Google brings AR animals into the Search App

A new card in Google Search will bring virtual animals into your space—if you have an augmented reality-enabled phone, that is. This new feature is one of the many introduced at this year’s I/O developer conference. The feature works on animals like cats, dogs, pandas, alpine goats, angler fish, lions, timberwolves, bears, European hedgehogs, tigers, and emperor penguins. When you do a search for these animals, a card saying “Meet a life-sized [animal] up close” will pop up. In the same card, you’ll see a “View in your own space” button to place the virtual animal into your environment.

Like any AR sticker, you can move these around or resize them. The animals even come with sound effects. You can see the dog bark and scratch its ears or the panda chews on a piece of bamboo. If you have a device ready to support this feature, you’ll need to allow it to access your camera and storage for the first time you use the feature.

Source: Engadget

HBO's 'Silicon Valley' to end after its sixth season

CREDIT: HBO

Silicon Valley will be the third HBO mainstay series to end this year (after Game of Thrones and Veep). Variety reports that the final season will be an abbreviated seven-episode run, making Season 6 the shortest season for the show. It's currently in pre-production with this last season slated for a release later this year. Production was delayed because of co-showrunner and executive producer Alec Berg's commitments to HBO comedy Barry. Silicon Valley follows the ups and downs of working at a tech startup in what's considered a tech haven. It stars Thomas Middleditch, Zach Woods, Kumail Nanjiani, Martin Starr, Amanda Crew, Jimmy O. Yang, Suzanne Cryer, Matt Ross, and Josh Brener. The show has been nominated for multiple Emmys, including best comedy series, and has won two of the awards to date—both in 2015.

When asked about Silicon Valley ending, Berg and fellow showrunner/executive producer Mike Judge said, "’Silicon Valley’ has been a career and life highlight for us. We’ll miss it desperately, but we’ve always let Pied Piper’s journey guide the way, and Season 6 seems to be the fitting conclusion. We are forever indebted to our incredible cast, crew, and partners at HBO. At a certain point, there’s only so much we can do to make the world a better place."

‘The Batman’ reboot gets Robert Pattinson as its lead

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We now have the new Batman. Robert Pattinson has officially signed the former Twilight star to play the Caped Crusader in Matt Reeves’ The Batman. The new Warner Bros. superhero film is set to come out on June 25, 2021. The studio confirmed on Friday that Pattinson signed the deal. Pre-production for the film is expected to start this summer, but we don’t know yet when filming is going to start. Reeves, who directed the last two Planet of the Apes films, took over directing duties of this film from Ben Affleck in January 2017. He will also co-produce the film with Planet of the Apes collaborator Dylan Clark.

Source: Variety

Square Enix will unveil ‘Avengers’ game at E3 on June 10th

The wait has been substantial for updates on the Square Enix and Marvel Avengers game. But it seems that’s almost over… at least when it comes to hearing more about the game. The Marvel’s Avengers game will be unveiled at the developer’s E3 event, which will begin on June 10^th at 6 PM PT/9 PM ET. Not much is known about what the game is about or what type of game it’ll be. Or whether it’ll tie closer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe or the comic book universe. What we do know is that Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal are still involved. The release does seem timely, though, as it comes out just a bit after Avengers: Endgame hit theatres. For those looking for that Marvel fix, this might just hit the spot.