It took more than a decade, but Weird Al is finally about to get the documentary he has always deserved. You may recall back in 2010 Funny Or Die released a trailer for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. The clip promised an unflinching look at Yankovic’s life with performances from actors like Aaron Paul, Olvia Wilde and Gary Cole. We’re not about to get that film (sadly), but Roku may just give us the next best thing.

The company announced today it’s backing production on WEIRD: The Weird Al Jankovic Story. Instead of Aaron Paul as Yankovic, we get Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe. Eric Appel, best known for his work on Silicon Valley and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, co-wrote the film’s script alongside Yankovic and is directing the project. If Appel’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he directed the 2010 trailer for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.

“I am absolutely thrilled that Daniel Radcliffe will be portraying me in the film,” Yankovic said in a statement. “I have no doubt whatsoever that this is the role future generations will remember him for.” WEIRD: The Weird Al Yankovic Story doesn’t have a release date yet, but production on the film is slated to start next month. Once it’s ready, it will be available to watch for free on The Roku Channel.

Were she still alive, Betty White would be celebrating her 100th birthday today. In honor of that occasion, Google is celebrating the actor's life. Type White's full name into the company's search engine and you'll be treated to a special graphic. "Thank you for being a friend," the tribute reads, referencing White's most famous role, as rose petals fall from the top of the screen. White passed away of natural causes at the age of 99 on December 31st. White's decades-long career was full of highlights that included starring roles on popular sitcoms like The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls. In 2010, she also hosted Saturday Night Live at the age of 88.  

Google

Meta’s New Product Experimentation (NPE) team is often quick to abandon apps that don’t find traction, and a video speed-dating service it has tested over the last nine months is next for the chopping block. The company told Sparked users the experiment will shut down on January 20th.

“We started building Sparked in late 2020 to help people find love through an experience rooted in kindness. Since then, thanks to regular input and feedback from you, we improved where we could, learned a ton, and made connections between people,” Meta wrote in the email, which TechCrunch obtained. “Like many good ideas, some take off and others, like Sparked, must come to an end.”

Users will be able to download their data before January 20th. After that date, Meta will wipe their Sparked accounts.

Sparked was a blend of Chatroulette, the video chats other dating apps have introduced over the last few years and a speed dating event. At a predetermined time, users from a certain area or demographic would take part in dating events (there were a few global events too). They'd have four minutes to chat with a potential match, and if they both wanted to spend more time with each other, they could set up a second, 10-minute date and/or exchange contact details.

Although users needed a Facebook account to use Sparked, the service was distinct from both Facebook and Facebook Dating. It had no public profiles, messaging or matching features, like swiping on Tinder.

Meta initially described Sparked as a small beta test to learn about video dating, so it might not truly have intended for the service to blow up in popularity. Both Sparked and Facebook Dating added audio chat features last year.

Sparked is joining a long list of NPE projects that Meta has shut down, including Pinterest-style app for hobbyists Hobbi, TikTok clone Lasso and selfie app MSQRD. A few NPE apps remain on the App Store in the US: TikTok-esque app for rappers called BARS, an app for couples called Tuned and collaborative music video app Collab. Meta said this week that Collab is also closing down on March 12th.

No, you still can't escape "Baby Shark." Billboardreports Pinkfong's so-catchy-it-hurts children's song has become the first video to reach 10 billion views on YouTube. And no one is likely to catch it any time soon — Luis Fonsi's "Despacito" video, which "Baby Shark" overtook as the most popular video in November 2020, has managed 'just' 7.7 billion views as of this writing.

The 2016 tune's familiar (if very repetitive) hook is certainly part of its success, but it has also been helped by returning to popular culture over and over again. On top of celebrity covers from the likes of James Corden and Bebe Rexha, "Baby Shark" has also enjoyed a 2019 tour, a viral dance challenge, a spot in Just Dance 2020 and a Nickelodeon TV show that premiered in 2021. Simply put, Pinkfong has kept the track in the limelight where even breakout songs like "Despacito" have faded away.

