Stephen King’s ‘Castle Rock’ series streams on Hulu July 25th

If you’re eagerly anticipating Castle Rock, the new Hulu show from Stephen King and J.J. Abrams, you’re in luck. Hulu has revealed a release date of July 25th for the first three episodes of the show, along with a new teaser.

The teaser features the voice of Terry O’Quinn, perhaps best known as John Locke from the television show Lost, as he muses over the sins of the past that the denizens of Castle Rock are now paying for. It certainly sets a dark tone for the ten-episode series, which also stars Andre Holland, Billy Skarsgard, Sissy Spacek, Melanie Lynskey, Jane Levy and Scott Glenn.

Source: YouTube

ESPN brings a curated daily version of SportsCenter to its app

ESPN isn’t just bringing versions of SportsCenter to social networks like Snapchat and Twitter. The network is launching a daily edition of SportsCenter within the ESPN App. Anchors like Scott Van Pelt will host a “curation” of top sporting news, such as highlights from last night’s games or things to expect from upcoming matches. It’ll certainly be hard to miss — the show will “feature prominently” on the app’s home screen in the morning whenever you open it for the first time that day.

As with the social network shows, ESPN is ultimately trying to reach viewers who primarily or exclusively watch online. It’s not just an upsell to services like ESPN+ — it gives you a reason to keep coming back to ESPN’s own offerings instead of drifting to other internet sources. ESPN’s brand is still strongest on conventional TV, and it knows that it needs digital-friendly shows like this if it’s going to reach cord cutters.

Source: ESPN

Oculus prototype uses moving lenses for sharper focus

While the first day of Facebook’s F8 conference focused in on consumer issues like data privacy and, uh, dating, the second day is all about the future. Specifically, the company spent F8’s Day 2 keynote talking about topics that would be of interest to developers, like AI, connectivity and VR. Right at the tail end of the conference, Oculus’ head of Core Tech product management Maria Fernandez Guajardo gave some insights into the kind of VR investments the company was working on. Of special note, she also gave a sneak peek at a brand new Oculus prototype, which is currently referred to as “Half Dome.”

The most interesting thing about the Half Dome prototype seems to be the varifocal displays with lenses that move up and down depending on what you’re focusing on. There also appears to be eye-tracking tech at play here as well. Guajardo says that most headsets struggle with viewing items held up close to your eyes, but the varifocal displays will make them appear much sharper and crisper. It also has a much wider 140-degrees field of view (the Rift has a 110-degrees FOV), which offers better peripheral vision. And, despite all the new tech, it has the same size and weight as the existing Rift.

Guajardo also spent some time talking about other advancements in VR, like facial and hand tracking. It’s currently working on making those cartoonish avatars in Spaces a lot more photorealistic, to the point where they might push some uncanny valley buttons.

Of course, it’s still too early to say when the tech in Half Dome will make it to a new Rift, but it certainly points to the possibility of a Rift 2. Here’s hoping we’ll hear more about it at Oculus Connect later this year, or maybe even prior to that.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from F8 2018!

Google reportedly backing a new social games startup

Michael Sayman, originally invited to Facebook as a 17-year-old by Mark Zuckerberg, created a video-centric social app for teens, Lifestage, when he was 19. Now the young superstar is behind a secret Google social-gaming startup called Arcade, according to a report at Bloomberg. The new company’s first app, say the site’s sources, is set to debut this summer with elements of trivia games at its core.

Bloomberg reports that Google confirmed the existence of Arcade, and that it focuses mainly on mobile gaming with friends. The startup is part of Google’s side-project assistant, Area 120, which lets employees spend 20 percent of their time doing passion projects. Sources say that the games at Arcade aren’t connected to any current social networks; instead, users create accounts using their own phone number.

Source: Bloomberg

Senator urges Uber to stop forced arbitration in sexual assault cases

A CNN investigation recently revealed that Uber has had at least 103 different sexual assault cases filed against its drivers in the past four years. What’s worse is that Uber has also reportedly forced victims to settle their cases via arbitration rather than open court, a move which helps keep the epidemic silent. Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal is now calling on the company to release the survivors of these assaults from these agreements and allow them to seek justice in court.

