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Tag: video

  • Upcoming NVIDIA Shield TV to feature Google Stadia support

    Upcoming NVIDIA Shield TV to feature Google Stadia support

    News about NVIDIA working on a new Shield TV set-top box emerged over the weekend, but not many details on the device were mentioned at that time. We only learned that the Android TV box will include a more powerful processor and that it will run Android 9.0 Pie. NVIDIA’s plans that the upcoming Shield TV will be centered on Google’s Stadia service, which allows users to stream games on just about any device with a display.

    On top of that, NVIDIA wants to release a new controller with the upcoming console and a more advanced remote. Also, the cheapest version of the console will come without the controller to allow those who ordered the Stadia controller to save some money when they buy the new NVIDIA Shield TV.

    Embracing Google Stadia’s game streaming service is a bold move from NVIDIA, as the company will most likely see a decrease in market share for its own GeForce NOW cloud gaming service that aims to do the same thing for subscribers.

    Finally, while we don’t have a price for the upcoming NVIDIA Shield TV, it appears that the new console is expected to be launched on the market by the end of this year, so there’s still time for NVIDIA to change its strategy for whatever reason.

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  • YouTube TV gives away some freebies to long-time subscribers

    YouTube TV gives away some freebies to long-time subscribers

    YouTube TV is giving fans a bit of recognition for being loyal to the service for a long time. If you’re not a YouTube TV subscriber or just subscribed recently, you’re not be getting this freebie, but don’t be disappointed, perhaps the promotion will be back at some point in the future.

    But right now, many long-time YouTube TV subscribers are getting free Showtime this summer. You don’t have to do anything to get the deal, if YouTube TV thinks you’re subscribed for enough time, you’ll be getting Showtime for no cost until September 5, 2019.

    Showtime subscription costs $10.99/month, so YouTube TV is giving some of its subscribers a little bit over $30 for free for being loyal. It’s not much, but it’s free and those who like Showtime may continue to pay for the service after September 5th.

    Think of it like a 3-month trial rather than the 7-day trial that Showtime typically offers to those who wish to try its service before becoming a subscriber. Unfortunately, it’s unclear for how long you have to be subscribed to receive the freebie, but if you qualify for the promotion, you’ll most certainly be notified by YouTube.

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  • Spotify free-tier users will be targeted with more relevant ads

    Spotify free-tier users will be targeted with more relevant ads

    Spotify has found a way to better generate more revenue from the ads it delivers to users of its free music streaming service. Although today’s announcement is aimed at advertisers that will now be able to target ads based on the category of podcasts people listen to, users of Spotify’s free service are the ones affected by the decision.

    Up until now, Spotify’s free-tier users would be targeted by ads based on the music they listen to, such as genre or playlist, but starting today, advertisers will be able to target them more specifically based on the category of podcasts they like.

    Spotify said that this is just the first step towards building a solid advertising strategy around podcasts, which was started not long ago by the partnership with Samsung and 3M.

    We aspire to develop a more robust advertising solution for podcasts that will allow us to layer in the kind of targeting, measurement, and reporting capabilities we have for ads that run alongside other content experiences like music and video.

    The new ads will play between songs for those who don’t pay for Spotify Premium, so that doesn’t change. However, free-tier listeners will notice that there are now more specific, depending on the podcasts they listen. The new capability is now rolling out to 10 market: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, UK, and the US.

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  • Spotify brings its lightweight Stations app

    Spotify brings its lightweight Stations app

    Spotify users in the United States will have one more alternative app that will allow them to listen to their favorite radio station starting today. Suggestively named Stations, Spotify’s lightweight app was originally launched in Australia last year.

    Although it’s still considered an experiment, Stations is aimed at users to prefer a more streamlined music experience. It’s worth mentioning that while the app was initially available to Android users only, Spotify released an iOS version last month.

    Starting today, Stations is available in the United States on both Android and iOS platforms. If you’re not a premium Spotify customer, you’ll hear ads in Stations, but if you pay for the music streaming service, you’ll get special features and ad-free listening.

