As I write this, I'm coming off a lunch break that lasted a little too long because I couldn't stop watching YouTube Shorts on my TV. And if Instagram Reels are your own vertical video poison—and you own an Amazon Fire TV device—you can now do the same. Starting today, you can download the new Instagram for TV app to watch Reels on your big screen via a dedicated interface that should be way more natural than simply casting the mobile app from your phone.

Currently exclusive to Amazon devices, the Instagram for TV app supports up to five accounts and comes with full functionality for searching for Reels and profiles, as well as liking Reels and browsing comments or reactions (although text posts and photo posts are not included). Unlike on the standard mobile feed, Amazon says "Reels are organized into channels tuned to your interests," which you can see from a horizontal home screen.

These channels are somewhat similar to the YouTube Shorts interface that's baked into the standard YouTube TV app, showing you a small selection of shorts you can choose from based on a thumbnail. Examples include "For you" and "Popular with Friends," but you're also still able to swipe past any Reel to your heart's content, and let the algorithm take you for a ride. A post from Meta also says channels could include Reels tailored to a specific topics that match your interests, like "sports highlights" or "hidden travel gems," although the company hasn't provided any screenshots or videos showing this off quite yet.

According to Meta, the new app is currently "an early test." It's starting with U.S.-based Amazon devices, and the company says it will "expand to more devices and countries" as it learns more (Amazon also says it's the "first" company to get the app, implying others will get their own versions in the future).

What devices support Instagram for TV?

Currently, the Instagram for TV app is available in the Amazon Appstore for the following devices:

• Fire TV Stick HD

• Fire TV Stick 4K Plus

• Fire TV Stick 4K Max (1st and 2nd Gen)

• Fire TV 2-Series

• Fire TV 4-Series

• Fire TV Omni QLED Series

In addition to adding channels to the Reels experience, Meta says that future updates may also add ways to use your phone as a remote, share feeds with friends, and explore "a more intuitive way to channel surf."

Instagram for TV leaves TikTok as the last major short form video platform without a dedicated TV app, although The Information reported earlier this Summer that TikTok is looking to catch up soon.

How to watch Instagram Reels on any smart TV or streaming device

While official Instagram for TV support is currently limited to Amazon devices, that doesn't mean you're out of luck if you don't have a Fire TV stick or display. To watch Instagram Reels on your TV without using the Instagram for TV app, open Instagram Reels on your phone and start browsing. Next, pull up your phone's quick settings menu by swiping down from the top-right corner.

On iOS, search for the screen mirroring button (which looks like two overlapping screens), and on Android, search for a button that says something like "Cast" (it will vary depending on your device). Tap it to see any compatible wireless screen mirroring devices nearby, which will let you view the mobile Instagram app on a TV screen, and even send audio over with it. It's not foolproof—my LG OLED TV works with iOS Screen Mirroring but not Pixel casting—but it's worth a shot.

New Year's Eve is my favorite holiday. I love a designated time to look forward and to reflect back, ideally while getting tipsy with friends. The turn of a new year is also a time when I’m grateful for my habit of writing down every little thing—and I don’t just mean getting my thoughts and feelings down in a journal. I’m talking about tracking every book read, every mile run, and every beer crushed (approximately). So if you’re interested in documenting your life—and you should be!—I highly recommend using a wonderfully detailed spreadsheet.

I’m not talking about bullet journaling (which can be cool, but which I find too artistically daunting). I simply create a Google sheet full of different color-coded tabs so that I can track any number of ways to measure a year. From the most thorough travel plans to your fitness journey, if you have a goal, that goal needs a spreadsheet tab.

It’s a fun, slightly nerdy technique that helps me visualize my life in a way that traditional journaling can’t. Here’s why I think this year, you should start your own spreadsheet to track all the little things in your life.

How to turn anything into a trackable achievement

The spreadsheet journal is perfect for us freaks who like to combine sentimentalism with statistics. Whatever metrics you choose to jot down, you can frame them around a sense of accomplishment. Your smart watch can track how many steps you’ve taken. A spreadsheet journal, however, is where you can appreciate how many steps you’ve achieved. From there, you can have fun with the numbers, converting those steps into miles or finding patterns over time or in whatever suits your nerdy brain.

Go wild. Create different tabs dedicated to different areas of your life, so you can appreciate how much you have going on. I’ll throw around some ideas below, but at the end of the day, this technique is really about recognizing the value in every little number that defines your life. It sounds counterintuitive, but please, don’t get too caught up in the details.

The core philosophy: track everything, judge nothing

The foundation of my system comes down to three main principles:

Radical honesty without shame. Every entry is data, not a judgment. Missed a week of workouts? Log it. The spreadsheet reveals patterns—maybe you always skip exercise when work gets stressful—which lets you plan around obstacles instead of feeling guilty about them.

Micro-goals over macro-dreams. Break each resolution into the smallest possible action. "Write a book" becomes "write 250 words daily." These micro-goals are easy to track, hard to rationalize away, and create momentum through small wins.

Weekly reviews, monthly adjustments. You'll spend 10 minutes every Sunday reviewing your data and 30 minutes at month's end analyzing trends and tweaking your approach. This prevents the "check back in December" trap where you discover too late that nothing worked.

How to create your own tracking spreadsheet

First things first: Choose your spreadsheet software. I opt for the ease of Google Sheets, but I understand you might have some privacy concerns there. Or maybe you’re simply a master at Excel. The main takeaway is to create one master file with as many different tabs as you see fit. Include tabs tracking your health/fitness goals, books/movies/TV you’ve consumed, your finances/budgeting, and whatever else is significant to you:

• Hours slept

• Miles walked

• Concerts attended

• Movies watched

• Books started

• Books finished

• Date nights

• Places traveled

• Gifts given

• Thank-you notes sent

• Time spent in traffic

• Playlists created

Make sure you include a column for adding notes to your entries—some personal commentary to spice up the statistics.

Use this template to help get started

I've created a barebones template you can download here. It has some starter tabs to get started: a resolution dashboard, daily habit tracker, and weekly review template. Following these templates, you could add a monthly deep dive, or even more detailed activity logs.

Resolution dashboard

The resolution dashboard is your command center, providing an at-a-glance view of all goals. My sample columns include:

• Resolution Name: Be specific. Your goal may be to "get healthy," but somewhere you need to write down a specific action item, like "complete 150 workouts this year."

• Category: Physical, Professional, Financial, Personal, Social, Creative.

• Target Metric: The number you're chasing (150 workouts, 24 books, $10,000 saved).

• Current Progress: Updated weekly with your actual numbers.

• Completion %: A simple formula dividing current by target, if applicable.

• Weekly Average Needed: Calculates how much you need to do weekly to hit your annual goal.

• Status: On Track (green), At Risk (yellow), Behind (red)—use conditional formatting.

For example, if your resolution is "Read 24 books this year" and you're in week 15 with 8 books completed, your completion percentage is 33%, you're reading 0.53 books per week, and you need 0.43 books weekly to finish on time. The status would show green because you're ahead of pace.

Daily habit tracker

This is where consistency lives. For 2026, I start my timeline on Jan. 5, since it's the first Monday of the new year. In a grid with dates across the top, I have daily habits going down the left side. Each habit gets a row where you mark completion with an X, checkmark, or the actual number achieved.

Daily habits should be small and specific: "10 minutes meditation," "2 liters of water," "no phone before 9am," "practice Spanish for 15 minutes," "write 250 words." Don't track more than 5-7 habits here—this is about sustainable daily practices, not overwhelming yourself.

Use color coding: green for completed, red for missed, yellow for partial completion. At the end of each row, you could create columns for weekly streaks, longest streak this year, and completion percentage. These metrics gamify the process and make patterns visible. If you notice you always miss meditation on Wednesdays, you can investigate why and adjust.

Weekly review template

Every Sunday, spend 10 minutes completing this structured reflection:

Wins This Week: List 3-5 specific accomplishments, no matter how small. "Worked out Monday and Thursday" counts. "Saved $50 by cooking instead of ordering out" counts. This section fights the negativity bias that makes us forget progress.

Challenges Faced: What obstacles came up? "Too tired after work for gym" or "Got distracted by social media during writing time." Be honest and specific.

Pattern Recognition: After a few weeks, you'll notice trends. "I always skip workouts when I have early meetings—need to switch to evening gym sessions." These insights are gold.

Adjustments for Next Week: Based on challenges and patterns, what will you change? Maybe you'll prep gym clothes the night before, or set a social media blocker during writing hours.

Energy and Motivation Level (1-10): Track your overall state. If you notice motivation plummeting, you can proactively adjust expectations or seek support before completely derailing.

Beyond these three main tabs, I've also included even simpler activity trackers with the drop-down menus and color-coding I personally use to track my travel, books read, and running.