“I challenge you to finally demonstrate how seriously you take the issue of sexual harassment and assault,” said Blumenthal in a letter to Uber. “Your company must lead by example and show that it values transparency and your users’ safety more than your company’s bottom line. I respectfully request that you immediately stop enforcing arbitration agreements against individuals who bring claims of sexual harassment or assault. More broadly, I urge you to end your use of these dangerous agreements against your customers.”

Forced arbitration clauses, says Blumenthal, also prevent victims from joining class-action suits. They disadvantage consumers for the benefit of large corporations and can also deter victims from seeking justice in the first place. The letter also points out that Microsoft has voluntarily ended its practice of using arbitration agreements in the case of sexual harassment, and calls on Uber to do the right thing and follow suit. “A company that is focused on its customers should be working to protect their rights,” Blumenthal wrote, “not to eliminate them.”

Source: Senator Blumenthal

Twitter will stream 20 regular-season WNBA games starting May 20th

For the second year in a row, Twitter will livestream WNBA games. The coverage starts on May 20th with a four-game blitz starting at 1PM ET, and will follow with one streamed every Tuesday until the season finale on August 19th.

Renewing its WNBA coverage is the latest in Twitter’s ravenous appetite for sports content. While it lost Thursday Night Football last year, the platform has plenty of programming lined up, from Major League Soccer to a World Cup live show to ESPN content, including SportsCenter Live.

While the 20 total games broadcast on Twitter won’t cover the entire season, each WNBA team will appear in at least two of them. If you don’t want to watch on the social site, you can still catch the action on ESPN2, NBA TV, the WNBA League Passa nd the ESPN app.

Tesla: Model 3 production could hit 5,000 per week in two months

One of the major stories about Tesla’s car business has been its struggle to build sufficient quantities of its Model 3 electric car. In a just-released earnings report the company said that prior to its most recent shutdown, it had managed to build over 2,000 cars per week for three weeks in a row for the first time, and anticipates it will manage 5,000 per week in two months.

Following comments from Elon Musk that over-reliance on robots slowed production, the earnings report expanded on that angle. In certain production areas like “portions of the battery module line, part of the material flow system, and two steps of general assembly” it has “temporarily” dialed back automation in favor of semi-automated or manual processes. If it can hit its production goals, Tesla also claims that it can be profitable in Q3 and Q4 of this year.

Developing…

Source: Tesla Q1 2018 Earnings (PDF)

Facebook: AI will protect you

Artificial intelligence is a key part of everything Facebook does, from chat bots in Messenger to powering the personalized recommendations you get on apps like Instagram. But, as great as the technology is to create new and deeper experiences for users, Facebook says the most important role of AI is to keep its community safe. Today at F8, the company’s Chief Technology Officer, Mike Schroepfer, highlighted how valuable the tech has become to combating abuse on its platform, including hate speech, bullying and terrorist content. Schroepfer pointed to stats Facebook revealed last month, which showed that its AI tools removed almost 2 million pieces of terrorist propaganda, with 99 percent of those being spotted before a human even reported them.

Shroepfer said that, even though these are promising numbers, Facebook knows there’s still plenty of work to be done and it needs to keep evolving the technology — especially because the bad actors promoting this type of content keep getting smarter themselves. One of the ways Facebook plans to do this, Shroepfer said, is by investing heavily in artificial intelligence research and find ways to make it work at a large scale without much (if any) human supervision. This is all part of Facebook’s plan to write a security “playbook” that other tech companies can follow, and one that the company says it can’t create alone. That’s why, aside from its in-house team, it’s working with outside academics and research scientists to develop the best possible AI systems.

Facebook’s Chief Technology Officer, Mike Schroepfe, at F8.

Isabel Kloumann, a research scientist at Facebook, said that one of the biggest challenges with AI is training it to be unbiased. Because the technology is so new, it’s hard to test it for fairness and ensure that it incorporates a diverse set of voices in its decisions. As in, how can AI tell the difference between an unpopular opinion that may show up on a Facebook or Instagram post and a comment that’s intended to spread hate? Vision, language and reasoning, said Shroepfer, are the three most important factors in training an AI system that’s going to be efficient and accurate in taking down all the abusive content that shows up across Facebook’s platforms. Basically, it seems, you have to make it think like a human — but an unbiased one.

