New discoveries shed light on the early cosmos by combining two of the most powerful telescopes available, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Interestingly, Webb spotted hundreds of little red dots dispersed throughout the sky practically as soon as it began observations. These little red dots are so far away that their light is stretched out to longer wavelengths as it travels and appears in the photographs as red dots.

Many of them are located at distances of 12 billion light years or greater. Astronomers have been scratching their brains for years, wondering what was fueling these red dots. It appeared that a thick layer of gas was around them, and that gas would conceal the typical powerful signals from a black hole devouring adjacent material. The Chandra X-ray Observatory will now play an important role in solving the enigma. Its detectors detected X-rays coming from one of the red dots. The one they discovered has the official designation 3DHST-AEGIS-12014 and is around 11.8 billion light years away. It checked all the boxes except one, yet this one standout object emitted X-rays that Chandra had detected years before. The old X-ray data, which dates back more than ten years and is the result of an eight-day survey, began to make a lot more sense as the new Webb data arrived.

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The fact that X-rays are observable at this point indicates that the black hole is in a specific stage of its life cycle. As the black hole consumes the gas, it thins out, and the once uniform cloud of gas splits into patches. Chandra detected X-rays coming out from the material that falls into the black hole and seeping through those holes. The fact that the intensity of the X-rays varies over time supports the idea of dense patches of cloud material rotating through and traveling across our line of sight.

In the end, the gas simply fades away, and the object ceases to appear as a small red dot and becomes a supermassive black hole that we can see sucking in material in X-rays, and our discovery demonstrates that we are catching one of these things in the midst of that transition. It provides us with a glimpse into something that was previously unknown.

This suggests that there could be hundreds, if not thousands, of “little red dots” out there. By examining even one of them as it changes, we can gain a better understanding of how these supermassive black holes were able to grow to such vast masses so fast after the big bang. The same Chandra and Webb will continue to explore the skies for new examples like this one, and each time we find one, our understanding of how black holes and galaxies formed when the universe was young will improve slightly.
[Source]

Bowers & Wilkins is giving its flagship headphones a fresh coat of paint.

The Px8 S2, the brand’s top-tier wireless over-ears, are now available in two new finishes — Midnight Blue and Pearl Blue.

The update is purely aesthetic, and joins Onyx Black, Warm Stone and the McLaren Edition. More broadly, it pushes Bowers & Wilkins’ wider headphone and earbud portfolio to a total of 21 different colour variants. That’s the most the company has ever offered.

That growing focus on design is clearly intentional. Bowers & Wilkins has been leaning into the idea that premium headphones should feel as considered visually as they do sonically, and the Px8 S2 fits that brief. The new finishes stick with the same Nappa leather trim and aluminium detailing. However, they are just reworked into deeper, more expressive tones that feel a bit more eye-catching than the more understated originals.

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It’s important to note that nothing else has changed under the hood. The Px8 S2 still delivers the same award-winning sound performance it’s known for, and is fitted with the same drivers, tuning and overall audio profile. If you were already sold on how they sound, this update is really about having more choice in how they look.

It also follows a broader refresh across the brand’s lineup. After recently introducing new finishes for the Px7 S3 and Pi8 models, Bowers & Wilkins seems to be doubling down on offering more personalisation across its premium range. This is something that’s becoming increasingly common in the high-end headphone space.

The new Px8 S2 finishes are available now, priced at £629 / €729 / $799, matching the existing models.

If nothing else, it’s a reminder that flagship headphones aren’t just about sound anymore. They are part fashion piece, part tech. And with Midnight Blue and Pearl Blue now in the mix, the Px8 S2 leans a little further into that idea.

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from the no-laughing-matter dept

Apparently we’ve reached the stage of the second Trump presidency when we’re doing reruns of the old hits. As you’ll recall, Donald Trump has been desperate to get late-night TV host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel fired for quite some time. While Trump has long complained about any late night comedian making fun of him, he really has gone after Kimmel in particular. Things went into overdrive last fall when America’s top censor, FCC chair Brendan Carr, threatened an investigation if Disney didn’t punish Kimmel for a joke. Disney initially caved, before millions started canceling their subscriptions, leading to a backtracking.

But, since then, both Trump and Carr have continued to look for opportunities to get Kimmel fired for his speech.

