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Tag: streaming

  • VinaCapital invests further in live video streaming startup

    VinaCapital invests further in live video streaming startup

    A Vietnamese startup that provides multi-platform Livestream service for social sellers, GoStream, has received a second round of investment from venture capital firm VinaCapital Ventures.

    But it has not disclosed the value of the investment.

    GoStream has completed its series A funding worth $1 million, co-founder Nghiem Tien Vien said last November at the 2020 TechFest Vietnam, a national festival for innovative startups.

    VinaCapital Ventures CEO Hoang Duc Trung said GoStream is the leading company in integrating live streaming across a number of sectors.

    “Their innovative streaming technology is helping more businesses reach more viewers and customers, and we look forward to working with them as they further expand their capabilities and play an even greater role in Vietnam’s growing digitization.”

    Founded in 2017, GoStream is a simulcasting live video streaming platform serving multiple corporate clients and facilitating over 100,000 live streaming sessions daily.

    Its product, GoStudio, won the first prize at the Vietnam TechFest and will represent the country at the 2021 Startup World Cup contest in the U.S.

    In 2019, GoStream made it to the top 30 most used live broadcasting applications on Facebook.

    It received $200,000 in seed funding from VinaCapital and the startup accelerator program Zone Startups Vietnam.

  • Foreign streaming firms earn $43 mln in Vietnam, pay no tax

    Foreign streaming firms earn $43 mln in Vietnam, pay no tax

    Foreign streaming companies like Netflix and Apple TV have earned combined revenues of nearly VND1 trillion ($43 million) so far but have not paid any tax on them.

    Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung said the figure was arrived at from the fact they have one million subscribers.

    “Vietnamese companies have to abide by tax and content regulations while foreign firms do not pay tax and do not follow the laws, which is unfair competition,” he said at a National Assembly Q&A session Tuesday.

    There are 35 local TV and Internet streaming companies with 14 million subscribers.

    Some foreign companies have flouted regulations related to the history and sovereignty of the country, violence, drug use, and sex, Hung said.

    U.S.-owned Netflix said in a statement last month it was working with Vietnamese authorities to set up a mechanism for tax collection.

    The Cybersecurity Law requires all foreign businesses which earn an income from online activities in Vietnam to store their data in the country, but Netflix is unwilling to place its servers locally or open an office in Vietnam.

    Other Southeast Asian countries have also been making moves to tax Netflix and other Internet giants. Indonesia imposed a 10 percent value-added tax on sales on technology firms including Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, and Google in July, while Singapore has since January required subscribers to Netflix and other overseas digital services to pay a 7 percent goods and services tax.

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  • Apple Music update brings some iOS 14 features to Android devices

    Apple Music update brings some iOS 14 features to Android devices

    Apple briefly tested some iOS 14 features for its Music app for Android devices last month, but they were only available for those able to access the beta version of the app. Starting this week, just about all the important changes that were spotted last month are now making it to the stable version of the Apple Music app.

    If you’re using Apple’s music streaming service on an Android phone, here is what you’ll get in the latest update. First off, the update adds Listen Now, a new section that replaces the For You tab, a brand-new search experience, which involves relocating the search icon to the bottom bar, and, finally, an enhanced playback experience.

    Under the “enhanced playback experience” tag, you can include important new features like Autoplay, Crossfade, as well as the possibility to share on Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat Stories. All of these new features are now available to all Apple Music users on Android devices.

    Besides the most obvious stuff, Apple mentions that the update also improved the app’s performance, which means a lot of under-the-hood changes were made too. To get the most out of your Apple Music app, you can download the latest update right now via the Google Play Store.

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  • Apple’s environmentally-motivated decision is boosting sales of its new wireless earphones

    Apple’s environmentally-motivated decision is boosting sales of its new wireless earphones

    The new iPhone 12 series, as well as older models that Apple continues to sell, don’t come with a power adapter or EarPods. Apple claims it took this step to cut down on environmental waste. Although rivals like Samsung, Xiaomi, and OnePlus have mocked the company for removing these accessories, a new precedent may have been set. Apple is already benefiting from the removal of the EarPods from the iPhone 12 retail box.

    Beats, which is owned by Apple, announced the new neckband-style $49.99 Beats Flex on October 13, the same day the iPhone 12 series was revealed. The release of the neck-mounted headphones was also perfectly timed – they went on sale on October 23, which is when the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro hit the shelves.

    According to supply chain insiders, the Beats Flex is off to a good start, and the sales momentum is expected to continue well into the first half of the next year.

    The report also claims that the AirPods, which had 35 percent of the True Wireless Earphones (TWS) market in the second quarter of 2020 per research firm Counterpoint, continue to do well.

