Nowadays, Marvel films are almost exclusively considered to be those that are part of the MCU, with the movies not falling under this banner being branded as “non-canon” either jokingly or deliberately. However, there have been many great films that are apart from this cinematic universe. Rather than derive from critics-based sites like Rotten Tomatoes, we’ve compiled a list of non-MCU films ranked on entertainment value and audience enjoyment. This means even those that weren’t critical darlings could be on this list....

Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke took the world by storm in 1964 as the magical nanny and a jack of all trades respectively. Mary Poppins has been a classic film ever since, and Disney is finally ready to continuing on with the mythology. Next year will see Disney follow-up the franchise with Emily Blunt stepping into the leading role for Mary Poppins Returns. Blunt will not be alone in this endeavor as the studio has surrounded her with an incredible cast....

China Labor Watch says that an undercover investigation at a Pegatron factory manufacturing iPhones and iPads found that 58% of workers there were working in excess of 60 hours a week – the limit laid down by Apple for its suppliers. It also said that overtime, which is supposed to be voluntary, is effectively mandatory, reports CNET. The report says that many workers in any case said that significant overtime was necessary to meet their living expenses, with wages at the local minimum wage of around $1....

Maleficent returns in a sequel to Maleficent, a retelling of the classic Disney fairytale Sleeping Beauty, about a young princess put to eternal sleep by the curse of a dark fairy. It was released in 2014 to lackluster fanfare, but has since garnered a healthy fandom in the last five years. The new film picks up after the events of the last film, where Aurora was awoken from her slumber by true love’s kiss and agrees to live in the Moors with her godmother, Maleficent....

[slideshow] NCAA® March Madness Live [iTunes Link] just hit the App Store promising live radio access to every NCAA College Basketball Tournament game: Additional features include: From the First Round on March 13 to the Championship game on April 2, catch all your favorite rivalries, upsets, and buzzer beaters over both Wi-Fi and 3G. Plus, get alerts for your favorite teams, know when games go into overtime and crunch time, and set your TV channel settings to know where to watch any game on TV....

Ever since the premiere of Marvel’s small-screen universe with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., comic book television series in the MCU have spread across networks and outlets. AoS is in its fourth season, with the highly anticipated Inhumans on the way. Netflix has its innovative slate of shows in the form of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and the upcoming Iron Fist and Defenders, and while FX’s Marvel-inspired Legion does not connect with the MCU, it’s breaking some interesting new ground in the genre....

Gaming smartphones are becoming a separate entity in themselves. There is a lot of popularity and hype for gaming phones these days. Thanks to the craze of mobile games like PUBG, Fortnite, COD etc gamers are investing in dedicated gaming smartphones. This even led to popular smartphone makers to produce gaming phones at a reasonable price. One example can be Xiaomi’s Black Shark series. Xiaomi, like it rolls updates for its regular smartphones, is also making sure to keep its gaming devices loaded and secure....

CBS teased yesterday a ‘big announcement’ from Apple, and the company has now revealed what it is: major new REJI projects to help tackle systemic racism. Apple first announced its Racial Equity and Justice Initiative (REJI) back in June of last year, in response to worldwide protests at the killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and others … The company stated then that it would be investing $100M in the program, and it has now revealed three of the ways in which it will be spending some of this money....

The latest episode of Manifest has introduced two new villains to the NBC series. Just as the main characters take another step toward defeating their nemesis, more threats are emerging. Seemingly separate plotlines for Ben (Josh Dallas) and Grace (Athena Karkanis) intersect in a surprising way at the end of Monday’s episode when it’s revealed that two new characters share an unexpected connection and a nefarious plan for the passengers of Flight 828....

Warning: SPOILERS for X-Men #1 Marvel’s X-Men comics are straight-up thirsting for a classic love triangle. The X-Men comics have often been described as the comic book equivalent of a soap opera, and that was particularly the case when the franchise was at its most popular, back in the ’90s. But it’s about to pick up speed. Legendary comic book writer Jonathan Hickman has taken charge of the X-Men franchise, and there have already been hints he aims to bring this element of the X-Men back....

