Asphalt 9: Legends has added the brand-new Lamborghini Revuelto to its already impressive roster of supercars. The Italian manufacturer's newest flagship V12 hybrid car was introduced on Thursday, March 30, making Asphalt 9: Legends the first and only video game for now to feature it. Starting today, players can participate in an exclusive challenge to add the new sports car to their in-game garage, simply after completing the first stage. The event ends on April 27 and promises additional liveries and rewards to those who continue playing long after unlocking the Lamborghini Revuelto. Developer Gameloft has also noted chances of winning ‘surprise real-world prizes' from Lamborghini as well.
“The launch of a new flagship Lamborghini is always an exciting time for car lovers around the world. We couldn't be more excited by yesterday's announcement since we've also been able to launch a digital version of the Lamborghini Revuelto in Asphalt 9: Legends,” Ignacio Marín, Asphalt 9 Game Manager, Gameloft said in a prepared statement. “Our longstanding partnership with the company gave us unprecedented access to internal documentation to prepare for this reveal, and we're confident players are going to love getting behind the digital wheel of this incredible — and faithfully recreated — vehicle.” To celebrate the release, studio Gameloft also dropped a cinematic trailer featuring glamour shots of the vehicle, as it cruises through the streets. After the event, players can look forward to an ‘official Lamborghini eSports competition' as well — details for which will be revealed in time.
Keeping in tune with the Lamborghini Revuelto's arrival, Asphalt 9: Legends will feature a new tutorial, a themed splash screen, a new app icon, and more. The Asphalt series has set a benchmark for mobile racing games, boasting a diverse car lineup and an autopilot mode called ‘TouchDrive' that takes some work off your fingertips as you merely worry about timing left and right swipes. There are plenty of customisation options as well, letting you swap out wheel rims, paint jobs, and spoilers to compete in solo and online multiplayer across several in-game locations around the world — be it the landslides of the Himalayas or the tornadoes in the American wilderness.
A Career Mode is included as well, spanning 60 seasons across 900 events, in addition to some story-driven scenarios that pit you against skilled racers in Asphalt 9: Legends or have you compete against racers from your Club to dominate the leaderboard. The game also features excellent immersion, thanks to HDR rendering, realistic reflection and particle effects, and a suave soundtrack.
After the launch of its second horizontally folding smartphone the Find N2, Oppo now appears to be working on its successor. Just like the Find N, the Find N2 was also exclusive to Oppo's home market. The new foldable that has been tagged as the Oppo Find N3 for now, is said to offer plenty of upgrades including a bigger display, battery, and the latest processor from chipmaker Qualcomm. The source has also provided hints about the upcoming smartphone's design without getting into the details.
Tipster Digital Chat Station on Weibo has leaked out several details of an upcoming Oppo foldable handset, which has been tagged as the Find N3. These are the first set of details of the Oppo Find N3 to be publicly available and is also the first time we have heard about the device itself as Oppo released its successor to the Find N recently, in December last year.
The tipster claims that the upcoming device will have a bigger 8-inch inner display with a resolution of 2,268 x 2,440 pixels. It will also feature a 120Hz screen refresh rate. The new display sure seems like an upgrade to the existing model as it packs a higher resolution and is bigger in size as well. The source does not get into details about the Find N3's design, but simply mentions that it will be “ultra-thin”, which would be a welcomed move over the current phone's thicker form factor when folded.
As for the processor, it is expected to be a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC. No details about RAM and storage have been shared. What we do get are details regarding the foldable's camera. The Find N3 is said to feature two selfie cameras just like the outgoing model, but will have a 20-megapixel camera on the outer display and a 30-megapixel selfie camera on the inner display, as per the tipster.
On the rear panel one can expect a 50-megapixel (Sony IMX890) primary camera with optical image stabilisation (OIS), a 48-megapixel (Sony IMX581) ultra-wide camera and an L07D1W22 periscope camera, the tipster says. The periscope camera seems to be the same one as on the unreleased OnePlus foldable as per a recent tip from the same source.
Also available, are details regarding the Oppo Find N3's battery. The phone is expected to have a 4,805mAh battery, which is a bit larger than the outgoing model's 4,520mAh unit.
An earlier report based on the same source pointed out that OnePlus's foldable will be different. However, we are now beginning to notice a few similarities with the display and camera components used in both of these unreleased smartphones. Since all of the above information is based on rumours we do advise our readers to take this information with a pinch of salt.
The newly launched Oppo Find N2 Flip is the first foldable from the company to debut in India. But does it have what it takes to compete with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Vampire Survivors took home the top honour at the BAFTA Games Awards, in what could be called the most shocking moment at the ceremony. The indie title won two trophies — Best Game Design and the coveted Best Game prize — beating out God of War Ragnarök, which was leading with six awards. Even developer Poncle confessed on-stage that they weren't expecting to win. The ceremony was streamed live on Twitch early Friday, and saw God of War Ragnarök dominating the lineup with a record-breaking 14 nominations, though six of them were acting nominations for its stellar cast. The Santa Monica Studio-developed sequel, however, secured the EE Game of the Year, which is a publicly voted award that isn't officially part of BAFTA.
After an early access launch for PC in December 2021, Vampire Survivors almost instantly became a hit, throwing players into pixelated dungeons to mow down thousands of night creatures, while stacking up on perks such as bibles and garlic to keep them away. Funnily enough, despite the game's key art and title mentioning them, none of the monsters or playable characters are actually vampires.
Continuing his run from The Game Awards 2022, Christopher Judge secured another Best Performer win at the BAFTA Games Awards 2023, for his role as Kratos in God of War Ragnarök. Meanwhile, Laya Deleon Hayes, who played Angrboda the Jötunn, secured one for Best Performer in a Supporting Role.
