One of the biggest news stories this week is a cover-up, a deception manufactured by hyper-partisan ideologues trying to distract from a burning, uncomfortable truth. That truth—the one those biased muckrakers won’t tell you about—has implications for national security. It shows the corruption and self-interest eating away at the United State’s most hallowed institutions. And […]
After an endless wait that felt like being trapped in a time loop, Doctor Who finally returned last night. But while the Season 10 premiere featured plenty of the usual time-traveling madness, it paid fealty to another major sci-fi influence—one that Who fans might already be familiar with, but establishes a surprising direction for the […]
Every Netflix series aims to be a topic of conversation, to generate buzz. Its drama 13 Reasons Why, though, is getting people talking for reasons no other show on the streaming service has before. Since its release in March, schools across the country have sent notes home warning parents about the show's graphic depictions of […]
Bad news, everyone: It's not December yet, so the 8-bit trailer above is the closest you're going to get to seeing Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Still, at least it's been approved by director Rian Johnson himself. Meanwhile, the world is so hungry for information about the new movie that folks are getting excited about […]
My favorite moment in Prey occurred while floating in space. I drifted, the space station Telos I turning over behind me, through nothingness, using my booster pack to navigate toward an objective in orbit around the station. A character asked who I was. They probed, for a moment, about my character's identity, wondering how it […]
[UPDATE: 4/16/17 8:29 P.M. PST — Facebook has responded to various news reports, claiming that while Steve Stephens did post a Facebook Live at some point during the day, the shooting in question was not broadcast via Facebook Live. Rather, it was recorded and then uploaded. We've clarified the story throughout to reflect the new […]
One of the rewards of inventing something new is that you get to name it. The name doesn’t always stick; with familiarity, “horseless carriages” tend to become “automobiles” and finally mere “cars.” But the original coinage is a snapshot of how we saw the world in that moment, flush with delight in new possibilities. Imagine: […]
Even though the year is grinding to a close—this is the last While You Were Offline column of 2017!—nothing is slowing down on the internet, where former Pentagon officials are talking about possible alien life, Bitcoin is apparently collapsing, and some really impressively bad reviews are circulating for Netflix’s big holiday release. Talk about going […]
Every comic book convention is full of highly engaged fans. People who aren't utterly consumed by pop culture don’t take time off work and sometimes travel hundreds of miles to go to panels dedicated to their favorite topics. But the truly dedicated of the bunch are always the cosplayers—the fans who not only made a […]
The grosser parts of the internet have a new trick: Using machine learning and AI to swap celebrities’ faces onto porn performers’. The result? Fake celebrity porn seamless enough to be mistaken for the real thing. Early victims include Daisy Ridley, Gal Gadot, Scarlett Johansson, and Taylor Swift. Originally reported by Motherboard, this nasty trend […]