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With so much music on streaming services, and more and more being added daily, it's not always easy to find music I really love among the millions of tracks. I use a cheap ESP32 board to make the process much easier.

A quick look at the Paramount+ top 10 rankings tells you everything you need to know about what movie lovers hold as a priority when it comes to choosing something to watch. The supernatural horror Passenger is still sitting at the top of the list, and Joe Dirt (which we covered last week) is in the top 5—two movies that have nothing in common other than the fact that they both have appalling Rotten Tomatoes scores. People like what they like.

Switching to Ethernet was simultaneously the best and the cheapest network upgrade I've ever gotten. Simply ditching Wi-Fi for a cable is fantastic, and in most cases, it improves your connection tremendously.

Linux has changed dramatically since the early days of the kernel. Desktops have gone from X11 environments with primitive window managers to polished graphical shells. Containers, cloud computing, virtualization, and immutable operating systems have transformed how people deploy Linux. Even the hardware running Linux today would have seemed extraordinary to many of its earliest users.

The unstoppable rise of foldables has slowed the homogenization of smartphones with new form factors and designs, but early in the foldable era, dual-screen smartphones (two separate displays connected by a hinge) seemed like an alternative to traditional slabs.

Apple officially released macOS 27 Golden Gate on Sept. 14, and the operating system update finally brings the new Siri AI experience to Mac devices.

Apple announced macOS 27 Golden Gate at WWDC in June, and the developer beta has been available for months. So, while the new OS doesn't come with any huge surprises, it does bring users upgrades both large and small.

If you have a Mac device that supports the new macOS and Siri AI, then here are the top features we'd recommend trying after you update.

Siri AI Credit: Apple

We have to start with the headline news: You can finally try the new and improved Siri AI, powered by Google Gemini. Apple explained how the new Siri will work at WWDC, and the company has emphasized that its new cloud-based private cloud compute platform will provide high levels of privacy.

Siri now comes in a standalone app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users, and the smart assistant will be integrated across the user experience.

The new Siri can:

• Generate text, make writing and editing suggestions, and write and send emails

• Analyze what your camera sees to identify objects or provide context using visual intelligence

• Answer questions or take action based on the user’s screen using on-screen awareness

• Access a wide range of apps to find information, take action, and answer user questions

• Remember your conversations and prompts in the new dedicated Siri app

Users can also customize Siri's voice to be more expressive and can change the pitch, tone, and pacing of the assistant's voice.

Change the Siri voice's pitch, speed, tone, and accent. Credit: Apple Siri can now take actions across a wide range of apps Credit: Apple New photo editing tools, including Spatial Reframing

Spatial Reframing is one of the cooler new AI tools revealed at WWDC. This tool allows users to adjust the angle of photos after they've been taken. It's just one of the new AI photo editing capabilities that arrive with macOS 27.

In the Photos app, users can also clean up and extend photos in new ways.

Credit: Apple New child safety and parental controls

Do any kids or teenagers in your house use a Mac, or maybe a MacBook Neo? Apple has added new parental controls to macOS 27 Golden Gate.

Credit: Apple

For example, by going to "Family" in the "Settings" menu, parents can now set a screen-time schedule. And to help make informed decisions, parents can also access a quick view of their kids’ average device usage and the top apps they use.

Parents can also get automatic messages when their kids want to access a new website via a new tool called Ask to Browse.

Learn more at Apple's parent safety website.

Group tabs in Safari Credit: Apple

Are you the type of person who always has about 30 different tabs going at once? Now, there's a better way to organize all those tabs.

You can now organize your tabs into groups such as "Vacation planning" or "Work stuff."

Describe a Shortcut

Shortcuts is probably one of the most underappreciated Apple software tools. Using a Shortcut, you can automate certain workflows and actions. For example, you can set up a shortcut that automatically edits and resizes photos once they're added to a specific folder.

The reason Shortcuts are underutilized? They're tricky to set up if you're not a tech person. However, now you can let Siri AI and macOS set up the shortcut for you with Describe a Shortcut. Simply describe the kind of Shortcut you have in mind, and let the OS do the rest.

An improved Maps experience

According to Apple, you'll be able to see even more details and information in Maps. For example, "Flyover now uses aerial imagery combined with Visual Intelligence models to render everything from architectural fixtures to the shapes of individual trees in stunning, sharp detail."