In any normal world this would be a huge five alarm fire as an attack on the First Amendment. The president and his minions keep trying to get a comedian fired for his jokes because they are critical of the president. That’s not how any of this is supposed to work. But because Trump does it so often, almost everyone seems to just shrug and move on.

And now Trump is at it again. Both Donald and Melania went on social media to whine about Kimmel mocking Trump again — and to demand he be fired again. Because he told a pretty standard joke about Donald Trump being old.

While the White House Correspondents Dinner this past weekend was shut down after someone tried (and failed) to rush past security with a couple of guns (you know, the kind that Trump and the Republicans have made sure it’s easy for anyone to purchase), even before that the Correspondents Association knew better than to hire the usual comedian to entertain the journalistic elite in the room, preferring instead to hire a magician/mentalist.

Kimmel decided last week, on his show, to present an alternative — effectively what his own White House Correspondents Dinner roast would have been. It’s a pretty typical WHCD comic routine, interspersed with “audience reaction” shots spliced in from other events. You can watch it here:

One joke in it referred to Melania Trump, pretending that she was present (like she would be at the actual dinner) and saying: “Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”

Anyone not desperate to exploit a situation for political gain would hear that joke and recognize immediately that it’s about the fact that the president is decades older than his third wife, and that his health does not appear to be that great (in multiple ways).

But, because no big news story can go unexploited by the Trumps for personal and political gain, they’re pretending that this mid-level joke, combined with the failed security breach by a lone nut, somehow… demands the firing of Jimmy Kimmel all over again..

In his social media post Monday afternoon, Mr. Trump described the comedian’s joke as “really shocking” and “something far beyond the pale.” He ended his post: “Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.”

The first lady had posted about Mr. Kimmel a few hours earlier.

“His monologue about my family isn’t comedy,” she wrote. “His words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America.” She called Mr. Kimmel “a coward” who “shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.” She said he “hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him.”

“Enough is enough,” she wrote. “It is time for ABC to take a stand.”

Oh come on.

This theatrical pearl-clutching over a joke is pathetic and ridiculous on almost every level. First, Kimmel was making an obvious joke about the age difference and the obvious decline in health of the president. It had nothing to do with political violence. Second, claiming that this joke has anything to do with the attempt at violence makes no sense. Kimmel’s joke about the age difference between the Trumps was made two days prior to the scheduled WHCD. The comments above act as though they’re somehow associated with the lone nut’s failed assassination attempt, but unless time works backwards that makes no sense.

Third, if we’re going to talk about “corrosive” dialogue that “deepens the political sickness within America,” the only one to talk about is President Trump, who can barely go a day without issuing corrosive attacks on anyone who criticizes him… or just anyone who is a non-white, non-male who doesn’t praise him.

Fourth, Trump has had it in for Kimmel for years, so of course he’d jump on this excuse to attack him again and demand he be fired — even though the last attempt not only failed badly, but made millions more people aware of Trump’s insecure lashing out at comedians.

Finally, Trump and his MAGA cultists keep pretending that they’re all about free speech, when he is actually (by far) the most censorial president of our lifetime. And here he is demanding someone be fired (not for the first time) over a simple joke. That is authoritarian, censorial bullshit.

Yet, we hear nothing from the folks who spent years insisting that when the Biden admin sent emails to Facebook asking them how they were going to handle health misinformation, that was the greatest attack on free speech in history. Those same people are still making things up about the Biden administration… and have nothing to say about yet another actual attack on free speech. We don’t need to review this all over again, but some Biden officials sent weak emails asking Facebook and Twitter to improve their policies on disinformation, which were mostly ignored. As the Supreme Court said clearly in the Murthy ruling, there was no evidence presented of any actual coercion by the government, which meant the plaintiffs had no standing to bring the case (there needs to be an actual case or controversy, and they could present none).

Meanwhile, between Trump and Carr, we see clear, detailed attempts by the administration to punish a comedian and the company he works for speech that is critical of the president. It’s about as big an attack on the First Amendment as we’ve seen from a President in decades.

Kimmel, for his part, mentioned the latest verbal attacks and attempt to get himself fired on his monologue Monday night, seemingly taking it in stride, but having the President of the United States repeatedly target a comedian for making jokes about him is about as far from a free speech presidency as you can get.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, donald trump, free speech, jimmy kimmel, jokes, melania trump, whcd

Companies: disney

All major dating apps claim to use algorithms to find you better matches. What they don’t all tell you is how those algorithms work — or how radically different the approaches are from one platform to the next. Tinder’s newest AI system analyzes your camera roll. Hinge runs deep learning models on mutual compatibility signals. eHarmony assigns you a psychometric score based on 32 measurable dimensions. The matching technology you choose shapes not just who you see, but whether the platform can realistically serve your actual goal.

