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Letterboxd has created a cozy online space for film lovers to get together—those who truly appreciate the art form, and who want to compile lists, aggregate ratings, and share their movie opinions with others. Its success has led to other similar platforms appearing in its slipstream, such as Binge.

Record Club, which actually first opened its doors a couple of years ago, is continuing to grow and getting more attention as a potential Letterboxd for music enthusiasts. Music has been a major part of my life since my teens—across cassette tapes, CDs, MP3s, and streaming services—so I was keen to give it a try.

The snap verdict after a few days: It definitely gets a lot right, from the elegant look of the interface to the depth you can go down to when it comes to logging the details of your listening history. If you're looking for somewhere to share your music tastes and track your listening, it's worth a look.

Record Club is free to use with no ads, with a $4-per-month subscription available if you want to support the project. You get some extras such as better list management and the ability to choose preferred cover art in your library. You also get extensive personalized stats, and the ability to add personalized notes to releases.

Record Club is easy to navigate

When you first sign up for Record Club, you'll be given a quick tour of the interface and the features, and it's a well laid-out app on both web and mobile: There's lots of white space and text that's crisp and bold, and it's easy to read. Right away, you can see what's popular with other users, new releases coming up, and reviews that have been left on the platform.

Click through on any album, and you get a bunch of information about it. There's the track listing, plus details on how popular the album is on the Record Club network (its average rating and number of listeners, as well as reviews). You can see when it was originally released, and its total running time.

Everything is very clickable, searchable, and social. Follow a link to another user (you'll be given suggestions for who to follow as soon as you get started), and you get to see what they're currently listening to, their top five records, the reviews they've left on releases, and which upcoming releases they're planning to listen to.

Record Club
You'll find all the music you listen to on Record Club. Credit: Lifehacker

Your own profile will be viewable by default: You can make changes to it by clicking on your avatar (top right), then choosing Settings > Profile. Switch to Preferences and you get to control some of the ways that Record Club works, and under Privacy you can choose what's shown on your profile, or make it private (so only people who know your username will be able to find you).

You can bring previous listening data over from Rate Your Music or Last.fm (which I'm a particular fan of), and imports from Spotify are apparently coming soon. Your Record Club data can be exported as and when needed, so you don't have to worry about your listening history staying trapped here forever.

The headers along the top of the web interface link to the key sections of the platform: Browse (for checking out new music), Community (for checking out what other listeners are up to), and Activity (for reviewing your own listening). It's really when you start to use the tracking and social features of Record Club that it really comes into its own though, and when the Letterboxd comparisons become most apt.

How to get started with Record Club

You can start sharing what you're listening to by heading to the Record Club home page and clicking Add release under Your rotation. Your rotation is where you log what you're currently listening to, and you can have five albums (or singles or EPs) here—if you try and add a sixth, something else will have to go.

Finding new music couldn't be any easier: Type the name of the artist and album, and it'll quickly pop up. You don't have to keep music titles in your rotation pile to tell Record Club that you've listened to them, as you can click the three dots on any cover art across the site and choose Listen to log it.

There's also Queue for music you want to listen to but haven't done yet, and the option to leave a rating or a review. I tend to leave ratings much more often than reviews, as they're easier: I'm usually agonizing over the right words to say in a review and the right tone to take, and then I end up not publishing it anyway.

Record Club
List-making is one of the key features of Record Club. Credit: Lifehacker

It didn't take me long to log a lot of listening through the Record Club interface, as there were always related links and recommendations that took me where I wanted to go next. There's also the option to use tags if you want to be more specific in the way you're organizing your music collection.

If you head to your profile page by clicking your avatar (top right) and then Profile, you get your very own top five albums of all time to show off—just click Edit next to the relevant section to make your choices. One neat touch: If you click the three dots by the top five, you can save these picks as an image, so you can share them on other platforms as well.

I like making lists, too. Click Create up at the top of the web interface and you're able to choose List to start making some public or private lists. You can organize your favorite albums in a particular genre, a starter pack of songs for a specific band, the best double albums in history, or whatever it is you want to list.


