Audiences will get another chance to watch CODA, the first Apple Original movie nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, in theaters. Apple is re-releasing the film, which is about a deaf family, in a limited run of free screenings with open captions. Directed and written by Sian Heder and featuring a primarily deaf cast, the film received three Oscar nods in total. Heder, who adapted the movie from a French film called La Famille Bélier, is also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. Troy Kotsur is also nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and is the first deaf man to earn that distinction.
The film follows Ruby (played Emilia Jones) , a high school student who navigates life as the only hearing member of a deaf family in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Kotsur plays her father, a struggling fisherman attempting to connect with his daughter. Ruby’s mother is played by Marlee Matlin (best known from Children of a Lesser God and The L Word), and her older brother is played by Daniel Durant, who starred in the 2015 Broadway revival of Spring Awakening.
The screenings will run in all major cities in the US and London, beginning Friday, February 25 through Sunday, February 27. You can view a list of showtimes and theater locations here.
Four Wordle puzzles at once? That was so five hours ago. Now, a site called Sedecordle has come up with a version that lets you do no less than 16 Wordle-style puzzles at a time, following the path of Octordle (eight), Quardle (four) and Dordle (two).
When I checked out a Sedecordle puzzle, I thought "that's not so bad" before I realized it didn't fit on the screen and I had to scroll (and scroll) to reach the end of the puzzle. Sedecordle ups the ante on Octordle in terms of the number of guesses too, giving you 22 shots at each puzzle compared to 13. That increases your odds of avoiding a failure that would really suck if you got, say, the first 15 correct.
I would love to tell you that I tried to do one, but even Quardle is a huge time sink that has been driving users mad. Suffice to say, you'd have to be a massive Wordle fan and slightly masochistic to try one four times that size. Much as folks expanded on the original Rubik's cube with up to 22 sides, knock-offs are now taking Wordle to its logical, very silly conclusion.
According to Deadline, Forbes Entertainment and EOne are teaming up to produce two projects — a scripted series and a documentary — around bitcoin money launderers Heather "Razzlekhan" Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein. Both projects will lean on Forbes' reporting, but the twist is that Morgan was also a Forbes contributor for several years. It won’t be the only studio working on the story, either. Netflix is already making its documentary on the billion-dollar bitcoin launderers. I look forward to the rap segments.
Sony has launched a contest for the chance to finally get your hands on a PS5. Over the next few weeks, Sony will release 14 unique codes resembling the PlayStation controller across its sites, social media channels and even at high-profile events in sports, gaming, film and music. Finding them doesn't automatically mean you win a console: Each code will only give you the opportunity to enter a draw to win a PS5, but if you’ve been unable to get the new console, perhaps you're willing to jump through all these hoops.
While Alienware’s newest x14 isn’t quite as powerful or configurable as its larger siblings, it offers strong performance and a vibrant 144Hz screen in a deliciously sleek chassis. And if you really like traveling light, the x14 even supports charging over USB-C by default. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, expect short battery life during gameplay. However, the smart move would be to wait a month or two for competitors to release their latest 14-inch laptops. Both Razer and ASUS are coming out with refreshed versions later this spring. We gave it an 85.
It’s admitted to finding purchases for transport routes in Iraq controlled by the terrorist group.
Ericsson's CEO told Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri the company may have made payments to the Islamic State (ISIL/ISIS/Daesh) terrorist group for its operations in Iraq. According to Bloomberg, CEO Boörje Ekholm said the telecoms giant has identified "unusual expenses dating back to 2018."
The first major No Man's Sky patch of the year has arrived. Among other things, Hello Games says the Sentinel update improves the space exploration sim's AI and introduces a buildable AI mech. You can put an AI pilot in your Exomech and have it follow you and help out in battles. Players can build a drone companion, too.
New York City has the lowest average rider rating.
Uber riders can now see how many one-star and five-star ratings they're getting. The platform's Privacy Center, which debuted last month, shows riders and drivers a breakdown of their ratings. The company also revealed which major US cities have the highest and lowest average rider ratings. Drivers typically dish out higher ratings in San Antonio, St Louis and Nashville. Riders tend to get the lowest ratings in New York City, followed by Seattle and Washington, DC. If you’ve got a dire rating, Uber offers up a handful of tips, encompassing safety and common decency, to help you bump up your average.
As Apple pushes on with its anti-tracking features on iOS, and Google continues to refine its Privacy Sandbox for serving targeted web ads without third-party cookies, it's time for Android. Google announced today it's starting a "multi-year initiative to build the Privacy Sandbox on Android.” It’s early days, and the company is in the design and testing stage, but it said developers can "review our initial design proposals and share feedback on the Android developer site."
Amazon and Visa have resolved their simmering dispute over payment fees in the UK and elsewhere, Reuters has reported. "We've recently reached a global agreement with Visa that allows all customers to continue using their Visa credit cards in our stores," a spokesperson told Reuters.
