Ted Cruz sent Facebook 209 questions, including this bizarre one about Taylor Swift

TwitterFacebook

Ted Cruz has some questions for Facebook: 209 of them to be precise.

That’s how many written questions the Texas senator submitted to the company following CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s hours of Congressional testimony, and good lord were some of them were mind-numbingly stupid — including one abut a Taylor Swift song.

Some quick background: Following Zuckerberg’s marathon Congressional hearings in April, senators also submitted thousands of followup questions to the company. Facebook finally got around to submitting all those answers last week, and the Senate published the questions and answers in full Monday.  Read more…

More about Tech, Facebook, Ted Cruz, Tech, and Social Media Companies

‘The Last of Us Part II’ offers a tender, brutal look at humanity, as you’d expect, at E3 2018

TwitterFacebook

Sony kicked off its E3 2018 PlayStation showcase with a fresh look at The Last of Us Part II, Naughty Dog’s follow-up to the critically acclaimed adventure that somehow turned a mushroom zombie-filled post-apocalypse into the perfect backdrop for an unflinching character-driven exploration of the human condition (with a cool resource-dependent survival game on the side, sure).

Part II looks… similar? A game like The Last of Us depends more on story than anything else, and we’re only going to see snippets during a pre-release press conference. This particular snippet framed a stealthy creep-and-kill sequence as a flashback Ellie flashes through while she wrestles with her sense of identity during a community dance. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Gaming, E3 2018, The Last Of Us Part Ii, and Entertainment

Facebook finally got around to answering all those senators’ questions

TwitterFacebook

Looks like his team finally got back to them. 

Almost two full months after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg dodged senators’ questions about the Cambridge Analytica and user privacy scandals with the vague promise that someone would be in touch, the advertising giant made good on his pledge and provided a host of answers on topics ranging from Russian trolls to whether or not Facebook is a media company. 

SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg says he’s ‘not familiar’ with so-called shadow profiles

The 225-page PDF and separate 229-page PDF, comprising responses to both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, are a lot to wade through and will surely provide fodder for both Facebook’s boosters and critics over the coming weeks and months. However, a few of the company’s responses are immediately worth further examination — namely, that of the data Facebook collects on non-users and its possible monopoly status.   Read more…

More about Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Cambridge Analytica, Tech, and Social Media Companies

Papua New Guinea’s proposed Facebook ban is more about control

TwitterFacebook

Last week, Papua New Guinea made international headlines when its government said it would consider banning Facebook for a month.

Announced by the country’s communications minister Sam Basil on Jun. 29, the department and its National Research Institute would be tasked to understand how Papua New Guineans were using Facebook — but not everyone’s convinced it’s this straightforward.

SEE ALSO: Facebook’s new data shocker involves accused national security threat Huawei

“The time will allow information to be collected to identify users that hide behind fake accounts, users that upload pornographic images, users that post false and misleading information on Facebook to be filtered and removed,” Basil said, according to the Post Courier. Read more…

More about Facebook, Politics, Censorship, Social Media, and Papua New Guinea

‘Hereditary’ marketing misleads its audience right off a cliff

TwitterFacebook

Spoilers lie ahead for Hereditary. You’ve been warned.

On Friday, horror fans flocked to theaters to revel in and be tortured by A24’s new supernatural horror flick, Hereditary. 

By Sunday, the rising fright fest had been rocked by a D+ CinemaScore – though it held onto a 93% Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and cashed in its opening weekend box office at $13 million. 

SEE ALSO: People were really, really freaked out by ‘Hereditary’

So, what got the audience members polled by CinemaScore so miffed? I checked out the alleged “scariest horror film ever made” late last night and am pretty sure I know who is to blame for disappointed audience members. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Entertainment, and Movies Tv Shows

Amazon’s Alexa playing ‘Skyrim’ with Keegan-Michael Key wins E3 2018

TwitterFacebook

Bethesda Softworks used its E3 2018 showcase as an occasion to share what appears to be a cancelled April Fool’s joke.

I’ll set the scene and let Keegan-Michael Key do the rest: It feels like Bethesda’s Skyrim has been released for everything, multiple times in several cases. In this new update, the game arrives in its most ambitious form yet: As an Amazon Alexa app.

L O L Read more…

More about Entertainment, Gaming, Bethesda Softworks, Skyrim, and Keegan Michael Key

All the big trailers from Bethesda’s E3 2018 showcase not called Fallout

TwitterFacebook

Bethesda Softworks kicked off its E3 2018 festivities with lingering looks at a bunch of its upcoming games.

Fallout 76 got the most attention, of course. It was announced only recently in a teasing first look, and the pressure was on Bethesda to explain what was behind its mysterious teaser. We’re talked allll about that one separately.

SEE ALSO: All the best and biggest games from Xbox’s E3 press conference

But it wasn’t just the Fallout showRage 2 got a look. So did Prey. And Doom. (And another big surprise.) 

There’s even a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it tease of Elder Scrolls VI tease and a peek at an all-new franchise, the long-rumored outer space game, Starfield. Here they all are (plus some VR news). Enjoy. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Gaming, Bethesda Softworks, Rage 2, and Prey Mooncrash

‘Wolfenstein: Young Blood’ brings kickass Nazi-killing to the ’80s

TwitterFacebook

The Nazi-killing hero B.J. Blazkowicz had twin daughters and guess what? They kick ass.

Bethesda Softworks revealed Wolfenstein: Young Blood at its E3 press conference on Sunday. The new adventure brings the anti-Nazi resistance to the ’80s with Blazowicz’s twin daughters taking the helm. And twins means co-op, so you can kill nazis side by side with a friend just like God intended.

Young Blood is coming in 2019. Read more…

More about Trailers, Bethesda, Wolfenstein, E3 2018, and Wolfenstein Young Blood

Big things are ahead for ‘Gears of War’ after three E3 2018 reveals

TwitterFacebook

There’s no new Gears of War game coming in 2018, but boy howdy is 2019 going to be a busy one for all of you fans.

The biggest revelation was, of course, Gears 5. The sequel to the 2016 follow-up from new Gears developer The Coalition picks up where the previous story left off, focusing on a sort of “next-generation” cast for the series.

SEE ALSO: All the best and biggest games from Xbox’s E3 press conference

In a surprising twist, Gears 5 makes Kait a central character. (Yes, a woman will star in this Gears of War game. No, that’s not a bad thing.) It’s not fully clear what the new game is about, but it does let you wield a large, seemingly very destructive melee weapon. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Gaming, Xbox, Gears Of War, and E3 2018

All the best and biggest games from Xbox’s E3 press conference

TwitterFacebook

This year’s Xbox E3 press conference completely surpassed last year’s, revealing a whole bunch of exciting new games and new trailers for games we can’t wait to get our hands on.

During its press conference Sunday, Xbox revealed trailers for Halo Infinite, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Fallout: 76, Kingdom Hearts III, and a handful (“handful” is an understatement) of other games, giving Xbox its first truly strong showing in years.

SEE ALSO: ‘Anthem’ is BioWare’s whole new world at E3 2018

Without further ado, here are the most exciting trailers from Xbox’s E3 press conference:

Halo Infinite

Halo Infinite brings Master Chief back to Halo in this teaser trailer, giving the world a glimpse at the next Halo game on a brand new engine. We didn’t get much information but Warthogs are back and that’s basically all we need to know. Read more…

More about Microsoft, Trailers, Xbox One, E3 2018, and Entertainment