Stuff Worth Knowing for the Week of April 17 2023

Apple is going big for WWDC 2023, Twitter removes legacy checkmarks, and WGA members authorize a strike.

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 ⌨️

Apple WWDC 2023 Will Be “One of Its Biggest Product Launch Events Ever”

Apple is preparing itself for the upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference, taking place at Apple Park from June 5 to June 9, 2023. According to consistent Apple scooper Mark Gurman, this WWDC is “shaping up to be one of its biggest product launch events ever” for the company. Over on Bloomberg, Gurman highlighted some of the potential announcements.

In addition to the long-rumored Reality headset alongside the new xrOS operating system, viewers can expect new MacBooks, iOS 17, iPadOS 17, macOS 14, and a watchOS 10 update. Gurman believes that the Reality headset will be shown at WWDC, with a potential holiday release. 

The new MacBook lineup will include an updated 13-inch MacBook Air, a 15-inch MacBook Air, a new entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro, a refreshed 24-inch iMac, and the first Mac Pro with Apple’s in-house chips. Folks should also expect updated high-end MacBook Pros, but all of these products will be running on M2 chips as opposed to the upcoming M3 models. Finally, iPadOS 17 will apparently be prepping for new iPad Pros with OLED screens coming in 2024. 

Why It's Worth Knowing: Apple is still a strong market leader, despite a drop in iPhone revenue and a steep drop in Mac revenue year-over-year in the last financial earnings report. Meta has pole position in mixed reality, but Apple can upturn the table, even if the Reality headset is going to be eye-wateringly expensive. If it can get developers to migrate over to xrOS from the existing Apple operating systems, that’ll be a huge win. It’ll definitely be a slow start, but I can’t bet against Apple here. 

Imgur Will Purge Old Content And Ban Porngraphy 

As Tumblr went, so too will Imgur. In a blog entry posted on Wednesday, image-sharing platform Imgur announced an updated Terms of Service. The changes will go into effect on May 15, 2023. These changes are focused on a removal of old content and a new ban on porngraphy and other related content. 

“We will be focused on removing old, unused, and inactive content that is not tied to a user account from our platform as well as nudity, pornography, & sexually explicit content. You will need to download/save any images that you wish to save if they no longer adhere to these Terms. Most notably, this would include explicit/pornographic content,” explained the company in the blog post. 

Previously, users could upload porn to Imgur in an “unlisted” status and then link to that content with a URL. According to Imgur, the changes are being made because “explicit and illegal content have historically posed a risk to Imgur's community and its business”. Apparently “artistic nudity” will be allowed, but it’s unclear where the line is. 

Why It's Worth Knowing: Porn and illegal content is a great way to grow your platform—check out the controversy around attempted Twitch rival Kick—but when it's time to become a “legitimate” business, that all has to go. Tumblr banned pornography back in 2018, and despite the backlash, the social media service has stuck with it. Like every other service, Imgur has to make money somehow, and that somehow is subscriptions and ads. The latter is a stumbling block if porn is allowed on the platform, so it has to go. 

This Week in Twitter: The Blue Checkmarks Are Finally Gone

Musk began the week threatening Microsoft with a lawsuit. After news surfaced of Microsoft’s advertising platform no longer supporting Twitter surfaced, Musk alleged that the company had “trained illegally using Twitter data”, without specifying the details of his claim. He later accused the company of “ripping off the Twitter database, demonetizing it, and then selling our data to others.” Once again, without proof.

The original news came from Microsoft itself, which noted that Smart Campaigns would no longer support Twitter as of April 25, 2023. Of course, this coincides with Twitter’s new paid API scheme. That’s also the reason that Xbox recently removed the ability to share game clips and screenshots to Twitter. Basically, Musk pushed Microsoft away with the paid API idea. Alas.

After several starts and stops, Twitter finally removed all legacy verification on Thursday. The change wasn’t smooth, of course, as legacy verified users noticed their marks kept disappearing and reappearing over the course of a few hours. At the same time, some notable users who had previously said that they weren’t paying for Twitter Blue still had their verification checkmarks. The shift was puzzling for some.

