Kelly Newman

That time Will Smith helped discover new species of anaconda

anacondas, Biology, culture, Disney Plus, National Geographic, Science, Taxonomy, zoology / Kelly Newman / January 11, 2026

In 2024, scientists announced the discovery of a new species of giant anaconda in South America. A National Geographic camera crew was on hand for the 2022 expedition that documented the new species—and so was actor Will Smith, since they were filming for NatGeo’s new documentary series, Pole to Pole with Will Smith. Now we can all share in Smith’s Amazon experience, courtesy of the three-minute clip above.

Along with venom expert Bryan Fry, we follow Smith’s journey by boat with a team of indigenous Waorani guides, scouring the river banks for anacondas. And they find one: a female green anaconda about 16 to 17 feet long, “pure muscle.” The Waorani secure the giant snake—anacondas aren’t venomous but they do bite—so that Fry (with Smith’s understandably reluctant help) can collect a scale sample for further analysis. Fry says that this will enable him to determine the accumulation of pollutants in the water.

That and other collected samples also enabled scientists to conduct the genetic analysis that resulted in the declaration of a new species: the northern green anaconda (Eunectes akayama, which roughly translates to “the great snake”). It is genetically distinct from the southern green anaconda (Eunectes murinus); the two species likely diverged some 10 million years ago. The northern green anaconda’s turf includes Venezuela, Colombia, Suriname, French Guyana, and the northern part of Brazil.

Local Waorani guides subdue a giant green anaconda YouTube/National Geographic

Smith’s time in the Amazon also brought the arachnophobic actor face to face with a giant tarantula while scientists extracted the venom. His further adventures brought him to the South Pole, where he trekked across frigid ice fields; to the Himalayas, where he trekked to a small village in Bhutan; to the Pacific Islands to record a lost native language; to the Kalahari desert, where he joined the hunter-gatherer San people on a hunt; and to the North Pole, where he joined an expedition to dive under the ice to collect scientific samples.

Pole to Pole with Will Smith premieres on January 13, 2026, and will stream on Disney+ the following day.

poster art showing bearded will smith in a parka with snow crystallizing on his beard — Credit: National Geographic

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Conservative lawmakers want porn taxes. Critics say they’re unconstitutional.

online porn, Policy, porn sites, syndication / Kelly Newman / January 10, 2026

Half the country has enacted age-verification laws to prevent minors from viewing porn.

As age-verification laws continue to dismantle the adult industry—and determine the future of free speech on the internet—a Utah lawmaker proposed a bill this week that would enforce a tax on porn sites that operate within the state.

Introduced by state senator Calvin Musselman, a Republican, the bill would impose a 7 percent tax on total receipts “from sales, distributions, memberships, subscriptions, performances, and content amounting to material harmful to minors that is produced, sold, filmed, generated, or otherwise based” in Utah. If passed, the bill would go into effect in May and would also require adult sites to pay a $500 annual fee to the State Tax Commission. Per the legislation, the money made from the tax will be used by Utah’s Department of Health and Human Services to provide more mental health support for teens.

Musselman did not respond to a request for comment.

A new age of American conservatism commands the political arena, and more US lawmakers are calling for additional restrictions on adult content. In September, Alabama became the first state to impose a porn tax on adult entertainment companies (10 percent) following the passage of age-verification mandates, which require users to upload an ID or other personal documentation to verify that they are not a minor before viewing sexually explicit content. Pennsylvania lawmakers are also eyeing a bill that would tax consumers an additional 10 percent on “subscriptions to and one-time purchases from online adult content platforms,” despite already requiring them to pay a 6 percent sales and use tax for the purchase of digital products, two state senators wrote in a memo in October. Other states have flirted with the idea of a porn tax in the past. In 2019, Arizona state senator Gail Griffin, a Republican, proposed taxing adult content distributors to help fund the border wall, a key priority during Donald Trump’s first presidential term. So far, 25 US states have passed a form of age verification.

Although efforts to criminalize participants in the sex work industry have been ongoing for years—with new regulations unfolding at a moment of heightened online surveillance and censorship—targeted taxes have failed to gain widespread approval because the legality of such laws is up for debate.

“This kind of porn tax is blatantly unconstitutional,” says Evelyn Douek, an associate professor of law at Stanford Law School. “It singles out a particular type of protected speech for disfavored treatment, purely because the legislature doesn’t like it—that’s exactly what the First Amendment is designed to protect against. Utah may not like porn, but as the Supreme Court affirmed only last year, adults have a fully protected right to access it.”

Utah, Alabama, and Pennsylvania are among the 16 states that have adopted resolutions declaring porn a public health crisis. “We realize this is a bold assertion not everyone will agree on, but it’s the full-fledged truth,” Utah governor Gary Herbert tweeted in 2016 after signing the resolution. One of Utah’s earliest statewide responses to the proliferation of adult content happened in 2001, when it became the first state to create an office for sexually explicit issues by hiring an obscenity and pornography complaints ombudsman. The position—dubbed the “porn czar”—was terminated in 2017.

