According to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple plans to license some of its Apple TV+ content to competing services in an effort to save money and spread its reach. From the report: Apple has hired an executive to license its original productions to other companies, a strategy designed to increase sales from its film business and improve the visibility of its content. [...] Apple is focused on licensing its movies to other companies, such as foreign TV networks and stores, where viewers can rent or buy them, according to a person familiar with the plans. The company isn't planning to license its original TV shows to third parties. (At least not yet.)"

Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and services boss Eddy Cue have pushed the team overseeing Apple TV+ to lower costs, improve the financial performance of the service and deliver more hits. The company has spent billions of dollars on original films and TV shows and has received strong reviews and praise from critics. Yet few of its titles have attracted a large audience and its streaming service doesn't make money. Apple has already started selling TV+ via Amazon in a bid to increase the audience for the service. Licensing to third parties will generate additional revenue and introduce Apple movies to people who don't yet pay for TV+. Since Apple TV+ launched in 2019, Apple has spent over $20 billion to build a library of original content. Yet, the streaming service only garnered 0.3 percent of U.S. screen viewing time in June 2024, according to Nielsen. "Apple TV+ generates less viewing in one month than Netflix does in one day," wrote Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw in July.

Ars Technica notes that Apple is estimated to have 25 million subscribers, making it "one of the smallest mainstream streaming services."

Infosys founder Narayana Murthy has tripled down on his previous statements that 70-hour work weeks are what's needed in India and revealed he also thinks weekends were a mistake. From a report: Speaking on Indian TV channel CNBC-TV18 at the Global Leadership Summit in Mumbai last week Murthy once again declared he did not "believe in work-life balance." "I have not changed my view; I will take this with me to my grave," he asserted .

The argument from Murthy, and like-minded colleagues he quotes, is that India is a poor country that has work to do improving itself. Work-life balance can wait. The Infosys founder held prime minister Narendra Modi and his cabinet up as an example of proper workaholics, claiming the PM toils for 100 hours a week, and suggested that not following suit demonstrates a lack of appreciation. "Frankly I was a little bit disappointed in 1986 when we moved from a six-day week to a five-day week," he added.

"I was not very happy with that. I think in this country, we have to work very hard because there is no substitute for hard work even if you're the most intelligent guy," he said to an appreciative audience and laughing news anchor Shereen Bhan. Murthy claimed he himself worked six and a half days a week until retirement, typically 14 hours and 10 minutes a day, clocking on at 6:20 AM before downing tools at 8:30 PM.

A new six-episode Dune series premiers tonight on HBO and Max — a prequel to the Denis Villeneuve-directed Dune movies set 10,000 years before the birth f Paul Atreides. The Hollywood Reporter writes that it "draws on source material from the 2012 novel Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, and Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune, the origin of the Dune universe." Cord-cutters can stream Dune: Prophecy online without cable on Max, with subscriptions starting at $9.99 per month through both Prime Video and the Max website directly. Amazon offers a seven-day free trial to the Max channel. Those who want to watch Dune: Prophecy online without a traditional cable service can also get Max as an add-on to existing streaming services, including Hulu and DirecTV Stream.
The San Francisco Chronicle describes the series as "">all palace intrigues, agonizing deaths and magical mind games." Taking a further cue from the network's top-rated Game of Thrones, this show indulges more sex and nudity than the Dune movies allow. It could be argued that elements like this introduce a liveliness often missing from the portentous big-screen behemoths, marking an improvement. Another fun touch here: Many characters are constantly baked.

Set a millennium before Frank Herbert's novels and the films' events, and a century after humans overthrew their "thinking machine" overlords, the psychoactive "Spice" from the desert planet Arrakis is already the most valued substance in the universe. It's not only vital for spaceship navigation and to expand the mental powers of sorceressy sisterhoods like the Bene Gesserit, it's the club drug of choice for younger members of the galaxy-ruling Great Houses. As ever with "Dune" business, control of the Spice trade fuels much of the conflict and character motivations.

