Hit video game Among Us is getting the cartoon treatment, as originally reported by Variety. CBS Studios is behind the venture, partnering up with Innersloth, the game studio originally responsible for the indie sensation. There looks to be plenty of talent behind the scenes here, as the showrunner is Owen Dennis, the creator of the criminally-underrated Infinity Train. Titmouse Studios is handling the animation, after successful work on shows like Star Trek: Lower Decks and Bigmouth.

If you are at all familiar with the game, the series description will seem like deja vu. The show will feature the crew of a spacecraft as they are murdered and replaced by an alien shapeshifter in an attempt to sabotage the ship and cause mass confusion. In other words, it’s the game, only with professional voice actors instead of your friends and family.

There’s no voice cast yet, or even some simple still shots of the animation. There hasn’t even been a streaming platform or network announced to house the cartoon, but with CBS Studios bankrolling, Paramount+ is a good bet. Though, Paramount+ has been doing that thing modern streamers do where they not only cancel shows but immediately delete them, so who knows.

Should you be excited for this animated series? Creator Owen Dennis cut his teeth on the critically acclaimed Cartoon Network series Regular Show before moving onto the absolutely stellar Infinity Train. Dennis served as showrunner throughout all four seasons of Infinity Train before it was, you’ll never guess, canceled and then completely erased by Max. There’s no official DVDs or Blu-Rays, but you can purchase the episodes digitally via Amazon and Apple to see what all the fuss is about.

In the meantime, the Among Us series has no release date, though the show is covered by The Animation Guild and not the WGA, so work should be able to proceed without crossing picket lines.

Apple is borrowing a marketing tactic from Twitter pirates. The company made the unusual move of uploading the entire first episode of its series Silo to the social platform, allowing anyone there to watch the opening installment for free. The gambit follows Twitter’s move to allow longer video uploads for subscribers. The free episode may be worth checking out: Engadget found the Apple TV+ original series to be “simply transcendent sci-fi TV.”

Silo is based on the science fiction novel Wool by American author Hugh Howey. It takes place on a post-apocalyptic version of Earth, where what remains of humanity is confined to the Silo, a 144-story underground bunker that serves as a self-sufficient underground community. The citizens are told that the world outside the Silo is perilous, but questions arise about what truly lies beyond. It’s a clever premise that allows showrunner Graham Yost to explore the book’s themes about truth vs. fiction and information as power. Apple has reportedly renewed the series for a second season.

Rebecca Ferguson (Dune) stars as Juliette Nichols, an engineer who uncovers a web of secrets after her lover, George (Ferdinand Kingsley), is murdered. The series also stars Rashida Jones, David Oyelowo, Common, Tim Robbins and Harriet Walter.

Episodes one through nine of Silo are available to stream now on Apple TV+. The season finale (titled “Outside”) premieres this Friday.

TikTok has recently faced scrutiny over child safety issues in the US and elsewhere due to its youth-skewing userbase and reams of inappropriate content on the platform. Now, the company (owned by China's ByteDance) has announced that it's is giving parents more control over what their teens can see. It's adding new content filtering controls to its "Family Pairing" feature, letting parents filter out videos containing specific words or hashtags — while still keeping kids in the loop. 

TikTok introduced Family Pairing back in 2020 as a way to let parents link directly to their kids' accounts then remotely disable direct messages, set screen time limits and enable a "restricted content" mode. And last year, it added a tool that automatically filters out videos with words or hashtags users may not want to see in their For You or Following feeds. 

The new controls essentially combine those two features, giving parents the option to remotely filter out videos from their kids accounts in For You or Following with specific words or hashtags. "We're bringing this [content filtering] tool to Family Pairing to empower caregivers to help reduce the likelihood of their teen viewing content they may uniquely find jarring," TikTok wrote.

