SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " force " 4,229 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
Three killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon, health ministry says
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had targeted Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon "in response to Hezbollah’s attempted attack yesterday against IDF troops operating in the security zone."
West Boca Raton football blanks Spanish River, forces five turnovers
Maxwell Reid fueled a dominant defensive effort as West Boca forced five turnovers and rolled past Spanish River 36-0 Friday night.
Zooey Deschanel says “New Girl ”stars were ‘forced to drive home’ after long shoots: ‘The hours were insane’
The “Elf” star shared that she would have to call her mom to keep her awake during late night drives.
Video card RTX 4090 showed a higher frame rate with DLSS 5 than the RTX 5080
A detailed comparative benchmarking of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 graphics accelerators with 16 GB of memory and GeForce has appeared online. RTX 4090 With...
Kent’s Theatre Battery puts on world premiere play ‘Jar of Fat’
Sara Porkalob and Seayoung Yim rejoin forces on this world premiere play, an absurdist take on beauty culture and thinness, premiering at Theatre Battery.
NorCal business owners fear nicotine ban will devastate shops: ‘We’re taking a massive hit’
A wealthy Northern California town is moving to pull the plug on all tobacco and nicotine sales — with local business owners fearing the move could force them to close...
The Fierce Battle For Kids’ Eyeballs...Plus Two “Devils” Face Off
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) During the week of this report, Spider-Man: Brand New Day hit theaters and went on to become one of the biggest films of all time. So, you know what that means! It’s time for a poll! Recently, Project Hail Mary came to Prime Video and became a top five film for them, but didn’t smash streaming records, a feat I cautiously thought it could accomplish. Can Spider-Man 4 do better? To set the stakes, some of the biggest films of all time do just okay on streaming. Wicked, Top Gun: Maverick, and Barbie come to mind... But unlike those films, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a Sony film which means it’s headed to Netflix, the world’s largest streamer. Now, per friend of the newsletter and my go-to Netflix expert, Kasey Moore of What’s on Netflix, Sony films usually appear on Netflix 120 days after they premiere, which means Spidey 4 would land on Netflix on, checks notes, 28-November, one of the two biggest streaming weekends of the year! But Sony occasionally delays its biggest hits for a bit longer, to give them more time to make money on PVOD, so Spider-Man: Brand New Day might not swing onto Netflix until late December or even February 2027. Loading... Okay, on to this week’s issue. Since The Super Mario Galaxy Movie made its way to Peacock, I’m looking at the true workhorse of streaming viewership: kids films. And the surprising film that bested most Netflix animated movies. All that, plus Hulu has a new show that might be a hit (for them…?), two “Devils” square off on streaming, Zendaya tries to find some streaming magic, Netflix’s I Will Find You continues to do well, House of the Dragon tries to break into the season three top ten, some big NBC sports and summer programs, what friendly neighborhood Spider-Man character actually generates the most viewership on streaming, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. Let’s dive right in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of July 27th to August 2nd, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Film - As The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Hits Peacock, How Have Kids Films Fared in 2026? Like Mario hopping on a Koopa, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie landed on Peacock on 30-July. (Yeah, I kinda forced that Mario reference.) How did it do? Great, just like the first film. It got 13.0 million hours on its opening, and that’s good enough to take second place among Peacock films on the Nielsen charts all time: As I mention all the time, Peacock just isn’t the world’s biggest streamer—in fact, nowhere close—so its films struggle to put up numbers like Netflix (or even Prime Video and Disney+). So this is a solid debut for that streamer. And as we saw last time, The Super Mario Bros. Movie had a HUGE second life on Netflix when it moved streamers. This chart doesn’t even show how long the first Mario lasted on Netflix: a whopping, KPop-esque 31 weeks. For NBCUniversal, though, the big win was the second Mario movie grossing $429 million in America and over $1 billion globally. But yeah, to add a very strong streaming performance only makes its success even greater. Illumination pretty clearly has another hit franchise on their hands. This is a good time, though, to check in on kids films so far in 2026. We’ve had a few big, big titles, a rare Netflix success, and some disappointments. Let’s start with the top animated films since November of 2025, over their first four weeks on the charts, along with a few of the “best all time” animated films: (As a reminder, if a film doesn’t make the Nielsen top ten lists, I don’t have data for it, so it gets a “zero” in terms of viewership. Now, it had some viewership, but I don’t know what it is, so it gets a zero.) I added a few titles to get an idea of what the best of the best looks like in terms of animation. And you can see, through four weeks, Zootopia 2 can now claim “one of the biggest streaming films of all time” titles. GOAT too did surprisingly well, besting Netflix’s biggest films (Swapped and In Your Dreams) through four weeks. When I’ve talked about how films can have varying performances on streaming compared to their box office, this is what I mean. Goat just managed to gross even $103 million at the box office—so it’s popular, but just barely—but did very well on streaming. Of course, what set Encanto and KPop Demon Hunters apart from the rest was their absolutely insane longevity. Here are the kids film charts through eight weeks to show that: And really KPop Demon Hunters just kept going, and no 2025 or 2026 kids films have had that sort of longevity. I can’t wait to see the sequel in theaters. Film - Two Devils and a Drama As I wrote last week, in the past, theatrical-first film flops weren’t eligible for “Miss of the Week” or “Miss of the Year” honors/dishonors, but since so many more films go to theaters first these days, I’ve made them eligible now! But it’s complicated. You see, this is a Streaming Ratings Report, emphasis on streaming, which makes analyzing this week’s two biggest streaming misses—The Drama on HBO Max (A24’s dramedy starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson) and Prime Video’s The Devil Mouth (a killer shark movie starring young attractive people)—somewhat tricky. The Drama isn’t eligible for Luminate, but The Devil’s Mouth only had 1.5 million hours in its first week: The Devil’s Mouth notched 5.2 million hours according to Nielsen. Meanwhile, The Drama missed the charts entirely. Not great! But Prime Video is a much bigger streamer than HBO Max. That said, HBO Max titles are on Prime Video, but I think Prime Video prioritizes their original/exclusive titles, which helps boost their viewership. Complicating this further, The Drama made $48 million in the US—while A24 sells foreign distribution; the $57 million of overseas grosses helps A24 sell overseas rights for money in the future—off of a $28 million budget (which seems low for Zendaya and Pattinson, so they might have backend). The Devil’s Mouth, though, had zero dollars at the box office. The other stats for The Devil’s Mouth are bleak, and by “bleak”, I mean horrendous: a 4.7 on 15K reviews on IMDb (yikes) and a 46 on Metacritic (double yikes). The Drama, though buzzy online, only has a solid (but far from elite) 7.1 IMDb score on 121K reviews and a 59 on Metacritic (which is far, far lower than I’d have guessed). So which film is the “Miss of the Week”? I’m giving it to The Devil’s Mouth for one simple reason: it’s a horror film. And almost all horror films, even poorly reviewed horror films, should get a shot in theaters to at least try to recoup some of their budgets. The Drama made money at the box office and The Devil’s Mouth didn’t. It’s just like the situation last issue with Obsession and Masters of the Universe. Sure, Obsession didn’t pop on the streaming charts, but at least it already made it money at the box office. And as we’ve been seeing for years now and we’ll see all fall, theatrical films just do better on streaming. After all, the big “devil” winner this week was actually The Devil Wears Prada 2 with 14.8 million hours according to Nielsen. That’s right, The Devil Wears Prada 2—one of the box office success stories of May—came to streaming and parlayed its $220 million box office into 14.8 million Nielsen hours. Disney also put out a datecdote that it had 15.2 million “views” globally in five days, but again we don’t have a lot of great context for what that means. Here’s how it stacks up to other Hulu films, since I’m categorizing this mainly as a Hulu title (though it was also on Disney+): Share Quick Notes on Film We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… Whether Hulu has a new hit show on its hands... The top first and third seasons of all time and which shows are climbing those charts… What version of Spidey is the most popular... What sport and TV show are performing better on NBC than the NBA... All the flops, bombs and misses... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. Coming Soon! Next week, wow, things stay so busy. One of streaming’s biggest shows of all time, Ted Lasso, returns along with new YA-ish shows from Hulu (The Shards, from Ryan Murphy) and Prime Video (Sterling Point). The Challenge moves to Paramount+, plus My Life with the Walter Boys returns to Netflix and Futurama returns to Hulu. And Netflix has a new horror film, The Last House. Lots to talk about! All month, things stay busy. We’re talking Reacher on Prime Video! Outer Banks and Tires on Netflix! Lanterns on HBO Max! UFC 330 on Paramount+ and the MLB Field of Dreams game on Netflix. And a ton of smaller films come to streaming. Long term, the VMAs are back on 27-Sep! I feel like I haven’t heard much about this show in past years, but I’m seeing more news coverage and buzz for this show than in past years. I’m curious to see how it does.