How to maximize your spreadsheet

You can dedicate a column in each tab for jotting down miscellaneous notes, but for the sake of tidiness, make sure not to overfill your boxes with text. It also helps to stay consistent with your formatting—e.g. bolding the header of each metric. I color code at whim. For instance, as a stand-up comedian, I keep track of all my shows with a specific color to mark how I felt about them: Shades of green mean the show went well, and shades of red mean the show...did not go well. In times where it looks like everything in my life is red, it’s nice to be able to shift my gaze to all the green, too. Perspective!

I recommend getting started with just one sheet: a weekly habit tracker for 3-4 habits you genuinely want to build. Commit to tracking honestly for four weeks without judgment. At the end of the month, review your completion rates and patterns. This low-stakes beginning helps you learn the rhythm without overwhelming yourself.

At the end of the year, you’ll be able to use all that data to visualize both the big and the little things in your life over the 12 months prior. At a glance, you’ll be able to pat yourself on the back for how successfully you cut back on caffeine, or upped your time outdoors, or improved your books-started to books-completed ratio. Ultimately, my own spreadsheet is about appreciating all the little things in my life, even if I do so in one of the nerdiest ways imaginable.

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The Sonos Era 100 is an improved version of the Sonos One, with much more powerful bass and other upgrades that make it one of the best multi-room smart speakers you can buy. It's currently at its lowest price ever—$169 (originally $249 at launch)—according to price-tracking tools. Most of the other Sonos speakers are also seeing their lowest prices right now.

Sonos Era 100

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$249.00 Save $80.00

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Get Deal

$169.00 at Amazon

$249.00 Save $80.00

The Sonos Era 100 came out in early 2023 and received an "excellent" review from PCMag for its ability to create stereo audio with a single device (it has a dual tweeter setup); its balanced audio; the useful companion app that allows you to adjust the EQ; its ability to connect with Bluetooth and wifi; Alexa and Sonos voice integration; and compatibility with most major music streaming services. As it is still a single speaker, the stereo effect won't match a true stereo setup, but it's a good approximation and an improvement over previous Sonos speakers.

The real point of differentiation for the Sonos Era 100 (and most Sonos speakers, for that matter) is the ability to seamlessly group with other Sonos speakers that you own. Sonos makes it easy to handle multi-room pairing (lets you play your music in multiple Sonos speakers in different rooms) without needing to connect to your wifi over and over again.

Back when the speaker first launched, it only supported Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, and Pandora—with Spotify a notable omission. However, Spotify and other music services are now available. The Sonos voice assistant is still limited in capability, with no Google Assistant or Google Cast integration, and the speaker also doesn't support Dolby Atmos, which is disappointing for a device at this price level.

Caveats aside, if you're looking for a stationary smart speaker with great audio that can easily connect with other Sonos speakers you own or might add in the future (they also work as rear speakers with a Sonos soundbar), the Sonos Era 100 is a great choice—especially at its lowest price.

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Though the Hallmark Channel may suggest otherwise, there’s nothing incongruous about pairing Christmas with scary stories.

For centuries in Britain, families would gather around a fire and ward off the winter cold by sharing chilling tales of the supernatural—a tradition that was forgotten, only to be revived by Charles Dickens and M.R. James during the Victorian era. Similar non-Christian traditions go back even further; for ages and across cultures and faith traditions, dark midwinter nights seem to have provided a particularly good excuse to creep out our loved ones. 

So grab a warm drink, lock the doors, and fire up the Roku with this list of the best Christmas-themed horror movies. And speaking of fire, please check the chimney before you stoke a blaze. It’s a reasonable safety measure, especially if you’re not sure where dad’s gotten himself off to...

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking about Silent Night, Deadly Night, a film about a kid who watches his parents get murdered by a man in a Santa suit and then grows up to become a Santa-themed killer himself, as one does. Though not by any means the first Christmas-related horror movie, the Reagan era was not the time for this one. Or maybe it was the perfect time? Anyway, it was boycotted and censored, which of course only generated publicity that worked to its advantage. On its own, it’s a perfectly competent slasher movie, maybe even a cut above the average, with a tiny hint of a message about consumerism. As an enjoyable cultural artifact, though, it’s more than worth watching. You can probably skip the sequels, though the second is enjoyably, howlingly bad (and incorporates a full 40 minutes of footage from its predecessor), while the fifth stars Mickey Rooney (!). And, of course, there's the current remake to carry on the tradition of freaking out the seasonal squares. Stream Silent Night, Deadly Night on Shudder or rent it from Prime Video.

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Rare Exports (2010)

Clearly, I’m not the first to recommend Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, the Finnish film having become a nouveau holiday classic shortly after its release a decade ago—though It’s a Wonderful Life this ain’t. (But give it time.)

In the film, the research team of a greedy government drills into land best left undisturbed: an ancient burial mound that, legends suggest, is the resting place of Joulupukki, a forerunner to our modern Santa Claus. Old Joulupukki is not dissimilar from Krampus, in that he’s much more interested in punishing the wicked than in rewarding the good. It’s a spectacular, darkly comic, cynical winter’s tale (rather the perfect one for our times) and builds to a wild climax. Stream Rare Exports on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.

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Black Christmas (1974)

One of the O.G. slasher films, this Bob Clark-directed groundbreaker is also one of the best, with a simple, well-executed premise and a killer cast (Margot Kidder, Olivia Hussey, Andrea Martin, John Saxon, Keir Dullea). The director has legit holiday cred: After this story of a killer stalking a sorority house during winter break, he’d go on to helm holiday cable staple A Christmas Story nearly a decade later. There’s not much here that we haven’t seen, but only because so many later movies cribbed from its style, with less chilling results. Neither of the two remakes (from 2006 and 2019) is bad but neither reaches the horrific heights of the original. Stream Black Christmas on Peacock, Prime Video, and Tubi.

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It's a Wonderful Knife (2023)

I love a good high-concept movie—it's a big part of the appeal of the seasonal classic It's a Wonderful Life. As you can probably guess, given the title, this one works off a similar central conceit: After a particularly tough year, Winnie (Jane Widdop) stands alone on a bridge and wishes she'd never been born. When her wish is granted, her town turns into hell—not because of a lifetime of good deeds, but because she'd unmasked a serial killer known as the Angel (Justin Long) the previous year, and, without her, that killer has been murdering unchecked. And is also the mayor. Bloody holiday fun. Stream It's a Wonderful Knife on Hulu or rent it from Prime Video.

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Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022)

Christmas carnage, as a genre, is at least as venerable as the holiday rom-com (Black Christmas predates every single one of those cozy Hallmark-style movies), and there's nothing wrong with adding some blood and guts to your holiday display. Here, Riley Dandy plays Tori Tooms, a record store owner closing up for Christmas Eve, and heading out for drinks with her flirtatious employee and a couple of pals. Those friends happen to run a toy store that has in stock a Santa robot—one that's been recalled because of its original military programming. You probably won't be surprised to learn that this particular robot is about to malfunction, and cut a bloody swath through the holiday season. Not quite as scary as more modern AI, but still, best not mess with robot Santa. Stream Christmas Bloody Christmas on Netflix or rent it from Prime Video and Apple TV.

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All Through the House (2015)

An appealingly low-rent slasher offers up some grisly, gory holiday kills—often to festively horny (or hornily festive?) 20-somethings. Fifteen years after the disappearance of a young girl sent a Santa-obsessed neighborhood into lockdown, Rachel Kimmell returns home just as the missing girl's mother decides she's ready to celebrate Christmas once again. But, as these things go, there's a killer in a Santa costume stalking the neighborhood's conventionally attractive young people, killing the women and castrating the men. Rachel finds herself fighting for her life while uncovering a mystery that ties her back to that missing girl. There's a bit of a Hallmark Christmas movie-vibe here—if those movies had blood and boobs. Stream All Through the House on Prime Video and Tubi.

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Adult Swim Yule Log (2022)

Do you remember the bizarre viral video phenomenon Too Many Cooks from about 10 years back? Have you ever wondered if the creative team behind it could stretch that short film's utter mania out to feature-length? Well, wonder no more: A few years back, director Casper Kelly and Max quietly dropped Adult Swim Yule Log, a bizarro comedy horror flick that starts out as one of those festive looping videos you put on your TV when you don't have a fireplace, and soon morphs into a wild story about racism, generational trauma, ritual sacrifice, a cursed Airbnb, and a floating demonic log. If you haven't had enough after 91 minutes, a sequel, Yule Log 2: Branchin' Out, is ready for you. Stream Adult Swim Yule Log on HBO Max.

