Opera

The first part of Zack Snyder’s ambitious, long-cherished space opera, Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire looks suitably impressive: the story unfolds against vividly realised worlds, starting in an idealistic agrarian commune on an out-of-the-way moon, and travelling through cobalt mining planets, gritty desert outposts and lunar dive bars. The fight sequences are decent, if a little over-reliant on self-important slow-motion shots of people clobbering one another with space axes. But the story is a derivative mess…

Aria is always accessible on the built-in sidebar to the left. Maria Diaz/ZDNETOpera's Aria simplifies the use of artifical intelligence (AI) within the browser. Because of this simplification, you can use Aria as your go-to research tool, and avoid the likes of Google for searching.I've been using Aria as a research tool when writing novels. But one thing I've discovered is that I often have to go back to one or more chats I've had with Aria. For example, when naming characters for a new book series, I've combined…

The Scarlet Opera don’t let gender define them. The five-member rock band spoke to Rolling Stone for the On Your Radar video series to discuss a special celebrity fan, dive into their recent released “That Kind of Woman,” and share their dream collaborations. The Scarlet Opera first felt successful, bass player Daniel Zuker says, after selling out the West Hollywood rock club Troubadour, with no songs releases. Frontman Luka Bazulka says that Neil Patrick Harris happened to be a fan of their music and after a…

December 11, 20234min readWhatever fantasies we may have had about the nonprofit structure of OpenAI have been eviscerated. While it remains a nonprofit, it’s proven entirely beholden to ruthless capitalismBy Ed ZitronSam Altman, seen here at APEC Leader's Week in San Francisco, California, was fired briefly as CEO of OpenAI in Nov. 2023. On November 17 Sam Altman was fired as CEO of OpenAI, arguably the most prominent privately held tech company, famed for pioneering ChatGPT and sparking the current AI boom, as well as…

A lot of us now spend much of our work and leisure time peering at the web through a browser—and for that time to be spent as productively as possible, the browser in question needs to run swiftly and smoothly. There’s actually an integrated browser setting to help with this, too: Hardware acceleration.Zillow Says You’ll Buy Your Next House With… AI? | AI UnlockedWhile the option is in almost every modern web browser, it’s buried quite deep within the settings screens in most cases, so you might never have encountered it.…

Of all the apps in which to insert generative AI features, your web browser is arguably the most natural fit.At least on the desktop, the browser is already where you access AI assistants such as, and being able to summarize or ask questions about the web pages you’re visiting can be pretty useful. As such, lots of web browsers are now integrating AI in different ways, including Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, and more.But every browser handles AI differently, and some are more clever about it than others. Here’s a rundown…

The Powell/Pressburger season at London’s BFI Southbank has given us this rediscovered gem from the later works that Michael Powell directed on his own. It is an amazing and expressionist-hallucinatory adaptation of Béla Bartók’s one-act opera Bluebeard’s Castle, with original libretto by film critic and theorist Béla Balázs; it was first transmitted in 1963 on West German television, but mostly unseen since then, due to legal issues with the Bartók estate. Now it has been restored under the supervision of Powell’s widow…

Once-popular mobile title Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia is closing down its servers on February 29, 2024. Currently, it’s uncertain if you can play the game offline or not, but it seems unlikely. “To our loyal players, It is with deep regret that we inform you that Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia will end service on Feb. 29, 2024 UC,” said Square Enix on the game’s official Twitter page. “We would like to thank you for your many years of support, and hope you can enjoy playing for a little while longer.”…

At the beginning was a love story. Dave Stewart and his former life and stage partner, Annie Lennox, transformed their personal romance into fantastic, evergreen classics like “Sweet Dreams Are Made of This” and “Here Comes the Rain Again.” After their breakup, Stewart, working in parallel with his new solo career, cultivated his love of film by composing several soundtracks. Together with Mick Jagger and Daryl Hall, he co-wrote the theme song for the 1986 comedy Ruthless People and has…

Sometimes, it’s the little things that make a weekend perfect. A warm-hearted comedy to take the edge off. Or the exact-right beer to serve with that heavenly slice of pizza. We’ve got both on tap here, and more, so let’s dive in, shall we? Note that if you are headed into San Francisco, the massive APEC international conference running Nov. 11-19 is going to pose traffic issues. More about that is here. And here is a map detailing the more heavily affected areas. And, as always, be sure to double check event and venue…