TUSK Practice Sales Releases Q3 2026 Behavioral Health Market Report
TUSK Practice Sales ("TUSK"), the premier healthcare-focused M&A Advisor, released its Q3 2026 Behavioral Health Market Report. The report reviews transaction activity across the behavioral health industry from the first and second quarters of 2026, as well as the forces impacting buy-side sentiment and transition options for practices in today's market.
MediaDailyNews: Meta To SCOTUS: Review Washington Political Ad Disclosure Law
Washington State's disclosure mandates "are so burdensome that they have forced Meta, Google, and other online platforms to ban political advertising in Washington altogether," Meta says in papers filed this week with Justice Elena Kagan.
50 Memphis businesses, nonprofit to refuse serving Memphis task force
Free The 901 held a press conference encouraging local businesses to join the 50 that have already committed to not serving Memphis Safe Task Force.
David Moyes Admits Everton Have Looked at Free Agent Market
The free agent market doesn't make for pretty viewing, especially for a club like Everton who are so desperate for reinforcements.
ASUS Shows RTX Spark Mini PCs and Laptop Designs at IFA 2026
At IFA 2026 in Berlin, Germany, ASUS introduced mini PCs and laptops powered by NVIDIA's RTX Spark SoC. Starting with the GR1X mini, ASUS showcased the power of the RTX Spark N1X in grey or black aluminium enclosures. These are available with up to a 6,144-core GeForce RTX "Blackwell" GPU,...
Auburn vs. Baylor: 5 Bold Predictions for Alex Golesh's Debut
Auburn football begins the Alex Golesh era against Baylor in Atlanta. Auburn Daily staff make bold predictions for Week 1, including a huge rushing performance, three forced turnovers, three Jared Smith sacks and a potential blowout win for the Tigers.
Critical Public Health: Fiscal Reform Under the “One Big Beautiful Bill” and It’s Public Health Implications
The ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ is framed by its proponents as the largest middle-class tax cut in U.S. history and a catalyst for economic growth. Yet, beneath the marketing of ‘jobs, tax cuts, and American prosperity’, the legislation conceals sweeping rollbacks of Medicaid, food assistance, education, reproductive care, and expanded immigration enforcement, alongside tax windfalls for venture capital and immigration enforcement.
Healthcare Partnership Expands Nursing Capacity by 77.5%
More students are enrolling in nursing programs at Cape Fear Community College (CFCC) and UNCW, thanks to a community partnership funded by The Endowment. Nursing enrollment capacity has increased by 77.5% since 2023, according to the New Hanover Healthcare Career Partnership (HCP), representing a significant step toward addressing healthcare workforce shortages in New Hanover County and southeastern North Carolina.
Opinion: Getting new hires in the door is only half the workforce challenge
Chicago has invested heavily in talent pipelines. Employers must now focus on the workplace culture that determines whether new hires stay and succeed.
Alabama STEM Council Launches Improved Math and Science Proficiency Data Dashboard
The Alabama STEM Council of the Alabama Department of Workforce has launched a new and improved Alabama Math and Science Proficiency Data Dashboard, providing parents, educators and workforce partners with a clearer view of how Alabama students are performing in key STEM subject areas. The dashboard presents the most recent Alabama Comprehensive Assessment Program (ACAP) […]
California's healthcare affordability office claims power to punish overspending hospitals
The state's new penalty framework could fine hospitals and insurers up to 125% of overspending, with enforcement starting as early as 2028.
California's political hopefuls remain silent on state's job losses, unemployment
California has lost jobs and its workforce. By many measures, it has some of the highest unemployment or underemployment rates in the country.
Iowa State’s new president talks about university’s role in state
During his first months as president of Iowa State University, David Cook has traveled to nearly 40 Iowa communities, listening as residents, community leaders, business owners and others talked about their hopes for the future and challenges they face. One concern has surfaced again and again: finding and keeping workers. “Workforce and talent are a…
Has Chelsea's transfer strategy finally started to pay off?
Chelsea have had a few remarkable transfer summers since their forced sale from Roman Abramovich's control in May 2022. Once again they were big spenders, outlaying £349m on 11 signings such as Morgan Rogers, Maxence Lacroix and Emiliano Martinez. Chelsea actually made a trading profit after selling 17 players.
Werder Bremen vs RB Leipzig preview: Another tough early test
Werder BremenIt was a woeful start to the Bundesliga season for Werder Bremen.They were not given an easy matchup, forced to travel to European outfit SC Freiburg, who had already begun their campaign...
NVIDIA Confirms DLSS 5 for GeForce RTX 40-Series is Coming
NVIDIA has officially confirmed that the company is working to bring DLSS 5 neural rendering to the previous-generation GeForce RTX 40-Series "Ada Lovelace." Previously, it was believed that DLSS 5 technology would be exclusive to the latest GeForce RTX 50-Series "Blackwell" and future models,...
