There was a lot of hype surrounding Salem’s Lot heading into its long-awaited streaming premiere in early October. The Gary Dauberman-directed adaptation of Stephen King‘s beloved 1975 novel originally finished filming in the summer of 2022, but then it was seemingly put on the shelf for an indefinite amount of time by Warner Bros. Pictures. King himself, however, helped bring attention back to the project in February when he tweeted his positive thoughts about it and expressed his confusion over its behind-the-scenes delays. Shortly afterward, WB announced it would be releasing Salem’s Lot as a Max exclusive.

King’s support of the film did a lot to bolster the early word-of-mouth surrounding it, but that didn’t stop Salem’s Lot from being welcomed with mostly mixed reviews when it premiered on October 3. The film was notably criticized for its rushed retelling of King’s iconic vampire story and its inability to fully flesh out its characters. Some, consequently, speculated that the movie’s biggest problems may have been due to studio interference and corporate-mandated cuts.

Whether that’s true or not is unclear. In an interview with Den of Geek, though, Dauberman did confirm that his original cut of Salem’s Lot was much, much longer than the 113-minute version that was released. “My first cut was about three hours,” the filmmaker revealed. “There’s a lot left out. My first draft of the script is 180-odd pages or something.”

While speaking with Den of Geek, Dauberman offered some insight into what specifically from his original, 3-hour version of Salem’s Lot ended up being left on the cutting room floor. He singled out one scene, in particular, from King’s original novel in which Ben Mears (played as an adult in Dauberman’s film by Lewis Pullman) has a ghostly encounter in a haunted house. “In the book, Ben sneaks into the Marsten House and he sees the ghost of Hubert Marsten,” Dauberman noted. “I shot that and it used to open the movie, but it seemed to muddy the waters for audiences … That was the hardest thing to cut because I love the sequence.”

Knowing that a longer and likely more fleshed-out version of Salem’s Lot did exist at some point may only make watching the disappointingly slight cut that was actually released all the more frustrating for fans of its 1975 source material. For his part, though, Dauberman seems to have — for the time being, at least — come to terms with the cuts he had to make in order to get Salem’s Lot in front of the public.

Salem’s Lot is streaming now exclusively on Max.

Google has started rolling out three Theft Protection features for Android devices. These features will rely on multiple sensors to lock the device immediately after a thief steals it.

Google rolling out Theft Protection features for Android

Android smartphones have several layers of security. These features and processes ensure smartphones remain locked and inaccessible to thieves.

Phone snatchers often try to disable cellular and Wi-Fi connectivity by putting the stolen device in Airplane mode. Thieves also attempt to switch off the device or activate silent mode immediately after stealing the device.

To thwart these attempts and securely lock a device if stolen, Google announced three new Theft Protection features at this year’s Google I/O 2024. The company has now started rolling out the following features to Android devices.

The first one is Theft Detection Lock. It works by using device sensors, Wi-Fi, and smart device connections to determine, if while in use and unlocked, a thief suddenly takes your phone and runs away with it. When that happens, the phone will automatically lock the screen so that they won’t be able to access your phone.

Next, Offline Device Lock will trigger if someone steals your phone and immediately deactivates the Wi-Fi. It will only trigger if the device is being actively used at the moment of theft. The feature will only trigger twice a day to minimize accidental triggers.

The last feature is Remote Lock. Users can visit android.com/lock if a thief steals their device and calls a number. Users have to provide their number (confirmed during the set-up process) and complete a security challenge. This can be done on a trusted person’s phone. Google has indicated this feature is faster than logging into Find My Device.

Which smartphones will get the new anti-theft features?

These features have a dedicated page called Theft Protection in the main Settings app for Android. Alternatively, users can head over to the redesigned Google services page > All services tab > Personal & device safety.

All three Theft detection capabilities are visible when in the Google Play services beta (version 24.40.33). They will gradually reach Android smartphones in the stable version of the Google Play services.

