The COVID-19 pandemic can be blamed for both good news and bad news at Netflix!
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it confined most of us to our homes and dramatically increased our demand for online and streaming media. Netflix rode a wave of soaring subscriptions as a bored public sought an escape from the constant reminder of our predicament.
In 2020, Netflix added a whopping 36.5 million new subscribers globally which was easily its best year for subscriber growth. By contrast, 2019 had seen a decline in growth from 28.6 million to 27.8 million the previous year.
While more users were signing on to the service, Netflix was hit by the same production problems as others in the industry. Filming of its popular TV shows and much of its new movies and other content ground to a halt as COVID-19 restrictions also kept directors, producers, actors, studio engineers, writers, and everyone else required for production at home.
In the first quarter of 2021, Netflix recorded just shy of 4 million new subscribers, down dramatically from over 15 million for the same period a year earlier. Worse, it warned shareholders that it only expects to add just 1 million new subscribers in Q2.
Social and messaging platform Discord is walking away from talks over a multi-billion dollar deal with Redmond-giant Microsoft.
Discord witnessed rapid growth last year as more people were staying at home as part of COVID-19 restrictions. The service enables users to gather in public or private channels to chat, post images and other media, and also to Direct Message each other.
Voice chat is also supported, as is the ability to share screens or camera feeds. Discord servers dedicated to a single topic (tv shows, sports teams, musical artists, video games, etc.) are very popular, and the company earns revenue by selling premium Nitro subscriptions at $9.99 per month, or $99.99 for the year.
Nitro members can "boost" servers to unlock extra features, and also have access to exclusive emojis and other benefits. In 2020, Discord reported revenue of over $130 million driven by Nitro subscriptions.
Microsoft has been looking to expand its web services in recent years. It scooped up video games outfit ZeniMax Media in a $7.5 billion deal last month. Additionally, it acquired Nuance Communications and its AI and speech recognition technology, for $16 billion this month.
However, these acquisitions came on the back of its public failure to buy TikTok almost a year ago.
One of the biggest tech acquisitions ever gets slowed´down. American Nvidia has already agreed to buy UK-based ARM for a whopping $40 billion.
But now British authorities have intervened and have requested a report on impact to its national security. ARM is the chip designer whose chips power basically all the cell phones in the world: Androids, iPhones and more. Furthermore, Apple's new M1 chip is based on ARM technology and Microsoft is keen to push its Windows to run on ARM-based computers, too.
Britain's Digital Secretary said "Following careful consideration of the proposed takeover of ARM, I have today issued an intervention notice on national security grounds. As a next step and to help me gather the relevant information, the UK's independent competition authority will now prepare a report on the implications of the transaction, which will help inform any further decisions."
The deal would merge the leading GPU manufacturer Nvidia with the dominant mobile phone (and increasingly notable computer) chip maker.
Modestly priced, awesome battery life, and from a brand known for its quality products! What could go wrong? This is exactly what many of us thought when OnePlus finally decided to launch its own smartwatch, aptly named OnePlus Watch.
We got the OnePlus Watch for review just before its official launch date and were pretty excited to see it in action.
Unfortunately, this time around, the expectations were not met. For us, the OnePlus Watch is a prime example of a product that doesn't have a focus and was simply launched because everybody else had one.
Logitech, best known for its keyboards and mice, has decidedd to end its once-popular Harmony line of universal remote controls.
Logitechh's Harmony remotes have been praised by many and they had their heyday in first decade of 2000s. About 15 years ago many countries went through digtalization of TVs and there was a need for separate STB in order to get digital TV transmissions to old, analog TV sets. Furthermore, the decade also marked the peak time for DVDs. Thus, many households had several peripherals connected to the TV: STB, DVD player and various others. So, the need for remotes that could command them all was also at its peak.
Since then, things have changed: streaming services have largely replaced DVDs, TVs themselves have the streaming service apps integrated into them and built-in digital TV receivers are commonplace with TV sets. So, the need for universal remotes has also diminished.
Company predicted the trend early on and considered selling its Harmony business back in 2013, but decided to keep it in house instead. But now, Logitech has announced that they have stopped manufacturing Harmony remotes for good.
One of the few major studios that hasn't tried to create its own Netflix competitor is Sony Pictures. Now, Sony Pictures has decided to license all its upcoming movie releases exclusively to Netflix.
