Month: September 2026

Foundation gets a board game: strategy spin-off announced for Gamefound

Foundation is heading to the tabletop. Creardo has announced a strategy-focused board game based on Isaac Asimov’s sci-fi series, with a crowdfunding launch set for Gamefound, the latest step in Foundation’s expansion.

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Creardo is developing the Foundation board game for Gamefound, and there’s still no full breakdown of the mechanics, player count, or release window. Still, the early material on BoardGameGeek says the game is in playtesting and shows off a striking retro-futurist style pulled from the 1970s, a good match for the series’ political maneuvering, long-range planning, and civilization-scale conflict.

If you follow Foundation, or just have a soft spot for strategy-heavy tabletop games, this one’s worth keeping an eye on as the franchise keeps pushing past books and television.

That’s been happening for a while. Apple TV+ launched Foundation in 2021, and the David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman series, starring Jared Harris and Lee Pace, has already been renewed for a fourth season. Then came Foundation: Galactic Frontier, the free-to-play sci-fi strategy RPG that launched on iOS, Android, and PC in October 2025 before arriving on Steam in January 2026.

You can track the Foundation board game project through Gamefound, which has also hosted campaigns for Cyberpunk and The Lord of the Rings.

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OpenAI launches Daybreak: $1 billion in cyber aid for utilities and local governments

OpenAI has rolled out Daybreak for Frontline Defenders in the U.S., saying it will put $1 billion toward subsidized access to cybersecurity tools and services for organizations that protect essential systems.

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For under-resourced water and wastewater utilities, pieces of the power grid, or local government networks, the Daybreak for Frontline Defenders program offers eligible groups six months of access to OpenAI’s cyber products and models, along with training and technical support, according to the company.

That kind of help lands at a real pressure point. Attackers are moving faster and getting more efficient, while plenty of public-service networks are still stuck with old technology, tiny security teams, and budgets that don’t leave much room to breathe.

If you’re already spread thin, this is probably worth taking. The tools can help uncover vulnerabilities, sort which alerts matter first, and shorten response times. What they won’t do is patch neglected systems, fix weak passwords, clean up poor network segmentation, or make up for missing multi-factor authentication.

The launch starts in the U.S. through OpenAI and, the company says, could expand internationally later. It also arrives in the middle of a broader push that includes U.S. agency grants and guidance, along with expanded cyber offerings from Google and other model developers.

Whether Daybreak for Frontline Defenders ends up making a lasting dent depends on how many eligible organizations actually use it, and whether they can turn a temporary six-month window into real security gains.

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War of the Ring gets Sieges of Middle-Earth: new expansion targets winter 2026

Ares Games has announced Sieges of Middle-Earth, the fourth expansion for War of the Ring: Second Edition. The current target is winter 2026, or Q4 2026.

Earlier reports suggested it was an RPG add-on. It’s actually the fourth board game expansion for War of the Ring: Second Edition. Ares Games says Sieges of Middle-Earth is built around siege warfare, with new systems for attacking and defending the strongholds of Middle-earth. The publisher also says it will push the tension, attrition, and big momentum swings that define the setting’s largest fortress battles.

On the Shadow side, the expansion adds siege engines to make assaults on fortifications more dangerous. For the Free Peoples, it brings heroic actions and sortie mechanics. Ares Games lists Roberto Di Meglio, Marco Maggi, and Francesco Nepitello as the designers.

If you play War of the Ring regularly, this one already looks worth picking up when it lands, especially given the strong early reaction from fans and, according to Ares Games, the planned extras: plastic miniatures, special dice, cards, tokens, and a limited edition for collectors that’s set to arrive later.

You can expect Sieges of Middle-Earth from Ares Games in winter 2026. Pricing, region-specific release dates, and a fuller public preview are still up in the air.

Ready or Not returns to Netflix in the US today

Ready or Not hit Netflix in the United States today, September 1, 2026. The 2019 action-thriller from Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett is back in front of a big streaming audience.

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That timing isn’t random. Ready or Not 2: Here I Come opened in theaters in March 2026, and while it’s still not clear how widely the original will roll out internationally, Netflix is bringing back a movie with a real track record. Netflix’s Top 10 data shows it previously reached the top 10 in more than 60 countries and pulled 5.3 million views in its first week during a November 2024 run.

Samara Weaving stars as Grace, a newlywed dragged into a deadly wedding-night game of hide-and-seek with her wealthy husband’s family. And the movie still clicks because it gives you horror, action, dark comedy, and a pretty sharp send-up of wealth, entitlement, and the way powerful families protect their own traditions.