Amazon threatened to stop accepting Visa in the UK starting January 19th, citing the high fees it charges for credit card transactions. The rest of Europe wasn't impacted as the EU has a cap on card issuer fees, but both Mastercard and Visa card issuers jacked fees in the UK following Brexit. UK regulators recently announced that they'd investigate those increases.
It seemed likely that Amazon wouldn't carry out its threat, given Visa's dominance in the payment market. Sure enough, shortly before that deadline, Amazon announced it would continue accepting the cards after all and said it was "closely working with Visa on a potential solution."
Amazon didn't ban or threaten to ban Visa cards anywhere else, but it has been charging an additional transaction fee for Visa-using customers in Australia and Singapore. That charge has now been revoked, and Visa and Amazon appear to have put the whole thing behind them. "This agreement includes the acceptance of Visa at all Amazon stores and sites today, as well as a joint commitment to collaboration on new product and technology initiatives," a Visa spokesperson said in a statement.
The existing Privacy Sandbox is itself a set of proposals that would eventually grow into a set of open standards Google hopes the industry will adopt. Last year, one of the primary approaches Google was putting forward was FLoC (or Federated Learning of Cohorts) that would group people with thousands of other users with similar browsing histories. That was replaced last month by Topics API, which let Chrome use your browsing history to serve publishers a list of five subjects it determines you're interested in, again based on your browsing history.
What that demonstrates is the current fluidity of Privacy Sandbox, which is a collection of ideas at the moment. In today's announcement, vice president of product management for Android security and privacy Anthony Chavez wrote that "these solutions will limit sharing of user data with third parties and operate without cross-app identifiers." That would include advertising IDs. Chavez said "we're also exploring technologies that reduce the potential for covert data collection, including safer ways for apps to integrate with advertising SDKs."
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
But there are no real concrete methods actually being executed right now, and Google is in the design and testing stage. Starting today, the company said developers can "review our initial design proposals and share feedback on the Android developer site." It is planning to "release developer previews over the course of the year, with a beta release by the end of the year." Google also promised "regular updates on designs and timelines."
In the meantime, the company said it will continue to "support existing ads platform features for at least two years, and we intend to provide substantial notice ahead of any future changes."
Google also referenced Apple's approach on iOS today (without naming the iPhone maker), acknowledging that "other platforms have taken a different approach to ads privacy." But Chavez described that approach as "bluntly restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers." The company believes it still needs to provide a way for businesses to serve targeted ads to users and to make sure those ads are relevant.
Chavez added that "we know this initiative needs input from across the industry in order to succeed," and the company included statements from many partners in its news post today. These include Snap, Duolingo, Rovio, Activision Blizzard and seven other app makers, who each expressed similar sentiments about respecting the privacy needs of Android app users. Google's Privacy Sandbox has already faced regulatory scrutiny from the EU and the UK, with the latter's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) having accepted Google's latest proposals last week.
Clearly, there is a lot of work to be done while the internet's giants and the ad industry figure out how best to balance personalized ads with user privacy, and Google's inclusion of Android in its considerations is happening not a moment too soon.
Just last month the original Baby Shark video and its impossibly catchy song set a record with 10 billion views on YouTube. Now, Baby Shark is going to become a movie with a release date planned for 2023, Paramount announced.
The film will be produced by Nickelodeon Animation and creator The Pinkfong company, but there are no details about the script, plot, etc. The character has been seen in the cinema before, as Pinkfong and Baby Shark’s Space Adventure had a limited run when it came to Netflix. However, that ran for just an hour, while Paramount described the upcoming release as a "feature-length film."
Baby Shark was also developed into a Korean TV series called Baby Shark's Big Show, which debuted on Nickelodeon in December of 2020. The show was announced by Paramount Plus as part of an upcoming slate of kids/youth programs, including a Dora the Explorer series, new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies and three new films in the SpongeBob SquarePants Universe.
Now that Virgin Galactic has a working spaceflight system, it needs to sell rides. The company has announced that it's opening ticket sales to the general public starting on February 16th, letting you become an astronaut if you're willing to pay $450,000 and put down a $150,000 deposit. To mark the launch of public sales, Virgin Galactic revealed new consumer branding (above).
"We plan to have our first 1,000 customers on board at the start of commercial service later this year, providing an incredibly strong foundation as we begin regular operations and scale our fleet," said Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier in a statement.
For that $450K, you'll get a 90-minute ride to the edge of space including the "signature air launch and Mach-3 boost to space," the company said. Passengers will enjoy several minutes of weightlessness and spectacular views of Earth from the 17 windows, as it showed in a new video (below). The ticket also includes several days of astronaut training, a fitted Under Armour spacesuit, and membership in the Future Astronaut community. All flights launch from Spaceport America in New Mexico.
The sub-orbital spaceflights definitely aren't cheap, but are far less than the $55 million you'll pay for an orbital 10-day SpaceX flight. Virgin Galactic's main competitor is Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, though that company has yet to decide on a final price for its suborbital tickets. Virgin Galactic was originally set to launch public and commercial research flights last year, but they were delayed until 2022.
