An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Mikey Shulman, the CEO and founder of the AI music generator company Suno AI, thinks people don't enjoy making music. "We didn't just want to build a company that makes the current crop of creators 10 percent faster or makes it 10 percent easier to make music. If you want to impact the way a billion people experience music you have to build something for a billion people," Shulman said on the 20VC podcast. "And so that is first and foremost giving everybody the joys of creating music and this is a huge departure from how it is now. It's not really enjoyable to make music now [...] It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice, you need to get really good at an instrument or really good at a piece of production software. I think the majority of people don't enjoy the majority of the time they spend making music."

Suno AI works like other popular generative AI tools, allowing users to generate music by writing text prompts describing the kind of music they want to hear. Also like many other generative AI tools, Suno was trained on heaps of copyrighted music it fed into its training dataset without consent, a practice Suno is currently being sued for by the recording industry. In the interview, Shulman says he's disappointed that the recording industry is suing his company because he believes Suno and other similar AI music generators will ultimately allow more people to make and enjoy music, which will only grow the audience and industry, benefiting everyone. That may end up being true, and could be compared to the history of electronic music, digital production tools, or any other technology that allowed more people to make more music.

"Nuclear you can trust," reads the web page promoting "The Egg, an at home nuclear reactor."

Yes, Enron.com is now announcing "a micro-nuclear reactor made to power your home." (A quick reminder from CNN in December. "A company that makes T-shirts bought the Enron trademark and appears to be trying to sell some merch on behalf of the guy behind the satirical conspiracy theory "Birds Aren't Real....")

Does that explain how we got a product reveal for "the world's first micro-nuclear reactor for residential suburban use"? (Made possible "by the Enron mining division, which has been sourcing the proprietary Enronium ore...") Enron's new 28-year-old CEO Connor Gaydos insists they're "making the world a better place, one egg at a time."

The Houston Chronicle delves into the details: Supposedly a micro-nuclear reactor capable of powering a home for up to 10 years, the Enron Egg would be a significant leap forward for both energy technology and humanity's understanding of nuclear physics — if, of course, such a thing were actually feasible. "With our current understanding of physics, this will never be possible," said Derek Haas, an associate professor and nuclear and radiation engineering researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. "We can make a nuclear reactor go critical at about the size of the egg that I saw on the pictures. But we can't capture that energy and turn it into useful electric heat, and shield the radiation that comes off of the reactor." [Haas adds later that nuclear reactors require federal licenses to operate, which take two to nine years to procure and "typically require several hundred pages of documentation to be allowed to build it, and then another thousand pages of safety documents to be allowed to turn it on."]

The outlandish claims Enron has made in the weeks since its brand revival have left many to speculate that the move is part of some large-scale joke similar to Birds Aren't Real — a gag conspiracy movement that Connor Gaydos, Enron's 28-year-old CEO, published a book on alongside co-author and movement founder Peter McIndoe. In an exclusive interview with the Houston Chronicle, Gaydos asked that people look past the limitations — be they in the form of regulations or physics — and embrace the impossible....

Several since-deleted blurbs — both on the company's website and on social media — have alluded to Enron potentially expanding into the world of cryptocurrency. Gaydos said he hasn't ruled it out, but the company currently does not have any plans in the works to debut an Enron-themed coin. "I think in a lot of ways, everything feels like a crypto scam now, but thankfully, we are a completely real company," Gaydos said.
When announcing the Egg, Gaydos stressed Enron was now revolutionizing not just the power industry, but also two others — the freedom industry, and the independence industry. And Gaydos reminded his audience that their home micro-nuclear was "safe for the whole family."

"Preorder now," adds the Egg's web page at Enron.com. "Sign up for our email newsletter and be the first to know when we launch..."

ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery announced today that it will not launch the Venu live sports streaming service. "After careful consideration, we have collectively agreed to discontinue the Venu Sports joint venture and not launch the streaming service," the companies said in a joint statement. "In an ever-changing marketplace, we determined that it was best to meet the evolving demands of sports fans by focusing on existing products and distribution channels. We are proud of the work that has been done on Venu to date and grateful to the Venu staff, whom we will support through this transition period." The Verge reports: ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery first announced Venu last year, and it was supposed to launch in the fall of 2024. The service would've given viewers access to a swath of live games from the NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA, and more from several linear channels, including ESPN, ABC, Fox, Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2, TNT, and others.

But then Venu hit a legal roadblock: an antitrust lawsuit from the live TV streaming service Fubo, accusing the trio of engaging in "a years-long campaign to block Fubo's innovative sports-first streaming business" due to restrictive sports licensing agreements. Lawmakers also asked regulators to investigate Venu and its potential to become a monopoly in televised sports.

Former MoviePass CEO Theodore Farnsworth has pleaded guilty to securities fraud and conspiracy charges for misleading investors about the movie subscription service's "unlimited plan" and its parent company's capabilities, U.S. prosecutors said.

Farnsworth falsely claimed the $9.95 monthly unlimited movie plan was sustainable and that Helios & Matheson Analytics could monetize subscriber data through artificial intelligence, knowing both statements were untrue. He faces up to 20 years in prison for MoviePass-related fraud and five years for a separate conspiracy charge involving Vinco Ventures.

The Walt Disney Co. will merge its streaming multichannel video service Hulu with Live TV with its competitor Fubo in a surprise deal that will shake up the streaming TV business, the companies said Monday. From a report: The new company will continue to be traded publicly under the Fubo name, however Disney will control 70% and appoint a majority of the board. Fubo management, including co-founder and CEO David Gandler, will run the combined venture.

The deal will do a couple of big things if and when it is completed: For starters, it will create a much bigger player in the virtual multichannel video provider (vMVPD) space, one that can more aggressively take on the market leader youtube TV. youtube TV said a year ago that it had 8 million subscribers, while Hulu + Live TV had 4.6 million subscribers and Fubo had 1.6 million subscribers, giving a combined offering 6.2 million subs.

In 2024, Americans spent 23% less on streaming subscriptions compared to 2023, driven by rising costs, streaming fatigue, and increased password-sharing restrictions. The findings have been reported in Review's annual State of Consumer Media Spending Report. TechSpot reports: Of those surveyed, 27.8 percent said they are experiencing streaming fatigue - or the feeling of being overwhelmed by the growing number of streaming apps on the market. And with the cost of goods and services at an all-time high, it's hitting folks in the wallet as well. The report additionally found that the average American has two streaming subscriptions, and watches three hours and 49 minutes of content each day. More than a quarter of subscribers - 26.5 percent - share subscriptions with others to save on cost although with recent crackdowns on password sharing, that might not be an option for much longer.

As such, Reviews recommends downsizing the number of subscriptions you pay for each month or spending more time using free services if you're looking to cut down on costs in the New Year. For example, you could stagger subscriptions by signing up for a service temporarily to watch a specific show or movie and canceling when you are finished. It's also wise to keep an eye out for free trials, discounts, and limited-time streaming deals like those occasionally offered from Internet and mobile providers.

Samsung and Google are introducing Eclipsa Audio, an open-source 3D audio standard set to debut on select youtube videos and Samsung's 2025 TVs and soundbars. The new format "could eventually serve as a free alternative to Dolby Atmos, the dominant 3D audio format that hardware makers like Samsung pay to license for TVs and other equipment," reports The Verge. "Samsung says that similar to Atmos, this audio format supports adjusting 'audio data such as the location and intensity of sounds, along with spatial reflections' to create a 3D experience." From the report: The two companies first announced a partnership to develop spatial audio technology in 2023, initially calling it Immersive Audio Model and Formats (IAMF). At the time, Samsung spatial audio head WooHyun Nam said the format would provide "a complete open-source framework for 3D audio, from creation to delivery and playback."

