Future Stories

When a book franchise has a fanbase as fervent as Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse , some fans will always complain about any deviation from the source material, even if it’s necessary to bring the books to live-action. However, Netflix is confident its Shadow and Bone TV series is so good no fan could possibly find fault… Read more...

Marvel’s upcoming Disney+ show Secret Invasion is quickly turning into an Avengers -level collection of talent. Of course we already knew Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn would reprise their MCU roles. Then Kingsley Ben-Adir joined the mix. Then Olivia Colman . Then Emilia Clarke . And now a new cast member is… Read more...

Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's round up of all things good and plastic-y. This week, Falcon and the Winter Soldier ’s finale has got us in an Americana mood, and what could be more patriotic than a man dressed like a light-up flag, a journalist who hangs out with mutant reptiles, and... plush, cheap alcohol? Check it… Read more...

The season one finale of Invincible dropped today like a two-bit crook punched by Omni-Man. The show’s biggest mystery was solved, a father and son had a major heart-to-heart, the show’s most devastating battle occurred, and much, much more. Let’s talk. Read more...

Though film and television studios have historically been slow at making concerted efforts at diversifying their industries , when it comes to Black people, you can see the demonstrable progress that’s been made in Hollywood. Without a doubt, there are more Black people working on various projects, and more nuanced… Read more...

The father of the modern zombie film might have his final statement on the genre finished from beyond the grave . Those circumstances are incredibly sad, but also gruesomely poetic. Read more...

The Fast & Furious movies are big deals. They make hundreds of millions of dollars. They have scenes and stunts that require hundreds of cast and crew members. They require an army of VFX artists. Everything has to be perfect to pull off a movie as huge as these, down to the smallest details—even the vroom-vrooms. Read more...

The second half of Lucifer ’s fifth season is soon to arrive, and now we’ve got a trailer that shares rather a lot about what we can expect , including an outright explanation as to why a sweater-clad God (Dennis Haysbert) has visited Lucifer (Tom Ellis) and the rest of his squabbling family on Earth: he wants to retire! Read more...

Growing up in the 1990s, everyone knew The Craft . It was one of those cool, R-rated movies you maybe quoted with your friends or watched again and again at a sleepover. The characters were unique and fresh. The material was edgy and provocative. At the time, the film hit such a cultural nerve that people at my high… Read more...

Everyone’s favorite ring-slinging jerkwad is joining the DC multiverse. Read more...

Last month, Netflix dropped a trailer for its CG animated film , The Mitchells vs. the Machines , produced by Phil Lord and Chris Miller of The Lego Movie and Into the Spider-Verse fame. I said , “It isn’t nearly as bewilderingly awesome as either of Lord and Miller’s previous two animated outings from what we can see,… Read more...

The Rock’s Black Adam , somehow, is continuing to hire half of Hollywood for its cast. The first look at the Children of the Corn remake is here. Samuel L. Jackson is in peril in another new Spiral: From the Book of Saw clip. Plus, Army of the Dead posters, and Krysten Ritter steps behind the camera for a new… Read more...

Waymo has two co-CEOs. The Waymo plan is to expand its ridehailing business from Phoenix to other places. Waymo One. They will expand Waymo driving to truck delivering services. Waymo Via. Waymo One and Waymo via will have no driver behind the wheel. Waymo Via has trucks going between Tucson and Texas. Class 8 trucks. ... Read more

China has launched a 20 ton core space station module. They will launch two more lab modules in 2022. The Tianhe space station will be similar to the Soviet Salyut space station modules. The station will likely end up about half the size of the old Mir space station. The Mir had seven modules and ... Read more

There are claims that Intel’s full 10-nanometer process chip is equal to the TSMC 7N chip. TSMC seems to be 40% better in transistor density with its 5N plus chip and will make more improvements with a 4N chip. Even if TSMC process descriptions are just marketing, TSMC has superior transistor density, lower costs and ... Read more

Here is a presentation by Taiwan Semiconductor Chairman Liu. TSMC and Samsung are the current masters of EUV lithography. TSMC has the lead. Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography has enabled TSMC to achieve higher patterning fidelity, shorter cycle times and reduced process complexity and defect rates. TSMC uses EUV in ten mask layers for the 5nm ... Read more

China has said that its population did not drop in 2020. China had about 10-12 million births in 2020 and likely had just short of 10 million deaths. China has reported 9.4 to 9.8 million annual deaths for the last few years. China’s annual census showed 1.4 billion people in China at the end of ... Read more

