CBS and Showtime have two million internet-only subscribers
While CBS is busy licensing content to Netflix for display outside of the US and Canada, here its own streaming services are off to a good start. On today’s earnings call, execs said CBS All Access and the streaming version of Showtime have combined to reach more than two million subscribers, with the number “about evenly split” between the two.
$CBS Moonves: “CBS All Access and Showtime OTT streaming services have surpassed two million subscribers”
— CBS IR (@CBSInvestors) July 28, 2016
This is all well ahead of the upcoming All Access-exclusive Star Trek series, and in response to questions, the company stated that its service is helping to reach customers who get their TV only over the internet. The demographic is apparently “younger, skews slightly female…and consumes double the amount of content” as traditional viewers. The CBS digital news channel wasn’t included in those numbers, but still had “record” views in June. CEO Les Moonves claimed Star Trek: Discovery will be profitable “even before it launches,” which makes it less likely we’ll see any changes made to the current strategy.
Source: CBS Q2 2016 Earnings
Yahoo researchers built a powerful new online abuse detector
A team of researchers at Yahoo Labs have plumbed the depths of their company’s massive comment sections to come up with something that might actually be useful for detecting and eventually curbing rampant online abuse. Using a first-of-its-kind data set built from offensive article comments flagged by Yahoo editors, the research team was able to develop an algorithm that, according Technology Review, is the best automated abuse filter built to date.
Most current abuse filters rely on a combination of blacklisted terms, common expressions and syntax clues to catch hate speech online, but the Yahoo team went a step further and applied machine learning to their massive repository of flagged comments. Using a technique called “word embedding,” which processes words as vectors rather than either simply positive or negative, the Yahoo system can recognize an offensive string of words, even if the individual words are inoffensive on their own. According to the their findings, the system was able to correctly identify abusive language from the same data set about 90 percent of the time. While that figure is impressive, the ever-changing nature of hate speech means no system — not even a human one — will ever truly be able to know what’s offensive 100 percent of the time.
As Alex Krasodomski-Jones, an online abuse researcher with the UK’s Centre for Analysis of Social Media, told Technology Review, “Given 10 tweets, a group of humans will rarely all agree on which ones should be classed as abusive, so you can imagine how difficult it would be for a computer.”
Apple to Debut Revamped Apple Store App With ‘For You’ Recommendations
Apple will soon introduce a redesigned version of its dedicated Apple Store app, reports Bloomberg. The new version of the app, which is used to make online purchases of Apple products, will feature custom recommendations for new products to buy based on purchase history.
Citing sources with knowledge of Apple’s plans, Bloomberg’s report says Apple is likely to include a dedicated “For You” tab in the Apple Store app, mirroring the “For You” sections of the Apple Music and Apple News apps. This tab will offer up purchase suggestions “based on prior orders.”
The current Apple Store app, while outfitted with general product recommendations displayed in the “Featured” tab, does not give customers personalized suggestions on what to purchase. It is not known why Apple is making the shift, but it’s likely being done in an effort to introduce customers to new products they would not otherwise discover.
The shift toward using recommendations would mark a change for Apple, where privacy concerns have traditionally usurped efforts to use customer-behavior data to garner more revenue. While its music-streaming and news apps also recommend tracks and stories, they primarily do so based on interests that customers have chosen to declare. Amazon and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, meanwhile, regularly mine a user’s prior tastes and purchases to generate business by recommending complementary products.
Apple plans to introduce its redesigned Apple Store app in the near future, perhaps within the next two weeks. It will be a universal app that works on both the iPhone and the iPad.
Tag: Apple retail
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Osmo Creative Set Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
Osmo wants your kids’ art saved for posterity, not just yellowing on the fridge door. The company makes educational tech products and accessories, including a line of drawing and programming tools for the iPad. Its latest package, called the Creative Set, combines a new app, called Monster, with a whiteboard, markers and an eraser, plus a handful of previously released apps.
Like other Osmo software, you’ll also need another product the company sells, the Osmo base and mirror, which is available separately. Your iPad sits upright in the stand, while a small angled mirror rests on the top of the iPad, and allows the iPad camera to see what you’re drawing (on the whiteboard, with the markers) in real time.
Jacob Krol/CNET
The whole thing sounds a bit complicated, but in practice it’s very simple. Like previous Osmo apps, the new Monster app uses a player’s pen-on-paper (or marker on whiteboard) input to drive the software.
Upon launching the application, Mo the Monster appears and it moves right into a question and answer game. Mo will ask for something to be drawn, like a fruit or a friend. The drawings get scanned by the iPad’s camera via the mirror add-on and are imported into the app, where they are used in animated presentations, including a magic show. You can even share the drawings via email in the gallery section after the show.
Jacob Krol/CNET
I had a few days to play around with the set and application, and I have to admit: I think I would’ve enjoyed playing with this when I was a kid. The setup is a little complex, with multiple pieces of hardware required, but it works as it’s supposed to most of the time. In hands-on use, I found having the right lighting can be a big factor. If the room is too dark, the app will not pick up the entire drawing.
All of this can still get repetitive, even with different questions being asked, and I’m hoping that future updates will build off of the magic show storyline and offer other experiences. An update to the scanning quality would be nice to see, but an optimal lighting environment can fix this issue.
