‘The Walking Dead’ gets ninth season

AMC

Even with the decline in ratings in recent seasons, AMC’s The Walking Dead seems to be doing well enough that the network is renewing the show for its ninth season. It’ll be coming back later this year. AMC is promoting showrunner Scott M. Gimple to chief content officer. He will be in charge of both The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead as well as other “potential brand extensions.” And while it’s a promotion for Gimple, it’s also seen as a response to fans who have been critical of where he has taken the show in recent seasons. He will be replaced by writer Angela Kang as showrunner, she has been with the show since its second season.

Source: The Verge

Google takes down gaming apps found with pornographic malware

Over 60 games in the Google Play Store, many seemingly targeted towards children, have been found to contain malware that has pornographic ads. Researchers from security firm Check Point discovered the malware called AdultSwine and have found them in apps that have already been downloaded over three million times. Some of the titles include Mcqueen Car Racing Game, Subway Banana Run Surf, and Paw Puppy Run Subway Surf. According to Check Point, Google took action hours after they were informed of the issue.

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Warner Bros will support new Samsung-led HDR10+ standard

You may or may not have heard of the newest High Dynamic Range (HDR) standard to come out in the past year. But now its three founding companies—Samsung, Panasonic, and 20^th Century Fox—just shared some updates on HDR10+ and what we can expect from the platform. This Dolby Vision competitor is said to soon make its way to “content companies, ultra-high definition TVs, Blu-ray disc players/recorders and set-top box manufacturers, as well as SoC vendors.” Moving forward, the three companies will be incorporating the standard in “all future Ultra HD movie releases, selected TVs, Ultra HD Blu-ray player/recorders, and other products.” And unlike its Dolby counterpart, Samsung, in a press release, emphasizes that using HDR10+ will be royalty-free and will only require a “nominal annual administration fee” to use the standard. Updates about the new format will be put up on this new site.

One of the bigger announcements, though, is that Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will be enabling this dynamic metadata solution to its content for Samsung, Panasonic and other HDR10+ capable 4K HDR TVs. Amazon Prime Video already supports the standard with its Prime Video HDR library already offering HDR10+ and can be seen on Prime Originals like The Grand Tour, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Jean-Claude Van Johnson, The Tick and The Man in the High Castle.

‘Pokémon Go’ to start hosting monthly Community Days, offers exclusive captures

Starting this January, Pokémon Go is hosting a special monthly event it calls Community Days. Here special Pokémon with exclusive moves will pop up more often for a few hours. Players will also get access to increased XP or Stardust and Lure Modules will be up for three hours. For the first Community Day happening this January 20^th, the Pokémon up for grabs will be Pikachu with an exclusive event move Surf. Yes, you get a chance to get a surfing Pikachu. You can check out what time Community Day is happening in your area through this link.

Source: Engadget