The answer came hours later when Twitter owner Elon Musk admitted to paying for certain accounts personally. The accounts included William Shatner, Stephen King, and LeBron James. King noted the discrepancy publicly. “My Twitter account says I’ve subscribed to Twitter Blue. I  haven’t. My Twitter account says I’ve given a phone number. I haven’t,” he tweeted. Likewise, LeBron’s media advisor Adam Mendelsohn confirmed to The Verge that the basketball star was offered a complimentary subscription to Twitter Blue and declined.

Twitter closed out the week with another pair of changes. First, it removed the “state-affiliated” labels on certain news organizations, which led to NPR, PBS, and CBC leaving the platform. Of course, this also removed those labels on actual state-run media organizations. The second was a change to Twitter’s advertising system noticed by TechCrunch: users will need to have Twitter Blue or Verified Organizations to run ads on Twitter. If you want to pay to run ads on Twitter, you first have to pay Twitter for the privilege. I’m not sure how this will do anything but lower the advertising spend on Twitter, but that’s par for the course during Musk’s tenure.

Speaking of Musk’s tenure, the SpaceX Starship rocket launched on Friday in Texas, destroying the launch platform. Shortly after launch, it also exploded. Some tout the destruction of millions as a “learning experience”, and hey, maybe it is. I’m not an aerospace engineer.

In the Twitter adjacent news, we’re starting to see the rise of alternative social media platforms. One of those platforms is Bluesky Social, which began as a project within Twitter to create a decentralized social network, before being spun off into its own thing. Bluesky is still invite-only at the moment, but this week it finally launched an Android client. This follows a Verge interview with Bluesky CEO Jay Graber last week, who touted a platform with “account portability, global discoverability, [and] composable, customizable curation”. We’ll see how that goes.

AI 🤖

Google Radically Rethinking Search After Almost Losing Samsung

Why did Google jump headfirst into AI chatbots after working on the technology behind-the-scenes for years? Apparently, because there were indications that services like ChatGPT were threats to its business. Despite current AI chatbots being more novel than useful, every major company is jumping on the bandwagon. According to a story in The New York Times, Google’s existential fear came when Samsung threatened to replace Google Search with Microsoft’s Bing.  

Google has already introduced Bard, its own AI chatbot, but it’s also rushing to upgrade Search with further AI-powered features. The project is called Magi, looking to provide more personalized search options. The trick is to bring the ad-free Bard together with Search, as the latter is largely supported by advertising. Google is also toying with image generation (codenamed GIFI), language learning (Tivoli Tutor), and a basic chatbot companion for Search (Searchalong).

This week, Google also announced that it was merging its current internal AI research team and DeepMind, the company’s artificial intelligence research laboratory, into a single group: Google DeepMind. DeepMind founder and CEO Demis Hassabis will become CEO of the new unit. “Combining all this talent into one focused team, backed by the computational resources of Google, will significantly accelerate our progress in AI,” said Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.

Why It's Worth Knowing: Perception is everything. Google currently owns search, but the threats of AI chatbots were looming. It doesn’t matter if they’re prone to lies and hallucinations, it matters that everyone is jumping on the train. If you’re the last one standing on the platform, it’s like you’re not even competing. Google is still currently negotiating its contract with Samsung, but the fact that they might lose one of the major Android smartphone makers is a problem. 

Elon Musk Says He Wants To Create a More “Truthful” AI

In the same way Elon Musk said he wanted to focus on free speech when he took over Twitter, the X Corp CEO says that he wants to create a more “truthful” AI. The boast comes from an interview on Tucker Carlson Tonight (via the Washington Post), where Musk said that current chatbots are trained to be “politically correct”. Outside of this, Musk didn’t really detail how his AI chatbot was going to be different. 

“I’m going to start something which I call TruthGPT, or a maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe,” Musk said. He also reiterated sentiments behind the letter he signed in March, asking for a pause of the development of AI and seeking more government regulation. 