Surprisingly, God of War Ragnarök also stole the award for Audio Achievement from Metal: Hellsinger, the rhythm-based FPS where you lay waste to demonic enemies while rock music blasts in the background. Critical darling Elden Ring won two awards — Original Property and Multiplayer — besting nominees such as FIFA 23 and Splatoon 3. The FromSoftware-developed title previously lifted the Game of the Year trophy at The Game Awards 2022 and at the DICE Awards, last month.
With that, here's the entire list of winners from this year's BAFTA Games Awards:
2023 BAFTA Games Award for Performer in a Leading Role
Christopher Judge as Kratos, God of War Ragnarök — WINNER
Alain Mesa as Alejandro Vargas, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II
Charlotte McBurney as Amicia, A Plague Tale: Requiem
Manon Gage as Marissa Marcel, Immortality
Siobhan Williams as Laura, The Quarry
Sunny Suljic as Atreus, God of War Ragnarök
2023 BAFTA Games Award for Performer in a Supporting Role
Laya Deleon Hayes as Angrboda, God of War Ragnarök — WINNER
Adam J. Harrington as Sindri, God of War Ragnarök
Alison Jaye as Alva, Horizon Forbidden West
Charlotta Mohlin as The One, Immortality
Danielle Bisutti as Freya, God of War Ragnarök
Ryan Hurst as Thor God of War Ragnarök
2023 BAFTA Games Award for Original Property
Elden Ring — WINNER
Citizen Sleeper
Cult of the Lamb Sifu
Stray
Vampire Survivors
2023 BAFTA Games Award for Game Design
Vampire Survivors — WINNER
Cult Of The Lamb
Elden Ring
God Of War Ragnarök Horizon Forbidden West
Tunic
2023 BAFTA Games Award for Game Beyond Entertainment
Endling – Extinction Is Forever — WINNER
Citizen Sleeper
Gibbon: Beyond The Trees
I Was A Teenage Exocolonist
Not For Broadcast
We'll Always Have Paris
2023 BAFTA Games Award for EE Game Of The Year (voted for by the public)
God of War Ragnarök — WINNER
Elden Ring
Horizon Forbidden West
Immortality
Marvel Snap
Stray
Japan said on Friday it will restrict exports of 23 types of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, aligning its technology trade controls with a US push to curb China's ability to make advanced chips.
Japan, home to major global chip equipment makers such as Nikon and Tokyo Electron, did not specify China as the target of the measures, saying equipment makers would need to seek export permission for all regions.
"We are fulfilling our responsibility as a technological nation to contribute to international peace and stability," Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura told a news conference.
Japan wants to stop advanced technology being used for military purposes and does not have one specific country in mind with the measures, he said.
But Japan's decision is seen as a major diplomatic win for US President Joe Biden's administration, which in October announced sweeping restrictions on China's access to US chipmaking tech to slow its technological and military advances.
Without the cooperation of industry heavyweights Japan and the Netherlands, the US measures would be ineffective and its companies would face a competitive disadvantage.
Japan and the Netherlands in January agreed to join the U.S. in restricting equipment exports to China that could be used to manufacture sub-14 nanometre chips, but did not announce the pact to avoid provoking China, sources said earlier.
Japan has never publicly acknowledged any agreement.
A nanometre, or one-billionth of a metre, refers to a specific semiconductor industry technology, with fewer nanometres generally meaning the chip is more advanced.
In the Netherlands, the government said in a letter to parliament this month it planned to restrict chipmaking equipment exports. Dutch major ASML Holding NV dominates the market for lithography systems used to create chips' minute circuitry.
China, which has accused the US of being a "tech hegemony" because of its export restrictions, urged the Netherlands "not to follow export control measure by certain countries".
Limited Impact?
Japan said it would impose export controls on six categories of equipment used in chip manufacturing, including cleaning, deposition, lithography and etching.
The restrictions, effective from July, are likely to affect equipment manufactured by at least a dozen Japanese companies, such as Nikon, Tokyo Electron, Screen Holdings, and Advantest.
Takamoto Suzuki, head of economic research for Marubeni in China, said the measures would be a blow to Japanese equipment makers given the absence of a strong domestic chip market.
"It will undermine the market development of Japanese companies and certainly reduce their competitiveness from a regulatory aspect," he said.
When asked about the impact, minister Nishimura said, without elaborating, that he expected limited impact on domestic companies.
Some industry watchers point to potential sales elsewhere.
"If you take a long-term view, the effect will be diminished, with new semiconductor plants coming into operation in places like the United States and Japan," said Takahiro Shinada, a professor at Japan's Tohoku University.
Japan, which once dominated chip production but has seen its market share slip to about 10 percent, is still a major supplier of chipmaking machines and semiconductor materials. Tokyo Electron and Screen make around a fifth of the world's chipmaking tools, while Shin-Etsu Chemical and Sumco produce most silicone wafers.
Shares of Nikon and Advantest rose 0.8 percent and 1.9 percent respectively after the news, broadly in line with the wider market's 1.1 percent rise. Tokyo Electron and Screen were little changed.
"We will continue to comply with any rules and work to maximize our results within them," a Nikon spokesperson said.
From smartphones with rollable displays or liquid cooling, to compact AR glasses and handsets that can be repaired easily by their owners, we discuss the best devices we've seen at MWC 2023 on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
A US judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms Inc that alleged its Facebook social media business drove a now-defunct photo software application startup out of business in violation of federal antitrust law.
US District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto in Brooklyn, New York, federal court said in her 67-page order that Phhhoto Inc had failed to timely bring its claims under relevant US antitrust law that sets a four-year window and under New York state competition provisions that have a three-year statute of limitation.
"Phhhoto has failed in its 69-page amended complaint of 222 paragraphs to allege sufficient facts that cure the untimeliness of all of its federal claims," Matsumoto wrote. She said, "no exception applies to toll the limitations periods."
