Sony Music Group, one of the world's biggest record labels, warned AI companies and music streaming platforms not to use the company's content without explicit permission. From a report: Sony Music, whose artists include Lil Nas X and Celine Dion, sent letters to more than 700 companies in an effort to protect its intellectual property, which includes album cover art, metadata, musical compositions and lyrics, from being used for training AI models. "Unauthorized use" of Sony Music Group content in the "training, development or commercialization of AI systems" deprives the company and its artists of control and compensation for those works, according to the letter, which was obtained by Bloomberg News.

[...] Sony Music, along with the rest of the industry, is scrambling to balance the creative potential of the fast-moving technology while also protecting artists' rights and its own profits. "We support artists and songwriters taking the lead in embracing new technologies in support of their art," Sony Music Group said in statement Thursday. "However, that innovation must ensure that songwriters' and recording artists' rights, including copyrights, are respected."

Police officers in Britain could be armed with Ghostbusters-style devices that fire electromagnetic rays to shut down the engines of ebikes being used in a crime. From a report: Gavin Stephens, chair of the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC), said the weapon was in development and could be months away from being available, though it is expected to be longer than that. He said it would be housed in a backpack, reminiscent of the equipment used in the Ghostbusters series of movies. It could tackle crime linked to newer vehicles such as electric bikes and electric scooters.

The device is being developed with the Defence Science and Technology Lab, which is overseen by the Ministry of Defence, alongside other technological innovations that British police are hoping to use. It would fire an electromagnetic pulse at a vehicle that an officer wants to stop because the rider is suspected of involvement in a crime. The electromagnetic weapon works by tricking the engine into thinking it is overheating, which shuts down the engine and brings the vehicle to a stop. It requires a line of sight to work, Stephens said.

Stephens told a media briefing: "Basically, it interferes with the electric motor, to trick the electric motor into thinking it is overheating. It sends a signal to confuse the electric motor. All these electric motors apparently have an inbuilt safety system that if it thinks it's overheating, it shuts down. At the minute, it's like a ginormous backpack." The equipment was demonstrated to police leaders at the Farnborough technology show earlier this year. Stephens said: "They were also telling me it has the potential to be useful with normal combustion engine vehicles."

Later this month, Comcast will launch a three-way bundle with Peacock, Netflix and Apple TV+. It will "come at a vastly reduced price to anything in the market today," said. Comcast chief Brian Roberts. Variety reports: The goal is to "add value to consumers" and at the same time "take some of the dollars out of" other companies' streaming businesses, he added, while reinforcing Comcast's broadband service offerings. Comcast's impending launch of the StreamSaver bundle come as other media companies have been assembling similar offerings. [...] Like the other streaming bundling strategies, Comcast's forthcoming Peacock, Netflix and Apple TV+ package is an effort to reduce cancelation rates (aka "churn") and provide a more efficient means of subscriber acquisition -- coming as the traditional cable TV business continues to deteriorate. Last week, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery announced a three-way bundle comprising of Max, Disney+ and Hulu.

At its I/O developer conference today, Google announced Veo, its latest generative AI video model, that "can generate 'high-quality' 1080p resolution videos over a minute in length in a wide variety of visual and cinematic styles," reports The Verge. From the report: Veo has "an advanced understanding of natural language," according to Google's press release, enabling the model to understand cinematic terms like "timelapse" or "aerial shots of a landscape." Users can direct their desired output using text, image, or video-based prompts, and Google says the resulting videos are "more consistent and coherent," depicting more realistic movement for people, animals, and objects throughout shots. Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said in a press preview on Monday that video results can be refined using additional prompts and that Google is exploring additional features to enable Veo to produce storyboards and longer scenes.