Deal includes upcoming sequels to award-winning 2018 Spider-Man animation film, Uncharted movies and more. All Sony's big screen releases from year 2022 onwards will be made available to Netflix shortly after their theatrical release.
Furthermore, the deal includes also all Sony Pictures' direct-to-streaming movies and select past titles from its vast movie catalog. It should be noted that while Marvel is nowadays part of Disney empire, Sony has full film rights to some Marvel's characters - most notably, to those appearing in Spider-Man universe. Thus, while other Marvel movies and series are moving to Disney+, those owned by Sony will be Netflix-exclusive.
Sony's press release doesn't give out much more information about the deal. The length nor the price of the deal are not made public.
Sony's Spider-Mar: Into the Spider-verse won the best animated film Academy Award back in 2019. All its upcoming sequels can be found on Netflix under this deal.
World's largest pure demo party, Revision has been held annually in Germany since 2011. This time around the event was held remotely, due the global COVID-19 pandemic. But during the event, the streaming platform provider Twitch decided to ban the event's stream, without warning.
Twitch has recently expanded to various gaming and demo events, trying to expand its reach beyond game streaming platform. Thus, Revision had chosen Twitch as its streaming provider in order to cater the event, competitions and all things involved to its virtual visitors.
During the Saturday afternoon, however, Twitch hhad decided to block the Revision's stream - without warning and with no reason given why they banned the stream. Revision party relies heavily on volunteers who have poured thousands of hours of work to ensure that the event runs as smoothly as possible. Not to mention all the demo groups that have invested hundreds of hours to their art that was meant to be showcased in Revision competition.
On the very last days of the Soviet Union, a local TV channel in Leningrad released its own movie version of iconic J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings book trilogy. Movie was aired once and was thought to be lost forever, until now.
The TV channel Leningrad Television aired the movie on the very same year the Soviet Union eventually collapsed. As years passed by, many enthusiasts have tried to find the movie - or even bootleg copies of it, to no avail. But just over the Easter weekend, the TV channel's successor, 5TV, added the entire movie to YouTube.
Movie, called Khraniteli, has gathered already over 700'000 views online, despite it being - well, obviously - in Russian language. As the budget wasn't exactly a match to the movies made by Peter Jackson in early 2000s, it is still a notable piece of history.
You can watch the entire movie here, it has been split into two parts:
Korean tech giant LG is reported to end its mobile phone business line completely.
Company's phone business has been a loss-maker for more than 6 years now and company has previously announced that it is seeking for "various options" for its mobile phone business. Now, according to Korean sources it seems that company has made a decision to quit the mobile phone business completely.
According to the reports by The Korean Times, LG will shift its current mobile phone workforce to company's other business segments and to cease the mobile phone business for good.
Meanwhile, LG's shares have soared in Korean stock market, boosted by strong demand for its flat-screen TVs and home appliances. It has also grown to be one of the biggest component providers for electronic vehicles, boosted by its strong presence in battery manufacturing business.
Company hasn't officially confirmed the rumors about its mobile phone business yet, but according to The Korean Times, such announcement is expected on early next week.
Back in the day, OnePlus made its mark among tech enthusiasts by bringing high-end phone features to the mid-range price segment. It originally dubbed its phones as "flagship killers" and managed to do exactly that. However, as the competition has intensified, OnePlus has had to push its pricing up each year to maintain its position as a manufacturer with extremely fast Android phones.
This time around, OnePlus's main focus is on camera technology, as it has been widely regarded as the only area where the company's phones haven't been able to properly compete against the big guys like Samsung and Apple. To push its cameras to the next level, OnePlus has partnered with iconic Swedish camera brand, Hasselblad, and has also continued its on-going partnership with Sony to develop a custom imaging sensor for its flagship device.
We got the OnePlus 9 Pro for our review team well before its launch, so we had time to assess whether the company has finally managed to create a phone that is truly superb, in all areas possible.
The Chinese smartphone company has today announced their highly anticipated smartwatch, OnePlus Watch. The company's first smartwatch was accompanied by the release of the new OnePlus 9 Series smarpthones.
Interestingly, OnePlus has decided to not go with Google's smartphone OS, or any other common smartphone platform, instead they've created their own.
This Apple-like move might make it easier for OnePlus to customize the experience but amount and quality of apps is reliant on OnePlus as well.