“Compared to a few years ago, this is great progress.” Shroepfer said. “But it’s clear we still have a lot of work to do.” And that Facebook does, because online abuse isn’t going anywhere, and there’s bound to be some hate speech, bullying comments or terrorist propaganda that slips through the cracks. After all, Mark Zuckerberg himself said that it’s easier for artificial intelligence to detect nipples than hate speech. So, when that does happen and AI fails to do its job, Facebook will need to rely on the 20,000 humans it’s hiring to review content to make sure that they act quick to take down whatever the tech wasn’t smart enough to catch.

Maybe AI will be perfect one day, but it’s not there just yet.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from F8 2018!

Spotify touts 75 million subscribers in first quarterly earnings report

Spotify made its New York Stock Exchange debut last month, and today the streaming service announced its first earning report as a public company. As part of its pre-filing paperwork, we already knew the company had amassed 170 million monthly users, but as of now Spotify touts 75 million paid subscribers. That’s up from 71 million earlier this year. For comparison, Apple Music recently hit the 40-million mark, though recent reports indicate Apple may catch Spotify by the end of the year.

Despite a growing subscriber base, one that Spotify says could hit 96 million by year’s end, the company is still spending more than it’s taking in. For Q1 2018, Spotify’s operating loss was down from Q4 2017 (€41 million down from €87 million). The company explains that number would’ve been even less, but it missed on revenue for the quarter which lead to a higher gross margin than expected. Spotify says the reason for this is “primarily related to changes in rights holder liabilities booked in the quarter.”

Even as it continues to work on closing that gap, the challenge will likely get tougher. The music industry is so reliant on streaming now that when it comes time to renew licensing deals, the stakes will likely be higher (and pricier) for both sides. Of course, a business model where the rights to the content aren’t owned by the company isn’t exactly the most solid investment, so Spotify will need to prove it’s worth the risk.

Spotify’s recently announced revamp for free users added more personalization to the ad-supported tier. While that may not go far in terms of converting free listeners to paid ones, the company is banking on things like new markets, partnerships and things like its bundle offer with Hulu to help lure even more paying customers.

We’ll update this post with any additional information from the company’s earnings call later today.

Source: Spotify

Apple Officially Orders ‘Are You Sleeping’ Drama Series Starring Octavia Spencer

Apple has given a series order for 10 episodes of “Are You Sleeping,” a drama series that will star Octavia Spencer, who is known for her work in movies that include “Hidden Figures,” “The Help,” “Gifted,” and “The Shape of Water.”

News of Apple’s work on “Are You Sleeping” first surfaced in January, but now Variety says the company has decided to move forward with production on the show.

Image of Octavia Spencer via Variety
“Are You Sleeping” is based on a novel by Kathleen Barber, which has been described as a psychological thriller. The book focuses on a podcast that reopens a murder case, similar to the popular “Serial” podcast that led to a new trial for Adnan Syed, in jail for allegedly murdering a former girlfriend. Sarah Koenig, who created and produced “Serial,” will consult on “Are You Sleeping.”

The novel the TV show is based on explores how the reopening of the murder case impacts the victim’s daughter and disrupts her life, and it’s likely the TV show will follow a similar plot.

“Are You Sleeping” was written by Nichelle Tramble Spellman, and the series will be produced by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine and Chernin Entertainment/Endeavor Content.

Apple is also working with Reese Witherspoon’s production company on an as of yet untitled “morning show drama” that takes a look into the cutthroat would of morning TV.

Apple now has more than a dozen television shows in the works, with a full list of what’s on the horizon available in the original content section of our Apple TV roundup.

It’s not yet known when the first of Apple’s TV shows will debut nor how they’ll be distributed, but rumors have suggested we could see the first fruits of Apple’s efforts in 2019.

Related Roundup: Apple TVBuyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Neutral)
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