As is the case with many of these AI model previews, most folks hoping to try Veo out themselves will likely have to wait a while. Google says it's inviting select filmmakers and creators to experiment with the model to determine how it can best support creatives and will build on these collaborations to ensure "creators have a voice" in how Google's AI technologies are developed. Some Veo features will also be made available to "select creators in the coming weeks" in a private preview inside VideoFX -- you can sign up for the waitlist here for an early chance to try it out. Otherwise, Google is also planning to add some of its capabilities to YouTube Shorts "in the future." Along with its new AI models and tools, Google said it's expanding its AI content watermarking and detection technology. The company's new upgraded SynthID watermark imprinting system "can now mark video that was digitally generated, as well as AI-generated text," reports The Verge in a separate report.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman gave an hour-long interview to the "All-In" podcast (hosted by Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks and David Friedberg). And speaking on technology's advance, Altman said "Phones are unbelievably good.... I personally think the iPhone is like the greatest piece of technology humanity has ever made. It's really a wonderful product."


Q: What comes after it?

Altman: I don't know. I mean, that was what I was saying. It's so good, that to get beyond it, I think the bar is quite high.

Q: You've been working with Jony Ive on something, right?

Altman: We've been discussing ideas, but I don't — like, if I knew...


Altman said later he thought voice interaction "feels like a different way to use a computer."

But the conversation turned to Apple in another way. It happened in a larger conversation where Altman said OpenAI has "currently made the decision not to do music, and partly because exactly these questions of where you draw the lines..."

Altman: Even the world in which — if we went and, let's say we paid 10,000 musicians to create a bunch of music, just to make a great training set, where the music model could learn everything about song structure and what makes a good, catchy beat and everything else, and only trained on that — let's say we could still make a great music model, which maybe we could. I was posing that as a thought experiment to musicians, and they were like, "Well, I can't object to that on any principle basis at that point — and yet there's still something I don't like about it." Now, that's not a reason not to do it, um, necessarily, but it is — did you see that ad that Apple put out... of like squishing all of human creativity down into one really iPad...?

There's something about — I'm obviously hugely positive on AI — but there is something that I think is beautiful about human creativity and human artistic expression. And, you know, for an AI that just does better science, like, "Great. Bring that on." But an AI that is going to do this deeply beautiful human creative expression? I think we should figure out — it's going to happen. It's going to be a tool that will lead us to greater creative heights. But I think we should figure out how to do it in a way that preserves the spirit of what we all care about here.
What about creators whose copyrighted materials are used for training data? Altman had a ready answer — but also some predictions for the future. "On fair use, I think we have a very reasonable position under the current law. But I think AI is so different that for things like art, we'll need to think about them in different ways..." Altman:I think the conversation has been historically very caught up on training data, but it will increasingly become more about what happens at inference time, as training data becomes less valuable and what the system does accessing information in context, in real-time... what happens at inference time will become more debated, and what the new economic model is there.
Altman gave the example of an AI which was never trained on any Taylor Swift songs — but could still respond to a prompt requesting a song in her style. Altman: And then the question is, should that model, even if it were never trained on any Taylor Swift song whatsoever, be allowed to do that? And if so, how should Taylor get paid? So I think there's an opt-in, opt-out in that case, first of all — and then there's an economic model.
Altman also wondered if there's lessons in the history and economics of music sampling...

Thursday CNN reported: The Oscar-winning team behind the nearly $6 billion blockbuster "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" trilogies is reuniting to produce two new films. The first of the new projects from Sir Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens is tentatively titled "Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum," Warner Bros. Discovery announced Thursday. It will be directed by "LOTR" alum Andy Serkis.
But "amid the news," TMZ reports, "a famous short film about it got yanked ... only to be revived on YouTube a day later." A viral short film called "The Hunt for Gollum" — which got uploaded to YouTube about 15 years ago — has been praised among Tolkien fans for years as a stellar piece of fan fiction and art, which while not sanctioned by Warner Bros., still held its own and looked damn good. On Thursday, WB announced they were making a brand new installment to their film franchise with the same title — which led to the short being taken down on a copyright claim ... but it seems Warner has backed off, 'cause about 12 hours or so later, it's up again...!

Sources with direct knowledge tell us the copyright claim got applied in error ... and the studio realized that, so they removed it and YouTube did their thing. The director of the short, Chris Bouchard, uploaded an email he got from YT saying the copyright claim had been released ... confirming WB retreated all on their own. He tells TMZ ... "We're just happy to hear folks remembered our film somewhat fondly, low-fi effort that it is. And grateful as of course fan films are in strange legal territory."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max are teaming up for a new bundle this summer, Netflix is focused on the WWE and celebrity boxing, Disney Plus is getting ESPN, and Bloomberg reported earlier this week that Max could get a price hike. A familiar refrain emerged around all this news: streaming is becoming cable TV all over again and getting crummier in the process.

