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Tom's Guide
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
Amazon-backed Showrunner launches 'Netflix of AI' platform — and you can star in your own show
A startup that once made headlines for generating AI episodes of "South Park" is officially launching its next act today (July 30). And as someone who got early access to the service more than a year ago, I can honestly say it feels like this might be the future of streaming. Today, Showrunner, a San Francisco–based startup backed by Amazon and founded by Oculus and Pixar veterans, unveiled what it calls the "Netflix of AI," a platform that lets anyone generate custom TV shows and episodes in minutes using natural language prompts. Users can write an idea, upload a selfie and instantly star in their own sitcom, action series or satire, all animated and voiced by AI. The launch follows viral success from the company's "South Park" AI experiment, which drew more than 80 million views despite being unauthorized. Now, Showrunner is betting big on a new form of 'playable television,' where viewers are also creators, cast members and collaborators. 'The next big streaming platforms won't be passive,' CEO Edward Saatchi said. 'You'll describe the show you want to watch and start watching it within minutes. Then make new episodes, add yourself and your friends — fighting aliens, solving crimes, or starring in your favorite sitcom.' At the heart of Showrunner is SHOW-2, the company's proprietary AI model capable of writing, animating, voicing, editing and producing full episodes of television. Early access users can sign up now at where a waitlist of more than 100,000 people is already queued up to try the platform. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. The product builds on Showrunner's original SHOW-1 model and AI Showrunner Agents, which can handle every role in a traditional TV pipeline, from writer's room to post-production. According to co-creator Philipp Maas, who led the team behind the South Park AI demos, the goal is to democratize Hollywood. 'Soon, anyone will be able to create their own hit show or become a showrunner for someone else's world,' Maas said. Showrunner's flagship launch title is "Exit Valley," a "Family Guy-style" animated series set in 'Sim Francisco.' The show lampoons tech giants like Sam Altman and Elon Musk, portraying a world where AI moguls promise to end work and money, while becoming the richest humans to ever live. 'Satire is the age-old tool of the powerless against the powerful,' Saatchi said. ''Exit Valley' lets people use AI to fight back—by putting themselves in the show and making scenes that mock the daily tech news.' Some of the first episodes were created by Fable, Showrunner's parent company, while others will be made by users and judged by a panel of filmmakers. The platform's episodic structure makes it easier for AI to handle, though Saatchi admits that 'epic arcs like 'Breaking Bad' or 'Game of Thrones'' are still out of reach for AI storytelling. While OpenAI and Google have AI tools that can generate video or control software, Showrunner's edge is integration: the platform can animate, voice, edit and deliver a watchable episode without needing multiple tools. From experience, I can tell you that it's also far more interactive in that it lets users create within familiar IP worlds. The hands-on experience makes Showrunner more fun and creative for streamers. Saatchi envisions a future where Disney or Lucasfilm could offer branded models, 'Star WarsGPT' or 'PixarGPT,' that fans subscribe to in order to create stories within their favorite universes. 'The Toy Story of AI isn't just a cheaper movie,' he said. 'It's playable. You'll watch a film on Friday, and by Sunday there will be millions of fan-made scenes — all monetizable by the IP holder.' The launch of Showrunner marks a clear shift toward two-way entertainment. Instead of waiting years for renewals or green lights, creators can spin up a season on their own. It also gives aspiring writers and animators; especially those without Hollywood connections, a new path in. Just ask Dov Friedman, co-creator of indie TV pilot "Hutzpah," who said Showrunner finally gave his team the tools to bring their series to life after years of rejection. 'We couldn't even get a yes or a no,' Friedman said. 'Showrunner gave us everything we needed to develop a full season without a big studio.' With Amazon, Intel and Fable's Emmy-winning team behind it, Showrunner may be the first of many platforms redefining what it means to watch, make and be in a can expect more of the following: For now, users can sign up at to get started on creating their own shows. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News to get our up-to-date news, how-tos, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
Express Tribune
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Tyler, The Creator drops ninth album ‘Don't Tap the Glass' amid CHROMAKOPIA tour
Tyler, The Creator has released his ninth studio album, Don't Tap the Glass, arriving unexpectedly on Monday. The new project lands less than a year after CHROMAKOPIA, continuing the Grammy-winning artist's prolific output and creative streak. Ahead of the release, Tyler previewed tracks at a $5 concert in Los Angeles on Sunday evening. The album's announcement came during his Brooklyn performance, followed by themed installations appearing across New York City, including the Barclays Center and the Oculus at the World Trade Center. The cover art features a shirtless Tyler wearing red trousers and a matching cap, evoking vintage hip-hop influences. The image echoes style references from LL COOL J, 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin', and Ludacris' bold visuals in 'Get Back.' The album features 10 songs. Below is the complete tracklist. Big Poe Sugar On My Tongue Sucka Free Mommanem Stop Playing With Me Ring Ring Ring Don't Tap That Glass / Tweakin' Don't You Worry Baby I'll Take Care of You Tell Me What It Is Despite fan speculation, Tyler tempered expectations on X, reflecting his intent to release music without narrative framing, focusing purely on sound and expression. yall better get them expectations and hopes down this aint no concept nothing — T (@tylerthecreator) July 20, 2025 Don't Tap the Glass follows CHROMAKOPIA, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 299,000 album-equivalent units. It was later named one of Billboard's top albums of 2024. Fans can now stream the new album across major platforms.
