Apple Acquires Rights to Two Films: Documentary ‘The Elephant Queen’ and Animated Cartoon ‘Wolfwalkers’

Apple has acquired the global rights to “The Elephant Queen,” a feature-length documentary about an elephant matriarch who leads her herd in search of a new watering hole to call home, according to Deadline.

Athena is a mother who will do everything in her power to protect her herd when they are forced to leave their waterhole. This epic journey, narrated by Chiwetel Ejiofor, takes audiences across the African savannah, and into the heart of an elephant family. A tale of love, loss and coming home.

“The Elephant Queen” was screened Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival, where top executives from Apple’s Worldwide Video Programming division are believed to be scouting out films. The documentary is directed by award-winning wildlife filmmakers Victoria Stone and Mark Deeble.

Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, two former Sony Pictures Television executives who lead Worldwide Video at Apple, reportedly led negotiations to pick up the documentary from Endeavor Content and Mister Smith Entertainment.

In addition, prior to TIFF, Apple obtained rights to animated film “Wolfwalkers” from Cartoon Saloon and Melusine Productions, according to Deadline. The film, directed by two-time Oscar nominee Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart, centers on a young apprentice hunter named Robyn in a world of superstition.

In a time of superstition and magic, when wolves are seen as demonic and nature an evil to be tamed, a young apprentice hunter, Robyn, comes to Ireland with her father to wipe out the last pack. But when Robyn saves a wild native girl, Mebh, their friendship leads her to discover the world of the Wolfwalkers and transform her into the very thing her father is tasked to destroy.

Bloomberg News first reported about a potential animated film deal between Apple and Cartoon Saloon back in June.

Apple has been steadily expanding its slate of original content in the pipeline, but these deals are particularly notable, as they represent the first two films the company has acquired, complementing nearly two dozen TV series.

Apple is expected to distribute its original content through a new streaming video service, along the lines of Netflix, starting in 2019.

Tag: Apple’s Hollywood ambitions
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Understanding the two ending credits scenes in Marvel’s Spider-Man

Please make this sequel, Insomniac. Pretty, pretty please.

Editor’s Note: Everything you are about to read is a spoiler for Marvel’s Spider-Man on PlayStation 4. If you have not finished the core story yet, it’s probably a bad idea to keep reading. Consider yourself warned.

Marvel’s Spider-Man hits shelves this Friday, and it is by any measure a great game. While our full review goes further into details, the sheer volume of things Insomniac did right is gloriously exciting. Easily the coolest part for people watching you play is the way the whole thing feels like a movie, and like any Marvel movie this game includes ending credits scenes. Two of them, in fact.

Whether you’re not super familiar with the Spider-verse, or you’re eager to see my thoughts on these scenes, I’m going to go ahead and break down both for you.

If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out our review of Marvel’s Spider-Man!

Scene One – Welcome to Team Spidey, Miles

At the very end of the first gameplay trailer for Marvel’s Spider-Man, you get a shot of a kid names Miles. Half the crowd cheered even louder, because those folks knew just how important that name and face is. Miles Morales is, in most versions of the Spider-Man comics, the next Spider-Man. Most of the time he doesn’t become the next web-slinging hero until something terrible happens to Peter Parker, but as we see in this game he gets the radioactive spider bite a little early in this telling of the tale.

The after-credits scene with Miles shows him revealing his unique new abilities to Peter, who in turn shows Miles he’s not alone in being a little unusual. The scene itself is delightfully awkward, and ends flawlessly with the two of them hanging from the ceiling.

While we did get a few little scenes in this game where you could walk around and hack things as Miles, a full-on Spider-Man game like the one you just finished with Miles as the main character has been a long time coming. And we’re clearly in the perfect time for it, as the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse starring Miles is almost ready to hit theaters.

It’s time. Give us a sequel to this amazing game with Miles as the main, Insomniac.

Scene Two – Harry’s trip to “Europe” is going great

If you didn’t get the impression Norman Osborn was an absolute bastard from the entire rest of this game, his ending scene really seals the deal. The game itself was peppered with a few hints that left you thinking maybe we’d see the Green Goblin at some point, but Insomniac clearly has something much darker in mind for this family.

