Author: James
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth provided the first insight into the company’s recent Reality Labs shakeup, publicly acknowledging that Metaverse’s efforts suffered from a “lack of focus” that ultimately negatively impacted the user experience on Quest. Bosworth spoke last week at Axios House in Davos, Switzerland with the World Economic Forum, discussing some of the issues that led Meta to refocus its Metaverse and VR strategy. This included layoffs affecting 10 percent of the Reality Labs XR team. Meta has refocused its approach, narrowing down and realigning its VR and Metaverse efforts while doubling down on AI and smart glasses. Bosworth,…
New York City has been inundated with emergency warnings in recent days as it prepares for the worst snowstorm in years. As a result, my newsfeed has been dominated by cold-weather tips, soup recipes, puffer coats, and shovel recommendations. Perhaps that’s why I and other viewers had almost no idea that this week’s episode would serve as an effective season finale for Potomac, and that next week’s episode would be entirely dedicated to Karen’s return. Did anyone here know this? I was certainly surprised when I saw a lame end-of-season recap shot scroll by while the women were commiserating outside…
Have you ever felt like a job was made for you? It’s a common feeling for the cast of Critical Role. The cast includes veteran voice actors, who are so prolific in the industry that their names are sometimes cited as reference material for audition breakdowns. “It’s funny because sometimes agents will tell me about acting mistakes or casting mistakes, and they’re like, ‘We’re really looking for something that sounds like Laura Bailey,’ and I’m like, ‘Can I email her?'” Marisha Ray said during the Critical Roles Spotlight panel at New York Comic Con 2023. Producers apparently make calls like…
A group of modders wearing their best reverse engineering goggles have successfully ported the bird-and-bear platformer Banjo-Kazooie to PC. We’ve added a ton of extra extras to ensure you won’t be disappointed in your childhood or adulthood. Their work is called Banjo: Recompiled and was released over the weekend. Watch on YouTube This recompiled version of the N64 classic was realized using N64: Recompiled and is primarily the work of modder Wiseguy. If you bring in your game files via a legally obtained ROM of the North American 1.0 version, it will work on Windows, Linux, and Mac. If you…
I like hightailing. I like that it plays smoother and has more weight than Minecraft, but also matches the exploratory high of creeping through haunted caves or stumbling upon unplundered ancient ruins. I like that it can be done effortlessly on the steam deck. And I like the pace of updates. At the current pace, we’re getting one substantive patch per week. It’s fair to say that for an early access game like Hytale, regular content insertion is essential. Like it or not, that sense of purpose is currently driven solely by the primate brain’s desire to climb rare mineral…
Bridgerton Season 4 comes at the perfect time to distract us all from…well, everything. When it comes to good old fashioned escapism, some people can do worse than Bridgerton. Netflix’s hit series offers an alternate version of history where racism doesn’t exist and we get to spend all our time watching very sexy people doing very sexy things. In fact, that’s how the characters feel as well, and the actor who played Queen Charlotte in Season 4 of Bridgerton admits that all of this is a bit of a distraction for the monarch. In an interview with Digital Spy, Golda…
Rian Johnson says Kathleen Kennedy’s departure from Lucasfilm was an opportunity for new filmmakers to find a place in the Star Wars universe. The news that Kathleen Kennedy would be stepping down as president of Lucasfilm was not entirely unexpected. There have been reports and rumors about it long before the announcement became official in January 2026. This is a big change for the studio, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson hopes it will bring a new take on the Star Wars universe. In an interview with Variety after Kathleen Kennedy was confirmed to be leaving Lucasfilm…
In the summer of 2024, it seemed impossible to escape the neon slime colors and lowercase text of Charli XCX’s sixth studio album, Brat. With this film about the never-ending party season, directors Charlie and Aidan Zamiri took a much different approach than traditional concert films, showing behind-the-scenes snippets of touring life and the rehearsals leading up to the big show in front of waves of screaming fans. “The Moment” is something different, veering heavily into the mockumentary genre that satirizes the pressures of pop stardom and the struggle for creative control. Things don’t always go well, but Charlie xcx…
Shadow Clown Comics, the comic book publisher of actor and multidisciplinary artist Ossie Okil, is set to debut a new sci-fi series via GlobalComix in March, and The Beat has all the details. Titled “We Who Remain,” the series features writing by Ikhile, art and lettering by Mark Marvida, and colors by Marvin Marida. The synopsis of “We Who Remain” is as follows. Across a divided world, where the neon towers of Coreland pierce the sky and the ancient spirits of the Hollow Wilds whisper in the darkness, six broken strangers are drawn together by an incomprehensible force. Haunted by…
Back in 2022, Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain in the United States. This means any US resident can publish a work featuring AA Milne’s OG incarnation of the honey-sucking woodland bear (UK copyright expires in 2027). At some point in the future, as the newly founded Poo-like genre matures, we can certainly expect a resurgence of Weenie spinoffs, from Erased Poo-Em to female anime interpretations to Kaufman-like 100 Acre Existentialism. But for now, it’s mostly about horror. Because when the lawyer finally abandons his beloved children’s characters, the logical thing to do is destroy the chainsaw. Movie insiders…