I’m rollerskating at maximum velocity and still a sniper’s laser sight is pinned to my torso. I wait for the final moment, just when they’re about to pull the trigger, to dodge the incoming bullet and fire my shotgun – right at the brute swinging a spiked club at my forehead. After beelining for the nearest half-pipe, I spin a nose grab mid-air to replenish my pistol ammo, and land on a grind rail – heading straight for the marksmen.

Now it’s just a case of shooting a few homing rockets out of the air, engaging slow motion, and unloading my dual pistols – all before wall-grinding to safety. I feel like a gun-toting martial artist on wheels. I look like a high-speed jumpsuit of death. And I’m having an amazing amount of fun.

This is Rollerdrome, an upcoming single-player arena shooter from Roll7 that signs you up to the titular fictional bloodsport. Made up of a series of deathmatches that string together into a complete single-player narrative campaign, Rollerdrome challenges you to fight waves of enemies across combat arenas strewn with skatepark paraphernalia. With nothing but a slim arsenal of weapons in hand and a pair of rollerskates on your feet, you’ll be pumping up combos, ticking off challenges, and performing a whole bunch of sick tricks worthy of the most extreme sports games.

(Image credit: Roll7)

While lead producer Drew Jones pithily describes Rollerdrome as “a shooter on rollerskates”, studio fans might recognize it more as a mash-up of two of Roll7’s previous releases. Combining the fluid cell-shaded skating of Olli Olli with the frenetic arena survival of Laser League, the game’s taken a strikingly odd premise to what could be its zenith.

“The goal was not just to create a game that’s a blending of genres, so much as to create a game that’s its own genre,” says head of QA David Jenkins. “And not to have a game that is just, ‘Oh, it’s a skating game and you can shoot people in it’, or ‘Oh, it's a shooting game and you happen to be wearing roller skates’. It’s very much its own separate sort of system.”

Beyond Thunderdrome

After spending several hours playing the game’s first six levels, it's the skating half that’s really taken me. Rollerdrome is robust enough to hand you a range of tricks to perform – spins, grabs, and grinds – and intuitive enough to make even the most advanced techniques a breeze to pull off – like acid dropping down a quarter pipe or extending your air time. It’s all buttery smooth, too, with a fluidity that sells the magnificence of your violent performance.

Gunplay isn’t left out of that equation, either. With proximity mines to dodge, laser sights to shake off, homing missiles to avoid, and flaming beams of ionizing energy to think about, Rollerdrome’s freneticism is made manageable by a generous lock-on targeting system and nifty bullet time. Your reticle will automatically shift to enemies when you’re in close proximity, and slow motion can be engaged to let you rain down hell on your opponents while nipping about at furious speeds.

“It’s kind of gung-ho; throw caution to the wind,” says Jones. “These enemies are out to get you and you’ve got to take them on. If you try and play it a bit more conservatively, you’re not going to get as much [from the game] as you would if you just take the fight to the enemies.”

Rollerdrome’s gunplay is simple but elegant. It struck me as a rudimentary imitation of the Doom reboot

A slick ammo and health system incentivizes that aggression further, as you’ll need to dispatch enemies to replenish your fragile health bar, while performing a variety of tricks to refuel your limited ammo supply. Starting with a pair of pistols, I soon unlocked a shotgun and grenade launcher to take into fights, and was impressed by the mileage the game was able to wring out of even this small array. You’ll need to think carefully about your weapons, switching between them at pace to bypass each enemy’s defenses.

It’s simple but elegant. Rollerdrome’s gunplay struck me as a rudimentary imitation of Doom Eternal, as you dance between enemies, swap weapons on the fly, and barrel forward to keep your health and ammo afloat. Add to that the set of skill challenges that come with each level – which range from performing a particular trick, to wall-grinding a specific object, to beating a set score – and the scope for mastery is huge.

False start

(Image credit: Roll7)

Where Rollerdrome starts to fluff its performance, however, is outside of the deathmatches. Set within a retro-futurist dystopia, marred by monopolistic corporations that quell civil unrest by televising hypnotic bloodsports, Rollerdrome punctuates its levels with snippets of worldbuilding. Between each set, you’ll walk around empty locker rooms and sports halls, reading newspaper clippings or listening to radio segments to get a whiff of the world beyond.

“There’s such an obvious well of inspiration in the ‘70s genre films, such as Rollerball and Running Man,” says Jones. “So once we had the bloodsport element, a lot of the setting, theme and time just slotted into place.”

Not that it made much of an impression on me. The main plot is fed to you so sporadically and with such little fanfare that I largely zoned out of the narrative entirely. I found myself more intrigued by my latest high score than the fate of this fictional world. A series of rollerskating deathmatches may well be fertile ground on which to tell a story of corporate moral turpitude, but with that story so divorced from the main events of the game, it amounted to little more than a forgettable aside. Hopefully Rollerdrome’s narrative promise blossoms in a full playthrough.

Wheeler-dealer

(Image credit: Roll7)

The most surprising thing about Rollerdrome is its single-player exclusivity. The idea of a rollerskating, cell-shaded arena shooter sounds like the perfect starting ground for the next hit battle royale or left-field competitive phenomenon in the mode of Rocket League. With Roll7 already packing some multiplayer development experience, why did it approach Rollerdrome as a single-player experience?

“The trap that we really didn't want to fall in was to go too wide on a new subgenre of video game,” says Jones. “We had enough on our plates, and enough to figure out with the core idea of the game and the single-player idea that we started off with. We really wanted to pick a focused experience and just push that as far as we possibly could.”

For the most part, it looks like Roll7 has done exactly that. Rollerdrome might stumble over the tricky launch ramp of sprinkled storytelling, but offers such a finely balanced mix of skating and shooting that you’ll find yourself engrossed anyway. It might be time to dust off those rollerblades that have been sitting in the garage, because by the time Rollerdrome releases on August 16, you’ll want to hit the skatepark.

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If you love PC gaming, you’re going to want a sweet gaming PC, but there are many things to consider before getting one, the biggest being budget.

Trying to build the absolute best gaming PC imagineable can be obscenely expensive and buying one prebuilt isn't much better, but there are ways to get cheaper ones; particularly when you build your own, but even if you get them pre-built. 

More than anything, the best computer for gaming is ultimately the best one you can actually afford, but you don't want to just settle for any old PC. Here are some tips for how to get the very best gaming machine possible for any budget.

Budget gaming PCs

You don't have to spend a fortune to get the pretty good prebuilt gaming PC, believe it or not.

Let’s start with the brand name. People tend to opt for PCs made by well-known brands like Alienware, Corsair or MSI. It makes sense that they would, particularly when shopping for a relatively expensive PC, considering how difficult comparing PCs can be – if a company is successful, it feels more likely that its products will be well made. And you may well have heard enough about them to have an idea of whether you can trust them with your money.

One study, Why the Devil Wears Prada: Cross-National Meanings of Branded Products by Robin Couter et. al for the University of Connecticut School of Business, found that consumers associate big brand products with quality. They also said that people associated branding with status and identity, after all, many people like to look good and have the best of the best.

