Four years after announcing a 9% tax on streaming entertainment services, the city has collected $2 million in sales tax from Sony and two online ticketing services, making it the first major city to collect such a tax successfully. CBS News reports: The city collected $1.2 million from Sony in January, on services including PlayStation Video live events and purchases of…
Tag: Entertainment
Sony Reportedly Launches Marvel-Inspired Studio To Turn Games Into Movies, Shows
Taking a page from the Marvel playbook, Sony Interactive Entertainment is reportedly launching its own studio to take its video games to the movie and TV screen. From a report: PlayStation Productions is a new division of Sony Interactive Entertainment with the task of adapting PlayStation games into films and TV shows, The Hollywood Reporter reported Monday. Heading up the new…
10-Year-Old’s Reality-Show Victory Revoked After Automated Bot Voting
An anonymous reader quotes ABC News:
The final result of Russia’s version of the popular TV singing talent show, “The Voice Kids,” has been cancelled after it was found that thousands of automated calls and text messages were used to rig voting in favor of its 10-year-old winner. Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Group-IB was brought in to examine the results after complaints were…
Who Killed America’s Demo Scene?
Jason Koebler shares Vice’s analysis of demoparties — “gatherings where programmers showcase artistic audiovisual works, known as demos, after a day- or days-long coding marathon that is part bacchanal and part competition” — starting with a visit to New York’s Synchrony.
I had arrived just in time to catch the end of a set by the electronic musician Melody Loveless, who was…
Startup ‘ObEN’ Is Betting the Future On Personal AI Avatars
merbs shares an excerpt from a Gizmodo report: In January 2019, when China Central Television, the largest broadcast network in the most populous nation in the world, aired a special to celebrate the Lunar New Year, the hosts welcomed four life-sized “personal artificial intelligences” to share the stage with them. Called PAIs, they were three-dimensional holographic replicas of the presenters that…
Epic Plans More Exclusives For Its Games Store
DarkRookie2 shares a report from Ars Technica: If you thought Epic was done adding to the growing pile of PC games exclusively available on its own Games Store, well… I’d like to know where you got that impression. In any case, you should think again, because Epic has announced it will “reveal brand-new material for several games, including some exclusives, coming…
Internet Meme Pioneer YTMND Shuts Down
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PC Magazine: You’re the Man Now Dog, a pioneer in the internet meme space, has shut down. The online community at YTMND.com allowed users to upload an image or a GIF and pair it with audio for hilarious results. Traffic to the website, however, dried up years ago with the rise of Facebook, Twitter,…
‘I Bought Some Noise-Canceling Headphones. They Don’t Cancel Noise’
“Many are seduced by the idea that they can listen in silence,” complains ZDNet columnist Chris Matyszczyk. “This doesn’t seem to be true,” he writes, describing a typical experience with some $279.95 Beats Studio3 wireless over-ear headphones: I could still hear so much of what was going on beyond the soccer match or movie upon which my headphones were supposed to…
In Memory of Peter Mayhew and Chewbacca
In the annals of science fiction movies, it’s often a supporting character who becomes the most memorable scene-stealer. That character is most often a villain, a robot, a female from another world or a cute alien creature, not a seven-foot tall hairy beast who communicates through roars and sides with the good guys. That, of… Read more » Source: https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/05/in-memory-of-peter-mayhew-and-chewbacca/…
Yes, the Internet is destroying our collective attention span
Source: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/5/3/18514330/distraction-collective-attention-research…