This comparison breaks down each major platform’s matching technology in plain terms, so you can make an informed choice rather than defaulting to the most advertised name.

How to Read This Comparison

Each platform was evaluated across six dimensions: matching model type, AI depth, primary data input, best-fit goal, approximate user base, and a critical limitation. “AI depth” refers to how much the platform relies on behavioral inference and machine learning versus static user-set filters. A platform with high AI depth learns and adjusts over time; one with low AI depth executes rules you set at registration and stops there. Neither is inherently superior — it depends entirely on your use case and how much behavioral data you are willing to provide.

2026 Dating App Matching Technology — At a Glance

Tinder — Behavioral AI and the Chemistry System

Tinder has historically been synonymous with volume-based swiping, but its 2026 product direction represents a deliberate departure from that model. As reported by TechCrunch, Tinder’s new Chemistry feature addresses “swipe fatigue” — the growing burnout from endless low-signal profile browsing — by replacing the scroll stream with a single daily curated match recommendation. Chemistry gets to know users through conversational Q&A prompts and, with explicit opt-in permission, analyzes photos from a user’s camera roll to infer lifestyle, hobbies, and personality signals that profiles alone do not surface.

The practical implication is significant: Tinder is moving from a system that showed you everyone who passed your filters toward one that learns what you actually respond to. The behavioral AI principle underlying Chemistry — that revealed preferences outperform stated ones — mirrors what Hinge has been building toward for several years. The limitation to acknowledge honestly is that Chemistry is an opt-in layer on top of the existing platform; users who do not engage with it remain in the older swipe-dominant experience, and Tinder’s brand still draws a disproportionately casual-use audience regardless of matching sophistication.

Hinge — Deep Learning Built Around Mutual Compatibility

Hinge’s positioning as “the app designed to be deleted” is backed by a matching architecture that differs structurally from Tinder’s. According to Hinge’s official 2025 product update, the platform rolled out a rebuilt deep learning recommendation system in 2025 that “better predicts mutual compatibility” — contributing to a double-digit increase in overall matches. The key word is mutual: rather than optimizing for one-sided likes, Hinge’s model attempts to identify pairs where both people are likely to engage, drawing on interaction history, conversation depth, response patterns, and how users engage with specific profile prompt types.

A documented feature of Hinge’s algorithm is its willingness to nudge users beyond their stated filter preferences — suggesting profiles slightly outside set distance or age parameters — when behavioral signals indicate likely compatibility. As analyzed in ProfileSharp’s breakdown of the 2026 algorithm, this filter-override behavior reflects a deliberate design choice: Hinge treats stated preferences as starting points, not hard constraints. This is one of the clearest real-world implementations of behavioral AI in consumer dating, and it partly explains why Hinge has the highest engagement depth-to-user ratio despite having roughly one-third of Tinder’s user volume.

Bumble — Women-First Design Meeting AI Assistance

Bumble’s defining structural feature remains unchanged: in heterosexual matches, women must initiate conversation within 24 hours or the match expires. This design choice is not algorithmic — it is a hard platform rule that shapes the entire dynamic of who can be contacted and when. What is changing is the layer above that structure. According to PCMag’s March 2026 coverage, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd confirmed that the platform’s Bee AI assistant is undergoing internal testing ahead of a broader rollout, and that an upcoming “Dates” feature will incorporate quiz-based preference matching — potentially eliminating the swipe mechanism entirely if the AI model performs.

Until Bee AI is publicly available, Bumble operates on behavioral swipe data filtered through the women-first rule, which structurally limits match volume but meaningfully increases the signal quality of matches that do form. The platform’s gender ratio — approximately 60:40 male-to-female, meaningfully more balanced than Tinder — is partly a product of that safety-first design. Users on Hinge versus Bumble will find the core difference comes down to initiation control versus algorithmic depth, and both matter depending on what you are optimizing for.

eHarmony — Psychometric Matching at Scale

eHarmony operates on a fundamentally different premise than every other app in this comparison. Rather than learning from your behavior on the platform, it attempts to measure your personality and relationship psychology before you ever see a single profile. New users complete an 80+ question quiz built around eHarmony’s 32 Dimensions of Compatibility — covering emotional temperament, communication style, attachment patterns, and values — and receive a compatibility score between 60 and 140 for every suggested match. Scores above 100 are considered above average; scores above 110 signal high compatibility potential.