The US Navy will place its first at-sea hypersonic missiles aboard one of the service’s three Zumwalt-class destroyers in four years (by 2025). These will likely be hypersonic warheads on regular vertically launched missiles. Hypersonic warheads can go faster and can move around more than regular warheads. Hypersonic weapons go at 5 times the speed ... Read more

TSMC evolutionary N4 process will enter risk production later in 2021 and will be used for mass production in 2022. 80% of TSMC’s $30 billion capital budget this year will be spent on expanding capacities for advanced technologies, such as 3nm, 4nm/5nm, and 6nm/7nm. N5 capacity will increase to 110,000 to 120,000 wafers per month. ... Read more

Taiwan Semiconductor will be mass-producing Apple’s new M2 chip in July for use in MacBooks for the second half of 2021. The M2 will eventually be used in other Mac and Apple devices beyond the MacBook. The new chipset is produced by key Apple supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest contract chipmaker, using ... Read more

SpaceX presented a version of a fully reusable two-stage Super Heavy rocket in 2016. It was the Interplanetary Transport System. China has now presented a video of a fully reusable two-stage super-heavy rocket. China’s video is more cartoonlike. China will have to upgrade its rendering for a more photorealistic video. You can compare the videos. ... Read more

That’s not even the most ridiculous thing I can tell you about Marvel’s latest Star Wars comic, Darth Vader #11. Read more...

Netflix’s anime selection is huge and growing by the day. One new original project in particular— Yasuke , created by LeSean Thomas and starring LaKeith Stanfield —tells a true story but uses some truly fantastical elements to do it. io9 recently spoke to head writer Nick Jones Jr. about his journey to becoming a writer,… Read more...

It shouldn’t be a surprise. Robert Kirkman ’s animated adaptation of his own 2003 comic has been even more popular and well-reviewed than its source material, thanks to its airing on Amazon Prime. Clearly, Amazon isn’t unaware of this fact, since it’s just renewed Invincible for not one but two more seasons. Read more...

Eli Roth’s Borderlands seems determined to claim the title for most star-studded video game adaptation ever , and today’s announcement that the cast is finally complete—with the addition of Gina Gershon, American Horror Story ’s Cheyenne Jackson, and a few others—seems likely to seal the deal. Read more...

Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard’s journey are coming to a final end —and in true Castlevania style, it’s going to be a bloody good time . Read more...

Like many fantasy stories involving sea-dwelling people who work up the courage to explore the land beyond the ocean, the young heroes of Pixar’s Luca have the ability to pass as humans thanks to a magical transformation. It’s easy for Luca and his platonic buddy Alberto to pass once they step out of the water and dry… Read more...

It’s been seven years since iconic director David Cronenberg made a film, and it’s been 22 years since he made a science-fiction with 1999's eXistenZ . Now Cronenberg is heading back to the genre with Crimes of the Future , and he’s bringing Aragorn, Madeleine Swann, and Bella Swann along with him. Read more...

Late last year , Alan Dean Foster—the novelist who wrote the first  Star Wars novels , the ghost-written novelization of A New Hope and its direct sequel, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye— went public with his struggles to negotiate a royalty contract for his work since Disney took ownership of Lucasfilm. Although Foster’s… Read more...

Do you have trouble remembering which movies are Fast & Furious movies ? This perplexing UK promo, which is not only for F9 but the entire franchise, is here to help by telling you exactly what makes one of these movies, beginning with “cars.” There are cars in the Fast & Furious movies. Who knew?! Read more...

The curse of working on a Marvel Studios project is you can’t talk about it for a long time . There’s joy to be had in the preparation, execution, and finally the completion, of course, but in the meantime, they’re so secretive it’s usually years from when you start on something to when you can finally talk about it.… Read more...

Iron Man might be gone from the Marvel Cinematic Universe but he’s bringing a whole new world to Netflix. Robert Downey Jr., along with his wife Susan Downey, are executive producers on a new dark, family, fantasy show called Sweet Tooth , based on the 2009 DC Comic series written and drawn by Jeff Lemire . The first… Read more...

Chloé Zhao explains why she’s turning Dracula into a sci-fi western. David Cronenberg is remaking one of his classics. Finally, we have a release date (and new pictures) for The Green Knight . Plus, the stars of Stargirl and Supergirl talk heroes, and what’s to come on The Nevers . Spoilers now! Read more...

