This week, streaming services are joining linear networks in revealing some of the projects they've got coming up in an attempt to win over advertisers. After Prime Video stepped up to the plate on Tuesday, it was Warner Bros. Discovery's turn at bat on Wednesday. The company surprised many by dropping a teaser trailer for Dune: Prophecy, a six-episode Dune prequel series that's coming to Max this fall.
The spinoff is set 10,000 years before the events of the Dune movies. It follows two Harkonnen sisters who tackle a threat to humanity while setting up the sisterhood that will eventually become the Bene Gesserit. Dune: Prophecy is based on the novel Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.
The series stars Emily Watson, Olivia Williams, Travis Fimmel, Jodhi May and the always-great Mark Strong. The trailer makes the show look suitably large in scope, though you'll need to wait a few more months for it to arrive.
In the meantime, you'll soon be able to watch Dune: Part Two on Max (though we recommend catching this butt-kicking epic on a giant screen if it's still showing in a theater near you). The sequel is coming to the streaming service next week, on May 21.
In addition, it might be too early for a trailer for the second season of The Last of Us, though WBD has released the first official images. The shots of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) don't give much away, but fans of the second game in the series might recognize those fairy lights behind Joel's magnificent mane. The Last of Us will return on HBO and Max in 2025, hopefully on January 1.
Warner Bros. Discovery
Warner Bros. Discovery
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-first-dune-prophecy-teaser-takes-the-action-back-by-10000-years-152911407.html?src=rss
This week, streaming services are joining linear networks in revealing some of the projects they've got coming up in an attempt to win over advertisers. After Prime Video stepped up to the plate on Tuesday, it was Warner Bros. Discovery's turn at bat on Wednesday. The company surprised many by dropping a teaser trailer for Dune: Prophecy, a six-episode Dune prequel series that's coming to Max this fall.
The spinoff is set 10,000 years before the events of the Dune movies. It follows two Harkonnen sisters who tackle a threat to humanity while setting up the sisterhood that will eventually become the Bene Gesserit. Dune: Prophecy is based on the novel Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.
The series stars Emily Watson, Olivia Williams, Travis Fimmel, Jodhi May and the always-great Mark Strong. The trailer makes the show look suitably large in scope, though you'll need to wait a few more months for it to arrive.
In the meantime, you'll soon be able to watch Dune: Part Two on Max (though we recommend catching this butt-kicking epic on a giant screen if it's still showing in a theater near you). The sequel is coming to the streaming service next week, on May 21.
In addition, it might be too early for a trailer for the second season of The Last of Us, though WBD has released the first official images. The shots of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) don't give much away, but fans of the second game in the series might recognize those fairy lights behind Joel's magnificent mane. The Last of Us will return on HBO and Max in 2025, hopefully on January 1.
Warner Bros. Discovery
Warner Bros. Discovery
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-first-dune-prophecy-teaser-takes-the-action-back-by-10000-years-152911407.html?src=rss
We just wrapped up coverage on Google's I/O 2024 keynote, and we're just so tired of hearing about AI. In this bonus episode, Cherlynn and Devindra dive into the biggest I/O news: Google's intriguing Project Astra AI assistant; new models for creating video and images; and some improvements to Gemini AI. While some of the announcements seem potentially useful, it's still tough to tell if the move towards AI will actually help consumers, or if Google is just fighting to stay ahead of OpenAI.
Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News!
Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Devindra Hardawar Music: Dale North
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/engadget-podcast-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ai-of-google-io-2024-221741082.html?src=rss
We just wrapped up coverage on Google's I/O 2024 keynote, and we're just so tired of hearing about AI. In this bonus episode, Cherlynn and Devindra dive into the biggest I/O news: Google's intriguing Project Astra AI assistant; new models for creating video and images; and some improvements to Gemini AI. While some of the announcements seem potentially useful, it's still tough to tell if the move towards AI will actually help consumers, or if Google is just fighting to stay ahead of OpenAI.
Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News!
Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Devindra Hardawar Music: Dale North
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/engadget-podcast-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ai-of-google-io-2024-221741082.html?src=rss
Google is shaking up Search. On Tuesday, the company announced big new AI-powered changes to the world’s dominant search engine at I/O, Google’s annual conference for developers. With the new features, Google is positioning Search as more than a way to simply find websites. Instead, the company wants people to use its search engine to directly get answers and help them with planning events and brainstorming ideas.
“[With] generative AI, Search can do more than you ever imagined,” wrote Liz Reid, vice president and head of Google Search, in a blog post. “So you can ask whatever’s on your mind or whatever you need to get done — from researching to planning to brainstorming — and Google will take care of the legwork.”
