SoftBank may have already bought both a major mobile game studio and one of the US' largest carriers, but it apparently isn't done expanding its turf just yet. Both Hollywood Reporter and the Wall Street Journal claim that the Japanese carrier is now in talks to buy DreamWorks Animation, the movie studio you likely know for How To Train Your Dragon and Shrek. Reportedly, SoftBank chief Masayoshi Son wants to wield exclusive content as a weapon against rival mobile networks. While the sources aren't diving into specifics about the potential partnership, it wouldn't be surprising if you could eventually buy Sprint phones that come bundled with DreamWorks' latest flicks.

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You're probably aware that most sci-fi space battles aren't realistic. The original Star Wars' Death Star scene was based on a World War II movie, for example. But have you wondered what it would really be like to duke it out in the void? PBS is more than happy to explain in its latest It's Okay To Be Smart video. As you'll see below, Newtonian physics would dictate battles that are more like Asteroids than the latest summer blockbuster. You'd need to thrust every time you wanted to change direction, and projectiles would trump lasers (which can't focus at long distances); you wouldn't hear any sound, either.

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It's safe to say that surveillance technology had a profound effect on American culture, even before Edward Snowden's leaks arrived -- there's a sense that you can never really escape the government's eye. If you've ever shared that feeling, you'll be glad to hear that there's finally an art exhibition devoted to exploring high-tech monitoring. The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art's newly opened Covert Operations is full of projects that not only protest data collection, but sometimes use it to drive their points home. Jenny Holzer's Ribs (above) streams real US government documents on its LED displays. Hasan Elahi's Tracking Transience, meanwhile, uses selections from an online collection of 70,000-plus photos and location info as a sort of challenge; he wants you to mimic an FBI agent trying to piece together his life. If you're interested in seeing any of these projects first-hand, you'll want to swing by the Arizona-based museum no later than January 11th.

[Image credit: Richard-Max Tremblay / Jenny Holzer]

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Ask pinball fans about classic tables and they'll probably mention The Addams Family. It was widely available, well-designed and full of technological firsts, such as computer-controlled flippers. However, it hasn't been recreated in software in its 22-year history -- something FarSight Studios hopes to fix with a crowdfunding project to reproduce the table in Pinball Arcade. So long as the developer reaches its funding goal, you'll get to play the Addams Family almost as if you'd stepped into an arcade circa 1992. The smart flippers, actors' voices and Thing's creepy animatronic hand should all remain intact.

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It's the weekend, ya'll. So while you sit back and relax, check out our news highlights from the last seven days -- we took the new Oculus Rift for a spin, went hands-on with the Blackberry Passport, made an Ello account, and more. Oh, and be sure to subscribe to our Flipboard magazine!

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It looks like the smartwatch is here to stay, and now that Apple has shown off their own attempt at creating some svelte looking electronic wrist candy, you can guarantee more people will be wearing them in the near future. But are smartwatches really useful? Besides showing off your latest notifications, what do they need to become an essential part of our lives? Head over to the Engadget forums and share your thoughts!

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Not too long ago Vine blessed iOS users with the ability to import pre-existing videos into the app, and now Google fans can get in on the action. Any clips in your Android camera roll are viable subjects to be trimmed down to six seconds or shorter now, and you can activate your device's flashlight to work as a flash in low-light situations. There are a few other features too, and you can check those out on the app's Google Play page. Now all that's separating your from internet stardom is, well... you.

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The creators of controversial app Secret have just launched a new product, but this time, it has nothing to do with airing your dirty laundry anonymously. They call their new application Ping, a simple software that displays a list of topics (such as movies and new Twittter trends) right on your lock screen. Like its name implies, it pings you whenever it detects new results for the topics listed on your display, which you can then access by dragging the circle on the top right corner. Ping starts with a bare-bones list as you can see in the video after the break, but more topics get added to your screen the more you use the app and the more it gets to know you. Similar to Secret, you don't even need to sign up or have a username to be able to use it, as it was a product of a company hackathon "where the goal was an exercise in simplicity." In an interview with Re/Code, Secret co-founder David Byttow says that Ping has nothing to do with the company's previous product. You can download the app right now if you're on iOS, but if it follows in the footsteps of its older sibling, it should be available for Android in no time.

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Given the avalanche of new smartphones this fall, there's a good chance that your data use is about to spike as you put that fresh hardware through its paces. If so, AT&T might just have you covered. It's running a promo between September 28th and October 31st that doubles the amount of data you get with its Mobile Share Value plans, whether or not you're a new customer. Signing up for the special rates nets you up to a hefty 100GB per month of shared data at the high end. However, the starter offer is arguably the best -- $130 per month (plus line fees) gets you 30GB to play with, which should hopefully accommodate your family's Netflix viewing habits. AT&T's deal isn't necessarily as sweet as what you'll get with Sprint or T-Mobile, which start at a respective $100 and $140 per month for roughly the same service. However, it's competitive enough that it could keep you on Big Blue's network for a little while longer.

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