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SpaceX's Next Big Business Isn't Rockets. It's Computer Chips.
The newly public space company is quietly buying its way into the AI hardware race.
Amazon quietly updated 2023’s Fire HD 10 tablet with 4GB of RAM
The 32GB model is now available with a bump from 3GB to 4GB of RAM with a small price increase.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp's properties, homes: See inside
Palantir's Alex Karp has quietly built a nine-figure real estate portfolio. Here are some of the homes and properties he owns in the US.
Scientists have detected a giant fan-shaped structure buried beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, suggesting the frozen continent may be hiding the geological scars of the breakup that helped separate Antarctica from Australia
East Antarctica can look, from above, like the quiet half of the frozen continent: old, thick, cold and buried under kilometres of ice. But beneath that ice, new mapping suggests the bedrock may carry the shape of a much more violent past. In a Nature Geoscience study published in June 2026, researchers described a giant […]
MAGA Base Stays Quiet After Trump Reports Billions in Personal Gains
A new mandatory disclosure revealed that the president has earned $2.2 billion during the first year back in the White House.
Something Is Going On With Mitch McConnell’s Health, and His Office Is Keeping Mighty Quiet About It
McConnell checked into a hospital last month. We don’t know why.
Meta quietly launches vibe-coded gaming app Pocket
Meta has quietly launched Pocket, an experimental AI app that lets users generate and share interactive mini games using text prompts.
Cincinnati Reds' Offense Goes Quiet in Loss to Brewers
Noelvi Marte’s two-run homer was the only offense Cincinnati could muster in a 4-2 loss to Milwaukee on Wednesday night.
Dwayne Johnson Faces Backlash for Staying Quiet on Politics
Dwayne Johnson is being called out by George Takei, Wil Wheaton and other Hollywood voices for his decision to stay quiet on politics.
OnePlus is now pushing its users to buy Oppo products in some regions
OnePlus is, in some regions, pushing its customers to buy Oppo products instead, and the subtext isn't at all quiet here.
Think Insurance Denials Only Hurt Patients? Why Business Owners Are Paying the Ultimate Price
A simple 9-week delay for a critical medication resulted in a $50,000 surgical nightmare. Here is how healthcare bureaucratic delays quietly destroy your company's bottom line.
Netflix and Superheroes Are Having a Rough Stretch on Streaming....
(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.) I have a quick prediction before we start today’s article: You might see this data in future news articles. Not my specific charts or analysis, but the core trend I’ve been monitoring—Netflix is having a lackluster Q2—will become inescapable. Often, folks want to know “What does the data say?” Well, that’s what it says. I haven’t seen this analysis hit the trades really yet, but I have a feeling some other outlets are going to start making this case soon. Remember, you read it here first. You probably have read about the problems facing superhero films at the box office this weekend. Well, this week, I explore whether superheroes are dying on TV as well! And the data says: definitely maybe! We have a lot to cover in today’s Streaming Ratings Report, which covers the two weeks of 18-May and 25-May. Today, I’m just looking at TV, like Netflix’s disappointing Q2, superhero shows underwhelming, a few TV shows dropping off the charts, The Pitt finally ending its epic run on the viewership charts (and whether “view counts” change its status as one of the biggest shows of all time), all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. Tomorrow, I’ve got a great rundown of the film side of things. 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, Showlabs, TV Time trend 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 May 18th to May 31st, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Television - Netflix’s Q2 Slump Continues Having analyzed streaming ratings for going on half a decade, I have learned to trust my gut, but I’m always relieved when I can find actual data to back it up. For example, after a string of very popular shows like Stranger Things, Bridgerton, The Lincoln Lawyer and The Night Agent came out, week after week, in January and February, my gut wondered if Netflix had enough new and returning TV shows to sustain them throughout the year. Since then, Netflix’s post-March slate of shows has not impressed me. This week seemed to feature a potential new hit, but then, like a classic Duffer Bros. TV show, there was a twist. I speak of The Boroughs, Netflix’s latest (and last) Duffer Bros. produced show. The pitch is “Stranger Things with older actors”. And it topped the Nielsen charts: With