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Tasha Robinson: This film started out as autobiography. When did it become a story about black racial identity? Chad Hartigan: It was before writing anything. The way I work is, I compile ideas in my head until I have about six solid scenes, and then I feel like I can sit down to a blank page and start writing. In the process of coming up with scenes, it just popped into my head, "

Kyoto Animation’s work isn’t quite like anyone else’s. The style of its animation and storytelling separate the studio from the majority of other Japanese companies. It’s known for high production values compared to its contemporaries; Kyoto’s smooth, intricate animation is used for both subtle and spectacular sequences while having very stylized, but realistically detailed backgrounds. Kyoto Animation (often abbreviated KyoAni) gets more distinctive results than most studios in part because unlike in much of the Japanese animation industry, its animators are salaried employees.

Will Jackson, CEO of robotics company Engineered Arts, says he isn’t sure what’s worse: the angry emails that accuse him of building machines that will one day overthrow humanity or the speculative ones enquiring if the sender can fuck the robots. “Everybody wants to see a humanoid robot,” Jackson says. “They love to imagine all these things that are going to happen. Part of what we do is fulfilling that desire.

The families of the victims killed in the Uvalde, Texas school shooting are suing Meta and Call of Duty developer Activision over allegations that they promoted the use of firearms to underage boys. The lawsuit claims both companies “knowingly exposed the Shooter to the weapon, conditioned him to see it as the solution to his problems, and trained him to use it.” It’s the kind of claim we’ve seen unsuccessfully thrown at video game companies numerous times in the past.

Panic made its name through high-end Mac software, but more recently, the company moved into gaming, publishing indie hit Firewatch and the upcoming Untitled Goose Game. Now, the developer is expanding its work in games and moving in a very unexpected direction. Today, Panic unveiled Playdate, a tiny, yellow Game Boy-like device with a black-and-white screen, a few chunky buttons, and... a hand crank for controlling quirky games developed by indie stars like Keita Takahashi and Zach Gage.

At its “Far Out” event on Wednesday, Apple introduced a new pair of AirPods Pro alongside the upcoming iPhone 14 lineup and long-rumored Apple Watch Ultra. The second-gen AirPods Pro are set to arrive on September 23rd, bringing with them a new H2 chip that Apple claims should cancel “up to twice as much noise” as its predecessor, as well as swipe-based controls and a number of other features. This means that, as of this week, the official AirPods lineup consists of the following models: the second-gen AirPods, the third-gen AirPods, the second-gen AirPods Pro, and the AirPods Max.

Let’s face it: Apple’s slates seem to get all the attention when talking tablets (and understandably so). However, you don’t necessarily need to spend $1,000 on an iPad Pro or even $350 on an entry-level model if all you need is a cheap entertainment device for watching The Boys, reading, or burning through your latest audiobook. Amazon’s latest Fire HD 10 tablet will get the job done for a lot less — especially since it’s currently on sale for Amazon Prime subscribers for an all-time low of $74.

When Andy Weir first began publishing The Martian on his website, he had little inkling that it would become one of the year’s best-known, most celebrated science fiction novels, or a best-seller later adapted into a popular, Oscar-nominated thriller starring Matt Damon. Later this year, Weir will publish his long-awaited second novel, Artemis, a crime thriller set on the Moon. Weir is a guest at San Diego Comic-Con this week, and I spoke with him about tackling the sky-high expectations of following up a blockbuster novel, realism in science fiction, and what makes him optimistic for the future.

It was May 11th, the seventh day of the Epic v. Apple trial, that Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers hit upon a compromise neither company had asked for. She asked Epic’s economist, David Evans, if it would be sufficient to kill Apple’s anti-steering rules — the ones Apple uses to keep developers from even telling you that there’s a perfectly good external website where you can purchase your subscription instead of inside the app itself.