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At Google I/O 2026 today, Google announced it will release its first "Intelligent Eyewear" smart glasses this fall. The glasses are a joint product between Samsung and Google, with Samsung providing the hardware and Google the software, and will be available for both Android and iOS. No price was announced.

Here's what Google's first "Intelligent Eyewear" glasses look like

The company showed off two frame designs, one from Gentle Monster and another from Warby Parker. Here's what they look like:

Credit: Google

Credit: Google

While Google teased a future release of display-style glasses, the presentation was largely about the audio, camera, and AI capabilities of the glasses coming this fall. Google focused on the integration of smart glasses and Gemini AI, demonstrating their ability to provide turn-by-turn directions via audio, launch and use outside apps like Doordash with voice commands, and take and edit photos with AI. Android can then take those edited photos and display them on your Google Watch, as you can see from this AI-assisted "crowd selfie" show off at the presentation:

Credit: Google

Below are more details on the glasses' features, from Google's blog:

• Ask Gemini about anything you see: Google includes examples, like asking for reviews of a restaurant you're passing and identifying cloud types.

• Navigation: In addition to issuing turn-by-turn directions, Intelligent Eyewear can add stops to your route.

• Messages and calls: These glasses will manage calls and texts, and can have Gemini summarize missed messages.

• Translation: The glasses support real-time language translations, with "audio that matches the tone and pitch of the speaker’s voice," as well as translations of text.

How does Intelligence Eyewear stack up to Meta's smart glasses?

Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2), Headliner, Matte Black | Smart AI Glasses for Men, Women — 2x Battery Life — 3K Ultra HD Resolution — 12 MP Ultra-Wide Camera, Audio, Video — Clear Lenses — Wearable Technology

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This fall, Google and Samsung will compete with industry leader Meta, whose smart glasses account for about 80% of the market, a steep hill to climb. While we don't have crucial information like the quality of Intelligent Eyewear's camera or how much they will cost, broadly, Google's smart glasses and Meta's AI-and-camera models are similar: both take pictures, let you talk to AI, and play and transmit audio. Barring an incredible camera or very low price, whether consumers choose Google or Meta will likely come down to integration and personal style.

A huge goal for big-tech smart glasses companies is herding users into their respective information infrastructures, so Google's presentation focused as much on interaction with other apps as it did on the hardware itself. Google promises hands-free use of staples like Google Maps, Gemini AI features like Nano Banana, and Google Watches, but they also showed off connections with non-Google apps like Doordash, Uber, and language app Mondly. Meta glasses can currently access Meta-owned apps like Instagram and WhatsApp, and a limited number of third-party options—mostly music-focused apps like Spotify, Audible, Apple Music, and iHeartRadio. Ultimately, the decision of which smart glasses to buy may come down to which apps you most want to use without taking your phone out of your pocket.

The ultimate question: Which one will look less dorky?

In terms of style, Meta has so far focused on iconic, recognizable brands like Ray-Ban and Oakley for its smart glasses frames, where Google seems to be leaning toward a more fashionable approach. Gentle Monster is known for bold "statement" frames like the skinny glasses shown off at I/O 2026, and Warby Parker takes a minimalistic but tasteful approach to eyewear. Unlike most tech products, looks are extremely important with smart glasses. An Oakley person is not likely to start rocking Gentle Monster frames just because they have a better camera.

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Nothing is really new in conspiracy theories, but the churning morass of social media sometimes mixes up new combinations of old nonsense that bubbles up to the surface unexpectedly. Lately, interest in "Grabovoi codes" or "Grabovoi numbers" is high. The CIA is supposedly hiding Grabovoi codes, strings of numbers that one can concentrate upon in order to cure disease, get rich, and manifest a new car. This video, for instance, has been viewed over a million times in the last couple weeks:

"You can search 'quantum healing codes' at the CIA.gov website and it has many different codes for many different things," This TikToker says, "for instance you would think of the part of your body that's hurting and repeat 55515 and, voila, pain starts to vanish," they add. Many TikTokers are into this. There are over 43,000 posts on the "Grabovoi" hashtag.

It might seem like lightweight wish fulfillment, but I looked into where belief in the Grabovoi codes comes from, and it's way deeper than TikTok. The online world's belief in magic numbers is a case of historical telephone that can be traced to a convicted Russian conman, an American broadcasting tycoon who believed he could travel outside of his body, and the strange history of the CIA and KGB's research into the paranormal—it gets real weird, real quick. But first, do the Grabovoi codes actually work?

Can you use Grabovoi codes to cure pain and disease and/or manifest wealth?

No. But sometimes, kind of yes. There is a library of research about the connection between the cognitive mind and the perception of pain, and scientific research supports the general idea that if you are experiencing mild pain, concentrating on something else, like a specific number, could reduce the perception of that pain. But the number itself is irrelevant; it's the distraction that matters. All other claims about benefits from these numbers—that they represent frequencies connected to specific real life outcomes, that they can help you find love, etc.— are not supported by any evidence.

Do Grabovoi codes come from the CIA?

No. But kind of yes. Despite the claims of online believers, searching "quantum healing codes," or "Grabovoi" in the CIA's declassified files database does not result in a list of healing numbers. There is no mention of the inventor of the Grabovoi numbers, Grigori Grabovoi, in the files either. There is actually one "healing number" contained in declassified CIA files. But first...

Who is Grigori Grabovoi?

Grabovoi is the founder of the Russian group Teaching Universal Salvation and Harmonious Development. He claims he is the second coming of Jesus, can cure cancer, can teleport, and can repair anything, mechanical or electronic, remotely. In 2008, Grabovoi was sentenced to 11 years in a Russian prison for fraud after accepting payment to resurrect children slain in the Beslan school siege. He's served his sentence and lives in Serbia now.

Among the hundreds of books (usually transcripts of lectures) Grabovoi has authored is Restoration of Matter of Human Being by Concentrating on Number Sequence, which lays out some of the Grabovoi numbers. Not all of them, though. Grabovoi tends to publish books of numbers for specific subjects, like Concentration on Numerical Sequences to Reset the Body of Cats. Grabovoi doesn't miss a trick.

Which brings us to TikTok. Beginning around 2016, Grabovoi and his believers/followers started promoting his numbers and theories on Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube, and basically everywhere else, and they were spread by people connected with hashtags like #manifestation, particularly when Covid19 was at its peak. So that's why everyone is talking about Grabovoi codes, but it doesn't explain the CIA connection. That's because of Robert Monroe.

Who is Robert Monroe?

Robert Allan Monroe was a media tycoon who made a ton of money producing radio shows in the 1930s and 40s. By the late 1950s, Monroe owned a network of radio stations and early cable TV channels across Virginia. In 1958, this rich radio dude claimed he had a spontaneous out-of-body experience after listening to binaural sounds.

To study the phenomena, Monroe used his considerable wealth to found the Monroe Institute. In 1977 the Institute published the The Gateway Intermediate Workbook, a collection of mental exercises and visualization tools designed to help people relax and/or project their consciousness across time and space. It advised people in pain to close their eyes and repeat "55515" to dull pain signals. Why this number specifically is not explained, but Monroe's whole thing was "hemi-sync" audio signals, aka "binaural beats," so the idea may have been that repeating a precise rhythmic sequence like "five-five-five-one-five" would echo pulsing audio frequencies. It's hard to say. Anyway, repeating this series of numbers is unlikely to have any more effect on pain than repeating anything else, and the research on binaural beats isn't promising. None of this changes the fact that the CIA had a real connection to the Monroe Institute.

How the CIA connected to the Monroe Institute

The Monroe Institute's workbook and other esoteric material were part of the CIA's reading room, and by the late 1970s and into the early 1980s, the U.S. Army and the CIA routinely sent high level intelligence officers to the Monroe Institute's campus, especially in connection with Project Stargate, the military's effort to create psychic soldiers and/or remote viewers who could project their consciousness anywhere they wanted.

The "CIA connection" is the most compelling thing about TikTok's interest in magic numbers. The CIA and army intelligence are thought of as serious, smart people who deal in information the rest of us are not privy to. If they believe in magic numbers, it must be true, right? Well, yes and no. The CIA/military is a group of people, and all groups of people (even smart ones) can be bamboozled.

Cold war paranoia leads to esoteric research

Consider the atomic bomb from a military, non-scientist perspective: If a split atom can level a city, is it that strange to believe the human mind has capacities we don't understand? Add to that the revelation that the USSR was conducting its own paranormal research, and you have a perfect storm. If we're wrong about this, the thinking that led to military paranormal research likely went, and the Soviets make atomic-bomb-level breakthroughs in the field of parapsychology, they'll bury us without firing a shot; it would be crazy to not look into it. And given the massive military budgets of the time, it was a tiny expenditure with a potentially nuclear-level outcome. (There's also the possibility that both the CIA and the KGB were purposefully deceiving one another about the extent of their research to make the other spend more. Things get shadowy during the Cold War.)

Enter the Monroe Institute. Robert Allan Monroe wasn't a wild-eyed hippie. He wore expensive suits and had straight white teeth. At least on the surface, the Monroe Institute was taking a corporate approach to the mind/body connection. Its approach was structured, serious, and deliberately clinical. The Gateway Workbook is a step-by-step process instead of a leap of faith. The Monroe Institute was the kind of place the military might feel confident sending its men.

The reality check of the 1990s

Research into remote viewing and other esoterica went on, seemingly with no tangible results. In 1989, Soviet Union collapsed without the help of psychic warriors or atomic bombs, and the CIA took a hard look at its paranormal programs in the mid 1990s. 1995's report "An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications," concludes, "OK, this was dumb and it never worked and we should stop throwing money at it." I mean, that's the gist. Anyway, the material was declassified so we could all take a look at how our taxes are spent.

Which brings us back to TikTok. Everything the CIA releases has always been pored over by curious people, where it marinates with other "official" weirdness like UFO research and quantum mechanics until it gets spit back in altered form. The no-context architecture of social media seems designed to legitimize fringe ideas. A convicted Russian conman's magic numbers collide with a wealthy eccentric's out-of-body workbook that got filed in a CIA reading room, and suddenly a million people think the CIA has a secret cure for back pain.

The low cost of entry of the Grabovoi codes

I don't think too many people on TikTok really believe that they can manifest magic and get rid of pain by repeating a number, but like a paranoid military throwing a few million at psychic research in the remote hopes of a Cold War-winning breakthrough, the barrier to entry is low. When you're in pain or you're broke or you're scared, why not repeat some numbers to yourself? It can't hurt.