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In a genre dominated by grim, dystopian visions of the future, For All Mankind is a powerful counterweight: an alternate history that imagines a timeline in which the Soviet Union beat America to the Moon, prolonging the space race and laying the foundation for a more egalitarian, tech-forward 20th and 21st centuries.

If you've finished the recently completed fifth season and need more of that kind of sci-fi positivity, you’re probably already excited about the spin-off series Star City, and you’ve probably already made your way through our list of shows with similar vibes to watch. Hence, it's time to explore other media. Here are the best movies, books, games, and podcasts with similarly starry-eyed vibes.

The best books like For All Mankind

For All Mankind is a dense, novelistic series with deep world-building and terrific character work—which means a good book is your best bet for filling that rocket-shaped void in your life.

The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal

This award-winning novel, the start of a series, is the ideal book to read if you love For All Mankind. It’s an alternate history that imagines a devastating meteorite impact that almost ends civilization and sends the world careening toward environmental disaster. In the desperate effort to recover and save humanity, manpower shortages mean women step into roles they were traditionally barred from, including the race to the stars. Despite the cataclysm that opens the story, this is the kind of optimistic sci-fi that imagines humanity will rise to every occasion, and fans of the show will love it.

The Right Stuff, by Tom Wolfe

If your favorite parts of For All Mankind involved the terrifying training for, and experience of spaceflight, especially in the early seasons, this legendary work of “new journalism” is the ticket. It recounts the early work in the U.S. on rocket-powered aircraft, Project Mercury, and the first astronauts, detailing the incredibly challenging and dangerous work undertaken by these men. It also delves into the impact their careers had on their families, and offers real-world background that makes the experience of the show even richer.

The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson

If you loved the way Mars colonization is depicted in For All Mankind—that grounded, plausible approach that makes it all seem thrillingly possible—check out Robinson’s Nebula and Hugo award-winning series. It shares the same basic optimism, imagining a reality where the world, driven by looming ecological disaster, comes together to terraform and colonize Mars. It’s got a similar scope, spanning nearly two centuries of future history beginning in the year 2026,offering an intelligent view of what a project of that scale would involve.

Singer Distance, by Ethan Chatagnier

One thing missing from For All Mankind is alien life—unless you count the microscopic cells discovered on Saturn’s moon Titan. If you wished there were some E.T.s in the show to spice things up, Chatagnier’s novel will thrill you, revealing as it does in a world where humanity began a laborious communication with Martians in 1894, involving enormous glyphs carved into the Martian surface and some heavy-duty math. When humanity fails to solve the Martian equations, the red planet falls silent for decades, until a brilliant young student formulates a message that reopens the conversation, with world-changing consequences.

Atmosphere, by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Part of the charm of For All Mankind is in the characters and their relationships. For more of that vibe, Atmosphere is the right choice. In the early 1980s, astrophysicist Joan Goodwin is thrilled when NASA announces an initiative to recruit female scientists into its space program. Training to be an astronaut is challenging and rewarding—and so are the relationships she forges with her fellow recruits. Not everyone is a friend and not everything is perfect—and a looming disaster in 1984 that puts a shadow on everything—but the story celebrates exceptional people and humanity’s enormous potential in a way fans of the show will recognize.

The best movies like For All Mankind

One of the great things about For All Mankind is the combination of small-scale human drama and the mind-blowing vistas of outer space. For big-screen versions of that, check out these films.

Apollo 13 (1995)

The thrills found in the early seasons of For All Mankind were typically centered on the incredibly dangerous initial attempts to blast off Earth and head to the Moon and beyond. Apollo 13 captures the real-world drama and tension of the 1970 Moon mission that went terribly wrong, stranding three astronauts in a disabled lunar module and prompting a desperate effort on Earth to solve a litany of physics challenges and get them home alive. It’s the perfect choice if you’re jonesing for space race pathos. Rent Apollo 13 on Prime Video.