The $2.9 billion NASA funding for the SpaceX Lunar Starship means that a Starship will get man-rated for four astronauts. This means getting the chance of loss of crew less than one in 500 for a lunar landing. SpaceX Lunar Starship will only initially support four astronauts because the launch will be performed by SLS ... Read more

SpaceX has launched another 60 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The Falcon 9 first stage rocket booster supporting this mission previously supported launch of GPS III Space Vehicle 03, Turksat 5A, and four Starlink missions. This was also the 81st successful recovery of a ... Read more

Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse series of novels made a big splash in the YA realm and beyond, so it’s no surprise Netflix chose to adapt Shadow and Bone   into a series. The question I still have—as a watcher, not a reader—is... what does anyone see in General Kirigan? Read more...

We’ve gotten a few glimpses of what to expect from DC series Titans when it returns to HBO Max, like the excellent outfits we’ll be seeing Starfire and Red Hood rocking in season three. Today, however, we got a bit of important casting: Vincent Kartheiser is coming aboard as Dr. Jonathan Crane. Read more...

I woke up this morning very excited to see the first footage from The Tomorrow War , the new Chris Pratt sci-fi action film directed by Chris McKay ( The Lego Batman Movie ). Everything we’d heard about it over the years made it sound like one of those mega-blockbusters we love to geek out about— Independence Day , … Read more...

Kevin Feige is used to making Marvel superhero movies that are just brimming with VFX. Before she took the job directing Eternals , Chloe Zhao was not. Feige probably wasn’t surprised by her desire to use practical locations when possible, but he was surprised by how amazing they looked.  Read more...

Somehow, it’s May—and that means not only are we one step closer to summer, we’ve also got several dozen new sci-fi and fantasy books to tempt you with. This month, we’ve got apocalyptic survivors , royals desperate to realize their destinies, supernatural private eyes, ambitious mutants, and so much more. Read more...

Yeah. So, Jeff Goldblum — the Jeff Goldblum , star of Jurassic Park, Independence Day , and so much more—is going to play Elven sorcerer Balmer in a Dungeons & Dragons podcast. This is a true statement of something that is going to happen in our reality, and I absolutely can’t wrap my head around it. Read more...

The 2020 US Department of Defense reports that China’s Navy has more vessels than the US Navy. The PRC has the largest navy in the world, with an overall battle force of approximately 350 ships and submarines including over 130 major surface combatants. In comparison, the U.S. Navy’s battle force is approximately 293 ships as ... Read more China’s Navy Outnumbers US Navy

Here is The 2021 battery technology roadmap from the Journal of Applied Physics. A roadmap presents an overview of the current state of various kinds of batteries, such as the Li/Na/Zn/Al/K-ion battery, Li–S battery, Li–O2 battery, and flow battery. Above- Ragone plot illustrating the performances of specific power vs specific energy for different electrical energy-storage ... Read more Battery Technology 2021

In 2020, LG Energy Solution added the most passenger EV battery capacity deployed onto roads. It is supplying Tesla in China and VW, Renault and Mercedes in Europe. CATL added the second most battery production capacity in 2020. CATL wants to increase its production capacity between 2020 and 2025 in the following stages: 110 GWh ... Read more EV Battery Update for 2020 and 021

John Walker’s journey through Disney+ and Marvel’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier —from Captain America, to... well, not that—is one of dramatic highs and lows for the would-be shieldbearer. But his turn in the series’ finale raised some interesting questions of just how we’re meant to feel about the character. Now,… Read more...

If it seems like rather recently that we were heaping praise on Creepshow ’s season two premiere—well, it was . With only five episodes in this season, Shudder’s retro horror anthology has ripped by way too fast. Ahead of tomorrow’s season finale, here’s what we’ve loved about the most recent episodes. Read more...

When the first trailer for director Enrico Casarosa’s Luca dropped   earlier this year, there was a small but rather vocal contingent of Pixar fans speculating whether the movie might be Disney’s first foray into feature-length storytelling focused on queer characters. io9 recently spoke to Casarosa about just that. Read more...

The Star Wars prequels have had a rough couple of decades, from seemingly universal mockery to a renewed level of appreciation , as the audiences that watched them as children grew up and re-appraised their strengths and weaknesses. But now that we live in a more civilized age, it would seem, fondness for the films has… Read more...