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Await Further Instructions (2018)

After the first evening home for the holidays with his girlfriend Annji (Neerja Naik), Nick (Sam Gittens) decides that the two of them should make a break for it. Dad's being distant, Mom's being oblivious, while Grandpa and his sister are tag-teaming the subtle (and less subtle) racist comments. Sneaking out seems like the most reasonable thing to do, except that they can't: There's something surrounding the house trapping them inside, while screens just read—that's right—"Await Further Instructions." As the night goes on, the instructions come (do they ever!), with the family dividing over dispositions and belief systems. Glued to our screens as we are, how do we evaluate the information that comes out of the glowing boxes? The Black Mirror-esque scenario gives way to an unhinged last act. Stream Await Further Instructions on Prime Video and Tubi.

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Silent Night (2021)

When Nell and Simon (Keira Knightly and Matthew Goode) set up to host their annual Christmas party (to strains of Michael Bublé, no less) during the movie's opening, we're given very few clues as to what's coming. It's a particularly special Christmas, apparently, as everyone is dressed in their finest and the kids are being given plenty of extra leeway. Soon we discover it's because they're all gonna die: An environmental catastrophe is slowly overwhelming the world, and with a wave of deadly gas making its way around the globe, the couple's extended family and friends have gathered for one last party before they take the government-issued pills that will end their lives painlessly. It all goes to shit, quite naturally, resulting in a bleak social satire that's also occasionally quite funny (if you don't mind your Christmas movies with a side of assisted suicide). Stream Silent Night on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.

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Christmas Evil (1980)

John Waters called Christmas Evil “the greatest Christmas movie ever made,” and, as recommendations go, you could do a lot worse (he even did a commentary track that you can still find on the DVD and Blu-ray release). Considering the source, that recommendation also gives you a sense of what you’re in for. In the prologue, a boy sees Mommy kissing Santa Claus (and then some), and the experience engenders a lifelong obsession with Santa—and with keeping track of who’s been naughty, and who’s been nice. There’s a bit of social commentary at play amid truly over-the-top death sequences that lead to a genuinely batshit ending. Stream Christmas Evil on Prime Video and Tubi.

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Gremlins (1984)

In the mid ‘80s, you could buy dolls, action figures, and storybooks with Gremlins on them, which, given how violent and nightmare-inducing the film is, is both impressively twisted and a deep indictment of a consumer culture in which we’ll sell anything to anyone. Hey kids, gather ‘round the TV for a movie in which murderous creatures get chopped in blenders and blown up in microwaves and one main character vividly describes finding her missing dad stuck in the chimney on Christmas day. Regardless, there’s plenty of, uh, holiday cheer to be found, including a truly rousing band of carolers. Delightful! Stream Gremlins on HBO Max and Hulu or rent it from Prime Video.

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A Christmas Horror Story (2015)

Your ghoulish guide to the three tortured tales in this Canadian horror anthology is: William Shatner? Sure, why not. The novelty here, aside from the framing device of Shatner as a radio DJ getting reports of local disturbances, is that the four stories here overlap, each building to twists endings at the climax of the film. We get ghosts, changelings, Krampus, and, most memorably, Santa himself facing a horde of zombie elves. The narrative threads are uneven, but that's to be expected, and, in the whole, there's plenty of bloody seasonal fun to be had here from several talented filmmakers. Stream A Christmas Horror Story on Shudder or rent it from Prime Video and Apple TV.

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The Lodge (2019)

The story of a stepmom gradually losing her grip on reality, The Lodge is a particularly heavy bit of Christmas horror. Some of us enjoy frothy holiday entertainment, while others like to lean into the dark, oppressive atmosphere of the bleak midwinter. Given my own vacillation there, I acknowledge all choices as valid! Riley Keough gives a great performance here as a woman newly married to a father of two children. Their mom died tragically, and the step-kids are in no mood to accept a new family member. Discovering some disturbing truths about her past, they’re perfectly happy to manipulate her emotions after the trio becomes stranded without Dad in a remote cabin full of over-the-top religious iconography. No merry Christmases here, no sirree. Stream The Lodge on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.

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Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)

On a lighter note—zombies! In this mash-up of High School Musical and Shaun of the Dead you never knew you needed, the titular Anna just wants to get through the Christmas show at her high school in Little Haven, Scotland. She’s so preoccupied with her own problems that she fails to notice the undead infection spreading around her. It’s a weird blend of styles, no question, but one packed with gory fun and some surprising, seasonally appropriate heart. Stream Anna and the Apocalypse on Prime Video and Tubi.

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The Advent Calendar (2021)

A woman receives a beautiful but creepy Christmas gift: a cool Advent calendar her friend picked up at a Munich market. That’s nice and all, except that it comes with several explicit instructions that all end with a variation of “...or you’ll die.” It’s a unique and nightmarish movie, full of wild ideas and phantasmagoric imagery. If it doesn’t all hold together perfectly, it’s still an impressive ride, and that centerpiece calendar is as neat as cursed film props get.

Just a note: Though the film gets points for having a disabled protagonist (which is not to say hero), it stars a non-disabled actor, and the character’s central motivation is to walk (and dance) unaided—which is fairly retrograde in terms of representation. Stream The Advent Calendar on Shudder or rent it from Prime Video.

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Alien Raiders (2008)

Ignore the genuinely horrible title, which makes the movie sound like something you’d find on the bottom row at your local Redbox. On Christmas Eve, a group of masked assailants storm a grocery store. They take hostages, but it’s clear there’s something more going on (hint: It involves alien raiders). It’s all pretty enjoyable, with better acting and effects than you’d expect, fully deserving of its cult status. Though significantly lower budget, this could serve as your next Christmas-themed, Die Hard-esque action fix. Rent Alien Raiders on Prime Video and Apple TV.

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Better Watch Out (2016)

I'm not sure that it breaks a whole lot of new ground, but Better Watch Out boasts a deranged premise and a couple of excellent lead performances from Olivia DeJonge as teenage babysitter Ashley and Levi Miller as her 12-year-old charge. Without giving too much away, I can tell you that Luke has a massive crush on Ashley and is determined to protect her from a violent home invasion, though a series of plot twists reveal something more sinister is afoot. Stream Better Watch Out on Peacock, Tubi, and Prime Video.

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Dial Code Santa Claus (1989)

Also known as Deadly Games. And Game Over. And, originally, 3615 code Père Noël. The French film represents an impressive blend of genuine horror with sweet holiday themes. It’s the story of a whiz kid who tries to use technology to connect with Santa, but instead makes contact with a murderer intent on getting access to the kid’s (rather posh) home. You’re absolutely invited to think of this as a horror-styled Home Alone, a comparison that this film’s director (René Manzor) made when he threatened a plagiarism lawsuit against Chris Columbus and co. back in the day. Stream Dial Code Santa Claus on Philo.

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The Legend of Hell House (1973)

The holiday imagery is a bit more subdued here than in some of the other films listed, if only because the paranormal researchers gathered at the home of a prolific murderer in the week before Christmas are rather busy being chased by violent apparitions. A solidly festive haunted house classic. Rent The Legend of Hell House from Prime Video.

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I Trapped the Devil (2019)

With similarities to Charles Beaumont’s short story “The Howling Man” (adapted as a Twilight Zone episode), I Trapped the Devil tells the story of a Matt and Karen, a couple who set off for a visit with Matt’s troubled brother, Steve, over the holidays. Increasingly alarmed by his troubling behavior, they soon discover there’s a padlock on the basement door and, behind it, a man who Steve claims is the literal devil. Which sounds entirely fine and reasonable. If the story can’t quite sustain its runtime, it’s still a suspenseful and stylish Christmas mystery. Stream I Trapped the Devil on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.

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Pooka! (2018)

There’s a hot new toy out just in time for Christmas: Pooka, the deeply weird, incredibly temperamental doll that mostly does what it wants. The kids love it! An unemployed actor (Nyasha Hatendi) isn’t thrilled when he’s offered the job of hawking the dolls inside a giant Pooka suit, but the money’s good. Naturally, that’s when things start to go from weird to downright surreal. Director Nacho Vigalondo (Colossal, Timecrimes) has a ton of fun veering off in unexpected directions with the concept, which ultimately morphs into a twisted, upside down riff on A Christmas Carol. Stream Pooka! on Hulu.

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Blood Beat (1983)

I have no idea what Blood Beat is about; I’m not sure that anyone does. There’s a young couple home for a family gathering when a samurai ghost (or something) starts murdering people, all set against a sweet-ass synth score. And some people are psychic? The movie’s cult status doesn’t stem from the hidden depths of its plotting, but from its often impressive visuals and hypnotic tone. To that end, I might suggest it as a reasonable pairing with some peppermint edibles, but only if you’re not too easily freaked out. Or afraid of samurai, I guess. Stream Blood Beat on Tubi.