The IAMF spec has also been adopted by the Alliance for Open Media, a group that has been pushing for royalty-free codec support since 2015 and counts companies like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Netflix -- along with Samsung and Google -- among its members. If they also add support for this audio format, it could help it catch on, although it's already taken years for their AV1 video codec to see more use. Samsung and Google are also creating a certification program with the Telecommunications Technology Association "to ensure consistent audio quality" across devices using the format, which also sounds similar to the way companies like Dolby and THX manage the labeling for their specs.

Box office returns have started to stabilize. But nine of the top 10 box office hits this year were sequels [non-paywalled link]. And the 10th was "Wicked." From a report: A year ago, Hollywood's creative community was celebrating the apparent decline of corporate, paint-by-numbers sequels and remakes. Blockbuster ticket sales for movies like "Oppenheimer," "Sound of Freedom" and "Barbie" had shown -- or so it seemed -- that audiences were finally hungry for fresh stories.

You could almost hear the relief emanating from franchise-fatigued writers, directors and producers. "Everything Everywhere All at Once," the wildly inventive Oscar-winning art film that broke out in cinemas in 2022, had not been a fluke! Alas. Mass moviegoing swung squarely back to the predictable this past year, with sequels filling nine of the top 10 slots at the North American box office. The ennead consisted of "Inside Out 2," "Despicable Me 4," "Deadpool & Wolverine," "Moana 2," "Dune: Part Two," "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice," "Kung Fu Panda 4," "Twisters" and the 38th Godzilla movie, "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire."

"Wicked," a song-by-song adaptation of the first half of the long-running Broadway musical, was the only top-10 outlier, counting as original, if only by a witchy whisker. (In the alternative reality of Hollywood, a movie can be "original" even if it is derivative of something else. What matters is whether the source material has previously been used for a stand-alone theatrical movie.)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Hollywood Reporter: A trio of major music publishers suing Anthropic over the use of lyrics to train its AI system have reached a deal with the Amazon-backed company to resolve some parts of a pending preliminary injunction. U.S. District Judge Eumi Lee on Thursday signed off on an agreement between the two sides mandating Anthropic to maintain existing guardrails that prevent its Claude AI chatbot from providing lyrics to songs owned by the publishers or create new song lyrics based on the copyrighted material.

In a statement, Anthropic said Claude "isn't designed to be used for copyright infringement, and we have numerous processes in place designed to prevent such infringement." It added, "Our decision to enter into this stipulation is consistent with those priorities. We continue to look forward to showing that, consistent with existing copyright law, using potentially copyrighted material in the training of generative AI models is a quintessential fair use." [...] Under the agreement, Anthropic will apply already-implemented guardrails in the training of new AI systems. The deal also provides an avenue for music publishers to intervene if the guardrails aren't working as intended.

"Publishers may notify Anthropic in writing that its Guardrails are not effectively preventing output that reproduces, distributes, or displays, in whole or in part, the lyrics to compositions owned or controlled by Publishers, or creates derivative works based on those compositions," the filing states. "Anthropic will respond to Publishers expeditiously and undertake an investigation into those allegations, with which Publishers will cooperate in good faith." Anthropic has maintained in court filings that existing guardrails make it unlikely that any future user could prompt Claude to produce any material portion of the works-in-suit. They consist of a "range of technical and other measures -- at all levels in the development lifecycle -- that aim to prevent users from simply prompting Claude to regurgitate training data," said a company spokesperson. The court is expected to issue a ruling in the coming months on whether to issue preliminary injunction that would bar Anthropic from training future models on lyrics owned by the publishers.

Leading monitor manufacturers Asus, Samsung, and MSI unveiled the world's first 27-inch 4K OLED gaming monitors with 240Hz refresh rates, all featuring Samsung Display's fourth-generation QD-OLED panel technology.

Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27UCDM and MSI MPG 272URX QD-OLED models include DisplayPort 2.1a support, enabling 4K resolution at 240Hz without compression. Both offer DisplayHDR True Black 400 certification and three-year burn-in protection warranties. Samsung's Odyssey OLED G8 specifications remain partially undisclosed. All monitors feature 0.03ms response times and pixel density exceeding 160PPI.

