiraling as, in the midst of global RAM/storage...

May 28 • 9:45 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5google.com

Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon C for entry-level Windows laptops

Qualcomm's Snapdragon C chip is designed for Windows laptops targeting a $300 price point.

May 28 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • engadget.com

Qualcomm promises $300 Windows laptops with new Snapdragon C

Will they be any good?

May 28 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

Qualcomm announces Snapdragon C for budget Windows 11 ARM laptops targetting $300 and up

Qualcomm Snapdragon C targets $300 entry-level laptops Snapdragon below Snapdragon X. Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon C Platform, a new Arm-based

May 28 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • videocardz.com

Fox News Poll: Faith in higher education in the US is collapsing

Fox News poll reveals dramatic shift in attitudes toward higher education, with 65% of voters now saying college is less important to success than before.

May 27 • 3:31 PM EDT • Politics • foxnews.com

‘Never seen anything like it.’ Scientists discover brand new species of octopus.

Scientists discovered what they're calling the Microeledone galapagensis, a new octopus species with odd coloring and an even odder location.

May 27 • 2:25 PM EDT • Science • yahoo.com

Jakub Mensik health updates: Tennis player collapses after lengthy match in scary scene at French Open

Here's the latest on Mensik's health after his Wednesday win.

May 27 • 1:49 PM EDT • Health • sports.yahoo.com

Licensable picture: Nick Lapolla, with Moonshine Entertainment, serves up some delicious food at the Memorial Day kickoff event, at the Fremont

Nick Lapolla, with Moonshine Entertainment, serves up some delicious food at the Memorial Day kickoff event, at the Fremont Community Amphitheater on May 25.

May 27 • 9:27 AM EDT • Entertainment • reutersconnect.com

Inside the Collapse of Providence Health Plan

It is impossible to know if CEO Don Antonucci could have done anything to avert the Portland company’s looming demise. But a dozen-plus current and ex-employees feel there is more to the story than Providence management let on.

May 27 • 9:00 AM EDT • Health • wweek.com

Adorable Tiny Octopus Found Near the Galápagos Is Finally Named After 11 Years

Scientists used CT scans to identify a rare deep-sea species without cutting it open.

May 27 • 5:10 AM EDT • Science • zmescience.com

Devin Vassell summed up the defensive collapse this …

Devin Vassell summed up the defensive collapse this …

May 27 • 4:49 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

‘Continuing the fight’: Lauren Book launches campaign for SD 30, expediting hopeful return

She has already notched endorsements from the Senate Democratic Leader and two sitting Senators, including SD 30’s current representative.

May 27 • 4:15 AM EDT • Politics • floridapolitics.com

We're starting to see some PC makers respond to Apple's MacBook Neo

Sub-$600 laptops have existed for years, but consistently good ones remain rare.

May 26 • 4:47 PM EDT • Technology • arstechnica.com

Scientists discover new little blue octopus in Galapagos

Scientists knew they had encountered something special when they first saw the tiny blue octopus in the depths of the Galapagos Islands.

May 26 • 11:48 AM EDT • Science • dw.com

Apple’s new MacBook Air M5 just dropped below Memorial Day pricing at $199 off

Apple just launched its newest MacBook Air back in March, and now the best MacBook and overall laptop we’ve tried is $199 off for the first time at Amazon.

May 26 • 11:00 AM EDT • Technology • cnn.com

Got a ticketmaster lawsuit email? Class action suit includes those who bought tickets since 2010

If you bought concert tickets since 2010, you could be owed money from a growing Ticketmaster lawsuit. Here’s how to check and apply.

May 26 • 6:04 AM EDT • Entertainment • commercialappeal.com

Adam Schefter Delivers Huge News for Lions TE Sam LaPorta

Adam Schefter shared an encouraging update on Lions TE Sam LaPorta as Detroit reportedly eyes a contract extension.

May 25 • 7:04 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Israeli opposition leader Lapid says Trump’s emerging deal with Iran is 'bad for the region'

The deal being discussed between the U.S. and Iran fails to achieve any of Israel’s goals for the war, Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid said on Monday, as he accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to influence a better agreement.

May 25 • 4:26 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

Here Are The 11 Best Laptop and Desktop to Grab Deals Before Memorial Day Is Over

The three-day weekend comes to an end tonight, so snag one of these top-rated PCs from Apple, Dell, Lenovo, and our other favorite brands at discounts of up to $600 while you can.

