When Hi-Fi Rush shadow-dropped on January 25, it was a shockingly pleasant surprise. Beautiful, vibrant, playful, the rhythm action platformer quickly won players over. A day later, Hitman World of Assassination appeared, deploying clever roguelike mechanics to reinvent the best stealth game of 2021. A day after that, …
The best cheap headphones from top brands like Sony and Corsair.
A good set of headphones are an absolute necessity in this increasingly noisy world. There are few greater pleasures than sticking on a set of headphones and losing yourself in great-sounding tunes. Now helped by the endless playlist on your phone.
Not only is this a tried and tested method of relaxing, it’s also pretty effective at blocking out everything that’s going on around you.
The prospect of living in your own little sound bubble is pretty appealing, and it needn’t cost a fortune. You don’t need to be loaded to get access to the best tech. There are lots of great budget headphones available. If you need some help choosing a pair, here’s some useful information to get you started.
You can pick and choose from a wide selection of devices and a lengthy list of brands. You’ve almost certainly heard of Bose, Sony, and Apple, but there are lots of lesser known brands to consider as well.
Sticking to the top brands definitely has its advantages. You’re taking less of a risk by investing in one of the bigger names, but that doesn’t mean it’s always the way to go. You can often find much better value by looking at some of the smaller brands, and you don’t need to sacrifice comfort, style, or sound quality.
You might be surprised at all the features included with modern headphones — even at a budget price point. Here are some key things to consider:
Bluetooth — This allows you to connect to your phone or music-playing device wirelessly. It’s fairly standard with up-to-date headphones but usually for convenience rather than sound quality. Wired headphones are still the best for audio aficionados.
Sound quality — Serious audiophiles might want to spend a bit more to get the richest, expertly engineered sound. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get great sound for a low price. Look out for reviews that credit the lows, mids, and highs (these describe the different frequencies of music). Also, look for headphones with drivers of 50mm and under. Drivers are bits of internal tech which convert electronic signals into sound.
Microphone — It’s the age of connectivity and most headphones will connect to your phone and allow you make calls via an internal mic, built into the headset or the cable.
Manual controls — Many headphones include buttons on the headset for manually controlling the volume, playback, or making calls. Sounds simple, right? Not entirely. Be sure the controls are easy to access and are easy to differentiate from each other.
Closed-back/open-back — Closed back headphones have completely sealed ear cups, which direct sound to your ears and keeps out ambient noise. Open-back headphones let air into the ear cup but can cause sound leakage that goes both ways — both in and out. Expensive headphones sometimes have open backs for clearer, natural sound. But closed-back are the go-to choice for commuting and noisy environments.
Noise cancelling — Much like it sounds, this is a feature that cancels out ambient and surrounding noise to create a completely immersive experience. Some headphones are built to physically keep out noise. Others include specific tech that further cancels it out. That’s called “active noice cancellation” (ANC).
Keep these features in mind when shopping around for your next set of headphones.
This is down to personal preference and — of course — what best fits your head size and shape. Some headphones are designed with comfort in mind, with padded ear cups or adjustable headband for getting the fit just right. Others are made with practicality in mind, and may fold up for added portability.
Listen up, because we’ve done all the hard work and tracked down some of the best very headphone options for under £50. This list includes some names you probably don’t know, some budget models from the biggest brands, and everything in between. There really is something for everyone in this list. Just select the set that best fits your listening and lifestyle habits. Sounds good, right?
These are the best headphones for under £50 in 2023.
Garth Davis’ dystopian sci-fi thriller “Foe” shows the end of the world happening slowly but surely, thanks to climate change.
Garth Davis’ dystopian sci-fi, Foe, has been getting some lukewarm reviews. But there’s one surefire element of the film, based on Iain Reid’s 2018 novel, that actually deserves its moment in the burning, burning sun — and it’s not necessarily the beautiful people feeling all the feelings within it.
It’s the way the world as we’ve known it is actually ending, often incrementally but surely. And you’d better believe it’s all thanks to climate change.
Set in the year 2065, Foe is a work of speculative fiction that presents an Earth that has become almost but not entirely inhospitable, when fresh water and inhabitable land are scarce. They’re not human rights but instead the most important capital a human being can own. It’s Mad Max without the steampunk or gang violence.
