News
It’s good news for those of us binging the hit Netflix documentary series Trainwreck like there’s no tomorrow – new installment Balloon Boy hits screens on July 15. The new unbelievable story made national headlines back in 2009, but has flown under the radar ever since.
Since 2022, Trainwreck has brought multiple disturbing stories back into the public eye, with Woodstock ‘99, The Astroworld Tragedy and The Cult of American Apparel being among them. Of course, we can’t leave the infamous Poop Cruise out, either. Think less serious true crime series and more fly-on-the-wall stuffed with personality here.
Trainwreck documentary The Real Project X is still storming Netflix’s top 10 chart since being released on July 8 but Balloon Boy is a surefire bet to leave you open-mouthed, even if you’re familiar with the case details.
Unlike deranged parties or people having to poop in red biohazard bags on their four-day trip to Mexico, Balloon Boy is a heart-stopping drama from beginning to end. Given the nickname by the press, Balloon Boy actually refers to six-year-old Falcon, who was allegedly trapped in a homemade gas balloon resembling a flying saucer when it was released above Fort Collins, Colorado. Parents Richard and Mayumi Heene told the authorities while the balloon was on its 90-minute flight, reaching heights of 7,000 feet.
By the time anyone could get to the balloon, it had landed a few miles away from Denver International Airport, and there was no Falcon to be seen. When the balloon was being tracked in the air, an object supposedly fell during its flight, prompting everyone watching to think the worst. A search was quickly underway with international media flocking to cover the alleged tragedy.
Here’s the twist – Falcon was never in the balloon at all. Instead, he’d been hiding in the attic of the family’s house the entire time, revealing during a Larry King Live interview that his parents had told him they’d done it “for show”. News of the publicity stunt soon went viral, with local sheriffs confirming the Heenes would face felony charges for the hoax. Richard Heene pleaded guilty to attempting to influence a public servant and was sentenced to 90 days in jail and ordered to pay $36,000 in restitution, with Mayumi Heene sentenced to 20 days of weekend jail.
So why do we need to see the Netflix series if the story was so well reported at the time? For one reason: Balloon Boy is the first time we’re getting an in-depth look at the full story from the family’s point of view. We’re getting sit-down interviews with them all, including the now grown up Falcon, who still seems pleased that he was once at the centre of a national news storm as a little boy.
Was it all an intention ploy, or did a family joke just get way out of hand? Based on the news reports, you could argue both ways, but I can’t wait to get the inside story straight from the source. If you’re wondering what to stream this week, make it this as it has the potential to be one of the best Netflix shows.
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- The RocketGenius website served a malicious variant of the Gravity Forms WordPress add-on for two days
- The variant harvested extensive information and allowed for RCE
- The malware affected only manual downloads and composer installations
Gravity Forms, a popular WordPress add-on with at least a million users, was victim of a supply chain attack in which threat actors tried to deploy malware to its users and take over their websites.
Security researchers from PatchStack discovered someone managed to infiltrate Gravity Forms’ website, and compromise the plug-in installation file hosted there.
On July 10 and 11, users could download Gravity Forms versions 2.9.11.1 and 2.9.12, which came with malicious files that collected extensive site metadata, and malware that allowed for remote code execution (RCE) attacks.
Risky manual downloadsThe malware also blocked any attempts to update the add-on, contacted an external server to deploy additional payloads, and created an admin account that granted attackers full control over the compromised website.
Gravity Forms is a premium WordPress plugin enabling users to build different forms using a drag-and-drop interface. It integrates with a wide range of third-party services, making it popular for contact forms, surveys, payment forms, and more.
After being notified about the attack, RocketGenius, the company that develops Gravity Forms, investigated further, and determined that the malware affected only manual downloads and composer installations of the plugin.
"The Gravity API service that handles licensing, automatic updates, and the installation of add-ons initiated from within the Gravity Forms plugin was never compromised. All package updates managed through that service are unaffected,” RocketGenius explained.
Therefore, all users who downloaded Gravity Forms directly from RocketGenius’ website on either July 10 or 11, should delete the plug-in and reinstall it with a clean version. Furthermore, admins should analyze their websites for any signs of compromise.
