#content
Entertainment

‘The Boys’ are back on Prime, play Diablo Immortal and more weekend recs

Don’t know what to do this weekend? We’ve got you covered.

Elisabeth Moss in Shining Girls, Diablo Immortal, and the creators of People Make Games

Our favorite picks for your weekend pleasure.

Image: Apple TV+; Blizzard Entertainment; The Washington Post

“Shining Girls” and “The Boys” are keeping us busy this week. But only when we’re not getting pummeled in Diablo Immortal, one of the best entries in the franchise. And the best part? It’s free.

‘The Boys’ Season Three is out now

Amazon’s adaptation of the very graphic comic series The Boys is back for a third season, with the first three episodes having dropped last week and the fourth premiering today. Just when you thought the show couldn’t get more ridiculous, disturbing and over-the-top, the Season Three premiere puts that concern to bed with an opening scene that perfectly captures the show’s mix of dark humor and ultra-violent spectacle. Squeamish viewers should probably steer clear of “The Boys,” but for those who like the series’ focus on corrupt, capitalistic superheroes who abuse their power, so far this season is delivering.

Diablo Immortal feels at home on mobile

The latest game from Blizzard Entertainment, and the struggling studio’s first new release in more than six years, is the mobile-first Diablo Immortal, a free-to-play take on the classic action role-playing series. While many fans have complained of the game’s microtransactions, a number of die-hard Diablo fans say it’s one of the best entries in the hack-and-slash franchise and one of the first premium mobile games that feels at home on a smartphone screen. You can play it on PC if you like, but Immortal is at the very least worth a try on your phone if you’ve ever enjoyed a Diablo game, especially because it costs nothing to download and play.

Don’t read about ‘Shining Girls’ before watching

Following in the vein of popular miniseries thrillers like HBO’s “Sharp Objects” and USA’s “The Sinner,” Apple TV+’s new eight-episode adaptation of the 2013 novel from author Lauren Beukes has a lot going for it. The show has the excellent Elisabeth Moss in the lead role as a newspaper archivist reeling from a violent assault, a detestable Jamie Bell as a villainous serial killer hunting Chicago women across decades, and a truly mind-bending narrative that might make your head hurt a little. It’s best to go into “Shining Girls” without reading much about it; not knowing the plot until it slowly unfolds makes the show’s big reveals and many twists much more rewarding.

The people behind People Make Games

Patreon-funded YouTube channel People Make Games has made a major splash in games journalism in just a few short years, with high-profile exposés on Roblox’s exploitation of child creators and an explosive video on abusive indie game personalities. This week The Washington Post’s Nathan Grayson published a profile of the U.K.-based trio behind the enterprise. In the piece, Grayson weaves a telling narrative about the rise of reader-supported journalism that’s packaged and delivered in compelling new formats for an audience that spends little to none of its time reading traditional news sites.

A version of this story also appeared in today’s Entertainment newsletter; subscribe here.

Nick Statt

Nick Statt is Protocol's video game reporter. Prior to joining Protocol, he was news editor at The Verge covering the gaming industry, mobile apps and antitrust out of San Francisco, in addition to managing coverage of Silicon Valley tech giants and startups. He now resides in Rochester, New York, home of the garbage plate and, completely coincidentally, the World Video Game Hall of Fame. He can be reached at nstatt@protocol.com.

amazon primeapple tvyoutube#content
Fintech

Judge Zia Faruqui is trying to teach you crypto, one ‘SNL’ reference at a time

His decisions on major cryptocurrency cases have quoted "The Big Lebowski," "SNL," and "Dr. Strangelove." That’s because he wants you — yes, you — to read them.

The ways Zia Faruqui (right) has weighed on cases that have come before him can give lawyers clues as to what legal frameworks will pass muster.

Photo: Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images

“Cryptocurrency and related software analytics tools are ‘The wave of the future, Dude. One hundred percent electronic.’”

That’s not a quote from "The Big Lebowski" — at least, not directly. It’s a quote from a Washington, D.C., district court memorandum opinion on the role cryptocurrency analytics tools can play in government investigations. The author is Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui.

Keep ReadingShow less
Veronica Irwin

Veronica Irwin (@vronirwin) is a San Francisco-based reporter at Protocol covering fintech. Previously she was at the San Francisco Examiner, covering tech from a hyper-local angle. Before that, her byline was featured in SF Weekly, The Nation, Techworker, Ms. Magazine and The Frisc.

cryptocurrencyblockchainbitcoinlawsuit
sponsored content
Sponsored Content

How is technological innovation breaking down barriers and increasing access to financial services?