But it won't help that much, either. Research shows that cognitively demanding tasks like puzzles or math problems are more effective ways to distract yourself from pain than repeating a number, and while learning about out-of-body experiences from the Monroe Institute (which is still around, by the way) might be interesting, there are better ways to relax and clear your mind. For instance, rather than spending $2,895.00 to sit around in a dark room in Virginia envisioning a tropical beach at the Institute's five-day "Gateway Voyage," book a trip to Bali. For the same price, you could actually be on a tropical beach, and stay at a luxury villa with a private plunge pool and a personal butler.

I'm totally totally cheesin over Mixtape and not cheesin at all about TikTok's AI cat videos. Scuba! If none of that makes sense to you, you're about to be educated and embettered by this week's Out-of-Touch guide, where the secret world of young people is either explained or misunderstood, depending on whom you ask.

What does "cheesin" mean? And how does it differ from "cheesing?"

The slang word "cheesin'" refers to smiling, particularly a big, goofy smile. It comes from the common exhortation to "say cheese!" when a photograph is being taken. Here's an examples of how cheesin is used online:

The word "cheesing," with a "g" at the end, often means the same thing, but it can also refer to the trend of throwing pieces of cheese at cars and/or people—the cheese sticks, and it's kind of hilarious. I know people shouldn't do it, because won't someone think of the cars? but it's still funny. Here's an example of the second kind of cheesing:

Throwing cheese at people's cars isn't new online, and it doesn't seem to have ever been a huge trend, but it made enough of an impact this week that a teenager was arrested in Topeka and booked on two counts of aggravated assault after a cheesing incident. The unnamed youth allegedly cheesed someone, and when confronted by his victim, brandished a gun. In response to the cheesing, the Topeka Police Department issued a statement reminding the public that "social media trends and pranks can quickly escalate into dangerous situations with serious legal consequences.” Thanks, Topeka Police Department!

Gamers are angry over Mixtape

Gaming culture is getting weird again. On May 7, Annapurna Interactive released Mixtape, a story-heavy adventure game about the messiness and beauty of coming-of-age. Mixtape is to Call of Duty as Boyhood is to Avengers Endgame. Because professional game reviewers are largely sensitive fellows, they like this game a lot, but many of the "real" gamers out there do not like Mixtape. People are calling the game pretentious, boring, "too woke," and are questioning whether it's even a game at all. The backlash has mostly been limited to people complaining and some funny memes so far, but online types are making much of the fact that Annapurna Interactive was founded by Megan Ellison, daughter of super-rich Oracle founder Larry Ellison, leading to charges that the game only exists because of nepotism, and that its high review scores are dishonest or a result of reviewers being scared of angering a rich guy. It's starting to feel a little like Gamergate 2.0.

There's something about gaming culture that leads to people picking bizarre hills to die on. Movie fans don't get morally indignant and organize doxxing and harassment campaigns because critics like Silent Friend better than Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. It's not like they won't put out the next Madden because Annapurna interactive wants to make another sensitive walking simulator.

What does "Scuba" mean?

I'm not sure why I know this off the top of my head, but "scuba" is an acronym for "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus." That's not, however, what it means to young people. In slang, "scuba" is a verb. To scuba is to do the scuba dance (sometimes called the scuba juke) which I'll just show you rather than try to describe:

Anyway, videos of people doing this simple dance are all over TikTok. The trend supposedly started with Desean Hawk Logan-Russell—he made the first Scuba video, and that's his sound bite behind rest—but it looks like a variation on 1960s dance the Swim to me. If you're ever thinking, "These online dance trends are so stupid," remember that The Swim was a huge craze.

Viral videos of the week: cats vs. vegetable AI videos

This week's viral videos are a look into a dark and troubling future. There is a sub-genre of AI videos on TikTok in which anthropomorphic cartoon cats do disturbing things, and they are very popular. Channels like @cat_mind6, @the_meow_minute, @giselecat, @mixcat804 and dozens more post steady streams of AI vids of human/cat chimera stealing each other's eyeballs, being hit by trucks, putting roofies in drinks, and otherwise being extremely creepy. These video regularly go viral, and gain tens of millions of views. The weird-ass video below has been viewed over 120 million times.

It's unlikely humans had any input in the "creative" part of these videos. AI makes the videos, posts them, analyzes what works and what doesn't based on view counts, then hones and perfect the formula for the next video, giving us a hazy view of a combination of humanity's collective unconscious and the programming of TikTok's algorithm. Meanwhile, the AI itself is prying secrets from the human soul by learning how we engage with this slop. This is how all entertainment will be made in the future; because it is what many, many people most want to watch, even if they'd never admit it. This video has over 148 million plays:

A few weeks ago, something mysterious happened, and cat video accounts started posting videos of sentient fruits and vegetables being messed up instead of cats. @cat_mind6's last cat video, in which a cat-woman is sexually assaulted by a cat-man and a rabbit man, is dated April 24 and was watched fewer than 150,000 times, but the next day, the channel posted a video dramatizing an apple-woman's battle with explosive diarrhea that was viewed over 13 million times. @the_meow_minute's last cat video, in which a kitten is raised by gorillas, was posted in March. After that, it's all about a zucchini guy and a peach woman's abusive relationship.

At the end of the chain of AI agents and TikTok video viewers, someone is making a ton of money. A video that hits 128 million views can generate between $60,000 and $100,000 from its creator through TikTok's Creator Rewards Program. And that's the tip of the iceberg, because those profits drive hundreds of latecomers to try to get in on the action. They probably won't make money, but they'll shovel cash into the pockets of the AI companies that make the programs that make the videos.

I'm going to find an ice floe to float away upon now.

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XReal and ASUS Republic of Gamers announced this morning that pre-orders are open for the ROG XREAL R1, a pair of augmented reality smart glasses designed for high-frame-rate gaming paired with a ROG control dock. First shown at CES 2026, the R1s are a wearable monitor that projects a virtual 171-inch monitor with a 0.01ms response time and 240Hz refresh rate—the fastest available in AR glasses. XReal R1s are bundled with the ROG Control Dock, and are selling for $849 at Best Buy, with a release on the XReal store to follow on May 17.

ASUS - ROG Ally X 7" 120Hz FHD 1080p Gaming Handheld - AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme Processor - 24GB with 2TB SSD - Black

$999.99 at Best Buy

Get Deal

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$999.99 at Best Buy

The R1 is built on the architecture of XReal One glasses (see my full XReal One review here) and is powered by the same X1 chip for three degrees of freedom (3DoF) tracking. That means you can pin your gaming display anywhere in augmented reality and it won't move when you turn your head.

The ROG Control Dock lets you connect these smart glasses to consoles (Xbox, PS5) and PCs with the dock's HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 inputs, but they are being positioned as the ultimate companion for the ROG Ally handheld gaming PC. With these glasses, the Ally doesn't need a separate monitor to deliver a high-end PC gaming experience. The R1 and ROG Ally together are aimed at delivering a high-end PC gaming experience that's also fully portable and viewable in high definition through a pair of sunglasses.

In a post on Instagram, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed the dates of the next Meta Connect event: September 23 and 24 at the company's Menlo Park campus. It will, of course, be streamed online as well. Zuckerberg also shared a (likely clue-filled) playlist labeled "Connect 2026," a list of what to expect, and a photo that seems to tease smart glasses that will be revealed at the event:

Credit: Mark Zuckerberg/Instagram

The note Zuck shared promises "demos, special guests, AI updates and better wifi," along with a fifth item that has been blurred out. Mysterious! A post on the company's blog promised that Meta would "share the latest in VR, wearables, metaverse, and AI" at the event, but I doubt those things are listed in order of importance.

What will Meta be showing off at Meta Connect 2026?

Beyond a scribbled-out pair of sunglasses and some cryptic clues, there's little information as to what Meta plans to showcase at the event. There have been rumors that Meta is working on a watch to compete with the Apple Watch, and there is something roughly watch-sized in the photo, so that's a possibility. Meta finally revealing a full smart watch that also controls Meta glasses would make sense, but there's no way to know if the company is there yet. Diehard virtual reality fans are hoping for the announcement of a new Quest headset, which the company has confirmed is on the way at some point, but if I had to guess, I'd say Meta is going to lean hard on improvements to its artificial intelligence, because that's the way of the world these days.

Credit: Mark Zuckerberg - Instagram

The songs on Mark Zuckerberg's "vibes" playlist mainly reveal the CEO's pedestrian taste in music. I mean, Daft Punk's "Better Stronger Faster" in 2026? A new Jack Harlow song? Blink-182? Sheesh. It's not giving "cutting edge," as much as "safe choices."

This story seems straight out of a Hollywood thriller: Up to a dozen scientists working on some of the U.S.’s most advanced and sensitive aerospace and nuclear programs have disappeared or died in mysterious ways over the last five years. The FBI is working with the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and local law enforcement to find answers. The House Oversight Committee launched its own investigation. Congressman Eric Burlison said the mystery has “all the hallmarks of a foreign operation.” The president called it “pretty serious stuff."

Congressman James Comer suggested someone is targeting the nation’s nuclear program. Rep. Tim Burchett alleged a cover-up of UAP activity. Some say it’s aimed at people with knowledge of American security secrets.  Or maybe it’s to cover up evidence of time travel.  So what’s really going on here?

Literally nothing. This is a cobbled-together collection of unrelated deaths and disappearances. As a conspiracy theory, it is, as Daniel Engber pointed out in The Atlantic, "unbelievably dumb."

Scientists are dying, but so is everyone else

There are around two million scientists in the U.S., and, as science writer and debunker Mick West pointed out, over 700,000 people hold top-secret clearances in the U.S. aerospace and nuclear sectors. If 10 or so of this group had died or disappeared in inexplicable ways over five years, it wouldn’t be statistically meaningful, but this theory is even more stupid than that. Many people on the list didn’t seem to have top-secret clearances, and many weren’t scientists. The list includes a construction foreman who once worked at Los Alamos National Lab, a former custodian at the Kansas City National Security Campus, and an administrative assistant. And there are concrete explanations for almost all of these deaths and disappearances. The list includes physicist Ning Li who died at 78 of Alzheimers and Carl Grillmair who was killed in a home invasion by a man with a violent history who had a prior disagreement with Grillmair that had nothing to do with science. 