“Age restriction is a very complex subject that brings with it data privacy concerns and the potential for uneven and inconsistent application for different digital platforms,” Alex Kekesi, vice president of brand and community at Pornhub, told WIRED in a previous conversation. In November, the company urged Google, Microsoft, and Apple to enact device-based verification in their app stores and across their operating systems. “We have seen several states and countries try to impose platform-level age verification requirements, and they have all failed to adequately protect children.” To comply with the new age gate mandates, Pornhub has currently blocked access to users in 23 states.

Critics argue that age verification has never been about protecting children but rather scrubbing porn from the internet. A video leaked in 2024 by the Centre for Climate Reporting showed Russell Vought, a Trump ally and Project 2025 coauthor, calling age verification laws a “back door” tactic to a federal porn ban.

Sites like OnlyFans and Pornhub have brought platform-dependent sex work into the mainstream, but they have also made it easier to police adult entertainers and consumers. As more states begin to implement added tariffs on sex work, creators will bear the brunt of the new laws more than anyone.

The skewed ideology of cultural conservatism that is taking shape under Trump 2.0 wants to punish sexual expression, says Mike Stabile, director of public policy at the Free Speech Coalition, a trade association for the adult industry in the US. “When we talk about free speech, we generally mean the freedom to speak, the ability to speak freely without government interference. But in this case, free also means not having to pay for the right to do so. A government tax on speech limits that right to those who can afford it.”

According to company policy, OnlyFans complies with all tax requirements in the jurisdictions in which it operates. Creators are responsible for their own tax affairs. Pornhub, which is currently blocked in Utah and Alabama, did not respond to a request for comment.

Douek notes that following the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold age-verification laws in Texas, states can legally regulate minors’ access to sexually explicit material, “but a porn tax does nothing to limit minors’ access to this speech—it simply makes it more expensive to provide this content to adults.” A 2022 report from Common Sense Media, a youth advocacy nonprofit, found that 73 percent of teens age 13 to 17 have watched adult content online. Today, young people regularly access NSFW content via social media, on platforms like X and Snap. Last year, a survey by the UK’s Office of the Children’s Commissioner reported that 59 percent of minors are being exposed to porn by accident, primarily via social media, up from 38 percent in 2023.

In Alabama, as would be the case with Utah, revenue raised by the tax is being used for behavioral health services, including prevention, treatment, and recovery support for young people.

Alabama state representative Ben Robbins, the bill’s Republican sponsor, said in an interview last year that adult content was “a driver in causing mental health issues” in the state. It’s a common argument among lawmakers pushing for a nationwide porn ban. Some scientific studies suggest that adolescent exposure to porn increases rates of depression, low self-esteem, and normalized violence, but health professionals have never reached a consensus on the matter.

With lawmakers working to reframe the issue around underage harm, Stabile says it’s critical to remember that adult content isn’t different from any other kind of protected speech, noting that content-specific taxes on speech have repeatedly been struck down by the courts as unconstitutional censorship.

“What if a state decided that Covid misinformation was straining state health resources and taxed newsletters who promoted it? What if the federal government decided to require a costly license to start a podcast? What if a state decided to tax a certain newspaper it didn’t like?” he says. “Porn isn’t some magical category of speech separate from movies, streaming services, or other forms of entertainment. Adult businesses already pay taxes on the income they earn, just as every other business does. Taxing them because of imagined harms is not only dangerous to our industry, it sets a dangerous precedent for government power.”

This story originally appeared on WIRED.com

Wired.com is your essential daily guide to what’s next, delivering the most original and complete take you’ll find anywhere on innovation’s impact on technology, science, business and culture.

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NASA orders “controlled medical evacuation” from the International Space Station

commercial crew, crew dragon, crew-11, dragon, human spaceflight, international space station, jared isaacman, NASA, Science, Space, spacex / Kelly Newman / January 10, 2026

“The crew is highly trained, and they came to the aid of their colleague right away.”

The International Space Station orbits 260 miles (420 kilometers) above the Earth. Credit: NASA

NASA officials said Thursday they have decided to bring home four of the seven crew members on the International Space Station after one of them experienced a “medical situation” earlier this week.

The space agency has said little about the incident, and officials have not identified which crew member suffered the medical issue. James “JD” Polk, NASA’s chief health and medical officer, told reporters Thursday the crew member is “absolutely stable” but that the agency is “erring on the side of caution” with the decision to return the astronaut to Earth.

The ailing astronaut is part of the Crew-11 mission, which launched to the station August 1 and was slated to come back to Earth around February 20. Instead, the Crew-11 astronauts will depart the International Space Station (ISS) in the coming days and head for reentry and a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.