But enough of the formal stuff. The point is, you don’t have to go with well-known manufacturers.

Usually, even the best budget gaming PC is going to use cheaper parts, but cheaper parts do not always mean bad or lower performance. Some also use parts that are not by big-name manufacturers; they might strip back on the aesthetics; a smaller case without extra trimmings like RGB lighting saves a sweet penny.

Still, how do you find out if a lesser-known product or company is worth it?

For individual computers, a great way is customer reviews. Amazon has a great platform for this. You can learn a lot from reading reviews, and you can ask questions, too.

Sometimes you just want to know if this or that company you’ve never heard of is worth considering, and quickly. For that, Trustpilot, which hosts user reviews of companies and gives them a score, is great for that.

It’s not just no-name manufacturers that make budget PCs. Even large ones do it, usually built with cheaper parts, like MSI’s Trident 3 10th ($1,153.27, around £949, AU$1,674) or the HP Victus 15 L, starting from as cheap as $750 (around £617, AU$1,086), or the CyberPowerPC Wyvern Gaming PC, which you can cop for a nice $936.33 (around £770, AU$1,356) on Amazon.

And this isn't even accounting for retailer sales events when these gaming PCs typically become even cheaper.

Gaming laptops

(Image credit: Canva)

Then, there are gaming laptops. Now, hear us out, you might prefer a desktop, but with one of the best gaming laptops, you can still have a cool gaming setup, and without a tower, monitor screen, and keyboard taking up space further pressuring the purse strings.

When it comes to laptops we know the obvious perks of owning one. The fact that it’s mobile means you can take it with you wherever you need to go; you can take your gaming with you on holiday, or if you have to travel for work.

If you need a laptop anyway, buying a gaming one will save you from buying a desktop –  you’ll save money, even though you pay more for power in a laptop. And many laptops can play the best PC games admirably, possessing some of the best processors and mobile GPUs, and feature some fantastic displays.

The most budget PC of all

Let’s just take a moment to think about the PCs that have loved and served us for many years, only to have us discard and replace them with a newer, better model. You will never be forgotten.

In fact, we want to advocate on behalf of the discarded old PC, because there’s no reason for you to get rid of them. Ever heard of a makeover? Well, that’s where we’re going with this. You already have a case, we’re sure, salvageable parts, and the extra peripherals that would cost you extra, like a mouse, monitor, and keyboard – so why not upgrade it?

While it can feel intimidating if you’ve never touched the inside of a PC before, this is a great chance for you to learn. You should make a clear plan of what an upgraded version of your PC would look like. What do you want it to do?

You can check out online retailers like Newegg and Ebuyer. There’s User Benchmark to check how your PC measures up, and it’ll make it clear what’s old and bad about your PC, and there are also sites that help you to pick parts for your PC like PC Part Picker. Also, be sure to read our tech reviews to get a breakdown of PC components that may be right for you, and don’t forget your local PC shop is an option too.

All in all, it’s possible to get a great gaming PC for a budget price. So, explore your options and don’t limit yourself because you think it’s impossible.

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Microsoft says it has produced a zero-carbon emissions replacement for the diesel-powered generators used for backups in data centers, in the event of power outages and other service disruptions.

In a blog post announcing the news, Sean James, Microsoft’s director of data center research, called the breakthrough a "moon landing" moment for the data center industry

Data center sustainability is a huge deal whatever way you look at it; the cornerstones of modern cloud hosting currently use nearly 1% of global electricity demand contributing 0.3% of all global CO2 emissions, according to research from the International Energy Agency.

How does it work?

Microsoft's backup generator was powered by two fuel cells residing inside two 40-feet-long shipping containers.

The set-up can reportedly generate up to 3 megawatts of power, which is enough to replace one diesel generator or up to 1,800 homes.

Microsoft has been experimenting with fuel cell technology since 2013, and has pledged to be carbon negative by 2030.

It's not just hydrogen that offers the chance to make the future of data centers more sustainable, however. 

Fujitsu is working with Icelandic start-up Atmonia to produce sustainable Amonnia, which could be burned to effectively power data centers if the heavily emitting Haber-Bosch process could be replaced.

Hydrogen power also has many high-profile detractors, despite Microsoft's show of faith, with Elon Musk describing the technology as "the dumbest thing I could possibly imagine for energy storage" at a recent event.

READ MORE:

> Data center industry to become trillion-dollar 'fifth utility' by end of the decade

> BT data centers will give London Underground 4G a welcome boost

> Our guide to the best business servers around

“I’m excited about the idea of working on something that can make a difference in the world, and hydrogen has a ton of potential to be a huge game changer,” said Sean James, Microsoft’s director of datacenter research. “When a lot of people think of renewable energy, they think of wind turbines and solar panels, and they don’t necessarily think of hydrogen."

"I know I didn’t. I think that will definitely change.”

• Not interested in using external data centers? Check out our guide to the best bare metal servers

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August 10 is going to be a big day for Samsung fans, as we're getting the formal unveiling of the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and the Galaxy Z Flip 4 (and more besides). Ahead of the event, a new leak has revealed some of the official cases we can expect to see launching alongside the foldable phones.

As spotted by SamMobile, one retailer in Germany has already started listing a few accessories for both the Z Fold 4 and the Z Flip 4, showing off different elements of the design of both smartphones at the same time.

These cases don't seem to have changed massively from those we got with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 and the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3, suggesting that there haven't been any major shifts in the designs of the foldable handsets either.

Cases and pricing

For the Galaxy Z Fold 4, it looks as though there's a Slim Standing Cover that does double duty as a case and a stand for the device, and according to the retailer that's going to go on sale for €43.47 (about $45 / £37 / AU$64). A single piece protector, meanwhile, will cost €19.13 ($20 / £16 / AU$28).

When it comes to the Galaxy Z Flip 4, there's a Flap Leather Cover for €72.84 (about $74 / £61/ AU$107), and a Clear Cover with Ring for €28.72 (about $29 / £24 / AU$42). These prices might just be placeholders or tentative estimates however, and might differ when the accessories actually go on sale.

We don't have long to wait until August 10, and we're going to get to see the Galaxy Watch 5, the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro, and the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro at the same event as well. We'll bring you all the announcements as they're made, along with details of any accessories that Samsung is unveiling too.

---

Analysis: the importance of an ecosystem

Samsung certainly isn't shy of pushing out a suite of accessories and add-ons alongside its main devices – it knows the importance of offering not just phones, tablets, smartwatches and all the rest, but also complementary products to go alongside them.

Apple is leading the way here, with laptops and phones and smartwatches and tracking devices and streaming boxes, all working seamlessly with each other. Plus, there are plenty of official cases and chargers and cables for users to pick through too.

You can see that this is something that Google is trying to emulate. Google hasn't always been able to get hardware right, but the Google Pixel 6 was seen as a success for the company, and it's bringing out the Pixel Watch as well later in the year.

