Lanterns episode 2 is now live on HBO Max — and it introduces viewers to the most famous Green Lantern villain of all, Thaal Sinestro.

Long-time Green Lantern fans will already know plenty about this recurring antagonist, his relationship to Hal Jordan, and why he’s deemed such a threat to the Green Lantern Corps and wider galaxy. However, unless you’ve read the source material and/or seen the disastrous 2011 Ryan Reynolds-starring Green Lantern movie, many of you won’t know much, if anything, about Sinestro.

SOFTWARE

It survived testing and the boss signed off, so who was really to blame?

WHO, ME? Welcome to another installment of “Who, Me?” – the reader-contributed column in which The Register opens the working week with your tales of IT woe.

This week, meet a reader we’ll Regomize as “Pascal,” who once worked for a company that had just acquired its first Exchange server, home to around 600 mailboxes.

“The IT manager was keen we kept on top of the performance of the Information Store and suggested we take the box offline once a week to defrag it,” Pascal told The Register.

That sounded like a sensible idea, so Pascal wrote a batch file to stop the Information Store, run eseutil /d to compact the database, delete the temporary files created during the process, and restart the service

“It tested OK and did make a difference to the size of the Store, so we scheduled it to run on the Friday night and left for the weekend,” he told Who, Me?

Pascal didn’t make it far into the weekend before his phone started buzzing with reports that Exchange had stopped working.

“I drove into work to check and found the Windows NT 4 server wasn’t happy. Hardly anything would run, and the services for Exchange had stopped,” he confessed to The Register.

Pascal quickly spotted the problem. His script contained the command DEL *.* but did not specify a directory. Running from the System32 folder, it therefore began deleting files there.

“My script wiped most of the System32 files, and that meant Windows NT 4 was lobotomized and the server was beyond repair,” Pascal wrote. “It needed a full rebuild and restore, which took me most of the weekend.”

Looking back, Pascal accepts that it wasn’t his finest hour. It was at least a lucrative one: he received double time to fix it. Pascal deleted System32 without deleting his career.

Have you deleted something important by mistake? Before your brain erases the memory of your shame, click here to send your story to Who, Me? Perhaps we’ll restore it in full on a future Monday. ®

Record companies were playing games with album titles long before streaming services started calling 14 slightly different versions of the same record a “Deluxe Edition.”

Jimmy Reed really did perform at Carnegie Hall on May 13, 1961, sharing the “Blues at Carnegie” bill with Muddy Waters, Big Maybelle, Jimmy Witherspoon and Oscar Brown Jr. The album that followed, however, was not a live recording of that performance.

According to the original Vee-Jay liner notes, contractual and technical difficulties prevented the label from recording Reed’s Carnegie Hall appearance as intended. Vee-Jay subsequently recreated the material in studio sessions, and Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall arrived later in 1961 as a double LP.

The title certainly sounded better than Jimmy Reed Played Carnegie Hall But This Isn’t the Recording. Sixty-five years later, the music has survived the marketing department rather well.

Craft Recordings and its revived Bluesville imprint are returning Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall to vinyl on August 21, 2026, but collectors should understand exactly what they are getting. This is not a reissue of the complete original two-record set. Bluesville is reproducing the first LP only, containing the 11 tracks associated with Reed’s Carnegie Hall program.

The new edition has been remastered AAA from the original analog tapes by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab and pressed on 180-gram vinyl in partnership with Acoustic Sounds. It comes in a replica tip-on jacket with an obi featuring new reflections from Grammy-winning producer, songwriter and blues musician Scott Billington. At $33, it is also priced considerably more sensibly than a lot of modern audiophile vinyl.

Jimmy Reed Made Simplicity Very Difficult to Copy

Born Mathis James Reed in Dunleith, Mississippi, in 1925, Jimmy Reed became one of the most commercially successful blues musicians of the 1950s and early 1960s without sounding remotely interested in showing off.

