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With the rise of VR headsets like the Meta Quest 3, PlayStation VR2 Headset and Valve Index, Apple decided to throw its hat into the VR ring with their very own headset. Enter the Apple Vision Pro, a new mixed-reality headset that’s positioned as the “ultimate entertainment experience.”
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Starting at $3,499, the Apple Vision Pro is available for pre-order on Jan. 19 starting at 5 a.m. PT/8 a.m. ET at apple.com, Amazon and Walmart with release on Feb. 2.
Apple
Available on Feb. 2
Apple Vision Pro
The Apple Vision Pro is designed to pair the virtual world with the physical world through spatial computing and digital content via the tech company’s newest operating system Apple visionOS.
Here’s how it works: Just place the headset over your head on let it rest on your eyes to begin interacting with Apple’s mixed reality format. Instead of using controllers or a stylus, you interact with apps — like Safari, FaceTime, iMessages, iCloud and others — as well as digital content — from Apple Music, Apple TV, Disney+ and more — with your eyes, hands and voice.
If you’re a Disney+ subscriber, you can watch movies — like Avatar: The Way of Water, Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Encanto and many others — in 3D and Dolby Vision with experiences that’s specifically designed for the Apple Vision Pro.
If you’re not a subscriber, you can sign up for Disney+ with prices starting at $9.99 for the ad-supported plan. With a subscription, you can have access to hit original programing, such as The Mandalorian, Moon Knight, The Muppets Mayhem, American Born Chinese, Turning Red and more.
Available for pre-order on Jan. 19 at apple.com, Amazon and Walmart, the Apple Vision Pro starts at $3,499 with release on Feb. 2. In the meantime, watch an introduction video from Apple, below.
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Want more? For more product recommendations, check out our roundups of the best gaming chairs, best over-ear headphones, wifi extenders, laptop deals and more.
Jaafar Jackson is making his late uncle, Michael Jackson, proud. The actor took to Instagram on Friday (Jan. 19) to share a photo performing the “Thriller” singer’s famous toe-stand pose. “The Journey Starts Monday,” he captioned the post, indicating that filming for the upcoming Michael biopic begins filming next week. In the film, Jafaar is […]
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
Need a new travel buddy? If you’re the kind of traveler who hates ironing your clothes, this $35 duffle bag might be the answer to your problems.
The Modoker 2-in-1 Garment Duffle Bag transforms from a duffle bag into a garment bag that you can hang up, so your clothes don’t get wrinkled. It also has a passport pocket and a compartment for shoes, a garment pocket, necktie pocket and a pocket to keep small items handy.
Perfectly suitable for the airport and road trips, the convertible duffle bag is great for short travel including business trips and weekend getaways.
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According to the product description, Modoker’s convertible bag is made from “high quality polyester fiber & jacquard” and measures 37.5 inches x 20.8 inches as a garment bag (the duffle bag measures 22.8 inches x 11 inches).
The bag scored 4.5 out of 5-stars and 9,619 customer ratings on Amazon, earning points for portability and value.
According to the customer reviews, you can fit a couple shirts, pants, suit jackets, dresses and smaller items comfortably in the bag, which is available in black, navy blue, caramel and multiple shades of grey.
The bag will be a “game-changer” for your travel routine, as one customer wrote on Amazon. “I easily fit a suit, a couple of dresses, and all my weekend essentials without feeling like I was bursting at the seams.”
Another customer review noted, “It’s great for weekend or even a few days. I took this bag for a [four-day] weekend for a wedding and it fit everything perfectly.”
The Modoker duffle bag is currently 35% off at Amazon — which drops the price to $35.19 (reg. $55), plus free shipping for Prime members. Not a member? Click here to launch your 30-day free trial.
For more shopping recommendations, check out the best tote bags for travel and other travel essentials to put on your packing list.
01/19/2024
We’ve compiled his best Saturday Night Live sketches over the course of his career.
01/19/2024
With the weather getting colder, warm up your ears with a few new tracks from your favorite queer artists. Billboard Pride is proud to present the latest edition of Queer Jams of the Week, our roundup of some of the best new music releases from LGBTQ artists.
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From Aurora’s stunning new single to Green Day’s bisexual anthem, check out just a few of our favorite releases from this week below.