“After discussions with our chief health and medical officer, Dr. JD Polk, and leadership across the agency, I’ve come to the decision that it’s in the best interests of our astronauts to return Crew-11 ahead of their planned departure,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said Thursday.

The Crew-11 mission is led by commander Zena Cardman, 38, who is wrapping up her first mission to space. Second in command is pilot Mike Fincke, a 58-year-old astronaut on his fourth spaceflight. Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, 55, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, 39, round out the crew.

Isaacman said NASA will release more information about the schedule for Crew-11’s undocking and reentry within the next 48 hours. The crew will come home aboard the same SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft they launched in more than five months ago. The entire crew must return to Earth together because they rely on the same Dragon spacecraft as a lifeboat.

“For over 60 years, NASA has set the standard for safety and security in crewed spaceflight,” Isaacman said. “In these endeavors, including the 25 years of continuous human presence onboard the International Space Station, the health and well-being of our astronauts is always and will be our highest priority.”

From left to right: Crew-11 mission specialist Oleg Platonov, pilot Mike Fincke, commander Zena Cardman, and mission specialist Kimiya Yui. This photo was taken during training at SpaceX’s facility in Hawthorne, California. Credit: SpaceX

Lingering risk

Polk, a physician who has served as NASA’s chief medical officer since 2016, said the agency is not ready to release details about the medical issue, citing privacy concerns. “I’m not going to speak about any particular astronaut or any particular specific diagnosis,” Polk said. “I’d ask that we still respect the privacy of the astronaut.”

Two of the Crew-11 astronauts, Cardman and Fincke, were preparing to head outside the space station on a spacewalk early Thursday. Spacewalk preps at the space station include a period of time breathing high concentrations of oxygen to purge nitrogen from the astronauts’ bloodstreams, a mitigation to avoid decompression sickness when crew members are sealed inside their spacesuits’ pure oxygen atmosphere.

Polk said whatever happened Wednesday “had nothing to do” with preparing for the spacewalk. “This was totally unrelated to any operations onboard,” he said. “It’s mostly having a medical issue in the difficult areas of microgravity with the suite of hardware that we have at our avail to complete a diagnosis.”

Yui radioed mission controllers in Houston on Wednesday afternoon requesting a private medical conference with a flight surgeon, then asked ground teams to turn on camera views inside the station ahead of the session. Medical sessions are carried out on private radio channels and are not heard on the regular communication loops between the space station and mission control. Those open loops are streamed around the clock online, but NASA removed the audio feed from YouTube soon after the crew asked for the medical conference.

NASA publicly revealed a medical concern with one of the astronauts later Wednesday afternoon, then announced late Wednesday night that officials were considering bringing the crew home early.

“I won’t go into specific details about the medical incident itself,” Polk said. “But the crew is highly trained, and they came to the aid of their colleague right away, and that’s part of why we do that training.”

The space station is stocked with medical gear and medications to help astronauts respond to emergencies. Crew members are trained to perform ultrasounds, defibrillate patients, and start IVs, among other things. The medical treatment available on the ISS is akin to what an EMT might provide in transit to a hospital, former astronaut Tom Marshburn, himself a medical doctor, said in 2021.

“We have a very robust suite of medical hardware onboard the International Space Station, but we don’t have the complete amount of hardware that I would have in the emergency department, for example, to complete the workup of a patient,” Polk said.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, associate administrator Amit Kshatriya, and chief medical officer James “JD” Polk brief reporters on the status of the Crew-11 mission Thursday. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

Space station managers will take a few days to determine when the Dragon spacecraft will leave the station. SpaceX will dispatch a recovery ship from Southern California to sail for the splashdown zone in the Pacific, and officials will assess weather and sea conditions before selecting the best opportunity to depart the station. Like every crew return, the vessel will be staffed with medical personnel to examine the astronauts after exiting from the Dragon capsule.

“Because the astronaut is absolutely stable, this is not an emergent evacuation,” Polk said. “We’re not immediately disembarking and getting the astronaut down.”

But without a confirmed diagnosis of the astronaut’s medical issue, there’s some “lingering risk” for the astronaut’s health if they remained in orbit, Polk said. That’s why Isaacman and his deputies agreed to call an early end to the Crew-11 mission.

This was the most significant decision of Isaacman’s young tenure as NASA administrator. He was sworn in as NASA chief last month after clearing a confirmation vote in the Senate. Before taking the helm at NASA, Isaacman charted a career as an entrepreneur and private astronaut, flying to space twice on commercial missions with SpaceX.

An inevitability

After Crew-11’s departure, the space station will operate with a smaller crew of three until the arrival of SpaceX’s Crew-12 mission with a fresh team of astronauts next month. Isaacman said NASA and SpaceX are looking at options to move up the launch of Crew-12 from its current target date of February 15.