Reid’s novel keeps specifics of the apocalypse off the page, but the film, which Reid and Davis co-wrote, gives details at the top. In this version of America, the government’s Federal Climate Alert System has become useless. Human displacement sits at the centre of the global climate crisis, with nations uprooted by extreme weather events. Air quality has declined and respiratory conditions have risen. People are encouraged to stay indoors to avoid the extreme heat. Folks live off-grid if they can, using solar panels and reusing their waste water, but it’s all a little too late. At the core of the narrative, humanoid AI robot substitutes have replaced human labour in many industries.
Quietly surviving on a barren, isolated Midwest property is married couple Hen and Junior, played by Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal. In this future, inhabitable land is mainly owned by companies or governments and used for farming; as for the rest, inheritance rules, as Junior’s property is fifth generation-owned. Above the dusty, cracked earth of the property, extreme weather events from intense dust storms to extreme heat are an everyday occurrence. Only one tree survives on the land, kept alive by the couple’s waste water. In fact, water is such a precious commodity that we regularly see Junior and Hen drinking cans of beer instead of water first thing in the morning — perhaps beyond mild hydration, beer doesn’t hurt for dealing with the end of the world, either. Though for someone trying to conserve water, Hen sure has some lengthy shower cries.
Foe shows the end of the world in an isolated, domestic silence for two people, but it’s also not quite ended. At every turn, it seems people are still working hard to keep surviving the harsh conditions. However, Junior and Hen’s quiet, rural life changes with the arrival of a man called Terrance (Aaron Pierre), who works for a government-backed company called OuterMore, wielding a plan to evacuate the planet — but notably slowly.
Plans to move people off-planet to a colossal space station near Earth are well underway, moving away from a “climate migration strategy” to simply getting the hell out of here. Terrance mentions that the moon, Mars, and other planets were possibilities built for the “first wave of temporary settlement”, but due to their distance from Earth and the time it will take to go back and forth to build a new colony there, OuterMore has instead built an enormous planet of its own near Earth and readies humans for permanent relocation to space through years of training.
People are chosen randomly through a lottery to participate in the first phase of the space program, known as The Installation, a two-year placement on the station to test its readiness for a whole planet to live on — but Terrance notes Junior’s physical strength as a positive attribute for it. Notably, the program isn’t optional for those chosen, instead functioning as a form of “fortunate conscription”. Through discussions of this station around Junior and Hen’s dining room table, Foe lightly takes aim at the billionaire space race and billion-dollar plans to terraform other planets like Mars. “Why should you be spending money up there when you should be fixing things down here?” Hen asks.
By no means is Foe the only film to predict the end of the world through climate change and eventual human relocation to space — even in recent years, we’ve seen the likes of 2016 sci-fi Passengers sharing similar scenarios. But it’s something films have only started to really hammer home within the last few decades, with a notable rise in the 2000s. Though scientists had been warning of the coming threat for frustrating decades, and weather disaster films had long rampaged through cinemas, filmmakers finally seemed to harness these legitimate fears in the 2000s and 2010s, punishing earthlings’ blatant disregard for the planet with brutal, extreme weather-driven consequences in films like The Day After Tomorrow, Geostorm, 2012, and the Keanu Reeves remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Not simply allowing viruses and sentient machines to destroy the world as we know it, rising sea levels caused by a warming planet finally got their moment in the 2000s, notably with Steven Spielberg’s 2001 film A.I. Artificial Intelligence — also aligned with Foe in terms of AI human replacements and self-aware robots in the coming apocalypse. In the film, set in the 22nd century, melting Arctic ice causes catastrophic flooding in coastal cities, meaning widespread human displacement, starvation, and death. New York is underwater. The global population plummets and humanoid robots step in for both human labour and companionship because they’re “never hungry and … did not consume resources beyond those of their first manufacture.”
In the book Hollywood Wants to Kill You, Rick Edwards and Dr. Michael Brooks write of Hollywood’s tendency to speed things up when it comes to planetary death by climate change, to get to the dramatically perilous stuff overnight instead of showing how it happens and how we could have stopped it gradually. The authors particularly skewer the films Geostorm and The Day After Tomorrow, which predict an overnight climate overhaul, a catastrophic tipping point that sees the planet plunged into every kind of extreme weather Hollywood can conjure at once.
“It turns out that governments, both Hollywood-imagined and real-life, aren’t really interested in long-term gains that involve short-term pain,” Edwards and Brooks write. The film 2012 also does this, cutting straight to the chase, but at least the movie consistently reiterates that scientists and world leaders have known what’s coming for years.
