Tag Archives: Pearl

Entertainment

Meghan Markle producing animated show Pearl at Netflix

Leave a comment

Meghan Markle
Photo: Chris Jackson (Getty Images)

Netflix continues to accrue an impressive collection of titles for its various producing partners; the streaming service already had “former President and former First Lady” and “current Shonda Rhimes” on the books, and now has another chance to up the overall level of Mildly Estranged Duchess content it has access to. That’s per The Hollywood Reporter, which notes today that Mildly Estranged Duchess Meghan Markle has set up a new animated series, Pearl, at the streaming service.

The series will center on a 12-year-old girl who is inspired by a variety of famous women from history—presumably the good ones, and not just, like, Lucrezia Borgia, or Lizzie Borden, or any of the Brides Of Dracula. (We may not be entirely clear on the distinction between fantasy and reality, admittedly.) In addition to Markle, the series is being executive produced by a bunch of people with extensive backgrounds in animation, even if some of that background was in the Gnomeo And Juliet/Sherlock Gnomes school of modern film animation. (Looking at you, David Furnish and Carolyn Soper.) Amanda Rynda, an animation vet whose most recent projects were DC Super Hero Girls and her stint as creative director on The Loud House, will serve as the executive producer on the show.

This is the second project produced under Markle’s Archewell Productions banner, which she shares with her husband, Mildly Estranged Prince Harry Of California (formerly England). The two are also producing on Heart Of Invictus, a docu-series about the Invictus Games, and also part of the pair’s production deal with Netflix. Meanwhile, our persistent efforts to get a rumor off the ground that this entire “pivot to video” thing with the pair, and their related friction with the royal family, was just an effort to build hype around a hypothetical Suits revival continue to produce absolute bupkis, but so it goes.

Read original article here

Technology

Some History About ILCA, The Japanese Studio Working On The Pokémon Diamond And Pearl Remakes

Leave a comment

During the Pokémon Presents broadcast this week, The Pokémon Company announced remakes of the Nintendo DS games, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. While Game Freak normally handles games like this, right now, it’s busy with the open-world prequel Pokémon Legends: Arceus, which is due out next year.

This leaves the release of Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl in 2021 in the hands of a Japanese studio called ILCA. Game Freak’s Junichi Masuda will oversee the project as a director, alongside ILCA’s Yuichi Ueda. If you’re not familiar with this studio, here’s a quick rundown:

Who is ILCA?

ILCA, Inc. is a Japanese studio headquartered in Tokyo, with other offices located in Shinjuku, Nagoya and Kyoto. It was established on 1st October 2010 as a CG-based video production company focused on animation, movies and television, and eventually incorporated video game development. As of 1st December 2020, it has 288 employees.

© ILCA
© ILCA

What does the ILCA logo look like?

Here it is in all its glory (without those lovely walls):

© ILCA

So who is in charge?

ILCA is led by CEO Takuya Iwasaki and the director Satoshi Takamori.

What does ILCA stand for?

According to the company’s website, ILCA is named after the acronym “I Love Computer Art”.

“I LOVE COMPUTER ART”

Has the studio worked on any Pokémon projects before?

Yes – before the Diamond and Pearl remakes it was responsible for the cloud-based storage app, Pokémon HOME.

What other games has it worked on?

As we previously mentioned, ILCA is a support studio. As a result, it’s worked on all sorts of games including regular ones, augmented reality titles, virtual reality games, and various other stuff including a Domino’s pizza app featuring Hatsune Miku.

Some more serious projects it’s assisted with include Yakuza 0, Dragon Quest XI, NieR: Automata, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 and more recently Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown.

What will ILCA’s Diamond and Pearl remakes be like?

Here’s what you can expect, according to the announcement PR:

“Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl enable fans to experience the original story and game features from Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl in a fresh way. The original games have been faithfully reproduced and colourfully revitalized for Nintendo Switch.

“The sense of scale of the towns and routes has been carefully preserved, and fans who played the original games will recognize many familiar places. These games are updated with the easy-to-understand, player-friendly conveniences introduced in recent Pokémon core series video games, in addition to up-close-and-personal Pokémon battle scenes.”

Want to know more about ILCA?

Sure, head over to the company’s official website – it’s even hiring! There are also official Twitter and Facebook pages.

So, there’s your crash course in ILCA – the team behind Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. Think it’s got what it takes to remake the Generation IV Pokémon games? Share your thoughts down below.



Read original article here

Technology

Pokémon Platinum Content Spotted In Diamond And Pearl Remake Trailer

Leave a comment

It’s official, The Pokémon Company has announced Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are arriving this year.

The PR describes how the Nintendo DS originals have been faithfully reproduced. There are also a number of updates, including easy-to-understand and player-friendly conveniences.

All of this has got fans wondering if the content from the third version, Pokémon Platinum, will feature. According to a Twitter user known as ‘voltimer’, there’s a good chance it will, based on the reveal trailer:

As can be seen above, there’s apparently an extra NPC in the Platinum version of Floaroma Town that also features in the Switch version. This character gives you Gracidea if you have Shaymin on hand.

It’s also considered as “more concrete evidence” than the appearance of Porygon-Z in the Switch trailer – which appears in Diamond and Pearl’s post-game.

What do you make of all this? Think it’s a sign of Platinum Version content in the remakes? Leave a comment down below.



Read original article here

Technology

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl are getting remakes for Nintendo Switch

Leave a comment

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl will be remade for Nintendo Switch. The Pokémon Company announced the news today during a special Pokémon Presents broadcast. Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will launch in late 2021.