just two weeks of viewership, The Boroughs would have been a top 25 debut show last year: But here’s the twist: Netflix has already cancelled The Boroughs! What happened? Likely a few things. First, the show didn’t do as well globally as it did in the US. As What’s on Netflix showed, it lagged behind several other shows that got cancelled. Second, its completion rate was likely low; after an initial burst of interest, it quickly dropped off on the Samba TV and Luminate charts. Third, the Duffer Bros. left Netflix for Paramount, and that may have factored into Netflix’s decision here. (Though I tend to believe that if a show is doing well, Netflix would have kept greenlighting seasons.) Still, just because I can explain why Netflix may have cancelled this show doesn’t mean I’m justifying it. In particular, as I’ve noted before, Netflix is losing a lot of their bigger shows as they reach their natural ends, and they need to replace those shows. This show had the hallmarks of a big new genre show, and it’s their biggest hit of the last few months (in the US at least), but now it’s done. Netflix’s other show this week—The Four Seasons, the second season of the “hit” show from last year—definitely disappointed. Its sophomore season had about half the viewership of the first, only 12.7 million hours. It also only had a two week run on Samba TV, and its numbers were all down on Luminate too. In other words, even with two successes, the Q2 slump for Netflix looks real: I could add to the list of disappointments: Both Lord of the Files and Man on Fire had short runs on the Nielsen charts. Running Point’s sophomore season also opened to about half its viewership, similar to The Four Seasons. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder’s second season—see below—didn’t even make any of the three viewership charts I track, unlike the first season. Netflix is absolutely having a dismal second three months of 2026. If this Nielsen data is any indication, and I think it is, I think this will show up in Netflix’s engagement report, and maybe even their financial outcomes. And the rest of June doesn’t look much better. We have two hit shows coming back—Sweet Magnolias, one of their quietest big shows, and Avatar: The Last Airbender, a big hit for them in 2024—but the other big swings are limited series crime thrillers i.e. no future season potential. Like I said above, sometimes when I uncover a juicy nugget like this, other outlets end up writing very similar articles mimicking the data without credit. We’ll see if that happens this time! Share Television - The State of Superhero Shows on Streaming When I first heard the pitch for Spider-Noir—a Sony TV show on Prime Video that binge-released eight episodes first on MGM+ then on Prime Video two days later—I had my doubts. It’s a live-action Spider-Man show set in the 1930s, starring Nicholas Cage, based on a cameo of a character in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. No, seriously, that’s the pitch. That could either go terrifically well or horribly wrong. Great because, Spider-Man. He’s the biggest superhero we have. I’ve seen tracking numbers that put the new _Spider-Man: Brand New Da_y as the blockbuster of the year and initial pre-sales back that up. And yet this Spider-Noir pitch feels very esoteric. (Also, the eight-episode binge release feels very “Amazon copying Netflix” again.) So what’s the data say? And what does this say about the future of superhero shows?
How fear of a market meltdown may have quietly shaped the Supreme Court’s ruling to protect Fed independence
Behind the scenes with Jon Ossoff, the 2026 — and maybe 2028
Outside the frame of the viral clips – shot by two cameras carefully positioned on either side of the stage – were over a thousand people, hot under the tin roof of a converted ironworks on Saturday afternoon. They applauded a few times and got one “USA! USA!” chant briefly going, but mostly they sat quietly listening as Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff spoke.
Science says these 7 parenting beliefs may be quietly making life harder for parents and children
Every parent wants to give their child the best possible upbringing. But in trying to be the “perfect parent,” many may be putting unnecessary pressure on themselves. A 2023 survey of more than 700 parents by researchers at Ohio State University found that 57% reported experiencing parental burnout. Surprisingly, the biggest predictor wasn't the number of children they had or how many hours they worked- it was the pressure to live up to an impossible standard of parenting. Child development experts say many of the beliefs parents consider signs of “good parenting” may actually be making life harder for both parents and children. Here's what science says.Here are seven common parenting beliefs that science says may be working against both parents and children.
