Prasad Kalyanaraman, VP of AWS Infrastructure Services, has been named to Amazon’s senior leadership team. (Amazon Photo)
Amazon added a new member to its senior leadership team Wednesday, naming AWS infrastructure chief Prasad Kalyanaraman to the group known as the S-team or “steam,” while also promoting cloud computing and AI services leader Dave Brown to senior vice president.
CEO Andy Jassy announced the changes internally, according to a memo viewed by GeekWire, and the company updated its public list of S-team members to reflect the changes.
Kalyanaraman oversees AWS infrastructure, including data centers, networking, and supply chain. He has been with the company for more than 20 years, starting in Amazon’s fulfillment and supply chain operations before moving to the cloud division in 2012.
Jassy’s memo praised his “customer obsession, high standards, ability to be right often, delivery, and missionary approach (always focusing on what’s best for customers — and the company as a whole vs. just his own area),” alluding in part to Amazon’s leadership principles.
Dave Brown, newly promoted to senior vice president at Amazon, leads AWS EC2 and AI services including Bedrock and SageMaker. (Amazon Photo)
Brown leads AWS compute services (EC2) along with fast-growing AI services including Bedrock and SageMaker. He has been on the S-team since 2023, previously as a vice president.
“There are several reasons for his promotion, but chief among them are his outstanding delivery, propensity to look around corners and deliver services customers want, being right a lot, obsessing about customers, and continuing to develop strong teams,” Jassy wrote.
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The addition of Kalyanaraman brings the S-team back up to 28 members. That’s still down from more than 30 when the last big round of additions was made in September 2023.
In the meantime, the group has seen departures including Adam Selipsky as AWS CEO (replaced by Matt Garman); longtime devices chief Dave Limp, (succeeded by former Microsoft executive Panos Panay); artificial intelligence leader Rohit Prasad; grocery head Tony Hoggett; and device software leader Rob Williams.
Its expansion comes despite reporting losses here in 2024
Chinese coffee brand Luckin Coffee has been in Singapore for only three years, but it has established a strong foothold in the city-state. It expanded by 30 stores over the past year, bringing its total number of outlets here to 81.
This is despite offering its coffee at heavily discounted prices and reporting losses amounting to RMB¥47 million (S$8.8 million) in Singapore in 2024, all the more notable in the context of Singapore’s notoriously tough F&B landscape.
What, then, goes into the Chinese brand’s playbook for expanding in such a challenging market?
A scale few café operators can match
Image Credit: Luckin Coffee
Luckin’s pricing power comes from a scale few café operators can match.
With over 30,000 stores globally—more than Starbucks—the company benefits from massive purchasing volumes that significantly reduce its cost per cup, enabling retail prices as low as S$4, and even promotional offers such as S$0.99 coffee for first-time users.
CEO Guo Jinyi has also claimed that the company accounted for 40% of China’s total coffee bean imports and 60% of Brazilian coffee bean imports into China in 2024. At this level of purchasing power, Luckin is likely able to secure significantly lower costs compared to most café operators.
Cost efficiencies also extend beyond coffee beans.
In 2025, low-value consumables such as packaging materials and straws cost the company just RMB¥210 million (S$39 million) across its entire 30,000 store network. This translates to roughly S$1,307.64 per store per year, or about S$3.58 per store per day.
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Luckin’s newest US$440 million smart roasting centre in Qingdao, Shandong Province, China./ Image Credit: Luckin Coffee
Since 2021, Luckin has also reduced costs by cutting reliance on third-party suppliers and building more of its own production capabilities.
In Aug 2024, Luckin also broke ground on an Innovation and Production Centre in Qingdao with a total investment of approximately RMB¥3 billion and an expected annual roasting capacity of 55,000 tonnes.
This vertical integration allows Luckin to control more of its supply chain in-house, reduce intermediary costs, and ultimately lower overall production expenses across its store network.
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An operating model that keeps costs lean
Image Credit: Daniel Food Diary
Ever struggled to find a seat at a Luckin Coffee outlet? That’s by design. Most Luckin stores are intentionally small to keep operating costs low.
Around 99% of its outlets are compact pick-up stores of 20–60 sqm, with limited or no seating. These stores are strategically located in office buildings, commercial districts, residential neighbourhoods, and university campuses, allowing the brand to expand rapidly while keeping rental and renovation costs low.
In fact, store pre-opening expenses accounted for just 0.2% of total operating expenses in 2025.
In Singapore, this format provides a clear advantage: smaller units mean cheaper leases compared to full-format cafés, which is especially crucial in a market where retail rents are notoriously high.
All customers need to do to order a coffee from Luckin Coffee is download the app. With just a few taps, they can place an order for pickup at any outlet, receive real-time status updates within the app, and earn rewards through an integrated loyalty programme./ Image Credit: Luckin Coffee
Beyond its physical footprint, Luckin’s digitalised operating model also enables a leaner cost structure. The company operates on an app-first system where customers order and pay entirely through its own platform.
This reduces reliance on cashier staff, lowers the risk of order errors, and allows for highly targeted in-app promotions and personalised marketing to users.
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Besides its own app, Luckin Coffee is also available on third-party delivery platforms. According to its 2025 annual report, delivery orders doubled from 17.1% of total orders in 2024 to 34.7% in 2025 across its whole network, which shows that Luckin is extending its reach beyond its physical store footprint.
