Trap’s premise sounded tailor-made to play into M. Night Shyamalan’s twisty strengths and maybe even say something about the modern era of superstars turning their concerts into cinematic events. But for all of its promise, the thriller almost immediately runs out of steam. Shyamalan’s latest is a convoluted misfire whose handful of interesting ideas isn’t nearly enough to keep it from feeling like a notable low point in the director’s filmography.
Technology
Driver gets stuck on Utah mountain after taking Google 'shortcut': officials
A driver in Utah got stranded on a mountain after Google Maps suggested a shortcut that led to a rugged dirt road, officials said.
The Wasatch County Search and Rescue said in a Facebook post that at about 12:40 a.m. on July 4, a 911 call was made by a stranded driver.
The driver, a 23-year-old man, reported that he was stuck in his Toyota Tercel on the west side of Strawberry Peak, which is located about 100 miles southeast of Salt Lake City.
GOOGLE MAPS ROLLS OUT ‘GLANCEABLE’ DIRECTIONS FOR WAY EASIER NAVIGATION
The driver reportedly told rescue crews he wound up on the rocky dirt road after taking a recommended shortcut from Google between Springville and Vernal, Utah, which are about 167 miles apart.
MORE: HOW GOOGLE MAPS IS GIVING YOU MORE POWER OVER YOUR LOCATION DATA
“Safety is a top priority, and whenever possible we aim to route drivers on paved roads,” a Google spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “While our investigation has not yet identified a route in Maps that leads to this location, we’ll make any necessary updates to accurately route local drivers.”
Wasatch County Search and Rescue said the driver was not injured but required transportation off the mountain.
Technology
EcoFlow’s Power Hat is a floppy, phone-charging solar panel for your noggin
EcoFlow’s new Power Hat must be the dorkiest piece of headgear I’ve ever heard of — and I think I love it? It’s a wide-brimmed floppy-ish sun hat full of solar cells that you can charge your phone with. EcoFlow says it can charge a 4,000mAh smartphone to capacity “in as fast as 3–4 hours.” Sounds ideal for casually scrolling feeds at a campsite or surviving in a sun-blasted, Mad Maxian desert wasteland.
According to EcoFlow’s specs, the $129 Power Hat’s solar cells are made from a thin, flexible material called passivated emitter and rear contact (PERC) monocrystalline silicon. It offers roughly 12-watt charging via the USB-A and USB-C connectors on the underside of the brim. The whole thing weighs 370 grams.
Oh, and the Power Hat is IP65 rated, meaning it’s dust-proof and can withstand water jets from any direction (although I question whether that holds true if you’re pointing a super soaker at the USB ports). Here’s a promotional video, complete with an inoffensive, vaguely Kings of Leon-sounding soundtrack, which is perfect floppy hat music if my past music festival experience is any indication:
The hat comes in two size ranges. The smaller one is adjustable between 56–58cm (22–22.8 inches) while the larger size is 59–61cm (23.2–24 inches). The Power Hat will be available in preorder until August 31st and EcoFlow says it expects to start shipping them out in mid-September.
Technology
Fox News AI Newsletter: Taco Bell to use Voice AI for drive-thrus
Welcome to Fox News’ Artificial Intelligence newsletter with the latest AI technology advancements.
IN TODAY’S NEWSLETTER:
– Taco Bell to expand AI tech at drive-thrus
– Intel shares sink with 15% of workforce getting axed, suspends dividend
– ‘Independence Day,’ ‘Training Day’ directors embrace AI, shut down claims it can replace humans
– AI giant Nvidia faces calls from progressive groups for an antitrust probe
ORDER UP: Yum! Brands on Wednesday announced it will be expanding its artificial intelligence-powered voice technology at hundreds of Taco Bell drive-thrus across the U.S.
TECH WRECK: Intel CEO says he misjudged the boom that has created a windfall for chipmakers, such as Nvidia, that are leading the AI race for next generation technology.
