Future Stories

The Boring Company (TBC) has been building tunnels at about 40 meters per day. This is for the digging and for the concrete reinforcement of the tunnel. Will at the Boring Revolution Youtube channel has spotted hundreds of hexagonal concrete segments at the Boring Company. This means that Boring Company has changed its tunnel walls ... Read more

Rolls Royce has made nuclear reactors for submarines and is in the second year of a micro nuclear fission reactor design effort. They will use encapsulated uranium fuel aka a pebble bed nuclear reactor. It will have heat pipes to move the heat from the core. The full sized reactor model and design will be ... Read more

Helion Energy, a nuclear fusion power company, and Nucor Corporation, the largest steel producer and recycler in North America, announced an agreement to develop a 500 MWe fusion power plant at a Nucor steel manufacturing facility in the United States. This collaboration is aimed at accelerating the future of clean energy in the industrial manufacturing ... Read more

Image: BioWare/Lucasfilm Games BioWare’s 2003 game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is one of the most well-known video games to bear the franchise’s name, and players were delighted to hear it would be coming to the current gaming generation. But much like Star Wars Eclipse , whose existence had to be reconfirmed by developer Quantic Dream last week, the remake for KOTOR is now facing similar scrutiny. Earlier in the week, fans online realized the initial reveal trailer for KOTOR Remake was marked as private on YouTube. What’s more, previous social media posts from Sony—console-wise, the remake is a PlayStation 5 exclusive—had been deleted, even as users were able to pull up the posts either via the Wayback Machine or their Google Caches. When contacted for comment, Sony told outlets the removals were related to music licensing, calling it “part of normal business. We delist assets with licensed music when the licenses expire.” But as many have pointed out, only the mai...

The Tesla Teslabot and the Agility Robotics Digit will both be mass produced in the thousands in 2024. Agility Robotics announced a factory they had started last year would be completed and in production late in 2023. Mass production takes a few months to ramp up. The Agility Robotics factory will have a capacity of ... Read more

Image: Orbit Books Orbit Books, an imprint of Hachette, has developed a free virtual event series for aspiring science-fiction and fantasy writers . Attendees can attend any of the 14 sessions—which are spread out over six weeks in October and early November—for free. The topics range from nitty gritty advice on worldbuilding to a panel on how to write a novel while also still having to deal with the rest of life. The sessions are, essentially, a mini-convention for writers, aiming to give people who don’t know where to start a complete course on writing. But after looking over the full lineup of seminars, there are a few that stand out. I may have a decent chunk of writing under my belt, but you can be sure to find me in “ Love Triangles and Other Shapes ” with S.T. Gibson, C.L. Clark, Josiah Bancroft, and Melissa Caruso. And I would be so disappointed if I missed “ Creating Otherworldly Cultures ” with Ann Leckie, Suyi Davies Okungbowa, Essa Hansen, and Davinia Evans, all of...

Screenshot: Netflix Nocturne, the new successor series to Netflix’s excellent animated Castlevania adaptations, plays with its legacy in some truly smart ways—both as a successor show metatextually, and narratively as its heroes navigate being part of a generational supernatural conflict. But one of its greatest moments is a fascinating mirror to one in the original series, and both stem out of a love for the games’ legendary soundtracks . The sixth episode of Nocturne, “Guilty Men to Be Judged,” sees new protagonist Richter Belmont (Edward Bluemel) literally and figuratively confront his place in the lineage of the Belmont family when he is brought face to face with his long-presumed-dead grandfather, Juste Belmont (Game of Thrones’ Iain Glen). Having just fled from a confrontation that brought him up against the vampire who killed his mother , Olrox (Westworld’s Zahn McClarnon), Richter and Juste have similar parallels in this moment, at their lowest and both alike haunted by t...