    Usually, TWS sales peak in the third quarter, before edging down in the fourth quarter. The case is different this year, as demand remains strong, probably because many people continue working from home.

    Supply-side sources also believe that other vendors will also stop bundling headphones with their new smartphones. Needless to say, this would further boost wireless earphone shipments.

    According to a forecast by research firm Canalys, TWS sales will grow 29 percent in 2020.

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  • No plans for Netflix office, servers in Vietnam at this time

    No plans for Netflix office, servers in Vietnam at this time

    Netflix does not have plans to open a representative office or place servers in Vietnam, but said it is working with authorities to meet tax obligations.

    The U.S. streaming giant said in a statement Friday that it is for governments to decide the rules on tax, and Netflix complies with applicable laws, but these do not require the company to open a local office, nor to place servers locally.

    It is “supportive of the implementation of a mechanism that will make it possible for foreign service providers like Netflix to collect and remit taxes in Vietnam,” it said.

    A mechanism for this does not currently exist but should be set up in the near future, and it is discussing best practices with the authorities to make it practical for all, it added.

    In other markets where it does not have a local office, it is still able to contribute to growth, remit taxes and protect consumers through simple offshore registration, it claimed.

    This contradicts what a Vietnamese tax official recently said. Vu Manh Cuong, director of the General Department of Taxation’s inspection agency, said on Tuesday that Netflix had been working with the Ministry of Finance and the tax department to set up a representative office and servers in Vietnam to declare tax.

    The department is working to assess Netflix’s revenues in Vietnam since its entry in 2016 for tax collection, he added.

    The Cybersecurity Law requires all foreign businesses which earn an income from online activities in Vietnam to store their data in the country and file tax returns.

    Authorities had earlier said that Netflix, which has around 300,000 subscribers in Vietnam and collects a monthly subscription of VND180,000-260,000 ($7.75-11.19), has never paid tax in the country.

    Other Southeast Asian countries have also been making moves to tax Netflix and other Internet giants. Indonesia imposed a 10 percent value-added tax on sales on technology firms including Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, and Google in July, while Singapore has since January required subscribers to Netflix and other overseas digital services to pay a 7 percent goods and tax.

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  • Spotify’s newest feature finally puts it on par with Apple Music

    Spotify’s newest feature finally puts it on par with Apple Music

    Spotify is the leading music streaming service and the company is continuously trying to improve its platform. Today, it has rolled out a useful new feature to Android and iOS users around the world.

    The feature hasn’t been given an official name but it essentially upgrades in-app search with support for lyrics. Once enabled, Spotify users can search for a song by typing in some of the lyrics.

    That comes in handy when you don’t know the name of the song or artist. It should also reduce the dependence on third-party apps such as SoundHound and Shazam, the latter of which is owned by Apple.

    Speaking of the Tim Cook-led company, this new search feature finally puts Spotify on par with arch-rival Apple Music, which has supported the in-app lyric search for a couple of years now.

    The news comes less than a week after Spotify updated its Collaborative Playlists feature to make it easier to add friends and family members while also introducing user avatars in the playlist header and alongside each song of the episode.
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  • Disney+ hits a crucial figure four years ahead of expectations

    Disney+ hits a crucial figure four years ahead of expectations

    The Disney+ streaming service launched on November 12th and after just two weeks we called it “a real threat to Netflix.” While that was met by more than a few skeptics among our loyal readers saying that we jumped the gun, the streamer has gone from strength to strength. According to Today, the House of Mouse released its fiscal third-quarter earnings and announced that as of Monday, Disney+ had 60.5 million paid subscribers. The company’s goal of reaching 60 million to 90 million paid subscribers by 2024 was achieved four years earlier than expected thanks to the pandemic.

    With many families locked inside because of the coronavirus outbreak, Disney+ provided entertainment featuring characters well-loved by parents and their children. And this afternoon, the entertainment firm announced that with movie theaters still closed, the live-action version of Mulan will launch exclusively on Disney+. The film will debut on the site beginning September 4th. However, it will still cost subscribers an additional $29.99 to watch the film on the platform.

    And as if we needed another streaming service in the world, Disney also announced an upcoming new “general entertainment” streamer that will debut next year; it will use the Star brand that Disney acquired from Fox. The streaming content offered by this streamer will include titles from companies already owned by Disney such as ABC Studios, Fox Television, FX, Freeform, 20th Century Studios, and Searchlight. In many markets, the new service will be integrated with Disney+.

    While the most up-to-date numbers show 60.5 million paid subscribers for Disney+, during the fiscal third quarter that figure was 57.5 million while Hulu had 35.5 subscribers. Add in the 8.5 million ESPN+ paid members during the same three months and overall Disney had over 100 million subscribers paying for its streaming services.

