Amazon has released its first teaser video for Like A Dragon: Yakuza, its live action adaptation of SEGA's Yakuza games, at San Diego Comic-Con. There's a lot of focus on the inking process of Kazuma Kiryu's iconic dragon tattoo, but you'll also get glimpses of Kamurocho's night scene, various characters in the series and the underground fight club that shows up as a mini-game across the franchise. In the last few seconds of the video, you'll see a shirtless Kiryu heading to a circle of cheering viewers betting on his match.
When the company announced the show in June, it described the adaptation as a "crime-suspense-action series" that "follows the life, childhood friends, and repercussions of the decisions of Kazuma Kiryu, a fearsome and peerless Yakuza warrior with a strong sense of justice, duty, and humanity." Seeing as the show is set between 1995 and 2005, it will most like be based on the first Yakuza game with glimpses of the years that took place after the events in Yakuza 0.
The first three of episodes of Like A Dragon: Yakuza will arrive on Prime Video on October 24, with the next three coming on October 31. It stars Ryoma Takeuchi (Kamen Rider Drive, Roppongi Class) as Kiryu. And as this teaser has revealed, his best friend Nishiki, who plays a pivotal role in the story, will be portrayed by Kento Kaku (Netflix's House of Ninjas).
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-drops-the-first-teaser-for-its-upcoming-yakuza-adaptation-110442602.html?src=rss
A new government program is trying to encourage Internet service providers (ISPs) to offer lower rates for lower income customers by distributing federal funds through states. The only problem is the ISPs dont want to offer the proposed rates.
Ars Technica obtained a letter sent to US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo signed by more than 30 broadband industry trade groups like ACA Connects and the Fiber Broadband Association as well as several state based organizations. The letter raises both a sense of alarm and urgency about their ability to participate in the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. The newly formed BEAD program provides over $42 billion in federal funds to expand high-speed internet access by funding planning, infrastructure, deployment and adoption programs in states across the country, according to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
The money first goes to the NTIA and then its distributed to states after they obtain approval from the NTIA by presenting a low-cost broadband Internet option. The ISP industries letter claims a fixed rate of $30 per month for high speed Internet access is completely unmoored from the economic realities of deploying and operating networks in the highest-cost, hardest-to-reach areas.
The letter urges the NTIA to revise the low-cost service option rate proposed or approved so far. Twenty-six states have completed all of the BEAD programs phases.
Americans pay an average of $89 a month for Internet access. New Jersey has the highest average bill at $126 per month, according to a survey conducted by U.S. News and World Report. A 2021 study from the Pew Research Center found that 57 percent of households with an annual salary of $30,000 or less have a broadband connection.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/isps-are-fighting-to-raise-the-price-of-low-income-broadband-220620369.html?src=rss
The Boys may be one season away from ending but its not done caking your screens with blood and torn muscle tissue. Cast member Jensen Ackles who plays Soldier Boy on The Boys revealed at the San Diego Comic-Con that Amazon will produce a prequel of the superhero show called Vought Rising.
The new prequel will take place in the 1950s during the early days of the evil Vought empire, the mega conglomerate that runs the entire superhero industry in The Boys universe. The new series will show the early exploits of characters like Soldier Boy and the almost-immortal Nazi supe Stormfront played by Aya Cash. The story will revolve around some kind of twisted murder mystery about the origins of Vought, according to executive producer Eric Kripke and showrunner and executive producer Paul Grellong.
Vought Rising sounds like a reimagining of Watchmen without the brooding and self-importance. Thats not to say Watchmen is bad. Those things and its brutal honesty about the nature of its characters are what makes it great but would it kill Rorschach to make just one curse-laden pop culture reference?
The Boys has become Amazons Game of Thrones. Even when the main series ends, it wont be the last we hear from it. The same Comic-Con panel also revealed its college themed spinoff Gen V is getting another season, according to GamesRadar+. Theres also another spinoff in development called The Boys: Mexico with Diego Luna, Gael García Bernal and Blue Beetle writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, according to Deadline.
