Adult Swim’s teaming up with Shinichirō Watanabe, director and creator of the original Cowboy Bebop, for a new jazz-tinged sci-fi anime series, as reported by Variety.Lazarus is being animated by MAPPA, the studio behind Chainsaw Man, Zombie Land Saga, latter seasons of Attack of Titan and so many more. Watanabe won’t be alone, as he’s teaming up with Chad Stahelski, the mastermind behind John Wick, to co-create action sequences.

This is a Watanabe joint, so expect plenty of jazzy visuals and audio cues. To that end, Lazarus features music from jazz and electronic musicians such as Kamasi Washington, Floating Points and Bonobo, among others.

So what’s it about? Lazarus is set in the near future and follows a ragtag team chasing down a mad scientist to prevent a mass-poisoning event. There’s no release date yet, but the creators are dropping more information, including a first-look trailer, at the annual Adult Swim Festival this weekend. It’s worth noting that many of the events planned for this festival have been canceled, due to the ongoing writers and actors strikes.

As for that other Cowboy Bebop on Netflix, Watanabe told Forbes that the live-action version is “not Cowboy Bebop.” It doesn’t matter anyways, as Netflix threw down the cancel hammer for that show in late 2021.

The following article contains spoilers for “Lost in Translation”

Late last month, I came off my bicycle and smashed the side of my head on the curb in a fairly dramatic accident. It gave me one hell of a concussion, a smashed-up face and a fair amount of memory loss, including everything about the incident itself. Four weeks later, I’m still struggling, and while I’m feeling a little better every day, it’s a slow process to recovery.

It’s appropriate, then, that this week’s Strange New Worlds touches on that relationship with our memories. The episode asks if memory is tied to empathy and if we can only sympathize with others if their pain calls to our own. I might not be entirely lucid all of the time right now but it certainly does feel like the smartest episode of Star Trek I’ve seen in a while.

Enterprise and the Farragut are headed to a new facility that’s behind schedule, a deuterium extraction base. Starfleet has built the enormous “gas station” inside a nebula on the edge of Gorn space to help fuel a new age of space exploration. And, you know, be a nice strategic location for the already well-telegraphed war with the Gorn that’s coming at some point soon.

Uhura, who has been more involved with this mission than others, is feeling the strain of all the work. She’s having difficulty sleeping, and has been watching videos that Hemmer recorded for her to teach her how to do basic engineering work. At the nebula, she starts hearing the Transformers noise, and experiences flashbacks to the accident that killed her family.

Rather than keep these problems to herself, Uhura wisely goes to Dr. M’Benga for help, but he prescribes rest. The crew believes she’s suffering from deuterium exposure as hallucinations are a common side-effect. But the visions get worse, and she starts seeing Zombie Hemmer – a welcome, if brief return for the much-missed Bruce Horak.

The gas station should have been active a while ago, so Pike sends over Una to crack the whip and Pelia to lend her expertise. There’s tension between the pair, Una acting like the sort of hard charging CEO who ignores Pelia’s soon-proved-right opinion. One of the station’s crew has been sabotaging things, and is seeing the same traumatic visions as Uhura.

As much as the crew is sympathetic to the pair’s plight, they still feel the cause is deuterium poisoning. The only person willing to explore another option is “and special guest star Paul Wesley as James T. Kirk.” He’s over from the Farragut for, uh, reasons, but quickly forms a bond with Uhura, trusting her instincts that something strange is going on.

ASIDE: Those reasons being that Anson Mount was on paternity leave for a chunk of Strange New Worlds’ second season. The crew gave him a greatly-reduced workload, and you’ll notice how little Pike has been present in many episodes. Much as Mount is the show’s star, and a wonderful presence, his reduced visibility here has been a boon for the series overall. More of the ensemble has been given more time in the spotlight, and while the limited episode order hampers some of this broadening out, it’s great to see a more democratic vision of the show.