WIRED
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- WIRED
The ModRetro Chromatic Is a Game Boy Fit for Your Apocalypse Bunker
Jul 10, 2025 12:00 PM Palmer Luckey's sold-out, souped-up cartridge-only console clone is back—and this time, it wants to live forever. It took just 24 hours for the ModRetro Chromatic to sell out when it launched December 2024. An unapologetic Game Boy clone packaged in a slick, tough new shell, it delivered the perfect dose of gaming nostalgia alongside a few modern upgrades. Keen to build on that success, ModRetro has revamped production efforts and rejiggered its supply chain to make sure the Chromatic can stand the test of time. Now, the snazzy, geeky gadget is available for sale again—this time with new features, new games and a brand new colorway. The company, helmed by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, says this time there will be no shortages of the Chromatic. It'll cost you $199 with no games, or $299 for a version with a beefier sapphire crystal screen. More than that, Luckey wants the device to last, basically forever. Maybe even become the Game Boy's final form. 'In theory, you could put this in a box for a hundred years and then pop in a pair of batteries and it would just go,' says Luckey. 'If you're saying this is going to be the last Game Boy ever made—that this is the thing that will persist and be the way you experience that whole era of gaming—you better make something to last. It's almost like you have a moral duty to make sure it's something that is going to survive.' Luckey, Silicon Valley's preeminent Hawaiian-shirt-clad tech bro, is famous—or infamous, depending on how you look at it—for pioneering VR tech and military defense alike. In 2012, he created the Oculus Rift, the product that effectively gave life to the then merely theoretical VR industry. He's had a controversial journey since then, selling Oculus to Facebook in 2014, then leaving in an acrimonious split three years later. He moved on to start the military industrial tech company Anduril (named after a sword from the Lord of the Rings series) that now makes attack drones, border surveillance tech, and AI-powered weapons. His right-wing political leanings, while once out of favor in Silicon Valley, are now on display much more freely by the broader tech elite. Luckey has recently been re-embraced by Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta (née Facebook), in his own rightward turn. Another of Luckey's recent endeavors, a crypto-bank called Erebor (after the Lonely Mountain in The Hobbit ), is being funded by conservative billionaire and fellow LoTR nomenclature enthusiast Peter Thiel, the CEO of Palantir. On another front, Luckey is still very into the tech of the past. The name ModRetro comes from a forum Luckey created as a kid to interact with other gadget enthusiasts. The thing that stuck with him the most from his childhood was the Game Boy. The Chromatic isn't the only Game Boy replacement out there. Nintendo has a collection of classic Game Boy games available to download (for a price). You can find emulators online. There are devices like Analogue Pocket that aim to recreate the experience of a physical Game Boy and even offer more games to play. Luckey says that while those efforts are all good, they come with compromises that he wants to blow right past. 