The missing scientist conspiracy theories have all the hallmarks of apophenia (people perceiving meaningful connections in random data) and cherry-picking, and even if we give a lot of credit to the most “mysterious” entries on the list, the theory gets muddy very quickly. 

The strange life and death of Amy Eskridge

The death that arguably supports the “mysterious assassinations” theory most strongly is that of Amy Eskridge. A fringe scientist who founded the Institute for Exotic Science in Huntsville, Alabama to study anti-gravity technology, Eskridge died at 34 of a (supposedly) self-inflicted gunshot wound in 2022, after telling friends she was being stalked and targeted by unknown forces. 

The conspiracy theorists’ line about Eskridge is that she was a brilliant scientist who made a breakthrough discovery in anti-gravity research and was taken out by mysterious pro-gravity forces before she could go public. It’s a compelling narrative on the surface, but when you unwind it, you find the kind of half-truths and exaggerations you always find when you look into conspiracy theories. 

What actually is a scientist? 

Whether Eskridge belongs in a list of scientists in the first place is debatable. Some online have categorized her as an important researcher with a background in physics, but her highest degree was a bachelors in biochemistry, and she doesn't seem to have published any research in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Eskridge didn’t have the kind of professional background that suggests access to top-secret government programs, either. 

Maybe Eskridge’s gravity research was too esoteric to be accepted by the "mainstream science," but even that is questionable. Judging from this public presentation (and accompanying slides) that Eskridge gave not long before she died, she didn’t seem close to any kind of breakthrough. Her speech points out that you can’t build an anti-gravity machine without first developing a theoretical framework for how one could actually work, and that that theory doesn’t exist right now. This is exactly what the scientific establishment would say. 

Eskridge’s presentation wasn’t a revelation of ground-breaking new technology. It was a catalog of past attempts to conquer gravity. ending with a stab at finding a patron to fund basic, step-one theoretical research. Despite the posts from conspiracy theorists, there’s no indication that Eskridge, or anyone else, got beyond the whole “based on everything we know about how the physical world works, anti-gravity isn’t possible” thing. 

Eskridge's death is (somewhat) mysterious

Eskridge’s death does raise questions. According to police and the medical examiner, it was a suicide, but according to conspiracy theorists it was a murder, and they have receipts.

On May 13, 2022, one month before she died, Eskridge reportedly sent a message to business partner Samuel Reed that read: "If you see any report that I killed myself, I most definitely did not. If you see any report that I overdosed, I most definitely did not…If anything happens to me—suicide or an accident—it wasn't, it's suspicious, treat it as such.”

She also reported repeated death threats and other harassment, and posted a video of supposed burns on her hands to prove a directed energy weapon was being used against her. 

On the other hand, members of Eskridge’s family publicly stated that she had suffered from chronic pain, and reported no suspicion about how she died. Eskridge didn’t post recordings of harassing phone calls or dark messages she received, nor did she provide any other evidence that she was being targeted. 

That isn't proof she wasn’t murdered, though. The case of Eskridge and the rest of these scientists runs across a common problem of debunking conspiracy theories: We don’t know enough to say for sure, and we can’t prove a negative. That leaves us with asking which explanation is more probable: a shadowy, unnamed cabal of assassins targeting a woman who was interested in anti-gravity, or a woman who was paranoid about a non-existent cabal and took her own life.

From what we know for sure, Eskridge was interested in developing an anti-gravity hypothesis. Some claim she was about to break the field wide open by publishing her findings, but she didn’t actually publish anything. Even if we accept that her theory existed, the argument is still “assassins targeted someone for thinking about anti-gravity,” which is still an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. And there isn’t any. 

Eskridge's death, heartbreaking as it is, would not have attracted attention if she hadn't spent her final months making predictions that later appeared, to some, to come true, but that’s not enough to prove anything. We only have Eskridge’s word that harassment took place, and it all could have been the product of paranoid delusions on her part. 

While plenty of intelligent, mentally healthy people hold unconventional views about physics and government secrecy, Eskridge believed that she, specifically, was being hunted for her research. Psychiatrists call this "persecutory ideation," and it's associated with serious mental illnesses and correlates to suicide.

We don’t have evidence to prove Eskridge was suffering from a mental illness, just as we can’t prove that she was murdered, but mental illness is, in general, a more common cause of death than shadowy cabals of assassins targeting people over scientific theories. Roughly 800 to 900 Americans aged 34 die by suicide every year. As Eskridge’s father, a retired NASA employee, told NewsNation, “Scientists die also, just like other people.”

The families just want theorists to stop

Eskridge’s father isn’t the only family member of someone on the list to have spoken out. Carl Grillmair's widow Louise told BBC that she has been fielding calls from conspiracy theorists, despite the fact that her husband’s alleged killer has been charged with murder. Relatives of others on the list have publicly called the conspiracy theories "terrible" and “disgusting.” And not a single family member has publicly suggested there's anything suspicious about any of these deaths or disappearances.

It’s fun (and sometimes politically useful) for conspiracy theorists to dream up connections between unrelated events, just like it is fun for people like me to shoot holes in their theories, but these were real people with families, friends, and in many cases genuine scientific legacies. They deserve better than a walk-on role in a conspiracy theory.

This week's Out-of-Touch guide explains the online mogging competition that is Omoggle and examines who was behind a hack that brought learning to a screeching halt nationwide. We also look at a viral AI music trend, and discuss how technology we use every day might kill us all.

Mogging get organized on Omoggle

The Omoggle website is blowing up. As you can read in my glossary of Gen A and Gen Z slang, "mogging" is the act of being more attractive than someone else, usually in an intentional or aggressive way: If you're a young gentleman having a conversation with a woman, and a more handsome young man stands next to you and takes over, you have officially been mogged. Omoggle gamifies that conflict of attractiveness. It's a player-vs.-player contest where a user uploads a picture of their face and pits it against another user. An AI then analyzes the competitors' features to determine who has been mogged and who has done the mogging. It may be named after defunct chat site Omegle, but Omoggle is more like Hot or Not. Except it's more disturbing because the winner of the attractive-off isn't determined by other users' votes, but by an AI that was programmed to reinforce incel ideas.

Over the last 10 years or so, incels and manosphere types have developed and spread a massive, ad-hoc, shared delusion about what women find attractive. Despite being a self-selected group of men who don't relate well to women, incels believe they understand what women find attractive better than women themselves. All women, the theory goes, are looking for a specific set of facial features—a thick jaw, high cheekbones, etc.—and if you don't have them, you have no chance, so why try? Omoggle is really part of incels' ongoing effort to convince themselves that the reason women won't talk to them is because the geometry of their Canthal Tilt is off, not because they're creepy weirdos.

School computers went down across the country last week

A website going down temporarily is probably a minor inconvenience to us older people, but when Canvas went down this week, right in the middle of finals, it was a full-life disruption for many in Generations Z and A. Canvas is the learning management system that controls just about every college and high school in the country's schedules, homework, grades, and more, so hackers taking it out pretty much shut down academia. The hacker group responsible, called ShinyHunters, threatened to release user information if an unspecified ransom wasn't paid, but fortunately, the site seems to have beaten the hackers back, and Canvas is functioning again—but for how long?

Shinyhunters: the new generation of hackers

Shinyhunters, the group that pulled off the Canvas hack, took its name from the Pokémon franchise. Shiny Pokémon are rare, and according to security experts, Shinyhunters seem to focus on rare data. The group is thought to be part of a large affiliation of younger hackers called "The Com" who are mostly from the U.S. and the UK. While other groups within The Com collaborate with Russian ransomware groups, Shinyhunters don't. They're about data leak extortion, i.e.: "We'll release all this data if you don't pay us" instead of the usual ransomware's message of "we locked your systems and will free them when you pay us." Shinyhunters have been especially active lately, having targeted Ticketmaster, Wattpad, Pixlr, Bonobos, BigBasket, Mathway, Unacademy, MeetMindful, and more.

Viral videos of the week: text songs

Artificial intelligence's takeover of all human endeavors continues. The latest evidence: the popularity of "text songs" videos on TikTok. The concept is simple: You enter text conversations as lyrics into song generation engines like Suno or Udio, make it into a song and video, and make people laugh. While there are lots of different musical styles represented in these videos, gospel tends to work best; maybe it's the contrast of the mundanity of the text messages with the dramatic nature of the music. Here are a few examples:

Bonus: Because I sometimes have funny conversations with my teenage child, I made my own.

If you'd like to listen to a computer sing to you all day, check out the SongText hashtag where you can find almost 30,000 more examples.

Reddit discusses technological nightmares

AI sure is fun, isn't it? Unrelated: Young people spend a lot of time thinking about how the technology we've already developed will likely kill us in the near future. It's not necessarily that there's more anxiety now than when you were young, but there are more options. Realistically, you only had to worry about nukes falling, but, judging by this Reddit thread, young people are worried about hundreds of different kinds of technological nightmares that might happen in the next few years or tomorrow afternoon, including:

• Being arrested by your own car

• Undetectable deep fakes being used to scam you

• Killer drone swarms

• Direct energy/microwave weapons

• Left chirality bacteria and viruses

I could literally go on all day, but I won't. You can read the thread yourself if you lack things to worry about.

Canvas, the cloud-based learning management system used by more than 8,000 colleges and universities, including all top ten colleges in the U.S., is being held for ransom. A group called Shinyhunters has claimed responsibility for the hack and has given Canvas' parent company, Instructure, until May 12 to reach a settlement, or else "everything is leaked."

Canvas outages have been reported nationwide

There's no word on how many schools have been affected, but reports of students being unable to access Canvas are coming in from universities and colleges all over the country. Over the last half an hour, complaints of Canvas being down have gone from nearly none to over 8,000 on Down Detector.

Credit: Stephen Johnson

A similar breach of Instructure took place in late April or early May, and the company confirmed that names, email addresses, student ID numbers, and private messages exchanged between users were exposed by Shinyhunters, but said there was no evidence of compromised passwords, dates of birth, social security numbers, or financial information.

Instructure updated its software on May 2, saying that it had deployed patches, increased monitoring, and taken other measures meant to contain the damage, a fact referenced by ShinyHunters in the message left for Canvas users:

Credit: Stephen Johnson

The hacker group claimed its previous hack added up to over 3 terabytes of data, affecting 275 million students, teachers, and others at close to 9,000 educational institutions. Whether this latest breach will be that large remains to be seen.

What to do if you're affected by the Canvas outage

While the threat is presumably being resolved, here are some steps students and faculty can take to make their digital data more secure on Canvas.