The Martian (2015)

Space is a pretty dangerous place, as are the other planets in our solar system. The Martian captures both the wonder of exploration and the human drive to survive and triumph over adversity that marks For All Mankind as a special show, telling the story of astronaut Mark Watney, marooned on Mars with insufficient resources for long-term survival. It’s tense, thrilling, and ultimately a celebration of the human spirit, as the world puts aside political differences and comes together to mount a massive rescue mission. Stream The Martian on Fubo or rent it on Prime Video.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)

It’s entirely earthbound and has a very different aesthetic—not so much realistic as "computer-generated retrofuturism"—but Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow captures the gee-whiz, let’s do this energy of For All Mankind while also envisioning an alternate history where humanity develops technology along vastly different lines. There are airships, giant robots, and a flying legion of old-school fighter planes in this universe, which is deeply indebted to 1930s sci-fi aesthetics, but under all the CGI flash is a celebration of humanity’s courage and resilience that fans of the show will love. Stream Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow on Hoopla or rent it on Prime Video.

First Man (2018)

Another film exploring the incredible courage and determination of the early astronauts, First Man focuses on Neil Armstrong (played by Ryan Gosling), the first man on the Moon. In the early 1960s, Armstrong was reeling from the death of his young daughter and entered the Gemini program at a time when the Soviet Union was perceived to be beating the U.S. in the space race. The film explores the deep personal costs to all the men and women connected to the massive project, from lives lost to serious injury and emotional stress, while accurately depicting just how terrifyingly primitive the technology used to get to the Moon actually was. Rent First Man on Prime Video.

2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

While Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was trippy and very Kubrick, its 1984 sequel is a lot more grounded and informed by the Cold War. The result is a human-focused spacefaring story that fans of For All Mankind should enjoy. Nine years after the disaster that saw the U.S. lose astronaut David Bowman and the crew of the Discovery, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. are racing to get to Jupiter to find out what happened. The Soviets complete their ship first, but need American help to reactivate the computer HAL 9000 onboard the Discovery before the ship crashes into Jupiter’s moon Io, so a tense joint mission is formed. It’s a surprisingly hopeful story with little of the original film’s cold style. Rent 2010: The Year We Make Contact on Prime Video.

The best video games like For All Mankind

Want a more hands-on, challenging experience similar to For All Mankind? Check out these video games that bring space to your console or computer in different, exciting ways.

No Man’s Sky

You want the stars? No Man’s Sky brings you the stars—a nearly infinite supply of them, procedurally generated and teeming with unexpected challenges and opportunities. You can explore, transact business, and get into existential fights with aliens, and you can keep doing it for as long as you like, as the game comes as close to mimicking the infinite nature of the universe as current consoles possibly can. If it’s the potential for humanity to explore the universe that makes you most excited about For All Mankind, this game is for you.

Platforms: PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, Steam

Kerbal Space Program

Love the detailed exploration of the resources, manpower, and problem-solving that goes into managing an enormous space program? Kerbal Space Program and its sequel are the right games for you. The Kerals live on the planet Kerbin, and have just constructed a spaceport. It’s up to you to design rockets and other craft, launch them, and complete missions in the nearby solar system. The physics and planets are modeled on our own and are surprisingly accurate, giving you the opportunity to discover just how hard it is to get a crew to the Moon and back in one piece.

Platforms: Steam

Elite Dangerous

Like No Man’s Sky, Elite Dangerous offers you the chance to explore and interact with the entire universe, fulfilling the implied promise of For All Mankind. Unlike that other game, the universe in Elite Dangerous is modeled on the real one we live in—although the systems you visit are procedurally generated, the data used to create them is taken from legitimate astronomical readings. That means you can explore planets and systems that might actually exist out there, using spaceships and equipment that have the same practical, industrial look and feel as the vessels on the show.

Platforms: PlayStation, Xbox, Steam

Starfield

Starfield is another open-world space exploration game that mimics the grounded feel and courageous tone of For All Mankind, set in a universe based closely on real physics and known star systems. If you want all that and a tighter story ine than found in other open-world space games, this one will do it: You play as a member of a legendary team of explorers searching for ancient artifacts that may offer clues to one of the greatest discoveries in human history.