May 25 • 2:41 PM EDT • Technology • pcmag.com

Scientists find a place where time moves backward

Physicists in South Africa ran the math on collapsing neutron stars and landed somewhere odd. Researchers from Durban University of Technology and the University of KwaZulu-Natal found that inside the...

May 25 • 10:10 AM EDT • Science • yahoo.com

Unpacked: How a tribal health clinic has helped patients find success managing diabetes

A tribal health clinic in Lapwai, Idaho, has helped patients find success managing diabetes and prediabetes. NWPB’s Rachel Sun joined host Connor Henricksen to discuss.

May 25 • 6:00 AM EDT • Health • nwpb.org

Op-Ed: NJ is capable of fixing public workforce health benefits crisis

Employees and taxpayers are paying ever more, and our schools and hospitals will collapse if we fail to enact reform

May 25 • 12:08 AM EDT • Health • njspotlightnews.org

Experimental Alzheimer’s drug could reduce alcohol withdrawal damage, researchers say

Researchers say an experimental Alzheimer's drug may calm brain inflammation linked to alcohol withdrawal, potentially reducing relapse and neural damage.

May 24 • 10:21 PM EDT • Health • foxnews.com

Golf ball-sized octopus discovered near the Galápagos Islands

‘Microeledone galapagensis’ lives at a depth of about 5,800 feet.

May 24 • 9:01 PM EDT • Science • popsci.com

Adorable tiny blue octopus found nearly 6,000 feet beneath the Galápagos

A mysterious little blue octopus discovered nearly 6,000 feet beneath the waters of the Galápagos Islands has officially been identified as a brand-new species. About the size of a golf ball, the tiny creature stunned researchers during a deep-sea expedition when it suddenly appeared on camera, crawling across the ocean floor near an underwater mountain.

May 24 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

HP releases new 14-inch laptop globally with 120 Hz VRR display and 64 GB RAM

HP has released a new 14-inch laptop globally. Described as a mobile workstation, the ZBook 8 G2a 14-inch features modern AMD Ryzen processors, up to 64 GB of RAM and multiple display options with 120 Hz VRR refresh rates or 800 nits peak brightness.

May 24 • 5:43 PM EDT • Technology • notebookcheck.net

Apple’s latest MacBook Air is $200 off in both sizes for Memorial Day

It’s an investment that will last for years to come.

May 24 • 11:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

FreeBSD Foundation Executive Director Tries Daily Driving FreeBSD On Laptop

With FreeBSD having worked on improving its laptop support over the past two years with some big changes and ongoing efforts for making a nice KDE desktop experience on FreeBSD, FreeBSD Foundation's Executive Director has been trying to daily drive FreeBSD on laptops.

May 24 • 10:02 AM EDT • Technology • phoronix.com

HP investigating BIOS updates that leave premium laptop users in boot loop limbo

Slowdowns, crashes, BSODs reported on pricey mobile workstations

May 24 • 6:28 AM EDT • Technology • theregister.com

Lenovo confirms to be working on NVIDIA N1x laptops

Lenovo internal portal confirms NVIDIA N1x name ahead of expected Legion 7 reveal Lenovo has a public sign-in result that references “NVIDIA N1x Portal”

May 23 • 8:00 PM EDT • Technology • videocardz.com

La Porte County deputy shot at Michigan City hospital undergoes 8-hour surgery, officials say

Officials provided a health update Saturday on an Indiana sheriff's deputy who was critically hurt in a hospital shooting Friday in Michigan City.

May 23 • 5:25 PM EDT • Health • abc7chicago.com

WATCH: Trump speaks at N.Y.'s Rockland Community College, campaigning for Rep. Lawler

President Donald Trump, from a toss-up congressional district in New York on Friday, began testing his midterm-year message that was ostensibly on the economy. But he veered off-topic right from the start, going off on tangents about voter identification, crime in cities, transgender women in sports and “Dumocrats,” his new chosen moniker for the opposition party.

May 22 • 4:50 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

South Sudan: Children face malnutrition as health services collapse

South Sudan’s hunger crisis is worsening as conflict, displacement, rising food prices, and collapsing health services leave children at growing risk of severe malnutrition and disease.

