From a bumper crop of new movie trailers to a phenomenally important new discovery in physics – not to mention the return of Harry Potter – it's been an unusually eventful Week in Geek!
Monday 8th February
Superbowl ad-pocalypse
As the most-watched event on American TV, the annual Super Bowl is an advertiser's dream. This means that on Monday morning, we woke up to a whole truckload of new film trailers that premiered during the ad breaks – and here's the Week in Geek roundup of the best:
First up is Independance Day: Resurgence, the sequel to the 1996 blockbuster.
20 years on from the original, the aliens have returned with a much more powerful invasion force, determined to get revenge for their previous defeat. We see the return of some old faces, like Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman, but Will Smith is not returning – as his character unfortunately died while working as test pilot of the first alien-human hybrid jet fighter! Independance Day: Resurgence is due for release on June 24th.
Next up is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, directed by Michael Bay.
As well as the titular turtles, the film features Megan Fox as their news-reporting friend April O’Neil, and Arrow star Stephen Amell also joins the gang as vigilante Casey Jones. We don’t know much about the story – but the trailer does give us a look at the main villain, Krang, along with a glimpse of his henchmen Bebop and Rocksteady.
TMNT: Out of the Shadows will be in UK cinemas on June 3rd.
X-Men: Apocalypse is one of the films that has me really excited this year – and the Super Bowl trailer has done nothing to put me off!
Apocalypse, the first mutant, has been hibernating for thousands of years – and wakes up in the 1980s to a world he doesn’t like. He teams up with Magneto and recruits Storm, Psylocke and Angel to be his Horsemen of the Apocalypse to destroy the world! Obviously, this is where Professor Xavier and his X-Men step in to stop him.
X-Men: Apocalypse comes out on May 19th.
Tuesday 9th February
A great new service from Sky – and the return of a classic RPG
On Tuesday, satellite TV provider Sky launched its brand-new, next-generation TV service. The new service is called Sky Q– and consists of a new range of Sky set top boxes as well as a new software interface designed to offer “Fluid Viewing”.
The centrepiece of the Sky Q system is the new 'Sky Q Silver' box – a huge upgrade over the existing Sky Plus HD box that you’ll be familiar with.
The Silver box has a two-terabyte hard drive, and allows you to record up to four programs at once – even while watching a fifth program! You can also stream to two other TVs or tablets at the same time, and even stream music via Bluetooth or AirPlay – so it really is the centrepiece for all your media.
If the Sky Q Silver is a little excessive for you, you can opt for the standard Sky Q box instead. This has just one terabyte of storage and limits you to three recordings at once while watching a fourth – and supports streaming to just one TV or tablet.
The third device on offer is the 'Sky Q Mini'. This plugs into a TV in a different room in the house, allowing you to watch live TV or stream content from the main Sky Q or Sky Q Silver box. This means you can watch your recordings in any room – and don’t have to mess about with cables coming from the satellite dish for a multi-room service.
If you have Sky Broadband as well, all three devices will work as Wi-Fi extenders to help boost your Wi-Fi signal into every corner of your home. The boxes also come with a brand-new Bluetooth touchpad remote control, to make navigating the new menu system even easier.
Sky Q is available now and costs as little as £12 a month extra if you're an existing Sky customer. Take a look at the video above to see the new tech in action!
Tuesday also brought a welcome surprise for Final Fantasy fans, as Final Fantasy IX was released on both iOS and Android. Although it was announced a couple of months ago, the worldwide release came a little out of the blue.
Final Fantasy IX is considered by many fans to be the high point of the FF series. While it doesn’t have the same nostalgia factor as VII, Final Fantasy IX’s characters, story and gameplay make it one of the best games of all time.
The game centres around Zidane Tribal, a bandit who kidnaps Princess Garnet, but ends up working with her and her guard Adelbert Steiner. Along with a young mage named Vivi and a few other characters, the group travel the world trying to defeat Queen Brahne – who has gone mad with power.
As with the recent iOS version of Final Fantasy VII, IX has several new “Game Boosters”, designed to make the game easier to play and allow you to concentrate on the story. These include the ability to boost your stats to do max damage, avoid random encounters and even speed up the gameplay. The graphics have also had a once-over, making this the best-looking version of the game currently available.
There is a downside, however, in that the game requires 8 GB of free space on your handset and currently costs £12.99. If you don’t fancy spending 40+ hours playing the game on your smartphone, a Steam version of the game with the same boosters is in the works – and due for release soon.
Wednesday 10th February
Hot news from Hogwarts – and another nail in Flash's coffin
Wednesday brought exciting news for Harry Potter fans, as it was announced that the script for the upcoming stage play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts I & II, will be released as a book.
The play itself was first announced in June last year, and is due to hit the stage in the West End this summer. It is set 19 years after the events of the last film, with Harry Potter now working at the Ministry of Magic. The story focuses on Harry’s youngest son, Albus, who is struggling to cope with the pressures of the family legacy.