But one of the most realistic parts of the potential end of the world in Foe is not that we’ll all inevitably shack up with a smokin’ partner with an endless supply of PBRs. It’s that some things will happen slowly, the decline of the planet’s habitable spaces slowly increasing as CO2 levels skyrocket, climate science misinformation continues, and government inaction prevails. (Some impacts, like amplified Western U.S. wildfires and increased flooding, are happening rapidly.)
Foe isn’t a perfect representation of a future Earth, notably being the experience of two sad yet socioeconomically advantaged white people, citizens who by no means are on the frontline of the climate crisis. And notably, climate doomism itself gets us nowhere — we’re not completely up the bone dry creek yet. Despite how things appear, we haven’t passed a point of no return, and earthlings still have the power to either exacerbate the planet’s problems or seal them in stone.
Instead, Foe is a cautionary tale, a hypothetical endgame. One that’s slow but sure, and without action on climate change, could very well be what the end of the Earth looks like.
How to watch: Foe is now in theaters and will be streaming on Prime Video at a later date.
Google’s “Results About You” feature notifies users when their information appears in search and helps them remove it. Here’s how to set it up.
Have you ever Googled yourself and been surprised by the old social media images, usernames, and other dusty internet relics it unearths? Maybe the results are a bit more specific, like a former address or even a phone number. No one wants their personal contact information online for all to see without their knowledge — fortunately, Google can now help with that.
In August, announced a new Google Search feature that alerts users when their personal contact information appears in a Google Search query. “Results About You” not only lets users see when and where their contact information populates on the search engine but also offers the option to remove the page from Google’s results.
As Mashable reporter Amanda Yeo noted at the time of its announcement, Results About You is also particularly helpful for those who have been, or are at risk of, being doxxed.
Paired with Google’s other privacy settings and upcoming features, users can take more control of their digital footprint — at least, Google’s capturing of it. Here’s how to use it.
Only individuals with Google accounts can turn on this alert, so make sure you’ve created or signed in to your Google account.
Go to the Results About You activity page.
Click “Get Started” and follow the on-screen prompts.
Google will ask you to add any contact information you’d like flagged. Users can add multiple names, addresses, phone numbers, and emails.
Confirm the information and select how you’d like to be notified. Google can send the results to the email associated with your Google account or send push notifications to devices linked to your Google account.
Google will automatically scan Search results for your personal information and alert you if it finds anything. The company says the initial scan can take a few hours.
Return to the Results About You page at any time to edit your contact information.
While Google doesn’t have the ability to remove any information or images from non-Google sites, it can help users get personal contact information results removed from Google Search pages.
There are two ways to request that Google remove personal information from search results:
Go to the Results About You activity page.
Select “Results to review.”
Check the blue box next to any results you’d like to request removed.
Submit request.
Google reviews each request according to its policy requirements for removal. The status of a request can be viewed on the Results About You page, as well as an option to undo removals.
Go to Google support’s personal content removal form.
Fill out the requested information, including the type of content. Google may request screenshots, URLs to search result pages, and specific search terms used to populate the result.
Once filled out, submit the form.
For additional information on Google’s privacy and personal information controls, visit Google’s Safety Center.
A review of Remedy Entertainment’s ‘Alan Wake II’ for PS5, Xbox, and PC.
There is nothing out there quite like Remedy Entertainment’s Alan Wake II. A tense, slow, and acid-induced horror journey through the eyes of its main protagonists, Alan Wake and Saga Anderson, Alan Wake II sits at the very pinnacle of the survival horror genre.
If that sounds like high praise, well, it is, because it’s a damn good game. Building upon not just its predecessor, Alan Wake, but on everything within the Remedy catalog — taking the old and creating a wholly unique gaming experience, unlike anything its contemporaries in the genre offer.
Alan Wake II launched on Oct. 27, and from the 14 hours I played — about 70 percent of the game — I was very impressed. In a month stacked with heavy hitters such as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Alan Wake II is a stand-out that kept me hooked.
Alan Wake II‘s inspirations reach across all genres and mediums, creating a game that both feels familiar and unique at the same time. From its Twin Peaks-inspired town to its grungy, dirty crime noir nightmare version of New York City, the games’ two worlds offer players a feast for the eyes.