    Also, Stations allows users to filter music by genre, decade, activity and more, but the more the app is used, the more in-depth options users will have at their disposal. Of course, the option to customize your own playlists is available as well.

    If you’re living in the US and give the app a try, you can now download Spotify Stations for free via App Store and Google Play Store.

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  • Facebook Portal now has its own Android app

    Facebook Portal now has its own Android app

    If you feel that you don’t have enough Facebook in your life, you’re free to buy the company’s new smart display – Portal. Unlike Amazon and Google, Facebook had developed Portal with video calling in mind, so that’s pretty what you’ll probably want to do most of the time with it.

    The Portal, in case you didn’t know, offers Facebook users with a new way to video chat with their friends. If you don’t like texting through Messenger too much and rather talk to your friends, Facebook Portal is the perfect device for it.

    And now that Facebook has decided to launch a Portal standalone Android app, you’ll now be able to better manage photos and videos that you want to store on the smart speaker. Having the app installed on the phone will allow users to send photos directly to the Portal’s Superframe.

    Also, you can use the Portal app to call the smart speaker in your home and talk to household members. Or, you can add people in your home to your Portal so that they can use the smart speaker with their own Facebook accounts.

    It’s a nifty app that makes it easier to take advantage of Facebook’s smart speaker by adding new functionality to the device. The Portal app has already been listed in the Google Play Store and you can download it for free.

  • A TikTok smartphone is reportedly being developed

    A TikTok smartphone is reportedly being developed

    Amazon created the Fire Phone to promote its services and Facebook partnered with HTC on a dedicated smartphone. Both products turned out to be complete failures, but that isn’t stopping the developers of viral app TikTok from creating their own device.

    Industry sources have claimed TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, is currently developing its own smartphone that’ll arrive pre-installed with the company’s range of apps which also include content aggregation platform TopBuzz and news platform News Republic.

    The smartphone will apparently be created by talent ByteDance acquired earlier this year from Chinese smartphone brand Smartisan. Details about the design and specs haven’t yet been revealed, but the device will most likely focus on the budget segment and teenage users. After all, TikTok is most popular in markets such as India and China, where cheaper devices are the best-sellers.

    It’s unclear at this stage if ByteDance will try to tackle the European and US markets, but if it does so the device could be met with a lukewarm reception just like Amazon and Facebook’s offerings from years ago. After all, why bother buying a TikTok smartphone when you can simply download the app on any other phone?

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  • Dialog Axiata enters partnership with Netflix

    Dialog Axiata enters partnership with Netflix

    Sri Lanka’s Dialog Axiata has announced a strategic partnership involving the provision of carrier billing for the popular streaming platform.

    Under the agreement, all Dialog postpaid mobile customers will be able to add their Netflix subscription fee to their monthly bill.

    These customers will also be provided with 5GB of uncharged data per month for Netflix streaming.

    Netflix features including downloads for offline viewing, screen switching and others will be available to Dialog subscribers.

    “Our partnership with Netflix gives our customers access to their stellar catalog of original and licensed content, thereby strengthening the content portfolio offered by Dialog ViU, “Dialog Axiata senior GM for global and content services Mangala Hettiarachchi said.

    “Dialog customers can now watch the best of content available on Netflix on the best video network in Sri Lanka ad free – anytime, anywhere, and on any Internet-connected screen. Customers can activate the service on their mobile and watch on any screen including their smart television.”

  • Ferrari Considering Netflix And esports Involvement

    Ferrari Considering Netflix And esports Involvement

    Ferrari is considering engaging with Netflix on a second Formula One documentary as well as joining the rest of the 10 teams in the esports world championship, team boss Mattia Binotto said on Friday. Ferrari and champions Mercedes did not cooperate on the successful ‘Drive to Survive’ 10-part fly-on-the-wall series filmed by Netflix last season, arguing that they needed to focus on the title battle. When their cars or drivers did feature, it was from the official world feed television footage.”It’s certainly an interesting program. We were not participating last season as Ferrari,” Binotto told reporters at the Spanish Grand Prix, the fifth round of the 21 race championship.

