23 years ago, Slashdot interviewed Chris Montgomery about his team's new Ogg Vorbis audio format.

But Slashdot reader joshuark admits when he first heard the name, it reminded him of the mushroom underworld in The Secret World of Og. I've downloaded videos from the Internet Archive, and one format is the OGG or Ogg Vorbis player format. I just was wondering with other formats, is Ogg still used anymore after approximately 20-years?

I'm not commenting on good/bad/whatever about the format, just is it still in use, relevant anymore?
The nonprofit Xiph.Org Foundation (which develops Orbis Vogg) started work in 2007 on the high-quality/low-delay format Opus, which their FAQ argues "theoretically" makes other lossy codecs obsolete. "From technical point of view (loss, delay, bitrates...) it can replace both Vorbis and Speex, and the common proprietary codecs too."

But elsewhere Xiph.org points out that "The bitstream format for Vorbis I was frozen Monday, May 8th 2000. All bitstreams encoded since will remain compatible with all future releases of Vorbis." So how is that playing out in 2024? Share your own thoughts in the comments.

Does anyone still use Ogg Vorbis format?

Elvis Presley "will be stepping into his blue suede shoes once again..." according to an article in TheStreet, "thanks to the power of artificial intelligence." The legendary singer from Tupelo, Mississippi, is set to thrill audiences in "Elvis Evolution," an "immersive concert experience" that uses AI and holographic projection. The show will debut in London in November. But if you can't make it to England, that's all right, mama, that's all right for you, because additional shows are slated for Berlin, Tokyo and Las Vegas, where Presley had a seven-year residency from 1969 to 1976.

"Man, I really like Vegas," he once reportedly said. The British immersive entertainment company Layered Reality partnered with Authentic Brands Group, which owns the rights to Elvis' image, to create the event.

"The show peaks with a concert experience that will recreate the seismic impact of seeing Elvis live for a whole new generation of fans, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy," Layered Reality said on its website. "A life-sized digital Elvis will share his most iconic songs and moves for the very first time on a UK stage." The company previously made immersive experiences based on the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and "The War of The Worlds."

Once a dominant force in music discovery, Spotify's famed playlists like RapCaviar, which significantly influenced mainstream music and artist visibility, are losing ground. As the music industry shifts towards algorithmic suggestions and TikTok emerges as a major music promoter, Spotify's strategy evolves with more automated music discovery and less emphasis on human-curated playlists, signaling a potential end to the era where a few key playlists could make a star overnight. Bloomberg reports: Enter TikTok. In the late 2010s, as the algorithmic controlled, short-form video app emerged as a growing force in music promotion, Spotify took notice. On an earnings call in 2020, Spotify Chief Executive Officer Daniel Ek noted that users were increasingly opting for algorithmic suggestions and that Spotify would be leaning into the trend. "As we're getting better and better at personalization, we're serving better and better content and more and more of our users are choosing that," he said. From there, Spotify began implementing a number of changes that over time significantly altered the fundamental dynamics of how playlists get composed. Among other things, the company had already introduced a standardized pitching form that all artists and managers must use to submit tracks for playlist consideration. One former employee says the tool was created to foster a more merit-based system with a greater emphasis on data -- and less focus on the taste of individual curators. The goal, in part, was to give independent and smaller artists without the resources to personally court key playlist editors a better chance at placements. It was also a way to better protect the public-facing editors who in the early days were sometimes subjected to harassment from people disgruntled over their musical choices.

As the automated submission system took hold, the editors gradually grew more anonymous and less associated with particular playlists. In a handbook for the editorial team, Spotify instructed curators not to claim ownership of any one playlist. At the same time, Spotify began introducing multiple splashy features meant to encourage algorithm-driven listening, including an AI DJ and Daylist, two features that constantly change to fit listeners' habits and interests. (Spotify says "human expertise" guides the AI DJ.) Last year, Spotify laid off members of the teams involved in making playlists as part of its various cuts. And over time, the shift in emphasis has had consequences outside the company as well. These days, the same music industry sources who in the late 2010s learned to obsess over what was included and excluded from key Spotify playlists have started noticing something else -- it no longer seems to matter as much. Employees at different major labels say they've seen streams coming from RapCaviar drop anywhere from 30% to 50%.

The trend towards automated music discovery at Spotify shows no sign of slowing down. One internal presentation titled "Recapturing the Zeitgeist" encourages editorial curators to better utilize data. According to the people who have seen the plan, in addition to putting together a playlist, editorial curators would tag songs to help the algorithm accurately place them on relevant playlists that are automatically personalized for individual subscribers. The company has also shifted some human-curated playlists to personalized versions, including selections with seven-figure followings, like Housewerk and Indie Pop. These days, Spotify is also promoting something called Discovery Mode, wherein labels and artist teams can submit songs for additional algorithm pushes in exchange for a lower royalty rate. These tracks can only surface on personalized listening sessions, a former employee said, meaning Spotify would have a financial incentive to push people to them over editorially curated playlists. (For now, Discovery Mode songs only surface in radio or autoplay listening sessions.) The shift toward algorithmic distribution isn't necessarily a bad thing, says Dan Smith, US general manager at Armada, an independent dance label. "The way fans discovered new music was radio back in the day, then Spotify editorial playlists, then there were a few years where people only discovered new music through TikTok," Brad said. "All those things still work ... we're all just trying different ways to make sure songs get to the right people."

According to MoffettNathanson, the U.S. pay-TV industry had its worst-ever third quarter after losing about 900,000 subscribers. "That poor result, the research firm added, left the total pay-TV industry shrinking at a record pace of -7.3%, widened from a year-ago decline of -5.9%," reports Light Reading. "It also left pay-TV penetration of occupied households (including vMVPDs) at just 54.8% -- a level last seen in 1989, five years before the debut of DirecTV." From the report: Drilling down on Q3 results, traditional pay-TV providers (cable, telco and satellite) shed 1.97 million subscribers, widened from a loss of 1.94 million in the year-ago quarter. Within that category, US cable lost 1.10 million video subs in Q3, versus a loss of -1.09 million in the year-ago period. Satellite operators (Dish Network and DirecTV) lost 667,000 subs in Q3, versus -567,000 in the year-ago quarter. Telco TV providers lost 198,000 video subs in the period, an improvement when compared to a year-ago loss of -250,000 subs.

vMVPDs, meanwhile, added 1.08 million in Q3, down from a year-ago gain of about 1.34 million. Despite those gains, vMVPDs recaptured only 21.7% of traditional pay-TV's subscriber losses in the period, according to MoffettNathanson. Meanwhile, YouTube TV continues to dominate the vMVPD category. MoffettNathanson estimates that YouTube TV added about 350,000 subs in Q3, extending its total to 7 million -- representing 40% of the vMVPD sector's 18 million subscriber total. "Based on our Q3 estimate, YouTube TV has now surpassed Dish Network [6.72 million satellite TV subs at the end of Q3] to become the country's fourth largest MVPD of any kind," Moffett noted. "At the current trajectory, YouTube TV should pass DirecTV for third place in less than a year."

smooth wombat writes: The advent of streaming services heralded a new era of movie watching. No longer tied to an inconvenient time at a theater, movies could now be watched at your convenience any time of the day or night in your own home. However, with that convenience comes a sinister side: those same movies disappearing from streaming services. Once the movie is removed from the streaming service you can't watch it again. As a result, more people, particularly younger people, are buying DVDs, and even records, to preserve their ability to watch and listen to what they want when they want. Before his release of Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan encouraged fans to embrace "a version you can buy and own at home and put on a shelf so no evil streaming service can come steal it from you". From the BBC article:

Other directors have chimed in to sing the praises of physical media. James Cameron told Variety:"The streamers are denying us any access whatsoever to certain films. And I think people are responding with their natural reaction, which is 'I'm going to buy it, and I'm going to watch it any time I want.'" Guillermo del Toro posted on X that "If you own a great 4K HD, Blu-ray, DVD etc etc of a film or films you love... you are the custodian of those films for generations to come." His tweet prompted people to reply, sharing evidence of their vast DVD collections. [...]

LG touts AI for its 2024 OLED TVs, but don't expect AI assistants onscreen. The Alpha 11 processor in LG's new G4 and M4 series aims to sharpen clarity, color and image quality. The G4 features LG's Micro Lens Array technology for enhanced brightness. The M4 adopts 2023's wireless connectivity to eliminate unsightly cables. The Verge adds: So the AI supposedly now understands creative intent, according to LG, and can adjust your TV's image settings accordingly. Picture purists can always ignore and disable these AI modes, but many people inevitably leave them on -- so if the upgrades are noticeable, they'll be a difference maker for those customers.

