Amazon enters nine-figure deal with ‘Westworld’ creators to develop exclusive content for Prime Video

Amazon has just signed Westworld’s showrunners Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy, and their company Kilter films to develop original shows for Prime Video. It’s said to be a low-to-mid nine-figure deal that covers a four-to-five year period, which is believed to be worth upwards of US$30 million a year. The couple will be leaving Warner Bros TV but they will continue to be showrunners for HBO’s Westworld. They are still signed up to write and executive produce more seasons of the how. Engadget reports the first show they might work on could be the sci-fi drama series, The Peripheral. But we’re going to have to wait and see what they have cooking up.

Netflix’s iOS app no longer supports AirPlay, cites ‘technical limitations’

It seems the Netflix app for iOS has lost support for Apple AirPlay. According to an updated support document on Netflix’s site, this is due to “technical limitations.” What these limitations are, we can’t say. MacRumors tested out the feature and have found that they can’t get Netflix to play using the feature. It’s been available on the service since 2013, and it’s usually worked until this week. It shouldn’t affect much of your use with Netflix apps available on Apple TV, consoles, smart TVs, iOS, and the like. But now if you use AirPlay, you’re going to have to try out alternatives.

Amazon Prime Video has 2,500 hours of Jim Henson Co. content

Following the release of Jim Henson Co.’s sci-fi series Farscape on Amazon Prime Video, the entertainment company is bringing 2,500 hours of classic programming into the platform. Most will be available in 67 different territories, which includes Canada. Subscribers can expect to get original five seasons of Fraggle Rock (all 96 episodes), The Storyteller, The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss, and Mother Goose Stories. What isn’t coming to the country is Pajanimals. You can view the content available through a dedicated Amazon landing page for Jim Henson Co. at this link, available to subscribers of Prime or the standalone Amazon Prime Video service.

Source: Variety

Apple adds another Google AI expert to its team

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Late last year, Apple hired former Googler John Giannandrea as the first senior vice president of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Strategy as the company promised to get more serious about AI. Apple seems to be keeping that promise with its new hire. Another former Googler, Ian Goodfellow, joined the company as the director of Machine Learning in the Special Projects Group. This division is in charge of working on next-generation tech for the company. There might even be a chance that Goodfellow will report to Giannandrea. But Goodfellow didn’t elaborate on what he’ll be working on at Apple.

He worked for Google from 2013 to 2016, and then from 2017 to 2019. His last role at Google was senior staff research scientist. The year he wasn’t in the company, he worked for the Elon Musk-funded AI research non-profit OpenAI. He is known for inventing a form of machine learning training approach that’s called generative adversarial network (GAN). It’s a technique that pits two neural networks against each other to create photos and videos that look real. As Engadget mentioned, bad actors have been using GANs to create “deepfake” media, a lot of them AI-generated fake porn that borrows faces of famous celebrities.