General system improvements Visual Intelligence with Siri AI in macOS 27 Golden Gate Credit: Apple

This one's a bit tricky to appreciate right away, but all new operating systems bring little refinements and improvements to the overall user experience — at least, in theory. Apple promises that macOS 27 Golden Gate will provide users with faster AirDrop transfers, faster file browsing, and faster loading times for apps and websites.

Refinements to Liquid Glass should also fix some of the visibility problems that sometimes occurred in iOS 26 and macOS 26.

Future updates coming to macOS 27

Apple has also announced some features that will be released in later versions of the OS, such as:

• Suggestions: Messages and Mail will soon offer suggestions to take quick actions based on context clues, such as attaching a photo or pulling in flight information.

• Fix passwords with a click: "The Passwords app alerts you to weak or compromised passwords and can update them on your behalf without the hassle."

What devices support macOS 27?

Apple says macOS 27 Golden Gate is available for the following devices:

• MacBook Neo (2026)

• MacBook Air with Apple silicon (2020 and later)

• MacBook Pro with Apple silicon (2020 and later)

• iMac with Apple silicon (2021 and later)

• Mac mini with Apple silicon (2020 and later)

• Mac Studio (2022 and later)

• Mac Pro with Apple silicon (2023)

Preorder the new Apple products

Along with iOS 27, Apple also released new AirPods, Apple Watches, and iPhones. Except for the iPhone Duo, all of these devices are available for preorder now.

Apple AirPods 5 earbuds $129 at Amazon
  See It at Amazon See It at Apple.com See It at Walmart Apple Watch Series 12 (GPS, 42mm) $399 at Amazon
  See It at Amazon See It at Best Buy See It at Walmart Apple iPhone 18 Pro, 256GB Save up to $1,200 at T-Mobile
  See It at T-Mobile See It at AT&T Wireless See It at Walmart iPhone 18 Pro Max, 256GB Save up to $1,200 at T-Mobile
  See It at T-Mobile See It at Walmart See It at Apple.com

Linux on desktop systems is in a great place right now. Whatever desktop system you have, you can probably slap a Linux distro of your choice on it right now, and have few if any issues.

It's no secret that Milwaukee makes some of the best power tools, but buying into Team Red isn't as straightforward as it appears. The initial sticker price is only part of the story, and everything that comes after will inevitably cost a lot more.

Meta's $17 billion settlement is a fence around a mile-deep hole at a playground. Fewer kids fall in on the way to the swings, but the hole is still there.

Full wins are rare in the fight for online child safety. What families mostly get are half-wins like a settlement instead of a verdict, a design mandate not turned on by default, or a check that is a rounding error relative to a company's annual revenue. Half-wins are still worth having. But they carry a cost that clean victories don't: because a half-win is contestable, advocates don't get to just win it. They have to keep re-arguing that it counts, in public, indefinitely, using the same personal cost that got them into the fight in the first place.

I watched that cost get paid in real-time outside the federal courthouse in Oakland when survivor parents — Lori Schott, Shannon Heacock, Erin Popolo, Julianna Arnold, Mary Rodee, Victoria Hinks, Paul Hinks — stood in front of a wall of cameras and talked about the worst moment of their lives, again, for an audience that will mostly remember a 10-second clip and a dollar figure. Joining them were young people who didn't have to be there, standing beside them in solidarity.

SEE ALSO: Is Meta finally backing a federal kids safety bill, or is it all PR?

None of that shows up in a settlement figure. It's not a line item. It's not even really visible in most coverage of the case, because the story is "Meta settles," not "here is what it takes to make Meta settle."

I grew up in front of cameras, and I know the instinct they train into you: get small, get careful, hand over the version of yourself that's easiest to broadcast. What that experience taught me is that visibility is not a neutral cost. Every time a parent goes back on camera to describe how their kid died, or a young survivor stands in a plaza holding a photo instead of being anywhere else, they're paying something the settlement itself will never account for.

Meta's $17 billion figure has line items for age-assurance systems and independent auditors. It has no line item for what it costs a parent to relive their child's death on a stranger's studio couch, but they do it anyway because that's what it takes to get airtime.

It's why these types of wins are exhausting. A settlement requires the people who fought for it to keep proving, publicly, that it was worth fighting for. If we're serious about accountability, the fix isn't asking survivor parents to keep showing up to press conferences until Meta gets embarrassed enough to throw better-looking Band-Aids at the problem. It's changing the business model in the first place to ensure these companies are required to fix what took these kids too soon: a business structure that relies on addictive features.