Reed moved to Gary, Indiana, in 1948 and signed with Chicago’s Vee-Jay Records in 1953. His breakthrough arrived with “You Don’t Have to Go,” which reached No. 5 on Billboard’s R&B chart in 1955 and began an extraordinary run of successful singles.

Between 1955 and 1961, Reed scored 18 Top 20 R&B hits, including “Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby,” “You Got Me Dizzy,” “Honest I Do,” “Baby What You Want Me to Do,” “Big Boss Man” and “Bright Lights Big City.”

Not bad for someone whose music often sounds as though nobody involved was in much of a hurry.

Reed’s sound was built around relaxed shuffles, economical electric guitar, harmonica, uncomplicated arrangements and one of the most recognizable vocal deliveries in postwar blues. There was nothing flashy about it, but that was precisely the point.

His music sounded easy enough that thousands of musicians probably thought they could reproduce it. Most discovered that the hard part was not playing the notes.

Reed understood that a blues song does not automatically improve because the guitarist managed to squeeze another 47 notes into the solo. His timing, rhythmic feel and ability to leave space made the music work, and those qualities proved enormously influential.

The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, the Grateful Dead and numerous other rock and R&B artists drew from or covered his material, and Reed was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

His influence also extended beyond conventional blues circles. Reed’s relaxed rhythmic approach helped connect electric blues with R&B, rock, country and garage rock without requiring him to change very much about what he was doing.

“Bright Lights Big City”

“Bright Lights Big City” opens Side A and remains the obvious centerpiece.

The song became one of Reed’s biggest records in 1961 and is a perfect example of why his music remains so difficult to imitate convincingly. Nothing feels forced. The rhythm settles into place, the instrumentation leaves plenty of room around Reed’s voice, and the performance never sounds as though anyone is trying particularly hard to impress the listener.

That is precisely why it works.

The rest of the album stays comfortably within Reed’s established musical vocabulary. “I’m Mr. Luck,” “What’s Wrong Baby,” “Found Joy,” “Kind of Lonesome,” “Aw Shucks, Hush Your Mouth,” “Tell Me You Love Me,” “Blue Carnegie,” “I’m A Love You,” “Hold Me Close” and “Blue, Blue Water” do not pretend that Reed suddenly decided to reinvent Chicago blues.

Nor should they.

Reed found a formula that worked and became remarkably effective at making small changes in timing, guitar phrasing, harmonica and vocal delivery feel meaningful.

Some musicians need a wall of amplifiers and a pedalboard that resembles the control room at NORAD. Jimmy Reed needed a groove.

Whether Craft and Bluesville planned it this way or not, the Jimmy Reed and Skip James reissues share a stripped-down quality that makes both albums remarkably accessible. There is very little standing between you and the musicians, and neither recording needs modern studio tricks to convince you that something real happened in front of the microphones.

Are these on the same sonic level as some of the recordings Chad Kassem made at Blue Heaven Studios, the former church in Salina, Kansas? No. And if the blues means anything to you, you should own some of those as well. Kassem did all of us a favor by bringing aging and often underappreciated blues musicians into that remarkable space and recording them properly while there was still time.

Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall presents its music differently.

The image forms just in front of the loudspeakers rather than being thrust into your lap with a stiff drink and some floozy you met on a train pulling into Grand Central Station. There is intimacy here, but also some distance, and I think the recording benefits from it.

Reed’s voice is meatier and throatier than Skip James’, although it does not have quite the same grit or that I’ve seen the worst of man and somehow I’m still standing quality that makes the James record hit so hard. Reed sounds more relaxed and grounded, with enough texture in his voice to keep it believable without the mastering trying to manufacture additional age or suffering that was never on the tape.

The percussion is on the softer side and never becomes particularly forceful. Reed’s guitar is different. Individual notes have just enough energy, presence and bite to keep you leaning forward, and the mastering allows that character to emerge without making the instrument unnaturally sharp or oversized.

