Adobe has developed an experimental AI-powered upscaling tool that greatly improves the quality of low-resolution GIFs and video footage. From a report: This isn't a fully-fledged app or feature yet, and it's not yet available for beta testing, but if the demonstrations seen by The Verge are anything to go by then it has some serious potential. Adobe's "Project Res-Up" uses diffusion-based upsampling technology (a class of generative AI that generates new data based on the data it's trained on) to increase video resolution while simultaneously improving sharpness and detail.

In a side-by-side comparison that shows how the tool can upscale video resolution, Adobe took a clip from The Red House (1947) and upscaled it from 480 x 360 to 1280 x 960, increasing the total pixel count by 675 percent. The resulting footage was much sharper, with the AI removing most of the blurriness and even adding in new details like hair strands and highlights. The results still carried a slightly unnatural look (as many AI video and images do) but given the low initial video quality, it's still an impressive leap compared to the upscaling on Nvidia's TV Shield or Microsoft's Video Super Resolution.

At CES 2023, a startup called Displace introduced their "truly wireless" TV with swappable batteries and a vacuum suction system that can keep the display adhered to walls without traditional mounting. To address concerns about what would happen when those batteries become depleted or when the wall/surface the TV is mounted to cracks, Displace says it has designed a built-in landing gear safety system to protect the $3,000 wireless TV. The Verge reports: Here, friends, is where Displace's "self-lowering landing gear technology" comes in. And I'm just going to quote directly from the press release so you can get the full rundown on how it supposedly works: "Sensors within the Displace TV constantly measure the battery level and pressure in the vacuum suction system, analyze the wall's surface, and check leakage on the vacuum pumps. If the vacuum pumps are in danger of not maintaining a seal or the wall's integrity falters, the Displace TV automatically deploys four quick adhesives for stability and initiates a self-lowering landing gear system. The adhesives work as anchor points, as the Displace TV begins to lower itself gently on a zipline (from as high as 10 feet) and deploys a reusable foam at the bottom to protect the TV screen."

When a problem is detected, the Displace attaches an adhesive frame onto the wall and begins lowering the display to the floor (with rope) from that frame. As all of this is happening, the TV generates a lot of sound and even flashing lights in an attempt to keep the area clear of children or animals. Once it's safely on the ground, you can pull the frame off the wall and reinsert it into the back of the TV. [...] The self-landing technology works at heights of up to 10 feet. When you're ready to put the TV back in its place, you just push the foam feet back into the TV, replace the adhesive tapes, and that's it. You can watch a demo of the safety system on YouTube.

A week after laying off almost 900 employees, Epic Games has said that it's increasing the price to use Unreal Engine -- just not for the game development community. From a report: The news came from Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney himself in a presentation at Unreal Fest 2023. In a video captured by Fortnite Creative developer Immature, Sweeney explains that developers using Unreal Engine in the film, TV, automotive, and other industries can expect to start paying a per-seat licensing fee. He claimed that the pricing model will not be "unusually expensive or unusually inexpensive," and that its pricing structure will be similar to subscription services like Maya or Photoshop. Sweeney said he wanted to announce these changes now in the name of "transparency."

He also shed some light on the business decisions that led to the company making unexpectedly significant business shifts in the last week. Apparently Epic Games began running into "financial problems" about 10 weeks ago, meaning that the company was facing some sort of financial downturn from late July through September. Evidently, all of Epic Games' business had been "heavily funded by Fortnite" in the last six years, and different parts of the company became "disconnected" from their revenue streams. It adds some context to previous comments made by Sweeney about the impact of declined Fortnite revenue -- if the company's signature game had started to not turn a profit, other parts of Epic Games may not have easily been able to make up for declining revenue.

Sony is bringing its own movie streaming service to PlayStation consoles beginning today. From a report: Previously known as Bravia Core, the service is being rebranded to Sony Pictures Core as it arrives on the PS5 and PS4. "Once you sign up for Sony Pictures Core, you will be able to buy or rent up to 2,000 movies straight from your console," Sony's Evan Stern wrote in a blog post. "At launch, this will include blockbuster hits such as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Uncharted, The Equalizer, No Hard Feelings, Bullet Train, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife, among others."