Diamond and Pearl launched in 2006 for Nintendo DS. The game introduced the Sinnoh region, home to pokémon such as Bidoof, Luxio, Drifloon, and Arceus. The updated versions have a cute, chibified look, though both are “faithful remakes” of the originals. A trailer released alongside the news today teases familiar locations and faces in the Switch version, as well as some quality of life upgrades. Pokémon Home developer Ilca is working on both games alongside longtime Game Freak director Junichi Masuda .

There’ve been rumors of Diamond and Pearl remakes online for the past few weeks. This year marks the games’ 15th anniversary, alongside Pokémon’s overall 25th anniversary. The company has been celebrating with virtual concerts featuring Katy Perry and Post Malone.

The Pokémon Company also announced an open-world RPG, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, for Switch today.

Read original article here

Business

Aunt Jemima Has a New Name After 131 Years: The Pearl Milling Company

Leave a comment

It has been a staple of American breakfast tables for more than a century, but has long faced criticism that its name and likeness are rooted in racist imagery.

Now, Aunt Jemima has a new name: the Pearl Milling Company.

In an announcement on Tuesday by PepsiCo, which owns Aunt Jemima’s parent company Quaker Oats, the pancake-mix and syrup line formally began rebranding itself and moved one step closer to permanently abandoning its 131-year-old name.

The new name comes from the milling company in St. Joseph, Mo., that pioneered the self-rising pancake mix that became known as Aunt Jemima, according to PepsiCo, which said the rebranded products would arrive in stores in June.

The change has been in the works since last June after the killing of George Floyd catalyzed widespread protests over racial injustice and a nationwide reckoning over symbols of the Old South and their meaning. Several large food companies came under fire for using racial stereotypes, including Quaker Oats, which said it would drop the Aunt Jemima name, redesign its packaging and pledge $5 million to support the Black community.

The company unveiled a redesigned website for its line of Aunt Jemima products on Tuesday, saying “it was the start of a new day.”

“Last June, PepsiCo and The Quaker Oats Company made a commitment to change the name and image of Aunt Jemima, recognizing that they do not reflect our core values,” the company said on the website.

Products with the Aunt Jemima name will continue to be available until June, but without the picture of the Aunt Jemima character’s face, according to PepsiCo, which said in a news release that the company sought input on the new name.

“Throughout the effort that led to the new Pearl Milling Company name, Quaker worked with consumers, employees, external cultural and subject-matter experts, and diverse agency partners to gather broad perspectives and ensure the new brand was developed with inclusivity in mind,” PepsiCo said.

Ja’Mal Green, a civil rights advocate and former mayoral candidate in Chicago, said on Twitter on Tuesday that the change had been long overdue.

“130 years ago two white men created ‘Aunt Jemima’ syrup,” Mr. Green said. “Took a Black slave archetype & made her the face of their syrup for profit. Today, that ends. Aunt Jemima is finally being replaced. Those white men made billions appropriating blackness & hopefully rotting in hell.”

On the Aunt Jemima website, photos of the pancake mix and syrup’s new packaging were unveiled on Tuesday. They feature a rendering of a mill with a water wheel and still use the same red, white and yellow color scheme. Both the pancake-mix box and the syrup bottle included a label that says, “New Name Same Great Taste Aunt Jemima.”

In addition to the rebranding, the newly established Pearl Milling Company also said on Tuesday that it was making a $1 million commitment to empower and uplift Black girls and women. The money is in addition to a $400 million, five-year investment to support Black business and communities, and increase Black representation at PepsiCo, the company said.

Noliwe Rooks, an author and professor at Cornell University whose work explores race and gender, said in an email on Tuesday night that there were additional steps the company could take.

“I think one good use of these funds might be to support a Black women-led ad agency who they could hire to consult with them going forward to ensure they have good advice about their branding and advertising plans,” Dr. Rooks said of the $1 million.

The Aunt Jemima character has roots in a 19th-century minstrel song that expressed nostalgia for the antebellum South. Quaker Oats replaced the kerchief on the Aunt Jemima character’s head with a plaid headband in 1968 and added pearl earrings and a lace collar in 1989.

Last September, Mars Food announced that it was changing the name of its Uncle Ben’s rice products to Ben’s Original and that it would also remove the image of an older Black man smiling from the box.

The parent company of Cream of Wheat also said last September that the Black chef would no longer appear on its packaging.



Read original article here

US

Daniel Pearl: Pakistan’s top court frees men convicted of kidnapping and murdering US journalist

Leave a comment

Pearl was working as the South Asia bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal in 2002 when he was kidnapped in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, while reporting on Richard Reid, the British terrorist known as the “shoe bomber.”

The high profile abduction drew international attention, amid growing concern over the threat posed by radical Islamic terrorism.

Assailants later filmed Pearl’s beheading and sent it to United States officials. It was among the first propaganda videos targeting hostages created by extremists, and helped to inspire other terror groups to film horrific and egregious acts of violence.

Four men were arrested in 2002, and convicted of the kidnap and murder of Pearl. One, British national Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, was given the death penalty.

In April last year, a high court in Sindh province, where Karachi is located, overturned the convictions of three of the four men and reduced Sheikh’s sentenced to seven years in prison, meaning he was eligible for release on time served.
The court said the men had “suffered irreparable harm and extreme prejudice” after spending 18 years behind bars prior, and in December ordered all four to be set free, but both the Pearl family and the Pakistani authorities appealed to the country’s Supreme Court, which on Thursday ruled against them.

According to a statement from lawyer Faisal Siddique Said, the family was “in complete shock” at the majority decision, which they described as a “complete travesty of justice” which would endanger journalists and the people of Pakistan.

The statement urged the US government “to take all necessary actions under the law to correct this injustice” and added that the family hoped the Pakistani authorities would also act.

Read original article here