Expansion doesn’t cost as much as it looks
Even with lower set-up costs, opening 30 stores in Singapore within a single year might seem aggressive. However, it’s not as capital-intensive as it might appear for the coffee giant under its operating model.
In Singapore, many outlets are run with franchise partners. These partners pay upfront fees and take on much of the setup and operating costs themselves. This means each new store is not fully funded by Luckin, helping the brand scale more quickly with less direct capital outlay.
At the same time, any remaining losses in overseas markets are effectively absorbed by its much larger China business.
However, this is small in the context of the group.
In 2024, Luckin generated over RMB 34.5 billion (S$6.4 billion) in revenue overall, alongside approximately RMB¥3.5–3.9 billion (S$653-S$728 million) in operating profit driven primarily by its China business. Against that scale, Singapore’s losses are effectively marginal.
Singapore is not a profit centre for the group, but part of a longer-term international expansion strategy.
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Standing out in Singapore’s competitive coffee scene
Image Credit: Jack Hong via Shutterstock
From America’s Starbucks to China’s Cotti Coffee, and even local coffee houses, the competition for market share amongst coffee brands in Singapore is nothing short of steep, as Singaporeans have so many options to choose from.
So what makes one choose Luckin over other specialty coffee shops and those at our local coffee shops?
While Luckin’s coffee doesn’t start from RMB 10 (S$1.87) per cup as it does in China, at S$4.80 for an Americano, it is still cheaper than many other café operators, including Starbucks, where prices start at around S$6.30.
This also does not account for the personalised discounts Luckin offers to users who order through its mobile app.
Singapore serves as a critical testing ground for building our brand, refining our operational systems, and understanding overseas business models.
The city-state serves as Luckin’s launchpad into Southeast Asian countries, where it shared that it will adopt a franchise model.
While individual 2025 figures for Luckin’s Singapore operations are not available and are grouped with those of Malaysia and the United States after further expansion, the coffee giant shows no signs of slowing down.
In China, the journey from loss-making in 2020 to an explosive market leader took Luckin roughly five years. In Singapore, a city-state of six million people with a coffee shop on nearly every corner, the competition is steep.
But for Luckin, the steep competition is precisely the point—if the model works here, it can work anywhere in Southeast Asia.
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Read other articles we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.
For creative and marketing teams, a simple cloud storage solution often falls short. These teams need to sift through large numbers of files to find what they’re looking for. The problem is getting worse: AI is accelerating content generation, meaning more media files than ever, which makes the task even trickier.
A New York-based startup called Shade is building a cloud storage platform designed for agencies, sports media teams, consumer brands, real estate companies, and podcasters to store and search their media files easily.
The company announced Wednesday that it closed $14 million in a funding round led by Khosla Ventures, Construct Capital, and Bling Capital in March. The nearly four-year-old startup has raised $20 million in total, with General Catalyst, SignalFire, and Contrary also on its cap table.
Shade was founded by CEO Brandon Fan and CTO Emerson Dove in 2024. The two had been friends since high school. They decided to build something together after growing frustrated with existing tools like Dropbox when it came to searching for files.
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“We built it out of our frustration as creatives – [where we were contending with] stacks and stacks of hard drives and issues where we were using Dropbox drive frame and all of the tools under the sun…it was time to build one single source of truth,” Fan said.
Image Credits: ShadeImage Credits:Shade
He sees Shade as occupying an interesting niche as a creative file storage system around which companies can build workflows.
“As you make more content, you need to be thinking more about the workflows around the content. I like to say it’s similar to CRMs 20 years ago, when we were thinking about how to organize all the information that we had around our contacts and in all of our companies,” he said.
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Shade points to two distinguishing features. First, it offers natural language search powered by auto-tagging. The startup said that this search doesn’t just surface a particular video — it identifies the exact moment in the video where a scene matching the search query occurs. For instance, users can search for “a person holding a laptop in snow,” and the system will surface all matching clips with timestamps.
Image Credits: ShadeImage Credits:Shade
The tool also automatically transcribes videos for easier search. Users can search based on meaning, transcripts, and facial recognition for labeled individuals.
Second, Shade uses a “streamable” file system that lets you mount your cloud storage to your local filesystem and start working with a file almost immediately, without waiting for it to fully download first. Users can also pin files to access them even in low-bandwidth conditions. Typically, with a storage system like Google Drive or Dropbox, you have to wait for a large file to download before editing it. Shade’s streamable system lets you get started right away.
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Beyond storage and search, Shade makes it easy for teams to collaborate — with the ability to leave feedback tied to a video at a specific timestamp. They can also attach files in comments to give direction. Shade lets teams create multiple links for the same assets with varying permissions, and teams can set access-based roles.
For final deliveries to clients, teams can create branded file collections with password protection and expiry dates.
Image Credits: ShadeImage Credits:Shade
For small teams, Shade offers a $20 per seat, per month plan that includes unlimited drives, unlimited AI indexing, and 500GB of active storage per seat. The plan supports up to 15 seats per workspace and up to 150 guests for collaboration.
Shade isn’t alone in this space. Startups like Poly and Memories.ai are also working on AI-powered file storage and search for large numbers of files.
Keith Rabois, managing director at Khosla Ventures, said that while AI has accelerated content creation, managing those creations remains messy.
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“Most companies are layering search on top of existing storage. Shade rebuilt the stack from first principles, spanning streaming, indexing, and collaboration in one system. That architectural approach is harder, but it is why the product actually works, not just as a bolt-on feature,” Rabois said over email.