• Change your password: If you can log in, change your Canvas password. If you use the same password for banking, email, and other places, change those as well.

• Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): This adds an extra layer of security.

• Beware of phishing emails: If email addresses were compromised, hackers may send highly targeted emails to students. Be suspicious of any messages asking you to install software or share account information.

• Monitor your credit: It's unknown whether financial information was part of the hack, but giving your credit report a check wouldn't hurt.

I am obsessed with the "Conversate" app in my Even Realities G2 smart glasses. Overall, the glasses are sci-fi cool—they project a small, monochrome HUD in front of your eyes but look like normal glasses—but Conversate is essential. The AI-driven productivity tool is designed for work meetings but it's fun in social settings too, and you can use it to scam free drinks from bartenders.

Use Conversate and never take notes in a meeting again

If you've ever left a work meeting thinking, "wait, am I supposed to file the TPS reports, or is it Gary's week?" consider Conversate. I don't multi-task well, so listening while taking notes can be difficult. Conversate solves that problem.

Here's how it works: You hit the start button on the app, and the AI listens and transcribes everything anyone says in real time. The text is just out of your eyesight unless you glance up at it, so it isn't distracting but if someone asks a factual question, you'll get a silent answer in a pop-up window in your glasses. If you share this fact, it can make you look very smart. Or like a know-it-all, so use wisely. If someone says a person's or a company's name, you get a pop-up that tells you who/what they are too. Usually this is useless (I already know what Google is and who Jesus Christ is), but occasionally, it gives needed context.

Credit: Stephen Johnson

When the meeting is over, you can check out a summary of what was discussed, and Conversate will highlight anything that looks like a task for you. You can then take those tasks and migrate them to your glasses' to-do list with a click, so you have a checkable list of action items floating before your eyes whenever you want it.

I realize that all of these functions could be done with a number of smart phone apps, but with Conversate, you keep your phone in your pocket—much more unobtrusive.

How to use Conversate to win bar bets and fake being smart

I used the last generation of Even Realities smart glasses to win a drink from a bartender, and Conversate makes this kind of skullduggery even easier. It's constantly listening for questions and feeding you answers, so if you're a dishonest person, you can totally rule at trivia night, impress your friends with your human calculator skills, or tell everyone the day of the week they were born. An added trickery bonus: G2s don't look like smart glasses, and if you pair them with the ring controller, no one will ever know that you are cheating your way through life.

How to have fun at parties with Conversate

This last use really depends on who you hang out with, but in the right crowd, Conversate becomes a hilarious party game. It's funny to read the AI's stilted definitions for common terms back to people, a beat behind the conversation. It's fun when your friends start saying obscure names to see whether your spectacles will tell you who they are. It's fun for people to invent "action items" that you will supposedly have to do later too. Everyone at the party will call you a nerd, but they will still want to try out your glasses. Are they secretly jealous of your cutting-edge techness? Probably not, to be honest. Anyway, when you are finished hanging out with your friends, Conversate will translate the party's banter and small talk into "corporate-speak" summaries, which I find delightful.

Later in your life, you can remember the barbecue you went to like this:

Meeting Summary: : Retrospective on Social Logistics and Lifecycle Events

1. Resource Management & Historical Social Models

• Context: Discussion regarding the evolution of "barbecue social gatherings."

• Key Point: Participants compared current hospitality standards to a legacy "Bring Your Own Meat" (BYOM) model.

• Outcome: The BYOM framework was noted for its ability to facilitate social gatherings with zero capital expenditure from the host.

2. Asset Utility: Off-Road Platforms

• Context: Review of 4-Wheel Drive (4WD) Jeep performance.

• Key Point: The group discussed the long-term viability and "fun" ROI of Jeep vehicles.

• Outcome: High consensus that the mobility benefits of 4WD systems outweigh the mechanical maintenance requirements.

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DirecTV has launched for Meta Quest headsets. While there are already single-channel streaming apps like Peacock available on the headset, this is the first full TV distributor to be available for Quest users. It gives DirecTV subscribers access to over 150 live channels—CNN, HGTV, and NFL Network, etc.— and a huge library of on-demand movies and shows.

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If you have a DirecTV subscription already, you can download the DirecTV app from the Quest store, enter your login info, and start streaming every channel you can watch on your regular TV.

DirecTV offers four tiers of programming that range from $89.99 a month to $169.99 a month as well as smaller "genre packs." Priced between $19.99 and $59.99, these no-contract options offer fewer channels, but they're focused on specific interests like sports or entertainment. There's a five-day free trial, too. The app will work on the Meta Quest 2, 3, 3S, and Meta Quest Pro headsets.

DirecTV isn't offering any content tailored to virtual reality—there's no library of 3D movies or immersive content, you don't watch it in a virtual reality room, and there's no way to watch with other people online—you're basically getting a new place to watch and record DirecTV's channels in augmented reality.

The app itself works well. It's a programming guide and a screen you can re-size and anchor anywhere you want in augmented reality, giving you a portable, big screen TV in your Quest headset. It's nothing groundbreaking, but there's really no reason to re-invent the wheel here.

Don't sleep on DirecTV's free channels and movies

If you don't have a subscription to DirecTV, the app is still worth a download. There are hundreds of quirky, obscure channels (like The Bob Ross Channel) available for free, as well as dedicated movie channels and more mainstream choices like ABC News Live and FOX Weather. You can check out a bunch of on-demand movies too; they're not the fresh-from-theaters films you'd get with a subscription, but if you want to re-watch Mars Attacks, might as well do it with a virtual reality headset.

For members of the always-online generations, reality is hanging by a very thin thread. Core youth values like authenticity and "keeping it real" are confusing concepts to people raised in an environment where almost nothing can be counted on and anything can be faked. Every viral video could be a stealth advertising campaign. Every breakout band, an industry plant. Whether it's meat mountains at Arby's, or vérité video of cheater's antics, this week we're looking into all-encompassing scams. But at least you can bank on Scientology speed-runs as legit, and take comfort in the realness of a ball of red hot metal.

What is Rod Wave's Arby's Takeover?

Arby's is a fast food chain known for its roast beef sandwiches. Rod Wave is a 27-year-old rapper known for pioneering "soul trap" music. Rod Wave's Arby's Takeover is a fictional event that combines these two things.

Many feel Arby's food and Rod Wave's music are similar: They're both slop, but slop in a specific, maximalist way, so the joke is to create AI-generated flyers advertising the takeover that are as huge and gross as possible. Eventually, the "more, More, MORE" prompts result in AI-generating surrealist visions like the ones below. Is Rod Wave partnering with Arby's to sell some roast beef or is this grassroots internet comedy? Who can really say?

The Rod Wave/Arby's thing resulted in renewed interest in "Arby's Meat Mountain." Online lore says there is a secret menu item at Arby's called the "meat mountain." Ordering this will result in a stack of every meat product available at the restaurant piled up between two slices of bread, a sandwich that pushes the epistemological limits of what a sandwich is.

The meat mountain is real, probably. Back in 2014, in the height of the company's "we have the meats" advertising blitz, posters of a gigantic sandwich were hung in Arby's locations to illustrate the variety of meats one could order. It wasn't intended as an actual menu item, but guests pointed to the poster and said, "one of those, please" and Arby's said, "... ok, I guess." (or so the company claims; maybe they were manufacturing a "hidden menu" item because that was a thing then.) Fast-forward to 2026; a new generation has started ordering the meat mountain and is actually getting them. Is this the return of a manufactured meme that sells gross sandwiches? Perhaps. Or not.

Cheating and chopping: What's up with TikTok's fake infidelity videos?

While most TikTok creators chase algorithmic attention by walking obvious paths like dancing well or being attractive, there are other, hidden avenues into the graces of the great machine that decides which videos to share, including videos of a woman chopping vegetables while catching her husband cheating.

There are hundreds of videos on the platform that follow this formula, like the one below (and this one and this one).

As you can tell by the terrible acting, these videos are fake, but why are they so similar? They all take place in a kitchen. The woman wears a t-shirt, usually white. She is cutting food. The knife is inadequate. It's that last detail that gets me. What even is this yellow plastic knife-like thing? This knife is too small. And this one is too big. Sometimes the knife is focused on or mentioned, but usually it's just there, being wrong for the job.

I can channel my inner film student here and infer that the knife, as a potential instrument of violence, is there to add intensity to a scene of domestic disharmony. As a student of the internet, I can see that the wrong knife is rage-bait, designed to get someone to comment "you're gonna cut your fingers off, you idiot," and my inner media studies major sees that these kinds of videos are essentially soap operas for people with 40-second attention spans, but the real question is: Who are these people and why do they all make the same video? This account, for instance, has posted fake cheating videos every day, for nearly a year. Why?

I was initially haunted by the idea that behind every closed door, a young couple is trying to please a faceless, pitiless algorithm by enacting just the right scene of marital discord so people online would pay attention to them, but the truth is more mundane and more depressing. These are self-produced commercials, part of an affiliate marketing scheme for something called CheatCatcher that supposedly tracks your spouse's infidelities with AI. It's part of the OIIC, the Online Infidelity Industrial Complex, that includes products like Cheaty, Usersearch, Instant Checkmate, and others. But cheating checkers are only a small part of the larger affiliate program universe that includes every kind of product or service you can think of from $50,000 tennis bracelets to $2 plastic dopamine hits from Temu, being fed by every single media source you know and trust, every influencer online, and probably your own family. It's all a hall of mirrors, baby.

What are Scientology speedruns?

You know what isn't part of an affiliate program? Running into Scientology buildings and acting the fool. That's the concept behind the "Scientology speedrun." It's probably a crime, and it's definitely chaos, but it's organic chaos and crime at least.

Messing with Scientologists has been an online tradition since the ancient days of Anonymous, but TikTokers started taking it to new levels recently, first by posting videos of street encounters with members of the religion, and then by posting videos of themselves running into Scientology buildings to see how far they can get inside the mysterious inner world of the group. The videos look like this:

The trend seems to have caught on enough that on Friday, a group of over 50 people stormed Scientology in Hollywood. This is, as stated previously, is probably illegal, and TikTok tends to pull down videos of crimes committed as viral trends, so accounts are being deleted and videos are disappearing, although some still seem to be up for some reason. Luckily, X doesn't have these reservations. Obviously people shouldn't do this, but there's a kind of youthful energy and hilarity to these videos that's hard to deny.

