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Tag: stream

  • Netflix games could soon be playable on TVs using your phone

    Netflix games could soon be playable on TVs using your phone

    It has been more or less two years since Netflix started offering its subscribers a whole gaming segment. The company started in 2021 with roughly 50 titles in its arsenal and has increased that with another 40 or so more since then.

    The new service, however, was available only on iOS, iPadOS, and Android. This left the most obvious and exciting medium, TVs — where the Netflix name initially became a household one — unutilized.

    The good news is that an app developer by the name of Steve Moser has discovered hidden code inside the app hinting the company is planning to finally make the big step forward and offer its games on TV as well. Maybe equally exciting is the next information dug out by Moser, which insinuates users would have the option to use their phones, be it Android or iPhone, to play the games on their TV screens.

    Here’s the text hinting at the phone-controller functionality:

    A game on your TV needs a controller to play. Do you want to use this phone as a game controller?

    This could potentially be a game changer for Netflix and bring it one step closer to retaining its subscribers, which is one of the main reasons the platform started introducing Games to its service in the first place. After serious backlash following price hikes and talks of harsher regulation on account sharing, this would be a great opportunity for Netflix to score some extra “cool” points.

    If the streaming giant decides to go along with this endeavor, it would also serve as a solid foundation for the company’s ambition to launch a cloud-gaming service, for which it is perfectly positioned now. That would allow anyone with a Netflix subscription (although it might be a new tier with a new price slapped onto it) to play more demanding titles that would not require powerful equipment and installation, just a very strong and stable internet connection.

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  • Google could be dropping the Hangouts branding

    Google could be dropping the Hangouts branding

    Hangouts Meet was renamed to Google Meet on the company’s Support page, suggesting that a change in the namings of Hangouts Chat and Hangouts, the app, may also follow. The name change has been previously hinted at, with the Hangouts Meet service being referred to as Google Meet in the past, by Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

    In addition, it doesn’t make much sense for Hangouts and Hangouts Chat to be two separate consumer apps, and Google is likely to replace one with the other soon. “Classic Hangouts,” as it has been referred to for the last few years, maybe shutting down soon, and we initially reported on its expected 2020 retirement back in 2018. A Google spokesperson reached out to us at the time, explaining that “classic Hangouts” users will be migrated to the Chat and Meet services, suggesting already active plans of its retirement back then.

    And if this recent change in naming translates to other Hangouts products, that would likely bring the end of both Hangouts as branding, and the “classic Hangouts” service.

    Hangouts were first developed as a feature to Google’s social network Google+, but later became its own standalone product after it was well-received by users even if Google+ wasn’t. It’s currently available as an app on both Android and iOS, still simply named Hangouts, likely to be renamed or replaced later. Alternatively, Google offers Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet, which are a consumer and business-oriented conferencing tools respectively. Those are likely to officially become Google Chat and Google Meet soon.

    We’re expecting to see these changes as 2020 progresses, though none of it is officially confirmed or certain yet.

    Meanwhile, popular Hangouts Meet rival conferencing app Zoom has been suffering a shareholder lawsuit, along with several bans from schools and companies like SpaceX, over mounting security concerns.

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  • Netflix goes down and is now back up as millions breathe a sigh of relief

    Netflix goes down and is now back up as millions breathe a sigh of relief

    Although there are many streaming alternatives like Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+ and Hulu, during the current crisis with so many people stuck at home, Netflix is the service that tens of millions of shut-ins depend on for entertainment. Friends and relatives are watching movies and binge-watching television shows from separate locations and then discussing it with each other via a video chat. But many could only feel isolated and alone when Netflix went down this morning in parts of the U.S. and U.K.
    The morning outage lasted only one hour but must have felt like much longer to those who could not stream their favorite Netflix fare. According to DownDetector.com, starting at 11:43 am ET, the number of complaints received about Netflix rose from 25 to peak at 1,646 by 12:43 pm. 41% of those complaining said that they could not connect to the service. 35% had issues with the video streaming and 23% said that they could not access the service via the Netflix website.
    A Netflix spokesman said, “Some of our members in the U.S. and Europe were unable to use Netflix via our website for around an hour this morning. The issue is now fixed and we’re sorry for the inconvenience.”
    Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, and some other streamers have lowered the quality of their streams in certain markets in order to reduce the demands on the internet. With much of the world stuck inside and unable to work from home, the internet is being taxed as it never has been before.
  • Spotify now lets users share music on Facebook Stories

    Spotify now lets users share music on Facebook Stories

    Spotify has just made it possible for people listening to music to share it on Facebook Stories. If you want your friends and followers to know what songs you like, you can now share it on Facebook Stories and viewers will hear a 15-second preview before tapping to listen.

