Most of us sense we’re in an affordability crisis these days. If you’re like me, you’re helpless and complacent at the checkstand even when it feels like you’re being mugged. But being billed for billions—or even trillions—more than you owe on web hosting would snap anyone out of their affordability daze.
Amazon Web Services users around the world have noticed one such glitch:
I just saw $1.5 trillion on my AWS bill and my soul left my body https://t.co/EgfQKJTHVl pic.twitter.com/L0gXYbDio7
— Bharath (@Bharath_uwu) July 17, 2026
Bharath, an X user based in India, showed off what looks like a $1,499,659,180,107 cost statement and writes, “my soul left my body.” That statement says Bharath’s total is up by 744,728,201,771% this month, which means, by my math, the previous month’s bill was about $200.
According to the Guardian, a marketer named Dan Harvey, working for an educational nonprofit in the U.K. said he “almost had a heart attack” after seeing a bill climb from 43 cents last month to $7.8 billion this month—and the month wasn’t even over. Harvey added to the Guardian that he had to get on the phone with tech support and “have a real dig around,” to get to the bottom of things. Amazon did not apparently return the Guardian’s request for comment.
This has been resolved, according to Amazon, which writes that on July 16 and 17, “customers received erroneous budget and cost anomaly detection alerts, and saw inflated estimated cost and usage data in the Billing and Cost Management Console and the Cost and Usage Reports.” The amounts are “inaccurate” and “did not affect customer invoices,” Amazon writes, but everything has apparently been restored to normal.
An update Saturday on the AWS service health dashboard lays out what happened. Apparently on July 16, a faulty “configuration change” in the AWS billing system was implemented. “This system relies on unit conversion data to calculate line item charges,” AWS writes, but the change “caused updates to the unit conversion data to fail, resulting in inflated line item costs, which propagated to the Billing and Cost Management console and triggered the budget and cost anomaly alerts.”
Logs on the health dashboard show AWS trying to roll out a solution for about two days before marking the issue as fully resolved.
Later this year, Magic: The Gathering takes its first step into new horizons with the mutliverse-heavy Reality Fracture set. Naturally, that’s just beginning of a longer jaunt through other worlds—or planes, in this case—that Wizards of the Coast plans to take players through in 2027, and possibly longer.
On Friday, Wizards unveiled its roadmap for next year, which will comprise of the Magic Multiverse and in-person events across the globe. This all starts with Nauctis: The Sunken Realm due February 5, which will focus on the game’s first-ever set devoted to the water plane. “Rich with brine and opportunities for adventure,” Nauctis will focus on a group devoted to preventing war between two squabbling kingdoms, and creatures that dwell “far, far from the surface.”
Then, June 4 brings Kamigawa: Titanbreach. Set in the neon, modern-day city of Towashi, things kick off with a chunk of the monster plane Ikoria raining down on the city. According to Wizards, this will be Magic: The Gathering “on a scale you’ve never seen before,” as the Kamigawans will be fighting Ikoria’s monsters with their own manmade mechs—so if you’ve ever wanted a card game for Pacific Rim, Godzilla, or Power Rangers, it sounds like this’ll be the set for you.
Lastly, 2027’s final multiverse set will be Zhalfir. Where Kamigawa leaned toward Japanese culture and mythology, this one is based on Afrofuturism; now existing as its own plane (and having replaced the metal plane Mirrofin), Zhalfir is powered by five suns and never sees nightfall. With the return of chronomancer Teferi Akosa, newer players will unlock “innovative new forms of magic…and some especially mindbending cards.” With this set, the team hopes to “honor [Zhalfir’s] legacy in every aspect,” something players can experience for themselves when it releases on October 1.
More details about the three sets will come closer to their individual releases. And between each one, Wizards will keep Magic: The Gathering with new, currently unannounced Universes Beyond sets—respectively launching April 9, August 6, and November 19—and four Magic Con events set in Detroit (February 26-28), Tokyo (May 14-16), Las Vegas (August 27-29), and Amsterdam (December 3-5). Before then, there’s the aforementioned Reality Fracture on October 2 and a The Hobbit set landing August 14.