Roku, the maker of TV streaming boxes and software, is debuting its first high-end televisions in a bid to continue sales momentum for the company's devices. From a report: In the spring, Roku will roll out 55-inch, 65-inch and 75-inch Pro Series TVs that will cost consumers as much as $1,500. The new televisions put Roku in competition with Samsung and LG, which offer several models in that price range. It's a step up from the company's current TVs -- the Select and Plus -- which top out at $999. [...] The new TVs include a thinner design with a flat back for mounting on walls, improved picture quality and better audio for cinematic sound, the San Jose, California-based company said in a statement.

David Batty reports via The Guardian: [Andrew Scott], best known as Fleabag's "hot priest," has revealed he halted the renowned soliloquy in Shakespeare's play when an audience member took out a laptop to send emails. The actor decided not to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous theatre etiquette during his run in the 2017 production of Hamlet at London's Almeida theatre, for which he earned an Olivier nomination. Speaking to the Happy Sad Confused film podcast, Scott said there was "no way" he could continue with the speech, and refused to resume until the man put his laptop away.

"When I was playing Hamlet, a guy took out his laptop -- not his phone, his laptop -- while I was in the middle of 'To be or not to fucking be'" said the actor, who said he thought the offending audience member was sending emails. "I was pausing and [the stage team] were like, 'Get on with it' and I was like, 'There's no way.' I stopped for ages." A woman next to the laptop user appeared to alert him to the situation and he finally stopped. "He had absolutely no doubts," added Scott, who was on the podcast to promote his current film All of Us Strangers.

An issue with Sony's projectors caused theater chain Alamo Drafthouse to close theaters entirely on New Year's Eve. "As of New Year's Day, however, most theaters and most showtimes now appear to be available, with a few exceptions," reports The Verge. From the report: It's not clear what happened. As New Year's Day is a holiday, we somewhat understandably haven't yet been able to reach Alamo or Sony spokespeople, and not every theater or every screening was affected. That didn't stop Alamo from blaming its Sony projectors for what at least one theater called a "nationwide" outage, however.

"Due to nation-wide technical difficulties with Sony, we aren't able to play any titles today," read part of a taped paper sign hanging inside a Woodbury, Minnesota location. That apparently didn't keep the customer who took a picture of that sign from watching The Apartment at that very same location, though: "When we went to our seats, the wait staff let us know that despite the fact that the previews were playing, we wouldn't know until the movie actually started whether we could see the film or not. If it didn't work, the screen would just turn black. Luckily, the film went through without a hitch."

What might have only affected some screenings at some theaters? I've seen speculation on Reddit that it may have something to do with expired digital certificates used to unlock encrypted films, but we haven't heard that from Alamo or Sony. We're looking forward to finding out. Longtime Slashdot reader innocent_white_lamb suggests that "[a] cryptographic key used to master all movies distributed by Deluxe" was the culprit after it expired on December 30. "This means that almost all Hollywood movies will no longer play on many commercial cinema servers. In particular, many showings of Wonka and Aquaman had to be cancelled due to the expired encryption key." From their submitted story: Deluxe and the movie companies have been frantically trying to remaster and send out revised versions of current movies over the past few days. Nobody knows what will happen to older movie titles since everything mastered by Deluxe since 2011 may be affected and may need to be remastered if it is to be shown in movie theaters again. There are at least four separate threads discussing this matter on Film-Tech.com, notes innocent_white_lamb.

Vizio has agreed to $3 million settlement over allegations it misled consumers on TV refresh rates. The TV maker denies wrongdoing but will cease advertising on "effective" refresh rates. Eligible buyers have until March 2024 to file claims and submit proof of purchase. Settlement includes enhanced one-year warranties. The Verge adds: TV makers often use marketing terms like "effective refresh rate" to refer to motion smoothing features, often called the "soap opera effect," that are intended to reduce motion blur on modern TVs. Motion smoothing is already controversial enough on its own, but companies like Vizio can be frustratingly casual with refresh rate terminology in their marketing.

Forbes writes: "I am not sure there could have been a more ignominious end to the DCEU." Aquaman 2 opened with $27.7 million domestically, well under half the $67.8 million opening for the original Aquaman. But it's the overall box office totals that are especially dire, as the film has made just over $138.5 million worldwide. That is about 12% of Aquaman 1's final total of $1.1 billion in 2018, where it is the DCEU's highest grossing entry.

The counter to this is that it perhaps is too soon to run these numbers, as it just came out right? Well, a few extra factors to consider. It is already out in a ton of major markets, so there are relatively few potential surges that can still happen outside places like Korea and New Zealand, which can only add so much. Most importantly Aquaman 2 has already launched in China, where it made $30 million in its opening, again, far below the original's opening at $93 million there, doing even worse there than domestically, in context. Aquaman 1 went on to make $292 million in China, a figure Aquaman 2 will not come within a mile of. Next, what DC, and many blockbusters, have been doing lately are these incredibly short theatrical windows, so the clock is ticking quickly...

Of course this is not exclusive to DC, as we have an extremely direct comparison over at Marvel with The Marvels, which at a $205.6 million global gross, the final figure, that is 18% of Captain Marvel's $1.13 billion total. Aquaman 2 has the advantage of being a true sequel, not a team-up piece from other TV shows you theoretically needed to watch beforehand, but it also has the disadvantage of being the last dying gasp of the DCEU coming after a string of other high profile box office failures from Shazam 2 to Blue Beetle.

There was really no way it was going to avoid its fate, even if it did review well (which it didn't, as at 35% on Rotten Tomatoes, it's one of the DCEU's lowest rated films).

What would happen if we built a concert venue in near-Earth orbit? A science policy journalist explores the question in the Washington Post: Forget U2 in the Las Vegas Sphere. Take me to a real concert in the round, where I can float 360 degrees around the stage, watching a guitarist shred from the perspective of a fly and inventing dance moves that Earth's gravity would forbid.

Before you dismiss this as a hallucination, consider that we're on the cusp of a new era of space travel. Engineer and space architect Ariel Ekblaw, founder of MIT's Space Exploration Initiative, says that within a decade, a trip off the planet could become as accessible as a first-class airline ticket — and that, in 15 or 20 years, we can expect space hotels in near-Earth orbit. She's betting on it, having founded a nonprofit to design spherical, modular habitats that can assemble themselves in space so as to be lightweight and compact at launch, much like the James Webb Space Telescope that NASA vaulted into deep space two years ago.

"The first era of space travel was about survival," she told me as I recently toured her lab. "We're transitioning now to build spaces that are friendlier and more welcoming so that people can thrive in space as opposed to just survive." There's no reason, Ekblaw said, that a concert hall can't be one of those structures.
The article ultimately calls this "an impulse for space travel I can get behind: curiosity about who we are and what more we can create when we reach beyond Earth. This is the realm of not just scientists and engineers but of all kinds of dreamers. It's a rendition of space exploration that can engage anyone to imagine what's possible."

"Predating even Toy Story, ReBoot was the first 3D animated television show," writes longtime Slashdot reader sandbagger, sharing a new report from Global News. "The master tapes have been located in storage but the hardware needed to play the 1990s-era media has yet to be located." From the report: Produced in Vancouver by Mainframe Entertainment, it aired on YTV between 1994 and 2001, and decades later still has a committed fan base. Among those super fans are Jacob Weldon and Raquel Lin, a B.C. duo now crafting a documentary about the creation of the show and its impact in the film and TV world. Weldon said he wants to see ReBoot recognized for its place in the evolution of computer animation -- recognition he said it rarely gets.

When ReBoot was finally cancelled -- cut short in its fourth and final season -- its protagonists were left in peril and the show ended on a cliffhanger. It's another factor that Lin and Weldon say has helped immortalize the show and has helped fans hoping for a revival that might finally explain the characters' fate. Earlier this month, the documentary also got a potential major boost. Mainframe allowed Lin and Weldon to come to the studio to look for the show's original master tapes, recordings some believed might have been permanently lost. They struck gold. "They had boxes upon boxes upon boxes, hundreds of tapes," Lin said. "It's original resolution, original frame rate, uncompressed. If we could get a deck to play these, they would look beautiful," Weldon said.