And it's true! When streaming first emerged, it was a beautiful alternative to piracy, which was very convenient and very illegal, and cable, which was festooned with ads and weighed down by channels you were paying for and didn't want. Streaming gave you a world of content on demand for a fraction of the cost of cable. But that experience was never sustainable. Content costs money to make, and companies are apparently obligated to "increase revenue" and "make profit." This means Netflix spending billions of dollars a year on content isn't necessarily sustainable unless it's adding new users and monetizing them through some combination of ads and increasing subscription fees for stuff that used to be free, like sharing an account or streaming in 4K.

Amazon Prime Video subscribers will see new types of advertisements this broadcast year. Amazon announced today that it's adding new ad formats to its video streaming service, hoping to encourage people to interact with the ads and shop on Amazon. From a report: In January, Prime Video streams included commercials unless subscribers paid $3 extra per month. That has meant that watching stuff on Prime Video ad-free costs $12 per month or, if you're also a Prime subscriber, $18 per month. Amazon has heightened focus on streaming ads this year. Those who opted for Prime Video with commercials will soon see shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive brand trivia ads, as Amazon calls them.

Amazon said that advertisers could buy these new displays to be shown "across the vast majority of content on Prime Video, wherever it's streamed." All the new ad formats allow a viewer to place advertised products in their Amazon cart. With carousel ads, subscribers will be pushed to shop "a sliding lineup of" products during ad breaks during shows and movies, Amazon said, adding: "The ad automatically pauses so that customers can browse, and automatically resumes play when ad interaction has stopped."

Disney CEO Bob Iger says the company is shrinking the MCU with a new mission to drop the number of Marvel TV series to two a year and the film output to no more than three movies per year. The comment follows Iger conceding last year that Marvel had diluted audience's focus by making too many TV shows. From a report: Iger said this is part of Disney's overall strategy to reduce output and focus on quality, a strategy "that's particularly true with Marvel."

"We're slowly going to decrease volume and go to probably about two TV series a year instead of what had become four and reduce our film output from maybe four a year to two, or a maximum of three," the Disney CEO said during the company's quarterly earnings call Tuesday. "And we're working hard on what that path is." Iger says Marvel has "a couple of good films in '25 and then we're heading to more 'Avengers,' which we're extremely excited about," adding: "Overall, I feel great about the slate. It's something that I've committed to spending more and more time on. The team is one that I have tremendous confidence in and the IP that we're mining, including all the sequels that we're doing, is second to none."

"Without San Francisco, Star Wars wouldn't exist," says David Reat, the culture studies director of the architecture department at Glasgow's University of Strathclyde.

SFGate reports: Lucas was born and raised in Modesto, where his father expected him to run the family stationery store once he turned 18, but Lucas instead left for Los Angeles, where he studied film production at the University of Southern California, before moving to San Francisco. Despite all that these cities had to offer, Lucas constantly found himself conflicted over his feelings toward them. "The battle of living in the country versus living in the city is huge with Lucas," says Reat, who notes that this theme runs throughout the likes of "THX 1138," "American Graffiti" and the "Star Wars" series. "He sees cities as the givers and takers of things. He's fascinated by cities. He doesn't actually want to live in one. He now lives in a ranch near one. He wants to orbit them. He's a paradox."

When Lucas moved to San Francisco in the late 1960s, there were a number of huge building projects taking place across the city that piqued the burgeoning filmmaker's interest, most notably the construction of BART and a new terminal at San Francisco airport. "Infrastructure really fascinated Lucas. They were these big huge alienating spaces," says Reat. "I think Lucas was driving around San Francisco, looking at them, and seeing that they looked alien." There's a reason why Lucas was particularly interested in the architecture in San Francisco: "He's on record as saying he wanted to be an architect," says Reat. "He has referred to himself as a frustrated architect." Lucas' interest provoked him and his creative team to put extra care and thought into each of the "Star Wars" buildings, vehicles, houses, villages, cities, worlds and galaxies, especially when it came to what they symbolized and represented.