    Here is how you can do that: tap “Share” when viewing the track on Spotify, select Facebook, customize your Story, and post it to your followers. As mentioned earlier, your followers will get a 15-second preview that they can listen to, but they can also tap “Play on Spotify” if they want to hear more.

    The new feature is a logical step forward and an upgrade from the similar option that artists and their teams have been using for quite a while to promote their tracks, albums, playlists, podcasts, and more.

    For the time being, the preview feature will only play when a single track is shared to Stories. However, if you want to share other content like albums, playlists, or your profile, your followers will have the option to tap directly into that content on Spotify, but they won’t hear a preview.

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  • Google Play Music subscription gifting removed

    Google Play Music subscription gifting removed

    It looks like Google no longer allows users to gift Play Music subscriptions via Android. The move is far from being surprising as the app rarely received updates and those that were pushed out added minor improvements and very few new features.

    The messages someone gets when trying to gift a Play Music subscription reads: “Important – Google Play Music subscriptions can no longer be purchased as gifts.” However, if you really want to gift someone a Play music subscription, there’s a workaround, but it involves using an older version of the Android app or simply gifting it through the web app.

    It’s unclear whether or not Google plans to bring back the feature in some other form, so, for now, you can only use the web app or the workaround mentioned above to gift someone a Play Music subscription from an Android device.

    Reports about Google phasing out Play Music and replacing it with YouTube Remix have been running around since April, so this might be one of the first steps towards its demise.

  • Spotify for Podcasters officially introduced

    Spotify for Podcasters officially introduced

    After a long period of testing, Spotify for Podcasters is finally out of beta. Described as a discovery and analytics dashboard, Spotify for Podcasters allows content creators to track many things like average listening times, episode streams, and total listeners.

    Long story short, if you’d like to obtain more details about the audience listening to your podcasts, as well as grow it based on the data received, Spotify’s new tool is the best thing it can happen to you.

    Besides demographic data and insight related to the audience, podcasters will also receive information about gender, music tastes, country data, as well as listening patterns, and more.

    With so many podcasts out there, it’s more important than ever that you have the data you need to help you understand and grow your audience. That’s exactly what your dashboard is designed to provide.
    The ultimate goal of Spotify’s new tool is to deepen the engagement between customers, as well as allow podcasters to grow their audiences and careers. Spotify for Podcasters is available for all content creators for free starting today.
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  • Tesla To Soon Get Netflix, YouTube Streaming Support

    Tesla To Soon Get Netflix, YouTube Streaming Support

    Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that people would be soon able to stream videos on digital platforms like Netflix and YouTube in parked Tesla electric vehicles. “Ability to stream YouTube and Netflix when car is stopped coming to your Tesla soon! Has an amazingly immersive, cinematic feel due to the comfy seats & surround sound audio,” Musk wrote on his Twitter handle.

    “When full self-driving is approved by regulators, we will enable video while moving,” he added.

    The desire to allow drivers and passengers to watch video is not a total surprise – Musk noted at E3 that the ability to watch YouTube was coming, The Verge said.

    Tesla has already unveiled games that drivers can play on the displays in their cars. The games also only work when the car is stationary so that the player can use the steering wheel as a controller.

    On Friday, the company announced that chess game is also coming to the Tesla Arcade.

    But there are huge concerns that come along with such features.

    Test vehicles are required to have a driver behind the wheel to take over in case something goes wrong, and even as self-driving technology improves, it’s hard to imagine that going away completely, the report said.

    In March 2017, an Uber self-driving car crashed into pedestrian in Arizona as the driver was watching The Voice on content streaming platform Hulu and lost track of the road.

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  • Spotify unveils its first-ever hardware device

    Spotify unveils its first-ever hardware device

    Spotify has been the unrivaled champion of the thriving music streaming industry for a number of years now, but relying entirely on a service under siege by tech giants including Apple and Amazon seems like decidedly risky business. As such, it’s certainly not shocking to see the 2006-founded Swedish company dip its toes into the consumer hardware world with an aptly titled Car Thing device.

    This “thing” does pretty much what you expect, reportedly plugging into your car’s 12-volt power outlet/cigarette lighter to allow Spotify users to control their smartphone playlists and podcasts on the road in complete safety with voice commands only. The Car Thing is essentially a less versatile Anker Roav Bolt powered by an unnamed Google Assistant rival… that’s unlikely to ever see daylight on anything resembling a wide scale.