Aurora, “The Conflict of the Mind”
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Norwegian pop star Aurora is firmly in her empath era. With “The Conflict of the Mind,” the singer pushes every emotion she’s felt to the forefront, and embraces the feelings of those she loves dearly in a gorgeous, sharply-crafted melody. The production of her latest track retains all the dainty aspects of her past projects, while simultaneously pushing her sound forward into new sonic territory. Her voice, meanwhile, remains her strongest instrument, evoking pain and pleasure and love and heartbreak and every other emotion she’s left unspoken for this long.
Green Day, “Bobby Sox”
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Leave it to Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong to pen a grungy pop-punk song that doubles as a much-needed bisexual anthem. “Bobby Sox” plays as a punchy-yet-sweet love song, with the romantic lyrics asking if the song’s subject wants to be his girlfriend while sitting around and watching TV, while the chorus’ chunky guitars and pounding drums throw long-time fans back to the band’s Dookie days. But from the second verse on, Armstrong switches up the game, intermittently switching out “girlfriend” for “boyfriend,” giving everyone a new celebratory single to jam along to.
Adrianne Lenker, “Sadness as a Gift”
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Big Thief frontwoman Adrianne Lenker has always thrived at transforming complex emotions into revelatory pieces of songwriting. That trend shows no sign of ending on “Sadness as a Gift,” the singer-songwriter’s latest solo single. The spare indie-folk song pairs Lenker’s inimitable vocal with a simple guitar-and-violin combo, as she embraces the ending of a relationship. She wants it to be simpler than it is, but knows that nothing will make it easy right now; “We could see the sadness as a gift and still/ Feel too heavy to hold,” she sings.
Maggie Lindemann, “Hostage”
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For anyone who’s ever felt trapped in their own psyche, alt-pop singer Maggie Lindemann has just the song. “Hostage,” the singer’s volatile new single, follows Lindemann into the recesses of her own mind, as she explains the various ways her brain places her in a constant state of panic, even when the world around her does nothing to arouse those fears. Over a torrent of gothic synths, Lindemann begs the listener to “hold me close when my voice gets shaky, be patient with me.”
Sleater-Kinney, Little Rope
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When you live in a world where catastrophe is the new normal, how do you learn to keep going? That’s a central question posed on Sleater-Kinney’s phenomenal new project Little Rope, an LP that revels in its elusiveness at every given opportunity. Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker masterfully craft each song on the LP with enigmatic shifts in sound and theme, all while providing emotive new tracks for fans to dive deep into. Whether foreboding (“Hunt You Down”), fatalist (“Dress Yourself”), or frenzied (“Needlessly Wild”), Little Rope is an execellent ode to finding meaning — or the lack thereof — in pain.
Shygirl feat. Boys Noize, “Tell Me”
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Get ready to rave, because Shygirl and Boys Noize are here to heat up your next party. “Tell Me,” the latest single off of Shygirl’s forthcoming Club Shy EP, delights in it’s early-2000s Eurodance aesthetics — Boys Noize amp up every ounce of the song with out-of-this-world synths and a relentless beat. But Shygirl’s vital voice centers the track in the here-and-now, begging a lover to stay with her.
Gossip, “Real Power”
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Just when we need them, Gossip is back, baby. With their latest anthem “Real Power,” the alt-rock trio is calling on people to seize their own means of self-actualization, even in the face of controlling systems that would try and stop them. Inspired by frontwoman Beth Ditto’s hometown Portland and the city’s Black Lives Matter protests in June 2020, “Real Power” brings everything that makes Gossip great — advocacy-focused writing with infectious melodies and stratospheric vocals — into one glorious song.
Check out all of our picks on Billboard’s Queer Jams of the Week playlist below:
As Barry Keoghan’s nude Saltburn romp continues to cast a large shadow over social media, the Saturday Night Live is sharing its own spin on the film’s buzzy conclusion. At the end of Saltburn, Keoghan’s character frolics and dances around an empty castle completely nude as Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s 2002 dance smash “Murder on the Dancefloor” […]
He’s bringing sexy back to Saturday Night Live! Justin Timberlake is set to make his SNL return on Jan. 27, NBC announced on Friday (Jan. 19). He’ll be the musical guest for the fifth time as a solo artist. Dakota Johnson will be returning to host that evening for a second time. Fans have been […]
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
Nearly four years after its original release, Naughty Dog and Sony Interactive Entertainment remastered The Last of Us, Part II for the PlayStation 5.
