After a week-long tussle with Twitter and owner Elon Musk over labels that the company applied to its accounts, NPR said it will no longer use the platform at all. The organization criticized Twitter over a "state-affiliated media" label that was placed on its main account last week. Twitter later updated the text to read “government-funded media.”

However, NPR said the latest incarnation of the label is "inaccurate and misleading," as it's "a private, nonprofit company with editorial independence." The organization pointed out that federal funding accounts for less than one percent of its $300 million annual budget.

NPR CEO John Lansing said that, as a result of the label, the broadcaster is abandoning Twitter in order to protect its credibility. Until recently, Twitter typically reserved the "state-affiliated media" tag for government-run outlets like Russia's RT and Sputnik and China's Xinhua News Agency. 

"At this point I have lost my faith in the decision-making at Twitter," Lansing said. "I would need some time to understand whether Twitter can be trusted again." The NPR chief also said that "degradation in the culture of Twitter" also played a role in the organization's decision to pause its use of the platform.

Going forward, NPR will no longer "post fresh content" on any of its 52 official feeds. NPR is giving workers who handle its Twitter accounts a two-week grace period to rework their social media strategies. For one thing, they've directed NPR's Twitter followers toward the broadcaster's newsletters and accounts on other social media platforms. The company is leaving it up to staff to decide whether to keep using their personal Twitter accounts.

Twitter has also applied the "government-funded media" label to the BBC's Twitter account, a move that organization has also objected to. In a BBC interview on Wednesday, Musk said the company will tweak the BBC label so that it reads "publicly funded." That would be a more accurate description of how the BBC is funded. Still, Lansing claimed even if Twitter were to backtrack and remove the label from NPR's account, the organization won't start tweeting again right away.

Meanwhile, Musk has revealed how he decides which organizations should have the contentious labels. He's consulting Wikipedia's publicly-funded broadcasters category page. As it happens, several organizations listed on that page — including Canada's CBC, Japan's NHK and the UK's Channel 4 — do not have such labels on their Twitter accounts.

After a day-long absence, Lofi Girl has returned. If you missed yesterday’s news, she went missing as part of an elaborate marketing campaign that saw the Lofi Girl team promise a “surprise” that would take the channel to “new heights.” In the end, that surprise turned out to be a new 24-hour livestream dedicated to synthwave music, a subgenre of electronic music that seeks to emulate the sound and feel of classic sci-fi and horror soundtracks from the '80s. 

Naturally, the new channel has its own mascot, a character the community has taken to calling Lofi Boy. As far as we know, he doesn’t have a name, but like any good synth-loving fan, he has a mechanical keyboard, a retro beige PC with CRT monitor and what looks like a Sony Walkman for the rare moments when he gets to leave his room.

As with the original Lofi Girl YouTube channel, you can find playlists featuring tracks from the Synthwave Radio station on Spotify and other music streaming platforms.

Substack has officially launched Notes for all users. The new product takes a lot of cues from Twitter and joins the long list of services looking to lure away users from Elon Musk’s beleaguered social network. At first (and second) glance, Substack Notes looks a whole lot like Twitter. Instead of tweets, you have notes. Instead of retweets, you get restacks. You can post external links, images, videos and anything else that strikes your fancy.

Substack

Your feed is broken up into two groups. The "Home" tab is the extended network comprised of creators you subscribe to, other users these creators recommend and anyone you follow. The "Subscribed" tab is reserved for content creators, prioritizing notes and activity from creators you actually subscribe to. 

"Historically, having worthy posts get shared widely is one of the major ways that writers find growth on Substack,” the company writes. “Notes will help posts find a valuable audience of writers and readers who are already invested in the Substack ecosystem and are just one click away from a subscription.”

Substack Notes already caused a fair bit of controversy straight from its first announcement last week. Upon that announcement, Twitter began blocking engagement with Substack-related tweets, though the social media giant has paused its whole bully routine. This is definitely a year of growth for Substack, with the platform attracting high-profile creators and adding a chat feature to further cement the service as a pseudo-social network.

While Notes comes pre-seeded with influencers who have large Substack followings, the company clarified to Engadget that "anyone can use Notes just like writers can." It's not clear in practice whether regular folks will want to turn Notes into a second Twitter or just a place to maintain a connection with their favorite newsletter creators. 

Substack says this is still an early version of the product, so users should expect “bumps, bugs and imperfections,” though it encourages them to take to Notes to issue feedback. The company also says this is just a small piece of a larger puzzle intended to bring more revenue and exposure to content creators.

Sony-owned Media Molecule has revealed it will stop active development of Dreams later this year. After a final update in September, live support for the game creation platform will come to an end, though the studio will still deploy critical bug fixes when necessary.

The decision means that Dreams will not be updated to include multiplayer support, as had long been the plan. Nor will Media Molecule release versions of Dreams for PlayStation 5 or PlayStation VR2. Dreams arrived on PS4 in early 2020 and Media Molecule added PSVR support a few months later.