The game, set 13 years after its predecessor, sees FBI Agent Saga Anderson travel to the fictional town of Bright Falls, Washington, to investigate several disappearances and murders that have taken place in town. Meanwhile, the titular Alan Wake tries to write himself out of the Dark Place — a surreal alternate reality outside space and time that can turn art into reality — which sits at the bottom of Bright Falls’ Cauldron Lake.
Players can at any time switch between the two protagonists, its two worlds offering a distinctive style and tone. The two areas are small, dense, and technical marvels to enjoy. As Saga, players are introduced to a methodical, investigatory slow-burn detective story, while Wake is trapped in a filthy art-deco neo-noir meets horror movie mashup. And it’s a clear choice by Remedy to make its story a slow, plodding build so as to invest players in its characters and mystery.
Essential to this detective story is the game’s central mechanic, the Plot Board, which Saga can access from her Mind Place — a sort of quasi-pause menu where players can piece together deductions made from their investigations of the main quest and the various side quests found around town and other areas. It’s a unique way of keeping track of character progression but also doesn’t require the player to use it in order to figure out how to progress the plot. This allows players to piece together the case themselves without the game holding their hands as they explore the surroundings on offer.
And that’s a good thing because this game demands the player’s attention as they slowly walk through the beautiful town of Bright Falls and the surrounding areas of Watery and Cauldron Lake. Set in the Pacific Northwest, trekking through these areas as Saga is a treat as the environments feel natural and authentic, with Remedy playing into its strength with compelling environmental storytelling. Wading through the woods outside of town as your investigation furthers, the sound design and level of detail make sure you never feel safe. There is always a sense of foreboding doom the minute you leave your safe havens, and it makes for a tense journey as you progress through the game.
The stark contrast to the greenery and stunning views of Bright Falls is Alan Wake’s nightmare version of New York City. An unnatural, grimy place, this version of New York feels like being trapped in an art museum after hours. Each building was placed with careful consideration, as if the city was put on display for the mind of its imprisoned inhabitant. The area is detailed and dense, with everything from the street clutter to the graffiti on the wall having some message behind it. The ambiance of the city is filled with broken street lamps and dingy neon lights that guide Alan toward his next objective. Compared to the strange eeriness of Bright Falls, the world of Nightmare New York is more hard-boiled, its city inspired by right-wing vigilante fantasies like Death Wish and its ilk.
The world design, by far, is the best part of Alan Wake II. It’s small and intimate, and it tells a hundred stories before a word is even said. It’s atmospheric in a way that not even a lot of immersive sims are, and it allows Remedy to do some truly bizarre and meta things within the chosen genres and motifs of its world.
I spent a lot of time gushing about the world of Alan Wake II, but how’s the gameplay? It’s fine. If you’ve played any of the Resident Evil remakes, you’ve played Alan Wake II. Not to say the gameplay is bad–it’s quite solid, actually—but it’s clear that combat was not what Remedy was focused on here.
The shooting is good, with each gun having a decent weight to it when fired. The core gameplay loop doesn’t get tiring, with your character shining their light on enemies to get rid of their darkness shield before blasting away at them. This is complemented by an excellent sound design that makes for an auditory treat whenever you shoot enemies’ weak spots. However, the options of weapons are quite limited for both characters, and the enemy variety is sparse. There are 3-4 different variants of “Taken,” there’s the big variant, the melee variants, and the ranged variants. While the game says that there are different ways to approach each of these, in my experience in the game, this is very inconsistent, and most of the enemies tend to be bullet sponges.
The bosses are particular high points. While the bosses are still of the point-and-shoot variety, they do offer compelling visual and thematic areas not found in the game as players enter “Overlaps” between the real world and the Dark Place. With the way combat is designed, Remedy understood that too much can be a bad thing, and you’ll rarely ever engage in combat and seldom, if ever, face more than one or two enemies at a time.
Alan’s side of the game is a little tenser and less combat-focused. Instead of running into bog-standard enemies, Nightmare New York is littered with shadowed silhouettes that may or may not try to engage you. The game forces you to get up close and personal with them as they whisper and shout your name. Some shadows may grab you while others will full-on attack you, with Alan never knowing which is which until it’s too late. This makes for tense encounters as you progress through the plot, and it’s clear that Remedy is more focused on building a sense of dread as the player rummages through the world than just becoming another action-horror shooter. It’s a massive improvement compared to its predecessor, Alan Wake, with its floaty combat mechanics and stilted graphics making it the quintessential 2010s bargain bin action-horror title.