Of which there are just enough to keep things interesting without becoming confusing... While the show can't match the outsize visual scope of Denis Villeneuve's films, it does pleasingly approximate those vast alien landscapes, Brutalist edifices and high-ceilinged chambers on a TV budget. For those who find Villeneuve's formal gigantism oppressive, the series' more human scale might be another welcome change of pace... There may not be an original thought in this "Dune" product's Spice-soaked head, but it is one professionally put-together piece of this sort of entertainment.
"Tasked with making more material with less money and time, Prophecy cannot hope to equal Villeneuve's aesthetic accomplishments," writes Variety. "But at its best, the show does justice to the intricate politics and ethical debates that form a cornerstone of Frank Herbert's fictional universe... The primary Dune plot finds many echoes throughout Prophecy..."

On the other hand, Vulture argues the six-episode series is "stuck in prequel quicksand," even calling it "an act of cowardice and abdication of creativity" (while also noting moments where it "feels like it's stretching itself to be something other than what we expect..."

"Here's how Apple's next major product will work," writes Bloomberg's Mark Gurman: The company has been developing a smart home command center that will rival products like the Amazon Echo Hub and Google Nest Hub... The product will run many of Apple's core apps, like Safari, Notes and Calendar, but the interface will be centered on a customizable home screen with iOS-like widgets and smart home controls... The device looks like a low-end iPad and will include a built-in battery, speakers and a FaceTime camera oriented for a horizontal landscape view. The square device, which includes a roughly 6-inch screen, has sensors that let it change the interface depending on how far a user is from the screen. It will also have attachments for walls, plus a base with additional speakers so it can be placed on a table, nightstand or desk.

Apple envisions customers using the device as an intercom, with people FaceTiming each other from different rooms. They'll also be able to pull up home security footage, control their lights, and videoconference with family while cooking in the kitchen. And it will control music throughout the home on HomePod speakers. The device will work with hundreds of HomeKit-compatible items, a lineup that includes third-party switches, lights, fans and other accessories. But the company doesn't plan to roll out a dedicated app store for the product. Given the lack of success with app marketplaces for the Vision Pro, Apple Watch and Apple TV, that's not too surprising.
Looking ahead, the article concludes "The success of this device is still far from assured. Apple's recent track record pushing into new categories has been spotty, and its previous home products haven't been major hits."

But Gurman shares the most interesting part on X.com: If the product does catch on, it will help set the stage for more home devices. Apple is working on a high-end AI companion with a [$1,000] robotic arm and large display that could serve as a follow-up. The company could also put more resources into developing mobile robots, privacy-focused home cameras and speakers. It may even revisit the idea of making an Apple-branded TV set, something it's evaluating. But if the first device fails, Apple may have to rethink its smart home ambitions once again.
Gurman also writes that Apple is also working on a new AirTag with more range and improved privacy features (including "making it more difficult for someone to remove the speaker.")

Customers have formed new habits of regularly pausing subscriptions and returning to them within a year. From a report: As subscription prices rise and streaming-centric home entertainment becomes the norm, families are establishing their own hierarchies of always-on services versus those that come and go with seasons of hit shows or sports. New data from subscription analytics provider Antenna offer a deeper look at the subscription pausing habits customers are developing as services like Netflix, Disney+ and Apple TV+ become the go-to way of watching TV in many households, instead of cable.

The monthly median percentage of premium streaming video subscribers who rejoined the same service they had canceled within the prior year was 34.2% in the first nine months of 2024, up from 29.8% in 2022. The habit of pausing and resuming service means that the industrywide rate of customer defections, which has risen over the past year, is less pronounced than it appears. The average rate of U.S. customer cancellations among premium streaming video services reached 5.2% in August, but after factoring in re-subscribers, the rate of defections was lower at 3.5%.

The increasingly ingrained habit underscores the importance of streamers regularly delivering hit shows and films as well as live fare such as sporting events. Streaming services are trying to use a mix of bundles, promotions, well-timed marketing emails and lower-cost ad-supported plans to lure customers back faster or help them feel they are getting enough value to stick around longer.

