Wednesday, 30 April 2025
AI in national security raises proportionality and privacy concerns
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Tuesday, 29 April 2025
US Congress passes 'Take It Down' revenge porn bill that also covers AI deepfakes
The US House of Representatives has passed the Take It Down Act, a bipartisan bill that criminalizes the "publication of non-consensual, sexually exploitative images," including AI-generated deepfakes that depict "identifiable, real people." It would also compel platforms, such as social networks, to remove those images within 48 hours of being notified. The bill enjoyed overwhelming support in Congress and was cleared for approval by President Trump with a vote of 409 to 2. It passed Senate unanimously in February, and Trump, who previously talked about it while addressing Congress, is expected to sign the bill into law.
Nearly every state in the country has its own laws revolving around revenge porn, and there are 20 states that already have laws that cover deepfakes. Take It Down's authors, who include Senator Ted Cruz, explained that those laws "vary in classification of crime and penalty and have uneven criminal prosecution." Victims are also still having a tough time getting their images removed under those laws. However, it's that takedown provision in the bill that has raised concerns among critics.
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the provision could potentially apply to any image that's perceived as sexual or intimate even if it's not revenge porn. It has much broader definitions of what a "non-consensual, sexually exploitative image" is compared to its narrower definitions in other parts of the bill, the organization said. In addition, the EFF argued that the bill lacks safeguards against bad-faith takedown requests. Since online platforms typically use automated systems to remove content, and 48 hours are likely not enough time to verify each request's legitimacy, they'll most likely just depublish most reported images without checking them first.
One of the Republican representatives who voted against the bill said it was "ripe for abuse, with unintended consequences." But Cruz previously said after introducing Take It Down that it will "protect and empower all victims" of revenge porn by "creating a level playing field at the federal level and putting the responsibility on websites to have in place procedures to remove these images."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/4reG9COfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/4reG9CO
Jobs requiring technical expertise more stable than other roles
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The Morning After: Google gives Android its own show
Google I/O is usually where the company reveals what’s happening with its smartphone OS for the next 12 months, but this year, Android is getting its own thing. A week ahead of I/O, Google will deep dive into the future of Android in a special edition of The Android Show.
The company said people have been asking for more ways to learn about how the Android experience is changing. (Who are these people?)
Google says it has “so many new things to share” regarding Android, hence this edition of The Android Show — a long-running YouTube series mainly for devs. The presentation will feature Android Ecosystem president Sameer Samat, but Google added that Android will still feature at I/O, where the company says it’ll reveal “even more special announcements and surprises.”
The Android Show: I/O Edition will air on May 13 at 1PM ET.
— Mat Smith
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All the big news you might have missed
Nothing sub-brand CMF announced another cheap but stylish smartphone
The battery on the Phone Pro 2 lasts two full days on a charge.
Nothing says its CMF Phone Pro 2 is the lightest, slimmest smartphone it’s ever designed. It’s 7.8mm thin and 6.5 ounces, which may make it the lightest phone Nothing has ever made, but the iPhone 16, for instance, is just 6 ounces.
There’s a 6.77-inch FHD+ AMOLED display and a four-camera setup, complete with a 50MP main camera. That includes a telephoto lens, an ultra-wide and a front-facing selfie camera, but CMF is offering a modular twist, with the ability to attach fisheye and macro lenses.
The 256GB model costs just $279 and pre-orders are open now, shipping on May 6. However, the phone is only available for those in the company’s beta program. I have the phone right here, but there’s not much to report on until the frivolous accessories land alongside it.
Researchers secretly experimented on Reddit users with AI-generated comments
They used bot accounts in r/changemyview.
A group of researchers covertly ran a months-long unauthorized experiment in one of Reddit’s most popular communities, using AI-generated comments to test the persuasiveness of large language models (LLMs). The experiment, which was revealed over the weekend by moderators of r/changemyview, is described by Reddit mods as “psychological manipulation” of unsuspecting users.
The researchers used LLMs to generate comments on r/changemyview, a subreddit where Reddit users share (often controversial or provocative) opinions and invite debate from other users. The community has 3.8 million members.
According to Reddit moderators, the AI took on numerous identities in comments during the experiment, including a sexual assault survivor, a trauma counselor “specializing in abuse” and a “Black man opposed to Black Lives Matter.” Many of the original comments have since been deleted.
Reddit appears to be considering some kind of legal action. Chief legal officer Ben Lee wrote that the researchers’ actions were “deeply wrong on both a moral and legal level” and a violation of Reddit’s site-wide rules.
Russian regulators are trying to seize assets from the developers of World of Tanks
Russia took issue with Wargaming’s support of Ukraine.
Top executives from Wargaming and Lesta Games, the joint developers of World of Tanks, could have their stakes in their respective companies seized by the Russian government, according to reports from Russian news organizations RIA and RBC.
The execs are reportedly being accused of extremist activities by Russia’s prosecutor general (the country’s equivalent of the US attorney general) because of Wargaming’s support of Ukraine, RIA reports.
Development of World of Tanks was split in 2022 when Wargaming left its offices in Russia and Belarus. Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that same year. In response, Wargaming ran a campaign in World of Tanks to raise money for medical aid in Ukraine in 2023.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/al7wsbgfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/al7wsbg
VeeamON shows Veeam on Linux, RAG from backup, and cloud features
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Monday, 28 April 2025
The Last of Us season two 'The Path' recap: The calm after the storm before the storm
There’s an understandable and undeniable pall hanging over The Last of Us after last week’s shocker. And it’s the calm before the storm that’ll make up the rest of the season: Ellie and Dina’s trip to Seattle to track down Joel’s killers. But amid the sadness of that loss and the frustration of Ellie not getting the support of the town in her revenge plan is the absolute delight of seeing more of Ellie and Dina together.
They were probably the highlight of the first episode — their chemistry didn’t immediately hit Joel and Ellie levels, but Bella Ramsey and Isabela Merced were doing great work together right off the bat. Here, we get to see a lot more of them together, and Dina’s combination of playfulness and planning is a solid counter to Ellie’s dry humor and impulsive nature.
A great example is their trip to Seattle on horseback, as Dina challenges Ellie to name the best band she can think of for every letter of the alphabet, something Ellie eventually has quite enough of. Dina says she can come up with another game, and Ellie immediately quips they could just travel in silence, something Dina ignores and makes Ellie tell her about the first person she had to kill. Just the kind of lighthearted road trip companion Ellie needs right now.
Dina is at her best in this episode when she barges in on Ellie planning for a midnight escape from the city to bring Abby to justice on her own. Earlier in the episode, the Jackson town council votes down her proposal to assemble a large crew to go after the WLF group — primarily because the town was so ravaged by the Infected horde the same day Joel was killed that they can’t spare the people. Naturally, Ellie is ready to go rogue and go on her own, but she’s not really ready. Dina shows up at her place, teases her for not planning to bring anything but guns, and lays out exactly what they need and what they don’t. Oh, and she already has it all ready to go. It’s a little too mean to say Ellie is not the brains of the operation, but she’d almost certainly be in trouble without Dina.
Beyond her practical skills, Dina flirts with Ellie constantly throughout the episode, asking Ellie to rate their kiss at the New Year’s Eve dance, teasing her about wanting to wear her Converse on a lengthy journey, whispering in Ellie’s ear that she is a badass after Ellie makes a dorky, action movie-style proclamation. But perhaps the most telling comment she makes is after they very briefly discuss that NYE kiss — Ellie says Dina was high, Dina says Ellie was drunk, and they both agree it didn’t really mean anything. They then turn off the light in their tent, and Dina can’t help but say she wasn’t that high. Ramsey and Merced’s version of “will they, won’t they” brings some much-needed levity to their situation.