One edge that Samsung does have over both of these competitors is that it has two well-established foldable phones in its line-up – available in various colors and with various accessories as well. While both Apple and Google are expected to launch folding phones at some point, Samsung has a clear head start here.

• We've put all the best Samsung Galaxy phones in one place

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We're nearly two thirds of the way through 2022. And, even though we're in the middle of summer (sorry, southern hemisphere dwellers), the world's biggest streamers have plenty of new movies and TV shows for us to watch over the next four weeks.

Below, we'll run you through 14 of the most anticipated films and TV series set to land on Netflix, Disney Plus, Prime Video, and more. That trio leads the way in the most notable streaming offerings in August, but you shouldn't discount productions available on other platforms.

Paramount Plus, Apple TV Plus, Hulu, and HBO Max come bearing gifts, too – marking the first time in a while that the seven biggest streamers have all featured in our monthly round-up. From sports documentaries and fantasy shows, to movie thrillers and superhero fare, these are the biggest films and shows releasing in August 2022.

Lightyear (Disney Plus)

When to stream it: Wednesday, August 3

Lightyear is Pixar's first-ever meta-style movie. It's the film that Toy Story's human protagonist Andy watched as a child, which ignited his love for Buzz Lightyear, leading to Andy's mom buying him the Buzz Lightyear toy that sets the events of Toy Story in motion. So it's a spin-off film in the Toy Story franchise, but it also exists as an actual movie in Pixar's animated universe. Like we said, it's meta (or complicated, if that's easier to follow).

But we digress. Lightyear tells the story of Buzz Lightyear (Chris Evans), the soon-to-be legendary Space Ranger. After his error causes his entire crew to become marooned on an alien world, Buzz vows to make amends. He volunteers to be the test subject for a new experimental hyper speed drive that'll get everyone home but, during one routine test, Buzz is inexplicably sent into the future. There, he must work alongside a ragtag group of rookie Space Rangers to stop a robot uprising – led by Emperor Zurg – and find his way back to his own timeline.

In our review, we called Lightyear "another shining example of Pixar's ability to tell captivating and grounded stories, no matter how innovative their setting is", even though its plot is very predictable. One to throw on for the kids over the school holidays.

All or Nothing: Arsenal (Prime Video)

When to stream it: Thursday, August 4

Following the relative success of its other "All or Nothing" productions, Amazon Studios' latest sports-based documentary series follows English Premier League side Arsenal as they look to qualify for the Champions League (and lift a trophy or two) by the end of the 2021/22 soccer season.

The eight-part Prime Video series will give fans an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Mikel Arteta's squad – the youngest in England's top flight last term – as they attempt to prove age is no barrier to success. Diehard soccer fans will already know whether they're successful or not, but it'll be intriguing to see how Arteta, his players, and coaching team react to the many highs and lows that last season brought.

The first three episodes launch on August 4, with episodes four to six arriving a week later, and the final two releasing on August 18.

Prey (Hulu/Disney Plus)

When to stream it: Friday, August 5

Predator sequels have received mixed to poor reviews since the Arnold Schwarzanegger-starring original wowed us way back in 1987. Now, 10 Cloverfield Lane director Dan Trachtenberg hopes to finally break that negative cycle with a brand-new entry in the sci-fi horror franchise.

Set in 1719, Prey stars Amber Midthunder (The Ice Road) as Naru, a fearless and skilled Comanche tribeswoman who dreams of being recognized as a warrior among her kin. When Naru discovers the existence of an unusual creature, she sets out to hunt it and prove her worth. Naru soon finds out, though, that she's the one being stalked by a highly evolved alien, who possesses advanced weaponry and a bloodlust to kill any worthy adversary it crosses paths with.

Prey launches on Hulu in the US and Disney Plus in non-US territories. Be sure to check back with TechRadar soon, too, for our spoiler-free review and exclusive chat with Trachtenberg, Midthunder, and producer Jhane Myers.

The Sandman (Netflix)

When to stream it: Friday, August 5

32 years after Neil Gaiman's iconic graphic novel series subverted the comic book industry, The Sandman is finally getting a live-action Netflix adaptation befitting the legendary author's distinguished works.

Its story is a complex one, but here's the general gist: it tells the tale of Dream (Tom Sturridge), one of the seven Endless and the King of the Dreaming, the realm where humanity's dreams and nightmares are controlled. When Dream is unwittingly captured during an amateurish occult ritual, however, he's imprisoned for 100 years – not to mention he's stripped of the three items from which he draws his powers.

Eventually escaping captivity, Dream returns to his domain, only to find that it's crumbled and become deserted in his absence. Determined to restore order to his kingdom, Dream sets out to reclaim his vestments, seek vengeance on those who wronged him, and maybe learn to become a bit more human and humble on the way.

The Sandman's all-star cast includes Game of Thrones' Gwendoline Christie, Doctor Who's Jenna Coleman, Harry Potter's David Thewlis, Logan's Boyd Holbrook, and Killing Eve's Kirby Howell-Bapstiste among many others. Don't be surprised if it makes its way onto our best Netflix shows once it's released, and check back in with TechRadar soon for our spoiler-free review and exclusive chat with Gaiman, showrunner Allan Heinberg, and the series' cast.

Thirteen Lives (Prime Video)

When to stream it: Friday, August 5

Based on the inspiring true story of the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue, Thirteen Lives launches exclusively on Prime Video in early August (following a limited theatrical release on July 29).

When a junior soccer team and their coach become trapped in the northern Thai cave system by rising waters, more than 10,000 people, including 100 divers, set out to rescue the group across a gruelling and emotional 18-day stretch that captured the hearts and minds of billions around the world.

The Ron Howard-directed flick stars Lord of the Rings alumnus Viggo Mortensen, The Batman's Colin Farrell, and Star Wars' Joe Edgerton. Numerous Thai actors also feature heavily and help to capture the authenticity, drama, and suspenseful moments in thrilling detail. Stick this one on your Prime Video movie watch list.

Mike Judge's Beavis and Butt-Head (Paramount Plus)

When to stream it: Friday, August 5

The August 5 release train keeps on rolling with the return of Mike Judge's iconic slacker duo after an 11-year hiatus. That's right, Beavis and Butt-Head are back; the adult animated TV show – which was MTV's highest-rated series during its original 1992 to 1997 run – making its grand return on Paramount's streaming service.

The show follows hot on the heels of Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe, a movie that only launched on Paramount Plus on June 23, but one that received critical acclaim upon release. Clearly, there's still an audience – albeit one fuelled by nostalgia – for the dumb but lovable duo.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, Beavis and Butt-Head's latest revival – it was briefly brought back in 2011 before being cancelled for a second time – will see the pair "enter a 'whole new Gen Z world' with meta-themes that are said to be relatable to both new fans, who may be unfamiliar with the original series, and old".

The show will actually arrive a day earlier (August 4) on Paramount Plus in the US. Other territories will get it on August 5.