"Now and Then" by the Beatles has been nominated for Record of the Year and Best Rock Performance at the 2025 Grammy Awards -- marking the first time a song created with the assistance of AI has earned a Grammy nomination. From a report: When "Now and Then" first came out in late 2023, the disclosure that it was finalized utilizing AI caused an uproar. At the time, many fans assumed that the remaining Fab Four members -- Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr -- must have used generative AI to deepfake the late John Lennon. That was not actually the case. Instead, the Beatles used a form of AI known as "stem separation" to help them clean up a 60-year-old, low-fidelity demo recorded by Lennon during his lifetime and to make it useable in a finished master recording.

With stem separation, the Beatles could isolate Lennon's vocal and get rid of excess noise. Proponents of this form of technology say it has major benefits for remastering and cleaning up older catalogs. Recently, AudioShake, a leading company in this space, struck a partnership with Disney Music Group to help the media giant clean up its older catalog to "unlock new listening and fan engagement experiences" like lyric videos, film/TV licensing opportunities, re-mastering and more.

Friday "would have been his 38th birthday," writes the EFF, remembering Aaron Swartz as "a digital rights champion who believed deeply in keeping the internet open..." And they add that today the official web site for Aaron Swartz Day honored his memory with a special podcast "featuring those carrying on the work around issues close to his heart," including an appearance by Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive.

The first speaker is Ryan Shapiro, FOIA expert and co-founder of the national security transparency non-profit Property of the People. The Aaron Swartz Day site calls him "the researcher who discovered why the FBI had such an interest in Aaron in the years right before the JSTOR fiasco." (That web page calls it an "Al Qaeda phishing expedition that left Aaron with an 'International Terrorism Investigation' code in his FBI database file forever," as reported by Gizmodo.)

Other speakers on the podcast include:

• Nathan Dyer of SecureDrop, Newsroom Support Engineer for the Freedom of the Press Foundation with an update on SecureDrop

• Tracey Jaquith, Founding Coder and TV Architect at the Internet Archive, discussing "Microservices, Monoliths, and Operational Security — The Internet Archive in 2024."

• Tracy Rosenberg, co-founder of the Aaron Swartz Day Police Surveillance Project and Oakland Privacy, with "an update on the latest crop of surveillance battles."

• Ryan Sternlicht, VR developer, educator, researcher, advisor, and maker, on "The Next Layer of Reality: Social Identity and the New Creator Economy."

• Grant Smith Ellis, Chairperson of the Board, MassCann and Legal Intern at the Parabola Center, on "Jury Trials in the Age of Social Media."

• Michael "Mek" Karpeles, Open Library, Internet Archive, on "When it Rains at the Archive, Build an Ark — Book bans, Lawsuits, & Breaches."

The site also seeks to showcase SecureDrop and Open Library, projects started by Aaron before his death, as well as new projects "directly inspired by Aaron and his work."

With the debut of the Pirate Bay TV series in Sweden, international viewers are finding it surprisingly difficult to pirate. TorrentFreak reports: The series premiered at the on-demand platform of the Swedish national broadcaster SVT a few hours ago. International deals haven't been announced, but pirates can generally get access anyway. Soon after the first two episodes of The Pirate Bay series came out, scene release copies started circulating online. As one would expect.

The Scene group OLLONBORRE, which specializes in Swedish content, was the first to pick the show up. Within minutes, the first 1080p WEB-rips were posted on private scene servers and 720p copies followed a few hours later. Interestingly, pirate releases have yet to make their way to The Pirate Bay. We haven't seen any other copies on other public pirate sites either, which is surprising given the topic of the series.

It's common knowledge that The Scene -- a secretive network of release groups -- prefers to keep its releases private. Therefore, it wasn't happy with The Pirate Bay's public nature and rise to prominence in the early 2003s, which is highlighted in the first episodes of the TV series. However, we expected non-scene release groups would be eager to pick up the show. Apparently that's not the case, yet.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Variety: A "Mass Effect" TV series is officially in development at Amazon MGM Studios, Variety has learned exclusively. Daniel Casey is set to write and executive produce the adaptation. Karim Zreik will executive produce under his Cedar Tree Productions banner, with Ari Arad and EA's Michael Gamble also executive producing. Cedar Tree is currently under an overall deal at Amazon MGM Studios. Exact plot details are being kept under wraps. [...]

