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Directed by noted TV director Kevin Tancharoen, the fourth episode of "The Book of Boba Fett" goes back into the timeline to offer answers to things we already knew, but delivers them in a satisfying way. The vast majority of the episode plays in the past, with Boba Fett dedicated to retaking his ship from the clutches of Bib Fortuna in Jabba's Palace. Along the way, he is able to save Fennec Shand (after her run in with the Mandalorian and Toro Callican) and, after stealing the ship back, Boba Fett gets revenge on the Kintan Striders swoop gang for killing the Tuskens who took him in. Then, he sets his sights to finding his armor and kills the Sarlacc in the process. In the present, a droid lets Boba Fett know that he's fully healed, likely putting an end to the flashbacks on the show.

There, Boba Fett tries to rally muscle and opposing families of Mos Espa to his cause of wiping out the Pyke Syndicate from Tatooine.

The Direction And Film References

There is something very Kurosawa-like about Boba Fett's rescue of Fennec Shand and bringing her into the desert to heal, reminiscent of Toshiro Mifune's fate midway through "Yojimbo" (1961). The Mod Parlor reminds one of a mix between "Blade Runner" (1982) and '90s cyberpunk films like "Johnny Mnemonic" (1995).

Everything set in the Dune Sea with Boba Fett looks like a classic John Ford film, taking cues from "The Searchers" (1956) as well as others. "The Searchers" has long been an inspiration on "Star Wars" and "Attack of the Clones" in particular. Watch me talk about that here: 

There can also be no doubt that the sit down dinner between Boba Fett and the other families of Mos Espa is a reference to the sit down Vito Corleone has with the other families after the death of Sonny in "The Godfather" (1972).

Tanchoaren is able to keep the action lively and create callbacks to other great moments and ideas in "Star Wars" despite the fact that episode feels like a retread of information we already mostly had. Thanks to the second season of "The Mandalorian," we know most everything that has transpired between he and Fennec Shand, from her rescue and repair to her joining him in his quest to take back Tatooine. We also know that Boba hunts for his armor and gets his ship back.

The thing this episode really gives us is a motivation for Boba Fett, tired of almost dying because he's working for idiots.

The Cameos

The biggest cameo of this episode comes in the form of Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner, who first made a name for himself joining the band Suicidal Tendencies. He plays the Mod Artist inside the very tattoo-like Mod Parlor. The cybernetic modifier is a part important to many movies and always a fascinating cameo, from James Hong in "Blade Runner" (he just does the eyes) to Peter Stormare in "Minority Report" (2002). Thundercat plays the role with glee, like he seems to be enjoying the fact that he's in "Star Wars." The scene also gives further information about the Mods themselves, and gives us a small peek into that sub-culture on Tatooine.

The other big cameo was the return of Matthew Wood. He's the supervising sound editor on the show, but has been the voice and face of Bib Fortuna since 1999's "The Phantom Menace." Here, he comes back as the slimy Twi-lek in flashbacks of Boba Fett killing him, something that we'd only glimpsed in the post-credits tease of "The Mandalorian." Wood also voices many of the droids and was the man behind General Grievous in "Revenge of the Sith" (2005).

What To Look Out For

This episode featured a lot of things that harkened back to previous movies, but the most extensive references seemed to be in the droids that appeared throughout the episode.

We finally see the kitchen of Jabba's palace and find it run by two droids. The first is a COO-series cook droid. These multi-armed cook droids were first seen in "Attack of the Clones" aboard the refugee transport that Anakin and Padmé take to get back to Naboo. The other is an EV-series droid acting as the Sous Chef. EV-9D9 was a pivotal character from Jabba's palace in "Return of the Jedi" but it feels unlikely that this droid is the same one, despite the uncanny match of voice.

The third droid we see in the kitchen is the rat catcher. This little bunny-style droid is a LEP-series service droid, which came from an original concept Doug Chiang created for "The Phantom Menace." They were seen extensively in "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" often as comedic relief. They're adorable and scared, and this one is no different. This marks their first appearance in live action.

There are a lot of subtle references to other bits of "Star Wars" in the dialogue of the episode. Boba Fett offers Fennec Shand a scurrier to eat at one point; these rat-like creatures first appeared in the Special Edition of "A New Hope" (1977) scurrying away from Luke's landspeeder on its approach to Mos Eisley. Now, Boba Fett catches and eats them with joy.

At one point, Fennec tells Boba Fett that the mayor's majordomo is "singing like a Yuzzum." In the Special Edition of "Return of the Jedi" (1983), the Max Rebo band got another singer: Joh Yowza. This grizzly voiced Yuzzum played duets with Sy Snootles and could really wail.

One of the most legendary rivalries in "Star Wars" has been that of Wookiees and Trandoshans, where Trandoshans traditionally hunt Wookiees and keep their pelts. This age-old rivalry explains Black Krrsantan getting drunk and pulling the arms from a Trandoshan inside Garsa Fwip's Sanctuary. Fwip does her best to deescalate the situation, but there's not much to be done about a drunk Wookiee with a bloodlust. Krrsantan is the sort that gives Wookiees the reputation of tearing people's arms off.

Slave I

Boba Fett goes after his ship in Jabba's Palace. Known for years as "Slave I" he refers to it as a Firespray here. This is nothing new. This type of ship has been labeled a Firespray in the canon for decades. Some fans are worried that Lucasfilm is going to change the name of Boba Fett's ship because of the negative connotations of slavery, but this episode shows they'd rather just leave it be and find other ways of referring to it, which is fine. Despite what you might hear on the internet, this is no cause for alarm.

It was delightful to see the ship face off against the Sarlacc. It was a clever bit of scene design to see the Sarlacc without its beak, letting audiences think it might be dead, then using the Sarlacc's beak (added in 1997) as a jump scare while Boba Fett searches for his armor, not realizing that the Jawas had taken it. Fennec and Boba Fett are able to finally kill the Sarlacc using a seismic charge, one of the most visually and audibly arresting weapons in "Star Wars" first seen in the asteroid chase above Geonosis in "Attack of the Clones" (2002).

The Timeline

The timeline of this show is still squishy, and it gets even more complicated when Boba Fett mentions in this episode that he spent years with the Tusken Raiders. It did not feel in previous episodes like years had passed, but even if a minimum of two years had passed, we can still keep the events of "The Mandalorian" and the present-timeline of "The Book of Boba Fett" somewhere between three and seven years after "Return of the Jedi." As I've said before, don't expect a hard answer about exactly when the show is set until there is a specific reason to do so. And since "The Mandalorian" and its spin-offs are the biggest, highest profile projects happening in this part of the timeline, don't expect them to tie themselves down to giving any specific dates or timeframes.

The Verdict

This was another episode that was a lot of fun, despite having little to offer in terms of forward momentum for the show. It showed us things that we had already learned in previous parts of the timeline, making it a little tedious at times. It definitely offered a new shade of reason for the motivations of Boba Fett, but still hasn't entirely answered questions about his complete character transformation.

This episode also seemed to close the door on further flashbacks, which is a shame. Of the events I had hoped to see from different angles, the story of Cobb Vanth and Boba Fett's armor in Mos Pelgo, first written down by Chuck Wendig, is something I wanted to see.

Looking for meaning in this episode, it really feels as though loyalty is something Boba Fett has been searching his life for. With his father, he had complete trust and loyalty, and then he grew up working with or for scughole after scughole. Cad Bane and Aurra Sing betrayed and used him as a kid. Jabba sold him out and hunted him during his time employed for the Hutt. He wants the security he had as a kid, and creating his own family is the way to do it. He found that with the Tuskens and found his life more simple that way. That's why his offer of family and loyalty to Fennec Shand is so powerful, and she recognizes it.

This episode didn't do a whole lot to carry the story forward, but it did offer us more shades of gray in the complex tapestry of Boba Fett's character and the shifts he has taken over the years. And it gave us some really fun "Star Wars." Let's just hope that in the final accounting it means something.

"Book of Boba Fett: Chapter 4 - The Gathering Storm" is now playing on Disney+. New episodes of "The Book of Boba Fett" premiere on Wednesdays.

You can find Bryan Young on Twitter.

Read this next: The 12 Best Boba Fett Moments In Star Wars Shows And Movies

The post The Book of Boba Fett Delivers an Origin Story Before 'The Gathering Storm' appeared first on /Film.

Styrofoam remains a ubiquitous material for takeout containers, disposable coffee cups, and protective cushioning for fragile items during shipping. The material—called expanded polystyrene or EPS—keeps your food and beverages hot and your packages safe, but unfortunately, it’s pretty bad for the environment. It takes…

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"The Expanse" had their series finale last week, and packed a whole lot into the last episode, including an amazing action sequence with Bobbie Draper (Frankie Adams), Amos Burton (Wes Chatham), and some rail guns.

