Big news from Comic-Con 2026:

• "Coyote vs. ACME" debuted its long-awaited final trailer. CNET calls it "an animation-meets-live-action story," with the Coyote catapulting into theaters this August 28. (The film began development back in 2018, but was shelved for a tax write-off in 2023 by Warner Bros. until a backlash led to its sale to Ketchup Entertainment.) "Fed up with Acme's unreliable products, Wile E. Coyote decides to hire a lawyer and sue the company..." writes CNET. "The movie also features Lana Condor along with a host of Looney Tunes characters like Porky Pig, Tweety, Foghorn Leghorn and Granny (who gets dinged by an anvil)."

• In other movie news, CNET says Johnny Depp also "made a surprise appearance at Comic-Con, donning a costume as Ebenezer Scrooge" to promote his November 13 movie about the miser from Charles Dickens' famous Christmas novella. (Ian McKellen and Daisy Ridley are also in the movie.)

But several geek favorites are being filmed as TV series...

• There's big news for William Gibson fans, reports Entertainment Weekly. "Two years after Apple TV announced production on the first-ever series adaptation of William Gibson's seminal 1984 novel Neuromancer, the lucky few hundred who attended the studio's Hall H panel at Comic-Con 2026 got to watch the first teaser.

• For Amazon's Prime Video, the Tolkien-derived "Rings of Power" series released a season 3 trailer that CNET said "successfully hides the best parts with fire... The trailer suggests that Sauron is building an army, and all of Middle-earth is trying to find ways to stop him... Rings of Power season 3 will start dropping weekly episodes on Nov. 11, meaning this show will be airing at the same time the Peter Jackson films will be celebrating their 25th anniversary."

• Later in November Amazon's Prime Video will also debut Blade Runner 2099, an eight-episode series that's a sequel to 2017's film Blade Runner 2049, reports CNET. "Set in an alternate version of LA where replicants run things and the humans play second fiddle, the series sees Yeoh's replicant Olwen chasing down outlaw replicants who've gone missing. With her own shelf life on a ticking clock, the stakes are high for her and for her human fugitive partner, Cora..."

• Paramount Plus will debut Avatar: Seven Havens in October, a new animated series from the creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender which CNET says "follows a pair of twin avatars, one of whom is Korra's successor."

• Disney+ has season 3 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

• Kevin Feige said Marvel's television slate will include more seasons of "X-Men '97" and the upcoming "VisionQuest" TV series.

• HBO Max will launch a new Green Lantern series called Lanterns on August 16.

CNBC reports: Amazon is requiring that third-party sellers label any product images or videos that contain "AI-generated people" after New York recently passed a law mandating greater transparency around "synthetic performers" in ads... The policy directs sellers to tag images [and videos or other graphics on listing pages] with specific metadata keywords before they're uploaded. "Recent legislation requires disclosure when images or videos in advertisements contain photorealistic AI-generated people," Amazon wrote in the announcement [clarifying that the requirement doesn't apply to content featuring TV/video game/movie characters or content including real people, even if they've been altered using AI]. The company said it will "add an indicator" to listings on its website, informing consumers that images or other content feature AI-generated people, "where applicable." It's unclear what criteria Amazon will apply when deciding when to display the label to shoppers...

Amazon has embraced AI internally and it's increasingly infusing the technology across its portfolio. The company has optimized listing titles and details so they're more likely to be spotted by AI systems, invested in a recently rebranded assistant called Alexa for Shopping, and launched a feature that injects AI-generated [images of] products into its search bar in real time based on user queries. More Amazon third-party sellers are using AI to generate text, images and other content for their listings, partly by using the company's tools.
Outside sellers account for more than 60% of goods sold on Amazon, the article points out. It adds that there's currently no nationwide U.S. law requiring companies to disclose AI-generated advertising content, it adds — but YouTube, Meta, Pinterest, and TikTok have already added labels for AI-generated content.

And a new California law also requires large AI providers to embed watermarks in AI-generated images, video and other content...