Screenshot: BBC A new era of Doctor Who means a new version of the 60-year-old series’ legendary theme song, and before fans hear it across the trio of anniversary specials set to broadcast in November, they’ll get to experience it in style... if they turn their radio on, that is. Radio Times reports that returning composer Murray Gold’s new composition of the Doctor Who theme will air as part of a recorded broadcast of the recent Doctor Who @60: A Musical Celebration in the middle of October in the UK, on BBC Radio 2. Recorded at an event in Cardiff this week, the symphonic celebration features contributions from all three main showrunners of the modern era—returning showrunner Russell T. Davies , Steven Moffat , and Chris Chibnall —as well as music from all over the series. That includes not just its past, but its future. Also expected to be heard during the broadcast for the first time are the two musical themes created for Ncuti Gatwa’s 15th Doctor, and his new companion R...

Image: Lego The feast and famine of Lego releases continues as, after last month’s Star Wars blowout , October is looking like a quieter month in terms of sheer volume of sets to tempt your wallet. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t heavy hitters among those to come! Slight the list may be, there’s some huge sets coming from Lego in October, including the next Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series release, the Venator-Class cruiser . In our galaxy, there’s also more big hitters—although the seasonal theming is more festive rather than spooky like some might hope, as it’s in the form of Lego’s annual Winter Village release, the snowy Alpine Lodge, and its thematically spiritual partner in the slightly less festive Lego Ideas Viking Village. Brick-built loghouses for all! Elsewhere there’s a some celebration of the upcoming release of The Marvels , even more holiday theming from Star Wars and Lego’s regular festive line, and more. Click through to see what’s coming this month! Lego S...

Screenshot: Lucasfilm Balancing the need to bring a new but familiar sound to Star Wars while also playing in the footsteps of John Williams’ legendary music for the saga is a challenge for every composer who joins the franchise. Few have faced it as often as the Kiner family—composer and father Kevin, alongside his children Deana and Sean—whose work has come to define a new generation of Star Wars music across Clone Wars, Rebels, Bad Batch, and now Ahsoka . But even then, some moments will always find a way to present new challenges. Such was the case this week for the Kiners when they had to score a brief, surprising moment for this week’s penultimate episode of Ahsoka : the return of Anthony Daniels as C-3PO. Racing in—well, as fast as those goldenrod droid legs will carry him—to provide a message of clemency from an absent Senator Leia Organa to save Hera from the wrath of a New Republic disciplinary tribunal, 3PO’s brief moment in Ahsoka’s narrative is a touching link betwe...

China launched its 3rd aircraft carrier in July 2022. It is the first without a skijump ramp for launching planes. The Type 003 uses steam turbines and electromagnetic catapults. It is far larger than the first two aircraft carriers which are more like the size of the US Amphibious Assault ships. China’s Type 001 carrier ... Read more

Screenshot: DC Studios Blue Beetle delivered a solid DC superhero adventure with Jaime Reyes’ origin story, and you can now watch the beginning of the film on YouTube. If you missed Ángel Manuel Soto’s   Blue Beetle in theaters, don’t hesitate to give the latest DC Studios film a shot. Exclusively on Warner Bros. Entertainment’s channel check out the first 10 minutes of the stellar action flick starring Cobra Kai’s Xolo Maridueña as Jaime, a role he was born to play. With the support of his close-knit family (including George Lopez as his hilariously wacky techie uncle), Jaime’s journey to becoming the Blue Beetle is filled with heart and endearing characters. Here’s the film’s opening, which also introduces Susan Sarandon as antagonist Victoria Kord and Harvey Guillén as her minion as she schemes to attain the power of the Beetle. Blue Beetle | Extended Preview | Warner Bros. Entertainment If the extended preview makes you want to check out the full film, here are ...