SEE ALSO: Lawsuits allege ChatGPT use led to suicide, psychosis

In California, AB 1709, authored by Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal and signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom on Sept. 10, does that by making these companies stop deploying addictive features to users under 16. Not a content ban, but a design restriction. A platform can keep operating exactly as it does now for everyone else, but it doesn't get to hand a 12-year-old the same engagement-optimized product it hands an adult.

AB 2, also authored by Lowenthal, makes large platforms liable for real money — up to $1 million per child, or three times actual damages — when ordinary negligence in the design of the product injures a minor. That's not a number Meta can negotiate down to a lump sum once and move on from, the way it did with this settlement. It scales with every child harmed, case by case, indefinitely — which is exactly the kind of exposure a company can't absorb as a cost of doing business, because there's no ceiling on it to absorb.

Together, these bills do what a $17 billion settlement can't: they change the incentive before the harm happens, instead of paying for it after the fact.

That's the difference between managing a story and fixing a product. A settlement is Meta agreeing, after years of litigation, to adjust some defaults under supervision it can eventually age out of — a 10-year consent decree that ends, after which Meta negotiates the next one from scratch. AB 1709 doesn't ask Meta to behave better under supervision that expires. It removes the option to keep operating the way it currently does and call it compliance, permanently, the same way any other law stays on the books after the fight to pass it is over. The parents testifying in Sacramento are doing the same kind of labor they did outside that courthouse, but they're doing it once, for a law that outlives the news cycle, instead of doing it every time a consent decree comes up for renewal.

SEE ALSO: 5 of the biggest changes coming to Instagram, Facebook

While those parents were in Sacramento testifying about their kids, Meta's lobbyists were in a different room asking for a way out. Politico reported that Meta approached Senate Judiciary Chair Tom Umberg with draft language that would let platforms apply for an exemption from AB 2 entirely. Meta spent $4.6 million lobbying Sacramento last year, more than any year since it started lobbying the state in 2010, and launched a new political committee to back candidates who favor lighter tech regulation. So the next time you see Meta's PR machine discussing how much they want to show up for parents, remember: they spent a lot trying to shut those same parents up in state legislatures.

The fence is up. The hole is still there. And the people who keep pointing at the hole, publicly, at their own expense, deserve better than another way for Meta to fool the masses while it keeps deploying the same business model that brought these parents to their child's gravesite instead of their high school graduation.

This article represents the opinions of its author.

Lennon Torres is a former Dance Moms performer now fighting for young people’s safety online. A trans activist and University of Southern California alum, she uses her pop‑culture fluency and lived experience to power her work at the Heat Initiative, taking on tech giants and demanding platforms to protect and empower the next generation.

No matter where you park or how many precautions you take, cars get incredibly hot, especially when left in direct sunlight. Sometimes, you have no choice but to leave your phone baking in the car, but what happens to its battery while you're gone might make you think twice.

Are you sick of having Wi-Fi problems? Yeah, so was I. And the internet is full of hacks that supposedly help so much, but most of the time, you'll be changing some settings and then scratching your head, trying to determine what exactly is now so much better.

Everyone is always so focused on new, new, new. But Netflix's back catalog of movies has legs, too. A week after I pointed you toward Straight Outta Compton and Alien, both are still holding strong on the U.S. charts. This week, Angelina Jolie joins them with her thriller Those Who Want Me Dead, which I get into below.

iOS 27 is here! The newest iPhone operating system has just been rolled out by Apple today.

Here are a few of the must-try features that you should check out as soon as your iPhone is finished updating to the new OS.

Siri AI

This is the big one. Apple has completely reimagined its voice assistant Siri as a full-fledged AI assistant.

Siri AI can now perform tasks and answer questions just like other AI assistants like ChatGPT and Claude. But, of course, Siri AI is integrated directly into the iOS experience. Siri AI even has its very own app now.

The new Siri AI can take actions across a wide variety of apps, such as a user's email, phone, photos, and Shortcuts. Siri AI can even create a new Shortcut based on a simple description. Users simply vocalize the workflow they want to automate in plain English, and Siri AI will take over and set the whole thing up.

So, be sure to check out Siri AI both via the standalone app (and the custom voice controls) to see what the brand new Siri can do.

Change Siri's voice speed, pitch, tone, and accent. Credit: Apple Weather app updates

The Weather app has some big new updates in iOS 27 to take a look at.