The important structural caveat is that eHarmony does not allow users to browse the database independently. The algorithm selects all matches. If you disagree with its selections or want to explore outside its suggestions, the platform offers no mechanism to do so. This produces a more curated, lower-volume experience — intentional by design — but it represents a significant loss of agency that suits some users and frustrates others. The pricing model also reflects this commitment-tier positioning: messaging and photo access require a premium subscription, with costs ranging approximately £29.90–£59.90 per month depending on subscription length.

OKCupid — Value-Based Matching Through Answered Questions

OKCupid’s matching logic is built on a database of answered questions about life, values, politics, sexuality, and relationship philosophy. Users answer questions at their own pace, weight how important each issue is to them, and indicate what answers they find acceptable in a potential partner. The algorithm compares these weighted answers across users to generate a match percentage. The more questions a user answers, the more precise the match becomes — which means OKCupid rewards users who invest time in the platform with meaningfully better match quality than those who fill in only the basics.

As a free option with usable core functionality, OKCupid occupies a distinct position in the market. Its AI depth is lower than Tinder or Hinge — it does not learn extensively from behavioral patterns the way those platforms do — but its values-alignment methodology arguably captures a different and complementary compatibility dimension. For users where political alignment, lifestyle philosophy, or relationship structure (including non-monogamy) are filtering criteria, OKCupid’s question layer surfaces those signals in ways that photo-first swipe apps structurally cannot.

Coffee Meets Bagel — Intentional Matching, Reduced Volume

Coffee Meets Bagel is built around a deliberate anti-scroll philosophy. Instead of an infinite swipe stream, the platform delivers a small curated batch of matches each day — historically one to a handful depending on your subscription level — drawn from an algorithm that considers your stated preferences and, where available, social graph proximity through mutual connections. The design goal is to focus attention rather than distribute it across hundreds of low-engagement profile views.

The honest limitation is that this cadence can work against users in less populated markets, where the algorithm may be forced to send matches that fall noticeably outside stated preferences simply to fill the daily batch. The platform also uses an in-app currency model (“beans”) for additional profile interactions beyond the standard batch — a structure that can become expensive for active users who want more than passive daily delivery. Coffee Meets Bagel is best suited to users who have experienced burnout on high-volume swipe apps and want to apply more deliberate attention to fewer, better-curated options.

Grindr — Proximity Without an Algorithm

Grindr operates differently from every other platform in this comparison: it does not rank or sort potential matches by compatibility at all. Instead, it displays a real-time grid of nearby users sorted purely by GPS distance — the closest profiles appear first. There is no learning layer, no compatibility scoring, and no behavioral inference. This design, which has been Grindr’s architecture since its 2009 launch, serves the MSM community with near-instant local visibility and has maintained its position as the dominant platform in that space for over fifteen years.

The trade-off is direct: Grindr’s model optimizes for proximity and immediacy, not compatibility. Users seeking something beyond casual connection typically note that the platform’s design actively works against that goal — the grid interface and absence of algorithmic curation create a high-volume, low-context environment. It remains unmatched for its core use case, but users with relationship or compatibility goals typically find a higher return on platforms with matching layers beyond location alone.

Which App Fits Your Goal?

Choosing a platform based on brand familiarity is the most common mistake new users make. The more useful question is: what does my goal require, and which matching model is most likely to serve it? The following framework maps goals to platform architecture:

Privacy Trade-offs of AI Matching

The more sophisticated a platform’s matching AI becomes, the more behavioral data it necessarily collects. Tinder’s Chemistry feature makes this explicit by requesting optional access to a user’s camera roll — a meaningful escalation beyond in-app behavioral tracking. Users should be clear-eyed about what they are exchanging: more accurate AI matching requires more data, and that data is held under each platform’s own privacy policy, which varies in how it handles third-party sharing, data retention, and deletion requests.

