Author: matthewephotography@yahoo.com
When you’re not watching Barkitecture or Weird Al movies on your Roku, the device turns on the familiar scrolling purple cityscape. No longer will you have to settle for a Flintstones-esque backdrop of neoclassical buildings and the occasional PlutoTV sign when your Roku goes into hibernation mode. The TV viewing platform is introducing a new screensaver feature called Backdrops.The new viewing feature turns your TV or viewing device into an Amazon Echo Show 8 Photo Edition, but Roku isn’t taking away the feature’s sole namesake: Backdrops, which display photos of classic artworks by masters like Claude Monet, as well as…
It’s taken a decade, but we finally have a teaser for the live-action A Minecraft Movie. It debuted in a minute-plus video released by Warner Bros. today, and boy, is it good. The film studio confirmed that it’s moving forward with its previous target of April 4, 2025 for a theatrical release only. Sure, it was previously scheduled for a May 2019 and March 2022 release, but the existence of the teaser makes us feel a bit more hopeful (gullible?) this time around.Filmmaker Jared Hess is directing the project, which has seen a flurry of directors come and go. The…
Verizon is reportedly close to a deal to buy fiber-optic provider Frontier Communications, and the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that an announcement could come as soon as this week “if the talks don’t hit any last-minute snags.”Frontier has a market capitalization of more than $7 billion and provides broadband to about 3 million sites in 25 states. The company will help Verizon bolster its Fios fiber network, making it more competitive with AT&T. The company has faced slowing wireless revenues and sees fiber investments as a growth area. Buying a company with existing infrastructure, like Frontier, can be less…
If the many books and movies in the Twilight universe haven’t given you enough material to work with, there’s a new TV project in the works that will either make you love or hate the glittering vampires of the Pacific Northwest. An animated series adaptation of Midnight Sun is currently in development at Netflix. Published in 2020, Midnight Sun is a companion piece to the original Twilight novels, telling the same events as those books from Edward Cullen’s perspective. That’s right, it tells your side of the story of a pathological, masochistic lion who falls in love with a dumb…
Well done, everyone. You’ve made Console Wars The Card Game a reality. The campaign is nearing the end, with over 600 backers and over 150% funding, so we can build the game and bring it to you! Now comes the waiting stage, but don’t worry, the journey doesn’t end here.Late to the party?First off, if you missed all the XboxEra buzz over the past month and didn’t have a chance to try out the game at Gamescom, I’m here to help you out! We’ve enabled Late Pledges on the Kickstarter campaign, so you can still back it if you’re interested.…
The Internet Archive is losing its legal recourse. Wired reports that the nonprofit Internet cataloger of videos, games, and books has lost its appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The court rejected Archive.org’s argument in its lawsuit against several major book publishers that its virtual book library can operate legally under fair use doctrine.The lawsuit stems from the National Emergency Library (NEL), an online archive that launched in March 2020. NEL helped readers access library materials during the COVID pandemic by offering digital copies of books that users could borrow one at a time. Shortly…
More than three years after declaring that it would sell only electric cars by 2030, Volvo has scaled back its EV ambitions. The company now aims to sell 90-100% electric vehicles (including fully electric and plug-in hybrids) by the end of the decade, with the remaining 0-10% being mild hybrids. Volvo said the revised target was due to “changing market conditions and customer demand.”Volvo says it remains committed to electrification in the long term: Since setting its (now abandoned) 2030 target three years ago, the company has launched five all-electric models: the EX40, EC40, EX30, EM90 and EX90.The company cited…
Online retailers such as Temu and Shein are known for selling cheap products such as baby clothes, kitchenware, and electronics. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) wants to know the actual costs that overseas online retailers are cutting to sell these products at low prices.CPSC Commissioners Peter Feldman and Douglas Dziak issued a joint statement today urging staff to evaluate the operations of foreign e-commerce sites, naming Shein and Temu as two online retailers that “raise specific concerns.”Recent news reports of “deadly baby products” being sold on these platforms have raised alarm bells with the CPSC. A recent report from…
Altered Alma, which recently reached its €40,000 funding goal on Kickstarter, is now coming to Switch, with publisher Cinemax and developer 2Awesome Studios planning to release the game in Q4 2025.Altered Alma is a Metroidvania game with RPG elements where players take on the role of Jack, a former mercenary, battling his way through the cyberpunk-style streets of Neo-Barcelona, taking down ruthless gangsters and mechanical monsters.The following overview provides further details:Build relationships, gather allies and experience a thrilling story written by Antony Johnston (Resident Evil: Village, Dead Space) and Emma Beebe (Tales of Iron, F1 23) as you journey through…
The American Dream used to be about buying a home. But with corporations buying up homes and wages stagnating, the new American Dream is scrolling through Zillow and dreaming about what it would have been like if you’d been born rich. To that end, Zillow has stepped up its AI game to make it easier for you to find the dream home you can never afford.The popular real estate marketplace integrated some AI tools into its search functionality last year, but recently released a pretty big software update that gives it even more options: Users can now use natural language…