Tag: hollywood

MoviePass adds 500,000 subscribers within a month

MoviePass’ $10-per-month subscription service was a hit from the start, enough to crash the company’s website when it was first announced. It looks like demand isn’t slowing down anytime soon either: it has gained 500, 000 more subscribers merely a month after it reached 1.5 million users. The fact that MoviePass cut off members’ access to some popular AMC theaters had little effect, if any. It’s easy to see why 2 million would sign up: for 10 bucks a month — an ongoing promo even cuts the price down to $7.95 — they’re entitled to see one 2D film a day, every day, without paying extra. In 2017, members bought $110 million worth of tickets and generated an additional $146 million in ticket sales by bringing non-members to showings. MoviePass chief Mitch Lowe said in a statement: “We’re giving people a reason to go back to the movie theaters, and they’re going in droves. With awards season here, we hope we can make Hollywood and exhibitors very happy by filling seats with eager audiences.” As Bloomberg said, though, all these new users are both a blessing and a curse to the company. Every time a member watches a movie, the service pays for that subscriber’s ticket at full price. It loses money for every member that watches two movies a month, and its accountants apparently already warned the company that its system might not be viable in the long run. AMC shares the same sentiment and once called the business model unsustainable. It’s like turning “lead into gold, ” the theater chain said in a statement last year. So, how does MoviePass plan to make money if subscribers aren’t bringing in the cash? It’s hoping to sell ads, merchandise and data on moviegoers’ habits, as well as to get a cut of theaters’ refreshment sales as they go up from all the viewers it brings to cinemas. The company is also hoping to convince theater chains to sell it tickets for its members at a discounted rate. It’s unclear if MoviePass is already making headway with those plans, but when it dropped several AMC locations from its list, it said that the theaters it works with is subject to change as it “continue[s] to strive for mutually-beneficial relationships with” them. AMC chief Adam Aron has been quite a vocal critic of the service and already proclaimed that the chain has no intention of sharing its admissions or concessions revenue. Source: Bloomberg , Variety

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MoviePass adds 500,000 subscribers within a month

China Builds ‘World’s Biggest Air Purifier’ That Actually Works

The South China Morning Post shares an update on the status of an experimental tower in northern China, dubbed the world’s biggest air purifier by its operators. According to the scientist leading the project, the tower — which stands over 328 feet (100 meters) tall — has brought a noticeable improvement in air quality. From the report: The head of the research, Cao Junji, said improvements in air quality had been observed over an area of 10 square kilometers (3.86 square miles) in the city over the past few months and the tower has managed to produce more than 10 million cubic meters (353 million cubic feet) of clean air a day since its launch. Cao added that on severely polluted days the tower was able to reduce smog close to moderate levels. The system works through greenhouses covering about half the size of a soccer field around the base of the tower. Polluted air is sucked into the glasshouses and heated up by solar energy. The hot air then rises through the tower and passes through multiple layers of cleaning filters. The average reduction in PM2.5 — the fine particles in smog deemed most harmful to health — fell 15 per cent during heavy pollution. Cao said the results were preliminary because the experiment is still ongoing. The team plans to release more detailed data in March with a full scientific assessment of the facility’s overall performance. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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China Builds ‘World’s Biggest Air Purifier’ That Actually Works

Quentin Tarantino said he preferred Trek over Star Wars, now he has a film idea

Enlarge / “Spock, the funny thing about the Beta Quadrant is the little differences . They’ve got the same shit over there they got here, but it’s just a little different.” (credit: CBS via Getty Images) This evening, both Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter dropped reports that would cut through any diehard sports- or politics fan’s timeline. High aesthetic, foul-mouth dialogue auteur Quentin Tarantino reportedly has an idea for a new  Star Trek  movie, and he’s already approached Trek  cinema careholder JJ Abrams. Both entertainment outlets confirm the two now plan on bringing a writers room together for Paramount to flush things out. Tarantino’s resume speaks for itself, from  Jackie Brown  and  Pulp Fiction  through  Django Unchained  and  The Hateful Eight.  He’s one of the most distinct modern filmmakers with an easy to recognize (and parody ) style. The director has worked with other creators’ IPs before ( Jackie Brown  comes from the great Elmore Leonard, for instance), but a  Trek  film would represent the first time he dabbled in an established major movie franchise. (Deadline notes he has dabbled in TV franchises like  CSI  and  ER. ) Of course, an idea and a writers room promise does not guarantee a movie. Tarantino already has a Charles Manson-ish movie in progress for 2019, while Abrams recently agreed to come back to the  Star Wars  franchise with  Episode IX.  And Paramount already expressed a desire for a fourth Chris Pine-led  Trek  installment to follow up the ehhh that was last year’s Star Trek Beyond.  The studio did not respond to requests for comment from either Hollywood publication, so there’s no clarity on whether Tarantino’s interest would impact those plans. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Quentin Tarantino said he preferred Trek over Star Wars, now he has a film idea

