Then there’s the missing removable storage. Yes, I’d prefer a card; it’s just easier to swap out a card in the field. But the BF does have 256 gigabytes of built-in storage. I can’t think of the last time I shot enough images to fill that much space before getting back to my laptop to download them. Which is to say that 256-gigabytes of storage is plenty for the nonprofessional photographer.
Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
The main deal-breaker for me is the lack of a viewfinder. I still prefer to shoot through a viewfinder. It’s just muscle memory—hand me a camera, and I will bring it to my eye. If you love a viewfinder, too, this is not the camera for you.
Another problem with the lack of a viewfinder is that the rear screen is nearly unusable in bright sunlight. It’s just too dark to compose accurately. The rear screen also doesn’t tilt or move at all, which means if you like to shoot from the hip, you won’t be able to use it at all. If you want to get an unusual angle, say from the ground, be prepared to lie down to frame it.
You can crank up the screen brightness all the way, which helps a little when you’re in the sun, but it’s still difficult to use in bright daylight. Having the screen brightness all the way up also chews through the already paltry battery life. Sigma claims the BF can shoot about 260 images on a single charge, but that drops significantly if you have to crank up the screen in bright daylight. I was finding that in bright sun, I seldom got more than two to three hours of shooting time on a single charge.
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Should You Buy It?
It might sound like the Sigma BF has some serious limitations, and it does, especially when you compare the specs to other cameras in the BF’s $2,200 price range. However, limitations can be a good thing. Without limitations, you have nothing to build from. This is not a camera for the “spray and pray” style of shooting. This camera requires some thought to use well. It requires keeping in mind its limitations and working within them. If you do that, the BF is capable of making great images.
While I do not recommend the Sigma BF for most people, there are no doubt photographers out there who will love it not despite quirky design choices, but because of them. I fully expect this to be one of those cameras that develops a cult following in 20 years.
Kitchen knives are so personal. You can do almost everything you need in a kitchen with a chef’s knife, paring knife, and a bread knife. But the more time you spend in the kitchen, the more you develop preferences, and soon it becomes a bit of an n+1 thing, and there you are, pondering a cleaver.
There’s a lot of space between most chef’s knives and paring knives. What’s in that space—often called petty, prep, or utility knives—is often pretty weird. Consider the knives that you never use from a set and you’ll likely think of the short, serrated knives or the petty knives with no room for your fingers between the handle and the cutting board.
What if you’re a smaller person, or have smaller hands, or just think a smaller but still high-functioning all-around knife might be your jam? What if the right version of those midsize knives turned out to be really useful?
To my delight, the good ones are. With equal parts luck, research, and trial and error, I found both new and existing-but-flying-under-the-radar examples of midsize knives that were wonderfully functional, in part because of their size. The right ones are incredibly useful and the great ones are prep monsters.
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Messermeister’s Kawashima utility knife.
Courtesy of Messermeister
Recently, I had seen signs at my favorite trade show that I might be on to something. At the Messermeister knives booth, a midsize blade stood out thanks to an olive wood handle and intriguing geometry. It felt balanced and comfortable with room for hands of any size to move back on the handle, or further forward in a pinch grip. Importantly, there was plenty of clearance, so knuckles don’t hit the cutting board at the bottom of the stroke. Keeping my eyes open, I saw more potential from Cangshan, Tarrerias-Bonjean, and Zwilling. This got my mind going. I remembered the Wusthöf Classic chef’s knife that comes in a 5-inch size. Similarly, I hoped I could find a short version of a nimble Japanese knife called a kiritsuke and put in a call to the good people at Seisuke Knife in Portland, Oregon.
Soon, I had a pile of beautiful knives on my cutting board. I tucked my own knives into my knife roll for storage and, for weeks, used the new, smaller specimens as my daily drivers.
The more I used them, the more I understood what I wanted. First, I threw their unhelpful names out the window: petty, utility, prep … whatever. Next, I decided my lovely Tadafusa santoku, the shortest of my longer knives, would be the longest I’d go at roughly 6.5 inches. Having these knives “do it all” felt like a stretch, but they definitely needed to be able to do a lot. I was willing to work with the knife to find its strengths, but preferred something that could handle different cutting styles and all kinds of food. They had to be prep monsters.
Meanwhile, CNBC cited sources who claimed that Elon Musk is considering combining Tesla with SpaceX.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is hoping to raise $75bn in a gargantuan initial public offering (IPO), which estimates suggest would value the tech giant at around $1.7trn.
The Starship rocket producer, in a filing with the US government, said that it plans to offer more than 555.5m class A common stock shares at a value of $135 per share.
Last month, SpaceX posted a net loss of $4.28bn on revenue of $4.69bn for Q1, compared with a net loss of $528m on revenue of $4bn a year ago.
