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What's on TV: 'War Machine,' 'Get Out,' and 'Beat Shazam'
This week Netflix premieres its Brad Pitt movie War Machine, as well as the third season of Bloodline. Meanwhile, Archer wraps up its Dreamland season on FXX, while Jordan Peele's Get Out comes home on Blu-ray. The NBA and NHL are closing out their conference final rounds this week, and gamers can check out a new Switch edition of Ultra Street Fighter II. Finally, Fox is premiering its Beat Shazam show, where players will have their ability to identify songs tested against the app. Look after the break to check out each day's highlights, including trailers and let us know what you think (or what we missed).
Netflix teases its Brad Pitt film 'War Machine'
If it wasn't already clear that Netflix has enough clout to get the biggest names in entertainment, it is now. The streaming service has posted its first teaser for War Machine, a satire of the war in Afghanistan starring a slew of major actors including Brad Pitt (whose company Plan B is involved), Tilda Swinton, Topher Grace, Anthony Michael Hall and Keith Stanfield. The clip offers a good hint as to what to expect from the movie: General McMahon (Pitt) has to fight the war while grappling with the government, the press and the gritty realities of battle.
Northrop Grumman lands USAF deal for new long-range strike bomber
Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James announced on Tuesday that the DoD has awarded Northrop Grumman the lead contract for the US military's upcoming Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRSB). The contract is valued $60 billion, making it the single largest airframe contract since Lockheed won the deal for the $400 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter over a decade ago. At that price, the 21 airframes on order are expected to cost roughly $564 million apiece (in FY2016 dollars).
Netflix is producing a satirical war movie starring Brad Pitt
Netflix has scored some big names for its exclusive content in the past, but its latest coup is one of its largest yet. The streaming video service is teaming up with Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment to produce War Machine, a satirical movie about the war in Afghanistan that will have Pitt playing a "rock star" general trying to juggle politics, the press and the realities of combat. The flick will reach Netflix sometime in 2016, although you'll also find it in "select" movie theaters that year if you have to see yet another Brad Pitt war movie on the silver screen.
PAX Prime 2013 and FFXIV relaunch event in pictures
This year's PAX Prime has come and gone, but during my trip I snapped a bundle of pictures we're pretty sure you're going to love. Enjoy some booths, crowds, games, and quite a bit of the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn launch event. Even Jesus showed up for my photo shoot!
Crowdfund Bookie, August 4 - 10: Warmachine Tactics, Organic Panic
The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. This week in crowdfunding, the Kickstarter campaigns for Warmachine: Tactics, Organic Panic, Gettysburg: The Tide Turns, Lioness, Adventurezator: When Pigs Fly, Deus Ex Machina 2: Reboot, Yargis and Ghost Encounters: Deadwood ended. Warmachine: Tactics, a turn-based tactics game for PC and Mac based on the Warmachines tabletop game, earned the most money this week ($1,578,950), and had the most funders of the group, as 19,829 people backed the game. Space arcade game Yargis had the highest average pledge per person, with each funder averaging $275.05, thanks to one brave backer in particular that ponied up over $5,000. Check out the week's results and our fancy charts after the break.
IBM shows off 155GHz graphene transistor in the name of DARPA research
IBM might be cautious about touting graphene as a a silicon killer, but that hasn't stopped it from pushing the production of ever faster graphene transistors. With the recent demonstration of a 155GHz graphene transistor, the firm successfully outdid its previous record-setting efforts, which produced a cut-off frequency of 100GHz. What's more, the thing is also IBM's smallest to date, with a gate length of 40 nanometers; that's 200 nanometers less than the 100GHz iteration. This smaller, faster transistor was produced as part of a DARPA research project that aims to develop high-performance RF (radio frequency) transistors. So, no, we probably won't be seeing the things in our PCs anytime soon, but it looks like they could be right at home in war machines of the future.
Warmachine game attacking PC, consoles
According to a statement made to BigDownload, the video game adaptation of Privateer Press' tabletop fantasy war game Warmachine is currently in development for the PC and (unspecified) consoles. Quietly announced in August, the Warmachine video game is being developed by the indie team at WhiteMoon Dreams and will feature player control of "various warcasters and their warjack battle groups" across interactive battlefields in both single and multiplayer modes.WhiteMoon Dreams' Norvell Thomas promises we'll get a chance to see whatever that last sentence even means in a "gorgeous" demo by GDC 2010. Thomas adds that the indie dev's goal is to "wow" publishers at the conference in order to fund full development of the table-top adaptation.
The Digital Continuum: Blizzard's mysterious MMO
We've got a good reason to believe that Blizzard's next MMO is in actuality a new IP, which means it's the perfect time to discuss the potential of this newly crafted world. Assuming that Games Workshop isn't the inspiring factor for yet another Blizzard game, I'll lay out five settings that I hope will catch a few of you off guard.Here's the thing about Blizzard, they rarely stick to vanilla settings. Diablo is the only real exception, but even it had the addition of the Japanese inspired Assassin class and Celtic inspired Druid class. StarCraft's races range over a several influences and Warcraft pulls stuff from all over the place, chief among them being some steampunk.Will it be the same for this new IP?
