MicroProse, an American video game publisher and developer founded by Bill Stealey and Sid Meier in 1982, is being resurrected after an absence of almost 20 years. The publisher's last game was Grand Prix 4 released in 2002, but is most famous for the XCOM and Civilization franchises. MojoKid shares a report from HotHardware: The company is now being led by CEO David Lagettiu, while Bill Stealey, who originally founded MicroProse with Sid Meier, will be onboard as a consultant this time around. For those that would like to see some of their MicroProse classics "refreshed" for modern systems, you're in luck. It will be remastering a number of games, although those specific titles haven't been revealed at this time. What the reinvigorated company has announced, however, is that it has three new games on deck. The first is Task Force Admiral, which will have you in command of a U.S. Navy WWII (Pacifica Theater) carrier task force. This will be a full 3D simulation game with 90 ship classes and 40 different types of aircraft with realistic ballistics and full damage modeling. The game is being developed by Drydock Dreams.

Next up is Second front, which is another WWII-themed game developed by Hexdraw. "Second Front is an accessible WWII turn-based tactical game with more than 40 infantry units and 200 tanks, vehicles and guns," writes MicroProse. It has all the depth of a paper wargame and the ease of a computer simulation. Campaign, scenarios and a complete editor make it an infinite tactical sandbox experience." Finally, there's Sea Power, which was developed by Triassic Games. Sea Power shifts to "modern naval conflict campaigns." All three of the games will be launching soon via Steam, which you can check out using the follow links: Task Force Admiral, Second Front, Sea Power.

Mike Fleming Jr., reporting for Deadline: I'm hearing that Tom Cruise and Elon Musk's Space X are working on a project with NASA that would be the first narrative feature film -- an action adventure -- to be shot in outer space. It's not a Mission: Impossible film and no studio is in the mix at this stage but look for more news as I get it. But this is real, albeit in the early stages of liftoff.

Star Wars Day "is getting a virtual convention," reports Movieweb. Reedpop, the organization behind New York Comic-Con and Star Wars Celebration have put the convention together... The two-day event is called An Online Revelry: May the 4th Be With You and Revenge of the 5th celebration. Star Wars fans can expect all kinds of activities to take part in, right from the comfort of their own homes. This is in addition to Disney+ launching their behind-the-scenes docuseries on The Mandalorian, along with The Rise of Skywalker streaming premiere.

An Online Revelry: May the 4th Be With You and Revenge of the 5th celebration will feature live-tweeting "movies and episodes of both Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels, as well as Q&A sessions and discussions with writers and voice actors associated with the franchise... The event will take place across the many social media accounts of Reedpop, including "New York Comic Con, C2E2, BookCon, Emerald City Comic Con, and Florida SuperCon, on both Twitter and Facebook."
And USA Today reports on some other homegrown celebrations: On Monday starting at 12:01 a.m. PT/3:01 ET, LA's "Star Wars" bar Scum and Villainy Cantina is presenting a 24-hour livestream on Twitch featuring director Kevin Smith, movie historian Leonard Maltin, "Rise of Skywalker" actor Greg Grunberg and more. And that same day, Hollywood trainer Eric Fleishman is hosting a live online themed, costumed workout (4 ET/1 PT, registration required) featuring guest Matt Lanter (who voices Anakin Skywalker in "Clone Wars") and a live performance by Echosmith.
Meanwhile, one Ohio news site even resurrected their image of a homegrown Star Wars board game they'd created in 2005 to celebrate the release of Star Wars III: Return of the Sith.

And CNET just published an article complaining about how much they hated The Rise of Skywalker.

DevNull127 writes: You probably remember Zoe Bell strapped to the hood of a speeding 1970 Dodge Challenger in the Death Proof half of Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse. (She also had parts in The Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.) Today Zoe pulled together what may become a historic video — a massive online collaboration with 40 different film celebrities [and also some stuntpeople] that one reporter called "a stunning display of stunt, editing and acting skills — all put together without anyone collaborating in-person."

Deadline explains:
The most badass actresses and stuntwomen of Hollywood had a full-out, virtual battle royale thanks to actress and stuntwoman extraordinaire Zoe Bell and her video appropriately titled Boss Bitch Fight Challenge. "I'm so bored! I just want to play with my friends!" she proclaims as it is clear she wants to liven things up during her quarantine. What happens next is over five minutes of virtual fisticuffs.