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Musk’s decision to offer shares at a fixed price ahead of the order-taking is unusual for large US IPOs, reports suggested.
However, depending on its success, SpaceX could rank as the largest IPO listing in history, far exceeding the 2019 listing of Saudi Aramco for $29bn, the current record holder for largest IPO. Following the raise, Musk, the company’s chairperson, CEO and chief technical officer, is expected to hold more than 82pc of the voting power.
The space-tech company was last valued at a reported $1.2trn following the February acquisition of xAI, Musk’s other company, which is behind the AI chatbot Grok. This came less than a year after xAI acquired the social media platform X, another of Musk’s businesses.
Meanwhile, CNBC reported late last month that Musk is considering yet another SpaceX acquisition, this time of his electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, which currently sits at around $1.6trn in value.
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SpaceX’s filings showed that it had purchased nearly $700m worth of Tesla’s battery storage products across 2024 and 2025, as well as more than $130m of its Cybertrucks in 2025.
xAI, by April of this year, had purchased $292m in Tesla battery solutions, and more than $400m last year. Tesla, meanwhile, committed $2bn to xAI, while owning nearly 19m SpaceX shares at an approximate value of $2.5bn. The two companies are also collaborating to develop semiconductors as part of Terafab.
OpenAI, recently valued at $852bn, is also planning to go public. CNBC reported that the company was preparing to confidentially file for an IPO late last month.
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In 2023, Chinese smartphone major Honor made headlines when it released the Honor Magic5 Pro, with a new type of battery called the Silicon Carbon battery (Si/C). This battery sounded very different from the standard Lithium-ion batteries smartphones have used for decades. After their initial appearance in 2023, Silicon Carbon batteries became increasingly common among Chinese smartphone brands. While leading smartphone brands like Apple and Samsung are yet to jump onto the Si/C battery bandwagon, the list of devices featuring an Si/C battery is definitely getting longer.
Now, it is important to know that Silicon Carbon batteries are actually a type of subset of Li-ion batteries, and not an entirely new technology like Lithium-Sulfur batteries. The key difference between standard Li-ion and Si/C batteries is that the latter uses a different anode material. While traditional lithium-ion batteries feature a graphite (pure carbon) anode, the anode of an Si/C battery is enhanced with a small amount of silicon. Thanks to silicon’s inherent energy density, which is roughly 10 times higher than graphite, this anode can pack more lithium ions in the same volume as a standard lithium-ion battery. The result is a battery that can hold more capacity and charge faster while taking less space than a standard Li-ion battery.
While Si/C batteries have their share of advantages, detractors claim the technology isn’t free of drawbacks. This includes silicon’s tendency to expand during charging, potential cycle-life challenges, increased thermal management needs, and added complexity. Nevertheless, let us now take a look at some smartphones with Silicon Carbon batteries that you can buy in the U.S. market today.
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1. Motorola Razr Fold
While phones with Si/C batteries have been around since 2023, none of their makers had a significant presence in the USA. That changed in 2026 when Motorola announced its horizontally folding smartphone — the Motorola Razr Fold — for consumers in the U.S. It features an 8.1-inch foldable internal display and a 6.5-inch P-OLED cover display. The phone is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset, and comes in a single 512GB variant in the U.S.
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What made the Motorola Razr Fold truly special was the fact that it was one of the first carrier-supported smartphones in the U.S. to feature a Silicon Carbon battery. As for the battery itself, the device packs in a massive 6,000 mAh lithium-polymer battery with the aforementioned Silicon-Carbon anode. It supports wired charging speeds of up to 80W with a compatible charger and wireless charging speeds of up to 50W. To put these numbers into perspective, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, one of its closest competitors, features a much smaller 4400 mAh battery with slower max wired (25W) and wireless (15W) charging speeds.
The Motorola Razr Fold is not affordable by any stretch of the imagination, and the carrier-unlocked option retails for $1,899 in the U.S., making it as expensive as the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7.
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2. OnePlus 15
The OnePlus 15 is the flagship smartphone made by Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus. It is also among the handful of Chinese smartphones officially sold in the U.S. market — albeit generally not through carrier-subsidized retail channels. OnePlus officially sells carrier-unlocked devices across the U.S., a strategy that may have cost the company long-term visibility among consumers.
Coming back to the OnePlus 15, this flagship device — while not the first OnePlus device in the U.S. to sport a Si/C battery (that was the OnePlus 13) — is the current flagship to use this battery tech. The 2026 flagship, however, gets a significant upgrade in terms of battery capacity over the OnePlus 13. It packs a massive 7,300 mAh battery, compared to the 6,000 mAh battery on the OnePlus 13. What is more remarkable is that the OnePlus 15 does not gain significant weight or thickness over its predecessor while achieving this.
