Walmart said this week that it was converting some of its parking lots into drive-in theaters for the summer as the movie industry struggles amid the coronavirus pandemic. From a report: The retail behemoth is converting 160 of its parking lots across the US into drive-ins. These theaters will open in early August and remain open through October. The Walmart Drive-In will feature movies programmed by Tribeca Enterprises, the company behind the Tribeca Film Festival, which recently launched a summer movie drive-in series bringing films, music, and sporting events to as many US drive-ins as possible.

shirappu writes: A new paper by Disney Research shows off a newly developed neural network that can swap faces in photos and videos at high-resolution. The idea behind this technology is to replace an actor's performance with a different actor's face, or for roles that require de-aging or increasing age, or for portraying actors who have passed away. Current face-swapping technology (also known as deepfakes) often creates an "uncanny valley" effect, where something about the image or video feels off. Though there is some of that in Disney Research's tech, it's still a huge step forward for creating believable face-swapping in the entertainment industry. This has once again brought up a conversation around the ethical use of this technology and the potential for malicious use. However, given the amount of ongoing R&D in this area, it seems unlikely that we'll see any slowdown in the near future.

CNET is celebrating its 25th anniversary with articles remembering the 1990s — including that moment "when Hollywood finally noticed the web," calling it "a flawed but fun snapshot of the moment the internet took over the world..."

"Twenty-five years ago, cinema met cyberspace in a riot of funky fashion, cool music and surveillance paranoia. It began in May 1995 with the release of Johnny Mnemonic, a delirious sci-fi action dystopia matching Keanu Reeves with seminal cyberpunk author William Gibson. In July, Sandra Bullock had her identity erased in conspiracy thriller The Net. In August, Denzel Washington pursued Russell Crowe's computer-generated serial killer in Virtuosity, and in September Angelina Jolie found her breakthrough role in anarchic adventure Hackers. In October, Kathryn Bigelow served up dystopian thriller Strange Days. It's hard to know what's most dated about these mid-'90s curios: the primitive-looking effects, the funky fashions or the clunky technology depicted on screen. But now, 25 years later, they've proved prescient in their concerns about surveillance, corporate power and the corruption of what seemed to be an excitingly democratic new age...

Most tellingly, Johnny Mnemonic and the other tech-focused films of 1995 all express fears around the misuse of surveillance in a connected world. The Net updates the paranoia of '70s thrillers The Conversation and The Anderson Tapes, and each movie features an unholy alliance of avaricious corporate bad guys and authoritarian law enforcement. Or as Matthew Lillard's character puts it in Hackers, "Orwell is here and livin' large!"

But the whistleblowing heroes of Hackers, The Net and Johnny Mnemonic use their skills to subvert and unpick the establishment's grip on technology. Hackers in particular radiates an infectious idealism as the diverse crew of anarchic youngsters rollerblade rings around the greedy suits and clueless cops, "snooping onto them as they snoop onto us". The movie highlights technology's potential to be a tool for wrongdoing and a democratic, open medium where you can be who you want to be... Sadly, 1995's wave of technology-themed movies have one other thing in common. They all bombed.
CNET's reporter gets new quotes from the director of Hackers — as well as one of that film's then-15-year-old technical advisors, Nicholas Jareck. "For all its exaggerations," he says, "it does a decent job of showing the hacker spirit — those kids were tinkerers, experimenting, reveling in their ability to figure something out. It's a celebration of human ingenuity."

Johnny Mnemonic. "Speaking on the phone from New York, Longo's memories are peppered with entertaining asides about who was 'evil,' 'a dick,' 'an idiot' or 'a fucking idiot.'"

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Walt Disney Company is closing down its three Disney Channels in the U.K. this fall and moving the content to its streaming service Disney+. From the report: From Oct. 1, Disney+ will become the exclusive U.K. home for content from Disney Channel, DisneyXD and Disney Junior, the company said Thursday. "The direct-to-consumer service, which garnered more than 54.5 million subscribers worldwide in its first seven months, will now premiere all the latest films, series and specials from the three Disney Channels, along with offering a rich and expansive back catalogue of Disney Channel titles in the U.K., including Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Descendants 3 and Phineas and Ferb," Disney said.