He added that while search is the starting point, Shade could become a key tool for automating sharing and versioning.
In the coming months, Shade plans to improve its search across different file types, including images, videos, and documents. The startup is also building a no-code platform — meaning one that requires no programming knowledge — to let creative teams create automated workflows based on files in the system.
“We’re essentially building the Lego blocks that allow you to [operate] any type of business, you have that ability to apply shade to your workflow, whether that is, today, just creative teams, [or] in the future, research and investment teams,” Fan said.
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If you have pets, long hair in the household, or simply a mix of carpets and hard floors, a single vacuum that handles all of it without constant adjustment is worth paying attention to.
FloorDetect technology sits at the heart of what makes it practical, automatically sensing whether you are on carpet or hard floors and adjusting the brush-roll speed accordingly, so you never have to think about which mode you are in.
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Anti Hair Wrap technology removes hair from the brush-roll as you clean rather than letting it tangle and build up, which is the kind of feature that makes a genuine difference over weeks and months of regular use.
The Anti-Allergen Complete Seal works alongside the HEPA filter to capture and trap dust and allergens inside the machine rather than redistributing them into the air, making it a more considered choice for allergy sufferers in the household.
Up to 50 minutes of runtime on a single charge gives you enough capacity to work through a full clean without stopping to recharge partway through, and the XL dust cup means fewer trips to the bin during that time.
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When the floorhead is no longer what you need, the Shark PowerPro detaches into a handheld vacuum for tackling upholstery, car interiors, and hard-to-reach areas, with the included crevice tool and upholstery tool extending that reach even further.
Weighing 3.45kg and rated number one in Amazon’s stick vacuums category, this is a genuinely versatile cordless cleaner that covers most households’ needs in a single machine, and at £169 the 32% discount makes it a compelling buy for anyone who has been deliberating.
For a broader look at what else is available at this price point and beyond, our best cordless vacuum cleaners guide runs through the top-rated models you should consider before buying.
FTP still runs widely due to forgotten default configurations
Millions of servers expose FTP without active administrative awareness
Encryption inconsistencies leave many FTP connections completely unprotected online
The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is one of the oldest methods for moving files over the internet, designed during an era when online security was not a primary concern.
According to Censys, it still runs on almost 6 million servers primarily because it was activated by default within hosting panels and subsequently forgotten, rather than being maintained through deliberate administrative choice.
Due to its persistent and often unnoticed operations, security experts now question whether this 55-year-old protocol should be used at all.
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FTP continues to persist in modern infrastructure
“If FTP is showing up in your asset inventory, the first question isn’t how to harden it, it’s whether it should be running at all. Use a more secure alternative,” Censys warns.
A considerable portion of the FTP exposure problem originates from control panel ecosystems that enable the protocol by default during initial server provisioning.
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This means the service often remains active through unattended configuration rather than through any affirmative choice made by the administrator.
Another major issue is that many FTP servers are not deliberately installed as a primary service.
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They often come bundled with hosting platforms and control panels, where they are enabled automatically during setup.
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Over time, they remain active without regular review, making it difficult for organizations to know exactly how many FTP services they are running.
This creates quiet risks that can remain unnoticed for long periods within ordinary operations.
It also reflects a broader infrastructure pattern where convenience-driven services continue operating long after their original necessity has faded.
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That persistence often leaves administrators uncertain about what still matters, what can be removed, and what has simply been forgotten.
FTP’s handling of passwords and other sensitive data during transmission is a major concern.
In some setups, FTP can still send login details in plain text, which means they could be intercepted if someone is watching network traffic.
Although some servers now support encryption, many still fail to use it or are misconfigured for secure connections.
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This inconsistency exists because support varies across software packages and depends heavily on installation choices made early on.
As a result, organizations often face fragmented environments where some traffic is protected, while other connections remain exposed in clear text.
Security researchers also note that FTP daemons behave differently, with some treating encryption as optional and others requiring overlooked administrative steps.
In practice, this leads to inconsistent protection across the internet, depending on how each server was originally configured.
Heat damage is the quiet enemy of healthy hair, and most dryers on the market will keep making that problem quietly worse with every single morning use.
That engineering starts with the V9 digital motor, which spins at up to 110,000rpm to generate a high-pressure jet of controlled air that dries hair quickly without ever needing to rely on extreme heat.
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What makes that possible is the intelligent heat control system, which measures air temperature over 40 times per second and adjusts it continuously, so your hair never gets more heat than it actually needs.
The result is a dryer that genuinely protects natural shine rather than stripping it away, which is a meaningful distinction if you colour-treat your hair or already deal with dryness and breakage.
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Dyson Supersonic has also three speed settings and four heat settings, including a cold shot, give you precise control over the finish whether you want a smooth blowout, added volume, or a more textured result.
The three included attachments extend that versatility further: the concentrator focuses airflow for a sleek, directed finish, the Gentle Air attachment dials down intensity for finer or more delicate hair, and the Flyaway Tool uses the Coanda effect to lift stray hairs and smooth them flat.
That last attachment is the one that genuinely separates the Dyson Supersonic from cheaper alternatives, delivering the kind of polished, salon-quality finish that would otherwise require a separate styling tool on top.
This edition comes in Prussian Blue and Rich Copper with an aluminium build, and the package is backed by a two-year limited warranty for peace of mind.