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Krampus (2015)

Among the best of a decade’s worth of films reviving ancient, scary European traditions involving far less jolly versions of Santa, Krampus is a Gremlins-esque horror comedy with imaginative creature effects from the folx over at Weta Workshop. It might not be the darkest, nor the goriest, of holiday-themed horror sendups, but it is an awful lot of fun, with effects that evoke a twisted winter wonderland as we follow a family being hunted by the title demon. Stream Krampus on Peacock or rent it from Prime Video.

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Santa's Slay (2005)

Have you ever thought about how terrible Santa's job actually is? He has to deliver toys to billions of kids, and he has one night to do it. The ill-advised 1985 would-be blockbuster Santa Claus: The Movie reveals that this is only possible because for Santa, the night stretches on endlessly until the job is done, which is pretty horrific if you stop to think through the ramifications. Clever 2005 cheapie Santa's Slay makes the undesirableness of the position explicit, revealing that Santa (wrestler Bill Goldberg) was actually an unfavored son of Satan who was burdened with the annual task after losing a bet—but only for 1,000 years, and his time is up. Stream Santa's Slay on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.

Santa's Slay (2005)

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Violent Night (2022)

This one is probably more action-comedy than outright horror, but if it's Christmas bloodletting you're looking for, it's still a safe bet. Stranger Things' David Harbour plays good ol' Saint Nick, who elects to defend the lives of a wealthy family from murderous intruders (all with holiday-themed aliases like "Mr. Scrooge") on Christmas Eve. The climax is a Home Alone-esque booby trap sequence that takes a far bloodier and more realistic take on the mayhem little Kevin McCallister unleashes in that weirdly brutal holiday classic, and Harbour has good fun with the obvious (but still amusing) Santa-as-depressed-sad-sack shtick. Stream Violent Night on Peacock or rent it from Prime Video.

Violent Night (2022)

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Season's greetings and all that. In honor of this most special time of the year, I'm taking a look at commonly held Christmas myths and misconceptions. I busted a ton of Jesus myths a couple weeks ago, then got secular and finally revealed the truth about Santa Claus, so this week I'm doing a round-up of seasonal misinformation, both religious and secular.

Religious Christmas myths

Jesus was born in a stable

The Gospels aren't specific about where where Jesus was born, other than "Bethlehem." Here's how Luke 2:4–7 is traditionally translated: "And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn." But that isn't entirely accurate, because it turns out Greek word καταλυμα (kataluma) doesn't mean "inn." It means something closer to "spare room," and since the holy family was in Bethlehem because it was where Joseph was from, it seems more likely that they were crashing at a friend or relative's place, all the bedrooms upstairs were taken, so they were sleeping downstairs, where people kept the animals—hence, the manger. The stable idea likely stuck because it’s visually simple and works well for nativity scenes, and it's in keeping with the point of the story: Jesus was born in humble circumstance.

Three wise men attended Jesus' birth

The Gospel of Matthew says King Herod told an unspecified number of "wise men" (or Magi) to go to Bethlehem, because a star appeared heralding the birth of the Messiah. So they went off to find him to bring him gifts. We don't know how many of said wise men went to Bethlehem or how long it took them to get there, but Matthew 2:11 says they visited a house. The Bible does say they brought gold, frankincense and myrrh, so at least that part is right.

Calling it "Xmas" is attempting to cross the "Christ" out of "Christmas"

This is a weird one, but a lot of Christians think the use of "Xmas" is part of the ongoing secular War on Christmas, but it isn't. In the Greek New Testament, the word for Christ is "ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ." Using XP or X to indicate Christ dates back to early Christians writing in Greek, and it was used in English writing, too. Something like Xmas (Xp̄es mæsse) was written as early as 1100 a.d. to indicate "Christ's Mass" or Christmas. That was centuries before secular Christmas even existed.

Secular Christmas myths

"Jingle Bells" is a Christmas song

"Jingle Bells" is not a Christmas song—technically. Even though it's probably the song most widely associated with the holiday, there's no mention of Christmas in the lyrics. It's just a song about how much fun it is to go a'riding in a one-horse, open sleigh. (Another common misconception about "Jingle Bells" is that it was written for Thanksgiving. That's not true either.)

Like a lot of history, "Jingle Bells" is more troubling than you might think. It was written by James Pierpont and first performed at a minstrel show in 1857. Sleigh riding is a great subject for songs, so there was a whole subgenre of minstrel songs about it, some more racist than others, and "Jingle Bells" is the one that survived.

Other Christmas songs that don't mention the holiday include "Let It Snow," "Winter Wonderland," "Baby, It's Cold Outside," "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year," "Home for the Holidays," and "Frosty the Snowman." Technically, none of these are Christmas songs if you use the most strict definition of "Christmas song," but on the other hand, they're songs everyone sings around Christmas, and they're generally about winter fun and holidays and whatnot, so there's a strong argument that they actually are Christmas songs. It's the kind of thing you can decide for yourself.

Boxing Day is for boxing up gifts you're going to return

December 26 is called "Boxing Day," and a lot of people think it got the name because that's the day we box up presents we don't want and return them to the store. But the holiday originated in England and it was a day that rich people would give their servants the day off and a box of presents, and/or just give some presents or donations to local unfortunates.

Mrs. Claus' first name

We know Mr. Claus' first name is "Santa," but what about his wife? It turns out she doesn't have a first name. Santa's source material, St. Nicolas, was a Catholic bishop, so he didn't have a wife. The collective unconscious filled in the details of Santa Claus as a mythical figure (The North Pole home, the worker elves, etc.) but no one ever gave Mrs. Claus a name that stuck.

Here are a few attempts, though: in 1985 film Santa Claus: The Movie Mrs. Claus is named "Anya." She's called "Margaret" in the 2011 movie Arthur Christmas. She's named "Carol" in the Santa Clause movies (but in that mythology, she will be replaced when she dies). These are all one-offs, but there's one Mrs. Claus name that has a few data points backing it up: Jessica.

Reportedly, the creators of the 1970's stop-motion film Santa Claus is Comin' to Town called Mrs. Claus' character "Jessica," although she's not referred to as that in the movie. Ryan Reynolds called Mrs. Claus "Jessica" on Instagram. Most importantly, this random little girl in 1974 said Mrs. Claus' name is Jessica, so I'm going with that one.

Chromecasts were one of the most useful little gadgets that Google ever made, so of course it decided to ditch the product line. The Google Cast functionality lives on in the Google TV Streamer and Google TV devices and televisions, but sadly we won't see another Chromecast go on sale.

If you've got an older Chromecast hanging around, it'll still work fine for now. However, you might soon be moving on to a newer streaming device—or perhaps you already have—and that's left you wondering what to do with your older hardware. In fact, these small dongles are more versatile than you might have realized.

While streaming content from the likes of Netflix and Apple TV is going to be the primary use for these devices for most people, you can do plenty more with them—thanks to the casting support that Google and other developers have built into their apps.

Keep an eye on your property

If you've got a Chromecast-compatible security camera (including Google's Nest Cams), you can see a live feed on your Chromecast, making it easy to set up a mini security monitoring center if you have a smaller monitor or television somewhere to spare.

Getting the feed up on screen is as easy as saying "hey Google, show my..." followed by the camera name (as listed in the Google Home app). On the Chromecast with Google TV, you can also open the Google Home widget that appears on the main Settings pane.

Set up a second screen wirelessly

You can cast anything from a Chrome tab. Credit: Lifehacker

Something else you can throw to a Chromecast in seconds: any tab you happen to have open in Google Chrome on your laptop or desktop. Just click the three dots in the top right corner of the tab, then choose Cast, Save and Share > Cast.

This means you can use the monitor or TV that your Chromecast is hooked up to as a second screen, with no cables required—just a wifi network.

Stream music, podcasts, and audiobooks

When it comes to slinging content to your TV screen, you're going to think about movies and shows first and foremost, but the Google Cast standard works with audio apps as well—including the likes of Spotify, Pocket Casts, and Audible.

This is especially worth looking into if you've got a soundbar or a high-end speaker system connected to your television, because it means you can enjoy your audio streams at a much higher volume and a much higher level of quality, compared to your phone.

Play some simple games

This one needs a Chromecast with local storage installed, so I'm primarily talking about the Chromecast with Google TV. That device supports local apps, which means it also lets you set up games to play with the remote or a connected Bluetooth controller.

See what you can find by browsing the Google Play Store, but Super Macro 64 showcases 25 different titles you can play easily, while the folks at XDA Developers have put together a full guide to creating a retro game emulator with the help of RetroArch.

Display photos and wallpapers

Your Chromecast can display photos and even artwork. Credit: Lifehacker

Chromecasts work great as a way to add some ambience to a room when you're not actually watching something on a TV or monitor. You can show your own personal pictures, or a selection of nature shots, or pretty much anything you want.