Theres also The Boys Presents: Diabolical, the animated anthology series in which some of the original series writers and producers like Garth Ennis and Seth Rogen and special guest stars like Awkwafina and Andy Samberg penned original stories about supes and presented them in different animation styles. Not to sound ungrateful but when are we gonna get another season of that?This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-is-giving-the-boys-the-prequel-treatment-201058614.html?src=rss
Have you ever looked at something in your home like a dining room table or an adjustable height desk and wondered what it would be like to go on a date with it? Also, were you sober at the time? A new dating sim game called Date Everything! will let you see just what its like to search for true, meaningful love with the things you see almost every day (in the cleanest way possible, of course).
The surreal sounding dating sim game comes from an LA-based studio called Sassy Chap Games founded by a group of voice actors whove worked on games and shows like Critical Role, HiFi-Rush, One Punch Man, Final Fantasy XV, X-Men 97 and Genshin Impact. The indie game publisher Team17 will distribute the game for PC on Steam, the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, according to a press release.
The game puts players in the role of a lonely heart who receives a special pair of glasses called a Dateviator that transforms items in their home into human date candidates. For instance, the vacuum cleaner turns into a hunky heartthrob named Hoove and the laundry hamper transforms into a fiery redhead named Harper. Date Everything! has 100 possible mates in your home with their own voices, styles and personalities.
You get to know items like the refrigerator or the drawing room piano in their human forms. Depending on how things go, the relationship can end in one of three ways: Love, Friend or Hate. These relationships create a chain of different possible paths in which your choices influence the outcome along a critical path tying it all together, according to the press release.
Team17/Sassy Chap Games
Since Date Everything! comes from a studio founded by voice actors, all of the characters are fully voiced. Some of the more familiar names include Felicia Day from Supernatural and Mystery Science Theater 3000, Johnny Yong Bosch from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Grey DeLisle from Scooby-Doo and The Last Airbender.
Date Everything! doesnt just sound like a new and interesting twist on the dating sim game concept. It also sounds like a great way to boost your ego. If youre down because you dont have someone in your life, at least you can play the game and realize, Well, at least Im not trying to date my garbage disposal.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/you-can-date-everything-in-date-everything-190032967.html?src=rss
We haven't had an update on Netflixs Bioshock movie in a couple of years, leading some to wonder if it was quietly canned. The good news? The movies still coming. The (potential) bad news? The budget has been slashed, according to reporting by Variety.
This comes from producer Roy Lee, who was one of the people behind The Lego Movie. He announced the reduced budget during a panel at San Diego Comic-Con. He didnt put out any numbers, but did say that the movie is currently being reconfigured to be a more personal film. Director Francis Lawrence is still helming the picture. He has directed four of the five Hunger Games movies, along with I Am Legend and the original Constantine.
The Bioshock film was first announced back in 2022, but since that time Netflix has experienced something of a regime change on the executive level. Dan Lin replaced Scott Stuber as the streamers film chief and Lin has tightened the purse strings away from stuff like Zack Snyders Rebel Moon.
The new regime has lowered the budgets, Lee said at Comic-Con. So were doing a much smaller version.
In addition to budget cuts, Lee noted that Netflix has changed its compensation strategy with regard to movies. Its shifting to a more traditional model that relies on bonuses tied to actual viewership numbers.
This could actually be good news. In my opinion, personal stories tend to work better than constant CGI battles with hordes of faceless baddies. Bioshock is also, at its heart, a personal story about family, with the fantastical Rapture setting being window dressing.
I guess it ultimately depends on how much of that budget was cut. Theres a big difference between a slightly reduced budget and a massive cut that turns all of the footage into darkened corridor scenes filmed in a series of Toronto or Atlanta warehouses. The release date hasnt been announced and, honestly, it could still be a ways off. Director Lawrence has a lot on his plate right now, including an adaptation of Stephen Kings The Long Walk and yet another Hunger Games movie.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-bioshock-movie-is-still-happening-but-with-a-reduced-budget-184524214.html?src=rss
Warner Bros. Discovery followed through on its threat to take appropriate action against the NBA for rejecting its broadcasting rights offer. Variety reported on Friday that the media company sued the league in the New York State Supreme Court after the NBA turned down its bid to match Amazons streaming package that kicks in starting in the 2025-26 season.
