Month: July 2023
Indie games have entered the era of bespoke publishing
For anyone with an eye on video game news, it’s been hard to ignore the recent rise of names like Annapurna Interactive, Devolver Digital, Private Division, Humble, Epic Games and Netflix tied to independent projects. The distribution process for indie developers has shifted over the past few years from a self-publishing-first model, to one that prioritizes deal-making and acquisitions. For the moment, this shift is powering a small but highly visible boom in the world of indie games.“I don’t think I ever want to self-publish again.”Ben Ruiz has been a game developer since 2005, and in that time, he’s pretty much done it all. He founded two studios, he did contract work on titles including Super Meat Boy and Overland, and he independently published a tentpole original project, the monochromatic brawler Aztez. Nowadays, Ruiz is running a five-person studio called Dinogod and he’s building Bounty Star, a game that blends mech combat with life-sim mechanics. Bounty Star is being published by Annapurna Interactive and it’s due out in early 2024.Bounty StarAnnapurna Interactive“Everything favors a publisher relationship, seemingly, because self-publishing has become this extraordinarily difficult thing,” Ruiz said. “It’s possible, but without help, I just don’t know how anyone’s doing it … I got a lot of friends in the same boat.”Ruiz’s career is a microcosm of the shifting landscape for indie developers over the past 10 years. He began working on Aztez in 2010, when Steam was a curated marketplace where Valve employees hand-selected individual games for the platform. This system had fully imploded by 2012: On the heels of breakout hits like Braid, Super Meat Boy and Fez, the indie market was overrun by new games and developers, and Steam dropped its curation efforts. It shifted to a community-voting approach called Greenlight, before eventually landing on the everything-goes Early Access model we know today.Ruiz and his business partner built Aztez in between contract projects, and by the time it was ready to debut on Steam in 2017, the indie market was saturated. There were 309 games added to Steam in 2010; in 2017, there were 6,306. Even with a hefty amount of hype behind it, Aztez had trouble standing out, and that was the last time Ruiz tried self-publishing.Ruiz did contract work for a while after Aztez, and in 2018 he pitched Bounty Star to people he knew at Annapurna. The game has a complex premise — it stars Clem, a desert bounty hunter with plenty of baggage, and it involves mech battles, emotional narrative scenes and home-management mechanics, including some light gardening. Annapurna bit, and Ruiz landed a publishing deal.StrayAnnapurna InteractiveAnnapurna Interactive is one of the most prominent publishers of indie games today, with titles like Stray, Outer Wilds, Neon White, Donut County and What Remains of Edith Finch on its books. It was founded in 2016 as an offshoot of Annapurna Pictures and quickly established its brand as an arthouse publisher, focused on visually innovative and emotionally driven experiences. Its showcases are now a staple of the gaming calendar.Annapurna is handling the marketing for Bounty Star, and it’s also financially supporting Ruiz’s studio, Dinogod. When Ruiz pitched the game, he was clear that he’d need a team of five or six people to bring his vision to life, and Annapurna gave him the funding to hire up.“The fact that Dinogod has five full time people, that was a part of the partnership,” Ruiz said. “When everything was greenlit, that was the first step, to bring in these five or six people…. If [Annapurna is] into a thing that they think is a good move, and it needs more people, that seems to be fully okay. Like, they’re not averse to scale.”It’s not just Annapurna making these types of deals with indies nowadays. Devolver Digital is the granddaddy of indie publishers, and since 2009 it’s released hits including Hotline Miami, Hatoful Boyfriend, The Talos Principle, Gris, Fall Guys, Inscryption, Weird West and Cult of the Lamb, all in collaboration with small development teams. There’s also Humble, Private Division, Raw Fury, Epic Games, Finji, Gearbox, EA and Netflix, all of which have stepped up their indie publishing efforts in recent years. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s strategy is to simply acquire the studios it likes, and today it has 23 developers under the Xbox Game Studios banner. Sony is taking a similar approach, though it owns fewer studios than Microsoft. Microsoft and Sony are also signing hundreds of one-off deals with indies as they attempt to fill their streaming libraries — Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus Premium — with a steady stream of new experiences.This is the new standard for indie developers: Identify the publisher that best matches your game’s tone, pitch it, and pray. Even established studios, such as Device 6 creator Simogo, have swapped to a publisher-first model. Simogo’s latest projects, Sayonara Wild Hearts and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, are the result of its partnership with Annapurna.Sayonara Wild HeartsAnnapurna Interactive“I think for us as a studio, the biggest change is working with a publisher, something which we would see as completely uninteresting and impractical ten years ago,” Simogo co-founder Simor Flesser told Engadget earlier this month.And then there’s Netflix. The streaming company officially entered the game-distribution business in 2021, and it’s on track to have 100 titles in its library by the end of 2023, all freely available to anyone with a Netflix subscription. It’s already brought a number of high-profile titles to mobile devices, including Kentucky Route Zero, Poinpy, Into the Breach, Spiritfarer, Lucky Luna and Oxenfree II, and it’s purchased a few studios outright — notably, Alphabear developer Spry Fox and Oxenfree house Night School Studio. The first of these purchases was Night School, which Netflix acquired in 2021.“Consolidation — I didn’t really have my finger as much on the pulse of that, because when we joined Netflix, it didn’t feel like that was happening so rapidly,” Night School co-founder Sean Krankel told Engadget. “And now in the last few years, literally, it’s non-stop.”The acquisition allowed Night School to move into the Netflix offices and it provided stability for the studio overall, Krankel said. With Netflix’s resources, the Night School team was able to add day-one support for 32 languages in Oxenfree II, and they were able to fly in remote collaborators as needed.“All that’s really exciting,” Oxenfree II lead developer Bryant Cannon said just ahead of the game’s July 12th release. “I think the game is going to be better because we have this battery in our back.”Oxenfree IINetflixOutside of acquisitions, Netflix is also signing individual deals with developers. Snowman is best known as the name behind Alto’s Adventure and Alto’s Odyssey, and its latest project is Laya’s Horizon, a serene wingsuit experience exclusive to Netflix. There are two big benefits of working with Netflix, according to Snowman creative director Jason Medeiros: The instant access to an audience of more than 230 million people, and the freedom to build a game without worrying about monetization.