Either cast via Google Photos (open an album, tap the three dots in the top right corner, then Cast), or set up a screensaver through the Google Home app. Select your Chromecast, tap the gear icon (top right), then choose Ambient mode.

Keep in touch

Trying to hold video calls—whether with family over the holidays or colleagues during a meeting—isn't always easy on a phone screen or even a laptop screen, so why not take advantage of a larger monitor or TV with a Chromecast plugged into it?

For this to work you need to be using Google Meet in a web browser on a computer. You can either choose the "cast this meeting" option before it starts, or click the three dots during the meeting (Google has full instructions online).

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.

At just under $1,460 on Amazon right now (down from $1,999.99), the LG 45GX950A-B Ultragear OLED is still a major investment, but a serious one for anyone who cares about pixel density, immersion, and future-proof display tech.

LG 45GX950A-B Ultragear OLED Monitor

$1,459.93 at Amazon

$1,999.99 Save $540.06

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$1,459.93 at Amazon

$1,999.99 Save $540.06

You’re looking at a 45-inch ultrawide curved OLED screen with a resolution of 5120 x 2160, which puts it in rare territory. It doesn’t just look good; it’s one of the only displays of this size and shape that offers this much clarity, according to PCMag’s “excellent” review. Compared to more extreme 32:9 panels, its 21:9 aspect ratio feels a little more natural for everyday use and offers more usable vertical space. Whether you’re gaming or multitasking, that extra resolution pays off in clean text, sharper details, and more visible screen real estate.

The curved 800R OLED panel of the 45GX950A-B is paired with a 165Hz refresh rate at full resolution and can go up to 330Hz if you drop the resolution down to 1080p. Add in DisplayPort 2.1, two HDMI 2.1 ports, AMD FreeSync Premium Pro and G-Sync compatibility, and this thing is clearly built for performance. Input lag numbers back it up, with sub-10ms results in most tested modes. The monitor also supports multiple display modes depending on your use case, like a 4K 16:9 mode at 37 inches if you're watching movies or need tighter framing. The stand is solid, adjustable, and surprisingly desk-friendly for a monitor this large, and the USB-C port with 90W power delivery is a nice touch for anyone using it with a laptop setup.

Still, it’s not a monitor for everyone. The rated brightness is only 275 nits, which means it won’t pop in sunlit rooms the way some Mini LED or IPS panels do. And while it does have internal speakers with a bit of bass, they’re not loud enough to carry a room—headphones are still the way to go. But if you’ve got the desk space, GPU power, and budget, the 45GX950A-B might be the best way to go big without going full TV.

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You hear people talk about working in a “flow state,” but what does that even mean? before you start thinking of it as one of those corporate jargon phrases that gets tossed around so much it loses any meaning it ever had, it's worth knowing that it's a "real" thing, backed up by a whole lot of psychological research. In essence, being in a flow state enables you to work more efficiently and effectively at whatever you're focused on.

What is flow theory?

Psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi came up with this theory in 1970, suggesting a flow state is similar to when someone is floating along, being carried by water: Their brains are working so efficiently they’re moving straight ahead on a task with no issues, almost as if they are being propelled forward. 

He spent his time interviewing artists and athletes at the top of their game to understand when and how they performed optimally—and how everyday people can tap into a “flow” state, too. He wrote several books on the topic, but for our purposes here, you don't need to ingest all of them. What's most important is to understand the eight main traits of flow theory.

The basics of flow theory

Csíkszentmihályi’s work ultimately describes eight clear characteristics of being in flow:

1. You’re completely concentrated on your task.

2. You have clarity around goals in your mind and can get immediate feedback.

3. Time feels like it's transforming, either speeding up or slowing down.

4. The work is intrinsically rewarding.

5. There is a sense of effortlessness or ease.

6. The work is challenging, but you have the skills for it.

7. You are not self-conscious; actions and awareness are working together.

8. You feel you have control over the task.

This may remind you of the concept of “deep work,” which is author/professor Cal Newport’s definition of doing demanding tasks when you’re fully engrossed in them and not distracted. The two concepts are similar, but to achieve either, there are a few things you need to do. It’s clear from the list of flow characteristics above that mastery and resources play a big role in whether you'll feel you’re in a flow state when you're working. Obviously you’ll likely only hit this state if you’re doing something you’re completely prepared for, so don’t aim for it if you’re going to be doing something that requires contributions from other people, resources you don’t have, or skills you don’t possess. You can be ripped from it quickly if, say, you're waiting around for a colleague to email you something you need for the project, which can destabilize your whole day. (For a better understanding of that, it's worth familiarizing yourself with the difference between downtime and idle time.)

When you are trying to hit a flow state, plan around when you need to do a major, demanding task. For instance, when planning your 1-3-5 to-do list for the day, your one big task should be one you’re fully prepared and have all the resources for. Keep Carlson’s Law—the idea that any work you attempt to do while distracted will be suboptimal—in mind, too; you can’t work, let alone flow, if you’re being pulled in multiple directions, so schedule the time you’re going to take on your big task to coincide with a time when you have nothing else going on and can give it your full attention. Use timeboxing to allocate this time in your schedule, minute by minute, and, if you can, make your calendar publicly visible so people in your organization know you’re not available.

When I explored adopting this mindset in my own life, I found that my biggest blocker was dealing with distractions, especially from my phone (no surprise there). Almost counterintuitively, I found two apps to be helpful: Steppin, which blocks my access to distracting apps unless I trade time I've banked by walking around in the real world; and Focus Pomo, which blocks all other apps whenever I'm in a "focus session."

So, if you’re working hard on something but don’t feel like you’re achieving any kind of flow state, refer back to the list of characteristics to see what’s missing. Are you distracted? Do you not have the option to get immediate feedback? Are you lacking a necessary resource? Is the work too challenging for your skills or maybe even not challenging enough to keep your attention? Identifying which characteristic you’re lacking most will help you fix the problem and get you closer to flowing your way to major productivity.

Apple doesn’t like to talk about its upcoming products before it’s ready, but sometimes the company’s software does the talking for it. So far this week we’ve had a couple of software-related leaks that have outed products Apple is currently testing—one a pre-release build of iOS 26, and the other some leaked files from a kernel debug kit (both via MacRumors).

Most of the new devices referenced in these leaks are straightforward updates to products that already exist: a new Apple TV, a HomePod mini 2, new AirTags and AirPods, an M4 iPad Air, a 12th-generation iPad to replace the current A16 version, next-generation iPhones (including the 17e, 18, and the rumored foldable model), a new Studio Display model, some new smart home products we’ve already heard about elsewhere, and M5 updates for the MacBook Air, Mac mini, Mac Studio, and the other MacBook Pros. There’s also yet another reference to the lower-cost MacBook that Apple is apparently planning to replace the M1 MacBook Air it still sells via Walmart for $599.

For power users, though, the most interesting revelation might be that Apple is working on a higher-end Apple Silicon iMac powered by an M5 Max chip. The kernel debug kit references an iMac with the internal identifier J833c, based on a platform identified as H17C—and H17C is apparently based on the M5 Max, rather than a lower-end M5 chip. (For those who don’t have Apple’s branding memorized, “Max” is associated with Apple’s second-fastest chips; the M5 Max would be faster than the M5 or M5 Pro, but slower than the rumored M5 Ultra.)

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If you can take your mind way back to the beginning of 2025, you might remember a fresh wave of rumors suggesting that Half-Life 3 was finally reaching the final stages of production, and could be announced and/or released at any moment. Now, though, 2025 seems set to come to a close without any official news of a game fans have been waiting literal decades for.

That doesn’t necessarily mean a Half-Life 3 announcement and/or release isn’t imminent, though. On the contrary, veteran journalist Mike Straw insisted on a recent Insider Gaming podcast that “everybody I’ve talked to are still adamant [Half-Life 3] is a game that will be a launch title with the Steam Machine.”

Straw—who has a long history of reporting gaming rumors from anonymous sources—said this Half-Life 3 information is “not [from] these run-of-the-mill sources that haven’t gotten me information before. … These aren’t like random, one-off people.” And those sources are “still adamant that the game is coming in the spring,” Straw added, noting that he was “specifically told [that] spring 2026 [is the window] for the Steam Machine, for the Frame, for the Controller, [and] for Half-Life 3.”

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Utah Gov. Spencer Cox believes his state needs more power—a lot more. By some estimates, Utah will require as much electricity in the next five years as it generated all last century to meet the demands of a growing population as well as chase data centers and AI developers to fuel its economy.

To that end, Cox announced Operation Gigawatt last year, declaring the state would double energy production in the next decade. Although the announcement was short on details, Cox, a Republican, promised his administration would take an “any of the above” approach, which aims to expand all sources of energy production.