This Creative Set is available now for $49 in the US and is coming soon to the UK and Australia for £39 or AU$69. The Monster application is included, as is access to Osmo’s similar Newton and Masterpiece applications. Coming soon, the Creative Kit ($75, £57 or AU$100) will include everything from the Creative Set, plus the base and mirror.
Facebook collects your best birthday wishes in new recap videos
Facebook is already the hub for online birthday wishes from people you haven’t seen in person since the late 90s, but the site isn’t done celebrating your special day once the clock strikes midnight. Facebook has rolled out Birthday Recap Videos, a 45-second collection of the top wall posts you received on your birthday, including photos and text comments, that appears in your News Feed the following day.
The video features a colorful cake that opens up to reveal the posts and you’re able to edit the included comments before sharing the whole thing with the wider online world, if you so wish. In order to see a Birthday Recap Video, you’ll need to receive three or more Facebook posts or photos on your big day.
Whatever Facebook has been doing recently, whether that’s new birthday videos or a lightweight Android app for emerging markets, it’s working: The company just enjoyed one of its most successful quarters, racking up $2.05 billion in profit with 1.71 billion monthly active users. Happy day, indeed.
Source: Facebook
Samsung Galaxy S8 edge: What does a curvy Note 7 mean for next year’s flagships?
Will the Galaxy S8 have a flat display, or is Samsung going all-in on the edge?
Unless the past several weeks of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 leakage have been part of some elaborate trolling campaign, it’s looking like the next member of Samsung’s popular Galaxy Note family will feature a curved “edge screen,” like the Galaxy S7 edge.
If that happens, it raises an interesting question about the future of the Galaxy S line: Is Samsung going all-in on edge? Could this year’s regular Galaxy S7 be the last flat flagship?
Sure, there’s some semi-useful software behind it, but the edge screen remains mostly an aesthetic feature, and like anything of that nature it has its admirers and its detractors. The prospect of only a curved Note 7 being available has already irked some on the forums, with burry photos of a flat-screened Chinese Note 7 prototype giving hope to those wanting a more traditional design.
Expect even more controversy if there’s no flat Galaxy S8 in the following year.
So let’s break down how it might happen — and why it might not.
The case for an edge-only Galaxy S8
It’s really hard to differentiate in the high-end space, and Samsung, with its curved SuperAMOLED panels, is in a unique position to offer one of the most eye-catching smartphone design features in years. People didn’t buy the Galaxy S6 edge because they wanted to swipe in and launch apps a bit more quickly, or because they wanted to measure stuff. They bought it because it looked cool, and it looked cool in a way that no other phone could match.
The Galaxy S7 edge sold because it looked cool, not because people wanted to slide out edge panels and start measuring stuff.
More recently, it’s been combined with curved glass on the back, and ever softer angles around the aluminum frame. The Galaxy S7 edge’s omnidirectional curves contribute to a pleasing organic design that give the illusion of razor-slim bezels. It has an almost otherworldly quality when you pick it up for the first time in a way that the regular S7 somehow lacks.
The success of the original S6 edge reportedly took even Samsung by surprise, and as such it was the S7 edge that took center stage in this year’s lineup. Ads promoted the “Galaxy S7 edge / S7,” with the flat S7 consistently playing second fiddle to its larger sibling in the public eye.
So if “edge” is a big enough deal to make it into the Galaxy Note line — let’s forget about 2014’s ill-fated, one-sided Note Edge for a minute — then why not go all-edge next year? Even if Samsung keeps a smaller model around, it would surely make more sense to transition to an S8 and S8 Plus (the “edge” distinction no longer being needed) than to leave the smaller model without such an appealing selling point.
Some may bemoan the slipperiness of the S7 edge, the problems with accidental touches, but you can’t argue with the success of edge. And that’s why it could be here to stay.
The case against an edge-only Galaxy S8
Edge screens are popular and beautiful, but they’re also expensive and difficult to make. Back in the days of the Note Edge, we’re told, yields of the curved glass were extremely poor, which one source says is why that model only had one edge screen. Samsung has obviously gotten better at producing curved glass screens over the past couple of years, but it’s still easier and more cost-effective to slap a traditional flat pane of Gorilla Glass on there and call it a day.
A smaller, cheaper, flatter GS8 lets Samsung position a more expensive GS8 edge as a ‘premium’ flagship.
This allows Samsung to sell the smaller of the two handsets at a lower price, keeping the “edge” model as the true flagship. Such a clear distinction in price would be difficult to maintain if both models used curved screens. (Unless Samsung simply jacked up the price of the larger model for the sake of it, of course.)
The company must also know that curved screens aren’t universally adored. The curved Note 7 could well be a blip on Samsung’s roadmap . (After all let’s face it — Note devices don’t sell in the same numbers as a Galaxy S.) For a series of devices aimed at the mainstream market, it makes sense to offer a conventional non-edge display that everyone can hold, without the color distortion and other compromises that often accompany a curved panel.
Ultimately, it’s about choice. And as successful as edge models have been for Samsung, it might be foolish to go all-out with curved screens across its entire high-end lineup.
Do you think the Samsung Galaxy S8 will be edge-only? Share your thoughts down in the comments!
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