OpenAI CEO Says The Era Of Giant Models Is Over

While everyone else is sprinting headfirst toward their own large language models (LLMs), the CEO behind the one that kicked off the zeitgeist says the era is over. In a talk at MIT (via Wired), OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that the future is in smaller, more specific AI. “I think we're at the end of the era where it's going to be these, like, giant, giant models. We'll make them better in other ways,” he said. Altman also acknowledged that the team is not currently working on a GPT-5, as OpenAI previously suggested diminishing returns in scaling the size of its model. 

Cohere is one of the rival startups focused on AI, and one of its co-founders agrees that scaling up isn’t the answer. “There are lots of ways of making transformers way, way better and more useful, and lots of them don’t involve adding parameters to the model,” he told Wired. Instead, the direction is in fine-tuning current models and improving overall architecture.

Why It's Worth Knowing: We’re butting up against the limits of what AI tools can do, and now the focus is on making them do those tasks better. Specificity is more important: I’d rather have an AI-powered tool that can write meeting notes on the fly rather than an UR-chatbot that can supposedly do everything, but gets most of it wrong. AI technology isn’t a bad idea, but the focus has been all wrong in my opinion. It’s about making it useful. 

Microsoft Preparing Its Own AI Chips

Microsoft kicked off part of this sea change toward AI by investing heavily into OpenAI and bringing its AI capabilities to Microsoft products like Bing and Office. Now the company is apparently looking to dive into the hardware side of AI. According to The Information, Microsoft has a project code-named Athena, which is focused on building its own chips for AI purposes. Apparently, the chips are in early testing at Microsoft and OpenAI, with the hope that perhaps the hardware can break Nvidia’s hold on the market. 

Video Games 🎮

Sega Buying Rovio For $783 Million

Last week, it seemed that Sega Sammy was looking to purchase Angry Birds owner Rovio. This week, the deal closed. The acquisition price dropped from the rumored $1 billion down to $783 million (705 million Euros, to be specific). Sega Sammy is making this purchase to “further strengthen its position in this fast-growing mobile and global gaming market”.

“Sega aims to accelerate its growth in the global gaming market and increase its corporate value by generating synergies between Sega’s existing businesses and Rovio’s strengths, including its global IPs and live-operated mobile game development capabilities,” said the companies in a press release.

Nexon Files Lawsuit Against Dark and Darker Developer

Last week, I mentioned that Dark and Darker developer Ironmace was having to release its next beta test over torrent because of legal issues. Now publisher Nexon has filed a U.S. lawsuit against Ironmace, alleging copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets. Both Nexon and Ironmace are Korean, but since Dark and Darker was promoted on Steam—operated by the Washington-based Valve Software—Nexon has decided to file the suit in the U.S. (It’s also much easier for Nexon to appear in the U.S. compared to Ironmace.)

According to Nexon, former employees Ju-Hyun Choi and Terence Seungha Park took assets from a game they worked on at Nexon codenamed P3. “In flagrant breach of their obligations to Nexon, the individual defendants stole P3 source code, audiovisual, and other materials that Nexon developed through a substantial expenditure of time and money. Defendants used those materials to develop a substantially similar video game called Dark and Darker that

Defendants seek to distribute through their newly-formed company Ironmace,” says Nexon in its complaint.

Nexon also states that Choi was soliciting other Nexon employees to work with Ironmace and transferred 11,602 P3 project files to his own private servers. While one cannot copyright gameplay, if this is found to be true, that’s a big problem for Ironmace. 

Halo Infinite Head of Creative Joins Netflix

The brain drain at Halo steward 343 Industries continues. Two weeks ago, Halo Infinite creative head Joseph Staten announced that he was leaving Microsoft entirely. On Monday, Staten revealed that he’s moving over to Netflix. Staten stated on Twitter that he’s joined Netflix Games as the creative director on “a brand-new AAA multiplatform game and original IP”.

