Tech Boys

Just a few years after awarding Best Picture to the wrong movie , we might see a surprise nomination get revoked before the Oscars air on March 12. When the Academy Awards nominations were announced last week , one of the more shocking revelations was that Andrea Riseborough had been nominated for her role in To Leslie . If you haven't heard of To Leslie , don't worry; the film garnered less than $30,000 at the box office. It's a small independent production about a single mother who wins the lottery, and many big Hollywood names like Edward Norton and Kate Winslet publicly endorsed the film in a grassroots campaign during the Oscars voting period. SEE ALSO: First-time acting nominees dominate the 2023 Oscars nominations Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab) That's all well and good, right? After all, box office success has nothing to do with the quality of a film or the performances therein. However, according to the Academy, something might be awry...

Startups selling dev tools over the last few years have seen the pendulum swing. On one hand, developers rarely need anyone’s permission to start using their tools, which resulted in teams within the same organization using wildly different tech stacks. On the other, a growing number of companies are attempting to limit this chaos at the organizational level. The latter trend is known as platform engineering and is embodied by platform engineering teams. Talking to TechCrunch, Boldstart Ventures partner Shomik Ghosh described these as “groups within typically larger organizations that are given the role to improve the developer experience for other developers in the organization.” The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on TechCrunch+ or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday. The role of platform engineering teams includes coming up with their own tools and documentation, but also making buying decisions on core tooling that developers ac...

Hollywood may be taking another stab at a Tomb Raider production, but this time for the small screen. The Hollywood Reporter sources say Amazon is creating a Tomb Raider TV series for Prime Video, with Phoebe Waller-Bridge (of Fleabag fame) set to be an executive producer and write the script. It's not certain who would star, but we wouldn't count on movie stars Angelina Jolie or Alicia Vikander reprising the role of Lara Croft. The show is reportedly still in the development stage. We've asked Amazon for comment. A collaboration like this wouldn't be surprising, at least. Amazon is publishing the next Tomb Raider game , and Waller-Bridge previously struck a three-year deal with Amazon that includes projects like the novel adaptation Sign Here . Sources for The Reporter claim Amazon was "aggressive" in pursuing a deal renewal late last year. The rumor comes as game-based TV shows have their moment in the spotlight. HBO's The Last of Us has already b...

Breast cancer is most common in women older than 50, but screenings in younger women can help with early detection. Jecapix/Getty Images Peloton instructor Leanne Hainsby said she was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 35. She wrote on Instagram that she noticed a lump in her breast, but a doctor initially said not to worry. Hainsby said she was diagnosed after multiple tests, and completed weeks of chemo while teaching Peloton classes.  Peloton instructor Leanne Hainsby, 35, said that she has been privately battling breast cancer for the past six months while continuing to lead classes. "Where possible, I have continued to show up as 'normal,' but my reality most of the time, has looked very different," she wrote on Instagram . "My classes have given me a focus and some sparkle in an incredibly tough time, so thank you to the members who had no idea the amount of joy they were bringing to me every day." The British cycle instructor said that she...

Never mind ChatGPT — music might be the next big frontier for AI content generation. Google recently published research on MusicLM, a system that creates music in any genre with a text description. This isn't the first AI music generator. As TechCrunch notes , projects like Google's AudioML and OpenAI's Jukebox have tackled the subject. However, MusicLM's model and vast training database (280,000 hours of music) help it produce music with surprising variety and depth. You might just like the output. The AI can not only combine genres and instruments, but write tracks using abstract concepts that are normally difficult for computers to grasp. If you want a hybrid of dance music and reggaeton with a "spacey, otherworldly" tune that evokes a "sense of wonder and awe," MusicLM can make it happen. The technology can even craft melodies based on humming, whistling or the description of a painting. A story mode can stitch several descriptions together to...

HBO has renewed The Last of Us for a second season, so get ready for more nightmare-inducing Clickers. Since Season 1 covers the entire events of the first Last of Us game , that means Season 2 will adapt Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part II . However, as co-creator Craig Mazin said in an interview with Gizmodo , "I think that the amount of story that remains that we have not covered would be more than a season of television. So assuming we can keep going forward, the idea would be to do more than just one more season." SEE ALSO: 'The Last of Us' review: Yes, it's just as great as you hoped it would be Based on that, it seems like it will take all of Season 2 and a hypothetical Season 3 to get through the heartbreaking events of The Last of Us Part II . But once that's done, can we expect more seasons of The Last of Us ? Unless there are any new games, the answer is no. In that same interview, Mazin said, "I am not interested in going beyond...

A construction crew works on the Grand Central Madison terminal providing Long Island Rail Road Access to Manhattan's Grand Central Station. AP Photo/Mary Altaffer Construction on Grand Central Madison began in 2006, and cost $12 billion. The terminal could cut 40 minutes off of some riders' commutes, according to the New York Times. Positioned more than 100 feet underground, it can take up to 12 minutes to travel from the platform to the subway. The Long Island Rail Road terminal at Grand Central Station in Manhattan is finally open after decades of planning, construction, and delays.  Shuttle service from Queens to the terminal, called Grand Central Madison, began Wednesday. The first rides marked the completion of a project that began in the 1960s to connect Queens to Manhattan's East Side. While construction on parts of the tunnel that connects to Grand Central Madison began in the 1960s and was completed in the 1980s, work to connect tunnels to Grand Central...

Match Group, the parent company of several popular dating apps, including Tinder and Hinge, has announced a revamped executive leadership team. Most notably, the company is bringing on former Vice President of Product at Snap Will Wu as its new chief technology officer in a newly created role. Wu will oversee product innovation across Match’s portfolio of apps, the company says. During his time at Snap, Wu led the team charged with the creation and commercialization of Snap’s developer platforms. Wu led the creation of many of Snap’s popular features, including the “Discover” content platform, the “Chat” messaging feature and Snap’s social gaming initiative. Match says Wu will now work directly with its executives to launch new features, emerging technologies and innovative products. “Will is truly a product savant,” said Match Group CEO Bernard Kim in a statement. “For nine years, he has forged new technologies at scale that have redefined user experiences and expectations of social...

There's plenty of concern that OpenAI's ChatGPT could help students cheat on tests , but just how well would the chatbot fare if you asked it to write a graduate-level exam? It would pass — if only just. In a newly published study, University of Minnesota law professors had ChatGPT produce answers for graduate exams at four courses in their school. The AI passed all four, but with an average grade of C+. In another recent paper , Wharton School of Business professor Christian Terwiesch found that ChatGPT passed a business management exam with a B to B- grade. You wouldn't want to use the technology to impress academics, then. The research teams found the AI to be inconsistent, to put it mildly. The University of Minnesota group noted that ChatGPT was good at addressing "basic legal rules" and summarizing doctrines, but floundered when trying to pinpoint issues relevant to a case. Terwiesch said the generator was "amazing" with simple operations managem...

Another AI image generation platform hit the internet on Wednesday (Jan. 25), this time launched by Shutterstock. Now, not only can you find stock photos and illustrations on the site, but you can generate your own. Working with AI isn't anything particularly new for Shutterstock. Over the past two years, they've partnered with OpenAI, Meta, and LG AI Research to "fuel their generative AI research efforts," Paul Hennessy, the chief executive officer at Shutterstock, said in a press release . It's available in multiple languages and comes included with paid customers' packages.  "Our easy-to-use generative platform will transform the way people tell their stories — you no longer have to be a design expert or have access to a creative team to create exceptional work," Hennessy said. "Our tools are built on an ethical approach and on a library of assets that represents the diverse world we live in, and we ensure that the artists whose works cont...