Now, you can rent or buy those movies in any number of places. If you're wondering why you'd want to use Sony's service, the answer is video fidelity. As noted on the Bravia Core website, it includes what the company calls Pure Stream, "which can stream HDR movies at up to 80Mbps -- similar to 4K UHD Blu-ray -- on a wide range of content." That is a significantly higher bitrate than anything Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Max, Vudu, or other streamers will give you. So, if you're a stickler for picture quality and have the right TV for it, you should notice greater detail when using Pure Stream. In addition to all that, Sony also claims it has the largest collection of IMAX Enhanced films of any streaming service.

Netflix plans to raise the price of its ad-free service a few months after the continuing Hollywood actors strike ends, the latest in a series of recent price increases by the country's largest streaming platforms. From a report: The streaming service is discussing raising prices in several markets globally, but will likely begin with the U.S. and Canada, according to people familiar with the matter. It couldn't be learned how much Netflix will raise prices by or when exactly the new prices will take effect.

Over the past year or so, the cost of major ad-free streaming services has gone up by about 25%, as entertainment companies look to bring their streaming platforms to profitability and lead price-conscious customers to switch to their cheaper and more-lucrative ad-supported plans. Streamers are also starting to look at how they can create new pricing tiers around exclusive programming, such as live sports, without running the risk of driving people away from their core offerings.

Todd Shields and Loren Grush reporting via Bloomberg: Dish Network Corp. was fined $150,000 by US regulators for leaving a retired satellite parked in the wrong place in space, reflecting official concern over the growing amount of debris orbiting Earth and the potential for mishaps. The Federal Communications Commission called the action its first to enforce safeguards against orbital debris. "This is a breakthrough settlement, making very clear the FCC has strong enforcement authority and capability to enforce its vitally important space debris rules," Loyaan A. Egal, the agency's enforcement bureau chief, said in a statement.

Dish's EchoStar-7 satellite, which relayed pay-TV signals, ran short of fuel, and the company retired it at an altitude roughly 76 miles (122 kilometers) above its operational orbit. It was supposed to have been parked 186 miles above its operational orbit, the FCC said in an order (PDF). The company admitted it failed to park EchoStar-7 as authorized. It agreed to implement a compliance plan and pay a $150,000 civil penalty, the FCC said.

Bill Omar Carrasquillo, better known by his YouTube name Omi In a Hellcat, has been arrested after the feds found Carrasquillo had amassed a $30 million fortune with a large-scale piracy scheme in which he was buying and reselling copyrighted material from cable TV. Jalopnik reports: He was sentenced to five years in prison for "piracy of cable TV, access device fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of copyright infringement," along with having to forfeit his millions and pay $15 million in restitution. Those millions helped pay for the car collection now going up for auction.

[Road & Track reports Omi In A Hellcat's entire 57 vehicle collection is up for auction.] As of this writing, the auction features 32 cars and 25 bikes and off road vehicles. Despite his crimes, the man had decent taste in cars. There's good stuff to be had like.

Jamie Dimon said artificial intelligence is already being used by thousands of employees at his bank, and is likely to make dramatic improvements in workers' quality of life, even if it eliminates some jobs. From a report: "Your children are going to live to 100 and not have cancer because of technology," Dimon said in an interview on Bloomberg TV Monday. "And literally they'll probably be working three-and-a-half days a week." Dimon, who has called AI "critical to our company's future success," previously said the technology can be used to help the firm develop new products, drive customer engagement, improve productivity and enhance risk management. The New York-based firm advertised for more than 3,500 related roles between February and April, according to data from consultancy Evident, and Dimon dedicated an entire section to AI in his shareholder letter this year, calling JPMorgan's efforts, which include more than 300 use cases already in production, "an absolute necessity."