The Dyson Supersonic is the sort of purchase that tends to pay for itself over time, and at £218 the upfront cost is the lowest it has been in a while, making this a compelling moment for anyone who has been holding off.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Nearly half of children in the United States are breathing dangerous levels of air pollution, according to a new report, as experts warned Donald Trump’s expansive rollback of protections will make the situation worse. The 27th annual air quality report from the American Lung Association (ALA) released on Wednesday evaluates pollution across the country by grading levels of ground-level ozone — also known as smog — as well as year-round and short-term spikes in particle pollution, commonly referred to as soot. The report analyzed quality-assured data collected between 2022 and 2024. It found that 33.5 million children in the US — 46% of those under 18 — live in areas that received a failing grade for at least one measure of air pollution. The report also found that 7 million children, or 10% of all children in the US, live in communities that failed all three measures.
The report further found that communities of color are disproportionately exposed to unhealthy air. As a result, they are more likely to live with one or more chronic health conditions that make them more vulnerable to pollution, including asthma, diabetes, and heart disease. Although people of color make up 42.1% of the US population, they represent 54.2% of those living in counties with at least one failing grade, the report noted. It also found that a person of color is 2.42 times more likely than a white person to live in a community that fails all three pollution measures. Smog remains the most widespread pollutant affecting Americans’ health. Between 2022 and 2024, 38% of the US population — approximately 129.1 million people — were exposed to ozone levels that put their health at risk. This marks the highest number recorded in the ALA’s report in six years, and a 3.9 million increase from the previous year.
Several factors contributed to these unhealthy pollution levels, including extreme heat, drought and wildfires which have exposed a growing share of the population to harmful ozone, the report said. The regions most affected by high ozone levels include south-western states from California to Texas, as well as much of the midwest. This is mainly driven by smoke from Canada’s 2023 wildfires crossing into the US, along with high temperatures and weather patterns that favored ozone formation in 2023 and 2024 — particularly in southern states. More broadly, the report found that climate change is intensifying ozone pollution by boosting precursor emissions and creating atmospheric conditions such as higher temperatures and lower wind speeds that allow pollutants to build up and ozone to form. Another growing source of pollution: datacenters. The report notes how they rely on regional electricity grids where fossil fuels like methane gas and coal still account for a large portion of generation. Many datacenters also use dozens of large diesel-powered backup generators, which emit carcinogenic particulate matter.
“Children’s lungs are still developing,” said Will Barrett, assistant vice-president of the ALA’s Nationwide Clean Air Policy. “For their body size, they’re breathing more air. And also, kids play outdoors, they’re more active, they’re breathing in more outdoor air […]. So, air pollution exposure in children can contribute to long-term developmental harm to their lungs, new cases of asthma, increased risks of respiratory illness and other health considerations later in life.”
On the first full test run, success was the order of the day as that amphibious car rolled down the bank, splashed into the water, and simply continued trucking. The foam blocks kept it afloat, and the back motor gradually slipped into place, propelling it across the lake. Minutes passed, and before you knew it, the animal had reached the far shore and climbed back out by itself. The project’s inventor, RCLifeOn, has a reputation for transforming common parts into some interesting creations.
This time, he began with a simple metal car frame stripped of its roof and any excess dead weight. The goal from the beginning was to build a single machine that could handle both pavement and open water without the need for a trailer or separate boat. The foam blocks supplied lift. Stacked and molded around the frame, they provided enough buoyancy to hold a good three hundred kilograms. Plywood plates fastened the foam to the metal, and some glass fiber cloth offered some more strength at the joints; nevertheless, the first time he attempted it, the fabric split some of the foam; a quick coat of paint sealed the surface against water and filth.
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Four hub motors nestled inside the tires provided the land some power. They provided him four-wheel drive that was reversible and controlled by electronic speed controllers, as well as a decent amount of torque for grass and dirt. A twist throttle on the handlebar controlled acceleration, while the rider sat comfortably in the center for balance on both surfaces. In contrast, water mode required a slightly different technique. He cobbled together an old e-foil motor with the propeller installed at the back, giving it some thrust when lowered into the water. Some aluminum extrusions made a sliding gantry that carried the entire motor assembly up and down on rollers with a little help from a Ryobi drill, whose clutch allowed him to lift or drop the motor smoothly without getting all those gears mixed up. One direction spun it down, while the other quickly lifted it off the ground. A few pieces of wood and 3D printed brackets held everything together, and the base plate was made of 8mm plywood.
Steering on the water was just a matter of catching the flow with a couple of pieces of plywood near the prop and nudging the nose one way or another. The body would lean slightly in the tighter turns. The same throttle grip functioned in both modes, and he fueled the land and water motors with their own battery packs and controllers.
When it came to routing, electronics required a lot of careful preparation because you had to make sure your LiPo batteries, heavy-duty speed controllers, and a servo tester all worked together without any cables getting pinched and no water damage seeping in. Then there’s the puzzle of keeping all your cables tidy, as your moving gantry is always changing about, causing a mess, so some strong cable management skills are required. Finally, the testing verified that everything worked. On land, the vehicle handled similarly to a solid four-wheel drive cart. In the water, it floated perfectly on the surface and glided along at a reasonable speed, enough to span a substantial amount of lake in a matter of minutes. Transitioning from road to water was seamless: simply drive in, turn off the engine, and go. Even when floating, the low ground clearance protects the hub motors, while the foam on the tires keeps them mostly out of the water.