Image: Paramount The last time Lower Decks truly surprised me was in season two’s remarkable tri-perspective episode “wej Duj,” a compelling experimental story that examined the plights of lower deckers across all sorts of Star Trek vessels, not just Starfleet. It’s fitting then perhaps that in surprising me this week, it does so by making that episode’s breakout star the focus. It only took all of season three, but when former Vulcan High Command officer, now turned fellow Starfleet Lieutenant (Junior Grade) T’Lyn, joined the main cast on this season of Lower Decks, it provided a great breath of fresh air for the main cast. So far in season four , she’s largely acted as a straight-laced foil to our already familiar heroes, effortlessly sliding into the cast and bouncing off them in some interesting ways . But this week’s episode, “Empathological Fallacies,” puts T’Lyn in the spotlight for an episode about defying the expectations put upon yourself—and in doing so, Lower Decks ...

SpaceX Starlink has a satellite internet license for India. SpaceX Starlink can soon start competing for millions of potential customers in India. After getting the license, Starlink will become eligible for spectrum allocation, after which it can start providing satellite broadband services. https://t.co/GzbIzeD4cL — Dima Zeniuk (@DimaZeniuk) September 28, 2023 Starlink has fulfilled all regulatory ... Read more

Ashy Slashy forever! Image: Starz In a year that already saw a rather entertaining Evil Dead universe entry in the form of Evil Dead Rise , there’s more good news for fans of the Sam Raimi-created cult horror classic: all three seasons of the late, great Starz series Ash vs. Evil Dead are coming to Hulu October 1. In a perfect world, Ash vs. Evil Dead’s elevation to such a prominent streaming platform will mean a sudden, undeniable, insatiable demand for more seasons of the show, which brought Bruce Campbell back as Ash Williams, the central character in Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, and Army of Darkness. That’s probably unrealistic, given Campbell’s declaration that he’s through playing the chainsaw-slinging character—but that’s been walked back a bit more recently by both Campbell and Raimi , and hey, we can hope, right? For more than two decades, fans longed for a fourth Evil Dead film, and while Fede Álvarez’s 2013 reboot did feature a split-second Campbell cameo, it wasn’t r...

Western Australia Police will spend $8.5 million in Starlink equipment and internet services to provide reliable connectivity for 550 police vehicles and 129 regional police stations across the state. WA Police have been running a 12-week trial using Starlink’s low orbit satellite technology in some of the most remote parts of the state — Balgo, ... Read more

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) made worldwide news when they reached nuclear fusion ignition in December 2022 but they went beyond that result on July 30, 2023. I am attending the 2023 International Conference on Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications where there have been numerous presentations by leaders of ... Read more

The paintball gun-shooting stars of Riddle of Fire. Image: Anaxia Recovering a password has never been as elaborate or entertaining as it is in Riddle of Fire, which had its U.S. premiere at Fantastic Fest 2023 this week . In the film, a trio of badass kids steal a yet-to-be-released video game console, get it home, but run into a problem. Mom has password-protected the TV. All they need to do for Mom to give up the password is go buy a blueberry pie. Written and directed by Weston Razooli, Riddle of Fire has a very harmless, childlike setup, but it’s much more than that. The first clue comes before the titles as a young girl delivers a poem, setting the stage for an epic tale of fantasy adventure. The second is when the three kids in question show up riding dirt bikes, wearing ski masks, and carrying paintball guns. And third is that, when the bakery is out of blueberry pie, the adventure takes a whole new twist. Though the film’s brand of kid adventure feels like an homage to...

Screenshot: Netflix Netflix’s new Castlevania show, Nocturne , is set hundreds of years after the events of the original series, with a long-line descendant of heroes Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades, Richter, headlining the cast. What better way to connect the Belmont Clan bloodline across shows than immediately giving the poor young lad tragedy, violence, and monsters to deal with? That’s the case in the seven-minute cold open to Nocturne, which Netflix released today as part of its animation-focused “Drop” event , celebrating tomorrow’s debut of the new series. The opening introduces us to 18th century Boston, where young Richter lives with his mother Julia Belmont... at least, not for long, when an encounter with an old vampiric grudge sees Richter’s life spiral into a mess of blood and tragedy. Castlevania: Nocturne | First 7 Minutes | Netflix Nothing says “distantly related to Noted Sad Vampire Hunter Trevor Belmont ” quite like watching your mom’s own hunting legacy cu...