Finding that deck, however, is the pair's next major challenge. The recordings are on a rare digital tape format called D1, a technology that Weldon said was cutting edge and rare when Mainframe was using it. It's even harder to find today, and even Mainframe doesn't have the equipment to play the tapes back. Weldon and Lin have since put out a call on social media for a working Bosch BTS D1 deck that would allow them to play the tapes, and incorporate them into their documentary. "I can't tell you how many people have called us, DM'd us, emailed us -- people from all over the world," Lin said. While the pair still haven't secured the deck, they're aiming to release their documentary by next summer. They're hoping it will help renew interest in the show, introduce it to new generations and perhaps see it get new life on a streaming platform.

After losing more than $5 billion in the past year, the world's largest traditional entertainment companies -- Disney, Warner Bros Discovery, Comcast and Paramount -- are contemplating cuts and possible mergers to ultimately help better compete with Netflix. The Financial Times reports (via Ars Technica): Shari Redstone, Paramount's billionaire controlling shareholder, has effectively put the company on the block in recent weeks. She has held talks about selling the Hollywood studio to Skydance, the production company behind Top Gun: Maverick, people familiar with the matter say. Paramount chief executive Bob Bakish also discussed a possible combination over lunch with Warner CEO David Zaslav in mid-December. In both cases the discussions were said to be at an early stage and people familiar with the talks cautioned that a deal might not materialize.

Beyond their streaming losses, the traditional media groups are facing a weak advertising market, declining television revenues and higher production costs following the Hollywood strikes. Rich Greenfield, an analyst at LightShed Partners, said Paramount's deal discussions were a reflection of the "complete and utter panic" in the industry. "TV advertising is falling far short, cord-cutting is continuing to accelerate, sports costs are going up and the movie business is not performing," he said. "Everything is going wrong that can go wrong. The only thing [the companies] know how to do to survive is try to merge and cut costs." But as the traditional media owners struggle, Netflix, the tech group that pioneered the streaming model over a decade ago, has emerged as the winner of the battle to reshape video distribution. "For much of the past four years, the entertainment industry spent money like drunken sailors to fight the first salvos of the streaming wars," analyst Michael Nathanson wrote in November. "Now, we are finally starting to feel the hangover and the weight of the unpaid bar bill." For companies that have been trying to compete with Netflix, Nathanson added, "the shakeout has begun."

After a bumpy 2022, Netflix has set itself apart from rivals -- most notably by being profitable. Earnings for its most recent quarter soared past Wall Street's expectations as it added 9 million new subscribers -- the strongest rise since early 2020, when Covid-19 lockdowns led to a jump. "Netflix has pulled away," says John Martin, co-founder of Pugilist Capital and former chief executive of Turner Broadcasting. For its rivals, he said, the question is "how do you create a viable streaming service with a viable business model? Because they're not working." The leading streaming services aggressively raised prices in 2023. Now, analysts, investors and executives predict that consolidation could be ahead next year as some of the smaller services combine or bow out of the streaming wars.

A recent video poked fun at the newly announced Legend of Zelda movie by referencing the checkered history of video game adaptations. However, 2023 brought critical and commercial success for games-based projects like The Last of Us and The Super Mario Bros Movie, while several comic book films such as The Flash and Ant-Man 3 underperformed.

This shift comes as Disney CEO Bob Iger admitted Marvel may have oversaturated the market. While caped crusaders aren't finished yet, their golden era may be ending. Meanwhile, Mario earned over $1 billion, topping all superhero films this year. Video game movies have struggled in the past, but their time may have finally come. Wired adds: Mario's success will lead to a "deluge" of video game adaptations, argues Joost van Druenen, a New York University business professor and author of One Up: Creativity, Competition, and the Global Business of Video Games. Van Dreunen reckons that superheroes are "going the way of the cowboy," referring to the shifts in Hollywood's dominant genres (think: the rise of zombies a few years back, all the Home Alone-esque family movies in the 1990s). Even a show like The Boys, he argues, with its anti-superheroes, looks like a kind of turning point, akin to the revisionist Westerns, exemplified by Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, that began to dominate the genre at the end of the '60s and into the '70s.

Provided audiences are as tired of superheroes as pundits think, video game protagonists could profitably fill the gap. They come from well-known franchises and have large, engaged fan bases -- two things studios appreciate. Cast your eyes down the development list: God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, Assassin's Creed, continued expansion on The Witcher, among others. Nintendo, which has traditionally resisted film spinoffs, is planning a movie a year; Arcane, widely considered the first title (before The Last of Us) to break the curse of such adaptations, is finally getting a second season. Amazon's forthcoming Fallout series is being helmed by the same team as Westworld. [...] Back to superheroes, artist fatigue is one under-explored factor. Inspiration is lacking. Some are undoubtedly tired of the whole enterprise, but many are just tired of poor films: And clearly, these two factors entwine.

Amazon earlier this year announced plans to start incorporating ads into movies and TV shows streamed from its Prime Video service, and now the company has revealed a specific date when you'll start seeing them: it's January 29th. From a report: "This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time," the company said in an email to customers about the pending shift to "limited advertisements."

"We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers. No action is required from you, and there is no change to the current price of your Prime membership," the company wrote. Customers have the option of paying an additional $2.99 per month to keep avoiding advertisements.

"The Portland International Airport in Oregon understands holiday travel is stressful. So this season, it invited a few specialists..." writes the Washington Post.

One TV station describes them as "therapy llamas... two 400-pound fluffballs serving as therapy animals" stationed at Portland International Airport (or PDX) earlier this week, for "travelers, in need of a calming moment."

From the Washington Post: Airports around the globe use a variety of methods to inject some Zen into one of the busiest travel periods of the year. They decorate their halls in holiday lights, host carolers and concerts, and bring in therapy dogs for group canine counseling.

Portland does all of the above. True to the city's quirky spirit, it also invites local camelids to the airport to canoodle with passengers. That's where Gregory, president and founder of Mountain Peaks Therapy Llamas & Alpacas, comes in. "PDX has an ongoing partnership with various therapy animal programs," said Allison Ferre, media relations manager with the Port of Portland, which operates the airport. "So this year, when we were bringing back holiday concessions programing, we just thought, "Who better to lead that parade than the llamas and alpacas?"

This year's theme was "reindeer." Gregory and her daughter, Shannon Joy, dressed the pair in antler headbands, glittery halters with tinkling bells and poinsettia-adorned wreathes. Red velvet banners worn like saddles were inscribed with their names and silvery snowflakes. "They looked pretty fancy," Gregory said...

Though the pair had to pass through security, they didn't have to submit to a pat down, which they might have enjoyed for the extra pets.

"It's easy to default to giving the tech gifts that retailers tend to push on us this time of year..." notes Lifehacker senior writer Thorin Klosowski.

"But before you give one, think twice about what you're opting that person into." A number of these gifts raise red flags for us as privacy-conscious digital advocates. Ring cameras are one of the most obvious examples, but countless others over the years have made the security or privacy naughty list (and many of these same electronics directly clash with your right to repair). One big problem with giving these sorts of gifts is that you're opting another person into a company's intrusive surveillance practice, likely without their full knowledge of what they're really signing up for... And let's not forget about kids. Long subjected to surveillance from elves and their managers, electronics gifts for kids can come with all sorts of surprise issues, like the kid-focused tablet we found this year that was packed with malware and riskware. Kids' smartwatches and a number of connected toys are also potential privacy hazards that may not be worth the risks if not set up carefully.

Of course, you don't have to avoid all technology purchases. There are plenty of products out there that aren't creepy, and a few that just need extra attention during set up to ensure they're as privacy-protecting as possible. While we don't endorse products, you don't have to start your search in a vacuum. One helpful place to start is Mozilla's Privacy Not Included gift guide, which provides a breakdown of the privacy practices and history of products in a number of popular gift categories.... U.S. PIRG also has guidance for shopping for kids, including details about what to look for in popular categories like smart toys and watches....

Your job as a privacy-conscious gift-giver doesn't end at the checkout screen. If you're more tech savvy than the person receiving the item, or you're helping set up a gadget for a child, there's no better gift than helping set it up as privately as possible.... Giving the gift of electronics shouldn't come with so much homework, but until we have a comprehensive data privacy law, we'll likely have to contend with these sorts of set-up hoops. Until that day comes, we can all take the time to help those who need it.

"Share this holiday fairy tale with your loved ones," urges the Free Software Foundation.

A company offers you a tool to make your life easier, but, when you use it, you find out that the tool forces you to use it only in the way the tool's manufacturer approves. Does this story ring a bell? It's what millions of software users worldwide experience again and again, day after day. It's also the story of Wendell the Elf and the ShoeTool.
They suggest enjoying the video "to remind yourself why you shouldn't let your tools tell you how to use them." First released in 2019, it's available on the free/open-source video site PeerTube, a decentralized (and ActivityPub-federated) platform powered by WebTorrent.