Five Days at Memorial (Apple TV Plus)

When to stream it: Friday, August 12

Based on Sheri Fink's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Five Days at Memorial could be the latest in a long line of top-tier prestige Apple TV Plus shows.

The limited series chronicles the events inside a New Orleans hospital in the wake of the hugely destructive 2005 storm known as Hurricane Katrina. With flood waters rising, the hospital's power failing, and temperatures soaring, exhausted and desperate staff are forced to make numerous difficult decisions that'll haunt them – and the families of the patients they were supposed to care for – for years to come.

Vera Farmiga, Cornelius Smith Jr, Cherry Jones, Robert Pine, Adepuro Oduye, and Julie Ann Emery are among the show's stacked cast. Five Days of Memorial's first three episodes premiere on August 12, with subsequent entries arriving weekly until September 16.

Day Shift (Netflix)

When to stream it: Friday, August 12

Good vampire movies have been few and far between in recent years, but new Netflix movie Day Shift looks like it could finally that drought.

Day Shift stars Jamie Foxx as Bud Jablonski, a blue collar dad who just wants to provide for his daughter. Unbeknownst to his family, though, Bud's day job as a pool cleaner is a front for his real occupation – hunting and killing vampires.

The action-comedy-horror Netflix flick comes from first-time director J.J Perry, who worked as a stunt coordinator on big films including Star Trek: Into Darkness, Gangster Squad, Iron Man, and Django Unchained; the latter of which Foxx also starred in. Snoop Dogg, Dave Franco, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, and Karla Souza play key supporting roles in the eagerly anticipated movie.

Secret Headquarters (Paramount Plus)

When to stream it: Saturday, August 13

Fresh from his role as Agent Mobius in Marvel TV series Loki, Owen Wilson takes on a whole different role in another superhero project on Paramount Plus.

Walker Scobell (The Adam Project) stars as Charlie Kincaid, a schoolboy who thinks his father (Wilson) leads a double life. While hanging out with his friends after school, Charlie accidentally discovers his dad's secret hideout, revealing that Charlie's father is actually the world's most powerful superhero. Unsurprisingly, a bunch of villains attack the compound, and it's up to Charlie and company to protect his dad's superhero wares and save the world in his supposed absence.

Christopher Yost (Star Wars: Rebels, Cowboy Bebop) has penned the script, with directing duo Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (Project Power) helming the project.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (Disney Plus)

When to stream it: Wednesday, August 17

The next major Marvel Phase 4 project arrives on Disney Plus in August, and it's sure to make the competition green with envy.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law stars Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) as Jennifer Walters, a lawyer and cousin to Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner/Hulk. Walters, though, isn't just any lawyer – she's also a mean, green, superhero machine, otherwise known as She-Hulk. Oh, and she just so happens to be the new head of a new law division specializing in defending superpowered beings in court. Expect the show to explore the conflict of interests between Walters' desire to uphold the law the right way and her own ability to dish out punishment to criminals.

She-Hulk's TV show will also star Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky/Abomination, Jameela Jamil as Titania, and Benedict Wong's Phase 4 regular (and Sorcerer Supreme) Wong. Expect plenty of cameos and fourth wall breaking antics from this one.

House of the Dragon (HBO Max)

When to stream it: Sunday, August 21

Three years after Game of Thrones' controversial final season ended, HBO's next live-action Westeros-set project – based on iconic author George R.R Martin's fantasy novel series – swoops onto our screens in late August.

Set 200 years before Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon chronicles the beginning of the end of House Targaryen, the dragon-riding family who ruled over Martin's fictional world for eons. The series will focus on the Targaryen civil war – also known as the Dance of the Dragons – which sees Emma D'Arcy's Princess Rhaenyra and Matt Smith's Prince Daemon battle for the Iron Throne as both look to succeed Paddy Considine's King Viserys I.

House of the Dragon will jump between different time periods as it tells the tale of House Targaryen's downfall, with events presumably leading into Robert Baratheon usurping King Aerys II, aka the Mad King. Fans of Martin's books and the Game of Thrones TV adaptation should find plenty to enjoy from this politically fraught, action-packed, and adult-themed drama series.

Me Time (Netflix)

When to stream it: Friday, August 26

Netflix has a habit of making lackluster comedies that somehow tickle the funny bone of its global subscriber base – and Me Time looks like another one to add to the pile.

Still, it's got some serious star power attached to it. Kevin Hart plays Sonny, a stay-at-home dad who surprisingly finds himself with a week's worth of "me time" when his workaholic wife takes his kids on vacation. Sonny decides to reconnect with best friend Huck (Mark Wahlberg) for the latter's 40th birthday – a wild weekend that's sure to live long in the memory and help Sonny realize just how mundane his life has become.

Just like Senior Year and The Kissing Booth, Me Time looks to be another unamusing Netflix original comedy flick. But, with A-list actors in Hart and Wahlberg in its lead roles, it should do big numbers – among general audiences, that is – when it's released.

Samaritan (Prime Video)

When to stream it: Friday, August 26

Not to be usurped by Disney Plus and Paramount Plus, Prime Video is getting on the superhero act this month.

Samaritan stars legendary actor Sylvester Stallone as Mr. Smith, a reclusive Granite City resident who works as a refuse collector. However, when Smith steps in to rescue Sam Cleary (Euphoria and The Umbrella Academy's Javon Walton) from being attacked, his superhuman display makes Sam realize that Smith is none other than Samaritan, Granite City's former protector. Samaritan was thought to have perished in a battle with arch rival Nemesis 25 years earlier – clearly, though, he faked his own death to live a life of anonymity.

In Samaritan's absence, criminal activity in Granite City has increased. As the city stands on the brink of chaos, it's up to Sam to convince Samaritan to rediscover his sense of duty and become its defender once more.

Samaritan doesn't look like it'll subvert the superhero genre, but its intriguing blend of Batman/Superman-style powers and themes, coupled with a Rocky Balboa-esque aesthetic, makes us think it could be a sleeper hit for Amazon Studios.

Andor (Disney Plus)

When to stream it: Wednesday, August 31

Two months on from the season finale of Obi-Wan Kenobi's standalone series, another fan favorite Star Wars character is getting their own spin-off project. This time, it's Diego Luna's Cassian Andor, who you'll remember from the best Star Wars spin-off movie, aka Rogue One.

Set five years before Rogue One, the series primarily follows Luna's Andor as he transforms from street thief into the rebel spy we see in Rogue One. The show will also recount events surrounding the formation of the Rebel Alliance, with the origins of key characters including Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly) and Luthen (Stellan Skarsgard) also set to be explored. Forrest Whittaker's Saw Gerrera, last seen in Rogue One, will feature in some capacity, too.

Given its street-level and spy-thriller positioning, Andor will be a grittier Star Wars show than Obi-Wan – think along the lines of The Mandalorian, and you'll get a better idea of what it'll look and feel like. 