There are new tabs for the day's weather that provide users with information about conditions, precipitation, and Wind. Each tab will provide more in-depth details about the current day's temperature, rain or snow, and the wind conditions over the next few hours.

There's also a new Highlights feature in the Weather app that provides users with a written summary of what to expect weather-wise throughout the day.

AirPods custom EQ Credit: Apple

Surprisingly, AirPods have been missing custom EQ settings, a standard feature for most headphones and earbuds. Well, no longer.

iOS 27 adds a three-band equalizer to the AirPods settings screen, allowing users to control the audio frequency spectrum of their earbuds. 

Users can adjust EQ in real-time, changing how they hear the bassy lows, vocal mids, treble detail in the highs, and more.

Other headphones have this capability and Apple previously allowed AirPods users to customize EQ within Apple Music. Now, however, AIrPods owners can have this greater audio control regardless of where they listen to their music.

Liquid Glass updates Credit: Apple

If you had some problems with the way Apple's new Liquid Glass design for iPhone looked, you may want to go directly to this new feature.

Apple has updated the Liquid Glass design with "more uniform refraction and improved contrast." The iPhone-maker has even added controls in the form of a new slider that allows users to change just how clear or tinted the Liquid Glass design appears.

Disable the dictation button in Messages

This is another fix to an issue that has long-annoyed some iPhone users.

There's a dictation button next to the text box in Messages. That dictation button becomes the "Send" button when you've already typed out some text in your message. However, the placement of both buttons makes for some accidental taps, which sometimes activate the dictation feature when it isn't wanted. 

Now, in iOS 27, users can change that in the iPhone settings. Simply open the Settings app, select Apps, then Messages, followed by the new Show Text in Field option. Users can pick if there's a Record Audio button, Start Dictation button, or no button at all in that spot. The Send button will obviously still appear as normal after a user starts typing.

Bill splitting

If you're tired of trying to figure out the math of who pays what when going out for a meal with friends, this new iOS 27 feature is a must-try.

Using Apple Wallet or the Messages app, simply point your iPhone camera at a receipt, iOS 27's new bill splitting feature will read the information and then provide an itemized list on your iPhone. From there, you can pick which items you're paying for and then use Apple Cash to just pay for what they ordered. The bill-splitting feature even adds the relevant tax and tip portion as users select what items they are paying for.

Photo app updates

By now, you've probably heard about the big iOS 27 updates to the Photos app. Clean Up, Extend, and Spatial Reframing utilize generative AI in order to completely transform your photos, remove unwanted objects, and change angles and perspectives.

But there are other lesser talked about new features to check out too.

For example, iPhone users can now share albums with their friends who own Android and Windows phones with the new iOS 27. In addition, users can now select stills from videos and save them as standalone pictures instead of having to take screenshots.

iPhone Handoff

This is probably the most undercovered feature, especially if you're someone who can't choose between your classic iPhone or the new foldable iPhone Duo.

iPhone Handoff lets you have both.

With iOS 27's new iPhone Handoff feature, Apple smartphone owners can use one number with two separate devices. Users can swap back and forth and pick which device will receive phone calls and messages, and then switch it back at any time.

For now, this feature is only available for T-Mobile users, and the carrier is charging an extra $5 per month to use it.

There's even more to check out with the new iOS 27, so be sure to explore the latest updates to your iPhone.

Preorder the new Apple products

Along with iOS 27, Apple also released new AirPods, Apple Watches, and iPhones. Except for the iPhone Duo, all of these devices are available for preorder now.

Apple AirPods 5 earbuds $129 at Amazon
  Pre-order Here at Amazon Pre-order Here at Apple.com Pre-order Here at Walmart Apple Watch Series 12 (GPS, 42mm) $399 at Amazon
  Pre-order Here at Amazon Pre-order Here at Best Buy Pre-order Here at Walmart Apple iPhone 18 Pro, 256GB Save up to $1,200 at T-Mobile
  Pre-order Here at T-Mobile Pre-order Here at AT&T Wireless Pre-order Here at Walmart iPhone 18 Pro Max, 256GB Save up to $1,200 at T-Mobile
  Pre-order Here at T-Mobile Pre-order Here at Walmart Pre-order Here at Apple.com

There's a saying that "the internet never forgets, "which is a nice soundbite, but in truth some things are lost forever on the net. Once a server goes down and the last copy of that data is disconnected, that's it.