Roku has raised prices on several streaming devices, blaming memory and component shortages tied to the AI data-center boom. The Roku Ultra jumped from $100 to $150 and the basic Streaming Stick rose from $30 to $40. The Desk reports: In a phone call with The Desk on Friday, a Roku executive said the company made the tough decision to raise prices on its streaming hardware to address shortages in computer memory and other components caused by the artificial intelligence rush. [...] Still, the executive who spoke with The Desk on Friday said the company believes its hardware is still competitive against other streaming TV hardware because Roku devices are still priced aggressively compared to the Apple TV and other expensive streaming hardware, and the company remains focused on looking at ways to add value to its Roku platform before and after it enters a customer's home. "We are doing our best to have great deals like what we have going on right now," the executive said. "Roku is even upping the price for a bundle that includes a Streaming Stick Plus and a one-month subscription to Fox One," notes Ars Technica in a separate report.

"As recently as July 20, Roku listed the bundle at $60 with a sale price of $25, according to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Now, the bundle carries an $80 MSRP and $45 sale price."

Longtime Slashdot reader sandbagger shares the passing of John C. Dvorak, an early and influential technology journalist for PC Magazine. He was 80. Talking Biz News reports: Aric Mackey writes, "Widely recognized for his profound impact on the technology industry, John's career spanned decades of rapid digital evolution. He was perhaps best known for his influential, long-running column in PC Magazine and his groundbreaking work on the No Agenda podcast. Through his prolific writing, broadcasting, and distinct public voice, he helped shape critical conversations around both technology and political analysis, guiding generations of readers and listeners with his unique perspective.

"To those who knew him personally, John was far more than his public work. He was a beloved husband, devoted father, proud grandfather, and a loyal friend. Those closest to him will remember a man defined by his strong convictions, his exceptionally sharp wit, and an enduring curiosity about the world around him." Dvorak was also part of the startup team at CNET Networks, and appeared on MarketWatch TV.

Amazon is integrating its Luna cloud gaming service into Prime Video, adding a new "Games" tab where Prime members can play titles like "Hogwarts Legacy," "EA Sports FC 26," "Indiana Jones and the Great Circle," "Clue," and "Taboo." The games will be available starting today on Fire TVs in the U.S. and U.K., with additional supported devices and countries in the coming months. TechCrunch reports: With this move, Amazon is hoping games can turn Prime Video into a one-stop entertainment destination, borrowing a strategy from Netflix, which has increasingly embraced party games over the past several years. Since Amazon already operates a gaming service, it makes sense for the tech giant to integrate it into its streaming platform. [...] Amazon says its vision is to remove the barriers to gaming and make it accessible to anyone regardless of their experience or budget. The tech giant says Luna is designed to bring gaming to a much broader audience by removing the need for expensive consoles or gaming PCs and making games as easy to access as movies or TV shows.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: The home appliance giant LG Electronics USA said this week it plans to suspend any apps built for its smart TVs that turn one's television into an always-on residential proxy node. The move comes less than a month after researchers found that more than 42 percent of games and other apps available for download on LG's webOS store allow unknown third-parties to route their Internet traffic through a user's TV. On July 2, [KrebsOnSecurity] featured research by the security firm Spur that examined the prevalence of residential proxy software development kits (SDKs) in smart TV apps. Spur found more than 42 percent of apps available for download on LG smart TVs include SDKs that turn one's television in a proxy node indefinitely, and that more than a quarter of the apps made for Samsung's Tizen operating system had similar residential proxy components.

Responding to questions about Spur's research, LG Senior Vice President John Taylor told KrebsOnSecurity the company was working with app developers to remove the residential proxy option from their apps on the webOS platform. Developers that fail to comply, he said, will find their apps suspended. "A residential proxy network is not an intended use for LG smart TVs, and LG Electronics is working with developers to remove the residential proxy option from their apps on the webOS platform," Taylor said. "If this option is not removed, these apps will be suspended." Taylor said LG is committed to keeping residential proxy networks out of its smart TV apps going forward, and that the company's review of those apps is "well underway now."

"As part of our ongoing efforts to enhance platform quality and the user experience, LG will continue to strengthen our evaluation process for developer-submitted apps, including those that incorporate residential proxy SDKs," Taylor wrote in an emailed statement. [...] "A one-time consent prompt buried in a TV app is not a substitute for meaningful transparency, ongoing control, and platform oversight," Spur's Trevor Sutter wrote. "The risk is amplified when consent comes from individuals within the household who use the device but shouldn't give consent, such as minors." LG is also facing criticism for monitors that automatically install software promoting paid McAfee subscriptions through Windows Update without user approval.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: In 2022, due to "evolving licensing agreements" with distributor StudioCanal, German and Austrian users had hundreds of movies disappear from their PS accounts, long after buying them through Sony. Then in 2023, it happened again in America, specifically when Sony ended its licensing agreement with Discovery after the Warner Bros. merger, which, of course, has since been bought by Paramount Skydance. That resulted in customers having hundreds and hundreds of episodes of TV shows deleted from their accounts. Nowhere in any of this were there refunds, of course. No recompense at all, actually. Just a thing you thought you'd bought taken away from you by the very people you thought you bought it from.