The OnePlus 15 retains the same charging speeds as its predecessor, with the U.S. version capable of achieving up to 80W fast charging via the dual-port GaN charger. The phone also supports wireless charging at 50W. The OnePlus 15 is sold in two variants in the U.S.: a 12 GB + 256 GB option that retails for $899.99 and a 16 GB + 512 GB variant that retails for $999.99.
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3. Motorola Razr Ultra (2026)
The Motorola Razr Ultra (2026) is Motorola’s flagship flip phone in the U.S. market. The phone goes by the Motorola Razr 70 Ultra moniker in other markets. This vertically folding flip phone features a foldable LTPO AMOLED inner display measuring 7 inches when unfolded, along with a 4-inch external display. The phone uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset and comes in a single 16GB RAM + 512GB storage variant in the U.S. market.
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As for the battery, this device gets a 5,000 mAh Si/C battery that supports fast charging speeds of up to 68W. Wireless charging is also supported, capped at 30W. The phone even supports reverse charging, albeit at a very slow 5W rate. Motorola claims 36 hours of battery life on a single charge for the Motorola Razr Ultra (2026).
In the U.S., the Motorola Razr Ultra (2026) is positioned just below the horizontally folding Motorola Razr Fold, which is also part of this list. The single 16GB+512GB variant of the Razr Ultra (2026) is priced at $1,499 in the U.S. It is officially supported by all major U.S. carriers.
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4. OnePlus 15R
Alongside the flagship grade, $900 OnePlus 15, buyers in the U.S. also have the option to buy the more affordable mid-range offering: the OnePlus 15R. Think of this device as a watered-down version of the OnePlus 15, with a spec sheet that is more affordable-flagship than pure flagship. The processor used on the OnePlus 15R, for example, is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 (instead of the Elite variant on the OnePlus 15). The phone is slightly larger and heavier than the OnePlus 15, a trade-off that is acceptable given that it has resulted in a slight increase in battery capacity.
Just like the OnePlus 15, its less expensive mid-range sibling — the OnePlus 15R — features a Silicon Carbon battery. What has changed, however, is the capacity, which has gone up from 7300 mAh on the OnePlus 15 to 7400 mAh on the OnePlus 15R. The phone supports the same fast-charging speeds as its flagship sibling: up to 80W with OnePlus’ own Dual-Port GaN charger. Note that both devices can support 100W charging speeds outside the U.S.
The OnePlus 15R is sold in two storage variants in the U.S.: a base 256GB model for $699.99 and a 512GB model for $799.99. Both variants feature the same 12GB of RAM.
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5. Motorola Razr+ (2026)
We have another Motorola flip phone making it into our list of phones with a Si/C battery. The handset in question is the Motorola Razr+ (2026), marketed globally as the Motorola Razr 70+ outside the U.S. It is positioned as a relatively affordable alternative to the Motorola Razr Ultra. Priced around $1,000, the Motorola Razr+ (2026) is powered by the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chip.
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As for the battery, the Motorola Razr+ (2026) gets a smaller 4,500 mAh Si/C battery compared to the 5,000 mAh Si/C battery used on its pricier sibling, the Motorola Razr Ultra. The two devices are identical in charging speed. The Razr+ (2026) supports 45W fast charging with Motorola’s Turbocharger and 15W wireless charging. The phone also supports reverse charging at a leisurely 5W. Like the Motorola Razr Ultra, this device offers 30-plus hours of battery life (31 hours, to be precise) on a single charge.
In the U.S., the Motorola Razr+ (2026) is available in a single 12 GB/256 GB variant priced at $1,099.99.
The 2026 Tony Awards will take place at Radio City Music Hall in New York City and will combine a lively ceremony with plenty of awards to give away, and live performances by Queen Latifah, Whitney Leavitt, and Alex Newell, among others. Hosted by Pink, the 79th edition of the ceremony is set to be a glamorous night celebrating the best Broadway shows of the past year.
As for the predictions, Best Musical is likely to go to Schmigadoon!, a meta musical about musicals based on an Apple TV+ series. Without giving away any spoilers, it’s the story of a couple who become trapped in an alternate-universe town, stuck inside a 1940s Golden Age Broadway musical.
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But the Tony Awards are no strangers to upsets and surprises, so the gong could to The Lost Boys, a pop-rock musical based on the 1980s movie about a family trying to fight vampires. Both Schmigadoon! and The Lost Boys are leading the nominations chart, with 12 each.
Liberation is highly likely to win Best Play. If it does, it would mark the first time since 2009 that a play by a woman has won the award, and the first time since 1989 that an American woman has taken home the prize. Other likely contenders in the category include Giant, The Balusters, and Little Bear Ridge Road.
Daniel Radcliffe is among the leading lights to land the Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play award, for his role in Every Brilliant Thing.
Read on to find out how you can watch the 2026 Tony Awards live online from anywhere in the world.
