Tag Archives: Media

You can date everything in Date Everything!

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Have you ever looked at something in your home like a dining room table or an adjustable height desk and wondered what it would be like to go on a date with it? Also, were you sober at the time? A new dating sim game called Date Everything! will let you see just what it’s like to search for true, meaningful love with the things you see almost every day (in the cleanest way possible, of course).

The surreal sounding dating sim game comes from an LA-based studio called Sassy Chap Games founded by a group of voice actors who’ve worked on games and shows like Critical Role, HiFi-Rush, One Punch Man, Final Fantasy XV, X-Men ‘97 and Genshin Impact. The indie game publisher Team17 will distribute the game for PC on Steam, the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, according to a press release.

The game puts players in the role of a lonely heart who receives a special pair of glasses called a “Dateviator” that transforms items in their home into human date candidates. For instance, the vacuum cleaner turns into a hunky heartthrob named Hoove and the laundry hamper transforms into a fiery redhead named Harper. Date Everything! has 100 possible mates in your home with their own voices, styles and personalities.

You get to know items like the refrigerator or the drawing room piano in their human forms. Depending on how things go, the relationship can end in one of three ways: Love, Friend or Hate. These relationships create a chain of different possible paths in which your choices influence the outcome along a “critical path tying it all together,” according to the press release.

Date the vacuum cleaner Hoove in the dating sim game Date Everything!
Team17/Sassy Chap Games

Since Date Everything! comes from a studio founded by voice actors, all of the characters are fully voiced. Some of the more familiar names include Felicia Day from Supernatural and Mystery Science Theater 3000, Johnny Yong Bosch from Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers and Grey DeLisle from Scooby-Doo and The Last Airbender.

Date Everything! doesn’t just sound like a new and interesting twist on the dating sim game concept. It also sounds like a great way to boost your ego. If you’re down because you don’t have someone in your life, at least you can play the game and realize, “Well, at least I’m not trying to date my garbage disposal.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/you-can-date-everything-in-date-everything-190032967.html?src=rss

The Bioshock movie is still happening but with a reduced budget

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We haven't had an update on Netflix’s Bioshock movie in a couple of years, leading some to wonder if it was quietly canned. The good news? The movie’s still coming. The (potential) bad news? The budget has been slashed, according to reporting by Variety.

This comes from producer Roy Lee, who was one of the people behind The Lego Movie. He announced the reduced budget during a panel at San Diego Comic-Con. He didn’t put out any numbers, but did say that the movie is currently being “reconfigured” to be a “more personal” film. Director Francis Lawrence is still helming the picture. He has directed four of the five Hunger Games movies, along with I Am Legend and the original Constantine.

The Bioshock film was first announced back in 2022, but since that time Netflix has experienced something of a regime change on the executive level. Dan Lin replaced Scott Stuber as the streamer’s film chief and Lin has tightened the purse strings away from stuff like Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon.

“The new regime has lowered the budgets,” Lee said at Comic-Con. “So we’re doing a much smaller version.”

In addition to budget cuts, Lee noted that Netflix has changed its compensation strategy with regard to movies. It’s shifting to a more traditional model that relies on bonuses tied to actual viewership numbers.

This could actually be good news. In my opinion, personal stories tend to work better than constant CGI battles with hordes of faceless baddies. Bioshock is also, at its heart, a personal story about family, with the fantastical Rapture setting being window dressing.

I guess it ultimately depends on how much of that budget was cut. There’s a big difference between a slightly reduced budget and a massive cut that turns all of the footage into darkened corridor scenes filmed in a series of Toronto or Atlanta warehouses. The release date hasn’t been announced and, honestly, it could still be a ways off. Director Lawrence has a lot on his plate right now, including an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Long Walk and yet another Hunger Games movie.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-bioshock-movie-is-still-happening-but-with-a-reduced-budget-184524214.html?src=rss

Shaun of the Dead will stumble back into theaters for its 20th anniversary

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The greatest British zombie rom-com in film history will return to theaters for another run to the Winchester in honor of its 20th anniversary. Focus Features announced that Shaun of the Dead starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost will get another theatrical run starting on Aug. 29 for US theaters and Sept. 27 for UK theaters.

