Is Voice Becoming The New Text (again)?

Enlarge (credit: Getty) On March 29, 2022, CNN+, CNN's take on a video streaming service, debuted. On April 28, 2022, it shuttered, making it the fastest shutdown of any launched streaming service. Despite that discouraging superlative, CNN has plans for another subscription-based video streaming platform, Financial Times (FT) reported on Wednesday. Mark Thompson, who took CNN's helm in August 2023, over a year after CNN+'s demise, spoke with FT about evolving the company.

Enlarge / This mysterious model appeared on eBay with little fanfare. (credit: eBay) The first-ever model of Star Trek's USS Enterprise NCC-1701 has been returned to the Roddenberry family, according to an ABC News report. The three-foot model was used to shoot the pilot and credits scene for Star Trek's original series in the 1960s and was used occasionally for shots throughout the series.

Enlarge / Like the Beach Properties DLC itself, this property looks a bit unfinished and in need of some focus. (credit: Paradox Interactive) Perhaps the first clue that something was not quite right about Beach Properties, the first $10 DLC "expansion" for the already off-kilter city-building sim Cities: Skylines 2, was that it did not contain a real beach house, which one might consider a key beach property.

Enlarge / A cropped image showing Raw TV's poster for the Netflix documentary What Jennifer Did, which features a long front tooth that leads critics to believe it was AI-generated. (credit: Raw TV) An executive producer of the Netflix hit What Jennifer Did has responded to accusations that the true crime documentary used AI images when depicting Jennifer Pan, a woman currently imprisoned in Canada for orchestrating a murder-for-hire scheme targeting her parents. What Jennifer Did shot to the top spot in Netflix's global top 10 when it debuted in early April, attracting swarms of true crime fans who wanted to know more about why Pan paid hitmen $10,000 to murder her parents.

Enlarge / The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra. That red ring around the camera lens is how far it moves. (credit: Huawei) Huawei is still out there making phones, even if it has been shunned by the US government and the US-aligned tech ecosystem. The latest phone has a new name: "Huawei Pura 70." While you wouldn't ever want to deal with the cobbled-together SoC or whatever is going on with Huawei's software, the "Ultra" model does have a cool party trick up its sleeve: a pop-out main camera lens. In the years before the smartphone took over all entry-level photography, there used to be a thing called a "point-and-shoot camera." This was a purpose-built device that only took photos, couldn't go on the Internet, and wouldn't let you watch the latest TikTok videos.