The first clean version of the add-on is 2.9.13, which is now available for download.
Via BleepingComputer
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Full spoilers immediately follow for 2025's Superman film.
Superman is doing more than simply making us believe that a man can fly.
With a $200 million+ haul at the global box office on opening weekend, plus the critical and commercial acclaim it's received, James Gunn's Superman movie has made us believe in DC comic book movies again. The DC Universe's (DCU) first film – find out how to watch the DC movies in order while you're here – also gave us a wildly entertaining, eye-popping, and heartfelt story filled with household names and unfamiliar characters alike.
It's also where I think Superman succeeds best. From Mister Terrific and The Engineer, the DCU Chapter One movie spotlights numerous underappreciated DC comic book characters who deserve their time to shine in Gunn and Peter Sarfran's rebooted cinematic franchise. However, it's another metahuman – one who'll be recognizable to some viewers, but not others – that Superman really does right by, even though she's only on camera for 30 seconds or so: Supergirl.
Milly Alcock will play Kara Zor-El/Supergirl in the DCU (Image credit: James Gunn/Twitter)She only briefly cameos, but Milly Alcock's Supergirl – real name Kara Zor-El – is everything I wanted from a live-action adaptation of Superman's cousin.
I'm not throwing shade at Meg Donnelly, who was one of the final contenders for the role of Supergirl before losing out to Alcock in January 2024, by saying that, either. I'm sure Donnelly would've been a great Supergirl, but there's just something about Alcock's albeit brisk time on the screen that captures the rebellious, reckless side of Clark Kent/Kal-El's relative that we've seen really seen in the comics.
Take her crashing through the wrong part of The Fortress of Solitude because she's drunk (yes, she's slightly inebriated, but she's not an alcoholic or a frat girl, as some have incorrectly disparaged Gunn and company for) and then blaming Supes for moving the door in an apparent redesign of his secret headquarters. Or, how about her lack of concern for how Kal-El is or what he's been up to, and only returning to Earth to collect her disobedient pet Krypto?
Then there's the enjoyment she gets from being thrown about by Krypto – a far cry from how Supes handled similar situations throughout the film. Oh, and let's not forget that she's humorously rude to Clark – she calls him "b***h" after sarcastically thanking him for babysitting Krypto – before she flies off to a whereabouts unknown.
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Combine the above with her authentic Supergirl costume, plus the beige-colored coat she wears in 'Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow' – the eight-issue comic series run that her forthcoming solo film is heavily inspired by – and Alcock's Kara could be the most fully-formed version of the character we've seen yet. Indeed, couple the above with the strong sense of justice and caring nature she's displayed in prior big- and small-screen re-imaginings, make me even more confident that those involved in Supergirl will knock it out of the park.
Of course, it's hard to read too much into Alcock's cameo and determine if she can carry a tentpole movie.
Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, whose title was recently shortened to simply Supergirl, will not only be the Kryptonian's first standalone film in over 40 years, but it's also the first flick Alcock is the lead star of. The pressure is certainly on, then, to ensure Alcock was the right pick for the role, and that Gunn and Safran made the correct call to prioritize a Supergirl movie over a solo Batman or Wonder Woman DCU flick, both of which are in early development.
We got our first look at the DCU's Kara Zor-El, albeit from the back, in March (Image credit: James Gunn/Instagram)The DCU is off to a good start with Superman, but it'll need other projects like Supergirl, Peacemaker season 2, Lanterns, and Clayface to similarly perform well. If they do, the DCU will be worth investing in. If, for whatever reason, Supergirl struggles, though, we could have a post-Avengers: Endgame situation that's seen Marvel fans have love one project but dislike the next.
Those two slight concerns notwithstanding, I'm confident Supergirl will be a big hit and Alcock's performance will be a big reason why. She's already commanded the screen in season 1 of House of the Dragon, while her natural, unquestionable talent has been on full display in the aforementioned HBO Max show and recently Netflix TV Original Sirens. So, there's no reason why Alcock can't deliver a similarly fantastic display in The Girl of Steel's next cinematic outing. If anything, her solitary scene in Superman confirms she will.