The Hollywood conglomerate added: "The Walt Disney Company remains committed to our kids channels business and continues to execute distribution agreements for Disney channels in many markets where Disney+ is also available, with the goal of giving our fans multiple entry points to our storytelling.â" One analyst suggested that it had been getting more difficult for Disney and its distribution partners in Britain to strike carriage deals for the company's three kids networks that make financial sense for both sides, making the consolidation of the channels' content a logical next step.

Amazon is looking to add 24/7 live programming to its Prime Video service, according to Protocol. The new channels could include live news, music and sports as well as scheduled movies and TV show showings. From the report: Speaking under the condition of anonymity, an industry insider told Protocol that Amazon has been "actively pursuing" deals to license live and linear programming. "You should assume they're talking to everybody," he said. By adding live programming to Prime Video, Amazon could differentiate itself from services like Netflix and Disney+ that are focused exclusively on on-demand video. The move is also a response to the growing popularity of linear streaming services like Pluto and Xumo, and ultimately could be part of a different take on live TV: Instead of licensing the same costly programming bundles as traditional cable services, Amazon may be looking to combine its existing on-demand content and a much more narrow take on must-see live TV.

Amazon has been experimenting with live programming for Prime Video over the past several years, which included licensing NFL Thursday Night Football as well as the English Premier League. In the future, it may also stream live concerts, political debates and news programming, according to a job listing for Amazon's Prime Video live events team. "This is a transformative opportunity, the chance to be at the vanguard of a program that will revolutionize Prime Video," that job listing reads. Beyond individual live events, Amazon is also looking to license complete 24/7 feeds. "Linear TV enables customers to watch 24/7 streams of their favorite TV stations airing programs including sports, news, movies, award shows, special events and TV shows," one job listing details. Another specifically singles out live broadcasters and cable networks as potential partners.

The state of California has lost again in its attempt to punish IMDb for ageism perpetrated by movie studios who seem to refuse to cast actresses above a certain age in choice roles. Techdirt reports: The law passed by the California legislature does one thing: prevents IMDb (and other sites, theoretically) from publishing facts about actors: namely, their ages. This stupid law was ushered into existence by none other than the Screen Actors Guild, capitalizing on a (failed) lawsuit brought against the website by an actress who claimed the publication of her real age cost her millions in Hollywood paychecks. These beneficiaries of the First Amendment decided there was just too much First Amendment in California. To protect actors from studio execs, SAG decided to go after a third-party site respected for its collection of factual information about movies, actors, and everything else film-related.

The federal court handling IMDb's lawsuit against the state made quick work of the state's arguments in favor of very selective censorship. In only six pages, the court destroyed the rationale offered by the government's finest legal minds. [...] Even if the law had somehow survived a First Amendment challenge, it still wouldn't have prevented studios from engaging in discriminatory hiring practices. If this was really the state's concerns, it would have stepped up its regulation of the entertainment industry, rather than a single site that was unsuccessfully sued by an actress, who speculated IMDb's publication of her age was the reason she wasn't landing the roles she wanted.

Joel Schumacher, the writer-director who came from a world of window dressing and costume design to bring a singular style to films including St. Elmo's Fire, Flatliners and a pair of Batman movies, died Monday. He was 80. From a report: Schumacher died after a yearlong battle with cancer, a representative announced. Schumacher's directorial body of work also included the horror comedy The Lost Boys (1987), which he was handed after Richard Donner passed on it to helm Lethal Weapon; the John Grisham thrillers The Client (1994) and A Time to Kill (1996); and 8MM (1999), the noirish drama starring Nicolas Cage. The Warner Bros. regular dealt with dark themes with the medical thrillers Flatliners (1990) and Dying Young (1991), both starring Julia Roberts, and Falling Down (1993), with Michael Douglas playing an unhinged man who embarks on a violent rampage all around Los Angeles. Schumacher had an uncanny ability to recognize young talent, and he cast members of "The Brat Pack" -- including Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy -- in St. Elmo's Fire (1985). He also boosted the careers of other young actors like Roberts, Kiefer Sutherland, Matthew McConaughey and Colin Farrell by giving them prominent parts in his films.