Often with these kinds of games, the story is secondary to the combat, but Alan Wake II takes a different approach, building upon its connected universe without getting too in the player’s face. In each of the games, Remedy has sought to combine gameplay with narrative. Alan Wake’s story within the story told you how everything would play out, Max Payne was heavy on reactive internal monologues, and Control was a lore-rich narrative that rewarded players for exploration. All these combined create what is essentially a magnum opus for Remedy, with Alan Wake II being the culmination of a decade’s worth of experience and game design. That’s without talking about its performance, which runs almost perfectly, bar the rare visual glitch.
With the review for this game, which was possible thanks to a review code from Remedy and Epic Games, I didn’t want to talk about the story too much beyond the bare-bones plot. That’s because it has to be experienced first, and anything I can say about it will undersell just how impressive it is. Video games have never been a bastion of good writing, except in rare cases, and that just comes with the territory. But Alan Wake II is a story that needs to be replayed a couple of times — it’s a unique blend of meta-commentary, live-action, and incorporation of music that creates a story that can’t be told in other any format, medium, or genre — and it needs more than one playthrough to truly, fully understand and appreciate it. Alan Wake II touches upon and references Remedy’s other games, but does so in a way that feels familiar to fans of these games while also allowing new players to feel welcomed into the world.
In an industry littered with unfinished, high-budget triple-A video games, it is refreshing to see a near-perfect and polished game released on day one. Remedy’s Alan Wake II is not only the studio’s best game to date, but it’s one of the best games of its genre and perhaps of the year.
We loved the portability of the Diggs Enventur crate, but can’t recommend it to all dog owners. Here’s why.
I’m serious about keeping my two dogs restrained in the car. Not only can loose pets in a car distract drivers, they can also become dangerous projectiles if not restrained properly. Keeping your pup secured with a seatbelt or a car crate is the best way to keep them (and yourself) safe while driving.
Most crash-tested car crates are big, bulky, and heavy, and some dogs can’t relax while secured with a seatbelt harness. There’s definitely a hole in the market for a lightweight car crate that’s also safe, comfortable, and durable. I was excited to hear that Diggs was on its way to meeting that need with the new Enventur inflatable travel kennel, but there are a handful of flaws with the product that didn’t go unnoticed in my testing.
I tested the medium kennel ($475) with my two dogs, and while this size hasn’t been crash-test certified yet, Diggs states that the small kennel ($425) had passed third-party bench seat crash safety tests, and that ongoing testing is underway for the medium size.
A TikTok video on the brand’s page also mentioned that the small Enventur was on its way to getting Center For Pet Safety certified. Diggs has another CPS-certified product for small dogs — the Diggs Passenger Carrier — so the brand has gone through this certification process before. Once the Enventur is CPS-certified, we’d be willing to revisit its score, since the safety certification (and the peace of mind) will make it a little more worth the price.
Where other dog travel crates tend to be bulky and heavy, the Enventur is actually portable. I’ve taken the Enventur on multiple road trips, and it works well as a crate that transitions from the car to a hotel room, Airbnb, or campsite with ease. This is mostly because of how lightweight it is and the fact that it’s easy to fold up. I loved not smashing my fingers in metal bars like I do (every time) trying to set up a wire crate.
While the medium size hasn’t been crash-tested yet, the Enventur still features tie-down loops and can be secured to the connection points in the cargo space of a car, though these don’t feel the most secure. Even though the tie-down straps aren’t the best, this is definitely a safer option than just putting a loose kennel in the car. The crate also has a slanted back that is designed to fit better in a car’s cargo space than traditional rectangle kennels, though I still couldn’t fit the kennel in my Ford Bronco Sport without putting the seats down or turning the kennel sideways.
The Enventur is super easy to clean. On one occasion, my puppy threw up in the kennel while I was driving, and when we got home, I was able to just hose the kennel down, wipe it out, and let it dry. Because it’s inflatable and pretty comfortable for pups on its own, it also doesn’t require a bed.
I don’t love that the tie-down straps and the pump for the Enventur are sold separately. Considering the already high price of the kennel (it starts at $425) and that it’s marketed as a car crate, I’d love to see these accessories included. The tie-down straps add an extra $45, and purchasing the kennel with the pump adds an extra $75. You can absolutely find a cheaper pump with the correct kind of connection points — any paddle board or inflatable kayak pump will work as long as it features a halkey-roberts valve attachment. The tie-down straps could also be more durable — the closure doesn’t work as well as more durable crate tie-down straps I’ve tried, like the Gunner Kennel straps.
