Gadgets
The Best Drama and Comedy-Drama Series on Amazon Prime Video
You might find more drama and comedy-drama TV shows in our list of best TV series.
The Best TV Series on Amazon Prime Video
- The Affair (2014 – 2019)A schoolteacher and budding novelist (Dominic West) begins an extramarital affair with a young waitress (Ruth Wilson) trying to piece together her life in this sombre drama, which delivered two strong seasons of deep and psychological observation before a slight dip brought by plot struggles in the third season. Recovered marginally for fifth and final season.
- Downton Abbey (2010 – 2015)A post-Edwardian era period drama set in the English countryside, dealing with the aristocratic Crawley family and their domestic servants, and how the great events of the 1910s and 1920s had an effect on their lives and the British social hierarchy. Went through a dip in quality in the middle to late years but recovered for the final season. The follow-up 2019 movie is on Apple TV and Google Play.
- The Good Fight (2017 – Present)A spin-off sequel to the critically-acclaimed The Good Wife follows Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) after she’s forced out of the law firm where she was a partner, and has to join a high-profile law firm in Chicago. The legal/political drama has more than held its own unlike most spin-offs, and has been praised for its examination of topical social issues.
- House (2004 – 2012)For eight long years, Hugh Laurie played the misanthropic and unconventional titular doctor who despite reliance on pain medication and a cane — it actually added to his acerbic personality — led a team at a fictional New Jersey hospital, and made great use of his out-of-the-box thinking and instincts to diagnose patients.
- Laakhon Mein Ek (2017 – Present)Biswa Kalyan Rath’s anthology series offers a look at unfortunate souls — a teenager stuck at an engineering coaching institute, or a young doctor posted to a rural cataract camp — fighting against prejudices, the system, and more. And generally failing. Exclusive to Amazon.
- Malgudi Days (1987 – 1988)R.K. Narayanan’s collection of short stories about different faces of life in a fictional South India town are selectively adapted for the screen, thanks to his cartoonist brother R.K. Laxman, actor-director Shankar Nag, and producer T.S. Narasimhan.
- Mozart in the Jungle (2014 – 2018)Inspired by oboist Blair Tindall’s 2005 memoir, this four-season long comedy-drama centred on an ambitious oboist (Lola Kirke) who develops a strong bond with the new conductor (Gael García Bernal) of a fictional New York symphony orchestra, with escapades in Mexico and Italy across seasons. An Amazon original.
- Queen Sugar (2016 – Present)Ava DuVernay and Oprah came together to create this drama based on Natalie Baszile’s 2014 novel, about the lives of the estranged Bordelon siblings who move back to Louisiana after their father’s death to run the family’s struggling sugarcane farm. A tendency to cater to tropes and archetypes, but there’s no denying its political and viewing power.
- Shameless (2011 – 2021)Based on the long-running hit UK series also from creator Paul Abbott, the American remake — all wrapped up after eleven seasons — is set in the south side of Chicago and centres on a perpetually-drunk single father of six with the children learning to take care of themselves. Several stumbles in latter years.
- This Is Us (2016 – Present)This heartstrings-tugging family drama jumps through time to depict the lives of three siblings (Sterling K. Brown among them) and their parents, who seem to be mysteriously linked to each other in ways beyond their shared birthday. The fifth season is not on Prime Video; use Disney+ Hotstar for that instead.
- Transparent (2014 – 2019)A dysfunctional Los Angeles family finds their past and future unravelling following an admission from the elderly father (Jeffrey Tambor) that he identifies as a woman. Winner of several awards including the Golden Globe for best series for its poignancy and empathy. Finale was middling though. Tambor was fired after four seasons over sexual harassment allegations. An Amazon original.
- Undone (2019 – Present)From the makers of BoJack Horseman, a more life-like animated series about a 28-year-old woman (Rosa Salazar) who discovers she has a new relationship with time after getting into a car accident, and then uses that to solve the mystery of her father’s (Bob Odenkirk) death. But her exploits put her relationships and health in serious jeopardy. An Amazon original.
- A Very English Scandal (2018)Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw lead the three-part first season based on a true story and John Preston’s book of the same name, following the rise of British Member of Parliament Jeremy Thorpe (Grant) and the scandal that would end his life, involving the attempted murder of his ex-gay lover (Whishaw). An Amazon original.
Gadgets
Microsoft Partners With Inworld to Bring AI Game Development Tools to Xbox
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
Gadgets
BSNL Offers Free 4G SIM Upgrade: Here’s How to Get It
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Gadgets
Realme GT 5 Pro Teased to Feature 3,000 Nits Display; More Details Revealed
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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