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At the same time, kids will be alerted to their parents' selected filters and can choose not to opt-in, the company told Sky News. "By default, teens can view the keywords their caregiver has added and we believe this transparency can also help to prompt conversations about online boundaries and safety," the company wrote. "We also wanted to make sure we respect young people's right to participate."

At the same time, TikTok announced that it will form a global Youth Council later this year. The aim, it said, will be to "listen to the experiences of those who directly use our platform and be better positioned to make changes to create the safest possible experience for our community."

TikTok has been criticized for exposing children to videos showing self-harm, eating disorders and other inappropriate content, often disguised by slightly altered hashtags designed by bypass moderation. The company is facing new content regulations in UK via the Online Safety Bill, and US lawmakers are working on a Kids Online Safety Act that would force social media companies like TikTok to add online safeguards for children. TikTok was recently banned in Montana, but the company is suing the state on the grounds that the ban violates the First Amendment and other laws. 

Meta has added new tools to its Family Center that will allow parents to see and control how their teenage kids are using Messenger. They'll now be able to view how much time their kid spends on the app, along with their privacy and safety settings. Parents and guardians will be able to see who can message their child and who can see their stories. In addition, they can get notifications for changes to their teen's contact list and for any changes their kid makes to their privacy and safety settings. If their child reports a user to Meta, parents can also get notified if their teen chooses to share the information with them. 

The social networking giant said these are but the first batch of parental supervision tools coming to Family Center, and that it plans to add more over the next year. While they're only rolling out for users in the US, UK and Canada at the moment, Meta intends to expand their availability to other regions around the world in the coming months. Take note that Facebook has had parental controls for Messenger Kids for years, and these tools are for the main Messenger app, meant for parents with teens 13 to 18 years old. 

Facebook/Meta

Aside from these new parental tools, Meta will now show teens a notification when they've already spent 20 minutes on Facebook to urge them to set daily time limits. For Instagram, it's exploring a new nudge feature that will ask teens to close the app if they've been scrolling Reels at night. Meta has also expanded its parental controls for Instagram to show parents how many friends their teen has in common with accounts they follow and are followed by. Plus, teens will get a new notification after they've blocked someone, encouraging them to add their parents to supervise their account. 

Instagram/Meta

The company has a few safety updates that aren't teen-focused, as well. It's rolling out Quiet Mode, which mutes all notifications and changes a user's profile status, on Instagram around the world over the coming weeks. It's also currently testing a couple of new features meant to protect Instagram users from unwanted DMs. Users must now send an invite to connect to someone who doesn't follow them before being able to send a message. Further, they can only send one invite at a time and can't send more until the recipient accepts it. These message request invites are text only, prohibiting users from being able to send photos, videos or voice messages to other users they're not connected to. 

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If you’re a Star Trek fan and haven’t watched Prodigy yet, you may want to do so before next week. According to The Hollywood Reporter (via io9), Paramount+ has canceled the series alongside a handful of other shows, including Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies and The Game. Taking a page from Disney and Max owner Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Global is also removing Star Trek: Prodigy, and the other shows it canceled on Friday, from Paramount+ in exchange for a tax writeoff. Fans have until sometime next week to watch the series before its fate becomes uncertain.

“As we prepare to combine Paramount+ and Showtime later this month in the US, we are refining our content offering to deliver the best streaming experience for subscribers,” a Paramount+ spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter. “This is consistent with our content strategy since launch and across our business, which ensures we make smart, efficient choices, informed by audience data and insights. We are removing select programming as we look to optimize Showtime’s robust slate of premium originals.”

The cancelation comes after Paramount+ previously greenlit a second season of Star Trek: Prodigy. The show could find another home. The Hollywood Reporter notes Prodigy producer CBS Studios plans to complete postproduction on season two and shop both seasons to a new streaming platform. The announcement won’t affect other Star Trek series, with Paramount+ set to remain the home of ongoing entries like Strange New Worlds.

