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Spoilers follow for both House of the Dragon and Fire & Blood.

House of the Dragon is based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood , a history book with thinly-sketched characters and multiple (and often unreliable) accounts of the same murky events chronicling the Targaryen dynasty. This required showrunner Ryan Condal to make firm, definitive choices in adapting the material for television.

The characters, events and subplots that Condal and his writers chose to omit have proven to be as important – or at least more controversial – as those they’ve included.

Season 2 left out Prince Maelor , King Aegon II and Queen Helaena’s youngest son who was a key part of the murderous “Blood & Cheese” sequence in the book. Martin infamously complained that the decision to not include Maelor would trigger a “butterly effect” affecting the rest of the show.

As House of the Dragon Season 3 hits its midway point, it's time to take stock of the deviations made from the source material thus far and what Episode 4 suggests is in store for the homestretch of the series’ penultimate season.

Helaena’s Pregnancy

With the revelation in Season 3, Episode 4 that Helaena is pregnant – foreshadowed in Episode 2 – it appears House of the Dragon will finally bring Maelor (or at least a character like him) into the series a season later than expected. That is if the baby even makes it to childbirth. Helaena’s pregnancy puts her and this new claimant to the Iron Throne in grave danger, as Condal explained to me in a recent interview. (Watch the full video interview with Condal via the player above or the embed below.)

“Helaena being pregnant is a major complication for her given the fact that she's literally in Rhaenyra's shadow and her captive. And if that child is a boy, it's going to be very problematic for both Rhaenyra, and for her, and for Alicent,” Condal said. “So it felt like a way to keep alive certain threads in the book in a way that sort of suited the plot, I think, and the story that we're telling here in our version, our adaptation of The Dance of the Dragons.”

Prince Daeron Revealed

In addition to Helaena’s unborn child, another possible heir to the throne Rhaenyra must contend with now is her own half-brother Daeron Targaryen, who, after last week’s misdirect, was confirmed in this episode to be the young aide who’s been following Ormund Hightower around since the season premiere.

The youngest son of Viserys and Alicent, Daeron has been raised among the Hightowers as Ormund’s ward. In Fire & Blood, “Daeron the Daring” is the closest thing the Greens have to a good guy. But as this week’s episode made clear, Ormund has spent years grooming Daeron to become king – and to kill if necessary. (Daeron also has a dragon, Tessarion, to add to the Greens’ firepower in the war.)

“I think Daeron is a very sympathetic character and that's what makes him really interesting because we've met everybody else from Alicent's offspring and with the exception of Helaena, the boys are very complicated individuals that were forged in the crucible that is being raised at King's Landing with a very ill and probably checked out father in Viserys and a very young mother who was ill-equipped, unequipped to raise, not only to just raise children, but to raise children who are going to maybe one day compete for the throne,” Condal said.

“So that's why Daeron is an interesting study because there's a bit of nature and nurture in all of the storytelling that we have here.”

But will Daeron actually be a hero? Condal essentially said wait and see:

“I think with anybody that's attuned to being a Game of Thrones reader or watcher, part of the fun of these stories is as they unfold over books and years and seasons, is that things change over time. Just because something is the case right now, did anybody think when Jamie Lannister pushed that kid out of the window that they would be rooting for him two seasons later, three seasons later, and then seeing him as one of the most tragic heroic characters in the story? No. I think the fun of telling this story is when you put people in this very extreme environment, you get to see what they're actually made of and who their characters actually are. And some people that you thought were good go to very dark places.”

Why Daemon Deceived Rhaenyra

A major change from the book this season is the elimination of the dragonseed Nettles, a young girl whose function in the saga has instead been given to Daemon’s daughter, Lady Rhaena. (While the book isn’t clear about it, Nettles and Daemon may have had a romantic relationship while he was married to Rhaenyra.) Instead, the show had Rhaena ride the wild dragon Sheepstealer into The Battle of the Gullet, inadvertently playing a role in the death of Rhaenyra’s son and heir, Jace , and his dragon, Vermax.