    The real test for Disney will come on Disney+’s one-year anniversary. That’s because the initial batch of Verizon’s unlimited subscribers, who receive a free one-year Disney+ subscription, will have to decide whether or not they want to lay out their own money to continue receiving the service. Unlike most things, Disney, Disney+ is actually very reasonably priced at $6.99 per month or $69.99 for a year. Each account can include seven different user-profiles and four can stream on different screens simultaneously.

    While it is obvious that Disney+ includes Disney’s classic animation like Cinderella, the Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast, it also includes Pixar classics like all of the Toy Story films. If you grew up on Disney Channel shows like That’s So Raven, Even Stevens, Hannah Montana, and Lizzie McGuire, they are all on the app as well. And some shows that were broadcast on network television while produced by Disney, such as the very underrated Boy Meets World, make great binge-watching fare. Star Wars fans can view every film from the series and relive the moments when you first met characters like Luke, Darth Vader, R2D2, and Jar Jar Binks. Other Star Wars related titles can be streamed include Disney+’s first breakout hit The Mandalorian which introduced us to the adorable Baby Yoda.

    Marvel fans can turn to Disney+ to watch the Avengers, Iron Man, and Black Panther films. And adventure junkies will surely find content to watch under the National Geographic heading on the app. While the service might not cater to all tastes as Netflix does, you shouldn’t have a problem discovering something to stream on Disney+.

    Discussing the results of its streaming services during the quarter, Disney CEO Bob Chapek said, “Despite the ongoing challenges of the pandemic, we’ve continued to build on the incredible success of Disney+ as we grow our global direct-to-consumer business. The global reach of our full portfolio of direct-to-consumer services now exceeds an astounding 100 million paid subscriptions — a significant milestone and a reaffirmation of our DTC strategy, which we view as key to the future growth of our company.”

    If you have an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you can download Disney+ from the Apple App Store. Those with an Android device can do the same from the Google Play Store. And the app can be loaded on the web at www.disneyplus.com. But be careful. Watch Disney+ for too long and you might start feeling a little goofy.

  • Spotify launches Group Session feature for Premium users

    Spotify launches Group Session feature for Premium users

    Spotify introduced two weeks ago a special premium plan for couples, which allows two users who reside at the same address to get similar benefits for just $12.99 per month. While the new plan does make sense for a certain category of customers, it’s limited by the fact that both users must have the same address to be eligible for the Spotify Premium Duo plan.

    Spotify announced a new feature that will allow multiple Premium users to share control of their listening sessions with others in real-time. Basically, Spotify Premium users will be able to listen together to their favorite tune, regardless of their location.

    Group Session, as Spotify calls it, enables groups of two to five people to use the feature by sharing a “join” link via messaging apps or social media with each other. Initially released in beta back in May, the new Group Session feature is only available to Premium users and lets both host and guests pause, skip, play, and select tracks in the queue.

    Also, Group Session includes the option to add in choices whenever the host or guests feel like. All changes are made instantaneously, so if you want to change add a new song to the list or skip the current one, these actions will be reflected on all participant devices immediately.

    Spotify Premium users can start taking advantage of the new feature by heading to the Connect menu and tapping on the “Start a group session” option. Then, they will be able to share the invite link they get with their friends or have them scan the Spotify code to join the session.

  • YouTube TV outrageously raises monthly subscription prices

    YouTube TV outrageously raises monthly subscription prices

    It’s not the first time that Google decides to raise YouTube TV subscription prices whenever it felt that the portfolio was large enough to justify the price hikes. Unfortunately, this time it raised the monthly subscription costs by quite a lot and we’re quite sure that many customers will refuse to renew their subscriptions.

    The search giant announced earlier this week that YouTube TV monthly fees will increase from $50 to $65, so customers would have to pay about 30% more. The new price takes effect on June 30 for new subscribers, while existing subscribers will see the changes reflected in their next billing cycle on or after July 30.

    To justify the new price, Google reiterates that it added eight of ViacomCBS’s family channels – BET, CMT, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Network, TV Land and VH1, which will be available starting today. Six other channels will be added to YouTube TV at a later date, including BET Her, MTV2, MTV Classic, Nick Jr., Nick Toon, and TeenNick.

    According to Google, the price increase was necessary because most networks require that YouTube TV include not just some of their channels, but all of them. Perhaps adding one or more flexible plans to its portfolio might allow customers to choose what they want to watch and how much they want to pay.

    Customers who wish to pause or cancel their YouTube TV membership can do it anytime here. Otherwise, you’ll be forced to pay a lot more starting July 30.