Google is looking at online games as a new possible source of income for YouTube, according to a new report by the Wall Street Journal. The video hosting platform has reportedly invited employees to test a new product called Playables, which gives users access to online games right on YouTube itself. Based on the internal email the Journal saw, it wouldn't even matter what device they're using: Apparently, the games are accessible both on mobile and on desktop. 

Users will be able to play them on the YouTube website using a web browser or on the app, whether on an Android or an iOS phone. While the report insinuates that there are currently several games available for testing, it only mentioned Stack Bounce in particular. It's an ad-supported arcade game that gets players to smash layers of bricks with a bouncing ball. As the publication notes, YouTube already earns money from gaming livestreams, but this product will give it another way to generate revenue from the industry in the midst of a decline in advertising spending.

While Google failed to grow its defunct Stadia games streaming service and ultimately shut it down, this endeavor is a different thing altogether. YouTube already has a massive audience regularly visiting the site, so getting eyes on the new product wouldn't be a problem. Playables is perhaps more akin to Netflix's gaming product that gives its paying users access to casual games on mobile. Netflix has big ambitions for its gaming initiative, as well, and is reportedly working on an expansion that goes beyond mobile devices by testing TV games that use phones as controllers. 

Those who run fan accounts on YouTube will soon have to make it clear to viewers their channels are not affiliated with the original artist, creator or brand. If it’s not already evident from the channel name or handle that they’re running a fan account, they’ll have to update that information. Adding “fan account” to the channel description alone won’t cut it. The rule will take effect on August 21st.

The directive was announced as part of broader changes to YouTube’s impersonation guidelines. As TechCrunch notes, channels that claim to be fan accounts but instead mimic another channel and upload the same content are prohibited, as are channels that appear almost identical to another only with a minor name change (such as adding a space). Users are not allowed to comment on videos while pretending to be another person, nor can they impersonate an existing news channel.

These new guidelines for fan accounts should help YouTube clamp down on impersonators. “This update should also ensure that viewers won’t be misled by the channels they interact with and follow, and creators won’t have their name and likeness used for malicious purposes,” a YouTube blog post reads.

Warm afternoon sunlight streams through the bay windows. A tree beyond the panes throws shadows across a plush rug, partially covered by an open cardboard box. The bedroom is compact and bright, and it’s filled with the remnants of youth: books and family photos line the walls, and the desk drawers are stuffed with drawing paper and school supplies. A skateboard pokes out from under the bed and stuffed animals are tucked into the room’s spare spaces. The record player spins soothing, lo-fi music, and you have a long, lazy afternoon to sit in this room, box up its memories, and move on.

Simpler Times provides this peaceful environment and invites players to get lost in it. There’s a story to unravel just by picking up objects, interacting with them and putting them away for good — the protagonist, Taina, is moving on from her childhood home, onto the next phase of her life, and her past and future come into focus as players explore her bedroom.

Even if Simpler Times’ idyllic setting doesn’t accurately reflect your own childhood bedroom, the developers at Transylvania studio stoneskip have designed a supremely comforting space. Everything about Taina’s room feels welcoming and safe: safe to explore, safe to get lost in, safe to fall fully into your thoughts.

Simpler Times is a first-person game with an emphasis on music and mood. The soundtrack is a series of original, lo-fi pieces that players control on the room’s record player, in a ritual familiar to vinyl owners. Each album runs for a set amount of time before it has to be reset or swapped out: Move the needle to the side, lift the record and carefully put it away, and then reverse the process with a new album. It’s a series of intentional actions designed to ground players in the moment, highlighting the beauty of anticipation and slow gestures. It’s an effective sequence and emblematic of the game’s pace overall.

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Simpler Times’ soundtrack is composed by George Pandrea and it includes moments of lyrical poetry written and performed by Taina’s voice actor, Maeve Kroeger. There are other static points of interaction around the bedroom, including an instant camera and a scrapbook that provides backstory and suggests areas to clean next, advancing the larger narrative. There is no fail state in Simpler Times and no clock on any action. Dialogue floats in and and out as players explore, the rolling music encouraging reflection as Taina’s story passively unfolds.

