An Alamo Drafthouse theater. | Image: Sony and Alamo Drafthouse Sony Pictures Entertainment has acquired the popular movie theater chain Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, the two companies announced on Wednesday. Sony, which will oversee the theaters under a new Sony Pictures Experiences division, says it “will preserve Alamo Drafthouse’s distinctive movie-dining experience,” according to a press release. Alamo will continue to operate “all 35 of its cinemas across 25 metro areas under the Alamo Drafthouse brand,” and current CEO Michael Kustermann will remain in that role. Alamo’s Fantastic Fest film festival will still be operated by the company. Sony is acquiring Alamo Drafthouse from Altamont Capital Partners, Fortress Investment Group, and Alamo founder Tim League — a group that took ownership of Alamo... Continue reading…

Photo by Walid Berrazeg / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Intel, Nvidia, AMD, and Qualcomm are the household names in chips — but in 2025, the popular but lesser known MediaTek might make a play to join them. Reuters reports that the Taiwanese chip company is now preparing an AI PC chipset to launch in late 2025 specifically for Windows PCs. Currently, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite is the alleged MacBook Air-beating talk of the town, and MediaTek wants a piece of that action. According to Reuters, the new MediaTek chip will reportedly be aimed at the same Microsoft Copilot Plus PC program that Qualcomm helped kick-start with Microsoft. There’s apparently an opening for chipmakers like MediaTek there now that Microsoft’s exclusivity arrangement with Qualcomm for Arm-based versions of Windows is... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Somebody, call Tom Cruise — several Roku TV owners say that motion smoothing is suddenly enabled on their TVs with no way to turn it off. Contributors on Reddit and in Roku’s community forum reported seeing the change on TCL TVs running on Roku OS 13, as did a few staffers on The Verge. However, for others who have access to “Expert” picture settings, the same update is in place without a change, and the settings to control it are still available. For some people experiencing the problem, they said this is the first time their TV offered Roku’s motion smoothing feature at all and that there’s nowhere in any menu (either the standard settings or the picture settings available while watching TV) to turn it off. The update notes for Roku OS... Continue reading…

Joining the unending list of companies to fall prey to hacking, Life360 announced on its blog this week that it was the victim of a recent criminal extortion attempt. Location-based service provider Life360, which bought tracking device maker Tile in 2021, revealed that it received emails from a hacker claiming to possess Tile customer data. Life360 investigated their claims and uncovered unauthorized access to a Tile customer support platform. "The potentially impacted data consists of information such as names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, and Tile device identification numbers," Life360's CEO Chris Hulls wrote. "It does not include more sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, passwords or log-in credentials, location data, or government-issued identification numbers, because the Tile customer support platform did not contain these information types." Unfortunately, that's only part of the story. On Wednesday, 404 Media published a much longer piece than the Life360 blog that includes more information about the breach, direct quotes from the hacker responsible, and worrying details about Life360's response. According to the report, the hacker in question gained access to more than one of Tile's internal tools, "including one that processes location data requests for law enforcement." Other tools the hacker accessed were used to transfer Tile ownership between accounts, create administrative users, and send push notifications to users. The hacker claims they demanded payment from Tile but never received a response. The hacker sent 404 Media samples of all the data they scraped, which included full names, full addresses, phone numbers, order details, and more. The site verified the data by trying to create accounts using the emails and contacting a few users via their stolen email addresses. 404 sent one user a trove of their own data, and they responded: “Yep, that would be me." When 404 Media contacted Tile, the company suggested that it didn't know what data had been stolen. "Once you supplied us with additional data, we investigated further and determined that it is likely data from the impacted Tile customer support platform," the company said. Don't Miss: AirTag 2 expected for 2025 release: 5 features I hope Apple adds The post Tile customer data and tracker IDs hacked, Life360 confirms appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Best Apple deals for June 2024 Today’s deals: $150 Beats Solo 4, $55 HP printer, $248 Sony XM5 earbuds, 25% off eero Pro 6E, more Today’s deals: $249 iPad, Sonos speakers from $199, $495 Apple Watch Ultra, $14 charging station, more Best Apple Watch deals for June 2024

