Virgin Media ups XL TV price by £3 for Champions League footy

When BT finally announced how much it would charge customers to access its new European football channel, Virgin Media remained quiet on whether those overheads would be passed onto customers. The cable broadcaster has offered BT Sport’s original two channels for no additional cost as part of its TV XL packages, but from September 1st, subscribers will be asked to pay £3 a month extra even if they don’t want to watch Champions League matches.

Virgin Media confirmed today that the TV XL package will now start at £52 (plus line rental) to offset BT’s new cost structure. For those without an XL subscription, the bolt-on rises from £15 to £18. The package will include BT Sport 1 & 2 and BT Sport Europe in HD and the company is keen to stress that the £3 price hike is half of what BT charges (£6 a month for HD) and considerably cheaper than Sky’s £7.49 charge for BT Sport channels.

In June, Virgin Media raised the price of Sky Sports and Sky Movies by £2 per month and 50p per month respectively. It blamed the increase on the way broadcasters are asked to bid for TV rights, which it says leads to over-inflated bids and forces companies to pass the cost onto the consumer. It took its complaint to Ofcom, asking the regulator to wade into the recent Premier League auction, but failed to make an impact on the record £5.14 billion spend.

So, to fit in more English and European football, Virgin Media will pass another cost on to customers. However, it does say that because the price hike comes mid-contract, those who aren’t happy with the change can cancel their XL package at no cost under Ofcom legislation. To try and sweeten the deal, though, Virgin Media will also add Nat Geo Wild HD and Lifestyle HD to existing TV XL packages and make the BT Sport Europe channel available to stream via the Virgin TV Anywhere app. New customers will see the new pricing from August 1st, but existing customers will enjoy an additional month before they see any changes on their bill.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Polar’s new Loop activity tracker sends stats to more apps

If you’ve been mourning the demise of Nike’s Fuelband and want a bare-bones activity tracker, then Polar’s got your back. The fitness company is launching a second-generation Loop that retains much of the look and feel of the original with a sprinkling of new features. The most notable is probably the smart notifications and alarms that we’ve seen come to the company’s other high-end wearables like the V800. The company isn’t specific about what you’ll be able to do, but we’d imagine vibrating call and text alerts will be included as part of the package. Then, there’s the news that the Loop 2 will come with inactivity alerts, and will buzz you Jawbone Up-style, if it thinks you’ve been sat idle for too long.

The other big change is that the new device will now integrate with fitness platforms beyond Polar’s own. Now, users will be able to plug their activity stats into MyFitnessPal, Google Fit and Apple Health to their heart’s content. As with the first edition, Loop 2 will measure your steps, distance and calories, as well as tracking your sleep, with this data being pushed over to your smartphone.

There’s still a Dot-matrix display that’s comprised of 85 LEDs that runs along the top of the device, and it still comes connected with a steel buckle. This time out, however, the Loop 2 comes in the classic black as well as white and pink variations in a soft silicon rather than the stiffer PU. The company hasn’t said if it’s improved the build quality of the device at all, but given how flimsy the original Loop was, we’re keeping our fingers crossed.

The Polar Loop 2 will launch with the two new colors in silicon bands in July, while the black edition in PU won’t arrive until September. No matter your choice of color, however, the device will set you back $119.95 in both the US and Canada. That’s $10 less than the equivalent Fitbit Charge and $50 cheaper than the Garmin Vivosmart, although that comes with a significantly more notifications and an OLED display.

Filed under: Wearables

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Former Reddit CEO says the site’s about to be purged

Steve Huffman’s going to reveal Reddit’s new content policy tomorrow, but one of his predecessors is promising that it’ll be a “purge.” Yishan Wong, who ran the site between 2012 – 2014 and has spoken in support of Ellen Pao, has decided to “declassify a lot of things,” airing plenty of dirty laundry in the process. Wong points to discussions he had with Huffman during his tenure, saying that the co-founder was previously unconcerned with protecting free speech and was blasé about censoring racist, sexist and homophobic threads. He goes onto quote Huffman as saying that “I don’t think there’s a place for such things on Reddit,” giving you a clue as to the tone of tomorrow’s AMA.

“The free speech policy was something I formalized because it seemed like the wiser course at the time. It’s worth stating that in that era, we were talking about whether it was ok for people to post creepy pictures of women taken legally in public. That’s shitty, but it’s a far cry from the extremes of hate that some parts of the site host today. It seemed that allowing creepers to post (anonymized) pictures of women taken in public, in a relatively small subreddit that never showed up on the front page, was a small price to pay for making it clear that we were a place welcoming of all opinions and discourse.

Having made that decision – much of reddit’s current condition is on me. I didn’t anticipate what (some) redditors would decide to do with freedom. reddit has become a lot bigger – yes, a lot better – AND a lot worse. I have to take responsibility.”

Wong also takes the blame, personally, for the perilous state that the site currently finds itself in, saying that r/creepshots was a watershed moment for him. The executive said that he decided not to ban “creepy pictures of women” as it was a “relatively small subreddit that never showed up on the front page.” He felt that giving it a free pass was “a small price to pay” for making it clear that we were a place welcoming of all opinions and discourse.”

The other notable point in the essay is the belief that the deposed Ellen Pao was, contrary to public belief, advocated against wide-scale bans on the site. When Pao banned r/fatpeoplehate, it was because it incited “off-site harassment, not discussing fat-shaming.” Wong adds that Pao “upholds free speech and tolerates the ugly side of humanity because it is so important” — as well as the more cynical point that the former Interim CEO’s gender and career provided a shield against criticism.

“What all the white-power racist-sexist neckbeards don’t understand is that with her at the head of the company, the company would be immune to accusations of promoting sexism and racism: she is literally Silicon Valley’s #1 Feminist Hero, so any “SJWs” would have a hard time attacking the company for intentionally creating a bastion (heh) of sexist/racist content.”

In closing, Wong issues a warning to the Reddit community that was successful in ousting Pao in the wake of the Victoria Taylor scandal. Just after saying that Huffman now “has the moral authority” to purge the “ugly side” of the site, he closes his piece by adding “We tried to let you govern yourselves and you failed, so now The Man is going to set some Rules. Admittedly, I can’t say I’m terribly upset.”

Filed under: Internet

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Via: The Verge, Casey Johnston (Twitter)

Source: Yishan Wong (Reddit)