Why It's Worth Knowing: We’re still trying to see if Netflix is going to learn what Amazon only recently realized: game development is hard. After funding several internal teams, Amazon eventually pivoted to funding successful external studios. Now Netflix is spending heavily to bring in new talent for its AAA ambitions, and I don’t know if that’s going to go any better for them. 

PlayStation Studios Is Acquiring Firewalk For Original AAA Multiplayer Game

While Sony Interactive Entertainment tries its best to prevent Microsoft from acquiring Activision Blizzard because it can’t make a multiplayer game as good as Call of Duty, the company continues to invest in multiplayer titles. This week, Sony Interactive announced it is acquiring Firewalk Studios. The latter team is led by former veterans of Activision and Bungie, focused on developing “an original AAA multiplayer game” for PlayStation 5 and PC.

“Firewalk Studios is led by a world-class team that is highly experienced and deeply passionate about creating exceptional multiplayer games that foster memorable shared experiences,” said Jim Ryan, President & CEO, Sony Interactive Entertainment. “I’m confident the studio’s upcoming project will be a robust addition to PlayStation Studios’ portfolio, and its live service and technology expertise will be instrumental in helping grow PlayStation’s reach.”

Why It's Worth Knowing: While the PlayStation brand is built on the back of single-player prestige games, SIE knows that it needs to fill out that roster with more multiplayer titles. SIE owns Bungie, who operates Destiny 2, but is also working on a new multiplayer game. It also acquired Haven Entertainment Studios, led by Ubisoft Toronto founder Jade Raymond, which is developing a new live service game. Guerilla Games is also creating a multiplayer project in the Horizon series. The Firewalk acquisition is just another move in that direction.

The interesting bit is it seems like the community overall wants a move away from live service games.

Film, Television, and Streaming 🎞️

Writers Authorize Guild Strike

This week, members of the Writers Guild of America West and East voted to authorize a strike. The strike will occur if the guild does not reach a new agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) by May 1, 2023. Assuming that happens, there will be a work stoppage across all guild members. 

“Our membership has spoken. You have expressed your collective strength, solidarity, and the demand for meaningful change in overwhelming numbers. Armed with this demonstration of unity and resolve, we will continue to work at the negotiating table to achieve a fair contract for all writers,” the WGA negotiating committee said in a message to members obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.

The vote began last week, but it was clear that most of the guild membership was onboard. With this leverage, the negotiating committee now has more leverage against the AMPTP. As a part of this new contract, the WGA is looking to tackle pay raises, writers rooms, minimum weeks of employment, and the use of AI writing tools. 

A Twilight TV Series Is In Development

First Harry Potter, now Twilight. What’s next, a new Divergent television series? According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lionsgate Television is developing a Twilight television series. The series is in early development, so Lionsgate doesn’t know if this will be a retelling of the novels once again similar to Max’s new Harry Potter series, or a spin-off of some sort.

Writer and producer Sinead Daly, who has worked on Tell Me Lies, The Walking Dead: World Beyond, Raised by Wolves, and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, is developing the series. Author Stephanie Meyer will be involved in some capacity. Lionsgate wants to develop the series first before shopping it around to a network or streamer. 

What is old is new again!

Netflix Ending DVD Rental Service, But Redbox Wants It

This week marked the latest financial earnings report from Netflix. From a news perspective, it wasn’t all that interesting, as revenue remained flat and net income rose back to normal levels. The most intriguing news was buried deeper in the shareholder letter.

“After an incredible 25 year run, we’ve decided to wind down DVD.com later this year. Our goal has always been to provide the best service for our members but as the DVD business continues to shrink that’s going to become increasingly hard. So we want to go out on a high, and will be shipping our final DVDs on September 29, 2023,” said Netflix.

Of course, the DVD rental service was the genesis of Netflix back in the day and in a world of digital streaming, it remains one of the few ways to engage with physical media. One of the current pillars of physical disc rentals, Redbox, actually wants to pick up the torch.