The court declined to allow Phhhoto to fine-tune its case and bring another complaint.
Lawyers for Phhhoto at plaintiffs' firm Hausfeld did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Thursday.
In a statement, a Meta spokesperson described the suit as "meritless."
Phhhoto launched in 2014, providing an app that said it "created a five-frame, looping video." Meta two years earlier had acquired photo-sharing app Instagram for $1 billion (roughly Rs. 8,820 crore).
Phhhoto's lawsuit, filed in 2021, alleged Facebook aimed to "crush" the photo-sharing application, which called itself in court filings "an innovative nascent competitor."
"Meta used its control of critical infrastructure to degrade the quality of Phhhoto's content and the performance of its app, as well as to mislead and harm consumers," Phhhoto's attorneys told the court.
Facebook denied any anticompetitive conduct.
The case was among several actions accusing Facebook of violating competition law.
Facebook is defending against claims from the US Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C., federal court that the company abused its personal social networking dominance.
From smartphones with rollable displays or liquid cooling, to compact AR glasses and handsets that can be repaired easily by their owners, we discuss the best devices we've seen at MWC 2023 on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
E3 2023 has been cancelled — it's not happening in any form, in-person or digital, this year. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) confirmed the news on Twitter, following an original report from IGN based on emails sent to its members. It mentioned that while E3 was a beloved brand, the 2023 edition ‘simply did not garner the sustained interest necessary' to execute the event in a manner that would display the size and strength of the games industry. In January, the big three — PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo — pulled out of the summer video game event, leaving barely any major publishers.
Following IGN's report, E3 2023 organiser ReedPop issued a public statement. “This was a difficult decision because of all the effort we and our partners put toward making this event happen, but we had to do what's right for the industry and what's right for E3,” Kyle Marsden-Kish, Global VP of gaming, ReedPop said, adding that a lot of publishers and developers interested in the event wouldn't even have playable demos ready for showcase. “For those who did commit to E3 2023, we're sorry we can't put on the showcase you deserve and that you've come to expect from ReedPop's event experiences", he continued.
The show was supposed to be held from June 13–16 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, marking the first in-person E3 since the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. It took a virtual, digital approach in 2021, after which, the event got cancelled again in 2022.
Earlier this week, Ubisoft backed out of E3 2023, after having previously committed to it. The publisher has chosen to ‘move in a different direction,' and will now hold its own, separate Ubisoft Forward Live event on June 12 in LA. Further details on the same will be revealed in time, albeit CEO Yves Guillemot promised ‘lots of things to show.' Following that announcement, even Tencent and Yakuza publisher Sega were confirmed to be skipping E3.
Just like Ubisoft, Microsoft will be hosting an Xbox Games Showcase on June 11, with an in-depth feature for Bethesda's upcoming sci-fi RPG Starfield, planned for later. Meanwhile, Nintendo and PlayStation will continue hosting their respective online events to showcase new games and updates. Alternatively, they could be joining hands with Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest — at this point, there's no telling.
Since 2020 — the pandemic era — Keighley's month-long-running Summer Game Fest has dethroned E3 as the industry's key destination to reveal the biggest games and news. Also, being a digital, online-only event, publishers don't have to spend large amounts to secure a physical booth. The year's festival kicks off on June 8 and has already swiped Xbox and Ubisoft from beneath E3's feet as some of its main highlights. The Summer Game Fest 2023 will be streamed live from the YouTube Theatre in Los Angeles, and funnily enough, put out its new promotional trailer right after ESA's announcement.
Alphabet's Google Cloud has accused Microsoft of anti-competitive cloud computing practices and criticised imminent deals with European cloud vendors, saying these do not solve broader concerns about its licensing terms.
In Google Cloud's first public comments on Microsoft and its European deals its Vice President Amit Zavery told Reuters the company has raised the issue with antitrust agencies and urged European Union antitrust regulators to take a closer look.
In response, Microsoft referred to a blogpost in May last year where its president Brad Smith said it 'has a healthy number two position when it comes to cloud services, with just over 20 percent market share of global cloud services revenues'.
"We are committed to the European Cloud Community and their success," a Microsoft spokesperson told Reuters on Thursday.
There is intense rivalry between the two US tech giants in the multi-billion-dollar cloud computing business, where Google trails market leader Amazon and Microsoft.
Microsoft has offered to change its cloud computing practices in a deal with smaller rivals which in turn will suspend their antitrust complaints, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters this week.
The move will stave off an EU investigation.
"Microsoft definitely has a very anti-competitive posture in cloud. They are leveraging a lot of their dominance in the on-premise business as well as Office 365 and Windows to tie Azure and the rest of cloud services and make it hard for customers to have a choice," Zavery said in an interview late on Wednesday.
"When we talk to a lot of our customers, they find a lot of these bundling practices, as well as the way they create pricing and licensing restrictions, make it difficult for them to choose other providers," he added.
Zavery said individual deals struck with several smaller European cloud vendors only benefit Microsoft.
"They're selectively kind of buying out those ones who complain and not make those terms available to everyone. So that definitely makes it an unfair advantage to Microsoft and ties the people who complained back to Microsoft anyway,"
"Whatever they're offering, there should be terms across for everybody, not just for one or two they've chosen and pick, and that shows you that they have so much market power they can kind of go and do those things individually."
"My point to the regulators would be that they should look at this holistically, even though one or two vendors might settle doesn't solve the broader problem. And that's the problem we need to really resolve, not individual vendors' problems."
Zavery dismissed the suggestion that the issue is merely a spat between Google and Microsoft.
"The question is not about Google. I just want to make it very clear. It's the cloud. The premise with cloud was to have an open, flexible way to deploy your software and have customers more choices so that they can run their software in any place they choose to in a much more easy way," he said.