The first "Mass Effect" game launched to rave reviews in 2007. Since then, there have been three more games in the main series, with "Mass Effect: Andromeda" debuting in 2017. There have also been multiple mobile games in the franchise, as well as an animated film, novels, comic books, and other media. The story of the first three "Mass Effect" games revolves around Commander Shepard, a human soldier in the 22nd century trying to save humanity from a race of aliens known as the Reapers. "Andromeda" moved the games much further into the future with a new protagonist, with a fifth game also in the works. The franchise is developed by BioWare and are now published by EA. In 2010, EA announced plans to turn Mass Effect into a movie, but the project was later canceled. However, Ari Arad (known for co-founding Marvel Studios) led the initial effort and is now working to bring the film to life in this latest attempt.

According to The Verge, Netflix plans to delist almost all of its interactive shows and films as of December 1st. Only four of the 24 interactive titles will remain: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend, Ranveer vs. Wild with Bear Grylls, and You vs. Wild. From the report: The removal of the titles marks a disappointing conclusion to Netflix's earliest efforts into interactive content. The company first launched the interactive titles in 2017 with Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale, and I remember being wowed (and horrified) by paths in Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. In addition to specials based on franchises like Carmen Sandiego and Boss Baby, Netflix also tried ideas like a daily trivia series and a trivia game you could play with a friend. But the relatively few titles available suggests the format wasn't much of a hit -- Puss in Book has apparently been gone for a while. "The technology served its purpose, but is now limiting as we focus on technological efforts in other areas," spokesperson Chrissy Kelleher says.

Amazon's Prime Video has introduced "X-Ray Recaps," a generative AI feature that will recap what you're watching. The new tool can create text summaries of "full seasons of TV shows, single episodes, and even pieces of episodes," the company says in a blog post. The Verge reports: X-Ray Recaps will be accessible from the detail page of a show or in X-Ray while you're watching something. The tool "analyzes various video segments, combined with subtitles or dialogue, to generate detailed descriptions of key events, places, times, and conversations," Amazon says. Amazon has also applied "guardrails" to help the feature avoid sharing spoilers and to keep summaries concise.

X-Ray Recaps, which is are beta, are coming to Fire TV devices starting today, with support for "additional devices" available by the end of this year, Amazon says. The feature, at launch, will work with all Amazon MGM Studios Original series.

A Russian court has fined Google an astronomical sum of around $20 decillion for YouTube's blocking of Russian media channels tied to sanctioned entities. The amount compounds weekly as Google continues to disregard the ruling. The Register reports: To put that into perspective, the World Bank estimates global GDP as around $100 trillion, which is peanuts compared to the prospective fine. Google might be one of the most valuable businesses on the planet, but even if Sundar Pichai rummages around the back of the sofa he won't be able to raise the funds to pay the penalty. The bizarre amount has been calculated after a four-year court case that started after YouTube banned the ultra-nationalist Russian channel Tsargrad in 2020 in response to the US sanctions imposed against its owner. Following Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022 more channels were added to the banned list and 17 stations are now suing the Chocolate Factory, including Zvezda (a TV channel owned by Putin's Ministry of Defence), according to local media.

"Google was called by a Russian court to administrative liability under Art. 13.41 of the Administrative Offenses Code for removing channels on the YouTube platform. The court ordered the company to restore these channels," lawyer Ivan Morozov told state media outlet TASS. The court imposed a fine of 100 thousand rubles ($1,025) per day, with the total fine doubling every week. Owing to compound interest (Einstein's eighth wonder of the world), Google is now on the hook for an insane amount of money, or what the judge on Monday called "a case in which there are many, many zeros."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Hollywood Reporter: Grab your wagons and oxen, and get ready to ford a river: A movie adaptation of the popular grade school computer game Oregon Trail is in development at Apple. The studio landed the film pitch, still in early development, that has Will Speck and Josh Gordon attached to direct and produce. EGOT winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul will provide original music and produce via their Ampersand production banner. Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that the movie will feature a couple of original musical numbers in the vein of Barbie.

The Lucas Bros. (Judas and the Black Messiah) and Max Reisman are set to pen the screenplay about the game that is meant to mimic 19th-century pioneer times, following a covered wagon train heading west. Created in 1971, the game reached cult status among American grade schoolers by the 1990s as one of the first educational computer games allowed in schools -- and for its hilariously dark storylines filled with broken arms, typhoid and dysentery. The film will likely debut on Apple TV+, but details are scarce at the moment.