Another issue with the manual pump was how much effort it took to get the PSI up to the recommended level. Diggs recommends five to 10 PSI for the Enventur, so I recommend using an electric pump to inflate it if you don’t want to put in some work to inflate it. A small electric pump would also likely be easier to travel with than the manual pump, which was a bit annoying to carry around.
In three months of testing, I didn’t experience issues with the zipper door, but I read some user reviews that mentioned high-anxiety dogs and strong chewers busting through the door. In the last two weeks of testing, I took the Enventur on a road trip to use for my 6-month-old collie puppy, Dashi. I’d been using this crate for her for months prior, but on this trip, she was unfortunately able to tear a hole in one of the windows. I can no longer use this crate for her, which is a bummer because of all its other great features.
I noticed the day before my puppy ripped the hole that some of my gear in the trunk was pushing against the window, creating some stress in the woven window, Once that stress loosened up the weave, my puppy was able to chew right through it. I can no longer keep her in this crate since she’ll continue to rip the window. She’s not a very strong chewer and is only about 35 pounds and 6 months old, so the durability of the windows is definitely much less than Diggs advertises.
I likely would never have had this issue if I only tested the Enventur with my older dog, Miso, who isn’t a chewer. As with any pet product, know your dog and do what’s safest for them. Nearly no kennels are escape-proof (and the Enventur doesn’t claim to be), so owners of pups who like to chew should select a car kennel with that in mind.
Once the medium and large sizes of the Enventur are crash-tested, we’ll likely re-test and update this story. Until then, the small crate is a safe car option for dogs under 30 pounds who are unlikely to chew on the woven pieces of the crate. We’ll be checking in with Diggs about the crash testing process and will update this story if they receive crash testing certification.
Depsite some major qualms I had with the Enventur, it saved my ass on multiple occasions. Going on camping trips with a puppy is no small feat, and it was great to have a lightweight, portable kennel to keep Dashi in while I cooked or did camp chores so she wouldn’t get into anything she shouldn’t. Until Dashi was able to rip a hole in the crate, I was prepared to recommend the Enventur to most dog owners. At this time, I can only recommend it to dog owners who know their dog won’t attempt to chew or scratch through the woven windows or doors.
Aside from the window durability issues, there are still plenty of positives about this crate. It’s easier to set up than a wire crate, and it’s light enough that I can carry it and the pump and tow along anything else I need in a wagon without having to make multiple trips to the car. It’s less bulky than some other car crates I’ve tested too, and once it receives crash-testing certification, it will be more worth the price for non-chewing dogs and their families.
Want to see a magic trick? All you need is an open-world video game that flopped at launch and a popular subscription service with millions of gamers. And presto, you can bring a “dead” game like Saints Row (2022) back to life and make it one of the most played games on PlayStation.
Emma Rogue, Instagram creator and thrift queen, on Gen Z ‘nostalgia-core’ and how technology is making fashion ‘accessible to the masses.’
We’re hanging out at Emma Rogue’s thrifting dreamland in downtown Manhattan, the physical embodiment of her adoration of the last 30 years of style. A handful of young women in exquisitely curated outfits sift through clothing racks as the Pussycat Dolls and Backstreet Boys play in the background. Tees and trinkets from the early 2000s adorn the walls, making the shop feel more like Emma’s childhood bedroom than a booming thrift business.
Emma knows a thing or two about looking good. Her Instagram and TikTok videos celebrate New York street style, spotlighting the looks of strangers, celebs, and fellow creators alike. But today, she’s trying something completely new: wading into the waters of wearable tech.
Emma is one of a handful of creators tapped to bring Meta’s “It’s Your World” campaign to life by showing people how the nebulous (and sometimes confusing) world of AI and the metaverse can be put to use IRL. The company’s new Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are her first piece of wearable tech. The shades can livestream, shoot photos and videos, play music, and offer assistance via Meta AI, and she’s already filmed a few clips on them for her Instagram.
In between shots, Mashable asks Emma about her vision for the future and digital fashion.
Emma Rogue: Everything, in every way. With Rogue, we utilize Instagram Reels’ short-form videos a lot. It’s become integral to our business model. We do short-form interviews with customers who come to us organically through word of mouth or if they’ve seen us online. A lot of the time, they’re wearing thrifted outfits, [so] just being able to showcase that online and show our viewers that, yes, you can dress in an amazing fit and it all be from the thrift. That’s a great form of making it accessible to the masses.