Viral video of the week: All hail Power Hot Ball

Some kinds of viral videos are based on simple ideas that require no explanation. So it is with Power Hot Ball, a TikTok account that regularly gets millions of views for videos of a metal ball heated to 1,000c melting through things. Here is the Power Hot Ball taking on corn, various materials, and an iPhone. Weirdly, the nearly molten ball of metal is thwarted by a simple coconut, so it's not all-powerful. If you are like me, and plan to spend the rest of the week watching these videos, here's a link to many, many of them.

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My question about virtual reality has always been, "But what is it for?" I finally have an answer: Guassian Splatting. We've always tried to capture our past, whether it's through physical photographs, VHS tapes, or every picture you have stored in the cloud, but we've been limited to viewing our personal histories in flat media, usually from a behind a screen, and always from a single angle. But Gaussian Splatting changes that. This technology allows you to create volumetric 3D models of objects, people, or spaces, so instead of a picture of your child's favorite toy, you can have a realistic scan of it that you can examine from every angle; instead of a snapshot of Thanksgiving dinner, you can have a photorealistic diorama of the dining room that you can walk around.

What is Gaussian Splatting?

Gaussian Splatting is a technological newborn. It was first theoretically introduced in a 2023 research paper by Bernhard Kerbl, Georgios Kopanas, Thomas Leimkühler, and George Drettakis. The paper details a new rendering technique that builds 3D models out of millions of semi-transparent blobs called "Gaussians" instead of the solid triangles used in traditional computer graphics. Once calculated, the Gaussians are "Splatted" onto a 2D plane by your computer, and that is arranged and layered based on how they should look from any viewpoint within the Splat. Because the blobs are semi-transparent, they don't block each other. They blend together like brushstrokes in a painting.

Another bonus: Splatting provides a much higher level of detail for its file size compared to traditional methods of scanning. Older scans work on a the geometric principle of stretching a virtual skin made of triangles over an object. For a detailed scan, that could be billions of triangles, resulting in PC-choking file sizes. Splatting is based on mathematical probability rather than rigid geometry. Instead of a solid edge, each "blob" is a tiny cloud that tells the computer how likely a color is to exist in that spot. It only stores the position, color, and transparency of millions of relevant areas in space, as well as how they should reflect light from different angles. The result is files that are big compared to Word documents, but not so huge that you can't work with them on a phone.

Gaussian Splatting quickly went from theory to practice, and now Splats can be created and rendered with only a decent smartphone, making it more accessible than older methods that sometimes required laser scanners or specialized equipment.

Why you should start Splatting

3D scanning is already in use professionally in things like mapping real estate for virtual tours and creating photorealistic assets for video games, but Gaussian Splatting is accessible enough that anyone can future-proof their nostalgia.

Splatting gives your future self (or your kids) the ability to "visit" your current life with a level of realism that's breathtaking. It lets you digitally "bottle" the exact layout and volume of a moment in time and preserve it. If your parents had this, you'd be able to walk around your childhood bedroom, or check out every angle and detail of the first car you ever bought.

"Digital preservation" and "3D modeling" sound clinical, but the results of Gaussian Splats are anything but sterile. While photography captures a single angle of light in a room, Gaussian Splats capture the behavior of light from all angles, so the result isn't what the past looks like, but what the past feels like. It's hard to describe, but capturing the quality of light on an object or location puts you in touch with it in a way you didn't think possible. That combined with the haziness of Spats and your own memories adds up to a ethereal, dreamlike experience that isn't like anything else. (I like Splats a lot.)

How to get started Splatting

The barrier to entry for Splatting is just a little time to figure out how it works. You don't need a specialized LiDAR scanner or an overpowered PC, just a relatively recent smartphone. Here's how to get started:

Pick an app: Though the technology is new, a few apps are making it very user-friendly. Here are the two I've tried:

• Scaniverse: Excellent for iPhone users, Scaniverse is free, and it processes Splats entirely on your device in only a minute or two.

• Luma 3D Capture: Available on both Android and iPhone, Luma is great for beginners, with a scanning process that walks you through creating your first Splat.

Make a capture: Here are some things to think about when making your capture.

• Before you start scanning locations or bigger objects, pick something small and simple so you get the concepts down. But not pets: Your subject has to remain perfectly still through the process. (Make an exception for your child. They won't hold still enough, but having even a blurry model of your kid is vital for future you.)

• Place your subject in an evenly lit room with enough space to walk all the way around it.

• Hit record and walk in a slow, steady circle around your object, keeping your camera pointed at its center.

• Do two passes, one from a high angle looking down, another from a low angle, looking up.

• Gaussian Splats hate uniformity. They struggle with plain white walls, so think in terms of textures. Also, avoid clear glass and mirrors that confuse the depth calculations.

Have a banana: Now that you've captured your Splat, take a break so the computer can do its thing. How long it will take depends on the app you're using, your phone, and how detailed your scan is. Scaniverse processes Splats right on your phone. For something simple like the guitar below, it took about two minutes of rendering on an iPhone 17 Pro. Luma 3D Capture processes files in the cloud, so how long it takes depends on how many people are in front of you in the queue. It might be a couple minutes. It might be a couple hours—the app sends an alert when your image is finished cooking. The video below took several hours.

Enjoy your creation: Once the math is finished mathing, you can view your creation right on your smartphone screen or computer. Pinch to zoom, drag to rotate, and marvel at how perfectly the scan captured the vibe of the object or space.

Share your creation: These apps give you a couple of easy ways to share your volumetric memory:

• Video: You can plot a camera path through your Splat to export a smooth, 2D "fly-through" video. Below is my first scan on YouTube using Scaniverse (it's sloppy; I was new), and my second try with Luma.

• Web Link: You can generate a simple web link and text it to your friends or family through both apps. When they tap it, it opens an interactive 3D viewer in their browser—no special apps, accounts, or heavy downloads required.

How to step inside your Splats

Viewing a 3D scan on your phone or PC is kind of cool, but you can't really understand how mind-blowing these things are until you check them out in a virtual reality device, where you can physically walk around that Thanksgiving table or lean in to inspect the texture on the couch. Here is how you can do it on the two biggest headsets right now.

Apple Vision Pro

The powerful Apple Vision Pro was built to do this. Apple included "Spatial Scenes" right in the OS. It gives a slight 3D pop to 2D photos, but you can take that a little further with apps like Splat Studio that will generate a deeper 3D scene from 2D photos and let you change settings to improve it. But you can get deeper with Spatial Media Toolkit. It lets you make 2D videos into stereoscopic 3D videos. But the final boss is viewing full Splats you made yourself with apps like Luma 3D Capture or Polycam.

If you follow the steps above, you should be able to export the Splat file you created (.ply or .spz) right from your phone to your Vision Pro and step inside the Splat or walk around the object you scanned. You can also check out Splats other users have uploaded.

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Meta Quest 3 and 3S

Meta has embraced the Gaussian Splat revolution. Apps like AirVis (also on the Vision Pro) let you check out Splats you made on your phone, and there are even 4D Splats available on the Quest (more on that below). Meta is also taking the first steps toward cutting out the middleman of your phone altogether. Hyperscape Capture is a still-in-beta app that uses the Quest's existing cameras to scan your room, then save a 3D version of your space. Meta promises that soon you'll be able to send a link to a friend with a headset so they can "come visit."

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The future of 4D Splatting

As hyped as I am for Gaussian Splatting, the technology is in its "version 1.0 era." Capturing a decent Splat takes time and patience and requires the subject to stay absolutely still, and the result isn't always perfect, but the technology is evolving fast enough that the next thing is emerging already. The cutting-Gaussian-edge is 4D Splatting—the fourth dimension is time. 4D Splats are 3D volumetric videos, moving scenes you can view from any point inside or outside the scene. Unlike stereoscopic 3D movies that let you watch from a single point, these are true holographs. At least they are inside a VR rig.

The technology is already in use commercially, most notably in A$AP Rocky's music video "Helicopter," in which performers were captured by 56 cameras and the footage converted to 4D Splats, allowing any angle or impossible camera movement to be used. Check it out:

And there are some 4D Splats you can check out in your headset too. Quest 3 app Gracia has a few volumetric videos that are very impressive. Gracia lets you stream or download 4D Splats of people, and place them anywhere you like in augmented reality. Then you can hit "play" and look at them from any angle, or even move all the way around them. To see what I mean, check out this video I made showing my view from within a Quest 3 headset, of singer Amy May performing a song on my front lawn (with a cameo from my no-doubt confused neighbor).

You probably don't have an array of 20 or so GoPros to create content like Gracia's, but there are some experimental tools out there for consumers to create 4D Splats. KIRI Engine uses Apple's open-source ML-Sharp tool to turn a standard single-lens video into a 4D splat. It doesn't create an AI-aided approximation of stereoscopic 3D like Splat Studio, but converts each individual frame into a separate Splat. It's too technical for me to really mess with and the 3D is guesswork not actual 3D, but I would be surprised if a way of taking volumetric video with only a few smart phone angles wasn't in the works somewhere.

Gaussian Splats are as much of a revelation as I imagine instantly developing snapshots were in the 1960s. Like early Polaroids, it's a bit of a pain, and the results are sometimes grainy, "dreamy" and reminiscent of pointillism, but the emotional impact of a new way of seeing the past is so strong. So get started Splatting now; your future self will thank you.

Welcome to our trip inside the culture of young people. This week, we've got the usual slang definitions of phrases like "you the birthday," and "catch a fade," and we're also talking about AI. You might be about to lose your job to artificial intelligence, but younger generations are in danger of losing their reality to it. From viral "AI or animals" memes to the rise of AI detectives, the youth are engaged in a high-stakes game of "Spot the Bot" just to feel like they still have a grip on the truth.

The meaning of "you the birthday"

A new slang metaphor is blowing up TikTok this week. People are saying "you the birthday," a phrase that means "you're awesome" or "you're great" in the way a birthday is great: fun, exciting, extra, etc. It's usually meant in positive way, but it could be applied negatively to someone who is doing too much or trying to hard, like, "sure, you the birthday."

The phrase seems to have originated in a song called "Birthday Girl" by Huncho. The song doesn't actually include the phrase, "you the birthday," but Huncho sings, "She eat, she the birthday—girl" and the pause was long enough that people started just saying, "you the birthday."

"You the birthday" is inspiring a subgenre of birthday-related spin-off slang too. If you're dressed funny, you the birthday clown. If you have a point, you the birthday hat. If you're ugly, you the halloween. You get the idea.

