Technologies

British Comedy Caper Deep Cover is the Perfect Film to Kick Off Cozy-Crime Summer

This hilarious movie on Prime Video should be at the top of everyone’s weekend watch list.

You can’t move for hit British crime shows right now. Whether it’s Dept. Q or Adolescence on Netflix; MobLand on Paramount Plus; or Slow Horses on Apple TV Plus (even if that one’s technically more of a spy show), gritty and binge-worthy content is showing up on the best streaming services, all delivered in a vibrant array of British accents.

But a shift is happening. We’re about to enter cozy-crime summer, when the genre will get an injection of lighthearted comedy, largely thanks to the much-anticipated adaptation of Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club book series, set to land on Netflix this August.

In the meantime, Prime Video is getting in there first with Deep Cover — an action-comedy that flips the British crime script from serious to silly in the best possible way.

In the film, which arrives on Prime Video on June 12, an unlikely trio of improv actors, all of differing skill levels, is recruited as undercover police officers and infiltrates London’s underworld, theoretically to bust a drug ring. Needless to say, am-dram chaos ensues.

Bryce Dallas Howard plays a failed stand-up comic turned improv teacher who ropes her two most hapless students into the gang: a method actor with delusions of grandeur, played by Orlando Bloom, and a nervy IT office nerd, played by Nick Mohammed. Together the three, nicknaming themselves Bonnie, Roach and the Squire, fudge their way through meetings with gangland bosses, each more intimidating than the next, and somehow manage to find friendship and romance along the way.

I went to the film’s premiere at SXSW London last week and came away convinced that Deep Cover should be at the top of everyone’s watch list this weekend. The combination of comedy and action lands it squarely in crowd-pleaser territory, somewhere between Hot Fuzz and The Fall Guy.

Of Deep Cover’s three stars, it’s Mohammed who has the most established comedy chops and gets the biggest laughs (you’ll likely know him best as Nathan Shelley in Ted Lasso — the kit man who defects to become a rival coach). That’s not to say Bloom, who steps somewhat out of his comfort zone in this role, and Howard don’t also deliver. The chemistry between the three lead characters keeps you rooting for them long after their «yes, and…» improv approach to undercover work seems to be failing them.

The film’s director, Tom Kingsley, has also worked on the Bafta-winning TV show Stath Lets Flats (available on Max), which is simultaneously the most Greek and most British piece of television you could ever hope to watch, and which I’ve long been convinced is a work of significant comic genius. Deep Cover has the same echoes of awkward, almost farcical humor, but with an Amazon-size budget behind it.

Still, as Kingsley explained during a Q&A following the premiere, the budget was far smaller than anyone might expect for such a production. Bringing in bona fide Hollywood stars Bloom and Johnson attracted more funding, as did Amazon hopping on board. But the film was reportedly made on something of a shoestring by Hollywood standards.

Still, it’s easy to see where the injection of cash ended up. Deep Cover’s action scenes are sometimes outlandishly slapstick, perfectly befitting of the three clowns at their center, and at times so graphic or high octane that they don’t always jell with the overall tenor of the film. It’s a minor niggle in the scheme of things, and one that shouldn’t deter you.

For all its silliness and stunts, Deep Cover is ultimately a heartwarming tale about developing adult friendships at that stage in life when you might feel like the moments for such opportunities have passed.

If you’re looking for something easy and fun to watch this weekend, then look no further.

Technologies

How Did ChatGPT Get ‘Absolutely Wrecked’ at Chess by an 1970s-Era Atari 2600?

The console Gen Xers used to play Pac-Man and Pitfall on apparently was better than anyone knew.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT has some major AI chatbot competitors in the market: Gemini, Copilot, Claude. Now add to that list the Atari 2600. The OG video game console, which was first released in 1977, was used in an engineer’s experiment to see how it would fare playing chess against the AI chatbot.

By using a software emulator to run Atari’s 1979 game Video Chess, Citrix engineer Robert Caruso said he was able to set up a match between ChatGPT and the 46-year-old game. The matchup did not go well for ChatGPT.

«ChatGPT confused rooks for bishops, missed pawn forks and repeatedly lost track of where pieces were — first blaming the Atari icons as too abstract, then faring no better even after switching to standard chess notations,» Caruso wrote in a LinkedIn post.

«It made enough blunders to get laughed out of a 3rd-grade chess club,» Caruso said. «ChatGPT got absolutely wrecked at the beginner level.»

Caruso wrote that the 90-minute match continued badly and that the AI chatbot repeatedly requested that the match start over.

For decades, the ability for computers to defeat humans at chess has been a measure of their power. In 1997, IBM made headlines when its Deep Blue technology defeated chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov in a series of matches.

Caruso’s experiment doesn’t mean ChatGPT is useless for chess, but because it’s more of a language model than a supercomputer, it’s less likely to serve that purpose well. A few years ago, a developer created a ChatGPT plugin called ChessGPT. But it may be better to discuss chess with OpenAI’s chatbot than to try to play against it.