A lot of times people are afraid of style, right? You might be scared to tap into that world. So when they see someone that looks similar to them or their age looking amazing, and they realize it’s all thrifted, it might spark a light in their head like, “Oh, maybe I could try doing that.” They’re gonna screenshot that outfit, then they’re gonna go to their local thrift and be like, “OK, I love her look, let me try to recreate it.”
So that’s one way we do it. Every day we post a video. Volume and consistency are key in the content game. It’s the Victoria Paris method, shout out [to] Victoria. I love her. She sold with me on my opening day.
Oh yeah, right there! [points to a Pop-Tarts box in display case.] And our Guinness World Record is right over there, too. We built the world’s biggest Pop-Tarts throne, 8 feet!
In my parent’s garage in New Jersey. A lot of my stuff has been removed from it, but the throne remains.
I don’t have a gaming avatar, but I would dress it in something I would not wear every day because it’s maybe a little uncomfortable. I would put myself in a peak Emma fit: big platforms — I just got my first ever Rick [Owens] shoes so I might do some crazy Rick heels — thigh highs, a cute mini skirt, maybe a cargo mini? That would be cute. A mesh long sleeve and a tank top on top of that, a strappy cami. Accessories everywhere. A lot of metal rings, pigtails, with two strands of hair in front. And arm warmers and leg warmers.
I’m so excited for the day Rogue exists in the metaverse and customers all over the world can shop our stuff there.
I have a friend who’s really into the metaverse. He’s like “Emma, you gotta get on, buy some land, and build Rogue!” I’m not that deep into it. I haven’t bought land yet because I’m kind of nervous. But I’m excited for when it comes.
The thing is, we have such a big audience. It pains me when they say like, “Build a Rogue in London!” or “Come make a Rogue in Italy!” or I’ll get a DM from some kid in Germany, and they’ll say, “Can you come to this little town in the middle of nowhere?” So if Rogue was in the metaverse and existed there, it’d be so cool for these kids to just like tap in and visit. It would be cool if we could update it with all our new drops and then they could dress their avatars in them.
Childhood nostalgia-core bonanza. Foam pits, trampolines everywhere, giant slides into fluffy mattresses. Remember in Princess Diaries 2 when they slid down the slide? Stuff like that. Everything you wanted to do as a kid in one place. Everywhere your parents wouldn’t take you in one place. Disney World. All the best parts of your childhood.
I get so happy thinking about my childhood, thinking back to the times when I had no worries. I think everyone can relate to that in some sort of way. As you get older, it’s amazing, right? We’re growing, and learning more every day. But you’ve got bills to pay and it’s like, “I don’t want to do taxes!” Like, come on! There will be no taxes in Rogue World.
I would love to have a zoo in there. You know, ride the elephants or something. Literally your wildest imagination. The NeverEnding Story is one of my favorite movies of all time, so there’s going to be Falkor in there. Maybe different themed rooms, or zones. There’d be a room [that] anyone could walk into and it’d become their favorite dream. I think cooler than a room would be like a dome. Many different domes, so it doesn’t look like a ceiling.
I’m more of a Webkinz girl.
They never experienced it. It’s exciting to them because it was never part of their day-to-day, but maybe they heard their mom talk about it or their brother talk about it. Maybe they saw it in their favorite movie. Those pieces of technology have become ephemeral. [Gen Z] never got to experience that but [they’ll see it on] old online mood boards or certain aesthetic pages on Instagram. In music videos on YouTube [from the 2000s] they held Sidekick phones. [Gen Z] never had that experience. They’re experiencing something they never got to, they’re transporting back in time.
I like Instagram’s Explore page and Reels a lot to find inspiration and to find new talent — maybe to find emerging brands that we want to have a drop with here [at Rogue]. Or someone we want to collaborate with or a designer I want to commission to design a piece for me in my new collection. Instagram is part of my daily life and also for connecting with people. Sending a DM is the best thing that we could have access to. I posted Diplo on my story yesterday because I was at his concert, and he reposted me and DM’d me back! And I was like, “Perfect, pull up to the shop and we’ll get a fit check.” There’s no limit to what we have access to.
Everything’s getting more expensive, even inside Fortnite. Epic Games’ free-to-play battle royale is raising the price of V-Bucks today by roughly 12.5 percent. Being the last one standing just got a little more expensive, at least if you want to look stylish and rank up the season battle pass while doing it.
