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Honda built a powered chair to zoom around theme parks while wearing an AR headset
At SXSW this year, people will be able to ride the Honda UNI-ONE while wearing a virtual reality headset and play a choose-your-own VR adventure.
‘Diamond Hands’ offers a good, if narrow portrait of the GameStop stock squeeze
The new MSNBC documentary focuses on the people who sank all they had into stonks.
SXSW in VR just made me miss the real world even more
SXSW 2021 was surprisingly lonely in VR -- it just made me miss the real show even more.
William Basinski looks back on ‘Disintegration Loops’ and dying media
A new documentary at SXSW explores the composer's serendipitous ode to uncertainty.
Legal questions linger as governments and companies keep pushing into space
The Perseverance rover’s landing on Mars is still fresh in people’s memories, privately-owned companies are ferrying people and supplies into orbit, and NASA continues to work on “the most powerful rocket” it has ever built. But as world governments and private enterprises continue to eye the skies for opportunities, a SXSW panel called “Who on Earth should govern Space” makes clear that the world’s laws dealing with space aren’t evolving as fast as the technology that gets us there.
Hulu’s WeWork documentary depicts the rise and fall of a cult
Hulu's WeWork documentary takes a look at the dramatic rise and fall of a company, but it can't get a handle on the enigma at the heart of its story.
Podcast: Samsung's A-series event and Google's sleep-tracking display
This week, we discuss Samsung's cringeworthy Unpacked event, Google's intriguing but possibly creepy sleep-tracking smart display and PC hardware news.
For Virgin Hyperloop, trust is its most valuable commodity
Virgin Hyperloop turned up at South by Southwest to talk the future of its passenger experience. And how to get people to trust its ability to safely get you from place to place.
A Windows update nearly destroyed hand-drawn fantasy epic 'The Spine of Night'
Seven years of custom-built rotoscoping software almost went up in smoke.
Facebook’s Oversight Board will weigh in on rules for politicians
As Facebook’s “Supreme Court” gets ready to rule on whether Donald Trump’s suspension should be permanent, the board will also tackle some of the thornier policy issues about how Facebook handles the accounts of elected officials.
HBO Max will show off its streaming library with an interactive SXSW experience
HBO Max Orbit will find clips that match your facial movements and voice.
Polestar's latest EV concept is an adorable three-wheeled cargo sled
Re:Move is a three-wheeled electric sled that could eventually
This robot artist stops to consider its brushstrokes like a real person
What sets this AI apart from some of the other artistically-inclined ones we’ve seen in the past is that it doesn’t generate the paintings it creates at random.
SXSW will host an online festival in 2021
As part of its 2021 plans, SXSW will host an online festival that will attempt to replicate the best features of its annual conference in Austin, Texas.
Amazon #AtHome brings free content to Fire TV and Fire Tablet devices
To help keep users entertained while they stay home during the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon is bringing curated content from over 100 partners to a new #AtHome section on its Fire TV and Fire Tablet devices in the US. Fire users will have access to free TV shows and movies, including Billions, Silicon Valley, The Sopranos, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, Star Trek: Picard, The Twilight Zone and more. Amazon will stream the upcoming Prime Video SXSW virtual film festival and One World: At Home Together Concert, the benefit concert hosted by late-night comedians to raise money for the WHO’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.
Amazon will stream SXSW Film Festival selections for free for 10 days
SXSW was cancelled this year due to COVID-19, but that isn't stopping organizers from offering a taste of what the Austin event would have offered. They're partnering with Amazon on an SXSW Film Festival Collection that will stream movies from the festival on Prime Video for 10 days, completely free in the US -- you won't need a subscription. While creators will have to opt in, they'll receive a screening fee for their trouble. Amazon and SXSW are tentatively looking at a late April timeframe for the virtual festival.
Why streaming isn’t the savior of canceled film festivals
The cancellation of the SXSW festival came as a major blow to the film industry, bringing with it the postponement of 99 world premieres. To cut down on the spread of coronavirus, other film festivals soon followed suit. All this has led to a flurry of Twitter users suggesting film festivals should pivot to streaming. That isn't the easy answer viral tweets would have you believe. Still, there's a way it might work. Focusing on SXSW, there have been suggestions that film critics could create a DIY streaming festival by sharing the logins and passwords we are given to screen select films from home. Beyond being a breach of professional etiquette, sharing screening links could easily be shut down by the filmmakers and PR reps who oversee them. A password change or a pulled upload is all it'd take to cut a title from this proposed lineup.
Austin cancels SXSW over coronavirus fears
During a news conference on Friday afternoon, Austin city officials announced that they have declared a local disaster and canceled this year's SXSW festival. The show is being called off over infection fears regarding the growing coronavirus outbreak.
HBO is the latest to abandon SXSW because of coronavirus
HBO is the latest company to pull out of SXSW. Several other companies -- including Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Netflix and Twitter -- have done the same, as the coronavirus outbreak continues to cause concern. HBO said Thursday that its parent company Warner Media "decided it's best not to move forward with activations at SXSW," CNET reports.
Amazon drops out of SXSW due to coronavirus concerns
Following Twitter and Facebook, Amazon has become the latest high-profile company to drop out of South by Southwest (SXSW) 2020 due to coronavirus-related concerns. The company's Amazon Studios subsidiary and employees won't attend the annual music, technology and entertainment festival, according to Variety.