    “We are considering it at the moment. We have not taken our final decision, so it’s something we will do in the next few weeks.”

    Formula One’s managing director Sean Bratches said this month that he expected a second series to go ahead, with filming already underway. Ferrari is the only ones without a presence in the official F1 esports championship, which is in its third season and involves the teams only later in the year. Mercedes won both titles last year, as in the real world.

    Binotto said Ferrari’s stance on that could change as well.

    “Esport is increasing in terms of interest and certainly as Ferrari, we are looking seriously into it,” he said.

    “We are not yet fully committed to the program but it’s something where the discussions are ongoing and we will very soon make our own decision.”

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  • Google Duo group video calling goes live

    Google Duo group video calling goes live

    Google Duo, the video chat mobile app developed by the Mountain View company, received a couple of important updates in the last year or so. Among them, group video calling was added to the app less than a month ago, but it was only made available in a few countries.

    Starting today, Google has expanded the availability of the group video calling feature to more countries, including the United States, Canada, and India. Even Google seems to confirm the new feature is available in “select regions,” but no list of markets is available yet, so we’ll have to rely on reports coming from users.

    With group video calling, Google Duo users will be able to select up to four contacts that they can call simultaneously. Simply swipe down and press the “Create Group” option in order to start adding the contacts you want to call.

    Although the feature only supports four contacts in a group call, Google plans to slowly increase the number of people that you can call simultaneously with Google Duo, although no timeframe is available at the moment.

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  • Twitter Allows Media Retweeting

    Twitter Allows Media Retweeting

    We would love to tell you that Twitter now offers an editing tool, making it easier to correct mistakes and spelling errors. We know of at least one guy wearing a long red tie, living in a white house that would really appreciate the ability to go back and change tweets. And we’d love to be able to tell you that Twitter has added such a feature, but alas we can’t. We can, however, tell you about something that Twitter did add to its iOS app, Android app, and its mobile website.

    Twitter announced that it will now allow users to add images, videos, and GIFs to their retweets. It’s easy to do, actually. On a tweet you’re viewing, tap on the retweet icon on the bottom toolbar. Click on “retweet with comment” and add your photo or other media. Twitter says that as easy as it is to do, it actually was hard for it to design in a way that wouldn’t look too crowded to the user.

    “We found it was challenging for people to quickly understand all the content in a Retweet with media. This was due to the layout; two large tweets stacked on top of each other.”-Twitter

    To make sure that a retweet with media attached doesn’t look overwhelming, Twitter puts the original tweet, including the author’s avatar, inside a smaller box. This allows the image, video or GIF you’ve added to your retweet to appear in full size.

    While Twitter users are going to be happy with this new feature, they might be much happier if tweets could be edited. Perhaps that will be the next shoe to drop.

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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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  • YouTube TV’s Subscription Fee is Going Up

    YouTube TV’s Subscription Fee is Going Up

    There are a few different forces fighting each other with YouTube TV right now. First is that the streaming service is still relatively new, especially taking into account how recently it was made widely available in the U.S., and it is likely lagging in terms of subscriber numbers. Second is the content selection available for YouTube TV, which is pretty good and compares well with other services, but depending on what you want, YouTube TV might not have it. And third is the price, which directly impacts, and is impacted by, those first two items.

    For the earliest of adopters, YouTube TV was priced at $35 per month. Then came a small price bump to $40 when YouTube TV added Turner network channels, including TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network, Turner Classic Movies, NBA TV and the MLB Network. When that price hike happened, as is often the case, original subscribers were grandfathered in to the original price. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with YouTube TV’s newest price hike.