Two designers from New Zealand built a wildly popular social network for movie buffs. Now, they're cashing in (and sticking around for the sequel). The New York Times: The "Barbie" star Margot Robbie created an account. Ditto Rian Johnson, the "Knives Out" auteur. Christopher McQuarrie, Tom Cruise's directing partner, has used his to heap praise on another action star (Sylvester Stallone). Letterboxd, the social network for recommending and reviewing movies, has become a kind of shibboleth for film nerds over the past decade. Roughly 10 million people now use the service to share their favorites: You like Studio Ghibli, too? What's your favorite Spike Lee joint?

The service has not undergone any revolutionary changes since it was founded in 2011. But Letterboxd is undergoing two big changes: a new owner and, eventually, user recommendations and review of TV shows. Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow, Letterboxd's founders, announced on Friday that they were selling a majority stake in the service to Tiny, a public company in Victoria, British Columbia. The deal values Letterboxd at more than $50 million, said a person familiar with the sale, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential financial information.

Mr. Buchanan and Mr. von Randow, two entrepreneurs based in New Zealand, have reassurances for their users who may be afraid of what a sale could mean for their corner of the internet. First, neither co-founder is planning to leave any time soon, and both will remain shareholders. And the service itself isn't changing immediately. The proposal to incorporate TV is still in its infancy, and the founders said they did not expect that the addition would disrupt their existing products.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Canalys has some gruesome new numbers out for the North American smartphone market in Q2 2023, detailing what it's calling the "worst quarterly performance for over a decade." Q2 has plummeted 22 percent, year over year, and with these numbers, Canalys is predicting the smartphone market will be down 12 percent overall in 2023.

Apple is down 20 percent for Q2 and still in a dominant position with 54 percent market share. Samsung is down 27 percent, in second place overall with 24 percent market share in Q2 2023. Motorola is next with a 25 percent decline and only 8 percent market share. TCL, a TV company that feels like it only briefly dabbled in smartphones, is the single biggest loser, down 30 percent, with 5 percent market share.

Only a single company survived this quarter unscathed, and it's actually Google! The company might be at the bottom of the smartphone charts, but Pixel phone sales are up 59 percent, earning Google 4 percent of the market. It was the same story last year, when Google jumped from 1 to 2 percent. In a few quarters, the company might hit fourth place. The biggest loss on the chart is actually "others," down 43 percent, likely representing the further consolidation of the Android market. These are your OnePluses, your HMD/Nokias, and trashy pre-paid vendors like Blu.

The next-generation of Meta Quest hardware is here, and Meta announced a bunch of software news alongside the Quest 3 VR headset hardware reveal at its Connect conference. One such announcement was the debut of Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming service on Meta Quest 3, which is actually a huge boon for fans of the Facebook owner's mixed reality gear. From a report: The Xbox Cloud Gaming implementation in Quest resembles a lot of how Apple showed its own vision for mixed reality with the Vision Pro headset: It's primarily a virtual screen that can float in either a virtual or mixed reality space, which appears to be reposition-able and resizable, but which basically works exactly as you'd expect an Xbox game to work with a large TV. This is a key acknowledgement on the part of Meta that while immersive, native gaming is undoubtedly a draw for users, so too is a more traditional gaming experience that basically just benefits from taking place in your own private face-mounted theater.

Hollywood studios are expected to retain the right to train artificial-intelligence models based on writers' work under the terms of a tentative labor agreement between the two sides, WSJ reported, citing people familiar with the situation. From the report: The writers would also walk away with an important win, a guarantee that they will receive credit and compensation for work they do on scripts, even if studios partially rely on AI tools, one of the people said. That provision had been in an earlier offer from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group representing studios, streamers and networks. The Writers Guild of America said Sunday it had reached a tentative agreement with the AMPTP to end a nearly five-month strike. Neither side has released the details of the agreement. The WGA said it plans to release the terms once its leadership votes on the deal, which could happen as soon as Tuesday.

The two sides have battled over issues ranging from wage increases to whether writers' rooms should have minimum staffing requirements. The use of generative AI by studios became a major issue, as advanced versions of the technology -- such as OpenAI's ChatGPT -- were released for public use over the past year. AI bots, which provide sophisticated, humanlike responses to user questions, are "trained" on large amounts of data. Entertainment executives didn't want to relinquish the right to train their own AI tools based on TV and movie scripts, since their understanding is that AI tech platforms already are training their own models on such materials, people familiar with the matter said.