“You’ll notice real quick that the game that you’ve been playing can’t be free-to-play,” Medeiros told Engadget in April. “Like, where would the ads go? It’s this fantasy world with no currency, even, and all that’s intentional. As the creative director, I didn’t want any of that stuff. Because I mean, I liked games before all that stuff happened. So having a platform like Netflix, it’s just like, none of that matters. You don’t have to do that stuff. It’s a breath of fresh air; we jump on opportunities to make games that way.”Of course, there are still developers self-publishing their projects — Vampire Survivors, Phasmophobia, Celeste and Among Us are all standout examples — but there’s a murkier path to success with this model, one based on timing, trends and a hefty amount of luck. There are more than 90,000 games on Steam today; Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus Premium libraries each have more than 400 titles (and counting). In this marketplace, it’s hard to stand out without a little help.It’s taken 10 years to get here, but it’s now a solid, quantifiable fact: There’s a lot of money in indie games. So much money that outside companies are popping up and trying to get a piece of the pie — and for now, it’s created a shiny bubble of pretty PR packages and bespoke showcases dedicated to small teams and their games.GrisDevolver DigitalIt’s difficult to ignore the potential for exploitation down the line, especially with Netflix in the mix. Amid the ongoing writers’ and actors’ strike, the company is facing accusations that it instituted wildly unfair compensation deals for creatives, paying out one-time, minimal wages even as projects became massive hits on the streaming service. Annapurna, for its part, was accused of mishandling claims of abuse at three prominent studios on its publishing roster — Mountains, Funomena and Fullbright — in a March 2022 documentary by People Make Games. Meanwhile, the current consolidation craze is shrinking the video game industry overall, even as the market caps of the biggest companies continue to rise.For now, bespoke publishing is the name of the indie game. This system has already distributed innovative and important games to huge audiences — Tchia, Tunic, Sea of Solitude, Gris — and it’s offered stability to a lot of independent artists. Like, for instance, Ben Ruiz.“I hope Annapurna’s success means more Annapurnas in the future,” Ruiz said. “It doesn’t feel like they’re just trying to grab a thing that will make money or collaborate with people that are just going to make them money. They clearly have a brand and an aesthetic directive … if I can keep making games for them for a long time, I will.”The new normal works for Ruiz — and Flesser, Krankel, Medeiros and plenty of others. For now, it’s a functional system, even if it ultimately leaves publishers, rather than independent developers, with most of the power.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/indie-games-have-entered-the-era-of-bespoke-publishing-170639414.html?src=rss
For anyone with an eye on video game news, it’s been hard to ignore the recent rise of names like Annapurna Interactive, Devolver Digital, Private Division, Humble, Epic Games and Netflix tied to independent projects. The distribution process for indie developers has shifted over the past few years from a self-publishing-first model, to one that prioritizes deal-making and acquisitions. For the moment, this shift is powering a small but highly visible boom in the world of indie games.
“I don’t think I ever want to self-publish again.”
Ben Ruiz has been a game developer since 2005, and in that time, he’s pretty much done it all. He founded two studios, he did contract work on titles including Super Meat Boy and Overland, and he independently published a tentpole original project, the monochromatic brawler Aztez. Nowadays, Ruiz is running a five-person studio called Dinogod and he’s building Bounty Star, a game that blends mech combat with life-sim mechanics. Bounty Star is being published by Annapurna Interactive and it’s due out in early 2024.
Bounty Star
“Everything favors a publisher relationship, seemingly, because self-publishing has become this extraordinarily difficult thing,” Ruiz said. “It’s possible, but without help, I just don’t know how anyone’s doing it … I got a lot of friends in the same boat.”
Ruiz’s career is a microcosm of the shifting landscape for indie developers over the past 10 years. He began working on Aztez in 2010, when Steam was a curated marketplace where Valve employees hand-selected individual games for the platform. This system had fully imploded by 2012: On the heels of breakout hits like Braid, Super Meat Boy and Fez, the indie market was overrun by new games and developers, and Steam dropped its curation efforts. It shifted to a community-voting approach called Greenlight, before eventually landing on the everything-goes Early Access model we know today.
Ruiz and his business partner built Aztez in between contract projects, and by the time it was ready to debut on Steam in 2017, the indie market was saturated. There were 309 games added to Steam in 2010; in 2017, there were 6,306. Even with a hefty amount of hype behind it, Aztez had trouble standing out, and that was the last time Ruiz tried self-publishing.
Ruiz did contract work for a while after Aztez, and in 2018 he pitched Bounty Star to people he knew at Annapurna. The game has a complex premise — it stars Clem, a desert bounty hunter with plenty of baggage, and it involves mech battles, emotional narrative scenes and home-management mechanics, including some light gardening. Annapurna bit, and Ruiz landed a publishing deal.
Stray
Annapurna Interactive is one of the most prominent publishers of indie games today, with titles like Stray, Outer Wilds, Neon White, Donut County and What Remains of Edith Finch on its books. It was founded in 2016 as an offshoot of Annapurna Pictures and quickly established its brand as an arthouse publisher, focused on visually innovative and emotionally driven experiences. Its showcases are now a staple of the gaming calendar.
Annapurna is handling the marketing for Bounty Star, and it’s also financially supporting Ruiz’s studio, Dinogod. When Ruiz pitched the game, he was clear that he’d need a team of five or six people to bring his vision to life, and Annapurna gave him the funding to hire up.
“The fact that Dinogod has five full time people, that was a part of the partnership,” Ruiz said. “When everything was greenlit, that was the first step, to bring in these five or six people…. If [Annapurna is] into a thing that they think is a good move, and it needs more people, that seems to be fully okay. Like, they’re not averse to scale.”