It's a real adrenaline-booster, and Deadline's article also has a complete list of each star appearing in the video.
That list is like revisiting the history of Hollywood action films over the last 20 years. It includes:

• Lucy Lawless (Xena the Warrior Princess)
• Halle Berry (Catwoman)
• Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz (the 2000 version of Charlie's Angels)
• Daryl Hannah (Kill Bill)
• Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow)
• Margot Robbie (Suicide Squad)

Watch out for the baseball bat!

Trolls World Tour won't be the last major-studio release to bypass movie theatres altogether. An anonymous reader quotes the Guardian: Universal gets a greater cut of revenue from digital services than at the box office, which means the film has made the same amount of profit in its first three weeks as the first Trolls film did during its entire five-month run in U.S. cinemas.... "Universal has cast the first stone," said Jeff Bock, an analyst at research firm Exhibitor Relations. "This is exactly what the theatrical exhibition world had always feared -- proof that bypassing theatres could be a viable model of distribution for studios.

"Like it or not, the floodgates have opened. This is just the beginning, and the longer it takes for theatres to open on a worldwide scale, we're going to see the premium-video-on-demand schedule become more and more populated."

That schedule is now filling up. Universal announced last week that Judd Apatow's new comedy The King of Staten Island would scrap its planned cinema release on 19 June and premiere on-demand instead. And Warner Bros is doing the same with Scoob!, the first full-length animated Scooby-Doo film, which was meant to hit cinemas on 15 May...

The straight-to-digital strategy is only considered to be viable for mid- and lower-budget films forecast to earn at most a few hundred million at the global box office.

destinyland writes: For the first time in many years, the first Saturday in May won't mark Free Comic Book Day, as the worldwide comic celebration at comic-book stores has been postponed amid coronavirus concerns," reports Oklahoma's largest newspaper — saying it's been postponed to an unspecified new date in the future. But they're suggesting fans can support their local shops anyways, with some still offering limited services, while others "may still be closed but offer gift cards or other online shopping options." I think those of us who have money should observe "Not-Free Comic Book Day" — where we seek out a local comic book retailer, and ask them to mail us a bunch of comic books and graphic novels. (It also means more money going to the postal service.) Or maybe order some comic books to be sent to a younger reader who's sheltering at home.

The Associated Press reports that the pandemic "poses a particular threat to comic book shops, a pop-culture institution that has, through pluck and passion, held out through digital upheaval while remaining stubbornly resistant to corporate ownership..." They write that the whole industry "is at a standstill that some believe jeopardizes its future, casting doubt on how many shops will make it through and what might befall the gathering places of proud nerds, geeks and readers everywhere."

But it also quotes Joe Field, the owner of Flying Color Comics in Concord, California, who came up with Free Comic Book Day. "Comic book retailers are the cockroaches of pop culture.We have been through all kinds of things that were meant to put us out of business, whether it's the new digital world or distribution upheaval or Disney buying Marvel. We have adapted and pivoted and remade our businesses in ways that are unique and survivable."
Individual shops seem to be announcing their own individual celebrations using the #FCBD tag on Twitter. And at least one publisher is using the occasion to stream an alternative event online, reports CBR. "Alt FCD, taking place over the course of May 1 and 2, will feature virtual panels with comic book creators and free digital downloads of books. The event will be streamed on Facebook, Twitch and YouTube."

OpenAI this week released Jukebox, a machine learning framework that generates music -- including rudimentary songs -- as raw audio in a range of genres and musical styles. From a report: Provided with a genre, artist, and lyrics as input, Jukebox outputs a new music sample produced from scratch. The code and model are available on GitHub, along with a tool to explore the generated samples. Jukebox might not be the most practical application of AI and machine learning, but as OpenAI notes, music generation pushes the boundaries of generative models. Synthesizing songs at the audio level is challenging because the sequences are quite long -- a typical 4-minute song at CD quality (44 kHz, 16-bit) has over 10 million timesteps. As a result, learning the high-level semantics of music requires models to deal with very long-range dependencies.