"After several long consecutive days of negotiations, the Writers Guild of America and the labor group representing studios and streamers have reached a tentative deal on a new contract," according to the Hollywood Reporter.

"We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional," the Guild's negotiating committee told its members in an email, "with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership." The Hollywood Reporter calls the news "a major development that could precipitate the end of a historic, 146-day writers' strike."

Details from the Los Angeles Times: The proposed three-year contract, which would still have to be ratified by the union's 11,500 members, would boost pay rates and residual payments for streaming shows and impose new rules surrounding the use of artificial intelligence...

With the tentative pact with the WGA done, entertainment company leaders are expected to turn their attention to the 160,000-member performers union, SAG-AFTRA, to accelerate those stalled talks in an effort to get the industry back to work. Actors have been on strike since mid-July...

The writers' strike was, in many ways, a response to the tectonic changes wrought by streaming. Shorter seasons for streaming shows and fewer writers being hired have cut into guild members' pay and job stability, making it harder to earn a sustainable living in the expensive media hubs of Los Angeles and New York, guild members have said.

The studios came into negotiations with their own set of challenges. The pay-TV business is in decline because of cable cord-cutting and falling TV ratings, which have eroded vital sources of revenue. At the same time, the traditional companies have spent massively to launch robust streaming services to compete with Netflix, losing billions of dollars in the process.

Some workers within Amazon's once-storied hardware division -- responsible for popular devices like the Kindle reader and Echo voice-assistant -- say morale within the division has suffered amid staff cutbacks and a pipeline of devices in development that they fear are unlikely to prove hits. From a report: The division, known as Lab126, was a focus for Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos, who portrayed it as an engine for future projects, but more recently it has been buffeted by mass layoffs and key executive departures, including leader Dave Limp, a 13-year veteran who has announced plans to step down later this year. Reuters interviewed more than 15 current and former employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to their employment terms, who described a hodgepodge of new devices in development, many of them aimed at encouraging customers to use the once ground-breaking Alexa voice service that now faces a stiff challenge in the age of generative AI and ChatGPT.

The company -- the world's biggest online retailer -- is holding a devices and services launch event on September 20 where it is expected to feature refreshed versions of some existing products like the Fire tablet, Fire TV stick and Kindle Scribe e-reader, among other announcements. The news agency was able to identify five different new devices under development. These include a carbon monoxide detector and a household energy consumption monitor -- both with Alexa built into them -- as well as a home projector to make any surface a screen. Some of the sources mentioned other projects, the full details of which could not be confirmed.

YouTuber Pitstoptech built a "fully upgradeable gaming handheld" around one of Framework's upgradable motherboards. Tom's Hardware reports: The handheld model you see in the video is equipped with the following components:

- Framework's Intel Core i7-1260P processor equipped mainboard
- 7-inch FHD touchscreen display
- 16 GB RAM
- 512 GB SSD
- Dual front-facing speakers
- Detachable controllers
- 55 Wh Battery
- High-speed Wi-Fi & Bluetooth

These components appear to offer some passable small-screen gaming. And in the video, you can see the device plugs into a larger monitor / TV where using the controllers in a detached configuration (Bluetooth) may be more comfortable. [...] Pitstoptech intends to prepare and sell handheld DIY kits "soon," based on the prototype design you see in the pictures / video.