Luca , Disney and Pixar’s new film from director Enrico Casarosa, follows two young sea monster boys as they wander from the relative safety of their secretive, underwater community to the surface world where humans and other land-dwelling creatures live in the open air. Both Luca (Jacob Tremblay) and Alberto ( Jack… Read more...

The first Sailor Moon movie in decades is coming to Netflix. Patrick Dempsey talks about midlife crises, songs, and dances for Disenchanted . Samuel L. Jackson is invited to a game in a new Spiral: From the Book of Saw clip. Plus, what’s coming on Supergirl ’s nightmare prom night, and the Fantasy Island reboot adds an… Read more...

The social distancing, specifically the Six-Foot Rule, a guideline that offers little protection from pathogen-bearing aerosol droplets sufficiently small to be continuously mixed through an indoor space. The importance of airborne transmission of COVID-19 is now widely recognized. While tools for risk assessment have recently been developed, no safety guideline has been proposed to protect ... Read more MIT Finds CDC COVID Six-Foot Rule Is Wrong

The Interstellar Probe is a space mission to discover physical interactions shaping globally the boundary of our Sun`s heliosphere and its dynamics and for the first time directly sample the properties of the local interstellar medium (LISM). Interstellar Probe will go through the boundary of the heliosphere to the LISM enabling for the first time ... Read more NASA Interstellar Probe Mission for 2030-2080

Tesla’s Q1 2021 earnings call had several statements which indicate that Tesla is targeting the production of 2 million cars in 2022. Tesla expects to sell over 500,000 Model 3 in 2022. Tesla could exceed this target with 600k-700k Model 3. Tesla said they expect the Model Y to be the top-selling car (by revenue ... Read more Tesla 2022 Sales Could Be Over 2 Million Cars

There is speculation that China’s 2020 census could report a population that is already in decline. China reported an estimated population of over 1.4 billion in 2018. China’s population was previously not expected to peak until 2024-2030. In February, 2021, China’s National Health Commission proposed fully lifting the family planning policy firstly in Northeast China. ... Read more China Population Dropping

Plasma Kinetics makes light-activated hydrides. It removed the hydrogen from a hydride using light. It system is safe, clean, and scalable and holds more energy than a lithium-ion battery, costing less, and recharges in 5 minutes. This is an energy storage technology that Sandy Munro believes is workable. PK is the first company to pursue ... Read more Plasma Kinetics Light-Activated Hydrides

Creating a sense of place is fundamental to what makes video games work . In ways few other mediums really can, video games give us the opportunity to interact with and be part of a fantastical space on a personal level. The Mass Effect series is no different, charting us a galaxy to explore and defend. But its best… Read more...

It’s been a long time since Legends of Tomorrow —the greatest and looniest part of the Arrowverse—has graced our TV screens. Thank Beebo , it’s coming back on May 2, and while it’s trite to say this extended look at season six proves it was worth the wait, holy hell this amazing new trailer for season six proves it was … Read more...

A surprise, to be sure. But a welcome one. Read more...

And it’s bringing its modern gothic-punk TTRPG friends in the World of Darkness along for the ride, too. Read more...

The success of Godzilla vs. Kong has suddenly made Adam Wingard one of the most important figures in Legendary’s future plans for its giant monster movieverse. But the in-demand director ’s next potential project in the series might not star either of his former titular beasts. Read more...

In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier ’s fourth episode, the titular pair of former Avengers are on a mission to stop Karli Morgenthau (Erin Kellyman) and her fellow Flag-Smashers. The group’s ill-defined plan puts them at odds with John Walker (Wyatt Russell), the U.S. government’s newly christened Captain America,… Read more...

Though movie theaters are starting to allow patrons these days, the safer option remains streaming . Those who choose to stay home and stream are constantly rewarded with so much new content it’s mind-boggling. At the start of each month , most streamers—Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Disney+, and HBO Max—do a little shuffle,… Read more...

Oh, and that RoboCop-centaur? He’s Paul Revere, because that’s what happens when you let the makers of Archer retell the founding of the United States. Read more...