The scene reveals Norman unlocking the secret room MJ breaks into during the game, but then unlocking a chamber you don’t get to open when you’re in that room. Norman speaks softly, making it clear he’s going to keep doing everything he can to “fix” this, and then the camera flips to reveal his son Harry has been here the whole time. He’s suspended in this chamber full of green liquid, and covered in black webbing that looks a whole lot like Venom has fused with Peter’s childhood friend.

In a way, this ending makes a lot of sense. Venom is basically the only classic Spidey villain who doesn’t get some kind of name drop or background tease in the game, and making it something Peter hasn’t endured yet closes the only leftover thread in his backstory. We get so much talk about how important Harry is to Peter and MJ, and how everyone wished he was around, but no resolution at all by the end of the main story.

Personally, I think it would be super cool if these two scenes were the basis for a sequel to this game. And I know there are developers at Insomniac swearing at me for talking about a sequel for a game that is just now shipping, but it really would be great. Miles being taken under Peter’s wing, learning from him and working together on cool new gadgets, while Harry breaks out of his father’s prison and Venom does what it does best and makes trouble. Sounds like one hell of a follow-up to me. Who knows, maybe we’ll get more about this in the upcoming DLC.

Apple announces new policies to aid law enforcement worldwide

In 2016, Apple and the FBI went to court over the company’s unwillingness to hand over private data. Now, the company is working to find a better way to handle law enforcement requests for data and information pertaining to criminal investigations. According to its website, the company is currently working on building an online portal which will make it easier for law enforcement to submit requests to Apple regarding such data.

Apple’s website says that, by the end of the year, it hopes to have created an” online portal for authenticated law enforcement officers globally to submit lawful requests for data, track requests, and obtain responsive data from Apple.” However, a letter sent to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), seen by CNET, provides some more information on the company’s plans.

Many of Apple’s recently announced policies were made in response to recommendations from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which suggested that Apple make changes to the way it works with law enforcement on investigations and training.

This new training is outlined on the company’s website, where it discusses Apple’s plans for a revamped relationship with law enforcement, which includes providing better training in technology and data-gathering. The company is working to create an online training program which will make it easier for law enforcement worldwide to receive Apple’s support in digital forensics.

The company believes that this new training program will help it reach smaller law enforcement organizations around the globe. The idea is to use the internet to provide training that is comparable to the in-person training Apple already offers to larger law enforcement organizations. Overall, the company believes that this “will assist Apple in training a larger number of law enforcement agencies and officers globally, and ensure that our company’s information and guidance can be updated to reflect the rapidly changing data landscape.”

In regards to the company’s customers, Apple in its letter to Whitehouse says it remains committed to protecting user privacy. It doesn’t provide details regarding how these new initiatives will affect existing customers, but it does promise that these new plans are consistent with its goals of protecting its customers’ privacy and data.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Department of Justice asks judge to force Facebook to decrypt Messenger
• Apple locks down iPhone security flaw, frustrates law enforcement
• Congress demands answers over Gmail fiasco, data collection on phones
• Facebook suspends data firm claiming access to 1 trillion conversations
• Amazon employees call on Jeff Bezos to end controversial tech contracts

Apple announces new policies to aid law enforcement worldwide

In 2016, Apple and the FBI went to court over the company’s unwillingness to hand over private data. Now, the company is working to find a better way to handle law enforcement requests for data and information pertaining to criminal investigations. According to its website, the company is currently working on building an online portal which will make it easier for law enforcement to submit requests to Apple regarding such data.

Apple’s website says that, by the end of the year, it hopes to have created an” online portal for authenticated law enforcement officers globally to submit lawful requests for data, track requests, and obtain responsive data from Apple.” However, a letter sent to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), seen by CNET, provides some more information on the company’s plans.

Many of Apple’s recently announced policies were made in response to recommendations from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which suggested that Apple make changes to the way it works with law enforcement on investigations and training.

This new training is outlined on the company’s website, where it discusses Apple’s plans for a revamped relationship with law enforcement, which includes providing better training in technology and data-gathering. The company is working to create an online training program which will make it easier for law enforcement worldwide to receive Apple’s support in digital forensics.