Physicists Made An Unprecedented 53 Qubit Quantum Simulator

Two teams of researchers have published papers [1, 2] in the journal Nature detailing how they were able to create unprecedented quantum simulators consisting of over 50 qubits. The University of Maryland team and National Institute of Standards and Technology team — the two teams behind one of the two new papers — were able to create a quantum simulator with 53 qubits. Motherboard reports: Quantum simulators are a special type of quantum computer that uses qubits to simulate complex interactions between particles. Qubits are the informational medium of quantum computers, analogous to a bit in an ordinary computer. Yet rather than existing as a 1 or 0, as is the case in a conventional bit, a qubit can exist in some superposition of both of these states at the same time. For the Maryland experiment, each of the qubits was a laser cooled ytterbium ion. Each ion had the same electrical charge, so they repelled one another when placed in close proximity. The system created by Monroe and his colleagues used an electric field to force the repelled ions into neat rows. At this point, lasers are used to manipulate all the ytterbium qubits into the same initial state. Then another set of lasers is used to manipulate the qubits so that they act like atomic magnets, where each ion has a north and south pole. The qubits either orient themselves with their neighboring ions to form a ferromagnet, where their magnetic fields are aligned, or at random. By changing the strength of the laser beams that are manipulating the qubits, the researchers are able to program them to a desired state (in terms of magnetic alignment). According to Zhexuan Gong, a physicist at the University of Maryland, the 53 qubits can be used to simulate over a quadrillion different magnetic configurations of the qubits, a number that doubles with each additional qubit added to the array. As these types of quantum simulators keep adding more qubits into the mix, they will be able to simulate ever more complex atomic interactions that are far beyond the capabilities of conventional supercomputers and usher in a new era of physics research. Another team from Harvard and Maryland also released a paper today in which it demonstrated a quantum simulator using 51 qubits. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Physicists Made An Unprecedented 53 Qubit Quantum Simulator

