Sunday, February 23, 2025

Image Credits: Apple

You probably know that Apple TV's hit show "Severance" is back for its long-awaited Season 2. But new "Severance" content isn't limited to weekly episodes: Apple and the show's creators have also been expanding the "Severance" world with e-books, podcasts, and more.

Sarah Perez rounds up all the different ways that fans can find clues outside the show itself — there's a fun behind-the-scenes podcast from Ben Stiller and Adam Scott, as well as an orientation brochure for newly severed employees, an over-the-top self-help book written by one of the show's characters, and even a LinkedIn profile for mysterious employer Lumon Industries.

Keep reading to see what else TechCrunch is covering this weekend.

Weekend news and opinion

Image Credits: 1X

1X unveils its latest humanoid home robot: The Norwegian company isn't the only one trying to bring humanoid robots into the home, but Brian Heater writes that it's unique in taking a home-first approach. In fact, promotional images of the Neo Gamma show it making coffee, doing the laundry, and vacuuming. Read more

iOS 18.4 will include Apple Intelligence's Priority Notifications: The latest version of the iPhone operating system, currently available in developer beta, includes an Apple Intelligence-powered feature that will sort users' notifications based on perceived importance. The feature, Aisha Malik writes, is supposed to help users focus on important alerts instead of getting overwhelmed by minor ones. Read more

How co-host Jody Avirgan makes the Summer Album/Winter Album podcasts: Brian Heater interviews Jody Avirgan — formerly of Radiotopia, TED, FiveThirtyEight, and ESPN — about his home and on-the-road podcasting setup. Read more

What else we're reading 📗

Meta recently rolled back its content moderation practices, presumably as part of broader efforts to win over the Trump administration. But Platformer's Casey Newton argues those changes have backfired by emboldening the company's conservative critics, with a new inquiry underway from the Federal Trade Commission. Read more

Also, The New Yorker unpacks Palantir CEO Alex Karp's ideas about tech, defense, and democracy, as presented in his new book "The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West." Read more