For users in the UK and EU, GDPR provides the right to request data deletion and to opt out of behavioral profiling. Exercising those rights in practice — rather than assuming they apply automatically — requires navigating each platform’s settings individually. Anyone concerned about this trade-off should review data settings before enabling opt-in AI features like Chemistry’s camera roll scan, and should familiarize themselves with how personal data exposure intersects with romance fraud risk — a risk that grows when detailed lifestyle signals become inferred from your photo library.

Key Takeaways

• Tinder’s Chemistry (2026) marks its most significant algorithmic shift — from swipe volume toward AI-curated daily matches using behavioral data and optional camera roll analysis
• Hinge’s deep learning system, updated in 2025, now predicts mutual compatibility and actively pushes users past their stated filter preferences when behavioral signals suggest a good match
• Bumble’s Bee AI is in development but not yet public — the platform’s structural advantage remains its women-first initiation rule, not its algorithm
• eHarmony’s 32-dimension psychometric model is the most structured compatibility system available, but it removes all user control over browsing — the algorithm selects everything
• OKCupid is the strongest free option for values-based matching; its accuracy scales with the number of questions you answer
• No platform has solved the incentive misalignment problem: retention-driven design and genuine match quality are competing objectives on every app

Frequently Asked Questions

re enabling this feature is a reasonable precaution.

The Apple Vision Pro continues to prove its potential in the medical field, with the headset now seeing use for cataract surgeries in New York.

Priced at $3500, the Apple Vision Pro was never going to be a hit consumer product. Still, Apple’s spatial computing device has found limited success in the healthcare industry, a market the company had in mind from the get-go.

Surgeons have praised the Apple Vision Pro for its high-resolution images and ergonomics. The headset has been used in all sorts of medical and surgical procedures, including colonoscopies, a shoulder arthroscopy, and it’s now even proven to be useful for cataract surgeries.

Dr. Eric Rosenberg of SightMD was able to successfully perform cataract surgery using the Apple Vision Pro. In October 2025, he became the first surgeon in the world to conduct this sort of operation with the help of Apple’s spatial computing headset.

How the Apple Vision Pro has improved cataract surgery

Since then, the Apple Vision Pro has seen use in hundreds of additional cases, thanks to ScopeXR, a mixed reality surgical platform co-created by Dr. Rosenberg.

The software is specially designed for ophthalmic surgery, offering integration with 3D digital surgical microscopes via HDMI, USB, and wireless NDI protocols.

In short, ScopeXR lets surgeons view a live stereoscopic feed from surgical microscopes, along with diagnostic data. This feed can be forwarded to medical professionals, consultants, mentors, and students from around the world, allowing for virtual collaboration via two-way audio.

Dr. Eric Rosenberg described ScopeXR as a software platform that makes surgeons “safer, smarter, and more connected.”

“What we accomplished in that operating room is something that has never been done before anywhere in the world,” added Dr. Rosenberg. “This isn’t just about a new device, it’s about reimagining what the operating room of the future looks like.”

Commenting on the collaborative potential of the Apple Vision Pro and ScopeXR, Dr. Rosenberg said that it’s now possible to “bring the world’s best surgeon into any operating room, at any hour, from anywhere on the planet.”

The Apple Vision Pro has other medical applications

Though cataract surgery with the Apple Vision Pro is undoubtedly an impressive endeavor, it’s not entirely unexpected.

Detail from an Apple patent researching other ways to use Apple Vision Pro sensors to help read brainwaves, suggesting an interest in medical-related applications.

The spatial computing headset has already been used for various procedures in the United States and elsewhere, and its wear time in the operating room will likely continue to increase.

In the UK, for instance, the Apple Vision Pro was used for a spinal fusion operation, and it has also helped patients visualize complex operations and procedures to better understand them.

Apple’s spatial computing headset has additional potential for patient care. An October 2025 study explored using the Apple Vision Pro to help people with spinal cord injuries or ALS communicate. Apple itself has also been researching the use of brainwave sensors for the Apple Vision Pro.

As the Apple Vision Pro continues to evolve, we might see additional applications across the healthcare industry. visionOS, meanwhile, is set to receive an update at WWDC 2026, which starts on June 8.

I don’t know if it can officially be called a renaissance, but there has certainly been a wave of resurgent interest in jazz saxophonist Joe Henderson in recent years including numerous reissues of sought after Blue Note rarities as well as live archival releases. Craft Recordings, via its soul-jazz-centric subsidiary Jazz Dispensary, recently kicked off its new “Top Shelf” series celebrating the label’s 10th Anniversary by reissuing Henderson’s much sought after 1968 Milestone Records release Tetragon.  