Release dates and pricing details have not been announced.

In a press release today, Apple said their TV Plus subscription service will be free this weekend (January 3 through January 5). From the press release: Apple TV+ is ringing in the New Year by offering an all-access pass to customers all around the world. Enjoy Apple TV+ for free the first weekend of 2025 (January 3 through January 5), Apple TV+ will be free on any device where Apple TV+ is available. All you need is an Apple ID to see what all the buzz is about. "A full weekend may be enough to binge some of Apple's top shows, including Severance, which has its hotly anticipated season 2 launching on January 17th," notes The Verge's Umar Shakir. "The free days could also help potential subscribers get a taste of Apple's eclectic mix of sci-fi shows, such as the space race drama For All Mankind, postapocalyptic thriller Silo, and the Godzilla serial Monarch: Legacy of Monsters."

"Every single one of the top ten box office hits of 2024 was a sequel, a remake... or a prequel," writes The Hollywood Reporter.

Here's the list of 2024's top-grossing films published by the movie blog SlashFilm:

10. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
9. Venom: The Last Dance
8. Kung Fu Panda 4
7. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
6. Wicked
5. Dune: Part Two
4. Moana 2
3. Despicable Me 4
2. Deadpool & Wolverine
1. Inside Out 2


2024 was the year Godzilla celebrated its 70th year as a franchise — but it wasn't the only long-running franchise. "When the Marvel Cinematic Universe went R-rated with Deadpool & Wolverine... it was literally more successful than any other R-rated movie in history," SlashFilm points out, while Venom: The Last Dance was the year's 9th highest-earner. (But several other big superhero movies flopped and "the misses outweighed the hits this year, while DC sat it out entirely as the world waits for Superman to usher in James Gunn's new DC Universe.")

They also marvel that Wicked earned $572 million after opening on the same day as Ridley Scott's Gladiator II....

But in the end SlashFilm describes 2024 as "a banner year for animation," with computer-animated movies filling four of the top ten spots (Kung Fu Panda 4, Moana 2, Despicable Me 4, and Inside Out 2). And another interesting trend? Though the world flocked to Tim Burton's first sequel to Beetlejuice after 36 years, Warner Bros. was, "at one point, pushing for Beetlejuice 2 to go directly to streaming on Max." And Disney original had the same idea for Moana 2, leading SlashFilm to conclude that 2024's box office "should be the death of the big direct-to-streaming movie." SlashFilm notes that Disney also sent several Pixar originals to Disney+ between 2020 and 2022, which "did immeasurable damage to the brand, something that even CEO Bob Iger has acknowledged." And then after a theatrical debut Pixar's Inside Out 2 became "the eighth biggest movie ever at the box office, with $1.698 billion to its name" — and the highest-grossing animated film ever made.

And Dune: Part Two? Denis Villeneuve accomplished nothing shy of a miracle with 2021's "Dune," an adaptation of Frank Herbert's cherished sci-fi novel that was faithful to the material, massive in scale, but still felt like an auteur film... The only downside? 2021 was a terrible time to release a movie, particularly a Warner Bros. movie, as all of the studio's films were going to HBO Max the same day they hit theaters. Yet, "Dune" made $400 million in its original run, which was enough to justify a sequel. Evidently, the audience for this franchise grew exponentially in the years before "Dune: Part Two" hit theaters in early March... All told, Villeneuve's sweeping, epic sequel pulled in $714.4 million worldwide, all while garnering tons of acclaim once again. Also, not for nothing, Villeneuve got it made for less than $200 million...