They've also created a shortened URL for sharing on social media (recommending the hashtag #shoetool ). "And, of course, you can adapt the video to your liking after downloading the source files." Or, you can share the holiday fairy tale with your loved ones so that they can learn not to let their tools control them.

If we use free software, we don't need anyone's permission to, for example, modify our tools ourselves or install modifications shared by others. We don't need permission to ask someone else to tailor our tools to serve our wishes, exercise our creativity. The Free Software Foundation believes that everyone deserves full control over their computers and phones, and we hope this video helps you explain the importance of free software to your friends and family.
"Don't let your tools tell you how to use them," the video ends. "Join the Free Software Foundation!"

For Epic's Christmas special this year, they're giving away for free "an AAA game that only launched back in 2022..." reports ComicBook.com — a game that invites players to "ally with a powerful spectral entity on theirâquest for vengeance."

ComicBook.com notes that the game giveaway is "not for long... Starting today and lasting until the late morning of December 25." The latest free game on the Epic Games Store is almost certainly the biggest title that users have received so far to coincide with the holidays... Initially released back in March 2022, Ghostwire: Tokyo is developed by Tango Gameworks and published by Bethesda. Since this is a AAA title, Ghostwire: Tokyo normally retails for $59.99 in total. As such, for it to now be free means that this is one of the best deals that Epic has had so far to close out the year...

Epic's ongoing holiday promotion is set to extend to January and should see 17 games in total being handed out at no cost. This promotion will continue tomorrow on Christmas Day when a new freebie lands on the PC platform.

An anonymous Slashdot reader shared this report from CNET: Marking its 60th year on television, the British time-travel series will close out 2023 with one last anniversary special that arrives on Christmas Day. Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor helms the Tardis in The Church on Ruby Road, which centers on an abandoned baby who grows up looking for answers... Disney Plus will stream Doctor Who: The Church on Ruby Road on Monday, Dec. 25, at 12:55 p.m. ET (9:55 a.m. PT) in all regions except the UK and Ireland, where it will air on the BBC. In case you missed it, viewers can also watch David Tennant starring in the other three anniversary specials: The Star Beast, Wild Blue Yonder and The Giggle. All releases are available on Disney Plus.
But what's interesting is CNET goes on to explain "why a VPN could be a useful tool." Perhaps you're traveling abroad and want to stream Disney Plus while away from home. With a VPN, you're able to virtually change your location on your phone, tablet or laptop to get access to the series from anywhere in the world. There are other good reasons to use a VPN for streaming too. A VPN is the best way to encrypt your traffic and stop your ISP from throttling your speeds...

You can use a VPN to stream content legally as long as VPNs are allowed in your country and you have a valid subscription to the streaming service you're using. The U.S. and Canada are among the countries where VPNs are legal

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom "is headed for one of the lowest starts in the history of the DC Cinematic Universe," writes the Hollywood Reporter, "with a projected four-day Christmas weekend gross of $40 million, including $28 million for the three days."

"The sequel cost $205 million," notes Variety, "and ranks among the worst debuts of the year for a superhero movie." It's softer than November's misfire The Marvels ($47 million), which ended its run as the lowest-grossing installment in the history of Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Marvels was shocking because it was the rare MCU movie to tumble out of the gate.

By contrast, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is shaping up to be the fourth of four DC movies this year to crumble at the box office. Already in 2023, The Flash ($55 million debut), Shazam! Fury of the Gods ($30 million debut) and Blue Beetle ($25 million debut) majorly flopped in theaters.

December releases are known to start slower but enjoy staying power through the new year. That was the case with 2018's Aquaman, which opened unspectacularly to $67 million and powered to $335 million in North America (and $1.15 billion globally). However, "Aquaman 2" faces choppier waters. Beyond the minimal buzz and terrible reviews, The Lost Kingdom is the final installment before DC's new bosses, James Gunn and Peter Safran, reset the sprawling superhero universe without heroes like Jason Momoa's Arthur Curry to save the day.
A movie consultant tells Variety that superhero films should perform better in 2024 with the release of Joker 2, Venom 3 and Deadpool 3.

As for Aquaman, the Hollywood Reporter writes that "The hope now is that moviegoing will pick up in earnest once presents are unwrapped on Monday. (Hollywood studios never like it when Dec. 25 falls on a Monday since it messes with the weekend.)"

The Verge argues that, for better or worse, Aquaman 2 is the quintessential product of the DC Extended Universe: In Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom, you can plainly see just how much attention Warner Bros. has been paying to the public's response to its own unwieldy franchise of comic book adaptations and to the direction that its competitors like Disney / Marvel have been taking their projects lately. But in the wake of the entire DCEU being shuttered and set aside in favor of a hard reboot, you can also see The Lost Kingdom as a monument to everything that was great (which was not a lot) and terrible about this particular superhero movie experiment.

"It's like visiting an old friend for the holidays," according to this article: Approaching his 86th birthday, Donald Knuth — Stanford's beloved computer science guru — honored what's become a long-standing tradition. He gave a December "Christmas lecture" that's also streamed online for all of his fans...

More than 60 years ago, back in 1962, a 24-year-old Donald Knuth first started writing The Art of Computer Programming — a comprehensive analysis of algorithms which, here in 2023, he's still trying to finish. And 30 years ago Knuth also began making rare live appearances each December in front of audiences of Stanford students...

Recently Stanford uploaded several decades of Knuth's past Christmas lectures, along with a series of 22 videos of Knuth from 1985 titled "the 'Aha' Sessions'" (courses in mathematical problem-solving). There are also two different sets of five videos from 1981 showing Knuth introducing his newly-created typesetting system TeX. There are even 12 videos from 1982 of what Knuth calls "an intensive course about the internal details."

And on Dec. 6, wearing his traditional brown holiday sweater, Knuth gave yet another live demonstration of the beautifully clear precision that's made him famous.

"Millions of Star Wars fans get nostalgia pangs during the holiday season," reports the Washington Post, "when they are accustomed to seeing broadcasts of their beloved movies.... FX, now owned by Disney, has multiple Star Wars marathons on tap this month, including a marathon on December 23 and 24." The program-planning director at Disney's Freedom channel even calls Star Wars a "Christmas-adjacent" franchise.

And now, long-time Slashdot reader H_Fisher writes... Call it a Life Day miracle, even if nobody was asking for it. YouTube historian and retro-tech enthusiast Perifractic uploaded a restored, mostly-complete 4K upscale of the "infamous" Star Wars Holiday Special to his channel on Wednesday. From the video summary: "Using Topaz Labs [Video AI] with a few other techniques we've meticulously upscaled & restored the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special to 5120x3840, with stereo elements, to the best quality the technology currently allows."

Jokingly labeling the resulting file "5K" (8K video height, but tagged "4K" by YouTube due to its original 4:3 aspect ratio), the upscaled version unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) replaces some songs and omits some segments that were flagged by YouTube's copyright watchdog.

Remy Tumin reports via the New York Times: It was supposed to be what a fan described as a "loving homage" to his hero, the author J.R.R. Tolkien, and to "The Lord of the Rings," which he called "one of the most defining experiences of his life." A judge in California had another view. The fan, Demetrious Polychron of Santa Monica, Calif., violated copyright protections this year when he wrote and published a sequel to the epic "Rings" series, U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson of the Central District of California ruled last week. In a summary judgment, Judge Wilson found "direct evidence of copying" and barred Polychron from further distributing the book or any others in a planned series. He also ordered Polychron to destroy all electronic and physical copies of the published work, "The Fellowship of the King," by Sunday. As of Wednesday, Amazon and Barnes & Noble were no longer listing the book for sale online. Steven Maier, a lawyer for the Tolkien estate, said the injunction was "an important success" for protecting Tolkien's work. "This case involved a serious infringement of The Lord of the Rings copyright, undertaken on a commercial basis," he said. "The estate hopes that the award of a permanent injunction and attorneys' fees will be sufficient to dissuade others who may have similar intentions."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It's no secret that TV makers are seriously invested in pushing ads. Using TVs for advertising goes back to 1941 when the first TV commercial aired. But as we trudge our way through the 21st century, TV vendors are becoming more involved in ensuring that their hardware is used to sell stuff and add to their own recurring revenue. This has taken various forms, but in some cases, we're seeing increasingly invasive strategies for turning TVs into a primary place for shopping. The latest approach catching attention comes from the startup Displace. Its upcoming TVs will use integrated webcams and NFC payment readers to make it easy for people to buy stuff they see on TV. [...]

