District 9 director Neill Blomkamp never did get to make his Halo movie. However, Blomkamp still has a foothold in the video game world after directing an Anthem prequel short film. He's now helping a studio called Gunzilla Games with its first game, a multiplayer shooter.
Blomkamp — who also directed Elysium, Chappieand the upcoming Demonic — has joined Gunzilla as chief visionary officer, as IGNreports. He'll help guide the aesthetic of the game and provide input on aspects such as design, audio and the narrative from a film director's perspective. He admitted that he hasn't worked in game development before, so collaborating closely with other key creatives on the project will be crucial.
The studio was formed last year and employs developers who have experience at the likes of Crytek, Ubisoft and EA. The shooter, which is still largely under wraps, might not be a one-and-done deal for Oscar nominee Blomkamp.
"Games will [...] become what films were in the 20th century," he told IGN. "They'll just be the thing that is the dominant form of cultural entertainment and [I want] to be in that. Mixing my history in visual effects and interest in 3D graphics means I want to have a home base in the creation of games for a really long time. So if the game is a success and everything works out, hopefully I'm staying at Gunzilla for a long time."
Blomkamp is joining a long line of notable filmmakers and creatives from other mediums who've moved into games. Guillermo del Toro was set to direct the canceled Silent Hillsalongside Hideo Kojima, while George R. R. Martin helped craft the world of Elden Ring. Steven Spielberg has credits on several games too. Along with his work on the Medal of Honor series, he was creative director on an EA puzzle game called Boom Blox.
Casio has unveiled a new digital watch made in collaboration with Bandai Namco, paying homage to not one but two digital classics from the late '70s and early '80s. The A100WEPC Pac-Man edition has a design based on the Casio's F-100 digital watch from 1978, and celebrates one of the most famous games of all time: Pac-Man.
The F-100 was one of the most advanced watches you could buy at the time, offering a stopwatch, digital alarm and calendar features. It was also the first watch with a resin case, as Casio notes in a press release. It's perhaps most famous for being the watch worn by Ripley and other characters from the 1979 movie Alien.
The A100WEPC reprises that with the same four-button layout. At the same time, the watch face features the Pac-Man and ghost characters, with the center illuminator logo rendered with the Pac-Man font. The face replicates the Pac-Man game screen, while the top watch band is laser etched with a Pac-Man character being chased by ghosts, with the reverse on the bottom band. It comes with special packaging featuring the Pac-Man characters and game score screen.
Casio's watch isn't the first with a Pac-Man theme, as the $79 Timex T80 x Pac-Man also fetes the retro title. However, since Casio pairs it with a watch design from the same period, it's perhaps a bit more desirable for fans of the game.
The base AW100WE model, which came out last month, offers water resistance, a 1/10 second stopwatch, daily alarm, hourly time signal, auto-calendar and LED light. It's scheduled to be released in August in Japan for ¥12,100, or about $110 — a relative bargain for enthusiastic Pac-Man fans.
The rumors of a CNN streaming service were true. The network has unveiled a CNN+ service that will offer a blend of live and on-demand shows that are "separate and distinct" from existing TV coverage. It will debut sometime in the first quarter of 2022. CNN hasn't narrowed down the price, but lead executive Andrew Morse told Variety in an interview that there wouldn't be an ad-supported tier at launch.
The centerpiece, as you'd expect, will be the live material. CNN+ plans to offer eight to 12 hours of in-depth topical coverage and "lifestyle" material every day, with both veterans and newcomers at the helm. You'll also have chances to interact with anchors and experts in real-time discussions. This won't be a digital replica of CNN's usual news, then, but you may have reasons to tune in every day.
The on-demand catalog unsurprisingly taps into CNN's existing collection, including shows like Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown and United Shades of America. There will be original shows and movies for the internet service, although CNN+ won't reveal those until later in 2021.
Officially, Morse said CNN+ wouldn't be bundled or otherwise tie into HBO Max despite the WarnerMedia connection. Variety sources, however, claimed there was a "strong probability" the service would be bundled with HBO Max and Discovery+ after WarnerMedia and Discovery finalize their merger.
Morse considered the CNN+ launch the largest the network has had since it started TV service in June 1980. It was also a chance to experiment with formats that blur distinctions between entertainment and news, the executive added.