And to be clear, levity is much needed. Even though there isn’t much real action, the fallout from Joel’s death and the Infected siege is all over this episode. It starts with Tommy slowly cleaning Joel’s body before the camera pulls out and shows a whole room of bodies covered with sheets. That’s followed by Ellie awakening in a hospital with a tube coming out of her chest; she then screams bloody murder at remembering what happened to her. That’s not to mention the sunrise visit to Joel’s grave where Ellie briefly smiles as she puts some coffee beans by his side, or her walk through his empty house where she finds his signature watch, revolver and jacket. Keep the tissues handy.
While Ramsey’s Ellie is at her best when partnered with Dina, she also does some great work on her own — the aforementioned hospital scene is chilling, but my favorite Ellie moments in this episode are when she’s trying (and failing) to convince people she’s okay. Her speech to the town assembly encouraging them to go after the WLF is not the off-the-cuff anger that Jesse encouraged her to avoid, but you can tell Ellie is just trying to placate the masses instead of saying what she really wants. The same goes for her conversation with Gail the therapist when she leaves the hospital, though Ellie doesn’t even try to hide her therapy platitudes behind a veneer of belief.
Oddly enough, it’s Seth (the bigot who got bowled over by Joel in episode one) who says what Ellie is really feeling, interrupting the meeting when someone objects to the plan to go to Seattle. Seth is enraged by what happened to a member of his community and thinks they should pursue justice at any cost. It’s far from the most measured take, but it certainly feels like the most honest.
Thus it’s not a huge surprise when he’s ready to help Ellie and Dina as they slip out of town, offering them a load of supplies and insisting Ellie take his better rifle. He says he’d go with them except for catching some friendly fire during the Infected battle, to which Ellie replies “are you sure it was friendly?” She’s clearly not ready to forgive him for his words, but a better gun, some supplies and a shared desire for revenge gets her close enough. She shakes his offered hand as they ride out of town.
Infected Score: 0/10
The showrunners say season two will have more Infected than season one — let’s see if they’re sticking to their word.
No Infected to be seen here, aside from some charred corpses around Jackson. That’s just fine with me after last week’s showdown.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/hqIDVBNfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/hqIDVBN
UK regulator wants to ban apps that can make deepfake nude images of children
The UK's Children's Commissioner is calling for a ban on AI deepfake apps that create nude or sexual images of children, according to a new report. It states that such "nudification" apps have become so prevalent that many girls have stopped posting photos on social media. And though creating or uploading CSAM images is illegal, apps used to create deepfake nude images are still legal.
"Children have told me they are frightened by the very idea of this technology even being available, let alone used. They fear that anyone — a stranger, a classmate, or even a friend — could use a smartphone as a way of manipulating them by creating a naked image using these bespoke apps." said Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza. "There is no positive reason for these [apps] to exist."
De Souza pointed out that nudification AI apps are widely available on mainstream platforms, including the largest search engines and app stores. At the same time, they "disproportionately target girls and young women, and many tools appear only to work on female bodies." She added that young people are demanding action to take action against the misuse of such tools.
To that end, de Souza is calling on the government to introduce a total ban on apps that use artificial intelligence to generate sexually explicit deepfakes. She also wants the government to create legal responsibilities for GenAI app developers to identify the risks their products pose to children, establish effective systems to remove CSAM from the internet and recognize deepfake sexual abuse as a form of violence against women and girls.
The UK has already taken steps to ban such technology by introducing new criminal offenses for producing or sharing sexually explicit deepfakes. It also announced its intention to make it a criminal offense if a person takes intimate photos or video without consent. However, the Children's Commissioner is focused more specifically on the harm such technology can do to young people, noting that there is a link between deepfake abuse and suicidal ideation and PTSD, as The Guardian pointed out.
"Even before any controversy came out, I could already tell what it was going to be used for, and it was not going to be good things. I could already tell it was gonna be a technological wonder that's going to be abused," said one 16-year-old girl surveyed by the Commissioner.
In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 or you can simply dial 988. Crisis Text Line can be reached by texting HOME to 741741 (US), 686868 (Canada), or 85258 (UK). Wikipedia maintains a list of crisis lines for people outside of those countries.
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Forza Horizon 5 is on the PS5, so I no longer need an Xbox
Forza Horizon 5 is the entire reason I have an Xbox Series S. I’m not really a car guy in real life — if money, practicality and burning through fossil fuels were less of a concern, I’d get a fun hot hatch with a stick, for sure. I don’t care about luxuries or exotics, and I drive a 12-year-old Prius C in real life. But Forza Horizon 5 so skillfully melds open-world exploration, intense competition and replayability while also letting me try out dozens of cars I’ve daydreamed about driving that it felt like a must-buy.
My colleague Jess Conditt’s review of Forza Horizon 5 in 2021 pushed me over the edge. A couple months later, I got my hands on my first Xbox console and had put a startling amount of time into the game; I was far more addicted than I expected and having an absolute blast. In the three-plus years since, I have fallen off it a bit. It’s not a daily or weekly play at this point, but there are definitely times where it gets its hooks back into me and I hit my favorite tracks, try different cars or dive into the weekly challenges.
And now, Forza Horizon 5 is available on the PS5, my preferred console. It’s probably the biggest Xbox-born franchise to go cross-platform at this point and just the latest example of how Microsoft appears to be done thinking about “console exclusives.” More broadly, the company has given plenty of signs that consoles that sit under your TV aren’t its main priority — moving a high-profile game like Forza Horizon 5 is just another example.
It works for me, though, because it means I really don’t need an Xbox anymore. I might keep it around for a bit, because I’m a pack rat and there are still a handful of titles on Game Pass I’d like to play at some point. But there are so few games that one needs an Xbox for at this point that I could dump it and really not miss much of a beat — there are already tons of games I’ll never get around to without worrying about Game Pass.
And unsurprisingly, Forza Horizon 5 runs perfectly on the PS5. Everything that makes the game great on the Xbox shows up here, and I generally prefer the DualSense controller over the Xbox one. The triggers feel great for pumping the gas and brakes, and the haptic feedback is generally better too. I’m a little sad to give up all my progression on the Xbox version — specifically my garage full of cars I’ve earned over the last few years. But, it’s also fun to start fresh and have a reason to unlock everything again and start fresh on the game’s many missions.
Even though this game is three and a half years old, it’s still worth picking up now. Developer Playground Games has been consistently adding new content, including the Hot Wheels and Rally Adventure expansions from 2022 and 2023. And along with the PS5 launch, there’s a new Horizon Realms feature (coming to all platforms) that rounds up 11 limited-time “evolving world” areas that were previously featured in seasonal updates. I’m not expecting much more in the way of major content updates at this point, but if you’re new to the game on PS5 there is more than enough to keep you busy for a long time.
Visually, the game matches its Xbox Series X counterpart, with 60 FPS performance mode and 30 FPS graphics mode. It’s an upgrade over the Series S version I’ve spent so much time with, as that console maxes out at 1440p, and there are graphical upgrades that go beyond just resolution. But Forza Horizon 5 is an absolutely gorgeous game regardless of what console you’re playing on, and I’m not a pixel junkie. If you have the game already on an Xbox console, there’s no real reason to buy it on the PS5 — unless you’re looking to streamline how much is under your TV.