/Film had the chance to talk with Adams about that intense sequence as well as about other aspects of the season (including what Bobbie did after her heart-to-heart with Amos on Ceres) and the show as a whole.

Read on for that conversation, though be warned that spoilers for the last season of "The Expanse" lie ahead!

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

"It Was A Lot Of Sweat And A Lot Of Sore Muscles."

In the last episode of "The Expanse," you have an intense scene where Bobbie goes against the rail guns. What was it like to shoot that?

It was long and intense. We did it over three days because we had to shoot it per set, so underneath and on the ramp and stuff, but it was very organized. Breck Eisner [director of the episode] is extremely detail-oriented so he had storyboarded it. He had meetings with Wes and I, and he talked about even what arm I was going to shoot with. Everything was very detailed, but it was a lot of sweat and a lot of sore muscles. Wes and I were like, "Make sure you do your yoga before we do these." And oh boy, did we need it by the end of it, we slept very good after that.

How much do you sweat in those suits? I can't imagine, and you have it worse than anyone, right? Because you have the heavy duty Martian armor?

We have these cooling disks that we put on underneath that they can plug us into water. And those were our lifelines that day because we were just like ... all the other people that were in those scenes were stunt people and even they were just like, "Holy moly, this is hard work!" But it was so worth it because it looked epic when it came out.

"We Would Dance And Hug When They Called Cut."

Another big thing for Bobbie throughout the series is her relationship with Avasarala [played by Shohreh Aghdashloo]. In season 6 you have a great scene where Bobbie tells Avasarala off a bit.

That was a big.

Yeah, I interviewed Shohreh and she said that was one of her most memorable scenes of the season, just shooting that with you. What it was like from your end?

I think in the beginning, their relationship was reversed. Avasarala was constantly the one telling her what she really thought and Bobbie was kind of just like, "Yes ma'am. Of course." And then I think because they get so comfortable in their relationship and they've become quite good friends by the end, I think any good friend would tell their mates to sort it out. But it was really satisfying for me to yell at her. And then we would dance and hug when they called cut. But yeah, I felt like that was a really epic, grown-up honest moment for Bobbie that I really enjoyed playing.

"If They Were To Actually Sleep Together, They Would Just Do It On Roci."

As Bobbie, you obviously interact with a lot with the rest of the core cast and besides Avasarala. Was there any other character you enjoyed acting against as Bobbie?

Oh my God. Yes, with Amos. It was so fun. That was so much fun. I was not expecting that relationship to kind of become a thing all of a sudden, but I was so happy about it. I felt like we really vibed off each other. We had great chemistry, we're good friends in real life and they were just sort of buddies and they were always giving each other s*** and I really enjoyed how that relationship played out.

Nice. And you two had the X-Ray short together too.

Yeah, we did. That was our last day shooting, both of our last days. We had so much fun, we just fought for eight hours. It was great.

It's definitely a fun short. And it aired before the episode where you have that big heart-to-heart with Amos on Ceres. And then there's this question of does Bobbie go with Amos to the brothel? I actually asked Wes and [showrunner Naren Shankar] this and I would love to hear your answer — do you think she went with him?

I think she went. I don't know if she went with him or if she went with him, but I do think she got up and followed him. I think they're friends, I just don't know if they sometimes hang out at nighttime together as friends, but in general I think they're just mates. I don't know. Yeah. That was always the question for everyone. We don't know. I think that she went. I don't know, because also I think that if they were to actually sleep together, they would just do it on Roci.

That's true. That's more convenient.

Yeah, their rooms are right next door to each other.

"I've Done A Lot In That Armor."

And Bobbie has changed a lot over the course of the series. How do you think she's different from the series finale versus the first time we see her on the show?

I think she's matured and learned a lot in general. I think in the beginning, she's blindly fighting for something that isn't really worth her time. And then it's a constant search for belonging — it was a journey of identity for Bobbie for a long time. And I think you see very clearly that she's at peace and content with where she ended up, and has found this sweet little dysfunctional family that she feels a part of and there's something really sweet about that. And also, I just think that she's grown up in general and is a little more playful and considered in a way that she probably wasn't in the beginning.

And I know for Bobbie in particular, you got a lot of the action scenes in the show, just based on Bobbie being a Marine and all that. Over the course of series, what do you think was the most challenging or the most memorable scene you had to shoot?

All the armor scenes were really physically challenging. In that last battle sequence, there's that move where it's like a Matrix move where I'm getting shot and I'm getting flung backwards mid-air. I did all of that on wires and I didn't think it was possible, honestly. Because also the armor doesn't really move in that way so it didn't feel like I could do it. That felt like such an achievement, because I've done a lot in that armor, but that was certainly something that seemed really impossible on the day.

"I Hope That People Watch It For Years To Come."

I imagine things don't always go right in those scenes when shooting. Any fun moments or bloopers that stick out in your mind?

I don't know if you've seen any of the blooper reels, but it's mostly me. Wes always makes me laugh. In the X-Ray, Wes accidentally actually threw me on the ground in one of the times. We had discussed how I was going to land and because he's so strong he threw me way too high and I was like, "Okay and we're going down, and we're going down and now I'm on the ground." And he was so upset, but it was fine. I got through it, but yeah, there's always happy accidents like that when everyone gets a bit excited.

Since the series is now over, at least in this form, what do you hope fans walk away from having watched the finale?

I hope we did the story justice. I know that there are a lot of book fans that probably have been watching very closely and I hope that they know how much we appreciate their support. We were canceled for a while there, so I just hope that they feel like we did it — we ended it in a way that was satisfying as someone who was watching it as a viewer. Because that's how we felt making it. We were like, okay, this feels like a nice way to wrap it up in a pretty little bow and hope that people are okay with it. But yeah. And I hope that people watch it for years to come and it becomes a cult classic.

All six seasons of "The Expanse" are now available on Prime Video.

Read this next: The 10 Best Sci-Fi Movie Villains

The post The Expanse Actor Frankie Adams Talks About Bobbie's Most Memorable Season 6 Scenes [Interview] appeared first on /Film.

The Microsoft and Activision Blizzard deal is one that turned the entire industry upside down. The news took everyone in the industry by surprise and there are still a lot of questions surrounding the deal itself. Today, one of the questions being answered is what is going to happen if the deal doesn't go through after all.

In a public document made by the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), some new details regarding the merger between Microsoft Gaming and Activision were revealed. The document states certain conditions regarding the upcoming deal between the Xbox corporation and Activision Blizzard.

In this article, we'll focus on the termination conditions of the agreement which, under the terms of the deal, can potentially make Microsoft pay a $2 billion fee to Activision should the deal fall through under specific circumstances. The merger agreement contains customary termination provisions if termination of the deal is made prior to January 18, 2023.

Additionally, there's a fee of $2.5 billion should a termination notice be provided after January 18, 2023 and prior to April 18, 2023. Finally, if the termination notice is provided after April 18, Microsoft will be bound to pay Activision Blizzard a total of $3 Billion. There are certain specifics that need to be met in order for this penalty to go through, however.

The Merger Agreement also contains customary termination provisions for each of Parent and the Company. Upon termination of the Merger Agreement, (A) the Parent, under specified circumstances, including termination pursuant to an injunction arising from Antitrust Laws when the Company is not then in material breach of any provision of the Merger Agreement, will be requiered to pay the Company a termination fee.

[...] and (B) the Company, under specified circumstances, including termination of the Merger Agreement by the Company to accept and enter into a definitive agreement with respect to a Superior Proposal (as defined in the Merger Agreement) or by Parent upon a Company Board Recommendation Change (as defined in the Merger Agreement), will be required to pay Parent a termination fee of $2,270,100,000. The Company Board has unanimously approved and adopted the Merger Agreement and recommended that the Company’s stockholders vote in favor of adoption of the Merger Agreement.

In order for this deal to go through, Microsoft still has to win approval from Activision's shareholders and from regulators. However, due to the circumstances surrounding the deal itself, it's very likely that the deal will go through without a hitch. Of course, not everything is set in stone and a lot can happen between now and April 2023.

The post Microsoft to pay between $2 and 3 billion if Activision Blizzard deal doesn’t go through by Ule Lopez appeared first on Wccftech.

After finishing a hard workout, one of your first priorities is probably to refuel your body. If you are pressed for the time, the impulse may be to reach for a bar or shake, but as convenient as they can be, they are often highly processed—and they can get pretty boring after awhile.