The company believes that this new training program will help it reach smaller law enforcement organizations around the globe. The idea is to use the internet to provide training that is comparable to the in-person training Apple already offers to larger law enforcement organizations. Overall, the company believes that this “will assist Apple in training a larger number of law enforcement agencies and officers globally, and ensure that our company’s information and guidance can be updated to reflect the rapidly changing data landscape.”

In regards to the company’s customers, Apple in its letter to Whitehouse says it remains committed to protecting user privacy. It doesn’t provide details regarding how these new initiatives will affect existing customers, but it does promise that these new plans are consistent with its goals of protecting its customers’ privacy and data.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Department of Justice asks judge to force Facebook to decrypt Messenger
• Apple locks down iPhone security flaw, frustrates law enforcement
• Congress demands answers over Gmail fiasco, data collection on phones
• Facebook suspends data firm claiming access to 1 trillion conversations
• Amazon employees call on Jeff Bezos to end controversial tech contracts

Amazon Go checkout-free stores set to arrive in New York City

Amazon’s cashier-less checkout-free stores, known as Amazon Go, are starting to expand beyond Seattle. It was previously announced that the company planned to open two new stores in Chicago and San Francisco. Now, the company is gearing up to take on the Big Apple as CNN has confirmed that Amazon plans to open Amazon Go stores in New York City.

Amazon’s job board has several listings for various retail and management positions at an upcoming Amazon Go store in New York. A spokesperson confirmed that the company is planning on opening a Go store in New York, but did not give any details regarding which borough it would be in or when the store would open.

Amazon hasn’t given any information regarding the number of stores it plans to open in New York. However, considering that the company only has three in its hometown of Seattle, it’s a pretty safe bet that we’ll only see one for the time being. However, if it proves a success then they will likely expand to more locations sometime in the future.

While the store doesn’t have need of cashiers, working at a Go store will likely be a fairly familiar experience to anyone who has worked in retail. Employees will be needed to cook the store’s various meals and snacks, stock the shelves, unload trucks, and provide general customer service.

In addition to the convenience of not having to wait in lines at the register, Amazon Go does offer one other benefit over traditional convenience stores. Since Amazon now owns Whole Foods, Amazon Go stores offer various Whole Foods products for sale. Granted, they won’t have the selection of a standard Whole Foods, but it does offer a bit more variety than your average 7-11 or neighborhood bodega.

Amazon Go makes use of a combination of apps, sensors, and cameras to track purchases and ensure that people don’t attempt to shoplift. In order to shop at the stores, customers need to download the Amazon Go app. From there, the store’s various sensors will track what items are purchased and charge the card that’s on file with your Amazon account.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Amazon’s third checkout-free Amazon Go store is now open in Seattle
• Report: Microsoft is building checkout-less store tech to take on Amazon
• Don’t know what size screw you’re looking at? Amazon’s Part Finder can help
• Alexa goes to college as Saint Louis University puts an Echo in every dorm room
• Amazon turns Whole Foods into a drive-through with new curbside pickup service

Can you fly a drone where you live? Find out!

Best answer: AirMap for Drones can help your quickly see if your location is outside any permanent restrictions and temporary restrictions that pop up around special events or around travelling dignitaries. It can also tell you which airport operator or air traffic controller to report flight plans to if you want to fly within certain range of private or minucipal airports.

Google Play: AirMap for Drones (Free)

What to look for when reading AirMap

When you’re reading airspace restriction maps, it can look a bit like a splatter painting, especially in more crowded metropolitan areas with lots of helipads, private airports, and major events that facilitate TFRs (Temporary Flight Restrictions) that crop up around large outdoor events like MLB and NFL games or major political rallies. Not all flight restrictions are the same, and not all flight restrictions completely prohibit you from flying a drone inside of them.

There are a few things to look for when tapping on a circle or location on the map — either in the AirMap for Drones app or the Know Before You Fly website’s airspace map powered by AirMap.

Do I need to tell someone before I fly?

If the words REQUIRES NOTIFICATION appear when you tap on a circle/location, then you can’t just take a drone outside and power it up: you have to tell anyone listed in the Selected Advisories section that you will be flying there. Larger airports may accept a digital notice, but the rest you’ll have to call at the number listed in their advisories.

Is there a limit to how high I can fly?