The question, of course, is whether or not viewers will bite. CNN has had success with long-form content like the late Anthony Bourdain's shows, but it's not clear if people are ready to pay a monthly fee to see them. There's also the matter of streaming service overload — you might not be thrilled to subscribe to yet another offering just to be sure you catch everything CNN has to offer.
Are you more comfortable singing behind a virtual persona than you are on a real stage? Your reality TV show has arrived. Pitchfork and AV Club report that Fox is launching a "world's first" avatar singing competition series, Alter Ego, that will have celebrity judges gather in real life to gauge the performances of amateur singers who use avatars to "reinvent themselves."
You'll likely recognize the judge panel. Canadian artists Grimes (pictured above) and Alanis Morrissette will join Will.i.am and Nick Lachey in critiquing the music, while Emmy winner Rocsi Diaz will host the affair. Alter Ego debuts sometime in the fall.
It's an unusual concept, but not necessarily a bad one. In theory, this could help budding talent overcome stage fright or self-esteem issues by using an avatar as a stand-in. It's certainly a fitting show for a tech-savvy artist like Grimes. It's just a question of whether or not audiences enjoy the concept. Anonymizing music shows like The Masked Singer have been hits, but they still involve a physical presence for the participants — there's a chance viewers might not be so thrilled about digital concerts.
Facebook isn't exactly enthusiastic about President Biden's claim that it and other social networks are "killing people" by allowing COVID-19 misinformation to spread. The social media firm posted a refutation of the allegations, using data to suggest that something other than Facebook was responsible for a slowdown in vaccination rates and a rise in cases.
The company noted that vaccine acceptance in user polling had risen from 70 percent in January 2021 to as high as 85 percent in July, and that cultural group disparities had declined "considerably" over the same period. This was ahead of Biden's goal of getting 70 percent of Americans vaccinated by July — to Facebook, this was a sign the company was "not the reason" the US fell short of that target.
Facebook added that Canada and the UK had higher vaccination percentages despite using the social network about as much as their American counterparts. There's "more than Facebook" to the US results, the company said. It also pointed to its efforts to both promote accurate claims and fight falsehoods, including the use of misinformation labels, reduced exposure and takedowns.
The internet giant didn't attempt to find an alternate explanation for US troubles. Some observers have pointed to a possible link between political affiliation and vaccination rates, but Facebook didn't even hint at this in its refutal.
It's not a flawless argument. Facebook is trying to draw a link between its polling data and the entire US, which doesn't make for a neat and tidy comparison. The company also hasn't shared estimates of how much COVID-19 misinformation slips through the cracks. The social site has a strong incentive to downplay its possible contribution to the problem given past complaints that it hasn't done enough to stop misinformation campaigns.
At the same time, the data shifts the attention back to the Biden administration — it may need to provide more substantial data if it's going to show that health misinformation on social networks like Facebook is a major threat, as the US Surgeon General recently said. If nothing else, it suggests the answer is a complicated one regardless of how much Facebook is responsible.
There are, for the most part, two types of Disney Parks fans. There are those who see it as a nice thing to do with your family once in a while, and there are those who take it… a little more seriously. The upcoming Behind the Attraction, hitting Disney+ on July 21st, is a show that’s aimed at turning more of those casual tourists into dedicated fans, by explaining the backstory behind famous attractions like Star Tours, the Haunted Mansion and Space Mountain.
Each episode features lots of old footage, talking heads, conceptual art and snark. If you’re thinking that sounds like The Toys That Made Us, but for Disney Parks, you’d be absolutely correct. Behind the Attraction is produced and directed by Brian Volk-Weiss, the creative mind behind Netflix docuseries like TTTMU and The Movies That Made Us. He was specifically sought out by Disney+ for his style which, by his own description, is “focused more on fun” and doesn’t treat its subject like “the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.” He loves documentaries, but hates when they take silly topics too seriously.
Disney Parks
To wit, the series is narrated by comedy veteran Paget Brewster, an actress who has been in The Venture Bros., Community and Another Period. Disney fans will probably recognize her best as the voice of Della Duck on the 2017 DuckTales reboot. She adopts a light playful tone, as far from Morgan Freeman you can get. Also on board is executive producer Dwayne Johnson, who stars in Disney’s upcoming live action Jungle Cruise film. Is there an episode about the Jungle Cruise attraction? Of course there is.