May 22 • 10:23 AM EDT • Health • care.org

If I could only have one laptop for work and gaming, I’d get this one

The new Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is almost perfect for me, except it’s $3,600.

May 22 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics

Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.

May 22 • 1:00 AM EDT • Politics • politico.com

Knicks vs. Cavaliers score, live updates, how to watch Game 2: James Harden, Donovan Mitchell seek redemption after 4th quarter collapse, OT loss in Game 1

May 21 • 6:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Braxton Ashcraft bedevils Cardinals, who lose to Pirates 6-2

Another sixth inning collapse mars a good start by a Cardinal pitcher

May 21 • 3:58 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

APTOPIX Israel Politics

Former Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett, left, and Yair Lapid attend their party session at the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, Wednesday, May 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

May 21 • 2:21 PM EDT • Politics • journal-news.com

Quantum supremacy just ran into an unexpected rival: An ordinary laptop armed with new math

Using a conventional computer and cutting-edge mathematical tools and code, physicists at the Center for Computational Quantum Physics (CCQ) at the Simons Foundation's Flatiron Institute and collaborators ...

May 21 • 2:00 PM EDT • Technology • phys.org

Better Business Bureau: Businesses must protect sensitive information

BBB of the Mid-South CEO and president Randy Hutchinson gives weekly tips about how consumers can protect assets and avoid scams.

May 21 • 6:06 AM EDT • Business • commercialappeal.com

Portland-Based Providence Health Plan To Stop Offering Most Insurance Plans At End of Year

The Providence Health Plan said Wednesday that it would stop offering most of its insurance products by the year’s end, heralding the near-complete dissolution of a longtime stalwart of Oregon’s private health insurance marketplace.

May 20 • 6:19 PM EDT • Health • wweek.com

Philly progressives taking a victory lap after Rabb win; supporters credit old-school grassroots organizing

The groundwork for Rabb’s success may have been laid over the last several years as progressives fought for control over local Democratic committees.

May 20 • 6:02 PM EDT • Politics • whyy.org

Barilla's Livingston County manufacturing facility to expand

A new, 52,000 square-foot main building and additional warehouse facility will also be constructed.

May 20 • 1:26 PM EDT • Business • spectrumlocalnews.com

Did Red Sox Trigger Division Rival's Stunning Collapse?

The Orioles have been in free fall since facing the Red Sox in late April.

May 20 • 12:16 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

What to watch in Georgia's blockbuster primary

Georgia is preparing for a blockbuster primary on Tuesday

May 19 • 2:30 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

Google flips Antigravity into an agentic dev suite, AI Studio app lands on Android

Google's Antigravity 2.0 is here to build and manage agents to let them loose on your latest projects, as AI Studio Android app arrives.

May 19 • 1:56 PM EDT • Technology • 9to5google.com

Microsoft reveals new business Surface devices with Intel and Qualcomm processors

Microsoft unveils Surface Pro/Laptop for Business with Intel Core Ultra Series 3 and upcoming Snapdragon X2 for faster on-device AI—see prices and...

May 19 • 10:07 AM EDT • Technology • seekingalpha.com

Microsoft's New Surface Laptop For Business Has A Privacy Screen And Quirky Haptics

The new laptops are geared towards corporate buyers, with a price to match.

May 19 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • engadget.com

Microsoft launches Surface Pro 12 and Surface Laptop 8 with Intel chips

Three new Intel-powered Surface devices arrive for businesses, but they all have high price tags.

May 19 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

Jacobs Entertainment teases new additions to Reno's Neon Line District

a once dilapitated portion of downtown reno... Breathing new life after a $400 million investment. And more development could be on the way in the future: (lklv

May 19 • 2:05 AM EDT • Entertainment • mynews4.com

Lenovo intros Wildcat Lake laptops as new MacBook Neo alternatives

The new Lenovo Lecoo Air 13, Air 14, and Air 15 have been introduced in China. These are powered by the Intel Wildcat Lake processors, and the laptop line is expected to rival the MacBook Neo in terms of price.