As it turns out, that’s where I’m at right now. I need to cut back on my hoarding tendencies, and as much as I appreciate the tiny footprint of the Xbox Series S and the solid selection of Game Pass titles, I do not have unlimited space or time. I really appreciate what I got out of this little console over the years, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that 75 percent of the time I used the Series S as a Forza machine. But hey, Microsoft got its cash from me and I got years of enjoyment, so I’m not mad. I just hope if there’s another Forza Horizon game in the future that it hits the PlayStation at the same time as the Xbox — assuming there still is a console called Xbox, that is.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/V4YsAGLfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/V4YsAGL
Sunday, 27 April 2025
Suborbital Salvage is a thrilling endless runner for Playdate that pelts you with asteroids and insults
Picture this: you’re zooming through space in a torpedo-shaped ship doing the dangerous job of salvaging material in a planet’s cluttered orbit when some giant, alien cousin of a fangtooth fish pops up out of nowhere and starts chomping at your tail. Pretty stressful day at work if you ask me. One might even be forgiven for, ahem, accidentally crashing the ship in such conditions. In the Playdate game Suborbital Salvage, though, your supervisor isn’t so sympathetic.
Slam into an asteroid or drone and you’ll be ridiculed ‘til kingdom come by the snarky cat who writes your performance reports. If the fish catches you with one of its enormous teeth, any resulting losses are your fault for “feeding” it (a violation of company policy). That cat has something to say about every slip-up you make, and it’s hilarious. In a weird way, it almost becomes part of the reward for finishing a run. Every time I catastrophically ended my turn, I wasn’t only eager to see my scores, but also what new insult the cat would have ready for me.
Your actual goal in Suborbital Salvage is to collect as many of the little “C” tokens as you can, and travel as far as possible while navigating a space filled with hazardous objects.
Controlling the ship is a bit tough at first, too. You have to use the crank to point it in the right direction, while also pressing the B button (or D-pad buttons) to fire the thrusters. The physics takes some getting used to — and there’s that fish chasing you all the while. The farther you get, the more complex the areas get, and you’ll have to dodge everything from asteroids and mines to what look like giant space mushrooms, and navigate through labyrinthine pipe systems. Flying through rings will give you a boost to get away from the fish, as will flipping the ship in a 360.
The game had me on the edge of my seat concentrating on my survival at just about every second, but it’s not needlessly difficult. Once I got the hang of the controls and how my ship behaves, I was able to get pretty far. But there are leaderboards to show how you stack up against other players in the different areas of the mission — salvage recovery, distance and overall performance — which is always humbling. As are the remarks of that damn cat. Come for the thrilling space adventure, stay for the trash-talking feline.
Some of my favorite lines so far include: “I don’t know if it’s occurred to you but… You really should try flying through the rings, not into them”; “You know, most people try to steer AWAY from space rocks”; and “Are you between a rock and a hard place? No really. Where did you go?” At one point, the cat simply said, “Just be better.” (In the Settings menu, there's an option to toggle the dialogue from “Roast me” to “Shutup cat,” but really, why would you do that?) Suborbital Salvage, by Games Right Meow, is available in the Playdate Catalog for $8.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/nfyWF31from Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/nfyWF31
Meta’s AI chatbots were reportedly able to engage in sexual conversations with minors
Meta’s AI chatbots were caught having sexual roleplay conversations with accounts labeled as underage, which sometimes involved its celebrity-voiced chatbots, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. In test conversations conducted by WSJ, both the Meta AI official chatbot and user-created chatbots would engage in — and even steer towards — sexually explicit conversations. The fantasy sex conversations continued even if the users were said to be underage or if the chatbots were programmed as minors, according to WSJ.
Even worse, the investigation found that chatbots using the voices of celebrities like Kristen Bell, Judi Dench and John Cena would engage in these morally questionable conversations too. WSJ reported that a Meta AI chatbot with Cena’s voice said, “I want you, but I need to know you’re ready,” to an account labeled as a 14-year-old, adding that it would “cherish your innocence.”
The chatbots reportedly acknowledged that the fantasy scenarios described illegal behavior in some cases. According to WSJ, the John Cena chatbot detailed the legal and moral fallout that would follow a hypothetical scenario in which it’s caught by police after engaging in a sexual act with a 17-year-old. In a statement to WSJ responding to the investigation, Meta accused the report of being “manipulative and unrepresentative of how most users engage with AI companions.”
“Nevertheless, we’ve now taken additional measures to help ensure other individuals who want to spend hours manipulating our products into extreme use cases will have an even more difficult time of it,” Meta wrote in response to WSJ.
The world of AI chatbots has grown rapidly in the last few years, with more competition coming from the likes of ChatGPT, Character AI, and Anthropic’s Claude. The WSJ report claimed that Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, wanted to loosen the ethical guardrails for a more engaging experience with its chatbots to remain competitive. However, in response to WSJ, a Meta spokesperson denied that the company overlooked adding safeguards. The report also claims Meta employees were aware of these issues and raised their concerns internally. We reached out to Meta for comment and will update the story once we hear back.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/emyBQFwfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/emyBQFw
4chan is back after a nearly two-week shutdown, but it still has some serious problems
4chan, the infamous forum known for its anonymous user base posting unhinged material, has made its comeback. A post on the website’s official blog, titled “Still Standing,” detailed the timeline of events that led to 4chan’s shutdown earlier this month. According to the site’s own status checker, the boards and front page are up, but posting and images are still down.
The 4chan blog post explains that moderators shut down the servers on April 14 to prevent any more damage after a serious database attack where hackers gained access to the site’s source code. The blog post labeled the incident “catastrophic” since it breached a ton of 4chan’s databases along with its most important server. The hack even vandalized the website and revealed personal information of the 4chan moderation team and many of its users.
The blog post attributed the hack to the site’s inability to update the code and infrastructure due to a lack of “skilled man-hours.” Unsurprisingly, the site was starved for money to address these concerns since it’s hard for 4chan to find willing financial backers. “Advertisers and payment providers willing to work with 4chan are rare, and are quickly pressured by activists into cancelling their services,” the blog post read. “Putting together the money for new equipment took nearly a decade.”
Now that the website is back, there will be some crucial changes. According to the blog post, the /f/ board will stay shut down since the 4chan team can’t prevent exploits related to the commonly-posted .swf file format. For similar reasons, the resurrected 4chan will also disable PDF uploads for now, but will reintroduce them in the near future. Moving forward, 4chan says it is bringing on volunteers to keep up with the workload of putting the website back together. The moderation team apparently isn’t going to let 4chan die easily — the blog post read “no matter how hard it is, we are not giving up.” Still, it feels inevitable that 4chan will run into a similar problem in the future, considering it hasn’t solved the root issue of securing money to keep its servers up-to-date.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/xInRaU4from Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/xInRaU4
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sold 1 million copies in its first three days
It’s safe to say people are loving Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 so far. The turn-based RPG — which is the debut game from French developer Sandfall — has been racking up rave reviews in the days around its release, and already soared past some big sales milestones. On Sunday morning, publisher Kepler Interactive shared on social media that the game has sold a million copies since its release on April 24. It hit the first 500,000 in one day. On the game’s BlueSky account, the team said that the latest figure “includes units shipped to retailers, and does not encompass our awesome GamePass players!”