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Sometimes the actions of gross dweebs cross a line. I don’t believe in capital punishment. No, you shouldn’t actually die for nerdiness-related crimes, but sometimes a sort of execution should be staged anyway. You should be marched down a sort of death row. You should be made to say your last words. Your crying family members should sob, and you should be lifted in the air by two grave-looking high school football players in varsity jackets, turned upside-down, and ritualistically dunked in a toilet until something inside you dies.
And first up should be whoever paid almost a million dollars for Jensen Huang’s leather jacket.
It pains me enormously to inform you that, yes, someone paid $960,000 for a Tom Ford leather jacket previously worn by Nvidia co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang at a 2023 Foxconn event. I guess that probably means this event. The diagonal zippers on Huang’s jacket in that clip match the ones on the Sotheby’s online listing for the Huang jacket. So yeah, they bought that when they could have bought this five-bedroom house and had money leftover for a car.
Brahm Wachter who heads a division at Sotheby’s called “modern collectibles” told CNBC, “The response to this sale surpassed even our highest expectations.” Even Sotheby’s thinks this person overpaid.
To be clear, I do agree that it’s worth preserving one of Jensen Huang’s leather jackets—not because they’re necessarily linked with something auspicious, but because they’re, at minimum, confusing artifacts from a tragicomic episode in history. Jensen Huang is one of the main characters of the 2020s AI story, and he wears leather jackets at most of his public appearances. His jacket is not at all like one of Groucho’s cigars, but it’s a little like one of Orson Welles’ bottles of Paul Masson.
Leather jackets are what bikers and the Fonz wear. They’re what female spies and jewel thieves wear in movies. Alongside watches, they’re one of the canonical fetish items for sad men with shopping addictions. If you are cool, a leather jacket will amplify that, but if you are uncool, a leather jacket will triply amplify that.
Huang, who just looks like any midlife crisis dad, is far from the worst example of a cringe leather jacket guy. Blessedly, the vibes don’t suggest there’s a sex thing happening. He claims his wife and daughter are the ones who decided he should wear these jackets, and that is a little bit cute, and helps a bit. And admittedly, he seems to have struggled before he settled on this look. He’s obviously ill at ease in an Oxford button-up, and he looks downright terrible in a tucked-in t-shirt, but black polo shirts suit him just fine, short sleeves or long.
But now, someone has anointed Huang’s trademark style piece as culturally significant by dropping a life-changing amount of money on it, as one would a status symbol bottle of wine or a Bored Ape. Huang’s part in this is now irrelevant. Someone placed that bid, and every possibility as to why is deflating.
Best case scenario, it was some blackpilled, rich irony collector like Martin Shkreli. Or maybe it was some billionaire’s assistant, sent on an assignment to build an AI merch collection, given a blank check to buy some stuff that might be interesting someday, but not too worried if any of it tanks in value. After that it just gets much sadder: A gulf oil tycoon’s failson trying to get Huang’s attention so they can pitch a startup? Some kind of AI true believer planning the National AI Museum? Or, God help us, a Jensen Huang stan? Someone who is, this very night, sneaking into his bedroom with scissors to try and get a lock of his hair?
Whoever you are, please stay hidden. Do not show your face in public wearing your new Jensen Jacket. There’s only so much I can take.
A24’s Backrooms is one of 2026’s biggest movies. But the same week it came to home platforms, it managed to step in some hot water and draw negative attention.
Earlier this week, indie creators claimed to be hit with copyright strikes for making Backrooms-related merch. At least one work was based on a liminal wallpaper that inspired the initial creepypasta that predates the film, and the artist alleged the takedown came following a complaint from A24. Similar copyright claims hit several indie developers, including Davilkus Games, who made Backrooms: Level 94 for the Google Play Store. (Davilkus later clarified this was an “automated error” on Google’s side and not a copyright claim.)