'If something is worth doing, it's worth someone in the industry doing it right,' Luckey says. If you can get past that baggage of a fun gadget being tied to an arms dealer, reviews of the first edition of the Chromatic make the device sound very good. As a handheld gaming device, the ModRetro Chromatic harkens back to nostalgia of the early '90s Game Boy era, albeit housed in a case that is built like a bomb shelter. With the heft of a graphing calculator, the Chromatic leans into the chonkiness of early gaming handhelds, albeit with some much more modern upgrades. The gadgetry within is housed in a lightweight magnesium alloy chassis, assembled in a clamshell format that is meant to be straightforward to take apart. The screens are protected with Gorilla Glass, or you can opt for the scratch-resistant sapphire crystal surface for an extra $100. The buttons are made of satisfyingly clicky metals. The screws, though still the less common tri-wing screws found in early Game Boys, are easy enough to take out and replace. According to Torin Herndon, the lead engineer at ModRetro who has worked with Luckey at Anduril and Oculus, repairability and the ability to fix or tweak the device were paramount. 'The idea is to preserve it for multiple generations down the line, so what we had to do was make the device as deserving of that as possible,' Herndon says. 'And then to architect the device in a way that is really going against the grain of planned obsolescence.' For that reason, the console exclusively plays cartridge games, just like its progenitor. There are no digital downloads, though game makers can issue bug fixes or updates if connected to the internet. Accessories for the Chromatic include rechargeable battery packs, cables, and a headset range in cost from $15-$50. You can also buy a dedicated modification kit which lets you take apart the device and alter it as you see fit. On the library front, the Chromatic has launched with 15 games you can buy, and a special version of Tetris created by ModRetro comes packaged with the device. ModRetro has teased future partnerships for games made with industry stalwarts like Ubisoft, Atari, and Argonaut Games. Otherwise, if you want to play a game, you'll have to find a second-hand Game Boy or Game Boy Color cartridge somewhere. The Chromatic is backwards compatible, so old Game Boy games should work, assuming you've blown on the cartridge enough to get the dust out, of course. Despite the retro-focus, the Chromatic has a few new tricks wired into it as well. A USB-C port can be used for charging or for piping live video directly from the Chromatic to streaming services via Mac, PC, and Discord. That means you can stream directly from the device, which Luckey says will likely delight speedrunners eager to break records on Game Boy games without having to use external cameras to record the feats. (The software that enables streaming capabilities is backwards compatible, meaning it will be work of first-edition Chromatics as well.) 'The goal of Chromatic in a non-technical sense is not to replicate the experience of actually playing a Game Boy or Game Boy Color, it's to replicate the way that you felt playing it when you were younger,' Luckey says. 'You want it to be authentic but also to live up to that rose-tinted recollection of how you remember it.' Aside from all that nostalgia, ModRetro is also trying to make a push to reinforce the concept of ownership. Though the timing isn't deliberate, Herndon points to recent efforts like Stop Killing Games, a movement of game advocates calling for the preservation of digital and online games so they can't just be taken down by the provider. 'That is one of the most upsetting things about being a modern gamer,' Herndon says. 'The true ownership experience back then is something has really gone by the wayside today, and we wanted to recapture that feeling.' Ultimately, Luckey hopes the Chromatic isn't the last stop in ModRetro's efforts. He has his eyes set on recreating the Game Boy Advance and other retro platforms like the Nintendo 64. Eventually, he hopes the process, drawn out though it can be, will help preserve other aging technologies. 'This all sounds a lot more ridiculous and self masturbatory when you're just making a Game Boy thing,' Luckey says. 'But I'm hoping that at some point people will see ModRetro as a portal into the past that is going to live on forever. And then what I'm saying maybe won't seem quite as crazy.'
