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> Sony's PlayStation division to lay off 900 employees, roughly 8% of its workforce after missing its sales target for the PS5 console (More) | Disney's film production president Sean Bailey steps down after 15 years (More)

> Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan headline 2024 Outlaw Music Festival Tour; see full list of performers and concert dates (More)

> Spotify generates $4.5B for independent labels and artists (More) | Sean "Diddy" Combs accused by male music producer of sexual assault, now the fifth such lawsuit against Combs (More)


Science & Technology
> OpenAI asks judge to dismiss key part of New York Times copyright infringement lawsuit, accusing the news organization of "hacking" ChatGPT to produce copyrighted results (More) | See case background (More)

> Hearing live music triggers more brain activity in regions responsible for processing emotions than recordings of the same song, MRI study suggests (More)

> Researchers find striped marlin communicate with each other by changing the shade of their stripes during high-speed hunting; discovery sheds light on the evolution of predatory group behaviors in fish (More)


Business & Markets
> US stock markets close mixed (S&P 500 +0.2%, Dow -0.3%, Nasdaq +0.4%) as investors await this week's inflation data (More)

> Macy's to close 150 underperforming namesake stores, or about 30% of its total stores, by 2026; company expects to add new locations of higher-end department store Bloomingdale’s and beauty chain Bluemercury (More)

> Apple cancels decadelong project to develop autonomous electric vehicle, pivots to artificial intelligence (More) | Financial Times launches new investment arm for media and technology companies, makes first investment in future-of-work startup Charter (More)

SOURCE:  1440 News

Second Age: Rings of Power

Actress Sophia Nomvete plays the dwarven Princess Disa of Khazad-Dum

"We wanted to find a huge, Tolkienian mega epic!"


That's how showrunner Patrick McKay described his mission for The Rings of Power - Amazon Prime's hotly anticipated Lord of the Rings TV spin-off, as he unveiled a new trailer and unseen footage at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday.


In his armoury: a huge cast of comely elves, a rare female dwarf, the Hobbits' ancestors, a seriously impressive CGI city, a mystery menace, an entwife and a surprise Balrog.


The Rings of Power is the most expensive show ever made, at $1bn (£832m) for five seasons - and this is fans' best guide to how it will look, sound and feel.


But what everyone really wants to know is, can it compete with Peter Jackson's beloved Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the winner of 17 Oscars, benchmark for composers, and populariser of Second Breakfast?


Wisely, it's not trying - instead setting the action 4,000 years before the Hobbits Frodo and Sam journeyed through Middle Earth.


This is the Second Age, where the 20 Rings of Power are forged and the evil Sauron, Lord of Mordor, rises to assault the realms' hard-won peace.


The source material is Tolkien's appendix to the Lord of the Rings books. The core question: "How far into the darkness would you go to protect the things you care about the most?" says McKay's fellow showrunner JD Payne.  READ MORE...