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Can I watch Tony Awards 2026 for free?
Tony Awards 2026 isn’t directly available to stream for free, but those in the US can benefit from free trials to catch the action without paying a penny.
In the US, you can benefit from the free trial periods of live TV services such as YouTube TV and Hulu+Live TV, both of which come with CBS so you can watch the ceremony coverage live.
Just note that this Walmart Plus deal includes the Paramount+ Essential package, where the awards ceremony will be available on-demand the following day, i.e., Monday.
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Outside your home country at the moment? Use NordVPN to unlock your free stream from anywhere in the world.
How to watch Tony Awards 2026 online from anywhere
If you’re keen to watch Tony Awards 2026 but you’re away from home and access to the event is geo-blocked, then you could always use a VPN to access it (assuming you’re not breaching any broadcaster T&Cs, of course). You may be surprised by how simple it is to do.
Use NordVPN to watch the 2026 Tony Awards onlinefrom anywhere.
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How to watch 2026 Tony Awards online in the US
The 2026 Tony Awards is being broadcast live on CBS in the US.
Alternatively, you can stream this year’s Tony Awards on Paramount+. The event is available live via the Premium subscription, which is $13.99 a month.
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If you’re subscribed to the Essential plan ($8.99 per month), however, you can watch the ceremony on-demand the following day, i.e., on Monday.
As we’ve mentioned, another option is to get a 30-day Walmart+ trial (for just $1), which provides free access to Paramount+ Essential.
Traveling abroad? If you’re currently traveling outside the US, you can use a VPN to watch the 2026 Tony Awards from anywhere in the world. We recommend NordVPN.
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How to watch Tony Awards 2026 online in the UK
(Image credit: Future)
Unfortunately for UK Broadway fans, the 2026 Tony Awards hasn’t been picked up for broadcast in the region.
Traveling to the UK from the US, Canada, or Australia? Use a VPN to watch Tony Awards 2026from abroad. NordVPN is our recommended provider.
How to watch Tony Awards 2026 in Australia
Like in the US and Canada, the 2026 Tony Awards is available to watch on Paramount+ in Australia as well. It will air live on 10am AEST on Monday, June 8.
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Outside Oz right now? Use NordVPN to stream your local content library and watch Tony Awards 2026.
Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show (9 nominations)
Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (9 nominations)
Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) (8 nominations)
Oedipus (7 nominations)
Chess (5 nominations)
August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (5 nominations)
The Balusters (5 nominations)
Fallen Angels (5 nominations)
Liberation (5 nominations)
Titaníque (4 nominations)
Giant (4 nominations)
Bug (4 nominations)
Dog Day Afternoon (3 nominations)
Becky Shaw (2 nominations)
Every Brilliant Thing (2 nominations)
The Fear of 13 – Marjorie Prime (2 nominations)
Little Bear Ridge Road (1 nomination)
Punch (1 nomination)
Waiting for Godot (1 nomination)
Who is performing at the 2026 Tony Awards?
Queen Latifah
Pink
Jesse Tyler Ferguson
Alex Newell
Julianne Hough
Whitney Leavitt
Dylan Mulvaney
Nikki M. James
Josh Gad
Andrew Rannells
Rory O’Malley
We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.
Netflix has every type of entertainment you could ever want, it seems. If you want a solid sci-fi series to dig into, there are so many good ones to choose from. In fact, the biggest issue you’ll probably face here is trying to decide which show to watch first.
I’ve curated a helpful guide to send you on your way to catching some awesome science fiction entertainment. Scroll on for the best Netflix sci-fi TV shows you should be watching. Check back regularly, as I’ll be updating this list monthly.
The Boroughs is executive-produced by The Duffer Brothers, but this isn’t Stranger Things. Well, there are some similarities, but instead of children banding together to fight monsters, this show follows old people who do it. The cast is stacked with genre legends, making clicking play on this a no-brainer. The series leans into that nostalgic Amblin vibe from the ’80s and takes place at a retirement village in the middle of the desert, where strange things are happening.
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Before Noah Wyle returned to the emergency room to lead HBO’s acclaimed drama The Pitt, he was fighting aliens. No, seriously. Falling Skies originally aired on TNT, so consider the source when evaluating the story’s quality throughout the seasons. That said, Falling Skies is a fun ride.
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Warner Bros. Television
11.22.63 premiered on Hulu a decade ago and it’s now resurfaced here. The series, based on an epic piece of historical fiction by Stephen King, posits the existence of a doorway that can transport you back in time. What would happen if someone went through it with the goal of saving JFK from being assassinated? That’s the question King tries to answer in the book and this show. Riveting stuff.