Platforms: PlayStation, Xbox, Steam

Surviving Mars

For many fans, the Mars settlement on For All Mankind is the most fascinating locale—a practical, grounded setting where humanity lives a fairly mundane existence despite the harsh conditions. If you want to dig in deeper to the logistical challenges of keeping humans alive on the red planet, check out Surviving Mars, where you play as an overseer in charge of designing, building, and maintaining a colony on Mars—and making sure the colonists survive their stay. The game throws a lot at you, including different colonist personality traits, disease, resource management, and even rebellions, but that’s what makes it so much fun.

Platforms: PlayStation, Xbox, Steam

The best podcasts like For All Mankind

For All Mankind has developed a rich, complex fictional universe and cast of characters over the course of its five seasons. If you want a deep dive, more background, or a similar entertainment experience, check out these podcasts.

For All Mankind: The Official Podcast

For All Mankind: The Official Podcast
Credit: Podcast logo

The official Apple TV+ podcast is the perfect spot to get all the background on every episode, the cast and crew, and the specific influences that shaped each storyline. Hearing about the real-life technology and projects that inspired the events depicted in the series is exciting, and getting all the behind-the-scenes tea is why podcasts were invented in the first place. You'll even hear interviews with actual astronauts and astrophysicists.

Happy Valley: A For All Mankind Podcast

Happy Valley: A For All Mankind Podcast
Credit: Podcast logo

If you’d rather vibe with other fans instead of the corporate-sponsored podcast, check out Happy Valley, hosted by superfans Brian Chaney and Donnie Gordon. Listen in on their fascinating discussions of episode breakdowns, fan theories, and the real-world analogues hiding within the show.

Marsfall

Marsfall podcast
Credit: Podcast logo

If you’re obsessed with the Mars-based story on For All Mankind, check out this tense, exciting narrative podcast that follows the adventures of colonists settling on the red planet in the year 2047. It doesn’t pull any punches, depicting the constant life-or-death struggle to survive on a planet that isn’t built for supporting human life.

ars PARADOXICA

ars PARADOXICA
Credit: Podcast logo

If you loved the early seasons of For All Mankind for the way they subvert history (and the gender and race attitudes of the times), check out ars PARADOXICA. This is the story of Dr. Sally Grissom, a scientist who is thrown backwards in time to 1943 and recruited by the Office of Developed Anomalous Resources (ODAR) to work on time travel and other technologies that can help America win World War II and defend itself against the Soviets in the Cold War and beyond, rewriting history in increasingly chaotic ways.

13 Minutes to the Moon

13 Minutes to the Moon
Credit: Podcast logo

Want to know more about the actual 1969 Moon mission and the immense effort required to mount it? This is the podcast for you. Produced by the BBC, it’s a detailed, engrossing delve into the social, political, economic, and technological challenges the effort posed, while illuminating the personalities of the people who fought for funding, developed key tech, or actually sat in the cockpits during dangerous tests and maiden flights during the decade-long, literal moonshot project.


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The Switch 2 has been out for just about one year now. In that time, we've had some new first-party titles, like Donkey Kong Bananza and Mario Kart World; upgrades for older Switch games, to take advantage of the more powerful hardware; and even a price hike, rather than a cut. Now, as we pass the console's first birthday, Nintendo has confirmed it's already working on a new version of the Switch 2. This won't be an OLED variant, mind you, nor will it come with an even faster processor. Instead, the new Switch 2 will bring a useful change to the console's battery—just not for those of us outside of Europe.

Nintendo is making the Switch 2's battery removable

In a statement on its website, Nintendo confirmed that a future version of the Switch 2 will come with a removable battery—an easily removable one, at that. The Switch 2 (and the Switch 1, for that matter) currently encloses the battery within the entire casing of the console, like many other current devices. If you wanted to access the battery, you'd have to take apart the whole handheld, which is far more complicated than it should be. As per iFixit's repair guide, you have to apply heat, remove the covers on each Joy-Con attachment, use picks to pry things open, and remove multiple components just to find the battery. That ignores even having to loosen the adhesive on the battery, remove it, and replace it with a new one, before having to reverse all of the above steps to reassemble your console. What a mess.