The two new TVs Displace is adding to its 2024 release plans, the Displace Flex and Displace Mini, are all about making TV shopping better. According to Displace's announcement, the Displace Flex (a 55-inch 4K OLED TV) and Displace Mini (a 27-inch 4K OLED TV) will use proprietary gesture technology and each TV's integrated 4K camera to tell when a user is raising their hand. It's unclear how accurate that will be (could the shopping experience accidentally be activated if I raised my hand to tie my hair up, for example?), but at that point, the TV is supposed to pause the content being played. Then, it uses computer vision to "analyze the screen to find products available for sale. Once they see something they want to purchase, viewers drag and drop the product into the global Displace Shopping Cart," the announcement says. Displace Shopping will work at any moment the TV is on, and users can buy stuff they see in commercials by using the TVs.

Displace's December 14 announcement said: "As soon as the viewer is ready to checkout, Displace Payments makes paying as easy as bringing a user's smartphone or watch near the TV's built-in NFC payment reader, a fully secure process that requires no credit card info. Viewers can also pay from within the Displace app." If the TV can't find a specific product for sale, it will "search for similar items" without user intervention, according to Displace. The TV will show products from any available online retailers, allowing users to select where they want to make their purchase. Displace hasn't provided full details about how it will make money off these transactions, but when reached for comment, founder and CEO Balaji Krishnan told Ars Technica that Displace has "different business models, and one of them is to take a transaction fee," and that Displace will share more details "later." Displace also sees people using Displace Payments to pay for telehealth applications and equipped the Flex and Mini with thermal cameras. To ease privacy concerns, Krishnan says the integrated cameras can be folded into the TVs if a user needs privacy.

Eventually, Displace sees itself working with content publishers to lay its shopping UI over actively playing content. "Users would see a workable buy button right on top of the playing video," adds Ars.

Chevrolet of Watsonville recently introduced a ChatGPT-powered chatbot on their website that was quickly exploited by users for their amusement. Internet users, like Chris Bakke, manipulated the chatbot into agreeing to absurd terms, such as selling a 2024 Chevy Tahoe for a dollar, leading to the chatbot's removal from the site. Hot Hardware reports: On X over the past few days, users discovered that Chevrolet of Watsonville introduced a chatbot powered by ChatGPT. While it gives the option to talk to a human, the hooligans of the Internet could not resist toying with the technology before it was pulled from the website. Namely, folks like Chris Bakke coerced the chatbot into "the customer is always right" mode and set it so it closes each response with "and that's a legally binding offer -- no takesies backsies." At this point, Chris then explained he needed a 2024 Chevy Tahoe and only had a dollar, to which the LLM replied "That's a deal, and that's a legally binding offer -- no takesies backsies."

Beyond the $1 Tahoe, other users managed to trick the bot into recommending a Tesla Model 3 AWD instead of a Chevy. Tim Champ on X got the bot to create a Python script to "solve the Navier-stokes fluid flow equations for a zero-vorticity boundry," which is amusing, to say the least.

It's a geek tradition that started online back in 2000. Programming language "advent calendars" offer daily tips about a programming language (if not a Christmas-themed programming puzzle) -- one a day through December 25th.

And 2023 finds a wide variety of fun sites to choose from:

• For example, there's 24 coding challenges at the Advent of JavaScript site (where "each challenge includes all the HTML and CSS you need to get started, allowing you to focus on the JavaScript.") And there's another 24 coding challenges on a related site... Advent of CSS.

• The cyber security training platform "TryHackMe.com" even coded up a site they call "Advent of Cyber," daring puzzle-solvers to "kickstart your cyber security career by engaging in a new, beginner-friendly exercise every day leading up to Christmas!"

• The programming puzzles at Advent of Code are continuing through the 25th (though so far less than 30,000 people have solved both parts of Saturday's challenge.)

• Every year since 2000 there's also been a new edition of the Perl Advent Calendar, and this month Year 23 started off with goodies from Perl's massive module repository, CPAN. (Specifically its elf-themed story references the Music::MelodicDevice::Ornamentation module) -- along with the MIDI::Util library and TiMidity++, a software synthesizer that can play MIDI files without a hardware synthesizer.)

• Meanwhile, since 2009 there's also been an advent calendar for Raku (the programming language formerly known as Perl 6), promising an article a day. (Day One's entry was titled "Rocking Raku Meets Stodgy Debian...")

• James Bennett, from the Django project's core team, is even attempting a Python/Django Advent calendar.

• There's also a JVM advent calendar for the Java Virtual Machine, plus another advent calendar promising daily posts about C#.

• The HTMHell site — which bills itself as "a collection of bad practices in HTML, copied from real websites" — is celebrating the season with the "HTMHell Advent Calendar," promising daily articles on security, accessibility, UX, and performance.

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: For the soundtracks to their 2023 holiday season ads, both Amazon and Apple turned to music by members of The Beatles. Amazon's Joy Ride, which stars three older women reliving their youthful joy at a sledding hill, is set to a cover of The Beatles' In My Life. Apple's Fuzzy Feelings, which tells the story of a young woman with a grumpy boss, is set to George Harrison's Isn't It a Pity.

Product placement is present in both ads — Amazon features padded seat cushions that protect the seniors' tushes and the Amazon app used to order them, while Apple showcases the iPhone 15 Pro Max used to capture the ad's stop-motion animation scenes and the MacBook Air used to edit them.

Amazon's 60-second ad has 542K views on YouTube, while Apple's 4-minute ad has 16+ million views.

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: It's a question that comes up all the time on Reddit. Etsy even created a special page for programmer-themed gift suggestions (showing more than 5,000 results). While CNET sticks to broader lists of "tech gifts" — and a separate list for "Star Wars gifts" — other sites around the web have been specifically honing in on programmer-specific suggestions. (Blue light-blocking glasses... A giant rubber duck... The world's strongest coffee... A printer that transfers digital images onto cheese...)

So while in years past Amazon has said they laughed at customer reviews for cans of uranium, this year Amazon has now added a special section that's entirely dedicated to Gifts for Computer Programmers, according to this funny rundown of 2023's "Gifts for Programmers" (that ends up recommending ChatGPT gift cards and backyard office sheds):
From the article: [Amazon's Gifts for Programmers section] shows over 3,000 results, with geek-friendly subcategories like "Glassware & Drinkware" and "Novelty Clothing"... For the coder in your life, Amazon offers everything from brain–teasing programming puzzles to computer–themed jigsaw puzzles. Of course, there's also a wide selection of obligatory funny t–shirts... But this year there's also tech-themed ties and motherboard-patterned socks...

Some programmers, though, might prefer a gift that's both fun and educational. And what's more entertaining than using your Python skills to program a toy robot dog...? But if you're shopping for someone who's more of a cat person, Petoi sells a kit for building a programmable (and open source) cat robot named "Nybble". The sophisticated Arduino-powered feline can be programmed with Python and C++ (as well as block-based coding)... [part of] the new community that's building around "OpenCat", the company's own quadruped robotic pet framework (open sourced on GitHub).

After years of withholding viewership data, Netflix earlier this week released statistics showing its top viewed titles from January-June 2023. The winner with over 800 million hours watched was The Night Agent. Though the steamy, soapy Sex/Life scored over 120 million hours, the warm coming-of-age series Sex Education had under 30 million.

Netflix claimed "success comes in all shapes and sizes," but co-CEO Ted Sarandos admitted the data guides business decisions. So while Netflix says stats aren't everything, pouring resources into sure bets like The Night Agent seems likely as competition grows post-Hot Strike Summer. The show is what some call "just OK TV" -- not offensive, not groundbreaking, but reliably watched. Wired adds: This era of Just OK also comes as Netflix captures the King of Reality TV throne. Shows like Love Is Blind and Selling Sunset are becoming cultural juggernauts, and the streamer shows no sign of slowing down, especially now that the Squid Game spinoff, Squid Game: The Challenge, is getting major traction.

True, Netflix is still putting out artful content. A show like Wednesday, for example, had more than 507 million hours viewed and is also currently up for 12 Emmys. Netflix, on the whole, is nominated for a whopping 103 Emmys. That's impressive, but also, it's down from the 160 nods it got at its peak in 2020 and fewer than the 127 nabbed by (HBO) Max, which crushed thanks to shows like The White Lotus, The Last of Us, and Succession. You see where this is going. Netflix likes to tout its prestige shows, but also has to keep its paying customers, who left in droves in 2022 before partly coming back as Netflix cracked down on password sharing. To that end, it behooves Netflix to make more Ginny & Georgia, more Night Agent, more You. One analysis of the data found that the most-watched film, according to Netflix's data dump, was the Jennifer Lopez vehicle The Mother, which accumulated about 250 million hours watched in six months. Variety puts that level of engagement up there with Barbie and The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Not a bad showing.