Interest isn't likely to cool off in the immediate future. Nickelodeon has not only renewed its "Baby Shark" show, but promised a feature-length movie. There's even an NFT collection if you're determined to merge two internet trends. It could take a long while before another video pulls ahead, even with K-pop megastars routinely breaking ground in other areas.

Doctors, health experts and scientists battle COVID-19 misinformation on daily basis. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have adopted policies in an effort to curtail rampant false claims, but some don't have rules in place. A group of 270 doctors, nurses, scientists and educators have sent an open letter to Spotify following a recent episode of TheJoe Rogan Experience, calling for the streaming service to adopt a clear policy and to fulfill its "responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation." 

On the December 31st episode of his podcast, Joe Rogan interviewed Dr. Robert Malone, a virologist who says he's one of the creators of mRNA technology. It's unclear whether that's true. During the chat, Malone made baseless claims about COVID-19, including the idea that "mass formation psychosis" led people to believe the vaccines were effective and the notion that President Biden had withheld data that supported ivermectin as a valid treatment. The episode quickly went viral among both critics and fans as Rogan averages over 10 million listeners per episode. YouTube removed a video of the interview and Malone was recently banned from Twitter for violations of the platform's COVID-19 misinformation policy.

"By allowing the propagation of false and societally harmful assertions, Spotify is enabling its hosted media to damage public trust in scientific research and sow doubt in the credibility of data-driven guidance offered by medical professionals," the letter explains. "[The episode] is not the only transgression to occur on the Spotify platform, but a relevant example of the platform’s failure to mitigate the damage it is causing."

In April, The Verge reported that Spotify was okay with a Rogan episode on which he encouraged 21-year-olds to not get vaccinated. A company source indicated the message wasn't "outwardly anti-vaccine" and he didn't "make a call to action," The Verge's Ashley Carman wrote at the time. Spotify has taken down more explicit examples of vaccine misinformation, including a song from musician Ian Brown and a podcast from Pete Evans. The company has said in the past that it "prohibits content on the platform which promotes dangerous false, deceptive, or misleading content about COVID-19 that may cause offline harm and/or pose a direct threat to public health." And that when something violates those guidelines, it is removed.

However, as this open letter points out, Spotify doesn't have an official misinformation policy like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others. The group is asking for the platform to do just that, rather than to directly take action against Rogan or remove the episode in question. They want the company to create rules that would hold podcast creators accountable for the content of their shows.

Spotify paid a reported $100 million to lock down The Joe Rogan Experience as an exclusive podcast in 2020. The show was the most popular on the platform in 2021, both in the US and globally. When Rogan faced criticism over his choice of guests, including another example of pandemic misinformation in an episode with Alex Jones, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said the platform didn't have editorial responsibility over podcasts.

"We have a lot of really well-paid rappers on Spotify too, that make tens of millions of dollars, if not more, each year from Spotify." Ek told Axios. "And we don't dictate what they're putting in their songs, either." 

Spotify didn't respond to Engadget's request for comment on both the open letter and the company's misinformation policies.

It's another good year for streaming at the SAG Awards nominations, but who and what got picked is decidedly different this year. Netflix was still the frontrunner with one or more nominations in nearly every category, including multiple picks for The Power of the Dog (three) and Squid Game (four) as well as individual nods for productions like Don't Look Up, Passing and Halston. However, Apple also fared particularly well this year — Ted Lasso received five nominations, while The Morning Show racked up four. Coda and the not-quite-released The Tragedy of Macbeth also burnished Apple's image.

Other services also had their due. Amazon had success with titles like Being the Ricardos and The Tender Bar, while Disney's empire made its presence felt with nominations for The Handmaid's Tale and Disney+ series like Loki and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Netflix also broke a cultural boundary — Squid Gameis the first non-English series to receive a SAG nomination, not to mention the first Korean series. This isn't completely surprising given Netflix's eagerness to produce worldwide blockbusters, but it's notable given how difficult it has been for foreign releases to crack these awards.