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Ulysses is a hundred-year-old man living with his wife, Dalia, in their Argentine colonial apartment. This is the last night of his life and Ulysses will start to experience frightening events in his apartment and throughout the building. They are events that will force him to rethink past decisions, his present circumstances and his view about his reality.   Let's start by getting this out of the way first. There is a certain point in Gonzalo Calzada's drama thriller Nocturna: Side A - The Great Old Man's Night, which may be different for everyone else, where you will say to yourself, ‘Okay. I’m going to cry during this movie, aren’t I?’. And that is okay. For me it happened around the half hour mark, where...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

If you created an online account to manage your tax records with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), those login credentials will cease to work later this year. The agency says that by the summer of 2022, the only way to log in to irs.gov will be through ID.me, an online identity verification service that requires applicants to submit copies of bills and identity documents, as well as a live video feed of their faces via a mobile device.

McLean, Va.-based ID.me was originally launched in 2010 with the goal of helping e-commerce sites validate the identities of customers who might be eligible for discounts at various retail establishments, such as veterans, teachers, students, nurses and first responders.

These days, ID.me is perhaps better known as the online identity verification service that many states now use to help stanch the loss of billions of dollars in unemployment insurance and pandemic assistance stolen each year by identity thieves. The privately-held company says it has approximately 64 million users, and gains roughly 145,000 new users each day.

Some 27 states already use ID.me to screen for identity thieves applying for benefits in someone else’s name, and now the IRS is joining them. The service requires applicants to supply a great deal more information than typically requested for online verification schemes, such as scans of their driver’s license or other government-issued ID, copies of utility or insurance bills, and details about their mobile phone service.

When an applicant doesn’t have one or more of the above — or if something about their application triggers potential fraud flags — ID.me may require a recorded, live video chat with the person applying for benefits.

Since my credentials at the IRS will soon no longer work, I opted to create an ID.me account and share the experience here. An important preface to this walk-through is that verifying one’s self with Id.me requires one to be able to take a live, video selfie — either with the camera on a mobile device or a webcam attached to a computer (your webcam must be able to open on the device you’re using to apply for the ID.me account).

Update, Feb.7, 2022, 10:21 p.m. ET: The IRS said today it is transitioning away from requiring face biometric data to identify taxpayers. Read more here: IRS To Ditch Biometric Requirement for Online Access.

Original story: Also, successfully verifying your identity with ID.me may require a significant investment of time, and quite a bit of patience. For example, stepping away from one part of the many-step application process for a little more than five minutes necessitated another login, and then the re-submission of documents I’d previously uploaded.

After entering an email address and picking a password, you are prompted to confirm your email address by clicking a link sent to that address. After confirmation, ID.me prompts users to choose a multi-factor authentication (MFA) option.

The MFA options range from a six-digit code sent via text message or phone call to code generator apps and FIDO Security Keys. ID.me even suggests using its own branded one-time code generating app, which can “push” a prompt to your mobile device for you to approve whenever you log in. I went with and would encourage others to use the strongest MFA option — a physical Security Key. For more on the benefits of using a Security Key for MFA, see this post.

When the MFA option is verified, the system produces a one-time backup code and suggests you save that in a safe place in case your chosen MFA option is unavailable the next time you try to use a service that requires ID.me.

Next, applicants are asked to upload images of their driver’s license, state-issued ID, or passport — either via a saved file or by scanning them with a webcam or mobile device.

If your documents get accepted, ID.me will then prompt you to take a live selfie with your mobile device or webcam. That took several attempts. When my computer’s camera produced an acceptable result, ID.me said it was comparing the output to the images on my driver’s license scans.

After this, ID.me requires the verification of your phone number, which means they will ask your mobile or landline provider to validate you are indeed an existing, paying customer who can be reached at that number. ID.me says it currently does not accept phone numbers tied to voice-over-IP services like Google Voice and Skype.

My application got stuck interminably at the “Confirming Your Phone” stage, which is somewhere near the middle of the entire verification process.

An email to ID.me’s support people generated a message with a link to complete the verification process via a live video chat. Unfortunately, clicking that link brought up prompts to re-upload all of the information I’d already supplied, and then some.

For example, completing the process requires submitting at least two secondary identification documents, such as as a Social Security card, a birth certificate, health insurance card, W-2 form, electric bill, or financial institution statement.

After re-uploading all of this information, ID.me’s system prompted me to “Please stay on this screen to join video call.” However, the estimated wait time when that message first popped up said “3 hours and 27 minutes.”

I appreciate that ID.me’s system relies on real human beings seeking to interview applicants in real-time, and that not all of those representatives can be expected to handle all of these immediately. And I get that slowing things down is an important part of defeating identity fraudsters who are seeking to exploit automated identity verification systems that largely rely on static data about consumers.

That said, I started this “Meet an agent” process at around 9:30 in the evening, and I wasn’t particularly looking forward to staying up until midnight to complete it. But not long after the message about waiting 3 hours came up, I got a phone call from an ID.me technician who was CC’d on my original email to ID.me’s founder. Against my repeated protests that I wanted to wait my turn like everyone else, he said he would handle the process himself.

Sure enough, a minute later I was connected with the ID.me support person, who finished the verification in a video phone call. That took about one minute. But for anyone who fails the automated signup, count on spending several hours getting verified.

When my application was finally approved, I headed back to irs.gov and proceeded to log in with my new ID.me account. After granting the IRS access to the personal data I’d shared with ID.me, I was looking at my most recent tax data on the IRS website.

I was somewhat concerned that my ID verification might fail because I have a security freeze on my credit file with the three major consumer credit bureaus. But at no time during my application process did ID.me even mention the need to lift or thaw that security freeze to complete the authentication process.

The IRS previously relied upon Equifax for its identity proofing process, and even then anyone with frozen credit files had to lift the freeze to make it through the IRS’s legacy authentication system. For several years, the result of that reliance was that ID thieves massively abused the IRS’s own website to impersonate taxpayers, view their confidential tax records, and ultimately obtain fraudulent tax refunds in their names.

The IRS canceled its “taxpayer identity” contract with Equifax in October 2017, after the credit bureau disclosed that a failure to patch a four-month-old zero-day security flaw led to the theft of Social Security numbers and personal and financial information on 148 million Americans.

Perhaps in light of that 2017 megabreach, many readers will be rightfully concerned about being forced to provide so much sensitive information to a relatively unknown private company. KrebsOnSecurity spoke with ID.me founder and CEO Blake Hall in last year’s story, How $100 Million in Jobless Claims Went to Inmates. I asked Hall what ID.me does to secure all this sensitive information it collects, which would no doubt serve as an enticing target for hackers and identity thieves.

Hall said ID.me is certified against the NIST 800-63-3 digital identity guidelines, employs multiple layers of security, and fully segregates static consumer data tied to a validated identity from a token used to represent that identity.

“We take a defense-in-depth approach, with partitioned networks, and use very sophisticated encryption scheme so that when and if there is a breach, this stuff is firewalled,” Hall said. “You’d have to compromise the tokens at scale and not just the database. We encrypt all that stuff down to the file level with keys that rotate and expire every 24 hours. And once we’ve verified you we don’t need that data about you on an ongoing basis.”

ID.me’s privacy policy states that if you sign up for ID.me “in connection with legal identity verification or a government agency we will not use your verification information for any type of marketing or promotional purposes.”

Signing up at ID.me requires users to approve a biometric data policy that states the company will not sell, lease, or trade your biometric data to any third parties or seek to derive any profit from that information. ID.me says users can delete their biometric data at any time, but there was no apparent option to do so when I logged straight into my new account at ID.me.

When I asked the support technician who conducted the video interview to remove my biometric data, he sent me a link to a process for deleting one’s ID.me account. So, it seems that removing one’s data from ID.me post-verification equals deleting one’s account, and potentially having to re-register at some point in the future.

Over the years, I’ve tried to stress the importance of creating accounts online tied to your various identity, financial and communications services before identity thieves do it for you. But all of those places where you should “Plant Your Flag” conduct identity verification in an automated fashion, using entirely static data points about consumers that have been breached many times over (SSNs, DoBs, etc).

Love it or hate it, ID.me is likely to become one of those places where Americans need to plant their flag and mark their territory, if for no other reason than it will probably be needed at some point to manage your relationship with the federal government and/or your state. And given the potential time investment needed to successfully create an ID.me account, it might be a good idea to do that before you’re forced to do so at the last minute (such as waiting until the eleventh hour to pay your quarterly or annual estimated taxes).