The financial technology transformation is driving competition, creating consumer choice, and shaping the future of finance. Hear from seven fintech leaders who are reshaping the future of finance, and join the inaugural Financial Technology Association Fintech Summit to learn more.

Keep ReadingShow less
FTA
The Financial Technology Association (FTA) represents industry leaders shaping the future of finance. We champion the power of technology-centered financial services and advocate for the modernization of financial regulation to support inclusion and responsible innovation.
sponsoredsponsored content
amazon web services
Enterprise

AWS CEO: The cloud isn’t just about technology

As AWS preps for its annual re:Invent conference, Adam Selipsky talks product strategy, support for hybrid environments, and the value of the cloud in uncertain economic times.

Photo: Noah Berger/Getty Images for Amazon Web Services

AWS is gearing up for re:Invent, its annual cloud computing conference where announcements this year are expected to focus on its end-to-end data strategy and delivering new industry-specific services.

It will be the second re:Invent with CEO Adam Selipsky as leader of the industry’s largest cloud provider after his return last year to AWS from data visualization company Tableau Software.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donna Goodison

Donna Goodison (@dgoodison) is Protocol's senior reporter focusing on enterprise infrastructure technology, from the 'Big 3' cloud computing providers to data centers. She previously covered the public cloud at CRN after 15 years as a business reporter for the Boston Herald. Based in Massachusetts, she also has worked as a Boston Globe freelancer, business reporter at the Boston Business Journal and real estate reporter at Banker & Tradesman after toiling at weekly newspapers.

awsamazon web servicescloud computinganalyticsdata analyticsadam selipsky

Farewell from Protocol

Image: Protocol

We launched Protocol in February 2020 to cover the evolving power center of tech. It is with deep sadness that just under three years later, we are winding down the publication.

As of today, we will not publish any more stories. All of our newsletters, apart from our flagship, Source Code, will no longer be sent. Source Code will be published and sent for the next few weeks, but it will also close down in December.

Keep ReadingShow less
Bennett Richardson

Bennett Richardson ( @bennettrich) is the president of Protocol. Prior to joining Protocol in 2019, Bennett was executive director of global strategic partnerships at POLITICO, where he led strategic growth efforts including POLITICO's European expansion in Brussels and POLITICO's creative agency POLITICO Focus during his six years with the company. Prior to POLITICO, Bennett was co-founder and CMO of Hinge, the mobile dating company recently acquired by Match Group. Bennett began his career in digital and social brand marketing working with major brands across tech, energy, and health care at leading marketing and communications agencies including Edelman and GMMB. Bennett is originally from Portland, Maine, and received his bachelor's degree from Colgate University.

machine learning
Enterprise

Why large enterprises struggle to find suitable platforms for MLops

As companies expand their use of AI beyond running just a few machine learning models, and as larger enterprises go from deploying hundreds of models to thousands and even millions of models, ML practitioners say that they have yet to find what they need from prepackaged MLops systems.

As companies expand their use of AI beyond running just a few machine learning models, ML practitioners say that they have yet to find what they need from prepackaged MLops systems.

Photo: artpartner-images via Getty Images

On any given day, Lily AI runs hundreds of machine learning models using computer vision and natural language processing that are customized for its retail and ecommerce clients to make website product recommendations, forecast demand, and plan merchandising. But this spring when the company was in the market for a machine learning operations platform to manage its expanding model roster, it wasn’t easy to find a suitable off-the-shelf system that could handle such a large number of models in deployment while also meeting other criteria.

Some MLops platforms are not well-suited for maintaining even more than 10 machine learning models when it comes to keeping track of data, navigating their user interfaces, or reporting capabilities, Matthew Nokleby, machine learning manager for Lily AI’s product intelligence team, told Protocol earlier this year. “The duct tape starts to show,” he said.

Keep ReadingShow less
Kate Kaye

Kate Kaye is an award-winning multimedia reporter digging deep and telling print, digital and audio stories. She covers AI and data for Protocol. Her reporting on AI and tech ethics issues has been published in OneZero, Fast Company, MIT Technology Review, CityLab, Ad Age and Digiday and heard on NPR. Kate is the creator of RedTailMedia.org and is the author of "Campaign '08: A Turning Point for Digital Media," a book about how the 2008 presidential campaigns used digital media and data.

mlopsaimachine learning
Latest Stories
Bulletins