Despite that goal, the Utah Legislature’s Republican supermajority, with Cox’s acquiescence, has taken a hard turn against solar power—which has been coming online faster than any other source in Utah and accounts for two-thirds of the new projects waiting to connect to the state’s power grid.

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SAN FRANCISCO—Automakers are starting to follow somewhat familiar paths as they continue their journeys to electrification. Electric vehicles are, at first, strange new tech, and usually look like it. Mercedes-Benz’s EQS and EQE are good examples—with bodies that look like bars of soap worn down in the shower, they stood out. For early adopters and trailblazers that might be fine, but you need to sell cars to normal people if you want to survive, and that means making EVs more normal. Which is what Mercedes did with its newest one, the all-electric CLA.

The normal looks belie the amount of new technology that Mercedes has packed into the CLA, though. The car sticks to the four-door coupe look that the company pioneered a couple of decades ago, but there’s a thoroughly modern electric powertrain connected to the wheels, run by four powerful networked computers. And yes, there’s AI. (For the pedants, “coupe” means cut down, not two-door, so the name is accurate.)

The CLA is the first of a new series of Mercedes that will use the same modular architecture, and interestingly, it’s powertrain agnostic—a hybrid CLA is coming in time, too. But first the battery EV, which makes good use of some technology Mercedes developed for the EQXX concept car.

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Back in 2017 I wrote about a technique for creating closures in C using JIT-compiled wrapper. It’s neat, though rarely necessary in real programs, so I don’t think about it often. I applied it to qsort, which sadly accepts no context pointer. More practical would be working around insufficient custom allocator interfaces, to create allocation functions at run-time bound to a particular allocation region. I’ve learned a lot since I last wrote about this subject, and a recent article had me thinking about it again, and how I could do better than before. In this article I will enhance Win32 window procedure callbacks with a fifth argument, allowing us to more directly pass extra context. I’m using w64devkit on x64, but the everything here should work out-of-the-box with any x64 toolchain that speaks GNU assembly.

↫ Chris Wellons

Sometimes, people get upset when I mention something is out of my wheelhouse, so just for those people, here’s an article well outside of my wheelhouse. I choose honesty over faking confidence.

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Any computing device will inevitably get a custom operating system – whether based on an existing operating system or something entirely custom – and of course, Kobo e-readers are no exception. QuillOS is an Alpine Linux-based distribution specifically developed for the unique challenges of e-readers, and comes with a custom Qt-based user interface, support for a whole slew of e-book formats, NetSurf as a web browser, encrypted storage, a VNC viewer, and a ton more. Basic hardware capabilities like Wi-Fi and power management are also supported, and it has online update support, too.

The current release is already two years old, sadly, so I’m not sure how active the project is at this point. I wanted to highlight it here since something like this is a great way to liberate your Kobo device if, for some reason, Kobo ever started making their devices worse through updates, or the company shutters its services. You know, something that seems rather relevant today.

Sadly, my own Kobo does not seem to be supported.

Rolling out enterprise-grade AI means climbing two steep cliffs at once. First, understanding and implementing the tech itself. And second, creating the cultural conditions where employees can maximize its value. While the technical hurdles are significant, the human element can be even more consequential; fear and ambiguity can stall momentum of even the most promising initiatives.

Psychological safety—feeling free to express opinions and take calculated risks without worrying about career repercussions1—is essential for successful AI adoption. In psychologically safe workspaces, employees are empowered to challenge assumptions and raise concerns about new tools without fear of reprisal. This is nothing short of a necessity when introducing a nascent and profoundly powerful technology that still lacks established best practices.

“Psychological safety is mandatory in this new era of AI,” says Rafee Tarafdar, executive vice president and chief technology officer at Infosys. “The tech itself is evolving so fast—companies have to experiment, and some things will fail. There needs to be a safety net.”

To gauge how psychological safety influences success with enterprise-level AI, MIT Technology Review Insights conducted a survey of 500 business leaders. The findings reveal high self-reported levels of psychological safety, but also suggest that fear still has a foothold. Anecdotally, industry experts highlight a reason for the disconnect between rhetoric and reality: while organizations may promote a safe to experiment message publicly, deeper cultural undercurrents can counteract that intent.

Building psychological safety requires a coordinated, systems-level approach, and human resources (HR) alone cannot deliver such transformation. Instead, enterprises must deeply embed psychological safety into their collaboration processes.

Key findings for this report include:

• Companies with experiment-friendly cultures have greater success with AI projects. The majority of executives surveyed (83%) believe a company culture that prioritizes psychological safety measurably improves the success of AI initiatives. Four in five leaders agree that organizations fostering such safety are more successful at adopting AI, and 84% have observed connections between psychological safety and tangible AI outcomes.
• Psychological barriers are proving to be greater obstacles to enterprise AI adoption than technological challenges. Encouragingly, nearly three-quarters (73%) of respondents indicated they feel safe to provide honest feedback and express opinions freely in their workplace. Still, a significant share (22%) admit they’ve hesitated to lead an AI project because they might be blamed if it misfires.
• Achieving psychological safety is a moving target for many organizations. Fewer than half of leaders (39%) rate their organization’s current level of psychological safety as “very high.” Another 48%report a “moderate” degree of it. This may mean that some enterprises are pursuing AI adoption on cultural foundations that are not yet fully stable.

Download the report.

This content was produced by Insights, the custom content arm of MIT Technology Review. It was not written by MIT Technology Review’s editorial staff. It was researched, designed, and written by human writers, editors, analysts, and illustrators. This includes the writing of surveys and collection of data for surveys. AI tools that may have been used were limited to secondary production processes that passed thorough human review.

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This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

The great AI hype correction of 2025

Some disillusionment was inevitable. When OpenAI released a free web app called ChatGPT in late 2022, it changed the course of an entire industry—and several world economies. Millions of people started talking to their computers, and their computers started talking back. We were enchanted, and we expected more.

Well, 2025 has been a year of reckoning. For a start, the heads of the top AI companies made promises they couldn’t keep. At the same time, updates to the core technology are no longer the step changes they once were.

To be clear, the last few years have been filled with genuine “Wow” moments. But this remarkable technology is only a few years old, and in many ways it is still experimental. Its successes come with big caveats. Read the full story to learn more about why we may need to readjust our expectations.

—Will Douglas Heaven

This story is part of our new Hype Correction package, a collection of stories designed to help you reset your expectations about what AI makes possible—and what it doesn’t. Check out the rest of the package here, and you can read more about why it’s time to reset our expectations for AI in the latest edition of the Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter. Sign up here to make sure you receive future editions straight to your inbox.

Quantum navigation could solve the military’s GPS jamming problem

Since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, thousands of flights have been affected by a far-reaching Russian campaign of using radio transmissions that jammed its GPS system.

The growing inconvenience to air traffic and risk of a real disaster have highlighted the vulnerability of GPS and focused attention on more secure ways for planes to navigate the gauntlet of jamming and spoofing, the term for tricking a GPS receiver into thinking it’s somewhere else.

One approach that’s emerging from labs is quantum navigation: exploiting the quantum nature of light and atoms to build ultra-sensitive sensors that can allow vehicles to navigate independently, without depending on satellites. Read the full story.

—Amos Zeeberg

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The Trump administration has launched its US Tech Force program
In a bid to lure engineers away from Big Tech roles and straight into modernizing the government. (The Verge)
+ So, essentially replacing the IT workers that DOGE got rid of, then. (The Register)

2 Lawmakers are investigating how AI data centers affect electricity costs
They want to get to the bottom of whether it’s being passed onto consumers. (NYT $)
+ Calculating AI’s water usage is far from straightforward, too. (Wired $)
+ AI is changing the grid. Could it help more than it harms? (MIT Technology Review)

3 Ford isn’t making a large all-electric truck after all
After the US government’s support for EVs plummeted. (Wired $)
+ Instead, the F-150 Lightning pickup will be reborn as a plug-in hybrid. (The Information $)
+ Why Americans may be finally ready to embrace smaller cars. (Fast Company $)
+ The US could really use an affordable electric truck. (MIT Technology Review)

4 PayPal wants to become a bank in the US
The Trump administration is very friendly to non-traditional financial companies, after all. (FT $)
+ It’s been a good year for the crypto industry when it comes to banking. (Economist $)

5 A tech trade deal between the US and UK has been put on ice
America isn’t happy with the lack of progress Britain has made, apparently. (NYT $)
+ It’s a major setback in relations between the pair. (The Guardian)

6 Why does no one want to make the cure for dengue?
A new antiviral pill appears to prevent infection—but its development has been abandoned. (Vox)

7 The majority of the world’s glaciers are forecast to disappear by 2100
At a rate of around 3,000 per year. (New Scientist $)
+ Inside a new quest to save the “doomsday glacier”. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Hollywood is split over AI
While some filmmakers love it, actors are horrified by its inexorable rise. (Bloomberg $)

9 Corporate America is obsessed with hiring storytellers
It’s essentially a rehashed media relations manager role overhauled for the AI age. (WSJ $)

10 The concept of hacking existed before the internet
Just ask this bunch of teenage geeks. (IEEE Spectrum)

Quote of the day

“So the federal government deleted 18F, which was doing great work modernizing the government, and then replaced it with a clone? What is the point of all this?”