Out now with a retail price of $49.94 at Walmart, The Last of Us, Part II: Remastered has enhanced 4K graphics and audio for PS5, while keeping the same gameplay, story and combat from the sequel game, which was first released in June 2020 for PS4.
However, there are some new goodies that come with this 4K remastered edition, including new character and weapon skins, a speed run mode and a new “No Return, A Roguelike Survival Mode,” which deepens combat and the adventure with new options and routes for a different experience.
And since it’s from Walmart, you’ll get it shipped to you for free if you’re a Walmart+ member. Otherwise, your cart has to be more than $35 to get free shipping.
Not a member? You can sign up for a 30-day free trial to take advantage of everything the retailer’s rewards program has to offer, including free delivery; fuel savings at Exxon, Mobil, Walmart or Murphy gas stations; streaming access to Paramount+ to watch hit originals such as Halo, Fatal Attraction, Star Trek: Lower Decks; early deals access and much more. Learn more about Walmart+ here.
The Last of Us, Part II: Remastered for PS5 is also available at Amazon, Best Buy and Target.
Sony
‘The Last of Us, Part II: Remastered’
Meanwhile, if you’d like to experience a new remaster of the first game for PS5, Walmart also has The Last of Us, Part I available. It’s on sale for $39.97, or nearly 45% off its list price, from the retailer.
Priced at $49.94 at Walmart, Amazon, Best Buy and Target, The Last of Us, Part II: Remastered is out now for PS5. In the meantime, you can watch the launch trailer from Sony, below.
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Want more? For more product recommendations, check out our roundups of the best gaming chairs, best over-ear headphones, wifi extenders, laptop deals and more.
Nostalgia for the ’90s can be found all throughout today’s music, but when Green Day leans into penning a ’90s-style punk track, it just hits different. On Friday (Jan. 19), the legendary rock trio shared the music video for their new song “Bobby Sox.” The single unveiled off of their just-released album Saviors, “Bobby Sox” […]
Like many of us, David Bowie was one of American Fiction actor Jeffrey Wright’s all-time heroes. But unlike most of us, Wright not only got meet the late rock legend, he also had the opportunity to act alongside him in the 1996 biopic Basquiat, in which he played neo-expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat alongside Bowie as pop art figurehead Andy Warhol.
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On The Kelly Clarkson Show on Friday (Jan. 19), Wright recalled meeting Bowie on the film in reaction to a picture Clarkson put on the big screen from a photo shoot the actor did with the “Space Oddity” singer to promote the biopic about the talented street-artist-turned-international-phenom.
“He meant the world to me,” Wright said of Bowie, who died of liver cancer in 2016 at 69. “There were periods of my life where his music was the soundtrack.” Wright describe the intense prep he did for the film — directed by artist Julian Schnabel — in which the actor painted for six months in Schnabel’s studio in the presence of dozens of original Basquiat paintings to get into character.
One day while working on a canvas, Wright said the door opened and Bowie — who also dabbled in painting, as well as quite a bit of big screen acting — walked in unexpectedly. “He kneels down next to me and he says, ‘do you mind if I watch?’,” Wright said Bowie asked. “And I said, ‘well, I think I’m gonna have to get used to it, yeah.’”
Wright recalled that they had a laugh and for the remainder of the shoot Bowie was “so generous and so smart and funny… and he couldn’t have been cooler to me.” In fact, one day he was in the hair and makeup trailer with Gary Oldman — who played a fictional composite character modeled on Schnabel — and Bowie walked in with a most incredible query. “‘Do you want to hear some music?’” the singer asked them.
“And we’re like, ‘huh?!’,” Wright remembers responding in gleeful shock. “And we’re like, ‘yeah David Bowie we’ll tolerate your music, yeah sure! Put in your little disc.’” What Bowie cued up were tracks from his then-unreleased new album, the arty concept song cycle Outside, which included some songs that ended up in the film.
“And we’re listening to it and we’re like, ‘Whoa!’ and David’s sitting there air-guitaring to his own music… and it was like, you know, the cool guy at school who found some obscure record somewhere and brought it in,” Wright recalled thinking. “Except the cool guy was David Bowie!”
American Fiction — about a struggling Black novelist horrified by the smash success of a racially charged book he wrote as as joke — is in theaters now.
Watch Wright talk about Bowie below.
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