The smartwatch has a clear focus on health but it's packed with features, like GPS and Warp fast charging. You can charge week's battery life in just 20 minutes.
OnePlus has created the body from stainless steel, although there's also a special cobalt version, and watch face is measured at 46 mm.
While the watch is designed to be used alongside OnePlus 9, you can use it with any Android device or even iPhones, although that is still a work in progress.
OnePlus Watch is IP68 water and dust resistant, has a 15 day battery life, features over 110 workout modes, can measure blood oxygen, and offers 4 gigabytes storage for in-device music
OnePlus Watch starts at $159 with Cobalt special edition coming later.
OnePlus has today announced their new OnePlus 9 Series smartphones. The new OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro aim to impress you with new Hasselblad cameras, better performance, and improved displays.
Let's take the most drastic change first which comes with the cooperation between the Chinese smartphone manufacturer and one of the world's most celebrated camera brands, Hasselblad. OnePlus promises that this has resulted in one of the best cameras on any phone.
The Hasselblad Camera for Mobile platform provides more accurate colors and better allround photo quality, OnePlus says. Behind the tuning of the colors and quality are hundreds of tests provided by Hasselblad ambassadors and professional photographers.
Both models have the largely the same camera specs including a 48 MP default shooter and a 50 MP wide angle camera, but only the OnePlus 9 Pro has a telephoto camera capable of optical zoom.
As the Elon Musk's company, SpaceX expands its Starlink satellite constellation, the need for traffic laws for space has grown significantly. Now, SpaceX and Nasa have agreed to create traffic rules for space.
SpaceX's Starlink satellite network requires unholy amount of small communication satellites, located in Earth's geostationary orbit. Company has applied permissions for a whopping 42'000 Starlink satellites to be deployed. Currently there are over 1'200 Starlink satellites in the orbit already.
Such massive number of satellites poses a potential disaster for other organizations operating in space. Thus, the agreement, dubbed as Joint Spaceflight Safety Agreement, was announced by both, Nasa and SpaceX.
Under the agreement, both parties agree that in case of an inevitable collision, it is SpaceX that will steer away, using the ion thrusters on each hStarlink satellite. Without such agreement in place, a situation could happen where both, Nasa and SpaceX try to avoid collision and direct their instruments to the same direction, causing the collision anyway.
As the world is littered with online streaming services, the habit of sharing streaming service passwords with your friends has become a standard practice for many. This has been the de facto status for Netflix for years now, but company hasn't cared much about it. Not until now, it seems.
Handful of people all across the world have seen lately a message from Netflix asking whether they live with the account owner or not. Message has stated simply:
If you don't live with the owner of this account, you need your own account to keep watching.
To continue watching after this notification, Netflix has sent a confirmation code via email or SMS to the account owner. Only by entering the confirmation code, could the watching be continued.
Netflix has stated that this is a small-scale test it is conducting. Netflix's official Terms of service clearly states that sharing passwords to those who don't live within the same household is banned. Their ToS states that account is for "personal and non-commercial use only and may not be shared with individuals beyond your household".
The test might hint that company is about to end account sharing among friends somehow in near future. Spotify started cracking down on unauthorized family account sharing back in 2019, so it might be that Netflix has watched Spotify to do the dirty work - and realize that it didn't have any negative impact on Spotify.
Timelapse videos are getting more and more popular: you can see them in social media and in ads all over the world. We wanted to create a guide on how to make your own timelapse videos with free, open source apps, but with ease and with excellent video quality.
Timelapse videos are basically sped up videos, focused on specific object or scenery for the duration of the video. Most typical timelapse videos show a scenery, from dawn until dusk.
For the purpose of this guide, we went through tons of various timelapse apps and eventually found the best suited for our purposes: Open Camera app for Android. It is fully free, open source app that doesn't have any ads or doesn't try to make you buy more features. Furthermore, it allows full control of video quality, speed of the timelapse video and more.
Sure, many phones ship with manufacturer's own camera app that might have some kind of timelapse feature built-in. However, we feel that Open Camera provides much more flexibility than most stock apps we've seen so far.
The COVID-19 pandemic can be blamed for both good news and bad news at Netflix!
Social and messaging platform Discord is walking away from talks over a multi-billion dollar deal with Redmond-giant Microsoft.
One of the biggest tech acquisitions ever gets slowed´down. American Nvidia has already agreed to buy UK-based ARM for a whopping $40 billion.