There were moments during my first few listens when the recording did not feel quite as connected as Devil Got My Woman. The voice, guitar and percussion do not lock together with the same almost eerie cohesiveness of the Skip James album. Give Reed a few spins, however, and the presentation starts to make more sense. You stop waiting for it to become something bigger and settle into its looser, more relaxed groove.

The pressing helps enormously. My copy was exceptionally clean, centered and free of distracting surface noise. There was not a smudge, pop or patch of groove noise pulling me away from the music.

Both of these Bluesville releases are worth owning, but they do not land with the same emotional force. The Jimmy Reed draws you in gradually.

The Skip James grabs you by the collar and reminds you why the blues existed in the first place. It is music for the imperfect parts of ourselves we never quite manage to bury, no matter how convincing the performance.

You can tell yourself that a sleeve full of fresh biltong might somehow make it all seem real again. But she is long gone.

And angry as hell.

Our Ratings:

★★★★★★★★★★ Music

★★★★★★★★★★ Sound Quality

★★★★★★★★★★ Pressing Quality

Where to buy:

Related Reading:

Today, USB Power Delivery (USB PD) is the closest we have to a universal standard. It’s widely used across phones, tablets, laptops and some gaming portables.

Newer versions of USB PD push the standard forward. USB PD 3.1 raised the maximum supported power to 240W, while USB PD 3.2 is the spec’s latest revision. Those higher power levels target demanding devices like laptops and monitors. Phones typically don’t need anywhere near those maximum limits. Besides, thermal constraints would make 240W (or anything close to it) impractical and unnecessary for a handset anyway.

The iPhone 17 series is among the devices that support USB PD. Samsung and Google phones use fast-charging systems built around USB PD and its PPS feature.

PPS, or Programmable Power Supply, is one of the more advanced USB PD features available on phones. It lets the device request smaller, more precise voltage and current changes as it powers up. That can improve efficiency and help with heat management.

Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra uses PPS as part of its 60W “Super Fast Charging 3.0” system. Meanwhile, Google’s Pixel 11 models use USB-C PPS charging to reach their fastest advertised speeds, with the Pixel 11 Pro designed for a 45W PPS charger. If you use Android flagships and want a versatile USB-C charger, PD with PPS is your go-to.

Remember Qualcomm Quick Charge? It was one of the first fast-charging systems for Android phones. Although it’s still around, USB PD has become the more broadly adopted standard across the mobile industry, to the degree that even newer Quick Charge versions themselves support it. In fact, a Qualcomm chip doesn’t even guarantee that the device uses Quick Charge, since phone makers can opt for other fast-charging systems instead.

Meanwhile, some Android phone makers use their own proprietary fast-charging systems. OnePlus and Oppo use technologies based on SuperVOOC, and Xiaomi uses HyperCharge on some models. The catch is that reaching the highest advertised speeds usually requires a compatible proprietary charger and, in many cases, the right cable, too. Still, many of these phones also support USB-C PD charging, although you might not get anywhere near the advertised speeds for the proprietary systems.

Speaking of which, it’s good to take manufacturer claims with a few grains of salt anyway. Phones marketed as supporting 80W or 100W charging don’t continuously draw that power from empty to full. Instead, they tend to charge fastest when the battery is fairly low, then rapidly taper the charging rate as the battery fills.

In context: Walmart has remained perhaps the largest opponent to contactless payments for over a decade, preferring to steer customers toward its own proprietary alternative. Following a couple of disappointing quarters, the retail giant appears to have accepted that those efforts never caught on with shoppers.

Walmart has finally ended its years-long battle against contactless payments from tech giants like Apple and Google. The company recently announced that some stores and Sam’s Club locations will begin supporting Apple Pay and Google Pay starting August 24.

All locations will support the popular contactless payment systems by the end of 2026, and the rollout will reach fuel stations by mid-2027. Walmart didn’t disclose a reason for the sudden change, but the company is likely attempting to bolster its weakening stock price.