If you’ve visited the sign-in page at the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) lately, you’ll notice that on or around Sept. 18, 2021 the agency stopped allowing new accounts to be created with only a username and password. Anyone seeking to create an account at the SSA is now steered toward either ID.me or Login.gov, a single sign-on solution for U.S. government websites.

 ... you can learn from:

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982)

Miss Mona: Well I always just thought if you see 

somebody without a smile, give 'em yours!

Activision Blizzard has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons over the past few months, rocked by discrimination and harassment lawsuits and accusations that have even ensnared longtime CEO Bobby Kotick. Then, yesterday, we got the shocking news that Microsoft will purchase the mega publisher for nearly $70 billion. Given the timing, it’s hard not to speculate – would Activision Blizzard have been sold if the controversies of the last few months hadn’t happened? Did the pummeling Acti-Blizz has taken soften them up for acquisition? It seems the answer is “yes.”

According to a new report from Bloomberg, following reports that Bobby Kotick had personally mistreated female employees and covered the misdeeds of others, Xbox boss Phil Spencer called him to express how “deeply troubled” he was by the accusations, but also to let him know Microsoft would be willing to make an offer if the troubled company was interested in selling. As Spencer himself has admitted, things developed quickly from there, with acquisition plans forming over the course of only a couple of weeks.

That said, Kotick and the Activision Blizzard board weren’t going to automatically grab the first offer. Reportedly, calls were made to other potential buyers, including Facebook parent company Meta, but apparently Zuckerberg didn’t bite. Ultimately, the deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard was finalized over the holidays (so that recent strange interview where Spencer declined to “finger wag” Acti-Blizz leadership makes more sense).

For those who haven’t been keeping up with the accusations against Activision Blizzard, it all started when California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed suit, alleging widespread gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment at the Call of Duty publisher. You can get a lot more detail on the still-unfolding story here.

Wccftech has been covering all the specifics of the Activision Blizzard sale, including whether the company’s games will still be available on PlayStation consoles, what might happen if the deal falls apart, and more. We'll keep you covered as more developments arise.

The post Activision Blizzard Misconduct Fallout Led to Microsoft Sale, Kotick Approached Meta First by Nathan Birch appeared first on Wccftech.

When Fennec Shand was left for dead on Tatooine in "The Mandalorian," many fans of the elite mercenary were rightfully disappointed. Her appearance in the episode "The Gunslinger" felt like her first and last — actress Ming-Na Wen even confirmed that her role as Fennec was originally limited to one appearance. Wen recalled being "really persistent" over Fennec's possible survival. It helped that, in the final scene of "The Gunslinger," a faceless figure approaches Fennec's body, leaving the door wide open for a possible return.

That same scene also encouraged the theory that Boba Fett would be returning to "Star Wars," as the sight of a cape and the sound of spurs both followed the steps of the mysterious character. Questions surrounding Fennec, and the identity of her savior, would not be revealed until the second season of "The Mandalorian" — but boy, was it worth it. Not only was Boba Fett alive and well, but he had somehow managed to pull Fennec from the brink of death as well. The assassin appeared by Boba's side in "The Tragedy," and revealed that her fatal gut wound had been replaced with brand-new machinery.

But who, exactly, had performed the operation on Fennec? Had Boba somehow picked up a cybernetic nursing degree in his time on Tatooine? Those questions were left unanswered in "The Mandalorian," but "The Book of Boba Fett" has finally given context to the mystery.

Warning: spoilers follow for the latest episode of "The Book of Boba Fett."

The Beginning Of An Interesting Friendship

The fourth episode of "The Book of Boba Fett," titled "The Gathering Storm," reveals the origins of Boba and Fennec's unlikely match-up. As many fans guessed, Boba wasn't too far from the action when Fennec faced off with Din Djarin and the rookie bounty hunter Toro Calican in "The Gunslinger." Fett was on his own mission, gunning for revenge on the gang that killed his Tusken Raiders, when he caught a glimpse of the battle. By the time Boba arrived on the scene, Fennec had already been shot by Calican and abandoned in the dunes.

Boba then takes Fennec to the Mod Artist, a groovy Dr. Frankenstein-type who operates out of a cyber-modification parlor in Mos Eisley. As seen in the previous episode of "Boba Fett," the angsty teens of Tatooine have been seeking out cybernetic enhancements to rack up some burgeoning street cred. It's possible that the Mod Artist (portrayed by indie bassist and singer Thundercat) is one of a few operating across Tatooine. But he's in very high demand — he nearly turns Boba away for lack of appointment!

Fortunately, Boba is able to persuade him with a heap of credits (originally meant for the Tuskens) and the casual reminder that Fennec's life is in his hands. The modifier gets to work, and one transformation sequence later, Fennec is right as rain.

Episode 4 of "The Book of Boba Fett" is currently streaming on Disney+.

Read this next: The 12 Best Boba Fett Moments In Star Wars Shows And Movies

The post The Book of Boba Fett Episode 4 Finally Answered One of the Big Questions From The Mandalorian appeared first on /Film.

Michael Mann has been teasing some sort of prequel and/or sequel to "Heat" in book form for several years now. In 2016, word of a prequel novel first surfaced. Then, talk of a potential sequel novel followed. And now, both concepts have been combined into one book – and that book finally has a release date. Titled "Heat 2," the book was penned by Mann and Meg Gardiner, and it's now scheduled to drop in August. The book will serve as both a prequel and a sequel to Mann's 1995 crime epic that starred Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, and will both lead into the events of the 1995 film and tell us what happened afterward. But how much Waingro will the book feature? All the Waingro fans want to Wain-know! 

August 9, 2022

Released in 1995, Michael Mann's "Heat" is hailed by many (including me!) as a masterpiece. While Robert De Niro and Al Pacino both appeared in "The Godfather Part II," "Heat" marked the first time these legendary actors shared a scene together in a film. That alone was enough to drum up enough hype for "Heat." But Mann's film is so much more than that. It's a crime epic, a sprawling tale featuring a big cast of characters all operating in Los Angeles. 

And now, Mann is ready to return to that world and its characters. As I mentioned above, a "Heat" novel has been a long time coming. So long, in fact, that I started to think we'd never actually see it. That it would simply be a project Mann brought up from time to time but never actually followed through with. So I'm thrilled that I was wrong, and that the book is finally arriving this year – on August 9, 2022, to be precise. 

I guess the immediate question that follows this news is: will this book end up as a movie, too? Michael Mann sure seems to think so. In 2019, Mann teased all of this by saying:

"It's a stack about 10 inches high on my desk right now. We're on it, and I'm putting time into that and a screenplay I can't tell you about. But I absolutely want to make a movie of the Heat prequel, and a sequel."

Whether or not he follows through with a film adaptation is another story. For now, though, we should all take comfort in knowing the long-awaited book is finally on the way. 

What Is Heat 2 About?

As for the book, it's officially titled "Heat 2," with the dates "1989" and "2002" on the cover as well. See for yourself. Mann co-authored the book with Edgar Award-winning author Meg Gardiner, and the filmmaker describes the novel as "both a prequel and sequel to the renowned, critically acclaimed film of the same name, HEAT 2 covers the formative years of homicide detective Vincent Hanna (Oscar winner Al Pacino) and elite criminals Neil McCauley (Oscar winner Robert De Niro), Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer), and Nate (Oscar winner Jon Voight), and features the same extraordinary ambition, scope, rich characterizations, and attention to detail as the epic film."

The synopsis continues: 

This new story leads up to the events of the film and then moves beyond it, featuring new characters on both sides of the law, new high-line heists, and breathtakingly cinematic action sequences. Ranging from the streets of L.A. to the inner sancta of rival Taiwanese crime syndicates in Paraguay to a massive drug cartel money-laundering operation just over the border in Mexico, HEAT 2 illuminates the dangerous workings of international crime organizations and the agents who pursue them as it provides a full-blooded portrait of the men and women who inhabit both worlds. Operatic in scope, HEAT 2 is engrossing, moving, and tragic — a masterpiece of crime fiction from one of the most innovative and influential filmmakers in American cinema.

Well, that sounds pretty darn great. I can't wait to check this out this summer. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go re-watch "Heat" for the 2000th time. 

Read this next: 14 Remakes That Are Better Than The Original

The post Heat Sequel Novel From Michael Mann Finally Arriving in August appeared first on /Film.

Microsoft yesterday announced plans to buy Activision Blizzard for $69 billion (£50 billion), a staggering and un-nice quantity of money for the video games company behind Call Of Duty and Warcraft. They're buying the company at a troubled time, with multiple lawsuits alleging widespread sexual discrimination and harassment, an ongoing strike over QA layoffs, and employees publicly calling for the removal of the CEO, Bobby Kotick. A campaign group of employees known as the ABK Workers Alliance say the acquisition doesn't change their goals and there's still work to do.

