Wes and Matt give you the rundown on Jordan Peele’s directorial debut film, Get Out.
This week, The Deadbeat Club grabs their favorite vinyls and sits down in the lounge with their lo-fi album of choice: Cherry Peel by Of Montreal. We breakdown song by song, and look into the Beach Boy-esque aesthetic of this album from barbershop quartet feels to A+ instrumentation in B- songs. A lyrically complicated piece, sit down a listen as we fight for meaning on this episode of The Deadbeat Club podcast.
This past weekend, the highly anticipated horror film from writer and director, Jordan Peele, Get Outreleased in theaters.
Amidst the seemingly endless supply of subscription-based television options, YouTube has decided to throw its hat into the ring with the announcement of YouTube TV. Priced at $35 a month, the service – which will launch this Spring – will offer subscribers a number of channels from the four major networks: Fox, ABC, CBS, and NBC. The base package will include three dozen different channels. YouTube TV will offer other benefits to subscribers as well, even with the basic package. These include a cloud-based DVR with unlimited storage, a recommendation system backed by Google AI, and the promise of a reliable and adaptable streaming experience. The service, which will be provided through its own app, is being billed as a “mobile first” service, which means that it will be tailored to users who enjoy watching content on their phones. However, users will still be able to watch TV on their laptops, computers, or on traditional televisions via Chromecast devices. With so many options available for streaming television content, I’m curious whether YouTube’s offering will catch on or get lost in the crowd. We will have to wait to find out when the service launches in the Spring.
Xbox has announced via press release a new subscription service: Xbox Game Pass. “Xbox Game Pass gives you unlimited access to over 100 Xbox One and backward compatible Xbox 360 games – all for $9.99 per month, backward,” said Phil Spencer, head of Xbox. This new service spans both Xbox One and Windows 10 games (backward compatible titles) and features developers such as 2K, Deep Silver, and SEGA. While the Xbox One and backward-compatible games will be available at launch, PC gamers will have to wait a bit for Windows 10 services. This service is similar to Sony’s PlayStation Now, a game streaming service launched back in 2014 but has one key difference. Xbox Game Pass will allow you to download the games, meaning “continuous, full-fidelity gameplay without having to worry about streaming, bandwidth, or connectivity issues.” No release date was given only that it will be “broadly available later this spring,” and will launch with titles such as Halo 5: Guardians and NBA 2K16, with new titles coming in each month.
Amid several controversies, the most recent of which being actions during the immigration ban, Uber is losing money and customers, fast. Broadest of all controversies is the fact that Travis Kalanick has no clear business plan for Uber, idea hopping and investing into new ideas seeming as they come to him. From UberX, an attempt at stripping down their business model, to UberEats, a food delivery service, and now ventures into self-driving cars and flying cars, Uber workers have a lot on their plates. The workers though have their own controversies. On the internal side of things, female engineers have claimed sexual harassment runs rampant at Uber, and that the company’s Human Resources department refuses to do anything about it. Externally, Uber workers face problems too. Namely that they’re not actually workers. Uber classifies their drivers as contractors, not employees, meaning that even full-time drivers are barred from benefits such as health care vehicle reimbursements, like gas and maintenance. Uber is also reportedly losing money and a lot of it. UberEats is set to lose $100 million each year but continues to be offered as a service. In 2016 it was found that fares from riders only cover about 40 percent of what the ride costs the company, the remaining 60 percent covered by the investors in the company. Uber has also had a lawsuit filed against them after former Google employees allegedly took the blueprints for a self-driving car system to Uber’s engineers. All of these problems lead to a very clear outcome for Uber: Whatever the ever-changing business model is, it’s not working for anyone.
Target leaked the sequel to the 2014 game Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor via their website today. As of now the listing was removed from the website. However, it revealed the story will continue with Talion’s skills and Celebrimbor’s wraith magic in their quest for revenge against Sauron.
Last week, BioWare released the first part of its gameplay video series for Mass Effect: Andromeda. That video covered the game’s weapons and abilities. The second video in the series has now been released, this time featuring an in-depth look at the game’s character profile system, favorites menu, and squad combat. You can watch the video below:
