Category Archives: Blog

It was a historic moment many didn’t expect to see: President Donald Trump shaking hands with North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un.

And soon after, another stunner was broadcast live on TV: Dennis Rodman crying over the Trump-Kim summit while wearing a red MAGA hat and a shirt promoting his sponsor, the cryptocurrency PotCoin.

It was A LOT, and left many wondering: Is this real life? Read more…

More about North Korea, Kim Jong Un, Donald Trump, Dennis Rodman, and Culture

When we last saw Spider-Man for PlayStation 4 at E3 2017, he was facing off against a figure we eventually learned was the old Marvel villain Mister Negative. He’s back in this gameplay demo/trailer/whatever from Sony’s E3 showcase, and he’s brought some friends.

Rhino, Scorpion, Vulture, Electro… an intriguing lineup, to say the least. It’s not clear who appears at the very end, but Spidey sure is surprised.

We’ll find out soon enoughSpider-Man comes to PS4 on Sept. 7. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Gaming, Spider Man, E3 2018, and Entertainment

We’re on our fourth trailer for Death Stranding and what in the hell just happened?

The first three trailers for Death Stranding were some of the weirdest, most ethereal, otherworldly, and batshit insane trailers that have ever graced the world of video games. This one was no different. We got gameplay! But what does it mean?! Who cares!! 

As we were girding ourselves for this fourth descent into incomprehensible creepiness, several members of the Mashable gaming squad wrote down what we thought would happen in the newest look at Death Stranding.  Read more…

More about Sony, Trailers, Death Stranding, Kojima Productions, and E3 2018

Ted Cruz has some questions for Facebook: 209 of them to be precise.

That’s how many written questions the Texas senator submitted to the company following CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s hours of Congressional testimony, and good lord were some of them were mind-numbingly stupid — including one abut a Taylor Swift song.

Some quick background: Following Zuckerberg’s marathon Congressional hearings in April, senators also submitted thousands of followup questions to the company. Facebook finally got around to submitting all those answers last week, and the Senate published the questions and answers in full Monday.  Read more…

More about Tech, Facebook, Ted Cruz, Tech, and Social Media Companies

Sony kicked off its E3 2018 PlayStation showcase with a fresh look at The Last of Us Part II, Naughty Dog’s follow-up to the critically acclaimed adventure that somehow turned a mushroom zombie-filled post-apocalypse into the perfect backdrop for an unflinching character-driven exploration of the human condition (with a cool resource-dependent survival game on the side, sure).

Part II looks… similar? A game like The Last of Us depends more on story than anything else, and we’re only going to see snippets during a pre-release press conference. This particular snippet framed a stealthy creep-and-kill sequence as a flashback Ellie flashes through while she wrestles with her sense of identity during a community dance. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Gaming, E3 2018, The Last Of Us Part Ii, and Entertainment

Looks like his team finally got back to them. 

Almost two full months after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg dodged senators’ questions about the Cambridge Analytica and user privacy scandals with the vague promise that someone would be in touch, the advertising giant made good on his pledge and provided a host of answers on topics ranging from Russian trolls to whether or not Facebook is a media company. 

The 225-page PDF and separate 229-page PDF, comprising responses to both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, are a lot to wade through and will surely provide fodder for both Facebook’s boosters and critics over the coming weeks and months. However, a few of the company’s responses are immediately worth further examination — namely, that of the data Facebook collects on non-users and its possible monopoly status.   Read more…

More about Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Cambridge Analytica, Tech, and Social Media Companies

Last week, Papua New Guinea made international headlines when its government said it would consider banning Facebook for a month.

Announced by the country’s communications minister Sam Basil on Jun. 29, the department and its National Research Institute would be tasked to understand how Papua New Guineans were using Facebook — but not everyone’s convinced it’s this straightforward.

“The time will allow information to be collected to identify users that hide behind fake accounts, users that upload pornographic images, users that post false and misleading information on Facebook to be filtered and removed,” Basil said, according to the Post Courier. Read more…

More about Facebook, Politics, Censorship, Social Media, and Papua New Guinea

Spoilers lie ahead for Hereditary. You’ve been warned.

On Friday, horror fans flocked to theaters to revel in and be tortured by A24’s new supernatural horror flick, Hereditary. 

By Sunday, the rising fright fest had been rocked by a D+ CinemaScore – though it held onto a 93% Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and cashed in its opening weekend box office at $13 million. 

So, what got the audience members polled by CinemaScore so miffed? I checked out the alleged “scariest horror film ever made” late last night and am pretty sure I know who is to blame for disappointed audience members. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Entertainment, and Movies Tv Shows

Bethesda Softworks used its E3 2018 showcase as an occasion to share what appears to be a cancelled April Fool’s joke.

I’ll set the scene and let Keegan-Michael Key do the rest: It feels like Bethesda’s Skyrim has been released for everything, multiple times in several cases. In this new update, the game arrives in its most ambitious form yet: As an Amazon Alexa app.

L O L Read more…

More about Entertainment, Gaming, Bethesda Softworks, Skyrim, and Keegan Michael Key

Bethesda Softworks kicked off its E3 2018 festivities with lingering looks at a bunch of its upcoming games.

Fallout 76 got the most attention, of course. It was announced only recently in a teasing first look, and the pressure was on Bethesda to explain what was behind its mysterious teaser. We’re talked allll about that one separately.

But it wasn’t just the Fallout showRage 2 got a look. So did Prey. And Doom. (And another big surprise.) 

There’s even a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it tease of Elder Scrolls VI tease and a peek at an all-new franchise, the long-rumored outer space game, Starfield. Here they all are (plus some VR news). Enjoy. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Gaming, Bethesda Softworks, Rage 2, and Prey Mooncrash