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If you created an online account to manage your tax records with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), those login credentials will cease to work later this year. From a report: The agency says that by the summer of 2022, the only way to log in to irs.gov will be through ID.me, an online identity verification service that requires applicants to submit copies of bills and identity documents, as well as a live video feed of their faces via a mobile device. McLean, Va.-based ID.me was originally launched in 2010 with the goal of helping e-commerce sites validate the identities of customers who might be eligible for discounts at various retail establishments, such as veterans, teachers, students, nurses and first responders. These days, ID.me is perhaps better known as the online identity verification service that many states now use to help staunch the loss of billions of dollars in unemployment insurance and pandemic assistance stolen each year by identity thieves. The privately-held company says it has approximately 64 million users, and gains roughly 145,000 new users each day. Some 27 states already use ID.me to screen for identity thieves applying for benefits in someone else's name, and now the IRS is about to join them. The service requires applicants to supply a great deal more information than typically requested for online verification schemes, such as scans of their driver's license or other government-issued ID, copies of utility or insurance bills, and details about their mobile phone service.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The European Union is interested in building its own recursive DNS service that will be made available to EU institutions and the general public for free. From a report: The proposed service, named DNS4EU, is currently in a project planning phase, and the EU is looking for partners to help build a sprawling infrastructure to serve all its current 27 member states. EU officials said they started looking into an EU-based centrally-managed DNS service after observing consolidation in the DNS market around a small handful of non-EU operators. "The deployment of DNS4EU aims to address such consolidation of DNS resolution in the hands of few companies, which renders the resolution process itself vulnerable in case of significant events affecting one major provider," officials said in the DNS4EU infrastructure project revealed last week. But EU officials said that other factors also played a role in their decision to build DNS4EU, including cybersecurity and data privacy.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

President Biden on Wednesday expanded the National Security Agency's role in protecting the U.S. government's most sensitive computer networks, issuing a directive intended to bolster cybersecurity within the Defense Department and intelligence agencies. From a report: The memorandum signed by Mr. Biden mandates baseline cybersecurity practices and standards, such as two-factor authentication and use of encryption, for so-called national security systems, which include the Defense Department and intelligence agencies and the federal contractors that support them. It effectively aligns the cybersecurity standards imposed on national security agencies with those previously established for civilian agencies under an executive order Mr. Biden signed last May. Affected agencies will soon be expected to implement various cybersecurity protocols, including use of certain cloud technologies and software that can detect security problems on a network. Cybersecurity failures have plagued the U.S. government for decades, including thefts of detailed personnel records and military secrets that have been blamed on Russia, China and other adversaries. While national security agencies are generally seen as more secure than their civilian counterparts, they have endured significant breaches, too.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

X2b5Ysb8 shares a report from ABC News: California prosecutors have filed two counts of vehicular manslaughter against the driver of a Tesla on Autopilot who ran a red light, slammed into another car and killed two people in 2019. The defendant appears to be the first person to be charged with a felony in the United States for a fatal crash involving a motorist who was using a partially automated driving system. Los Angeles County prosecutors filed the charges in October, but they came to light only last week. The driver, Kevin George Aziz Riad, 27, has pleaded not guilty. Riad, a limousine service driver, is free on bail while the case is pending. The misuse of Autopilot, which can control steering, speed and braking, has occurred on numerous occasions and is the subject of investigations by two federal agencies. The filing of charges in the California crash could serve notice to drivers who use systems like Autopilot that they cannot rely on them to control vehicles. The criminal charges aren't the first involving an automated driving system, but they are the first to involve a widely used driver technology.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

What is it that makes so many people scared of clowns? Is it their greasy white face paint? Their oddly child-like voices? Whatever the case, clowns have become a staple of the horror genre over time thanks to works like Stephen King's "IT." Written in 1986, the novel centers on Pennywise the Dancing Clown, an ancient shape-shifting creature that emerges from hibernation every 27 years to feed upon the unsuspecting children of Derry, Maine. Four years after its publication, King's book was famous turned into a TV miniseries starring Tim Curry as Pennywise. In the hands of the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" icon, the character was funny, outlandish, and more than a little disturbing, even when he wasn't snacking on kids.

Suffice it to say, Curry left some big shoes to fill when King's story made the jump to the silver screen with what would become the first of two movies based on his novel in 2017. The films' director, Andy Muschietti, ultimately entrusted Bill Skarsgård with the job of portraying the new Pennywise, at a time when the Swedish actor was only really known for playing the role of Roman Godfrey on the Netflix horror series "Hemlock Grove." Fortunately, Skarsgård knew better than to try to beat Curry at his own game and took his own approach to the character.

"He's Very Child-Like"

Where Curry's Pennywise had a deep, raspy voice and seemed very grown-up, Skarsgård's take on the character was much more child-like. He would speak in a higher-pitched tone and often keep his eyes wide-open in a way that made him come across as both innocent and creepy at the same time. This also made him very unsettling to watch, even when he auditioned for Pennywise without any of his makeup or his costume on. As Muschietti put it:

"There was a strange balance that [Skarsgård] brought, a strange energy, because he's very child-like. He has these big eyes [and a] sort of childish cute face, but he brings a darkness that is very unsettling. He can play this ambiguity, this dichotomy very well, it comes very easy to him. He understands it."

While he might've been perfectly scary on his own, Skarsgård felt that he didn't really have a firm lock on how to play the role until he wore his entire Pennywise getup for the first time. As the actor explained:

"It was hard for me to figure out what the character looked or moved like or anything because such a big part of it is the makeup and the costume, and I didn't know what that would be or how it would look or how it would feel to have on you. So, going into it, I kind of really broke down the character intellectually, like what I think this entity is, but I couldn't really physically become him until I got all the makeup and the costume on. So that was a very important piece to me."

Skarsgard's Career Since Then

Upon its release, Muschietti's first "IT" movie was a smash-hit, grossing over $700 million at the box office. It also opened to strong reviews, with critics praising Skarsgård for making the role of Pennywise his own and not repeating what Curry did. Two years later, Muschietti and Warner Bros. would return with "IT Chapter Two," a followup in which the now-grownup heroes from the earlier film are forced to return to Derry when Pennywise awakens from his slumber. Reviews were less kind this time around, but the movie was once again a commercial success and kept Skarsgård's star on the up and up.

Shortly after playing Pennywise for the first time, Skarsgård found himself in much greater demand. He would go on to star in Hulu's "Castle Rock," a series inspired by Stephen King's work in which Skarsgård played a mysterious inmate at Shawshank State Penitentiary known as "The Kid." The actor has since branched out beyond the world of horror with roles in films like "Deadpool 2" and "The Devil All the Time." Most recently, Skarsgård lent his voice to the movie "Eternals" as Kro, a villainous Deviant who does battle with the titular superheroes.

Up next, Skarsgård will add yet another franchise to his belt when he stars opposite Keanu Reeves in the forthcoming "John Wick: Chapter 4." At the moment, it's unclear whether Skarsgård's character will be Mr. Wick's friend or foe — but if he is playing a bad guy then he's bound to be a chilling one, even without his Pennywise makeup to assist him.

Read this next: The 15 Best Kaiju Films Ranked

The post Bill Skarsgard Was Just As Creepy Without The Pennywise Makeup appeared first on /Film.

LinkedIn is one of the largest career-focused sites on the internet. It provides a platform for job seekers to showcase their skills and get within arm's length of recruiters in their industry.

The Morning Brew: As Frank Herbert wrote in Dune, "The real universe is always one step beyond logic." Case in point: a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) spent $3 million on a rare copy of a proposed Dune adaptation, allegedly with the misguided idea that owning the book would also grant them the rights to its content. Some background: In 1974, director Alejandro Jodorowsky printed 20 copies of an exhaustive book that contained the script and concept art for his 14-hour film adaptation of Herbert's Dune. This film was ultimately scrapped, due to its budget, but the book became the stuff of legend. Fast forward to November 2021 and Spice DAO, a blockchain collective, bought a copy of the book at auction for $3 million, around 100x its expected price. On Sunday, the DAO tweeted that they intended to do three things with the book: 1. Make it public 2. Produce an animated series based on it 3. Support community projects An inspiring plan, with a few major roadblocks: 1) Spice DAO only purchased the book, not the rights to its content, which would be needed to create an animated series. 2) The book is already public, and available to browse on Google Photos.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It is not tomato season. Unless you are in the southern hemisphere, you have absolutely no business buying beefsteak tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, or really any tomato other than the little bitty ones. I know you can acquire Vine Ripe and Roma tomatoes with ease during the winter months, but let’s be real: They suck.