Bad news: Netflix now wants every single profile in your house to have its own email login
Netflix quietly updates how shared accounts work
Netflix wants everyone in your house to have their own email login now
Netflix is quietly changing how shared accounts work, one profile at a time.
Scientists Baffled by Discovery of Rare “Pink Floyd” Spider Hidden in Home Walls - Futura-Sciences
The Birth of a “Pink Floyd” Spider Tiny, discreet, and quietly settled on urban walls, a new species of spider was recently discovered in Colombia—and christened as a tribute to the iconic rock band Pink Floyd. As part of a study published in the journal Zoosystematics and Evolution, South American...
KXNO layoffs leave Iowa sports community too quiet
This week's layoffs of local sports radio talkers leaves our sports community worse off, columnist Travis Hines writes.
How an Iowa junior college became a sports giant
DMACC athletic programs are quietly dominating through coaching and player performance
Valve Quietly Walks Back Steam Machine 4K 60 FPS Performance Claims
Valve's Steam Machine has earned more than its fair share of skeptics, thanks to performance claims and more recently its unfortunate pricing. More recently, though, Valve has seemingly taken some of this criticism to heart and silently changed some of those performance claims on the Steam Machine p...
Valve quietly changes Steam Machine 4K claim: 4K 60 FPS becomes “up to 4K”
Valve has changed the Steam Machine 4K claim. The page now says “up to 4K” with FSR 4.1 instead of 4K 60 FPS with FSR.
Chris Evert shares devastating health update
It is the news that no one wanted to hear about Chris Evert. Amid the Netflix press tour and her upcoming ESPN commentary duties at Wimbledon, we learned on Wednesday that she quietly stepped away to deal with a health…
Rubio’s spin on the Iran MOU sounds different from Trump and Vance
For more than a week, America’s top diplomat was conspicuously quiet about something that would have seemed very much in his wheelhouse: a nascent agreement with Iran. But now Secretary of State Marco Rubio is speaking.
Windows 10 support quietly extended until Oct 2027, as users reject Windows 11
Microsoft extends Windows 10 ESU for home users to October 2027, one year longer than planned. Here's the changes, the cost and how to enroll
Microsoft quietly extends Windows 10's extra security updates program for free: Users can now stay on Windows 10 until October 2027 securely
Windows 10's ESU program has been quietly extended by an extra year, now ending on October 12, 2027 instead of October 2026.
The ‘tech neck’ time bomb: why 43 million young Americans could cripple U.S. health care within a generation
A spine surgeon warns that smartphone addiction is quietly deforming the spines of Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
Zendaya and Tom Holland kept their wedding quiet. Their 'Spider-Man' red carpet style is anything but.
Some of these looks shouldn't work on paper — but this is Zendaya.
Google quietly added a major high-res audio feature to Pixels with Android 17
Android 17 quietly introduces native LHDC audio support, unlocking high-res wireless audio for Pixel devices with compatible earbuds.
Microsoft says it'll force install Microsoft 365 Copilot on Windows 11 with MS 365 Business in the next 30 days
Microsoft quietly confirmed that the Microsoft 365 Copilot app will auto-install on eligible Windows PCs with Microsoft 365 desktop apps.
April Coffee is a business coach and an advocate for unification around scholarships
By Andy Furman NKyTribune staff writer April Coffee says she was quiet, real quiet – almost shy – when she attended Scott High School. Really? If so, she fooled the Covington Rotary Club, as she had them mesmerized on every word during her noontime presentation recently at the Radisson Hotel. “I’m a Business Coach,” she...
Business leaders urged state to buy Preakness brand, back $85 million deal
Maryland business leaders quietly urged Gov. Wes Moore to buy Preakness trademarks months before the state’s $85 million deal.
The quiet end of identity politics
California’s primary election showed that candidates of all backgrounds should be judged on their merits, not their visibility.
Scientists are uncovering how common viruses may quietly increase cancer risk
Everyday viral infections may be quietly reshaping the body’s network of molecules that support cells and tissues in ways that can raise cancer risk over time
Gulf airlines get back to business as flights near pre-war levels
Say it quietly, but Gulf airlines are back in business.