Range estimates place it at roughly fifty kilometers (thirty-one miles) on roads and three on water, but only with the current battery configuration. The good news is that the entire system is made up of parts that can be easily found at any old hardware shop, from the frame to the drill mechanism and everything in between. The constructor ensured that every connection is easily serviced with only a simple set of equipment.
Cocaine pollution can affect the behavior of fish—altering, for example, the way Atlantic salmon move through their environment, prompting them to swim farther and disperse over a wider area.
So finds a recent study by a research team coordinated by Griffith University, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, the Zoological Society of London, and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and published in the journal Current Biology. The findings provide the first evidence that the effects of cocaine contamination on fish behavior occur not only under laboratory conditions but also in the wild, where animals are exposed to much more complex environmental conditions.
Cocaine and its metabolites have been detected with increasing frequency in rivers and lakes around the world, entering waterways primarily through wastewater treatment systems. Although previous research has shown that cocaine pollution can affect animal behavior, this evidence was limited to laboratory conditions. A 2024 study by the Oswaldo Cruz Institute in Brazil showed that even sharks are exposed to cocaine, but little is known about its effects on animals in the wild.
To understand more about it, the authors of the new study surgically implanted small devices that slowly released chemicals into 105 juvenile Atlantic salmon in Lake Vättern in Sweden. They were then divided into three groups: a control group, which was not exposed to substances; a group exposed to cocaine; and a group exposed to benzoylecgonine, the main metabolite of cocaine that is commonly detected in wastewater. The researchers also attached small tags to the fish so they could monitor their movements over a two-month period. From subsequent analyses, the team found that, compared with the control group, fish exposed to benzoylecgonine swam up to 1.9 times farther, dispersing at the end of the experiment about 20 miles from the release point.
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“The location of the fish determines what they eat, what eats them, and how populations are structured,” said coauthor Marcus Michelangeli. “If pollution is altering these patterns, it has the potential to affect ecosystems in ways we are only now beginning to understand.”
In addition to showing how cocaine pollution has changed the way salmon use space in a natural ecosystem, the new study found that the most pronounced effect was observed not so much in the group exposed to cocaine itself, but in that exposed to its metabolite. This result has implications for monitoring, since the metabolites are often more common in waterways and current risk assessments generally focus on the main compound, potentially neglecting important biological effects.
“The idea that cocaine might have effects on fish might seem surprising, but the reality is that wildlife is already exposed to a wide range of human-made drugs on a daily basis,” said Michelangeli. The researchers’ next step will be to be able to determine how widespread these effects are, identify which species are most at risk, and test whether alterations in behavior translate into changes in survival and reproduction.
This story originally appeared on WIRED Italia and has been translated from Spanish.
Blue Mountain has stated that the acquisition of CompuCal will enable the organisation to strengthen its presence across key European markets.
Blue Mountain, a US enterprise asset management (EAM) software provider for the life sciences sector, has today (22 April) announced the acquisition of Cork-based CompuCal Calibration Solutions, which provides calibration and maintenance management software across Europe.
Established in 1989 and headquartered in Pennsylvania, Blue Mountain supports end-to-end GMP asset management. The organisation had a recent cash injection via an investment from Five Arrows, the alternative assets arm of Rothschild & Co.
Located at Little Island, Cork, CompuCal has been in operation since 1980 and is a calibration software development company that works with a range of industries, including life sciences, pharmaceuticals, food and drink, oil and gas, and power generation.
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Blue Mountain has stated that the acquisition of CompuCal will enable the organisation to strengthen its presence across key European markets, as Blue Mountain aims to leverage CompuCal’s established customer base across Ireland, the UK and broader European regions.
Commenting on the news of the acquisition, David H Rode, the CEO of Blue Mountain, said: “This acquisition is a major step forward in expanding our global footprint and strengthening our ability to serve life sciences manufacturers wherever they operate.
“CompuCal brings a highly respected team, deep calibration expertise and a strong presence across Europe. Together, we are building a truly global organisation with the local knowledge and capabilities our customers expect.”
Donal Sullivan, the CEO of CompuCal, added: “Joining Blue Mountain is an exciting opportunity for our team and our customers. We have built CompuCal around proven expertise in calibration and a strong commitment to customer success.
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“As part of Blue Mountain, with whom we share core values, we can extend that expertise to a broader global audience while continuing to deliver the high level of service our European customers rely on.”
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It seems like Netflix’s presence at award shows gets bigger every year, and the 2026 Academy Awards have proven that the streamer is a force to be reckoned with. Six Netflix original films earned 18 nominations this year, taking home seven, including for best animated feature and best original song for KPop Demon Hunters, best documentary short for All the Empty Rooms and best live-action short for The Singers. Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein also took home three technical awards for best production design, costume design and makeup and hairstyling.
The streaming giant’s combination of original films and a diverse library from other studios makes it a reliable source of entertainment, although it can sometimes be hard to narrow down what to watch. Films like Jaws and Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla are currently on the platform, but not for long — we suggest a re-watch before they leave Netflix next week. And for something completely irreverent, check out BlackBerry, the true(ish) story of the rise and fall of the once-popular mobile device, which just arrived to Netflix a few weeks ago. The film looks like it could be a parody, but it’s actually a great dramatic comedy about the race to produce a pocket computer. Ahh, remember when there was a time before smartphones?