"The architecture in the films play a key role for younger viewers," says Reat, explaining that it helps to indicate who is good and who is evil. When it comes to the Death Star there are "no women, no plants, no signs of life, and it's basically the Nazis in space," continues Reat. "Lucas doesn't like modernism. He always uses it for bad things, a bit like every James Bond baddie." Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker and the rest of the light side of the Force are seen living in "exaggerated domesticity" as they sit around drinking blue milk, surrounded by creatures. "There's a care and a weirdness to their architecture, plus it's loaded with color," says Reat, who adds that these choices help to make those characters more appealing and relatable....

The San Francisco International Airport also played a key role in the making of "Phantom Menace." A tour of its maintenance bay gave the film's creative designers a jolt of inspiration when they were creating Anakin's podracer and other vehicles.
The article also adds that the inspiration for the Theed Royal Palace on Naboo in The Phantom Menace was "the Marin County Civic Center, where Lucas once served jury duty."

This year's Free Comic Book Day coincided with Star Wars Day. So there's two new free Star Wars titles being handed out today in comic shops around the world.

They're among several geek-friendly titles among the 48 free comics that fans will get to choose from during this once-a-year event, including:

- Street Fighter vs Final Fight
- Jonny Quest
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- Conan the Barbarian
- Flash Gordon

And, of course, four from Marvel Comics.

More details from IGN: DC is about to kick off Absolute Power, a major crossover event that involves Amanda Waller teaming with Batman's rogue android Failsafe and the Brainiac Queen to drain the world's heroes of their power. This prologue issue serves as a primer for the event...

Alongside their Conan issue, Titan is also releasing a new Doctor Who comic that has the distinction of being the first story to feature Ncuti Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor...

Robert Kirkman's Skybound has been busy establishing a new shared Energon Universe, one which comprises Kirkman and Lorenzo De Felici's Void Rivals as well as the Transformers and G.I. Joe franchises... This issue features new stories for all three series and is designed to be an easy gateway into this rapidly growing comic book line.
There's a Stranger Things story, an Archie Horror comic, and the story of how Popeye lost his eye.

The event is designed to help the industry by attracting comic book readers to independent comic book stores -- and in 2017 NPR offered this advice for visiting comics fans. "While you're there, buy something... The comics shops still have to pay for the 'free' FCBD books they stock, and they're counting on the increased foot traffic to lift sales."

"It all started with the fans," says 72-year-old actor Mark Hamill, in a montage of fans and actors in a newly-released video commemorating this year's Star Wars day.

Or, as Tom's Guide writes, "It's such a nice feeling to be a part of a huge community since fans are the ones who created this special day (by using "may the force be with you" as a pun for the date we all look forward to every year)." Lucasfilm and its owner Disney approved of this occasion, and now, we hold both official and unofficial celebrations to honor the beloved franchise... There are plenty of Star Wars Day deals to shop, movies, and TV shows that you can be a part of this year... [The new animated series] Star Wars: Tales of the Empire will explore the dark side of the galaxy by focusing on two warriors navigating the Galactic Empire... Stream Tales of the Empire on Disney Plus starting May 4.
But there's more. Friday the official Star Wars site wrote that this Star Wars Day "is a big one for gamers." This weekend will see the release of a free Zynga game by Nintendo called Star Wars: Hunters on iOS, Android, and Nintendo Switch, while the game Brawlhalla will add Darth Maul as a playable character for the next three weeks. There's also an upgrade to "vehicular soccer" game Rocket League which enables the unlocking of Star Wars-themed items like Anakin's Podracer Decal and the Darth Maul Decal.

There's also discounts on games like EA's Star Wars Triple Bundle, Star Wars Battlefront II, and LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, as well as discounts on games with Star Wars-themed content like Minecraft and The Sims 4. And the franchise has even "returned to Fortnite, "bringing a new collection of Star Wars content to the popular game, including LEGO® Fortnite, Battle Royale, Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Festival." There's more discounts on Star Wars-themed merchandise at Amazon and Macy's, as well as on books from Abrams Book and Chronicle books. In fact, there's special offers from a whole alphabet's worth of major brands including American Tourister luggage, Box Lunch, Corkcircle, Dark Horse... and even Hallmark, Target, and Walmart.