If you missed Ready or Not the first time, or just want to watch it again now that the sequel is out, this is a pretty easy sell. Samara Weaving’s mix of panic, fury, and deadpan disbelief is still the main reason to show up. The “final girl” angle still gives people something to argue about, and that $57 million worldwide haul off a $6 million budget says a lot about why it became such a streaming favorite.

You can stream Ready or Not now on Netflix in the US.

Halo unveils a redesigned Energy Sword: first major break in 25 years

Halo has put a new kind of energy sword on the cover of Halo: Fireteam Noble, a novel slated for early 2027. It’s a single-bladed design, and it’s the first serious departure from the franchise’s classic twin-pronged Covenant sword in 25 years.

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The cover art for the upcoming Troy Denning novel, illustrated by Garrett Post, features Atis ‘Moramai, a new female Sangheili Blademaster. She’s holding an open-hilt weapon with one curved plasma blade, a look that feels sleeker and much closer to a saber than the version Halo fans already know.

So far, Halo hasn’t said what this sword is, how it works, or where it fits in the lore. For now, that leaves room to guess: maybe it’s an ancient Sangheili variant, maybe it’s a personal or ceremonial blade made for Atis ‘Moramai, or maybe it points to a newer evolution shaped by the galaxy’s current state.

If you keep up with Halo lore, this is the kind of detail you’ll probably want to watch. Halo: Fireteam Noble takes place in 2560, after Cortana’s uprising and during the Banished’s rise, and it also pulls in Jun-A266, Sigrid Eklund, and Hieu Dinh from Halo Infinite’s seasonal story.

Halo: Fireteam Noble is set to arrive in early 2027 in print, ebook, and audiobook formats.

Jupiter heads to Venice: it’s set in a real French nuclear bunker

Alexandre Smia’s political thriller Jupiter is headed to this year’s Venice Film Festival for a world premiere out of competition. It’s Smia’s first feature, and he’s starting big: a newly elected French president is thrown into a crisis that could slide into nuclear war with Russia.

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The film’s hook is how grounded it sounds. Jupiter takes place in the actual Jupiter Command Post, the underground bunker beneath the Élysée Palace, and Smia is treating it as a film about nuclear authority, responsibility, isolation, procedure, architecture, and confinement. His phrase for the moment we’re living in is a “Third Nuclear Age.” In that setting, the weight of command matters more than spectacle.

Smia started writing Jupiter while Joe Biden was still president of the United States. Now the film lands after the Ukraine war reportedly shaped its development, with the February 2026 expiration of the New START nuclear arms treaty in view, and with fresh anxiety over miscalculation, accidental escalation, black swan events, and a world that still holds more than 12,500 warheads across nine nuclear states.

If smart, systems-driven political thrillers are your thing, Jupiter looks like one to seek out for its research-heavy procedural take on what nuclear war feels like inside the room where that decision gets made. First stop: the Venice Film Festival.

Tesla Robotaxi hits 1 million unsupervised miles: a major milestone

Tesla says its Robotaxi fleet has now passed 1,000,000 unsupervised miles. The company announced the figure at its Cybercab event in Austin, about six weeks after reporting 380,000 unsupervised miles on its July 2026 earnings call. For Tesla’s autonomous ride-hailing plans, that’s a major milestone.

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The 1,000,000-mile total came out at the Austin Cybercab event alongside public rides in the two-seat Tesla Cybercab, which has no steering wheel or pedals. Based on Tesla’s earlier update, that means the company added roughly 620,000 miles in six weeks after reporting 380,000 on its July 2026 earnings call.

It’s a sharp expansion from Tesla’s small Austin launch in June. That rollout started with in-car safety drivers and a few early hiccups, and it has since expanded into more cities across Texas and Florida. Tesla has also reported progress on permits in Las Vegas.

Tesla uses “unsupervised” to mean there’s no human safety driver inside the car. The operation can still involve chase-car support and occasional remote intervention.

If you follow autonomous driving, this milestone matters. Tesla’s safety claims are still under scrutiny, and the company remains behind Waymo’s 200 million fully autonomous miles and Cruise’s earlier 1 million driverless miles, according to figures previously reported by Waymo and Cruise.

For now, Tesla’s Robotaxi service is available in Austin and in other expanding locations across Texas and Florida. Tesla also has 45 Cybercabs registered in Texas, and it’s showing the Tesla Cybercab in Asia as it seeks European approval for Full Self-Driving.