Apple on Monday rolled out iOS 17, iPadOS 17, tvOS 17, HomePod 17 and watchOS 10, the latest operating system versions for all its devices minus the Mac lineup. iOS 17: iOS 17 expands on last year's Lock Screen updates with the addition of interactive widgets and StandBy, a new feature that turns the iPhone into a mini home hub when it is charging. You can now see voicemail transcriptions in real time, and leave video messages in FaceTime. FaceTime also now works on the Apple TV with tvOS 17. With NameDrop, exchanging contacts is as simple as touching two phones together, and Messages has been overhauled with new safety features and updates to the way that stickers work. Autocorrect is better than ever, Spotlight search has been improved, private browsing in Safari is more secure with Face ID lock, and there's now a mood tracking feature in the Health app. Passwords can be shared in iCloud Keychain and AirTags can be shared among family members too, plus there are new features for the AirPods Pro. Apple has also added updates to Siri, Mail, Reminders, Notes, Home, and more. tvOS 17: In tvOS 17, Apple has added a FaceTime app for FaceTime calls on a larger screen. The feature works through an iPhone or iPad running iOS 17/iPadOS 17, with the iOS device serving as the camera and the TV serving as the display. With a Split View option, you can place your FaceTime call on one side of the TV and a TV show or game on the other side for SharePlay experiences. [...] Other new features include Dolby Vision 8.1 support, an enhance dialogue option to make it easier to hear what's being said over music and effects, and support for third-party VPN apps.

71-year-old Mark Evanier is a legendary comic book/TV writer. Today he posted on his personal blog that "Forty years ago, I spent about six days (cumulative) of my life writing the pilot script and small-b bible for a Saturday morning cartoon series called Dungeons & Dragons...

"I feel like I have now spent more than six days (cumulative) being interviewed about this series." It went on CBS on September 17, 1983 and lasted three seasons. Do not believe those who claim it was driven from the airwaves by pressure groups who saw satanic subtext in the series. It went off for the same reason most shows go off: Because the ratings were declining and — rightly or wrongly — the brass at the network didn't think it would have enough viewers to sustain another season. Yes, there were protests about its content but not many and CBS, at least in those days, was pretty good about ignoring such outcries if — and this is always a Big If — the viewers seem to want whatever is being outcried about.
From Wikipedia: The level of violence was controversial for American children's television at the time, and the script of one episode, "The Dragon's Graveyard", was almost canceled because the characters contemplated killing their nemesis, Venger. In 1985, the National Coalition on Television Violence demanded that the FTC run a warning during each broadcast stating that Dungeons & Dragons had been linked to real-life violent deaths.
The show ultimately ran for a total of 27 episodes. The blog post continues: It was a good show because of good writers, good producers, good artists, good voice talent, good everything...and I was mostly a spectator to all that goodness, having opted not to stick with it. Still, thanks to the gent who was my agent at the time, my name was seen for a micro-second in the credits each week so I get more kudos than I probably earned...

Quite recently, I sat for this video podcast with a fine interviewer and a major fan of the series, Heath Holland. It's almost an hour and we talked about some other things but it's mostly about Dungeons & Dragons...
The podcaster notes that the cartoon's six adventurers even made a cameo in 2022's live-action Dungeons & Dragons movie, Honor Among Thieves — and several other companies are still celebrating the cartoon. Hasbro recently released a line of action figures based on the cartoon, while IDW has released a comic book mini-series called Dungeons & Dragons: Saturday Morning Adventures.

In the series six children are transported from an amusement park's Dungeon's & Dragons ride into the game's realm, where a kindly Dungeon Master helps them battle various villains and monsters as they search for a way home. More lore about the series from Wikipedia: A final unproduced episode would have served as both a conclusion to the story and as a re-imagining of the show, had it been picked up for a fourth season. However, it was canceled before the episode was made. The script has since been published online and was performed as an audio drama as a special feature for the BCI Eclipse DVD edition of the series... A fan-made animated version of the finale appeared online in 2020 [according to TheGamer.com].

An anonymous reader shares a report: The Streaming Era began with a promise of nurturing shows without fear of ratings pressure and quick cancellations. Of course, that was a lark. Soon enough, the streamers began slashing shows as quickly and brutally as any Nielsen-obsessed broadcaster, and they were all flooded with same complaint: "The streamers just cancel everything! Nothing gets more than a season anymore!" How true is that really? After all, the streamers are looking for hit shows, just like traditional networks. If a show gets high viewership relative to the cost of producing it, it gets renewed. Otherwise, it is canceled. That is how it has worked since the days of black-and-white TV.