stikves writes: Given the highly-successful video on demand release of the recent "Trolls World Tour" movie, and the future plans to sidestep theaters for some content from Universal, AMC has struck back by blanket banning of all their content. "As a result, [NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell] noted that as 'soon as theaters reopen, we expect to release movies on both formats,' meaning some movies would continue with theatrical releases while others would go directly to digital retailers or possibly land on NBCUniversal's new streaming service, Peacock," reports The Verge. "The move led to a lengthy statement from AMC Theatres chair-CEO Adam Aron, who claimed that Shell's comments were 'unacceptable.' 'It is disappointing to us, but Jeff's comments as to Universal's unilateral actions and intentions have left us with no choice,' Aron wrote. 'Therefore, effectively immediately AMC will no longer play any Universal movies in any of our theatres in the United States, Europe or the Middle East.'"

The National Football League is giving Amazon exclusive rights to live games for the first time, marking a deeper push by streaming services into sports. From a report: The league announced Wednesday that it would select a Saturday game in the coming season and give Amazon the sole rights to show it outside of the two teams' home markets. The NFL schedules a handful of Saturday games late in its season, when college football's regular season is over. Amazon will also have an exclusive game in 2021 and 2022. It's part of a new three-year extension of the Thursday-night partnership between the tech giant and the world's richest sports league. Amazon and its Twitch platform will continue to have nonexclusive rights to 11 Thursday-night games a season through 2022. Those games, which are also televised on Fox and the NFL Network, will be available to Amazon Prime subscribers in more than 200 countries and territories.

The group behind the Oscars is relaxing the rules for this year's movies because of the coronavirus shutdown, allowing films that premiered on streaming platforms to compete for the industry's most-coveted prizes. From a report: The change applies only to movies that had a previously planned theatrical release and only for the upcoming 93rd Academy Awards, scheduled for Feb. 28. The old rules will be back once theaters reopen, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences said Tuesday. Rule changes for Oscars are rare, and the guidelines for competing have been the source of controversy as streaming platforms such as Netflix pour billions of dollars into feature films and seek to compete for top Hollywood awards. Normally, movies must premiere in a theater in Los Angeles County and show for seven consecutive days, playing at least three times a day, to be considered for Oscars, including best picture.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Reel-to-reel tapes are experiencing a resurgence of interest among audio buffs, but they are prone to degradation, which has been a topic of active research for many years. It's well known that applying heat can often reverse the damage sufficiently to enable playback, usually by baking the tapes in an oven. Now scientists at the US Library of Congress have determined precisely why this method seems to work, presenting their findings earlier this month on the American Chemical Society's SciMeetings online platform.

The primary culprit for the degradation is known as "sticky shed syndrome," in which the binders used in a magnetic tape to hold the iron oxide casing to the plastic carrier deteriorate. They form a sticky residue that can damage both the tape and playback equipment. [...] [E]xperiments showed that when a degraded reel-to-reel tape is heated, the sticky residues melt back onto the bulk polymer layer, rendering the tape playable once again. That's why 130F is the sweet spot for baking degraded tapes; it's the melting point for the residues. "If you go any lower than that, nothing is going to happen," said project leader Andrew Davis, a polymer chemist who works in the LOC's preservation research and testing division. However, he also found that there is no single component that accounts for tape degradation, and the sticky residues don't just form on the binder layer.

"This research also confirmed what we heard from audio technicians, that thermally treated tapes that were wound on reels reverted to a visibly deteriorated condition within a few weeks," said Davis. "Surprisingly, we found that when our small unwound test samples of tape were thermally treated, they appeared to be optically fine even after weeks. Clearly being wound has some effect on the tapes." That is the next stage of research, and Davis actually set up a range of samples with different treatments that he was monitoring right up until shelter-at-home policies went into effect in the Washington, DC, area. He hasn't been able to return to his lab to check on them but is hopeful that, once the lockdowns lift, there will some intriguing experimental results on that score. Beyond that, Davis hopes to extend his experiments to enclosed magnetic media, such as cassette and VHS tapes.