Besides that, the other four episodes available this week focus on the Haunted Mansion, Star Tours, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Space Mountain. (Episodes about things like the castles and transportation systems, as well as famous rides like “It’s a Small World” and Pirates of the Caribbean are being held for later in the year.) They trace the history and development of each individual attraction with clips from shows like 1955’s Disneyland and The Wonderful World of Disney, news segments, and a mix of new and old interviews. Anyone who watched the docuseries The Imagineering Story (also on Disney+) will recognize a lot of reused footage from there. Which of course begs the question, why did we need another behind-the-scenes show?
Disney Parks
The biggest difference between the two is that The Imagineering Story takes a strict chronological approach, starting with the origin story behind Walt Disney’s desire to build a theme park, progressing through the opening of Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Epcot and so on. The later episodes focus less on a historical outlook and more on “look at what cool technology we built for this new thing.” Which leads to a sort of unbalanced feel to the program, as well as a greater sense that it’s one big travel brochure for the Disney Parks.
Which isn’t to say that Behind the Attraction isn’t one big advertisement. I certainly want to visit Disney Shanghai after getting a look at the development of its Storybook Castle and TRON Lightcycle Power Run. But because the new show takes a more topical approach, it’s a lot more “snackable,” with episodes that can be watched in any order according to what interests you the most.
Each episode still follows its individual subject chronologically, like how the Hall of Presidents episode goes into the development of the original “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln” show at the 1964 World’s Fair to the installation of the attraction at Disneyland, the creation of the full Hall of Presidents at Walt Disney World to today’s animatronics like the ones used on Avengers Campus at California Adventure. The Imagineering Story talks about the development of the “Stuntronics” as well, but it’s Behind the Attraction that draws a straight line for the viewer from Abraham Lincoln giving a speech to Spider-Man doing somersaults in the air. You actually understand how tech created in 1964 can still shape something built in 2020.
Disney Parks
While it's unlikely that Behind the Attraction will ever delve into the various faceplants the company has taken over the years the way YouTube shows like Yesterworld and Defunctland do, the new show is at least capable of admitting when certain things didn’t work. The Haunted Mansion had to be completely rethought for Shanghai, while Japan got a different backstory for its Tower of Terror. And the original Jungle Cruise had no dad jokes!
Of course, there are no Splash Mountain or Captain EO episodes, so we don’t know yet how the show will deal with some of the more unsavory or embarrassing bits of Disney Park history. Which is fine, since Behind the Attraction isn’t intended to be a complete history of Disney, just a quick half-hour show that will have you going “did you know?” to all your friends and family the next time you visit the Magic Kingdom.
Joe Biden said that Facebook and other social media platforms are “killing people” by allowing misinformation about COVID-19 to spread on their platforms.
Biden’s comments came in response to a reporter who asked the president what his message to “platforms like Facebook” was regarding misinformation about COVID-19. “They’re killing people,” Biden said. “I mean they’re really — look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they’re killing people.”
His remarks, one day after the Surgeon general issued an unusual health advisory on the dangers of vaccine misinformation, comes amid mounting pressure for Facebook and other platforms to do more to address misinformation about the coronavirus vaccines. But Facebook has come under particular scrutiny due to its size, and spotty history with countering vaccine falsehoods.
Reporter: "What's your message to platforms like Facebook?"
A widely cited reported from the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that much of the vaccine misinformation that spreads online can be linked to just 12 individuals — many of whom remain active on Facebook despite the company’s attempts to crack down on vaccine misinformation in recent months. Facebook didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The event will feature updates about existing and upcoming games, as well as giveaways and tournaments. QuakeCon Twitch partners will be streaming throughout the event and encouraging viewers to donate to charities including Asian Americans Advancing Justice, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, The Trevor Project and UNICEF. Bethesda gave away a few Quake games last year after virtual attendees smashed donation targets.
Last April, Facebook’s AI research lab (FAIR) announced and released as open source its BlenderBot social chat app. While the neophyte AI immediately proved far less prone to racist outbursts than previous attempts, BlenderBot was not without its shortcomings. For one, the system had the recollection capacity of a goldfish — any subject or data point the AI wasn’t initially trained simply didn’t exist in its online reality, as evidenced by the OG BB’s continued insistence that Tom Brady still plays for the New England Patriots. For another, due to its limited knowledge of current events, the system had a strong tendency to hallucinate knowledge, like a digital Dunning-Kruger effect. But the advancements BlenderBot 2.0 displays, which FAIR debuted on Friday, should make the AI far more sociable, knowledgeable, and capable.