Phones running Android 10 and above are eligible to receive the Theft Protection features. In other words, most modern smartphones should get these features in the near future.

Apple Intelligence will start rolling out on October 28, according to ’s Mark Gurman. Apple said last month that it was targeting October for the , iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 — which will bring some of the first Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 16 and other Apple devices — but it didn’t set a firm release date at the time. The first wave of Apple Intelligence features will include the text editor and summarization tool, Writing Tools, along with smart audio recording and transcriptions for Mail, Notes, Pages and other apps.

We’ll also likely see the new Memories feature in Photos, which is designed to be an easy-to-use editor for making movies with images from the gallery, and Clean Up, which can remove objects from the background of images. Other Apple Intelligence features, like ChatGPT integration and , are expected to come with later versions of iOS 18 that will roll out across the end of the year and early 2025.

On my recent trip to the Tokyo Game Show, I was able to spend my pre-show time in the heart of Tokyo on visits to iconic game companies like Sega.

At Sega, the company was excited about the upcoming release of the third Sonic movie in theaters — something that has helped revive the franchise in recent years.

At Sega’s headquarters in Tokyo, I was treated to a tour of common areas of the company as well as a lunch with a group of influencers. One was dressed in a big fake moustache and a round black ball, while another influencer said that he makes Sonic content every day of the year. We all got to play Sonic Rumble, an upcoming PC and mobile game, on smartphones. The game was a lot like Fall Guys, the cute battle royale where players competed in obstacle course races on crazy tracks — only with characters from the Sonic games.

The next day, in a press room at the Tokyo Game Show, I interviewed the team leaders. I spoke with Takashi Iizuka, head of the Sonic franchise at Sega, and Makoto Tase, game director on Sonic Rumble. Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

GamesBeat: Could you talk about the beginnings of the game, the inspiration for it and what you’re trying to accomplish?

Takashi Iizuka: The start of the project–Sega currently has other Sonic mobile games, like Sonic Forces and Sonic Dash. Those come from outside of Sega in Japan, though. In turn, Sega Japan has some hit mobile titles, but we haven’t had a title using Sonic. We wanted to use the Sega Japan dev team to create a game using Sonic. That’s where we started.

GamesBeat: How do you think about the franchise and how often you want to make Sonic games? It was interesting when one of the creators talked about making Sonic content every day.

Iizuka: For consumer titles, our target is to release one new title each year. This year we have Sonic Rumble coming out on the mobile side of things. We wanted to do something for Sonic on mobile. Alongside that, we have the movie, the animation, the comics. Those will come in between the major consumer and mobile titles. We’ll spread all that out over the course of the year to keep Sonic fans excited.

GamesBeat: With the movies being so successful, is that taking additional time from Sonic game developers? Do you have to oversee a lot of that movie content as well?

Iizuka: Before the success of the movies, we had our core Sonic fans. After that, we’ve drawn additional new fans through the movies. We’re not seeing any difficulties with the dev team as a result, but we do need to create titles that can also make those new Sonic fans excited. That could be a new challenge in producing new titles.

GamesBeat: How would you describe Sega’s strategy in other media in the wake of those movies?

Iizuka: Within Sega, the Sonic brand defines the transmedia strategy for the whole company. I moved to the U.S. nine years ago. During that time, the Sonic brand hit a really low point. Users weren’t very interested in Sonic. It wasn’t popular. From that experience we had to make games, make animation, make movies, and recover our core Sonic fans. We had to find new Sonic fans as well. By drawing more fans over time, we eventually found success with the Sonic IP. That’s the same strategy we’re now trying to pursue with other IP at Sega.

GamesBeat: I saw you had a very successful game in Roblox, with more than a billion plays. It was a surprise to see that of more than 400 brands on top of Roblox right now, Sonic is number one. Did that surprise you at all? How did you go about making that a success?

