HomePod was announced in 2017, but Apple’s smart speaker never really became popular. This lack of popularity saw the HomePod mini replacing the original model. However, Apple doesn’t seem to have given up on HomePod, as the company has now hired a new Head of HomePod Software. According to a Bloomberg report, which heard from sources familiar with the matter, Apple has hired engineer Afrooz Family to lead the HomePod Software team....

All of today’s best deals are now up for the taking and headlined by Apple’s new MagSafe Leather Wallet with Find My at $50. That’s alongside a new Bose flash sale and the Logitech MX Master 3 for Mac at $80. Hit the jump for all that and more in the latest 9to5Toys Lunch Break. Apple’s new MagSafe Leather Wallet with Find My on sale for the first time AT&T is now offering the new Apple MagSafe Leather Wallet with Find My for $50....

Last year, Apple agreed to pay retail workers in California $30 million to settle a lawsuit over its bag check policy. That settlement has now been approved by a US District Court judge and will see workers receive an average payment of $1,328 while the lawyers in the case will rake in $10 million. This has been an incredibly long-running lawsuit, with employees first filing the class action suit against Apple in 2013....

Apple has just announced that it will release its earnings report for the third quarter of fiscal 2022 on Thursday, July 28. As usual, the company will release its Q3 2022 earnings report, then hold a conference call with investors and analysts to provide more detail. Apple’s Q3 2022 covers the months of April, May, and June. Last quarter, Apple reported $97.3 billion of revenue – an increase of 9% year over year....

Update: As of November 11, Apple Watch users that complete any workout for 11 minutes or more will unlock stickers to honor Veterans Day. Apple has set its next Apple Watch Activity Challenge for Veterans Day, which takes place in two weeks on November 11. This challenge requires users to complete any workout for 11 minutes or more to unlock stickers that can be used in the Messages app, FaceTime, and more....

Arrow nearly adapted Kevin Smith’s Onomatopoeia villain years ago, according to producer Andrew Kreisberg. Smith created the character for DC Comics during his spell as a comic book writer back in the 2000s. Onomatopoeia has a unique visual hook: he says his own sound effects. So, for example, if he’s snapping something, he actually says the word snap. In 2007, Smith stated that the character wouldn’t work in live-action form, saying, “if you tried to do that cinematically you can’t really rock it....

At this point, it is just a waiting game for Arrow season 5 and the rest of The CW’s DC Comics TV shows. Considering the amount of promos, advance images, and interviews from Comic-Con on that have filled the void since each series’ respective finales this past spring, the pre-premiere gossip carcass has pretty much been picked clean. And that’s fine, as its time to move past the hors d’oeuvres portion of the upcoming television season and to make room for the main course, which is set to arrive in just a few weeks’ time....

AT&T has announced a handful of changes and improvements for its fiber optic internet plans. The company is rolling out new 2Gbps and 5Gbps speed tiers to customers in more than 70 cities across the United States, while also committing to what it is referring to as “new simple, straightforward pricing.” In a press release today, AT&T announced that the new 2Gbps and 5Gbps speed tiers are now available to over 5 million subscribers in the United States....

Atomic Blonde director David Leitch says Atomic Blonde 2 is still being discussed and could be made by a streaming service. Released in 2017, the Cold War-set spy thriller was adapted from Antony Johnston’s graphic novel The Coldest City and starred Charlize Theron as Lorraine Broughton - an MI6 agent on a mission in Berlin to recover a stolen list of double agents. Gritty yet hyper-stylish, Atomic Blonde was one of the best movies of 2017 and boasts some of the most show-stopping fight sequences in recent memory....

Mini-Me actor Verne Troyer has reportedly passed away at the age of 49. Details are scarce as to exactly what happened leading up to this unfortunate incident. The actor’s family released a statement referencing suicide and depression. Troyer had been in several well-known films from the beginning of his career. His credits include Jingle All The Way, Men In Black, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. But it was his role as Dr....