Supergirl flies into theaters worldwide on June 26, 2026. For more on one of next year's most anticipated new movies, read my ultimate guide on Supergirl's next big-screen outing.
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- Nvidia's Smooth Motion tech is inbound for all RTX 4000 GPUs
- Previously this frame rate-boosting feature was only for RTX 5000 cards
- It's still in beta for RTX 4000 models, but it shouldn't be long before the full release
Nvidia is providing its Smooth Motion tech for boosting frame rates across all PC games to RTX 4000 graphics cards in a new driver.
This is great news for gamers with those GPUs – previously Smooth Motion was only an option for RTX 5000 models – but the catch is that for now, this is still in testing with Nvidia's beta driver.
It shouldn't be too long before the tech makes its way through to a release driver, though.
This development was picked up on X by Huang514613, who pointed to a post on the Guru3D forums, as flagged by VideoCardz (with the tech site verifying that the new beta does indeed carry the feature, and briefly testing it out).
Smooth Motion is essentially the equivalent of frame generation (FG) – adding in extra frames to boost the frames per second count, and make the game run artificially smoother – but it works at the driver level (doubling the frame rate).
What that means is that it can work with any DX11 or DX12 game (in theory) across the board, whereas with frame generation (and DLSS 4), developers must code their game to make use of the tech. That obviously limits the usefulness of the latter considerably.
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)Analysis: smooth operator – but be patientSmooth Motion is a big deal because it means that a pile of older PC games, which are never going to be updated for frame generation at this point, can get the benefit of a similar feature.
The catch is that word 'similar', and Smooth Motion won't offer results which are as good as frame generation in terms of image quality (or the frame rate boost). Still, for games that don't have DLSS or FG support, this is clearly a lot better than nothing.
As you may be aware, Smooth Motion is Nvidia's equivalent of AMD's Fluid Motion Frames (which came way before Team Green's take, and was recently improved).
With any luck, Nvidia will bring this feature to RTX GPUs that predate the RTX 4000 lineup in the future.
I'd be wary of trying to get this working on the mentioned beta driver, by the way, as there are reports of crashes or even total PC lock-ups being caused by those experimenting with the tech (which must be enabled via the Nvidia Profile Inspector tool).
If you have an RTX 4000 graphics card, just be happy that Smooth Motion is on the way, and wait for the official release in the finished driver – it shouldn't be too far off at this point.
Early results are (generally) promising for Smooth Motion on RTX 4000 GPUs, by the way, going by reports from the more intrepid gamers who've gone ahead and tested this tech while it was in beta.
You might also like...- Tizen 9.0 is rolling out to 2024 Samsung TVs
- European owners are already receiving the update
- Availability for 2023 TVs is still unknown
One of our favorite things about Samsung's best TVs in 2025 is the upgraded Tizen operating system, which we think is the best version it's offered so far. So Tizen 90's recent arrival on 2024-model TVs is a very welcome upgrade.
My colleague James Davidson went into great detail about Tizen 9.0 here, praising the updated Gaming Hub, the apparently LG-inspired Quick Menu and the redesigned home screen.
It isn't quite the best smart TV platform – we reckon LG's webOS still has the edge, and the update removes the HGiG Game HDR option, which is used for some livestreaming – but it's really good, and will be welcome on older sets.
Which Samsung TVs are getting the Tizen 9.0 upgrade?According to FlatpanelsHD, owners in Europe started getting the firmware version 2106.0 this month, July 2025. That takes their operating system from Tizen 8.0 to Tizen 9.0.
That's the good news. The bad news is that it's going to be a slow rollout, with Samsung adding additional TVs to the upgrade program fairly gradually – and that means it could be some months before all compatible TVs are upgraded. If your TV isn't one of the flagship models that could mean waiting a bit for the firmware to become available.
There's also uncertainty over 2023-model TVs, as Samsung hasn't yet committed to a timescale for upgrading those models. However, Samsung has promised seven years of updates to all models from 2023 and later, so it's not a question of if those TVs will get the update; it's just a matter of when.
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