SFGate spills the secrets of Disneyland's "Enchanted Tiki Room" and its lifelike animatronic singing birds — Jose, Fritz, Michael and Pierre — "whose movements were perfectly synced with the audio track." "Beneath the room, the heartbeat of the attraction is a $1 million installation of electronics equipment, operated by a roll of 14-channel magnetic tape," the Orange County Register wrote upon its opening. "It is the same system which programs the U.S. military's polaris missile." That system also ran very hot. To keep guests from overheating, air conditioning was installed throughout the building, making the Tiki Room Disneyland's first attraction to be fully air conditioned...
Or, as another article puts it, "While Disney did not delve into the speculative science of cryogenics to preserve his life, he did borrow the mechanical brain of a nuclear missile to simulate life, creating a new type of entertainment in the process."

The article remembers how Wernher Von Braun became a technical advisor (and on-camera presenter) for three Disney-produced TV episodes about space travel — at the same time Von Braun was working as technical director for the U.S. Army rocket program that produced the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile, plus the first submarine-launched ballistic missile with its ground-breaking launch control mechanism: An important aspect of the Polaris launch system hinged on the fact that the conditions under which the missiles might be launched were constantly changing. Different underwater currents, temperatures, and flexing of the metal hull all contributed to the difficulty of a successful launch. In order to minimize human errors and to automate the sequence as much as possible, scientists developed an audio control system. A magnetic audio tape with a series of prerecorded cues precisely timed to account for the submarine's movement, controlled the launch machinery.

This new technology, invented to deliver nuclear destruction, proved exactly what Disney needed for his wonderland developed for children.
The article concludes that Disneyland engineering "transformed Von Braun's military technology" to the point today where "what was once controlled by the artificial brain of a nuclear missile is now run by the equivalent of a MacBook."

SFGate delves deeper into the attraction's strange origins — and how it all came full circle 63 years later... At the intersection of Main Street and Adventureland, a restaurant called the Pavillion — now the Jolly Holiday — bridged the gap. Under one roof, it served food to Main Street guests on one side and Adventureland diners on the other. The inelegant transition created an eyesore that Walt despised... The need for the Tiki Cafe "appeared to be less about food and more about aesthetics," Ken Bruce writes in Before the Birds Sang Words , a comprehensive history of the attraction.

In 1961, Walt gathered with park designers about the concept. The sketch made by legendary theme park designer John Hench was remarkably thorough, with much of its design incorporated into the final product... When Walt saw a plethora of birds in the sketch, he famously exclaimed, "We can't have birds in there ... because they'll poop in the food." Hench hurriedly ad-libbed that the birds would be mechanical, a concept that Walt adored...

Although its powerful air conditioning may be its biggest draw today, many attractions you love owe their existence to the flock of singing birds. Disney engineers' work on the talking flora and fauna laid the foundation for much more complex Audio-Animatronics (a word that Walt Disney coined). Without Jose, Fritz, Michael and Pierre, there would be no Haunted Mansion, no Pirates of the Caribbean, no Rise of the Resistance. Next year, in celebration of Disneyland's 70th anniversary, the park will unveil one of its most sophisticated animatronics yet: Walt Disney himself. It will be the first time Walt appears in a Disney attraction anywhere in the world, completing a journey that started with a mechanical bird and ends with an immortal homage.
Their article also reveals that a year after the Tiki Room opened, one of the birds was programmed to say "Come, there's an island there for you in Hawaii. Soaring birds of United Airlines fly there too!" Because Disneyland had signed a sponsorship deal with United Airlines...

Speaking of streaming services, an anonymous reader shares a story that looks into Apple's entertainment offering: Ever since its launch in 2019, Apple TV+ has been carving out an identity as the new home for prestige shows from some of Hollywood's biggest names -- the kind of shows that sound natural coming out of Jimmy Kimmel's mouth in monologue jokes at the Emmys. While the company never provides spending details, Apple is estimated to have spent at least $20 billion recruiting the likes of Reese Witherspoon, M. Night Shayamalan, and Harrison Ford to help cultivate its award-worthy sheen. For all the effort Apple has expended, and for all the cultural excitement around Ted Lasso during its three-season run, the streaming service has won nearly 500 Emmys ... while attracting just 0.2% of total TV viewing in the U.S.