Until then, the station’s crew will consist of NASA astronaut Chris Williams and two Russian cosmonauts, who launched to the space station in November on a Russian Soyuz vehicle. Williams and his crewmates—Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikayev—have their own lifeboat in the Soyuz spacecraft, so they will still have a ride home in the event of a future emergency.

The space station regularly operated with just three crew members for the first decade of its existence. The complex has been permanently staffed since 2000, sometimes with as few as two astronauts or cosmonauts. The standard crew size was raised to six in 2009, then to seven in 2020.

NASA astronaut Zena Cardman works with a spacesuit helmet inside the International Space Station’s airlock. Credit: NASA

Williams will be solely responsible for overseeing the lab’s US segment until Crew-12 arrives. He will be busy keeping up with maintenance tasks, so managers will likely defer some of the station’s scientific investigations until the complex is back to a full crew.

The early departure of Crew-11, leaving Williams as the only US astronaut aboard, also means NASA will be unable to perform spacewalks. This will mean a “slightly elevated risk” in NASA’s ability to respond to a major hardware failure that might require a spacewalk to fix, said Amit Kshatriya, the agency’s associate administrator.

NASA and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, inked an agreement in 2022 to fly multinational crews on Dragon and Soyuz missions to ensure an American and a Russian are always at the space station. The so-called “seat swap” deal is proving worthwhile with this week’s events.

NASA has never before cut short a human spaceflight mission for medical reasons. “It’s the first time we’ve done a controlled medical evacuation from the vehicle, so that is unusual,” Kshatriya said.

The Soviet Union called an early end for an expedition to the Salyut 7 space station in 1985 after the mission’s commander fell ill in orbit.

In a sense, it is surprising that it took this long. Polk said predictive models suggested the ISS would have a medical evacuation about once every three years. It ended up taking 25 years. In that time, NASA has improved astronauts’ abilities to treat aches and pains, minor injuries, and routine illnesses.

Crews in orbit can now self-treat ailments that might have prompted a crew to return to Earth in the past. One astronaut was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis, or a blood clot, in 2018 without requiring an early departure from the space station. Another astronaut suffered a pinched nerve in 2021 and remained in orbit for another seven months.

One of the more compelling reasons for the space station’s existence is its ability to act as a testbed for learning how to live and work off the planet. The station has served as a laboratory for studying how spaceflight affects the human body, and as a platform to test life support systems necessary for long-duration voyages to deep space.

“We are doing all this to continue to learn,” Isaacman said. “We will absolutely learn from this situation as well, to see if that informs our future on-orbit operations, whether that be on the space station or our future lunar base that we’re pursuing right now, and eventually for deep space missions to Mars.”

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

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General Motors writes down $6 billion as domestic EV sales plans change

BrightDrop, Cars, EV adoption, GMC / Kelly Newman / January 9, 2026

Despite these costs, 2025 wasn’t a terrible year for the company. It managed to grow sales by 6 percent in the US, and in China, more than half of the 1.9 million vehicles it sold were New Energy Vehicles, which grew by 22.6 percent. NEVs are EVs and plug-in hybrids—in GM’s case, mostly locally developed vehicles sold under the Buick and Electra brands, as well as joint ventures like Wuling, with some Cadillac Lyriqs, too.

Build that camper van you always wanted

Even though BrightDrop is no more, Chevrolet dealers are sitting on more than 2,500 unsold electric vans, slightly more than half of which are the shorter BrightDrop 400, which starts at under $47,000, according to Chevy’s website. The larger BrightDrop 600, with the same offers, is still less than $50,000.

2025 Chevrolet BrightDrop 400 shown with aftermarket upfit installed. Production model may vary. — Ditch the packages and the shelves and you’re got some room back here. Credit: Chevrolet

And since these no longer seem to be in high demand by big-box retailers and the package delivery companies, now’s the time for people to start picking them up and turning them into camper vans.

I have to believe the demand is out there; any time we’ve covered the BrightDrop, or any other electric van for that matter, most of the comments concern just this kind of conversion. It needn’t be insanely expensive, although depending on your budget, you could easily spend twice as much (or more) as the BrightDrop cost on the uplift. But short of spending silly money to EV-restomod one of those six-wheel GMC Motorhomes from the 1970s, you’d definitely have the coolest electric camper out there.

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Trump withdraws US from world’s most important climate treaty

climate change, IPCC, Science, Trump, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change / Kelly Newman / January 8, 2026

The actual impact of the US withdrawal on many of the UN bodies singled out by Trump would depend on how aggressively his administration followed through on its announcement.

The head of one of the UN bodies named in the executive order said that the full effect of the move would become clear only during the UN’s annual budget allocation process.

“If they want to be difficult they could block the adoption of our budget. So it depends on how far they want to take it,” the person added.