Updated on Monday, Sept. 14 at 1:30 p.m. ET — Apple launched iOS 27 (along with macOS 27 Golden Gate, iPadOS 27, and watchOS 27) this morning. Users with a compatible iPhone can download the new OS right away.

Apple's next big iOS update is finally on the launch pad.

At its "Surprise and Shine" event on Sept. 9, Apple showed off new wares like the iPhone 18 Pro lineup, the foldable iPhone Duo, new Apple Watches, and the AirPods 5. One of the smaller (but still significant) nuggets of news to come out of the event concerned iOS 27. Specifically, when you can finally download it to your iPhone.

Users with compatible iPhones will be able to install iOS 27 on Monday, Sept. 14.

How to download iOS 27

If you have one of the compatible iPhones (keep scrolling for the full list), then starting on Monday, Sept. 14, you can look for iOS 27. Apple typically releases a new iOS at 10:00 a.m. PT (1:00 p.m. ET).

Follow these steps to get iOS 27 set up on your iPhone:

• Go to the Settings app on your phone

• Go to General

• Go to Software Update and wait as the system checks for new updates

• When iOS 27 appears, you can download and install the new OS

You can also click "Automatic Updates" and turn this feature to "On." That way, iOS 27 should automatically download once it's available (your phone must be locked and charging to download automatic updates).

What's new with iOS 27? This is a big one! Siri AI, new Apple Intelligence tools, and Liquid Glass updates are all coming soon. Credit: Apple

If you haven't been following along, iOS 27 is the one that finally brings us Siri AI. You can now talk to Siri like you would an AI chatbot, and it's powered by Google Gemini.

Some of the most exciting changes coming to iPhones involve new AI photo-editing features, such as spatial reframing. Users will more easily be able to remove unwanted details, or even describe the edits they'd like to Siri by voice or text. Android smartphones from Google and Samsung have had a full suite of AI editing tools for a couple of years now, and Apple is finally catching up. Smart photo editing will also help users make the most of the iPhone 18 Pro Max's new camera features.

Apple also included some new and subtle customization options for Liquid Glass, various small updates for apps like Health, Photos, and Notes, and more.

SEE ALSO: 5 Siri AI and iOS 27 features we’re looking forward to Every iPhone that supports iOS 27

Of course, you can only go through that whole downloading process if you have a device that supports iOS 27. Here are the devices that work with the new iOS:

• iPhone SE (second generation or later)

• iPhone 11

• iPhone 11 Pro

• iPhone 11 Pro Max

• iPhone 12

• iPhone 12 Mini

• iPhone 12 Pro

• iPhone 12 Pro Max

• iPhone 13

• iPhone 13 Mini

• iPhone 13 Pro

• iPhone 13 Pro Max

• iPhone 14

• iPhone 14 Plus

• iPhone 14 Pro

• iPhone 14 Pro Max

• iPhone 15

• iPhone 15 Plus

• iPhone 15 Pro

• iPhone 15 Pro Max

• iPhone 16

• iPhone 16e

• iPhone 16 Plus

• iPhone 16 Pro

• iPhone 16 Pro Max

• iPhone 17

• iPhone 17e

• iPhone Air

• iPhone 17 Pro

• iPhone 17 Pro Max

• iPhone 18 Pro

• iPhone 18 Pro Max

• iPhone Duo

If you don't have one of those, you're out of luck. We should also note that Siri AI will not be coming to Europe due to some regulatory issues. Sorry, European friends.

There's a unique heartbreak to realizing our parents aren't who we imagined. A Long Winter is about that agony, and how one might grow from it.

From English writer/director Andrew Haigh (Weekend, All of Us Strangers) A Long Winter centers on a quietly queer protagonist, who comes to understand himself and what he wants through the hard, cold lesson of who his parents really are. And the result is elegant in its heartbreak.

SEE ALSO: TIFF 2026 preview: 18 films (and shows) you'll want to see (and how) What is A Long Winter About?  Fred Hechinger and Ebon Moss-Bachrach in "A Long Winter." Credit: TIFF

Adapted from Colm Tóibín's short story of the same name, A Long Winter is set in the brutally cold mountains of Colorado, during the early 1950s. There, despite the hard work of maintaining the house and farm animals, Mike (Fear Street's Fred Hechinger) enjoys a rather blissful existence, relishing the time with his younger brother (Heartstopper's Kit Connor), his mother (Outlander's Caitríona Balfe), and father (The Bear's Ebon Moss-Bachrach). However, once his brother takes a job far away, Mike witnesses another side of his parents, one tarnished by regret and recrimination.