Annie Potts teases her return as Janine Melnitz in Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters sequel. Potts appeared in Ivan Reitman’s two Ghostbusters movies in the ’80s as Melnitz; the secretary for the Ghostbusters and the love interest of Egon Spengler and Louis Tully. The original Ghostbusters movies are beloved by fans and starred Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson. Fans have been waiting a long time to see a true Ghostbusters 3, but the series was rebooted in 2016 with an all female cast instead....

Apple is now asking all of its employees in the United States to report their vaccination status by mid-September. According to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple is asking that employees report this information regardless of whether they are working remotely or from the office. In a memo, Apple said that employees should “voluntarily” report their status by September 17. The company plans to use the data to “inform its COVID-19 response efforts and protocols,” the report explains....

Apple investment in US technology is likely to be boosted in response to the Ukraine crisis demonstrating the fragility of over-dependence on Taiwan and China, suggests a new analyst report. The report cites a recent statement by the CEO of the world’s largest asset management company … Background We’ve long argued that Apple’s dependence on China is the greatest threat to the company’s future and more recently that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has served to emphasize that risk....

Just one day after launching macOS 12.2 to the public with over a dozen security updates, Apple has released the first macOS Monterey 12.3 beta to developers. The latest build arrives as Universal Control is slated to arrive sometime this spring. Update: While Apple didn’t mention Universal Control in the release notes, we’ve discovered the feature has been enabled with the macOS 12.3 and iPadOS 15.4 betas. There are some other new features to test like support for the PS5 DualSense adaptive trigger, a new ScreenCaptureKit framework for “high-performance screen recording,” and more....

Aquaman director James Wan is asking his fans not to harass those who aren’t keen on his work, and vice versa. The latest installment of the DCEU hit theaters this month. Wan’s Aquaman succeeded in winning over some new fans for the Atlantean hero. But some continue to criticize the film, finding fault in the genre, the film itself, or just struggling to root for a guy who controls fish. Whatever the reason, no film can please everybody....

During Warner Bros.’ Aquaman presentation at CinemaCon, Jason Momoa declared LEGO Batman Movie star Will Arnett the best Batman ever, ignoring his Justice League co-star Ben Affleck. Many men have donned the Caped Crusader’s cowl since Adam West first brought the character to life on television in the original 1960s Batman series. Michael Keaton took the role when Batman finally made his way to movie screens in 1989, and since then a parade of actors has tried their hand at playing the darkest of all superheroes....

Stephen Amell has always been an extremely interactive actor with his fans via his various social media platforms, but none more so than with Arrow viewers - who speak to and with him on his Facebook page. With the series having recently hit 100 episodes and the latest fall finale right around the corner, Arrow shows no signs of slowing down. Amell decided to celebrate Arrow’s 100th episode by taking part in a special question and answer session on Facebook - where he revealed some exciting information about what’s to come in the superhero TV series’ future....

DC and Marvel currently find themselves in the midst of a heated arms race, with both brands continuing to snatch up actors left and right to increase the already dense populations of their ever-expanding universes (film and/or television alike). However, what are the odds of an actor crossing the demarcation line and working for both comic book-based brands? It’s already happened, with regard to supporting cast members - for example, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje played a role in Marvel Studios’ Thor: The Dark World and he’s now playing Killer Croc in WB/DC’s upcoming Suicide Squad movie....

Whatever you may think of the prospect of video game movies, Hollywood clearly thinks they’re the next big thing to join comic books, classic cartoons and 1980s action figure lines as the go-to material for big-budget blockbusters. Much of the recent glut of gaming green-lights has centered on recent hits from the PC and mobile scene like Angry Birds, Five Nights At Freddy’s and Minecraft; but so-called “Triple-A” console titles are also getting a shot in the form of the Assassin’s Creed adaptation set to hit theaters in December as a star-vehicle for Michael Fassbender....

Does Captain Marvel’s time-travel power explain how the Avengers will travel back in time in Avengers: Endgame? At the moment, the plot of Avengers: Endgame is a closely guarded secret. Indeed, there have been rumors that the film’s marketing will only use footage from the first 15 or 20 minutes of the movie, which Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has since confirmed that. One thing seems certain, though; somehow, Earth’s surviving heroes will manage to thwart Thanos....