Queen Rhaenyra doesn’t know Sheepstealer’s rider is actually Rhaena but, as we saw this week, Daemon has learned the truth and lied to his wife (and queen) to keep his daughter’s involvement secret. Viewers should expect dramatic repercussions to that at some point.

“We knew that Sheepstealer's rider, that character causes extreme strife for Daemon and Rhaenyra's relationship. And that was sort of the place that we started in. We felt in Season 2 that we were telling the story of the dragonseeds pretty completely and robustly in terms of all the different walks of life that come to riding dragons,” Condal explained. “And it felt like pairing a wild dragon with a lady of noble blood that then becomes somewhat feral herself, which is a very interesting story to tell that helped keep us at the core of where we wanted to take Rhaenyra and Daemon's relationship.”

Condal continued, “It did not feel like, to us, an infidelity story [between Daemon and Nettles] was someplace that we wanted to go with Daemon and Rhaenyra given everything they had been through to this point. I think the audience really wants to see this couple work out, but they both have inextricable natures to them that they can only get so far away from. And we see that playing out with Daemon over the course of the season.

But I think more interestingly for Daemon is for the first time, he's doing something very self-interested, but he's doing it in the name of protecting his daughter, which we haven't really seen from him to date. It shows a more mature Daemon that's still Daemon. And I think that was the thing that we were really attracted to. And this is going to be a story that continues to obviously unfold, and evolve, and play out over the course of the season. We'll have ripple effects that take us all the way into the end of The Dance of the Dragons.”

The Other Wild Dragons

Speaking of wild dragons, there are a few from the book who have yet to appear on the show: Grey Ghost and The Cannibal , neither of which, in the book, were ever tamed let alone ridden.

Given that House of the Dragon will end with Season 4 , one might assume to never expect to see any of those beasts on the show, right?

“I think assumption and expectation are probably dangerous words to use in this particular world,” Condal told me. “No, look, there's a lot of runway left and it is called House of the Dragon. It is The Dance of the Dragons. I think there are more dragon cards to be turned over as time rolls on here.”

How do you feel about the changes and choices House of the Dragon has made so far in adapting Fire & Blood? Let us know in the comments.

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Rezvani has teased their upcoming Dune supercar.

It appears to echo the Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato.

Model will have a supercharged 5.2-liter V10 with 800 hp.

The Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato was the rally-inspired supercar we didn’t know we needed and it was a smashing success. Unfortunately, the model is a distant memory as the company has turned its attention to the Temerario .

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However, Rezvani appears to be recreating the Sterrato with their all-new Dune. Set to be unveiled later this month, the mysterious supercar is being billed as their “most daring creation yet.”

More: Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato All-Terrain Edition Celebrates Off-Roading

The company is keeping details under wraps, but confirmed the model will have a bespoke carbon fiber widebody kit, aggressive tires, and a lifted suspension with “extensive” upgrades. The teaser images also show auxiliary lights, roof rails, and what appears to be a roof-mounted intake.

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While the front end resembles a Lamborghini , the rear end is unique as it eschews a rear window and sports new taillights. The latter incorporate circular accents as well as slender bars.

Power will be provided by a mid-mounted, supercharged 5.2-liter V10 engine producing up to 800 hp (597 kW / 800 PS). It will be paired with an all-wheel drive system, which will ensure the performance continues after the pavement ends.

Little else is known about the car at this point, but the Huracan Sterrato had a 1.7-inch (44 mm) lift, a wider track, and underbody protection. The model was also equipped with a 5.2-liter V10 engine producing 602 hp (449 kW / 610 PS) and 413 lb-ft (560 Nm) of torque. This enabled it to accelerate from 0-62 mph (0-100 km/h) in 3.4 seconds, before hitting a top speed of 162 mph (260 km/h).

Production will be limited to seven units and Rezvani is currently accepting refundable deposits of $1,500. We’ll learn more later this month, but the company said the “Dune is not simply a lifted supercar” as it’s “an entirely new species of performance vehicle – a machine that combines the pulse-raising theater of an exotic car with the freedom to travel far beyond the places exotic cars were ever meant to go.”