And now it's happening again. Due to another licensing agreement fallout with StudioCanal, hundreds of movies and TV shows are being ripped from the accounts of PS Store customers, and there appears to be fuck all that they can do about it. [Kotaku reports:] "This news was brought to people's attention by X user somatyk, who posted the notification they had received from PlayStation this week. Along with the unapologetic news that the purchased movies would be deleted from their account on September 1, the message concluded with, 'Click here for a full list of affected titles that will no longer be supported. Thank you.' The same warning is now reproduced in full on the PlayStation website, along with the list of 551 films and TV series that are being pulled from people's libraries."

As Kotaku notes later in their post, part of what is striking in all of this is the sheer mundanity of the announcement. Because there have been no consequences, or any action at all from the public or government, Sony treats this all as if it's perfectly normal and no big deal. You can tell me all you want about how the Ts and Cs in these purchases do in fact note that the nature of the purchase is a temporary licensing of the content for an undetermined time period... but I can promise you that the public in general doesn't understand that. They think they're buying a thing, not a license.

The FCC plans to vote on repealing local TV ownership limits, including the 39% national audience cap that currently restricts how much of the U.S. market a single broadcast group can reach. Engadget reports: On August 6, commissioners will hold a ballot to repeal Section 303 of the Communications Act, and with it the 39 percent rule. In essence, the rule limits the reach of a local TV network to no more than 39 percent of the U.S.' total audience market. In its place, the FCC would move to a system whereby it would personally approve or reject TV ownership deals on a case-by-case basis.

It's not clear if the FCC even has the authority to reject Section 303 without the explicit consent of the legislature. As Lawrence J. Spiwak wrote in the Yale Journal on Regulation back in January, Section 10 of the Communications Act expressly forbids the FCC from bending the rules around Section 303. "Americans no longer trust the legacy national media to report the news fairly or accurately," wrote FCC Chairman Brendan Carr in an op-ed published on Breitbart. "In fact, only eight percent of Americans have a great deal of trust in mass media. That figure is even lower among Republicans -- sitting at a mere three percent."

"... Many local broadcast TV stations are getting hollowed out as a result and turning into little more than mouthpieces for programming produced in New York and Hollywood," he alleged. "That is not what Congress or the FCC intended."

Disney is exploring a free tier for Disney+ that would make some content available without a subscription. According to Nielsen data, the three largest free streamers accounted for 18.7% of watch time on U.S. TVs in April, up from 16.8% a year earlier and 12.7% in April 2024. Business Insider reports: Product and tech chief Adam Smith spoke about enabling free-tier content during a streaming town hall on Thursday afternoon, one staffer said. Smith didn't share a timeline for this initiative or a sense of the scope, this person added. A person familiar with Disney's streaming strategy said these talks are part of an ongoing discussion about concepts to better serve fans. Currently, the Disney+ and Hulu bundle costs $12.99 a month with ads or $19.99 without ads at full price.

Europe's General Court dismissed Apple's challenge to the EU's designation of its App Stores and iOS as "gatekeepers" under the Digital Markets Act. The ruling means Apple remains subject to DMA obligations requiring it to allow alternative app stores, support interoperability with rival services, and avoid favoring its own services over competitors. MacRumors reports: Apple took its case to Luxembourg's General Court in 2024 after the European Commission designated its five App Stores -- on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Watch -- as a single core platform service under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a label that brings with it a set of strict obligations. Designated "gatekeepers" are prohibited from favoring their own services over those of rivals, and are prevented from combining personal data across different services. They also have to give users the option to use alternative app stores.

Apple also challenged the EU's designation of iOS as a gateway platform, a status that requires the operating system allows rival services to interoperate with it. The company also disputed the classification of iMessage as a number-independent interpersonal communications service, or NIICS, which would subject the app to EU telecoms rules. But the General Court said Apple's actions regarding the iMessage service are inadmissible.