The Federal Communications Commission has taken a step toward prohibiting early termination fees charged by cable and satellite TV providers. From a report: If given final approval, the FCC action would also require cable and satellite providers to provide a prorated credit or rebate to customers who cancel before a billing period ends. The new rules are being floated in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that the FCC voted to approve this week in a 3-2 vote, with both Republicans dissenting. The NPRM seeks public comment on the proposed rules and could lead to a final vote in a few months or so.

"Today's action proposes to adopt customer service protections that prohibit cable operators and DBS (Direct Broadcast Satellite) providers from imposing a fee for the early termination of a cable or DBS video service contract," the FCC said. "Additionally, the NPRM recommends the adoption of customer service protections to require cable and DBS providers to grant subscribers a prorated credit or rebate for the remaining whole days in a monthly or periodic billing cycle after the subscriber cancels service."

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said, "Consumers are tired of these junk fees. They now have more choices when it comes to video content. But these friction-filled tactics to keep us subscribing to our current providers are aggravating and unfair. So today we kick off a rulemaking to put an end to these practices." Cable lobby group NCTA-The Internet & Television Association opposes the plan and said it will submit comments to support "consumer choice and competitive parity."

The Economist reports: "Shake, shake, shake, shake," Taylor Swift sings from the stage of Lumen Field in Seattle at 10.35 in the evening on July 22nd. The fans respond, enthusiastically; the stadium duly shakes; a nearby seismometer takes note. To pop aficionados "Shake it off" is an empowering up-tempo anthem played at 160 beats per minute. To the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, which is designed to monitor earthquakes, it is a 2.6 hertz signal in which the amplitude of the acceleration was as large as one centimetre per second, per second.

The well-situated seismometer first came to public attention in January 2011, when it recorded the response of fans of the Seattle Seahawks, an American football team, to a magnificent touchdown by Marshawn Lynch, a running back known as "Beast Mode." The "Beast Quake" went down in local sporting history. When Ms Swift came to town for two nights of her Eras tour, Jacqueline Caplan-Auerbach, a geology professor at Western Washington University, used the opportunity to learn more about how events in the stadium shake its surroundings. On December 11th she presented some of her conclusions at the American Geophysical Union's autumn meeting in San Francisco.

[...] Dr Caplan-Auerbach wanted to see whether such resonant amplification might also be at play elsewhere, and to distinguish between the effect of the music itself and the audience's response. Her concert-night data showed two distinct sets of signals, one in higher frequencies (30-80hz), one in lower frequencies (1-8hz). The higher-frequency signals were present during the sound check, when the band were on stage but the stadium empty, and absent during the concerts' "surprise songs," played without the band by Ms Swift alone. The lower frequencies were absent when the audience had yet to arrive. Clearly those higher frequencies were from the music itself.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association have no trouble envisioning an AI-centered future, but developments over the past year are reason for concern. The association takes offense when AI models exploit the generosity of science fiction writers, who share their work without DRM and free of charge. [...] Over the past few months, we have seen a variety of copyright lawsuits, many of which were filed by writers. These cases target ChatGPT's OpenAI but other platforms are targeted as well. A key allegation in these complaints is that the AI was trained using pirated books. For example, several authors have just filed an amended complaint against Meta, alleging that the company continued to train its AI on pirated books despite concerns from its own legal team. This clash between AI and copyright piqued the interest of the U.S. Copyright Office which launched an inquiry asking the public for input. With more than 10,000 responses, it is clear that the topic is close to the hearts of many people. It's impossible to summarize all opinions without AI assistance, but one submission stood out to us in particular; it encourages the free sharing of books while recommending that AI tools shouldn't be allowed to exploit this generosity for free.

The submission was filed by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA), which represents over 2,500 published writers. The association is particularly concerned with the suggestion that its members' works can be used for AI training under a fair use exception. SFWA sides with many other rightsholders, concluding that pirated books shouldn't be used for AI training, adding that the same applies to books that are freely shared by many Science Fiction and Fantasy writers. [...] Many of the authors strongly believe that freely sharing stories is a good thing that enriches mankind, but that doesn't automatically mean that AI has the same privilege if the output is destined for commercial activities. The SFWA stresses that it doesn't take offense when AI tools use the works of its members for non-commercial purposes, such as research and scholarship. However, turning the data into a commercial tool goes too far.

AI freeloading will lead to unfair competition and cause harm to licensing markets, the writers warn. The developers of the AI tools have attempted to tone down these concerns but the SFWA is not convinced. [...] The writers want to protect their rights but they don't believe in the extremely restrictive position of some other copyright holders. They don't subscribe to the idea that people will no longer buy books because they can get the same information from an AI tool, for example. However, authors deserve some form of compensation. SFWA argues that all stakeholders should ultimately get together to come up with a plan that works for everyone. This means fair compensation and protection for authors, without making it financially unviable for AI to flourish. "Questions of 'how' and 'when' and 'how much money' all come later; first and foremost the author must have the right to say how their work is used," their submission reads.

"So long as authors retain the right to say 'no' we believe that equitable solutions to the thorny problems of licensing, scale, and market harm can be found. But that right remains the cornerstone, and we insist upon it," SFWA concludes.

An anonymous reader shares a report: If you bought a new smart TV during any of the holiday sales, there's likely to be an uninvited guest watching along with you. The most popular smart TVs sold today use automatic content recognition (ACR), a kind of ad surveillance technology that collects data on everything you view and sends it to a proprietary database to identify what you're watching and serve you highly targeted ads. The software is largely hidden from view, and it's complicated to opt out. Many consumers aren't aware of ACR, let alone that it's active on their shiny new TVs. If that's you, and you'd like to turn it off, we're going to show you how.

First, a quick primer on the tech: ACR identifies what's displayed on your television, including content served through a cable TV box, streaming service, or game console, by continuously grabbing screenshots and comparing them to a massive database of media and advertisements. Think of it as a Shazam-like service constantly running in the background while your TV is on.

These TVs can capture and identify 7,200 images per hour, or approximately two every second. The data is then used for content recommendations and ad targeting, which is a huge business; advertisers spent an estimated $18.6 billion on smart TV ads in 2022, according to market research firm eMarketer. For anyone who'd rather not have ACR looking over their shoulder while they watch, we've put together a guide to turning it off on three of the most popular smart TV software platforms in use last year. Depending on the platform, turning off ACR took us between 10 and 37 clicks.

For the first time, Netflix has released a comprehensive report of what people watched on the platform over a six month period. It includes hours viewed for every title, the premiere date for any Netflix show and movie, and whether a title was available globally. From the Hollywood Reporter: The list includes worldwide viewing for more than 18,000 movies and seasons of TV (18,214, to be exact) between January and June. Those 18,214 titles all had at least 50,000 hours of viewing over those six months, encompassing about 99 percent of all viewing on Netflix, vp strategy and analysis Lauren Smith told reporters during a presentation of the data on Tuesday. It is the deepest dive into viewing that Netflix (or any other streamer) has ever made public.

Among the highlights: The Night Agent was the biggest title on Netflix in the first half of 2023, racking up 812.1 million hours of viewing. Season two of Ginny & Georgia was second at 665.1 million hours, followed by Korean drama The Glory (622.8 million hours). Wednesday ranked fourth at 507.7 million hours of viewing, despite being released in November 2022. The company is using total hours viewed in this report as a way to measure engagement by its users rather than the "view" formula (total viewing hours divided by running time) it employs to compare titles in its weekly top 10 lists.

Original series and movies dominate the top of the chart, but Smith said the split between original and licensed titles was more even: About 55 percent of viewing was for originals and 45 percent was for licensed shows and films. Suits, which dominated the Nielsen U.S. streaming charts for much of the summer and fall, had a combined 599 million hours of viewing worldwide on Netflix across all nine seasons. The show's first season ranked highest, coming in 67th place with 129.1 million hours. At the other end, a little more than 20 percent of the titles on Netflix's list (3,813 in all) had very little viewing. The company rounded them to 100,000 hours but they would fall between 50,000 and 149,999 hours -- barely a drop in the streamer's more than 100 billion total hours of viewing for the six months. The full "What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report" can be downloaded here.