May 19 • 12:42 AM EDT • Technology • notebookcheck.net

Kudos to Cheer Club, College of Business faculty, Cybersecurity team and more

Becky Cottrell, Ph.D., Department of Social Work, and Bridget Arend, Ph.D., School of Education Becky Cottrell from the Department of Social Work and Bridget Arend, Ph.D., from the School of Education co-authored an article recently published in an international journal. Read the article. Biff Baker, Ph.D., College of Business Biff Baker, Ph.D., received a Best in Track award from the Society for Advancement of Management for research examining bureaucratic inefficiencies within Section 8 subsidized housing programs. The study focuses on how administrative delays and communication breakdowns can create housing instability for families and discourage landlord participation. It also offers recommendations to improve accountability and trust in public housing systems. Brendan Fry, Ph.D., Department of Mathematics and Statistics Brendan Fry, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, co-authored the article “Modeling the Impact of Venous Collapsibility on Retinal Oxygenation,” published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. The interdisciplinary research brought together scholars from the University of Delaware, Indiana University Indianapolis, McGill University and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital. Access the article. Bridget Arend, Ph.D., School of Education Bridget Arend, Ph.D., professor in the School of Education, co-published the book “Facilitating Seven Ways of Learning: A Resource for More Purposeful, Effective, and Enjoyable College Teaching, Second Edition” with James R. Davis. The book explores practical approaches to improving college teaching and student learning experiences. Buy the book. College of Business Faculty At the 2026 Western Decision Sciences Institute international conference, Sally Baalbaki-Yassine, Ph.D., Debora Gilliard, Ph.D., and David Lynn Hoffman, Ph.D., from the College of Business received the Best Case Study Paper Award for “Oreo: A Global Success Story in Brand Evolution and Market Leadership.” Lisa McVicker, Ph.D., and Apryl Brodersen, Ph.D., also had their paper, “Electronic Performance Monitoring: Employer Panacea or Legal Quagmire?” accepted for publication in the Journal of Business Leadership. Community Engagement Exchange Program Metropolitan State University of Denver was selected to host international Fellow Aleja Henao Espitia of Bogotá, Colombia through the Community Engagement Exchange program funded by the U.S. Department of State. View Espitia's LinkedIn profile. David Varel, Ph.D., College of Letters, Arts and Sciences MSU Denver historian David Varel, Ph.D., has been awarded a 2026 ACLS Fellowship by the American Council of Learned Societies. The fellowship program supports outstanding scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, and selected just 63 scholars from more than 2,000 applicants this year. Varel’s project, “The Black Chicago School: Academic Activism in the Age of American Apartheid,” explores the work of Black scholars who challenged scientific racism, built alternative institutions and helped lay the foundation for the modern civil rights movement. The fellowship provides up to $60,000 to support full-time research and writing. Learn more about the fellowship. MSU Denver Office of Financial Aid Team Several MSU Denver employees were recognized for leadership and service during the Colorado Association of Financial Aid Administrators (CAFAA) conference held in May in Crested Butte. Don Holtzen, interim associate director of systems, chaired the conference and was recognized for his service as CAFAA conference chair and technology chair during the 2025-26 term. Holtzen also received the Postsecondary Institution Professional of the Year award, which recognizes financial-aid professionals who have made significant contributions to their institutions and to CAFAA. Tori Pacheco, associate director of Student Services, helped design décor and facilitate the conference and was recognized for her service as CAFAA secretary during the 2025-26 term. Destiny Candelaria, call center coordinator, served on the conference planning committee and presented on One Stops during the event. Michael Nguyen, executive director of Financial Aid and Scholarships, assisted as a CAFAA board member and was recognized for serving as president-elect during the 2025-26 term. Richard Balbag, program assistant I, received the Distinguished Support Staff Member of the Year award, honoring staff members who have made exceptional contributions to their financial-aid offices. Military Friendly Recognition Military Friendly has awarded MSU Denver Gold Status as a military-friendly university and ranked the University No. 7 nationally for military spouses. The recognition reflects MSU Denver’s strong support systems for veterans and military spouses, including transfer credit assistance and retention-focused resources. As of 2026, 1,050 military-connected students are enrolled at the University, advancing institutional priorities around serving veterans and supporting student retention. MSU Denver Cheer Club The MSU Denver Cheer Club earned third place in the 4-Year College Small Coed Intermediate division at the USA Spirit Nationals. Celebrate the win on Instagram. MSU Denver Cybersecurity Team An MSU Denver cybersecurity team earned first place in the Strategist category at the 2026 CYBER RECon National Competition hosted at Fort Meade, Maryland, by U.S. Cyber Command. Led by Jeffrey London, Ph.D., and undergraduate student Matthew Bopp, the team competed against universities and law schools nationwide with its 30-page legal analysis on cybersecurity and free speech titled “Freedom of Speech and MDM: Misinformation, Disinformation, and Malinformation.” The paper also earned Bopp a personal invitation to apply to the University of Maryland School of Law. MSU Denver Debate Team MSU Denver Debate won the 2026 Sierra Sustainability Summit hosted at Yosemite National Park in April. Students Kat Conte and Simon Bernhard bested teams from George Washington University, Gallaudet University, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, the University of San Francisco and Tennessee Tech in the modified present-and-defend style competition. Their proposal recommended adapting Colorado’s Keep Colorado Wild Pass model to support California state parks facing budget constraints. Learn about the summit. MSU Denver Women’s Golf MSU Denver Women’s Golf was represented on the national stage this month as junior Neige Dunn competed as an individual at the NCAA West Regional. She became the first Roadrunner in 10 years to qualify for NCAA Regionals as an individual. Get the details.