The iQoo Neo 7 packs a lot of power at an affordable price. But did the company cut the right corners to keep the price low? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
The Pakistan government's official Twitter account has been withheld in India.
When anyone tries to access the Twitter account of the Pakistan government, it says, "Account Withheld @GovtofPakistan's account has been withheld in India in response to a legal demand."
This is reportedly the third time when Pakistan's Twitter account has been restricted to be viewed in India.
Earlier in October 2022, the Twitter account of the Pakistan government was withheld in India.
It was reportedly the second such incident in recent months. This account was withheld earlier in July as well but had been reactivated and was visible.
According to Twitter guidelines, the microblogging site takes such action in response to a valid legal demand, such as a court order. Currently, the Twitter feed of the Pakistan government "@GovtofPakistan" is not visible to Indian users.
In June last year, Twitter in India banned official accounts of Pakistan Embassies in the United Nations, Turkey, Iran and Egypt. In August, India blocked eight YouTube-based news channels, including one operating from Pakistan and one Facebook account for posting "fake, anti-India content" online.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in a statement that the action was taken by imposing emergency powers under Information Technology Rules, 2021. The blocked Indian YouTube channels were observed to be using fake and sensational thumbnails, images of news anchors and logos of certain TV news channels to mislead the viewers to believe that the news was authentic.
The Xiaomi 13 Pro has a hefty price tag compared to the company's 2022 flagship model. How does it fare against other high-end phones launched in 2023? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
What are the biggest movies releasing in April 2023? Salman Khan headlines the biggest offering in Indian cinema this month, with Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan, a new action-packed affair which sees him as a self-appointed vigilante hoping to rid crime of the city. Directed by Farhad Samji (Pop Kaun), it is a remake of the 2014 Tamil film Veeram and is slated to release on April 21 in theatres. Follow that up with a mythological drama charting the epic love story of Shakuntala and King Dushyant, drawn from the pages of Mahabharata. Samantha Ruth Prabhu — best known for Super Deluxe — leads the cast of the Telugu film Shaakuntalam, hitting theatres on April 14.
Coming to the Hollywood side, we've got The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the main draw of which has been the discourse surrounding Chris Pratt's voice, which doesn't sound high-pitched or Italian enough. Director duo Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic (Teen Titans Go!), however, continue repeatedly defending their voice casting choice, claiming that it ‘made total sense,' given the new Mario origin story they crafted for this feature. The Nintendo-produced animated film hops into theatres on April 7. Evil Dead Rise takes Sam Raimi's universe to frighteningly new heights, by moving the gore-filled action from the cabin in the woods into the city. The film was originally set for an HBO Max release, but following some restructuring at Warner Bros., was switched to a theatrical debut on April 21.
Just like last month, April is also tame on the OTT front, with Amazon Prime Video'sAir, a biopic chronicling the origin of Nike's Air Jordan line of shoes being one of the key releases. For your convenience, we have curated the biggest April 2023 releases coming to theatres, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, and Disney+ Hotstar, which you can check out below. Also, feel free to browse our Entertainment hub to keep track of any other releases that might interest you.
Air
When: April 5
Where: Amazon Prime Video
In 1984, a year marking slow sales and growth figures for Nike, a maverick executive Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) stepped up to sign then-rookie Michael Jordan for a sneaker deal, and hopefully pivot his fledgling basketball division to new heights. Directed by Ben Affleck, Air offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse at this blooming partnership, aided by a supportive mother Deloris Jordan (Viola Davis) who believed in her son's talent; Michael Jordan would go on to become one of the greatest athletes in the history of basketball. Affleck also stars in the film as Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike, constantly questioning and undermining Vaccaro's choices, whilst being humbled and reminded of the risks he took before becoming a business tycoon.
Air is based on a screenplay from debutant Alex Convery, which was named under 2021's The Black List of most-liked scripts. The film also stars Jason Bateman (Ozark) as Nike's director of marketing Rob Strauss, Marlon Wayans (Requiem for a Dream) as Nike's global basketball marketing director George Raveling, and Chris Messina (Sharp Objects) as David Falk, who represented Jordan throughout the legend's career. Air would also be the first time Affleck directs long-time friend and collaborator Damon in a feature film.
Gumraah
When: April 7
Where: Theatres
Aditya Roy Kapur (The Night Manager) stars in this Hindi-language remake of the 2019 Tamil crime thriller Thadam, appearing in a double role. A murder investigation poses big trouble for Inspector Shivani Mathur (Mrunal Thakur) when she discovers that her prime suspect has a lookalike — albeit neither of them is aware of the other's existence. In the original film, one of them is an innocent civil engineer enjoying life as a young adult, whereas the doppelganger is a gambling thief, adept at conning people with his sidekick.
Vardhan Ketkar marks his directorial debut with Gumraah, from a script co-written by Aseem Arora (Dehraadun Diary) and Magizh Thirumeni. The latter wrote and directed the original Tamil film. Gumraah also stars Ronit Roy (Shehzada) as ACP Dhiren Yadav, and Vedika Pinto (Operation Romeo) as the protagonist's love interest.
The Pope's Exorcist
When: April 7
Where: Theatres
You can never go wrong with a campy exorcist film during summer, and the feeling only gets better when it's grounded in reality. Drawing from the actual files of Father Gabriele Amorth, the former Chief Exorcist of the Vatican who performed over 100,000 exorcisms in his lifetime, the upcoming Julius Avery supernatural horror film is a twist on the humans vs demons premise. In it, Amorth (Russell Crowe) is tasked with examining a possessed child, and incorporating rational ideas under the presumption that his subject is just mentally disturbed. Trying to figure out the demon's origins, Amorth stumbles into a centuries-old conspiracy that the Vatican tried keeping hidden — sending him on an Indiana Jones-like excavation mission into the church's various secret tombs and passageways.