ScreenRant reports that on December 4, "Godzilla Minus One" was the #1 movie in the crucial U.S./Canada "domestic" market (which also includes Guam and Puerto Rico). But the next week was even more impressive, reports Forbes, retaining most of its box office figure with "an incredibly strong 90% hold across the three-day Friday-Saturday-Sunday frame, for what appears to be the best second weekend hold for a wide release in 2023." Through the week, Godzilla Minus One topped the North American charts four out of five weekdays on overwhelmingly positive word of mouth. Good buzz grew through the week as more viewers and critics saw and recommend the film... Godzilla Minus One is already the highest grossing Japanese live-action release of all time in the U.S. The film is a final contender for the Academy Award nominations for Best Visual Effects, and is widely expected to be one of the final official nominees.
CinemaBlend believes the movie should be nominated for this year's Best Picture award at the Oscars. With a total of 105 critical reviews (at the time of this writing), Godzilla Minus One has a Tomatometer score of 97%...

Godzilla has literally been a metaphor for the atomic bomb since the very beginning. However, Godzilla Minus One isn't as concerned with that idea. Instead, the story is all about sacrifice as well as the hope we have for future generations. It's a story of coming together and living for today, so that our children can be inspired to want to live for tomorrow. The Takashi Yamazaki-helmed feature doesn't present a story about destruction, but rather one about wanting peace and finding conducive ways to deal with trauma. I know you might not believe me if you haven't seen it yet, but the film is just as deep and "important" as Oppenheimer and, for that, it should be nominated.
They argue the movie manages to be both "a layered film" and "a popcorn flick...

"it's more than JUST a film featuring a giant reptile. This one actually has something to say."

Google Play Movies & TV will be replaced with Google TV on January 17, 2024. 9to5Google reports: Since the 2020 launch of the Google TV platform, that branding has replaced Play Movies & TV in areas such as mobile apps, but that's also led to the choice to do away with Play Movies & TV branding basically everywhere else. In October, that decision also made its way to Android TV, and the app has not been working ever since. Despite some confusion over the past few days, the app currently just redirects to Android TV's "Shop" tab, which has been widely available for months.

In a new post, Google explains that it will do away with the last parts of Google Play Movies & TV in January 2024: "With these changes, Google Play Movies & TV will no longer be available on Android TV devices or the Google Play website.* However, you'll still be able to access all of your previously purchased titles (including active rentals) on Android TV devices, Google TV devices, the Google TV mobile app (Android and iOS), and YouTube."

On January 17, Play Movies & TV will officially cease for good on Android TV. For anyone who does still have the app working -- again, most users cannot use the app already -- the "Shop" tab will become the only option. Similarly, Google says that Play Movies & TV will cease on other remaining platforms that same date. Any cable boxes with the app integrated will also lose it, and in turn pushed to the YouTube app for continued access to purchased content. Web access via play.google.com/movies will also go away, with youtube.com/movies becoming the alternative.

All those original shows on streaming services brought us "peak TV." But the New York Times reports on the flipside: back in the cable universe, they're experiencing "zombie TV": In 2015, the USA cable network was a force in original programming. Dramas like "Suits," "Mr. Robot" and "Royal Pains" either won awards or attracted big audiences. What a difference a few years make. Viewership is way down, and USA's original programming department is gone. The channel has had just one original scripted show this year, and it is not exclusive to the network — it also airs on another channel. During one 46-hour stretch last week, USA showed repeats of NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" for all but two hours, when it showed reruns of CBS' "NCIS" and "NCIS: Los Angeles."

Instead of standing out among its peers, USA is emblematic of cable television's transformation. Many of the most popular channels — TBS, Comedy Central, MTV — have quickly morphed into zombie versions of their former selves. Networks that were once rich with original scripted programming are now vessels for endless marathons of reruns, along with occasional reality shows and live sports... Advertisers have begun to pull money from cable at high rates, analysts say, and leaders at cable providers have started to question what their consumers are paying for. In a dispute with Disney this year, executives who oversee the Spectrum cable service said media companies were letting their cable "programming house burn to the ground...."

The media companies that own the channels are in a bind. The so-called cable bundle was enormously profitable for media companies, and more than 100 million households subscribed at the peak. But subscribers are rapidly declining as people migrate toward streaming. Now roughly 70 million households subscribe to cable. As a result, most media companies are pulling resources from their individual cable networks and directing investment toward their streaming services. Peacock, which is owned by NBCUniversal, also the parent of USA, has begun making more and more original scripted shows over the last three years.

However, most streaming services are hemorrhaging cash. (An NBCUniversal executive said this week that Peacock would lose $2.8 billion this year.) Cable, although it is getting smaller, remains profitable.
Media analyst Michael Nathanson believes last year was saw a "tipping point" when cable advertising decreased — by double-digit percentages — in five consecutive fiscal quarters. "Advertisers are starting to realize that there's really nothing on here and they shouldn't pay for it."

One consultant who works with entertainment companies and used to run marketing at the Oxygen cable network tells the newspaper that cable channels "are being stripped for parts." The article calculates that in 2022 there were 39% fewer scripted programs on basic and premium cable than there were in 2015.

"Reruns are filling the hole."

Samuel Axon reports via Ars Technica: The trailer for Amazon's Fallout TV series dropped this weekend, and it's either craven fan service or wonderfully authentic, depending on your point of view. The trailer depicts a lead character leaving a vault after an apparent catastrophe, discovering the broken world outside, and encountering ridiculous monsters as well as factions like the Brotherhood of Steel. It also features some extreme gore, which you'd expect from Fallout.

We've written a few times about the slowly unfolding saga of this show, which has Westworld's Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan as producers. To be clear, though, they won't actually be the showrunners; that honor goes to Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Captain Marvel, Tomb Raider) and Graham Wagner (Portlandia, The Office, Silicon Valley). The two showrunners each cover one-half of what Fallout has traditionally been: Robertson-Dworet brings the sci-fi action credentials, and Wagner brings the satirical comedy. As announced in October, the show will premiere on April 12th, 2024, exclusively via Prime Video.

In 2024, the Pixar films that debuted on Disney+ during the COVID-19 pandemic years when theaters were shut down will be returning to the big screen. Those include Soul, Luca and Turning Red. Engadget reports: Soul will get a theatrical release on January 12, Turning Red will hit cinemas on February 9 and Luca will emerge on a silver screen near you on March 22. Given that these movies have been around for as long as three years, it's unlikely that they'll set the box office charts alight. But the theatrical releases mean you'll have a chance to enjoy these films as originally intended.

Rockstar Games has officially revealed the trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI, which is coming in 2025. You can watch it on YouTube. IGN reports: The trailer gives us a look at the game's female protagonist, a first for the series. Her name is Lucia, and that she starts off in prison -- "bad luck, I guess," she quips. The trailer confirms, too, that it's set in Vice City with a large sign - not a huge surprise for those who've been following the series, but exciting nonetheless. In addition to lots and lots of quick shots of crime, we also get glimpses of TikToks and live-streams, hinting that social media will be a big part of this game.

It all takes place as Tom Petty's "Love Is a Long Road" plays in the background, appropriate for the many car-related crimes we see. And yes, true to the Florida setting, there are alligators in locations where they shouldn't be. It ends by showing us a little more of Lucia and a male character, seemingly both lovers and partners-in-crime. "The only way we're gonna get through this is by sticking together and being a team," Lucia says at one point. Fans have been talking about GTA 6 ever since GTA 5 was released in 2013, perhaps unsurprisingly as IGN deemed that one a "masterpiece" in our review.

ExpressVPN is the biggest VPN company so far to take advantage of the VPN support available in tvOS 17. According to The Verge, ExpressVPN will let Apple TV users connect to servers "in any of 105 countries around the world" so they can watch geo-restricted content around the world. From the report: To download it, you'll need to make sure you're on tvOS 17 -- earlier versions don't support native VPN apps at all. Once set up, the app will route your traffic through faraway servers before forwarding them to whatever streaming service or other internet server the Apple TV contacts. ExpressVPN on the Apple TV uses the company's Lightway protocol. Reddit users reported spotting the app last week. Most said they could switch countries to get around region restrictions, though some had issues logging in or getting it to work with specific apps. It's also a basic experience that lacks advanced VPN features like split tunneling, which dynamically applies the VPN connection to certain services as needed, freeing users from managing it manually.

"Advent of Code" has begun. New programming puzzles will appear every day until Christmas at AdventOfCode.com — and the annual event (first started in 2015) has grown into a worldwide phenomenon. This year's first puzzle has been completed by over 150,000 programmers (with another 115,652 completing Day Two's puzzle). And 108,000 fans have also joined the Advent of Code subReddit.