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Accidently included a stray "f" that broke the main desktop play shortcut in the last release. Whoops! Don't really want to do it, but also no longer having DXT selected by default. On further thought I realized the in hindsight obvious fact that people playing in other languages might not realize it's being installed.... due the the lack of other language setup translations. (Will look into machine translations / re-working old translations for now, hopefully eventually get / re-contact human translators.) It mostly works with translations, but some strings are missing. (Except Japanese, which more like a port. Most mods don't work with it.) I'd hate to cause confusion, so assuming a "blindly clicking next" install by default for all languages and supporting that first most. I still really recommend at least English players use it by default, every language user if they don't mind / understand about the missing strings! Really is just fantastic!

Microsoft calls it a metaverse move, but it's also 2022's most overused term.

Heise.de has reported that users of Intel's 11 and 12th generation core processors cannot play UHD Blu-ray discs due to the halt of support located in the SGX instruction set. The reasoning for Intel to stop allowing for the playback of the Blu-ray technology on those two generations is that the system believes that there is a security vulnerability at hand, causing the disc to be unable to be read.

Blu-ray discs are incapable of being watched on Intel Rocket Lake & Alder Lake-based systems due to high-security risks found by individual plans.

The playback of UHD Blu-ray discs utilizes hugely high requirements. First, the disc searches to find if it meets the compatibility requirements given by the system processor. Then, the disc must ensure that several digital rights management technologies are in place, such as advanced access content system (AACS 2.0 ) copy protection, high bandwidth digital content protection (HDCP 2.2), and Intel's SGX technology.

Breaking down the three technology protections in further detail,

• Advanced Access Content System, or AACS, is a form of copy protection for Blu-ray discs issued by the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administration (AACS LA). AACS allows access for Blu-Ray players with a specific set of encryption keys. If any of those keys become compromised, AACS can be revised. Currently, AACS is on version 2.2.
• High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection, or HDCP, is the standard for copy and content protection set by the television and film industry. HDCP is on HDMI connections for devices, such as Blu-ray players, digital cable boxes, and numerous streaming devices.
• Intel SGX is the company's in-house hardware-based encryption, allowing users to protect their sensitive data by positioning it into a highly secured territory within the system's memory. The process encrypts memory areas using security instructions that are indictive to the CPU. The Blu-Ray Association currently requires all processors to support Intel SGX technology.

Intel offers SGX support for the company's sixth-generation core processors up to the tenth-generation core chips. However, both 11th Gen Core Rocket Lake and the current 12th Gen Core Alder Lake processors have never offered support for SGX, which is causing many UHD Blu-ray users to be unable to play their discs on their newer systems.

Intel has never addressed why they halted support for the SGX technology in the last to processor families. It is possible that due to security vulnerabilities found when accessing the information on ultra high definition Blu-ray discs, the system was finding more false attributes, causing high levels of incompatibility. Instead of altering the SGX encryption technology, Intel has deleted it on their last two generations of processors. This step has caused computer users to be unable to play Blu-ray discs on their systems and either pay for a standard Blu-ray player or opt into streaming movies and television shows online.

The post Intel Rocket Lake & Alder Lake CPUs are incapable of playing Blu-ray discs due to security vulnerabilities by Jason R. Wilson appeared first on Wccftech.

Chip designer NVIDIA Corporation is intent on taking the ball to chip behemoth Intel Corporation's proverbial court when it comes to developing central processing units (CPUs). NVIDIA is the world's largest graphics processing unit (GPU) designer and is widely credited to ve invented the modern day GPU. Advances in semiconductor fabrication and the growth in data generated by corporations and consumers have resulted in the GPU playing a major role in large scale enterprise use cases such as data centers, and recent market surveys have demonstrated that NVIDIA is a leading player in the data center GPU market.

However, the company lacks a product in the data center CPU segment, and at this front, it is ardently striving to acquire British design house Arm Ltd. However, the acquisition attempt is not proceeding according to NVIDIA's hopes, yet the company is aggressively pushing forward to develop a datacenter CPU. This is evidenced by a new research and development center set up by NVIDIA in Israel, which will expand the facilities to include CPU research as well.

Has Its Arm Acquisition Setback Made NVIDIA Consider Alternatives To Generate Inroads In Datacenter CPU Industry?

This bit of news reported Globes and the Times of Israel outlines that the U.S. chip company has grown its R&D activities in the Middle Eastern country to also focus on CPUs. They quote NVIDIA's chief technology officer, Mr. Michael Kagan, as stating:

“Israel, with its unique wealth of talent, is a key player in the global tech ecosystem, and we are excited to be creating a new CPU group here,” said Michael Kagan, Nvidia’s chief technology officer in a statement Tuesday. “We look forward to further growing our local R&D activities both in this area and in our extensive work supporting the local ecosystem through unique programs for startups and developers,”

NVIDIA announced its first CPU, codenamed Grace, in April last year. Grace will be available exclusively to data center customers, and it will be designed using the Arm instruction set architecture (ISA).

The announcement of expanding R&D in Israel comes as America's largest chip designer in terms of market capitalization continues to face hurdles in multiple jurisdictions for its multi billion dollar bid to acquire British design house Arm Ltd. NVIDIA announced the deal in September 2020, and the deal is facing close scrutiny in the United States and the United Kingdom.

American watchdog, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proceeded with legal action against NVIDIA for partaking in a deal that the FTC believes would generate serious anticompetitive outcomes. Similarly, the British Competiton and Markets Authority (CMA) has also raised concerns that the deal will place Arm's customers, many of which compete with NVIDIA, at a disadvantage since the GPU designer will be able to prevent them from acquiring the British company's designs which have become ubiquitous in the technology industry.

NVIDIA has rejected these claims in its latest filing with the CMA. The company believes that instead of generating anticompetitive externalities, its acquisition bid will ensure that Arm is able to compete in the data center CPU market. NVIDIA believes that Intel Corporation and other companies such as Qualcomm Incorporated do not want the deal to go ahead since together NVIDIA and Arm will be able to create an alternative for Intel's x86 CPUs for data center use. Additionally, it has also stated to the CMA that should the affair not proceed, then Arm will have little incentive to develop data center technologies, which will in turn cement Intel's position in the segment as the world's largest data center CPU provider.

The post NVIDIA Refuses To Yield To Setbacks With Arm Deal & Expands CPU Design Facilities by Ramish Zafar appeared first on Wccftech.

[UPDATE] Head of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer reinforced the below plan in a statement shared by Bloomberg.

I’ll just say to players out there who are playing Activision Blizzard games on Sony’s platform: It’s not our intent to pull communities away from that platform and we remained committed to that.

This is in addition to the tidbit he wrote in the announcement blog post on Xbox Wire.

Activision Blizzard games are enjoyed on a variety of platforms and we plan to continue to support those communities moving forward.

It does sound like at least some of Activision Blizzard's games will still be available on PlayStation platforms, though which ones and for how long, it's hard to say.

[ORIGINAL STORY] As you may have heard, Microsoft just turned up the heat on the console wars in the biggest way possible, by purchasing Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 billion. So, does that mean massive franchises like Call of Duty and Diablo are now exclusive to the Xbox brand? Well, not necessarily – according to a Bloomberg report on the mega merger, Microsoft is planning to “keep making some of Activision’s games for PlayStation consoles,” while others will become Xbox exclusives.

For what it’s worth, industry insider Jeff Grubb thinks the core Call of Duty games will indeed go Xbox exclusive, while Warzone will remain multiplatform.

OK. Fine. I'll do the damn discourse. Warzone will remain multiplatform, but I think main Call of Duty games go exclusive. Microsoft already ran the numbers on every scenario with Bethesda and it determined exclusivity to Game Pass is the best way to drive its goals.

— Jeff Grubb (@JeffGrubb) January 18, 2022

Of course, Grubb is largely speculating – nobody really saw this coming – but I pretty much agree with his assessment. Looking at what Microsoft did with Bethesda is informative I think. With that purchase, they honored previously-signed deals (Deathloop, Ghostwire: Tokyo) and left games that were already on other platforms alone, but new stuff went exclusive. In the short term, would continuing to put Call of Duty on everything make Microsoft more money? Probably, but they’re not thinking short term. They’re laser focused on the long-term success of Xbox Game Pass, and I don’t think there’s a single thing in this industry that could drive more subs than Xbox exclusivity and a Day 1 Game Pass release for CoD.