What "catch a fade" means

To young people, "fade" means fight. To "catch a fade" means to have a fight. (If you'd like more definitions of slang words that kids use, check out Lifehacker's Gen Z and Gen A slang glossary.)

Trend: fake Pizza Movie clips

Last week, I predicted Hulu's Pizza Movie will be Generation Z's defining druggie-comedy movie. There's more evidence this week in the form of a growing trend online of making videos with random footage and labeling it "Pizza Movie (2026)." The joke is that the scenes presented in Pizza Movie's trailer are so without context and so strange that you can put any bizarre clips together and they might be from Pizza Movie.

Here are a couple of examples:

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What does "that's AI" mean?

"That's AI" is rapidly emerging as a way of saying "I don't believe you" or "I doubt it" to members of Generations Alpha and Z. They obviously heard the phrase a lot in connection with videos and pictures online, so it only makes sense to apply it to anything.

Jeremy Carrasco: AI detective

Speaking of "that's AI..." Bespectacled 30-something filmmaker Jeremy Carrasco is an unlikely hero to the teens and tweens of TikTok, but the videos he posts on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok regularly rack up millions of views. Carrasco's calling is identifying synthetic media; he's an AI detective, and dude is great at separating the real from the phony. He calls out AI-generated influencers:

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discusses the difference between real and AI videos of animals on trampolines:

explains the difference between "deep fakes" and "AI videos":

and points out videos that people think are AI, but are actually real:

The popularity of Carrasco's content speaks to young people's desperation to just know what's real—a challenge that no other generation has ever faced. Carrasco presents some great tools for spotting slop, but sadly, it's a Sisyphean task: AI content generation is only getting better, and the "tells" more subtle.

Viral videos of the week: AI or animals?

You might not be aware of the debate about AI going on among younger people online, because it's being conducted largely through "Animal or AI" meme videos. Videos dramatizing this choice have tens of millions of views on TikTok. Here's how they work: Over a music bed from Hamilton, these videos present competing clips of AI and animals, leading to an eventual conclusion where one is chosen over the other.

Animal choosers are in the majority by huge numbers, both among the videos' creators and the commenters. The irony is that many of the clips that illustrate that animals are better seem to have actually been generated by AI.

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Calling it a step towards "super intelligence," Meta announced it is releasing Muse Spark, an overhauled and improved AI. This "natively multimodal reasoning model" goes way beyond a chatbot, and it will soon live in your glasses and your social feeds. It's available now in the Meta AI app, with plans to roll out with a smart glasses update in the next few weeks.

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Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, there are three levels to Muse Spark's "thinking," and users will be able control how deep the intelligence goes.

• Instant Mode: For quick questions and everyday chats.

• Thinking Mode: This mode is designed to solve more complex problems, so if you need some help with math, science, or logic, this is the mode.

• Contemplating Mode: Muse Sparks' highest level engages multiple AI agents that work in parallel and collaborate to complete complex, multi-step tasks.

Meta says Muse Spark's performance compares to or exceeds their Llama 4 Maverick model while using over an order of magnitude less computing power. That means, theoretically, high-level reasoning without excessive server use.

While Muse Sparks will be accessible in a variety of places, it seems like Muse Spark's ground-up integration of visual material is made for smart glasses. Here are some of the ways Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta users will be able to use the new AI.

AI is now integrated across different tools

One of the Muse Spark main improvements over Meta's previous model is the way the new AI will integrate visual information across different tools. So, theoretically, you could point your glasses at a mess of wires and electronic boxes and say "how do I hook up this home theater system?" Or get step-by-step coaching on assembling a piece of IKEA furniture without opening the booklet. The AI would read the instructions and make sure you're not screwing anything in upside down.

Muse Sparks will have health reasoning capabilities

Meta said its Meta Superintelligence Lab collaborated with over 1,000 physicians to develop the AI's health reasoning capabilities. Users will be able to do things like generate an interactive display that unpacks the nutritional information about food, and maps out what muscles are activated during a workout.

But how will it actually perform?

All of the above is "in theory." Artificial intelligence hasn't always lived up to its hype, even when it's being hyped in front of a massive audience. It's one thing to perform well in laboratory benchmark tests, but how the tech works in the real world, where lighting is spotty, wi-fi is slow, and furniture instructions can be extremely complicated, is the real challenge.

While I haven't dug deeply into the tech, I did give it a quick test by turning on "thinking" mode and sending Meta AI the below picture of a random assortment of audio gear:

Credit: Stephen Johnson

It not only correctly identified everything in the picture, it gave me a couple different options for possible ways to hook it together, and told me (correctly) what cords I needs. So I look forward to having it on my glasses. If you want to test it yourself, Muse Spark is already running on meta.ai and the Meta AI app, and smart glasses firmware and social media integrations are expected to follow shortly.

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There is something for every kind of TV fan in March 2026's most-streamed TV shows, whether you like gritty medical dramas, long-awaited sequels, or vibrant adaptations, your new favorite show is below. Here are ten most popular shows in March, according to Just Watch.

The Madison

The Madison

at Paramount+

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at Paramount+

It's no surprise The Madison is the most-streamed series in the nation; Yellowstone creator Tyler Sheridan has a knack for making crowd-pleasing TV. Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell star in this Yellowstone spinoff, a neo-Western family drama about grief and redemption. After the family patriarch and his brother die in a plane crash, the extended Clyburn clan relocates from New York City to the Madison River valley of southwest Montana, hoping to find grace and healing in nature. Stream The Madison on Paramount+.

Paradise

Paradise

at Hulu

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at Hulu

The "Paradise" of the show's title is a high-end, experimental community for the rich and connected that is hidden within an underground Colorado bunker. The surface of the planet may be an irradiated hellscape, but in Paradise, everything seems perfect, until an outsider enters. Sterling K. Brown plays a Xavier Collins, a secret service agent investigating the murder of the U.S. president in Paradise. Stream Paradise on Hulu.

The Pitt

The Pitt

at HBO Max

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at HBO Max

HBO's gritty, hyper-realistic medical drama has earned acclaim from critics and audiences for its well-drawn characters and relentless pace. It follows a single 15-hour shift at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. Starring Noah Wyle as Dr. Michael Robinavitch, The Pitt ditches the "disease of the week" format of many medical shows in favor of a study of the toll the modern medical system places on everyone involved. Season one earned five Emmy awards, and judging from the first few episodes, season two might win more. Stream The Pitt on HBO Max.

Scarpetta

Scarpetta

at Amazon Prime

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at Amazon Prime

Based on the best-selling novels by Patricia Cornwell, Scarpetta stars Nicole Kidman as Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Virginia's chief medical examiner, who uses cutting edge technology to solve cases. Scarpetta is a moody thriller that uses realism instead of sensationalism to examine the science, law, and the psychological weight of seeking justice. Bonus: The supporting cast includes Jamie Lee Curtis and Bobby Cannavale. Stream Scarpetta on Amazon Prime.

DTF St. Louis

DTF St. Louis

at HBO Max

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at HBO Max

In execution, DTF St. Louis is even more offbeat than its premise—a murder mystery linked to a hookup app for married people seeking action on the side. Jason Bateman plays Missouri TV weatherman Clark Forrest, who is accused of murdering Floyd Smernitch (David Harbour), his friend, on-air sign language interpreter, and the husband of Carol (Linda Cardellini), the woman Clark is having an affair with. Oscar-nominee Richard Jenkins and Wednesday's Joy Sunday play the detectives on the case. It all sounds like material for a salacious thriller, but writer/director Steven Conrad (Prime Video's weird, wonderful Patriot) has something more complex in mind: sadder, funnier, and definitely weirder. Stream DTF St. Louis on HBO Max.

Shrinking

Shrinking

at Apple TV+

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at Apple TV+

January saw the premiere of the third season of Apple TV+'s Shrinking, a comedy/drama created by Jason Segel, Bill Lawrence, and Brett Goldstein, the team behind Ted Lasso and Scrubs. This comedy/drama series follows Jimmy Laird (Segel), a grief-stricken therapist who breaks all professional and ethical boundaries by telling his patients exactly what he thinks, while Harrison Ford, Laird's mentor, does damage control. Shrinking has been nominated for nine Primetime Emmies, including Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, but has yet to take a statue home. Unfair! Stream Shrinking on Apple TV+.

One Piece

One Piece

at Netflix

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at Netflix

One Piece seems to have broken the curse of live-action anime, with both fans and critics praising the show for its evocative world-building and perfect casting. Season 2 of Netflix's series finds the Straw Hat Crew on the high seas navigating the treacherous Grand Line in search of a legendary treasure. Iñaki Godoy stars as the aspiring Pirate King Monkey D. Luffy and Mackenyu plays Roronoa Zoro. Backing them up is a huge ensemble cast that includes heavy hitters like Joe Manganiello as the villainous Sir Crocodile and Katey Sagal as the brilliant Dr. Kureha. Stream One Piece on Netflix.

Young Sherlock

Young Sherlock

at Prime Video

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at Prime Video

People never get tired of Sherlock Holmes. Amazon Prime’s high-energy reimagining of the world's most famous detective follows 19-year-old Holmes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) as he uncovers a global conspiracy while investigating a murder at Oxford University. Directed by the great Guy Ritchie, Young Sherlock ditches the "case of the week" formula in favor of a single story that's big and bold enough for a whole season of TV. Stream Young Sherlock on Prime Video.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters

at Apple TV+

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at Apple TV+

This is not your grandfather's kaiju. Apple TV+’s multigenerational sci-fi epic follows two siblings as they uncover their family's connection to Monarch, the shadowy organization that monitors Godzilla and his fellow Titans. Starring the father-son duo of Kurt and Wyatt Russell as army officer Lee Shaw across two different timelines, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters examines human resilience in the face of mass tragedy in a deeper way than you'd ever expect from a show about giant monsters. Stream Monarch: Legacy of Monsters on Apple TV+.

Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette

Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette

at Hulu

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at Hulu

Ryan Murphy's latest production takes place at the intersection of fame and tragedy. It delves into the lives of John Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, played by Paul Anthony Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon. Then the most famous couple in the world, Kennedy and Bessette try to hold their relationship together in the face of a ravenous press and the political expectations that come with being a Kennedy. Stream Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette on Hulu.