Although the list caused anguish among environmental groups, it did not go as far as originally envisaged on trade and economic matters after the administration quietly dropped the World Trade Organization and the OECD from its list of potential targets last year.

In October, it emerged that Trump had authorized the payment of $25 million in overdue subscriptions to the WTO, despite the administration deriding the organization as “toothless” only a month previously.

The list also did not include the International Maritime Organization despite the Trump administration’s successful—and diplomatically bruising—move last year to block the IMO’s plan to introduce a net zero framework for shipping.

Sue Biniaz, the former US climate negotiator, said she hoped the retreat from the UNFCCC treaty was “a temporary one,” adding there were “multiple future pathways to rejoining the key climate agreements” in future.

Stiell of the UNFCCC agreed: “The doors remain open for the US to re-enter in the future, as it has in the past with the Paris Agreement. Meanwhile the size of the commercial opportunity in clean energy, climate resilience, and advanced electrotech remains too big for American investors and businesses to ignore.”

He added: “While all other nations are stepping forward together, this latest step back from global leadership, climate co-operation, and science can only harm the US economy, jobs, and living standards, as wildfires, floods, megastorms, and droughts get rapidly worse.”

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Samsung squashes hopes that it will release its Ballie home robot

CES 2026, Robots, samsung, Smart Home, Tech / Kelly Newman / January 7, 2026

CES 2025: Samsung’s new AI robot assistant Ballie

“Available to consumers this summer, Ballie will be able to engage in natural, conversational interactions to help users manage home environments, including adjusting lighting, greeting people at the door, personalizing schedules, setting reminders, and more,” the press release said, pointing to the robot’s implementation of Google Gemini.

It’s now 2026, and Ballie still hasn’t come out. Bloomberg reported today that the device has been “indefinitely shelved.” The publication noted that a company spokesperson called Ballie an “active innovation platform” for internal use, which is noticeably different from referring to it as a gadget that people will eventually be able to buy.

“After multiple years of real-world testing, it continues to inform how Samsung designs spatially aware, context-driven experiences, particularly in areas like smart home intelligence, ambient AI and privacy-by-design,” a Samsung spokesperson said in a statement to Bloomberg.

The website for registering to “get the chance to be the first to meet Ballie” is still up, and it’s possible that Samsung could still release Ballie.

But for now, Samsung may not be confident that Ballie will consistently deliver its advertised features over a long period and/or drum up enough interest from people who can pay the likely high price for a home robot. With many technology companies rethinking their approaches to chatbots, AI in smart speakers, and home robots, Samsung may have decided it was more prudent to extract features from Ballie for use in other products. Ballie likely requires deeper exploration around how it can be more useful and reliable before Samsung goes to market—if it ever does.

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orsted-seeks-injunction-against-us-government-over-project-freeze

Ørsted seeks injunction against US government over project freeze

orsted, Policy, Science, syndication, wind farm / Kelly Newman / January 6, 2026

In October, Ørsted raised $9 billion from investors in a rights issue after Trump’s attempts to block a rival developer’s project spooked investors.

The US government then issued a stop-work order against the company’s $1.5 billion Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island, although Ørsted has persuaded a judge to lift the order.

In November, Ørsted agreed to sell half of the world’s largest offshore wind farm to Apollo in a $6.5 billion deal. Then on December 22, the company received orders from the US government to suspend “all ongoing activities on the outer continental shelf for the next 90 days.”

According to the company, the Revolution Wind project is now about 87 percent complete, with 58 out of its 65 wind turbines installed.

While Trump has made Ørsted’s planned offshore wind projects in the US far more difficult, its troubles predate his administration.

In 2023, the company had to walk away from two large projects in the US because of rising costs that have affected the entire industry.

In a statement on Ørsted’s legal challenge, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said: “For years, Americans have been forced to pay billions more for the least reliable source of energy. The Trump administration has paused the construction of all large-scale offshore wind projects because our number one priority is to put America First and protect the national security of the American people.”

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Spot the difference: Sony’s electric car gets a crossover version

Afeela, Cars, CES 2026, Sony Honda Mobility / Kelly Newman / January 6, 2026

It’s all about AI

The big news, at least in terms of detail, wasn’t the crossover, which Sony Honda Mobility says will go on sale in the US in 2028. Rather, like seemingly every other corporation out there, it’s all about AI. A “vision-language model” will “elevate” the Afeela’s partially automated driver assist—which requires the human to pay attention while the car steers, accelerates, and brakes—into something more fully autonomous, capable of point-to-point driving without any other human input, at least under some conditions.

“Specifically, we are constantly reviewing sensor devices and layouts, further improving computing power, and making our End-to-End Driving AI stronger,” said Izumi Kawanishi, president and COO of Sony Honda Mobility. “As a result, the cabin will evolve into a drive-less environment, reducing the task of manual driving, and providing more freedom to relax and enjoy entertainment content. In the future, the drive-less environment will transform the cabin into a true ‘Creative Entertainment Space,’” Kawanishi said.