Shaun of the Dead tells the story of a British slacker named Shaun who gets dumped by his girlfriend Liz, played by Kate Ashfield, on the eve of an undead apocalypse. His best friend Ed, played by Nick Frost, takes him out for a night of drinking just as the zombies start to emerge to help him get over the breakup and remind him “it’s not the end of the world.”

They wake up to a George Romero-esque world overrun by lifeless, shuffling cannibals and a hangover that makes them blissfully unaware of the carnage surrounding them. The hilarious, continuous shot of Shaun walking from his flat to the corner store and back without once noticing the bloody state of the world around him is worth seeing on the big screen.

Shaun of the Dead became one of the sleeper hits of 2004 and marked the first film in the Blood and Ice Cream trilogy starring Pegg and Frost and directed by Edgar Wright. The trio first worked together on another British cult comedy with the two-season TV series Spaced when a zombie themed subplot line in an episode inspired them to make a proper British zombie comedy in the style of Romero’s “Dead” movies. The action cop parody Hot Fuzz in 2007 and the alien invasion pub crawl adventure The World’s End in 2013 rounded out the rest of the trilogy.

The “ice cream” refers to the flavors of Cornetto ice cream treats that make Easter egg appearances in each movie: the red strawberry flavor for Shaun of the Dead, the blue vanilla flavor for Hot Fuzz and the peppermint flavor for The World’s End. The movie also sparked the start of Pegg’s acting career in America as an inspired Scotty in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek film trilogy and Hughie’s father on the Amazon prime superhero satire The Boys.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/shaun-of-the-dead-will-stumble-back-into-theaters-for-its-20th-anniversary-213031726.html?src=rss

OpenAI unveils SearchGPT, an AI-powered search engine

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OpenAI on Thursday announced a new AI-powered search engine prototype called SearchGPT. The move marks the company’s entry into a competitive search engine market dominated by Google for decades. On its website, OpenAI described SearchGPT as “a temporary prototype of new AI search features that give you fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources.” The company plans to test out the product with 10,000 initial users and then roll it into ChatGPT after gathering feedback.

The launch of SearchGPT comes amid growing competition in AI-powered search. Google, the world’s dominant search engine, recently began integrating AI capabilities into its platform. Other startups like the Jeff Bezos-backed Perplexity have also aimed to take on Google and have marketed themselves as “answer engines” that use AI to summarize the internet. 

The rise of AI-powered search engines has been controversial. Last month, Perplexity faced criticism for summarizing stories from Forbes and Wired without adequate attribution or backlinks to the publications as well as ignoring robots.txt, a way for websites to tell crawlers that scrape data to back off. Earlier this week, Wired publisher Condé Nast reportedly sent a cease and desist letter to Perplexity and accused it of plagiarism. 

Perhaps because of these tensions, OpenAI appears to be taking a more collaborative approach with SearchGPT. The company's blog post emphasizes that the prototype was developed in partnership with various news organizations and includes quotes from the CEOs of The Atlantic and News Corp, two of many publishers that OpenAI has struck licensing deals with.

“SearchGPT is designed to help users connect with publishers by prominently citing and linking to them in searches,” the company’s blog post says. “Responses have clear, in-line, named attribution and links so users know where information is coming from and can quickly engage with even more results in a sidebar with source links.” OpenAI also noted that publishers will have control over how their content is presented in SearchGPT and can opt out of having their content used for training OpenAI's models while still appearing in search results.

SearchGPT's interface features a prominent textbox asking users, "What are you searching for?" Unlike traditional search engines like Google that provide a list of links, SearchGPT categorizes the results with short descriptions and visuals.

SearchGPT
OpenAI

For example, when searching for information about music festivals, the engine provides brief descriptions of events along with links for more details. Some users have pointed out, however, that the search engine is already presenting inaccurate information in its results.

We reiterate: Please don't get your news from AI chatbots.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/openai-unveils-searchgpt-an-ai-powered-search-engine-195235766.html?src=rss

AI video startup Runway reportedly trained on ‘thousands’ of YouTube videos without permission

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AI company Runway reportedly scraped “thousands” of YouTube videos and pirated versions of copyrighted movies without permission. 404 Media obtained alleged internal spreadsheets suggesting the AI video-generating startup trained its Gen-3 model using YouTube content from channels like Disney, Netflix, Pixar and popular media outlets.