But ultimately the day is a celebration of the movies that fans have loved for 47 years, writes Tom's Guide: Lucasfilm announced that on May 4th you can experience the entire Skywalker saga in movie theaters. This includes all nine episodic films in chronological order.
The site also points out that two new Star Wars series will be premiering later this year. Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is an eight-episode seriues "focuses on four children who go on an adventure while making their way home across a dangerous galaxy. Accompanying them is a force user (who will be played by Jude Law)." And Star Wars: The Acolyte (set in a new time period, the Jedi glory days before the Skywalker saga) begins streaming on Disney Plus June 4. (Fans will get a preview of The Acolyte at 25th-anniversary screenings of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace happening now.)

And the site even makes one last geeky suggestion for those who don't feel like going out this year: The official Star Wars website has released some unique and fun recipes you can make when May 4th rolls around. This includes a Chandrilan Squigs recipe inspired by Mon Mothma and even a Bad Batch of cookies you can decorate to your liking.

"Aamrok 3.0, ported to Qt5/KDE Frameworks 5, has been released," writes Slashdot reader serafean. "With the heavy lifting being done, the Qt6/KF6 version is expected later in the year." Originally developed for Linux as part of the KDE desktop environment, Amarok is a free, cross-platform music player that supports various audio formats and a user interface that can be tailored to individual preferences. These are the main features/changes, as highlighted in a KDE blog post: FEATURES:
- Added a visual hint that context view applets can be resized in edit mode.
- Display missing metadata errors in Wikipedia applet UI.
- Add a button to stop automatic Wikipedia page updating. (BR 485813)

CHANGES:
- Replace defunct lyricwiki with lyrics.ovh as lyrics provider for now. (BR 455937)
- Show only relevant items in wikipedia applet right click menu (BR 323941), use monobook skin for opened links and silently ignore non-wikipedia links.
- Don't show non-functional play mode controls in dynamic mode (BR 287055) The changelog is available here. You can find the package on download.kde.org.

Several users on Reddit have noticed that Spotify has started hiding song lyrics behind a paywall. "This means you won't be able to sing along unless you know the lyrics already, or are willing to look them up in another app," reports Android Police. From the report: Still, you lose the convenience of real-time sync with the track and automatic scrolling. Like skips per hour, it appears Spotify will implement a limit system and accessing lyrics will count against the user's limit, which should ideally reset after a stipulated time.

Spotify usually requests lyrics from songwriters, publishers, and independent artists. However, in most other cases, the company has a working relationship with MusixMatch to provide lyrics, and perhaps Spotify isn't willing to absorb the costs of this partnership. That would explain why lyrics are now paywalled, but as a free-tier user, such changes are chipping away at the service's appeal.

Sony Pictures Entertainment and Apollo Global Management have made a bid to acquire Paramount for $26 billion and take it private. Variety reports: Sony and private-equity giant Apollo submitted a letter with the non-binding offer Wednesday to Paramount Global, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal. The bid, which would include the assumption of debt and could be negotiated, would be a premium over the company's current $22 billion enterprise value. Shares of Paramount Global jumped 13% on news of the offer from Apollo and Sony Entertainment, closing at $13.86 per share Thursday.

It's not clear how Paramount's board will proceed on the Sony-Apollo proposal, having rejected previous overtures from the private-equity firm. The company has an exclusive negotiating window with Skydance that ends Friday (May 3), but discussions among the parties could extend beyond that. If it happens, the combination of Sony Pictures with Paramount Pictures would likely result in mass layoffs -- and knock the number of major Hollywood studios from five to four, after Disney took over 20th Century. Sony Corp., which acquired Columbia Pictures in 1990 for $3.5 billion, is the largest studio operator in the industry that does not have a broad-scale direct-to-consumer streaming play.