Andor will receive a two-episode premiere on launch day, with subsequent entries arriving weekly after that until November 9. The series has already been renewed for a second season, too, which will chronicle the other four years leading up to Rogue One's story.

For more streaming-based content, check out our Marvel movies in order article. Alternatively, read our guide on all upcoming Star Wars projects, every Netflix movie releasing in 2022, or the best HBO Max shows.

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Fujitsu's soon to launch high performance computing (HPC) cloud is already being put to use researching the next generation of space travel. 

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) utilized Fujitsu’s wave analysis solution to conduct large scale electromagnetic wave simulations, used to evaluate the radio wave intensity within the X-ray spectrometer of the space agency's X-ray imaging satellite XRISM.

Utilizing Fujitsu’s solution, JAXA was reportedly able to generate an experiment environment that simulates observation conditions as in outer space and conducted evaluations that could not be performed with traditional computing methods.

Why does this matter?

Electromagnetic interference between electronic components and communications equipment can be a big issue for users in all types of different fields, from space to standard urban transportation.

Fujitsu claims precise simulations of complex and large-scale electromagnetic wave problems could not be solved with conventional approximation algorithms.

However, using the HPC solution JAXA successfully confirmed that the radio wave intensity in XRISM’s X-ray spectrometer is at a level that does not impact the observation performance of the satellite even in orbit.

"This represents a major technical advance in satellite design," said Masahiro Tsujimoto, associate professor, JAXA Institute of Space and Astronautical Science. "n the XRISM satellite project, the results of this simulation played an important role in quantitatively evaluating unverified risks and confirming the validity of the design.”

Interested?

Even if a satellite is out of your budget range, you might still be available to afford some of the technology under the project's hood.

Japanese readers will be able to get access to the computing cloud for between $400 to $8,000 a month, depending on their requirements, when it launches later this year. 

READ MORE:

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Dubbed Fujitsu Computing-as-a-Service (CaaS), the cloud will give users access to some of the same Arm-based architecture that powers the world's most powerful supercomputer, "Fugaku" in Kobe, Japan.

• Want to see what your high performance capacity can do? Chec kout our guide to the best database software

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We've already heard plenty about the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 and the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro – enough for us to be eagerly awaiting the arrival of the next-gen wearables – and today we've got some more leaked renders to flip through.

Courtesy of 91mobiles, the renders show off both smartwatches and a total of five different colors, ahead of the grand unveiling of the Galaxy Watch 5 and the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro (expected to be on August 10).

The leak matches up with images that we've previously seen on the web, while adding a few more angles for us to take a look at. While the designs aren't changing much from their predecessors, they have been slightly refined in places.

Colors and battery

It would seem that we're getting the Pro model in black and gray at least, and the standard model in black, pink gold, and what looks like the Bora Purple shade that the Samsung Galaxy S22 smartphone has just been made available in.

The last we heard about these wearables was that the new watches would be more or less the same price as the current models, though the Pro model (known as the Classic model last year) is said to be getting a major boost in terms of battery life.

These shots also appear to back up another previous rumor, specifically that the rotating bezel on the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic is going to be ditched as it transforms into the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro – which is a shame, as it was a handy method of operating the watch.

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Analysis: what we expect on August 10

There's likely to be a cornucopia of new hardware from Samsung on August 10. The tech giant has already confirmed that it's holding a product launch event on that day, and it's also been dropping plenty of hints about what we can look forward to.

And where Samsung hasn't yet provided information, leaks have filled in the gaps: check out the recently revealed renders of the upcoming foldable Galaxy Z Fold 4 phone, for example, which show off an appealingly slick aesthetic.

Add everything up together, and it would seem that we're going to get the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro, and the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro – at least.

That's an impressive slate of products, and one that's likely to catch the attention of Apple, Google, and all of Samsung's other competitors across various categories. As for the Samsung Galaxy S23, that isn't likely to see the light of day before January.

• Best Wear OS watch 2022: our list of the top ex-Android Wear smartwatches

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Even though the newest iPad Air is only a couple of months old, we're already looking towards the future and towards the next version of Apple's mid-range tablet.

This isn't the next iPad on the way - there's the iPad (2022), iPad Mini (2022) and iPad Pro (2022) that will likely all come first. But the Air line is popular for lots of people who might not want those other devices.

Apple's iPad Air tablets sit below the Pro line, bringing svelte designs but with not-quite-top-end displays and processing power. They're good options for people who want a premium tablet but don't quite need everything the Pro offers - or don't want to spend that much.

As we've said, we saw one iPad Air launch at the beginning of 2022, but Apple is likely working on its sixth-gen version already - it could come in 2023 but more likely later than that. Here, we'll detail everything we know and what we want to see.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? Apple's next mid-tier tablet
• When is it out? Likely in early 2024
• How much will it cost? Around $599 / £569 / AU$929

(Image credit: TechRadar)

iPad Air 6 release date and price

We haven't heard any confirmed or even rumored information on when the next iPad Air could come along or how much it could cost, but we can make some good guesses.

The fourth- and fifth-gen iPad Airs came two years apart, so it stands to reason that the next one will too. That'd make the release window the first half of 2024 - quite a while away!

Regarding the price, it'll likely cost the same amount as the last one - that started at $599 / £569 / AU$929 but the cost went up for more storage.

iPad Air 6: what we want to see

(Image credit: TechRadar)

1. A more distinct identity

The biggest problem with the 2022 iPad Air is that it's just too close to the iPad Pro. Most buyers will struggle to know which to buy, or which is best for them - in fact, it makes the Pro a little redundant thanks to its lower price.

Apple is going to have to work out a better way to make the next iPad Air unique, so that it's not too similar to the Pro.

Perhaps we could see it get a more mid-range specs sheet as well as a lower price, to make it more accessible.

2. More storage

The current iPad Airs start with 64GB storage which, for a tablet with a top-end chipset, simply isn't enough.

That's not enough to have many games downloaded, or to have loads of files to work on or edit, and so it's not really clear why this version even exists.

It makes the price seem a little disingenous too - sure, the $599 / £569 / AU$929 entry price seems low, but if it's for little storage space, no-one will actually buy it at that price.

3. A bigger battery

An issue we found in the last iPad Air - and most other iPads, if we're being honest - is that the battery life wasn't amazing. It wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't good either.

If you're wanting to wander around coffee shops to do work, or take your iPad to your studio to use as a second screen, you really want a device that'll last a long time. Current iPads don't always do that.

We'd like the next-gen version to use a bigger battery - perhaps alongside some optimizations to squeeze the most out of that power - to ensure this has a chance of landing on our list of the best iPads.

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The Wilds has been cancelled by Amazon Studios after two seasons.

According to multiple outlets, including Deadline and Variety, Amazon has abandoned the popular Prime Video show less than three months after its second season was released. Deadline suggests that the series' main cast members were only informed about the decision on Thursday, July 28. At the time of writing, though, members of the core cast are yet to publicly comment on the matter.

