‘The Witcher: Blood Origin’ debuts December 25th on Netflix

The Witcher: Blood Origin, a prequel to Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantasy novel series, will debut on December 25th, the streamer announced today during its Tudum event. Netflix also revealed that English actress Minnie Driver (Good Will Hunting, Starstruck) is part of the cast. Driver will narrate the events of the series and may even appear in The Witcher, which will return next summer. Driver said her character plays a pivotal part “in connecting Blood Origin’s past with The Witcher’s future.”       

Set thousands of years before the story of Geralt and Ciri, Blood Origin will center on the Conjunction of the Spheres, the moment in the Witcher universe where humans, elves and monsters all come to inhabit the fantasy world of the series. Actress Michelle Yeoh stars as Scian, the elven protagonist of the tale. Originally slated to run six episodes, Blood Origin will instead be four episodes long. 

Watch Netflix’s Tudum fan event here at 1PM ET

Netflix will host the second installment of its Tudum global fan event today. The stream will feature news, trailers and clips from more than 120 shows, movies, specials, documentaries and games. You’ll be able to watch the event, which starts at 1PM ET, below. Netflix will also stream the event on its Twitter, Twitch and Facebook channels, as well as its YouTube channels around the world.

Among many, many other projects, Tudum will feature an update on season three of The Witcher, details on prequel series The Witcher: Blood Origin, an appearance from the Squid Game cast and a Stranger Things blooper reel. In addition, Tudum will include news on The Crown, trailers for new seasons of Outer Banks and Manifest, a first peek at Jennifer Lopez’s movie The Mother and an exclusive clip from Rian Johnson’s follow-up to Knives Out, Glass Onion. There will also be a look at the Netflix version of Oxenfree — the company bought developer Night School Studio last year. 

This could be an important event for Netflix, which has had a fairly rough year. Its subscriber numbers dropped for the first time — it lost around 1.2 million subscribers in the first six months of 2022. Netflix has raised prices in several territories in recent months and it has a cheaper, ad-supported tier on the way. To both keep current subscribers on board and bring in newcomers, Netflix has to get folks excited about what it has to offer. Events like Tudum can help with that.

Amazon’s updated e-book return policy looks like a big win for authors

Anyone who has been taking advantage of Amazon’s liberal return policy regarding e-books could soon be in for a shock. That’s because following discussions with the Authors Guild, Amazon has agreed to block automatic returns on digital books that are more than 10 percent read. 

Currently, the problem for authors on Amazon is that customers can return e-books online anytime within seven days of purchase no matter how much content has been consumed. That means if you can you read a book in less than a week, you can simply return it when you’re done for free, resulting in a loss of profits for the author. 

However, under the new policy which is scheduled to go into effect sometime before the end of the year, Amazon will begin blocking automatic returns on e-books that are more than 10 read, which will then need to be reviewed by a representative to ensure that the return is genuine. The Authors Guild says the goal is to create a deterrent for people who abuse Amazon’s current policy and to prevent people from treating Amazon’s e-book marketplace as an ersatz library. 

Issues with Amazon’s e-book return policy date back more than a decade, but had recently come under fire again after lifehacks about the company’s guidelines began circulating online. And according to NPR, in some cases, abuse of the company’s return policy even resulted in some authors having negative earnings balances, which typically happened when customers returned an e-book after the creator had been paid out by Amazon.

Thankfully, after concerns were raised by both the Authors Guild and the Society of Authors in the UK earlier this year, it seems Amazon has finally decided to update its policy, with the Authors Guild posting a statement thanking the company for “taking good faith action” against returns abuse. 

Instagram is working on ‘nudity protection’ technology for messages

Unsolicited nude photos are a massive problem on social media, but Instagram is reportedly working on a tool that could help. An early screengrab tweeted by researcher Alessandro Paluzzi indicates that “Nudity protection” technology “covers photos that may contain nudity in chat,” giving users the option to view them or not. Instagram parent Meta confirmed to The Verge that it’s in development. 

Meta said the aim is to help shield people from nude images or other unsolicited messages. As further protection, the company said it can’t view the images itself nor share them with third parties. “We’re working closely with experts to ensure these new features preserve people’s privacy, while giving them control over the messages they receive,” a spokesperson said. It plans to share more details in the coming weeks ahead of any testing.

The new feature is akin to the “Hidden Words” tool launched last year, Meta added. That feature allows users to filter abusive message in DM requests based on key words. If a request contains any filter word you’ve chosen, it’s automatically placed in a hidden folder that you can choose to never open — though it’s not completely deleted. 

The feature is welcome but long overdue, as unwanted nude photos were largely ignored by social media companies and are now a pervasive problem. One study back in 2020 by the University College London found that of 150 young people aged 12-18, 75.8 percent had been sent unsolicited nude images.

Sending unwanted nude photos, also known as “cyberflashing” has been targeted by multiple jurisdictions including California and the UK. In the UK, it could become a criminal offense if the Online Safety Bill is passed by parliament. California didn’t go quite that far, but last month, the state legislature and senate voted unanimously to allow users to sue over unsolicited nude photos and other sexually graphic material. 

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