May 18 • 5:59 PM EDT • Business • early-bird.msudenver.edu

Risky Business: More Guidance Needed for Companies in Conflict Zones

In a comment submitted to the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, CBHR and Steptoe LLP urged the need for clearer guidance on corporate responsibility in conflict zones, where overlapping bodies of international law leave businesses unsure of their obligations.

May 18 • 5:01 PM EDT • Business • bhr.stern.nyu.edu

Supreme Court sends closely watched Native American voting rights decision back to lower court

The Supreme Court has acted in a Voting Rights Act case brought by Native American tribes, saying a closely watched ruling needs to be reconsidered after the high court weakened the Civil Rights-era law.

May 18 • 4:33 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

Whoa! Netflix is Sending Narnia Heading to Theaters...What This Means for the Future of Film

(Welcome to the “Most Important Story of the Week”, my bi-weekly strategy column analyzing the most important (but often not buzziest) news story of the last two weeks. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. Please subscribe.) Here’s a funny thing about the debate over whether streamers should release their movies in theaters first: Both sides think the other side represents the “conventional wisdom”. If you’ve been reading me for any amount of time, or even just scanned my front page, you know I think movies make more money by having a robust theatrical window compared to going straight-to-streaming. I’ve published thousands of words on this topic. And for years, I felt like I was standing up to a wave of opposition. See, while the “put your films in theaters to make money” take was obvious at any point before 2019, post-streaming revolution, most of the trendy thinkers took the opposite point of view. Big names argued that Netflix putting their film straight-to-streaming (“S-to-S” from here on out) actually made more money. Netflix was “disrupting” theaters, just as they disrupted Blockbuster Video, and since innovation is always good, this too was a great idea. This thinking then leaked into the mainstream business outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. I read many articles whose take boiled down to “Netflix makes tons of money from S-to-S releases” and “theaters were in structural decline” anyways. Covid-19 shutting down theaters and the 2023 strikes shutting down film production seemingly justified this point of view, as the box office struggled to return to 2017-2019 heights. Yet I’ve also read folks arguing the opposite point: the conventional wisdom says to put films in theaters! From some writers’ points of view, “everyone” actually agrees/agreed with my “send your films to theaters” take—especially the stodgy traditional studios—and folks still didn’t understand Netflix’s genius. I feel like, for the last two years, many people have argued this point as if it’s conventional wisdom. You know what? I may have been wrong. At this point, the “S-to-S strategy makes money” might be the minority viewpoint. Especially with the news this month that Netflix will put at least one film—Greta Gerwig’s Narnia film The Magician’s Nephew—in theaters in 2027 for a full 49-day run is big news. So that’s the story of the week, but I’ll also explain why they’re making this move now and why Netflix may not completely embrace theaters, along with other topics, like how I don’t buy Disney’s “super app” strategy, the latest good news out of the unions, my take on the latest attacks against free speech, and a whole lot more. Let’s get started. Subscribe Most Important Story of the Week - Netflix Goes to Theaters! Listen, I promise not to victory lap too hard today. As I just wrote, I’ve argued against sending films straight-to-streaming for—checks calendar—eight years now. Since 2018. Yikes. That’s a long time. And for years, others painted my thinking as “conventional” in that I was standing up for the status quo against trendy, cool disruption. And that’s not cool! But math is math, and I never could make the S-to-S numbers work. The only thing that ever enabled that model was Wall Street’s brief exuberance for it. It seems like the heads of Netflix now agree with me. (There were always rumors that former head of film for Netflix Scott Stuber argued internally for theatrical releases as well.) As they announced: “The Magician’s Nephew_—the first film in a Narnia series of films—will open on 12-Feb-2027, with a 49 day theatrical exclusive run.”