Inside the 5-mile radius of many airports, there are restrictions on how high you can fly a drone before you’re in hazardous airspace AKA, in the possible path of incoming flights. If you see a grid pattern inside an airport’s circle, that means that the height limit differs within each of those boxes, from a complete no-fly closest to the airport to a 50-300 ft height restriction.

Do I need to tell the heliports, too?

You don’t have to call every heliport the way you do every airport you’re within a 5-mile radius of, but they have numbers listed with them because it never hurts to check. You do need to be mindful of heliports and the helicopters that may or may not be flying near them, especially if the heliports near you are for a hospital that can have higher numbers of unexpected and emergent flights.

Are there any major events nearby?

Temporary Flight Restrictions are issued for NFL, MLB, Division One NCAA Football games, and major NASCAR races. TFRs surrounding sporting events specifically ban drone flights within three nautical miles (3.45 regular miles) of the event’s venue. TFRs are also issued around disaster areas — you can’t fly drones near wildfires since they can get in the way of rescue and firefighting efforts — and around the travel movements of VIPs like the Pope.

TFRs can also pop up just about anywhere for a First Responder Emergency, and while these TFRs tend to be small, they are a very good reminder that you should check the map each and every time you’re about to pull out the drone for a flight.

What about these red/blue areas?

I live in Central Texas, where there are two areas that are absolute no-fly zones for civilian drones: the military installations at Ft. Hood, and Prohibited Special Use Airspace P-49: President George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford. Security-Restricted Airspaces are usually marked in AirMap as blue areas, and when you tap them it will tell you who controls it AKA who will be coming to arrest you if your drone wanders into its area.

Red areas in AirMap are Restricted areas, which come in two flavors: the TFRs we mentioned before, and permanent Restricted Areas. You cannot launch, fly, or land a drone in a National Parks property, including most national landmarks and some state landmarks. Most of Washington, DC sits under a 30-mile No-Drone Zone with its own rules.

Good to fly? Our favorite drones under $300 are ready for takeoff!

Our Pick

AirMap

Free at Google Play

Look before you launch

AirMap’s guide makes it easy to look at the locations you may want to fly and check them for up-to-the-minute restrictions before you send your drone up. If you need to tell anyone before you fly, you can also file your flight plan through the app or call the numbers listed in an airport’s advisories to ensure that you fly safe and fly somewhere your drone won’t get in the way of other air traffic.

Optoma announces a new projector with Alexa and Google Assistant

If you want to control your home theater with your voice, Optoma’s new projector is for you.

Optoma has announced a new projector aimed at the home market — and with an interesting trick up its sleeve. At first glance, the UHL55 looks a lot like other projectors in this price range: it offers 4K resolution, 1,500 lumens of brightness, HDR10, DCI-P3 and BT.2020 color support, and HDCP 2.2 support for protected content. Unlike other home theater projectors, this one runs Android and offers support for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant to control the projector with your voice.

Note that this isn’t Android TV, but instead Optoma’s own version of Android. (And that quite often means updates aren’t a sure thing.) Optoma will also offer its own marketplace on the projector for downloading popular apps such as Netflix, YouTube and more. Of course, you can also plug any streaming stick into the HDMI ports if Optoma’s store doesn’t meet all of your needs.

Both HDMI ports are of the 2.0 variety, with HDCP 2.2 protection. This means both HDMI ports can be used to play protected content such as UHD Blu Rays. There are also two USB-A ports for flash drives, and the operating system will be able to read and display PDF, PowerPoint and image files straight from the flash drives. Both USB ports offer enough juice to power a streaming stick, so you don’t need to snake another cable all the way up to your ceiling.

Finally, there’s an Ethernet port for wired Internet, as well as 3.5mm and optical audio-out ports to connect to your speaker system. There are also two 8-watt speakers on board, so if you’re bringing this around for business presentations you can just use the built-in speakers.

Optoma says the UHL55 will be shipping later this month, and it’s already available for pre-order from retailers like B&H.

See at B&H Photo

I want a OnePlus 6T in my stocking this Christmas

OnePlus has the chance to build the best phone to buy during the 2018 holiday season and I think they can do it.

No phone is perfect, but we all need one. We each try to decide which phone is best and the answer we come up with might not be the same but how we get it is: a mix of price, features, and trust in the brand. While plenty of phones can hit the right spot for one or two of those things, it can be tough to find the one that ticks every box.