EchoStar's satellite pay-TV unit Dish DBS has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, reports Reuters. The move also applies to its wireless subsidiaries, according to the article, and "facilitates the wind-down of Dish Wireless's 5G network operations following an unexpected delay in a spectrum license sale to AT&T... under which EchoStar agreed to sell about 50 megahertz of its nationwide spectrum for $23 billion."

Some context from Deadline.com: Charlie Ergen, who co-founded EchoStar and Dish, recently returned as chairman and CEO to steer the company through its recent challenges... Even prior to the merger, Ergen had been working to pivot from the pay-TV business, where Dish now has just 5 million subscribers and streaming sibling Sling TV has another 2 million, toward wireless telecom. With wireless spectrum hitting the market due to the Sprint-T-Mobile merger and then Elon Musk's Starlink looking to ramp up in the sector, it seemed more attractive than the cord-cutting-ravaged pay-TV business. But it is still entails plenty of risk, especially given how tightly regulated the spectrum is due to security concerns.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.

Amazon says it is ending sideloading on new Fire Sticks because "apps that facilitate piracy, and other apps, can carry malware," adding that there is "a good amount of evidence" that sideloaded apps may contain unwanted code or behavior. However, the company did not provide specific examples of Fire Stick users being harmed. Ars Technica reports: Amazon has released two Fire Stick models that use its proprietary, Linux-based operating system, Vega OS. Previous Fire Sticks ran Fire OS, which is an Android fork based on the Android Open Source Project. One of the biggest differences between Vega OS and Fire OS is that the former doesn't support sideloading. [...] In a recent interview, Or Goren, editor-in-chief of Cord Busters, a UK-based streaming news outlet, noted the negative reaction to Vega being a closed OS. [Aidan Marcuss, VP of Fire TV, advertising, and Appstore] responded, per the publication, by saying that Vega OS was Amazon's opportunity to "innovate and deliver more capabilities, even on the least expensive devices."

He also said that making a platform around security and privacy was "sort of utmost in my mind." The statement is somewhat ironic, considering Vega OS blocks custom launchers and other third-party apps that helped users avoid Amazon tracking and ads. Goren asked whether Amazon had evidence that sideloaded devices caused users harm. "Apps that facilitate piracy, and other apps, can carry malware," Marcuss responded. Marcuss also said that there is "a good amount of evidence that apps can carry unwanted code and behavior on them when they're sideloaded."

Marcuss didn't provide specific examples of Fire Stick users being hurt by sideloaded apps. There are some potential examples, though. In 2025, Amazon claimed to blacklist (which blocked the apps from being sideloaded to Fire Sticks) four video streaming apps for malicious behavior. At the time, AFTVnews reported that two of the apps served as residential proxy providers and were considered riskware, and that the other two had APK files that were flagged by virus-scanning tools. Safari and Chrome also flagged one of the apps' official websites, the publication reported. And in 2018, a botnet that infected Android devices with cryptocurrency-mining malware appeared on some Fire Sticks, per discussion on XDA Forums. That said, Amazon also has a history of disabling apps that let users circumnavigate its home screen that Fire devices, including Fire Sticks and Fire TVs, have increasingly used for ads. Worth noting: developers can continue sideloading apps onto Vega OS devices if they register them with Amazon.

The Onion joked the new movie Supergirl is about a hero who must single-handedly save the world "after the catastrophic collapse of interest in the genre."

Unfortunately, The Hollywood Reporter says the film's reviews "range from negative to tepid praise (averaging a 58 percent Rotten Tomatoes score)." Many point fingers at the film's script, with Variety's line — "a comic-book movie with the worst script I can remember" — going viral... Not to pile on, but there's another recurring gripe from the reviews that stood out: Critics bashed the film as being murky, dark and gray, with poor VFX: "Muddy CG sludge" wrote one. Another said the film was full of "sludgy browns and grays" and "the visual murkiness of the settings makes it hard to follow the already unintelligible action sequences." A third wrote the "VFX is so rough it makes The Flash look like Avatar." Moviegoers increasingly despise murky, dark visuals (often used to hide weak effects), along with obvious CGI and incoherent action. They've seen it so many times they've become allergic.
The Bulwark agrees that the action sequences are "terribly lit, incoherently staged, and just generally weightless and ugly... [I]t's reminiscent of the disaster that was The Flash: It's just very obvious during certain sequences that everyone was in a big green-screen warehouse and the camera was whipping around with the knowledge that everything would be painted in later, so who really gives a crap how anything looks on the day of."