Theater- and TV-first material still has a significant presence in SAG's nominations. Nonetheless, it's evident the partial return to normalcy in entertainment only had a limited effect — streamed shows are still thriving in the current awards landscape.

Everyone's favorite pink Nintendo mascot, Kirby, is returning to Switch very soon. Nintendo announced that Kirby and the Forgotten Land, the character's first 3D platformer, will arrive on the console on March 25th. It previously said the game would be out sometime in the spring.

Nintendo also offered another peek at the adorable-looking game with the latest trailer. It shows off some co-op gameplay — a second player can take control of Bandana Waddle Dee — as well as a look at some of Kirby's new copy abilities. After inhaling certain enemies, Kirby can use a blunderbuss or burrow underground. In addition, the trailer includes a glimpse of some minigames, which include serving snacks from a market stall and kicking back with a spot of fishing.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land is the character's second solo outing on Switch following 2018's Kirby Star Allies. Since then, Kirby has appeared as the protagonist in the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate single-player campaign.

With Mamoru Hosoda’s latest movie opening in US theaters this Friday, Studio Chizu and the film’s distributor have shared a new trailer for Belle. The more than three-minute-long clip shows the movie’s opening scene in its entirety, introducing us to U, Belle’s metaverse-like virtual world. The trailer is mostly a showcase of Studio Chizu’s virtuoso animation work, but we also get to hear an equally great English cover of Millennium Parade’s “U” and learn more about the setting.

The metaverse has been a hot topic recently thanks in large part to the work Meta has done to promote the concept as the next big evolution of the internet, but Belle director Mamoru Hosoda has thinking about what virtual worlds might mean for our interpersonal relationships for a long time. Back in 2009, he directed Summer Wars. That film imagines a world where everything is connected through a separate digital realm. More than a decade ago, the idea seemed outlandish. Now it feels prescient.

Twitter says it's doing more to make sure you don't see anything from accounts you have muted or blocked, as well as any keywords you've muted. It's working on updates to hide those keywords and accounts across more areas of the platform.

On the web and the iOS and Android apps, you should no longer see events from muted and blocked accounts in the Explore tab or the What's Happening sidebar. Nor should they appear in emails from the platform or events-based notifications.

This is a welcome, long-overdue change that should give users more control over what they see on the platform, since they'll have extra assurance that accounts they don't want to hear from won't pop up outside of the timeline. It should also help folks to avoid spoilers in the sidebar if they mute the name of a show or game. Given the wording of the tweets about this update, it seems Twitter is looking at more ways of blotting out tweets from muted and blocked accounts and keywords.

Twitter has tested or rolled out other features to prevent harassment in recent months. It experimented with a Safety Mode that automatically and temporarily blocks accounts that "may use harmful language or send repetitive, uninvited replies." In October, it added a way to remove an unwanted follower without having to block them first.

The Attack on Titan anime series is winding down, and Activision is determined to capitalize on the renewed interest. A bundle launching January 20th will bring 10 Attack on Titan items to Call of Duty: Vanguard and Warzone Pacific. The highlight is a Survey Corps outfit inspired by Survey Corps Captain Levi Ackerman, but you'll also have access to three weapon blueprints (including the Titan Piercer blade) as well as a charm, sticker, emblem, finishing move and highlight material.

Other yet-to-come season updates include a new character (Isabella Rosario Dulnuan Reyes), her preferred submachine gun, and expansions to both gameplay and items in Vanguard's Zombies mode. The relevant patches for Attack on Titan content will appear roughly a week ahead of time at midnight Eastern time on January 12th for Vanguard and January 13th for Warzone.

The addition is an odd one, particularly if you're used to the anime — this is a far more realistic style. You also won't have any giant, naked Titans to fight. Even so, you might not mind if you'd like a video game memento beyond the (now old) Koei Tecmo release.