Buying a phone is like math to me. Value = Price 2*Feature/Trust.

I’m like a lot of other people and have a bit of a problem when it comes to tech products — I spend too much money and buy too many of them. Of course, I’ll be buying a new phone at the end of the year and it’s looking like it will be the OnePlus 6T. Yes, so far everything is a rumor but come on, you don’t manufacture a replica retail box in order to fool a tech blog (and if you do, you should have done the iPhone XI and watched it all burn). I know I’ll be buying a phone that’s not exactly what I like unless I buy another BlackBerry because nobody makes them now. Long tall skinny notchy things are the new cool, and it looks like OnePlus is doing it the best.

If all the rumors are true, the OnePlus 6T will nail it on price and features for me. After a big internet kerfluffle that I got sucked into over privacy concerns, talking with the folks at OnePlus about how I (and everyone else) was wrong and what they were doing that wasn’t being leaked out, I have plenty of trust in the brand. And after seeing almost everything there is to see about a Pixel 3, if OnePlus makes the 6T in red I’m buying it. Even better — I’ll convince my wife and kids to buy it for me as a gift.

It’s not just the notch.

It’s only partially about the notch because I’d be buying the small notchelss Pixel 3. The OnePlus 6 has a notch, and I’m 100% positive the OnePlus 6T will have one, too. Lots of phones have a notch and I dislike them equally because of it. But OnePlus seems to be one of the companies that makes it as small as possible (dammit Google) and will resist any silly fancy tricks to minimize its impact that really only make things worse. If I have to have a notch I want it to be a good notch even though such a thing doesn’t exist and I will type words to that effect as many times as physically possible. OnePlus doesn’t have the worst notch so it wins by default.

I want a little more from my phone but I’m not ready to go full Samsung yet.

I’m just ready to try something a little more fun than a Pixel for my second phone but not ready to go full Samsung. OnePlus gives me that fun vibe and the company adds a bit to the software and takes risks with the hardware that Google doesn’t. I have a feeling that an in-display fingerprint sensor isn’t ever going to be as great as one on the back of the phone, but I want one anyway. I know beta software tracks usually mean headaches and stuff that doesn’t work the way I think it will, but I want to try beta builds anyway. And since Russell will never give me my blue Pixel 2 like he said he would, I want a red OnePlus 6T. I hope you break the screen, Russell. Just kidding 💖.

I also think I’m not the only person who will look at the Pixel 3 and then buy a OnePlus 6T. We might regret the decision, but we won’t know until we try it. OnePlus is making me want to try it. Of course, all the rumors could be false and Google trolled the whole world with catfish notched phones and I will just want to stay in bed until CES. We’ll soon see.

What you missed this week at CordCutters.com

Jerry and Phil get the band back together and nerd out on some antennas.

One of the best things you can do when you ditch cable or satellite and go all-streaming is to rig up a good over-the-air system. It’s a relatively inexpensive way to fill any gaps in your coverage and ensure that you’ll get the local channels you need.

That’s not to say it’s not a little tricky. Everyone’s situation is going to be different. You have to balance your location (where you live in relation to the broadcast towers in your area) with your home situation (can you do an outdoor antenna?) and your geography (are mountains or buildings in the way?)

On this week’s CordCutters Podcast we sat down with our favorite neckbeard (and electrical guru) Jerry Hildenbrand to talk about the basics of antennas. It’s definitely a deal where things are simultaneously simple as well as a little complex. Hopefully this helps suss things out a bit.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast if you’ve yet to do so, and hit us up with any questions you’ve got for the next one!

Speaking of antennas — this new one from Mohu is a BEAST.

More: The best over-the-air antennas

Here’s what else you missed this week at CordCutters.com:

• Shannon Nickinson weighs in on the state of Castle Rock, as we head into the season finale.
• Sony has three excellent (and not inexpensive) new projectors in its ranks.
• HBO signed Insecure and Ballers for additional seasons.
• Streaming news network Cheddar has a new female-centric show.
• Netflix has saved Designated Survivor.
• The new Jack Ryan series is good. But great?

Introducing CordCutters.com

• The hardware you need
• All about streaming services
• What channels are on which service
• FREE over-the-air TV
• How to watch sports
• Join the discussion
• Listen to the podcast

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