Diamondbacks expected to get Corbin Burnes back during Royals series
PHOENIX — The Arizona Diamondbacks are expected to get reinforcements in their starting rotation during their next road trip, and the return of a former National League Cy Young Award winner. Arizona Sports’ John Gambadoro expects right-hander Corbin Burnes to join the rotation and make his first start of 2026 against the Kansas City Royals on Tuesday.
Bundesliga brings the band back together in Premier League's shadow
As the cashed-up Premier League spent billions in another record-breaking transfer window, many Bundesliga clubs were forced to improvise, bringing back former players on cut-price deals. - 'Back home' - As the transfer window slammed shut on Tuesday evening, FIFA figures showed the Premier League had spent more than $3.02 billion (2.6 billion euros), more than three times the Bundesiga's $904 million.
NASCAR Rules Forced Ford to Sell a Street Car It Couldn't Actually Build. The Engine Didn't Fit, So Every Boss 429 Left the Line and Got Cut Apart by Hand
People are talking about the Ford Mustang's mysterious off-roading cousin again. Is it real? Is it finally happening?
‘Global force in pop culture’: Toy and entertainment company opens 1st Lehigh Valley store
The company behind the popular Labubu dolls and other designer toys is continuing to grow its brick-and-mortar footprint with a new store in Lehigh County.
A Miami doctor and his business were at the center of a U.S. House...
A Miami doctor and his business were at the center of a U.S. House task force hearing on Tuesday looking into what lawmakers said could be the exploitation of birthright citizenship. The business in...
UNT Health Fort Worth nursing student’s white coat signifies more than a career
About 600 students celebrated a milestone as UNT Health expands programs aimed at meeting Texas’ healthcare workforce needs.
Missouri Secretary of State welcomes reported federal surge probing voter fraud
Amid a report this week that Missouri is among a handful of states that will see a surge in federal law enforcement activity tied to election fraud, the state’s chief election official is welcoming the reinforcements
Nvidia wants to turn your house of gaming PCs into an AI supercomputer
Nvidia's free RTX PAIR app spreads local AI workloads across multiple GPUs on your network, dramatically cutting down on processing times.
iPhone Ultra's Very High Price and Features Revealed in New Report
Ahead of Apple's event on Wednesday, September 9, where it is expected to unveil its first-ever foldable iPhone, Taiwanese research firm TrendForce today outlined the device's estimated price range, features, and some other key details. In the U.S., TrendForce estimated that the foldable iPhone will have a starting price of $2,099 to $2,299 and said the highest-end configurations could surpass the $3,000 mark.
Judge rejects Trump administration's plan to break up Google's ad business
Punishing a company for building the best product doesn't serve the businesses or users antitrust enforcers claim to protect.
CT Legislature, United Way Join Forces On Youth Mental Health Campaigns
According to Department of Children and Families Commissioner Susan Hamilton, more than 3,100 youth have been seen in the crisis centers since they opened, with over 700 seen in the last year alone. Youth overwhelmingly report improvements in their condition after discharge from the centers.
The Politics Hour: Will Loudoun pause data centers?
Loudoun County Board Chair Phyllis Randall on the big vote on a data center mortarium and NOTUS's Martin Austermuhle talks local law enforcement's use of Flock cameras.
Apple paying 400% more for iPhone 18 Pro memory, says TrendForce
A new market intelligence report suggests that Apple will be paying four times more for iPhone 18 Pro memory than...
iPhone 18 Pro Prices Estimated Ahead of Apple Event Next Week
Less than a week before Apple debuts new iPhone 18 Pro models, research firm TrendForce has estimated the prices of the devices based on the latest hardware cost environment.
YouTube Gold: Appalachian State Shocks The World
The Big Ten has been a football powerhouse for more than a century, and the main driving forces of that dominance have almost always been Ohio State and Michigan. Michigan Stadium, generally known as the Big House, seats 107,601, but they can squeeze in 115,000 on a big day when the fire Marshall’s not looking. […]
These 12 Central Florida restaurants shut down last week over health problems
Last week, a dozen more Central Florida eateries were forced to shut down (at least temporarily) after a visit from a health inspector, according to state records.
Investigation prompts police activity in Sacramento County business plaza
An investigation has prompted a law enforcement presence in the parking lot of a Sacramento County business plaza on Wednesday night.
Can Andy Burnham transform British politics?
The new British prime minister promises a more interventionist and decentralized state, but there are forces at play that could prevent a fundamental reset.
Game day parking shifts as UT begins entertainment district construction
The construction will force some fans to park farther away on game days.
Coplin Health Systems expands community commitment
PARKERBURG – The Chamber of Commerce of the Mid-Ohio Valley has announced a new educational partnership formalized under its Partner In Education program between Coplin Health Systems and the Caperton Center for Applied Technology. The collaboration bridges regional career and technical education with local community healthcare leadership, creating opportunities for workforce readiness, career exploration and […]
Senator Kim Visits Warren County to Talk Healthcare and Jobs
Yesterday, Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) visited Warren County with focused visits on expanding affordable healthcare and improving New Jersey’s workforce development pipeline as part of his Einstein Corridor initiative. “I leave these visits inspired by the dedication I witnessed from those in Warren County who are training NJ’s next generation of workers and pushing to ensure access to quality healthcare in some of our most rural communities,” said Senator Kim. “There is so much unique potential in each corner of our state – I’m excited to bring the ideas discussed with[...]
Sheffield taps longtime Detroiter to serve as new business, workforce chief
Olga Stella is the latest in a string of newly-appointed department heads aimed at fulfilling the mayor’s agenda on economic growth and revitalization.
Luminus Health cyberattack forces Anne Arundel Medical Center to reroute patients
A cybersecurity expert said incidents like the one impacting the medical center may become more common.
Lack of child care still a key need for WV businesses while state slowrolls lawmakers' bill
West Virginia’s business leaders continue to beat the drum that the state is woefully short on affordable childcare spots. They say it is one of the reasons the state continues to have the nation’s worst workforce participation of a little more than 50%.
Political adversaries join forces, urge Michiganders to vote "no" on state constitutional convention
The current state constitution requires asking Michiganders every 16 years to decide if they want to totally rewrite the constitution.
New UK taskforce will examine influence of political mega-donors
Government pledges to find quick ‘solution’ to party funding row under pressure from Labour MPs
Statement by Chief Pentagon Spokesman, Sean Parnell, on the Clinical G
The War Department remains focused on building and maintaining a ready, lethal fighting force prepared to dominate the battlefield and achieve peace through strength.
Google Avoids Breakup of Ad Tech Business in Antitrust Ruling
Google avoided a breakup of its ad tech business after a federal judge rejected the DOJ’s push to force the company to sell key assets.
Google won't be forced to sell its ad exchange after judge rejects DOJ breakup bid
A federal judge in Virginia declined to order Google to sell AdX, handing the DOJ its second straight loss in efforts to break up the tech giant
Google Won’t Be Forced To Sell Ad Tech Business Despite Monopoly, Judge Rules
The same judge previously ruled Google maintained a monopoly on online advertising in April 2025.