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TL;DR

Google’s rumored to be working on a new Home Display, its first dedicated smart display in years.

New code in the Google Home app reveals the Home Display preparing to support a Hub Max-style camera.

Functionality would largely mirror Nest Cam offerings, with limited free event recording, and the option for more with Home Premium.

Google’s a major player in the smart home space, and still refreshes its lineup with new hardware like the just-released Google Home Speaker , or last year’s new Nest Cam and Doorbell options . But when it comes to smart displays , it has been a minute since we got a proper new launch. The Pixel Tablet is three years old by now, and the second-gen Nest Hub’s a couple years older still. Back in May, however, we saw a ray of hope with a leak teasing the Google Home Display , possibly the first dedicated smart home screen from the company this decade. And as we look forward to learning more about this hardware, we start turning to software to discover a bit more about what to expect from it.

You’re reading an Authority Insights story. Authority Insights brings you all the latest exclusive reports, app teardowns, leaks, and in-depth tech coverage from the Android Authority team that you won’t find anywhere else.

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Ubisoft has disclosed a valuable trade secret in its latest annual financial report. It appears that, if a developer takes a really long time to make a video game that isn't as bulletproof as GTA 6 , fans might stop caring.

The Far Cry creator identifies in its report , spotted by Game File , that "an inappropriate release schedule" can be grave for a video game business. Releasing slipshod games too early will never work, but "conversely, releasing a game too late – when market anticipation has waned and it no longer meets market standards in a highly competitive environment – can also hinder its success."

Ubisoft addresses the issue in only vague terms, but it still sounds like the company is making a quiet self-admonishment here. Ubisoft, which has disposed of over 2,000 workers in the past two years alongside a few passionate swears of loyalty to generative AI , is working with a clogged tank.

Fans of Ubisoft's big FPS series have been waiting on Far Cry 7 since 2021 . We can apparently expect to get more Ghost Recon at some point in the next three years , though it's been seven years since Breakpoint, and Ubisoft recently killed its developer Red Storm , laying off 105. Beyond Good and Evil 2 is now a legal adult – the sequel was first announced in 2008.

To that last point, Beyond Good and Evil 2 creative director Fawzi Mesmar said earlier this year that the action-adventure game's team is still committed to "delivering a remarkable game for our players to enjoy." When? That's classified.

Though, Ubisoft provides a sort of answer in its annual report, admitting that issues like an overly long release cycle can cause "damage to the game's reputation and brand image, loss of players (disappointment of players who would turn to the competition)." So the real reply to "When?" is actually, "It doesn't matter anymore."

After laying off thousands, Ubisoft says losing "key talents and skills" is a big danger for the company .

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Clouds formed from vaporized rock could create the ultimate thermal insulation on one of the most common types of exoplanets discovered so far — the sub-Neptunes — raising temperatures so high that these worlds' solid surfaces melt and turn into oceans of magma.

"This work takes us one step closer to answering the question of what these mysterious worlds are made from," said astronomer Luis Welbanks, of Arizona State University, in a statement .

Sub- Neptunes are planets larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. They are especially mysterious since we do not have a world of this type in our solar system . They are thought to contain a rocky core surrounded by a deep atmosphere, but not much else is known about their composition and structure. Their atmosphere could be hydrogen-rich like Jupiter 's, or it could be abundant with water vapor and carbon-based organic molecules. In some cases, they might even be habitable under the hycean world paradigm, wherein a thick hydrogen atmosphere encases a global ocean of liquid water.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is busy probing the atmosphere of several sub-Neptunes to try and learn more about their bulk composition because their atmosphere should be representative of what such planets are made from, but results so far have been inconclusive.

Atmospheres of sub-Neptunes are deep and dense, meaning crushing pressures close to the boundary between the atmosphere and the solid body of the world can turn minerals into vapor that forms clouds. These minerals include aluminium oxide, iron, magnesium silicate, manganese sulfide, potassium chloride, sodium sulfide and zinc sulfide.