An easily removable battery would be a great quality-of-life update here. While unnecessary for the early days of Switch 2 ownership, eventually, the original battery will hold a noticeably smaller charge than it used to. Being able to simply pop out the battery, possibly via its own compartment, and replace it with a new one will go a long way to expanding the console's lifespan.

Nintendo will likely only offer removable Switch 2 batteries in Europe

The bad news is, this new console probably won't arrive for those of us in the U.S.—or outside Europe, for that matter. As it turns out, Nintendo isn't making these changes for the good of its users. Instead, the company is following EU regulations. In that original statement, Nintendo confirms that "batteries integrated into certain appliances and sold in the EU must be easily replaceable by end-users at any time during the lifetime of the product. Nintendo is implementing measures to comply with these requirements by preparing versions of products to meet the Regulation."

While it's possible Nintendo could roll out these new Switch 2's globally, it may make more sense to keep it localized. Since the EU is the only region that requires these changes, it may save the company money to continue selling the current design, and only roll out a limited batch of updated consoles to Europe. It wouldn't be the first to offer EU-specific features and devices to the region. iPhones in the EU, for example, can access alternative app stores, use dedicated third-party browsers, and access third-party NFC payments systems. They even have a dedicated SIM tray, while U.S. iPhones are all-in on eSIM.

That said, never say never. Nintendo could decide to streamline production and simply make these EU changes apply to all new Switch 2 units going forward. If you buy a Switch 2 after Nintendo switches over, you may just benefit from the new design—even if you live in another region. We'll need to see what Nintendo decides to do once it rolls out this new battery design.

When will the new Switch 2 launch?

We don't have a definitive date yet, but we do know the deadline: EU regulations require companies like Nintendo to offer these battery adjustments starting Feb. 18, 2027. Nintendo could launch the console sooner than that, but I imagine we'll know by February whether this new Switch 2 will ship globally, or just to Europe.


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The 2025 flat-panel 32” Samsung Odyssey G5 G50F gaming monitor is an affordable and versatile choice for gamers who also want some multi-purpose use for everyday usage and work. At 32 inches, it’s not as immersive as larger models, but for those looking for gamer-friendly features in a non-curved screen with an adjustable stand, it’s a speedy and visually vibrant choice. And right now it's down to a record-low $219.99, from $349.99. 

With an 180Hz refresh rate that delivers smoother gameplay than 144Hz displays, it’s a value-oriented monitor for competitive and FPS gaming, bolstered by the Virtual Aim Point to improve accuracy. It also has a 1ms GTG response time to reduce motion blur during fast-paced gameplay, and FreeSync and G-Sync compatibility help eliminate stuttering and tearing. QHD (2560×1440) resolution gives users sharper visuals than 1080p, while HDR10 delivers better shadow detail and contrast, further supported by a Black Equalizer.

It has a fast IPS panel with better color accuracy and a 178-degree viewing angle compared to older G5 models, making it suitable not just for gaming but also for media consumption, general office work, multitasking, or use as a multiplayer monitor. Additional gamer-friendly extras include Eye Saver Mode and Refresh Rate Optimizer.  

While usually hovering at the $350 price point, at $219.99, this gaming monitor is a strong deal for competitive gamers, general PC gamers, and anyone looking for a larger, mixed-use monitor without stepping up to the much higher price point of an OLED display.

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When Meredith and I began training for Hyrox back in April, we had one big question: Whose strengths will help more in the race, hers as a runner or mine as a weightlifter? We ran the 2026 Hyrox race in New York City this past weekend, and we definitely have our answer. You can see a few video clips and some of my thoughts in this wrap-up I posted on Instagram, but read on for the detailed breakdown. For the record, our finish time was 1:36:48.