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The Apple Vision Pro is a beast of a machine. By putting an M5 chip under the hood—a 3-nanometer processor with a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine— Apple leapfrogged the M3 and M4 entirely, putting more raw power on your face than most people have on their desks. But like any high-performance machine, you have to tune it up and drive it right to get the most out of what's under the hood. Whether you've had yours since launch or just unboxed it, these ten hacks will help you get more out of your Apple Vision Pro. Some are simple adjustments, some are deeper dives, but all of them are worth your time.

Apple Vision Pro

$3,499.99 at Apple

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$3,499.99 at Apple

Access the Vision Pro's "hidden" settings

Apple's going for a specific aesthetic with the Vision Pro UI, so there aren't as many things to customize in the "settings" menu as you might like, but there are a lot of useful adjustments buried in the Accessibility menu. These settings are designed for users with dexterity, visual, or hearing impairments, but anyone might prefer a zoom feature or an modification to the click speed of the digital crown.

Here's what I've changed in my Vision Pro's via the accessibility menu:

• Bold Text

• Increase Contrast

• Reduced Motion (Reduces the movement of user interface elements)

• Set it so saying "shh" turns down the volume.

You might be interested in the same settings, or others presented here, so take a peek into the Accessibility menu to see what works for you. Pro tip: You can triple-click the digital crown to toggle accessibility features on and off instantly.

Control your smart home with spatial widgets

The latest update to VisionOS added spatial widgets so you can pin information in places it makes the most sense—e.g. put a timer next to your stove for cooking, or the weather and news right by the front door. But if you have any Matter-compatible smart home devices, you can take widgets to the next level with Apple Home. This app lets you pin controls for things like your air conditioner and lighting wherever you like, so you can stick the "night mode" button above your bed and turn everything off with a click when the day is over. If you want to take it further, download Widgetsmith and customize the appearance of smart home controls. Once you pin a widget, it will stay there until you move it or delete it, even when you restart.

Use "connect to server" for unlimited storage

With visionOS, you can connect to a local server on your network, like your PC or Mac, or cloud storage providers, and access files without saving them to your headset. It's a great way to work with large files without filling up your Vision Pro's storage—especially if you opted for the base 256GB. To set it up, you need to allow sharing on the remote computer, then go to "Files" within the Vision Pro, enter your server's host name or network address, then choose "Connect." Depending on the server, you can connect as a guest, or you can enter your username and password, and you're good to go.

Use settings and mirroring to securely share the Vision Pro experience

One of the biggest downsides to AR and VR is the inability to say "take a look at this!" and show your friend. The Apple Vision Pro's Guest User mode isn't quite that, but it's at least an easy and quick way to hand around your headset. Here's how it works:

• Go to Control Center.

• Pinch "Guest User."

• Hand your headset over and the Vision Pro will run a quick set-up and calibration, then open on what you were looking at, while protecting your private data.

• When you put the headset back on, your original calibration will return.

If you don't want to fully share your headset, you can still share your view. AirPlay Mirroring lets others see what you're seeing on their phones or other devices. You can beam your view to any nearby iPad, Mac, or AirPlay-compatible TV that shares a wifi network with your Vision Pro. Here's how it works:

• On your headset, go to Control Center and select the "Mirror My View" icon (it looks like two overlapping squares).

• You should see a list of any compatible devices on your network. Choose the one you want to stream to.

• If you don't see a device, you may need to turn on AirPlay Receiver (found in System Settings > General > AirDrop & Handoff on macOS and within the Apple Vision Pro app on iOS).

Use "Gaussian splats" to create 3D virtual spaces you can walk around in

One of the standout features of the Vision Pro is the device's ability to instantly upscale and alter existing 2D photos into spatial 3D images. You just open the photo gallery, select a picture, and click the "spatial" and/or immersion icons and it instantly gives your pics depth. But that's only the first level of the 3D you can achieve.

Third-party apps like Spatial Media Toolkit and Spatial Video Studio let you control parameters like depth intensity, crop for the best 3D effect, and save in formats that can be viewed outside of the Vision Pro. That includes anaglyph, so you can view pictures with those old 3D glasses; side-by-side 3D, so you can view them on VR headsets or 3D TVs; and "wiggle" videos that can be viewed by anyone by moving their device slightly, like so:

Credit: Stephen Johnson

But if you want to go even deeper, the Apple Vision Pro is an amazing tool for viewing and creating Gaussian splats. This cutting edge tech creates 3D models by stretching, rotating, and positioning millions of tiny, colored, and transparent 3D "blobs" (Gaussians). While spatial photos add AI-assisted depth, "splats" allow you to capture 3D versions of real objects, save them, and walk around them. You can also scan a 3D space and walk around inside it.

Gaussian splats capture lighting really well, but add a weird, surreal "blobbiness" to physical objects (the tech isn't fully in place). But the lighting and reflections are evocative in a way that's hard to describe. Gaussian splats of familiar places feel like walking into hazy memories. If your parents had this, you could hang out in a digital replica of your childhood bedroom. If you scan your own children with this, you'll have weird, blobby digital child who will never grow up. It's not super hard to do, either. You can use an app like Scaniverse or Polycam on your phone to scan a room or object in different ways, then you can export it to your Vision Pro and experience it in 3D through the same apps on your Vision Pro. Bonus: Polycam lets you explore captures from users all over the world, including large-scale scans of things like cathedrals.

Use your Vision Pro as a gaming device

Gaming has never been the focus of the Vision Pro—a shame, since it's such a powerful machine—but that seems to be changing. The most recent update to visionOS 26.4 introduced NVIDIA CloudXR 6.0, a native streaming framework that allows the headset to act as more of a monitor, while another computer handles the number crunching. Valve has also announced Steam Link, an app that lets Apple Vision Pro users stream Steam games from their PC or Mac to their headset.

The first high-profile games playable through the NVIDIA new framework are iRacing and X-Plane 12. I don't have a PC, so I wasn't able to test this one out, but here are the the instructions from NVIDIA on how to get it going.

Steam Link is currently in Beta, but the Beta is easy to get into. Here's how:

• Go to the App Store on your Vision Pro and Install TestFlight.

• Make sure you have a game controller paired to your Vision Pro and your wifi is fairly fast.

• In your Apple Vision Pro, click on this link.

• You'll be guided through the rest of the set-up process.

If you want to stream games directly from someone else's servers, you can use NVIDIA GeForce NOW. The bad news: It's going to cost a subscription fee for the best stuff. Here's how it works:

• Pair a Bluetooth game controller to your Apple Vision Pro.

• Open Safari on your Vision Pro and go to play.geforcenow.com.

• You should be able to play any games you own on Steam that are also on NVIDIA's platform.

• The free subscription gives you hour blocks of playtime after waiting in the queue. If you spring for the "Ultimate tier subscription" for $19.99 a month, you get to the front of the line, and you'll unlock the Vision Pro’s 4K/90 FPS cloud mode, which gives you better performance than most consoles without a single wire.

Those are the official gaming options. If you want to be a hacker and walk outside Apple's cultivated garden, you can play streamed OpenVR games from your gaming computer to your Vision Pro with ALVR. But it's not for the faint-of-heart. Running ALVR requires specific network and software configurations, and a measure of technical knowledge. If you want to give it a shot, here are the official instructions for setting up the app on your PC.

Keep Vision Pro awake with a post-it note

This hack takes no technical ability at all, and it's adorably janky. The Apple Vision Pro is designed to go into a sleep mode the moment you take it off, but if there's some reason you'd rather the display stay on, you can defeat the auto-sleep sensors with a simple Post-it note. Slide it over your eye while the headset is off, then you can keep your headset on while it's supposed to be sleeping, like so:

Credit: Stephen Johnson

This actually has some uses. VisionOS often pauses active tasks like file transfers when it's sleeping, so if you're transferring a huge file, this could keep it going while you're headset-less. Also: if you're running something with a delicate connection, like ALVR mentioned above, this would theoretically make it more likely you keep your connection.

Use physical buttons to force quit if your Vision Pro is unresponsive

If a Vision Pro app becomes unresponsive, you can force quit with the physical buttons. Unlike clicking the "X" to close out an app, force quitting kills the process that's running completely. Here's how it works:

• Press and hold both the digital crown and the top button.

• Wait for the menu of open apps to appear.

• Click the app you want to kill.

Create an ultrawide virtual display for your MacBook

You can turn your MacBook into a wrap-around workstation with infinite screen real estate, and it's crazy easy:

• Make sure your computer and Vision Pro are both on the same network, and that both have bluetooth and keychains enabled.

• Then just look at your open MacBook while wearing the headset. A "Connect" button will float above the screen.

• Pinch it, and you'll have a virtual screen that can be huge. You can expand to a 32:9 panoramic display that wraps around you. You get the equivalent of two 5K monitors side-by-side while sitting at a coffee shop or on a plane. So cool.

Hunt for hidden easter eggs in Vision Pro environments

The Vision Pro's environments are way more than static backdrops. They're highly detailed, animated vision and soundscapes filled with small details and, supposedly, mysterious rare encounters. There's a kind of mythology about some of these events, because they're hard to capture, so anyone can say they saw or heard anything—like a roadrunner in White Sands or gunshots or Bigfoot in Mount Hood. Those are dubious, but there are some confirmed, or at least plausible, environment easter eggs that suggest you might find something:

• Haleakalā: if you yell loud enough in this environment, you can hear an echo. This one is confirmed.

• Mount Hood (Dynamic Weather): If it is raining in your actual physical location, the Mount Hood environment will often mirror those conditions. Users have reported seeing subtle raindrops hitting the "glass" of their open app windows as well.

• Keynote's hidden environment: If you open the "Keynote" app in your Vision Pro and open a presentation, one of your options will be "rehearse." You'll have two choice, a boardroom and a theater. The theater is an exact replica of the Steve Jobs Theater. This is confirmed too.

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The Apple Vision Pro is taking another step toward becoming the killer VR gaming device we all know it could be. Valve recently announced that it is adding Steam Link, an app for Vision Pro that will let users wirelessly stream Steam games from their PC or Mac to their headsets. Steam Link will allow streaming up to 4k and includes a panoramic mode with an adjustable screen curve.

Apple Vision Pro

$3,499.96

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$3,499.96

There's a huge caveat though: Steam Link will not stream VR games, so you won't be playing Half-Life: Alyx or any other Steam-based VR or AR games on your Vision Pro. At least for now.

How to install Steam Link on your Apple Vision Pro

Steam Link for iOS is currently in Beta, with no word yet on when the full version will be released, but getting into the Beta is painless:

• Go to the App Store on your Vision Pro and Install TestFlight.