As another winter approaches, his mother Louise's smiles turn to snarls. Her empty water glass reeks of alcohol, and her fury at her hard-headed husband Lester boils over. One day, she wanders off with their dog Sandy. Hours later, a blizzard turns the familiar hills to treacherous, frigid white. Where did she go? Could she have survived?

Featured Video For You Andrew Garfield on the meaning of 'no kings' in 'The Uprising'

For months, Mike will seek her out in the not-so-near town, an abandoned mine, the home of his posh uncle (a terrifically festering Martin Freeman), and again and again in the long, blank expanse of the mountain. 

In his search, he has time and space to reflect, and so comes across a better understanding of who his mother was, who his father is, and what he wants for his own life. Mike also makes a new acquaintance in Jimmy (Reservation Dogs' D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), an abandoned teen Lester brings on to do the "women's work" on the property that neither he nor his son has any talent for. 

Fred Hechinger delivers his best performance yet in A Long Winter.  Fred Hechinger in "A Long Winter." Credit: TIFF

Hechinger first hit my radar in 2021, playing the chaotically charismatic Simon in Fear Street: Part One - 1994. Where others in the film had to deliver the horror of the slasher's slaughters, Simon was reliably and warmly the comic relief. Hechinger brought Matthew Lillard vibes, offering an unapologetically gawky confidence and sharp comedic timing. 

From there, he'd earn praise for his role as Quinn on White Lotus Season 1. Then, in 2024, he popped up in a string of movies, taking on wildly different supporting roles. In Thelma, he was a doting grandson. In Nickel Boys, he was a friendly face amid a squadron of abusive school staffers. Gladiator II gave him a chance to play a villain, opposite his onscreen twin emperor Joseph Quinn. Then, in Kraven The Hunter, he played the title character's demure younger brother, Dmitri "Chameleon" Smerdyakov, who used his power to sing like Harry Styles, Ozzy Osbourne, and Tony Bennett. 

Simply put, Hechinger has swiftly established himself as an actor who is exciting at every appearance, because you never know where he might go. 

In A Long Winter, Hechinger packs away his goofy grin and playfulness for a more restrained yet brilliantly alive performance. In the first act, Mike recounts to his brother about how, when he went away for contracted work, he missed home, reminiscing in his childhood bed about his family and the meals his mother made. In these scenes, his voice has a folksy touch, while his word choice is simple. But after weeks without his mother and months without his brother, with Jimmy in the bed beside him, Mike's accent has softened, and he'll use words like "cope," which feel out of place in his father's idea of mountain masculinity. These simple diction shifts reflect how Mike's vision for himself has become less reliant on his father's example, even as his is the only one around. 

Frustratingly, Moss fumbles in his role as the tough guy, much like he did in Broadway's Dog Day Afternoon. His bluster feels flaccid, making the years his wife submitted to his demands a bit perplexing. In scenes where Moss and Hechinger face off, A Long Winter struggles when the former cannot match the latter in onscreen intensity, even though the younger actor is playing openness rather than rage.

Hechinger, who has been a stellar supporting player, proves his leading man chops by shouldering A Long Winter in scenes of delicate dialogue, earnest confrontation, and moments alone, where it's just Mike and the wilderness that has likely consumed his lost and loved mother. 

A Long Winter works as a sister film All of Us Strangers.  Caitríona Balfe and Ebon Moss-Bachrach in "A Long Winter." Credit: TIFF

Make no mistake, A Long Winter won't be as gut-wrenching or as hot as Haigh's last film. Yet both share a common core. Both center on a gay man learning to trust himself and his desire, while making sense of who his parents are/were. The intensity of All of Us Strangers perfectly encapsulates the first stage of such scary journeys, enhanced by the ghost story elements that make the film a soft horror movie. 

In A Long Winter, the arc is less rigorous because Mike — unlike Andrew Scott's hero — is not alone. All of Us Strangers plays, in some respects, like a haunted house movie because of its protagonist's isolation. While Haigh will bring in some surreal and spooky elements to A Long Winter, it's not horror. Instead, he lets the reality of a scene bend to reflect the yearning of his hero, who's coming to realize that death — like winter — is a part of life that is unavoidable, but not inherently bad. 

