Month: March 2022

Enlarge / Tom Cruise, seen here once again having the need... for speed. (credit: Paramount)

Nearly three years after its unveiling, Top Gun: Maverick finally seems to have a stable release date: May 27, 2022. On Tuesday, Tom Cruise and co. arrived to celebrate the occasion with a new trailer, which addresses some remaining questions about what Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Cruise) is doing with the Navy.

As such, it's a plot-heavy preview. The new video doesn't address the reasons for the eventual F-14-filled military theater, so we still recommend watching it, but if you're eager to avoid spoilers, our Maverick trailer writeups from 2019 might be more up your alley.

“You are not my first choice”

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  A familiar face finally emerges. [credit: Paramount ]

"You are here at the request of Admiral Kazansky," a visibly annoyed three-star admiral (Jon Hamm) tells Mitchell at the trailer's outset before gesturing to a framed picture of a commander (the picture is labeled "Iceman"). Ah, the old Val Kilmer Macguffin. "He seems to think you have something left to offer the Navy," Hamm continues.

Enlarge / A health worker administers a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to an elderly resident at Ichilov medical center in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Monday, Aug. 2, 2021. (credit: Getty | Bloomberg)

Update 3/29/2022, 4 pm ET: Swiftly following authorization from the Food and Drug Administration earlier Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced it is updating its recommendations to allow people ages 50 and up as well as certain immunocompromised people to receive a second booster dose of either the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.

"Today, CDC expanded eligibility for an additional booster dose for certain individuals who may be at higher risk of severe outcomes from COVID-19," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement. "Boosters are safe, and people over the age of 50 can now get an additional booster 4 months after their prior dose to increase their protection further. This is especially important for those 65 and older and those 50 and older with underlying medical conditions that increase their risk for severe disease from COVID-19 as they are the most likely to benefit from receiving an additional booster dose at this time. CDC, in collaboration with FDA and our public health partners, will continue to evaluate the need for additional booster doses for all Americans.”

The agency also announced that adults who received a Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine and a Johnson & Johnson booster dose more than four months ago are now also eligible to get a second booster dose using an mRNA vaccine (Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna).

Enlarge / Layers upon layers.

Tuesday morning, Sony announced plans to combine its PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now subscription services. The newly revamped, multi-tier PlayStation Plus hydra will offer multiple pricing and access options for downloadable and streaming games from across the PlayStation's more than 25-year catalog.

Starting in June, the revamped PlayStation Plus will be broken into three overlapping tiers, with benefits and pricing as follows:

PlayStation Plus Essential
$9.99/month or $59.99/year

Enlarge (credit: Asus)

Early last year, graphics card makers like Asus announced that they would be raising their prices amid an intensifying GPU shortage. This price hike was partly a result of tariffs imposed on some Chinese products by the Trump administration; the tariffs had been waived for several years but were allowed to go into effect at the end of 2020. Last week, the Biden administration reinstated many of those waivers, and Asus announced yesterday that it would lower its GPU prices as a result.

The price drops will go into effect on April 1 and will apply to the company's entire lineup of GeForce RTX 3000-series GPUs, including the 3050, 3060, 3070, 3080, and 3090 series cards. "Consumers should expect prices to decline up to 25% on different models throughout the springtime," according to the company's statement.

Asus and other GPU makers have revived (or simply continued selling) many older GPU models—including the RTX 2060 and 1660 and the GTX 1050 Ti—to try to address the ongoing GPU shortage. There's no word on whether we can also expect to see price reductions for these models or if they'll eventually go away as the availability of newer GPUs improves.