    Google announced that YouTube TV will now cost $50 per month — or $55 per month if you subscribe via an Apple device, in order to offset the Apple tax — and that new price doesn’t just apply to new customers but to all customers. New customers will have to pay the new price starting today, but existing subscribers won’t see the bump until after May 13th. Of course, the price hike is coming with new content, this time from Discovery, including Discovery Channel, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, and MotorTrend. Plus OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network will become available later this year.

    It’s still a competitive deal considering the content made available, but a $10 or $15 change can be a lot, especially when the point of cord cutting is to save money.

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  • Google Duo’s update saves users from overages and throttled data speeds

    Google Duo’s update saves users from overages and throttled data speeds

    Google Duo is the company’s video chatting app that allows users to stream video, make audio-only calls, and send video and voice messages. The app is available for Android and iOS users. As you might imagine, engaging in a video chat uses plenty of data. So Duo users used to be able to toggle on a feature that would limit the amount of mobile data they consumed while employing Duo.

    An update to the app replaces the Limit Mobile Data toggle with Data Saving Mode, which is turned off by default. The new feature works to lower the consumption of both cellular data and Wi-Fi data when Duo is being used. After all, many wireless carriers and home Wi-Fi providers have data caps. Breaching these caps can result in overages or throttled data speeds, two punishments that no Duo user wants to receive.

    To lower mobile and Wi-Fi data consumption, Google drops the quality of a video chat to a lower resolution. Before you decide whether to use Data Saving Mode on a video chat, a preview will show you what the video chat will look like with the feature disabled (again, the default setting) and what it will look like in the lower resolution used when the feature is enabled. With Data Saving Mode toggled on, you won’t be the only one saving mobile and Wi-Fi data. That’s because the party on the other end of the video chat will also be viewing and sending videos in low resolution, helping to lower his/her mobile and Wi-Fi data usage as well.

    This new feature, found on version 51 of Duo, is being sent out via a server-side update. If you’re an impatient sort, you can find this version of the app offered on the Google Play Store.

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  • Google offers Android users one 99-cent movie rental service

    Google offers Android users one 99-cent movie rental service

    Haven’t seen Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper yet in A Star is Born? Google will let you rent it for only 99 cents from the Google Play Store. Android users are receiving a notification today about a special offer allowing them to pick one movie to rent from the Google Play Store library for 99 cents (+ Tax). The offer expires on April 21st. Once an Android user takes Google up on the deal, he or she will have 30 days to finish viewing the film selected. The video rented will play in the highest quality for the device being used to view it (4K, HD or SD).

    Typically, a movie like A Star is Born will cost $5.99 to rent in 4K, so Google is offering a good deal here, even though it is limited to one rental. Most likely Google is trying to get Android users to rent a film in the hope that the experience is so enjoyable, they decide to repeat it a number of times, paying full price, of course.

    There are plenty of movies available to rent for 99 cents (+ Tax). You might want to consider one of these:

    • Mary Poppins Returns
    • Aquaman
    • Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
    • Bohemian Rhapsody
    • Get Out
    • Ralph Breaks the Internet

    Remember, you only get one shot at a 99 cent rental, so choose wisely. Watch for the notification on your Android phone, or open the Google Play Store app on your device and tap on the Movies & TV heading.

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  • Update to Google’s Duo changes how you use the application

    Update to Google’s Duo changes how you use the application

    The Google Duo app allows users to stream live video, make calls or send video and voice messages to their Duo contacts. A server-side update performed by Google has changed how users select contacts, and whether they are streaming them video or making a voice call to them. In the olden days (like a week or so ago), one would open the Duo app, go to contacts, and tab the video or audio tabs before selecting the recipient.
    After the update, when you open the Duo app, you first select the contact that you want to connect with. Only then do you decide if you are going to stream live video or simply make a phone call to your selected contact. If you want to send a message, as soon as you open Duo, you swipe down on the screen. You then are given the option of creating a voice or video message. Once you create that message, you are given the option of sending it to five contacts simultaneously.
    The Google Duo app is available from both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store for Android and iOS devices, respectively.
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