Using detailed computer simulations, a team led by Sagnick Mukherjee of Arizona State University explored what effect these clouds could have on both the surface and atmosphere of a sub-Neptune.

They showed that when these mineral clouds form deep down, they act as efficient insulating blankets that trap heat (and lots of it) leaking out from the core of the planet.

"Among the sub-Neptunes currently being studied with JWST, we were amazed to find that cloud-driven heating can raise the temperature at the planet's atmosphere–interior boundary by roughly over 1,400 to 2,600 degrees Celsius [2,550–4,712 degrees Fahrenheit]," said Mukherjee.

At the same time, because heat is being prevented from escaping, the upper atmosphere cools noticeably.

With all that heat retained close to the surface, the rock begins to melt.

"For some of the planets we modeled, that extra heat is enough to melt the planet's surface, creating a magma ocean," said team-member Matthew Nixon of Arizona State University.

These potential magma planets include GJ 1214b, which orbits a red dwarf star 48 light-years away. At one time it was thought to be a cool water-world, but JWST's discovery in 2025 of metallic vapors and carbon-dioxide haze in GJ 1214b's atmosphere rule this out, and now it seems that its surface, undetectable beneath the thick atmosphere, could be completely molten.

However, the presence of magma oceans opens up possibilities for more complex atmospheric chemistry. Gas seeps out of the magma and diffuses into the atmosphere, in theory enriching it in oxygen, silicon hydride and silicon monoxide, while going the other way the magma absorbs ammonia, methane and water vapor from the atmosphere. In other words, the atmosphere becomes enriched by material from underground, while also becoming depleted in some gases that astronomers would expect to see in greater abundance.

This means that JWST's attempts to learn about the bulk composition of a sub-Neptune exoplanet from the spectrum of its atmosphere could be skewed by this exchange of gases between a magma ocean and the atmosphere. The extra heating deep down will also impact the future of these sub-Neptune planets, since the extra heat will keep their lower atmosphere bloated and prevent the planet from contracting over billions of years.

If the findings are correct, they could place a huge obstacle on sub-Neptunes being habitable. Even if the boundary between the atmosphere and solid body of the planet isn't hot enough to form magma, it would still render the surface too hot to support liquid water or life.

The findings were published on July 8 in Astrophysical Journal Letters .

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Fallout: New Vegas is a sprawling RPG filled with sketchy factions, greasy NPCs, rubbery morality, and tough decisions, all of which ultimately lead the player to one of four possible outcomes that share one thing in common: They're not great. Which isn't to say they're not satisfying, just that there's no optimal outcome where everybody's happy and nobody gets hurt. The wasteland is a pretty crappy place, after all, so outcomes tend to be crappy too.

In a recent interview on The Examined Game with Steven Lake , New Vegas designer and director Josh Sawyer revealed his own personal 'best of a bad lot' pick for the endgame, and it's independence all the way.

"It is very hard. I mean, some people would say like, I love Caesar, and great," Sawyer said. "But it's kind of hard to hand everything over to an individual like Caesar or Mr. House. It feels dangerous. And then with NCR, you just realize like, man, they got a lot of problems. Like, they have a lot of problems right now . They're doing things for a lot of very questionable reasons.

"Even if you find people that you feel are very virtuous and and are sacrificing a lot to fight in the Mojave and not because they're trying to be imperialistic, even though NCR is being very imperialistic, it's difficult to wrestle with that and come away and say like, yeah, I think NCR is great."

For Sawyer, then—and most players, apparently—an independent New Vegas is the least worst choice. "I know it's going to be dysfunctional, I know it's going to be bureaucratic, I know there's going to be corruption—but also it hasn't been tried yet, right? Like we haven't organized this yet, so let's give it a try."

Sawyer said Obsidian tried to portray independence as having its own "drawbacks of dysfunction," arising from the proliferation of bureaucracy and the corruption that inevitably follows. Even so, I think I have to agree that it's probably the way to go: If there's one thing history keeps on trying to teach us, it's that handing the keys to an unstable autocrat or a fascist military superpower (or, god forbid, both at the same time) never goes well.