An alleged former Runway employee told the publication the company used the spreadsheet to flag lists of videos it wanted in its database. It would then download them without detection using open-source proxy software to cover its tracks. One sheet lists simple keywords like astronaut, fairy and rainbow, with footnotes indicating whether the company had found corresponding high-quality videos to train on. For example, the term “superhero” includes a note reading, “Lots of movie clips.” (Indeed.)

Other notes show Runway flagged YouTube channels for Unreal Engine, filmmaker Josh Neuman and a Call of Duty fan page as good sources for “high movement” training videos.

“The channels in that spreadsheet were a company-wide effort to find good quality videos to build the model with,” the former employee told 404 Media. “This was then used as input to a massive web crawler which downloaded all the videos from all those channels, using proxies to avoid getting blocked by Google.”

Screnshot of the Runway AI homepad.
Runway

A list of nearly 4,000 YouTube channels, compiled in one of the spreadsheets, flagged “recommended channels” from CBS New York, AMC Theaters, Pixar, Disney Plus, Disney CD and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. (Because no AI model is complete without otters.)

In addition, Runway reportedly compiled a separate list of videos from piracy sites. A spreadsheet titled “Non-YouTube Source” includes 14 links to sources like an unauthorized online archive of Studio Ghibli films, anime and movie piracy sites, a fan site displaying Xbox game videos and the animated streaming site kisscartoon.sh.

In what could be viewed as a damning confirmation that the company used the training data, 404 Media found that prompting the video generator with the names of popular YouTubers listed in the spreadsheet spit out results bearing an uncanny resemblance. Crucially, entering the same names in Runway’s older Gen-2 model — trained before the alleged data in the spreadsheets — generated “unrelated” results like generic men in suits. Additionally, after the publication contacted Runway asking about the YouTubers’ likenesses appearing in results, the AI tool stopped generating them altogether.

“I hope that by sharing this information, people will have a better understanding of the scale of these companies and what they’re doing to make ‘cool’ videos,” the former employee told 404 Media.

When contacted for comment, a YouTube representative pointed Engadget to an interview its CEO Neal Mohan gave to Bloomberg in April. In that interview, Mohan described training on its videos as a “clear violation” of its terms. “Our previous comments on this still stand,” YouTube spokesperson Jack Mason wrote to Engadget.

Runway did not respond to a request for commeInt by the time of publication.

At least some AI companies appear to be in a race to normalize their tools and establish market leadership before users — and courts — catch onto how their sausage was made. Training with permission through licensed deals is one thing, and that’s another tactic companies like OpenAI have recently adopted. But it’s a much sketchier (if not illegal) proposition to treat the entire internet — copyrighted material and all — as up for grabs in a breakneck race for profit and dominance.

404 Media’s excellent reporting is worth a read.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai-video-startup-runway-reportedly-trained-on-thousands-of-youtube-videos-without-permission-182314160.html?src=rss

Stalker 2 has been delayed (again) until November 20

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The long-anticipated Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl has been delayed yet again, this time until November 20. It was supposed to come out on September 5. This is just the latest delay in a development cycle that stretches all the way back to 2010. That’s 14 years. The longest delay in gaming history is Duke Nukem Forever, at 15 years.

What’s taking so long? At first, it was funding issues. Developer GSC Game World nearly shut down, but managed to weather the storm. Next, the makers spent a whole lot of time perfecting various mechanics and features, including a new way to render human teeth.

Real world events intervened to continue the delay. Russia invaded Ukraine and GSC was based in Kyiv. The game was put on hold as the staff relocated to Prague, eventually picking back up on development in 2022. After that, the game was supposed to (finally) release in December of last year.

However, there were some kinks to work out, so the launch was pushed to September 5, 2024. It looks like the bugs are still popping up, because now it’s set for November.

“We know you might be tired of waiting, and we truly appreciate your patience. These two additional months will give us the chance to fix more ‘unexpected anomalies’ (or simply ‘bugs’ as you call them),” wrote Yevhen Grygorovych, Game Director at GSC Game World, in a press release. “We’re just as eager as you are to finally release the game and for you to experience it for yourself.”

Who knows if it’ll actually come out this November, but it’s looking more and more likely. GSC also announced the pending release of a deep-dive video that will offer “the most comprehensive look yet into the game," with a premiere date of August 12. This video will include developer interviews, new in-game footage and a full walkthrough of a story quest.