There’s a touching scene, too, where La’an and Kirk talk about their divergent childhoods, and the absence of parents. George Kirk (still alive in this universe) was missing from much of Jim’s childhood, roaming the universe to save others; La’an, meanwhile, was one of those people saved. It’s a little, elegant reminder of why Starfleet exists, and why so many people in Trek’s fictional world sign up to its mission.

The rogue station crewmember breaks out of sickbay, shuts off the lights and looks to sabotage the Enterprise in the only underwhelming moment in the whole episode. It almost felt like a studio note to break up the pace of the episode with an “action” sequence, albeit one that can be shot on standing sets. The team stumbles around in the darkness of the Enterprise corridors for a bit, before Kirk saves Uhura from an explosion.

After much unraveling, it transpires that the gas station is built on the home of extra-dimensional aliens lurking within the deuterium. Their only way to communicate is to find sympathetic brains and provoke memories of grief, of loss, to try and explain their predicament. Both the station and the starships are pulling in deuterium for fuel, mincing up countless alien lifeforms for power.

Uhura and Kirk go to Pike, who wastes no time in torching the station rather than allowing any more pointless deaths. Uhura can sleep well again, and even Zombie Hemmer has been turned back into Regular Hemmer, smiling in approval. There’s just time for Jim to meet Spock for the first time before we pan out to the credits.

At the risk of sounding like Bill Hader’s impression of Alan Alda, “Lost in Translation” is full of great writing. The screenplay, credited to Onitra Johnson and David Reed, is smarter and subtler than some recent Trek episodes I could mention. While some Strange New Worlds’ episodes can sometimes leap to unintended conclusions while exploring a Big Idea, it works perfectly here. And I must say that it’s a wonderful sight to see Pike choose to torch the station because it’s very clearly the right thing to do. Much as we may miss the debating-hall sequences of golden-age Trek, isn’t it nice to just see people do the thing that aligns with their values rather than spending 35 minutes talking about it beforehand?

This is an exploration of empathy, and how some people get it, and the help that comes with it, while others are left to suffer in ignomy. It speaks to a sense that we’re missing a general sense of empathy in public life, as a number of figures strive to out-do each other in their brutality. Is memory, then, the key to mercy? Are those who were brought up in perpetual comfort less able to feel pity? If it’s the former, it’s a deliciously subtle comment about those with short memories – often emboldened by a political and media culture that values forgetfulness – are forever doomed to make the same mistakes.

ANOTHER ASIDE: A recurring theme in Strange New Worlds’ second season is the function of memory, and not in the way you might expect from a prequel. Rather than amping up the nostalgia bait, the show is instead exploring how memory informs and shapes our society. The one downside of “Among The Lotus Eaters” was that one episode simply couldn’t contain a deeper exploration of its perpetually-amnesiac society.

So, yeah, I’m a fan.

Blizzard is bringing some of its PC games to Steam for the first time. The company announced today that the transition will start with Overwatch 2 on August 10th, but did not go into detail as to what other titles may be coming to the platform.

President of Blizzard Mike Ybarra said in a press release that Battle.net will remain a priority for them but that “we’ve heard players want the choice of Steam for a selection of our games.” The company wants to remind users that while Overwatch 2 will be available on Steam, it still requires that you have a Battle.net account in order to play the game and access features such as cross-platform play. Players will also have access to their Steam friends list and will be able to invite friends on Steam. Blizzard did not announce Steam Deck support, though that won’t stop players from trying to get the game running on it.

Along with Steam support, Overwatch 2 is getting a big update on the same day. Players can expect PvE missions, a new PvP mode and a new hero. Blizzard calls it Overwatch 2: Invasion and says that it will be “a great opportunity for new players.”

Blizzard hasn’t announced what or when other titles will be coming to Steam, noting that it will be sharing that information “when the time is right.” Those eager to download the game on Steam can add it to their wishlist now and you’ll be notified when the game comes out on August 10th.

The good news keeps coming for all Babylon 5 fans: The entire series is coming to Blu-ray just a few months after sharing that an animated feature-length film is in the works. The 30th-anniversary release will include all 110 episodes of its five-season run and its pilot TV movie, The Gathering. Show creator J. Michael Straczynski shared a celebratory tweet directed at fans stating, "YOU WANTED IT, YOU ASKED FOR IT, AND IT'S FINALLY HAPPENED!"