In an abrupt about-face, the movie theater chain AMC said Friday it would require guests to wear face masks when its theaters reopen, after CEO Adam Aron earlier said it would not. The Verge reports: "This announcement prompted an intense and immediate outcry from our customers, and it is clear from this response that we did not go far enough on the usage of masks," Aron said in a statement. "Accordingly, and with the full support of our scientific advisors, we are reversing course and are changing our guest mask policy. As we reopen theaters, we now will require that all AMC guests nationwide wear masks as they enter and enjoy movies at our theaters."

On Thursday, Aron told Variety the chain would not require patrons to wear face masks because it "did not want to be drawn into a political controversy," saying he thought it would be "counterproductive if we forced mask wearing on those people who believe strongly that it is not necessary." AMC, the largest theater chain in the world, plans to reopen in 450 of its 600 US locations on July 15th with limited capacity, after closing all of its theaters around the world in mid-March. The company posted a $2.2 billion net loss in the first quarter and made "virtually no revenue" in the last two weeks of March. AMC also said in its 8-K filing earlier this month that unless it was able to restart operations in July that "substantial doubt exists about our ability to continue as a going concern for a reasonable period of time."

cold fjord writes: Sir Ian Holm, a classically trained actor celebrated for his interpretations of Shakespeare, and with an astonishing range of work in important science fiction and fantasy films, has died at age 88. Holm's depiction of King Lear was celebrated, and he brought Puck to life in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." But most people on Slashdot will remember him for a few other roles, such as Bilbo Baggins, in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and two of the "Hobbit" movies. Holm also appeared in "Alien" as the android Ash, as Napoleon in "Time Bandits," and Cornelius in "The Fifth Element." Holm received a Tony Award in 1967, a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in 1998, a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 1981, and was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in Chariots of Fire. Holm received royal honors in 1989 and 1998.

An anonymous reader shares a report: In normal times, blockbuster movies usually dominate the box office charts. The big-budget productions, directed by the likes of James Cameron, Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott, regularly draw the biggest crowds at cinemas across the US and beyond. But on 10 June, one box office-topping movie was watched by just two people, in one cinema. Unsubscribe, a 29-minute horror movie shot entirely on video-conferencing app Zoom, generated $25,488 in ticket sales on that day. Nationwide, the movie hit the top of the charts, according to reputable revenue tacker Box Office Mojo. The budget of the movie: a flat $0. How was that possible?

The movie was the brainchild of Eric Tabach, an actor and YouTuber from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and filmmaker Christian Nilsson, from New York City. When the coronavirus pandemic shuttered movie theatres in March, the pair saw an opportunity in the crisis. Given no big films were being released in cinemas, they wondered if they could hit the top of the charts if they made their own movie, DIY style. "I noticed that the box office figures were absurd; $9,000, $15,000 for each movie. Nothing big was coming out. Blockbuster films were on hold. I wanted to find a way to get the biggest number," Mr Tabach told the BBC.

The Verge reports that WarnerMedia is getting rid of the HBO Go app in an attempt to reduce some of the confusion about which app is for which purpose. From the report: HBO Max is AT&T's new streaming service that lets you access the entire HBO library plus additional content like Cartoon Network shows and the Studio Ghibli movies. You can subscribe to HBO Max directly for a $14.99 monthly fee, but it's also offered for free from many cable providers if you subscribe to HBO, and it's free as part of some AT&T wireless, internet, or TV plans. A key thing to know is that HBO Max is really an expanded and rebranded version of HBO Now, the company's previous streaming-only service. On most platforms, like Apple TV, the HBO Now app was directly updated to become HBO Max.

Before HBO Max existed, cable subscribers could stream HBO shows using an app called HBO Go. WarnerMedia will be getting rid of that app (or "sunsetting" it, in WarnerMedia's language) from "primary platforms" as of July 31st. If you previously relied on HBO Go, many cable providers will already let you log in to HBO Max. You can see that full list here. That "primary platforms" language is important, because WarnerMedia still hasn't struck deals to bring HBO Max to Roku or Amazon streaming devices. On those platforms, WarnerMedia is not upgrading the HBO Now app to become HBO Max. Instead, it's rebranding to simply be "HBO," where it will still cost $14.99, even though you'll only be able to watch HBO content on it and not the expanded HBO Max catalog. This branding switch will be happening over the coming months, according to WarnerMedia.

The Internet Archive is a massive endeavor -- it's an online library aiming to "provide Universal Access to All Knowledge." It has digitized millions of web pages, movies, photos, recordings, software programs, and books that might otherwise be lost to history. But it's neither un-censorable nor outside the bounds of copyright law. And now open internet supporters are wondering how to save it before it disappears.