On the surface, Simpler Times sounds similar to Gone Home, the original indie “walking simulator,” but this comparison isn’t quite accurate. For starters, there’s no walking in Simpler Times; the bedroom is small and players navigate by looking around and clicking on points of interaction. The game itself was conceived during the pandemic, when developers found themselves trapped in small spaces, with ample time for self-reflection. Simpler Times is a contained, meditative game that actually feels closer to a calming, repetitive experience like Threes than a narrative adventure.

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The full game takes place over four seasons, in four time periods of Taina’s life, but the demo I played at Summer Game Fest was an introduction to her bedroom in present-day, just as she’s starting to pack up. The demo left me relaxed and intrigued, and it was a welcome, cozy break from the chaos of a large (but not, like, E3-large) video game event.

Simpler Times is being published by iam8bit and it’s due to hit Steam in 2024.

The original free-to-play battle royale game Call of Duty: Warzone (now known as Warzone Caldera) will shut down definitively on September 21st. That will allow developers to focus on "future Call of Duty content including the current Warzone (originally called Warzone 2.0) free-to-play experience," Activision wrote in a blog post. 

All gameplay, player progression, inventories and online services will expire on that date. However, any Caldera content purchased in Modern Warfare, Black Ops Cold War or Vanguard will still be accessible in those games.

Warzone came along in 2020, featuring two gameplay modes (battle royale and plunder) plus a single map called Verdansk that supported up to 150 players at a time. It shared a battle pass, weapons and cosmetics with 2019's Modern Warfare. It was an immediate success, reportedly hitting 30 million players just 10 days after launch. 

The game was renamed Call of Duty: Warzone Caledera (after the 2021 Caledera map) following the release of Warzone 2.0 in November of 2022. Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 was recently renamed simply to Warzone, and Activision is encouraging original Warzone players to jump ship to that title. "Expect a vast amount of gameplay choices across three Battle Royale maps (including Season 04’s new map Vondel), as well as Ranked Play, the DMZ Beta featuring five different Extraction Zones, BlackCell offerings, and more," it wrote.

Some players aren't pleased, though, citing the fact that earlier battle royale games like Blackout from Black Ops 4 still have operating servers, while the original Warzone won't. Others are displeased that resources are being shunted to Warzone: Mobile, and some have pointed out that they'll lose all their Warzone cosmetics, according to Kotaku. 

YouTube has plans to go beyond translated subtitles by allowing creators to dub videos into other spoken languages. At VidCon, the company announced yesterday that it's testing an AI-powered dubbing service called Aloud, developed at Google's Area 120 incubator, The Verge reported. The tool would eliminate the time and often great expense required to create a dub the usual way (with human translators and narrators), allowing creators to reach a wider global audience.

Aloud promises a "quality dub in just a few minutes" using AI. The tool first creates a text-based translation that creators can check and edit, then generates a dub. Users can choose different narrators, how to publish and more. Best of all, the service is available for "no charge," Aloud's website states.

YouTube is currently testing the tool with "hundreds" of creators, YouTube's VP of product management, Amjad Hanif, told The Verge. It's currently available in English and lets you dub into Spanish and Portugese with "more languages coming soon," according to Aloud. 

From a user perspective, the setting appears as an "Audio track" toggle in the gear icon, just below subtitles. An example of that is from the Amoeba Sisters science channel trailer, which uses English as a native language, with a dubbed Spanish language option created by Aloud's AI. 

The ability to easily dub languages can expand a creator's reach without the need to do anything else, Google said in its keynote. There's no mention yet as to when Aloud's dubbing tool will be available more widely. In the future, though, YouTube will "make translated audio tracks sound like the creator's voice, with more expression and lip sync," Hanif said.