But they also call the movie "a tremendous slog of a film, a real step backwards for the James Gunn-overseen DC Universe of movies and TV shows" that's "neither fun nor exciting" and "feels empty." The film does have one bright spot: Lobo, who is played by Jason Momoa as something like Michael Keaton's Beetlejuice by way of Jason Momoa's Aquaman. He's blustery and cantankerous and saucy and just a little menacing; it's a perfect piece of casting and a really nice performance. Unfortunately, it's the only spark of life in what is otherwise a deeply dour, deeply boring piece of filmmaking... Supergirl is just a misfire on nearly every level, one that lacks the sincerity and fun of last year's reboot of this universe or the comic pathos present in Gunn's Peacemaker series on HBO Max.
Reason calls it "dark, depressive, and dull" and "a downer of a movie in nearly every way." It's not fun. It's barely even righteous. It's just miserable. At one point, Supergirl flat-out murders a guy by pushing a giant sword through his neck. Somehow, I suspect even Zack Snyder would be appalled.
Time argued fans of last decade's superhero movies "should be demanding more, not less." Though "Will there be rioting in the streets once audiences get some idea of how lousy Supergirl is? Probably not."

Apple has sharply raised prices across its Mac, iPad, HomePod, and Apple TV lineups as surging AI-driven demand creates a global memory and storage shortage. Increases range from $30 for the HomePod mini to $1,300 for the M3 Ultra Mac Studio, with Apple CEO Tim Cook saying efforts to shield customers from higher costs had become "unsustainable." The Verge reports: On Thursday, the company adjusted the price of its new MacBook Neo, which will now start at $699 instead of $599, while the base MacBook Air will jump to $1,299 from $1,099, as reported earlier by Bloomberg. The 14-inch MacBook Pro is getting an increase as well, going from $1,699 to $1,999. Meanwhile, the iPad Air will now start at $749 instead of $599, while the iPad Pro is increasing to $1,199 from $999.

As spotted by MacRumors, the M4 Max Mac Studio will now cost $2,499, a big jump from $1,999. The M3 Ultra Mac Studio is now priced at $5,299, up from $3,999. Apple is even raising the prices of its HomePod, which now costs $349 instead of $299, as well as bumping the price of the HomePod mini to $129 instead of $99. The Apple TV also now costs $199 instead of $129.

Walmart is acquiring self-serve connected-TV ad platform Vibe.co for a reported $1.4 billion, adding it to an advertising ecosystem that already includes smart-TV maker Vizio. AdExchanger reports: On Tuesday, Walmart announced that it is buying Vibe.co, the French self-serve ad platform that specializes in helping small brands buy streaming commercials with similar ease and precision as they get from search and social. Vibe has been vying for a bigger share of the ad dollars moving to connected TV, especially in the US, as evidenced by the company's ubiquitous billboards in major cities including New York and San Francisco. Now, Vibe joins Walmart Connect's commerce ecosystem alongside the smart TV maker Vizio. And Vibe's tech is poised to help unify Walmart's growing CTV footprint with the closed-loop attribution provided by its retail sales data.

[...] Together, Walmart and Vibe.co strive to "build the best ecosystem for the performance TV market," Vibe CEO and Co-Founder Arthur Querou told AdExchanger. Performance CTV has a high ceiling for growth. The performance budgets dedicated for streaming platforms are still small potatoes compared to search and social, Querou said. Only one-quarter of CTV ad campaigns have lower-funnel objectives, and that number has been static for years, according to data from Advertiser Perceptions. Now that Walmart owns both Vibe and Vizio, advertisers should have an easier time tying streaming campaigns to shopper data. That promise stands to win Walmart more marketing dollars earmarked for retail media and streaming behemoths -- including Amazon.

Walmart is especially interested in attracting more small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) who lack the tools, budgets or teams to invest in streaming TV, a Walmart spokesperson told AdExchanger. Other ad platforms, including MNTN and Magnite, have likewise targeted SMB advertisers as a source for continued growth in the CTV market. By adding Vibe.co, Walmart can court SMBs with the pitch that its new self-serve tools will make it easier for them to execute CTV campaigns. Plus, SMBs tend to prioritize performance campaigns, since they are under more pressure to justify tighter ad budgets and thus have to be more selective about which platforms they advertise on. And Walmart is better positioned than most platforms to prove its ads drove performance thanks to its retail data foundation.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Britain is considering forcing social media companies to prioritize what the government called trusted news sources as part of its broader push to tighten regulation of the sector. The culture department said on Monday it was considering requiring platforms such as Meta's Facebook, Alphabet-owned YouTube and TikTok to make content from public service media -- including the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 -- and other trusted news providers easier to find in users' feeds and searches.