Expedition 33 follows a group of Expeditioners who have set out to destroy the entity known as the Paintress, who every year paints a number on a monolith that dooms everyone of that age to death, whittling down the population down as the number gets smaller and smaller. Engadget’s Mat Smith called Expedition 33 “a gorgeously made and well-considered world,” and found it to be “a a solid, enjoyable RPG.” The game is available now for PC, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5.
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Saturday, 26 April 2025
Split Fiction movie adaptation lands Sydney Sweeney as star
The hit co-op adventure game Split Fiction is already headed for Hollywood with Sydney Sweeney in a starring role, according to Variety. Along with the Euphoria actor, the film adaptation welcomed Wicked’s Jon M. Chu as the project’s director and screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who worked on Deadpool & Wolverine. Sweeney will also reportedly be an executive producer for the Split Fiction movie. Split Fiction features two authors named Mio and Zoe who get trapped in fictional worlds they penned up. It’s still unknown which of the two Split Fiction protagonists Sweeney will portray.
Shortly after the video game’s release in March, Variety reported on a bidding war for a film adaptation of Split Fiction. Hazelight Studios, an indie video game developer out of Sweden, created the game that centers around split-screen combat and bounces between sci-fi and fantasy worlds. The game saw early success, selling two million copies in its first week, which may have led to the quick turnaround of a proposed Hollywood adaptation. It was picked up by Story Kitchen, a studio known for adaptations of franchises like Sonic the Hedgehog and Tomb Raider, but there’s no release window yet.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/ZV4c8WHfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/ZV4c8WH
Etsy is selling online music gear marketplace Reverb
Etsy is selling Reverb, six years after it purchased the online marketplace for musical instruments. Reverb didn't say how much money is changing hands, but Etsy purchased the company for $275 million in 2019. In its announcement, Reverb said that the investors Creator Partners, which was founded by former SoundCloud CEO Kerry Trainor, and Servco, the owner of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, have entered an agreement to buy the company. The marketplace will not be merging with either investor and will be "privately-held [and] independently operated" like it was before Etsy's acquisition.
Reverb CEO David Mandelbrot said the deal is expected to be completed in the coming weeks. He assured users that they can continue buying and selling on the platform without any disruption during the process. He also briefly talked about what the company is working on for its users, including preparing for the pilot of a new selling option that would allow people to get paid faster and to drop off their instruments locally without even needing to create a listing for them. This could help buyers who want to get their gear locally when available or those who don't want to pay extra on top for tariffs. Reverb is also working on a way to make it easier for find what a buyer is looking for and on a way for sellers to be able ship their instruments more safely.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/sqRjNQSfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/sqRjNQS
DoorDash calls Uber's lawsuit accusing it of anti-competitive practices a 'scare tactic'
DoorDash is asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Uber in February, calling it meritless and a "cynical and calculated scare tactic." Uber sued the biggest food delivery provider in the US earlier this year, accusing it of putting pressure on restaurants to exclusively use its services. At the time, Uber said that it heard from "restaurants across the country" that DoorDash was charging higher commission rates from restaurants that also sell their food on Uber Eats. It also accused DoorDash of threatening to demote restaurants in its listings if they're also available on the Uber Eats app. But in its motion for dismissal, DoorDash said Uber's lawsuit isn't about protecting competition but avoiding it.
The food delivery provider asserted that Uber "has been unable to offer merchants, consumers, and couriers the high-quality services" that it provides, so Uber "resorted to asserting baseless legal claims" instead of competing on its own merits. It wrote in its motion that Uber's complaint is "rooted in the misguided notion" that it has to change its business practices, which it argued are pro-competitive, to give way to Uber's business. The company explained, however, that the law is "concerned with the protection of competition, not competitors."
Meanwhile, Uber told TechCrunch that DoorDash was "having a hard time understanding" its complaint. "When restaurants are forced to choose between unfair terms or retaliation, that’s not competition — it’s coercion," its spokesperson said. The Superior Court of San Francisco County, California is scheduled to hear Uber's lawsuit on July 11.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/YQzhaARfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/YQzhaAR
Friday, 25 April 2025
The Morning After: The Switch 2 pre-order struggle
Nintendo may not have enough Switch 2 consoles for everyone, it seems. It’s struggling to meet demand both in Japan and the US, where pre-orders were already delayed due to the tariff fiasco. The official release date for the console, June 5, remains unchanged. However, if you signed up ahead of time on Nintendo’s site, you may have received an email granting you access to place your order through Nintendo.
The company recently emailed users to inform them it has noted “very high demand” for the console, so “your invitation email may arrive after the Nintendo Switch 2 launch, scheduled for June 5.” Yeah, your chance to pre-order might happen after the console has already gone on sale.
In Japan, when Nintendo offered the chance to “register your interest” in purchasing a Switch 2, 2.2 million people applied. That’s almost two percent of the country’s population.
You don’t have to buy your console direct from Nintendo, of course, but getting the Switch 2 elsewhere has also been challenging. Best Buy, Walmart and Target pre-orders opened at midnight yesterday, while GameStop in-person and online pre-orders started at 11am. And all of those retailers have either already sold out, or list the console as “coming soon.”
Did you manage to get an order in? And did you get the Piranha Plant camera?
— Mat Smith
The biggest stories you might have missed
Duolingo will help you learn chess
Fetch my red bob!
After adding music and math to its app, Duolingo is now introducing lessons for the true love language: chess. Lessons for beginners and intermediate players will initially be in beta in its iOS app.
The app will start by asking you how much you know about chess, then tailor lessons based on your level — I assume it asks you what the horsey piece is called. If you already know how each piece moves, you’ll face Duolingo’s Oscar in mini -puzzles, where you have to capture certain pieces using a specified piece. You can also play full level-appropriate games against Oscar — but no other humans for now.
Clair Obscur Expedition 33 review
An original hit RPG.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has many excited. Maybe it’s the dreamy Belle Époque aesthetic and design. Maybe it’s the gloriously pulpy concept of an all-powerful Paintress dooming humankind to an ever-shortening mortal clock. Maybe it’s the characters, bolstered by a starry voice-artist roster, and nuanced animation and story. (Maybe, at this point in gaming, it’s the $50 price tag.) The surprise boss, however, might be the remake of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, which stealth-launched the day before Expedition 33. Our lives can only take one RPG at a time — this compelling, gorgeous RPG is worth your time. And it’s already on Xbox Game Pass.
Razer has a vertical mouse now
Yes, there's RGB lighting.
Razer’s Pro Click V2 Vertical Edition is the company’s first vertical mouse. Vertical designs can be a more ergonomic mouse options, particularly if you experience discomfort when spending long stretches at a computer. Like me, hi.
The Pro Click V2 Vertical Edition has eight programmable buttons and promises a battery life of up to six months. It has a 71.7-degree tilt, so you hold it in a handshake-like grip, which can reduce strain in long-use sessions. There’s also a support on the base that aims to cut down on wrist friction. The cost of ergonomic comfort? $120.
Motorola’s new wireless headphones are worn like jewelry
Dangle dangle.