US judge rejects bid to break up Google's ad business
A US federal judge on Wednesday refused to force Google to sell a division of its digital advertising business, rejecting the government's push to break up part of the company's ad empire.The decision is the second time in recent years that a federal judge has declined to dismantle a piece of Google's business, after a judge last year refused to force the sale of its Chrome browser in a separate monopoly case over online search.
Google defeats US bid to force ad tech sale
Google defeated the U.S. Department of Justice's effort to force a sale of its online advertising exchange in Virginia, marking a key antitrust ruling.
DLSS 5 Tests Reveal A Single 12V-2×6 Power Connector Is Possibly Holding Back The GeForce RTX 5090
RTX 5090 Founders Edition struggles at 575W while dual power connector MSI RTX 5090 Lightning Z pulls 723W, revealing a 17% performance gap with DLSS 5
Google won't be forced to break up its ads business
The latest ruling has enormous implications for the $1 trillion global advertising economy.
Nvidia's controversial, face-changing, gen-AI DLSS 5 tech releases tomorrow for one game, and seems to tank frame-rates
If you own a 50-series GeForce graphics card or laptop, or use GeForce Now, you can try Nvidia's controversial new DLSS 5 tech this week.
Air Force Football: Season Simulation with EA Sports College Football 27
A Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy for Air Force in 2026?
Heliophysics Education Community meeting presentation
Presentation | Grades 6-12+ | In this presentation Dr. Samuel Schonfeld of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) discusses recent modeling efforts and results in heliophysics.
My Friend Has Big Plans for Our Toddlers. Uh, This Isn’t Happening.
You can't force a friendship!
August Monthly Review: ChatGPT In Epic
Death, taxes, another frontier lab healthcare launch inspiring truly insane LinkedIn takes. As much as I want to stay away, I repeatedly am the crewman unplugging his ears whenever we pass these sirens. So it’s not the first and probably not the last time we dial up the typewriter rather than tie ourselves to the mast. The full blow-by-blow timeline: Health API Guy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe The End of the Standalone PHR (Jan 8): ChatGPT Health arrives for consumers, at the time powered by b.well. I was bullish on the approach in that the best way for the PHR to finally solve distribution was to meet consumers were they already are (i.e. When Horizontal Meets Healthcare (Jan 9): OpenAI for Healthcare puts out the shingle for enterprises, with SharePoint ingestion standing in for the EHR integration the product actually needed. Another One: Anthropic’s Healthcare Debut (Jan 16): Claude's version, on HealthEx rails instead of b.well, with Agent Skills for FHIR development as the one true vertical-specific investment. ChatGPT for Clinicians: The Trap Sprung (Apr 24): OpenAI filled in the missing GTM middle with a free product for verified clinicians, effectively peeling the enterprise wrapper off ChatGPT for Healthcare and taking the PLG fight directly to OpenEvidence. OpenAI’s Second Attempt at Health (Jul 31): a relaunch of their patient specific app, now branded Health in ChatGPT, where the privacy partition came out, the connectors thinned, and b.well disappeared in favor of first-party FHIR work against a smaller network Beyond a Shingle So what was announced now? Today, we’re introducing a new electronic health record integration that brings authorized patient context from Epic into ChatGPT for Healthcare, along with the Healthcare Public Data plugin for direct, structured access to official healthcare datasets like PubMed, DailyMed, and CMS Coverage. Together, these capabilities bring ChatGPT closer to the systems and sources healthcare teams trust, while supporting the controls and compliance healthcare work requires. The core portfolio is unchanged from prior announcements we delineated and discussed (aside from the relaunch of patient-facing). Since trade publications still seem to be confusing them by using the wrong names: Enterprise sales motion: ChatGPT for Healthcare Protecting their core product / PLG: ChatGPT for Clinicians Consumer/patient-facing product: Health in ChatGPT So really, this is a feature release (specifically for ChatGPT for Healthcare when it comes to EHR integration). What’s cool about it, though, is that we are moving beyond just putting out a shingle. Everything in the January enterprise launch was horizontalizable: Horizontal tech companies thus generally start verticalization with their “putting out a shingle phase”. Telling the world you’re open for business as a horizontal tech company reliably attracts early inbound interest from buyers who are already trying to force-fit horizontal tools into domain-specific workflows and are eager for any signal that the vendor intends to support their use case more directly. Nothing was really vertical specific, which is exactly what you'd expect from the ultimate hypergrowth horizontal company dipping their toes into specific industries. But eventually you have to stop changing the sign on the door and start changing the product. Can you guess where the horizontal product was going to run out of road? This is the core dilemma writ large: verticalization requires differentiation, while scale economics of consumer and horizontal push toward unification. I’ve buried the lede so deep here it will be painful to some readers, but what should be shocking to no one is that my perspective is that EHR integration is the only path that meaningfully resolves this tension for ChatGPT for Healthcare. Integration with Microsoft Sharepoint is fine, but it is categorically insufficient for any product that hopes to influence clinical decision-making. SMART Money Well here we are, eight months later! Real vertical investment has begun, which surprised a few people. One friend in the industry messaged me: “Absolutely no way Epic gave ChatGPT API access.” Looking forensically at the announcements, the integration is notably read-only across appointment notes, laboratory results, medications, and specialist documentation. So while I’m not a betting man, I'd wager the house this is a SMART on FHIR launch: That sounds a lot like USCDI! The recommended path for the workflow they outline would be SMART on FHIR Their Health AI lead’s post is evocative of both standalone and EHR launch SMART, which another termed “ChartGPT” and “EHR Plugin” The implementation burden for SMART on FHIR is the lowest of the available integrative paths This is the team who literally did patient-facing SMART on FHIR with Epic last month Most importantly, if you’re a horizontal company, you generally still haven’t taken the full plunge and thus (overly) value reusability. SMART on FHIR is the logical compromise: healthcare-specific enough to matter, but standardized enough to reuse. Nobody Asked Judy Another friend asked “I thought they had to go to each health system, or did they go direct to Epic and now health systems opt in?” Given the trust paradigms in healthcare, this functionally cannot be Epic hoovering up all the data for OpenAI and shoving ChatGPT in their customers’ faces (or they would revolt). However, I do believe the aforementioned terrible coverage by TechCrunch and other outlets is probably responsible for that question, given the 325 million reference. When using FHIR as a business associate to an Epic customer, there is no EHR gatekeeping to speak of, as that isn’t how fhir.epic.com works: You register an app You pick your APIs You test against the sandbox APIs You list as “Ready for Production” Hospitals pick your app You test and go live with them Bluntly, nobody had to say yes or no in Verona (nor were they given the chance). Vendor Services (their next developer tier up that I doubt OpenAI is using quite yet in this initial release) certainly has contractual paperwork that some resent, but even there, the twin pressures of mounting antitrust and information blocking make outright gatekeeping increasingly fraught. My friend’s sentiment is, to me, representative of a broader industry neurosis, perhaps a sort of scar tissue of prior eras: people assume the gate is still there and never actually try the door. There are certainly other ways Epic (and any EHR) can put its thumb on the scale, but they are not so dumb as to stand in front of a federally mandated API and play bouncer at this exact moment in time. So I think they can and probably should go deeper, as this release is at best parity and at worst behind vertical-specific competition. OpenEvidence did a basic SMART launch with Sutter Health in February, allowing for more convenient evidence search by providers. They then add patient-context (the equivalent SMART on