Not having to drive will free you up to interact with the onboard personal AI, which uses Microsoft’s OpenAI tech. The AI agent “enhances mobility interactions through personalized natural dialogue. This elevates the relationship between people and mobility into something more personal and long-lasting,” Kawanishi said, adding that Sony Honda Mobility wants to use AI “sensitively while carefully considering personal information and privacy.”

A Sony Honda Mobility SUV — We did not see any interior details of the new Afeela. Credit: Sony Honda Mobility

Powering all of this on the car? Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Digital Chassis platform; the chipmaker has been a strategic partner of Sony Honda Mobility throughout the Afeela’s development.

Well, it’s also about content

Sony says its PlayStation Remote Play experience will be embedded in the Afeela 1. “With a DualSense controller and a good network connection, AFEELA becomes another way you can pick up and play the games you already enjoy. Just like every other Remote Play experience, this isn’t a separate console in the car—you’re playing the games you already own through streaming,” said Erik Lempel, senior vice president of business and product at Sony Interactive Entertainment.

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NASA’s science budget won’t be a train wreck after all

NASA, Science, Space, trump budget / Kelly Newman / January 5, 2026

“Those hours could have been spent running and analyzing data from these valuable missions,” Dreier said. “It created a lot of needless friction and churn at a time when NASA is being told it must remain competitive with China and other nations in space.”

Budget likely to be signed soon

The House of Representatives could vote on the budget bill for Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies as soon as this week, with the US Senate possibly following next week. It is expected that President Trump will sign the bill. It would then go into effect immediately for the current fiscal year, which began on October 1.

The biggest casualty in the NASA science budget is the Mars Sample Return mission, a NASA-led effort to return Martian rocks and soil for study in Earth-based laboratories.

“As proposed in the budget, the agreement does not support the existing Mars Sample Return (MSR) program,” the budget document states. “However, the technological capabilities being developed in the MSR program are not only critical to the success of future science missions but also to human exploration of the Moon and Mars.”

Although it offers no details, the budget provides $110 million for something called the “Mars Future Missions” program to support “radar, spectroscopy, entry, descent, and landing systems.”

Some hope for future missions, too

NASA previously said it was pausing the ambitious sample return mission because its projected cost was approximately $10 billion, with no certain return date for the samples.

Now it seems likely that the agency and its new administrator, Jared Isaacman, will have to develop a new strategy. This may include sending humans to Mars, rather than bringing Martian rocks back to Earth.

Unlike the Trump budget request, the science budget also keeps future missions, such as the DAVINCI probe for Venus, alive. It also provides $10 million to continue studying the development of a Uranus orbiter, as well as $150 million for a flagship telescope to search for signs of life on nearby, Earth-like planets called the Habitable Worlds Observatory.

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Anna’s Archive loses .org domain, says suspension likely unrelated to Spotify piracy

Anna's archive, Policy, shadow library, Spotify / Kelly Newman / January 5, 2026

Legal problems

As TorrentFreak writes, “It is rare to see a .org domain involved in domain name suspensions. The American non-profit Public Interest Registry (PIR), which oversees the .org domains, previously refused to suspend domain names voluntarily, including thepiratebay.org. The registry’s cautionary stance suggests that the actions against annas-archive.org are backed by a court order.”

A spokesperson for the Public Interest Registry told Ars that “PIR is unable to comment on the situation at this time.”

Anna’s Archive’s domain registrar is Tucows. A Tucows spokesperson told Ars that “server-type statuses can only be set by the registry (PIR, in this case).” Tucows also said it doesn’t have any information on what led to the Anna’s Archive serverHold. “PIR has not contacted us about it and we were unaware of the status before you alerted us to it,” a Tucows spokesperson said.

After last month’s Spotify incident, Spotify told Ars that it “identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping” and “implemented new safeguards for these types of anti-copyright attacks.” We asked Spotify today if it has taken any additional steps against Anna’s Archive and will update this article if it provides a response.

Anna’s Archive is also facing a lawsuit from OCLC, a nonprofit that operates the WorldCat library catalog on behalf of member libraries. The lawsuit alleges that Anna’s Archive “illegally hacked WorldCat.org” to steal 2.2TB of data.

An OCLC motion for default judgment filed in November asked for a permanent injunction prohibiting Anna’s Archive from scraping or distributing WorldCat data and requiring Anna’s Archive to delete all its copies of WorldCat data. OCLC said it hopes such a judgment would compel web hosting services to take action.

“OCLC hopes to take the judgment to website hosting services so that OCLC’s WorldCat data will be removed from Anna’s Archive’s websites,” said the November 17 motion filed in US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. The court has not yet ruled on the motion.