It’s not just Annapurna making these types of deals with indies nowadays. Devolver Digital is the granddaddy of indie publishers, and since 2009 it’s released hits including Hotline Miami, Hatoful Boyfriend, The Talos Principle, Gris, Fall Guys, Inscryption, Weird West and Cult of the Lamb, all in collaboration with small development teams. There’s also Humble, Private Division, Raw Fury, Epic Games, Finji, Gearbox, EA and Netflix, all of which have stepped up their indie publishing efforts in recent years. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s strategy is to simply acquire the studios it likes, and today it has 23 developers under the Xbox Game Studios banner. Sony is taking a similar approach, though it owns fewer studios than Microsoft. Microsoft and Sony are also signing hundreds of one-off deals with indies as they attempt to fill their streaming libraries — Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus Premium — with a steady stream of new experiences.
This is the new standard for indie developers: Identify the publisher that best matches your game’s tone, pitch it, and pray. Even established studios, such as Device 6 creator Simogo, have swapped to a publisher-first model. Simogo’s latest projects, Sayonara Wild Hearts and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, are the result of its partnership with Annapurna.
Sayonara Wild Hearts
“I think for us as a studio, the biggest change is working with a publisher, something which we would see as completely uninteresting and impractical ten years ago,” Simogo co-founder Simor Flesser told Engadget earlier this month.
And then there’s Netflix. The streaming company officially entered the game-distribution business in 2021, and it’s on track to have 100 titles in its library by the end of 2023, all freely available to anyone with a Netflix subscription. It’s already brought a number of high-profile titles to mobile devices, including Kentucky Route Zero, Poinpy, Into the Breach, Spiritfarer, Lucky Luna and Oxenfree II, and it’s purchased a few studios outright — notably, Alphabear developer Spry Fox and Oxenfree house Night School Studio. The first of these purchases was Night School, which Netflix acquired in 2021.
“Consolidation — I didn’t really have my finger as much on the pulse of that, because when we joined Netflix, it didn’t feel like that was happening so rapidly,” Night School co-founder Sean Krankel told Engadget. “And now in the last few years, literally, it’s non-stop.”
The acquisition allowed Night School to move into the Netflix offices and it provided stability for the studio overall, Krankel said. With Netflix’s resources, the Night School team was able to add day-one support for 32 languages in Oxenfree II, and they were able to fly in remote collaborators as needed.
“All that’s really exciting,” Oxenfree II lead developer Bryant Cannon said just ahead of the game’s July 12th release. “I think the game is going to be better because we have this battery in our back.”
Oxenfree II
Outside of acquisitions, Netflix is also signing individual deals with developers. Snowman is best known as the name behind Alto’s Adventure and Alto’s Odyssey, and its latest project is Laya’s Horizon, a serene wingsuit experience exclusive to Netflix. There are two big benefits of working with Netflix, according to Snowman creative director Jason Medeiros: The instant access to an audience of more than 230 million people, and the freedom to build a game without worrying about monetization.
“You’ll notice real quick that the game that you’ve been playing can’t be free-to-play,” Medeiros told Engadget in April. “Like, where would the ads go? It’s this fantasy world with no currency, even, and all that’s intentional. As the creative director, I didn’t want any of that stuff. Because I mean, I liked games before all that stuff happened. So having a platform like Netflix, it’s just like, none of that matters. You don’t have to do that stuff. It’s a breath of fresh air; we jump on opportunities to make games that way.”
Of course, there are still developers self-publishing their projects — Vampire Survivors, Phasmophobia, Celeste and Among Us are all standout examples — but there’s a murkier path to success with this model, one based on timing, trends and a hefty amount of luck. There are more than 90,000 games on Steam today; Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus Premium libraries each have more than 400 titles (and counting). In this marketplace, it’s hard to stand out without a little help.
It’s taken 10 years to get here, but it’s now a solid, quantifiable fact: There’s a lot of money in indie games. So much money that outside companies are popping up and trying to get a piece of the pie — and for now, it’s created a shiny bubble of pretty PR packages and bespoke showcases dedicated to small teams and their games.
Gris
It’s difficult to ignore the potential for exploitation down the line, especially with Netflix in the mix. Amid the ongoing writers’ and actors’ strike, the company is facing accusations that it instituted wildly unfair compensation deals for creatives, paying out one-time, minimal wages even as projects became massive hits on the streaming service. Annapurna, for its part, was accused of mishandling claims of abuse at three prominent studios on its publishing roster — Mountains, Funomena and Fullbright — in a March 2022 documentary by People Make Games. Meanwhile, the current consolidation craze is shrinking the video game industry overall, even as the market caps of the biggest companies continue to rise.
For now, bespoke publishing is the name of the indie game. This system has already distributed innovative and important games to huge audiences — Tchia, Tunic, Sea of Solitude, Gris — and it’s offered stability to a lot of independent artists. Like, for instance, Ben Ruiz.
“I hope Annapurna’s success means more Annapurnas in the future,” Ruiz said. “It doesn’t feel like they’re just trying to grab a thing that will make money or collaborate with people that are just going to make them money. They clearly have a brand and an aesthetic directive … if I can keep making games for them for a long time, I will.”
The new normal works for Ruiz — and Flesser, Krankel, Medeiros and plenty of others. For now, it’s a functional system, even if it ultimately leaves publishers, rather than independent developers, with most of the power.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/indie-games-have-entered-the-era-of-bespoke-publishing-170639414.html?src=rss
Wireless earbuds can actually help you hear conversations better
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Earlier this week, a reader contacted me with a dilemma: his wife has always had super sharp hearing when it comes to environmental / ambient noise. She can “hear a gnat blink at 1,000 yards. Forty years ago, she could hear electronic clocks running,” he said. And so they’ve been in search of a solution that would help eliminate some of that background clamor while still helping her clearly hear conversations happening directly in front of her.
I’m no doctor, nor am I any kind of hearing health expert. Consulting an audiologist would be my top recommendation for next steps — regardless of anyone’s age. But increasingly, consumer earbuds are trying to plug away at these common issues: everyday life can get loud. And when it happens gradually, you might not even notice until you’re suddenly overwhelmed by the noise. So I can at least toss out some ideas based on the products that I do have thorough knowledge of.
