Fantasy Island, from horror giant Blumhouse Productions, has curiously opted out of the industry standard of showing the film on Thursday nights - for preview - before its Friday release. While Fantasy Island is slated for release on February 14, 2020; the choice to release the film on Valentine’s Day seems like a smart one from the studio because not only does the holiday fall on a Friday, but the PG-13 slasher has played up themes of romance, mystery, and beautiful young people cohabitating on a tropical island that can make all their fantasies come true....

Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation James Comey expressed his concern today over Apple and Google’s decision to encrypt information stored on smartphones, the Huffington Post reports, adding that FBI officials are pushing both companies to change their policies in order to allow law enforcement officials to access data in certain instances. In the case of the iPhone maker, Apple CEO Tim Cook used the company’s privacy stance as a major marketing point on a number of occasions over the past month....

The apocalypse is a nasty place where it’s kill or be killed. That’s basically been the ethos of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead franchise, and it’s certainly been a big part of how its television spinoff, Fear the Walking Dead, has conducted itself over the past four seasons. That idea began to shift a bit, though, in the latter part of season 4, with the series now under the guidance of new co-showrunners Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss....

Earlier today, we reported on evidence within the latest macOS 10.15.3 beta that suggests Apple is working on a “Pro Mode” feature to boost performance on portable Macs. This feature would essentially boost your Mac’s performance at the cost of things like battery life and fan noise. While I’d love to see this feature come to macOS, something I’d also like to see in tandem with it is a Low Power Mode, focused on extending MacBook battery life....

Warning: SPOILERS for Avengers: Endgame ahead. Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame unites all the female heroes in the final battle for a cool moment of fan service, but we deserve a REAL, full-length A-Force movie. With the recent release of the 22nd installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Avengers: Endgame wraps up the story thus far, what Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige termed the Infinity Saga. Endgame is the culmination of the MCU, bringing it full circle back to when the franchise kicked off in 2008’s Iron Man....

[Warning: SPOILERS ahead for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them] – Nearing the end of its first weekend, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is already lighting up the box office, but not to the extent that its predecessors in the Harry Potter series managed. This could be due to a number of factors - an adjusted focus to adult protagonists, a time shift to the 1920s, or simply a lack of obvious connective tissue to the original series’ narrative....

Scammers “continue to exploit security weaknesses on job recruitment websites to post fraudulent job postings in order to trick applicants into providing personal information or money,” the FBI warns in a new public service announcement. The bogus ads threaten to damage the impersonated firm’s reputation and financial loss for the job seeker. SEE: Cybersecurity: Let’s get tactical (ZDNet special report) According to IC3’s complaint reports, the average reported loss from this scheme since early 2019 has been $3,000 per victim....

Apple has made white accessories a signature design since the white earbuds dangled from the white iPod in 2001. The company even made a whole ad campaign out of the instantly recognizable white cord. Since then, its cables, adapters, and other accessories have generally followed that trend. With the darker space gray color available as a default on iPhones, iPads, and even MacBooks nowadays, the standard white accessories have started to look cheap and tacky and not iconic for many customers....

A fan-made poster imagines what the crowdfunded Star Wars: The Last Jedi remake would look like. Besides Zack Snyder’s forays into the DC Extended Universe, it’s hard to find a Hollywood tentpole more hotly-contested than The Last Jedi. Arriving to theaters last December with much hype and anticipation, the discourse quickly turned toxic as debates unfolded. Just about everything in the film became a lightning rod for controversy, and even though more than six months have passed, there’s seemingly no end to the discussions in sight....

It has been five years since the final Harry Potter film hit theaters – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 in 2011 – and even longer since the release of J.K. Rowling’s seventh novel in the series. Now, Rowling gives fans a new installment in the wizarding world through the upcoming Warner Bros blockbuster Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Based on the Hogwarts textbook of the same name, the film follows Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) as he traverses the streets of 1920s New York City looking for magical creatures with help from Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), and Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol)....

