Stuff Worth Knowing for the Week of April 3, 2023

Samsung suffers, Tesla employees are spying on folks, ChatGPT lies, and the Twitter-Substack War of 2023.

Welcome back to Stuff Worth Knowing! Each week, I'll round up news related to tech, video games, film, television, anime, and more. I’ll probably also start using Substack for more short-form thoughts once Substack Notes launches. At the same time, I’m going to be using my Patreon, SavePhile, more often.

Tech ⌨️

Samsung Cutting Memory Chip Production After Terrible Quarter

Samsung is one of the bigger chip producers globally, but that doesn’t blunt the effects of a shift in the market. This week, the company announced that it is cutting memory chip production to a “meaningful level”. The reason? Samsung is preparing to offer its financial earnings report for the first quarter of 2023 and the numbers aren’t pretty.

Released earnings guidance shows the company’s operating profit dropping to 600 billion Korean won ($456 million). (The currency itself is struggling a bit.) That’s a massive drop year-over-year from the 14 trillion KRW ($10.6 billion) made in the first quarter of 2022. Revenue is also dropping, with guidance pointing to 64 trillion KRW ($49 billion), down from 70 trillion KRW ($53.1 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2022. 

“Under the assessment that the company has secured enough volume to respond to future memory demand changes, Samsung is adjusting to lower memory production to a meaningful level centering on products that have secured additional supply as well as optimizing line operations that’s already underway,” the company said in a statement to The Japan Times.

Why It's Worth Knowing: Memory prices are at rock bottom. If you’ve been looking at your local MicroCenter or buying online, you might’ve noticed that companies are giving RAM away. You may have also noticed that solid-state drives are currently seeing a lot of price cuts. That’s because the market is flooded at the moment. Competitors like Micron cut back on production, but Samsung held on. It didn’t work. Expect prices to rise slightly as supply tightens, but that’ll take a while, I think.

Apple Pushing Back Release Of Its Mixed Reality Headset

So the expectation around the industry was that Apple’s planned mixed reality headset was going to get a showcase at the upcoming WWDC 2023. That event will stretch from June 5 to June 9, 2023, highlighting new products and software releases from Apple. According to TF Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, it seems Apple may nix the reveal as it pushes back the mass production of the device.

According to Kuo in a tweet, it seems Apple believes there’s less of a chance for an iPhone reveal moment, given the headset’s planned high price and the current economic downturn. 

“Because Apple isn't very optimistic about the AR/MR headset announcement recreating the astounding ‘iPhone moment,’ the mass production schedule for assembly has been pushed back by another 1-2 months to mid-to-late 3Q23. The delay also adds uncertainty to whether the new device will appear at WWDC 2023, as the market widely expects. Furthermore, due to the delay in mass production for assembly, the shipment forecast this year is only 200,000 to 300,000 units, lower than the market consensus of 500,000 units or more,” said Kuo in his tweet. 

Why It's Worth Knowing: Apple isn’t wrong to be skittish. Past reports have the headset retailing for $3,000 - $4,000, which is an eye-wateringly high price in our current climate. The PlayStation VR2 isn’t exactly lighting up the sales charts at $549 and even the $349 Meta Quest with a decent ecosystem isn’t doing much these days. Everyone believe that XR and the metaverse is the future, but no one’s asking if we’re ready for the future right now.

Ex-Tesla Employees Allege Company Is Sharing In-Car Videos

Every modern Tesla has a series of cameras built into it, reportedly to assist with driving. Former Tesla employees have told Reuters that the video, which is meant to be private, is actually being shared among internal employee chat. According to those employees, many of the videos are of accidents, but some also involve owners in compromising positions. 

Employees also told Reuters that while the video isn’t not supposed to be linked to owners or their vehicles, internal programs could show where a video was recorded from. “We could see inside people's garages and their private properties. Let's say that a Tesla customer had something in their garage that was distinctive, you know, people would post those kinds of things,” said one employee.

Reuters has no idea how widespread the practice is, but it runs face first into user privacy. Some employees who spoke to the news organization noted that customers had technically given consent. Others disagreed. “I’m bothered by it because the people who buy the car, I don't think they know that their privacy is, like, not respected … We could see them doing laundry and really intimate things. We could see their kids,” said one employee. 

The story is pretty long and well worth a read. 

This Week in Twitter: Twitter and Substack Kick Off Their Public War

This week is actually the story of Twitter and one of its competitors. Well, to be honest, the “competitor” in this case is Substack, which offers a completely different type of social media compared to Twitter. 