“I’d like to buy it,” Redbox CEO Bill Rouhana told The Hollywood Reporter. “I wish Netflix would sell me that business instead of shutting it down. I have tried like three or four times to reach out to the corporate development people about it but just got rebuffed each time. So when I saw it being closed, I thought, ‘Well, maybe they’ll do it now.'”

Even if Netflix doesn’t sell, and sources told THR that’s unlikely, Rouhana believes his company will benefit greatly from DVD.com bowing out. He believes that DVD and Blu-Ray rentals will actually continue to grow in the coming years. 

Superhero Watch: Superman: Legacy Begins Pre-Production and Victoria Alonso Makes Her Money

This week DC Comics celebrated the 85th anniversary of one of its biggest heroes. April 18, 1938 marked the publishing of Action Comics #1, with a story about a hero called Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. On Twitter, DC Studios boss James Gunn announced that pre-production on Superman: Legacy has officially begun. The film is expected to release in theaters on July 11, 2025. 

On the other side of the divide, former Marvel Studios VFX boss Victoria Alonso reached a settlement with Disney. The company fired Alonso back in March, stating that she was moonlighting on another film project. This week, it seems that Disney paid her a multimillion dollar settlement, with neither side talking about the outcome. A likely case is that Alonso probably knew where some bodies were buried and it was easier to pay her rather than go through a lengthy legal battle. 

Layoffs 👷

BuzzFeed Lays Off 15% Of Staff, Shuts Down BuzzFeed News

The news media layoffs continue apace. This week, BuzzFeed announced that it was shutting down BuzzFeed News. The company will also be cutting 120 people in its business, content, tech, and administrative teams, according to The New York Times.

“While layoffs are occurring across nearly every division, we’ve determined that the company can no longer continue to fund BuzzFeed News as a standalone organization,” BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti wrote in a staff memo obtained by Variety. 

BuzzFeed acquired Complex Networks for $300 million in 2021, around the same time it went public. Since then, the company’s stock has fallen more than 40% and Complex staff have said their culture has been “gutted”. The best Peretti has to offer is a pivot toward AI and his apologies.

“I own this decision,” Peretti said in an employee meeting. “Nothing that is happening today is about the work of this team.” Notably, he did not resign.

Insider Cuts 10% Of Employees As It Experiments With AI

Speaking of a pivot toward AI, Insider also announced layoffs this week. The layoffs are expected to hit 10% of the company’s workforce. The news comes shortly after the outlet announced that it would be experimenting with AI content creation. When asked if the layoffs were related to this, an Insider spokesperson told Gizmodo, “Of course not.”

On My Mind 🧠

The Supreme Court Has To Figure Out What True Online Threats Are: The Supreme Court is not prepared for the internet. Just straight up not prepared. This week, the justices heard arguments in Counterman v. Colorado. Billy Raymond Counterman has been in prison for stalking threats made over Facebook toward musician Coles Whalen. 

His representatives are trying to argue that Counterman’s threats should be measured by their actual intent, as opposed to Colorado’s bar, which states that one has to look at whether a reasonable person would regard the statements as threats of violence. Head over to the ScotusBlog to read the justices’ arguments over the case. Many are bad. 

AMD Is Powering A Ton of Portable PCs: While Nvidia is looking towards AI and more to shore up the bottom line, AMD is offering chips to a host of manufacturers who are looking to make their own Steam Deck-like device. Companies like Ayaneo, Ayn, and Retroid have been in this space for a long time, but now more established brands like Razer and Asus are looking in this direction.

Asus just announced the ROG Ally, which seems to be powered by the new AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU according to leaks from Videocardsz. That APU could likely be used for the GPD Win Max and AOKZERO A1 Pro, but previous Ryzen chips have also powered the Ayaneo 2 and Ayn Loki. These manufacturers are moving fast to throw out products and price points, and AMD underpins most of the devices.

The Verge also noticed the growing trend in its op-ed on the handheld PC space.

Last July, when I reached out to my AMD PR contacts about handheld gaming PCs, they told me they didn’t even have a contact who could handle such a request. This week, they introduced me to a specific person who can help me going forward.