European police busted an illegal streaming ring that provided service to 2 million people and was so sophisticated that it had its own customer-service team. From a report: The criminal network operated for over five years and offered more than 40,000 channels, movies, documentaries and other content, according to European police coordination agency Europol. The scale of the operation shows how the big streaming platforms still struggle to deal with content theft as criminals find new ways to hack their anti-piracy systems. The group offered a technical assistance service and high standards of quality control, earning an estimated 15 million euros ($17 million) through PayPal payments, bank transfers and cryptocurrencies, the agency said. The threat to legal streaming may grow if Netflix, Walt Disney Co. and others gradually raise prices in coming years to capitalize on their fast-growing subscriber bases and viewers seek out cheaper, illegal alternatives.

Just like nearly everything else on the internet, streaming services are ruled by recommendation algorithms that are designed to predetermine what people want before they ask for it. WarnerMedia is trying to accomplish the opposite with HBO Max. From a report: The company's new streaming service, which will allow for three concurrent streams, is positing itself as a human-first platform -- the opposite of Netflix's strategy. As streaming becomes more of a centerpiece in people's homes and more platforms find their way to people's television sets, focusing on improving the actual curation system subscribers use is just as important as available content, Sarah Lyons, senior vice president of product experience, told The Verge. CNET adds: Like rivals Netflix and Disney Plus, HBO Max has a sprawling catalog of hit shows and movies, plus a big-budget slate of exclusive originals packed with stars. But HBO Max is the most expensive of the bunch. New subscribers can sign up and pay a simple $15 a month subscription after a week-long free trial, the same price HBO already charges for its linear channel on most pay-TV providers and for its preexisting standalone streaming service, HBO Now. But if you're already paying for HBO in some form, the amount you'll have to pay for Max now, or whether you have to pay anything extra at all... well, it's complicated. "The question is: Does your provider have to deal with us for Max and do you move over? That answer will be fairly simple, and then beyond that it gets a little more complicated," Andy Forssell, the general manager of WarnerMedia's streaming operation, said in an interview last week. "We've got really broad distribution, and ... midnight next Tuesday we'll be where we are -- not that that's an end point, if there any discussions undone." To entice you to give it a try, HBO Max has padded itself with more content than you'll find on either the regular HBO channel or HBO Now.

Parents share a roof but see little of teenagers who have adopted vampire schedules; "Sometimes, my dad just wants me to wake up for no reason." From a report: Paul Cancellieri wakes up most mornings around 6 a.m. He makes himself breakfast. Then he says good night to his 16-year-old son, Cole. Cole, a high-school junior in Wake Forest, N.C., is one of the American teens who have gone nocturnal in the Covid-19 pandemic. While some schools require students to log on to live classes, many others are instead assigning work for students to complete on their own. With no daytime commitments, some teens prefer to stay up all night and sleep days. Some watch movies or chat with friends on similar schedules. Others do homework without their folks hovering. "I feel more relaxed, honestly," said Zach Zimmerman, a high-school senior in Mansfield, Texas. That was in April, when he was in the habit of going to bed around 10 a.m. and waking up in the late afternoon.

This month, Zach started taking an online college class that starts at 1 p.m., forcing him back to daylight hours. "When my college classes are over," he said, "I'll probably go back." Some parents welcome the daytime peace and quiet. They say it isn't worth arguing over bedtimes when teens are stuck at home and have no compelling reason to rise early. Gabrielle Powell, a 17-year-old in Escondido, Calif., spends her nights on Snapchat and video calls with friends. She plows through TV shows like "Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness" and "All American," she said, and makes macaroni and cheese. Her post-dawn bedtime varies. She recently broke her routine for the Advanced Placement calculus exam, at the ungodly late 11 a.m. Gabrielle stayed awake the rest of the day before going to sleep, but she soon returned to the night shift.

The process to get unlicensed versions of movies, music and other content taken off the internet isn't working as intended and should be updated, the Copyright Office said in an expansive report Thursday. From a report: Updating that system would require an act of Congress, which can now look to the Copyright Office's conclusions as it considers legislating on the matter. In its report, the office found the system for notice and takedown of infringing materials is unbalanced and out of sync with Congress' intent when it established the process in the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA includes liability protection for online companies whose users illegally upload copyrighted material if the online companies take down the material when they are notified by the rights-holder. Copyright holders have complained that this process doesn't proactively protect their intellectual property against online infringement, and the report appears to agree, concluding "Congress' original intended balance has been tilted askew."