As a reminder, Hyrox is the fitness race where you do eight short runs, each followed by a different strength-based workout station. (I have a full explainer here.) It’s what you’d get if you asked runners to redesign Crossfit, which may be a bit of a spoiler for our results. Meredith and I did the race as a doubles team, meaning we had to do the runs together, but could divide the work any way we liked when we were at the strength stations.

How the Hyrox race felt for each of us

Heading into the race, Meredith said she was worried she would have to leave me with (literally) all the heavy lifting. I was worried I’d be too tired from the runs to be much help with the lifting at all. Unfortunately, I was right. 

For me, the first few runs and stations felt good, as I was warming up and being careful not to go out too hard. But about halfway through the sled push (the second station), I realized I was too gassed to be a hero. From that point to the finish, I was just hanging on for dear life. I kept telling Meredith we had to slow down on the runs; I cherished every brief moment of rest I got during the stations when she was taking her turn. 

Meredith had a very different experience. Since we had to stay together on the runs, and she’s a stronger runner, my “oh god this is as fast as I can go” pace was a relaxed jog for her. She says: “I did really get to recover on the runs, so I could be way more explosive / ‘full send’ at each station than I originally thought I would.”

Originally, I’d wanted to take more of the strength stations and expected we’d split the more cardio-heavy stations 50/50. Instead, we ended up splitting strength 50/50. Some of the cardio was still 50/50 (we each did 500 meters on the rower), but on other stations, like the burpees, Meredith had the energy to take on more.

What our Hyrox race heart rate data shows

Heart rate graph of runs and stations during our Hyrox race
Meredith (the runner) in dark purple, Beth (the weightlifter) in light blue. Credit: Beth Skwarecki

Meredith and I wore heart rate monitors so we could analyze our effort levels in a more-or-less objective way. She used the Garmin HRM 600 paired to a Forerunner 970; I had my trusty Coospo connected to the Coros Pace 4. Conveniently, despite the fact that I'm about 16 years older than her, we have similar max heart rates, so the graphs line up nicely. (Max heart rate doesn’t correlate with age the way you’ve probably been taught—more on that here.)

In this graph, Meredith is the darker purple line and I’m the lighter blue line. Both lines spike at the stations, but the run segments show why she had an easier time with this race: Whenever we left a station and took our running laps, Meredith’s heart rate dropped. 

In other words, the runs were recovery time for her. But for me, the run after each station was just as hard as the station itself. I was pushing myself the whole way, while for her, the effort level varied like an interval or fartlek workout. 

Why runners are better at Hyrox

Hyrox is, ultimately, an endurance race. The average finish time is around 90 minutes (we were a bit slower than average), and that means it’s a long aerobic effort no matter what. 

To put that in exercise science terms, the main energy system you’re using during a Hyrox race is your aerobic system—the same as in a long running race like a marathon. When you do strength work in the gym, with heavy weights and complete rest between sets, that’s a different story. But the strength work in a Hyrox race uses light weights and little to no rest, so it’s really just more endurance work in disguise. 

To look at it another way, let’s think about race strategy and timing. The heaviest station was the sled push, and it took us 1:55—just under two minutes. Pushing the sled a little faster wouldn’t affect our race time very much. According to Hyresult, the very fastest women’s doubles teams take about 1:00 flat on this event. If we worked to become one of the best sled-pushing teams in the world, we’d only save 55 seconds on our total race time. 

Contrast that with the returns you can get from being good at running. Each of our runs averaged 7.5 minutes, and over the course of the race, we ran for a full hour. Runners in the top 10% of our division tend to get each run done in just four minutes. If we could run as fast as those ladies, we’d have finished in something like 1:09 instead of 1:36. That’s a drastic difference. 

So, to summarize: runners do better than weightlifters at Hyrox because (1) running takes up most of the time in the race, (2) the demands on your body are endurance-focused; and (3) the weights aren’t heavy enough to be a serious barrier to runners. A heavy sled might slow you down, but it won’t make a huge difference to your race time. 

