Tag Archives: Media

Itch.io marketplace now requires asset creators to disclose their use of generative AI

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Creators who sell assets on itch.io will now have to be a lot more upfront about using generative AI. The marketplace for independent digital creators has introduced a new rule that requires users to label their projects if they were produced using generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT and Midjourney. Users will see an AI generation disclosure box when they upload their projects. If they confirm that their project contains AI-generated output, they'll be required to indicate what kinds of content were made with generative AI, whether they're graphics, sounds, text and dialogue or code. 

If they have a public asset page, they'll see a dialog box when they access their dashboard, making it easy to bulk tag their projects. They'll be able to select multiple projects from their list and then indicate whether they contain AI-generated content or not. All assets with AI output will get the "AI Generated" tag, while those without will be tagged as "No AI." Each content type will have its own sub-tag, as well. 

itch.io requires all assets that used AI in any way, even if the creator had hand-edited it, to be tagged as AI Generated. And if it finds any untagged work that used artificial intelligence tool, it will make that asset ineligible for indexing so that potential buyers could no longer find it. However, it's unclear what measures the marketplace is taking to police its website. While itch.io's new policy may not be enough for those who'd rather ban AI content altogether, the tags will allow buyers who don't want AI assets in their work to filter them out. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/itchio-marketplace-now-requires-asset-creators-to-disclose-their-use-of-generative-ai-130031999.html?src=rss

The Morning After: Amazon’s got a 21-inch Echo Show

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As our homes (and lives) get smarter, the need for some sort of digital hub big enough to run things becomes more urgent. It’s why Amazon surprise-released a new 21-inch version of its Echo Show that does everything the Show 15 did, but biggererer. It gets a built-in smart home hub with Thread, Zigbee and Matter control, Wi-Fi 6E and a better camera for video calls.

I bought an Echo Show 8 on a whim to use as a screen for my Ring doorbell and found it quite underwhelming. But the idea of having a 21-inch screen that could theoretically lay out to-do lists and calendar tasks on the daily is quite appealing. Having two small kids makes being able to marshal all our schedules on one device quite desirable.

— Dan Cooper

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Microsoft now allows you to stream select games you own to devices that support Xbox Cloud Gaming. From the outset, Stream Your Own Game will support 50 titles, including Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3 and Balatro. If there’s a catch, it’s that you still need to be a Game Pass Ultimate member to only stream games you own digitally.

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Kabletown Comcast, parent company of NBC Universal, will spin out the bulk of its cable TV empire into a new entity. The as-yet unnamed business will incorporate USA, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, Syfy and the Golf Channel alongside Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes. However the decision is justified, it just looks like Comcast is getting out of the cable business. After all, you probably watched more Suits on Netflix than you did when it first aired on the USA Network.

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Photo by Devindra Hardawar / Engadget

Apple has released a raft of security updates for Macs, iPhones, iPads, the Vision Pro and Safari. The company says the updates close a zero-day security hole that could enable malicious code. When you get the little pop-up asking you to update your machine, don’t ignore it.

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The UK is launching an inquiry into the role social media played during the 2024 summer riots. Its chair, Chi Onwurah MP, intends to call Elon Musk to speak, given X was a key vector for the distribution of AI-generated images designed to whip up hate. Musk will likely relish the chance to speak — after all, his tweet during the UK riots was “Civil war is inevitable.”

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-amazons-got-a-21-inch-echo-show-121502524.html?src=rss

The NBA will air a Christmas Day game with Disney characters

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If you can’t get your kids to sit through one of the five NBA games airing on Christmas Day, tune into Disney+, ESPN+ or ESPN2 for a special Disney-fied version. ESPN announced that it will air a “Dunk the Halls” broadcast of the San Antonio Spurs versus the New York Knicks featuring animated Disney characters.

The broadcast starts at 12PM eastern. If you just want to watch the game played by regular, boring humans, that will also air on Disney+ and ESPN+ as well as ABC and ESPN.

“Dunk the Halls” will use Sony’s Beyond Sports technology to turn Madison Square Garden into Main Street USA from the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World. The game will also feature appearances from classic Disney characters like Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Goofy and Donald and Daisy Duck as well as Santa and his elves from the animated Disney short Prep & Landing.

This is the first time the NBA has arranged to air a game with animated characters and graphic overlays. It’s also the latest game in a new trend of mixing live sports events with a network’s signature cartoon characters. ESPN+, Disney+ and the NFL+ app will air an alternative version of the Bengals-Cowboys game on December 9 featuring virtual characters and scenes from The Simpsons. ESPN3’s Full Court Press broadcasts use technology designed by Second Spectrum to create augmented graphics that track players movements and provide real time updates.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/the-nba-will-air-a-christmas-day-game-with-disney-characters-224921665.html?src=rss

Final Fantasy 14 Mobile is on the way

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Square Enix is plunging deeper into the Final Fantasy 14 goldmine with a mobile spin-off. There's no release window for Final Fantasy 14 Mobile as yet, but playtests will "soon" get underway in China, "followed by a global launch soon after."

