Future Stories

Kamille Bidan gets a thumbs up from us, too. Gif: Sunrise Last year, Funimation brought the iconic original Mobile Suit Gundam to streaming for the first time , giving people the chance to experience what makes the franchise so influential and special in the first place. Now, at long last, they’re also going to get a chance to experience its fascinating follow up. Funimation announced today that four more Gundam series would be coming to its streaming service starting September 7 in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, before coming to Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru at a later date, in both Japanese with English subtitles, and English dubs. Beloved ‘90s classic Gundam Wing —the series that l aunched Gundam ’s popularity in the west —will be joined by the animated movie Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative , the prequel/manga adaptation series Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin , and, for the first time Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam . All fine...

Stop staring and start running, you nitwits. Image: 20th Century Alien 3 has some issues. Even the movie’s most ardent fans have to admit this, given that it went through countless story, script, director, and editing changes, leaving what many feel is the most muddled of the four classic Alien films. Legendary Neuromancer author William Gibson was one of the (many) writers to give the script a go, but his work only saw the light of day as an audiobook and a comic by Dark Horse. Now, a novelization is on the way—but not the one you’d expect. Alien 3: The Unproduced Screenplay by William Gibson , written by his friend and Hugo Award-winning novelist Pat Cadigan , is based on a different script Gibson wrote for the movie. Details are sparse—well, pretty much non-existent—but Cadigan did confirm the book is something new in an interview with Syfy : “Anyone who wants to know how Bill came to write the two versions of the script and what happened to them should get hold of the Dar...

GIZMO! Image: Russ Martin/FX The world probably doesn’t need any more aftershows, no matter how good the show itself is—and FX’s brilliant supernatural comedy What We Do in the Shadows is one of the very best around. However, we could all do with more Harvey Guillén in our lives, so we’ll be happily tuning in for  After the Shadows , hosted by the extremely endearing actor who plays Guillerno , WWDITS ’ sweater-loving hapless human familiar who’s also not-so-secretly (after that season two finale!) a vampire killer descended from the Van Helsing. As Deadline reports, After the Shadows will follow a talk-show format with Guillén bringing in series stars (Kayvan “Nandor” Novak, Guillén’s most frequent scene partner, is obviously slated to appear) and guest stars (including Kristen Schaal as well as Anthony Atamanuik and Marissa Jaret Winokur—the latter of whom play the vampires’ clueless human neighbors, who host memorable “Superb Owl” parties). Plus: set decora...

Ultra-high performance concrete mixes cost $360-650 per cubic yard and have compressive strength from 22,500 PSI to 29000 PSI. There are proprietary makers of stronger concrete with costs of $2000 per cubic yard. There have been test blocks of concrete with strengths of 60000 PSI. Regular concrete is usually at 3000-5000 PSI compressive strength. The ... Read more

The Protostar takes flight. Gif: Paramount+ On top of all the Star Trek we’ve got to look forward to soon , we’re getting a brand new show in the form of the animated series Prodigy on the immediate horizon. And while we wait to see something a little more substantial beyond the teaser we got at Comic-Con this summer , we’ve now got a glimpse at its opening titles to bide the time. Released as part of Prodigy ’s presence at the Television Critics Association Summer conference, the titles feature a new main theme scored by composer Michael Giacchino, who, among a frankly ridiculous list of credits across film and TV, of course scored the three Kelvin timeline movies:  Star Trek , Into Darkness , and Beyond . Prodigy ’s theme definitely has the kind of bombast Giacchino is known for, and brought to Trek in themes like “Enterprising Young Men,”  and it’s got the sort of soaring, sweeping vibes you want out of a Star Trek theme song. Check out the sequence below— o...

Human speech has musicality. Everyone may not talk like Martin Luther King Junior or rap like people in the play Hamilton, but there is rhythm and tone. There is still a gap between AI-synthesized speech and the human speech we hear in daily conversation and in the media because people speak with complex rhythm, intonation ... Read more

Punch it! Screenshot: Lucasfilm Lucasfilm’s version of faster-than-light travel—hyperspace—is as fundamental to the worldbuilding of Star Wars as the Force . It’s the backbone of making its galaxy an interconnected universe of potential , a concept that has become more and more integral to some of the franchise’s biggest storytelling pushes. But how it works, and how people use it, has become more complex and fascinating than ever. So What Is Hyperspace? Hyperspace is one of the oldest elements of Star Wars we know, having first glimpsed it in action when the Millennium Falcon raced on its way from Tatooine towards Alderaan (or, what was left of it) in 1977's A New Hope . Although the concept of faster-than-light travel is no stranger to science fiction, how Star Wars has started playing with it in recent years has made it one of its most quietly compelling worldbuilding mechanics. It can be charted, traveled, manipulated, even weaponized—and the very ramifications of ...