Ralph Ineson (The Witch) lends his gruff voice to the demonic spirit, as it puppeteers the host to puke out a dead bird, send people flying, and twist and mangles bodies into a crawling spider position. It is implied that at some point Amorth himself comes in contact with the devil, albeit he's adamant on the idea that his biggest fear is France winning World Cup. Rounding out the cast for The Pope's Exorcist are Peter DeSouza-Feighoney as Henry the possessed child, Alex Essoe as his sister Julia, and Daniel Zovatto as fellow priest Father Esquibel.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
When: April 7
Where: Theatres
After the epic conclusion of HBO's The Last of Us season 1, gamers have yet another treat awaiting them in April. It's hard to ignore the cultural significance of the words “It's-a-me, Mario", spawning a generation of games about a Koopa-stomping, tunnel-warping Italian plumber. From Illumination Entertainment — creators of the beloved Despicable Me franchise — comes The Super Mario Bros. Movie, a bit of an origin story about two blue-collar immigrant plumbers in Brooklyn, New York, who get warped into the vibrant Mushroom Kingdom. Hot on their trails is the loudmouth Bowser (Jack Black), who is on a mission to collect Super Stars and steers his floating magma-fuelled island toward the kingdom.
Teaming up with Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Toad (Keegan-Michael Key), Mario (Pratt) must wage war against the evil turtle — hopping across platforms, dodging projectiles, and getting smooched by pufferfishes. Fan service is in full effect here, be it racing along the lively Rainbow Road, references to an intergalactic adventure, and his adorable shapeshifting Tanooki suit. Seth Rogen voices the tie-wearing gorilla Donkey Kong, who is seen partnering with Mario in the trailer — after a brief slapdown, that is. Meanwhile, Charlie Day's Luigi is held captive by Bowser and haunted by the idea of imminent death.
Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of the original Mario and Zelda games, serves as a producer on The Super Mario Bros. Movie, whereas the original voice actor from the video game franchise Charles Martinet is involved in an undisclosed role.
Original Mario voice actor Charles Martinet is involved in an undisclosed role Photo Credit: Universal Pictures
Renfield
When: April 14
Where: Theatres
Watching Nicolas Cage being melodramatic and going through a full-blown meltdown is always entertaining, and this time, he does so as Dracula, the immortal boss from hell. Sick and tired of his century-long bidding for the vampire lord, Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) the devoted servant intends to break free from his toxic relationship and carve out a new, 'normal' life in modern-day New Orleans. However, leaving isn't as simple as resigning from his post, as the Dracula who bestowed Renfield with supernatural powers, is equally capable of manipulating and abusing him into submission. He is the dark lord, after all.
But when Renfield falls in love with a perennially angry cop Rebecca Quincy (Awkwafina), he finally musters up the courage to fight back for his happiness — snacking on bugs for a power boost, before beating up countless mobsters running afoul. Based on an original concept from acclaimed comic book writer Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead, Invincible), Renfield also stars Ben Schwartz (Sonic the Hedgehog) as mob enforcer Teddy Lobo, Shohreh Aghdashloo (The Expanse) as mob boss Ella, and Adrien Martinez as Quincy's co-worker Chris Marcos. Chris McKay, best known for The Lego Batman Movie and The Tomorrow War directs the film.
Shaakuntalam
When: April 14
Where: Theatres
If the name wasn't a dead giveaway, Gunasekhar's upcoming mythological epic is a cinematic reimagining of Kalidasa's play, Abhijnanashakuntalam. Samantha Ruth Prabhu leads the cast as the beautiful Shakuntala, the forest-dwelling woman who instantly captures King Dushyanta's (Dev Mohan) attention, falls in love, and is wedded based on the Gandharva marriage system. As per the epic, the king was forced to return to his kingdom for some official matters, leaving behind a ring as a token of promise to bring her back to the palace as his queen. Spending most of her time fantasising about her new husband, one day, Shakuntala fails to greet the powerful Rishi Durvasa (Mohan Babu), who in a fit of rage, curses Dushyanta to forget about her.
Their reunion forms the crux of the film, as Dushyanta is unable to recognise a now-pregnant Shakuntala, leaving her to care for the child alone. Much of Shaakuntalam was filmed within a five-month period, after which, it required another two years for visual effects and general post-production — although, the CGI and green screen effects presented in the trailer look pretty unconvincing. It was created on a budget of Rs. 80 crore.
Ghosted
When: April 21
Where: Apple TV+
You'd have to be pretty crazy to travel 5,000 miles to London, hoping to reunite with a woman who ghosted you after the first meeting. Well, that's the premise of Apple TV+'s latest romantic comedy, which sees Cole (Chris Evans) going in pursuit of the enigmatic Sadie (Ana de Armas), only to get embroiled in a tussle involving gangsters who mistook him for 'The Tax Man'. Things take a wild detour when he discovers that Sadie is, in fact, a CIA agent — turning what was meant to be a second date into a series of life-threatening situations, as they're swept away on an international mission to save the world.
Adrien Brody (Detachment) plays Leveque, the main antagonist, who dispatches bounty hunters to capture and bring Sadie back alive. Meanwhile, Mike Moh (Boogie) appears to be playing one of his henchmen, expertly adept at hand-to-hand combat. Ghosted is helmed by Dexter Fletcher — best known for his 2019 Elton John biopic musical Rocketman — from a script written by a team of four: Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Chris McKenna, and Erik Sommers. The former two wrote the Deadpool movies, while the latter pair worked on the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Spider-Man trilogy.
Topping off the cast of Ghosted are Amy Sedaris (The Mandalorian), Tim Blake Nelson (Watchmen), Tate Donovan (Rocketman), and Anna Deavere Smith (Inventing Anna). This would be the third time Evans and de Armas are working together, following Knives Out and Netflix's The Gray Man.
Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan
When: April 21
Where: Theatres
Following a cameo in the blockbuster film Pathaan, Salman Khan returns as a self-proclaimed vigilante in Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan, often getting into scuffles to keep crime rates to the bare minimum. Based on the 2014 Tamil film Veeram, Khan's latest role hits a bit close to home — that of an ageing bachelor, with his siblings eagerly wanting to see getting married. To solve this conundrum, his brothers try setting him up with a woman (Pooja Hegde) bearing a similar name as his past love interest. What follows next is a series of wild revelations that take him across the country, as he sets out to protect his lover's family.
The film was originally announced in 2020 with the title Kabhi Eid Kabhi Diwali but suffered multiple delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Farhad Samji (Pop Kaun?) directs the summer Bollywood blockbuster that is Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan, enlisting a cast featuring Venkatesh Daggubati (Rana Naidu), Jagapathi Babu (Radhe Shyam), Shehnaaz Gill, and Bhumika Chawla (Sita Ramam).
Evil Dead Rise
When: April 21
Where: Theatres
Unlike other chapters in the franchise, Lee Cronin's Evil Dead Rise is not set in a secluded cabin in the woods, instead relocating to a small apartment in Los Angeles, and limits the chances of escape. In it, a road-weary Beth (Lily Sullivan) visits her estranged sister and single mother Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), who struggles to raise her three children. Their reunion, however, is cut short when they discover a sinister book — the Necronomicon — from the bowels of Ellie's building, releasing flesh-possessing demons and turning the night into a primal fight for survival.
Evil Dead Rise promises to be a bloody family affair, starting with the possession of mother Ellie, which soon spreads like an infection amongst her children — played by Nell Fisher, Morgan Davies, and Gabrielle Echols. Expect torn-off scalps, skin being grated off, and demonic possessions crawling on the ceiling — akin to Ari Aster's Hereditary — in this 97-minute-long gory horror film. While it seems short when compared to the modern movie landscape, that runtime makes Evil Dead Rise the longest in the franchise.
With Bruce Campbell no longer returning as series protagonist Ash Williams, it is insinuated that Beth will have to wield the roaring chainsaw and take over the role of the Deadite-slayer. Campbell is instead serving as executive producer on Evil Dead Rise, alongside Sam Raimi.
Peter Pan & Wendy
When: April 28
Where: Disney+ Hotstar
Disney continues its trend of reimagining its animated classics to live-action, and this time, it's the enchanting Peter Pan & Wendy. Co-written and directed by the acclaimed genre filmmaker David Lowery (The Green Knight), it follows Wendy Darling (Ever Anderson), an adventurous girl from London who's afraid to leave her childhood home behind. That is until she meets the free-spirited Peter Pan (Alexander Molony), a young boy residing on the magical Neverland island, who refuses to grow up. Hand-in-hand with her brothers, and the little fairy Tinker Bell (Yara Shahidi), she joins Peter on an adventure of a lifetime — even using pixie dust to fly around.
Trouble awaits in the form of the evil pirate Captain Hook (Jude Law), who seeks revenge on Peter Pan for the loss of his left hand. Judging by the trailer, this new adaptation seems to follow the same plot beats as the original 1953 animated film, which is something that I feared from the beginning — that it would be a corporate, safe Disney movie instead of being a personal, arthouse Lowery project. That said, some of the visuals put on display - courtesy of the cinematographer Bojan Bazelli - look stunning, featuring beautiful landscapes and sequences shot on Hook's flying ship being a key standout. Just like Pinocchio from last year, Peter Pan & Wendy will be a Disney+ release.
The Chromecast with Google TV that runs on Android TV is here. When will Google learn how to name products? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Alibaba Group said on Thursday it will look to monetise non-core assets and consider giving up control of some businesses, as the Chinese tech conglomerate reinvents itself after a regulatory crackdown that wiped 70 percent off its shares.
Group CEO Daniel Zhang said the company's breakup into separate businesses will allow its units to become more agile and eventually list on their own.
His comments come two days after Alibaba announced its largest restructuring in the company's history, which will see it change into a holding company structure with six business units, each with their own boards and CEOs.
"Alibaba will be more of the nature of an asset and capital operator than a business operator, in relation to the business group companies," Zhang told investors on a conference call on Thursday.
On the same call, Alibaba CFO Toby Xu said the group would "continue to evaluate the strategic importance of these companies" and "decide whether or not to continue to retain control".
Alibaba's indication that it could divest from assets and sell control of business units after they go public comes more than two years after Beijing launched a sweeping crackdown on its tech giants, targeting monopolistic practices, data security protection and other issues.
While the new business units will have their own CEOs and boards, Alibaba will retain seats on those boards in the short-term, Zhang added.
The group's Hong Kong-listed shares opened 2.7 percent higher after the investor call and were still up 2% as of 0147 GMT.
Matter of survival
Alibaba began laying the groundwork for the restructuring a few years ago, Zhang told investors during a conference call.
As a result of the restructuring, each business unit can pursue independent fundraisings and IPOs when they're ready, Xu said, when asked about the timeline for the listings. The changes will come into effect immediately.
"We believe the market is the litmus test so each company can pursue financing and IPO as and when they are ready," said Xu.
Alibaba, however, will decide whether the group wants to keep strategic control of each unit after they go public, Xu said.
Meanwhile, the group is also planning to continue to monetise non-strategic assets in its portfolio to optimise its capital structure, said Xu.
Alibaba's major rival Tencent, has in the past year divested from a number of portfolio companies including selling a $3 billion (roughly Rs. 24,672 crore) stake in SEA, transferring $16.4 billion (roughly Rs. 1,34,843 crore) worth of JD.COM shares and $20 billion worth of Meituan shares to shareholders.
Alibaba's reorganisation will not change its share repurchase plan, Xu added on the call.
