It's hard to overstate Jad Abumrad's impact on the podcasting world. He created and hosted Dolly Parton's America and Fela Kuti: Fear No Man, two Peabody Award-winning shows that offered unprecedented looks at the lives of two of the most important music icons of the last century.

Before that, though, he created Radiolab, an experimental NPR show that leaned heavily on creative sound design and eventually helped redefine what a podcast could be. In the early days of podcasting, shows were often just a couple of people talking at each other at a table (some still are), or lazily repackaged radio broadcasts. Radiolab instead told deeply repor …

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For more than a decade, Apple has told other companies to build smart home devices for its platform. This week, Apple launched its own. The Apple Home Collection is a lineup of cameras, thermostats, sensors, a smart door lock, and a video doorbell, all codeveloped with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric. They arrive alongside HomeView, Apple's first smart display.

Even after 12 years of HomeKit, Apple's smart home ecosystem still felt underdeveloped, especially compared to the competition. Amazon's and Google's ecosystems support more products, and both have popular in-house brands: Ring and Nest. Apple had nothing of its own to point cu …

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From Disney Plus to HBO Max, almost every major established streaming service is experimenting with ways to get into vertical content. It's clear that these companies see video-focused social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram as existential threats. In this arms race for viewers' attention, it has often felt like everyone is trying to find new ways to exist on people's phones. But a new startup thinks that the next step in vertical series' evolution is going to take place on our wide-screen televisions.

Unlike most vertical microdrama / series streaming platforms on the market that have focused on mobile viewing experiences, Vurt ha …

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Sunmi is an undeniable force in K-pop. She first made her debut as a member of the Wonder Girls back in 2007, one of the first K-pop acts to really break through in the West. The English version of their single "Nobody" was the first K-pop song to hit the Billboard Hot 100 in October 2009.

In 2010 Sunmi left the group to go back to school, but the siren call of a music career pulled her back in. She released her debut solo EP Full Moon in 2014. That began a run of award-winning releases for the pop star, including Song of the Year for "Gashina" at the Gaon Chart Music Awards.

Despite her near-constant presence in the K-pop world as a solo …

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Cristian Mungiu's sixth feature, Fjord, concerns a family on trial. The parents seem like good people, God-fearing. They would never be accused of gentle parenting. They've just moved from Romania to a small hamlet nestled in the fjords of rural Norway. There is Mamma (Renate Reinsve), Tata (a bald and bespectacled Sebastian Stan), and their passel of children. They are an openly religious and proselytizing family. All ought to be well, only Norway in 2026 is extravagantly suspicious of the devout - their famous tolerance reserved for the secular.

Fjord starts quietly and builds subtly. We are with the family as they are introduced to thei …

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