Dreams will remain on sale and it’ll still be possible to create experiences and check out ones made by other folks. As part of a server transition, though, Media Molecule will impose new storage limits on player creations. Users will have an online storage capacity of 5GB, but existing projects don’t count toward the limit.

Moreover, Media Molecule will stop running its own Dreams events that were designed to shine a spotlight on some of the most impressive and captivating community creations. The studio is also nixing some features, including native Twitch support (but you’ll likely still be able to stream what you’re doing in Dreams via console-level Twitch integration).

It’s a shame to see Media Molecule abandoning Dreams. The platform is home to a wide array of compelling experiences. Some creators have even landed jobs in game development as a result of their Dreams concoctions. Last year, Sony's movie division scooped up the rights to release a film that's partially being made in Dreams.

It seems that Dreams wasn’t quite as successful as Media Molecule and Sony had hoped in order to justify continued work on the platform. “Whilst we’ve always had the desire to build on the foundation of Dreams and expand the experience, when reviewing our plans we were not able to define a sustainable path,” the studio wrote in its announcement.

Media Molecule says it’s moving on to an “exciting new project” that isn’t connected to Dreams but noted that the decision to end development on the platform wasn’t an easy one. “Dreams has been a special project for Media Molecule, and helping this burgeoning community of game developers, tinkerers, creatives, collaborators and dreamers grow and express themselves remains one of the best things we’ve ever done,” it said.

Both Canalys and IDC estimate worldwide computer shipments dropped 29 to 33 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2023. That's a steep drop, and none of the major PC brands escaped the worst of the downturn. Second-place HP escaped relatively lightly with a 24 percent drop in shipments, while fourth-place Apple felt the most pain with a plummet of more than 40 percent. Economic instability and inflation have been blamed for the drop, with most analysts predicting that PCs will bounce back, to some degree, within the year.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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'The Super Mario Bros. Movie' sets box office records

It’s the highest grossing video game movie.

Nintendo

The Super Mario Bros. Movie hit theaters last week and broke records with the release raking in just over $146 million domestically. As Deadline says, that makes it the highest-grossing opening weekend for any video game-based movie. It's not just animated and video game movies it's stacking up against, either. The Super Mario Bros. Movie had the historically third-highest Easter weekend sales after Batman vs. Superman's $181 million and Furious 7's $161 million.

Continue reading.

Twitter bug makes some private Circle tweets public

Your secret tweets may be visible to strangers.

Twitter users have discovered a bug that exposes at least some private Circle posts to outsiders. They frequently show up in followers' For You recommendations, but some say the content is reaching total strangers. As you might imagine, that could be problematic if you're discussing a sensitive topic or want to minimize harassment.

It’s the latest technical issue since Elon Musk bought the company and laid off many employees. There have been multiple outages, troublesome API changes and confusion over feature rollouts and removals.

Continue reading.

Netflix is making an animated 'Stranger Things' spin-off

Add it to a VR game and a stage play.

Netflix

Netflix has announced an animated series based on one of its biggest hits. The company hasn't revealed many details about the latest spin-off just yet. Glitch Techs and Fanboy & Chum Chum creator Eric Robles and Flying Bark Productions are developing the animated series.

"We’ve always dreamed of an animated Stranger Things in the vein of the Saturday morning cartoons that we grew up loving, and to see this dream realized has been absolutely thrilling," the Duffer brothers told Variety. "We couldn’t be more blown away by what Eric Robles and his team have come up with — the scripts and artwork are incredible, and we can’t wait to share more with you!" The fifth and final season of the original show has been confirmed, but that’s unlikely to stop them wringing every last drop of content from the series.

Continue reading.

Museum creates a 20-foot ‘Donkey Kong’ cabinet with a little help from Nintendo

And you’ll be able to play it.

Strong Museum

The Strong National Museum of Play in New York unveiled an absolutely massive Donkey Kong arcade cabinet that's nearly 20 feet tall. Donkey Kong, the character, is co-starring in the biggest movie in the world right now, so it is only fitting he also gets an equally gargantuan arcade cabinet.

The museum indicated in a tweet that Nintendo helped out with the massive arcade cabinet, and visitors will be able to use it after it’s fully installed on June 30th. You’ll have to climb a ladder to play it, which is a very Donkey Kong thing to do.

Continue reading.

Don't count on your Twitter Circle tweets being limited to a close-knit group, at least for the time being. Users have discovered a bug that exposes at least some private Circle posts to outsiders. They frequently show up in followers' For You recommendations, but some say the content is reaching total strangers. As you might imagine, that could be problematic if you're discussing a sensitive topic or want to minimize potential harassment.

Twitter is unavailable for comment as it has disbanded its public relations team. Creator Theo Brown tellsTechCrunch Twitter may be failing to filter Circle tweets out of its recommendation system before they're shared with other users.

Circles have been glitchy for months, but the flaws aren't known to have shared tweets with people outside a Circle. They sometimes haven't included the label indicating their Circle-only status, even if it was clear they couldn't be shared elsewhere. This is considerably worse — you now can't trust that a private post will stay that way.