Qi Wang, CEO of China-focused asset manager MegaTrust Investment, said the sector's strategic move to reorganise was about survival.
"These internet firms are not going to just sit there and let regulation erode away their growth and profits," Wang said. "Companies including Tencent, Alibaba, JD, Didi and ByteDance have been making bottom-up changes to mitigate the regulatory risk, cost cutting (layoffs), improving operating efficiency, divesting non-core businesses."
Alibaba, once valued at more than $800 billion (roughly Rs. 65,77,240 crore), has seen its market valuation decline to $260 billion (roughly Rs. 21,37,629 crore) since Beijing started a crackdown on its sprawling tech sector in late 2020.
Some analysts say Alibaba is currently undervalued as a standalone conglomerate and a breakup would allow investors to value each business division independently.
The restructuring could also better protect Alibaba shareholders from regulatory pressures, as penalties levied on one division in theory would not affect the operations of another.
The newly launched Oppo Find N2 Flip is the first foldable from the company to debut in India. But does it have what it takes to compete with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Electronic Arts said on Wednesday it would lay off about 6 percent of its workforce and reduce office space, making it the first major videogame publisher to announce job cuts.
Technology firms have led the latest round of layoffs as US companies brace for a potential economic downturn amid rising interest rates around the world.
Meta Platforms and Amazon.com announced a second round of job cuts this month. Tech layoffs hit 63,000 in the first two months of the year, according to data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.
EA, which had about 12,900 staff at the end of March last year, expects to incur between $170 million (roughly Rs. 1,398 crore) and $200 million (roughly Rs. 1,644 crore) in charges related to the restructuring.
"As we drive greater focus across our portfolio, we are moving away from projects that do not contribute to our strategy, reviewing our real estate footprint, and restructuring some of our teams," CEO Andrew Wilson said in a blog post.
EA, behind the "FIFA" soccer videogame franchise and "The Sims", will provide opportunities for employees to move to other projects and where that is not possible will provide severance pay and additional benefits, Wilson said.
Video game publishers are also struggling with a slowdown in player spending in the face of decades-high inflation, a change in fortunes from the meteoric growth witnessed during the pandemic.
Video game sales so far this year were flat and spending on video game content across platforms is down 2 percent, according to analytics firm Circana.
Electronic Arts lowered its annual bookings forecast in January after it delayed the release of a game based on the "Star Wars" franchise.
Newly launched Hogwarts Legacy game from Warner Bros Discovery topped the videogame sales charts in February, according to Circana.
OnePlus is all set to launch the successor to Nord CE 2 Lite in India on April 4. The company has confirmed to launch the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G on the above-mentioned date. A teaser page for the phone is already live on the OnePlus India website. The site has revealed its colour variants and key specifications. Meanwhile, a reliable tipster has now tipped the expected price of the upcoming smartphone in India. The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite will be powered by a Snapdragon 695 5G SoC.
Tipster Abhishek Yadav (Twitter: @yabhishekhd) has tipped that the upcoming OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G will start at Rs. 21,999 in India. However, the storage variants of the upcoming smartphone are yet to be known. It is tipped to pack 8GB of RAM and 128GB of inbuilt storage.
The company has also shared that the phone will be equipped with a 5,000mAh battery with 67W fast charging support. Additionally, the phone will come in Pastel Lime and Chromatic Gray colour options.
A recent report also suggested the expected price of OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G in European markets. It is speculated to be priced at EUR 329 (roughly Rs. 29,000).
Meanwhile, other specifications of the phone have also been leaked. It is said to come with an LCD display with 1,800 x 2,400 pixels resolution, and a Snapdragon 695 5G SoC. The phone is tipped to feature a 108-megapixel triple rear camera setup with a 2-megapixel macro sensor and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. Moreover, leaked images have suggested that the phone will have a selfie camera housed in a hole-punch cutout.
The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G will succeed the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite 5G that was launched in India last year. It features a 6.59-inch full-HD+ display with a dynamic refresh rate of 120Hz. The handset is powered by the octa-core Snapdragon 695 SoC, paired with Adreno 619 GPU and up to 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM.
The OnePlus 11 5G was launched at the company's Cloud 11 launch event which also saw the debut of several other devices. We discuss this new handset and all of OnePlus' new hardware on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Vivo's X Flip has been in the rumour mill for a while. The smartphone brand has yet to confirm a launch date, but we have seen a number of leaks over the past few weeks, which indicate that the smartphone exists. The Vivo X Flip, as it's currently called, when launched will be the company's first vertical folding smartphone, after the recently launched X Fold Plus, which was the successor the original Vivo X Fold, its first foldable device. After recently appearing on benchmarking site Geekbench, the handset has now reportedly made it to the Google Play Store's list of devices, hinting at its official name and model number.
The listing, which was first spotted by MySmartPrice, suggests the official moniker of the handset, which appears to be “Vivo X Flip”. The name is similar to what most buyers would expect and associate with a vertical folding device, and is the same moniker we have been using for Vivo's first clamshell foldable since the initial leaks. Also listed is the model number, which the Google's Play Store devices' list refers to as the V2256A. This model number also appeared in a recent listing on China's 3C certification website, which was revealed in a recent leak.
Prior to this, the Vivo X Flip had appeared in a leak related to benchmarking website Geekbench, which apart from its score also suggested the presence of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC.
While the Vivo X Flip has appeared in several leaks so far, the design of the phone is still a mystery as we have only seen a leaked schematic, which hinted at the resolution of each of its displays along with an artist's render, based on the same. The leaked image suggested that the Vivo X Flip may have a larger outer display, keeping up with newer foldable trends, and a large inner foldable panel. The inner display is said to be 1,080 pixels wide (when held vertically), while the outer panel could be 682 pixels across.