AMC Studios
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Pantheon premiered on AMC in 2022 and disappeared a year later, which is a shame because the show is solid sci-fi entertainment. The program takes place in a reality where human consciousness can be uploaded to the cloud. Netflix’s comedy Upload, which is also on this list, tackles similar subject matter. Pantheon is a lot darker and explores all sorts of hot-button issues like corporate responsibility, immortality and morality, all against a backdrop of an unraveling tech conspiracy.
BBC America
Discussing what Orphan Black is about would immediately put me in spoiler territory. All you really need to know is this is one of the most thought-provoking, engaging and original sci-fi programs to hit TV in the past decade. Tatiana Maslany is the highlight; she shows off her acting skills in playing a total of 17 clones here — each with their own mannerisms and accents.
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Netflix
Time loop stories are nothing new in the sci-fi world but Russian Doll still manages to etch its own unique space in the genre. Natasha Lyonne stars as a woman who gets stuck in said loop on her 36th birthday and every time she dies, she restarts her day. Themes of grief, generational trauma and addiction permeate the show, making this more than a simple run-of-the-mill comedy.
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Resident Alien, like Orphan Black, is not a Netflix Original series. However, I believe both shows deserve to be included on this list — not just because they’re currently streaming on Netflix, but because their cult-like status tells me more people need to be introduced to them. Alan Tudyk stars as an alien residing among humans trying to follow through on a world domination mission. The only problem? He sorta likes being human. He’s just not that great at it.
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It’s one thing to be a teenager and navigate the awkward elements that high school life has to throw at you. But add some newfound superpowers into the mix, and the challenges become even more complicated. This is basically what I Am Not Okay With This is about. The series is based on Charles Forsman’s graphic novel and there is only one season. After being renewed, the show was ultimately canceled because of COVID restrictions and budgetary issues.
Eriek N Juragan/Netflix
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Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams
It’s sort of expected when a new genre anthology series premieres that someone will eventually compare it to The Twilight Zone. Well, that’s exactly what I’m going to do with Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams. The new seven-episode anthology series leans heavily into horror territory and does so through an Indonesian lens.
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Netflix
The popular video game series gets the anime treatment in Netflix’s Devil May Cry. The gist in a nutshell: Dante, a charismatic demon hunter, has to, well, hunt demons to save humanity. Power Rangers alum Johnny Yong Bosch supplies the voice for Dante in the action-packed series co-created by Castlevania and Dredd producer Adi Shankar.
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Netflix
Stranger Things caught on like wildfire when the genre series quietly premiered its first season on Netflix in 2016. What began as an homage to ’80s cinema, with callouts to E.T., Dungeons & Dragons, Goonies and the works of Stephen King, has blossomed into a layered and sweeping sci-fi adventure. The program follows a group of kids in Hawkins, Indiana, who, after meeting a mysterious girl they name Eleven, discover a sinister dimension hiding right under their feet. Government cover-ups, demonic hell-beasts and a cast full of beloved misfit characters make up this tour-de-force genre series.
Mariano Landet/Netflix
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Netflix’s beautifully shot, post-apocalyptic series is the long-awaited adaptation of the beloved Argentine graphic novel, El Eternauta, which was first published in 1957. The story follows Juan Salvo and a group of survivors who make it through a lethal snowstorm (the snowflakes literally kill) only to discover the real threat against humanity isn’t a weather anomaly but an alien invasion.
Netflix
Emma Stone and Jonah Hill star in this mind-bending drama from Cary Joji Fukunaga (True Detective) and Patrick Somerville (The Leftovers). The 10-episode series follows Annie (Stone) and Owen (Hill) as they enter a drug trial for a medication that will allegedly cure all their problems. As you can probably guess, it doesn’t. Stone and Hill look like they’re having crazy fun throughout the program, as they get to try on a variety of different characters. The addition of Sonoya Mizuno, Justin Theroux and Sally Field to the cast make this an underappreciated gem worth your attention.
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Netflix
Time travel is the name of the game in this sci-fi series that flew under the radar for many. Led by Will & Grace alum Eric McCormack, the program follows a group of people whose consciousnesses are sent back in time to inhabit other people’s bodies to make humanity better by changing the past. It sounds complicated but I assure you, it isn’t.
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Netflix
3 Body Problem was created by Game of Thrones alums David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, along with The Terror showrunner Alexander Woo, and is based on the Hugo Award-winning novel by Liu Cixin. The high-concept sci-fi series connects a watershed moment in 1960s China to the present day, where a group of scientists must face an emerging global threat unlike anything humanity has ever seen.
Quantrell D. Colbert/Netflix
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This sci-fi horror series, which was loosely inspired by the found footage podcast of the same name, follows a film archivist who restores documentary footage found on a bunch of videotapes from 1994. Through his work, he’s sucked into a terrifying mystery surrounding the stuff on the tapes. Netflix may have only given this series one season but it’s still a riveting watch.