Apple is acquiring older movies and shows for its TV+ streaming service, aiming to build a back catalog of content that can better stack up against the huge libraries available on Netflix, Hulu and Disney+. From a report: The company's video-programming executives have taken pitches from Hollywood studios about licensing older content for TV+ and have bought some shows and movies, according to people familiar with the matter. The move represents a subtle strategy shift for Apple TV+, which launched in November with a lineup of original programs. The company plans to keep TV+ focused on original shows, and hasn't yet acquired any huge franchises or blockbusters for its back catalog, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private.

Facebook and some of the world's largest telecom carriers including China Mobile are joining forces to build a giant sub-sea cable to help bring more reliable and faster internet across Africa. From a report: The cost of the project will be just under $1 billion, according to three people familiar with the project, who asking not to be identified as the budget hasn't been made public. The 37,000-kilometer (23,000 miles) long cable -- dubbed 2Africa -- will connect Europe to the Middle East and 16 African countries, according to a statement on Thursday. The undersea cable sector is experiencing a resurgence. During the 1990s dot-com boom, phone companies spent more than $20 billion laying fiber-optic lines under the oceans. Now tech giants, led by Facebook and Alphabet's Google, are behind about 80% of the recent investment in transatlantic cable, driven by demand for fast-data transfers used for streaming movies to social messaging.

Quibi, the streaming app veteran executive Jeffrey Katzenberg started with Meg Whitman a little more than a month ago -- and for which it raised $1.8 billion -- is off to a rough start. From a report: Downloads have been anemic, despite a lineup that includes producers and stars like Jennifer Lopez, LeBron James, Idris Elba, Steven Spielberg and Chrissy Teigen. The service, which offers entertainment and news programs in five- to 10-minute chunks, was designed to be watched on the go by people who are too busy to sit down and stream TV shows or movies. It came out when millions of people were not going anywhere because of stay-at-home orders across the country. "I attribute everything that has gone wrong to coronavirus," Mr. Katzenberg said in a video interview. "Everything. But we own it."

Quibi fell out of the list of the 50 most downloaded free iPhone apps in the United States a week after it went live on April 6. It is now ranked No. 125, behind the game app Knock'em All and the language-learning app Duolingo, according to the analytics firm Sensor Tower. Even with a free 90-day trial, the app has been installed by only 2.9 million customers, according to Sensor Tower. Quibi says the figure is more like 3.5 million. Of those who have installed the app, the company says 1.3 million are active users. Mr. Katzenberg expressed disappointment with those numbers. "Is it the avalanche of people that we wanted and were going for out of launch?" he said. "The answer is no. It's not up to what we wanted. It's not close to what we wanted." So nobody wants to use a short-form video app right now, except an increasingly growing number of people who are hooked to TikTok. Nobody wants to spend money on a service, but Quibi is free for first three months. Yeah, it's the coronavirus.

Facebook trained a new chatbat with 1.5 billion examples of human exchanges from reddit, claiming it's able to demonstrate empathy, knowledge and personality. The BBC reports: The social media giant said 49% of people preferred interactions with the chatbot [named "Blender"], compared with another human. But experts say training the artificial intelligence (AI) using a platform such as Reddit has its drawbacks. Numerous issues arose during longer conversations. Blender would sometimes respond with offensive language, and at other times it would make up facts altogether. Researchers said they hoped further models would address some of these issues.

Facebook also compared Blender's performance with the latest version of Google's own chatbot, Meena. It showed people two sets of conversations, one made with Blender and the other with Meena. Conversations included a wide range of topics including movies, music and veganism. Facebook said that 67% of respondents thought Blender sounded more human than Meena. "We achieved this milestone through a new chatbot recipe that includes improved decoding techniques, novel blending of skills, and a model with 9.4 billion parameters, which is 3.6x more than the largest existing system. This is the first chatbot to blend a diverse set of conversational skills together in one system. Building a truly intelligent dialogue agent that can chat like a human remains one of the largest open challenges in AI today."