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Andrew Garfield claims he hasn’t seen ‘Spider-man: Brand New Day’ yet… and says he’s out of Marvel for now

Andrew Garfield is now saying he hasn’t seen Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and that he won’t be turning up in a Marvel movie anytime soon.

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If you’ve paid attention to Marvel actors for even a little while, you know the drill by now.

They swear up and down that they’re not in the next movie, and then later they stroll onto the screen anyway while the more trusting people in the audience go, “Wait, what? But he said he wouldn’t be in it!”

Marvel has pulled this trick so many times that it’s practically part of the marketing, and now Andrew Garfield is having his turn, trying to sell the idea that he’s totally, completely out of the franchise at this point. Sure. Of course. Wink, wink.

Spider-what? Doesn’t ring a bell

To be fair, Andrew Garfield isn’t exactly picking a side in the The Odyssey vs. Spider-Man: Brand New Day conversation either, because he says he hasn’t seen the former one too: “I don’t want to sound fake. For a movie to make money and for people to go see it is incredible, but I’ll talk more once I see Spider-man, which I’m really looking forward to seeing**. And I haven’t been able to see The Odyssey either. I’ll send Tom Holland a message when I see what he’s done”.

Believe it or not, Garfield says he hasn’t seen either of those movies, and on top of that, he insists we won’t be seeing him on the big screen anytime soon outside of The Uprising.

“I’m not in Avengers: Doomsday,” Garfield has now insisted for the umpteenth time to an audience that already assumes that if it’s not this one, then it’ll be Secret Wars. I mean, that Brand New Day post-credits scene had to mean something, right?**

After the reports that Marvel Studios is filming more scenes for Avengers: Doomsday so they can cram in, quite literally, even more cameos…

are we seriously still supposed to believe Andrew Garfield said no to a hefty paycheck for a single day of shooting? That’s the best and worst part of Marvel: they’ve gotten so good at the secrecy game… that nobody believes a word anymore!

Tesla launches Cybercab robotaxi in Austin: rides begin September 3

Tesla started Cybercab robotaxi rides in Austin on September 3, 2026. The first version is a two-seat vehicle with no steering wheel and no pedals.

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That Austin debut moves the Cybercab from an October 2024 concept to a real product, and makes it the showpiece for Tesla’s ride service. Tesla says that service has been running since June 2025, mostly with modified Model Ys. The Cybercab is Tesla’s first robotaxi built from scratch for the job, meant for city trips, with a minimalist cabin, no standard driver controls, about 293 miles of range, inductive charging, and a target price below $30,000, though Tesla still hasn’t confirmed that figure. Those details come from Tesla’s earlier specifications.

Records from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles showed about 45 Tesla Cybercabs registered in early September. So this is still a fairly small rollout, even with Tesla saying its Full Self-Driving fleet has now logged more than 1 million unsupervised miles, meaning miles driven without a safety driver on board.

For anyone who’s been following Tesla’s self-driving push, this launch is one to watch. Riders have praised the way the cars drive. Critics, though, keep pointing to the same problems: the limited fleet, the narrow launch, and Tesla’s long history of missing its own timelines. The lack of mirrors and manual controls has also drawn scrutiny from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and that could leave Tesla’s expansion in the U.S. depending on exemptions and rule changes as much as on the technology itself.

Tesla says you can ride the Cybercab only in select parts of Austin right now, and for the moment it looks more like a milestone than a true breakthrough.

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House of the Dragon on September 9: it’s a mobile game event, not a new episode

Game of Thrones: Legends, the mobile game, says its House of the Dragon quest event lands on September 9. Just don’t read that as a TV announcement: the September 9 update is in-game content for Game of Thrones: Legends on mobile, not a new episode, a bonus episode, or an early HBO/Max return for the House of the Dragon series.

So yes, there’s new House of the Dragon material coming to Game of Thrones: Legends. It follows the mini-arc that hit the mobile game Game of Thrones: Conquest on August 10, 2026. The show itself, meanwhile, already wrapped season 3 on August 9 after premiering June 21 for an eight-episode run that covered the Battle of the Gullet and Rhaenyra’s capture of King’s Landing. Filming for that season ran from March to October 2025.

There’s also the bigger picture for the show. HBO has already renewed House of the Dragon for season 4, which is expected to be the final season, with pre-production expected to start in October 2026, filming set for early 2027, and a likely air date in 2028.

If you follow House of the Dragon closely, this kind of announcement will still catch your eye. But vague “mark your calendars” posts can sound a lot like a streaming tease, especially around a series whose season 2 premiere still pulled in 7.8 million viewers, down 22% from nearly 10 million in 2022 and still the biggest single-day audience Max had seen at the time.