The Morning After: ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ and the problem with too much VFX
It’s time for more Marvel Cinematic Universe, more special effects, more families in danger and more sinister baddies, with a bigger role for Kang the Conqueror – the big cross-movie threat, a la Thanos – played by Jonathan Majors. Alas, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania suffers from too many special effects, sadly.
It uses Industrial Light and Magic's (ILM) StageCraft technology (AKA “the Volume”), which came to prominence in Star Wars series The Mandalorian. It’s a series of enormous LED walls that can display real-time footage, synchronized to interactive lighting to make it feel like actors are in these sci-fi landscapes, fighting these threats to humanity. Still, Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar says the tech, the actors and the narrative fail to convince.
– Mat Smith
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Their age and Milky Way-like size make them an anomaly.
According to images taken near the Big Dipper by the JWST, scientists found six potential galaxies that formed just 500 to 700 million years after the Big Bang. That they could be almost 13 billion years old isn't what makes them odd, though, it's that they could have as many stars as the Milky Way, according to the team's calculations. The scientists explained the galaxies should not exist under current cosmological theory because there shouldn't have been enough matter at the time for that many stars to form. Now, that sounds like the start of a MCU movie.
Google’s Magic Eraser photo tool is coming to older Pixel phones
And other Google Photos features will be more broadly available.
Google is bringing photo features once exclusive to recent Pixel phones to more devices. Magic Eraser, a tool to easily remove unwanted people or objects from an image, debuted in 2021 on the Pixel 6, and starting today, Google is rolling out Magic Eraser to Pixel 5a and earlier models. All Pixel models and Google One subscribers will also gain access to an HDR effect to boost the brightness and contrast to videos. The same goes for Google One subscribers. Members on all plans will have access to Magic Eraser through Google Photos, even if they're on iOS.
Netflix cuts prices in over 30 countries (but not the US)
It’s experimenting.
Despite raising North American prices a year ago, Netflix is getting cheaper in over 30 countries – just not in the US. The company has cut prices by as much as half in parts of the Middle East (Yemen, Jordan, Libya and Iran), Sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya), Europe (Croatia, Slovenia and Bulgaria), Latin America (Nicaragua, Ecuador and Venezuela) and Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines). The company introduced a cheaper ad-supported plan in 12 countries last October – it’s clearly trying a bit of everything.
Elon Musk says California is home to Tesla’s engineering headquarters
The CEO moved the company’s corporate headquarters to Texas in 2021.
Despite moving its corporate headquarters to Texas, Tesla now considers California its global engineering home base. Elon Musk said a Palo Alto engineering hub will be “effectively a headquarters of Tesla.” Tesla will use a former Hewlett-Packard building in Palo Alto as its new engineering headquarters. The move is an about-face from the CEO’s previous comments about the state: Musk didn’t mince words about California’s regulations and taxes when he moved Tesla’s official corporate headquarters to Texas in 2021, complaining about “overregulation, overlitigation, over-taxation.” But he’s back.