As of late last year, the company had sold 100 tickets to space at the updated $450,000 ticket price. Around 700 people, including Elon Musk, have made reservations.
Disney's Netflix collaboration effectively ended years ago, but now the shows themselves are going away... for the moment, at least. As What's on Netflixnoticed, Netflix is warning viewers that Marvel's originals for the service will disappear on March 1st. If you haven't caught up on shows like Daredevil, Jessica Jones and The Punisher, you'd better act quickly.
Engadget has confirmed the shows are leaving Netflix now that the Marvel licensing has expired. The alerts (shown below) only seem to appear if you first watch a show on a given profile, and only on some devices. You don't currently see them when browsing the titles or using the mobile app.
Billy Steele/Engadget
It's not certain if or when the shows will return on a Disney-owned service. The withdrawal isn't exactly a shock, mind you. Disney signalled in 2017 that it would shun Netflix in favor of what would become Disney+, and the last shows were cancelled in 2019. Disney wants Marvel as a draw for its in-house services, and leaving originals on Netflix certainly wouldn't help achieve that goal.
Just where they're headed, if at all, is another story. The Netflix originals were notable as "adult" shows that didn't hold back on language or violence. That's somewhat out of line with the overall PG focus of Disney+ and suggests they might go to Hulu (the home of off-kilter shows like MODOK) instead. Whatever happens, this isn't the end for the superheroes. Characters from the shows made appearances in Hawkeye and Spider-Man: No Way Home, and it wouldn't be surprising to see more of the ex-Netflix crew in future productions.
MoviePass is making a comeback, and we've learned some more details about the latest incarnation of the cinema subscription service. Cofounder Stacy Spikes, who is back at the helm, says MoviePass 2.0 is being built on a Web3 framework and will have a kind of virtual currency.
MoviePass
Members will have credits they can use for tickets for themselves and friends. Unused credits will roll over to the next month and you'll be able to transfer them to other people. There will be tiered plans, but Spikes didn't divulge pricing
The new MoviePass app will show you how many credits you have and available screenings at theaters. Credits will work differently during peak and off-peak times — a Friday or Saturday showing might cost more credits. You'll be able to reserve specific seats at some of MoviePass' partner theaters.
Spikes said there'll be ways for people to earn credits through the app via a "preshow experience." In other words, watching ads. To make sure you're actually watching them, the app will employ facial recognition and eye tracking. Yikes.
He explains that with the new version of MoviePass, you can watch ads to earn credits that can go toward free movies. Your phone camera will track your eyeballs to make sure you're actually watching. "What it does is it basically creates a transaction between you and the brand." pic.twitter.com/Lip0CDXPLT
MoviePass is also opening up a portion of the company for equity investment. Those who take a stake in will receive benefits, such as a lifetime membership.
If 30 percent of moviegoers become subscribers, the company "could double the annual revenue and attendance of the overall movie industry," Spikes said, though he noted that's a moonshot target. He added that many subscribers of the previous service checked out movies they otherwise might not have gambled on because impulsive movie-watching decisions didn't cost them anything extra.
Spikes and Hamet Watt founded MoviePass in 2011 to offer users a certain number of movie tickets every month as part of a subscription. HMNY bought the company in 2017 and, soon after, changed the pricing model to allow members to see one movie in theaters a day for $10 per month. Although the service blew up and had more than 3 million subscribers at its peak, the business model was unsustainable. MoviePass ultimately declared bankruptcy in January 2020.
Spikes regained ownership of MoviePass in November. He said he bid less than $250,000 for the assets. However, they didn't include customer email addresses or other data, so MoviePass is starting over almost from scratch.
It'll be interesting to see if Moviepass can carve out a place for itself in a cinema landscape that's changed dramatically in recent years. Chains like Regal Cinemas, AMC and Alamo Drafthouse have established their own subscription plans.
Theaters have struggled over the last couple of years, with the pandemic forcing many to at least temporarily close their doors. But a Web3-based service with a virtual currency and facial recognition component might not be the lifeboat these chains, or their patrons, are looking for.
The Disney+ Obi-Wan series finally has a release date. Disney has revealed that the limited-run Obi-Wan Kenobi series premieres May 25th (no, sadly not May 4th) on its namesake streaming service. The company didn't share much more than new poster art, but some of the key details are already well-known.
Kenobi has Ewan McGregor reprising his role as Obi-Wan, with Hayden Christensen portraying Darth Vader. The show will begin with protecting Luke Skywalker following the rise of the Empire, but it's reasonable to presume there will be much more to the story. The Mandalorian veteran Deborah Chow is directing the production.
The series could be crucial for Disney+ as it matures. As part of its latest earnings, Disney revealed that subscribers worldwide climbed 37 percent in 2021 versus 2020, but that the media group running the service saw profits plunge 44 percent. Most of the growth came from India's Hotstar and international expansions. Obi-Wan Kenobi could help Disney+ keep the subscriber count growing in many countries, especially with the help of sibling Star Wars shows like Ahsoka, Andor, Lando, The Acolyte and the recently released The Book of Boba Fett.