Anna’s Archive loses .org domain, says suspension likely unrelated to Spotify piracy Read More »

“Streaming stops feeling infinite”: What subscribers can expect in 2026

HBO Max, netflix, paramount plus, Paramount Skydance, streaming, Tech, warner bros. discovery / Kelly Newman / January 1, 2026

Spoiler: expect higher prices

Streaming may get a little worse before it gets better.

We’re far from streaming’s original promise: instant access to beloved and undiscovered titles without the burden of ads, bundled services, or price gouging that have long been associated with cable.

Still, every year we get more dependent on streaming for entertainment. Despite streaming services’ flaws, many of us are bound to keep subscribing to at least one service next year. Here’s what we can expect in 2026 and beyond.

Subscription prices keep rising, but perhaps not as expected

There’s virtually no hope of streaming subscription prices plateauing in 2026. Streaming companies continue to face challenges as content production and licensing costs rise, and it’s often easier to get current customers to pay slightly more than to acquire new subscribers. Meanwhile, many streaming companies are still struggling with profitability and revenue after spending years focusing on winning subscribers with content.

“We see many services are only now aligning content spend with realistic lifetime value per subscriber,” Christofer Hamilton, industry insights manager at streaming analyst Parrot Analytics, told Ars.

Companies may get more creative with how they frame higher costs to subscribers, however. People who pay extra to stream without ads are the most likely to see price bumps as streaming companies continue pushing customers toward ad-based tiers.

Charging more for “premium” features—such as 4K streaming, simultaneous streams, or offline downloads—offers another way for streaming companies to boost revenue without implementing broad price hikes that risk provoking customer outrage. Subscribers can expect streaming prices to get “more menu-like next year,” said Michael Goodman, director of entertainment research at Parks Associates, a research firm focusing on IoT, consumer electronics, and entertainment.

When will the price hikes stop?

If streaming prices won’t stop rising next year, when will they?

Ultimately, it may be up to subscribers to vote with their dollars by canceling subscriptions or opting for cheaper or free alternatives, such as FAST (free ad-supported streaming television) channels with linear programming.

As Goodman put it, “Until we see net adds stall or decline as a result of price hikes, services have no incentive to stop raising prices.”

Some experts doubt that streaming services will ever willingly stop increasing prices. Bill Yousman, professor and director of the Media Literacy and Digital Culture graduate program at Sacred Heart University, sees precedent for this in cable companies.

“If the big streaming companies had their way, there would be no limit to their price hikes. We have already seen this with the cable monopolies and their disregard for consumer dissatisfaction,” he said.

Yousman believes that prices will only “be brought under control if there is some type of government regulation,” but he noted that’s unlikely under the Trump administration.

To date, US lawmakers haven’t shown interest in halting the steady rise of streaming prices. Most lawmakers who have sought to regulate the industry have focused on industry consolidation. There has been some effort from lawmakers to rein in streaming price hikes, though, especially through proposed federal legislation dubbed the Price Gouging Prevention Act.

Streaming services lean deeper into cable-like bundles

Companies will look to leverage subscribers’ frustration with pricing by being more aggressive about bundling third-party services like traditional pay TV, Internet, and cell phone service with streaming subscriptions. The idea is that people are less likely to cancel a streaming subscription if it’s tied to a different subscription (including another streaming subscription). The strategy echoes the days of cable, when some people kept unused landlines just to save money on cable channels or Internet service.

“For subscribers, 2026 is the year streaming stops feeling infinite and starts feeling more like premium cable used to: fewer apps, clearer bundles, and higher expectations for each service they pay for,” Parrot’s Hamilton said.

Thanks to traditional pay TV providers, bundles have a bad connotation among people looking to save money and simplify their subscriptions. But bundling doesn’t always have to be a bad thing, as Yousman explains:

If the companies wanted to really be responsive to consumers, they would let them design their own packages rather than having to choose options that may or may not include all the services they want. What works against this, of course, is the demand for ever-increasing profits at all times.

Should a sale of Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD’s) HBO Max be completed (late) next year, subscribers will face more pressure to bundle their streaming subscriptions.

“When dominant platforms like Netflix or Paramount absorb major content players, it accelerates the erosion of streaming’s original promise: freedom from monopolistic bundles,” Vikrant Mathur, co-founder of streaming technology provider Future Today, said.

Netflix and Paramount duke it out over Warner Bros.

WBD announced plans this month to sell its streaming and movie studios business to Netflix for an equity value of $72 billion, or an approximate total enterprise value of $82.7 billion. Paramount Skydance, however, quickly swooped in with a hostile takeover bid for all of WBD, including its cable channels, for $108.4 billion. A WBD shareholder vote will occur in spring or early summer, chairman Samuel Di Piazza told CNBC. By the end of 2026, we should have a clearer understanding of the future of HBO Max, as well as Netflix and Paramount+.