What I (the weightlifter) would do differently next time

I’m already thinking about how I would improve for another Hyrox race. I’m not saying I want to do another one, but I can’t help thinking about this as a problem to solve. And the answer is painfully clear: run more. I’d need to have really good endurance—which I could build with any exercise, like running but also cycling—and ideally good running economy as well. In other words, I’d have to turn myself into a runner. 

What Meredith (the runner) would do differently next time

I asked Meredith for her thoughts on improving, but before we get to that, there’s a really simple way Meredith could improve her time: Team up with someone who runs as fast as her! Not having to drag my tired ass around the track would get her a much better finish time regardless of how the stations go. 

But she graciously did not say that, at least not to my face. Instead, she says: “I would do what I could to focus on strategy, finding as many simulations as possible, since I think my greatest challenge was a lack of familiarity. I think I lost a lot of brainpower trying to tap into a muscle memory [on the strength stations] that simply didn't exist.” 

My advice for anyone thinking of tackling a Hyrox for the first time

So what does this all mean for you, dear reader, thinking about trying a Hyrox and assessing your strengths and weaknesses? 

First of all, I think you should know you need to work on your running, or at least your endurance, no matter how good or bad you are in this department to start. Being a good runner means that, in any given moment of the race, you get to choose whether you want to push the pace and finish faster, or relax and recover while still moving forward. Us out-of-shape runners can only suffer or stop. 

But that doesn’t mean that a Hyrox race is equivalent to, say, a half-marathon. (Meredith has more thoughts on that here.) The strength stations are quite a challenge if you’ve never done them before, and a Hyrox-themed class at a gym is not the same as proper race preparation. For example, Meredith’s classes had never gotten around to doing actual wall balls (the last and arguably most challenging exercise of the race) so I gave her a crash course in the warmup room before the race. 

We also discovered that a strategy that came naturally for me, as a competitive weightlifter, was a mind-blowing new idea to Meredith, who only strength trains for the purpose of building strength (not showing it off). That’s the idea that in a competition, you want to use as little energy as possible on exercises, even if you’re used to doing the opposite in training. So we step up from our burpees instead of jumping, we run on the farmer’s carry so that our grip strength doesn’t have to last as long, and we pull the sled by walking rather than trying to get the sled pull to work our biceps. 

Our percentiles for the different segments of the Hyrox race: overall, running, strength, and roxzone (transitions).
Credit: Hyresult.com

It’s also worth taking the time to study the race: knowing what order the stations come in, and studying the venue map so you know where to find each of them. Besides station time and run time, your results also include your “roxzone time,” the roxzone being the transition area between segments. While we were slightly below average on workouts, and well below average on runs, we actually had a better-than-average roxzone time. That means our preparation helped us shave off a bit of time there—and every minute helps. 


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TikTok users in the U.S. now have yet another way to engage with the TikTok ecosystem—this time through a new standalone app focused on live entertainment and "cultural milestones." TikTok Pro Events is centered on fan culture for events like the 2026 FIFA World Cup, encouraging users to search for trending hashtags, visit the event hub, and share related content. Doing so earns you rewards—called Stars—which can be redeemed in-app for official merch, TikTok Shop coupons, or TikTok-funded charitable donations.

The new app is now available to download from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, though exclusively for those in the U.S. If you don't want to download a separate app, you can still access World Cup event hubs in the main TikTok app by searching "FIFA World Cup," which raises the question of why this new app is necessary—and whether any U.S.-based TikTokkers will actually bother to use it in favor of the main TikTok app.

New under TikTok's new owners

Of course, it doesn't seem like the app is really for TikTok users as much as for the benefit of TikTok's new U.S. owners. As TechCrunch notes, TikTok Pro Events offers revenue opportunities for TikTok USDS Joint Venture, the new owner of the platform's U.S. operations arm, with sponsorships, partnerships, and advertising.

While this is the first standalone app introduced under TikTok's new ownership, it's not the first launch targeted at U.S. users. Local Feed, a feature designed to show you content from your immediate geographic area, rolled out to the main TikTok app in February (though exclusively in the U.S.). It's worth noting that Local Feed has opt-in GPS data sharing, which allows TikTok to see your precise location in order to deliver more specific content. If you don't enable this setting, the app will use "coarse location" data based on your IP address, network, and posting activity to customize your local feed.

