Life in Westeros is filled with dangers — rival houses, deadly diseases, armies of undead — but fans of Game of Thrones now have their own enemies to watch out for: leaks and spoilers. The internet already swarms with spoilers, but a recent cyber-attack against HBO has resulted in episodes and scripts for several of the network’s TV series being leaked online, and could likely turn your social media feed into a veritable minefield for the next few weeks.
The massive hack was first reported by Entertainment Weekly. The culprits obtained 1.5 terabytes of data, which includes upcoming episodes from Ballers and Room 104 and the script for next week’s episode of Game of Thrones, all of which have been leaked online. According to the anonymous hackers, more stolen content will be “coming soon.”
In an official statement regarding the hack, HBO confirmed that it “recently experienced a cyber incident, which resulted in the compromise of proprietary information. We immediately began investigating the incident and are working with law enforcement and outside cybersecurity firms. Data protection is a top priority at HBO, and we take seriously our responsibility to protect the data we hold.” Despite these efforts, it remains unknown who carried out the leak.
Hacking and leaking have become facts of internet life in recent years, with other major media companies like Sony having upcoming projects and internal production details leaked by hackers. Companies like Yahoo, Dropbox, and Verizon have also seen user data compromised due to cyber sleuths. Even smartphones and smart TVs are at risk these days.
The hack is certainly a serious blow for HBO and the cast and crew of the affected shows, but the leaks will also affect fans. If you’ve been seeking to avoid spoilers, take extra heed this week as details of the leaked episodes and scripts may spread beyond spoiler threads and into social media. It’s also a strong possibility, given the extent of the stolen data and the threats of the hackers, that even more content from the current seasons of Game of Thrones, Ballers, Room 104, and possibly other shows will hit the internet. Stay vigilant, friends.
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?