The week started off amazingly dumb, when Twitter owner Elon Musk had the company briefly change its logo from the distinctive bird logo to the Doge meme logo. For Musk, the logo was a reference to the Dogecoin cryptocurrency, with the joke change actually spiking the price of the currency. Of course, the timing seems suspect, as Musk is currently being sued for $258 billion for running a pyramid scheme related to that very same currency. 

While Musk was engaging in tomfoolery, Substack announced Notes, a new short-form content option for its platform. The feature isn’t live yet, but the example images looked a lot like Twitter or similar social media services. It’s clearly an example of Substack trying to draw more folks over to its platform while Twitter is wild and unfocused. 

Substack needs those users because its released financial statements show a company that is clearly losing money. The company released the financials in its bid to get some investment cash flow going, but the document showed that company had a $5.1 million loss in revenue for 2021, with a total net loss of $22.9 million. The big issue is the significant payouts to huge creators: it looks like Substack paid out $16 million to creators, but only made $5.5 million on their subscriptions specifically. 

Regardless, Substack is struggling and saw a vector to potentially draw more users in. Unfortunately, Twitter’s current owner is vindictive and capricious at best. On Thursday, Substack noted that Twitter embeds would no longer work on its platform, probably due to API issues. A day later, writers on Twitter trying to link to their Substack newsletters found their tweets hamstrung. Twitter blocked likes, retweets, and comments on any tweet including a Substack link. 

“We’re disappointed that Twitter has chosen to restrict writers’ ability to share their work. Writers deserve the freedom to share links to Substack or anywhere else. This abrupt change is a reminder of why writers deserve a model that puts them in charge, that rewards great work with money, and that protects the free press and free speech. Their livelihoods should not be tied to platforms where they don’t own their relationship with their audience, and where the rules can change on a whim,” said Substack’s founders in a statement to The Verge. 

This escalated when The Verge also noted that Twitter was tagging Substack links as unsafe. When users click on a Substack link from Twitter, it now comes with a blanket warning for malicious or harmful content. (Remember, Twitter briefly banned links to all other social media back in December.) 

The news of Twitter’s ban of Substack angered Matt Taibbi, one of the writers Musk trusted with “the Twitter Files,” a sensational release of a social media company discussing what it’s doing with its platform. Taibbi stated that since Twitter was blocking Substack, he was going to remain with the latter, as that actually pays him.

“Since sharing links to my articles is a primary reason I come to this platform, I was alarmed and asked what was going on. I was given the option of posting articles on Twitter instead. I’m obviously staying at Substack, and will be moving to Substack Notes next week,” said Taibbi on Twitter. Users noted that some of them had warned him of potential problems with Musk’s takeover of the social media service. And here we are. 

Musk contends that Twitter is not blocking Substack, but that’s a technicality. We can see that he’s attempting to lower the platform’s profile. Twitter users even appended a story about the blocking to Musk’s tweet.

The Shout-Out: The Jacobin on Elon Musk’s time at Twitter clearly disproving elite meritocracy.

Video Games 🎮

Sony Responds To UK’s CMA Landing On Microsoft’s Side

A couple weeks ago, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority decided that Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard probably wouldn’t have any anti-competitive effects. This potentially paved the way for the deal getting approval in the region. This week, Sony Interactive Entertainment responded with a list of concerns on the matter. 

Sony states that the CMA understates how much Microsoft could gain by making Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox platforms and downplays the benefits of adding Activision games to Xbox Game Pass. Sony also points directly to Arkane Studios creative director Harvey Smith’s recent interview, where he noted that there was a PlayStation 5 version of Redfall that was canceled when Microsoft acquired Zenimax.

Sony also worries that Microsoft would degrade the Call of Duty experience on PlayStation by simply not supporting unique console features. It points to comparisons made by sites like Digital Foundry as “highly influential”. “Gamers engage with each title in the franchise immediately after its release, are keenly aware of a game’s price, quality, features, and regularly compare the quality, performance, and features of their favorite games across PlayStation and Xbox,” said Sony.

Essentially, Sony had fighting words. The CMA is scheduled to offer its final decision on April 26.

Halo Infinite Creative Head Joseph Staten Is Leaving Xbox

Halo Infinite continues to struggle, with more key staff leaving. On Friday, Microsoft confirmed to IGN that Halo Infinite head of creative Joseph Staten was leaving the company. Staten was the cinematic director for the first three Halo titles and the lead writer on Destiny before he joined Microsoft to work on Infinite. 

Back in July 2020, before Halo Infinite released, 343 Industries was touting it as the platform for future Halo stories. “Halo Infinite is the start of our platform for the future,” Studio Head Chris Lee told IGN at the time. “We want Infinite to grow over time, versus going to those numbered titles and having all that segmentation that we had before. It’s really about creating Halo Infinite as the start of the next ten years for Halo and then building that as we go with our fans and community.”