The Pentagon on Monday formally released three unclassified videos taken by Navy pilots that have circulated for years showing interactions with "unidentified aerial phenomena." CBS News reports: One of the videos shows an incident from 2004, and the other two were recorded in January 2015, according to Sue Gough, a Defense Department spokeswoman. The 2004 incident occurred about 100 miles out in the Pacific, according to The New York Times, which first reported on the video in 2017. Two fighter pilots on a routine training mission were dispatched to investigate unidentified aircraft that a Navy cruiser had been tracking for weeks. The Navy pilots found an oblong object about 40 feet long hovering about 50 feet above the water, and it began a rapid ascent as the pilots approached before quickly flying away. "It accelerated like nothing I've ever seen," one of the pilots told The Times. The pilots left the area to meet at a rendezvous point about 60 miles away. When they were still about 40 miles out, the ship radioed and said the object was at the rendezvous point, having traversed the distance "in less than a minute," the pilot told The Times.

The two other videos of incidents in 2015 include footage of objects moving rapidly through the air. In one, an object is seen racing through the sky and begins rotating in midair. Five Navy pilots who spotted the objects in 2015 told The Times in 2017 that they had a series of interactions with unidentified aircraft during training missions in 2014 and 2015 along the East Coast from Virginia to Florida. The episodes prompted the Navy to clarify how pilots should report experiences with "unidentified aerial phenomena," which had been studied under a Pentagon program from 2007 to 2012.
UPDATE (5/3/2020): Astronomer Phil Plait doesn't think the videos captured proof of alien spacecraft -- and explains what he thinks they're showing us instead.

U.S. chipmaker Broadcom has offered to scrap its exclusivity deals with TV and modem makers to end an EU antitrust investigation and stave off a possible hefty fine. Reuters reports: Broadcom, which makes chips to power smartphones, computers and networking equipment and is a major supplier to Apple, found itself in EU competition enforcers' crosshairs over its deals with six companies to buy chips exclusively or almost exclusively from it. That triggered an investigation in June last year and an order to stop such deals until the end of the probe on whether such practices were aimed at squeezing out rivals.

Broadcom has now pledged not to offer incentives to TV and modem makers to encourage them to acquire more than 50% of their chips and modems from the company for their worldwide or European production. Broadcom said its offer addressed the Commission's concerns and it expected the investigation to close before the end of the year. "In these uncertain times, we welcome the opportunity to avoid protracted litigation and to resolve the investigation without recognition of liability or the imposition of a fine," the company said in a statement. The European Commission said it would now seek feedback before deciding whether to accept the offer which would be valid for five years and without a finding of infringement by the company.

Two lead economists for the World Bank called for an updated online version of a legendary government program from America's Great Depression during the 1930s -- public works programs -- as a companion to widespread calls for quarantining: What is missing in such mandatory "stick" approaches is the more active use of "carrot" incentives that could both encourage self-isolation and help prepare a workforce to bounce back in the recovery phase.... [W]e propose that governments subsidize a set of activities that could be done from home. This would further induce self-isolation, reduce the need for quarantine enforcement, and encourage some to learn new skills that could be useful after the pandemic is over.

It could also provide effective, self-targeted social assistance to young people who have lost their jobs due to quarantines and lockdowns. Several categories of activities satisfy these criteria: data labeling, document digitization, and virtual services.
Long-time Slashdot reader sixoh1 quips it could be a kind of "Mechanical Turk for all," but adds, "One idea that struck me was converting documents to display online."

The two World Bank economists also suggest that governments subsidize online courses -- and maybe even streaming services. In these times of social distancing, "There is actually a public-good component in these privately-provided services..."

Nearly 16 years ago, Slashdot's original co-founder CmdrTaco posted that liberal film-maker Michael Moore had won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival for a documentary about the Bush administration -- and noted later that Moore approved downloads of the film through networks like BitTorrent.

But now the 66-year-old filmmaker is offering free streaming on his YouTube channel for a 2019 film he'd backed called "Planet of the Humans." The film "reveals the heavy environmental impact of renewable energy and the problems with solar energy, wind energy and biogas, among other forms of power," writes Newsweek. "Instead, the documentary argues that the only way to save the planet is to stop the growth of the human population and reduce its consumption."