Iizuka: Previously with Sonic titles, we mostly made consumer games that users had to buy to play. With Roblox it’s free, and a lot of the younger generation, a lot of kids play games there. The initial goal was to find more new users who could play Sonic and learn about Sonic within Roblox. We thought it would be a great experience for new users to find the Sonic IP. That said, the dev team has to update the Roblox game every week, and that’s hard work. But as a company we feel like it was a very good experience.

GamesBeat: Are you thinking more about user-generated content? Will users be able to create their own Sonic experiences one day?

Iizuka: At the moment we’re not planning anything around user-generated content, but we see fans making their own fan games. We follow that and sometimes enjoy watching them.

GamesBeat: With Sonic Rumble, does it feel like that game fits in a particular genre, alongside games like Fall Guys? Is there a particular twist that makes this very Sega, very Sonic?

Makoto Tase: Compared to those other titles, we feel that, first, we have the speed that everyone knows from Sonic. We wanted to make it a very Sonic-like game, and that’s the first thing we thought about. To show that we’ve implemented features and stage varieties to show that Sonic speed in the game. Also, compared to games like Fall Guys and Stumble Guys, we feel that Sonic is a very strong IP. We have the unique stages, the expression of the characters, the world of Sonic. That has an impact on core Sonic fans and new Sonic fans. Those are some of the unique strong points our game has.

Users compete to get as many rings as possible, and they can try to take rings away from each other. That competitive aspect brings a mix of excitement and frustration. There’s a lot of excitement within the game.

GamesBeat: Do you see some similarities between Sonic and Angry Birds, the characters in those franchises?

Iizuka: In March we had a cross-promotion between the mobile Angry Birds and Sonic. They both feature animal-based characters. We feel like that cross-promotion had a positive impact. These two IPs have a good relationship with each other. Both audiences seemed to have a good time with that cross-promotion. In the future, if we have another opportunity, we’d definitely like to do more.

GamesBeat: One of the interesting things about Angry Birds is you can learn how to play it in a few seconds. It’s a very accessible game. What do you think you can learn from that kind of simplicity?

Tase: The Rovio side has a lot of experience making mobile titles. They know how to make successful mobile games. They know how to make them accessible to many users. They understand the marketing side on a worldwide level. The experience they have, we’ve definitely taken that into account making this game. We’re happy to work with them and learn from their experience.

GamesBeat: When I played yesterday I noticed that I could make a mistake, or more than one mistake, and I wouldn’t necessarily come in last place. I could still recover and catch up. I thought that was interesting, that even if you made mistakes, you didn’t have to just give up.

Tase: When we were making this game, we wanted to reach a wide audience. As you said, if users make one mistake and watch better players get first every time, that wouldn’t be as much fun for that wide audience. That’s why we have some random elements, some comeback elements, those aspects of the game. We put in an effort so many users could have fun during the game.

GamesBeat: Do PC players play alongside mobile players, or are the platforms separated in multiplayer?

Tase: Right now we’re thinking they can play at the same time. We initially had some discussions about balance. The game might be easier to play using a controller, but we’re not a game like League of Legends where the competitive side of things–we didn’t want skill to be the only thing in this game. We wanted to have more of a party aspect. We wanted as many users as possible to be able to play. That’s why we decided to keep PC and mobile players in the same games.

GamesBeat: Is there anything else you wanted to focus on today?

Tase: The number of stages and the variation of the stages is one thing we wanted to emphasize. In the pre-launch phase we have 35 stages, but when we hit the global launch we’re expecting to have more. Each stage has a different game design. The personality of each stage is very different. We feel like users can have a lot of fun with every stage. We definitely want users to see that and enjoy that.

Iizuka: We’re launching this winter, and once we get started on live ops we’ll have new content coming out every few weeks. That’s one of the big advantages of live games over traditional consumer games. There are many characters within Sonic, and users will be able to play with some of the more minor characters. Those characters will get their chance to be the hero in this game. We’re also planning to do collaborations with other IPs, and we hope that will be exciting for users as well.