While the game continues to get PVP updates, it’s clear that it’s not going to be the future of Halo storytelling. 

Ark Developer Delays Ark 2, Shutting Down Servers For Original Game

Studio Wildcard drew all the ire from its community this week. It all began with a Community Crunch post on the official site, which started off with bad news and then kept giving more bad news. First, the studio delayed Ark 2 until the end of 2024. Ark 2 is being built in Unreal Engine 5, which Studio Wildcard notes is “incredibly new technology for us,” so more time in development is needed.

The next announcement was Ark: Survival Ascended, an Unreal Engine 5 remaster of Ark: Survival Evolved for PC, Xbox Series S/X, and PlayStation 5. Players knew this was coming since January, when Ark lead designer Jeremy Stieglitz tweeted that it was a project the studio was working on, saying it would be free for current users. Sadly for them, it’s not. 

ARK: Survival Ascended can be purchased in a bundle with the remaster and the upcoming Ark 2 for $49.99. Alternatively, it can be purchased for $39.99 when it launches on PlayStation 5 in August 2023. Worse, players who already paid for the expansion packs for Survival Evolved will have to pay for them again with Survival Ascended. The $19.99 Explorer’s Pass will have three expansions on a staggered delay schedule: Scorched Earth, Aberration (Q4 2023), and Extinction (Q1 2024). The Genesis Pass costs the same as its counterpart, offering Genesis Part 1 (Q1 2024) and Genesis Part 2 (Q2 2024).

The last announcement was hidden in the “Live Operations” section of the post: when Studio Wildcard launches Ark: Survival Ascended, it will also shut down servers for the original game. Likewise, existing save games will not be ported over to the remastered title. 

The combination of all the announcements set the community ablaze. The Ark forums and  subreddits were full of rage and anger. Making a previously-free update into a paid release stung, but removing server support for the original game means players are forced onto the remaster, where they have to rebuy expansions again. Not a great look. 

Studio Wildcard reversed course a bit on Friday. It announced that Ark: Survival Ascended is now a standalone game for $59.99, including all of the DLC. The studio also stated that Ark: Survival Evolved could continue to be enjoyed, just not on official servers. 

Why It's Worth Knowing: Ark: Survival Evolved is one of those games that most folks don’t talk about on a regular basis, but still has a strong, consistent community. It’s still #16 on the Steam Most Played chart for this week. And that’s after a firestorm of fan discontent. Asking for payment for the remaster isn’t entirely outlandish as it likely requires a ton of development work, but the way this was handled by the studio is poor. 

AI 🤖

People Are Grappling With The Fact That ChatGPT Lies All The Time

There are a pair of stories dealing with the mistakes of ChatGPT this week. The first story comes from the Washington Post, which reported on the tribulations of law professor Jonathan Turley. A fellow lawyer asked the chatbot for a list of legal scholars who had sexually harassed someone and Turley’s name was included on the list. As proof, the chatbot cited an article in the Washington Post, but that article never existed. 

The second involves Australian mayor Brian Hood, who is planning to sue OpenAI for defamation. According to Reuters, Hood was told by his constituents that ChatGPT said he was involved in a bribery scandal involving a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia. Hood was involved in the scandal, but he was the one that notified the authorities in the matter, as opposed to the co-conspirator ChatGPT indicated he was. 

Why It's Worth Knowing: ChatGPT and other AI lie. They lie all the time and with great confidence, because again, they don’t know they’re lying. They don’t understand context or continuity, they just put words together quickly in a way that feels right. And yet, AI is being added to search engines and more, being put to use in places that require accuracy and clarity. It’s an ongoing problem and potential legal cases like Hood’s might change how it’s being used in the future. 

Film, Television, and Streaming 🎞️

Star Wars Finally Settles On Three New Movies

This week was Star Wars Celebration, the annual convention of all things Star Wars. This is where Lucasfilm generally drops all of its big news for the year. This year, the studio division decided to directly address the poor state of Star Wars on the big screen following The Rise of Skywalker. 

Lucasfilm announced three films onstage at the convention. The first film is one that has been mentioned in trade stories, with a script from Lost and Watchmen showrunner Damon Lindelof penning the script with screenwriter Justin Britt-Gibson. The pair left the project already, being replaced with Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight. That film, directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, is now in the “New Jedi Order” timeline 15 years after The Rise of Skywalker. Daisy Ridley is returning as Rey for the film, but it’s unclear if she’s the main character for it.