No wonder the company reportedly began reining in its spending spree recently. (Apple did not reply to a request for comment.) "It seems like Apple TV wants to be seen as a platform that's numbers-agnostic," says Ashley Ray, comedian, TV writer, and host of the erstwhile podcast TV I Say. "They wanna be known for being about the creativity and the love of making TV shows, even if nobody's watching them."

The experience of enjoying a new Apple TV+ series can often be a lonely one. Adventurous subscribers might see an in-network ad about something like last summer's Sunny, the timely, genre-bending Rashida Jones series about murderous AI, and give it a shot -- only to find that nobody else is talking about it in their social media feeds or around the company Keurig machine. Sure, the same could be said for hundreds of other streaming series in the post-monoculture era, but most streaming companies aren't consistently landing as much marquee talent for such a limited library. (Apple currently has 259 TV shows and films compared to Netflix's nearly 16,000.)

How is it possible for a streaming service to have as much high-pedigree programming as Apple TV+ does and so relatively few viewers, despite an estimated 25 million paid subscribers? How can shows starring Natalie Portman, Idris Elba, and Colin Farrell launch and even get renewed without ever quite grazing the zeitgeist? How does a show set in the same Monsterverse as Godzilla vs. Kong, and starring Kurt Russell and his roguishly charming son, not become a monster-size hit?

For many perplexed observers, the blame falls squarely on Apple's marketing efforts, or seeming lack thereof.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Subscription fees for video streaming services have been on a steady incline. But despite subscribers paying more, surveys suggest they're becoming less satisfied with what's available to watch.

At the start of 2024, the industry began declaring the end of Peak TV, a term coined by FX Networks Chairman John Landgraf that refers to an era of rampant content spending that gave us shows like The Wire, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones. For streaming services, the Peak TV era meant trying to lure subscribers with original content that was often buoyed by critical acclaim and/or top-tier actors, writers, and/or directors. However, as streaming services struggle to reach or maintain profitability, 2024 saw a drop in the number of new scripted shows for the first time in at least 10 years, FX Research found.

Meanwhile, overall satisfaction with the quality of content available on streaming services seems to have declined for the past couple of years. Most surveys suggest a generally small decline in perceived quality, but that's still perturbing considering how frequently streaming services increase subscription fees. There was a time when a streaming subscription represented an exclusive ticket to viewing some of the best new TV shows and movies. But we've reached a point where the most streamed TV show last year was Suits -- an original from the USA Network cable channel that ended in 2019.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Hollywood Reporter: A production company for Blade Runner 2049 has sued (PDF) Tesla, which allegedly fed images from the movie into an artificial intelligence image generator to create unlicensed promotional materials. Alcon Entertainment, in a lawsuit filed Monday in California federal court, accuses Elon Musk and his autonomous vehicle company of misappropriating the movie's brand to promote its robotaxi at a glitzy unveiling earlier this month. The producer says it doesn't want Blade Runner 2049 to be affiliated with Musk because of his "extreme political and social views," pointing to ongoing efforts with potential partners for an upcoming TV series.

The complaint, which brings claims for copyright infringement and false endorsement, also names Warner Bros. Discovery for allegedly facilitating the partnership. "Any prudent brand considering any Tesla partnership has to take Musk's massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech, into account," states the complaint. "Alcon did not want BR2049 to be affiliated with Musk." [...] The lawsuit cites an agreement, the details of which are unknown to Alcon, for Warners to lease or license studio lot space, access and other materials to Tesla for the event. Alcon alleges that the deal included promotional elements allowing Tesla to affiliate its products with WBD movies. WBD was Alcon's domestic distributor for the 2017 release of Blade Runner 2049. It has limited clip licensing rights, though not for Tesla's livestream TV event, the lawsuit claims.