The residents of Concrete Utopia. Image: Fantastic Fest Most modern disaster movies are rather cheesy— big, special effects spectacles that are an excuse to showcase lots of destruction and action . Concrete Utopia, a South Korean disaster movie, has some of that, but really focuses more on what comes in the immediate aftermath. First, the film grabs your attention with a massive earthquake leveling Seoul. Everything is destroyed as far as the eye can see... except for one single apartment building right in the middle. It’s a premise that could, at that point, go any number of ways. It could be The Raid. It could be Assault on Precent 13. It could be Independence Day. but filmmaker Um Tae-hwa decides to go totally real with it. Sure, there’s action and violence along the way, but the main focus is the human decisions made by the residents of this building. Do they let more people in? Who deserves to be there? And all along the way, you can’t help but ponder what you would do in ...

Morty and Rick, back in action in the season seven trailer. Screenshot: Adult Swim/YouTube The much-anticipated seventh season of Rick and Morty arrives in just a few weeks; a few days ago, we got a trailer revealing the show’s new “soundalike” voices for its lead characters after Justin Roiland ’s departure. It’s been a weird ride for Rick and Morty fans—and now, in a new interview, Roiland’s co-creator Dan Harmon has shared his take on the situation. In an extensive profile by the Hollywood Reporter , we finally get a good explanation as to why we don’t yet know the names behind the voices replacing Roiland: they are “two young, unknown voice actors,” according to the trade, and Harmon wasn’t much involved in the casting, by his choice. “It’s all just sad because the goal is for it to be indistinguishable,” he told THR. “At the same time, it would be absurd to suddenly decide that the entire foundation of your creative project was, oh, coincidentally, unimportant.” The story ...

Image: Walt Disney Animation It all starts with a classic “wish upon a star” in Disney’s centennial animated release Wish . io9 recently sat down with Jennifer Lee, Walt Disney Animation’s Chief Creative Officer—she’s also the writer and co-director of the Frozen films—to discuss her writing on Wish and her excitement for World of Frozen at Hong Kong Disneyland . As Disney fairytale fans, we were especially excited to dig into a movie that’s set to define the origins of Disney lore , centering around Asha (Ariana DeBose), a young woman who hopes to become the apprentice to Magnifico (Chris Pine), the wish-granting ruler of her kingdom. As she gets closer to discovering the malevolent truth about the king’s magic, she makes a wish that brings magical help in the form of a sentient star, setting in motion the mythology of Disney’s first 100 years in animation. Sabina Graves, io9: I’m already obsessed with Star and Asha. I can’t wait to see more of their magic. What inspired the idea...

Harvard’s George Church has been involved in starting many successful biotech companies. In 1984, he developed the first direct genomic sequencing method, which resulted in the first genome sequence (the human pathogen, H. pylori). He helped initiate the Human Genome Project in 1984 and the Personal Genome Project in 2005. George invented the broadly applied ... Read more

Captain Enoch (Wes Chatham) and Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) with Night Troopers in last week’s episode of Ahsoka. Image: Lucasfilm Last week’s “Far, Far Away” was a big episode for Disney+ Star Wars series Ahsoka —though not really a big one for Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) herself, since the Peridea-set action was given over to some other major story beats, including the arrival of two major characters: Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) and Ezra (Eman Esfandi). So this week, it’s safe to assume there’ll be more Ahsoka—who, last we saw, was making her way to the planet by way of the Purrgil star whales , in pursuit of both Sabine (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) and the dreaded Thrawn, the latter of whom was not relishing a reunion. Based on Thrawn’s orders at the end of episode six, perhaps we’ll also get some displays of that witchy “dark magick,” courtesy of the Great Mothers . Fingers crossed! Whatever transpires this week, it’ll no doubt set up the season finale set to hit Disney+ on Oct...