Google’s changes to Search, the primary way that the company makes money, are a response to the explosion of generative AI ever since OpenAI’s ChatGPT released at the end of 2022. Since then, a handful of AI-powered apps and services including ChatGPT, Anthropic, Perplexity, and Microsoft’s Bing, which is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4, have challenged Google’s flagship service by directly providing answers to questions instead of simply presenting people a list of links. This is the gap that Google is racing to bridge with its new features in Search.
Starting today, Google will show complete AI-generated answers in response to most search queries at the top of the results page in the US. Google first unveiled the feature a year ago at Google I/O in 2023, but so far, anyone who wanted to use the feature had to sign up for it as part of the company’s Search Labs platform that lets people try out upcoming features ahead of their general release. Google is now making AI Overviews available to hundreds of millions of Americans, and says that it expects it to be available in more countries to over a billion people by the end of the year. Reid wrote that people who opted to try the feature through Search Labs have used it “billions of times” so far, and said that any links included as part of the AI-generated answers get more clicks than if the page had appeared as a traditional web listing, something that publishers have been concerned about. “As we expand this experience, we’ll continue to focus on sending valuable traffic to publishers and creators,” Reid wrote.
In addition to AI Overviews, searching for certain queries around dining and recipes, and later with movies, music, books, hotels, shopping and more in English in the US will show a new search page where results are organized using AI. “[When] you’re looking for ideas, Search will use generate AI to brainstorm with you and create an AI-organized results page that makes it easy to explore,” Reid said in the blog post.
Google
If you opt in to Search Labs, you’ll be able to access even more features powered by generative AI in Google Search. You’ll be able to get AI Overview to simplify the language or break down a complex topic in more detail. Here’s an example of a query asking Google to explain, for instance, the connection between lightning and thunder.
Google
Search Labs testers will also be able to ask Google really complex questions in a single query to get answers on a single page instead of having to do multiple searches. The example that Google’s blog post gives: “Find the best yoga or pilates studios in Boston and show details on their intro offers and walking time from Beacon Hill.” In response, Google shows the highest-rated yoga and pilates studios near Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood and even puts them on a map for easy navigation.
Google
Google also wants to become a meal and vacation planner by letting people who sign up for Search Labs ask queries like “create a 3 day meal plan for a group that’s easy to prepare” and letting you swap out individual results in its AI-generated plan with something else (swapping a meat-based dish in a meal plan for a vegetarian one, for instance).
Google
Finally, Google will eventually let anyone who signs up for Search Labs use a video as a search query instead of text or images. “Maybe you bought a record player at a thriftshop, but it’s not working when you turn it on and the metal piece with the needle is drifting unexpectedly,” wrote Reid in Google’s blog post. “Searching with video saves you the time and trouble of finding the right words to describe this issue, and you’ll get an AI Overview with steps and resources to troubleshoot.”
Google said that all these new capabilities are powered by a brand new Gemini model customized for Search that combines Gemini’s advanced multi-step reasoning and multimodal abilities with Google’s traditional search systems.
Catch up on all the news from Google I/O 2024 right here!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-search-will-now-show-ai-generated-answers-to-millions-by-default-174512845.html?src=rss
It's all AI all the time at Google I/O! Today, Google announced its new AI media creation engines: Veo, which can produce "high-quality" 1080p videos; and Imagen 3, its latest text-to-image framework. Neither sound particularly revolutionary, but they're a way for Google to keep up the fight against OpenAI's Sora video model and Dall-E 3, a tool that has practically become synonymous with AI-generated images.
Google claims Veo has "an advanced understanding of natural language and visual semantics" to create whatever video you have in mind. The AI generated videos can last "beyond a minute." Veo is also capable of understanding cinematic and visual techniques, like the concept of a timelapse. But really, that should be table stakes for an AI video generation model, right?
To prove that Veo isn't out to steal artist's jobs, Google has also partnered with Donald Glover and Gilga, his creative studio, to show off the model's capabilities. In a very brief promotional video, we see Glover and crew using text to create video of a convertible arriving at a European home, and a sailboat gliding through the ocean. According to Google, Veo can simulate real-world physics better than its previous models, and it's also improved how it renders high-definition footage.
"Everybody's going to become a director, and everybody should be a director," Glover says in the video, absolutely earning his Google paycheck. "At the heart of all of this is just storytelling. The closer we are to be able to tell each other our stories, the more we'll understand each other."
It remains to be seen if anyone will actually want to watch AI generated video, outside of the morbid curiosity of seeing a machine attempt to algorithmically recreate the work of human artists. But that's not stopping Google or OpenAI from promoting these tools and hoping they'll be useful (or at least, make a bunch of money). Veo will be available inside of Google's VideoFX tool today for some creators, and the company says it'll also be coming to YouTube Shorts and other products. If Veo does end up becoming a built-in part of YouTube Shorts, that's at least one feature Google can lord over TikTok.