    That’s right, you can’t actually purchase Spotify’s first-ever piece of hardware, which will instead be offered for free to a “small group” of invited Premium subscribers to help the company “learn more about how people listen to music and podcasts.” While this is all explicitly and repeatedly billed as a test, set to be conducted in the US only in the near future, Spotify is leaving the door open to an eventual expansion of the limited experiment.

    For the time being, the focus is squarely on “becoming the world’s number one audio platform” rather than creating consumer-oriented hardware, but the way future experiences will be developed depends on the “learnings” from this test. In other words, if invited users declare themselves pleased with the Spotify Car Thing, you shouldn’t rule out it becoming a commercial… thing someday.

    Obviously, we don’t have a full spec sheet or list of features for the Car Thing, but we do know it comes with a circular screen, a number of physical buttons, and a “Hey, Spotify” wake word. Intriguingly, Spotify is also teasing upcoming “Voice Thing” and “Home Thing” tests purportedly designed to assess the living room listening habits of the platform’s Premium users.

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  • Spotify now has 100 million Premium Global Subscribers

    Spotify now has 100 million Premium Global Subscribers

    Twelve months after it first reached 75 million subscribers, Spotify has today announced that 100 million users now pay for its Premium service across the globe. The news represents year-on-year growth of 32% and has helped push Spotify’s revenue figures up an equally impressive 33% to €1.51 billion ($1.67 billion).

    Including users of Spotify’s ad-supported service, the streaming company now has a total of 217 million monthly active users. This figure is up 10 million from last quarter and 44 million when compared to twelve months ago.

    Once again, Europe continued to be Spotify’s most important market followed by North America and Latin America respectively. In North America especially, Premium subscriber growth was driven by Spotify’s continued partnerships with Samsung, Google, and Hulu.

    Specifically, Samsung agreed to pre-install the Spotify app on millions of its smartphones including the recently-released Galaxy S10, buyers of which receive six months of free Spotify Premium. Google, on the other hand, offered Spotify Family Plan users a free Google Home Mini, a promotion which has since been expanded to both the UK and France due to its popularity. Lastly, Hulu and Spotify recently lowered the price of their bundle offer which has boosted interest.

    By the end of this current quarter, Spotify expects to have between 222 and 228 million users, of which 107 to 110 million should be Premium subscribers. Driving this growth will continue to be promotional offers like the ones mentioned above and India, where Spotify registered 2 million users in the month following its launch.

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  • Disney’s Netflix competitor to debut November 12th

    Disney’s Netflix competitor to debut November 12th

    Disney+, the entertainment giant’s video streaming service, will launch on November 12th. The service will be priced at $6.99 per month or $69.99 for a year. Company CEO Bob Iger shared a screenshot of the Disney+ UI on his Twitter site, and it features rows of rectangular icons. While each rectangle represents a different movie or show, there are also rectangles for different categories of content including those produced by Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and National Geographic.

    Subscribers to Disney+ will be able to set up different profiles for those living under one roof. Profiles for kids will automatically feature parental controls. All content can be downloaded for offline viewing, and the service will be available for smartphones and tablets, desktop browsers, game consoles, and smart TVs. Since Disney now owns a majority stake in video streamer Hulu following its acquisition of 21st Century Fox, it plans to offer a combined subscription price for Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu.

    Iger has said previously that Disney would take things slow in regard to its streaming venture. As a result, a previous report stated that Disney+ will launch with 500 films from the Disney library along with over 7,000 episodes from Disney TV. In addition, there will be original programming including a show based on Disney’s successful High School Musical franchise and another one based on Monster Inc. There also will be a series based on Star Wars that focuses on a bounty hunter like Boba Fett, and one produced by Marvel that has to do with the Avengers characters. Some proprietary programming will come from Pixar. One forecast has Disney spending $1 billion on original programming in 2020, rising to $2 billion by 2024.

    Some of the programming will make use of the Disney and 21st Century Fox television libraries. All episodes of The Simpsons will be on the platform from the first day, and episodes of Malcolm in the Middle will also be available.

    Just before Disney+ launches in November, the company will blow up the Disney Vault. This is where classic Disney movies were kept from public release until they were each made available for a limited time. Disney CEO Iger says that all Disney movies will be available to be exclusively streamed on Disney+. Disney films released this year will make their way to Disney+ after all theater and home entertainment options have expired. Frozen II, the sequel to the hugely popular animated movie, is expected in theaters this November. It will be a Disney+ exclusive when it is offered on the platform during the summer of 2020.

    The company expects to have 60 million to 90 million subscribers by the end of 2024, with U.S. consumers accounting for one-third of subscribers.

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