Apple AirPods Pro: conversation boost
Apple’s wireless earbuds are routinely praised for their natural-sounding transparency mode, and for good reason. But did you know you can customize the level of ambient noise that transparency mode lets through? And if that’s not enough, there’s a separate “conversation boost” mode that’s designed to make it easier to hear face-to-face conversations happening in front of you.
On this support page, Apple explains both features. To save you a click, if you want to test out ambient noise reduction and conversation boost, here’s what to do:
Make sure your AirPods Pro are in your ears and connected to your iPhone.
Go to Settings, then Accessibility, then Audio/Visual.
Turn on Headphone Accommodations.
To customize transparency mode:
Tap Transparency Mode, then enable Custom Transparency Mode, and do the same for Ambient Noise Reduction. You’ll then see a slider that you can drag to adjust how much environmental noise is piped in whenever transparency mode is active.
To use conversation boost:
From the same Transparency Mode menu, enable conversation boost.
Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro: enhanced ambient sound mode
Samsung also provides granular control over the ambient sound mode on the company’s Galaxy Buds 2 Pro. You can choose between five different levels of amplification and set individual preferences for each ear. Moreover, there’s also a slider that can adjust ambient sound from “soft” to “clear” based on what sounds best to each person:
Users can adjust the volumes on the left and the right respectively, as well as customize their Ambient Sound tone range from soft to clear across five different stages. Additionally, Ambient Sound can tune to users’ ears through the Adapt Ambient Sound feature, allowing for even more clarity in helping users hear the world around them better.
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 2 Pro also provide extensive customization of the ambient sound mode.
The company has funded (non-peer-reviewed) studies that showed the Buds 2 Pro “significantly improved speech perception in those with mild-to-moderate hearing loss.”
Over-the-counter hearing gadgets
A rule from the FDA last year ushered in a new era of over-the-counter hearing aids that can be purchased without a prescription or even an exam. For example, you can now walk into a Best Buy and purchase Sony’s $1,300 ITE self-fitting hearing aids. Jabra has also joined in with its own OTC solution.
These options are far more expensive than mainstream consumer earbuds, but they’re also more directly targeted at the issue. Sony’s hearing aids have a “situation analyzer within the hearing aid” that “adjusts sound based on your surroundings to improve listening experiences in environments with background noise.”
Image: Sennheiser
Earbud manufacturers are increasingly focusing on hearing tech.
Sennheiser also has a $900 product called the Conversation Clear Plus. Reticent to call them hearing aids, the company instead refers to these as “a true wireless hearing solution.” As you can see in the image above, the companion app provides extensive controls over how much external sound you want to experience at any given time. Like the other devices I mentioned, Sennheiser’s hearing buds use “advanced technologies — including active noise cancellation and beamforming — to precisely separate language from noise.”
Again, these hearing-focused gadgets come at a premium. It might be worth first exploring the software solutions from Apple and Samsung before spending three times as much on an OTC hearing aid. It’s undoubtedly a goal of these companies to make their consumer products genuinely useful for everyday hearing protection on top of music consumption and at a much lower price.
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Earlier this week, a reader contacted me with a dilemma: his wife has always had super sharp hearing when it comes to environmental / ambient noise. She can “hear a gnat blink at 1,000 yards. Forty years ago, she could hear electronic clocks running,” he said. And so they’ve been in search of a solution that would help eliminate some of that background clamor while still helping her clearly hear conversations happening directly in front of her.
I’m no doctor, nor am I any kind of hearing health expert. Consulting an audiologist would be my top recommendation for next steps — regardless of anyone’s age. But increasingly, consumer earbuds are trying to plug away at these common issues: everyday life can get loud. And when it happens gradually, you might not even notice until you’re suddenly overwhelmed by the noise. So I can at least toss out some ideas based on the products that I do have thorough knowledge of.
Apple AirPods Pro: conversation boost
Apple’s wireless earbuds are routinely praised for their natural-sounding transparency mode, and for good reason. But did you know you can customize the level of ambient noise that transparency mode lets through? And if that’s not enough, there’s a separate “conversation boost” mode that’s designed to make it easier to hear face-to-face conversations happening in front of you.
On this support page, Apple explains both features. To save you a click, if you want to test out ambient noise reduction and conversation boost, here’s what to do:
Make sure your AirPods Pro are in your ears and connected to your iPhone.
Go to Settings, then Accessibility, then Audio/Visual.
Turn on Headphone Accommodations.
To customize transparency mode:
Tap Transparency Mode, then enable Custom Transparency Mode, and do the same for Ambient Noise Reduction. You’ll then see a slider that you can drag to adjust how much environmental noise is piped in whenever transparency mode is active.
To use conversation boost:
From the same Transparency Mode menu, enable conversation boost.
Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro: enhanced ambient sound mode
Samsung also provides granular control over the ambient sound mode on the company’s Galaxy Buds 2 Pro. You can choose between five different levels of amplification and set individual preferences for each ear. Moreover, there’s also a slider that can adjust ambient sound from “soft” to “clear” based on what sounds best to each person:
Users can adjust the volumes on the left and the right respectively, as well as customize their Ambient Sound tone range from soft to clear across five different stages. Additionally, Ambient Sound can tune to users’ ears through the Adapt Ambient Sound feature, allowing for even more clarity in helping users hear the world around them better.
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 2 Pro also provide extensive customization of the ambient sound mode.
The company has funded (non-peer-reviewed) studies that showed the Buds 2 Pro “significantly improved speech perception in those with mild-to-moderate hearing loss.”
Over-the-counter hearing gadgets
A rule from the FDA last year ushered in a new era of over-the-counter hearing aids that can be purchased without a prescription or even an exam. For example, you can now walk into a Best Buy and purchase Sony’s $1,300 ITE self-fitting hearing aids. Jabra has also joined in with its own OTC solution.
These options are far more expensive than mainstream consumer earbuds, but they’re also more directly targeted at the issue. Sony’s hearing aids have a “situation analyzer within the hearing aid” that “adjusts sound based on your surroundings to improve listening experiences in environments with background noise.”
Image: Sennheiser
Earbud manufacturers are increasingly focusing on hearing tech.