Of course, California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) has filed suit against Activision Blizzard, alleging widespread gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment at the Call of Duty publisher. You can get more detail on that unfolding story here. Despite this, Bobby Kotick is reportedly staying on as Acti-Blizz CEO until this deal closes in 2023.

So, what are your thoughts on this whole crazy situation? Which Activision Blizzard games are going Xbox exclusive? Is it time for Call of Duty fans to trade in the PlayStation controller?

The post Microsoft Reportedly Keeping Some Activision Games on PlayStation, Others Xbox Exclusive by Nathan Birch appeared first on Wccftech.

With the release of a brand new Scream, we’re all excited for this latest installment from one of our favorite online slashers. From cool new movie posters to Ghostface thirst traps on TikTok (I checked them out..you know, for research), Ghostface is on everyone’s radar. As good and as silly as the Scream franchise is, the story is based on a kernel of fact. The new Shock Docs installment SCREAM: THE TRUE STORY delves into the fiction to find the true story behind the mask. 

I want to preface this by saying that SCREAM: THE TRUE STORY follows the killings of The Gainesville Ripper, Danny Rolling. Rolling murdered 5 college students over the period of four days in 1990, as well as a triple murder years earlier. This is not to be confused by the “Scream Murder” of Cassie Jo Stoddart who was brutally murdered by two teen boys to emulate the films. Rolling inspired the story while the story inspired the killing of Stoddart. 

As I sat and watched the introduction to SCREAM: THE TRUE STORY, my murderino heart got excited because I love a good true-crime documentary to tell me facts that I may now know. Subsequently, my heart was then stepped on by the fact that this documentary detailing the killings will also include…wait for it…a ghost hunt. Don’t get me wrong.I love a paranormal investigation just as much as the next paranerd, more even. I’ve been watching ghost shows since the ’90s and I have seen every episode of Ghost Hunters, but there’s nothing more disappointing when you snuggle down for a solid true-crime documentary only to find yourself watching a duo screaming into the void, asking for ghost communication. The disappointment in my living room was palpable. 

The reason that SCREAM: THE TRUE STORY is so paranormal heavy is that Rolling claimed to be possessed by a demon named Gemini, and that’s why he killed those students. Steve Shippy and psychic-medium Cindy Kaza want to investigate if Rolling was actually possessed and if he was, when did it happen. You have to know, the moment that phrase left Shippy’s lips, I had to pause the video and sit with my eyes closed for a moment. I took a meditative moment to prepare myself for what I was getting into before pressing play again. I love a great paranormal show. Kindred Spirits is incredible and the revival of Ghost Hunters is a must-watch in my house. I watch more paranormal reality TV than anything I’d say. HOWEVER, it just seems so disrespectful to Rolling’s victims to lean in on his possession claims instead of calling it like it is. Danny Rolling was a sick individual who chose to murder. Nothing made him do it. That being said, I had to give SCREAM: THE TRUE STORY a fair shake, no matter how badly it hurt. 

The documentary starts with an investigation of Danny’s old campsite and the usual paranormal buzzwords abound: demons, rituals, etc. Kaza immediately focuses on Rolling’s father as being also possessed and passing the demon to Danny. Sprinkled in is the retelling of the abuse that Danny faced at the hands of his father. Look, I get the reason we want all this to be because of an evil entity; we don’t want to believe that people can be that evil on their own, but SCREAM: THE TRUE STORY tries to make Danny into such a victim. Sure, he was a victim of his father’s abuse, but committing murder and sexual assault diminishes that victimhood. Kaza kept saying that Rolling was out of control of his body which takes away any responsibility for the murders he committed, and that pissed me off the most. 

If this was purely a paranormal documentary about a haunted hotel or a ghost ship, then I would watch this documentary with glee and drink it all in. The documentary is well made, albeit there’s a lot of “spooky” face lighting during the investigation. I just find this particular documentary to be extremely disrespectful to the victims of this murderer. Taking away his responsibility, making Danny a victim, and presuming to know what it was like in the head of Rolling was just too much. I’m not saying that paranormal investigation shouldn’t be done of victims and murderers, but I am saying that trying to prove a possession in the face of a brutal serial killer is just flat-out disrespectful to the victims. Gemini was more than likely the fragment of a broken mind and his way to compartmentalize his own trauma and actions but they WERE his actions. Period. The devil didn’t make Danny do it. 

If you like melodramatic investigations that may make your eyes roll so hard you’ll give yourself a migraine and you don’t take the content seriously, you’ll probably get a kick out of SCREAM: THE TRUE STORY. If you are like me and were hoping for an actual in-depth look at the true events that inspired a franchise, you’re not going to find that here. This documentary is a cash grab on the Scream franchise and disrespectful to the victims who were killed by a real, human monster and not an inherited demon. End of story.

SCREAM: THE TRUE STORY is now available to watch on discovery+, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The post [Documentary Review] SCREAM: THE TRUE STORY appeared first on Nightmarish Conjurings.

The first two seasons of SERVANT have taken viewers on a labyrinth journey of mystery. It’s been like peeling an onion with no end. The answers we’ve received thus far have led to further questions, and the mystery surrounding Leanne Grayson and Jericho continues to deepen. After the climactic season finale, the third season of SERVANT seems poised to address Leanne’s impending reckoning. What will the cult do with her once they get their hands on her? And what exactly has she opened herself up to with her choices? Season 3 may attempt to provide us with answers. As a general disclosure, this review is based on the first five episodes that were provided in advance by Apple TV+.

Season 3 takes place roughly three months after the events of Season 2. Much like last season, the third season of SERVANT has a learning curve for unfamiliar viewers, so I’d definitely recommend doing a re-watch of the first two seasons before leaping right in. Despite what everyone had to face last season, for the bulk of the characters, a sense of normalcy has taken root in the brownstone. Dorothy (Lauren Ambrose) and Sean (Toby Kebbell) are busy doting on the returned Jericho. Julian (Rupert Grint) is sober and has a new girlfriend (Sunita Mani). For Leanne (Nell Tiger Free), however, the weight of her actions has started to tear her apart. And her fears that the cult is after her have begun to disrupt the fragile normal that the family has desperately tried to put back together. Her fears, though, are not unfounded.

Viewers see an entirely different side of Leanne in SERVANT Season 3. While Nell Tiger Free was a noticeable standout in the first two seasons, this season she claims that focus and drags it out into the light. In the grips of paranoia, Free hits all the different nuances that come with portraying anxiety, fear, and paranoia. We see Leanne unravel, losing control as fear takes hold. We’re easily there with her in these moments, and empathy is easily formed despite the actions that led her to this part. Deliciously complex and showing viewers a different side this season, Nell Tiger Free’s Leanne Grayson is still easily the most intriguing character of this series.

Once again, viewers see how the family she has claimed so desperately as her own, isn’t quite there to support her in these moments.  This season, though, all of the toxicity that viewers have seen develop between Leanne Grayson, Sean, Julian, and Dorothy may finally be coming to a head. Should they actually face consequences, it’ll be a much-needed dose of reality. After the events of last season and the lengths the Turners went to get Jericho back,  I do wonder how long will audiences be willing to invest in a class of characters that seem so oblivious to their own privilege and how fucked up their actions really hard. An overarching note so far over the course of SERVANT, the word ”reckoning’ can be applied here. Given where we are left off with by the end of episode 5, it is too soon to say what uncomfortable discussions will be had by the characters.

A note that I have not made from previous seasons regards the overall consistency in look, feel, and tone. With the giant group of writers, directors, and more involved in bringing SERVANT to life, it’s a devil’s task to maintain a certain level of cohesion. However, having watched the series back to back, there is no glitch in the Matrix that I can pick up where the tone or the aesthetics diverges off the path. Even as we explore the outside of the brownstone this season, it doesn’t read visually off-kilter in part due to the extension of Leanne’s fear when she enters the outside world as well as how shots are framed, sound is edited in, etc. It may seem like no big deal to point out, but given the specific tone the show has established from early on, any wibbly wobblies might detract away from the overall finished product.

The past seasons of SERVANT have been consistent in terms of execution, look, tone, and performance. The writing has managed to keep viewers hooked with its spiraling mysteries, with more questions cropping up as soon as we have answers. For myself, the investment is still worth it in part due to the strength of the writing as well as what we’ve seen from the performers onscreen. Nell Tiger Free, Tobey Kebbell, Lauren Ambrose, and Rupert Grint all bring incredibly flawed characters to life onscreen, with the latter two having the additional challenge of veering into unlikable territory due to their characters’ insecurities and narcissism. There’s not much that can be criticized from my perspective. With all that said, though, the question I have is how long can we invest in this family that has yet to truly receive unadulterated judgment raining down on them from on high? As of now, I’m not so sure.