The film features appearances by everyone from Elon Musk and Al Gore to Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Koch Brothers. (And it includes music from many artists including Radiohead and King Crimson.) In its description on YouTube, the film's director Jeff Gibbs argues that no amount of batteries will save us. "This urgent, must-see movie, a full-frontal assault on our sacred cows, is guaranteed to generate anger, debate, and, hopefully, a willingness to see our survival in a new way — before it's too late.

"With the pandemic having shut down production, companies are asking ad agencies to create commercials made up of digitally altered footage," reports the New York Times, citing a State Farm commercial that aired during an ESPN documentary starring the anchor of "SportsCenter," Kenny Mayne: The producers made the commercial by layering video of Mr. Mayne's 60-year-old mouth onto footage of his 38-year-old face. To many viewers, the stunt provided a welcome moment of levity in depressing times. Others were made uneasy by the smoothness of the patch, describing it as a type of deepfake. "We tried to make the joke clear enough so that we weren't tricking anyone," said Carrie Brzezinski-Hsu, the head of ESPN CreativeWorks, which created the commercial with the ad agencies Optimum Sports and Translation.

Ms. Brzezinski-Hsu said manipulated footage was likely to appear in future ESPN ads. And executives at several major advertising agencies said they had discussed making similar commercials with their clients in recent weeks. "We're so restricted in how we can generate content," said Kerry Hill, the production director for the ad agency FCB in North America. "Anything that can be computer generated is something we're going to explore."

Husani Oakley, the chief technology officer of the ad firm Deutsch, said digitally altered ads should somehow clue viewers into the fact that what they are seeing is not completely real. "The technology is here, and it's only going to get better and better, and we have to get used to it," he added. "We're exploring ways to have fun with it."

"The source code for Team Fortress 2 has apparently been leaked, leading to hackers reportedly able to deliver malware through Remote Code Execution to other players," reports TechRadar. However, Valve assures users that playing on official servers is perfectly safe. From the report: This leak was initially reported by @SteamDB on Twitter, with the source code in question dating back to 2017 and 2018, affecting Counter-Strike: Source and Team Fortress 2. According to a report on the issue from PCGamesN, several Team Fortress 2 server communities have advised players to avoid the game until further notice.

Valve has reached out with a comment, saying "We have reviewed the leaked code and believe it to be a reposting of a limited CS:GO engine code depot released to partners in late 2017, and originally leaked in 2018. From this review, we have not found any reason for players to be alarmed or avoid the current builds (as always, playing on the official servers is recommended for greatest security)." Valve goes on to clarify that it's investigating the problem and anyone who has any information can report it on Valve's security page, which will explain how to fix the issue.

AT&T lost another 897,000 premium TV subscribers in Q1 2020, as the DirecTV owner's string of massive customer losses continued. An AT&T executive today said the company is moving ahead with a company-wide cost-cutting program. From a report: AT&T's earnings announcement today said the 897,000-customer net loss reduced the total number of premium TV subscribers to 18.6 million. AT&T said the latest customer loss was "due to competition and customers rolling off promotional discounts as well as lower gross adds from the continued focus on adding higher-value customers."

Sonos launched its first audio service Tuesday, called Sonos Radio. It promises free and exclusive music programming across a few dozen stations. From a report: Many of these stations will be supported by advertising -- a new business for Sonos, which the company is entering at a time when the ad business is feeling the pressure of an evolving economic downturn. However, for Sonos, the radio service also represents a new opportunity to lean more heavily into product partnerships like its existing relationship with Ikea, and expand to new product categories, including automotive. As such, it's an interesting example for a consumer electronics company using services not only to generate revenue but also as a way to expand its core business.

Netflix beat its forecast for subscriber growth in the first quarter as consumers in many countries stayed at home due to the coronavirus pandemic and hunted for ways to entertain themselves. From a report: The streaming giant said Tuesday it added 15.8 million new paid subscribers [alternative source] around the world in the quarter, more than double the 7 million new subscribers it had predicted for the period. In the first quarter a year ago, Netflix added 9.6 million new subscribers globally. "Like other home entertainment services, we're seeing temporarily higher viewing and increased membership growth. In our case, this is offset by a sharply stronger US dollar, depressing our international revenue, resulting in revenue-as-forecast. We expect viewing to decline and membership growth to decelerate as home confinement ends, which we hope is soon," Netflix said in its letter to shareholders.