Sennheiser also has a $900 product called the Conversation Clear Plus. Reticent to call them hearing aids, the company instead refers to these as “a true wireless hearing solution.” As you can see in the image above, the companion app provides extensive controls over how much external sound you want to experience at any given time. Like the other devices I mentioned, Sennheiser’s hearing buds use “advanced technologies — including active noise cancellation and beamforming — to precisely separate language from noise.”
Again, these hearing-focused gadgets come at a premium. It might be worth first exploring the software solutions from Apple and Samsung before spending three times as much on an OTC hearing aid. It’s undoubtedly a goal of these companies to make their consumer products genuinely useful for everyday hearing protection on top of music consumption and at a much lower price.
Startups, apply to the Space Domain Awareness Challenge Pitch-off at TC Disrupt 2023
Pitch in space! Okay, not really, but we do have exciting news for early-stage AI/ML startups. The Aerospace Corporation and TechCrunch are hosting a pitch competition at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023, which takes place September 19–21 in San Francisco. Apply to the Space Domain Awareness Challenge Pitch-off at TC Disrupt 2023 The Aerospace Corporation and TechCrunch
Pitch in space! Okay, not really, but we do have exciting news for early-stage AI/ML startups. The Aerospace Corporation and TechCrunch are hosting a pitch competition at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023, which takes place September 19–21 in San Francisco.
Apply to the Space Domain Awareness Challenge Pitch-off at TC Disrupt 2023
The Aerospace Corporation and TechCrunch are joining forces to host a pitch competition to find the strongest startups using AI/Machine Learning to work with satellite data streams. Space Domain Awareness arises from the output of all the sensor data.
Space operators are totally reliant on sensors in space and on the ground to get a complete picture of what’s happening in Earth’s orbit and beyond. Space operators must task sensors correctly with the complex job of collecting data. The challenge is then parsing, packaging and disseminating the output of a significant number of data streams to the correct data consumer across various teams at the correct time.
We call this scenario in Space Domain Awareness the “Media Streaming Problem”, because, just like popular streaming providers, the data has to be collected, analyzed and delivered to the correct audience at the right time.
The Central Question:
How can AI/ML tool sets be used to parse sensor data, address the Media Streaming Challenge and increase our understanding of satellite sensor generated data?
Applicants should be able to work with the following datasets:
Telemetry data.
Mission data.
Comms links data
Compete for prizes in the Space Domain Awareness Challenge Pitch-off
Five finalists will get the rare opportunity to pitch in front of our judges on the Space Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 and exhibit their AI/ML startup at Disrupt 2023 this September. One Winner will get the opportunity for a customer road show and expert-led concept feedback.
Five finalist startups will receive:
A five-minute pitch session on the Space Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt on September 19, 2023, in San Francisco.
Four free tickets per team to attend Disrupt 2023.
One standing demo table or kiosk in the expo hall for all three days of Disrupt.
One winning startup also receives:
One winner will be selected to receive technical concept assessment and feedback by Aerospace technical/program experts to the startup, discussion of potential customer base, and a road show for the next stage of incubation.
Pitch eligibility requirements:
Open to early-stage companies who are in “Idea Stage” up to and including “Series A Stage” companies who are also either:
Wholly-owned US company with a US-based workforce
Company based in a NATO member country (including Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Norway) AND authorized to participate in NATO related business opportunities
You’ll find more specifics on requirements, plus general terms and conditions when you apply here. Don’t delay — submit your application by August 18 at 11:59 pm PT. We will notify all applicants — whether or not they’ve been selected as a finalist — on a rolling basis.
What are you waiting for? Launch your company into our space-focused pitch competition today, and come join us at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 in September. Show us what you’ve got!
TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 takes place on September 19–21 in San Francisco. Not quite ready to pitch? No worries — you’ll find plenty of other opportunities waiting for you. Buy your Disrupt pass now, and you can save up to $600. Prices go up on August 11 at 11:59 p.m. PDT.
Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.
Global web3 venture funding on pace to decline for seventh straight quarter
According to the Crunchbase Web3 Tracker, funding to crypto startups around the world is on pace to notch its seventh-consecutive quarterly decline.
Time flies, doesn’t it? We’re nearly through the first month of Q3, which means we can finally start taking note of the trends that will define the rest of the year, or if long-lasting trends are set to continue.
One such long-running trend shows no signs of reversing: Unfortunately for crypto, a former darling of Startup Land, funding to web3 startups continues to decline and will likely do so for the foreseeable future.
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According to the Crunchbase Web3 Tracker, funding to crypto startups around the world is on pace to decline for the seventh straight quarter — with investments in Q3 on track to land quite a bit below the $1.9 billion crypto companies raised in Q2.
In fact, Q2 actually felt kind of stable, since crypto startups raised only slightly less than the $2 billion they did in Q1.
The current quarter is shaping up to be shakier. VC investments in web3 so far have totaled $412.7 million, and if things don’t improve, that will add up to about $1.2 billion or so by the end of September.