Alcon says it wasn't informed about the brand deal until the day of the unveiling. According to the complaint, Musk communicated to WBD that he wanted to associate the robotaxi with the film. He asked the company for permission to use a still directly from the movie, which prompted an employee to send an emergency request for clearance to Alcon since international rights would be involved, the lawsuit says. The producer refused, spurring the creation of the AI images. [...] Alcon seeks unspecified damages, as well as a court order barring Tesla from further distributing the disputed promotional materials. Musk referenced Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner movie during the robotaxi event. "You know, I love Blade Runner, but I don't know if we want that future," he said. "I believe we want that duster he's wearing, but not the, uh, not the bleak apocalypse."

I, Robot director Alex Proyas also took to X last week, writing: "Hey Elon, Can I have my designs back please?"

An anonymous reader shares a report: Households on individual streets will be targeted with personalised adverts under plans being rolled out by Channel 4. The channel is to use new technology which will allow brands to tailor who sees their advert by enabling them to select a demographic within a specific location down to street level. For example, someone watching Made in Chelsea on Channel 4's streaming service could be served an ad for a fashion brand in a local outlet to them if a particular fashion trend is being discussed.

Advertisers can further optimise their campaign by selecting from 26 programme genres, as well as time of day and device the show is being watched on. It forms part of a wider update to Channel 4's streaming platform that the broadcaster hopes could boost revenues by as much as $13m. The company will launch a new private marketplace enabling brands to buy advertising space directly in real-time. This will allow advertisers to amend their campaigns to respond to events, whether that be real-world events such as local weather or developments in fictional storylines within TV shows. Channel 4's new ad targeting also includes more detailed data to track whether a viewer has made a purchase after seeing an ad, as well as new viewer profiles for brands to target.

Though native Linux game servers have been scarce over the last two decades, "I've seen people using the Box64 emulator to play x86_64 games on ARM devices," writes Slashdot reader VennStone. "It got me thinking: why not apply this to game servers...?

"I thought it would be fun to see if I could build a super low-power Trackmania 2 server using a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W."

They dubbed the experiment "Trackberry", and shared all the technical details in a blog post at Interfacing Linux (includinga video). For example, they installed PyEnv so it could create a virtual environment for the PyPlanet server controller. ("That's right, your little Pi Zero 2 W is about to compile some software, slowly....")

But ultimately "it turns out that the A53 can run not only the server but also the server controller, with minimal effort. Five players push one core to around 50% load, while the others handle the database and controller." WHY STOP THERE? There are a gang of x86 Linux servers that could potentially run with Box64. Imagine playing Pirraria, 7 Days to Pi, Counter-Pi 2, Pitorio, and countless others! Granted, you may need a more powerful device than a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. I'll leave that research up to you.

My main takeaway from this experiment? Box64 is straight-up Scandinavian witchcraft and is not to be trifled with. Not even a little bit.

That said, it introduces a compelling option for those of us looking to run dedicated game servers that don't require much in the way of system resources. Under load, TrackBerry averages 2.8 watts and, according to the scientific number digits below, ends up running just under $3.00 a year or $0.25 a month. I find the concept of having a stack of microSD cards, each holding a different game server, neat....

You can see TrackBerry in action every Tuesday and Friday on Twitch...

Ecovacs robot vacuums have been hacked across the U.S. to shout racial slurs at unsuspecting people. VICE News reports: The issue is specifically with Ecovacs' Deebot X2 model. The hackers gained control of the devices and used the onboard speakers to blast racial slurs at anyone within earshot. One such person was a lawyer from Minnesota named Daniel Swenson. He was watching TV when he heard some odd noises coming from the direction of his vacuum. He changed the password and restarted it. But then the odd sounds started up again. And then it started shouting racial slurs at him like a surly disgruntled maid.

There were multiple reports of similar incidents across the United States and around the same time. One of them happened in Los Angeles, where a vacuum chased a dog while spewing hate. Another happened in El Paso, where the vac spewed slurs until it's owner turned it off. The attacks are apparently quite easy to pull off thanks to several known security vulnerabilities in Ecovacs, like a bad Bluetooth connector and a defective PIN system that is intended to safeguard video feeds and remote access but actually doesn't do any of that at all. A pair of cybersecurity researchers released a report on Ecovacs detailing the brand's multiple security flaws earlier this year.