Gadgets
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 5 Cameo, Explained
Spoilers ahead for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 5 “Truth”.
Falcon and Winter Soldier episode 5 cameo
Early into the latest The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode, after John Walker (Wyatt Russell) has been stripped of the Captain America title and his military rank due to his episode 4 actions, he sits on a bench and complains to his wife Olivia (Gabrielle Byndloss) about how the US government “doesn’t understand what it takes to be Captain America. It’s not like I’m just going to disappear.” Olivia tells him to focus and take things one step at a time, but before she can finisher her sentence, the Walkers are interrupted by someone’s footsteps. Very loud heels indeed.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 5 Recap: Black Captain America
A stranger dressed in dark purple from top to bottom approaches them and introduces herself as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. “Actually, it’s Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine,” she adds. It’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the star of award-winning comedy series such as Veep and Seinfeld. In fact, Louis-Dreyfus has won eight Emmys for her acting, including six in a row for Veep. Marvel has a history of tapping comedians for its movies and TV shows — WandaVision villain Agatha Harkness, played by Kathryn Hahn, was the latest — but this is as big as it gets for the MCU.
Back to the cameo — Valentina then squeezes herself between Walker and his wife, and then says that she would have done the same thing as him, back in Lativa: killing the Flag Smasher. Olivia interrupts her to ask who she is, but Valentina just hands her a card without even looking in her direction. She continues speaking to Walker, telling him she knows that he took the Super Soldier Serum and adds: “It has made you very, very valuable to certain people. I actually think it was the second-best choice you’ve ever made in your life.”
The first best choice? Valentina says it’s tied with marrying the “fabulous firecracker” Olivia, though she’s really toying with them. “Picking up the phone when I call you,” Valentina then adds to Walker, making it absolutely clear whom he works for now. Valentina then tells him not to worry about the shield — she knows he doesn’t have it anymore — and then lets him on a “little dirty state secret”. The Captain America shield doesn’t actually belong to the US government; it’s a legal grey area of sorts.
“I’ll be in touch,” Valentina says as she gets up and leaves. Olivia hands the card she got to Walker, who discovers that there’s nothing on it. It’s just black on one side and white on the other. What’s that supposed to mean?
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 5 Post-Credits Scene, Explained
Who is Valentina Allegra de Fontaine?
In the Marvel comics — according to the official Marvel.com website — Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine is an alias of a Russian spy who works for a secret network called Leviathan. She and her family were relocated to Italy during the Cold War and given their “de Fontaine” identities. After her spy parents are supposedly killed by Russian agents, Valentina would go on to be recruited by the newly-formed SHIELD and trained as a super spy in her own right.
But Valentina was in fact a double agent working for Leviathan. Valentina has had a long run in Marvel comics, being part of dozens of stories featuring Captain America and Nick Fury. She was even called Madame Hydra at one point. But many of these are incompatible with the MCU given the time and place we’re now in. That said, the MCU has a habit of tweaking origin stories anyway, so don’t expect any of this to play out as such. The only thing that will seemingly hold true is her Russian link, as a report by Vanity Fair has revealed.
Spoilers ahead for an upcoming MCU movie.
Immediately after The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 5 released Friday, Vanity Fair said that Louis-Dreyfus was first meant to appear as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine in Black Widow, the Scarlett Johansson-led standalone movie. Black Widow was originally designed to release prior to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has switched the order. Black Widow is now slated to debut July 9 in cinemas and on Disney+ with Premier Access.
Given Black Widow revolves around Natasha Romanoff’s (Johansson) links to the Soviet spy training facility Red Room, it seems that Louis-Dreyfus’ Valentina will retain her Russian origin story. What her story has been since remains unclear though. Vanity Fair wonders if Marvel will still keep her presence in Black Widow but it also claims that people familiar with the matter have said that Marvel has “big ambitions” for Louis-Dreyfus.
That means we will see a lot more of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine in the MCU Phase Four. Could she be the next big bad in the MCU? Or will she be limited to the next few movies? Well, that’s something we will just have to wait to find out.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 5 is now streaming on Disney+ and Disney+ Hotstar. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 6 — the series finale — releases on April 23 at 12:30pm IST / 12am PT.
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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