For once, Cowboys enter NFL summer break free of contract drama
After years of offseason contract battles involving stars like Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons, Dallas heads into the summer with rare peace and quiet
On KC’s Southwest Blvd., no World Cup crowds, business bad: ‘Where is everybody?’
“The streets are quiet, restaurants are empty, and foot traffic is far below expectations,” wrote Caitlin Benedict, owner of Bisou cafe.
Rockstar quietly gives us probably our best look at GTA 6's Vice City yet
Rockstar has also shared the cover art and more official images along with the pre-order release date for GTA 6 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
The quiet end of identity politics
California’s primary election showed that voters are prioritizing competence, results, and accountability over identity politics, and that candidates of all backgrounds should be judged on th…
Macron’s Nuclear Gamble: Building a European Deterrent Faster Than French Politics Can Tear Down
In early March, French President Emmanuel Macron stood at a windswept submarine base on the Breton coast and quietly buried four decades of French nuclear
The Milky Way’s black hole is eerily quiet. Scientists have now found evidence of its missing wind
Scientists have searched for wind coming from our galaxy’s supermassive black hole for 50 years. Now, researchers believe they have captured evidence of wind outflow.
The Milky Way’s black hole is eerily quiet. Scientists have now found evidence of its missing wind
Scientists have searched for wind coming from the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole for 50 years. Now, researchers believe they have captured evidence.
'Smile' tackles sports, 'A Quiet Place' hits Florida Keys in new IDW Dark comics (exclusive)
'Smile' entity tackles sports and 'A Quiet Place' hits the Florida Keys in new IDW Dark comic expansions.
Turkey's Erdogan Is Running Out of Tricks
"The latest maneuvers of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey signal that he has no plans to quietly exit the political stage," writes Ian Bremmer.
Armie Hammer explains how 'old Jamaican guy' helped quiet his anger over famous friends' lack of support
Armie Hammer explained how an 'old Jamaican guy' helped him get over the anger of his famous friends failing to publicly support him through his abuse scandal.
Lenovo quietly launches new tablet with big JBL speaker and 120Hz display
The Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 was silently announced through iF Design in February 2026. Now, the company has listed the tablet for sale. This 12.1-inch pad with a large JBL speaker starts at €429.01 in the EU.
To Sell Your Small Business, First Make It Legible
Over the next decade, millions of these decisions will play out quietly, business by business. Avoiding it starts earlier than most owners expect/
The quiet, galactic ambitions of Cursor CEO Michael Truell
How the hottest AI coding company navigated its situationship with Anthropic and hitched its fate to Elon Musk's chaotic rocket.
ESSAY: The quiet alienation of a New York Knicks title.
One quick word on the New York Knicks’ transcendent 2026 championship, before we get on with our lives.
Apple quietly kills support for 4 popular devices: Here’s the list
Those products will be able to run macOS 26, but risk not getting security updates in the future.
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Bluetooth Headphones (2nd Gen) drops to lowest price on Amazon
The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Bluetooth Headphones (2nd Gen) in five colors are on sale at Amazon at 16% off the MSRP. It delivers powerful noise cancelling with Bose Immersive Audio and comes with plush ear cushions.
What new audit shows about Parkview Health finances
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — An independent audit of Parkview Health and its subsidiaries showed strong 2025 financial growth at a time many Indiana hospitals struggled, but did little to quiet …
The Obama Presidential Center was meant to lift up local contractors. Some are now fighting for survival.
Some subcontractors on the $850 million project say they are being pushed to the financial brink as they quietly fight to collect millions of dollars in unpaid bills.
Trump’s ‘Anti-Weaponization’ Payouts May Not Be Dead After All
Despite insisting that a $1.776 billion fund has been scrapped, the administration is quietly assuring allies that plans remain on track.
PlayStation Plus Quietly Rolls Out Controversial Change Alongside June Free Games
Don't expect bumper monthly drops anymore.