Boosting the visibility of regulated news providers could help tackle misinformation, particularly during crises, the government said. However, any move to influence how platforms rank content is likely to face scrutiny from the social media firms, which say such rules could override user choice and disadvantage other creators. The proposals form part of a broader overhaul of Britain's public service media system to help broadcasters compete with streaming platforms and shifting viewing habits. Ministers are also considering widening public service media status to include online-only providers, extending free-to-air protections for major sporting events to on-demand viewing, and consulting on a shift to internet-based TV from 2034 or 2044. "It is vital that we make sure that people have better access to trusted and accurate news and that our regulated public service media is seen and heard in the fierce battle against mis- and disinformation," culture minister Lisa Nandy said in a statement.

The move follows the UK's recently-announced ban on social media use for those under 16.

With the price of the new Steam Machine starting at $1,049, you might want to consider making your own Steam Machine instead. An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Valve says that "starting with the SteamOS 3.8 release, you can put together your own Steam Machine using whatever PC parts you want." SteamOS 3.8.10 launched last week with a slew of updates, including "improved compatibility with recent Intel and AMD platforms." Alongside that improved compatibility, Valve is giving gamers the green light to install SteamOS on their own desktops. In an interview with The Verge, Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais said Valve has been "rolling out improvements to [SteamOS] so it's more compatible with desktop hardware," including eventual support for Nvidia graphics. Griffais says Valve has "a growing team" working on Nvidia driver support for SteamOS, adding, "We're collaborating with Nvidia very closely." While he mentioned that Nvidia support might not come this year, Griffais emphasized that "it's certainly something that we're working on in the background."

It's technically been possible to run SteamOS on your own hardware for a while now, but compatibility has been mostly limited to AMD systems. So far installing it has also required using a Steam Deck recovery image, a process that, speaking from experience, is much less straightforward than the installation process for most other Linux distributions. Trying to run SteamOS on Intel or Nvidia hardware has not been easy so far. According to Griffais, Valve is working to change that, which could mean that down the line, you'll be able to run SteamOS on just about any gaming PC hardware you want, including Nvidia.

For the more immediate future, Griffais says SteamOS in its current state should offer a "good experience" on console-like PC setups: "If you have something that is similar to the use case of a Steam Machine, where you have a PC that's gonna be plugged into a TV, and has a single hard drive that you're not going to try and dual boot [] you can put SteamOS on there, and you'll have an experience that is very similar to a Steam Deck docked or a Steam Machine, with some caveats, of course," like a lack of HDMI-CEC support. But "the core bits of the experience are there. The SteamOS graphics driver, the shader precompilation [...] you can get at all of that with the SteamOS." Griffais says SteamOS does not yet offer an easy way to dual-boot alongside Windows or another operating system, but envisions "a time where it's a better experience to install on your desktop and have it coexist with a different operating system."

UK's Members of Parliament (MP) were "looking for proof that smartphones and social media are rotting children's brains," writes The Register — but they got "a less satisfying answer from neuroscientists on Wednesday: nobody can really prove it." Appearing before the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee this week, three researchers spent much of the session explaining that concern and evidence are not quite the same thing. Asked what evidence exists on the impact of digital devices on infants and young children, Professor Denis Mareschal, director of the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck, replied: "There is very little, if any, causal research in the early years. Almost everything is correlational."

MPs kept coming back to the question — and the experts kept coming back to the same answer. When questioned about social media's impact on adolescents, Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore of the University of Cambridge was equally cautious. "What evidence do we have of the impact of digital devices or social media on the adolescent brain?" she asked. "Almost nothing. There are a few small studies, but they haven't been replicated, and they're purely correlational...."

MPs also wanted to know whether neuroscience could settle one of the liveliest arguments in the debate: how old a child should be before they're allowed onto social media. "What neuroscience can't do is pinpoint a precise age," Blakemore said. "The individual differences in brain development are vast...." If there was a takeaway from the hearing, it was that concern about digital childhood is running well ahead of the evidence needed to settle the argument.