SERVANT Season 3 will debut with the first episode on Friday, January 21, 2022, on Apple TV+. To learn more, check out our reviews of season one and season two!

The post [Series Review] SERVANT Season 3 appeared first on Nightmarish Conjurings.

Well what a news to drop on a Tuesday morning. Microsoft is going to acquire Activision Blizzard making it another huge company to join Microsoft Games. Last year, Microsoft acquired Bethesda and now, Microsoft will be the owner of the Call of Duty, Warcraft, Overwatch, and Candy Crush franchises to name a few.

That's just a huge get for them provided this all goes through. With the acquisition, they would be behind Tencent and Sony as the third largest gaming company by revenue. Whew!

Needless to say, you can probably see the popular Call of Duty series become an Xbox exclusive. Blizzard has some games that are on the PlayStation, but I wouldn't be surprised of Diablo 4 also becomes an Xbox exclusive.

Now, will Sony start doing a few things to counter these Microsoft moves? We've heard rumors of them coming out with their own Xbox Game Pass competitor.

Saying this is huge is an understatement. Microsoft's really pushing their gaming division and acquiring one of the largest gaming companies is going to have such a huge ripple effect that I can't wait to see what comes out of this in the next year and more.

"Peacemaker" recently dropped its first three episodes on HBO Max and it's just as wacky and wild as everyone was hoping it would be! However, like James Gunn's other work, the series is more than just crazy fun: it also injects a surprising amount of heart into these installments. Some fans wondered why, out of all the standout characters in "The Suicide Squad," John Cena's Chris Smith was the one most deserving of a spinoff? "Peacemaker" not only answers this question rather gleefully, but also pushes the boundaries of superhero television while it's doing so.

"Peacemaker" follows the immediate aftermath of "The Suicide Squad" for Chris Smith, who returns home from the hospital only to be forced back into Amanda Waller's (Viola Davis) employ in order to maintain his freedom. Gunn has put together another lovable crew of misfits that includes fellow masked goofball Vigilante (Freddie Stroma), "The Suicide Squad" alums Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and John Economos (Steve Agee), team leader Clemson Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji), and newcomer Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), who isn't exactly what she seems.

This wouldn't be a James Gunn project if it didn't include some of the more obscure characters from DC Comics. Spoilers ahead, but aside from introducing White Dragon and Judomaster in the show's first three episodes, there was one character who was only mentioned that happened to catch the attention of fans. So, who was named dropped in "Peacemaker" episode 2, "Best Friends, For Never?"

Bat-Mite To The Rescue!

The conversation takes place while Economos patches up Chris' wounds from the previous episode and the two start bickering — how many times can a man endure being called "dye-beard?" Economos makes it clear that he would rather work with pretty much anyone over Peacemaker, including Harley Quinn, the Weasel and ... Bat-Mite! Of course, Chris asks for more info about the latter and Economos explains that he's a "two-foot-tall interdimensional imp who stans Batman." Gunn even took to Twitter to confirm that Bite-Mite is now canon.

One of the more bizarre pieces of the Dark Knight's history, Bat-Mite is, indeed, a reality-warping imp who has an obsession with Batman. He was created in 1959 by Bill Finger and Sheldon Moldoff and made his first appearance in "Detective Comics" #267. If you're a bigger fan of Superman, you may be more familiar with Mr. Mxyzptlk, another interdimensional imp — created in 1944 — who antagonizes the Man of Steel. However, while Bat-Mite adores and wants to help Batman (even if he usually turns out to be a hindrance), Mxyzptlk loves tormenting Superman. Still, the two imps have teamed up on multiple occasions.

It's likely we'll never actually see Bat-Mite appear onscreen, though I'm hesitant to rule out anything completely with Gunn, who not only brought T.D.K. to life (however briefly), but also made viewers truly care about Polka-Dot Man and Ratcatcher 2 in "The Suicide Squad." Gunn also famously turned the Guardians of the Galaxy into household names, whose most beloved characters include a talking tree and an anthropomorphic raccoon. Point being, Bat-Mite officially exists in the DCEU, so there's always a possibility we'll see him someday!

Read this next: The 15 Best Batman: The Animated Series Episodes

The post Peacemaker Just Let Us Know This Bizarre Character Exists in the DCEU appeared first on /Film.

Gates McFadden wasn't incredibly happy with the way her character was written on "Star Trek: The Next Generation." McFadden played Dr. Beverly Crusher on six of the show's seven seasons, and reprised the role for four feature films, but the arc of her character was, as she recently confessed to Scott Collura at IGN, ultimately unsatisfying. 

Dr. Crusher often held the moral line on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," speaking up what is ethically sound when other characters may have been lost in personal passion or a cold devotion to diplomacy. At the start of the show, it was also heavily implied that she and Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) were developing a complicated romance; complicated because Picard was responsible for the away mission that caused Dr. Crusher's husband's death. 

The issue with playing a character that has well-developed morals and who is marked by her emotional maturity is that it is difficult to find a way for that character to grow. As such, many of the writers on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" were at a loss with Beverly Crusher. One producer in particular, Maurice Hurley, also seemed to have it out for McFadden, replacing Dr. Crusher with a much more Dr. McCoy-like character, Dr. Pulaski ("Star Trek" veteran Diana Muldaur), for the show's second season. 

McFadden was open about her disappointment with Dr. Crusher. 

New To Hollywood

Acting on a long-running hit show can be a blessing and a curse. One can be grateful for the high profile and the steady work, but there may also be a sense of audiences -- and writers -- wanting to maintain the status quo. McFadden's disappointment in the arc of Dr. Crusher came from too much of the latter, leaving her less than satisfied. "I mean, of course I wasn't," she said. "There were things that I adored that were written that I was able to do. And then there were just vast tundras." The writers seemed to want another Leonard "Bones" McCoy:

"I think obviously it was very problematic that when I wasn't there second season, and they had Diana Muldaur's character, it was very clear to me that they wanted her. They wanted someone to sort of go back to Bones. They thought that was easier to write for. And then when that didn't work out, I came back."

But even after she came back, the writers still wanted another Bones:

"But really, most of the scripts had come in and they were more that character. So it was a struggle ... on and off there would be an occasional episode that someone would have written for my character, like "Remember Me." That was fantastic. And I loved "The High Ground," where it was about terrorism. ... And that was banned in England."

What She Wish She Had Known

Looking back, however, McFadden realizes that she perhaps needed to be more active in the creative process and to learn the gentle art of schmoozing.

"I didn't understand that there is a process," she said, adding:

"So you go and you have lunch with the writers and you tell them your ideas and do things like that. I didn't realize that's what you did. And people who knew better really were able to make connections and come up with ideas. I wish I had done that. I think it would have been much smarter for me because actually the writers were all terrific, except for Maurice Hurley who was the only one I didn't get along with."

McFadden also was far more accustomed to speaking up. She majored in theater in college, and studied in Paris with Jacque Lecoq. She was a movement coach on several Jim Henson productions, including "Labyrinth." She had also paid her dues in Hollywood (well, New Jersey) by appearing in a Troma film. She was used to a more open, frank communication between producers and actors. She figures that's why Hurley had such problems with her:

[H]e got rid of me, but that's because I would speak up. If I thought something was racist or sexist, I would just say it. I was used to that, having taught at a university for years. You speak up. And that's not the way you do it in Hollywood. So I wish I'd been a little more savvy, or a lot more savvy.

All Good Things...

The final episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," titled "All Good Things...," was where McFadden feels everything finally fell into place. The story took us into the near future, where meet Dr. Crusher, having married and divorced Captain Picard, now captains her own starship. It wasn't just a great place for the character to end up, but was satisfying for McFadden's view of her character:

"By the end, I really was getting some beautiful Crusher scripts. Obviously, you have to share [credit]. But look at the last double episode. I mean, how beautiful was that? Every single person had a beautiful arc and it was very moving. I thought it was quite wonderful. I think it was better than some of our movies, to be honest. ... It's always a difficult thing. People want to have a big sci-fi idea, which is important. But I think our cast was also beloved because they liked our characters and the way we interacted."

McFadden is currently hosting her own podcast called "Gates McFadden InvestiGates: Who Do You Think You Are?," produced by the people behind "The Toys That Made Us" and featuring interviews with the actors and crewpeople she's worked with. 

Read this next: Star Trek: The Next Generation's 10 Best Episodes

The post What Gates McFadden Wishes She Knew Before Joining Star Trek: The Next Generation appeared first on /Film.