Walmart has been one of Apple Pay’s biggest holdouts since the NFC payment system launched in 2014. Soon after, Walmart, along with dozens of other retailers, backed an alternative called CurrentC, which worked via QR codes instead. The service was hacked before it even launched publicly and never caught on.

As recently as last year, Walmart stuck to its refusal to accept Apple Pay and Google Pay. Even in the press release effectively announcing its surrender, the company still promoted its current alternative, Walmart Pay.

Walmart and other former CurrentC supporters were always vague about their resistance to Apple and Google’s systems, but many suspect customer data was the primary factor. Contactless payment systems authenticate purchases via biometrics without fully exposing the buyer’s credit card information and other data.

Also read: How Apple Pay Works

Critics have accused Walmart of using CurrentC and Walmart Pay to harvest customer data for sale and targeted marketing. Anonymous payments through Apple Pay and Google Pay would make that much harder to pull off.

Walmart’s reversal follows disappointing earnings reports from May and earlier this month, which have pushed its stock price to its lowest level in about nine months.

Weak earnings guidance in May triggered the company’s worst single-day stock performance since 2023, and the stock suffered a nearly 9% decline earlier this week after same-store sales growth for last quarter fell short of expectations. Walmart’s same-store sales growth is often treated as a bellwether for overall US household spending.

Lanterns episode 2 has made its HBO Max debut — and the sci-fi crime drama appears to have revealed that a mysterious race called the Manhunters are the villains of its 2016 storyline.

So, who are they? Where did they come from? And why are they seemingly being set up as the chief antagonists of HBO’s Green Lantern TV show? Let’s take a look at the Manhunters’ comic book history to answer — or at least try to answer — these questions.

Who are the Manhunters in DC Comics?

And they looked absolutely ridiculous doing it.

While Google has never quite matched its competitors in the smartwatch market, particularly when it comes to health tracking features, the Pixel Watch 5 feels like its strongest attempt yet to close that gap. With features such as Insulin Resistance Trends and Breathing Emergency Detection, Google is making a serious push in a category where wellness and proactive monitoring are becoming increasingly important.

With the Pixel Watch 5 now going head-to-head with Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 9 and Apple’s Watch Series 11, the differences go well beyond the usual Android vs. iOS divide. The interesting question isn’t which smartwatch has the longest feature list, since all of them are locked to their ecosystem, but which one implements those features better, or rather cooks up something new from the existing sensors.

Pixel Watch 5 vs. Galaxy Watch 9 vs. Watch Series 11: Specs at a glance

Health Guardian gives the Pixel Watch 5 an edge

The Pixel Watch 5’s hardware is solid but hardly distinctive next to its rivals. It uses the same 3,000-nit LTPO panel as Samsung, while still beating the Apple Watch for peak brightness, and the Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 keeps things responsive enough for features such as Gemini Proactive Suggestions. It is also the thickest smartwatch of the three, so Google clearly isn’t winning this comparison on hardware alone.

Health Guardian is where the Pixel Watch 5 makes its strongest case this year. Using its existing sensors and a month of passive wear, the watch can estimate Insulin Resistance Trends and generate monthly Blood Pressure Trend reports without requiring a CGM or blood-pressure cuff. Samsung and Apple still don’t offer anything comparable.

Then there’s Breathing Emergency Detection, which monitors for dangerous blood oxygen level drops and can automatically call emergency services if it detects that you’re unresponsive. That gives the Pixel Watch 5 a practical safety advantage I wouldn’t dismiss, particularly for someone dealing with a serious health concern.

Gemini sits at the center of the software experience. Google’s Proactive Suggestions can surface smart message replies, pull up information from conversations, and handle quick actions such as creating calendar events. Raise to Talk also removes the need for a wake word, making voice interaction more natural.

Google has also put real thought into hands-free navigation. A wrist-turn back gesture and refined double-pinch controls are useful rather than gimmicky, while Smart Wake uses live heart-rate data to wake you during a lighter sleep stage. Atmospheric GPS goes a step further by factoring live weather conditions into route tracking.