Farage suddenly returns to political stage – but dodges questions about £5m gift
Reform UK leader has been unusually quiet in recent weeks – at great cost to the party during a crucial byelection
The AI Governance Mistake Many Companies Don't Realize They're Making
Companies that treat AI governance as a compliance checkbox rather than a continuous operational discipline are quietly accumulating risks their boards don't yet know exist.
Toyota Is Quietly Building A Mid-Engined, All-Wheel-Drive Sports Car
Toyota is expected to introduce a new MR2, but it is still years away from production.
As men quietly endure mental health crises, an expert urges reframing help-seeking as strength
Apple Removes Walkie-Talkie From Apple Watch in watchOS 27 Beta
Apple has quietly removed the Walkie-Talkie app from Apple Watch in the first developer beta of watchOS 27, with the app vanishing from both the app list and Control Center. Walkie-Talkie launched with watchOS 5 in 2018 and allowed Apple Watch users to send push-to-talk voice messages to one another over Wi-Fi or cellular using FaceTime infrastructure. Unlike traditional walkie-talkies, it worked over any distance, making it a novel way to communicate without picking up an iPhone.
Starlink Quietly Introduces Monthly Hardware Rental Fee
SpaceX’s Starlink has quietly introduced a new monthly fee for its satellite internet hardware, adding to recent price increases that have already
Kyle Schwarber Quietly Says What All Phillies Fans Are Thinking
At the beginning of the season, there was a strong argument to be made that not only were the Philadelphia Phillies one of the worst teams in Major League Baseball, but that there was going to be a major problem for this organization in the long term because of how poorly they were playing on both sides of the ball.
Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater split several months ago, after three years as a couple
The "Wicked" stars had a "quiet breakup," a source tells "Entertainment Weekly."
Corporate Support for Pride Makes a Quiet, Cautious Comeback
LGBTQ groups claw back business sponsorships after anti-DEI retreat.
Why is Boston's Rob Griffin so influential?
The quietly-powerful real estate broker at the center of a bombshell lawsuit is one of the most influential figures on Boston's real estate world.
Why are so many Democrats going quiet on climate change?
The conventional wisdom says it's a losing issue. Evidence suggests it actually helps Democrats win elections.
Another Pixel-exclusive feature just vanished, and the replacement comes with strings attached
For most owners it changes nothing. For a few, it quietly costs more.
Fumito Ueda, legendary developer behind Shadow of the Colossus and Ico, announces single-player epic Gen Atlas for Xbox, PlayStation, and PC
"We hope to share an experience that inspires moments of quiet wonder and discovery.”
Meet the official quietly leading Trump's science and tech push
Energy Department undersecretary Darío Gil is taking a long-term view of science and technology.
Inside Trump’s suddenly softened new green card policy
Big business, including tech and AI companies, launched a quiet but extensive lobbying effort against the green card policy requiring applicants to apply from overseas.
The science of Bluey
Bluey quietly incorporates scientifically accurate STEM concepts into stories of childhood and family life,
Google Cloud's quiet layoffs hit cybersecurity teams
Google has laid off employees across parts of its Cloud business, including at an elite cybersecurity intelligence unit.
The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Noise Canceling Headphones Drops to a New Price Low Ahead of Father's Day. These Have No Equal in the Sub-$200 Price Category.
These headphones have no equal in the sub-$200 price category.
Amazon, Microsoft and Google are quietly morphing their businesses — and Wall Street is missing the big picture
Tech giants are shifting from solely providing computing power to distributing AI models, unlocking a lucrative new revenue stream.
Ford's quietest Bronco ever? New Filson edition packs V6 power, luxury upgrades
Ford and Filson unveiled the 2027 Bronco Filson SUV, featuring a 3.0-liter EcoBoost V6, Sasquatch off-road package and the quietest Bronco cabin ever.
A top Metaverse exec quietly left four months ago
Gabriel Aul, who led the Metaverse unit, retired earlier this year, replaced by former Epic Games exec Saxs Persson.
A top Metaverse exec quietly left four months ago
Gabriel Aul, who led the Metaverse unit, retired earlier this year, replaced by former Epic Games exec Saxs Persson.