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  • YouTube was briefly down across the globe

    YouTube was briefly down across the globe

    Millions of users felt their hearts skipping a beat yesterday as YouTube experienced a major blackout. A glance at downdetector.com shows the problem was global and lasted for about an hour for some users.

    Reports started piling up on Twitter yesterday at around 8 p.m. CDT, complaining of disappearing videos and YouTube showing only ads. Most people lost the connection to YouTube servers altogether. The outage affected YouTube Premium users, too.

    There’s no official statement from YouTube regarding the issue, so the reasons behind the outage remain a mystery. At the moment, the service seems to be fully operational. Were you affected by the temporary outage?

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  • YouTube Music gets improved, easier to explore library on Android

    YouTube Music gets improved, easier to explore library on Android

    YouTube is making changes to its Music app that will make it easier for users to explore some of its features. YouTube Music’s changed library design was first spotted early this month by AndroidPolice, but it was only available to a limited number of Android users.

    The most important improvement is the ability to add songs and albums to your library without having to manually subscribe to the artist. An “Add to Library” option will now appear in the new menu, which will allow you to add albums and songs directly to your library, a couple of screenshots posted on Reddit suggest.

    The organization of the library has been changed too, so now the most important things like artists and songs are front and center. The previous version of the library displayed recent items and shortcuts to downloads and playlists. You had to scroll at the bottom of the list to actually find songs and artists.

    Unfortunately, the update that’s not rolling out to Android devices doesn’t include the new player UI and the Explore tab that YouTube Music announced last week. Another update will most likely enable those new features in the near future.

  • Disney+ app update adds data saver mode on iPhones, iPads

    Disney+ app update adds data saver mode on iPhones, iPads

    The way that Disney is expanding and improving its streaming service across the world is a real tour de force. Disney+ accomplished what took Netflix 7 years in just five months. Two weeks ago, the streaming video service confirmed it has more than 50 million subscribers.

    Even the small things like launching a mobile app or improving streaming quality on all platforms contributed to Disney+’s impressive rise. One of those smaller improvements has just been pushed to Disney+ subscribers using iOS devices.

    The iOS app has just received an update that introduces an extra layer of security and, as the title says, some sort of data saver mode. With the latest version of Disney+, you will be able to choose to log out of your account across all devices when want to reset your email or password.

    Also, the mobile app will now allow iOS users to choose the video playback quality on their home network to save data. Two new options are now available in the app – Automatic and Save Data. If you choose the latter, Disney+ will cap streaming speed to standard quality, whereas Automatic option can theoretically stream up to 4K UHD.

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  • YouTube Music gains new Explore tab in latest update

    YouTube Music gains new Explore tab in latest update

    YouTube Music is getting a new Explore tab on Android and iOS devices, Google announced earlier today. The new feature makes it easier for users to discover new music, including albums, singles, and videos, as well as browse through the service’s catalog of playlists via the Moods & Genre section.

    Those who’ve been using YouTube Music will notice that the new Explore tab replaces the Hotlist tab. Starting today, the new feature will be rolled out to Android and iOS devices, but the complete deployment may take several weeks.

    The Explore tab should be featured as the second tab in YouTube Music and, aside from enabling access to new releases, it will include a new section: Moods & Genres. The new section is meant to help YouTube Music users identify their favorite playlist or genre for different moments.

    Besides Android and iOS, YouTube Music plans to add the new Explore tab to the web player, although no ETA has been provided yet. Also, additional features and enhancements might be added as YouTube is looking for ways to make the new Explore tab the main source for music discovery in YouTube Music.

  • Get SiriusXM free for your iOS or Android device through May 15

    Get SiriusXM free for your iOS or Android device through May 15

    While you’re stuck at home trying to entertain yourself or looking for the latest news about the COVID-19 outbreak, satellite content provider SiriusXM is offering iOS and Android users a free subscription through May 15th. More than 300 channels are available featuring music, news, sports talk, comedy and politics (and some times the lines between the last two are blurred). The SiriusXM “steam free” offer doesn’t require a credit card charge or a commitment to become a paid subscriber down the road.
    The announcement was made by “Shock Jock” Howard Stern, who is broadcasting from home these days. SiriusXM CEO Jim Meyer said, “With so many people asked to stay at home, we are making our full streaming lineup of music, entertainment, news, and information easily accessible to everyone. In the days ahead, we hope it’s a valuable source of information or diversion, a generous mix of fresh live content, and a source of companionship that comes from the hosts on our many shows and channels. And there was no better way to launch the Stream Free content than with Howard this morning.”
  • 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.