Netflix
Inspired by the comic book created by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, the series follows a group of adopted superhero siblings who have been raised to save the world. From time travel to saving humanity from multiple apocalyptic events, the ongoing adventures of the dysfunctional Hargreeves flips expected genre tropes on their heads. It’s weird, off-beat, hilarious and poignant.
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Netflix
Supacell takes the familiar superhero narrative and flips the script. The series follows four Black people living in South London who suddenly develop superpowers. What connects each of them to their newfound abilities are their families’ histories with sickle cell disorder — a common hereditary condition. Using the genre as its narrative foundation, the show delves into the human drama that plays out among these characters while highlighting relevant cultural themes like racism, human trafficking and predatory health-care practices.
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Netflix
Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror set the standard for what a modern-day genre anthology series can do. Each story featured throughout the series, which currently has six seasons and an interactive standalone movie worth visiting, takes place in a near future world where technology has affected humanity in wonderful, strange and terrifying ways. Uplifting to horrific, Black Mirror is a brain bug of a television show that’ll keep you thinking long after the credits roll.
Olivia Bee/Netflix
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They broke the mold when they made The OA. The two-season series created by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij follows the story of Prairie Johnson (Marling), a young blind woman who, after being missing for seven years, returns to her family with her sight restored. Where was she all these years? How can she see? Parallel existence across multiple dimensions, that’s how. OK, that answer barely scratches the surface of this extremely unique and layered program. Come for the Quantum Physics, stay for the interpretive dance routines.
Netflix
Like Stranger Things, Dark kicks off with the inexplicable disappearance of a child. Instead of another version of the Upside Down plaguing the town, the German series dabbles with time travel to explore how a family and community can be affected by the event of a kid going missing. A noir slow burn that leans heavily on the horrors of generational trauma, Dark lasted three seasons on Netflix. It will definitely get under your skin.
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1899 was created by Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar — the same duo who brought Dark to Netflix — and follows a group of passengers on a ship heading to New York during the turn of the century. This is more than a run-of-the-mill period piece. As soon as things kick off, the show throws time travel, multiple dimensions, reality simulations and other bits of sci-fi craziness at the screen. It may not have gotten a season 2 but there’s still a lot of genre goodness to mull over here.
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In Parasyte: The Grey, alien parasites land on Earth and begin turning people into shape-shifting monsters. To battle this growing Invasion of the Body Snatchers-style threat, survivors — otherwise known as “The Grey” — rise up to save humanity and the planet. Inspired by the manga by Hitoshi Iwaaki, this Korean series should please any horror and sci-fi fan.
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Matrix creators Lilly and Lana Wachowski teamed up with Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski to bring Sense8 to Netflix. The supernatural drama follows eight random people from around the world who learn they are emotionally and mentally linked. Labeled “sensates,” the group learns from each other as they literally are forced to walk in each others’ shoes and take on new and exciting skills. Things wouldn’t be complete without the inclusion of a shadowy organization who’s hunting them all down. Over two seasons, the program explored timely issues like gender, sexuality and identity, blending genres like telenovela, K-drama, Bollywood and Euro-noir as it hops around the globe.
Netflix
Based on the book by Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon exists in a future world where consciousness can be moved from one body to the other. Joel Kinnaman starred in the first season as ex-soldier Takeshi Kovacs. His mission to solve a murder evolves into a journey of self-discovery as he works to track down his lost love and answers regarding his previous life. Season 2 finds Anthony Mackie stepping into the role to further the cyberpunk noir tale.
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Netflix
Mixing different animation styles with live-action, Love, Death + Robots is an anthology unlike many others. The series, which has drawn comparisons to Black Mirror, dips into a multitude of standalone stories that explore a world where sentient robots, creatures and other such beings have more humanity than humanity itself.
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Using the 1965 series as inspiration, Lost in Space follows the Robinson family on a space mission to colonize a planet as humanity teeters on the brink of collapse. The show is heavy on family drama, which can be off-putting at times. Thanks to the sociopolitical conflict, a cool alien robot friend and Parker Posey’s deliciously villainous Dr. Smith, the show holds up.
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For its first three seasons, Manifest was an NBC original. After it was canceled by the network, Netflix swooped in to revive the series. The story follows the passengers of Flight 828, who arrive at their destination five years after originally taking off. The survivors begin having premonitions and visions that help them save others from disasters that have yet to happen. It’s sorta like Lost and Final Destination had a baby, kinda.
Netflix
Alice in Borderland is based on the manga by Haro Aso and follows a group of characters in a parallel version of Tokyo forced to compete in a bunch of twisted games to stay alive. This battle royale-style thriller will appeal to fans of life-or-death competition titles like Squid Game, The Hunger Games and Battle Royale.