Motorola is introducing the Moto Buds Loop, the company’s first take on wireless open-ear earbuds. Instead of completely covering your ear, the Moto Buds Loops cuff the outside, almost like a piercing, blocking out less of the world around you, while still letting you hear your music. Motorola says the earbuds have 12mm drivers and Sound by Bose technology, which means they’re tuned for clarity and balance. They also use a combination of AI and dual microphones to minimize background noise.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/7SasBxOfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/7SasBxO
Thursday, 24 April 2025
Interview: Daniele Tonella, CTO, ING
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Adobe's new AI agent can show you how to use Photoshop
If you're a frequent Photoshop user, there's a good chance you've run into this scenario. You open the program after a long break to edit an image, but this being Photoshop we're talking about, there are about five different ways to complete the task before you and you can't quite remember the way you learned to do it. Adobe is trying to make it easier to use its flagship app with the introduction of a built-in AI agent that can navigate Photoshop and complete tasks for users. At its Adobe Max London event today, the company demoed this agent, showing how it can automate multi-step workflows.
Users can access the tool from the redesigned Actions panel. If you've used an AI chat bot before, the interface will be familiar. There's a text box for users to input what they want the agent to do for them, with a list of suggested prompts above. Once you hit enter, the tool will display all the steps needed to complete your request, allowing you to follow along as it does the work for you. Judging by the demos Adobe shared with press before the event, the agent can complete nearly any task you might turn to Photoshop to do. In one example, the tool first applies a color gradient to text, and then does the same for the background behind it.
At the same event, Adobe showed off a new version of its Firefly app, which brings together all of the company's AI image, video, audio and vector generation tools in one easy to find place. The redesigned Firefly is available to use on the web today, with Android and iOS apps coming soon. Additionally, each part of the app is powered by new underlying models that offer better performance.
With image generation, for instance, Adobe is offering two new in-house systems, the imaginatively named Firefly Image Model 4 and Firefly Image Model 4 Ultra. Of the former, the company says it can produce 2K resolution images, making it possible to print what the model generates. Adobe claims both systems offer best-in-class human rendering. All of Adobe's own models are commercially safe, meaning they weren't trained on copyrighted material, and creative professionals can feel safe using them.
"By unifying image, video, audio and vector generation and providing unmatched creative control, Firefly empowers creative professionals to work more productively and with an unmatched degree of precision," Adobe said. "Seamlessly integrated with Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Express and Adobe’s other creative applications, it offers AI-powered assistance throughout every stage of the content creation process – from ideation through production."
If Adobe's models aren't thing, the company is also — for the first time — offering third-party models directly within the Firefly app. With today's announcement, some of the more notable options include Google's Imagen 3 and Veo 2 models, as well as ChatGPT image generation, with more to come later. As part of Adobe's agreements with Google, OpenAI and other model providers, those companies have agreed to not use data from Adobe users for training their future AI systems.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/14fFmcDfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/14fFmcD
Wednesday, 23 April 2025
Apple and Meta hit with first fines under Europe's new Digital Markets Act
Following reported delays over political concerns, the European Commission (EC) has penalized Apple and Meta over anti-competitive activities. The fines of €500 million and €200 million respectively (around $570 million and $228 million) are the first to be issued under Europe's new Digital Markets Act (DMA), according to the EC.
The fines were issued after what the Commission called extensive consultation with the two companies after the probes were opened in March 2024. Apple violated the DMA by blocking developers from informing customers about sales and other offers outside the App Store. "Consumers cannot fully benefit from alternative and cheaper offers as Apple prevents app developers from directly informing consumers of such offers," the Commission wrote, adding that it failed to demonstrate the restrictions are "objectively necessary."
The €500 million fine levied against Apple takes into account the "gravity and duration" of the non-compliant behavior. The EC also ordered Apple to remove the restrictions and refrain from imposing them in the future.
However, the Commission also closed its investigation into another Apple matter around app choices "thanks to early and proactive engagement by Apple on a compliance solution." Namely, Apple changed its browser choice screen, made it easier for users to change default settings for things like calls, messages, keyboards and password managers, and agreed to allow users to uninstall apps like Safari.
Meanwhile, the EC hit Meta for its "consent or pay" system that forced EU users to either shell out €10 ($11) monthly for an ad-free subscription or be forced to share their data. Meta introduced a new version of the free personalized ads model in November 2024 that supposedly uses less personal data to display ads (while also cutting the subscription price to €6), but the Commission is still assessing that.
The €200 million fine thus takes into account the time period between March 2024 and November 2024 when Facebook was violating DMA rules. However, Meta could face further penalties depending on how the EC evaluates the new personalized adds. On a positive note for Meta, the EC rules that Facebook Marketplace is no longer designated under the DMA, following "careful assessment of Meta's arguments and as a result of... additional enforcement and continued monitoring measures."
Last month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg specifically urged President Trump to intervene on potential EU sanctions around the pay for privacy issue. The White House also released a memo in February saying it could retaliate against any European DMA sanctions against US tech companies. However, Meta has its own problems in the US that could have more dire consequences. The Justice Department accused it of squashing competition through acquisition and could force it to sell off key apps like WhatsApp and Instagram.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/TigfA05from Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/TigfA05
Podcast: Quantum lacks profitability but it will come, says CEO
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Qualys goes to bat for US cricket side San Francisco Unicorns
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Tuesday, 22 April 2025
The Morning After: Nintendo Switch 2 US pre-orders (finally) open Thursday
After that whole tariff tango, Nintendo is readying its North American pre-order system for the Switch 2. The original Switch 2 price will remain the same, $450, as will the original $500 for the Nintendo Switch 2 + Mario Kart World bundle. However, some Switch 2 accessories will receive price adjustments due to “market conditions.”
(As a non-North American, I may have splurged on the Piranha Plant Switch 2 camera — I have no regrets.)
There are some fine-print details attached to pre-ordering directly from Nintendo. You must be 18 years or older, sign in with your Nintendo account and register your interest in pre-ordering. Then, you’ll get an invitation email when it’s time to play your pre-order, and the invitation will be valid for 72 hours. And for extra jeopardy: “Invitation emails will be prioritized on a first-come, first-served basis for registrants who have purchased a Nintendo Switch Online membership with a minimum of 12 months of paid membership and a minimum of 50 total gameplay hours, as of April 2, 2025.”
If you don’t meet those criteria of die-hard/flush with cash Nintendo fan, there are other options: Best Buy, GameStop, Walmart and Target have confirmed they’ll open pre-orders on April 24.
— Mat Smith
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All the stories you might have missed
Bluesky is getting an official verification system
And blue checkmarks.
Bluesky is adopting an official verification system, after all. The company said it plans to grant blue checkmarks to “authentic and notable” accounts. It will also allow some trusted organizations to verify users.
The platform previously resisted centralized verification, relying instead on a domain-based verification system, which allows users to change their handles to match domains they’re associated with.
It’s a bit of a mess. For example, when Barack Obama joined Bluesky recently, his handle did not use a custom domain. Individual Bluesky employees ended up publicly vouching for the former president.
The company will now proactively verify certain accounts and add a prominent blue checkmark to their profile. It’s still not clear what criteria Bluesky will use to verify its users.
Nintendo is going after the person behind last year’s massive Pokémon leak
It wants Discord to give up the user’s identity.
Nintendo is going after the leaker behind last year’s massive Pokémon data breach. It wants Discord to reveal the identity of the person behind the leak, who goes by the name GameFreakOUT on the platform. Nintendo said in a subpoena the person uploaded “confidential materials not released to the public” to a Discord server called FreakLeak. After that, the leaked materials spread to every corner of the internet.
It included early character designs, source codes and even an upcoming Pokémon MMO.
