Engadget : Arts & Entertainment

Fans of HBO's The Last of Us who are also into football were facing a bit of a quandary this weekend: catch the latest episode live and avoid the risk of spoilers, or tune into the Super Bowl? Thankfully, HBO Max is making that decision much easier.

Engadget : Arts & Entertainment

Five days ago, a review code for Hogwarts Legacy landed in my inbox. I’ve been thinking about this moment for more than a year, ever since the backlash against the game started gaining traction online. The author of the Harry Potter novels is transphobic and she’s targeted transgender women in particular. For this reason, some people in the LGBT+ community, and allies beyond, have decided to boycott Hogwarts Legacy and admonish anyone who chooses to play or stream it themselves, sparking explosive arguments across social media, Twitch and YouTube.

Engadget : Arts & Entertainment

There was a time when HQ Trivia was on everyone's lips, and millions of people were playing it in hopes of winning some money from its prize pot. Then the trivia show app was beset by one problem after another until it fell off the radar, lost its audience and shut down. CNN announced last year that it ordered a documentary that'll tell the game show's story, with the promise of launching it in 2023.

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Paramount+ has reportedly joined the trend of streaming platforms removing original shows to cut costs. The Real World: Homecoming, which reunites casts of the original 1990s MTV reality series, got the boot along with six other shows.

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A new Twitch livestream tries to answer the question: What if AI made never-ending Seinfeld? “Nothing, Forever” is an experiment using OpenAI’s GPT-3 natural language model to produce (occasionally coherent) dialog between pixelated counterparts of Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer. Although it’s closer to surreal performance art than the beloved 90s sitcom, it conjures images of a strange, dystopian future where we entertain ourselves with endless content generated by robots.

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OpenAI has released a tool to help you determine whether text was more likely written by a human or AI. However, the ChatGPT maker warns that its equivalent of Blade Runner’s Voight-Kampff test can also get it wrong.

The tool includes a box where you can paste text that’s at least 1,000 characters long. It will then spit out a verdict, like “The classifier considers the text to be very unlikely AI-generated” or “The classifier considers the text to be possibly AI-generated.”

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Amid stern competition from other streaming platforms, Paramount Global is combining two of its services. It will fold Showtime into the Premium tier of Paramount+ later this year. The combined offering will be known as “Paramount+ With Showtime.”

Engadget : Arts & Entertainment

Ever found yourself turning down the radio so you can focus on finding a parking spot? Music didn’t stop you seeing, but it was taking up some tangible mental resources. But what if you had a way to immediately make the music more calming? Or to change that distracting string section? That, effectively, is the promise of Aimi’s interactive music player app. It won’t help you find a parking spot, though, you’re on your own with that.