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The Emmys are reportedly delayed due to ongoing strikes
The Primetime Emmys won’t take place on September 18th, according toVariety. The publication reported on Thursday that vendors scheduled to work the event have been told the ceremony is delayed because of the writers’ and actors’ strikes that have shut down all Hollywood productions and promotions. The TV Academy hasn’t yet announced a replacement date, but Variety previously reported that broadcast partner Fox tentatively wants to shoot for January 2024. HBO’s Successionleads this year’s field with 27 nominations, while The Last of Us made history with an impressive 24 nods for the video game adaptation.Hollywood writers began striking in early May, while actors joined them earlier this month. Artificial intelligence figures prominently in both cases: Scribes and performers fear producers will increasingly use AI-generated content to diminish humans’ ability to make a living in the already-brutal show business industry. Perhaps the most startling revelation was the report that studios offered a “groundbreaking AI proposal” to pay performers for one day of work to use their digital likeness for eternity. As generative AI advances quicker than most people could have imagined, it now threatens to annihilate content creators’ careers inside and outside of Hollywood.Disney / LucasfilmAlthough The Last of Us marked a milestone for gaming adaptations (including acting nominations for Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey), season three of Disney’s The Mandalorian received an impressive nine nominations. At the same time, Andor picked up eight nods — including Outstanding Drama Series. It recounts the journey of spy Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), one of the fallen heroes of 2016’s Rogue One, in the period building up to the Rebel Alliance’s rise against the Galactic Empire. Obi-Wan Kenobi, also on Disney+, received five more nominations, including Best Limited or Anthology Series.In addition to The Last of Us and Andor, Outstanding Drama Series nominees include Better Call Saul, House of the Dragon, Succession, The White Lotus and Yellowjackets.AppleApple TV+ also fared well in nominations, with 52. Ted Lasso is up for Best Comedy Series among its 21 nominations, which also include Best Actor in a Comedy Series for lead Jason Sudeikis, Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy for Hannah Waddingham and Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy for Phil Dunster. Apple’s mesmerizing sci-fi adaptationSilo debuted too late for consideration this year, but don’t be shocked if it features prominently in the 2024 list.Elsewhere, Amazon’s colossally ambitious The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power received six nods (mostly in technical categories). Netflix’s Stranger Things picked up six, Peacock’s Poker Face nabbed four and Star Trek: Picard got two makeup nominations. HBO led all platforms with 127 nods, while Netflix led streaming-only networks with 103, followed by Apple (52) and Amazon (46).This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-emmys-are-reportedly-delayed-due-to-ongoing-strikes-164958589.html?src=rss
The Primetime Emmys won’t take place on September 18th, according toVariety. The publication reported on Thursday that vendors scheduled to work the event have been told the ceremony is delayed because of the writers’ and actors’ strikes that have shut down all Hollywood productions and promotions. The TV Academy hasn’t yet announced a replacement date, but Variety previously reported that broadcast partner Fox tentatively wants to shoot for January 2024. HBO’s Successionleads this year’s field with 27 nominations, while The Last of Us made history with an impressive 24 nods for the video game adaptation.
Hollywood writers began striking in early May, while actors joined them earlier this month. Artificial intelligence figures prominently in both cases: Scribes and performers fear producers will increasingly use AI-generated content to diminish humans’ ability to make a living in the already-brutal show business industry. Perhaps the most startling revelation was the report that studios offered a “groundbreaking AI proposal” to pay performers for one day of work to use their digital likeness for eternity. As generative AI advances quicker than most people could have imagined, it now threatens to annihilate content creators’ careers inside and outside of Hollywood.
Although The Last of Us marked a milestone for gaming adaptations (including acting nominations for Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey), season three of Disney’s The Mandalorian received an impressive nine nominations. At the same time, Andor picked up eight nods — including Outstanding Drama Series. It recounts the journey of spy Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), one of the fallen heroes of 2016’s Rogue One, in the period building up to the Rebel Alliance’s rise against the Galactic Empire. Obi-Wan Kenobi, also on Disney+, received five more nominations, including Best Limited or Anthology Series.
In addition to The Last of Us and Andor, Outstanding Drama Series nominees include Better Call Saul, House of the Dragon, Succession, The White Lotus and Yellowjackets.
Apple TV+ also fared well in nominations, with 52. Ted Lasso is up for Best Comedy Series among its 21 nominations, which also include Best Actor in a Comedy Series for lead Jason Sudeikis, Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy for Hannah Waddingham and Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy for Phil Dunster. Apple’s mesmerizing sci-fi adaptationSilo debuted too late for consideration this year, but don’t be shocked if it features prominently in the 2024 list.
Elsewhere, Amazon’s colossally ambitious The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power received six nods (mostly in technical categories). Netflix’s Stranger Things picked up six, Peacock’s Poker Face nabbed four and Star Trek: Picard got two makeup nominations. HBO led all platforms with 127 nods, while Netflix led streaming-only networks with 103, followed by Apple (52) and Amazon (46).
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-emmys-are-reportedly-delayed-due-to-ongoing-strikes-164958589.html?src=rss
Stop filming concerts
Photo by Hannes P Albert / picture alliance via Getty Images
Look, I understand where you’re coming from. You paid good money to be here at the Eras Tour or whatever. You waited in line for two hours. You were up all night selecting your outfit. You sat in ridiculous traffic. You fought a relentless battle against Ticketmaster, and dagnabbit, you won. You’re here, you persevered, and you want the world to know it.
You’re here, you persevered, and you want the world to know it
Also, you’re spending your Saturday night singing “Love Story” at the top of your lungs in a crowd of thousands of very attractive and well-dressed people, and those loser couch potatoes who follow you on Instagram presumably are not. You promised your mom that you’d get out of the house more, and you’d like her to know you’re keeping your word. And you really love Taylor, some of the weirder tracks on Evermore aside, and you want to share her with the world.
What better way to achieve these ends than to film the entire concert and post it to your Instagram story?
Trust me. I understand the temptation. I myself have done this now and again. The urge is human and valid. However, I am here to bring you an unfortunate but very necessary truth: nobody wants to watch your concert footage. Nobody.
I don’t care how great your phone’s camera is. I don’t care what fancy things you think you’ve done with the settings. Your videos are terribly lit. The room you are in is very, very dark. You are too far back from the stage. We cannot see anything. The artist you are filming looks like a teensy, blurry toy army guy that we would not recognize if you hadn’t tagged them 50 times.
That’s before we even get into the audio quality. Even concerts recorded by professionals with high-quality equipment often don’t sound all that great. You, meanwhile, are recording someone 10,000 miles away from you from the middle of a crowd that is screaming their faces off. We cannot hear Taylor. I’m sorry, it’s the truth. We cannot hear her, and it’s high time somebody let you know.
Photo by Cindy Ord / Getty Images
Flo Rida does not need to be on your Instagram story. I promise. He’s good.
Finally, I am going to get a bit philosophical. I understand that your concert footage has a lot of meaning to you. I’m not going to be one of those people who stands here and insists that you will never watch the videos you take. I, personally, treasure the small amount of concert footage that I keep on my phone. I was watching a video I took of BTS’s Los Angeles concert just this morning while waiting for the bus.
