Google’s back at it again. After launching and shutting down nearly half a dozen instant messaging apps, the company is taking yet another crack atfilling the iMessage-sized hole in the Android ecosystem. For the past year or two, Google has been working towards a fundamental solution to avoid running into the same obstacles which have ailed its previous messaging attempts. On Thursday, Google marked its first milestone asit began rolling out an update to enable a service called RCS chat on its default SMS app in the United States....

FaceTime is a great way to communicate with your friends and family, especially if a lot of your friends own and use Apple devices, too. It’s fast, high-quality, and convenient. But not everyone wants or needs FaceTime, and if you don’t want to use it, you may want to turn it off altogether. Not only that, but apretty huge security bug was recently discovered in FaceTimethat allowed callers to hear audio from the person they’re calling before that person picked up the phone, and while the bug has been fixed, you may still be wary about using FaceTime in general....

Includes SPOILERS for Fire & Blood, which House of the Dragon is based on. Summary The premiere ofHouse of the Dragonseason 2 has snuck in some clever foreshadowing surrounding the future of House Velaryon. The devastatingHouse of the Dragonseason 1 endingsaw Rhaenyra’s son, Lucerys Velaryon, killed by Aemond, starting the Dance of the Dragons. While this event is widely known as being the catalyst for war, Luke’s death created more intricate issues that will play out throughout the remainder of the prequel series....

Warning: This article includes spoilers forCarry-On. For an action movie predominantly set in an airport,Carry-On’smost memorable fight sequence occurs in a moving vehicle cruising on the highway. Stunt coordinator Dave Macomber had experience choreographing combat scenes in parked cars, but never ones that were moving. “That one in particular was challenging,” Macomber told Digital Trends about the car crash sequence. “It came from the very specific demand that it be an unbroken shot in a moving vehicle going down a road....

Bat Nipples. Few things can inspire as much heated debate among superhero movie fans as those two words that are inextricably linked to the legacy of filmmaker Joel Schumacher. The director of 1995’sBatman Foreverand 1997’sBatman & Robin, Schumacher died Monday, June 22, after a battle with cancer at age 80,according to Variety. His career encompassed more than three decades of popular movies, television series, and music videos, but it’s his place in Batman’s history that made him one of the most polarizing figures in Hollywood for superhero fandom....

It’s National Pet Week, and at Digital Trends, we know how to celebrate — with a plethora of the smartestgadgets for our beloved pets. But we also want to ask an important question:Is that tech always a good thing? Pet tech promises plenty of advantages, especially when it comes to watching over pets from afar. Apps, sensors, and trackers abound. But ultimately, how healthy is that for our pets? Is there a point where too much technology just isn’t good for our furry companions?...

New Worldis heavily driven by its PvP content, and the best way to take advantage of all it has to offer is by forming a company. These function much like guilds do in other games, as they’re essentially groups of players that work together to accomplish a variety of tasks. Forming a company inNew Worldis a straightforward process, although there are a few things you’ll need to knock out first. If you’re hoping to start your own company and take control of Aeternum’s sprawling map, here’s what you need to know....

For hundreds of millions of smartphone users out there, iPhones are the gold standard of convenience. From reliable cameras and buttery-smooth software to a processor that is in a league of its own, the premium you pay for an iPhone equates to simplicity, consistency, and longevity. This is especially true with more recent models, like theiPhone 14andiPhone 14 Pro. One aspect that really lifts Apple’s smartphones is the focus on accessibility, which tailors the iPhone and its user experience to make a whole bunch of tasks more convenient for users....

Summary Although he’s one of the most distinctive and respected actors of the past few decades,Sam Neill’s horror movie career largely flies under the radar. Like many movie fans, I became familiar with Neill following his starring turn in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 blockbuster,Jurassic Park. However, while his performance as paedophobicpaleontologist Alan Grantremains a career highlight, it’s become increasingly clear that there’s more to Neill’s resume than running away from dinosaurs....

Summary One of the most popular manga in recent years,My Hero Academia, is finally near its end after almost a decade-long run. The final saga of the series, detailing one last major battle between the heroes and the villains, has been going on for years now, and that slow pace has attracted no small amount of criticism, with some of it absolutely warranted. Despite all these things, though, the direction that the manga has taken for its finale has me proud of being a fan of Kohei Horikoshi and the series as a whole....

I only saw one Blue Screen of Death on Sunday, July 21, across 15 hours of travel via two of the country’s biggest airports, just two days after a botched software update crippled millions of corporate computers running the Windows operating system. “Maybe things are OK,” I remember thinking as my family took the first steps into New York’s LaGuardia Airport around 9 a.m. Headlines to the contrary on day 3 of theGreat Windows Outage of 2024, the ticketing and baggage area didn’t look too bad....

A casual glance may leave you thinking you know everything about theBang & Olufsen Beosound Levelspeaker, as on the surface, it looks like a typical B&O product. Minimalist. Classy. With an understated design and all the technology you could want hidden away inside. But a glance doesn’t reveal all of the Beosound Level’s secrets. “When we started the Beosound Level’s design process, we asked the important question about how to succeed with long-lasting consumer electronics products,” Mads Kogsgaard Hansen, Bang & Olufsen’s senior global product manager, told Digital Trends in an online interview....

Summary Inside Out 2just crossed an incredible milestone, and it still has weeks left in its run. As the follow-up to 2015’sInside Out, the sequel introduces new emotions, including Anxiety, Envy, and Ennui. With a $200 million budget, it needed an incredible box office take to bring profitability, and it absolutely smashed its opening weekend with a $155 million gross domestically, which can be partly attributed to theInside Outsequel’s incredible reviews....