Lies, paranoia, billions in alleged fraud, and potential jail time all hidden behind a Steve Jobs-style black turtleneck. You’d be forgiven for thinking the latest documentary from HBO, The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, was more fiction that fact. 

But the film, which promises to chronicle the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes and her failed blood-testing company Theranos, is very much the latter. 

The documentary premieres March 18 on HBO, and, if the intense trailer that dropped is any indication, is going to pack quite the punch. Get your popcorn ready.  Read more…

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Google and Apple are under pressure from human rights groups and a U.S. senator to remove from their stores an app called Absher. The app was created by the Saudi government and includes a feature that helps men monitor and control women who are under their guardianship, including wives and unmarried daughters.

Saudi men have this right thanks to the country’s oppressive guardianship laws, which mandate every woman has a male guardian to make critical life decisions on her behalf. That guardian can be a father, brother, husband, or son, according to Human Rights Watch. So men get the power to approve things like whether a woman applies for a passport, studies abroad, travels outside the country, or gets married. That system was already well in place before Absher’’s debut, but the app makes controlling women much more efficient.  Read more…

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A lonely guy pretended to get stood up on a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner at Outback, wasted hours of a well-meaning but clueless server’s night, and went home with a free meal. Outback even offered him another free meal — provided he bring a real date. 

27-year-old Stephen Bosner spent Feb. 14 on a mission: To bring home a free steak. He made a reservation for two at America’s favorite Australian-ish fast casual steakhouse, donned a suit jacket, and packed some tissue paper into plastic bag as a makeshift “gift.” He walked in, dateless, and told the host that the 10-minute wait was fine because
“she said she was running a bit late anyway.” Read more…

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The NBA fans of Reddit are a lighthearted bunch. Extremely internet meme-dom peppers the typical talk of games and trades and stats. But the r/NBA subreddit recently took the discussion in a surprising — and delightful — direction, concerning pop star, queer icon, and internet queen Carly Rae Jepsen.

On Jan. 30, Reddit user u/NAD_83 shared the news that Jepsen would be singing the Canadian National Anthem at the NBA All Star game, which takes place this weekend, on Feb. 17. The news itself is not that surprising: Jepsen, who is Canadian, rose to fame after placing third on Canadian Idol in 2007. Read more…

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The release of Star Wars: Episode IX on Dec. 20 is still far, far away, but director J.J. Abrams is reassuring everyone that the last chapter in the Skywalker saga is well on its way towards theaters.

In a tweet Friday morning, Abrams posted a photo of stars Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac in character, seemingly hugging it out. After months of filming, the image’s caption announced the official end of photography for the project. 

“It feels impossible, but today wrapped photography on Episode IX,” reads the post. “There is no adequate way to thank this truly magical crew and cast. I’m forever indebted to you all.”  Read more…

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Donald Trump is back at it again with the extremely un-presidential tweets.

On Friday afternoon, hours after he held a press conference outside the White House to announce he was declaring a national emergency (even though he didn’t need to) the president tweeted a parody State of the Union video in an effort to mock Democrats.

The video, originally created by @carpedonktum, shows clips of Democratic members of Congress at Trump’s State of the Union address set to that super emo R.E.M. song, “Everybody Hurts.”

The 2:20 video was posted to YouTube earlier this month and received more than 50,000 views, but it seems Trump just noticed — and it must have really spoken to him. Read more…

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Mars’ surface is a lifeless, unwelcoming desert. But beneath its red soil the planet still might be alive — geologically.

Big space news broke in 2018: Using a ground-penetrating radar aboard a Mars satellite, a group of scientists detected a thin 12-mile lake thousands of feet beneath the Martian south pole. Now, researchers have put forward a paper arguing that if there is indeed a sizable briny-lake underneath this ice cap, hot molten rock (magma) must have oozed up near the surface and melted the ice. 

Such underground volcanism would have happened in geologically recent time, perhaps a few hundred thousand years ago, or less.  Read more…

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More than two years ago, 20th Century Fox invited the press to the set of Alita: Battle Angel, which had just started production. It was all very hush-hush, and we agreed not to report on what we’d seen, heard, and done on the backlot until the film’s launch in February 2019.

In November 2016, I awoke early in Austin, Texas, and was driven to a site that was previously the city’s main airport. It’s now home to Troublemaker Studios, founded in 1999 by the film’s director, Robert Rodriguez, and producer Elizabeth Avellán.

Carved out of two massive airplane hangars, Stage 1 (9,460 square feet) and Stage 2 (14,000 square feet) loomed large over background artists dressed in futuristic dystopian garb, who milled around grabbing breakfast from craft services. We were whisked through office hallways, the art department, wardrobe, and the Mill Space (fiberglassing, blow torches, vast sets, and lots of shouted commands to “Mind that cable!”) before arriving in a dark screening room. Read more…

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Facebook may soon set a new record, just not the kind it likes to brag about.

The social network is facing a multibillion-dollar fine from the Federal Trade Commission over privacy violations, according to a new report in The Washington Post.

The FTC previously confirmed it had opened an investigation into the social network last March, following the Cambridge Analytica debacle. Last month, The Washington Post reported Facebook’s potential fine could be “record-setting,” and significantly higher than the $22.5 million Google was fined in 2012 — the current record-holder for biggest FTC fine against a tech company.  Read more…

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FuckJerry continues to be FuckJerry. 

The guys behind the viral Instagram leech that is @fuckjerry used celebrity photos and stolen memes to push their tequila brand. To promote Jaja Tequila, Spanish for “haha,” they posted edited images of Amy Poehler, Idris Elba, Will Smith, and other famous people to advertise their product, Vice reports. 

Here’s the kicker — none of these celebrities consented to shilling Jaja. Anderson Cooper, for example, infamously (and painfully) did tequila shots on live TV during CNN’s New Year’s Eve coverage, but it wasn’t Jaja. That didn’t stop the company from editing the image to look like Cooper was breathing fire and writing “Jaja vs other tequilas” above it.  Read more…

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