—Eugene Vinitsky, an assistant professor at New York University, takes aim at the US government’s decision to launch a new team to overhaul its approach to technology in a post on Bluesky.

One more thing

How DeepSeek became a fortune teller for China’s youth

As DeepSeek has emerged as a homegrown challenger to OpenAI, young people across the country have started using AI to revive fortune-telling practices that have deep roots in Chinese culture.

Across Chinese social media, users are sharing AI-generated readings, experimenting with fortune-telling prompt engineering, and revisiting ancient spiritual texts—all with the help of DeepSeek.

The surge in AI fortune-telling comes during a time of pervasive anxiety and pessimism in Chinese society. And as spiritual practices remain hidden underground thanks to the country’s regime, computers and phone screens are helping younger people to gain a sense of control over their lives. Read the full story.

—Caiwen Chen

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Chess has been online as far back as the 1800s (no, really!)
+ Jane Austen was born 250 years ago today. How well do you know her writing? ($)
+ Rob Reiner, your work will live on forever.
+ I enjoyed this comprehensive guide to absolutely everything you could ever want to know about New England’s extensive seafood offerings.

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Can I ask you a question: How do you feel about AI right now? Are you still excited? When you hear that OpenAI or Google just dropped a new model, do you still get that buzz? Or has the shine come off it, maybe just a teeny bit? Come on, you can be honest with me.

Truly, I feel kind of stupid even asking the question, like a spoiled brat who has too many toys at Christmas. AI is mind-blowing. It’s one of the most important technologies to have emerged in decades (despite all its many many drawbacks and flaws and, well, issues).

At the same time I can’t help feeling a little bit: Is that it?

If you feel the same way, there’s good reason for it: The hype we have been sold for the past few years has been overwhelming. We were told that AI would solve climate change. That it would reach human-level intelligence. That it would mean we no longer had to work!

Instead we got AI slop, chatbot psychosis, and tools that urgently prompt you to write better email newsletters. Maybe we got what we deserved. Or maybe we need to reevaluate what AI is for.

That’s the reality at the heart of a new series of stories, published today, called Hype Correction. We accept that AI is still the hottest ticket in town, but it’s time to re-set our expectations.

As my colleague Will Douglas Heaven puts it in the package’s intro essay, “You can’t help but wonder: When the wow factor is gone, what’s left? How will we view this technology a year or five from now? Will we think it was worth the colossal costs, both financial and environmental?” 

Elsewhere in the package, James O’Donnell looks at Sam Altman, the ultimate AI hype man, through the medium of his own words. And Alex Heath explains the AI bubble, laying out for us what it all means and what we should look out for.

Michelle Kim analyzes one of the biggest claims in the AI hype cycle: that AI would completely eliminate the need for certain classes of jobs. If ChatGPT can pass the bar, surely that means it will replace lawyers? Well, not yet, and maybe not ever. 

Similarly, Edd Gent tackles the big question around AI coding. Is it as good as it sounds? Turns out the jury is still out. And elsewhere David Rotman looks at the real-world work that needs to be done before AI materials discovery has its breakthrough ChatGPT moment.

Meanwhile, Garrison Lovely spends time with some of the biggest names in the AI safety world and asks: Are the doomers still okay? I mean, now that people are feeling a bit less scared about their impending demise at the hands of superintelligent AI? And Margaret Mitchell reminds us that hype around generative AI can blind us to the AI breakthroughs we should really celebrate.

Let’s remember: AI was here before ChatGPT and it will be here after. This hype cycle has been wild, and we don’t know what its lasting impact will be. But AI isn’t going anywhere. We shouldn’t be so surprised that those dreams we were sold haven’t come true—yet.

The more likely story is that the real winners, the killer apps, are still to come. And a lot of money is being bet on that prospect. So yes: The hype could never sustain itself over the short term. Where we’re at now is maybe the start of a post-hype phase. In an ideal world, this hype correction will reset expectations. 

Let’s all catch our breath, shall we?

This story first appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly free newsletter all about AI. Sign up to read past editions here.

In late September, a Spanish military plane carrying the country’s defense minister to a base in Lithuania was reportedly the subject of a kind of attack—not by a rocket or anti-aircraft rounds, but by radio transmissions that jammed its GPS system. 

The flight landed safely, but it was one of thousands that have been affected by a far-reaching Russian campaign of GPS interference since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The growing inconvenience to air traffic and risk of a real disaster have highlighted the vulnerability of GPS and focused attention on more secure ways for planes to navigate the gauntlet of jamming and spoofing, the term for tricking a GPS receiver into thinking it’s somewhere else. 

US military contractors are rolling out new GPS satellites that use stronger, cleverer signals, and engineers are working on providing better navigation information based on other sources, like cellular transmissions and visual data. 

But another approach that’s emerging from labs is quantum navigation: exploiting the quantum nature of light and atoms to build ultra-sensitive sensors that can allow vehicles to navigate independently, without depending on satellites. As GPS interference becomes more of a problem, research on quantum navigation is leaping ahead, with many researchers and companies now rushing to test new devices and techniques. In recent months, the US’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and its Defense Innovation Unit have announced new grants to test the technology on military vehicles and prepare for operational deployment. 

Tracking changes

Perhaps the most obvious way to navigate is to know where you started and then track where you go by recording the speed, direction, and duration of travel. But while this approach, known in the field as inertial navigation, is conceptually simple, it’s difficult to do well; tiny uncertainties in any of those measurements compound over time and lead to big errors later on. Douglas Paul, the principal investigator of the UK’s Hub for Quantum Enabled Precision, Navigation & Timing (QEPNT), says that existing specialized inertial-navigation devices might be off by 20 kilometers after 100 hours of travel. Meanwhile, the cheap sensors commonly used in smartphones produce more than twice that level of uncertainty after just one hour. 

“If you’re guiding a missile that flies for one minute, that might be good enough,” he says. “If you’re in an airliner, that’s definitely not good enough.” 

A more accurate version of inertial navigation instead uses sensors that rely on the quantum behavior of subatomic particles to more accurately measure acceleration, direction, and time.

Several companies, like the US-based Infleqtion, are developing quantum gyroscopes, which track a vehicle’s bearing, and quantum accelerometers, which can reveal how far it’s traveled. Infleqtion’s sensors are based on a technique called atom interferometry: A beam of rubidium atoms is zapped with precise laser pulses, which split the atoms into two separate paths. Later, other laser pulses recombine the atoms, and they’re measured with a detector. If the vehicle has turned or accelerated while the atoms are in motion, the two paths will be slightly out of phase in a way the detector can interpret. 

Last year the company trialed these inertial sensors on a customized plane flying at a British military testing site. In October of this year, Infleqtion ran its first real-world test of a new generation of inertial sensors that use a steady stream of atoms instead of pulses, allowing for continuous navigation and avoiding long dead times.

COURTESY INFLEQTION

Infleqtion also has an atomic clock, called Tiqker, that can help determine how far a vehicle has traveled. It is a kind of optical clock that uses infrared lasers tuned to a specific frequency to excite electrons in rubidium, which then release photons at a consistent, known rate. The device “will lose one second every 2 million years or so,” says Max Perez, who oversees the project, and it fits in a standard electronics equipment rack. It has passed tests on flights in the UK, on US Army ground vehicles in New Mexico, and, in late October, on a drone submarine. 

“Tiqker operated happily through these conditions, which is unheard-of for previous generations of optical clocks,” says Perez. Eventually the company hopes to make the unit smaller and more rugged by switching to lasers generated by microchips. 

Magnetic fields

Vehicles deprived of satellite-based navigation are not entirely on their own; they can get useful clues from magnetic and gravitational fields that surround the planet. These fields vary slightly depending on the location, and the variations, or anomalies, are recorded in various maps. By precisely measuring the local magnetic or gravitational field and comparing those values with anomaly maps, quantum navigation systems can track the location of a vehicle. 

Allison Kealy, a navigation researcher at Swinburne University in Australia, is working on the hardware needed for this approach. Her team uses a material called nitrogen-vacancy diamond. In NV diamonds, one carbon atom in the lattice is replaced with a nitrogen atom, and one neighboring carbon atom is removed entirely. The quantum state of the electrons at the NV defect is very sensitive to magnetic fields. Carefully stimulating the electrons and watching the light they emit offers a way to precisely measure the strength of the field at the diamond’s location, making it possible to infer where it’s situated on the globe. 

