Both are strong, but only one is worth picking up at launch |
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by Drew Prindle, Senior Editor
Sony and Microsoft are set to release their much-anticipated next-gen gaming consoles next week, and after testing them both for the past few days, we think there's a clear winner: Sony's PlayStation 5.
Now, don't get us wrong -- the Xbox Series X is a formidable gaming system and we were very impressed with its performance. But, in the words of our review, it's "like a sports car with no gas." It just doesn't have enough strong titles at launch to make it worth purchasing right away.
Conversely, the PS5 not only has a strong set of launch titles to back it up, but is also an absolute monster of a gaming system. Unless you're a die-hard Xbox devotee, it's clear that the PS5 is the next-gen console to buy this holiday season. |
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by Trevor Mogg, Contributor
NASA and its global partners are preparing to celebrate 20 years of continuous human habitation in space following the first night's stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS) back in November 2000.
Orbiting Earth at an altitude of around 250 miles, this marvel of human engineering has so far hosted some 240 people from 19 countries, with most astronaut visits lasting around six months. So how do crew members actually live and work on the orbiting outpost?
To offer some insight, we've gathered up all the best videos made by the astronauts themselves over the past 20 years, highlighting many different aspects of life aboard the ISS. |
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 | by Luke Dormehl, Contributor
A burner phone, for those who haven't lived an illicit life of crime (or watched Breaking Bad and The Wire), is a cheap, prepaid cellphone that can be quickly and easily disposed of if law enforcement catches wind of what you (or Walter White and Stringer Bell) are up to.
So why does Joshua Browder, the CEO of legal tech firm DoNotPay and, presumably, all-around law-abiding citizen, want to give out "unlimited burner phone numbers?" The answer, it turns out, has to do with subscriptions, dating apps, and other services that demand your phone number.
"It's not a secret that a lot of companies sell your data, and can find out Social Security numbers using just a phone number," Browder told Digital Trends. "Whenever you sign up for a subscription or give a company your phone number, you always run the risk of having that information exposed. I still get daily marketing emails and spam texts from supplement companies that I've never signed up for, and it's hard to fix the issue because I don't want to change my number. By using burner numbers, I can sign up for things online without having to worry about my phone number being leaked." |
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 | by Rob Oster, Copy Chief
Oz has long been one of my favorite shows that I never actually finished watching. I'd seen the first two seasons twice, but got derailed for various reasons during the cable age, before streaming put almost any show you desired at your fingertips (for a monthly fee).
As an odd benefit of ankle tendon surgery, I was finally able to fly through all six seasons and 56 episodes of Oz in just three weeks -- a mere 23 years after it debuted. While the show remains groundbreaking in many ways, viewing it in full -- and with the added perspective of time -- reveals a number of rough edges in a series that helped pave the way for a grittier era of television embodied by shows like The Wire, The Sopranos, and Breaking Bad.
Oz, the nickname of the maximum security penitentiary where most of the action takes place, was the first one-hour dramatic television series from HBO, and the cable network doubled down on the type of content that would make broadcast network censors have a nervous breakdown. Unapologetically not for the faint of heart, Oz is brutal, graphic, and unrelenting in its depiction of prison life.
Importantly, the violence and nudity rarely feel gratuitous, as they're balanced by some biting social commentary, often given voice by a wheelchair-bound inmate played by Harold Perrineau. It's sort of a dual role in which Perrineau's Augustus Hill serves as both an omnipotent narrator and a character in the overarching story. It can be heavy-handed at times, but is more often a brilliant story-framing device.
The show is also noteworthy for helping launch the careers of an impressive list of actors, including eventual Oscar winner J.K. Simmons as white supremacist Vern Schillinger, whose bitter feud with Tobias Beecher (Lee Tergesen), an inmate he abuses in the first season, forms the sturdiest and most engaging of dozens of storylines. Other standouts -- there are far too many to name here -- include Dean Winters as a manipulative inmate who's the human equivalent of a cockroach, Eamonn Walker as the tortured leader of the prison's Muslims, and Rita Moreno (yes, Rita Moreno) as Sister Pete, the institution's resident nun and psychologist.
While Oz can feel repetitive at times -- new inmate shows up and is soon dispatched to further a specific storyline -- and the dialogue can be annoyingly expository instead of natural, it remains an unflinching, gripping, and well-acted indictment of the country's criminal and penal systems.
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