From Devil’s Reign to Devil Dinosaur. Image: Marvel Comics The Marvel Comics Universe is about to be changed forever. Actually, it seems like it’s about to be changed forever on multiple occasions between December of this year and February 2022, as the publisher has announced eight new “tentpole” series , at least half of which sound like mega-events . Curious? Here’s the rundown, right from Marvel. Devil’s Reign “All hell breaks loose in the Marvel Universe as the Kingpin finally declares all-out war on the heroes in Devil’s Reign ! Having set the stage in their Eisner-nominated Daredevil epic, Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto’s far-reaching crossover event finds Mayor Fisk outlawing all Super Heroes in New York and unleashing intel on all their dark secrets, while pitting Daredevil, Elektra, Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and many more against his Thunderbolt agents. But in the end… Who Will Reign?” Avengers Forever “Marvel Comics’ Avengers ...

El Capitan will drive unprecedented advancements in HPC and AI, powered by the next-generation AMD EPYC CPUs and Radeon Instinct GPUs. It will be a 2 exaflop supercomputer for Lawrence Livermore Labs. It is expected in 2023 and is costing $600 million. This and the Frontier 1.5 exaflop supercomputer are huge victories for AMD. Intel ... Read more

Janeway gets some reading in. Screenshot: Paramount+ Series bibles are a staple of television production. Part early pitch, part worldbuilding exercise , they form the fundamental basis for the earliest concrete visions for a TV show on the road to production. And now you can get a glimpse at the documents behind decades of Star Trek TV , giving access to some truly fascinating behind-the-scenes materials. The series bibles for TNG , DS9 , Voyager , and Enterprise have been floating around the internet in various iterations for a while, but in a new piece by Rob Wieland today, the official Star Trek website provided a fresh look at the foundations of the first four major Star Trek TV continuations. Thanks to these documents, fans can see how these iconic shows were first imagined, what changed on the road to the small screen, and what ideas were the ones writers decided were the most-thought provoking and exciting to sell these shows on to networks. There’s a lot of int...

Wenwu (Tony Leung) and Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) do some father-son bonding. Image: Marvel/Hot Toys Some things were always meant to be partners. Batman and Robin . Chocolate and peanut butter. New Marvel movies and beautifully rendered 12-inch action figures of their stars, courtesy of Hong Kong-based toymakers Hot Toys . Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ’ Simu Liu and Tony Leung are the latest beneficiaries of Hot Toys’ magic and you can behold them in all their glory here. Stick ‘Em Up Image: Marvel/Hot Toys Shang-Chi comes with two different bo staffs, which I presume is because he uses two separate bo staffs in the movie. I wonder what the difference between them will be? Kick Back Image: Marvel/Hot Toys Extreme posability is needed to replicate Shang-Chi’s full arsenal of martial arts moves . Nice Threads Image: Marvel/Hot Toys The details and texture of Shang-Chi’s shirt/short-sleeved jacket/whatever are simply incredible. Somehow, the hair is even bet...

Annabelle Wallis stars in Malignant . Photo: Warner Bros. It’s not every day a trailer features an interview with the director, but it’s not every day the film’s director is the biggest selling point of a movie. James Wan is at the helm of the upcoming horror film Malignant , and he’s the guy who first brought us Saw, Insidious, and The Conjuring . Each of those started as original horror films and then quickly became major franchises. The thought with Malignant seems to be “This is the next one,” and putting Wan front and center sells that. Malignant stars Annabelle Wallis ( The Mummy , Annabelle ) as Madison, a woman who has violent visions that are somehow tied to her childhood imaginary friend, Gabriel. And really, we don’t know much more than that, which is exciting, because there has to be more—which you get a glimpse of, as well as some commentary provided by Wan, in this latest and probably final trailer. Using Wan to promote this film is a smart move. He’s a prove...

Army of Darkness (and its prequels) are coming to HBO Max. Image: Universal Though a lot of movie theaters are back to full function, the safer option for entertainment remains streaming, and fans who choose to stay home and take advantage are constantly rewarded with tons of new content. At the start of each month , most streamers— Netflix , Hulu, Amazon, Disney+, and HBO Max —do a little shuffle, adding new movies and taking some away. io9 is here to help you narrow down your decision-making. Welcome to the Nerd’s Watch, io9's monthly column where we curate the most interesting sci-fi, fantasy , and horror movies (and television shows) coming to the biggest streaming services. There is lots of new content to be had for September 2021, so let’s get to it. What’s coming to Netflix in September 2021? Jaws will be streaming. Image: Universal Available September 1 Blade Runner: The Final Cut - There are many cuts of Blade Runner but the most recent, The Final Cut , ...