I’m one of the people who, after avoiding Apple Maps like the plague after it first launched, eventually made the jump from Google Maps and have been perfectly happy ever since. However, Apple Maps coming for one of my favorite apps now has me a little sour. Apple Maps has been a great partner to me for hiking and backpacking — at least when it comes to getting to and from the trailhead. Ever since Apple added offline maps to the service, I’ve been able to ditch Google Maps completely as that was the last feature I needed to use Apple Maps for everything. There’s nothing like leaving a trailhead and not being able to get directions. When it comes to navigating the trails themselves, however, AllTrails has been my go-to app ever since I started hiking. I honestly don’t think I would have gotten as much into hiking, camping, and backpacking without it. And now, Apple Maps wants to start competing with it. This week, the company hosted WWDC 2024 and, as part of its updates to Apple Maps, announced that it is adding "thousands" of hiking trails to the mapping app. In Apple Maps, users can browse thousands of hikes across national parks in the United States and easily create their own custom walking routes, which they can access offline. Maps users can also save their favorite national park hikes, custom walking routes, and locations to an all-new Places Library and add personal notes about each spot. Trails on Apple Maps in iOS 18. Image source: Apple Inc. I’m sticking with AllTrails While it’s cool to see Apple bringing actual hiking trails to Apple Maps, I’m going to be sticking with AllTrails for a number of reasons. The first reason is a pretty simple one, and that’s that Apple Maps, while now featuring thousands of trails, only includes trails in national parks. If you’re looking for trails in state and local parks, you’re going to be out of luck. So, just from an availability standpoint, AllTrails is an easy choice here. The second reason is that AllTrails has many more features than Apple Maps does for getting out in the backcountry. From multiple kinds of downloadable maps, the ability to share my location on a trail with family and friends, and the ability to preview a trail before hiking it, there are so many awesome features that AllTrails provides hikers, bikers, and more who want to get out there. Hiking trails in Apple Maps on macOS Sequoia. I could see myself checking out Apple Maps for a trail here and there, especially for a simple day hike. The turn-by-turn directions that Apple is boasting for trails is an awesome feature and, if it actually works, is definitely something that would give it a feature that AllTrails doesn't currently have. I do regularly make a wrong turn, only to be notified by AllTrails so I can backtrack. Getting notified to just make the right turn is a sweet feature, especially when you're on a trail in the middle of the wilderness. Instead of trying to replace AllTrails, I think Apple Maps might actually end up being a good funnel to send people to the app once they want more features. For those who may have not downloaded AllTrails, starting with Apple Maps for hikes might eventually get people wanting more and land them with AllTrails and similar apps. The way I see it is that Apple Maps will be for hiking beginners, and AllTrails is the app you'll upgrade to when you want more. So, welcome Apple Maps! Bring more people on the trail. I'll certainly give it a go to freak out when I get turn-by-turn directions in the woods. But I'm keeping my AllTrails, too. Don't Miss: 9 exclusive macOS Sequoia features only for M1 and newer Macs The post These new iOS 18 Apple Maps features are great, but I still won’t ditch the app I use appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Today’s deals: $20 Amazon credit, $79 AirPods, $20 Echo Pop, $899 M3 MacBook Air, $289 iScooter, more Today’s deals: $30 Thermacell mosquito repeller, $189 AirPods Pro, free LED smart bulb, $349 Dyson, more Best Apple Watch deals for June 2024 Today’s deals: $189 AirPods Pro, $169 TP-Link WiFi 6 mesh system, $45 KitchenAid hand blender, more

Congressional Republicans introduced legislation to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government.

The New York Police Department is investigating vandalism at the homes of several Jewish members on the Brooklyn Museum's board of directors and Director Anne Pasternak, CNN reported.

Lia Thomas, the transgender swimmer who was barred from competing in women's events, has lost her case against World Aquatics at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), swimming's governing body said on Wednesday.The decision prevents the American from having any chance...

Lawmakers investigating a series of military V-22 Osprey aircraft say their probe is being hindered by the Pentagon's refusal to release its safety investigation reports.

Multiple people have been reported shot Wednesday in northern Illinois in what authorities are calling a "mass casualty incident."Ambulances and two medical helicopters were called to the scene in Dixon where there also was a massive police presence, according to a post on...