The conflict stems from Warners belief that its current contract gives it the right to match any offer that would replace Warners TNT as a home for NBA games (and the iconic Inside the NBA) in the upcoming deal. As for the leagues stance, The Athletic reported that since the current agreements were signed when streaming was on the horizon, but not part of the deals, the NBA disagrees with Warners matching claim.
The lawsuit was expected as soon as the league announced its new broadcasting and streaming package, which also includes Disney (ABC and ESPN) and Comcast (NBC). The NBA reportedly told Warner it rejected its matching offer because it wanted to put all its games on its streaming service, Max, in addition to TNT. Amazon also allegedly offered to pay its first three years in full, whereas Warner offered a three-year line of credit. Finally, the NBA reportedly believed Amazons reach was simply greater.
Warner Bros. Discoverys most recent proposal did not match the terms of Amazon Prime Videos offer and, therefore, we have entered into a long-term arrangement with Amazon, the NBAs statement on Wednesday read.
Charles BarkleyTNT / Warner Bros. Discovery
Unless Warner can force the NBAs hand, the new agreement will almost certainly mean the end of Inside the NBA. The decades-old sports show, starring Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Shaquille ONeal, has harnessed a rare blend of comedy, chemistry and (sometimes taking a backseat to the first two) sports analysis. The beloved program, which has won 19 Sports Emmy Awards, began in 1989 as a Johnson solo effort before fleshing out its tight-knit cast through the following years and (in the case of Shaq) decades.
Turner has partnered with the NBA since the 1984-85 season, which coincided with Barkleys (and Michael Jordans) entrance into the league out of college.
Barkley lashed out at the NBA after hearing about the new rights package, accusing it of wanting to break up with us from the beginning in a statement on X. Adding, Im not sure TNT ever had a chance, the Hall of Famer described it as a sad day when owners and commissioners choose money over the fans.
It just sucks, Barkley wrote before thanking Turners fans for the last 24 years hes been on the show. Inside the NBA will return next season, perhaps its last, along with the networks standard lineup of NBA games, before the new deal begins in the 2025-26 season.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/warner-bros-discovery-sues-the-nba-in-a-last-ditch-effort-to-block-amazons-new-streaming-package-183352404.html?src=rss
Apples M3 MacBook Air combines Apples lightest and thinnest laptop design with the impressive horsepower of third-generation Apple silicon. B&H Photo Video has the 2024 laptop on sale for $200 off. Usually $1,299, the variant with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage is only $1,099.
The 2024 MacBook Air adds the M3 chip, Apples silicon with a 3nm process that crams more electronic components into a smaller space compared to its predecessor. Apples Neural Engine, which will become more crucial with the introduction of Apple Intelligence AI features this fall, is also 15 percent faster in the M3 family than the M2. While the M3 MacBook Air may not provide a dramatic speed boost over the M2 in day-to-day tasks, it has a higher ceiling for intensive work and is more future-proofed.
The M3 model adds support for dual screens with the lid closed. It also supports Wi-Fi 6Es faster speeds and lower latency if you have a compatible router.
Engadget Senior Editor Devindra Hardawar praised the device in his review from earlier this year, describing the two sizes of the laptop as great computers with excellent performance, gorgeous screens and incredible battery life. The M3 MacBook Air lasted over 10 hours in our video-playback battery stress test.
Although the $200 off deal at B&H is for the 13-inch model, the retailer (which operates online but also has a robust Manhattan retail outlet) has the 15-inch model for $150 off. If you like more real estate for your apps and desktop (or, like me, need larger text for aging eyes), the larger model may be the better choice.
