The Verge’s entertainment section collects the latest news from the worlds of pop culture, music, movies, television, and video games. Whether you want to know what to watch on Netflix or how to make the most of your streaming service budget, the entertainment section acts a reliable source. There’s simply too much to read, watch, hear, and play. Let us be your tour guide.
First announced in 2012 and with no release date so far, Star Citizen has now collected over $1 billion in crowdfunding. That’s the kind of growth model we can build an economy around.
danthescienceman:
The year is 2050. The game Star Citizen has expanded uncontrollably to engulf 2/3 of the world economy, with no ship date in sight
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Variety reports on why early uploads of Stephen Colbert’s post-The Late Show endeavor were pulled, citing copyright complaints from Paramount/CBS. A statement from the company says it was because it financed and produced the episode with Colbert, which was eventually published on his YouTube channel, but it has now “decided to waive further enforcement of this standard industry practice until additional review.”
Blockbuster games getting leaked early is becoming the norm, and the upcoming Bond prequel 007: First Light is no exception. But the developers at IO Interactive have decided to roll with it by releasing footage of the first 13 minutes of the game ahead of launch on May 27th.
The agency is looking to partner with filmmakers, musicians, writers, poets, and artists to help tell the story behind programs such as the Artemis Moon missions and the Space Reactor-1 Freedom mission to Mars. But get your proposals in ASAP, the window closes on Tuesday, June 30th.
The Future of Truth has at least six quotes that appear to be fabricated by AI. After initially taking “full responsibility,” he’s now pointing a finger at the chatbots, telling The Atlantic that they “fucked up the book.” In a separate interview with Ars Technica, he said he still plans to use AI in his writing, adding:
“AI is often a delightful writing companion… It’s strangely creative and crafty and unusual in all these ways… and then it betrays you in ways that are just really quite horrible.”
24 hours after the Late Show’s finale and 11 years after his first guest-hosting appearance on Monroe, Michigan’s public access television station, Colbert took over the show for a second time. He brought along Jack White as his musical director and conducted a delightful interview with the show’s regular hosts, Michelle Baumann and Kaye Lani Rae Rafko Wilson.
His advice: Deep breaths, keep it simple, and maybe play a little VR mini golf.
“I’m very much in favor and in awe of the easy access that we have now to films to be able to immerse ourselves in films and film history,” he told 60 Minutes.
Jared Leto’s band Thirty Seconds to Mars is (for real, this time?) using Sam Altman’s World eye-scanning orb to stop bots, reports The San Francisco Standard:
So does Leto have a World ID?
“That’s a really good question. I actually don’t know,” Sada said.
Puzzmo just added Ribbit — an adorable anagram game — to its permanent rotation. I’ve been playing the game for months and it’s become part of my morning routine; it straddles a nice line between being challenging and brief, a nice way to spend a few minutes with a cup of coffee.
Pixel users can now AI-generate disco ball-style icons for their entire phone. Haters, shield your eyes.
The company asked the judge to rule that, as a matter of law, it could not be found an illegal monopolist, despite the jury issuing a verdict against it. If that fails, it’s asked the court to grant it a new trial altogether.
Why would you disrespect your favorite artist with an AI remix?
“Power under capitalism comes from capital itself, and we need to figure out how to have collective control of that.”
Critterz — AGC Studios’ animated feature that was produced using OpenAI’s tech — was originally scheduled to make its debut at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. But that’s no longer the case following OpenAI’s decision to shut Sora down back in March.
It’s been a surprisingly busy week for new releases. Here’s some stuff to check out across film, TV, and gaming:
A satisfying conclusion to a bloody mess of a show.
Catch it on CBS at 11:35PM. The episode has been shrouded in secrecy, but Deadline has some potential spoilers about who makes an appearance.
If you want something fun to watch before the finale airs, check out Colbert’s interview with Jon Stewart from earlier this week. I also strongly recommend this interview Colbert did with People — he seems like a great human being.
It’s “exploring” a sale and has “approached entertainment companies as potential buyers,” The Wall Street Journal reports. Wonder who might end up buying it.
[The Wall Street Journal]
Employees also want to pitch and start work on new games, but Bungie hasn’t greenlit anything yet, Bloomberg reports.
Destiny 2 will get its last major update on June 9th, Bungie announced Thursday.
You can make your own right here.
Marketing for the game will spin up this summer, and the company won’t share a price as part of its earnings announcements today, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told Variety. Zelnick told Bloomberg that preorders should begin alongside marketing.
To both, Zelnick indicated that the game is indeed coming out on November 19th, which was a delay from May 26th (which itself was a delay).
A handful of supporters showed up to a pretrial hearing with New York City-issued press passes.
The new Atlas tool lets users “build a fully interactive world,” and to encourage people to use it, Hidden Door will pay the creators of worlds that meet its guidelines — 30 percent of the platform’s subscription revenue will go to creators.
I tried Hidden Door last year, if you want to read more about it.
[Hidden Door]
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Verge Score
I don’t hate Polyend’s Endless, but I’m not putting it on my pedalboard.
Amazon launched AI-generated audiobooks last year, and now Spotify is launching its own AI audiobook narration feature, Audiobook Creation Tools. Starting in June, self-published authors will be able to use the beta feature to create audio versions of their books using AI voices from ElevenLabs.
This summer, Spotify is launching its Prompted Playlist feature, which it is beta testing for music and podcasts, for audiobooks. The company says audiobooks listening hours on the platform are up 60 percent year over year.
The Major League Soccer match between the LA Galaxy and Houston Dynamo FC will stream live on Apple TV this Saturday and will be the first “major professional live sporting event broadcast” captured entirely using iPhones, according to Apple.
iPhones were first used to capture parts of a live MLB game between the Red Sox and Tigers last year. Here’s what their setup looked like then.