While BlenderBot 1.0 could only maintain its memory for a single discussion, its successor can remember topics of conversation over the course of multiple talks that can take days, weeks or even months to complete thanks to the implementation of a long-term memory module. What’s more, the AI can actively update its knowledge base by searching the internet for the latest news and details on any subject that the user wishes to speak about.
“BlenderBot 2 queries the Bing API for search results based on a generated search query, and conditions its response on the top few results,” Kurt Shuster, Research Engineer at Facebook AI, told Engadget. “We rely on Bing to provide high quality search results.” As such, BlenderBot 2.0 is now capable of speaking coherently about breaking news and new media, not just the data it was trained upon.
FAIR
“BlenderBot 2 is limited only by what a powerful search engine can provide,” Jason Weston, Research Scientist at Facebook AI, added. So for example, if you are more interested in learning about Tom Yewcic (the Patriot’s combo QB/Punter from the 1962 season) than you are about Tom Brady, BB 2.0 has you covered. It’s the same with more scholarly subjects, like photosynthesis or redox reactions, Weston continued. So long as the information is available on the web, “there is no reason BlenderBot 2 cannot discuss this.”
By actively searching the internet for information, BlenderBot 2.0 can also reduce the instances in which it hallucinates knowledge. “Providing the system with more commonsense reasoning will allow BlenderBot to make sure it does not confuse subtle concepts,” Weston explained, “such as a movie director versus a producer or a pitching coach versus a hitting coach.”
FAIR
The only wrinkle really occurs when discussing non-english based media, such as Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. “It is reasonable to conclude Bing will surface information about it and BlenderBot 2 can use that information accordingly,” he said. “We currently focus on english-based search results, so non-english references may not be fully covered.” The system will, however, recognize that Demon Slayer is of interest to you and will be more likely to bring up manga-centric subjects in future discussions.
FAIR has taken multiple steps to ensure that BlenderBot does not become the next Tay. “BlenderBot 2 does not learn directly from user input, as Tay did,” Shuster said. “We have taken extensive safety steps to ensure that BlenderBot 2 can handle adversarial users. Specifically, we employ both baked-in and two-stage techniques. BlenderBot 2 can detect itself if the incoming context will result in an offensive response, and additional safety layers where a safety classifier can detect if either the user input or the bot's output is offensive. Each handles the response appropriately.”
And while the system is currently focused on chewing its way through the English language corpus, FAIR does see BlenderBot does eventually extend to other languages as well. “While not in our immediate plans, the goal of our team is to build a superhuman conversationalist,” Shuster said. “This kind of agent requires multilingual understanding.”
Recent internal benchmarking processes found that BlenderBot 2.0 outperformed its predecessor by 17 percent in its engagingness score and 55 percent in its use of previous conversation sessions according to human evaluators, per a Friday blog from FAIR. What’s more, BlenderBot's rate of knowledge hallucinations dropped from 9 percent (!) in BB 1.0 down to just 3 percent in the current iteration.
Looking ahead, “humans interacting with AI systems via discourse is the future of AI,” Weston asserted, “and ensuring that humans have an engaging, informative experience is critical to that future. BlenderBot 2 combines the engagingness of BlenderBot 1.0 with the knowledge capabilities of a system with access to the entire internet, so ostensibly we are on the right track.”
Those who find Alexa's default voice too cold can have the digital assistant mimic celebs. Though, in the past, the only A-list impression the AI could do was everyone's fave badass Samuel L. Jackson. Turns out, people liked the idea of ordering a weather report from a superstar, because Amazon is adding two more famous voices to Alexa's toolkit. The new options include four-time NBA champ Shaquille O'Neal and Oscar-nominated actor Melissa McCarthy.
Amazon says the SLJ skill, introduced for a limited price of $0.99, became one of its top-selling digital purchases upon launch. The new voice options don't come with an early discount, so you'll have to fork out $5 for each. But, the prospect of hearing Shaq rap and McCarthy tell jokes may seal the deal for some. If you want to try before you buy, check out the voice samples below.
Alexa grew into an impersonator thanks to advancements in its neural text-to-speech technology. The AI is clearly getting smarter all the time as Amazon is introducing a new original voice option and new wake word ("Ziggy") too.