Steven Spielberg grants that his 1977 UFO film Close Encounters was "speculative," writes the Associated Press, but "Disclosure Day, he insists, is the real deal." "It's my first film that will be considered science fiction that I do not consider to be science fiction," Spielberg said in a recent interview. "It's much more reflective of the world as it is evolving and discoveries that are being made as we speak." Spielberg, at 79, is trying to revive and reconsider the alien wonder that's long lingered in his mind, from "E.T." to "War of the Worlds." "Disclosure Day," Spielberg's first summer movie in a decade, is already being hailed as one of his best in years. But this time, Spielberg is testing whether he can conjure some of his trademark movie magic less with imagination than with conviction. "I've been a believer since I made 'Close Encounters' 50 years ago," Spielberg says. "But I would always say: Until I've seen a UAP or a UFO with my own eyes, I'm not going to categorically state that life from out there has come here. But I've changed that," he adds. "I'm now willing to change my mind because of the circumstantial evidence which is overwhelming..."

Spielberg, having long followed reports of alleged alien encounters, was inspired by the 2023 House Subcommittee on National Security hearing on UAPs: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. Among the witnesses was whistleblower and former Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch, who testified that the government concealed a program investigating UAPs. The Pentagon then denied it... Those 2023 testimonies and others so fueled Spielberg that he produced a 50-page treatment on what would become "Disclosure Day." During the writing process with Koepp, he texted him more notes, he says, "than I've ever sent to anyone in my life."

"There was a period in there where I believe he re-read the script every single day for a year," Koepp says. "We'd be in different time zones and I would wake up to 30 or 35 texts from his most current reading of the script. When the leader of the project has that level of commitment, it tends to bring along everyone. You up your game."
The article calls it "a grand bookend for one of the most cosmically-minded moviemakers of our time." But the man who filmed some of the world's first summer blockbusters also shared his thoughts on the future of movies. "Even though the numbers are still not pre-COVID level numbers for any films being released now, it's more robust than it has been for many years. The audience gives me belief that people still want to congregate in a dark space in the company of strangers to share an experience of a film made by storytellers. And that gives me faith to continue making films."

Rolling Stone wrote that "There's a lot to love in Disclosure Day." Though they also offer this pithy summary of its plot. "Remember when Steven Spielberg digitally replaced the guns in the hands of government agents for the 20th anniversary of E.T., then expressed regret about the decision? Imagine that he not only restored the weapons but crafted an entire two-and-a-half-hour feature around that one sequence as a mea culpa. That's Disclosure Day." The filmmaker may be staging a pulpy campaign with this sci-fi throwback, but he sincerely seems to believe the truth is out there — and will set us free... [W]hile the quality of his output can vary wildly when you look at the big picture of his career, there's still a baseline of love — for filmmaking, for storytelling through images, for giving people an experience that pushes emotional buttons and taps adrenal glands — that gives his work a sense of vitality and displays the sensibility of an artist at work...

There's also a weird full-circle feel to it, and not just because he's returning to the fertile ground of Close Encounters and his other science fiction spectacles. You can see traces of everything from Duel to Minority Report show up, to the point where this almost doubles as a career retrospective in miniature... Yes, Spielberg does believe that we are not the only game running in the cosmos. But he also believes that our better angels have not left the building, and that movies still have the power to communally blow minds and open hearts.
The Associated Press calls it "a grand bookend for one of the most cosmically-minded moviemakers of our time" and "a distant answer to the final notes of Close Encounters."

The new James Bond-themed videogame 007 First Light had a budget of 1.3 billion Danish krone — a little more than USD $202 million, reports IGN, citing a report from Denmark's public service broadcaster. "Denmark's TV 2 said that makes 007 First Light the most expensive entertainment product in the country's history" — and the game "still has some way to go before breaking even." 007 First Light is estimated to have sold 2.2 million copies, generating $150 million in revenue... [Saturday IGM reported sales had jumped to 3 million copies.] The only official sales data we have comes from developer IO Interactive, which said that 007 First Light had become the fastest-selling game in the company's history, shifting 1.5 million copies in its first 24 hours... The impressive sales milestone was achieved without the aid of the Nintendo Switch 2 version, which is due out this summer. The James Bond adventure is also the highest rated IOI game ever, with an 87 on Metacritic...

The developer has said it wants to make a trilogy of James Bond games.
Game-tracking company Alinea Analytics tweeted their estimates that 55.1% of sales were on PS5, 33.1% on Steam, and 11.8% on Xbox (Xbox console, Windows, and cloud combined).

And Polygon reports that new downloadable game content was announced Friday.