The announcement of the book is a huge relief to many Potter fans around the world, who will be unable to see the play live and were worried that they would miss out on this next chapter of the Harry Potter saga. Although it's not written by J. K. Rowling, The Cursed Child is fully endorsed by her – and is officially the eighth story in the Harry Potter canon.
In fact, there are going to be two versions of the book. The first will be based on the script at the time of the play’s preview performances. This will be later replaced by a 'Definitive Collector’s Edition'. We’ll bring you more info on release dates closer to the time!
Ever since HTML5 started to make its way into the mainstream, Adobe's Flash has been going through a long and painful death. On Wednesday, Google made an announcement that could be one of the final nails in its coffin, as they're banning Flash adverts from their ubiquitous AdWords and DoubleClick Digital Marketing systems. This is in line with Adobe's own views of Flash, which they've been trying to move away from for some time.
This will happen in two stages: from June 30th this year, no new Flash-based adverts will be accepted, and existing Flash ads will cease to run from January 2nd 2017. Google are encouraging developers to update their adverts to HTML5 as soon as possible.
Unless you have some sort of weird nostalgic attachment to Flash, this can only be seen as great news. Flash is incredibly insecure, leaving your system open to numerous exploits for hackers. It's also incredibly annoying – with updates seemingly coming through almost constantly. Hopefully this latest announcement will mean that Flash die completely sooner rather than later.
Thursday 11th February
Einstein proven right – who'd have thought it?
On Thursday, scientists working for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory– or LIGO – made the stunning announcement that they have managed to detect gravitational waves for the first time – a potentially huge scientific discovery.
Before we go any further, let’s explain what a gravitational wave actually is: Put very simply, it is a wave in the fabric of spacetime that was first predicted by Albert Einstein 100 years ago. They are caused by violent events involving large gravitational fields – in this case, the merging of two black holes over a billion years ago.
When a gravitational wave passes through space, it warps spacetime, causing it to be stretched and compressed – and it's this warping that the scientists have detected.
This is a huge achievement, requiring an incredibly sensitive instrument to measure. The LIGO detectors – one in Washington state and one in Louisiana – consist of very long L-shaped tunnels which have laser beams shining down them. The beams are bounced off incredibly pure mirrors suspended using glass fibres. When a gravitational wave passes through the detector, the slight stretching and compression of spacetime is detected, causing a little blip on the signal output.
Due to the sensitivity of the instruments, the scientists had to make sure they'd eliminated every other possibility before they announced their discovery. However, as the exact same signal was picked up at both detectors 2,000 miles apart, they are confident this is a confirmed discovery.
So why the big deal? Well, apart from finally confirming some of Einstein’s predictions, the reason they're so important is that gravitational waves are not affected by anything they travel through. Unlike light, which is blocked by the huge dust clouds in space, gravitational waves will allow scientists to look further back into the early days of the Universe – even as far back as the Big Bang itself!
The scientists at LIGO are already investigating a second signal that had been picked up by the detector – but have been unable to confirm it quite yet. However, if this is confirmed, then it means we have a reliable method for detecting these signals – which will lead to a much deeper understanding of the early days of the universe.
Take a look at the video above for an explanation of the project from some of the lead scientists from MIT.
Friday 12th February
A double whammy of bad(ish) news for Apple
There was a double whammy of bad news for Apple on Friday, as a new iOS glitch came to light on the same day that a lawsuit was filed over the recent 'Error 53' issue.
Let’s deal with Error 53 first. If you’ve not heard about it yet, take a look at Agent Lee’s excellent guide to the issue. As a quick summary, Error 53 is an issue that is causing iPhones to stop working if they've had the Touch ID sensor replaced by an unauthorised repairer.
Apple claim that this is a security feature to stop dodgy Touch ID sensors being used to access your data. However, law firm PCVA have filed a lawsuit in California looking for $5 million in damages.
This does seem a little over the top, as this really is a non-issue that has affected a tiny amount of iPhone users. By the time the lawsuit has gone through court, we’ll probably be rushing out to buy the iPhone 10 anyway – but we’ll bring you more information as it becomes available.
The second issue for Apple this week is a weird little bug that can make an iPhone completely unusable. It turns out that if you set the date on the iPhone to January 1st 1970 and then turn the phone off, it will not turn back on again. At all. Ever! The iPhone will display the Apple symbol on the screen and go no further – and there's no way of fixing this issue at the moment.
But again, this really is a non-issue: it's not something that can be done accidentally, and in fact, the iPhone will not even let you set the date to 1970 without several tries and a lot of scrolling. However, this could be the sort of thing that's done as a prank – making it all the more important to make sure your iPhone is secure. Our guide will show you how!
That concludes another round-up of the week's wildest stories from the world of science, tech and geeky entertainment – but for more fantastic articles directly to your inbox each month, why not get your name down below for the Geek Squad newsletter?