Apple Watch is gaining a helpful new feature called Theater Mode with watchOS 3.2. You could already mute alerts easily, and now Theater Mode lets you both mute alerts and disable raise-to-wake which easily activates the screen. Theater Mode is intended to be used at the movie theater where lighting up a small screen accidentally when you raise your wrist can be distracting. Theater Mode may be useful in other situations despite its name....

I’ve written many times that the integrated ecosystem offered by Apple is one of the company’s greatest strengths. The Handoff feature is a great example of that integration. It’s really handy to be able to do start reading something in Safari on my Mac, and then continue reading it on my iPhone, for example. Handoff works with most Apple apps: Mail, Maps, Safari, Reminders, Calendar, Contacts, Pages, Numbers and Keynote – but not Music....

Every year, Federico Viticci at MacStories publishes an incredibly in-depth and thorough review of the latest iOS and iPadOS releases. This year is no different, with MacStories having just published its iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 review. This year, Viticci’s review comes amid a confusing time for the entire world, including Apple. He explains that the context of 2020 is part of what makes iOS and iPadOS 14 so interesting, both for the Apple users as well as from a reviewer’s standpoint....

Spider-Man: Far From Home turned Happy Hogan into a better Uncle Ben-figure than Tony Stark was for Peter Parker. Since the wall-crawler joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe, many of his classic comic book tropes (which were hallmarks of Sam Raimi and Marc Webb’s Spider-Man movies) were abandoned in order to create a Spider-Man who was very specific to the MCU. Uncle Ben was left on the wayside; he certainly existed and died in the past but his influence on Peter’s life as Spider-Man has been minimal....

This week I bought and played through my first audiobook in iBooks (Shoe Dog) after realizing I have a habit of buying a lot of books then rarely making time to actually read them. I finished the 13 hour 22 minute book over the weekend and really enjoyed the experience (and the book). I listen to a lot of podcasts, so playing audio in the background while running errands is something I know I enjoy....

All of the female Avengers in Avengers: Endgame assembled for a behind-the-scenes photo from the set of the film. The Marvel Cinematic Universe heroes played a major role in taking down Thanos, but they found some downtime in between filming to pose with Avengers: Endgame’s directors, Joe and Anthony Russo, as well as one of the film’s producers, Trinh Tran. During the epic finale of Avengers: Endgame, all of the women on Team Avengers - minus Black Widow, due to certain events that played out earlier in the film - organize a group assault against Thanos....

With a story spanning over 10 films, the Fast and the Furious franchise has provided viewers with tons of thrilling street races, aggressive rivalries, intimate romances, and suspenseful encounters with law enforcement that have allowed the franchise to continue with the development of its 10th film. As one could expect from such a highly detailed cinematic universe, The Fast and the Furious features an array of fascinating and unique characters who have provided viewers with plenty of entertainment over the years....

Impressive fan art swaps the leading men behind Marvel and DC’s respective billionaire heroes, with Ben Affleck becoming Iron Man and Robert Downey Jr.’s take on Batman. Affleck and Downey both appear to be nearing the end of their superhero careers, but for very different reasons. Both have tackled larger than life characters, but some new art imagines how they’d look in each other’s roles. Downey has been the face of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a decade, thanks to him launching the franchise in 2008 with Iron Man....

Spider-Man: Far From Home will hit digital and Blu-ray in the (very) near future. Released in theaters this July, Far From Home was the latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, picking up after the events of Avengers: Endgame as Peter Parker mourned the loss of Tony Stark and accepted the responsibility of being the “next Iron Man.” Earning positive reviews from critics, Far From Home was also a massive commercial success, becoming Sony’s highest-grossing film of all-time and the first Spider-Man movie to hit $1 billion worldwide....

Universal’s Fast & Furious spinoff concerning Luke Hobbs (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) has been pushed back slightly. It’s almost impossible to imagine that Universal ever dreamed that its modestly budgeted - for a major studio movie - action flick The Fast and the Furious would take off the way it has, spawning a franchise currently comprised of eight films. Made for only $38 million, the summer 2001 release hauled in over $200 million worldwide....