Straczynski's series followed the inhabitants of a 23rd-century Earth Alliance space station set up to mediate peace between five powerful empires. Its initial production wasn't the highest quality — to say the least — jumping between acted scenes and blurry CGI frames. But, in 2021, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment released Babylon 5 Remastered to stream on what was then called HBO Max and as a digital download on iTunes and Amazon. The original camera negatives were scanned in 4K and then downscaled to HD with a clean-up and color correction to boot. The CGI sequences were upscaled to HD, and the show has been available to watch in its original 4:3 ever since.

The Blu-ray release will be "fully remastered in HD," which could be the 2021 update or a newer version. Babylon 5's Blu-ray edition is now available to pre-order for $100 and will be released in the US and Canada on December 5th.

TikTok has started inviting users in Australia, Mexico and Singapore to participate in a closed beta test for its new music streaming service, according to TechCrunch and CNBC. The short-form video hosting app initially launched beta testing for its fledgling streaming service in Brazil and Indonesia in early July. Now, it's expanding the scope of its music service's experimental phase and giving invited users in those regions a free three-month trial to be able to try it out. 

TikTok Music is a completely separate app that testers will be able to download from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. It does, however, connect to the main TikTok app, so users can find the full versions of songs that go viral on the video-sharing platform. The music streaming app reportedly offers personalized song recommendations, real-time lyrics, collaborative playlists and the ability to find songs through a lyrics search feature, as well. TechCrunch says it has a Shazam-like feature, which presumably means it can find songs by listening to it, and will let users download tracks for offline listening. 

The ByteDance-owned app told TechCrunch that once the testers' trial period is done, it will cost them AUD12 (US$8.16) per month in Australia, Mex$115 (US$6.86) in Mexico and S$9.90 (US$7.48) in Singapore to be able to keep using the service. TikTok already has a music streaming service called Resso available in India, Brazil and Indonesia, but it's shutting the app down in the last two countries in September. The company has yet to announce if and when its music app is also coming to the US, but it did file a trademark application for "TikTok Music" in the country back in May 2022. 

Remember Twitter Notes? It was supposed to be the feature that let Twitter users write whatever they want, blowing past the typical Twitter character limit. At the time, that limit was only 280 characters. After several updates this year, Twitter Blue subscribers can tweet up to 25,000 characters. Now, CEO Elon Musk has seemingly confirmed that the company is still working on the Notes feature, but is rebranding it to Twitter Articles.

In a reply to a tweet noting the name change, Musk confirms that Articles will be the place to post “long, complex articles with mixed media.” He goes on to say that “You could publish a book if you want.”

Officially announced last year, Notes was pitched as “a way to write longer on Twitter,” and was initially limited to select users in Canada, Ghana, the United Kingdom and the United States. Notably, this was announced before the Elon Musk takeover later that year, but after he announced his intention to buy the company. This is the first time Twitter has acknowledged the feature since then.

As for what this feature will look like, think blog posts but on Twitter. Articles, which will be separate from the main timeline, is an area where users can post long-form content without the typical limitations of a tweet. That means you’ll be able to embed photos, videos and other tweets within an Article. Users can share Articles in tweets, and published Articles will show up in your Twitter profile.

It’s unclear at this time when or if Articles will be available to the public. The feature is still in the experimental stage it has been in since last year, and is only available to a select number of users.

It was just another day in South Park. The kids were making fun of each other on the playground, while the parents were all doing their best to maintain their sanity in the small Colorado town. And then there was me, a tech journalist going door-to-door warning about the impending AI apocalypse. No, I wasn't actually guest starring on the long-running TV series — I was thrust into an episode entirely produced by the Showrunner AI model from The Simulation, the next iteration of the VR studio Fable.