A representative for OpenAI did not immediately return a request for comment.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

Technologies

Your 2018 iPhone XS Is Now a ‘Vintage’ Device: Here’s What That Means

The device will still get updates for the rest of the year, but Apple is otherwise ceasing support for the 2018 iPhone.

Things don’t last forever, and in the tech world, they rarely even last five years. Apple lists older products on what it calls the vintage list, which consists of products the company stopped selling five to seven years ago. And if you bought your iPhone in 2018, the iPhone XS, your phone is now officially vintage.

The iPhone XS launched in 2018 and was officially discontinued in 2020 once all of its stock ran out. The phone joins the iPhone 7 Plus, two iPhone 8 models, the iPhone XS Max, and the iPhone 6S Plus, all of which have been added to the list since the calendar flipped to 2025.

Now that it’s there, the iPhone XS, along with the other iPhones listed above, will spend the next two years as a vintage device on Apple’s roster. Once they hit the seven-year mark, these phones will be moved to the obsolete list. The most recent device to be rendered obsolete by Apple is the 5th-generation iPad.

You have a vintage phone, so what now?

The good news is that having a vintage phone doesn’t mean much in the immediate short term, but it will before the end of the year.

Apple products continue to have repair support for up to five years after they leave store shelves, but can still be repaired after the five-year mark, provided that there are still parts available. That means that the iPhone XS and the other models listed are no longer officially supported, but repair techs can still order parts as long as Apple has them.

Such parts are likely in abundance since the phone just entered the vintage list. However, over the next two years, it’ll become harder and harder for repair shops to find official parts for the iPhone XS. So, if your phone breaks next year, there is no guarantee that a repair shop will be able to find official parts to fix it.

In terms of software, it’s much the same story. Apple is still releasing iOS 18 updates and will continue to do so until iOS 26 comes out. After that, Apple tends to stop supporting the prior generation of iOS. Since the iPhone XS is not included on the list of iOS 26-compatible devices, software support will mostly end later this year once the new version comes out.

Apple did this last year as well, with the final iOS 17 update releasing on Nov. 19, 2024. Apple typically guarantees support for devices for up to five years, and since the iPhone XS came out in 2018, it has long since surpassed the mark.

Being put on the vintage list can be construed as a light warning from Apple that your phone will no longer be supported very soon. If you own an iPhone XS, you’ll have software support until November when iOS 26 launches, and you’ll have repair support as long as the parts hold out. You don’t need a new phone today, but it’s something you may want to look into sooner rather than later.

Technologies

iPhone 17 Rumors: New iPhone Battery Could Be Stronger and Smaller

Speculation on better battery life and charging could give a power boost to the rumored iPhone Air.

The next iteration of iPhones is just around the corner, with an official announcement expected sometime this fall. With the Worldwide Developers Conference now behind us, we’re most looking forward to the announcement of the iPhone 17.

There are plenty of rumors about what the next iPhone will look like and what sort of specs it may have. One of the more popular talking points for any new smartphone release is battery life, and the new iPhone is no exception. A rumored iPhone 17 Air with a thinner design has raised the question of whether a slimmer iPhone would have to sacrifice battery life.

Regardless of the model type, battery life is a concern across the board. After all, you can’t use your new tech if the battery drains too fast and doesn’t last more than a few hours. We’ve sorted through all the rumors and leaks when it comes to the battery for the iPhone 17. Let’s break it down.

Battery size for the next iPhone

Current iPhones utilize a lithium-ion battery, which is less malleable and not really conducive to being used in a slimmer model, like the rumored iPhone 17 Air. So, if they were to shrink the lithium-ion battery to fit a skinnier frame, it would likely have less capacity. However, Apple may be adding a silicon-anode battery to the new slimmer iPhone, according to AppleInsider.

Compared with graphite-based anodes, common in lithium-ion batteries, silicon anodes can hold more lithium ions, allowing them to store more energy. In theory, that would mean a more compact silicon-anode battery wouldn’t sacrifice power. The iPhone may even charge faster than previous iterations as a result. As for the rumored iPhone 17 Pro Max, according to 9to5mac, it’s expected to have a slightly larger battery than the iPhone 16 Max Pro.

AI-powered battery management

The next iPhones (and the current models after iOS 26 rolls out) will have AI-powered adaptive battery energy management starting this fall, we learned at WWDC. Part of Apple Intelligence, the company will utilize AI to monitor how you use your device and adjust performance and energy consumption settings accordingly, aiming to extend the phone’s battery life. Think of Adaptive Power as the first step toward extending your iPhone’s battery life and Low Power mode as the last step of doing the same.

Another piece of new hardware that’ll likely impact battery efficiency is the rumored A19 processing chip. The iPhone 17 base and Air will likely get the A18 chip, which is the same chip that the iPhone 16 uses. However, according to Apple analyst Jeff Pu, the rumored iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are set to include the A19 chip, which would likely come equipped with better optimization, which in turn could impact how long the battery will last on the rumored iPhone, and how efficiently it will run.

How accurate are iPhone rumors?

Until Apple officially releases its new phone, speculation on the iPhone 17 is simply educated guesswork. While most rumors come from insider knowledge or are leaked from the teams working on these products, until Apple says otherwise, they remain rumors.