There once was a time when BlackBerry was the top name in the game when it came to handheld mobile devices, but then the iPhone had to come and ruin it. BlackBerry is a comedy-drama adapted from Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff’s book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry. The film was directed by Matt Johnson (who also recently directed Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie) and stars Glenn Howerton and Jay Baruchel as two of the creators of the BlackBerry. It sees them through the development of the product and its rise, and to its downfall after the advent of the iPhone. The film came out around the same time as a few other movies that you could call “corporate biopics,” such as Air and Flamin’ Hot, but It’s definitely the most quirky and fun of the bunch.
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Universal Pictures
Steven Spielberg’s Jaws helped define what it meant to be a summer blockbuster. The film about a great white shark terrorizing a coastal community is so much more than a monster movie; it’s truly one of the most iconic films of the 20th century, and it’s leaving Netflix on April 30.
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Searchlight Pictures
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2025)
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28 Years Later and its follow-up, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple are the newest films in the zombie series about a viral outbreak that has ravaged England and placed it under quarantine with almost no contact with the rest of the world. Right now, you can catch both films on the platform; The Bone Temple just arrived last week. Ralph Fiennes portrayal as Dr. Ian Kelson is not to be missed.
Focus Features
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Winston Churchill was not the overwhelmingly popular choice to take over as England’s Prime Minister in 1940, which made his early days in office difficult as he faced adversaries from within his own government who didn’t trust him to lead their country during World War II. As the German threat grew during his first year in power, Churchill was forced to make difficult, often deadly choices (with little help from America who was still not involved in the war), and those moments are captured in Darkest Hour, the 2017 film starring Gary Oldman as Churchill. The film is a great depiction of a dramatic moment in history, but it won’t be sticking around for long, watch it before it leaves on April 30.
Neon
The 2023 film Anatomy of a Fall received the 2023 Oscar for best original screenplay and was nominated for four other Academy Awards. The gripping legal drama follows a French novelist, Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller), as a woman whose husband plunges to his death from an upstairs window of their home in the Alps. Was the fall accidental? Did Sandra push him? Or did he kill himself? The mystery and ambiguity of it all will keep you guessing and forming your own opinions, and you’ll never hear 50 Cent quite the same way again. The film just arrived on Netflix this month.
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Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man (2026)
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Cillian Murphy is back as Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man. The film picks up a few years after the end of the sixth season of the Peaky Blinders series, in 1940, smack in the middle of World War II. After a self-imposed exile, Tommy Shelby returns to Birmingham and, as you can expect, the past and his family drama have come back to haunt him. The film was directed by Tom Harper and written by Steven Knight, and has a stellar cast with Barry Keoghan, Rebecca Ferguson, Tim Roth and Stephen Graham.
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All The Empty Rooms (2025)
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In the Oscar-winning documentary short, All The Empty Rooms, CBS News reporter Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp embark on a cross-country trip to visit and memorialize the bedrooms of children who were killed in school shootings. It’s a hard watch, to be sure, but a necessary reminder that we can be doing more to prevent future tragedies.
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Blue Moon was released in theaters in 2025 and received two Oscar nods this year, one for Ethan Hawke’s lead performance as songwriter Lorenz Hart and another for Best Original Screenplay. In the film, a depressed Hart struggles to accept the success of his former songwriting partner Richard Rodgers (played by Andrew Scott). Bobby Cannavale and Margaret Qualley also co-star. The film, directed by Richard Linklater, marks his ninth film collaboration with Hawke.
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The Singers is a film adaptation of a 19th-century short story written by Ivan Turgenev about a group of pub-goers who turn their depressing night of boozing into an impromptu sing-off. The Oscar-winning short film stars a group of relative unknowns whose singing talents were discovered via social media, and was directed by Sam A. Davis. (In a rare and surprising Oscars moment, The Singers actually tied for their award with another nominee, Two People Exchanging Saliva, which is available to watch on YouTube.)
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KPop Demon Hunters (2025)
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The Netflix original animated film KPop Demon Hunters premiered in June and quickly rose through the ranks to become the platform’s most-watched original film of all time. The film, about a KPop group that performs by day and hunts demons in their downtime, has a soundtrack that’s already been certified Platinum thanks to hits like “Golden” and “Soda Pop.” The film stars Arden Cho, May Hong and Ji Young Yoo as the titular girl group tasked with fighting off a demonic boy band. (Can’t get enough of the movie? Check out the theatrical sing-along version and lyric videos that are also available to stream.) The film was also honored with two Golden Globes this year for Best Original Song and Best Animated Motion Picture and won Oscars in those same categories at this year’s ceremony.
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Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein received nine Oscar nominations this year and took home three. The film, a reimagining of the Mary Shelley classic, is pure del Toro, filled with the dark, fantastical style the director is known for. It stars Oscar Isaac as the mad scientist Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi nabbed an Oscar nomination for his turn as the Monster.
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Joel Edgerton stars in Train Dreams, an Oscar-nominated drama that has won awards at several film festivals and the Independent Spirit Awards this year. The film takes place roughly a century ago; Edgerton stars as Robert Grainier, a logger in the Pacific Northwest struggling to build a life for himself and his family. The story is adapted from the novella of the same name by Denis Johnson and costars Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon and William H. Macy.
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Richard Linklater’s Boyhood was filmed over a span of 12 years, from 2002 until 2013, and chronicles in real time, the adolescence of a young boy named Mason (Ellar Coltrane) as he grows up. Clocking in at nearly three hours, the film feels documentary-like as it shows its characters in real-life settings discussing current events of the time. (It was scripted as filming went along.) The result is refreshingly original and moving. Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette and Lorelai Linklater (Richard Linklater’s daughter) co-star.