Combined, these features make the Pixel Watch 5 feel less like a spec-sheet refresh and more like Google finally connecting its AI, health, and safety features into a coherent smartwatch experience.

Samsung tracks everything from body composition to cardio load

On hardware alone, the Watch 9 is the only one here to meet the MIL-STD-810H durability standards while also being the sleekest smartwatch option. It runs on the most powerful Snapdragon Wear Elite chip currently available for wearables, which should translate to smoother day-to-day performance. However, Samsung has cut corners with the onboard storage. 

Samsung’s strongest bet for your wrist is its BioActive sensor, which can estimate your body fat and muscle percentage, something neither the Pixel Watch nor Apple Watch can do. 

With One UI 9 Watch, you get the new Vitals dashboard. It spends the first week establishing a personal baseline for your SpO2, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, and skin temperature, and then flags subtle deviations that could signal illness or overtraining before you’d notice symptoms yourself. 

Then there are several unique features like Daily Cardio Load and Antioxidant Index, which let you determine whether this should be a push or a recovery day and help you estimate whether your diet meets daily antioxidant requirements, respectively. Pair that with Hearing Protection Alerts, which monitor the ambient noise around you.

For anyone who trains seriously, Ghost Pacing lets cyclists race their own historical routes in real time. The updated Samsung Health app now supports custom GPX routing, which is quite useful for trail runners. On the software side, One UI 9 Watch’s split gesture system, including double pinch for yes, wrist shake for no, is the most intuitive control scheme on a smartwatch, at least for me. 

Add native Gemini integration via Raise to Talk, and Samsung has built the most well-rounded health companion of this group.

Hypertension alerts and Workout Buddy keep the Watch Series 11 relevant

The first and most obvious difference is that the Watch Series 11 is the only rectangular smartwatch here, a form factor I consider better suited for reading notifications, messages, or glancing at data. It’s slimmer than the Pixel Watch, but not the slimmest here. Then there’s the S10 chip and its four-core NPU, which enable the Apple Watch Series 11 to process Siri commands entirely on-device, including the new Siri AI experience. 

The Watch 11’s most useful and unique feature is Hypertension Notifications. Apple’s optical heart sensor tracks how your blood vessels respond to each heartbeat over a 30-day period, then alerts you if it detects patterns linked to chronic high blood pressure, a condition many people don’t discover until a doctor’s visit.

Like the Galaxy Watch 9, the Watch Series 11 also lets you detect the early signs of Sleep Apnea. Another similarity is the new Vitals app (Apple did it first), which aggregates overnight heart rate, respiratory rate, and wrist temperature into one dashboard so you can see at a glance whether you’re deviating from your own baseline. 

Workout Buddy is Apple’s most interesting new addition for anyone who actually trains, in my opinion. It’s an Apple Intelligence-powered coach that adjusts pacing and offers encouragement mid-workout (that is important), pulling from your paired iPhone. Google’s Gemini Health Coach is mostly passive during workouts, giving Apple an edge here.

Combined with genuinely advanced sport tracking, including SWOLF scoring for swimmers, offline topographic maps for hikers, Stride Length and Ground Contact Time for runners, and the new wrist flick gesture for one-handed control, the Series 11 remains an intuitive smartwatch and a reliable health-monitoring device.

Which one should you get?

Ultimately, there’s no one winner here. Call it a pro or a con, but the decision depends on the phone in your pocket. The Pixel Watch 5, with the new Insulin Resistance and Blood Pressure Trends feature, is the best to pair with the new Pixel 11 series, or any Pixel for that matter. The Galaxy Watch 9, on the other hand, has a hardware advantage in the form of the BioActive Sensor, making it the best smartwatch for Galaxy phones. Finally, the Apple Watch Series 11, while its falling behind when it comes to unique or new health monitoring features, is still the best smartwatch to pair with iPhones.