All it took was some audio of my voice (recorded during a call with The Simulation's CEO Edward Saatchi), a picture and a two-sentence prompt to produce the episode. And while it wasn't the best South Park episode I've seen, I was shocked by how watchable it was. It begins with my AI character popping into Sharon and Randy Marsh's house in the morning, warning them about the AI uprising. Randy is intrigued, but Sharon is annoyed by my arrival (both of which were set up in one sentence of the initial prompt).

"They're [AI] infiltrating every aspect of our lives," my AI character says. "They're in our cars, our phones... even our toasters."

"Our toasters, really? I always knew that little bastard was up to something," Randy replies.

Sure, that's not exactly a tightly crafted joke, but it was enough to make me chuckle. And again, it didn't take much for Showrunner AI to piece that conversation together. Watching this episode made it clear that generative AI can actually produce watchable content (certainly more so than that AI Seinfeld project), but it also made me even more worried about the role of AI in media.

At this moment, writers in the WGA and performers in the SAG-AFTRA unions are striking for better residual pay and protections against potential AI exploitation. A tool like Showrunner AI, which can produce decent content without much effort, threatens creatives everywhere. The WGA strike and the fears around AI-generated content is also the main plot line in the demo South Park episode, "Westland Chronicles."

The Simulation

"Maybe it's a mistake to release it, I'm not sure," Saatchi said over email, when I asked if it's really the best time to launch Showrunner AI. "If our focus was becoming 'the AI TV studio' and gloating that we can make shows with no staff I'd feel very queasy — but we're trying to build a simulation and we need infinite story to make that work."

He added: "Now is the moment, in the biggest strike in 60 years, before AI has achieved takeoff, to negotiate the most aggressive protections possible for writers and actors from producers' use of AI — negotiations now so that these tools are in the hands of artists and creators only and not the hands of producers trying to become Griffin Mill Robert Altman's The Player."

(That character famously said, "I was just thinking what an interesting concept it is to eliminate the writer from the artistic process. If we could just get rid of these actors and directors, maybe we've got something here.")

The idea of building intelligent characters isn't new for Saatchi. In 2018, we discussed Fable Studio's VR adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Wolves in the Wall, which centered on an interactive character named Lucy. Even then, he thought AI-powered beings were more intriguing than the notion of VR storytelling. Now, thanks to the proliferation of generative AI models, he can finally make that happen.

The Simulation

His goal with The Simulation is right there in the name: He wants to create simulations of characters living their lives in specific environments, similar to The Truman Show. That content could be cut down into episodic summaries with Showrunner AI. Like so many in the AI field, Saatchi eventually wants to build AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence, "an AI that reaches and surpasses human intelligence and is, ultimately, a new lifeform."

While many AI experts remain skeptical about the viability of AGI, Showrunner could still end up being a powerful tool. But of course, like any tool, it could end up being used for good or evil. Saatchi envisions it being helpful for creators to build their own shows without a huge budget, but he also admits it could be used by studios to "undermine artistic expression."

The Simulation

After watching myself starring in a South Park episode, though, I'm more worried than hopeful. The tech isn't perfect yet — my voice sometimes sounds overly robotic, and characters pronounce my name differently almost every time — but it's close enough. Saatchi and his team, including the AI research Philipp Maas, who developed the South Park simulation, still preview every episode to ensure they make sense. But with no end in strike for the Hollywood union strikes, it's hard not to imagine some studio looking at this tool as a potential savior.

“We aren’t releasing the Showrunner commercially and aren’t in talks with the South Park people (though we are with several studios about their IP, as well as creators to make original IP) but we used South Park only so that people have a comparison point between a super high quality human show and an AI show," Saatchi said. "If the showrunner was ever released with the permission of an IP (letting fans create their own episodes) we believe all the revenue should go to the IP holders — these are just remixes after all!"

Currently, The Simulation is developing showrunners around other animated concepts, like a space exploration series, and a Silicon Valley satire dubbed "Exit Valley." The technology can't produce live action content yet. The company is also releasing a research paper explaining how its showrunner AI technology works, with the hopes of encouraging more AI workers to build on it.