Solid-State batteries have been difficult to make but would have many benefits if they are mass-produced. * faster charging times * increase energy density up to 2 to 8 times * Range of 500-800 km * 1 liter per kwh versus 4 liters per kwh in a current Tesla Model 3 * no fire risk ... Read more Solid-State Battery Status

Elon Musk said that the Model 3 was the top selling luxury sedan in the world in Q1 2021. Model 3 outsold combustion engine cars. Elon Musk said that Model Y will become the top-selling car of any kind in 2022. The Ford F-150 had 787,000 sales in the US in 2020. Toyota sells about ... Read more Tesla Model Y Will Be Top Selling Car in 2022

Lyft has sold off its autonomous vehicle unit to Toyota’s Woven Planet Holdings subsidiary for $550 million. Lyft will receive $550 million in cash, with $200 million paid upfront. $350 million will be made in payments over five years. 300 people from Lyft Level 5 team will be integrated into Woven Planet. Lyft will save ... Read more Lyft Selling Self-Driving Unit to Toyota

Tesla had $438 Million in GAAP net income and over $1 billion in non-GAAP net income. Tesla almost reached its Q4 revenue 2020 with the traditionally weak first quarter. Tesla grew its gross margin despite not having the higher-margin Model S and Model X. Model 3 was the best-selling premium sedan in the world. The ... Read more Tesla Earnings Q1 2021

Elon Musk is getting a lot of media coverage when he repeated his statement that it will be very risky for the first people who go to Mars. This is an obvious statement of fact. I heard radio hosts at KGO 810 radio talking about this statement with great surprise. The hosts were disparaging of ... Read more Here’s to the Explorers

The China State controlled media seems to be preparing people for low 2020 population census. China’s National Bureau of Statistics says it will publish some preliminary data from the once-in-a-decade population census conducted at the end of last year in April, including population and birth figures for 2020. Worries about China’s population outlook have grown ... Read more China Population 2020 Count Will Likely Be Low

NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, along with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon have arrived at the International Space Station. Above-The four new SpaceX Crew-2 astronauts joined the Expedition 65 crew today bringing the station population to 11. ... Read more Space Station Population is Eleven

ULA, a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has four Delta 4-Heavy rockets left to launch in the next few years. All will launch spy satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office. The retirement was announced in 2019 and the last Delta IV Heavy should fly in 2023. ULA’s Delta 4 Heavy’s price has ... Read more Delta IV Heavy Retiring and the Vulcan Replacement

DARPA is funding a nuclear thermal orbital flight demonstration by 2025. The Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program is to demonstrate a nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) system on orbit. NTP uses a nuclear reactor to heat propellant to extreme temperatures before expelling the hot propellant through a nozzle to produce thrust. Compared to ... Read more Orbital Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Demo By 2025

The Perseverance Mars rover has the Ingenuity Mars helicopter drone. This solar-powered helicopter drone has a mass of 1.8 kg (4.0 lb). Ingenuity has had its third flight. It is expected to fly up to five times during its 30-day test campaign scheduled early in the rover’s mission. It will fly at altitudes ranging from ... Read more Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Drone

I can’t believe it took this long to happen, but Cartoon Network’s hit DC cartoons Teen Titan Go and DC Super Hero Girls are finally teaming up. The two shows and their heroes will join forces in a one-hour special this May when they both get invited to... the Space House. It’s in space. Read more...

We’re just days away from the debut of Yasuke , but Netflix has dropped a new trailer for the anime series that somehow has us even more excited to see it. That’s possibly because it features a lot more plot... but also possibly because it showcases some wild ninja magic and something that is clearly a steampunk mecha? Read more...

After creator Joel Hodgson launched a new Kickstarter, it took just over a day for Mystery Science Theater 3000 ’s legion of fans to bring back the show (again). This shouldn’t have surprised anybody—there’s a reason why MST3K has stuck around for more than 30 years, and that’s because people love watching robot… Read more...

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Netflix has nabbed itself a new Thai horror film about supernatural research . Josh Hartnett joins the Fear Index adaptation. Plus, Legends of Tomorrow teases its finale. Spoilers get! Read more...

Out of all the awkward and weird things that made this year’s Oscars rather cringeworthy at times , nothing stood out quite like the Academy’s decision to commission artist Andre Oshea to create NFT art of Chadwick Boseman . Read more...

With the long-awaited Y: The Last Man series set to hit FX on Hulu sometime later this year, another upcoming Brian K. Vaughan adaptation has now taken a big step forward. Amazon has just revealed some major casting for its adaptation of Vaughan and Cliff Chiang’s acclaimed comic Paper Girls . Read more...

With Falcon and the Winter Soldier done and dusted , so cometh the inevitable wave of tie-in merchandise to capitalize on the Disney+ streaming show. But if you’re looking for, say, an action figure of Sam Wilson as Captain America from Hasbro, it turns out you’re gonna need a lot more than the 20-odd dollars you were… Read more...