Adobe’s ‘Cloak’ experiment is a content-aware eraser for video

Glamorous show-reels from shows like Game of Thrones get all the fame, but a lot of VFX work is mundane stuff like removing cars , power lines and people from shots. Adobe’s research team is working on making all of that easier for anyone, regardless of budget, thanks to a project called “Cloak.” It’s much the same as ” content-aware fill” for Photoshop, letting you select and then delete unwanted elements, with the software intelligently filling in the background. Cloak does the same thing to moving video, though, which is a significantly bigger challenge. Engadget got an early look at the tech, including a video demonstration and chance to talk with Adobe research engineer Geoffrey Oxholm and Victoria Nece, product manager for video graphics and VFX. At the moment, the technology is in the experimental stages, with no set plans to implement it. However, Adobe likes to give the public ” Sneaks ” at some of its projects as a way to generate interest and market features internally to teams. An example of that would be last year’s slightly alarming “VoCo” tech that lets you Photoshop voiceovers or podcasts. That has yet to make it into a product, but one that did is “Smartpic” which eventually became part of Adobe’s Experience Manager. The “Cloak” tech wouldn’t just benefit Hollywood — it could be useful to every video producer. You could make a freeway look empty by removing all the cars, cut out people to get a pristine nature shot, or delete, say, your drunk uncle from a wedding shot. Another fun example: When I worked as a compositer in another life , I had to replace the potato salad in a shot with macaroni, which was a highly tedious process. Object removal will also be indispensable for VR, AR, and other types of new video tech. “With 360 degree video, the removal of objects, the crew and the camera rig becomes virtually mandatory, ” Nece told Engadget. Content-aware fill on photos is no easy task in the first place, because the computer has to figure out what was behind the deleted object based on the pixels around it. Video increases the degree of difficulty, because you have to track any moving objects you want to erase. On top of that, the fill has to look the same from frame to frame or it will be a glitchy mess. “It’s a fascinating problem, ” Oxholm said. “Everything is moving, so even if you nail one frame, you have to be consistent.” Luckily, video does have one advantage over photos. “The saving grace is that we can see behind the thing we want to remove, ” says Oxholm. “If you’ve got a microphone to remove, you can see behind the microphone.” In other words, if you’re doing shot of a church with a pole in the way, there’s a good chance you have a different angle with a clean view of the church. With 360 degree video, the removal of objects, the crew and the camera rig becomes virtually mandatory. Another thing making content-aware fill for video much more feasible now is the fact that motion-tracking technology has become so good. “We can do really dense tracking, using parts of the scene as they become visible, ” said Oxholm. “That gives you something you can use to fill in.” The results so far, as shown in the video above, are quite promising. The system was able to erase cars from a freeway interchange, did a decent job of deleting a pole in front of a cathedral and even erased a hiking couple from a cave scene. The shots were done automatically in “one quick process, ” Oxholm said, after a mask was first drawn around the object to be removed — much as you do with Photoshop. It’s not totally perfect, however. Shadow traces are visible on the cave floor, and the cathedral is blurred in spots where the pole used to be. Even at this early stage, though, the tool could do much of the grunt-work, making it easier for a human user to do the final touch-ups. I’d love to see Adobe release it in preview as soon as possible, even if it’s not perfect, as it looks like it could be a major time saver — I sure could’ve used it for that macaroni.

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Adobe’s ‘Cloak’ experiment is a content-aware eraser for video

Ancient Papyrus Finally Solves Egypt’s ‘Great Pyramid’ Mystery

schwit1 was the first Slashdot reader to bring us the news. Newsweek reports: Archaeologists believe they have found the key to unlocking a mystery almost as old as the Great Pyramid itself: Who built the structure and how were they able to transport two-ton blocks of stone to the ancient wonder more than 4, 500 years ago…? Experts had long established that the stones from the pyramid’s chambers were transported from as far away as Luxor, more than 500 miles to the south of Giza, the location of the Great Pyramid, but had never agreed how they got there. However, the diary of an overseer, uncovered in the seaport of Wadi al-Jafr, appears to answer the age-old question, showing the ancient Egyptians harnessed the power of the Nile to transport the giant blocks of stone. According to a new British documentary Egypt’s Great Pyramid: The New Evidence, which aired on the U.K.’s Channel 4 on Sunday, the Great Pyramid, also known as the Pyramid of Khufu, was built using an intricate system of waterways which allowed thousands of workers to pull the massive stones, floated on boats, into place with ropes. Along with the papyrus diary of the overseer, known as Merer, the archaeologists uncovered a ceremonial boat and a system of waterworks. The ancient text described how Merer’s team dug huge canals to channel the water of the Nile to the pyramid. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ancient Papyrus Finally Solves Egypt’s ‘Great Pyramid’ Mystery

Netflix Co-Founder’s Crazy Plan: Pay $10 a Month, Go to the Movies All You Want

Mitch Lowe, a founder of Netflix, has a crazy idea. Through his new startup MoviePass, he wants to subsidize our film habit, letting us go to the theater once a day for about the price of a single ticket. From a report: Lowe, an early Netflix executive who now runs a startup called MoviePass, plans to drop the price of the company’s movie ticket subscriptions on Tuesday to $9.95. The fee will let customers get in to one showing every day at any theater in the U.S. that accepts debit cards. MoviePass will pay theaters the full price of each ticket used by subscribers, excluding 3D or Imax screens. MoviePass could lose a lot of money subsidizing people’s movie habits. So the company also raised cash on Tuesday by selling a majority stake to Helios and Matheson Analytics, a small, publicly traded data firm in New York. Theater operators should certainly welcome any effort to increase sales. The top four cinema operators, led by AMC Entertainment, lost $1.3 billion in market value early this month after a disappointing summer. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Netflix Co-Founder’s Crazy Plan: Pay $10 a Month, Go to the Movies All You Want