FHIR flow to what we see here) when Cedars-Sinai went enterprise-wide in May. UpToDate has four distinct applications across deeper workflows like patient engagement listed in Epic Showroom and announced a partnership with Epic to power Art at UGM Abridge and other ambient scribes have invested deeply into the deepest bidirectional clinical copilot workflow with integrations well beyond SMART on FHIR. In that light, the “Who is OpenAI primarily targeting here?” is clear. This release brings them into striking distance of OpenEvidence, but not the others quite yet. They are the only one of the three you can reach without building something truly Epic-specific. When will they go further? Competition is a great motivator to overcome the horizontal demons and start building things that can’t be reused: not across industries, not across EHRs, maybe not past the customer you built them for. That’s the price of actually verticalizing. The question is if and when OpenAI will be willing to pay it. Month in Review Here is the monthly review. As a reminder, this is a regular round-up of the month’s posts and other content to surface things you may have missed across regulation, litigation, interoperability, and beyond. AI assistance is used in these bullet summaries so I can focus on articles. Articles Published: None this month Video Content: The Information Exchange: Standards-based Thruple Edition (Aug 14): Back to school for us too, with Brad reporting in from the CMS Health Tech Ecosystem’s one year anniversary in DC. We get into the January CMS-0057 deadline, the fall rulemaking reading list, and why enrollment still keeps most apps off FHIR. The Information Exchange: Epic Dúnadan Edition (Aug 25): A UGM roundup with Ryan Brickner joining for the first time to check our takes against what the building actually thinks. Rangers, Ergo sitting on top of EHI, and a down-market lineup that needs some cuts. Regulatory: Stacked Deck, Bad Hand (Aug 05): ONC’s website refresh took the entire HIT Policy Committee record with it, so I rebuilt the archive and went looking for the regulatory capture story everyone assumes is buried in there. Stacking the deck and winning the hand turn out to be very different things. The Sixth Generation of Patient Access (Aug 19): A quick catalog of the five generations of patient access we’ve layered on since HIPAA, and the two candidates now competing to be the sixth. One is planned. The other is the market routing around the plan entirely. Court cases: Three Cases Walk Into a Docket (Aug 06): Two surprise settlements cleared the board in a single week, and then Judge Maddox dropped ninety-four pages on Vyne v. Henry Schein. The sleeper is a DMCA holding that makes direct-to-database a considerably riskier business model. Epic v. Health Gorilla: Into the MDL (Aug 10): Nine class actions are headed to Miami, and the Panel signaled it wants to bring the case that spawned them along too. That would leave Epic arguing the requests were obviously fraudulent in one courtroom and unknowable in the other. Amazon v. Perplexity: Agents Are Legalized! (Aug 11): The Ninth Circuit vacated the injunction against Comet, holding that the user is the one accessing the servers rather than the company that built the agent. A real win for agentic access, and a much narrower one than the headline suggests. Veeva v. Epic: Come At Me, Bro (Aug 26): Epic’s response brief wants the dismissal affirmed and, unusually, wants the opinion published as precedent. Buried in it is Epic’s own description of what its non-competes actually prohibit, which current and former employees should read closely. EHRs: The Contract Epic Would Never Sign Today (Aug 04): A 1999 SEC exhibit catches Epic licensing nearly its entire product line, Tapestry included, to the company that became TriZetto. The marketing services menu attached to it is the part that will make you blink. Forecast from Verona (Aug 07): The Epic Almanac makes one argument six different ways: the AI is only as good as the networks behind it. Emmie headlines, Art’s context stack is the most ambitious part, and Penny finally gets an autonomous coding date on the calendar. Works With Epic MyChart (Aug 17): Epic’s first new Showroom category since the death of Workshop certifies hardware instead of software, badge on the box and all. Made for iPhone, but for blood pressure cuffs, and rough news for anyone selling the RPM stack sitting in between. UGM Hot Takes 2026 (Aug 20): Everyone else covered the AI announcements, so I went after Savvy deleting the payment gateway, Rangers as Boost with the timer removed, and a down-market lineup with too many entries. Plus the Health Grid tidbits I cannot help myself on. MyChart Central Grows Up (Aug 24): Device data and Emmie turn Epic’s identity hub into a full consumer platform, which is both a logical answer to ChatGPT and a bit of a mistake. It also happens to be the best scraping target Epic has ever shipped. Industry Analysis: The Wrong Yardstick (Aug 12): Vertical software keeps getting judged against Superhuman and Notion, which is the wrong bar entirely. Your user is comparing your product to a whiteboard and forty phone calls before lunch. Primitives vs. Abstractions (Aug 27): Developers want building blocks, systems of record prefer to hand out business logic, and both sides have a real case. There’s no test from the outside that separates the engineering reason from the competitive one, which is why this keeps ending up in court. Cross-industry Comparisons: The Two Kinds of Platform Power (Aug 18): Attention power and record power are different problems that keep getting handed the same regulatory toolkit. Congress’s latest swing at Big Tech shows both what’s possible and where it falls apart. The Dogs of (Platform) War (Aug 21): A CourtListener alert turned up a property management fight with healthcare’s exact shape and none of the Cures Act. Shell prospects, ghost accounts, a notetaker bot that came back to haunt someone, and a lawyer arguing both sides of the same theory in two states. Fractals All the Way Down (Aug 31): Yardi dominates property management right up until you zoom into one segment, where AppFolio owns it outright and Yardi doesn’t appear at all. Where you draw the line around a B2B software market is about to decide an awful lot of cases. Other News: If Judy Had the Courage (Aug 13): A short eulogy for the era when software was allowed to look insane: WinAMP, bold colors, and everything the grey chatbot era has taken from us. External Media: Portland Monthly Health Tech Meetup: Erin O’Brien channeled my own feelings - maybe it’s just because it’s August and beautiful, but the monthly edition of the PDX Health community meetup was a ripper. Make sure to reach out if interested to join for the next one. STAT’s Coverage of Epic This Month: Brittany Trang of STAT did a fantastic job of breaking the FTC investigation that’s been lurking, as well as UGM related coverage, so I had to give her her wish of a meme. Fall Conferences: I’m pumped to be kicking off my fall conference season in NYC at Nabla Accelerate next month, which Chrissy provided the link to apply for. Here’s the rest of my schedule in case you want to meet up: Commonwell (Redwood Shores, CA): Oct 13-14 Open@Epic (Madison, WI): Oct 21-22 eHealthExchange (Austin, TX): Oct 27 Sequoia Project (Austin, TX): Oct 28-29 HLTH (Vegas): Nov 15-18 RSNA (Chicago): Nov 29-Dec 3 Posts I Liked: HTI-6 Should Unbundle API Certification: Josh Mandel makes the case that HTI-6 should split (g)(10) into separate authorization and data certifications, so a PACS or a genomics platform can certify only the role it actually performs. Imaging is the urgent example, but the structure solves a much bigger problem. On implementing ePrior Auth with Epic: Scott Rossignol’s field notes from a live ePrior Auth build on Epic, including the two app registrations nobody warns you about and the CPT mapping problem waiting at the end. CMS-0057 implementations are going to be such a beast. Healthcare point solutions are starting to look a lot like streaming services: Spencer Dorn runs the cable-to-streaming arc against health IT and lands squarely on the bundling half of the cycle. Bundling can be good! It can also be bad! Life is nuanced. Health API Guy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe
Immigration activity is taking a toll on children’s health, doctors say
Many healthcare providers report that since January 2025, they’ve seen a surge in missed pediatric appointments, delayed preventive care, and sick or injured kids going without treatment. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests have continued to climb — with a record 51,000 arrests in July — and experts predict continued unhealthy outcomes among children, causing collateral damage that could extend for years.