A more recent leak suggested the dimensions of the Vivo X Flip's display. Tipster Digital Chat Station claimed that the Vivo X Flip will feature a 6.8-inch OLED display with a full-HD+ resolution and also offer 120Hz screen refresh rate. Strangely the tipster did not provide the outer display's dimensions when hinting at display related information. The same leak also explained that the device could feature a 50-megapixel Sony IMX866 primary camera and a 12-megapixel Sony IMX663 ultra-wide camera.
The Vivo X Flip is expected to be available in a 12GB RAM and 128GB storage variant. It is expected to feature a 4,400mAh battery and come with a 44W charger, which would be similar to Oppo's recently launched Find N2 Flip smartphone in India.
Realme might not want the Mini Capsule to be the defining feature of the Realme C55, but will it end up being one of the phone's most talked-about hardware specifications? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Elon Musk and a group of artificial intelligence experts and industry executives are calling for a six-month pause in training of systems more powerful than GPT-4, they said in an open letter, citing potential risks to society and humanity.
The letter, issued by the non-profit Future of Life Institute and signed by more than 1,000 people including Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque, called for a pause on advanced AI development until shared safety protocols for such designs were developed, implemented and audited by independent experts.
"Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable," the letter said.
The letter also detailed potential risks to society and civilization by human-competitive AI systems in the form of economic and political disruptions, and called on developers to work with policymakers on governance and regulatory authorities.
The letter comes as EU police force Europol on Monday joined a chorus of ethical and legal concerns over advanced AI like ChatGPT, warning about the potential misuse of the system in phishing attempts, disinformation, and cybercrime.
Since its release last year, Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT has prompted rivals to launch similar products, and companies to integrate it or similar technologies into their apps and products.
Realme might not want the Mini Capsule to be the defining feature of the Realme C55, but will it end up being one of the phone's most talked-about hardware specifications? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Artificial intelligence chip startup Cerebras Systems on Tuesday said it released open source ChatGPT-like models for the research and business community to use for free in an effort to foster more collaboration.
Silicon Valley-based Cerebras released seven models all trained on its AI supercomputer called Andromeda, including smaller 111 million parameter language models to a larger 13 billion parameter model.
"There is a big movement to close what has been open-sourced in AI...it's not surprising as there's now huge money in it," said Andrew Feldman, founder, and CEO of Cerebras. "The excitement in the community, the progress we've made, has been in large part because it's been so open."
Models with more parameters are able to perform more complex generative functions.
OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT launched late last year, for example, has 175 billion parameters and can produce poetry and research, which has helped draw large interest and funding to AI more broadly.
Cerebras said the smaller models can be deployed on phones or smart speakers while the bigger ones run on PCs or servers, although complex tasks like large passage summarization require larger models.
However, Karl Freund, a chip consultant at Cambrian AI, said bigger is not always better.
"There's been some interesting papers published that show that (a smaller model) can be accurate if you train it more," said Freund. "So there's a trade off between bigger and better trained."
Feldman said his biggest model took a little over a week to train, work that can typically take several months, thanks to the architecture of the Cerebras system, which includes a chip the size of a dinner plate built for AI training.
Most of the AI models today are trained on Nvidia's chips, but more and more startups like Cerebras are trying to take share in that market.
The models trained on Cerebras machines can also be used on Nvidia systems for further training or customization, said Feldman.
From smartphones with rollable displays or liquid cooling, to compact AR glasses and handsets that can be repaired easily by their owners, we discuss the best devices we've seen at MWC 2023 on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
The Last of Us Part I was finally released on PC on Tuesday, March 28, and it's already getting bombarded with negative Steam reviews. At the time of writing, the game has a 33 percent positive rating, mainly owing to the broken state it was released in. Since its launch, there have been multiple reports in regard to performance issues, ranging from hard crashes, stuttering, poor optimisation, and long loading times. Developer Naughty Dog remade its 2013 magnum opus for the PS5 last year and originally planned on porting it to PC on March 3. However, it was then delayed to March 28, in light of ensuring that the game debuts in ‘the best shape possible'. Sadly, things don't seem to have gone according to plan.
In a tweet, Naughty Dog confirmed that it's ‘actively investigating' the issues. “We will continue to update you, but our team is prioritizing updates and will address issues in upcoming patches,” it reads. Prior to its launch, it seems that media outlets and content creators have not been provided with a press copy for The Last of Us Part I PC, which is quite unusual for Sony, as it has consistently sent review codes days — and sometimes, weeks in advance.
Gadgets 360 can confirm player reports regarding the game's ‘Shader Building' process, which in addition to being time-consuming, was causing random freezes. The Last of Us Part I's PC settings lean more toward CPU usage leading to micro stutters, while the graphics memory easily maxes out at medium settings. Players have also been reporting game crashes while idling in the main menu as they wait for shaders to build, in addition to encountering loading screens during cutscenes in-game.
“Pre-purchased & pre-loaded. Launched it as soon as it was ready. Went to the settings. Turns out this game is eating up nearly 10GB of VRAM at 1440p max settings (game defaulted the settings to maximum),” a Steam user wrote. “I'm running an RTX 3080 Ti with 12GB VRAM, mind you. Never could get past the menu screen which always crashes when the game displays a notification at the bottom right corner that reads ‘BUILDING SHADERS'.”
Players on the Steam Deck have been reporting issues as well — claiming that shaders are taking at least an hour to build, whilst running at 30fps on measly Low–Medium graphics settings. Bear in mind, Steam only allows for two hours of play time, before which you can request a refund. Poor game optimisation has been a common issue for PC gamers lately — Gotham Knights and the more recently-released Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty are great examples of that, running with micro stutters even at the lowest settings. Even Hogwarts Legacy on PC requires dedicated time to build shaders upon every launch, albeit the optimisation isn't as bad.
The Last of Us Part I is now available on PC via Steam and Epic Games Store. That said, I don't recommend that you purchase it until performance patches are released.