Under the proposed bid with Apollo, Sony would be the majority owner of the combined company. Sony Corp. would merge Sony Pictures Entertainment into a joint venture with Paramount Global. Sony and Apollo would both contribute cash to finance the deal. What's unclear is what would happen to the 28 local TV stations CBS owns; FCC rules bar foreign entities (i.e. Tokyo-based Sony) from having majority ownership control of broadcast TV stations, so Sony would need to carve out a separate U.S. ownership structure for the station group.

In the Skydance scenario, Redstone would sell her stake in National Amusements, which holds 77% of the voting shares in Paramount Global, to Skydance, whereupon Skydance would merge with Paramount Global in an all-stock deal that would value Skydance at roughly $5 billion. Paramount Global would remain a publicly traded company. Redstone would receive up to $2 billion from the Skydance-NAI transaction; in addition, Skydance would pay a premium for Paramount Global shares and pay $3 billion to the company to help pay down debt. Ellison would serve as CEO of the merged Paramount-Skydance, while Jeff Shell, the former NBCUniversal CEO who is chairman of sports and media at RedBird and works under founder and managing partner Gerry Cardinale, would take on a key management role.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Streamable: Roku wants to take the term "ad-supported" to another level. The company held its quarterly earnings conference call on Thursday, and revealed that 81.6 million households used a Roku device or smart TV to stream video in the first three months of the year. As part of the report, company CEO Anthony Wood laid out ideas for how the company would increase revenues in 2024. Unsurprisingly, advertising will be an important centerpiece of that strategy, and Wood provided some details on what Roku users can expect from their ad experience going forward.

The idea of bringing more ads to the Roku home screen is nothing new, but that's what Wood focused on in his discussion with analysts about how to boost revenue on the Roku platform. The company has already begun putting more static ads on the screen, but now it appears that Roku is considering how to get video ads embedded into the home page as well. Wood said that he believes that a video-enabled ad unit on the Roku home screen will be "very popular with advertisers," considering that Roku devices have the reach to put ads in front of 120 million pairs of eyes every day. He also said that the company is "testing other types of video ad units, looking at other experiences" that it can bring to the Roku home screen.

As another way to boost ad revenues, Wood suggested that the company's home screen experiences could be leveraged to deliver more ads. He pointed to the NBA Zone, which Roku launched at the beginning of April as an example. Roku can use these themed content hubs to deliver ads more tailored to fans of that particular content, harnessing the power of popular sports to pull more ad revenue. Customers concerned that Roku will just gunk up their home screen with ads are likely wondering if the company has made any moves toward actually making the user experience on the platform better. The good news is that Roku has also introduced a recommended content row, that will compile picks from across various streaming services and use AI to point customers toward new shows and movies they might like. "There's lots of ways we're working on enhancing the home screen to make it more valuable to viewers but also increase the monetization," Wood said.

Some Android-powered TVs can expose the contents of users' email inboxes if an attacker has physical access to the TV. Google initially told the office of Senator Ron Wyden that the issue, which is a quirk of how software is installed on these TVs, was expected behavior, but after being contacted by 404 Media, Google now says it is addressing the issue. From the report: The attack is an edge case but one that still highlights how the use of Google accounts, even on products that aren't necessarily designed for browsing user data, can expose information in unusual ways, including TVs in businesses or ones that have been resold or given away.

"My office is mid-way through a review of the privacy practices of streaming TV technology providers. As part of that inquiry, my staff discovered an alarming video in which a YouTuber demonstrated how with 15 minutes of unsupervised access to an Android TV set top box, a criminal could get access to private emails of the Gmail user who set up the TV," Senator Ron Wyden told 404 Media in a statement.

Jeff Lawson, the cofounder of cloud computing company Twilio, appears to have purchased the satirical news website The Onion from G/O Media. Business Insider reports: A trust linked to Lawson is behind a San Francisco-based company called Global Tetrahedron, which shares the name of a fictional evil megacorporation in a long-running Onion gag, business records show. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller confirmed the sale of The Onion to Global Tetrahedron in an email Thursday to staff, first reported by New York Times journalist Katie Robertson.

"This company is made up of four digital media veterans with a profound love for The Onion and comedy based content," Spanfeller wrote. "The site's new owners have agreed to keep The Onion's entire staff intact and in Chicago, something we insisted be part of the deal." When asked about the purchase, Lawson replied: "What's The Onion?" Then, "What's a Tetrahedron?"