May's top PlayStation games by copies sold
Yesterday’s State of Play gave us an idea of where PlayStation’s heading next. But we’ve had our May estimates for a couple of days now (we always update our data daily for clients), so it’s time to look at what performed best on PlayStation last month. We’ve got a new IP at the top, two evergreens doing their evergreen thing, FC26 smashing it ahead of the World Cup Plus pivot, and a quiet but promising result for Lego Batman. Let’s have a look at the state of Play…Station’s top games for May. 007 takes #001 007 First Light sold 1M copies on PS5 in May, easily making it the month’s top PS5 game by copies sold. Over 80% of those May copies were digital, which is broadly in line with where PlayStation’s digital share has settled for new releases this year. To date, 007 First Light has sold through 2.2M copies across platforms (so no unsold retail copies in that figure). The platform split is 55.1% PS5, 33.1% Steam, and 11.8% Xbox (console, Windows, and cloud combined). In gross revenue terms, 007 First Light has generated $150M. Owing to regional pricing and audience composition differences, the consoles make up a higher share of revenue than they do copies. Of the $150M, 60.5% came via PlayStation, 27.6% via Steam, and 12.9% via Xbox. Part of this is because over two-thirds of 007 First Light‘s PlayStation audience is in North America (43.4%) or Western Europe (23.2%), where local currency means the game generates more revenue per player. On Steam, under half of First Light‘s audience is from those same regions (31.8% North America, 15.1% Western Europe). As we covered in last week’s 007 Steam piece, the Steam version is pulling in higher-than-expected numbers in China, which now accounts for 17.3% of First Light‘s Steam audience. 007 is the equivalent of $44 USD in China, which is roughly 37% cheaper than the US price and about 44% cheaper than Western Europe. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe The crossover data backs up what we’ve seen all year about launch-window cohorts. 11% of PS5 players who played 007 First Light in May also played Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, which launched just a few days before. Last month was a great month for Denmark! IO Interactive is Copenhagen-based, and Lego Group is headquartered in Billund (TT Games is UK-based but produces work under Lego Group licence and direction). Speaking of which… A very blocky #2 and #3 Minecraft sold another 788K copies on PlayStation consoles last month. Business as usual, since Minecraft hasn’t sold fewer than 760K copies in a single month all year. With over 350M copies sold across all platforms, Minecraft is the best-selling game in history and one of the strongest brands in the world. Every month, a new cohort of children reaches Minecraft age, which guarantees a constant volume of new sales regardless of what the broader market is up to. The demographic refresh rate is truly impressive, with the audience renewing itself faster than it’s churning. Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight shifted 757K copies on PS5 last month, bringing its lifetime total on the platform to over 800K. Across all platforms, Legacy of the Dark Knight has now passed 1.5M sold through, so PlayStation accounts for over half of the game’s players. The May crossover data for Legacy of the Dark Knight on PS5 is also useful. 27% of those players also played Fortnite, 16% Roblox, 16% FC 26, and 14% NBA 2K. That’s the household-and-family cohort showing up, plus the launch-window cohort of core gamers who buy practically everything. FC 26 gets players through the door ahead of the World Cup FC 26 sold 411K copies on PlayStation last month (90% via PS5), the fewest copies FC 26 has sold all year and down heavily from April’s 700K. Part of this dropoff is because FC 26 has been available as a PlayStation Plus monthly game since 6 May, cannibalising premium sales. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe The strategic logic is straightforward for EA, which is sacrificing premium unit sales in May to build up the player base ahead of the FIFA World Cup, which kicks off on 11 June. Obviously, a bigger player pool going into the tournament means a bigger pool of potential Ultimate Team spenders during the period when football attention is at its peak. The early returns are around what you’d expect, with 4.4M new players accessing FC 26 via PS Plus last month – a substantial new spender pool. Anecdotally, a few of my mates who were ‘’skipping FIFA and Ultimate Team this year’’, were drawn back in via PS Plus. Lo and behold, one of them is buying packs like it’s going out of fashion. Whether this is all a smart trade for EA depends entirely on the Ultimate Team conversion rate over the next six weeks. Either way, the short-term engagement impact on the game as a whole is evident. FC 26‘s MAUs hit a record 24M on PlayStation in May, up 30% from the previous record set in April. GTA V does what GTA V always does Rounding out the top five is another evergreen title. Grand Theft Auto V shifted another 387K copies on PlayStation last month. No matter what else is happening in the industry, GTA V keeps pulling players in. It’s sold another 1.8M copies on PS5 in the first half of this year alone, helping the franchise pass the 230M-sold milestone across all platforms. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe I have a theory that Minecraft and GTA V are doing the same thing at different demographic levels. Both are functioning as generational gateway games that the audience ages into faster than it ages out of. Minecraft captures kids around age 6-10, GTA V captures much of the same audience around age 12-15 (unofficially, of course). The crossover data suggests this: 40% of GTA V‘s monthly PlayStation players typically play Fortnite in any given month, while 30% play Roblox. Household accounts aside, that’s not the original GTA V audience from 2013. Of course, the under-12 audience would love to get their hands on GTA, too. It’s always been the way of things, and some parents are happy to oblige. Mine did too back in the day, and I turned out just fine. Right? Right!? Want to get your hands on our data for yourself – for free? We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply to this email, and we’ll set you up. 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!]
Google Is Quietly Buying Code From Play Store Developers to Train AI
Google is trying to buy code from some Android developers as part of a "confidential" program.
Inside Microsoft’s Project Solara: A new platform for devices that run AI agents instead of apps
A team inside Microsoft has been quietly building Project Solara, a platform for devices that run AI agents instead of apps, based on Android instead of Windows. The first two concept devices, a desktop hub and a wearable badge, are headed to pilots with companies including AccuWeather, Best Buy, CVS Health, Levi's, and Target.
The work you can't always see: Beer is political, part 2
Recently I published a piece about beer, politics, and the question of who speaks up and who doesn’t. I meant every word of it. I still do. And then my inbox opened up. Cleveland Prost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe I’ve been writing about beer since 2014. For most of that time, I kept things deliberately light — taproom profiles, new releases, the people behind the pints. Gradually, over years of building this thing, you gave me something I didn’t expect: permission. Permission to go deeper. To say what I actually saw in this industry and what I actually believed about it. That trust isn’t something I take lightly. It’s why that piece existed at all, and it’s why this one does too. I’m not walking anything back. But I want to go further. In that piece, I wrote that beer has never existed outside the system. That immigration policy affects who staffs breweries and harvests ingredients. That labor policy affects taproom workers. That civil rights policy affects who feels safe walking into a taproom. That “beer does not exist in a vacuum. The idea that it does is comforting. It is also false.” I believe that as much now as I did when I wrote it. But one idea came back at me, in different forms, over and over (from reader emails, comments, and conversations): that beer itself isn’t political — that it only becomes political when someone decides to make it that way. That what we’re really seeing is a choice by individuals to inject division into something that doesn’t inherently require it. It’s a comforting idea. It’s also wrong — and I think it’s worth being precise about why. That framing assumes that breweries operate outside the conditions shaping everything else. That politics is something you choose to bring into a room that was, until then, clean and neutral. That if you stay quiet, you stay clear of it. But the room was never neutral. It was never clean. Politics is already in the room. It’s in who walks through the door comfortably and who hesitates. It’s in whether a space can be used for organizing without fear. It’s in whether helping someone quietly might carry consequences you have to think carefully about in advance. It’s in who staffed the brewery, who harvested the grain, who can afford to be a regular. The idea that you opt out of all that by staying quiet is an illusion. You only change how visible your response to it is. This is, I realize, a hard thing to hear if you came to a beer newsletter for something lighter. I wrote recently that “beer, for me, has always felt like a refuge — a third place in an increasingly fractured world.” I meant that. I still do. But a refuge is not an escape from reality. It’s a place to gather strength to face it. Here’s what I actually missed — and what I want to correct. Multiple people in the industry reached out to me. I’m not naming them and I’m not identifying their businesses, because that’s not my call. If and when they want to be loud about what they’re doing, that agency belongs to them. What I can share is the substance of what they said, because it complicated something I presented too cleanly. The overall message: *You don’t know what we all are doing.