One thing to keep in mind before ordering is that B&Hs return policy states that it wont take computers back for a refund once the packaging has been unsealed. Although you can contact customer service for an exchange if something is wrong out of the box, buyers remorse alone wont cut it for getting your money back. This contrasts with competitors like the Apple Store, Amazon and Best Buy, so consider that before proceeding. However, apart from that footnote, B&H has been an Apple partner for nearly a decade and has built a solid reputation with customers since its 1973 founding.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-m3-macbook-air-with-16gb-of-ram-is-200-off-right-now-165605741.html?src=rss
There's word going around that X just enabled a setting that lets it train Grok on public tweets, as well as any interactions they have with the chatbot. That's not entirely true: a help page instructing users how to opt-out of X using their data to train Grok has been live since at least May. X just never exactly made it crystal clear that it was opting everyone into this, which is a sketchy move. If you don't want a bad chatbot to use your bad tweets for training, it's thankfully easy to switch that off.
You just need to uncheck a box from the Grok data sharing tab in the X settings. If that link doesn't work, you can go to Settings > Privacy and Safety > Grok. For the time being, the setting isn't accessible through X's mobile apps (the company says it will be soon), so you'll have to uncheck the box on the web for now. It's also worth noting that Grok isn't trained on any tweets from private X accounts.
All X users have the ability to control whether their public posts can be used to train Grok, the AI search assistant. This option is in addition to your existing controls over whether your interactions, inputs, and results related to Grok can be utilized. This setting is Safety (@Safety) July 26, 2024
One of X's selling points for Grok when it rolled out the chatbot was that it had the advantage of using real-time information that's published on the platform in other words, users' tweets. That only works if users opt-in or are automatically enrolled into sharing their data with the chatbot. But X isn't exactly the pinnacle of truth and accuracy. It's full of pranksters, and lifting their jokes might be one of the reasons why Grok keeps on getting stuff wrong. In any case, it's not exactly uncommon for AI models to be trained on material without explicit permission from the original creators.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/heres-how-to-stop-groks-ai-models-using-your-tweets-for-training-161041266.html?src=rss
As we've seen in years past, once Amazon's Prime Day ends, many of the deals evaporate. But one week after the sale frenzy (both from Amazon and other retailers) we're still seeing quite a few deals that have either stayed true to their event pricing or have come up with a fresh discount after the fact. Right now, the budget pick in our iPad guide is just $1 more than the low it hit last week. Our favorite pair of budget earbuds is also just a buck more than the Prime Day low. And, as of this writing, Amazon is still offering a free $300 gift card if you order the new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 that just started shipping on Wednesday. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-10th-generation-ipad-is-back-down-to-300-plus-the-rest-of-this-weeks-best-tech-deals-155930268.html?src=rss
The 65-inch LG C3 OLED TV is 48 percent off via Woot, which brings the price down to $1,298. Thats a savings of around $1,200 on the well-regarded OLED panel. Theres one major caveat. This deal is for today only, or until the stock runs out. To that end, theres a limit of one per customer, but thats probably not a huge deal unless youre in the process of furnishing a mansion or something.
The LG C3 OLED is considered one of the best TVs for gaming, and with good reason. We loved this televisions high contrast and the deep blacks on offer. We also praised the low input lag, increased motion response and wide array of appropriate viewing angles. It follows HDR guidelines, works with all the major VRR formats and has four HDMI 2.1 ports that are capable of outputting 4K 120Hz with a gaming console or PC.
It supports all the major HDR standards, including Dolby Vision. This TV is available in sizes up to 83-inches, but the larger models arent on sale. I use a 65-inch OLED, though not this one, and its plenty big enough for TV and gaming.
Despite being a dang good value, this isnt a perfect television. The WOLED panel doesnt get quite as bright as a QD-OLED like the Samsung S90C. Also, it doesnt support a 144Hz refresh rate, which could be a dealbreaker to picky PC gamers. Still, the price is definitely right. Just make sure you pick this up sooner rather than later.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-65-inch-lg-c3-oled-tv-is-nearly-half-off-for-today-only-152153420.html?src=rss