Samantha Cole reports via 404 Media: A Japan-based online art platform is banning kink content for users based in the US and UK, as laws in these countries continue to tighten around sites that allow erotic content. Pixiv is an image gallery site where artists primarily share illustrations, manga, and novels. The site announced on April 22 that starting April 25, users whose account region is set to the US or UK will be subject to Pixiv's new terms of use, "Restrictions for Healthy Expression in Specific Countries and Regions."

The restrictions include several kinds of content that are illegal in the US, including sexualized depictions of minors and bestiality, as well as non-consensual depictions and deepfakes. But it also includes "content that appeals to the prurient interest, is patently offensive in light of community standards where you are located or where such content may be accessed or distributed, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value, or otherwise violates any applicable obscenity laws, rules or regulations." This is an invocation of the Miller test, which determines non-constitutionally protected obscenity. "I'd never say this a few years ago, but it's my personal fear that the next step is most major internet hosting services implementing these policies on an infrastructure level," said an artist who goes by kradeelav. "My colleagues are certainly planning for it by specifically looking for kink-friendly hosts, to actually making homebrew servers themselves in worst-case scenarios."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Quantum dots are already moving in the premium display category, particularly through QD-OLED TVs and monitors. The next step could be QDEL, short for "quantum dot electroluminescent," also known as NanoLED, screens. Not to be confused with the QLED (quantum light emitting diode) tech already available in TVs, QDEL displays don't have a backlight. Instead, the quantum dots are the light source. The expected result is displays with wider color spaces than today's QD-OLEDs (quantum dot OLEDs) that are also brighter, more affordable, and resistant to burn-in. It seems like QDEL is being eyed as one of the most potentially influential developments for consumer displays over the next two years. If you're into high-end display tech, QDEL should be on your radar.

You may know QDEL as NanoLED because that's what Nanosys, a quantum dot supplier developing the technology, calls it. QDEL has gone by other names, such as QLED -- before Samsung claimed that acronym for LCD-LED TVs that use quantum dots. You may also see QDEL referred to as QD-EL, QD-LED, or EL-QD. As the alphabet soup suggests, there are still some things to finalize with this tech. This article will mostly use the term QDEL, with occasional references to NanoLED. If none of those names sound familiar, it's probably because you can't buy any QDEL products yet. Suppliers suggest that could change in the next few years; Nanosys is targeting 2026 for commercial availability. [...]

Today's OLED screens use OLED material as their light source, with QD-OLED specifically applying quantum dots to convert the light into color. In QLED, the light source is a white backlight; QDEL displays apply electricity directly to quantum dots, which then generate light. QDEL uses a layer of quantum dots sandwiched between an anode and cathode to facilitates the flow of electricity into the quantum dots. QDEL displays have pixels made of a red quantum dot subpixel, green quantum dot subpixel, and -- differing from today's QLED and QD-OLED displays -- blue quantum dot subpixel. QDEL displays use the same quantum dot cores that QD-OLED and QLED products use, [Jeff Yurek, Nanosys' VP of marketing] told me, adding, "The functionalization of the outer layer of the [quantum dots] needs to be changed to make it compatible with each display architecture, but the cores that do the heavy lifting are pretty much the same across all of these."

Because QDEL pixels make their own light and can therefore turn off completely, QDEL displays can deliver the same deep blacks and rich contrast that made OLED popular. But with the use of direct-view quantum dots, stakeholders are claiming the potential for wider color gamuts than we've seen in consumer displays before. With fewer layers and parts, there are also implications for QDEL product pricing, longevity, and even thinness. [...] The fact that quantum dots are already being successfully applied to LCD-LED and OLED screens is encouraging for future QDEL products. QDEL stakeholders claim that the tech could bring efficiencies like lower power consumption and higher brightness than OLED. (Research using a prototype device has recorded quantum dot light-emitting diodes reaching 614,000 nits. Of course, those aren't the type of results you should expect to see in a real-life consumer product.) There's also hope that QDEL could eventually last longer than OLED, especially since QDEL doesn't rely on organic materials that can cause burn-in.