New Guillermo del Toro movie looks beautiful and terrifying

The Shape of Water looks magical, disturbing, and weirdly romantic. Though Guillermo del Toro took Hollywood by storm with movies like Hellboy and Pacific Rim , he truly made his mark with gothic indies like the Oscar-winning Pan’s Labyrinth and the sumptuous Crimson Peak . Now he’s back with The Shape of Water , another intimate look at the inner lives of monsters and the humans who love them. Anyone who has been immersed in del Toro’s lush, magical films knows he’s a master of design, especially when it comes to creatures. Nearly all of his movies deal with the idea that monsters are better people than their human counterparts, and he always manages to get us to identify with giant hellbeasts and gore-soaked ghosts. Though del Toro’s monsters have always been mesmerizing and gorgeous, The Shape of Water is the first of his movies to deal overtly with a human falling in love with one of these otherworldly creatures. Like Pan’s Labyrinth and Crimson Peak , The Shape of Water is also a period piece. Set in the early 1960s during the Cold War, it’s about Elisa (Sally Hawkins), a mute janitor working at what seems to be a top-secret government facility. She’s assigned to clean a lab where the government has imprisoned a beautiful, intelligent fish-like man (Doug Jones), sort of a glimmering cross between the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Aquaman. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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New Guillermo del Toro movie looks beautiful and terrifying

JRR Tolkien Book ‘Beren and Luthien’ Published After 100 Years

seoras quotes a report from BBC: A new book by Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien is going on sale — 100 years after it was first conceived. Beren and Luthien has been described as a “very personal story” that the Oxford professor thought up after returning from the Battle of the Somme. It was edited by his son Christopher Tolkien and contains versions of a tale that became part of The Silmarillion. The book features illustrations by Alan Lee, who won an Academy Award for his work on Peter Jackson’s film trilogy. It is being published on Thursday by HarperCollins on the 10th anniversary of the last Middle Earth book, The Children of Hurin. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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JRR Tolkien Book ‘Beren and Luthien’ Published After 100 Years

Hackers stole a copy of ‘Orange is the New Black’ season five (updated)

The next season of Orange is the New Black isn’t supposed to premiere until June 9th , but the first episode has already leaked. That’s because a hacker or group of hackers going by the name ‘TheDarkOverlord stole the content from a third party, and they’re demanding Netflix pay a ransom in order to keep the rest of the season private. Late Friday night, TheDarkOverlord tweeted about content belonging to ABC, FOX, IFC and National Geographic, saying “We’re not playing any games anymore.” According to TorrentFreak , the source of the breach was Larson Studios, an audio production company in Hollywood that does ADR (Automatic Dialog Replacement) work. The hackers claim Larson agreed to pay up but didn’t, and now they’re trying to squeeze Netflix. In a statement, Netflix has said “We are aware of the situation. A production vendor used by several major TV studios had its security compromised and the appropriate law enforcement authorities are involved.” Who is next on the list? FOX, IFC, NAT GEO, and ABC. Oh, what fun we’re all going to have. We’re not playing any games anymore. — thedarkoverlord (@tdohack3r) April 29, 2017 We are releasing the remainder of OITNB Season 5. Press Release: https://t.co/5vqYglmZAN — thedarkoverlord (@tdohack3r) April 29, 2017 Update: “TheDarkOverlord” announced that they have released episodes 2-10 of the 13 episode season in another torrent. They also continued to threaten Netflix and the other studios, saying “You’re going to lose a lot more money in all of this than what our modest offer was. We’re quite ashamed to breathe the same air as you. We figured a pragmatic business such as yourselves would see and understand the benefits of cooperating with a reasonable and merciful entity like ourselves. And to the others: there’s still time to save yourselves. Our offer(s) are still on the table – for now.” Source: TorrentFreak , AP , Pastebin

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Hackers stole a copy of ‘Orange is the New Black’ season five (updated)