Final Fantasy 14 producer and director Naoki Yoshida said in a video that developer Lightspeed Studios is working to "faithfully recreate the story, duties, battle content and other aspects of the original game." It seems that "duties" is a reference to the jobs system. A teaser trailer shows off the scope, grandeur and lived-in atmosphere of the mobile version of Eorzea, all set to typically absorbing music from FF14 sound director Masayoshi Soken.

It's not yet clear if there will be cross-progression with the PC and console version of Final Fantasy 14. While the mobile game is said to provide players with a "new adventure," the story bears at least some similarities to the original.

"You are beckoned by the Mothercrystal, carrying the light of hope to the world of Hydaelyn," according to the FF14 Mobile website. "Heed the Mothercrystal’s call, embrace your destiny as an adventurer, and confront the primals to deliver Eorzea from certain destruction." For what it's worth, a Mothercrystal trial was added to Final Fantasy 14 as part of the 2021 expansion, Endwalker, so the plot of the mobile game may not exactly follow the one from the original title.

Square Enix says you'll have a number of playable races to choose from. At the outset, there will be nine jobs, which you can switch between on the fly. You'll initially have access to 11 crafting and gathering classes, so you can be a miner, alchemist or, of course, a fisher.

Combat controls are being tuned for mobile devices. Outside of battles, you can customize your home and character, race chocobos, play the Triple Triad card game and enjoy seasonal events. You'll be able to play alongside friends and strangers, while there are more than 600 different weather patterns in the game.

Tencent's Lightspeed Studios is behind mobile hits like PUBG Mobile. Dragon's Dogma creator Hideaki Itsuno recently joined Lightspeed to head up a new studio.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/final-fantasy-14-mobile-is-on-the-way-171455003.html?src=rss

Day of the Devs livestream will showcase indie titles a day before the Game Awards

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On December 12, The Game Awards will reveal some of the biggest upcoming games and honor the industry's achievements yet again. The day before it's set to take place, however, a Day of the Devs event will put a spotlight on indie developers and titles in a livestream that fans everywhere can watch online. This Game Awards Edition showcase will feature quite a lengthy list of developer partners, including Heart Machine, which is best known for 2D action role-playing game Hyper Light Drifter and Solar Ash, a 3D platformer set against a neon-colored landscape. 

Panic, the developer behind Untitled Goose Game, will also participate in the event, along with Annapurna, a publisher whose games include What Remains of Edith Finch. There's also Riffraff Games that debuted its first title, Sleight of Hand, a "noir stealth sim" game about a former occult detective who must track down and defeat her former coven earlier this year. The event will showcase 19 indie titles in all and will feature seven world premieres, title reveals and release date announcements throughout. Indie games fans can watch it on the official Game Awards YouTube and Twitch channels on December 11, starting at 9AM PT/12PM ET. 

The Game Awards recently announced this year's nominees, with Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Astro Bot leading the pack with seven nominations each. Metaphor: ReFantazio, a fantasy Japanese RPG from the same team behind Persona 5, got six noms. Silent Hill 2 and the poker/roguelike game Balatro aren't far behind, each with five nominations. All of those games, aside from Silent Hill 2, are shortlisted for Game of the Year, along with Black Myth: Wukong and Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/day-of-the-devs-livestream-will-showcase-indie-titles-a-day-before-the-game-awards-170002009.html?src=rss

Star Wars: Visions Volume 3 is coming in 2025

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Yesterday, at the Disney APAC Content Showcase in Singapore, the company revealed Volume 3 of Star Wars: Visions. This anthology of nine short animations from nine separate anime studios is set to release next year. In keeping with tradition from prior volumes, each studio is allowed considerable creative freedom and will likely produce shorts with distinctive art styles that fans will recognize instantly.

Based on the Star Wars website’s blog post, we can immediately see four returning studios: Kamikaze Douga, Kinema citrus Co., Production I.G and TRIGGER. These studios are responsible for anime adaptations of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Made in Abyss, Haikyu!! and Kill la Kill, respectively.

To improve the diversity of styles, Disney invited five new studios to create the remaining shorts. They are ANIMA (collaborating with Kamikaze Douga), David Production, Polygon Pictures, Project Studio Q and WIT Studio.

ANIMA is an animation studio specializing in 3D CG movies, and you may know it as the studio behind cutscenes from Xenoblade 3, certain Fire Emblem Heroes movies and Pokemon Unite. David Production animated Fire Force and Undead Unluck, among many other anime. Some Star Wars: The Clone Wars episodes and Tron: Uprising were Polygon Pictures’ work.

Project Studio Q is a less-known name, but it’s responsible for some 3D animation in DARLING in the FRANXX episodes. As for WIT Studio, it’s of Spy x Family and Attack on Titan (the first three seasons) fame.