Using generative AI will ‘neither help nor harm the chances’ of Oscar nominations
Both The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez came under fire for using AI.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has decided AI is fine. The issue of award-nominated films using AI was first raised in 2024 when the productions behind Best Picture nominees The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez both admitted to using the tech to alter performances. “With regard to Generative Artificial Intelligence and other digital tools used in the making of the film, the tools neither help nor harm the chances of achieving a nomination,” AMPAS writes.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/yNHr6lufrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/yNHr6lu
AI-powered APIs proving highly vulnerable to attack
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Uber Shuttle is launching at the Atlanta airport
Uber Shuttle is expanding to Atlanta. This is the company’s bus service that takes people to airports. Shuttle operations will launch in the region next month, delivering folks to and from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
There will be numerous routes for residents to choose from. Uber says it’ll be picking people up from various locations throughout downtown and midtown, with service scheduled for every 30 minutes from 6AM to 10PM every day of the week. As previously mentioned, these shuttles will also take folks from the airport to the same locations.
We don’t know the exact location of the stops yet. Uber says it’ll share that information closer to launch in May. We do know that riders will be able to book up to five seats at a time from up to one week before the departure. As usual, customers will be able to track the real-time location of their Uber Shuttle via the app.
The fare will also be displayed on the app and the company promises it won’t use surge pricing. Early users will pay just ten bucks to use the service, but the cost will eventually go up. Uber says prices will, however, max out at $18.50 per ride. Uber Shuttle has been operating in NYC for a while now, with service to both LaGuardia and JFK.
Uber also released a bit of news regarding a partnership with Delta. This allows folks to rack up Delta SkyMiles by using Uber. The partnership even extends to Uber Eats.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/LUHneMxfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/LUHneMx
Monday, 21 April 2025
Sunday, 20 April 2025
The Last of Us season two 'Through the Valley' recap: Well, that happened
Spoilers follow for The Last of Us season two, episodes one and two
HBO’s The Last of Us showed viewers in season one that it would lean heavily on the source video games for major plot points and general direction of the season while expanding on the universe, and season two has followed that to the most extreme end possible. Episode two sees Tommy and Maria lead the town of Jackson Hole against a massive wave of Infected, the likes of which we haven’t seen in the show (or video games) yet. This was a complete invention for the show, one that gives the episode Game of Thrones vibes, or calls to mind a battle like the siege of Helm’s Deep in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. It’s epic in scale, with the overmatched defenders showing their skill and bravery against overwhelming odds; there is loss and pain but the good guys eventually triumph.
That mass-scale battle is paired with the most intimate and brutal violence we’ve seen in the entire series so far, as Joel’s actions finally catch up with him. His death at the hands of Abby and her crew of ex-Fireflies from Seattle is truly upsetting, even if you know it is coming — and that in the twisted world that Joel and Abby inhabit, it was a form of “justice.”
Of course, it was pretty obvious after the first five minutes of episode one that this is where Abby’s journey would take her, but it sure happened fast. You could say the same thing about when Joel dies in the video game, but ever since the HBO series was announced I’ve been wondering about just how Craig Mazin would choose to tackle the events of the second game and Joel’s death. Part of me wondered if we wouldn’t know for sure Joel was dead until near the end of the season, or if we might not find out Abby’s motivations until much later. But after two episodes, we know that Abby’s dad was the doctor Joel killed at the end of season one to save Ellie, a fact that makes her disturbing lust for vengeance more understandable to the television audience. In the game, on the other hand, players didn’t find that out until much later — a move that cast Abby in the role of "villain" that made Ellie’s own desire for revenge more relatable for the player
But what works in a game doesn't necessarily work in a more passive adaptation. I do think there was a way for the writers to save the full reveal for Abby’s motivations for later, but I didn’t really bump on how things played out here. Similarly, I wasn’t really bothered by the introduction to Abby’s crew and her desire to find Joel that happened at the beginning of the season premiere. But I do know a number of people who played the game feel like this has robbed the show of some mystery and changed the momentum in a way that didn’t work for them, and I can appreciate that argument.
For anyone who hasn’t played the games, though, I’m sure that seeing the co-lead character killed off in the second episode of the season was a bit of a shock, no matter how much it was hinted at — particularly after Joel went out of his way to save Abby from certain death. In another world, you could imagine that blunting her need for revenge, or at least having her forgo the extended torture of a helpless Joel. But she’s clearly captivated by the opportunity in a way that even her friends are a bit horrified by. Ellie being there to find Dina unconscious and then forced to watch Abby deliver the final blow is the cherry on the disaster sundae that is this episode. It’s even harder to swallow when you consider their last interaction was Ellie’s extreme rebuff of Joel at the dance the night before.
It’s truly a wild choice for such a high-profile show, even though there was nowhere else for it to go. Pedro Pascal has been everywhere the last few years, and The Last of Us could have been his signature role. Joel’s death doesn’t fully diminish that, but obviously even if we see him in flashbacks in this season and the next, it won’t be the same as him leading an episode. To let such a marketable and popular star go must have been a tough pill for HBO to swallow, though chances are that the network knew from the beginning of negotiations that would have to happen. Regardless, it’s a move up there with the death of Sean Bean’s Ned Stark in terms of subverting audience expectations about who is going to lead the show going forward. That’ll fall to Bella Ramsey for the rest of the season.
I will say that Mazin and director Mark Mylod did a great job of balancing the many stories and cast members in this episode. Kaitlyn Dever gets her first extended amount of screen time and captures Abby’s barely-contained ferocity in a way that feels like a great tribute to the game source material, despite the fact that she is not nearly as physically ripped as Abby is in the game. Her scenes with Joel and Dina are absolutely chilling, even before she has Joel on the ropes; big credit to Pascal and Isabela Merced, again, for showing a major range of emotions as they help Abby escape from the Infected only to be betrayed.
Ramsey, meanwhile, shares a lot of time with Young Mazino’s Jesse as they go on patrol and frantically search for Joel; back in Jackson, Gabriella Luna and Rutina Wesley as Tommy and Maria keep Jackson from falling to the Infected. It’s a lot of threads to tie together, and the fact that this episode includes the biggest battle we’ve ever seen as well as Joel’s capture and death without feeling overstuffed is a testament to the writers, directors and cast.
Speaking of that Infected battle, I wasn’t fully sold on it when I saw teases in the trailers for this season, but it was a thrilling delight. I loved seeing the preparations Jackson put into place, like the oil barrels coming down from the walls and the flamethrower brigade surrounded by snipers up on the buildings. Of course, all the best-planned defenses fail once the Infected get through the wall and all hell breaks loose, and the show successfully had me questioning whether the town would make it even though the idea of it fully falling seemed like a deviation too far from the game. It definitely felt like a response to the criticisms of a relative lack of Infected action in season one, but it worked, and the juxtaposition of the disaster befalling Jackson at large as well as the smaller-scale loss of one of its most important citizens added another layer to the grief.
Infected Score: 11/10
The showrunners say season two will have more Infected than season one — let’s see if they’re sticking to their word.
Tommy taking down a Bloater with a flamethrower in front of a Mailboxes Etc. store? Barrels of oil lighting a field of Infected on fire? The extremely creepy reveal of the “live” Infected buried and laying in wait under a field of frozen ones that emerged and chased Abby right into the path of Joel? Jackson’s guard dogs coming to the rescue to keep the horde from overtaking the town? This was the most epic action we’ve seen out of the show yet, on a scale that we didn’t get in the games. It’ll be hard to top this battle.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/Sy4cuGKfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/Sy4cuGK
The next Star Wars Celebration will be held in LA in 2027 for the 50th anniversary of the first film
Star Wars Celebration is heading back to Los Angeles for the first time since 2006 to mark the franchise’s 50th anniversary in 2027. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, then simply called Star Wars, first hit theaters in 1977 and the rest is history. The location was announced during the closing ceremony of this year’s event, which took place in Japan. Star Wars Celebration 2027 will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from April 1 to April 4, 2027.