For the uninitiated, Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl is a sequel to the hit 2007 FPS. The forthcoming follow-up brings some survival horror mechanics into the mix, which should be fun. There are plenty of trailers to check out which, you know, tends to happen when a game has been in development for 14 years.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/stalker-2-has-been-delayed-again-until-november-20-173259981.html?src=rss

Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heron arrives on Max in September

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Back in March, Warner Bros. Discovery's Max announced that it's extending its exclusive US streaming rights for Studio Ghibli in a new multiyear agreement. As part of that deal, Ghibli agreed to make Hayao Miyazaki's first film in a decade, The Boy and the Heron, available on Max later this year. Now, the streaming service has revealed that the fantasy adventure film will be available to stream on Max starting on September 6. To note, Studio Ghibli first embraced streaming in 2020 when it gave Netflix and Max the rights to all its films, including Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle and My Neighbor Totoro.

Written and directed by Miyazaki, The Boy and the Heron revolves around a boy named Mahito who moves to his family's countryside estate after the death of his mother. It was there where he encounters a gray heron, which marks the beginning of a fantastical adventure with magic, wizards, spirits and anthropomorphic animals. Like all other Miyazaki films, The Boy and the Heron contains philosophical messages weaved into Mahito's journey as he faces the dangers of an unfamiliar world to find his ill stepmother who has disappeared into the forest. 

The Boy and the Heron's English dub features some of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Christian Bale voices Mahito's father Shoichi, Robert Pattinson voices the grey heron, Florence Pugh is the magical fisherwoman Kiriko while Dave Bautista voices the film's main antagonist, the Parakeet King. The cast also includes Mark Hamill, Willem Dafoe, Gemma Chan, Karen Fukuhara and Luca Padovan as Mahito. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/studio-ghiblis-the-boy-and-the-heron-arrives-on-max-in-september-140046955.html?src=rss

World of Warcraft workers unlock ‘form a union’ achievement

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World of Warcraft (WoW) artists, designers, engineers, producers, quality assurance (QA) testers and other game developers have unionized. The staff of more than 500 workers voted to unionize the Blizzard Entertainment studio with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) creating the World of Warcraft Gamemakers Guild, according to an X post from the union’s official account.

The Blizzard studio is the latest major game studio to form a union during uncertain times of layoffs and studio closures across the gaming industry. Bethesda Game Studios, the studio behind the Fallout and Elder Scrolls franchises, formed its union with the help of CWA last weekend that includes 241 workers.

“What we’ve accomplished at World of Warcraft is just the beginning,” said Eric Lanham, a test analyst and Wow Gamemakers Guild member, in a statement released by the CWA. “My colleagues and I are embarking on a quest to secure better pay, benefits, and job security through a strong union contract. We know that when workers have a protected voice, it’s a win-win for employee standards, the studio, and World of Warcraft fans looking for the best gaming experience.”

The World of Warcraft Gamemakers Guild is the largest wall-to-wall union currently under Microsoft’s umbrella. Activision unionized around 600 QA workers with the CWA in March. ZeniMax Studios also voted to unionize around 300 staffers back in January.

Microsoft also made an agreement with Activision Blizzard two years ago to respect the right of its workers to form a union. The agreement was part of Microsoft’s deal to takeover Activision Blizzard.

The CWA cites the start of the WoW Gamemakers Guild formation to a protest conducted by Activision Blizzard workers in 2021. The crew staged a walkout at its Irvine, California headquarters over a lawsuit filed by the state’s Civil Rights Department (CRD) alleging the company was a “breeding ground for harassment and discrimination against women.” The CRD later withdrew all allegations of systemic sexual harassment, and Activision Blizzard reached a settlement of $54.8 million relating to pay and promotion disparities. The WoW studio also agreed to remove “references that are not appropriate for [its] world” from the game.

“What seemed impossible six years ago is now a reality, and this is just the beginning,” said CWA’s Senior Director of Organizing Tom Smith in a written statement. “Together, workers are redefining their industry.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/world-of-warcraft-workers-unlock-form-a-union-achievement-220148151.html?src=rss

MultiVersus leak suggests Barbie and Mad Max tie-ins are on the way

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MultiVersus, the platform fighter that pulls from Warner Bros. properties, could be getting a whole bunch of new stages and characters, according to a report by Kotaku. This includes content from the film Barbie and the Mad Max universe, in addition to more Adventure Land stuff and a potential tie-in with the forthcoming Beetlejuice sequel. WB owns a whole bunch of stuff, so this could get interesting.

