Group chats, including at least one of mine, can’t get enough. #KateGate—loosely, a collection of theories around the whereabouts and well-being of Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales—presently seems to be occupying more brain cells than oxygen. Gossip has been flying ever since January, when Middleton took a step back from public life for abdominal … Read more
“Most of these push notifications went to minor children, and these minor children were flooding our offices with phone calls,” Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois told CBS News. “Basically they pick up the phone, call the office, and say, ‘What is a congressman? What is Congress?’ They had no idea what was going on.” Maybe … Read more
Several people are typing, and they’re all saying Netflix’s Leave the World Behind is wildly prescient. The movie, directed by Sam Esmail, opens on a world where communication has been knocked out following a cyberattack. And earlier this week, when nearly all of Meta’s platforms—Facebook, Instagram, Threads—went down, people took to (other) social media platforms … Read more
The second part of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune adaptation, efficiently titled Dune: Part Two, contains a single line that is as much about fans of Frank Herbert’s book as it is about its protagonist, Paul Atreides. It’s delivered by Chani, Paul’s concubine in Herbert’s novel and equal/skeptic in Villeneuve’s meticulously crafted reimagining. “You want to control … Read more
Charlotte is the TikTok generation’s Virgin Mary. Only she’s not human, and she’s carrying up to four messiahs. For a brief moment, some wondered aloud whether Charlotte, a round stingray about the size of a serving platter, might have been knocked up by a shark. She has been in a tank in Hendersonville, North Carolina, … Read more
“Biggest audience since the moon landing.” That was the headline when Nielsen released viewership numbers for Super Bowl 2024. About 123.7 million people in the US watched the game, more than any other game since Nielsen started keeping track and, yes, close to the 125 to 150 million people in the US who watched the … Read more
Over the past two weeks, Taylor Swift has made headlines dozens of times. Only one, maybe two of those instances have been because of something she actually did. Her music getting removed from TikTok? That was a disagreement between Universal Music Group and the app itself. Her songs getting boosted illegally? That was pirates. Explicit … Read more
Netflix didn’t come to play. Neither did YouTube. Following the Apple Vision Pro’s big preorder rollout two weeks ago, news slowly started to trickle out that neither of those video services would have native apps on Apple’s new spatial computing device. Netflix’s co-CEO, Greg Peters, went on a podcast and wondered aloud if the Vision … Read more
“The reality is a lot of people have one streaming platform, maybe two, but not all of them,” Chatterley says. “The thing about piracy is, it’s really just people wanting to consume content. They’re not doing it for the act of piracy; they’re being driven by marketing on other things that drive legal consumption.” Think … Read more
Pea-Max? Para-flix? Regardless of what portmanteau they might end up with, odds are good that streaming services are going to spend a bit of time merging in 2024. Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount were already talking about it at the end of last year, continuing the trend that started when WarnerMedia and Discovery merged in … Read more