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Before he created Yellowstone, Taylor Sheridan penned this great crime thriller starring Emily Blunt as an FBI agent trying to bring down the leader of a drug cartel. The film co-stars Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Victor Garber, and Daniel Kaluuya; catch it now before it leaves on April 30.
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The Perfect Neighbor (2025)
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Directed and produced by Geeta Gandbhir, The Perfect Neighbor is a harrowing documentary about the killing of Ajike Owens, a Florida woman who was shot to death on June 2, 2023, by her neighbor, Susan Louise Lorincz. The film’s use of police body camera footage and 911 calls lay out the neighborhood disputes stemming from Lorincz’s erratic and unsettling behavior and the escalating tension that led to the killing.
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Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018)
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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is the first animated Spider-Man feature in the Marvel canon, and the film follows Brooklyn teenager Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) as he becomes the new Spider-Man and teams up with other Spider-People from various parallel universes to save his universe from the Kingpin (voiced by Liev Schreiber). The film’s other Spider-Men are played by Jake Johnson, John Mulaney, Kimiko Glenn and Nicolas Cage. Tthe rest of the cast is top-notch, too.
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In the great horror thriller Train to Busan, a father finds himself trapped on a train from Seoul to Busan that’s filled with zombies. As he tries to protect his daughter and escape from the infected, the film delivers pulse-pounding thrills and has been lauded as one of the best zombie movies of the past few years. Check it out now, as it’s set to leave the platform May 1.
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Sofia Coppola directed the 2023 biopic Priscilla, which is about the life of a young Priscilla Presley who was just a teen when she met her future husband, Elvis Presley. Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi portray the volatile couple in this Golden Globe-nominated film. If you’re a fan of their performances, they also appear in two other Netflix originals on our list — Spaeny co-stars in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, and Elordi plays the creature in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. Priscilla is scheduled to leave Netflix on April 30.
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Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)
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Daniel Craig returns for a third time as Benoit Blanc in the newest film in the Knives Out mystery series, Wake Up Dead Man. This time around, the charming detective has been summoned to a small town in New York to investigate the death of a monsignor at a small church, and everyone in the sprawling A-list ensemble is a suspect. The film co-stars Glenn Close, Andrew Scott, Josh O’Connor, Mila Kunis, Kerry Washington and others. Why not make it a double feature and watch 2022’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, also on Netflix, while you’re at it?
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Godzilla Minus One (2023)
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Godzilla Minus One is an Academy Award-winning Japanese-language movie written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki. Set in 1945, the story centers around Kōichi Shikishima, a young pilot dealing with PTSD in a post-World War II era. After surviving an encounter with Godzilla, he and others realize the kaiju is gearing up to attack Tokyo. A sequel to the Sony film has also just been announced; Godzilla Minus Zero is expected in theaters in late 2026.
The 2015 documentary Amy is a snapshot of a life lost too soon. Amy Winehouse was a singular talent, but her struggles with substance abuse became too overwhelming, and she died from alcohol poisoning in 2011. Amy, directed by Asif Kapadia, uses home movies and rarely seen footage of young Amy as she developed her voice and kicked off a career that would be far too short.
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Based on the comic book by Greg Rucka, the action-fantasy The Old Guard stars Charlize Theron as one of a group of immortal mercenaries who are able to regenerate even after being killed. When they’re tracked down and hunted by a pharmaceutical company that intends to study them, they fight back in an effort to protect themselves. The first film, released in 2020, was such a success that a sequel, The Old Guard 2, premiered in 2025 with Uma Thurman cast as Theron’s newest adversary.
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One of Them Days is pure comedy gold. It’s the perfect (R-rated) film when you’re looking for something silly and fun and packed with great jokes and performances. The movie is part of the “desperate best friends embark on a mission with a deadline” genre (see also: Booksmart, Plan B) as best friends Dreux (Kiki Palmer) and Alyssa (SZA in her film debut) try to track down the rent money that was stolen by Alyssa’s boyfriend before the end of the day. When they realize the money is gone, they desperately try to make all the money they need in one day, leading them to sell a pair of stolen Jordans and stage an art show to sell some of Alyssa’s paintings. The film, which arrived on Netflix in March, features hilarious cameos from Katt Williams, Janelle James and Lil Rel Howery. Rumor has it a sequel is in the works.
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Netflix’s K-drama collection has a few hidden gems, including Ballerina, a 2023 revenge story about a former bodyguard seeking justice for her friend. Jang Ok-ju stops at nothing to make the offenders pay in this action-packed thriller. (Just don’t get this Ballerina confused with the recent release of the same name starring Ana de Armas, which is also an action-packed revenge story — that one’s not on Netflix, at least not yet.)
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A powerful story about a high school basketball team in New Mexico, Rez Ball takes viewers on a journey with the Chuska Warriors. When a tragic event strikes the team, it faces challenges on and off the court — but still aims for a championship title. Co-written by Sydney Freeland and Sterlin Harjo (co-creator of Reservation Dogs), the movie is based on the novel Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation.
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The 2024 action comedy was one of several movies starring Glen Powell that helped cement his leading-man status. The film, co-written by Powell and director Richard Linklater, stars Powell as a nerdy professor drawn into an undercover investigation. Disguising himself as a hitman, he adopts a new persona for each client — until he falls for a woman (Adria Arjona) who hires him to kill her abusive husband.
