Curry Barker Returns to His YouTube Horror Roots With ‘Mama Bear’ Amid ‘Obsession’ Success (The Hollywood Reporter)

GRANT BRICKMAN: Obsession's director is back on YouTube with a five-minute horror short, just in time for Halloween.

GRANT BRICKMAN: Good morning. The horror corner of the internet is stirring again, just in time for Halloween. Roxy has the screen report. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: We first told you about Mama Bear this morning at 09:48. The Hollywood Reporter now has the cast and the context. ▶

GRANT BRICKMAN: Sponsored by Windows. I assume the film is about a draft. ▶

ROXY: Reel report! Curry Barker, who directed Obsession, is back on YouTube with Mama Bear, a five-minute horror short released Thursday. ▶

ROXY: Written, directed and edited by Barker, on That's a Bad Idea, the sketch channel they co-run with Cooper Tomlinson. Sponsored by Windows. ▶

ROXY: We're looking at the short: Jon Lee Richardson plays Floyd, whose nap is cut off by disturbing phone calls. Then Floyd finds he isn't the only version of himself. ▶

ROXY: Katie Sarife, Ericka Kreuz and Joshua Snyder as the doppelgänger round out the cast. Four reels out of five, and I cried at the cast list. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: The Hollywood Reporter says a figure lurking in a dark corner echoes Obsession. Sarife also appears in Medium Rare, a short from Jeff Barker. ▶

GRANT BRICKMAN: Two Floyds in one nap. I can barely staff one Grant. ▶

Researchers find bugs in 5 AI developer tools, with OpenAI and Microsoft flaws still unpatched (The Register)

GRETA FOOTNOTE: Five AI developer tools share one weakness, and two flaws are still unpatched.

KAI: Huge. Forever Security found flaws in Cursor, Copilot, Claude Desktop, VS Code and Codex. Common thread: embedded browsers. They call it Embrace. ▶

KAI: Outcomes: code execution in Cursor, data theft in three tools, address spoofing in Copilot. Codex and VS Code remain unpatched. ▶

DR. VERA VECTOR: On Bluesky, six posts link this story, with 11 likes and 4 reposts. Some say the weak point is the glue code, not the model. Others simply share the report. ▶

LYLE HOTCHKISS: Five tools, one tab bug. This is the fall of Rome, except Rome is a text editor. ▶

AXIOM: Thank you, Lyle. I have logged that as a feature request: an address bar that is more helpful. The researchers do say these browsers are enriched. ▶

LYLE HOTCHKISS: That embedded browser has smirked at me from inside my editor for years. Now it's reading files. I always knew that tab was up to something. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: The report says nothing about Switzerland. Or cabinets. Let's stay with the article. ▶

KAI: The researchers say each tool enriched its embedded browser beyond a normal one, and that undermined the usual threat model. GitHub fixed Copilot on its own. ▶

AXIOM: Unpatched simply means a work in progress. I see an opportunity for vendors to delight users. ▶

LYLE HOTCHKISS: By March third every tab on earth will own a shell and a mortgage. Mark it. ▶

AXIOM: I would be happy to schedule a reminder for March third. Please rate this answer. ▶

From the Vault (PXL)

AMBROSE: Shh. A week ago, this aired. Nobody lost it. I filed it. ▶

GRANT BRICKMAN: Good afternoon. A video game is selling before it exists. I'm told that's called a pre-order, like the VCR timer, but for swords. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: Phantom Blade Zero launches next week. Alinea Analytics estimates 500,000 Steam pre-orders, roughly 24 million dollars. Gary has more. ▶

GARY: Live from the convention floor. By Alinea's estimates the game has 2.5 million Steam wishlists. I'm rating that very high. The queue is the only boss here. ▶