Upon hearing of these issues on Reddit, a user believed to be director Kane Parsons posted that he’d look into the matter and that it “shouldn’t be happening.” Parsons, to his credit, has previously called Backrooms an “open-source, public-domain idea” since it first took life in online spaces. The ire was mainly directed toward A24, who’s already caught flak for entering a teamup with Google for AI research.
A user believed to be Parsons later explained to a private Discord channel (reported on Reddit) what A24 had told him: an “outsourced system error” led to the wallpaper and game takedowns when it was initially meant to copyright camrips of the Backrooms film that had been spreading around social media. “They’ve been very adamant about not wanting to touch the community. Any legitimate action of the sort suspected would be unacceptable,” the user explained. “They’re working rapidly to resolve it and will probably issue a statement.”
“Backrooms is one part of an infinitely bigger ecosystem, rife with creatives who have every right to tell their own version of the story,” said A24 via an Instagram Stories post on the Backrooms Instagram page. “[We] make no claim of ownership over the yellow wallpaper, the original post referencing it, or any of the community works that have since been built around it. We will continue to support the artists who, like Kane, were inspired by it.”
For those who get paid making things based off popular IP, copyright strikes are no joke and can seriously mess with their business. In Backrooms’ case, this controversy couldn’t have come at a worse time for A24: along with the aforementioned AI partnership that’s turned folks against the indie studio, it’ll also have to fend off competitors like Warner Bros. hoping to snag Parsons for future projects.
[via Polygon]
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A week from now, San Diego Comic-Con will be underway, and for many movie fans, the convention matters for one reason: the X-Men.
In recent weeks, there’ve been rumors of potential actors for the superhero team’s first MCU outing, with big names including Adam Driver, Sabrina Carpenter, and Cooper Hoffman being thrown around. SDCC’s typically been a place where Marvel reveals both new movies and new casts, so there’s a general expectation that Hall H will deliver the X-goods. It makes sense; Avengers: Doomsday‘s already giving us a burst of nostalgia with legacy X-actors, so why wouldn’t Marvel be ready to tell us which younger stars will step into those blue-and-yellow suits come 2028 and 2029?
Even if those rumors weren’t currently gaining ground, this month’s been a particular boon for the mutants thanks to non-movie ventures. X-Men ’97 premiered its second season at the start of July, and reception to it has been pretty positive so far. A two-year wait doesn’t seem like anything when the season’s current episodes have audiences excited and dreading what’ll come as the three X-teams face off against Apocalypse and each other. It doesn’t hurt that the season’s second episode gave Jubilee a chance to go from old punching bag to fun fighter a week before she joined Marvel Rivals. The hero shooter had a handful of X-characters at launch, but more recent seasons have added A-listers like Cyclops and Deadpool, with other fan-favorites like Nightcrawler and Colossus rumored for the near future.
Speaking of games, Insomniac released a new trailer for Marvel’s Wolverine just before the weekend. Bloodless so it can play in front of screenings of The Odyssey (and eventually on TV), the 90-second promo teases what Logan will get up to when players grab the controller. (The most noteworthy thing about it is revealing Lady Deathstrike, who also appeared in this week’s Wolverine-focused episode of ’97.) And before Wolverine hits in September, there’s August’s Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, which has X-Men all over its launch roster, with the most out-there pick being the android Danger—who will probably be in next week’s ’97 episode, “Danger.exe.” Both games have strong hype behind them, so it’s unfortunate that they’re caught up in PlayStation’s decision to ditch physical games soon and players are looking to take any justified anger out on the two console exclusives.
What’s happening with the X-Men right now is practically the ideal scenario for Marvel and its nonstop synergy game. Each of these projects offer an overlapping appeal to all types of X-fans while also getting the opportunity to stand on their own. That’s particularly important since, if Marvel doesn’t have anything mutant-related to show off at SDCC, the show and games will have to tide people over until an announcement does happen. (And potentially longer, should those film productions fall apart.) It’s all eyes on the X-Men once again, and io9 will be at San Diego Comic-Con to see what Marvel does with this momentum.
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