For myself, I wrapped up Fallout: New Vegas with a fifth option that isn't canon, strictly speaking, but is my head canon: I got so sick of getting jerked around by the competing Mojave factions that when Mr. House asked me to take out the Brotherhood of Steel, I just packed up my stuff and wandered back out into the desert, never to return. Was I a little bored with Fallout: New Vegas at that point, after sinking countless dozens of hours into it? Sure. But turning my back on the grasping travails of the last ragged remnants of humanity and disappearing into swirling sand and crackling radiation, to be remembered only as that guy who did that stuff—that's real warrior of the wasteland stuff, baby.

Sawyer, in case you hadn't heard, is reportedly heading up a new Fallout project at Obsidian , which would be nice except that it came amidst the recent major cuts at Xbox, which saw roughly 25% of the studio's workforce let go and the cancellation of multiple other projects, including a sequel to Avowed.

2026 games : All the upcoming games

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Kyiv has floated more than 1,000 cheap balloons into Russia as decoys, relays, and now even launch platforms, with a balloon-dropped Hornet drone reportedly doubling its strike range to around 300 km

The DART missile drops from balloons at 12–18 km and deliberately kills its own navigation in the terminal phase, leaving Russian jammers nothing to attack

Prevailing west-to-east winds hand Ukraine a near-monopoly on the tactic, even as Russia trials its Barrazh-1 relay balloon as an alternative to Starlink

Google might have written off its Project Loon endeavor, a goal to use stratospheric balloons as flying cell towers due to economic considerations, but they are back in an unexpected setting: a deepening frontline between Ukraine and Russia.

This is largely because Ukraine has cracked the economics with the business model that Alphabet, Google's parent company, could not have: a cheap, easy-to-employ weapons platform that can't be jammed or shot down affordably while building up on its threat to Russian cities far from the frontlines.

The DART is a Ukraine-deployed, balloon-launched missile system developed by the Ukrainian firm Center of Innovative Technologies Program (CITP), which launches projectiles from the lower stratosphere at intended targets.

A smart 'dumb' missile approach by design

While most of the world continues to focus on better smart satellite- or laser-guided missiles (or precision-guided weapons), Ukraine is taking a different approach altogether, and it might be a much smarter play given how it could play out.

The balloon-based DART missile starts off 'smart', relying on satellite guidance to align and aim at a target before cutting off guidance altogether for the last 6km of the journey, relying only on its solid-fuel engine to reach its intended position.

The approach, though slightly crude, renders Russian jammers completely ineffective, unable to pull a DART missile off-target or 'confuse' it in any way. The target seems not to be civilians or combatants but rather to restrict Russia's ability to wage war by targeting infrastructure because of how the missile functions.

DART carries a warhead of roughly 10 kilograms that scatters conductive graphite filaments, a small-scale graphite bomb meant to short out electrical infrastructure. This also means it might not need the level of precision that many other missiles do: power stations and electric grids tend to sprawl, making them much easier targets than alternatives.

The more impressive part might be that the balloons, which often cost as little as $200, can lure out expensive S-300 and S-400 interceptors to respond, depleting far more costly ammunition and batteries on the Russian side.

Ukraine is also a direct beneficiary of geography: winds across the front generally blow west to east, allowing balloons from Ukraine to easily reach Russian territory, while Russian ones have to fight the current, often floating back into their own territory as a result.

While DART remains uncodified by Ukraine's military, it has already been showcased at trade shows, with the Eurosatory defense expo outside Paris in June marking its first major outing. It also has both allies and adversaries taking notice as the Ukrainian conflict continues to offer modern battlefield lessons .

The US Army has been evaluating tethered aerostats for drone detection and communications relay, with an eye toward launching drone swarms from them in the future.

Russians, on the other hand, are investing in a different kind of drone technology: the Barrazh-1, a stratospheric relay balloon carrying a communications payload of roughly 100 kilograms, which it says is entirely domestically built and aims to balance out the lack of Starlink terminals available to the country for data and internet services on the battlefield.