To get to the heart of the matter, Variety Intelligence Platform (VIP+) and Luminate collaborated on a data exploration to determine how often the leading U.S.-based streaming and linear programmers have canceled series TV series over the past three years. The new report, "The Show Must Go Off," is an exhaustive statistical analysis that aims to settle one of the most hotly contested debates in the TV industry. The data covered all shows (scripted and unscripted) canceled between 2020 and Aug. 8, 2023. The major streamers (Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Max, Apple TV+, Peacock, Paramount+) overall had a combined average cancellation rate of 12.2% -- not much higher than linear TV (10.8%), but less than half of broadcast TV alone over that period. Warner Bros. Discovery-owned Max (formerly HBO Max) was by far the most brutal when it comes to cancelling shows, coming in at 26.9%.

On Tuesday, Apple unveiled the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max featuring USB-C ports, titanium bodies, and Action Buttons. They're also the first smartphones to support the open-source smart home protocol Thread. The Verge's Jennifer Pattison Tuohy explains how Apple might deploy this wireless connectivity protocol in its ecosystem: The obvious use for Thread in the iPhone is as a Thread border router for the slew of new Apple Home and Matter-enabled Thread smart home devices from companies like Eve, Nanoleaf, and Belkin WeMo. This would mean you wouldn't have to have a HomePod Mini, Apple TV 4K, or other Thread border router to use Thread smart home gadgets with your iPhone. ... [Jonathan Hui, VP of technology at the Thread Group and a software engineer at Google] says that Thread connectivity in a smartphone will allow it to communicate directly with a Thread device. "Compared to existing smartphones without Thread, a smartphone with Thread can communicate directly with a Thread device, without relying on a separate Thread border router or any other communication technology," he said.

Another possibility with direct control is some type of trigger or presence detection. Your Thread devices could know you're home as soon as you walk into the house and respond appropriately. However, presence detection -- something the smart home sorely needs -- would be easier to do with the UWB chips already in most iPhones and HomePods (and is already being done to some extent). As an IP-based mesh protocol, Thread could be a more reliable way to connect multiple such devices to your phone while also having multiple "parent" devices within the same home (such as your iPad, MacBook, or other family member's iPhones). Its IP characteristic makes it easier to maintain a persistent data connection directly to the device, says Moneta. Additionally, Thread being mesh means your device doesn't have to be in range of the controller (iPhone/iPad etc.), as it would with Bluetooth. This could apply to Apple accessories such as the Apple Watch and third-party devices that use Bluetooth, like camera accessories and medical devices. Of course, all of those would need a Thread radio in, too, so that's not going to happen anytime soon. [...]

A popular theory in my X (formerly Twitter) feed after the Apple event was that Thread is in the iPhone 15 Pro line more or less as a freebie. It's plausible that the Wi-Fi / Bluetooth chip Apple is using in its highest-end phones comes as a sort of three-for-one: you pay for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and you get your Thread for free! Given that Apple itself doesn't seem to have a clear idea or any concrete examples of what the Thread capabilities will add (beyond a vague "opening up future opportunities for Home app integrations" statement in the iPhone 15 press release), this does seem to be the most likely reason -- for now. Although, Apple rarely does anything without some purpose in mind.

Visual effects workers at Marvel Studios have unanimously voted to unionize with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, marking a historic milestone for the industry. Rolling Stone reports: Following the successful vote with the NLRB, Marvel's VFX union will now enter into collective bargaining negotiations with Marvel. A start date for those negotiations hasn't been announced yet. Underpinning the union drive were the poor working conditions visual effects professionals have endured on Marvel productions, including a lack of pay equity, grueling hours, understaffing, excessive requests for changes, and unfair turnaround times.

VFX crews have been a crucial part of film and TV productions since the introduction of visual effects in the first Star Wars films of the 1970s. But while many other backstage/behind-the-scenes crews and professions (such as production designers, editors, lighting, make-up, and props) have long been unionized under the IATSE umbrella, VFX workers largely remained non-union.