Is the ‘The Nun: II’ streaming yet? Here are the best ways to watch ‘The Nun: II’ on streaming, starting Oct. 27.
The Nun II — the next chapter in the story of The Nun and the latest in The Conjuring universe — is now on streaming.
While we thought Valak, the evil demon that casually disguises itself as a nun, was defeated at the end of The Nun by Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) and Father Burke (Demian Bichir), that is unfortunately not the case. The Nun II takes place four years later when mysterious deaths begin popping up throughout Europe. Once again, Sister Irene is tasked with taking on Valak and attempting to get rid of them once and for all.
Farmiga is joined again by Jonas Bloquet as Maurice, along with Storm Reid as Sister Debra, Anna Popplewell as Kate, and Bonnie Aarons as the titular demon nun. The film was originally released in theaters on Sept. 8 (and is still in select theaters nationwide) and met with mixed reviews. “The Nun II never quite reaches the terrifying heights of those early Conjuring films, but it does have more creepy moments than its predecessor,” Kimber Myers wrote in Mashable’s own film review.
If you’re looking for jump scares to add to your Halloween watchlist, The Nun II definitely delivers. Get a sneak peek at the sequel in the official trailer below, then read on to learn more about how to watch the newest addition to The Conjuring universe.
You can still head to select theaters to watch The Nun II on the big screen, but as of Oct. 27, you can also watch the spooky flick from your couch. In order to stream it on the small screen, you’ll have to sign up for Max — HBO’s premium streaming service. Subscriptions start at $9.99/month and there’s currently no free trial, but we’ve rounded up your best options for saving money. Conveniently, every other film in The Conjuring universe (minus The Conjuring 2) is available to stream on Max as well, so you can plan a full movie marathon with a single service (which is more uncommon than you think).
A basic Max subscription with ads will cost you $9.99/month and let you watch The Nun II (as well as other films in The Conjuring universe), then be on your merry way. If you remember to cancel before your month is up, you’ll avoid auto-renewal charges the following month. While this won’t exactly save you any money, it’ll prevent unnecessary spending. If you want more bang for your buck, you can save 17% by signing up for an entire year at once for $99.99. That breaks down to only $8.33/month instead of $9.99 and lets you watch as much as you want all year without worrying about canceling by a certain date.
For those who can’t stand dealing with ads, you can save even more if you opt for a Max Ad-Free annual subscription. It’s typically $15.99/month for the Ad-Free subscription, but when you sign up for a year instead, it’ll cost you just $149.99 (just $12.49/month). That’s about 22% in total savings and you won’t have to worry about canceling by a certain time to avoid automatic charges each month.
Attention Cricket customers: you can score Max (with ads) for no cost if you’re on the $60/month unlimited plan. Just choose to connect with a provider when you log in to Max and select Cricket to enter your credentials. Then you’re free to stream The Nun II and the rest of the Conjuring films at your leisure. Cricket customers on a different plan can upgrade or change to the $60/month plan to get Max included.
Existing AT&T customers on select wireless and internet plans are eligible to get Max for free as well. If you haven’t already, go check your account to see if you’re eligible.
The following wireless plans give users access to Max (with ads) for free: AT&T Unlimited Elite, AT&T Unlimited PlusSM, AT&T Unlimited Plus EnhancedSM, AT&T Unlimited ChoiceSM, AT&T Unlimited Choice IISM, AT&T Unlimited Choice EnhancedSM, AT&T Unlimited &MoreSM Premium. Unfortunately, Max is no longer offered to new customers, so if you changed your plan recently or terminate your service, you’ll lose access.
If you purchased AT&T Fiber Internet 1000, 2000, or 5000 within specific date ranges, you also receive access to Max at no extra charge. The promotion ended on June 5, 2022, so if you’ve moved your service or changed your plan since then, your Max benefit is no longer valid. You can learn more about eligibility over on the AT&T Max Sign-in FAQ page.
If you don’t want to subscribe to yet another streaming service, you also have the option to rent or purchase The Nun II digitally at the following retailers:
Amazon Prime Video — rent it for $17.74, buy it for $22.74
Vudu — rent it for $19.99, buy it for $24.99
Apple TV+ — rent it for $19.99, buy it for $24.99
YouTube — rent it for $19.99, buy it for $24.99