The reporting is sourced from a fairly reputable dataminer on X, who published receipts in the form of screengrabs and the like. These images include an early version of a potential Barbie Land stage, complete with palm trees and, of course, a bright pink color palette. 

There’s also a picture that allegedly depicts a stage based on Quidditch, the broom-based sport from Harry Potter that makes absolutely zero sense. Other leaked stages include the wastelands from Mad Max, a background inspired by Powerpuff Girls and one pulled from the cartoon Samurai Jack.

Speaking of those last two, both the Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack will be showing up as playable characters. Samurai Jack makes for an interesting addition, being as how fighting is basically his whole thing. The dataminer has also indicated that Beetlejuice will soon be a playable character, likely coinciding with the September 6 release date of the sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. This has been confirmed by the developer, as has Samurai Jack. Adventure Time’s resident vampire bassist Marceline could also be joining the roster.

It’s worth noting that this information isn’t set in stone. Many of the stages suggested by the X user look to be extremely early in development and the same goes for some of the playable characters. It’s entirely possible, and likely, that WB and Ready Player Games are always tinkering with new stages and characters and not all of them make it to the final game. To that end, it was reported back in 2022 that Ted Lasso would be a playable character and, well, that hasn’t happened.

Warner Bros. did just buy the game’s developer, so it’s definitely serious about keeping the ball rolling on this whole branded platform fighter thing. WB has a ridiculously deep bench of IPs, including DC Comics, Harry Potter, HBO shows, Dune, Mad Max, Barbie, Looney Tunes and so many more. MultiVersus will never knock Super Smash Bros. from the throne, but it’s definitely proven itself to have a longer shelf life than, say, Sony’s PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/multiversus-leak-suggests-barbie-and-mad-max-tie-ins-are-on-the-way-162251960.html?src=rss

Google is updating the Play Store with AI-powered app reviews and curated spaces

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Google just announced a suite of updates to the Play Store in an attempt to make it more fun to use. This is part of a larger move by the company to turn its online marketplace into "an end-to-end experience that’s more than a store.” You read that right. They want us to hang out on Google Play.

Here’s what the company has planned. The update brings AI-generated review summaries that pull from user reviews to develop a consensus. You’ve likely already encountered this type of thing on Facebook and while using Google search. The company first announced this feature at this year’s I/O event.

This AI-adjacent approach will also apply to auto-generated FAQs about each app that are powered by Gemini models. Additionally, there will be AI-generated highlights that offer a quick summarization of a particular app. Google showed off a still image of this for a photo editing app in which the highlights included the number of filters and layouts available, in addition to tools and sharing options. This AI approach will also let users quickly compare apps in similar categories.

Google’s also rolling out shared spaces on the Play Store. These aren’t communities or mini social networks, like Reddit or something, but rather splash pages for various topics of interest. The company started this project with a pilot involving cricket. The shared space gave users in India the ability to “explore all their cricket content from across various channels in one, convenient spot.” This included relevant videos, around 100 curated cricket-related apps and some simple user polls. The next curated space will be about Japanese manga. There has been no word as to when this feature will expand into multiple categories available to global users.

The entire “shopping for a new game to play” experience is also getting an upgrade, focused primarily on discovery. Google promises “enriched game details” pages, complete with YouTube videos from developers and clearly-marked promotions, which reminds me of Steam. This even extends to the post-purchase experience, as return users will see updated developer notes and a section for tips and tricks. The program is in early access and currently only available to English language users. There are also some new games coming to Google’s oft-overlooked Play Pass, like Asphalt Legends Unite and Candy Crush Saga, and a feature that lets users play multiple games at once on PC. 

Finally, there’s some personalization stuff in this update. The new Collections feature provides custom categories based on previously-purchased apps. This means that each Google Play homescreen will be different for each user, offering an easy way to continue binging a show or finishing a video game.

Many of these upgrades begin rolling out today, though some are still in the early access stage. Others, like the shared spaces feature, still have some kinks to work out.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-is-updating-the-play-store-with-ai-powered-app-reviews-and-curated-spaces-130036843.html?src=rss