• Make sure you have a game controller paired to your Vision Pro and your wifi is fairly fast.

• In your Apple Vision Pro, click on this link.

• You'll be guided through the rest of the set-up process.

The state of gaming on the Apple Vision Pro

At launch, the Apple Vision Pro had few choices for gamers, but that's been steadily changing over the last month or so. First Apple announced support for NVIDIA CloudXR, and now Steam, giving users two legitimate ways to game on the Vision Pro, but the Holy Grail of gaming, native PC VR games like Skyrim VR and Boneworks, remain out of reach unless you use a hacker-y workaround.

While there has been no announcement from Apple, enabling low latency tools like Cloud XR and opening Steam to Vision Pro may be leading to the next logical step: supporting OpenVR and/or SteamVR. The Vision Pro's M5 chip certainly has the power to handle the frame-rates of AAA VR games, and Apple Pro users, I'm sure, would at least like the option of playing top-tier games on their face computers.

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Maybe it's that post-Oscar buzz, but in March, America's most-streamed films are a highbrow bunch. From 16th-century Shakespearean grief to moody Norwegian family dramas, the most-watched movies in the country were actually good. But we are not a boring nation, so there are wicked diversions like Ready or Not and The Housemaid in the mix too. Here are the top 10 movies across all streaming platforms for March 2026, according to Just Watch.

Hamnet (2025)

Hamnet

at Peacock

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at Peacock

Good job having elevated taste, America. The number one streaming movie in March was Hamnet, a lyrical historical drama that reimagines the family life of William Shakespeare and his wife, Agnes Hathaway. Set in Stratford-upon-Avon in the 16th century, Hamnet explores the couple's grief following the death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet, and its influence on Shakespeare's Hamlet. The film was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, but it only took home one: Jessie Buckley won Best Actress. Stream Hamnet on Peacock.

Sentimental Value (2025)

Sentimental Value

at Hulu

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at Hulu

Another unexpectedly highbrow flick sits at number two on the streaming charts: Sentimental Value is a moody Norwegian drama about suicide and generational familial trauma. Directed by Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value tells the story of two sisters, Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), who are forced to confront their past when their estranged father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård) reappears to offer Nora the lead in a film. Sentimental Value won two Oscars: Best International Film and Best Original Screenplay. Stream Sentimental Value on Hulu.

The Secret Agent (2025)

The Secret Agent

at Hulu

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at Hulu

This Brazillian neo-noir political thriller is set in the late 1970s, at the end of Brazil's military dictatorship. Wagner Moura stars as Armando Solimões, a former professor who has been classified as an enemy of the state and forced into hiding. Although it didn't win any Academy awards, The Secret Agent was nominated for four, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Moura), Best International Film, and Best Casting. It has a nearly perfect 98% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Stream The Secret Agent on Hulu.

Ready or Not (2019)

Ready or Not

at Hulu

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at Hulu

Unlike the rest of the movies on this list, Ready or Not was not nominated for any Academy awards, but it won a richly deserved Fangoria Chainsaw Award in 2020. It's here because the sequel was in theaters in March. Ready or Not is an unapologetically gleeful black comedy in which murder and mayhem are cranked up to 11. Grace (Samara Weaving) is overjoyed that she's marrying into the super-wealthy Le Domas family, until she learns that about the old family tradition of playing deadly games of hide-and-seek. Guess who's "it." Stream Ready or Not on Hulu.

One Battle After Another (2025)

One Battle After Another

at HBO Max

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at HBO Max

Paul Thomas Anderson's nuanced, intelligent thriller about resistance and race in a fascistic, anti-immigration United States has become an instant classic. Featuring fantastic performances from heavyweights like Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, and Regina Hall, One Battle After Another is that rare movie that's equal parts thoughtful and exciting. It was nominated for 13 Oscars and won six, including Best Picture and Best Director. Stream One Battle After Another on HBO Max.

Sinners (2025)

Sinners

at Prime Video

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at Prime Video

This one-of-kind flick mashes up so many styles, it's practically its own genre. A historical/horror/ensemble romance/drama/comedy/musical exploring race and historical prejudice in the United States, Sinners tells its story through both song and vampire violence. It is absolutely top-notch in every cinematic way, which is probably why it earned a record 16 Oscar nominations. Stream Sinners on HBO Max and Prime Video.

War Machine (2026)

War Machine

at Netflix

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at Netflix

Netflix's War Machine is a fast-paced sci-fi action movie in which a squad of Army Rangers on a training exercise are confronted with a robot from outer space bent on destroying them. Led by action titan Alan Ritchson (known for Reacher), the squad trade their blank rounds for live ammunition to try to stop a seemingly invincible, mechanical hunter. If you like movies like Predator or Commando, you don't want to miss this one. Stream War Machine on Netflix.

Zootopia 2 (2025)

Zootopia 2

at Disney+

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at Disney+

Since its release in November 2025, this whimsical animated sequel has been delighting critics and audiences. Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde return to track a mysterious pit viper named Gary De’Snake who has infiltrated Zootopia. To crack the case, the iconic duo must go undercover in uncharted parts of the metropolis. Stream Zootopia 2 on Disney+.

Bugonia (2025)

Bugonia

at Peacock

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at Peacock

I love when a weirdo movie finds a big audience, and Bugonia is that movie. Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis play a couple of societal dregs who kidnap a high-powered pharmaceutical executive (Emma Stone) because they think she's an alien. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, who helmed 2023's excellent Poor Things, the Best Picture Oscar nominee is a must-watch, even if you're only a little weird. (And if you want more weirdness, it's based on an even odder South Korean film called Save the Green Planet.) Stream Bugonia on Peacock.

Nuremberg (2025)

Nuremberg

at Netflix

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at Netflix

Nuremberg is the true story of Lt. Col. Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), a U.S. Army psychiatrist tasked with evaluating the mental fitness of Nazi kingpin Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe). Through the psychological and intellectual duel between the idealistic psychiatrist and the charismatic Göring, Nuremberg explores the nature of evil and the toll it takes on those who fight it. Stream Nuremberg on Netflix.

This week's collection might seem like a random assortment of odds and ends, but there's a throughline: vibes and absurdism over logic and order. Slang words like 7x7=49 and lowkenuinely don't make logical sense, but they are intuitively perfect. The Sea Lion is a purely absurdist anti "dance-craze" taking over TikTok, and Pizza Movie takes "drug flick" tropes to surreal new levels. In other words, Gen Z and A are not trying to make sense of anything anymore.

What does the "7x7=49" meme actually mean?

This piece of math-slang is growing popular on TikTok as a way of explaining what women find attractive in men. It's about how the equation feels. 7X7=49 makes intuitive sense in a way that something like 51÷3=17 does not. It's an attractive equation, so it's becoming a shorthand way of saying "man that is attractive in a self-evident way."

Here's an explanation:

And here's how the phrase is used in meme videos:

Because young men are in a very dark place right now, this generally silly meme is being misinterpreted and overly explained to mean "women are attracted to numbers themselves, so men don't have a chance," in videos like this:

But it's more about how some things are just right and require no explanation, as you can see in this compilation of other "attractive things that aren't attractive in a way you can explain."

On a deeper level, seeing 7x7=49 as "attractive" is an example of "Ordinal Linguistic Personification" a kind of synesthesia, a sensory cross-over where unlike things are grouped together cognitively. There isn't enough research to say why so many people agree that certain numbers and/or equations are more "attractive" than others, nor do we know if these associations are universal or cultural, so more study must be conducted. Or we can just go with vibes.

Is "Pizza Movie" Gen-Z's defining stoner flick?

This week, Hulu released Pizza Movie, a coming-of-age film that might prove to be Gen-Z's iconic example of a "youth drug movie." In it, Stranger Things' Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone play a couple of dorm-mates who take an experimental drug, then must go to their dorm lobby to pick up a pizza while experiencing bizarre hallucinations (and coming of age) along the way.

It's a silly comedy on the surface, but a deeper dive reveals something about young people in 2026. You can judge a generation by the stoner-buddy comedies it enjoys. Boomers had Up in Smoke, in which getting really high was a political and cultural "statement" against "The Man." Smoking weed was a coping mechanism for the ennui of the suburbs and an abdication of adult responsibility in Fast Times at Ridgemount High and Dazed and Confused. Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle featured very millennial stoners who were also high-achievers by societal standards. In 2026, weed is so commonplace in real life, that the stakes have to be raised with a surreal experimental drug thats users are not ready for. It feels like a reaction to Gen Z being poorly prepared and clueless in a post-everything world where nothing makes sense, but you're still expected to go down to the lobby to pick up your pizza.

What is the sea lion?

The sea lion is ostensibly a dance move, but you probably won't see it at the club. It's just too silly. You do the sea lion by lying down on your belly, grabbing your ankles behind your back, bouncing up and down, and making sea lion barking sounds. It comes to us by way of meme-heavy rapper Yuno Miles' "Sea Lion Rap."

Miles doesn't actual do the sea lion in the video, however; he just exhorts others to. TikTokers took up the challenge, and sea lioning videos started appearing, like the following:

This has no relation to the older online slang term "sea lioning," which is a way of derailing online arguments by peppering people with so many "polite," persistent questions that it becomes a form of harassment. Kids are into acting silly instead. This weapons-grade ridiculousness contains a hint of rebellion too. Unlike the polished, attractive dancers who tend to go viral too, sea lioners have no skill or coordination, and it doesn't look good on anyone. It just looks fun.

What does "lowkenuinely" mean?

This portmanteau of "low key" and "genuinely" expresses sincerity but in a way that says "let's not make a big deal about it." As @etomologynerd points out in a TikTok video, lowkenuinely doesn't make sense, but it's perfectly expressive anyway. "Genuinely" is a factual assertion, "low key" is a value judgment, and a fact can't be low or high key. But "genuinely" is being used here like "literally" has been in the past. It is no longer meant as a factual statement, and instead adds emphasis. So it's a perfect expression of belief in a post-reality setting.

Viral video of the week: Olaf animatronic collapses, dies

This week's viral video comes from Disneyland Paris, where a robotic version of popular Frozen character Olaf malfunctions and collapses before amused adults and horrified children. Robots falling over is always funny. Check it out:

The pause when he's teetering, how slow he seems to fall, and the carrot nose flying up in the air add up to perfect comic timing. It's even better in the long form version, where there is a long, slow build to the moment of calamity.