With such a stacked roster of studios, Disney is sparing no expense on this anthology. The wait might be long, but Volumes 1 and 2 are still available on Disney+.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/star-wars-visions-volume-3-is-coming-in-2025-164557738.html?src=rss

Comcast is spinning out Rotten Tomatoes and cable networks into a separate company

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Comcast is spinning out Rotten Tomatoes, Fandango and a bunch of NBCUniversal (NBCU) cable networks into a separate company. That means USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and Golf Channel will soon have a new home. Comcast is hanging onto other NBCU operations, namely NBC, Peacock, film and TV studios, Telemundo and theme parks. Bravo is also sticking around to help keep feeding Peacock’s ever-hungry reality TV maw.

Comcast says the new entity will be a “tax-free spin-off” and the step is "expected to be accretive to revenue growth at Comcast and approximately neutral to Comcast’s leverage position." In other words, it's to do with money — and perhaps laying the groundwork for further consolidation between major media companies. The spun-out properties pulled in around $7 billion between them over the last year or so, while their future parent will still have a partnership with NBCU. Comcast is aiming to complete the transition within the next year.

In its press release, Comcast calls the spin-off company "SpinCo," which is a placeholder and surely won't be the business' actual name. After all, having "SpinCo" as their parent company's moniker wouldn't exactly be great optics for CNBC and MSNBC journalists. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/comcast-is-spinning-out-rotten-tomatoes-and-cable-networks-into-a-separate-company-151153285.html?src=rss

X adds Twitch to its advertising boycott lawsuit

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Twitch is now on the docket for X’s lawsuit against companies that stopped advertising on the social media site. X amended its lawsuit on Monday to include Twitch as a defendant in its lawsuit in a federal court in Wichita Falls, Texas, according to Reuters.

The new complaint claims that the gaming stream site owned by Amazon stopped purchasing ads on X at the end of 2022. X alleges that Twitch and other companies conspired with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) network’s Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative to withhold “billions of dollars in advertising revenue” from Elon Musk’s social media company. 

The plaintiff alleges the boycott violated federal antitrust laws and is demanding a jury trial to settle the matter. GARM also announced its discontinuation two days after X filed its lawsuit.

X Corp.’s joint lawsuit first filed in August also includes the WFA, the global food manufacturer Mars Incorporated, the drugstore chain CVS and the Danish energy company Ørsted A/S over the advertising boycott. X also has a lawsuit against the media watchdog group Media Matters for publishing a report showing X displayed ads next to antisemitic content on the platform.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/x-adds-twitch-to-its-advertising-boycott-lawsuit-215540775.html?src=rss

First trailer for A Minecraft Movie delivers on iconic in-game moments

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A Minecraft Movie has dropped its first full-length trailer today, expanding on the blocky world hinted at by the teaser released in September. While the game Minecraft gives players only the barest sense of direction, there will be a traditional story driving A Minecraft Movie.

Jack Black provides a voiceover about how his character, Minecraft mascot and stock avatar Steve, was drawn to the mines as a child and discovered the Overworld. He teams up with four other people, seemingly from the real world we know, to protect the Overworld from "dark forces" with their inventiveness and creativity. This all sounds like pretty standard fare for a video game movie — rag-tag group of misfits band together and learn the power of friendship. It's unclear whether their foes will be baddies from the Nether or the End, because while those can be a pain, they canonically don't seem interested in world domination.

But I'm not here for a clever, compelling plot. The trailer is a sizzle reel of familiar in-game experiences, and that's exactly what I want. Taming a wolf with a bone, making a chicken-roasting redstone machine and nighttime coming way faster than you want it to all get their due. The team certainly did their homework on that front. The art style they've chosen doesn't speak to me, but I'm also willing to admit to some bias after hundreds of hours spent looking at the original source material. I'm also not sure if they'll stick the landing on the humor and emotion or whether it'll fall flat like an elytra that's run out of juice. We'll find out when A Minecraft Movie releases on April 5, 2025.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/first-trailer-for-a-minecraft-movie-delivers-on-iconic-in-game-moments-210252851.html?src=rss

Minecraft is getting its own theme parks

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Dust off your pickaxe because Mojang Studios and Merlin Entertainments are building a new series of theme park style attractions called “Adventures Made Real” that will bring the world of Minecraft to life.

Merlin Entertainments will create two permanent Minecraft theme park locations including one in the US and another in the UK with a plan to open them between 2026 and 20277. The new Minecraft parks will have interactive attractions from the top-selling video game, along with all the usual experiences like rides, gift shops and restaurants and plans to “expand these experiences to other destinations globally,” according to Merlin’s statement.

Of course, the parks will also involve some level of digital perks. It's not clear what they'll involve specifically, but Merlin claims the parks will include "touchpoints that will allow guests to unlock exclusive in-game content to continue their gaming journey."

Merlin Entertainments is the second biggest theme park builder in the world behind Disney. The company operates the LEGOLAND theme parks as well as theme parks such as Alton Towers Resort, Thorpe Park and Chessington World of Adventures in the UK, the Gardaland Resort in Italy and Heide Park in Germany.

This isn’t the only time Minecraft has lept from its pixelated, buildable universe into the real world. Warner Bros. released a trailer in September for the A Minecraft Movie starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa, with Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) directing. A Minecraft Movie is scheduled for release on April 5, 2025.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/minecraft-is-getting-its-own-theme-parks-190603375.html?src=rss