Blizzard confirms BlizzCon will return as an in-person event in November 2023
More info on tickets will come next month
Computers Tech Games Crypto Music and More
More info on tickets will come next month
Blizzard has announced BlizzCon will be returning to the Anaheim Convention Center on November 3-4.
It’s been around four years since the last live show, but, it’s coming back and you can book rooms now for it.
“Our players are at the heart of what makes BlizzCon great–a place where games are the common ground for connection and friendship,” said the studio.
Marvel’s Disney+ shows have, to this point, mostly been one-off affairs. Loki has thus far been the sole exception, with Loki’s return being teased in the standard Marvel Studios style with a post-credits teaser. Now, Loki Season 2 has a premiere date, alongside Echo.
Marvel Studios 🤝 @DisneyPlus
A new season of #Loki starts streaming October 6, 2023.
All episodes of #Echo drop November 29, 2023. pic.twitter.com/V9mLQgtLTv— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) May 16, 2023
Loki Season 2 will premiere on October 6, 2023, consisting of 6 episodes. The Hawkeye spinoff Echo presents another first for the network, premiering the full series on November 29, just two weeks after Loki ends.
Loki Season 2 will pick up sometime after the first season left off, with Loki (Tom Hiddelston), Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), and Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson) defying the Time Variance Authority, ruled over by one of the variants of Kang (Jonathan Majors), seen in Loki Season 1 as He Who Remains and in Ant-Man and the Wasp in Quantumania as Kang the Conqueror. Ke Huy Quan (Waymond Wang in Everything Everywhere All at Once) will appear as well.
A sequel to 1992’s classic action-platformer, Flashback 2 is releasing this November on PC and consoles, publisher Microids have announced. The sequel was first announced a couple of years ago with Flashback’s original creator Paul Cuisset in charge, and we finally have our first proper look at gameplay. Take a look at Flashback 2’s updated cyberpunk world below.
The Day Before, the open-world survival MMO that looks like a cross between The Division and DayZ, has been delayed again, and this time it’s due to a trademark dispute.
When the development studio Fntastic announced the game in January 2021, a trademark for The Day Before was available. However, in May 2021, an individual from South Korea filed for the trademark, four months after the game’s announcement.
Filed in the US by the individual, after a standard period of assessment and investigation by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the trademark was granted in November 2022.
Every year, the best bodybuilders in the world prepare with one central goal: to win the legendary Mr. Olympia contest. Sure, there are other tentpole events like the annual (and now rather lucrative) Arnold Classic. Still, arguably nothing holds as much prestige for the world’s ripped fitness elite as competing during an iconic Olympia show. It is the…
The post 2023 Olympia to Take Place in Early November 2023 in Orlando, Florida appeared first on Breaking Muscle.
Epic Games and Match Group now have a court date for their antitrust case against Google. A Northern District of California judge has set the start of a jury trial for November 6th. Both Epic and Match accuse Google of abusing its control of Android app distribution through the Play Store by establishing unfair fees and requirements for in-app purchases. This comes alongside a lawsuit from 39 attorneys general as well as a customer class action suit demanding $4.7 billion in damages.
Epic sued Google in 2020 after the Android creator kicked Fortnite out of the Play Store for letting customers use an alternative in-app payment system. Match sued Google last year over the “exorbitant” store fee. Epic and Match consolidated their case and a filed motion last fall to expand their allegations, accusing Google of further antitrust violations by paying major developers hundreds of millions of dollars to keep their apps in the Play Store.
Unlike Epic’s partially successful lawsuit against Apple, this case has to acknowledge that customers do have a choice. Where Apple requires that all regular app downloads go through the App Store, Android’s sideloading option lets customers install software without downloading it from Google. The issue, as you might imagine, is that those apps are both harder to install and less likely to be noticed when the Play Store is included by default on many Android phones.
Google denies misusing its power, and argues that the fees are necessary to maintain and invest in the Play Store. It maintains that the incentive program doesn’t forbid developers from launching third-party stores, and that its portal competes fairly. In December, Google called on the court to deny the expanded requests over timing and other issues.
Google has made some concessions, including a test program for Play Store billing alternatives. That pilot still gives Google a cut of each transaction, though, and it remains to be seen if moves like that will satisfy the court and regulators. As it is, the internet pioneer is facing a raft of other antitrust cases that include a Justice Department lawsuit from 2020. Even if Google prevails against Epic and Match, it may not escape unscathed.
With the rapid evolution of AI chatbot systems like Chat-GPT, VALL-E, and BlenderBot 3 and their growing abilities to generate text on par with human writers, robots coming to take your writing job is becoming a viable threat. Over at CNET, it’s apparently already happening.
On Wednesday, The Byte reported that the popular tech site appears to have employed “automation technology” to produce a series of financial explainer posts beginning in November 2022 under the byline of CNET Money Staff. It is only after clicking the byline that the site reveals that “This article was generated using automation technology and thoroughly edited and fact-checked by an editor on our editorial staff.”
Looks like @CNET (DR 92 tech site) just did their coming out about using AI content for SEO articles. pic.twitter.com/CR0IkgUUnq
— Gael Breton (@GaelBreton) January 11, 2023
Online marketer Gael Breton first flagged the content Wednesday on Twitter. In all, the tech site produced 73 such posts since last November on subjects such as “Should You Break an Early CD for a Better Rate?” or “What is Zelle and How Does It Work?” Since news of its activities broke at the start of the day, CNET has subsequently taken down the CNET Money Staff bio page as well as removed the “Staff” from numerous posts it had written.
Using text generators isn’t currently a widespread practice throughout the journalistic sphere but outlets like the Associated Press and Washington Post have used them for various low-level copywriting tasks — the latter employing them to write about high school football and the equally unimportant 2016 Rio Olympics. But normally when an outlet makes a fundamental shift to the operations of its newsroom such as this, they typically send out a press release or make an announcement on social, anything. It does not appear that CNET has made any sort public note that this program exists beyond the dropdown explainer window.
The quality difference between CNET’s system and the AP’s is a stark one. The AP system is a glorified mail merge, shoving specific pieces of data into preformatted story blanks for daily blotter posts and other highly repetitive journalistic tasks. CNET’s system, on the other hand, appears to be far more capable, able to compose feature length explainer posts on complex financial concepts — a far cry from the journalistic Mad Libs the AP engages in. We’ve reached out to CNET for comment and will update the post when the company responds.