* And they’re right. I don’t. One example involved a collaboration brewed quietly to support another business facing serious challenges in a whole different region, with proceeds directed toward solidarity, community, and keeping operations afloat. No announcement. It could have been broadcast widely. The point was never publicity. Another example involved logistical support for community efforts: organizing safe transportation, providing space for meetings on otherwise closed days, facilitating gatherings under difficult conditions. All of it happening while balancing real financial pressure and genuine concern for personal safety. None of what they described is a brewer “deciding to make beer political.” It’s people responding to the conditions around them — conditions that are already shaping who feels safe, who has access, who can gather, who needs help, and who has the capacity to offer it. Politics, again, already in the room. Already shaping choices. Whether anyone announced it or not. I’ve spent decades in taprooms, at barrel releases, at festivals, in back offices and brewing floors, talking to the people who built this industry from nothing. I know how much happens that never makes it onto social media. I know the owner who quietly comp’d a tab for someone having a crisis. The brewer who drove an hour to pick up a stranger who needed a safe ride. The taproom that stayed dark on a Tuesday so a community group could use the space without it becoming A Whole Thing. None of that gets a post. Most of it never will. So when I wrote recently about silence — when I said that “silence right now doesn’t feel neutral, it feels like complicity” — I was writing about what I could see. And I was right about what I saw. The public silence of breweries that have the platform, the stability, and frankly the safety to say something and choose not to? That still troubles me. I’m not softening that. But some of what I read as silence is actually something else entirely. It’s people doing the work with their hands instead of their phones. It’s people who are genuinely afraid — not of being canceled, but of real consequences for their families, their employees, their ability to keep the doors open at all. That deserves more than a footnote. It deserves to be named clearly. Here’s the tension I want to sit with honestly: public statements matter. They matter because people can’t rally around something they can’t see. Visibility creates awareness and solidarity. It helps people find each other. It tells someone standing outside your taproom door, uncertain whether they’ll be welcomed inside, something they need to know — or whether it’s even safe for them to be in public at all. That’s not performative. I wrote recently that the craft beer movement “was built on collective defiance. It was built on rejecting consolidation. On pushing back against homogeneity.” I believe that too. And I’ll extend it: breweries should be at least as loud about their values as they are when they drop a new seasonal. Your hazy IPA gets a full rollout — the label art, the tap handle photo, the countdown post. Human dignity deserves the same energy. Be as loud about human rights as you are about your beer. There is no reason those two things should require different levels of courage from you. But visibility isn’t the only form of courage. And not everyone can be visible right now without real consequences — financial, personal, sometimes physical. There are people in this industry doing hard, unglamorous, sometimes risky work in the background, and announcing it would compromise it or paint a target on someone who’s already stretched thin. That’s not silence as complicity. That’s operational discipline under pressure. What I want to push back on — clearly, not gently — is the idea that behind-the-scenes action and public visibility are in competition with each other. The person organizing quietly in the back room and the person posting a statement of solidarity on a Tuesday morning are both doing something real. We need both. We need the quiet infrastructure and we need the visible signal. We need people to know that this industry — at its best, at its most independent, and human — gives a fuck. I closed that piece with a question: “Reactive and fearful? Or clear and values-driven?” That question still stands. But having heard from you, I’d add a corollary: the values-driven path isn’t always the loudest one. Sometimes it’s a phone call and a recipe. Sometimes it’s a room made available on a closed Tuesday. Sometimes it’s a drive across town for someone who needed a safe ride home. All of it is political. All of it was always political. You don’t get to opt out of that — you only get to decide what you do with it. I’ve spent more than a decade writing about this industry because I believe it can be exactly that. I’ve been lucky enough to build an audience that lets me say so plainly. That’s a privilege I intend to use. The work is happening. Some of it you’ll see. Some of it you won’t. Support it either way. Cleveland Prost is a reader-supported publication covering beer and brewing across New York state. To receive new posts and support this work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Cleveland Prost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe
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