Twitter has dealt with a growing number of technical issues since Elon Musk bought the company and laid off many employees. There have been multiple outages, troublesome API changes and confusion over feature rollouts and removals. While these hiccups aren't necessarily prompting a user exodus, they don't help at a time when the social media giant is reportedly struggling to keep advertisers and turn a profit.

Did you ever want to see how the creators of Wallace and Grommit would handle the Star Wars universe? You're about to get your chance. Disney has released a trailer for Star Wars: Visions Volume 2, and it includes a peek at Aardman's short film "I Am Your Mother." To no one's surprise, it includes the studio's characteristic humor and ridiculously cute stop-motion animation — let's just say that Wookiee rage has never been more endearing.

The nine-short anthology includes projects from a wider selection of countries than the first collection. Pixar veteran Rodrigo Blaas is involved, as are accomplished outlets like Studio Mir and Triggerfish. As before, these aren't canonical tales — they're explorations of the Star Wars universe using a range of animation styles and storytelling formats.

Star Wars: Visions Volume 2 reaches Disney+ on May 4th (aka Star Wars Day). To some degree, this is Disney's way to fill the gap between marquee live action shows like The Mandalorian season three and Ahsoka. You might not mind, however, if you'd like to see some fresh takes on an otherwise familiar space fantasy.

Did you ever want to see how the creators of Wallace and Grommit would handle the Star Wars universe? You're about to get your chance. Disney has released a trailer for Star Wars: Visions Volume 2, and it includes a peek at Aardman's short film "I Am Your Mother." To no one's surprise, it includes the studio's characteristic humor and ridiculously cute stop-motion animation — let's just say that Wookiee rage has never been more endearing.

The nine-short anthology includes projects from a wider selection of countries than the first collection. Pixar veteran Rodrigo Blaas is involved, as are accomplished outlets like Studio Mir and Triggerfish. As before, these aren't canonical tales — they're explorations of the Star Wars universe using a range of animation styles and storytelling formats.

Star Wars: Visions Volume 2 reaches Disney+ on May 4th (aka Star Wars Day). To some degree, this is Disney's way to fill the gap between marquee live action shows like The Mandalorian season three and Ahsoka. You might not mind, however, if you'd like to see some fresh takes on an otherwise familiar space fantasy.

Google announced a feature drop today for YouTube Premium users. Perhaps the most anticipated addition is iOS SharePlay support, which follows the release of Google’s equivalent feature in Meet video calls.

The company says iOS SharePlay support will arrive “in the coming weeks” for YouTube Premium subscribers. Apple launched SharePlay in 2021 in the wake of pandemic lockdowns, allowing people to watch media together through Apple’s video-calling service. However, YouTube is late to the party as a long list of video streaming services — including Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu and many others — have been compatible with SharePlay for months, if not years. (Netflix is a remaining holdout.) Assuming YouTube SharePlay works like Google Meet Live Sharing, only the person setting up the call would need a Google account subscribed to YouTube Premium; other participants wouldn’t.

Google is also adding YouTube video queuing to mobile devices. Premium subscribers can now add new videos to watch next — like they’ve been able to on the web since 2019. The mobile version of the feature initially appeared late last year in beta under the Android app’s “Try new features” section.

Also arriving “in the coming weeks” is enhanced 1080p streaming for YouTube Premium subscribers on iOS. Google acknowledged the feature was under testing in February after a small group of users reported seeing the option. It uses a higher bitrate (YouTube sends more data per second), which should lead to a better-looking picture. During the beta test, Google claimed the quality of standard 1080p streaming would be unaffected, meaning it wouldn’t nerf video quality for free users to drive subscriptions.

Premium subscribers on Android, iOS and the web will also soon see a new feature that lets them easily pick up YouTube videos where they left off on another device. Additionally, the new Smart Downloads feature on mobile will automatically add recommended videos to your library (when connected to WiFi) for offline viewing. Of course, if you don’t want to waste storage, you can turn off the feature in the app’s settings menu.

Disney's Star Wars: The Bad Batch is coming back for one last ride with a third and final season with Lucasfilm announcing the news on the fourth day of the Star Wars Celebration 2023 event. The show follows the Clone Wars, depicting a group of experimental clone troopers, each with their own skill, who break away from their army units to form a mercenary group

Executive producers Athena Portillo, Jennifer Corbett, and Brad Rau shared the news during a panel at the celebration, available to watch through a recorded stream of the Star Wars Celebration. The teaser trailer debuted during the panel, but it hasn't been independently released yet.  

The annual Star Wars celebration serves as a platform to announce big releases as well as cultivate the franchise’s vast fanbase, such as connecting cast and crew with fans. This year’s announcements include Return of the Jedi's 40th anniversary return to theaters, cast members for upcoming releases Acolyte and Ahsoka, and over 20 new figurines from Hasboro Star Wars. Star Wars: The Bad Batch season three is already in production, but it isn't slated to debut until sometime in 2024. In the meantime, seasons one and two are available to stream on Disney+.