Fans are posting their own Black Widow posters to social media, in honor of the movie’s trailer dropping online this morning. Marvel Studios was originally expected to kick-off its Black Widow marketing at CCXP this weekend, where Kevin Feige will be on-hand to tease their Phase 4 films and Disney+ series. Instead, the studio decided to get a head-start on the competition and release the Black Widow trailer when most people were fast asleep today (in the U....

iBooks was introduced in 2010 for the iPad. With Mavericks, 3.5 years after iBooks came out for iOS, Mac OS X finally gets in on the action. Unlike iOS devices that have to download iBooks from the App Store, the Mac comes pre-loaded with it. This how-to will discuss how to organize and read your books, and how to shop for new books in the iBooks Store. Once you press the “Get Started” button on your first run of iBooks, you’ll need to sign in to your Apple ID....

I’ve often said that my Mac is my most important Apple product: if I could only have one, that’s the one I’d choose. Partly because bigger is better in my view when it comes to screen sizes, and partly because of its flexibility. The combination of powerful apps, a proper file-system and windowing. But last night I chose to reach for my iPad and Magic Keyboard when it came to writing a personal blog post and doing a few other things …...

Netflix’s Marvel series were a massive success overall. They introduced a range of major characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and were responsible for some of the greatest episodes of superhero television. They were also at the forefront of the rise of comic book movie TV shows. However, the Netflix shows definitely didn’t get everything right. Due to the writing, performances or just the way in which the characters were understood by the audience, there were many hated supporting characters across the multiple shows....

The “What If…?” series published by Marvel Comics presents fun alternative scenarios involving our favorite superheroes. And now that we’re 23 movies into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with dozens of familiar characters and high-stakes adventures to dive into, Kevin Feige has decided it’s time to bring that format to the screen. What If…? is set to premiere on Disney+ as a part of the MCU’s Phase Four, exploring a bunch of hypothetical scenarios involving storylines and characters from the MCU’s roster of movies....

The release of Mass Effect: Andromeda is tantalisingly close and developer Bioware is starting to turn its marketing screws. By now, most fans know that the hotly-anticipated sequel is set 600 years after the events of the original Mass Effect trilogy, in the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. The game follows “The Pathfinder Team”, a group tasked with finding habitable planets in Andromeda in order to establish a new home for humankind....

The Mac is in the midst of a photo editor renaissance, with applications like Photos for macOS continuing to improve and third-party options likes Affinity Photo popping up. Adobe, too, recently launched Lightroom CC, an all new cloud-based version of Lightroom for the Mac. Today, Macphun, the developers behind several popular photography applications for macOS, are introducing Luminar 2018, their answer to the increasingly competitive software landscape. Adobe’s Lightroom CC has generated a bit of controversy in photography circles, as users find themselves faced with adopting new workflows and rethinking their organization strategies....

Although Maggie Q found tremendous success on the small screen as the titular femme-fatale Nikita, the gorgeous Hawaiian-born actress hasn’t been so lucky on the big screen. Here’s hoping all that changes with the release of Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island this Valentine’s Day! After all, only three of Q’s movies rated on Rotten Tomatoes currently rank as 50% fresh or better. At least two movies she’s been in received a 0% rotten rating....

Making The Grade is a weekly series from Bradley Chambers covering Apple in education. Bradley has been managing Apple devices in an education environment since 2009. Through his experience deploying and managing 100s of Macs and 100s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple’s products work at scale, stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for students. When I was at the annual ISTE conference in Chicago a few weeks ago, I saw a few booths built around selling Alexa skills for your school....

A few Apple map related stories have popped up today starting with the departure of early Placebase founder– the mapping company Apple bought back in 2009– Jaron Waldman. After Apple bought Placebase, Waldman started and lead the Apple Geo team behind the Apple Maps infrastructure and location services on iOS and Mac like MapKit and CoreLocation. He was at Apple up until last month and even filed for numerous Apple mapping patents, but recently left to work at a “new startup” according sources and verified by his LinkedIn page....