_ I’m a little surprised at how little coverage this big change actually got. Credit to Bloomberg for leading with it and Matt Belloni’s The Town for highlighting it with the provocatively titled podcast “Hell Hath Frozen Over”. But after that? Instead of getting as much coverage as, say, the FCC’s latest egregious crackdown on free speech, this news story got crickets. But it’s massively more important for the future business of entertainment. So let’s start with the obvious question… Why Put Your Movies in Theaters? So…why should Netflix put (some!) of their movies in theaters? Well, I’ve already written that in a very, very, very long article from 2022: [ ](https://entertainment.substack.com/p/the-data-is-in-theatrical-films-massively) [ The Data Is In: Theatrical Films Massively Outperform Straight-To-Streaming Films ](https://entertainment.substack.com/p/the-data-is-in-theatrical-films-massively) Entertainment Strategy Guy · April 5, 2023 [ Read full story ](https://entertainment.substack.com/p/the-data-is-in-theatrical-films-massively) To summarize, theatrical runs make much more money, especially blockbusters, because they earn more money per viewing,1 and that helps boost home entertainment sales. Theatrical films also perform as well or better than the streaming-only films. Now, partially this is driven by increased marketing for said films, but said marketing ultimately boosts the awareness of the movies and drives improved streaming and library performance as well. Again, I’ve made this case after reviewing the economic models and streaming data for years. Just last week, Emily Horgan also made the case for kids films! Yes, it is probably conventional wisdom, but that’s also because it’s true! I’d also argue we’ve seen a lot of data in the various studios’ behavior. As I’ve noted before, the more a studio needs to make money, the likelier they are to put films in theaters. As such, Disney, Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount and Sony all send their major films to theaters. Even if they once made a big S-to-S push (*cough* Disney *cough*), they’ve since relented and returned to theaters. The tech companies don’t need to make money, per se, so it took them years to embrace theaters. Apple doesn’t need to make money because it doesn’t disclose their (likely) Quibi-sized losses each year. (They fear bad press more than losing money.) Amazon announced two years ago that they planned to make Amazon-MGM Studios/Prime Video profitable on its own, and guess what? Now they’re putting films in theaters. That leaves Netflix. They’re in between the “no need to make money at all” and the “desperately need to make money to offset linear TV declines”, so they had less pressure to put some films in theaters. Plus, for years, they were the sexy disruptor, and Wall Street rewarded them for that. (Honestly, they still do.) Yet, even Netflix likely saw the money they were leaving on the table (I’ve estimated it at an easy billion dollars before) so they changed their course. I heard one pundit argue that, because Netflix already makes so much money, they don’t need to make more money, which sort of goes against everything I’ve ever learned about business and economics. Again, to be super-nuanced, sending “films to theaters” does not mean EVERY film. TV movies have been a thing for decades. Lifetime films, Hallmark holiday films, Disney Channel Original Movies, and so on, don’t need theatrical runs. But films above a certain budget level (say $25 to 50 million) almost certainly need theaters to maximize their revenue. The Scenarios (with a Dose of Skepticism) Now time for some skepticism: it won’t surprise me at all if Netflix re-changes course. Specifically, Netflix announced that their Narnia film will go to theaters. And I’d bet anything we see KPop Demon Hunters 2: The Huntering2 also goes to theaters, cause it’s the surest hit outside of a Disney animated sequel right now. But how much does Netflix truly commit to theaters? They’ve already tried to emphasize that this is a one-off move. I see three broad scenarios:

May 18 • 3:27 PM EDT • Entertainment • entertainment.substack.com

Memphis retailer Outdoors Inc. to close after 52 years in business

The store sold everything from paddling gear to skis, bikes and more. A going out of business sale is now active.

May 18 • 2:21 PM EDT • Business • commercialappeal.com