News about The Wilds' cancellation is sure to disappoint fans of the young adult (YA) survival drama series. The Prime Video production is one of the more highly-rated original series on Amazon's streaming platform, with its first season holding a 92% certified fresh rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. Meanwhile, The Wilds season 2 fared just as well; the show's latest installment garnering an 85% score on the same website. Over on IMDb.com, The Wilds has amassed an average 7.2 out of 10 score from nearly 20,000 user reviews.

No official reason has been given for the show's cancelation, but Deadline claims that the subdued reaction to The Wilds' second season led to its downfall. The series arrived to critical acclaim upon the release of its first season in December 2020, with its Lost meets Castaway-style narrative and excellent casting helping to drive newcomers to Amazon's streaming service.

However, with similarly positioned YA series, such as hit show Yellowjackets, starting to muscle in on its territory, coupled with its pandemic-induced release date delay, it seems that The Wilds didn't have the tools to craft a life raft to keep it afloat.

We've reached out to Amazon Studios for an official comment on The Wilds' cancellation and we'll update this article if we hear back.

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Analysis: cast adrift on the streaming high seas

The Wilds was one of Amazon's first big success stories. (Image credit: Amazon Studios)

The Wilds' cancelation is something of a pivotal moment in Amazon Studios' history.

The series was the first young adult-positioned project to release on Prime Video and, thanks to its relative success, it paved the way for other YA shows to roll off the Amazon production line. Panic, Amazon's failed I Know What You Did Last Summer remake, Alex Rider, and The Summer I Turned Pretty owe their existence to The Wilds, which paved the way for those series to see the light of day.

With Amazon bringing the curtain down on The Wilds, then, it's consigning one of its pioneering shows to the streaming history books – and some industry insiders and fans may see that as a watershed moment for Prime Video.

How so? Well, Amazon isn't exactly pivoting away from YA-developed series, but it's certainly leaning harder into more popular and profitable genres. 

For one, Amazon continues to expand its original superhero offerings to its subscriber base. The Boys season 4, plus a live-action spin-off series, are in the works. Invincible season 2 is currently in development, while a new original movie in Samaritan is set to release in late August.

Meanwhile, Amazon is pushing harder into fantasy genre territory. A second season of The Wheel of Time is on the way, while a third season was announced at Comic-Con 2022. Carnival Row, Prime Video's first fantasy original series, is also getting a second runout at some point. Oh, and there's a little known show called The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power – the most expensive TV series ever made – coming exclusively to Prime Video on September 2.

Of course, there'll always be an audience for YA content on Prime Video, so it's likely that Amazon will continue to commission projects of this nature, providing they sound intriguing enough. But there's no question that the studio is pumping money into more popular genres with bigger fanbases, which could be a dangerous move to make. 

Amazon won't want to alienate its young adult/teen audience by failing to deliver content targeted specifically at this demographic. If it does so, it may find those viewers abandoning it – in much the same way that Amazon abandoned The Wilds – for other streamers, such as Netflix, whose YA back catalog includes hit shows such as Shadow and Bone, Riverdale, and Heartstopper. Time will tell if The Wilds' cancellation was the right decision or not.

For more Prime Video-based content, check out the platform's new user-friendly interface, or read up on a new feature that Prime Video just added – one that Netflix is yet to implement.

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Getting your smartphone repaired can seem like a daunting prospect; knowing that your mobile - full of personal information and photos and sensitive apps - is going to be in the hands of a stranger for a time without you present.

And sure, the vast majority of repair specialists are trustworthy experts, but now Samsung phones are getting an extra feature that'll help ease your mind. This is called Repair Mode, and it's rolling out to phones from the company starting with the Galaxy S21 series.

When activated, Repair Mode lets you block access to certain functions or apps on your mobile - for example, you could lock off your social media accounts or gallery apps, so that they can't be accessed by strangers.

According to Samsung, once you trigger Repair Mode, your phone will reboot and "you won't be able to access your personal data, such as photos, messages, and accounts, and only use the default installed apps."

This means you can hand your smartphone over to repair companies without either worrying about your information, or having to back up and reset your phone. 

It's not quite clear when this update will arrive on users' devices and although we know the S21 series will be the first to receive the feature, Samsung hasn't provided a timeline as to when that mobile family, or subsequent ones, can expect to gain access to Repair Mode. That said, we expect Samsung is staggering its updates on a region by region, as that's common industry-standard practice.

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Analysis: a good time to get a Samsung phone

Samsung has been surprisingly generous in 2022, with multiple updates bringing new features to its smartphones.

Sure, the company has a habit of bringing the latest functionality from its flagship phones to older models soon after launch, but we've seen more this year.

For example, the company recently launched the Photoshop-esque Enhance-X app, which lets you use AI to fix photos, even those you didn't originally take on a Samsung phone.

It seems that Samsung is taking a page out of Google's book, which has previously been good at bringing new tools and features to Pixel phones with its regular Pixel Feature Drops.

Because of this, and also because of Samsung's promise that its newer phones will get four years of software updates, now is a really great time to pick up a new phone from the company. We've got a list of the best Samsung phones if you want to peruse them, but our list of the best Android phones overall will help you check out Samsung alongside its rivals.

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Boy, the CPU industry is certainly looking leakier than the Titanic right now. Ahead of an official reveal scheduled for August 5, a new leak has seemingly confirmed the existence of four new processors from AMD, which will be part of the upcoming Ryzen 7000 series of CPUs. The kicker? This leak hasn’t come from some secretive Twitter account, but from AMD itself.

As reported by Wccftech, four new products were added to AMD’s own resource library: the Ryzen 9 7950X and 7900X, Ryzen 7 7700X, and Ryzen 5 7600X. Although we don’t have official specs for these chips from AMD, previously leaked benchmarks for unnamed Zen 4 CPUs give us a rough idea of what we’re looking at here.

The Ryzen 9 7950X is the top-end enthusiast processor, and is believed to be the 32-thread powerhouse CPU leaked through benchmark results, while the midrange 7600X is expected to run on 12 threads at around 5.2GHz. Power requirements for these chips may go as high as 170W, signaling a shift towards higher TDPs for both CPUs and GPUs.

Perhaps the most interesting inclusion is the 7700X, an unexpected appearance; previous speculation had the 7800X as the first Ryzen 7 chip to launch, but it looks like AMD might be releasing a lower-powered (and presumably more affordable) Ryzen 7 CPU first. All four of these processors will require AMD’s new AM5 socket, found on X670 and B560 motherboards.

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Analysis: Intel should be worried, but the apparent abandonment of Ryzen 3 is depressing

With an official announcement coming in a week and current leaks pointing towards a mid-September release for the Zen 4 processors, Intel might want to hurry up with its Raptor Lake CPUs, which are expected to launch sometime in October.

The Ryzen 7000 series will come loaded with AMD’s clever 3D V-cache technology, which allows for the ‘stacking’ of cache memory on the chip. It’s currently only available in the excellent Ryzen 7 5800X3D, and the boosted cache makes it absolutely incredible for gaming – something AMD is leaning into when it comes to marketing its CPUs. If Intel doesn’t react fast enough, AMD could corner a significant chunk of the gaming processor market.