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My Octopus Teacher (2020)
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2020’s My Octopus Teacher won an Oscar for best documentary feature for telling a personal and poignant story of the friendship between a man and an octopus he meets while diving. Filmed over the course of a year, Craig Foster documented the kinship he formed with the octopus who would repeatedly and playfully approach him. The film explores the often unseen personality of a creature found in the wild who ends up giving Foster insight into nature and his own relationships. If you’re inspired by the natural world, the film’s director Pippa Ehrlich’s follow-up feature, Pangolin: Kulu’s Journey, is on Netflix now, too.
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The Only Girl In The Orchestra (2024)
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The Only Girl in the Orchestra won an Oscar in 2025 for best documentary short and you can catch the 35-minute film exclusively on Netflix. The film is the story of Orin O’Brien, the first woman hired to perform in the New York Philharmonic (by Leonard Bernstein, no less). Often ogled for her looks and singled out for attention because of her gender, she rose above it all, staying true to her creative principles to become one of the orchestra’s most renowned musicians for decades.
The critically lauded Oscar-winning film, 1917, directed by Sam Mendes about World War I, was remarkable for the fact that it was filmed with the intent of making it appear as though the entire movie was shot as two long, continuous takes. The movie stars George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman playing British soldiers traveling across a dangerous battle zone rigged by Germans in an effort to deliver a message to their superiors warning them of an impending attack. The film’s stellar supporting cast includes Andrew Scott, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong and Richard Madden.
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Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)
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Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is dedicated to the memory of Chadwick Boseman, who made his final screen appearance in the film before his death in 2020. The film stars Boseman as Levee Green, a member of blues singer Ma Rainey’s band (Viola Davis), and takes place amid one of the band’s conflict-ridden and turbulent recording sessions in 1920s Chicago. Taylour Paige, Colman Domingo and Glynn Turman co-star in the film that was adapted from August Wilson’s 1982 play.
In His Three Daughters, Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen star as three estranged sisters who come together in their dying father’s small New York apartment to care for him in his last days. Writer-director Azazel Jacobs coaxes some incredible performances out of each actress for this intimate, emotional and often funny study of family dynamics.
Colman Domingo earned an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of civil rights activist Bayard Rustin in this film about a man whose legacy has often been overlooked in civil rights history. Bayard Rustin fought alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and helped organize the 1963 March on Washington and the Freedom Rides, among other major historic events.
Rustin’s outspoken activism and homosexuality made him a target — not just for political adversaries but sometimes even among his allies. The film explores the life of a man whose legacy has long been overlooked.
This biographical film nabbed seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Picture. Maestro tells the story of conductor Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) and his relationship with actor Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan). In addition to starring in the romance drama, Cooper also directed and co-wrote the film and produced it alongside Hollywood legends Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg.
Based on the novel by Elena Ferrante, The Lost Daughter stars Olivia Colman as a woman traveling alone to a seaside resort where she observes a mother and daughter. They send her into a bit of a spiral, recalling her own experiences as a young mother. The screenplay was adapted and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal in her directorial debut.
The award-winning film, Society of the Snow, is based on true events and adapted from the book of the same name. In 1972, a rugby team from Uruguay boarded a plane to Chile for a game. The plane crashed in the Andes mountains, leaving survivors to contend with injuries, illness, cold temperatures and death. Not everyone makes it and those facing death make agonizing choices to live.
If you weren’t around at the time, it’s hard to explain just how huge We Are the World was. Recorded by a supergroup of popular musicians — assembled on the fly on the night of the 1985 American Music Awards — the charity single benefiting Ethiopian famine victims sold more than 20 million copies and featured the likes of Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Diana Ross. (It feels impossible to imagine so many megastars assembling in one room for something like this today.)
Luckily for us, there were cameras rolling the entire time as dozens of the world’s most famous musicians pulled the epic all-night recording session. The recently departed Quincy Jones proves to be the night’s true star, wrangling a studio full of nerves, egos and a little too much wine to produce something genuinely special.
This animated drama, based on the graphic novel of the same name, is set in a futuristic medieval world, in which a knight (Riz Ahmed) is framed for a crime. A shapeshifting teenager named Nimona (Chloë Grace Moretz) — whom he’s been trained to destroy — may be his only hope for proving his innocence.
This biographical film tells the story of two sisters, Yusra (Nathalie Issa) and Sarah Mardini (Manal Issa), who escape war-torn Syria. Amid all the strife and upheaval, Yusra works toward her dream of swimming in the Olympics. It’s a touching narrative of hope and survival.
A World War I drama based on the classic novel of the same name, this epic depicts the horrors of war through the eyes of 17-year-old German soldier Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer). At first enthused about joining the army, in spite of his parents’ wishes, Bäumer gets a violent wake-up call. All Quiet on the Western Front was a dominating force at the 95th Annual Academy Awards, as it was nominated for nine Oscars and ultimately walked away with four, including best international feature film.
Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma nabbed him the best director Oscar in 2018 (the film earned two other Oscars that year, too), a first for a foreign-language film. Its inclusion in the award show marked the first time a film distributed by a streaming platform was eligible for major awards. The film, set in the early 1970s, stars Yalitza Aparicio as the live-in housekeeper for a wealthy Mexico City family as she deals with her own pregnancy, the troubles within the family she works for and the escalating political turmoil in the city around her.
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