Without "Dune: Part Two" making what it made, the box office might have been in truly dire shape. As a relatively dead April and very weak May followed, this overperformance helped keep theaters afloat until greener pastures arrived in the back half of the year. The Spice must flow, as it were.
The Hollywood Reporter offers another take on the significance of 2024: Total domestic box office revenue appears to be heading toward around $8 billion, down from 2023's exhilarating post-COVID turnaround of $9 billion, but the National Association of Theatre Owners prefers to accentuate the positive, attributing the dip to a shortage of product due to the labor strikes and taking encouragement from the renewal of the movie habit...

Interestingly, or thankfully, the cinematic universes of Marvel, DC, and Star Wars failed to expand: except for Deadpool & Wolverine, not one of the huge hits came from a comic book franchise or a galaxy far, far away.
The article then complains about people using their phones during the movie for texting, talking, and photographing the movie itself. (Though it applauds a PSA against the practice in which Deadpool and Wolverine "delivered the message in laudably blunt terms.")

And on Wikipedia, Deadpool & Wolverine and Dune: Part Two were the eighth and 23rd most popular articles of 2024.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Despite having an endless amount of music to pair with their short, scrollable videos, TikTok users have been raiding the back catalogues of artists from yesteryear including Bronski Beat and Sade to soundtrack their posts. This year set a new high for use of old tracks on British TikTok posts, with tunes more than five years old accounting for 19 out of its 50 top tracks this year. It is the highest proportion since TikTok started monitoring the trend in 2021, when just 8 out of the 50 tracks were from back catalogues. The trend is also global, with 20 out of the top 50 tracks worldwide coming from back catalogues, led by 80s hit Forever Young by German synth-pop band Alphaville. Here are the top back catalogue tracks (must be more than five years old) on TikTok this year:

1. Blood Orange - Champagne Coast [2011]: 1.1m posts
2. Alphaville - Forever Young [1984]: 458,000 posts
3. Redbone - Come and Get Your Love [1974]: 386,000 posts
4. Tom Odell - Another Love [2012]: 238,000 posts
5. Pavement - Harness Your Hopes [1999]: 219,000 posts
6. Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten [2004]: 207,000 posts
7. Christina Aguilera - Genie in a Bottle [1999]: 207,000 posts
8. Sade - Kiss of Life [1993]: 194,000 posts
9. Sophie Ellis Bextor - Murder on the Dancefloor [2001]: 191,000 posts
10. The Fray - Look After You [2005]: 188,000 posts

An anonymous reader writes: James Bond has dodged more than 4,000 bullets. He has jumped from an airplane, skied off a cliff and escaped castration by laser beam.

Now, 007 is in a new kind of peril. Nearly three years after Amazon acquired the right to release Bond movies through its $6.5 billion purchase of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio, the relationship between the family that oversees the franchise and the ecommerce giant has all but collapsed, WSJ reports.

A new study reveals that the widely accepted "sophomore slump" phenomenon -- where a band's second album is perceived as significantly worse than the first -- exists primarily in professional critics' reviews, not fan ratings. Researchers suggest this bias stems from social conformity among critics, while fans provide more consistent and reliable evaluations across albums. "If every music critic has heard of a sophomore slump and everyone knows it happens, they might be convinced to over-apply it in their reviews," said Gregory Webster, Ph.D., the R. David Thomas Endowed Professor of Psychology at the University of Florida and co-author of the new study. "We suspect it's a kind of social conformity, which we see in a lot of social groups." Phys.Org reports: Webster and his co-author, University of Hannover Professor of Educational Science Lysann Zander, Ph.D., analyzed thousands of albums rated by professional critics and amateur fans. Both critics and fans said that bands' albums generally got worse over time.

But critics were exceptionally harsh with the second album, which was an outlier in this downward trajectory. "It's only critics that show substantial evidence of a sophomore slump bias, whereby they are giving artists' second albums unusually low reviews compared to their first and third albums," Webster said. "Fans show no evidence of a sophomore slump bias."

Webster and Zander expected that fan ratings would reflect a broader consensus about a band's true performance. Fans aren't pressured by the same social norms as professional critics. And with ratings from thousands of fans, the researchers could average across a large group to find more reliable ratings.