The second film is from Dave Filoni, one of the minds behind Star Wars on television. Filoni’s film will be an extension of the television shows, bringing together characters and storylines from The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and the upcoming Ahsoka series.

The third film is probably the most interesting one of the bunch. Lucasfilm must’ve been happy with writer-director James Mangold’s work on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, as he’s working on the story of the first Jedi, 25,000 years before any other events in the Star Wars universe. 

“When I first started talking to Kathy about doing one of these pictures, what occurred to me was thinking about what kind of genre of movie within Star Wars I wanted to do,” Mangold said onstage, according to THR. “And I thought about a Biblical epic, like a Ten Commandments, about the dawning of the Force. Where did the Force come from, when did we discover it, when did we learn how to use it?”

Why It's Worth Knowing: Star Wars is one of Disney’s major pillars and not having a presence at the box office likely stings. It’s worth noting that none of these projects were given release dates. Lucasfilm has had trouble bringing announced films to theaters, as projects keep falling by the wayside. As I said two weeks ago, the list includes Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow, Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Fiege, Devotion director J.D. Dillard, and The Lego Movie directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. 

In an interview with IGN, Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy downplayed some of the stalled projects, noting that she still intended to work with Donald Glover on a Lando series and Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron was still in development. Other gestating films include Taika Waititi’s planned film, a possible project from Night at the Museum and Free Guy director Shawn Levy, and Rian Johnson’s trilogy.

Warner Bros. Striking Deal For New Harry Potter Television Series

Speaking of pillars, Warner Bros. Discovery is apparently close to a deal with Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling to create a television reboot of the novels. According to Bloomberg, the new series will retell the events of the novels, with each book being a season of television. Rowling will consult on the series, but not be its primary creative. 

One could easily envision a new series with new characters at any Wizarding School, but it’s likely that Rowling would not sign off on such a project. And WB probably doesn’t want to keep the creator too close, both because of the failure of the Fantastic Beasts films and because of the ongoing heat surrounding her views. So back to the well we go.

Video Game Films Rise: Mario Makes Money, Minecraft and Street Fighter Incoming

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is clearly the first real blockbuster of 2023. The film looks like it'll make around $200 million for its five-day launch window. Globally, that number is up to $368 million according to Deadline estimates. Combined with the major success of The Last of Us on HBO, and it’s clear that Hollywood is looking at video games after super heroes. 

This week, Warner Bros. moved a Minecraft film back on the schedule. Minecraft has been floating around for a decade. The original project was going to come from Night at the Museum director Shawn Levy, then It’s Always Sunny star Rob McElhenney, then Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist director Peter Sollett. The current iteration, planned for an April 4, 2025 release, is coming from Napolean Dynamite director Jared Hess and starring Jason Momoa. 

Legendary Entertainment, the production company behind Dune and Godzilla vs. Kong, also announced this week that it has picked up the film and television rights for Street Fighter. Legendary is already planning on a movie, but you can expect a television series to follow right behind. 

Why It's Worth Knowing: Video games are the next place for Hollywood to mine IP. The Super Mario Bros. Movie will likely lead to a sequel and a rumored Donkey Kong spin-off, not to mention other potential Nintendo projects from Universal. Netflix has several game-related shows in the works, including another season of Arcane, Assassin’s Creed, and Horizon Zero Dawn. Amazon Studios is working on a Tomb Raider reboot and a God of War television series. John Wick director Chad Stahelski noted that Ghost of Tsushima is one of the many film projects he’s signed onto that he’d love to work on next. 

The next wave isn’t coming… it’s here.

On My Mind 🧠

James Gunn on “Superhero Fatigue”: Before he goes full steam ahead on DC Studios, James Gunn has to deliver his last Marvel film, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Gunn addressed the idea of superhero fatigue, given the underperformance of some recent films. 

“I think there is such a thing as superhero fatigue.I think it doesn’t have anything to do with superheroes. It has to do with the kind of stories that get to be told, and if you lose your eye on the ball, which is character. We love Superman. We love Batman. We love Iron Man. Because they’re these incredible characters that we have in our hearts. And if it becomes just a bunch of nonsense onscreen, it gets really boring. But I get fatigued by most spectacle films, by the grind of not having an emotionally grounded story. It doesn’t have anything to do with whether they’re superhero movies or not. If you don’t have a story at the base of it, just watching things bash each other, no matter how clever those bashing moments are, no matter how clever the designs and the VFX are, it just gets fatiguing, and I think that’s very, very real.”

Someone Found The Original Wilhelm Scream: Yeah, that’s the entire thought. It’s got director’s notes in there too!