Entertainment

Join the Elden Ring conversation, brush up on your five-card stud and more stuff to do

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

Join the Elden Ring conversation, brush up on your five-card stud and more stuff to do
Image: Crunchyroll; FromSoftware; Decentral Games

It’s not often that a game comes along where the collective online chatter actually makes the game better. But Elden Ring’s opaque storyline is giving people reasons to head to the internet to discuss. Also this week: poker players are finding luck in the metaverse, and get your anime fix with two movies that were just added to Crunchyroll’s huge library.

Elden Ring has everyone talking

It’s impossible to talk about Elden Ring without drawing on the mountain of commentary that’s flooded social media, gaming forums and news sites over the past week. That’s the beauty of FromSoftware’s newest and arguably greatest game yet: It's a modern single-player game that’s best experienced by discussing it with other people online.

More so than any of the studio’s past games, Elden Ring features an opaque storyline and an even more cryptic open world that’s jaw-droppingly massive and full of secrets. But discovering and talking about it together with the entire internet has become a core part of its appeal. Just get ready to die … a lot.

Who run the metaverse? Poker.

Last month, I wrote about the metaverse real estate boom, and how it often stands in opposition to the stated goals and ambitions of the Web3 and crypto evangelists building these platforms. Bloomberg reporter Cecilia D'Anastasio’s latest piece on one of those platforms, Decentraland, is a fascinating look at what’s actually going on in these otherwise largely empty social platforms, beyond all the real estate speculation. It turns out the answer is: a lot of poker.

At least half of Decentraland’s users at any given time are playing virtual casino games for items they can exchange for cryptocurrency, all run by a third-party company without a gambling license. Regulators might catch on, but only if they can figure out what the metaverse is first.

‘Yu Yu Hakusho’ stands the test of time

Sony’s acquisition of anime streaming service Crunchyroll means the popular platform has been expanded with a huge library of new shows, including many with English dubs, from sister service Funimation. One gem worth watching is the excellent 1992 paranormal action series “Yu Yu Hakusho,” which also happens to have a great English dub that has stood the test of time. The series has it all: iconic characters, great animation and a fantastic fantasy plot featuring the life of spirit detective Yusuke Urameshi. It’s been one of my favorites for the past 20 years.

‘Mob Psycho 100’ takes you on an emotional journey

For those looking for a more modern anime to get into, an absolute must-watch is One’s “Mob Psycho 100,” the story of a young and impressionable psychic named Shigeo Kageyama. Featuring truly mind-bending animation from studio Bones, of “Fullmetal Alchemist” and “My Hero Academia” fame, “Mob Psycho 100” is both a sensory experience and an emotionally melancholy one. It balances traditional action anime fireworks with an emotional narrative about discovering yourself through the bonds you form with others. “Mob Psycho 100,” with subs and dubs, is also available on Crunchyroll.

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

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.

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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.

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.

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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.
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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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