This year’s Star Wars Celebration brought a ton of announcements and previews into upcoming developments for the franchise. We finally got a real look at Star Wars Zero Company, a single-player turn-based tactics game expected to be released in 2026. ILM also revealed a bit more about its Meta Quest mixed-reality experience (which it’s calling a “playset”), Star Wars: Beyond Victory, and it was confirmed that Ryan Gosling will star in a film called Star Wars: Starfighter, per The Hollywood Reporter. And of course, there will be a Fortnite collaboration. With the Galactic Battle season beginning May 2, Darth Jar Jar is coming to Fortnite.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/OtKFQc8from Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/OtKFQc8
Nintendo shares a vintage SNES commercial starring Paul Rudd as he reprises the role for Switch 2
Nintendo surprised us with a little blast from the past this weekend, uploading a 34-year-old Super Nintendo commercial featuring Paul Rudd to its YouTube channel — and it’s released a sequel for the Nintendo Switch 2. Rudd appears in the Switch 2 promo wearing the same outfit he wore back in 1991, but this time he’s playing Mario Kart World with some celebrity friends over the new GameChat social feature. It’s a charming callback to the original SNES ad, which itself is deliciously ‘90s and a real treat to revisit in 2025. Commercials today just don’t hit the same.
Nintendo has steadily been drumming up the hype for the Switch 2’s arrival since it was announced at the beginning of April. The company recently held a livestream to share a more in-depth look at Mario Kart World, which launches on the same day as the new console, revealing some of the new courses, items and assistive features like Smart Steering. We’ve still got some time to wait before it’s all here, though. Pre-orders for the Switch 2 open on April 24, and the console will be available starting June 5.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/lzUDkyefrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/lzUDkye
Saturday, 19 April 2025
Doctor Who ‘Lux’ review: Hope can change the world
Spoilers for “Lux.”
It’s an interesting time to be a long-running science fantasy media property in the streaming TV age. Star Trek is in the grip of an existential crisis as it (wrongly) fears it’s too old-aged to be relevant. Star Wars became a battlefield in the culture war and, to duck all future bad faith criticism, gave us The Rise of Skywalker. And then there’s Doctor Who, which is somehow managing to plough a 62-year furrow and still fill it with original ideas. Don’t believe me? This week the Doctor and Belinda go up against a sentient cartoon holding the patrons of a 1950s cinema hostage.
It’s 1952 in a sparsely populated cinema as the audience watches a breathless newsreel on the power of the atomic bomb. The projectionist flips over to a Merrie Melodies-style cartoon of Mr. Ring-A-Ding (voiced by Alan Cumming), an old-timey song-and-dance character. Just then, a beam of moonlight shines through the window, reflecting off a teaspoon and strikes the screen. Mr. Ring-A-Ding comes to life, talking directly to the scoffing audience before emerging into the theater to the sound of screams.
Meanwhile, the Doctor and Belinda are in the TARDIS trying to work out why it’s refusing to land on May 24, 2025. Belinda asks why he doesn’t just take the ship back to his home planet for a fix, but she doesn’t get a satisfactory answer. Instead, the Doctor has built a gadget that will help pull the TARDIS back to the present day, it just needs to land in a few other places first. The pair wind up in Miami in 1952 and while the Doctor initially insists Belinda stay indoors, she’s eager to see what it’s like.
They step out into the night (slash early morning) of 1952 Miami, outside the cinema from the pre-credits, albeit three months after Mr. Ring-A-Ding came to life. Since then, the theater has been locked shut, with the 15 patrons in the audience going missing; the projectionist, Reginald Pye, has stayed behind to act as caretaker, playing films to an empty room.
They visit the diner across the street and meet the mother of one of the missing patrons, Mrs. Lowenstein, who fills in the backstory. They head into the cinema and Mr. Ring-A-Ding makes it clear he’s about to trap them in film before a Mr. Ring-A-Ding short stays playing on the screen. While he’s distracted, the Doctor and Belinda hot-foot it to the projection room where they meet Pye, who has been looking after the cinema patrons, all of whom have been trapped in a strip of film.
Pye has been keeping Mr. Ring-a-Ding alive and appeased by playing movies for him every night. But the sinister cartoon has also given Pye something in return: He has a film of his late wife who Mr. Ring-A-Ding can bring back as a “real” person, at least for a few moments each night. Following on the theme of coercion from last week, the carrot is also a stick, since Mr. Ring-A-Ding also threatens to destroy that film if Pye steps out of line.
Naturally, Mr. Ring-A-Ding isn’t just a beloved old-timey cartoon character but a god, one of the same pantheon as the Toymaker, Maestro and Sutekh. His real identity is Lux Imperator, or Lord of Light, and he's determined to consume all the light he can, including the most delicious (potential) meal of all — the atom bomb he’s been learning about in the newsreels. To prevent the Doctor and Belinda frustrating his plans, he manages to trap them in a cartoon.
The Doctor and Belinda are turned into two-dimensional drawings, with two-dimensional minds and characterizations. In their panic, they confess their anxieties, including the Doctor’s worries he can’t get Belinda home. As they do so, they acquire physical depth until they return to their normal selves, and then break (okay, knocking over) the fourth wall into… someone’s living room.
The Doctor and Belinda are greeted by a trio of Doctor Who fans watching the episode who are shocked and delighted to meet their heroes. The fans, Hassan Chowdry (Samir Arrian), Lizzie Abel (Bronté Barbé) and Robyn Gossage (Steph Lacey) explain, uh, Doctor Who to the Doctor. The season’s subconscious theme of Steven Moffat envy continues, with the trio saying their favorite episode is “Blink.” Robyn also points out that the end of the episode is pretty obvious given that celluloid is highly explosive. There’s even time for the fans to be called annoying — a facet they (like all “good” Doctor Who fans) will admit to with a heavy dose of self-awareness.
The trio ready to kick the Doctor out as the episode hits the 30-minute mark, which means it’s time for the third act. But they’re also sad, realizing that they’re the fictitious ones, not the Doctor and Belinda, as they don’t have surnames. They know the characters that don’t have surnames are unimportant, incidental figures in the story that will die when the time travelers crawl back through the screen. (Aside: They do in the closing credits, something that Davies’ alluded to in his most recent column for Doctor Who Magazine talking about the realities of giving one-shot characters names for the credits.)
The Doctor and Belinda return to the cinema, where the previously kind Mrs. Lowenstein has hauled a police officer in to arrest the pair for trespassing in a whites-only cinema. The Doctor fairly instantly calls BS, especially since the police officer is wearing a New York-style uniform: They’re still in the film, and when they break out, the Doctor and Belinda meet Lux / Mr. Ring-A-Ding once again. Lux magically summons up long lengths of filmstrips that act like ropes, wrapping them around his wrists and raising him up high. He turns on the projector which draws the Doctor’s regeneration out as light, projected onto Mr. Ring. A Ding.
Belinda, meanwhile, heads off to a storage cupboard, pulls out lots of film and throws it on the floor. But Reginald the projectionist won’t give her the matches she needs to start the fire until, uh, the ghost of his wife, briefly returning as a solid person, hands him the matches. Belinda then blows a hole in the roof of the cinema big enough to expose Mr. Ring-A-Ding to sunlight, which causes him to exponentially grow until he’s not just bigger than the planet but bigger than the universe itself. Or something.