The women of Wakanda are going to have a lot to deal with in the next Black Panther. Photo: Marvel Studios Get another brief glimpse of Eternals . The new Salem’s Lot rounds out more of its cast, and Peacock adds more to its Vampire Academy series. The CW has set its sights on a Nancy Drew spinoff. Plus, what’s next on What We Do In The Shadows , and another tease for Y: The Last Man . Spoilers! Salem’s Lot Deadline reports Makenzie Leigh, Bill Camp, and Spencer Treat Clark have joined the cast of Gary Dauberman’s Salem’s Lot . Leigh will play Susan Norton , “a resident of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine” attached to Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) with “knowledge of the vampires in town” while Camp has been cast as Matt Burke , “a former high school English teacher who knows about the Marten’s House evil past and helps out Ben.” Clark is Mike Ryerson , “one of the town’s simple folk” who “becomes a victim to the events at hand.” The Expendables 4 Deadline also reports a fourth Expenda...

No Mister Bond, we expect you to have no time to die! Screenshot: MGM No Time to Die was one of the earliest films to get pulled from the release schedule in the early days of the covid-19 pandemic, being pushed back further and further as the state of the world continued to unfurl over the last 18 months. And that wasn’t even its first delay ! But now, Mister Bond has set his sights on delivering one last adventure with Daniel Craig. Optimistically promising itself as the final trailer for the movie, No Time to Die ’s latest footage emphasizes that this is the end for Craig’s take on the iconic British Spy, having first appeared in Casino Royale a whole fifteen years ago. Now, with secrets to uncover and a sinister new masked villain in Rami Malek’s Safin on the hunt, Craig’s 007 looks like he’s going out with a bang. No Time to Die starts with Craig’s superspy out of the action, living in Jamaica with Lea Seydoux’s SPECTRE character Madeleine Swann. But Bond is never gr...

Satellite images taken by Planet and analyzed by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (CNS/MIIS) show that China is significantly expanding the number of silos for its arsenal of intercontinental range-ballistic missiles. 120 silos under construction near Yumen were identified by Decker Eveleth, a former ... Read more

Al Geist presented a history of the Exascale Project and How Frontier Solves the Four Exascale Challenges. This is part of the Advanced Technologies Section (ATS) series of the National Center for Computational Sciences at ORNL. Chip and Network vendors greatly improved the reliability of their systems to push this problem beyond the Exaflop scale. ... Read more

U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE) unveiled a new testbed supercomputer to prepare critical workloads for future exascale systems that will deliver up to four times faster performance than Argonne’s current supercomputers. Polaris will enable scientists and developers to test and optimize software codes and applications to tackle ... Read more

There were traffic jams throughout most of South Lake Tahoe Monday afternoon as the city is evacuated ahead of the Caldor Fire. 20,000 people live in South Lake Tahoe. There will be a red flag warning for gusting winds that are expected to last until 11 p.m. Wednesday. Highways 50, 88 and 89 all closed ... Read more

Bridget Regan at San Diego Comic-Con 2017 promoting The Last Ship. Photo: Kevin Winter (Getty Images) The seemingly never-ending roster of DC characters coming to the CW just added a classic one. Poison Ivy, the iconic villain who has been known to make Batman’s life a living hell, is coming to Gotham City on the small screen. Actress Bridget Regan will play the role on the upcoming third season of Batwoman , which is set to kick off later this fall. Deadline broke the news of the casting, which was teased in the season two finale earlier this summer and will reportedly be a recurring role. Regan will play Pamela Isley, a former botany student at Gotham University who was experimented on and became a supervillain . It’s unclear exactly how she’ll fit into the third season of the show, which now sees Ryan Wilder (Javicia Leslie) as the one and only Batwoman, since Kate Kane (Ruby Rose) has gone off searching for her cousin by the name of *checks notes* Bruce Wayne. That’s an imp...

The Rocketeer is making his return. Photo: Disney Fans of Joe Johnston’s 1991 Disney film The Rocketeer have been waiting 30 years for this news: a new, live-action Rocketeer film is officially in the works. It’s called The Return of the Rockeeter and it’s being developed for Disney+. According to Deadline , David Oyelowo ( Selma, Star Wars Rebels ) is among the producers and may star in the project, which “will have an all-new creative directive ... focusing on a retired Tuskegee airman who takes up the mantle of the Rocketeer.” That sounds like a reboot-sequel if you ask me. Ed Ricourt ( Now You See Me, Wayward Pines ) wrote the screenplay which is being produced under the banner Yoruba Saxon, a company run by David and Jessica Oyelowo. It signed a first-look deal with Disney earlier this summer after David Oyelowo’s directorial debut, The Water Man , was released. The Rockeeter originally starred Bill Campbell as a stunt pilot named Cliff who happens upon an experimenta...