But I do not watch my concert videos because they are objectively good, entertaining, or interesting. I watch them because they’re a reminder of a time in my life. A time when I was in the same room as an artist I love, hearing them sing songs I love directly to me. They take me back to the roar of the crowd, the heat of the fireworks, the plastic smell of the stadium seats. They take me back to a once-in-a-lifetime memory, an adrenaline and an environment I may never get to experience again.
Here’s today’s second unfortunate truth: our concert footage does not have that impact on anyone else. For someone who wasn’t there with us, our videos are identical to literally any video of this same concert that exists on YouTube or TikTok. (In fact, they are probably worse. Sorry.) When you post a picture of your cat rolling over, you’re sharing a moment in your life (and your cat’s life) that does not exist anywhere else in the world. When you post an objectively terrible video of Harry Styles singing “Fine Line” at Madison Square Garden, you’re posting a video I can find literally anywhere, at any time, on any social platform — and that I’ve probably also already seen on my feed by virtue of being a person that exists on the internet. Keep a few valuable, choice videos on your phone. Don’t post all three hours to Instagram.
Now, I can already hear the comments. But Monica, if you don’t like concert Instagram Stories, just don’t watch them! No. That’s not how Instagram Stories work. We aren’t told if a story is going to be concert footage before we click on it. We just tap your little picture, expecting pictures of your cat, child, dinner, or whatever it is that’s your normal fare because you are someone whose life we are curious about and whose joys we hope to share and celebrate — and then we are bombarded with a stadium full of AirPods-shattering shrieks. If you’re someone whose Stories I watch often, your story is usually going to be on my front page when I open Instagram and thus one of the first things I habitually click on, and if you’ve posted 937 Blackpink clips to your story, that means you’re subjecting me to videos of frenzied American crowds attempting to scream the Korean lyrics of “Shut Down” every time I absentmindedly open the app for the next 24 hours. And that is, frankly, not something any of us needs.
Now, imagine the experience when Lady Gaga is in town and everyone I follow is there. It’s terrible concert footage all the way down.
It’s concert footage all the way down
But again, I understand. And I think we can reach a compromise.
Here’s what I propose. When you attend a concert, you are limited to three Instagram Stories. You can make these whatever you want. You can tag the artist. You can tag your mom. You can tag Tim Cook. I don’t care, but you get three.
This will send the message you’re trying to send. You will show the world that you are at a concert and that you are very cool, social, and musical. There will be three, and we will happily watch three. We will celebrate and heart-react three. But we don’t need to watch a thousand, and I promise that we will not celebrate or heart-react a thousand times.
There are all kinds of ancillary benefits here. Once you’ve filmed your three, you can put your phone down. Your arms will be so grateful. You can really enjoy watching the concert that you paid good money for, as opposed to spending the whole time fussing over white balance.
Not only that, but a future where everyone follows this rule will make concerts better for everyone. At any given time, orders of magnitude fewer people will be filming. That means fewer phones in your way. That means you don’t have to stand on your toes to see over the iPad Pro the six-foot-five guy in front of you has been brandishing for two hours. Everyone at the show will have a better time — and the footage the rest of us have to watch will look much better, too.
Photo by Hannes P Albert / picture alliance via Getty Images
Look, I understand where you’re coming from. You paid good money to be here at the Eras Tour or whatever. You waited in line for two hours. You were up all night selecting your outfit. You sat in ridiculous traffic. You fought a relentless battle against Ticketmaster, and dagnabbit, you won. You’re here, you persevered, and you want the world to know it.
Also, you’re spending your Saturday night singing “Love Story” at the top of your lungs in a crowd of thousands of very attractive and well-dressed people, and those loser couch potatoes who follow you on Instagram presumably are not. You promised your mom that you’d get out of the house more, and you’d like her to know you’re keeping your word. And you really love Taylor, some of the weirder tracks on Evermore aside, and you want to share her with the world.
What better way to achieve these ends than to film the entire concert and post it to your Instagram story?
Trust me. I understand the temptation. I myself have done this now and again. The urge is human and valid. However, I am here to bring you an unfortunate but very necessary truth: nobody wants to watch your concert footage. Nobody.
I don’t care how great your phone’s camera is. I don’t care what fancy things you think you’ve done with the settings. Your videos are terribly lit. The room you are in is very, very dark. You are too far back from the stage. We cannot see anything. The artist you are filming looks like a teensy, blurry toy army guy that we would not recognize if you hadn’t tagged them 50 times.
That’s before we even get into the audio quality. Even concerts recorded by professionals with high-quality equipment often don’t sound all that great. You, meanwhile, are recording someone 10,000 miles away from you from the middle of a crowd that is screaming their faces off. We cannot hear Taylor. I’m sorry, it’s the truth. We cannot hear her, and it’s high time somebody let you know.
Photo by Cindy Ord / Getty Images
Flo Rida does not need to be on your Instagram story. I promise. He’s good.
Finally, I am going to get a bit philosophical. I understand that your concert footage has a lot of meaning to you. I’m not going to be one of those people who stands here and insists that you will never watch the videos you take. I, personally, treasure the small amount of concert footage that I keep on my phone. I was watching a video I took of BTS’s Los Angeles concert just this morning while waiting for the bus.
But I do not watch my concert videos because they are objectively good, entertaining, or interesting. I watch them because they’re a reminder of a time in my life. A time when I was in the same room as an artist I love, hearing them sing songs I love directly to me. They take me back to the roar of the crowd, the heat of the fireworks, the plastic smell of the stadium seats. They take me back to a once-in-a-lifetime memory, an adrenaline and an environment I may never get to experience again.
Here’s today’s second unfortunate truth: our concert footage does not have that impact on anyone else. For someone who wasn’t there with us, our videos are identical to literally any video of this same concert that exists on YouTube or TikTok. (In fact, they are probably worse. Sorry.) When you post a picture of your cat rolling over, you’re sharing a moment in your life (and your cat’s life) that does not exist anywhere else in the world. When you post an objectively terrible video of Harry Styles singing “Fine Line” at Madison Square Garden, you’re posting a video I can find literally anywhere, at any time, on any social platform — and that I’ve probably also already seen on my feed by virtue of being a person that exists on the internet. Keep a few valuable, choice videos on your phone. Don’t post all three hours to Instagram.