The most striking thing about my South Park episode is that it actually feels like an episode of the show. Over the course of five minutes, I visited the local school, where all of the kids proceeded to make fun of me. One wisely lectured me about overhyping claims about the AI apocalypse, while I was also warning them to watch out for clickbait. By the end, I was eager to see more. And that was the most worrying thing of all.

NVIDIA just officially released the 2008 fan-made Portal mod, Portal: Prelude. The company dropped it on Steam and, what’s more, it’s free for anyone who has the original game. This isn’t a drab re-release, as the updated release features new textures, full ray tracing, DLSS 3 for increased performance, NVIDIA Reflex for decreased latency and RTX IO for quicker load times.

NVIDIA also dropped a GeForce Game Ready Driver to simplify setup. All of the changes to the remaster were done by modders, keeping with the spirit of the original release, via the company’s forthcoming RTX Remix creator toolkit. NVIDIA also hired famed modders to modernize assets and improve the lighting.

For the uninitiated, Portal: Prelude was originally released back in 2008 and developed by modders. It acts as a prequel to the original game and is set before the time of GLaDOS. The game offers a ten-hour campaign with nearly 20 test chambers, a fully voiced story and mechanics that go beyond the first Portal. It continues to be the highest-rated Portal mod, and there’s no shortage of competition.

This remake took eight months of dev time and acts as a showcase for the aforementioned modding toolkit, RTX Remix. Portal: Prelude is available right now on Steam and won’t cost you anything, as long as you have the original Portal, so get downloading.

The Neopets Team has huge plans for the once-beloved virtual pet website in hopes that it could finally catch up with the times. In a lengthy post on Medium, the team has announced that a new Neopets website is coming on July 20th. It'll still live on the same URL, but it'll contain all the brand's announcements and links to all its different games and products. The people behind the revamp are currently trying to resolve bugs and mobile browser compatibility issues. They're also exploring the use of Ruffle, a Flash player emulator, to make old Flash-based Neopets games playable again. 

The company that owned Neopets planned to create an animated show based on the once-beloved virtual pet website, but it failed to release the series before it shut down. In its announcement, the Neopets team has revealed that it's under new leadership and has raised over $4 million in funding for its future projects. The team members definitely seem optimistic for the future of the brand.

In fact, the team doesn't intend to stop with a revamped website. Apparently, it has decided to transition to a mobile app and to build a social life-simulation game called World of Neopets from the ground up. At the moment, the plan is to develop a game from the perspective of a Neopet. Players will be able to decorate their homes, explore lands in 3D and play mini-games with their friends, akin to titles like Animal Crossing. It sounds like the project is still in its very early stages, though, and it remains to be seen if it will materialize.

Facebook is revamping its in-app video hub to give its content an Instagram-style makeover. The changes will bring Reels’ editing tools to all Facebook videos, as well as a new “Explore” section to highlight trending clips and other recommendations.

It also comes with a new name. The tab previously known as “Facebook Watch” will now simply be called “Video.” The section, which will host short-form clips like Reels as well as live video and longer form content, will continue to live at the top of the Facebook app.

The new branding comes as Facebook’s video strategy has changed dramatically since the “Watch” section debuted in 2017. At the time, the company was heavily pushing TV shows and other longform content created for Facebook. Now, much of Meta’s video ambitions center around its TikTok competitor, Reels, and other algorithmically-recommended clips. Mark Zuckerberg has been saying for the last year that his goal is to shift Facebook into becoming more of a “discovery engine” that surfaces more content outside of users’ social graphs.

Some of those themes are apparent in Facebook’s new video tab, which has a new “Explore” section similar to the Explore grid on Instagram. There, users will find clusters of trending video and other recommendations grouped by hashtag.

Meta is also taking steps to integrate Reels on Facebook more closely with those Instagram. Facebook has encouraged users to cross-post Reels from Instagram to Facebook for some time. Now, the company is also unifying comments across the two apps so users no longer need to switch to the Instagram app in order to comment on a Reel that originated on Instagram.

The changes are beginning to roll out now to the Facebook app and website.