Kealy says these quantum magnetometers have a few big advantages over traditional ones, including the fact that they measure the direction of the Earth’s magnetic field in addition to its strength. That additional information could make it easier to determine location. 

The technology is far from commercial deployment, but Kealy and several colleagues successfully tested their magnetometer in a set of flights in Australia late last year, and they plan to run more trials this year and next. “This is where it gets exciting, as we transition from theoretical models and controlled experiments to on-the-ground, operational systems,” she says. “This is a major step forward.” 

Delicate systems

Other teams, like Q-CTRL, an Australian quantum technology company, are focusing on using software to build robust systems from noisy quantum sensors. Quantum navigation involves taking those delicate sensors, honed in the placid conditions of a laboratory, and putting them in vehicles that make sharp turns, bounce with turbulence, and bob with waves, all of which interferes with the sensors’ functioning. Even the vehicles themselves present problems for magnetometers, especially “the fact that the airplane is made of metal, with all this wiring,” says Michael Biercuk, the CEO of Q-CTRL. “Usually there’s 100 to 1,000 times more noise than signal.” 

After Q-CTRL engineers ran trials of their magnetic navigation system in a specially outfitted Cessna last year, they used machine learning to go through the data and try to sift out the signal from all the noise. Eventually they found they could track the plane’s location up to 94 times as accurately as a strategic-grade conventional inertial navigation system could, according to Biercuk. They announced their findings in a non-peer-reviewed paper last spring. 

In August Q-CTRL received two contracts from DARPA to develop its “software-ruggedized” mag-nav product, named Ironstone Opal, for defense applications. The company is also testing the technology with commercial partners, including the defense contractors Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin and Airbus, an aerospace manufacturer. 

COURTESY Q-CTRL

“Northrop Grumman is working with Q-CTRL to develop a magnetic navigation system that can withstand the physical demands of the real world,” says Michael S. Larsen, a quantum systems architect at the company. “Technology like magnetic navigation and other quantum sensors will unlock capabilities to provide guidance even in GPS-denied or -degraded environments.”

Now Q-CTRL is working on putting Ironstone Opal into a smaller, more rugged container appropriate for deployment; currently, “it looks like a science experiment because it is a science experiment,” says Biercuk. He anticipates delivering the first commercial units next year. 

Sensor fusion

Even as quantum navigation emerges as a legitimate alternative to satellite-based navigation, the satellites themselves are improving. Modern GPS III satellites include new civilian signals called L1C and L5, which should be more accurate and harder to jam and spoof than current signals. Both are scheduled to be fully operational later this decade. 

US and allied military users are intended to have access to far hardier GPS tools, including M-code, a new form of GPS signal that is rolling out now, and Regional Military Protection, a focused GPS beam that will be restricted to small geographic areas. The latter will start to become available when the GPS IIIF generation of satellites is in orbit, with the first scheduled to go up in 2027. A Lockheed Martin spokesperson says new GPS satellites with M-code are eight times as powerful as previous ones, while the GPS IIIF model will be 60 times as strong.

Other plans involve using navigation satellites in low Earth orbit—the zone inhabited by SpaceX’s internet-providing Starlink constellation—rather than the medium Earth orbit used by GPS. Since objects in LEO are closer to Earth, their signals are stronger, which makes them harder to jam and spoof. LEO satellites also transit the sky more quickly, which makes them harder still to spoof and helps GPS receivers get a lock on their position faster. “This really helps for signal convergence,” says Lotfi Massarweh, a satellite navigation researcher at Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands. “They can get a good position in just a few minutes. So that is a huge leap.”

Ultimately, says Massarweh, navigation will depend not only on satellites, quantum sensors, or any other single technology, but on the combination of all of them. “You need to think always in terms of sensor fusion,” he says. 

The navigation resources that a vehicle draws on will change according to its environment—whether it’s an airliner, a submarine, or an autonomous car in an urban canyon. But quantum navigation will be one important resource. He says, “If quantum technology really delivers what we see in the literature—if it’s stable over one week rather than tens of minutes—at that point it is a complete game changer.”

A private non-profit operates over 200 cameras with live facial recognition in New Orleans. The system raises questions about privacy, legal authority and who should control surveillance technology.

(Image credit: Abdul Aziz for NPR)

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When you think of “power hour,” you might think of a drinking game, but what we’re about to discuss is kind of the opposite of that—sorry! "Power Hour" is also a specific productivity hack. It comes from Adrienne Herbert’s book, Power Hour: How to Focus on Your Goals and Create a Life You Love and asks you to devote an hour a day to working hard on your biggest task—or the thing you care about the most. I'm skeptical of self-help and productivity books in general, but I do recommend this one because its insights are valuable and novel. Don't have time to read it right now? No big deal. The need-to-know concepts are below.

What is a "Power Hour"?

At its core, the Power Hour is about reclaiming part of your daily time and devoting it to something intentional. The author uses flowery language here, saying you should do this in the first hour of your day “before the rest of the world needs your love, attention, and energy,” and suggests using the Power Hour for a task that is meaningful to you. You can adapt it, however, to be for productivity, even on tasks that are more necessary and boring than your passion projects. I am not a particularly saccharine person, so I don't relate to all this stuff about the world needing my "love," but I have found that since I started devoting the first hour of my day to something that matters to me—namely, a strictly scheduled Pilates class that benefits my personal fitness and lifestyle goals, undertaken before my friends are even awake—I have become more productive and, generally, happier. In my experience, this idea works.

Herbert suggests using the first hour of the day for this, but you can also use a time of day that makes most sense for you. Everyone is different and has different “peaks” of productivity, largely determined by the time of day and something called the Yerkes-Dodson Law, which shows that you’re likely to be most productive when you have a little stress (like a deadline) but not too much (like a deadline that’s in 15 minutes). Use time tracking software and a daily journal to figure out when you generally have your most productive moments, then shape your Power Hour around those. For the most part, this is a habit you should try to build and stick to, so putting the Power Hour at a predetermined time every day is advisable; but if something like a big project crops up, you have some wiggle room to move it around to suit your needs. 

To keep using myself as an example, my morning workout Power Hour works because I book my class two days in advance, so there is no question about whether or not I have to wake up at 5 a.m. that day; I simply do. But it can still be a little flexible as long as you are committed to getting the Power Hour in there somewhere on days your typical approach falls short. This weekend, something came up that forced me to cancel my morning class, but you better believe I was in there in the afternoon because I know this method works and I owed it to myself. That mindset will take you far with this.

How to use a Power Hour for productivity

Once you’ve decided where in your day the Power Hour should go, it’s time to get started. You’ll be engaging in deep work here, or uninterrupted work that is solely focused on one task. Your first step to getting there is to block the Power Hour off in a way that both holds you accountable and lets other people know you’re busy. Be sure to mark it in your calendar and stick to it, but also try to include it on public-facing calendars, whether they’re ones you use with your family or with your colleagues. 

Next, you have to get into the deep work, which means focusing for a straight hour. A few things can help you do this: 

• Software that limits distractions, like Steppin, which blocks pre-determined apps at all times but unblocks them in exchange for banked time you earn by walking around in the real world, or Focus Pomo, which blocks all your apps when you're in a "focus session."

• A Pomodoro-style timer to count down the hour so you aren’t watching the clock. (Just make sure it has a full 60-minute option; some of them don’t.)

Or, do what I do and engage in your chosen task in a way that makes it impossible to do anything else. When I am in my morning workout classes, I can't touch my phone or do anything but focus on what I'm being instructed to do; it's just one of the many reasons I've opted for group fitness over solo gym trips lately. If your Power Hour is dedicated to reading, put your devices in another room while you do it. Take meaningful steps to ensure you are only focused on your task, whatever that looks like for you.

Depending on how you usually work, a Power Hour could take some time to get used to, especially if you’re someone who usually multitasks or loses focus. Once you get the hang of it, though, you can use it to blast through all kinds of tasks, whether those include work-related activities, cleaning your house, budgeting, or anything else you lack the time and attention to pull off in a typical day. Communicating that you’re busy and sticking to the schedule are key, so make sure to plan for this before you try it. 

School districts from Utah to Ohio to Alabama are spending thousands of dollars on these tools, despite research showing the technology is far from reliable.

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New Orleans is the first US city with real-time facial recognition: If you're wanted and walk past one of the system's cameras, it could flag you. The twist: it's a private system, and even though the new mayor and police chief are at odds about facial recognition, this non-profit says it's able to establish its own "guard-rails" as it feeds real-time tips to the police, side-stepping the debate about government regulation and privacy.

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