Now, I can already hear the comments. But Monica, if you don’t like concert Instagram Stories, just don’t watch them! No. That’s not how Instagram Stories work. We aren’t told if a story is going to be concert footage before we click on it. We just tap your little picture, expecting pictures of your cat, child, dinner, or whatever it is that’s your normal fare because you are someone whose life we are curious about and whose joys we hope to share and celebrate — and then we are bombarded with a stadium full of AirPods-shattering shrieks. If you’re someone whose Stories I watch often, your story is usually going to be on my front page when I open Instagram and thus one of the first things I habitually click on, and if you’ve posted 937 Blackpink clips to your story, that means you’re subjecting me to videos of frenzied American crowds attempting to scream the Korean lyrics of “Shut Down” every time I absentmindedly open the app for the next 24 hours. And that is, frankly, not something any of us needs.
Now, imagine the experience when Lady Gaga is in town and everyone I follow is there. It’s terrible concert footage all the way down.
But again, I understand. And I think we can reach a compromise.
Here’s what I propose. When you attend a concert, you are limited to three Instagram Stories. You can make these whatever you want. You can tag the artist. You can tag your mom. You can tag Tim Cook. I don’t care, but you get three.
This will send the message you’re trying to send. You will show the world that you are at a concert and that you are very cool, social, and musical. There will be three, and we will happily watch three. We will celebrate and heart-react three. But we don’t need to watch a thousand, and I promise that we will not celebrate or heart-react a thousand times.
There are all kinds of ancillary benefits here. Once you’ve filmed your three, you can put your phone down. Your arms will be so grateful. You can really enjoy watching the concert that you paid good money for, as opposed to spending the whole time fussing over white balance.
Not only that, but a future where everyone follows this rule will make concerts better for everyone. At any given time, orders of magnitude fewer people will be filming. That means fewer phones in your way. That means you don’t have to stand on your toes to see over the iPad Pro the six-foot-five guy in front of you has been brandishing for two hours. Everyone at the show will have a better time — and the footage the rest of us have to watch will look much better, too.
Google’s latest robot can offer you an energy drink
Google robot choosing a ball. | Image: Google
Google wants to make its robots smarter with the release of the AI learning model Robotic Transformer (RT-2).
RT-2 is the new version of what the company calls its vision-language-action (VLA) model. The model teaches robots to better recognize visual and language patterns to interpret instructions and infer what objects work best for the request.
Researchers tested RT-2 with a robotic arm in a kitchen office setting, asking its robotic arm to decide what makes a good improvised hammer (it was a rock) and to choose a drink to give an exhausted person (a Red Bull). They also told the robot to move a Coke can to a picture of Taylor Swift. The robot is a Swiftie, and that is good news for humanity.
The new model trained on web and robotics data, leveraging research advances in large language models like Google’s own Bard and combining it with robotic data (like which joints to move), the company said in a paper. It also understands directions in languages other than English.
For years, researchers have tried to imbue robots with better inference to troubleshoot how to exist in a real-life environment. The Verge’s James Vincent pointed out real life is uncompromisingly messy. Robots need more instruction just to do something simple for humans. For example, cleaning up a spilled drink. Humans instinctively know what to do: pick up the glass, get something to sop up the mess, throw that out, and be careful next time.
Previously, teaching a robot took a long time. Researchers had to individually program directions. But with the power of VLA models like RT-2, robots can access a larger set of information to infer what to do next.
Google’s first foray into smarter robots started last year when it announced it would use its LLM PaLM in robotics, creating the awkwardly named PaLM-SayCan system to integrate LLM with physical robotics.
Google’s new robot isn’t perfect. The New York Times got to see a live demo of the robot and reported it incorrectly identified soda flavors and misidentified fruit as the color white.
Depending on the type of person you are, this news is either welcome or reminds you of the scary robot dogs from Black Mirror (influenced by Boston Dynamics robots). Either way, we should expect an even smarter robot next year. It might even clean up a spill with minimal instructions.
Google robot choosing a ball. | Image: Google
Google wants to make its robots smarter with the release of the AI learning model Robotic Transformer (RT-2).
RT-2 is the new version of what the company calls its vision-language-action (VLA) model. The model teaches robots to better recognize visual and language patterns to interpret instructions and infer what objects work best for the request.
Researchers tested RT-2 with a robotic arm in a kitchen office setting, asking its robotic arm to decide what makes a good improvised hammer (it was a rock) and to choose a drink to give an exhausted person (a Red Bull). They also told the robot to move a Coke can to a picture of Taylor Swift. The robot is a Swiftie, and that is good news for humanity.
The new model trained on web and robotics data, leveraging research advances in large language models like Google’s own Bard and combining it with robotic data (like which joints to move), the company said in a paper. It also understands directions in languages other than English.
For years, researchers have tried to imbue robots with better inference to troubleshoot how to exist in a real-life environment. The Verge’s James Vincent pointed out real life is uncompromisingly messy. Robots need more instruction just to do something simple for humans. For example, cleaning up a spilled drink. Humans instinctively know what to do: pick up the glass, get something to sop up the mess, throw that out, and be careful next time.
Previously, teaching a robot took a long time. Researchers had to individually program directions. But with the power of VLA models like RT-2, robots can access a larger set of information to infer what to do next.
Google’s first foray into smarter robots started last year when it announced it would use its LLM PaLM in robotics, creating the awkwardly named PaLM-SayCan system to integrate LLM with physical robotics.
Google’s new robot isn’t perfect. The New York Times got to see a live demo of the robot and reported it incorrectly identified soda flavors and misidentified fruit as the color white.
Depending on the type of person you are, this news is either welcome or reminds you of the scary robot dogs from Black Mirror (influenced by Boston Dynamics robots). Either way, we should expect an even smarter robot next year. It might even clean up a spill with minimal instructions.