Still, it’s a bit sad to see these leaks only go down as far as Ryzen 5. Don’t get me wrong – the Ryzen 5 5600X is a fantastic mid-range CPU, but it seems as though AMD has forgotten about its budget Ryzen 3 line, which has previously represented amazing value for budget gaming and media center PC builds.

The last Ryzen 3 desktop chip to launch was the 4100, which admittedly only hit stores back in April 2022, but there was a time when a new Ryzen generation would bring Ryzen 3 chips with it. Rumors dating back to March indicate that a 5100 might be in the works, but anything like a 7100 or 7300 seems out of the question for now.

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Motorola has taken a break for a few years after launching its last foldable phone, the Motorola Razr 2020, but we now know that it's got a Razr 2022 on the way - because the company itself has confirmed as much.

Posting on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, Motorola has teased its upcoming folding phone in detail, providing a look at the design as well as specs for the thing.

You can see the first image above - it shows two rear cameras, as well as a large outer display that seems to have loads of functions. Separately, the brand confirmed that the phone will use the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset, a top-end processor that'll provide lots of processing power.

The phone is being teased alongside the Moto X30 Pro, which we now know will have 125W fast charging and three rear cameras.

Both are set to debut on August 2, another thing that these teasers confirm, which is when we'll find out all the other specs of the phones.

It's not clear if it'll be a global unveiling or just a Chinese one. In the last few years Motorola has made a concerted effort at breaking into the Chinese market, launching a few products that don't make their way to the rest of the world, but hopefully we'll see the Razr globally.

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Analysis: a busy time for foldables

The Motorola Razr 2022's launch date, of August 2, means it'll debut just eight days before a close rival, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4.

This will have the exact same form factor - a 'clamshell' folding phone - as well as likely equally high-end specs, and possibly a similar price too.

The Z Flip 4 will likely go on sale soon after its August 10 unveiling, so we'll have to see if the Razr 2022 gets a similar release date or whether it arrives in second place - if it comes before the Z Flip, it could sway people interested in buying a new clamshell.

The Z Flip 4 is expected to debut alongside the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4, so that's going to be a big day for folding phones - it sounds like the first half of August will bring us lots of new members of that growing niche.

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A number of recent news items over the past few weeks have given us more insight into the soon to be announced next-gen graphics cards and processors, and if what we've heard is true, it looks like we've decided that energy efficiency and conservation is for suckers and newbs.

First, there's long been rumors that the next-gen Nvidia Lovelace graphics cards are going to be energy hogs, but earlier this week reliable Twitter leaker Kopite7kimi posted some supposed specs for a high-end Nvidia RTX 4000-series card, possibly a Titan-class card, that could have upwards of 800W of power draw.

Now, we're hearing news from Wccftech that the soon-to-be-announced AMD Ryzen 7000-series desktop processors appear to be throwing off any pretense at efficiency as well, with a reported 170W TDP for the top-tier Ryzen 9 chip. 

Assuming you paired these two components together and nothing else, you'd have nearly a whole kilowatt of power being sucked up by just the processor and graphics card, meaning that everything else will absolutely push this system over the 1000W line.

Without question, this would likely be the best gaming PC ever built, but is it even worth it at this point?

Do we really need this much power?

Plenty of the best graphics cards are energy sinks, like the Nvidia RTX 3090 Ti which has a rated TGP of 450W. It is unquestionably powerful, and it can make the best PC games look amazing, but I've had the priviledge of playing these games on all of this high-end hardware, and I can honestly say that the 4K eye candy that you'll get from an RTX 3090 Ti is very real, but the RTX 3070 or even the RTX 3060 Ti looks more than sweet enough for the vast majority of people.

As for 170W for, let's say, an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, this would definitely make for a very powerful processor, but one whose power is absolutely wasted on the consumer market. This kind of power would be a multitasking champ, no doubt, but it's getting to be the processor equivalent of juggling a half-dozen knives while riding a circus bear in a tutu and balancing a bottle on your nose. An impressive feat, but it's ultimately just a spectacle. Nobody ever really needs to do this many things that necessitate this kind of performance in everyday life.

Meanwhile, Intel seemed to be going in the right direction before Alder Lake with an emphasis on improving efficiency on their processors, but the 12th-gen chips seem to have reversed a lot of that good work in order to reclaim the company's previous best-in-class performance.

Accepting good enough

There is a notion that only 1.25x or 1.5x performance increases can be considered a success, and that you need to pull off this kind of thing every one to two years. Some are talking about 2x performance increases for Nvidia Lovelace, and who knows what Intel Raptor Lake will bring. 

At some point, we're amassing all this computing power at the consumer level for the sake of amassing this power because we can. Then we just go and use it to stream Netflix.

This is not to say that performance increases aren't worth pursuing, but we should aim to match performance with our needs, not introduce this kind of performance and then look for new ways to use it – at least that can't be the default assumption every time. 

There's nothing wrong with Nvidia coming out and saying that the RTX 4090 isn't any more powerful than the RTX 3090, but that it uses half the energy, or that it cost a fifth of the price. Value and efficiency seem to have been completely thrown by the wayside, and that isn't just a mistake, it's increasingly unethical.

Performance at all costs actually imposes real, concrete costs

A Color-Enhanced Satellite View Of The Northwest Portion Of The Dixie Fire On August 17, 2021 (Image credit: Pierre Markuse / Flickr)

There are two major issues with performance being the only metric that seems to matter anymore.

First, energy isn't free; not environmentally, and not economically. As it stands, rising carbon emissions are projected to make large, heavily populated swaths of the planet partially if not entirely uninhabitable at an accelerating pace. Our flagrant misuse of scarce energy resources requires producing more carbon emissions to keep up with our actual needs, and the trade-off simply isn't worth it. 

The consequences are assumed to be far enough in the future for most people to believe that it's a problem that we can solve tomorrow. That simply isn't true, as the recent heatwave in Europe and the continuing wildfires in the Western United States make plainly obvious, not to mention one of the worst droughts in recent history in parts of the Global South that gets far less, if any, attention the way middle- and upper-class families fleeing their suburban homes in California do.

What will it take?

If that can't convince us to be more rational about what we consider "progress" let's just point out a simple economic reality here: getting to this level of performance is just going to make these products even more expensive, pricing even more people out as families struggle with inflation and rising energy costs.

The current generation of graphics cards is already out of reach for most because they are just too expensive. This trend looks to continue in the future, making essential technology for the modern economy something that only the well-off can afford, whether that means families or affluent gamers buying wildly overpowered showpieces or rich countries that can afford to make research investments in these increasingly expensive technologies while universities in poorer countries increasingly get pushed aside.

All of this is a recipe for widening social divides at a time when everyone is going to be under more pressure than ever from a changing climate for everything from vaccines to drinking water.