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman presents seven new in-house MAI models at the company’s Build developer conference. (Via webcast)
Microsoft has based much of its AI business on models from OpenAI, before expanding more recently to Anthropic. On Tuesday, the company showed how it plans to rely less on both.
At the Build developer conference, the Microsoft AI Superintelligence Team unveiled a family of seven models built from scratch. It’s part of an ongoing effort by the company to build credible in-house alternatives to models from partners and rivals with competing allegiances.
“This is all about long term self-sufficiency for Microsoft and our partners. It’s about models you can trust,” wrote Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, in a post announcing the models.
Microsoft is OpenAI’s largest backer, having invested a cumulative total of $13 billion in the ChatGPT maker over multiple funding rounds. The company last year announced an investment of up to $5 billion in Anthropic, and later integrated its technology into a Copilot Cowork AI assistant.
However, Anthropic is also backed by Microsoft rivals Google and Amazon, and OpenAI is increasingly cozy with Amazon — showing the need for Microsoft to control its own AI destiny.
The flagship of the seven newly announced MAI models is MAI-Thinking-1, a reasoning model that Microsoft says draws even with Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.6 in blind human testing, and matches the more capable Claude Opus 4.6 on a widely used coding benchmark.
Suleyman stressed that MAI-Thinking-1 was trained from the ground up with no distillation from other companies’ models, looking to appeal to enterprises that care about clean data lineage.
It’s available in private preview on Microsoft Foundry, where the company also hosts the latest models from OpenAI and Anthropic, including the recently released Claude Opus 4.8.
Microsoft AI also released MAI-Code-1-Flash, a 5-billion-parameter coding model now rolling out in Visual Studio Code and GitHub Copilot, and MAI-Image-2.5, which Microsoft says ranks second on a leading image-editing leaderboard, ahead of Google’s Nano Banana Pro.
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The full set of models spans image, voice, transcription, coding and reasoning.
The glow from a super hot plasma generated inside Polaris, Helion Energy’s seventh fusion prototype device. (Helion Photo)
Helion Energy, a startup racing to commercialize fusion power, announced $465 million in new funding Thursday, bringing its total capital raised to more than $1.5 billion. The Everett, Wash.-based company said it is now valued at $15.5 billion.
The company aims to be the first in the world to commercialize fusion, replicating the reactions that power the sun and stars to produce nearly limitless clean energy. In a statement, Helion co-founder and CEO David Kirtley said his company is best positioned to generate electricity from fusion this decade.
Helion is operating under the sector’s most ambitious timeline, signing a deal with Microsoft to supply energy to a Central Washington data center by 2028. The company broke ground on the 50-megawatt plant, dubbed Orion, last July in Malaga, Wash.
Many experts say significant hurdles remain before any company achieves commercial fusion power. Helion’s critics also raise concerns about the startup’s secrecy and limited scientific publications, making it difficult for independent researchers to evaluate its approach.
Helion’s leaders acknowledge that key technical issues still need to be resolved in the final designs for its fusion plant. The company is running tests in Everett on Polaris, its 60-foot-long, seventh-generation fusion device, and recently revealed it is building another machine called Tiny Merge, which is roughly one-eighth the size of Polaris.
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“With this agile testbed, we will be able to test new ideas with much less energy and far fewer resource requirements, meaning we can iterate faster than we can on full-scale machines such as Polaris,” Michael Hua, Helion’s senior director of radiation safety and nuclear science, recently told GeekWire.
An aerial view of Orion, Helion’s planned fusion plant being built in Malaga, Wash. (Helion Photo)
Commonwealth Fusion Systems is also vying to be the first to harness fusion, targeting the early 2030s. The Massachusetts-based company has raised close to $3 billion. On Wednesday, the company announced that five peer-reviewed scientific papers have validated the physics for its approach to fusion energy.
Helion’s Series G round was led by Thrive Capital, with participation from additional new investors including Alta Park Capital, Anti Fund, BoxGroup, Lux Capital, Peak XV Partners and Ford Motor Company Executive Chairman Bill Ford.
Existing backers also participated, including Capricorn Technology Impact Funds, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mithril Capital, Dustin Moskovitz through Good Ventures Foundation, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and a university endowment fund.
It marks the largest venture capital funding in the Pacific Northwest so far this year, according to GeekWire’s funding list. (Sedron Technologies, a wastewater treatment startup, raised $500 million in private equity buyout in April).
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Helion sits in the No. 1 spot on the GeekWire 200, a ranking of Pacific Northwest startups.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is a major investor in Helion and disclosed during the recent Musk v. Altman trial that he owns roughly one-third of the company. OpenAI reportedly explored a power purchase deal with Helion, though Altman said he was not part of those conversations. He resigned from Helion’s board in March.