Any acquisition will be subject to regulatory scrutiny, causing more uncertainty for subscribers. If Netflix buys HBO Max, users of both services can expect higher prices due to reduced competition and the extensive amount of content and number of big-budget franchises (including Harry Potter and DC Comics) expected to unite under one platform.

“If Netflix gets [HBO Max] and the WB studios, HBO Max subscribers are more likely to see a smoother transition, strong ongoing investment in premium content, and simpler app/billing integration,” Parks Associates’ Goodman said.

But while the potential merger is worth watching, subscribers are unlikely to truly feel the impact of HBO Max potentially changing ownership until after 2026.

“Producing a show is a yearslong process, so the content that was already slated to air isn’t going to disappear, and the new content acquired through the WB library won’t be available until the merger is approved and closes,” Tre Lovell, attorney and owner of Los Angeles entertainment law firm The Lovell Firm, explained.

Content starts getting less bold

Looking beyond 2026, a sale of part or all of WBD would likely open the door for more streaming acquisitions. That could eventually benefit customers by making it easier to find content to watch with fewer subscriptions. But merged companies are also less likely to take risks on unique and diverse content.

Analysts I spoke with pointed to fewer niche and mid-tier original shows and movies and more show cancellations if either Netflix or Paramount buys HBO Max. Either buyer would probably focus more on the already-successful franchises that WB owns, such as Game of Thrones, Batman, and Superman.

“Big combined libraries push companies to double down on proven IP because it travels, merchandises, and reduces marketing risk,” said Robert Rosenberg, a partner at the New York law firm Moses Singer focusing on intellectual property, entertainment, technology, and data law.

Rosenberg also expects to see a “tilt toward” live events, sports, and unscripted content “for retention” if HBO Max sells.

In the shorter term, Rory Gooderick, research manager at analyst firm Ampere Analysis, predicted that WBD will be “cautious when greenlighting new large-scale projects until” the acquisition is finalized.

Beyond the potential HBO Max sale, more merger activity could lead to streaming services straying from their original selling point of offering bolder, quirkier content.

As the industry consolidates, “sticky content,” like procedurals, reality shows, and “comfort TV that drives long viewing sessions,” will take priority among mainstream, subscription-based streaming services, especially as they put more emphasis on ad-tier subscriptions, Goodman predicted.

A more stable future?

The new year will be formative for streaming and yield lasting impacts for subscribers. We’ve discussed numerous negative implications, but there could be a silver lining. While we may see more turbulence, hopefully, we’ll also start to see a road toward more stable streaming options.

Streaming subscribers can’t directly stop mergers or price hikes or control streaming libraries. But with services like Netflix and Disney+ focusing on becoming one-stop shops with massive libraries, there’s an opportunity for other services to hone their specialties and stand out by providing offbeat, unexpected, and rare content at more affordable prices.

As the landscape settles, streamers should be mindful of the importance of variety to subscribers. According to Bill Michels, chief product officer at Gracenote, Nielsen’s content data business unit:

There will be some consolidation. But the [connected TV] landscape, inclusive of FAST and [direct-to-consumer] channels, provides more than ample video variety for viewers, so the biggest challenge will be connecting content with the right audience. Audience engagement depends on good content. Audience retention depends on making sure audiences are never without something to watch.

Scharon is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica writing news, reviews, and analysis on consumer gadgets and services. She’s been reporting on technology for over 10 years, with bylines at Tom’s Hardware, Channelnomics, and CRN UK.

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Condé Nast User database reportedly breached, Ars unaffected

Biz & IT, Conde Nast, hacking, user accounts, user privacy / Kelly Newman / December 30, 2025

Earlier this month, a hacker named Lovely claimed to have breached a Condé Nast user database and released a list of more than 2.3 million user records from our sister publication WIRED. The released materials contain demographic information (name, email, address, phone, etc.), but no passwords.

The hacker also says that they will release an additional 40 million records for other Condé Nast properties, including our other sister publications Vogue, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and more. Of critical note to our readers, Ars Technica was not affected as we run on our own bespoke tech stack.

The hacker said that they had urged Condé Nast to patch vulnerabilities to no avail. “Condé Nast does not care about the security of their users data,” they wrote. “It took us an entire month to convince them to fix the vulnerabilities on their websites. We will leak more of their users’ data (40 + million) over the next few weeks. Enjoy!”

It’s unclear how altruistic the motive really was. DataBreaches.Net says that Lovely misled them into believing they were trying to help patch vulnerabilities, when in reality, it appeared that this hacker was a “cybercriminal” looking for a payout. “As for “Lovely,” they played me. Condé Nast should never pay them a dime, and no one else should ever, as their word clearly cannot be trusted,” they wrote.

Condé Nast has not issued a statement, and we have not been informed internally of the hack (which is not surprising, since Ars is not affected).

Hudon Rock’s InfoStealers has an excellent rundown of what has been exposed.

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Author name: Kelly Newman