I love computers and I am a lifelong PC gamer, so I get it, I really do. But I can also tell you that the performance of the RTX 3090 Ti, as impressive as it is has seriously diminishing returns after a while. At some point, it's ok to say, "you know, 60 to 70 fps at 1440p is good enough," because honestly, it is.

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Marvel Studios has reportedly hired Daniel Destin Cretton to helm the next Avengers movie.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Cretton – who directed 2021 Marvel movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings – has signed on to lead production on Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.

Cretton's continued involvement in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) will come as no surprise to diehard Marvel fans. Following his superb work on arguably the best Marvel Phase 4 film, the US filmmaker penned a multi-project deal with Marvel Studios in December 2021. Those plans reportedly include Cretton returning to direct a Shang-Chi sequel.

With Marvel handing the reins to Avengers 5 to Cretton, too, the studio clearly has confidence in the Just Mercy director delivering another suitably epic superhero flick. Avengers: The Kang Dynasty won't arrive in theaters until May 2025, though – it's part of Marvel's Phase 6 plans, which were tentatively revealed during the studio's main presentation at Comic-Con 2022. There's plenty of time, then, for Cretton to create a blueprint befitting an Avengers movie.

Shang-Chi is arguably the best Marvel Phase 4 movie - so you can bet your ass I'm delighted with this news (if it's true, of course) https://t.co/HYcFqHWciCJuly 26, 2022

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It's unclear if Cretton will have dual responsibilities on Avengers 5. Cretton co-wrote Shang-Chi alongside Dave Callaham (Ant-Man, Wonder Woman 1984) but, according to MCU insider Charles Murphy, there's no word on whether Cretton will write and direct the upcoming Avengers film. 

It's equally uncertain if Cretton will direct Avengers 6, aka Secret Wars. The Russo brothers, who have helmed four MCU movies including Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, have repeatedly spoken of their desire to adapt that comic series for the MCU. However, with the duo busy on other projects including a sequel to The Gray Man, the latest hit Netflix movie, the duo's schedule is packed enough as it is.

If The Hollywood Reporter's claim is correct, it'll be a busy few years for Cretton. As well as Shang-Chi 2, the 44-year-old is believed to be developing a Disney Plus series based on another underrated Marvel superhero in Wonder Man. Meanwhile, a Shang-Chi spin-off show starring Meng'er Zhang's Xu Xialing – aka Shang-Chi's sister – is also in the works for Disney Plus. Cretton is thought to be involved in its development, too, which is said to follow Xu's revamp of the Ten Rings organization. However, Marvel didn't provide any details (or confirmation, for that matter) on either TV show during its primary Comic-Con 2022 panel.

In fact, it's going to be a busy period overall for Marvel. At Comic-Con, the studio announced that its current Phase 4 slate would end with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which arrives in theaters in November. Marvel also announced its full line-up of movies and shows for MCU Phase 5, starting with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in February 2023. In total, Phase 5 will comprise six movies and seven TV series. 

Finally, Marvel teased its plans for Phase 6, which will begin in November 2024 with its Fantastic Four reboot. The next two Avengers movies – The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars – will follow May and November 2025 respectively.

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Analysis: a stellar director for a massive MCU movie

Shang-Chi is one of the most underrated MCU movies ever. (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney)

On the surface, Cretton may not have appeared as the most likely candidate to helm Marvel's next Avengers movie. Until he directed Shang-Chi, Cretton had largely been involved in the indie film scene, with credits on films such as I Am Not a Hipster and Short Term 12.

However, considering how well Shang-Chi was received, it's only right that Cretton is given the opportunity to make a more grandiose MCU movie involving multiple superheroes. Okay, Shang-Chi only made $432.2 million at the worldwide box office – making it the fifth lowest grossing Marvel movie ever – but that was during a time when the pandemic still loomed large over the theatre going experience. For context, it did beat another Phase 4 movie in Black Widow ($379.8 million) and the first Captain America film ($370.6 million) monetarily. Given the immense popularity of that duo and Shang-Chi's relative obscurity before he made his MCU debut, his box office takings shouldn't be sniffed at.

Meanwhile, Shang-Chi is one of the highest-rated Marvel movies of all-time. The film currently sits ninth on Rotten Tomatoes' best Marvel movies list with a 91% certified fresh rating. Spider-Man: No Way Home is the only MCU Phase 4 movie with a better score (93%) – again, though, given how popular the webslinger is, the fact that Shang-Chi holds its own against Spider-Man's third MCU outing is something to be admired.

No Way Home aside, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is my favorite Marvel Phase 4 film. Okay, it may sit 18th out of 29 movies in TechRadar's best Marvel movies ranked guide, but it's a rip-roaring, funny, and emotional film that contains some of the best action sequences in the MCU. A lot of that is down to Cretton's involvement and, if he can deliver a similarly well-balanced, thrilling and shocking movie with Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, we're all in for a wild ride.

For more Marvel-based content, check out our Marvel movies in order guide.

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Samsung’s second big event of 2022 is fast approaching, and to build hype the company has now launched an official trailer for the next Galaxy Unpacked, in which it shows off the designs of at least two phones, which from the look of them are almost certainly the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4.

While Samsung hasn’t mentioned these handsets by name, we’ve long been expecting to see them both at this event on August 10. However, previous teasers had focused specifically on a successor to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3, so seeing a new Z Fold here as well is reassuring.

As for what to expect from these phones. Well, the video only shows brief glimpses of each, but various angles are shown, and some details can be made out.

In the case of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 then (or at least the foldable flip phone believed to be named that), there appears to be two rear camera lenses, along with a flash. That’s in line with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3, and so is the two-tone design on the rear, and the arrangement of ports, buttons, and antenna lines from what we can see here.

Glimpses of the next Samsung Galaxy Z Fold are more fleeting, but this too looks very similar to its predecessor from what we can see. None of which is surprising, since leaks had suggested as much.

Beyond the imagery, this trailer also includes some text that hints at possible improvements. There’s mention of new ways to work and play, new ways to capture life, and new experiences that will forever change our behavior.

Some of that is fairly vague and could just be highlighting the advantages that foldables have over flat phones, but the bit about capturing life is likely a hint at camera upgrades, especially as it’s followed by an image of the Galaxy Z Flip 4’s lenses.

The mention of new ways to work and play meanwhile could be a hint at the rumored S Pen slot in the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4. We should find out for sure on August 10.

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Analysis: more than just foldables

While the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 are likely to be the stars of Samsung’s August 10 event, they’re not the only things we’re expecting to see, with the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 and Galaxy Watch 5 Pro also likely to make an appearance.

These are expected to be top-end wearables with worryingly high prices but big upgrades to battery life.

We may also see other gadgets, such as the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro – though at least one source reckons they’ll land before August 10. Either way, this looks set to be a packed event, and a big deal for Samsung fans.

TechRadar will be covering the launch in full, so make a note in your calendar to head back here then for all the news on what could be some of the best foldable phones and best smartwatches.

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