audience
Loud eaters and phones nearly spoiled my cinema trip - and it's not just me
Loud eaters and phones nearly spoiled my cinema trip - and it's not just me The cinema lights are low and you're cocooned in your seat, ready for the film to transport you to another world. But just as you settle in, you're jolted back to reality. Audience members around you are scrolling on their phones, talking and munching loudly. Cinemas do clearly ask everyone not to disturb those around them - through the use of adverts, announcements and signs - but is behaviour in getting worse? I experienced disruption a few weeks ago while watching Ryan Gosling's sci-fi movie, Project Hail Mary, at a cinema in London.
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The Men Behind Your Favorite AI Gay Thirst Traps
A viral red carpet moment shone light on a group of hunky Instagram influencers--and the followers who are too horny to care that they're not real. With his deep brown eyes, wide grin, and almost comically chiseled body, Jae Young Joon is the platonic ideal of a hunky male influencer. On Instagram, where he has more than 320,000 followers, he regularly posts himself trying on sheet masks at home, enjoying soju and karaoke with his friends, or posing in front of the Ferris wheel at Coachella . Occasionally, he'll promote his music, including his recent LP Pressure Release which features a BDSM-inspired album cover, his back muscles rippling underneath a harness and chains. It's an impressive online presence, and Jae's fans eat it up: his comments are filled with fire and heart-eye emoji and people praising his music.
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Meta Is Shutting Down Horizon Worlds on Meta Quest
Meta's flailing virtual reality social experience is being discontinued in June. It's part of Meta's broader moves to slim down the business that became its namesake. Pour one out from your digital bottle, because Meta is shutting down the virtual reality experience of Horizon Worlds. Meta sent an email blast to Horizon Worlds users today stating that the social VR world will officially end on its Quest VR headsets; starting March 31, Horizon Worlds will no longer be in the Quest store. Some Horizon-specific perks, including Meta Credits, avatars, and some digital clothes and in-world purchases, will also be removed.
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China's dancing robots: how worried should we be?
Should we be impressed or worried by China's humanoid robot display? - video China's dancing robots: how worried should we be? Dancing humanoid robots took centre stage on Monday during the annual China Media Group's Spring Festival Gala, China's most-watched official television broadcast. They lunged and backflipped (landing on their knees), they spun around and jumped. The display was impressive, but prompted some to wonder: if robots can now dance and perform martial arts, what else can they do? Experts have mixed opinions, with some saying the robots had limitations and that the display should be viewed through a lens of state propaganda.
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The Download: unraveling a death threat mystery, and AI voice recreation for musicians
Hackers made death threats against this security researcher. In April 2024, a mysterious someone using the online handles "Waifu" and "Judische" began posting death threats on Telegram and Discord channels aimed at a cybersecurity researcher named Allison Nixon. These anonymous personas targeted Nixon because she had become a formidable threat: As chief research officer at the cyber investigations firm Unit 221B, named after Sherlock Holmes's apartment, she had built a career tracking cybercriminals and helping get them arrested. Though she'd done this work for more than a decade, Nixon couldn't understand why the person behind the accounts was suddenly threatening her. And although she had taken an interest in the Waifu persona in years past for crimes he boasted about committing, he hadn't been on her radar for a while when the threats began, because she was tracking other targets. Now Nixon resolved to unmask Waifu/Judische and others responsible for the death threats--and take them down for crimes they admitted to committing.
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Theatre Review: "An Ark" and "Data"
Two plays soaked in technological anxiety. "An Ark" resembles a webinar with a staring contest, one that no human can win. Before you enter "An Ark," a "mixed reality" performance at the Shed, you check your coat and, more oddly, your shoes. Inside, there are three concentric circles of chairs arranged on a red carpet and, overhead, a white globe resembling a hot-air balloon. A docent explained that, through my virtual-reality headset, I would see four more chairs--and, ideally, they shouldn't float.
- Leisure & Entertainment (1.00)
- Media > Television (0.47)
Faisal Islam: Global disruption looms large over biggest-ever Davos
Apart from the snow and the temperature Greenland does not have much in common with the Swiss alps. But the fight for the future of the island looms over the gathering of world leaders and businesses at the World Economic Forum (WEF) this week. Indeed the timing of Donald Trump's extraordinary threat must have had in mind this meeting. And that is beyond strange given the views of his base. Last year, he beamed himself into the WEF from the White House, appearing before an audience of largely bewildered European executives just two days after his inauguration.
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