Long-out-of-print, the geometrically titled-themed album celebrates the four-sided universe of the quartet, showcasing effectively two different 4×4 (if you will) groupings of stellar instrumentalists. Featured are drummers Jack DeJohnette and Louis Hayes as well as pianists  Kenny Barron and Don Friedman. Bassist Ron Carter provides grounding glue along with Henderson to deliver a seamless album listen of remarkable continuity. 

Another audiophile joy worthy of the Craft/Jazz Dispensary branding, Tetragon features all-analog mastering by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and is pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Fidelity Record Pressing in Oxnard, California (you can read more about this newer but top rated pressing facility at their website here). A quality production inside and out, the tip-on style cover features heavy duty sturdy cardboard and a beautiful laminated cover which makes the eye catching pop-art cover design look as good (and maybe even better than!) the rare originals. 

As far as I can tell the only difference is that original pressings (as seen in online photos) had a more blue-ish label color than the lavender-purple variant on the new edition.

That said, a quick look at Discogs underscores Tetragon‘s scarcity, with only five original copies available in the United States at the time of this writing in at best VG+ condition with prices in the $200-300 range.  

Musically, Tetragon focuses on post-bop sounds. While the title track at first may feel a bit angular, after a few listens I’ve found its melodic charms welcoming.  Sequentially, it makes perfect sense to follow it with the Bill Evans-meets-Dave-Brubeck-esque “Waltz For Sweetie.” This sets the stage for Ron Carter’s subtly swinging “First Trip” and then wrapping with Cole Porter’s familiar classic “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”  

I think you get the idea that all the parts of Tetragon fit together neatly like a puzzle which you can hear in full flower on “The Bead Game.” A showcase for group’s connection and inspired improvisation, this is perhaps the most outside track on the album floating somewhere between  the more dissonant spaces of mid period Coltrane and early Chick Corea or perhaps Keith Jarrett 

While I am a relative latecomer to Mr. Henderson’s music — a beautiful original mono copy of his 1966 Blue Note smoker Mode For Joe scored a couple of years back at the flea market for $10 kickstarted my interest — I’m beginning to see a pattern of excellence leading me to think that (like McCoy Tyner) there are no bad Joe Henderson albums. I’m glad to add Tetragon to my collection and am excited to continue exploring more of his catalog.  

Where to buy: $38 at Amazon

Tip: In case you missed it, you can read my review of Joe Henderson’s fine 3LP live set Consonance, which came out for Record Store Day this year, by clicking here].

Mark Smotroff is a deep music enthusiast / collector who has also worked in entertainment oriented marketing communications for decades supporting the likes of DTS, Sega and many others. He reviews vinyl for Analog Planet and has written for Audiophile Review, Sound+Vision, Mix, EQ, etc.  You can learn more about him at LinkedIn.

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Australia’s payphones are an iconic part of the national landscape, even if they’re not as important as they once used to be. However, they’re having a resurgence of late, in part thanks to a new national pastime—the sport of Payphone Tag!

Created by [Alex Allchin], the game is simple. To play, you first sign up on the website and get your emoji and 5-digit PIN. You then go out and find a payphone, dial the Payphone Tag number, and enter your PIN when prompted. This lets you “capture” the phone, raising your score in the game. If a phone is already captured, no matter—just head out there, dial the number, and key in your own PIN to steal it. You can also push your score even higher by capturing three payphones in a triangle on the map to get bonus points.

It’s a fun geospatial game that’s also free to play, because Telstra made payphone calls free back in 2022. It might cost you a bit to get out to some phones, but there are plenty you can reach with the aid of free public transport at the moment, anyway. Protip—at the time of writing, there are a ton of easy captures to be had on Kangaroo Island. It might just cost you a pretty penny to get out there. Have at it!

We’d love to see some stats from Telstra as to whether this is making a dent in overall payphone usage rates. In any case, there were 800 players in the last 7 days and a full 36,640 captures so far, so a lot is happening out there. We fully expect to see this concept spread to other nations in turn, though it might be less attractive in places where you still need to dig out a coin to make a call.

We’ve featured a few payphone hacks over the years. If you’re doing something rad with these telecommunication devices of yesteryear, we’d love to hear about it on the tipsline.