Whenever the topic of fusion power comes up, someone will say it’s only 10 years away from commercialization in an excited tone, and someone older or more cynical will point out that it’s been 10 years away since Eisenhower was president. So it’s with a certain-sized crystal of sodium chloride that we share the news here that the US-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems is applying to feed 400MWe into the grid there by the early 2030s.
The early 2030s is, notably, less than ten years from now.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems isn’t a bunch of nobodies out to suck up venture capital; they’re a talented group of researchers from MIT’s well-known plasma laboratory out to suck up lots of venture capital and hopefully build reactors along the way. So far, the second part is going better than the first: they’ve raised a couple billion dollars, which has let them make great strides in building their SPARC reactor– like crafting the big magnet we told you about in 2021. As that article describes, SPARC is the precursor to the later, larger ARC reactor they hope to hook to the grid in slightly under a decade. Alas, SPARC remains under construction as of this writing. ARC is evidently in the final planning stages, with a physical location determined and grid-tie applied for at the “Fall Line Fusion Power Station” in Virginia.
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CFS’s reactors are of the Tokamak type that has been favoured at universities since the 1970s. From China to Europe’s ITER who are also planning to produce power before another decade passes— though not, notably, into a power grid. While promising, Tokamaks aren’t the only game in town, either– steampunk startup General Fusion started making plasma last year, though while if it works it has some big advantages, that one is probably the traditional “ten years away” still.
What do you think? Will fusion power be in the grid before humans make it back to the moon? Add the flying-car potential of eVTOL and we might finally get close to the future we were promised.
The subsidy will support participation in 57 microcredential courses offered by IUA universities this year, spanning areas of national importance.
The Irish Universities Association (IUA) has welcomed the announcement made by the Higher Education Authority (HEA) and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, confirming the 2026 Micro-credential Learner Fee Subsidy.
Designed to support lifelong learning and create opportunities for students, the subsidy will support participation in 57 microcredential courses offered by IUA universities in 2026, spanning areas of national importance such as digital transformation, artificial intelligence, sustainability, leadership, innovation, healthcare, engineering and business development.
Commenting on the announcement, IUA’s director general Paul Johnston said: “The reintroduction of the Micro-credential Learner Fee Subsidy is very welcome. It represents an important investment in lifelong learning, workforce development and Ireland’s future competitiveness.
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“By reducing the cost of participation in these courses by workers and their employers, the subsidy makes university learning more accessible to individuals while also helping their companies, particularly SMEs with limited training budgets, to invest in the skills of their workforce.”
According to the group, microcredentials and skill learning supports are critical to the wider educational ecosystem as, in 2025 when the previous subsidy was withdrawn, registrations for microcredential courses fell by almost 40pc across five universities.
Additionally, universities faced growing pressure on course viability, with some programmes in areas of national skills priority unable to proceed due to insufficient enrolments. These courses were primarily in areas such as climate and sustainability, housing and construction, engineering, digital capability, innovation and leadership.
The IUA stated that a consistent, multi-annual subsidy would provide universities with the confidence to plan ahead, repeat successful courses, invest in new provision and respond more effectively to emerging skills needs. It would also support targets set down by the European Union to achieve a 60pc adult participation rate in learning by 2030.
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“There is currently no certainty beyond this year,” said Johnston. “We would therefore call on the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and the Higher Education Authority to place the subsidy on a stable, multi-annual footing.
“A longer-term commitment would provide certainty for learners considering an investment in their own development, for employers seeking to build workforce capability and for universities seeking to sustain and grow high-quality flexible learning provision. Most importantly, it would send a clear signal that lifelong learning is becoming a permanent and valued feature of Ireland’s education and skills system.”
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Details for a potential deal haven’t been finalized yet.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
OpenAI could be the latest tech company that the US government takes a stake in. As first reported by NOTUS, “senior US officials” have had discussions with AI companies about potentially acquiring stakes in their firms.CNBC confirmed the talks and its source said that the talks between the Trump administration and OpenAI’s Sam Altman dated back to 2025 when the CEO first proposed the idea.
The discussions have led to a potential agreement that could see OpenAI voluntarily offer some equity to the US government, which would help the company achieve something similar to its proposed “Public Wealth Fund.” OpenAI first suggested this fund in an industrial policy outline published in April, which would “provide every citizen with a stake in AI-driven economic growth.” However, no official terms have been settled yet for this potential deal so it’s still unknown how much of an equity stake the Trump administration would take. Previously, the US government secured a 10 percent stake in Intel with a nearly $9 billion investment.
According to CNBC, the talks are still ongoing as Altman recently met with Washington policymakers to talk about AI regulation. Earlier this week, the Trump administration signed an executive order that would provide the US government with oversight on AI models before they’re released to the public. While there may have been some pressure from tech companies, OpenAI responded by saying it would comply with the order and let government regulators review its latest models before the public gets access.
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