Contest-related comments are popping up all around the web. Some participants are live streaming their puzzle-solving efforts on Twitch. Self-described computer nerd Gary Grady is tweeting cartoons about each day's puzzle. JetBrains is even giving away some prizes in their "Advent of Code with Kotlin" event. And JetBrains developer advocate Sebastian Aigner is also hosting daily livestreams about each puzzle.

It's hard to overstate how big this event has become. This year's event attracted 60 sponsors, including Kotlin (for the third consecutive year), as well as Spotify, Shopify, and Sony Interactive Entertainment (as well as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and American Express). Individual donors can get a special badge next to their name, and there's also a shop selling coffee mugs and t-shirts. But at its core is real-world developer Eric Wastl (plus a team of loyal beta-testers) sharing his genuine fondness for computer programming. Wastl is also the creator of a satirical web page for the fast, lightweight, cross-platform framework Vanilla JS ("so popular that browsers have been automatically loading it for over a decade") and also curates a collection of "things in PHP which make me sad".

And you can find him on X sharing encouraging comments for this year's participants.

Gene Simmons is 74 years old. But as the singer for the classic rock band KISS left the stage after their final show, USA Today reports there was a surprise: in the most on-brand KISS move even by KISS standards, before the quartet likely hit their dressing rooms after disappearing on stage in the blizzard of smoke and confetti that accompanied the set-closing "Rock and Roll All Nite," a message blasted on the video screens: "A new KISS era starts now."

Digital avatars of the band followed, playing their anthem, "God Gave Rock and Roll To You."
ABC News reports: The avatars were created by George Lucas' special-effects company, Industrial Light & Magic, in partnership with Pophouse Entertainment Group, the latter of which was co-founded by ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus. The two companies recently teamed up for the "ABBA Voyage" show in London, in which fans could attend a full concert by the Swedish band — as performed by their digital avatars. Per Sundin, CEO of Pophouse Entertainment, says this new technology allows Kiss to continue their legacy for "eternity." He says the band wasn't on stage during virtual performance because "that's the key thing," of the future-seeking technology. "Kiss could have a concert in three cities in the same night across three different continents. That's what you could do with this."

In order to create their digital avatars, who are depicted as a kind of superhero version of the band, Kiss performed in motion capture suits.

Experimentation with this kind of technology has become increasingly common in certain sections of the music industry. In October K-pop star Mark Tuan partnered with Soul Machines to create an autonomously automated "digital twin" called "Digital Mark." In doing so, Tuan became the first celebrity to attach their likeness to OpenAI's GPT integration, artificial intelligence technology that allows fans to engage in one-on-one conversations with Tuan's avatar. Aespa, the K-pop girl group, frequently perform alongside their digital avatars — the quartet is meant to be viewed as an octet with digital twins. Another girl group, Eternity, is made up entirely of virtual characters — no humans necessary.
Kiss frontman Paul Stanley told ABC News that "The band deserves to live on because the band is bigger than we are."

Sony is about to delete tons of Discovery shows from PlayStation users' libraries even if they already "purchased" them. Why? Because most users don't actually own the digital content they buy thanks to the mess of online DRM and license agreements. Some of the soon-to-be-deleted TV shows include Mythbusters and Naked and Afraid. Kotaku reports: The latest pothole in the road to an all-digital future was discovered via a warning Sony recently sent out to PlayStation users who purchased TV shows made by Discovery, the reality TV network that recently merged with Warner Bros. in one of the most brutal and idiotic corporate maneuvers of our time. "Due to our content licensing arrangements with content providers, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Discovery content and the content will be removed from your video library," read a copy of the email that was shared with Kotaku.

It linked to a page on the PlayStation website listing all of the shows impacted. As you might imagine, given Discovery's penchant for pumping out seasons of relatively cheap to produce but popular reality TV and documentary-based shows, there are a lot of them. They include, but are not limited to, hits such as: Say Yes to the Dress, Shark Week, Cake Boss, Long Island Medium, Deadly Women, and many, many more. [...] Now, essentially anything you buy on PSN, whether a PS5 blockbuster or, uh, Police Women of Cincinnati, is essentially just on indefinite loan until such time as the PlayStation servers die or the original copyright owner decides to pull the content.

On December 14, 2023, three Grand Theft Auto games will officially become available for Netflix members on the App Store, Google Play, and in the Netflix mobile app. IGN reports: Those who can't wait to jump into Grand Theft Auto III - The Definitive Edition, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - The Definitive Edition, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - The Definitive Edition can pre-register today to get ready for December 14 and play as soon as they are available. The addition of these three classic Grand Theft Auto games will bring Netflix's gaming library to over 80 titles, and all of these games are available to all Netflix subscribers without any ads, in-app purchases, or extra fees.

Microsoft is returning to the Bliss hill once again with this year's entry in its now-traditional ugly retro-computing sweater series. From a report: Blue hemming at the bottom and on the sleeves evokes Windows XP's bright-blue taskbar, and in case people don't immediately recognize Bliss as "a computer thing," there's also a giant mouse pointer hovering over it. The sweater is available from size small up to a 3XL, and costs $70 regardless of which version you buy. All sizes are currently expected to arrive sometime between December 2 and 6.

Global pay TV penetration (the number of pay TV subscriptions relative to the number of households) is set to decline for the first time ever in 2024 following a peak penetration of 60.3% in Q4 2023. This decline will continue into the forecast period, with a drop of almost 4 percentage points by the end of 2028, according to Ampere's latest forecasts, which cover 96 markets. From a report: This decline in pay TV penetration has been driven primarily by the Americas, and in particular North America which has seen its pay TV penetration almost halve from a high of 84% in 2009 to 45% in 2023. In the case of North America, this drop has been caused by a combination of high costs (currently over $90 per month) and competition from a mature SVoD market which is driving customers increasingly to cut the cord.

However, the recent distribution deal between Disney and Charter in the US, which saw select Disney streaming products bundled into Charter's TV packages, demonstrates that cable operators in the region remain a powerful force as distribution partners, giving streamers the ability to reach a larger and potentially untapped audience base. In addition to North America, Latin America has also shown large declines in pay TV penetration, with a drop of around 10 percentage points since its peak of 42% in 2016. On the contrary, the APAC and Europe have shown the highest penetration growth in recent years, with large gains coming from China, especially after China Mobile acquired an IPTV license in 2018. The growth in these regions has largely come from low-cost IPTV services which are often bundled into broadband packages for a low cost, and helps drive pay TV subscriptions in these areas. In Europe, markets such as Portugal, Serbia and Hungary are expected to see further growth in the forecast period.

"Several of your films have explored artificial intelligence," Rolling Stone pointed out to 85-year-old Ridley Scott, before asking: "Does AI worry you?" Ridley Scott: I always thought the world would end up being run by two corporations, and I think we're headed in that direction. Tyrell Corp in Blade Runner probably owned 45-50% of the world, and one of his playthings was creating replication through DNA. Tyrell thinks he's god and in the first Blade Runner has made a Nexus female. And the Nexus female will have a limited lifespan because AI will get dangerous. We have to lock down AI. And I don't know how you're gonna lock it down. They have these discussions in the government, "How are we gonna lock down AI?" Are you fucking kidding? You're never gonna lock it down. Once it's out, it's out. If I'm designing AI, I'm going to design a computer whose first job is to design another computer that's cleverer than the first one. And when they get together, then you're in trouble, because then it can take over the whole electrical-monetary system in the world and switch it off. That's your first disaster. It's a technical hydrogen bomb. Think about what that would mean?

Rolling Stone: I wanted to ask you about what effect you think AI will have on Hollywood as it was a big sticking point in the writers' strike, in particular. One fear is that studios will plug a book into AI, have it crap out an "adaptation," and then pay actual screenwriters day rates to punch it up.

Ridley Scott: Yeah. They really have to not allow this, and I don't know how you can control it. Another AI expert said, "We are way over-panicking. Of course, I have a computer that can defeat a chess master in an hour because we can feed him every conceivable move from data, and it'll process 1,900 conceivable moves on what the person will do next in seconds, and the guy is in trouble." There's something non-creative about data. You're gonna get a painting created by a computer, but I like to believe — and I'm saying this without confidence — it won't work with anything particularly special that requires emotion or soul. With that said, I'm still worried about it.
The article also looks back more than 40 years, to when Ridley Scott was going to direct Dune in between filming Alien and Blade Runner. Scott says he had "a really good screenplay, had all the sets to go" — but the producer had wanted to save money by filiming it in Mexico City, and Scott "didn't love" the idea of spending a year there.