HUMAN ACTION: Roland Emmerich and Antoine Fuqua, the directors behind hits like “Independence Day” and “Training Day,” respectively, shared their feelings on AI at Comic Con last weekend.
‘AGGRESSIVELY PROPRIETARY’: Sen. Elizabeth Warren and 10 progressive groups sent a letter to the Justice Department to launch an antitrust investigation against AI chip giant Nvidia over its business practices.
Subscribe now to get the Fox News Artificial Intelligence Newsletter in your inbox.
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Technology
Trap backs itself into every corner
In its first act, Trap introduces mild-mannered father Cooper Adams (Josh Hartnett) and his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) as the pair make their way downtown to see superstar Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan) perform in concert. Though Cooper himself doesn’t quite get the singer’s appeal, she’s everything to his daughter. And with Riley dealing with some friend drama at school, Cooper’s all too happy to take her mind off things with a few hours of live music.
Almost everyone who meets the Adamses sees them as just another father-daughter duo hyped up to see the show. Cooper has a secret, though — he’s a serial killer who has his next victim trapped in a dungeon. You can feel the influence of series killer dramas like You and Dexter in the way Trap juxtaposes moments of familial banality with shots of Cooper sneaking furtive, twitchy glances at his phone to watch a livestream of the man he plans to murder next. But the Shyamalan twist of it all comes early on as Trap establishes how the Lady Raven concert is actually an elaborate ploy to smoke Cooper out.
Trap takes inspiration from Operation Flagship, the 1985 sting operation in which US marshals and DC police lured wanted criminals to the Washington Convention Center with the promise of free football tickets. Shyamalan riffs on that real history to imagine how a Taylor Swift-like concert filled with thousands of screaming teens could be weaponized against a monster. But as Trap works through that thought exercise, the movie is quickly boxed in by its core conceit.
Part of the problem is how Trap stretches credulity even for a Shyamalan movie as Cooper uses his constant “trips to the merch table” to learn more about how the police plan to catch him. The cops are pulling men out of the audience, and they aren’t letting people leave without being interviewed. But none of those dangers ever feel especially pressing for Cooper because of how effortlessly he’s able to skirt by them thanks to the plot armor Shyamalan piles onto him out of necessity.
You’re meant to read the strangeness of Cooper’s behavior as a part of his sociopathy, repeatedly slipping away from his daughter on the concert floor. Cooper has to slip away in order for the movie to really move. Otherwise, things would come to an end rather abruptly. But Trap becomes harder and harder to take seriously as Cooper’s situation pushes him to take a series of increasingly absurd — but not exactly exciting — chances on ploys to evade capture.
There’s an absurdity to the way Cooper is able to navigate Trap’s game of cat and mouse that almost feels like Shyamalan is trying to say something about what kind of people are seen as threats to society. As Cooper, Hartnett’s utterly devoid of charisma, and there’s an awkwardness to his interactions with Riley that doesn’t entirely feel intentional. But he’s a handsome white guy, and that seems to be enough to keep people from clocking his overt weirdness.
If fewer of Cooper’s tricks to escape — which serve as the film’s set pieces — came by way of convenient happenstance, Trap might work a bit better as a straight thriller about a predator becoming prey. But the movie goes to such absurd lengths to keep its story going that it definitely feels like Shyamalan ran out of solid ideas early on.
Everything about Trap, from its story to the way it also works as a vehicle for his daughter’s career as a musician, makes it feel like exactly the kind of project you might expect from Shyamalan, who has often self-financed his films since 2015. The director himself cameos as Lady Raven’s uncle and becomes part of the story in a way that connects him to Cooper’s search for an exit. But Shyamalan’s presence in the film is somewhat distracting and has a way of drawing attention to how many of Trap’s characters speak to the camera with a cloyingness the director tends to be very fond of.
Conceptually, this is one of Shyamalan’s most intriguing films, but its foundation is so limiting that it winds up feeling like the director set a trap for himself. It’s a testament to his ability to come up with novel ideas — but that alone isn’t always enough to make for a good time at the movies.
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