There's a profound maturity in Haigh's latest, as he trusts Hechinger to infuse mood and growth without genre flourishes or the actor's signature mirth. Keen performances by Balfe, Freeman, and Woon-A-Tai bolster their vision of this world, cold but wondrous. It is not a tearjerker, but a rapturous and meditative look at growing up and growing into ourselves. 

A Long Winter was reviewed out its Canadian Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. 

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My current phone, a Pixel 10 Pro, is the first phone I've ever owned that packs 256GB of storage space. Almost six months into owning it, I've still got plenty of storage left, and I'm in no hurry to free up space. But when I recently looked up how much storage I could free up on it for a piece I was writing, I discovered that Spotify took up almost 15GB of space. This wasn't new, but I completely forgot about it after upgrading to the Pixel.

Save 22%: As of Sept. 14, pick up the 2026 Lego Star Wars advent calendar at Amazon for $35, taking $9.99 off the price ofe $44.99.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Lego Star Wars advent calendar $35 at Amazon
$44.99 Save $9.99   Get Deal

Legos are notoriously expensive, and holiday-themed Legos can get notoriously difficult to get, especially for gift shopping.

My tip? Buy in advance where you can. For any Star Wars Lego fans in your life, a great opportunity to do exactly that is here: as of Sept. 14, the Lego Star Wars advent calendar is on sale at Amazon for $35, bringing its $45 list price down 22% (and to its lowest point ever).

SEE ALSO: August's new Legos bring some of the best variety in sets we've seen all year

This set in particular is themed around The Mandalorian, featuring the titular character and Grogu in holiday sweaters, as well as other classic characters like Moff Gideon and Carson Teva. Other accessories include vehicles and key objects from the show, so you can slowly build out your own universe.

All told, the set has 24 days to open and 293 pieces total. At the time of writing, the set is still at full price on Lego's website and Target. Plus it's just ever so slightly cheaper than the newly unveiled $800 Star Destroyer.

This was supposed to be the year of blockbuster artificial intelligence IPOs, but over the weekend, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed the company will no longer go public in 2026.

In an interview with Fortune, Altman said the IPO would be "ill-timed" given escalating concerns over AI safety and development. Altman told Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell that the IPO would not take place in 2026. Although many outlets have reported that the IPO will now take place in 2027, Altman told Shontell only that the IPO wasn't happening this year, and that it will happen "when the business is ready."

"I would say not 2026, yeah. We got a lot of stuff to do. And meeting this moment of what is going to be required for safety and alignment and how the industry and government is going to work together, and how to be able to do that as a private company," Altman said.

OpenAI has reportedly been preparing for a likely trillion-dollar IPO this year, but in recent weeks, concerns over AI safety have reached a critical point.

"As we’ve said we’re not rushing into an IPO," Altman told Fortune. "I actually think that given everything happening with safety, right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public, and we don’t feel pressure on that. We’ve said for a long time, we’ll do it when we’re ready, which is when the business is ready, when we feel ready from a, kind of, what the moment is like in society with this technology."

So, why have concerns about AI suddenly reached a boiling point?

Anthropic released a nightmarish safety report last week, which detailed how threat actors tried to use Claude to research avian flu adaptations, to assist with gain-of-function research on the chikungunya virus, explore military drone swarms, and carry out mass surveillance. And shortly before that, an Anthropic researcher left the company and very publicly warned that the technology "could kill us all by the end of the decade," and that the industry was "gambling with our lives."

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On Saturday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for AI labs to slow down development of AI until stronger safeguards could be put into place, and Altman publicly committed to coordinating on this effort.

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Altman's comments about the OpenAI IPO come amid these growing concerns.

"This has clearly been a week where a lot more people are grappling with the issues in front of us," Altman told Fortune. "So, I’m actually mostly grateful that this is happening. This is a conversation the world is overdue for, and we are clearly entering a realm of extremely capable models, and a high-stakes need to get things right."

Altman's video interview with Fortune provides some insight into Altman's thinking at a turning point for the industry.

As the most visible and well-known AI company, the performance of OpenAI's IPO will be seen as a barometer for the health of the industry as a whole. Because as fears over AI safety rise, so have fears of the AI bubble bursting.

Earlier this year, SpaceX (which recently merged with xAI) launched its IPO, and Anthropic previously filed paperwork for its own planned IPO. Altman's comments are consistent with a June report from the New York Times, which stated the company was leaning toward delaying its IPO until 2027.

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Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

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