Google
As for Imagen 3, Google is making the usual promises: It's said to be the company's "highest quality" text-to-image model, with "incredible level of detail" for "photorealistic, lifelike images" and fewer artifacts. The real test, of course, will be to see how it handles prompts compared to Dall-E 3. Imagen 3 handles text better than before, Google says, and it's also smarter about handling details from long prompts.
Google is also working with recording artists like Wyclef Jean and Bjorn to test out its Music AI Sandbox, a set of tools that can help with song and beat creation. We only saw a brief glimpse of this, but it's led to a few intriguing demos:
The sun rises and sets. We're all slowly dying. And AI is getting smarter by the day. That seems to be the big takeaway from Google's latest media creation tools. Of course they're getting better! Google is pouring billions into making the dream of AI a reality, all in a bid to own the next great leap for computing. Will any of this actually make our lives better? Will they ever be able to generate art with genuine soul? Check back at Google I/O every year until AGI actually appears, or our civilization collapses.
Catch up on all the news from Google I/O 2024 right here!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-unveils-veo-and-imagen-3-its-latest-ai-media-creation-models-173617373.html?src=rss
Dead by Daylight fans can check out the Dungeons and Dragons chapter starting today, but Behaviour Interactive teased another high-profile crossover during an anniversary showcase on Tuesday. A Castlevania chapter is on the way to DbD. There aren't any details yet about what that will include, but you just might get to play as Alucard or Simon Belmont in the fog. Behaviour plans to divulge more info about the Castlevania tie-up, which will arrive later this year, in August.
As for the Dungeons and Dragons chapter, which brings a dark fantasy element to DbD for the first time, Behaviour spilled the beans on that during the stream. PC players will be able to try out the chapter on the public test build today before it goes live for everyone on June 3.
Behaviour Interactive
The new killer is Vecna (the D&D version rather than the Stranger Things baddie) and stalwart video game actor and Critical Role mastermind Matt Mercer is voicing the character. The latest survivor is actually two identities in one. It's a bard character that you can opt to play as an elf female or human male, bringing a slight element of D&D-style character creation to DbD.
The chapter will also include a new map, which (surprise, surprise) is a dungeon. Whenever you're up against Vecna, you'll be able to find treasure chests which will trigger a roll of a 20-sided die when opened. Rolling a one will net you a nasty surprise while getting a 20 grants you a powerful magical item. Roll any number in between and you'll get a helpful item.
Speaking of maps, there will be larger ones to check out in an upcoming new mode. DbD has long pitted four survivors against one killer. A pair of killers will soon be able to team up and hunt eight survivors. They'll be able to take advantage of team powers too.
There will be a lot of changes for this 2 vs. 8 mode, which will be around for a limited time at first. Perks will be jettisoned in favor of a class system, and there won't be any hooks. Downed survivors will instead go straight to a cage. If a survivor is caged three times, they're out of the game. Behaviour sees this as more of a party mode as opposed to the competitive nature of 1 vs. 4. The 2 vs. 8 mode is slated to arrive later this summer, and you can expect to find out more about it in July.
Behaviour also had some news about several DbD spinoff games that are in the works. The Casting of Frank Stoneis a single-player, narrative-focused game set in the DbD universe and developer Supermassive has released the first gameplay trailer.
The spinoff tells the story of a group of young people who venture into a condemned steel mill in 1980 while attempting to film their own horror movie. There, they discover evidence of crimes committed by serial killer Frank Stone.
The gameplay sounds very familiar for those who have experience of previous Supermassive games like Until Dawn and The Quarry. The direction of the story will shift based on your narrative decisions and how you handle environmental puzzles and quick-time events. The Casting of Frank Stone, which is said to be about five to seven hours long, is slated to arrive later this year.
An untitled co-op shooter spinoff from Midwinter Entertainment is still in early development, but it now has a codename: Project T. It'll be a third-person game and unlike the survivors in DbD, you'll actually be able to fight back against enemies using guns. Fans who want to find out more can sign up for an insider program, which will include updates, closed playtests and the chance to provide feedback.
That's not all though, as Behaviour announced yet anotherDbD spinoff. What the Fog is a two-person co-op roguelike that it developed in-house. The premise is that DbD survivors Claudette and Dwight are sucked into a cursed board game, Jumanji-style. The game is mainly played in third-person, but if you die you'll move into a bird's-eye support mode, where you can help your teammate survive. Just like in DbD, you'll need to interact with a hook to revive your ally. There's a single-player mode, while Feng Min is an unlockable character.
Behaviour Interactive
What the Fog shares some elements with DbD. You'll need to pick up tokens called blood points by roaming the map and killing enemies. These let you activate generators so you can escape a room. You'll get a buff from each generator and acquire a weapon upgrade after each round. There are bosses to take down too. What the Fog also has a more cartoony look than DbD's more realistic art style.