Not enough money, people or paper: Election officials say they can’t comply with Trump’s proposed mail ballot rules
Trump administration efforts to force change in the handling of election ballots may be facing a bigger hurdle than the cross-country court challenges and resistance: Election officials insist it is simply too late for them to even try to comply with the proposed rules.
See the biggest deals on European transfer deadline day
Phew!September 1 was, as expected, INTENSE in the transfer market.Clubs from Europe’s Top 5 leagues only had until this Tuesday to bring in more reinforcements.And plenty of teams opened their walle...
Acting labor secretary praises Vegas Chamber workforce hub
A government-funded on-the-job training program is helping some Las Vegas businesses cover the cost of training new employees, an effort Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling highlighted Tue...
Federal judge tosses Trump lawsuit over young trans athletes in California school sports
In a major LGBTQ+ rights victory, the justice department cannot force the state to ban trans girls from women’s sports
Florida's 6-Foot-1 Enforcer Feels 'Disrespected' Before Season
Fueled by an All-SEC snub, junior linebacker Myles Graham aims to anchor a revitalized Gators defense and silence critics during head coach Jon Sumrall’s high-stakes debut season.
Educators, industry leaders discuss the future of data science, AI careers with Niswonger Foundation
Industry and education leaders gathered for a workshop led by the Niswonger Foundation. The workshop focused on shifting workforce needs in the data science and artificial intelligence fields. Local stakeholders such as Kingsport City School, Eastman Chemical Company and Ballad health attended.
Capped or graduated income tax rate? Colorado voters to decide
The proposal to create income tax tiers — which would replace Colorado’s flat rate — has been certified for the November general election ballot, setting the stage for a major showdown between two competing forces seeking to define the parameters of state revenue. Initiative No. 195, which would raise the tax obligations on higher-income earners, will […]
Massie seeks signatures to force vote on second Epstein files bill
Massie is once again using a legislative maneuver called a "discharge petition"
Heavy Metal Sausage was forced to stop serving dinner. It may shutter the acclaimed South Philly restaurant
The South Philly butcher shop's acclaimed trattoria dinners are on pause after a health inspector found Heavy Metal Sausage Co.'s layout inadequate for indoor seating.
NVIDIA DLSS 5 Launches in NBA 2K27 September 3rd, DLSS Comes to STAR WARS Zero Company, Onimusha: Way of the Sword & The Blood of Dawnwalker
Each week, new games and apps integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex, and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. In the last few days, STAR WARS Zero Company and Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 have launched with DLSS....
Meta is switching from Google Chat to Slack for AI agents
Meta is moving employees from Google Chat to Slack, saying Salesforce's product is better suited for an ecosystem of AI agents.
DLSS 5 Officially Goes Live September 3 With NBA 2K27, Exclusive to RTX 50-series "Blackwell" GPUs
NVIDIA has confirmed that DLSS 5 will officially launch on September 3 alongside NBA 2K27, and it will remain exclusive to GeForce RTX 50-series GPUs. When asked directly at a Gamescom technical briefing whether older cards would ever receive support, NVIDIA gave a flat answer: "It's RTX...
How SBGA Helps Small Businesses Build Operations That Keep Up With Growth
. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses account for the vast majority of American companies and employ nearly half the private-sector workforce.
All ICE agents in the field expected to have body cameras by the end of September, Mullin says
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the field are expected to have body cameras by the end of September, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said at a press conference in New York Tuesday.
Political Attacks Are Pushing Public Libraries To ‘Breaking Point,’ New Report Shows
Attacks on librarians, forced storytime cancellations and book bans are threatening the stability of public libraries
Marine Science Career Accelerator Helps Student Careers
New, hands-on program aids students in bridging the gap between the classroom and the workforce by offering professional certifications and field experience
gamescom 2026’s Steam wishlist winners
gamescom wrapped up last weekend, and it was bloody fantastic. It really felt like the industry had a spring in its step again. The show itself was BUZZING, with 368K attendees (+3% over last year), maxed-out exhibit space, and Opening Night Live pulling over 78M online views (+7.5%). Let’s have a look at the games at the event that brought in the most new Steam wishlists between August 23 and 30. One quick thing before we start, and stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but wishlists are NOT a barometer for launch sales (they’re bookmarks, not baskets is what we always say over here at Alinea). With that aside, wishlists are a nice gauge of hype, so let’s dive in. Witche(r)s and Warlocks take the top two spots The biggest game of the event (by new wishlists, anyways) wasn’t a game at all. It was an expansion. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s upcoming expansion, Songs of the Past, nabbed 451K Steam wishlists by the end of the weekend. It’s a big example of something we bang on about constantly: proven IP with built-in fandom is the most powerful force in this market. But said IP can also ripple into other external success stories (more on that later!). Anyway, Songs of the Past debuted at Opening Night Live, and it’s the first Witcher 3 expansion in over a decade, landing next year after a full Witcher 3 remaster (free for existing owners!) arrives next month. The Witcher 3 has sold around 66M copies, and I’ll be one of those owners jumping back in to refresh myself on the core game (like there isn’t enough to play!), then play the expansion next year. This is all part of CDPR’s plan. The studio is clearly whetting everyone’s appetite for The Witcher 4 in 2028 via a classic bridge strategy. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Releasing a free 4K remaster next month – followed by a proper expansion in 2027 – keeps IP top-of-mind across a huge gap between content (games-wise, anyway). It kind of echoes Capcom’s evergreen catalogue strategy. And outsourcing co-development to Fool’s Theory (a studio led by trusted Witcher 3 veterans) keeps CDPR’s internal headcount focused on The Witcher 4. #2 by wishlists between Aug 23 and 30 went to another giant IP: Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons, published by Wizards of the Coast and developed by Invoke Studios (a team of ex-Far Cry, Watch Dogs, and Splinter Cell devs). It’s due to launch in 2027, and it looks brilliant so far. It’s a dark-fantasy open world with third-person spell-slinging. It’s a very Witcher-ish aesthetic. As you might expect, 48% of Warlock’s Steam wishlisters have played Baldur’s Gate 3, and 46% have played The Witcher 3. One to watch. For sure! Mash-ups: Anime GTA (!?) and a city-builder for kids (and adults) Ananta took #3 with 302K new wishlists. It’s an open-world game that looks like GTA and Persona had a baby. It was published by NetEase, developed by Naked Rain, and got a trailer at Opening Night Live. I got hands-on at the show, and it wears its influences openly; there’s literal web-slinging (very Spider-Man) and a LOAD of mini-games (Like a Dragon). It’s free-to-play and out in January. For Ananta, Naked Rain is taking the free-to-play, cosmetics-only route. That’s certainly a choice for a single-player open-world game. Without gacha mechanics driving high ARPU, Ananta is betting purely on top-of-funnel reach and long-term retention. This puts pressure on skin appeal when there’s no multiplayer lobby to flex in (although, co-op is reportedly coming later). Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Then there’s Lego Skylines (273K wishlists between Aug 23 and 30), which does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a cosy Lego twist on the city-builder genre, as shallow or as deep as you fancy (five min quick sesh or ten-hour no-lifer session; latter for me). There’s some family-friendly stuff in there like couch co-op, which is only really viable on console. Iceflake Studios, which Paradox acquired back in 2020 is developing this one. So Paradox is probably looking for a family-friendly onramp to its rad Cities: Skylines games. The overlap there is plain, with 33% of Lego Skylines wishlisters having played Cities: Skylines and 16% Skylines II. There’s no doubt plenty of parents here (and uncles, ahem) planning to indoctrinate the next gen of city-builders. I’ll definitely be playing with my youngest nephew. This one could be big and educational. I’m very curious to see more. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Mature IP, new and old, rounds out the list As for the rest of the list of gamescom games by new wishlists between Aug 23 and 30: Heroes of Might & Magic III Remake got 189K new wishlists. It remakes the iconic 1999 turn-based-strategy classic in full 3D and 4K. It follows this year’s Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era (~1.8M copies sold, as per our estimates), and around a quarter of the III Remake wishlisters have played Olden Era, including 7% of them this month. Wardogs – a $40 PvP shooter – added another 146K to an already massive pile (nearly 1.6M total). It’s published by Team17 and made by Bulkhead. It plays somewhere between the tactical squad stuff of … Squad and the all-out-chaos battlefield of … Battlefield. It’s up to 100 players, and it’s out in about 10 days. It’s already pre-sold over 500K copies on Steam ($16.6M), boosted by a pre-order-only beta. It sold another 70K copies during gamescom, too. Afterworld managed 121K new wishlists. It’s a Paradox-made post-apocalyptic grand-strategy game, and it was announced at the show. It’s a departure from Paradox’s usual historical stuff, and the studio’s first new setting in over a decade. The Paradox purists are into it, with over half its wishlisters having played Hearts of Iron IV (19% this month) and 41% Crusader Kings III (17% this month). Metro 2039 got 110K during the show, tunnelling its total past 1.3M. Nearly 40% of wishlisters have played 2020’s Metro Exodus, the previous mainline title in the series. The Metro novels are Russian, dev 4A Games is Ukrainian, and it’s set in Moscow, so it’s unsurprising that – after the US (17.3% of wishlisters) – the next two countries are Russia (12.7%) and Ukraine (10.0%). The Blood of the Dawnwalker drew in (the blood of) 108K new wishlisters, now totalling an impressive 1.7M (at a $70 price point, though). It’s an open-world dark-fantasy action-RPG set in 14th-century Europe (with vampires!), made by some former Witcher devs at Rebel Wolves. Again, it shows. Over half of Blood of the Dawnwalker’s wishlisters have played The Witcher 3, and its #2 market is Poland, home of Rebel Wolves. That’s that hometown-hero effect we keep banging on about again! And Blood of the Dawnwalker plays very well, by the way. While it looks like a Witcher clone on the surface, it actually brings a lot to the table mechanics-wise. I love the whole time-as-a-currency spin on RPG gameplay. It gives the game a different, refreshing pace. Essentially, you start Blood of the Dawnwalker with a pool of 480 action points spread across 30 days and 30 nights. As for how the game performs, we’ll be posting some numbers next week, so hit subscribe below to get that in your inbox when it’s ready. Subscribe The Witcher’s legacy ripples Make no mistake: on a high level, this was The Witcher‘s gamescom. The #1 game by wishlisters was a Witcher 3 DLC. Warlock is clearly Witcher-inspired – as is Blood of the Dawnwalker, which was made by ex-Witcher devs. There was a lot of other cool stuff on the floor that we’ll no doubt be covering in subsequent newsletters, though! As always, wishlists went through the roof for sequels, remakes, DLC, and licensed IP. As always, though, these wishlists will likely convert to about 5% to 10% of launch-day buyers, with the probable exception of The Witcher DLC – the exception that proves the rule. Either way, we’ve got a nice, diverse list here – one that is very Witcher-y, Paradox-y, and – if you’re a fan of great games on Steam – a bloody good list. We even got a bunch of new IP to get excited for. Great gamescom! Even if we are still processing that unfathomable number of mini Kölsch beers! One more thing: GTA 6 broke the internet (again) Move aside, Spider-Man and The Odyssey (I love you both, really). But the decade’s defining entertainment zeitgeist is round the corner. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that Rockstar dropped an extended look at GTA 6 last week. It was INSANE, the most impressed I’ve ever been by a showcase like this. You can see the budget seeping through every second of the extended look, and this level of game is unobtainable for any other publisher. Everyone’s going nuts, and rightly so. GTA 6 is out in holiday 2026, and it’ll be the biggest entertainment release ever, full stop. For those without a PS5 or Xbox Series console, a $500-$900 console is a big ask in this economy, but GTA will pull a lot of last-generation-console fence sitters over the current-gen fence either way: The autumn timing puts GTA 6 on (digital) shelves for the holidays, meaning a PS5 or Xbox (let’s be honest, mostly the former) will be on many a Christmas and Hanukkah list. Demand will outweigh the struggling supply, though, and PS5 Pros are already sold out and being sold at a markup via scalpers. Every console that isn’t on a shelf is a sale deferred or lost, and worse, it hands scalpers the margin. GTA has cultural clout that reaches everyone. It’s been a mainstream fixture since 2001’s GTA III and its clout has only grown exponentially since then. There’s a touchpoint for every generation alive. The FOMO-word-of-mouth double punch does the rest. Loading... It’ll reactivate the lockdown cohort, the millions who picked up gaming in 2020-21 and churned. GTA 6 will bring them back. Remember when College Football 25 brought a bunch of US gamers to current-gen consoles? GTA will do that globally. Once they’re back (or upgraded), and all GTA’d out, the fresh current-gen-console folks will check out the rest of the current-gen catalogue they missed. GTA Online, if not free to play, will also lead to a boost for PS+ and Xbox Game Pass, another boost for the ecosystem players. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Even some of the smug PCMR 60FPS crew won’t be able to resist their FOMO and will bite the bullet on a console to play this one early (then double dip). The consoles cost the same as a decent stick of RAM these days anyway lmao… Don’t get me wrong, though. GTA 6 is no silver bullet for the mature console market, but it does prime the current gen for a couple of strong swan-song years. And it’ll also give the consoles more users from which to maximise ARPU. ‘’We are in the latter half of the lifetime cycle of [the PS5],’’ said Sony President and CEO Hiroki Totoki in a Wall Street Journal interview. ‘’That means we do not need to aggressively sell the console today; rather than that, we are focusing on the current revenue from the current user base.’’ The biggest, best premium games always arrive late in a console cycle, so getting more players aboard now, ahead of that content storm (the new current-gen-only Call of Duty included), is a clear win for the platforms. On the Netflix thing, though: let’s all chill out a bit, like. Half my LinkedIn feed was going bonkers treating the reveal debuting on Netflix like it’s the future of entertainment. It wasn’t. It was a six-hour head start, and Netflix left that detail out of the “first-of-its-kind partnership” press release. The extended look hit Netflix at 3pm ET on 27 August, then went up on YouTube and Rockstar’s site for everyone six hours later. And it was all over social immediately, anyways. This reveal was going to reach an untold number of people whether it debuted on Netflix, YouTube, a Times Square screen, or a group chat. The last trailer did nearly half a billion views in a day with no gatekeeper at all. Netflix just stood next to that audience for six hours, borrowing it. It’s was a tidy deal for Netflix, sure. But every outlet on earth was breaking the thing down frame by frame by the evening anyway. Anyway. I’m hype. And we’ll be covering some GTA numbers on the newsletter soon. So hit subscribe below to get that in your inbox when it’s ready! Subscribe The last word Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover. [Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]
KPMG sets up new S.F. office in ‘AI Alley’ near Anthropic and Salesforce
KPMG opens its new San Francisco office at 505 Howard Street, featuring an Ignition Center designed for client collaboration on AI transformation and business challenges.
EU chief diplomat taps ex-political, military leaders for defense group
The taskforce will focus on European defense as the bloc faces growing pressure to take more responsibility for its own security.
Scientists discover why snake embryos twist into spirals
Snake embryos begin life curled into a distinctive right-handed spiral, and scientists may finally know why. Their bodies grow faster than their guts, creating a tether that forces the lengthening embryo to buckle and twist inside the egg. Researchers reached the conclusion after studying more than 900 embryos and using CT scans to reveal the hidden anatomy behind the coils.
Home State Health and Centene Foundation Award $750,000 to Missouri Organizations Advancing Community Health
Funding supports community-based programs addressing food security, housing stability, workforce development, foster care and rural health across Missouri ST. LOUIS, Sept. 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ --...
The Trump Administration Is Dismantling One of America's Greatest Strategic Assets: Its Scientific Workforce
The loss of US scientific expertise will be measured in discoveries and medical advances never made, and lives that might have been saved.
Businesses Are Using AI to Transform Work, Not Cut Jobs
A look at the effects of AI adoption on workforces using the New York Fed’s business surveys in the New York and Northern New Jersey region.
Some Memphis businesses push back against Memphis Safe Task Force
More than 50 Memphis businesses have signed onto a public pledge to deny service to members of the Memphis Safe Task Force.
The Department of the Navy’s Science and Technology Board: Building on 250 Years of Naval Innovation
In September of 1776, an enormous British armada lay anchored in New York Harbor. A month earlier, British forces under General William Howe had defeated the Continental Army and gained control of New York City and Long Island. Now this fleet of 400 ships, including 10 ships-of-the-line, 20 frigates, and 170 transports among many others
Caio Borralho Calls for Fight at UFC 334
UFC middleweight contender Caio Borralho called for a fight at the upcoming UFC 334 card in his return to the Octagon.Borralho, the No. 6-ranked middleweight in the Meta UFC Rankings, was supposed to fight Joe Pyfer at UFC 330 but was forced to pull out due to injury.He is now getting back to full health […] The post Caio Borralho Calls for Fight at UFC 334 appeared first on HEAVY.
NSF launches three new Science and Technology Centers with $90M investment in transformative research
The U.S. National Science Foundation is investing $90 million over five years to support three new NSF Science and Technology Centers (NSF STC). These centers will advance American leadership in science and technology, strengthen the nation’s STEM workforce, and accelerate innovation in fields ranging from artificial intelligence and biotechnology to fusion energy and robotics., , , , The three centers will bring together researchers from universities, national laboratories, industry, and oth...
Tensions erupt in House hearing as GOP advances anti-socialism resolution while Dems rage: 'Silly season'
House Republicans force Democrats to vote on condemning socialism and capping the Supreme Court at nine justices amid the left's inter-party civil war.
BUYcott Urges Elected Officials and Business Owners to 'Stand Up' to Task Force
Organizers said 48 businesses have publicly declared their opposition of the MSTF, by refusing search and service to agents.
Lebanon asks Greece to help enforce agreement with Israel
After Greece agrees to Israeli weapons deal, Joseph Aoun asks Athens to help advance US-brokered framework agreement.
Austin American-Statesman: Yes to women in sports. No to rigid quotas in Title IX enforcement
The government should abandon its quota-driven enforcement policies and return decision-making about athletics back to schools and students.
Red Sox forced to replace Willson Contreras after Yankees series
The Boston Red Sox replaced first baseman Willson Contreras after an unfortunate update.
How SF’s most powerful mom became a political force
Meredith Dodson turned pandemic parent fury into a machine that reshaped SF school politics.
Mark Walter scandal, LA Lakers sale raise concern about ownership in pro sports
Billionaire Mark Walter’s purchase of the Los Angeles Lakers and his subsequent forced sale of the team less than a year later amid allegations of financial crimes at his companies are sparking fre…
NVIDIA Shuts Down RTX 5000 Power Limit Control OC in Latest Driver Update
We recently reported on the open-source overclocking tool, mVolt+, unlocking power limit control on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5000-series GPUs, allowing certain GPUs, like the RTX 5090, to draw up to 125 W of additional power and enabling significantly higher core clock speeds as a result. With the...
US strikes Iranian island where forces were preparing to launch mines, official says
The US military on Sunday struck Iran’s Larak Island, where forces were observed preparing to launch mines into the Strait of Hormuz, according to a US official, marking the first strikes in the war in over a month.