In May, TikTok USDS JV also introduced TikTok GO, a travel-focused feature (similar to TikTok Shop) that helps users discover hotels, attractions, and tours, check availability, and complete their booking—all within the app. While the feature relies on partnerships with third-party engines like Booking.com, Expedia, and Viator, it does not require users to leave TikTok to complete their transaction.


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During its big I/O 2026 keynote, Google announced Gemini Omni, an AI model that can generate videos from, well, just about anything. In the weeks since the announcement, paid subscribers have been able to use a mix of text, images, documents, and video clips to generate new AI videos. Now, Google is rolling out a new Omni feature, that lets you generate hyperrealistic avatars of yourself. It's limited to videos right now (no AI profile pictures yet), but it does a surprisingly good job of creating a talking-head video with only a couple of reference selfies—surpassing what the short-lived Sora app accomplished. With Omni, Google has unleashed a tool that lets you create deepfake videos of yourself (and only yourself) in mere minutes. Are we ready for it?

You can create your own deepfake with Gemini Omni today

Creating your own Gemini Avatar deepfake.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Thankfully, you can't take a selfie and turn it into a deepfake video. You need to go through a verification process from Google that requires scanning your face. Once you have access to this Omni feature, go to the Gemini sidebar and tap on Videos. You'll see a pop-up here to create your own avatar. If you don't see it, click the Plus button from the Gemini prompt box, then tap Avatar. Gemini will direct you to a Google site to scan your face. Here, you take a couple of selfies and move your face from side to side. Then, you say a couple of numbers out loud, and you're done. You don't even have to speak any words or sentences. Once the process is done, the avatar is ready, and you can go back to Gemini.

Now, back in the "Videos" section, type "@[your name]" to use your own avatar in your videos. Generating a video takes a couple of minutes, and you'll get a notification when it's ready. You can play the video in the app, save it to your gallery, or share it via a link or with the video file itself. There are some further limitations here: Gemini's new avatar feature is only available AI Pro or AI Ultra subscribers using personal accounts. In addition, the feature is limited to users 18 or older, and it's not available in the European Economic Area, Switzerland, or the United Kingdom. Right now, it can only generate audio in English. Each generation carries an obvious Gemini watermark, but is also coded with SynthID, Google's new industry standard for subtly watermarking AI videos and images using metadata that can be tracked even if the video is cropped.

Would you deepfake yourself?

After playing around with this feature all day and generating a series of videos, it's clear that this tool is shockingly good. We are not prepared for an era in which deepfake technologies are this prevalent and easy to access. You can see that in the example below: I asked Gemini to generate a video of me reviewing the iPhone 17 Pro, and requested that it include me saying a specific sentence. It did that.

Of course, there are limitations, and I can find plenty of faults as well. I asked for a review of the iPhone 17 Pro, but the video used an iPhone 16 Pro. At one point, something spontaneously appears above one of the many headphones in the background. And while the audio sounds like my real voice, there's no cadence to it. There's no personality, just a monotone delivery. And that extends to the videos themselves. It's me, a human, saying things, but the video feels quite lifeless. It's too clean, and too sharp, and my hair doesn't always look that good. If you know what to look out for, it's not necessarily difficult to tell that this is ultimately an AI deepfake (if the Gemini watermark and the AI label on YouTube didn't give it away). But the question is, how long will that be true for? And who will look deeply enough?

Videos are limited to 10 seconds right now, and you can't edit them, or make any changes, so the potential for abuse here is still quite small. That said, according to Google's announcements, they are currently gathering feedback. The company says, "in terms of editing videos to change audio and speech, we are still working to test this and better understand how we can bring this capability to users responsibly," so there's a possibility of an interactive editing interface down the line. Soon enough, users might place themselves in videos they can adjust to their exact specifications before sending them out into the wider internet. We might not be ready for that.


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