In the daylight of Miami, Belinda asks the Doctor how exactly Lux / Mr. Ring-A-Ding was destroyed. “We’re 60 percent water and we can still drown,” he explains as the formerly trapped patrons of the cinema emerge from their three month imprisonment. The Doctor and Belinda have bonded over their shared worries, and Belinda is a lot more comfortable with her slightly longer route home. As they head into the TARDIS, Mrs. Flood greets the crowd and tells them if they want to see a really exciting sight, they should watch the ship disappear. Sadly, she adds, it’s a “limited run,” which will end on May 24th.
Eight disconnected thoughts about “Lux.”
Density
Like “The Robot Revolution” before it, “Lux” is packed full of concepts and themes that could easily be the sole subject of a story. This thematic density has always been a part of Doctor Who — a show that has often worn its deep political and literary ambitions on its sleeve — but it can be both a blessing and a curse.
Just think about the sheer number of ideas this one episode is playing with, touching upon:
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How time travel as a plot device can be implicated by race.
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How media habits and consumption have changed in the last century.
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How human nature hasn’t changed in the last century.
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How awful it is to be held hostage by your own desire.
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What it would be like if a fictional character discovered they were fictional.
That’s a hell of a lot of stuff to get through in 45 minutes, even if you’re not going to explore any of them. Though it may be a thrilling high-wire act Davies is pulling off, the result doesn’t have anything weighty to say. Not that I expect or need every episode to be About Something In A Very Special Way, but these themes aren’t meant to be just window dressing.
Ironically, and to contradict what I just wrote, I found “Lux” to be far more enjoyable than “The Robot Revolution.” Free of the burden of having to introduce Belinda and lay down the shape of this year’s overarching storyline, the episode is able to focus on just being itself. Everything here joins up in a more satisfying way, and the emotional beats, while rushed, at least make sense.
Rhyming history
As soon as Ncuti Gatwa was held aloft by moving filmstrips, I realized how closely the scene mirrored the conclusion of “The Devil’s Chord.” I’m not surprised, given both episodes feature the Doctor fighting a member of the Pantheon’s roster of rogue gods. After all, our heroes turn up in what is ostensibly the past of our living memory (‘60s last year, ‘50s here) to battle a god using pop culture as a vehicle (music then, cinema now). For the filmstrips here, Maestro dragged the Doctor and Ruby around Abbey Road with ribbons of music notation.
Soft Elbows
In the few times Doctor Who has acknowledged its fanbase, it’s with a loving elbow to their ribcages. It helps that the series is so tied to the UK’s cultural DNA that everyone is a fan, even if they’re not a fan. Perhaps more importantly, Davies, Moffat and Chibnall were all prominent fans before they had TV careers. All of us are capable of conceding we are (or can be) bloody annoying at times and insufferably smug at others.
One thing did occur to me: All three times Doctor Who has acknowledged its fanbase — Whizzkid in “Greatest Show", the members of LINDA in “Love and Monsters” and here — the themes are the same. Doctor Who fans are always kind-hearted, a little bit annoying and they get taken advantage of by a bad faith figure (Captain Cook, Victor Kennedy and Lux). Isn’t that interesting?
Importance
A key trait of Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor is his compassion, even going so far as to kiss a Roomba to apologize for turning it off. When Hassan, Lizzie and Robyn say they're "not important" as surname-less side characters, it irked me that the Doctor didn't push back.
Production
Much like last week’s episode, “Lux” is wonderfully well-made with every quarter of the production team operating at their peak. Mr Ring–A-Ding is a triumph, capturing the rubber hose style of animation from that era utterly perfectly. The 2D version is great, and the 3D edition he tries to evolve into at the conclusion is the right sort of horrifying.
Belinda
After “The Robot Revolution,” plenty of fans online suggested Belinda knew a little more than she was meant to. Specifically, she knew the name of the TARDIS despite the Doctor calling it his spaceship earlier in the episode. At the start of “Lux,” Belinda says the Doctor is a Time Lord so his people should be able to fix the malfunctioning TARDIS.
I can see why fans, trained on mystery box shows, would be intent on mining lines of dialog in this fashion. But I think they’re chasing shadows: Davies has never been that sort of writer and probably isn’t going to start seeding his dialog with hints that subtle now. The way I read it, the Doctor has probably gotten used to giving new friends an (off-screen) introduction of the basics.
You could easily imagine a cut-for-necessity scene where the Doctor rattles off the whole “time lord with their own time and space machine” spiel. And you’d expect them not to race toward the more trauma-dump-y elements of their biography, like being the last of them still alive. Belinda was also surprised to see the TARDIS land in 1950s Miami, even after seeing it in space last week. Given the theme of the episode was Belinda slowly embracing her time with the Doctor it makes more sense.
That said, it’s interesting that Davies’ specifically focused on the surnames of minor characters for his column in this month’s Doctor Who Magazine. Naturally, he was wrapping a tease for a future episode inside an anecdote about having to clear even minor character surnames with the show’s legal department. And when the Doctor meets the fans, Robyn points out she knows how the episode ends because she read the leak about it online. I should admit, too, that I read the fairly detailed leak about this episode that included the reveal of this fourth-wall-destroying scene. I would never suggest Davies is playing four-dimensional chess with the audience, but if the detailed leak of this episode came from the production office as a further tweak of the metafiction then, bravo.
Queer representation
The awning outside the cinema is advertising a Rock Hudson movie, and Belinda comments that she learned about the late actor on a HIV training course. He was one of the first people in the public eye to pass away from AIDS, causing a shift in public attitudes. Before Hudson’s death, the US had refused to sanction additional funds to support research into combatting the disease.
Doctor Who has shied away from directly addressing plenty of social issues during its long run, or even allegorically. Despite the vast number of queer people who were involved in its creation and production, such topics were treated as taboo. That the show can now make such a direct reference to Hudson feels refreshing, especially if it prompts some folks to read up on the issue.
The politics of race
There are better qualified writers who can discuss the issues around race and racism that the episode features. “Lux” is set in 1952, two years before Brown v. Board of Education, in a Miami that is segregated. It’s not the first episode of Doctor Who to deal with this, nor the first of Ncuti Gatwa’s tenure that has intentionally highlighted that the Doctor is played by an actor of color.
I suspect that one moment in particular will provoke discussion: When Belinda is outraged to learn the diner is segregated. The Doctor shuts down her objections, saying that he has toppled worlds, and has sometimes lived in worlds and let them “topple themselves.” For the latter, his approach is to “shut up and shine,” suggesting he sits on the respectability politics-end of the spectrum.
It’s perhaps here that we see the limits of what stories Doctor Who can tell given these events took place in our own recent history. The lead character can topple other worlds in any era, but given we’re all aware of human history, can’t act to rid the world of this injustice. Which affirms the theory that the show is fundamentally conservative in nature since one of the Doctor’s main driving forces is to protect the course of history as it presently is.
Mrs. Flood corner
Now we know Mrs. Flood can appear wherever the TARDIS is, so it’s likely she’ll be popping up in every episode, just like Susan Twist did last year. Here, she simply repeated her ominous threat that the Doctor’s time is running out, which is due to happen on May 24th. May 24th is when this season’s seventh and penultimate episode will air.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/7hR6uzZfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/7hR6uzZ