I've played a few rounds of the single-player mode and I'm enjoying it quite a bit so far. The metal soundtrack and monster-slaying chaos actually reminds me a bit of the Doom series. After unlocking a door, I'd suggest sticking around in the room a while longer to kill some more enemies and snag a bunch of blood points. That way, you'll be able to repair the next room's generators quickly and power up before taking on a fresh army of monsters.
What the Fog is available now on Steam. The first 2 million copies are available for free, though you'll need a Behaviour account to claim one. If you're not quick enough to snag a free copy or just feel like giving Behavior a few bucks, the game costs $5.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/castlevania-is-coming-to-dead-by-daylight-later-this-year-164509826.html?src=rss
Amazon's Prime Video is riding a high after the success of Falloutand it has more video game-related projects lined up. The streaming service has ordered a Tomb Raider series with Phoebe Waller-Bridge of Fleabag fame set as writer and executive producer. The show was rumored to be happening as far back as January 2023 and now it's official.
“If I could tell my teenage self this was happening I think she’d explode. Tomb Raider has been a huge part of my life and I feel incredibly privileged to be bringing it to television with such passionate collaborators," Waller-Bridge said in a statement. "Lara Croft means a lot to me, as she does to many, and I can’t wait to go on this adventure. Bats ‘n all."
Few other details about the "epic, globetrotting" project have been revealed (it's not yet known who's playing Lara Croft, for one thing), though it stems from a deal between Amazon MGM Studios and Crystal Dynamics to develop shows and movies based on Tomb Raider. There's no release window for the series as yet, but Amazon says it will premiere in more than 240 countries and territories. The company's games division is also publishing Crystal Dynamics' next Lara Croft adventure, while a long-awaitedanimated Tomb Raider series is slated to hit Netflix this year.
Prime Video has also lined up a docuseries about EA's blockbuster Madden NFL games. EA Sports will open up its vault of rare and unreleased footage for the project. A documentary crew will follow the development of the next game in the series.
These are just some of the many announcements that Prime Video is making today as it tries to win over advertisers at its upfront event. A pop culture version of Jeopardy! is on the way to the service, which will host its first NFL Wild Card Playoff game in January. A Legally Blonde prequel series called is coming too.
Elsewhere, Prime Video renewed its hit show The Boys for a fifth season, announced a live-action Spider-Man Noir show starring Nicolas Cage and revealed the first trailer and release date for the second season of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. In addition, a documentary following the last 12 days of Roger Federer’s professional tennis career is coming to Prime Video on June 20.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/a-tomb-raider-series-from-phoebe-waller-bridge-is-on-the-way-to-prime-video-153636273.html?src=rss
Amazon's Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power was both extremely successful and extremely divisive in the LOTR fan community. (Separate question, has any recent adaptation or new content in a beloved franchise not been divisive? Thoughts for another time.) Lots of people whined about how Amazon should just trash the first season and start over, but clearly that was never going to happen. What is happening is that season two of The Rings of Power has its first trailer and an August 29 release date.
I'm a pretty big Lord of the Rings fan and found season one enjoyable if not essential, but I like the looks of how things are ratcheting up here for season two. We get plenty of teases of epic battles and creepy creatures as Sauron reveals himself and begins to tighten the noose on all of Middle-earth; there are also looks at him in his "fair" form as he forges the titular Rings of Power with Celebrimbor.
Amazon says the first three episodes will arrive on August 29, with subsequent entries following every week. Like the first season, this one will consist of eight episodes total.
This announcement comes less than a week after Warner Bros. Discovery announced it would release a new live-action Lord of the Rings film in theaters in 2026. Tentatively titled The Hunt for Gollum, the film is directed by and will star Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. That project will be set in the same universe that Jackson built, while Amazon's series is an entirely separate entity. There is some shared DNA, though — the first season of The Rings of Power was shot in New Zealand, like Jackson's films, and composer Howard Shore wrote the main credits theme for Amazon's show after scoring all six of the Middle-earth films.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-trailer-reveals-season-two-release-date-142522261.html?src=rss
As if it wasn’t already clear enough that streaming is basically just cable by another name at this point (though it's arguably less expensive for now), many of the top services are banding together to create bundles. A package combining Peacock, Netflix and Apple TV+ is expected to debut later this month. This StreamSaver bundle will be available to Comcast customers, according to CEO Brian Roberts.
While Roberts didn’t reveal how much the package will cost or what tiers of each service it will include, he said StreamSaver will offer them “at a vastly reduced price to anything available today.” According to Variety, he told attendees at MoffettNathanson’s Media, Internet and Communications Conference that the aim was to “add value to consumers” and take dollars away from competing streaming services.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/a-vastly-reduced-netflix-peacock-and-apple-tv-bundle-is-coming-this-month-135815744.html?src=rss