Irish Examiner
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Katie Taylor, the undisputed champion and the underdog
For a woman who has already walked into a hostile bearpit and emerged with a scalp, the conditions in New York are unlikely to prove intimidating. Nevertheless, the odds are against Katie Taylor. The latest evidence of that came atop the Empire State Building as fight week got underway on Tuesday. YouTuber-turned-boxer and promoter Jake Paul positioned himself behind the face-off and his fighter, Amanda Serrano, holding the super lightweight straps that are on the line. Nakisa Bidarian, the co-founder of Most Valuable Promotions, stood nearby clapping while reminding everyone that the showdown was set to take place on Friday night. This is an MVP show. They are the ones who brought streaming giant Netflix along, they organised this all-female boxing card with a remarkable 17 titles up for grabs across five bouts. Their first year signing was Serrano. The investment in that star and their long-term plan to let her shine was always going to lead to a night like Friday at the famed Madison Square Garden. When the trilogy was first announced, Taylor was installed as the favourite, having edged the last two fights. That has since flipped. Serrano's advantage comes with her punch volume and power, something she is adamant wasn't accurately recognised by the judges previously. Later at the Oculus at World Trade Center, two enormous inflatable figurines of Taylor and Serrano loomed above the open workout ring. Outside lightning and torrential rain attacked the city of dreams. The temperature indoors anywhere without full-throttle air conditioning was sweltering. The Lovin' Spoonful were onto something. Hot town, summer in the city. Katie Taylor at Open Workouts, Oculus World Trade Center, New York City, USA. Pic: ©INPHO/Gary Carr Taylor made the walk first to the tune of Dreams by The Cranberries. That was a deliberate decision. 'I am just so excited to be headlining such a huge, iconic moment like this,' she said. 'I didn't think it was going to get any bigger than the last fight but here we are, headlining an all-female card in such an iconic venue, Madison Square Garden, this is the stuff of dreams.' There were various endearing moments to emphasise that. Taylor brought four young fans into the ring with her. One opted to shadowbox beside her before leaning into the mic to declare her affection: 'I love Katie.' Another performed some Irish dancing while her friend, dressed head to toe in Donegal green and gold, clasped the corner of the tricolour. Serrano came after and looked at home. Earlier, fellow Puerto Rican boxers Krystal Rosado and Elise Soto had taken part in officially sanctioned bouts in the ring. They returned with Serrano, until eventually a five-strong army were all ducking and swinging at the same time. The seven-division world champion held her arms out to acknowledge this legacy. Earlier this year, the 36-year-old signed a lifetime agreement with MVP that will last for the rest of her professional boxing career and then continue in retirement. It has already been agreed she will become chairwoman of MVP's women's boxing initiatives. Despite the justified criticism of what was an absolute circus co-main event last time in Texas, MVP do deserve credit for the stage they have set this week. The undercard includes their new signee, former undisputed champion and current WBC interim world champion Chantelle Cameron (20-1, 8 KOs) who takes on Canada's Jessica 'The Cobra' Camara (14-4-1, 3 KOs) in a 10-round women's WBC interim super lightweight championship bout. Cameron is the only fighter to have defeated Taylor in the pro ranks. After the rematch, she split with Eddie Hearn, taking issue with his celebrations in Dublin. There is no doubt she would relish the prospect of settling that score in a winner-takes-all trilogy and it now looks far more likely than it ever did in the aftermath of the 2023 3Arena clash. Alycia Baumgardner is another recent MVP signing. She meets Jennifer Miranda in an undisputed super featherweight bout on the card and has her sights set on the main event winner. In total fighters from nine countries are involved. A whole host of tickets were still available early in the week, varying from $50.00 for the back of the bleachers to $2,500 for the 'Diamond VIP package.' It is a show that Serrano is proud to headline. She wants to lead the way. 'Listen, the struggle that me, my team, my sister, Jordan (Maldonado), I don't want these girls to go through what we went through,' she said at the public workout. 'The struggle was real. We were getting paid 50 dollars, 100 dollars. It was pretty sad. Obviously, we were doing the same thing and fighting just as hard but not getting what we deserve.' Not that she is letting the buzz distract from the task at hand. "I am all in. I am dialled in. Can't wait for Friday night or Saturday night when I am back in Puerto Rico celebrating.' A chance to make up for two close calls, a night of coronation and celebration for MVP and a proud champion from Bray who will be more than happy to spoil the party.
Washington Post
30-06-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
VR training is booming in baseball. The Nats haven't fully bought in.
About four hours before a March home game, Alex Call rummaged around in his locker, pulled out a white Oculus virtual reality headset and rushed out of the Washington Nationals' clubhouse. Within a minute, he was in the batter's box at Denver's Coors Field. A few seconds later, Philadelphia Phillies right-hander Aaron Nola was on the mound.
