Seinfeld’s first Netflix stand-up special premieres September 19th

Earlier this year, Netflix announced that Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee series would be moving to it over from Crackle and that Seinfeld would have two stand-up specials appear on the streaming service as well. The first of those specials is now slated to premiere September 19th.

Jerry Before Seinfeld will mix the comedian’s stand-up performance at New York City’s The Comic Strip with videos of him as a child and other material that’s never been aired before. That includes Seinfeld’s collection of legal pads which hold all of the jokes he’s written since 1975. The special will feature some of the key jokes that helped push Seinfeld’s career to where it is today.

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee — new shows and all of the old ones — moves to Netflix later this year. You can watch a few clips of the new stand-up special on Instagram and you can check out one of them below.

You go to a party, there’s nobody there. ‘Where’d everybody go?’ ‘They left!’

A post shared by Netflix Comedy (@netflixcomedy) on Aug 21, 2017 at 7:11pm PDT

Source: Netflix

Sony ‘won’t allow’ cross-platform dino survival in ‘Ark’ either

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: The makers of a huge multi-platform game want to unite their disparate users so everyone can play together, regardless of whether they’re playing on PC, PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, and Sony is blocking that. This time, it’s Ark: Survival Evolved. Lead designer was answering questions on Twitter recently and when someone asked if cross-network play would ever happen, he replied with the following. “We have it working internally, but currently Sony won’t allow it.”

We have it working internally, but currently Sony won’t allow it 🙁

— Jeremy Stieglitz (@arkjeremy) August 18, 2017

If you’re keeping track at home, this is the third time we’ve heard that. The first time was with Minecraft back in June, then came Rocket League. At E3, Rocket League developer Jeremy Dunham said that someone from his studio had been in contact with Sony every day since the game launched, and the answer about cross-platform play never changed. Psyonix too, has cross-network play up and running in its offices.

“There have been slight variations on how it’s been presented to us, but essentially it’s the same answer,” Dunham told Engadget. “It’s ‘not right now” or ‘It’s something we’ll consider.’ That’s paraphrasing, but there hasn’t been any movement.”

With this news about Ark, it sounds like it’s that way for everyone who asks.

Via: Eurogamer

Source: Jeremy Stieglitz

Delta tests customer service video chats to field your complaints

Delta is certainly trying to update its tech to join the 21st century. This summer, it’s tested replacing boarding passes with fingerprints and checking baggage by scanning passengers’ faces. But the airline’s next advance is kind of an old-school dream: Airport stations that let customers video chat with a service representative.

Delta has opened up a test kiosk of five screens in Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) for customers to chat with an airline representative on everything from reservations to feedback. The design also lets you type out messages if you feel better ranting over text. In other words, it’s the same kind of text-and-video customer support that online companies have been doing for years.

Delta will review the kiosk’s usefulness before building more of them, but at least folks suffering travel difficulties could access these right in their terminal. It beats angrily tweeting the airline when things go south.

Via: CNET

Source: Delta

Thanks to Google, Shutterstock can stop automated watermark removal

Stock photos have watermarks to make sure that you don’t use them without paying for them. Removing them used to take some Photoshop know-how, but Google found a way to remove them automatically. The team also explained how to counteract the strategy with slightly varied watermarks. According to The Next Web, stock photo purveyor Shutterstock has now reverse engineered and implemented the process to prevent automated watermark removal.

The original removal process requires hundreds or thousands of photos with the same watermark. Google’s software can then detect the repeated image structure and then remove it completely without degrading image quality. Shutterstock’s software response adds minor inconsistencies to the watermark pattern itself, using machine learning to keep it random, thus confusing Google’s software. The changes are to the structure, or geometry, of the watermarks, not the opacity or location.

“The result was a watermark randomizer that our engineering team developed so that no two watermarks are the same,” Shutterstock’s CTO Martin Brodbek told The Next Web. “The shapes vary per image and include contributor names. By creating a completely different watermark for each image, it makes it hard to truly identify the shape.” The technique is already in use, too. You can see an example of one of the new watermarks on one of Shutterstock’s image pages.

Source: The Next Web

Sony Music taps Dubset to monetize samples in remixed songs

It’s tough enough for artists to make sure they’re paid for every stream of their songs, but what about remixes? There is a system in place from Dubset called the MixBank Rights Management Platform, and it helps rights holders identify samples in songs that belong to them. Apple Music and Spotify already use the platform to help pay sampled artists for their contribution to streaming remixes. Sony Music has just opted into the system, making it the first major label to use Dubset’s platform. This enables Sony to manage its massive catalog and monetize the use of samples on streaming services.

Dubset’s Mixbank platform helps identify sampled music within the complex audio field of a DJ remix set, which can have hundreds of samples per set. DJs who use Mixbank are freed up from having to find out which samples were cleared for use on streaming services, too.

Dubset currently claims that it has deals with 14,000 labels and publishers, but Sony is the first major label to join up. “Hundreds of millions of music fans are streaming DJ and remix content, and labels, publishers, and performance societies need robust solutions for managing the use of their catalogs within this massive category of under-monetized music, Dubset CEO Stephen White told Billboard. “We are honored that Sony Music has selected Dubset to help identify and unlock the value in these uses of their catalog,” said White.

Via: Billboard

Source: Dubset

Crashplan drops its cloud backup service for home users

If you rely on Crashplan as a remote backup for your computer, you’re going to have to find an alternative in short order. Code42 is phasing out its Crashplan for Home service as it switches its focus to business users. The company has stopped offering new or renewed Home subscriptions as of August 22nd, and the service will shut down entirely on October 23rd, 2018. If you haven’t moved your files elsewhere by then, you’re out of luck. The team is trying to make the transition as gentle as possible, at least. It’s extending all Home subscriptions by 60 days to give people time to find alternatives, and it’s offering discounts for both its own Small Business tier and a preferred alternative, Carbonite.

You don’t have to go to either of those options, of course. Alternatives like Backblaze exist if you need to safeguard absolutely everything, and you can use free or low-cost services like Google Drive if you’re just interested in protecting a limited number of can’t-lose files.

The move isn’t entirely shocking, especially in an era where ISP data caps make it impractical to upload the entire contents of your PC. Businesses are more likely to need that absolute protection, and their tendency to subscribe in bulk makes them tempting targets. However, this does underscore the risks of trusting your backups to a cloud service — there’s no guarantee that the service you need will always be available. If you need to recover files no matter what, it’s still wise to lean on other services and local backups.

Source: Crashplan

Nope, ‘Alto’s Odyssey’ isn’t coming out this summer

It’s going to be a bit before we can play Alto’s Odyssey. The followup to the ridiculously relaxing snowboarding game Alto’s Adventure won’t be out any time soon, developer Built By Snowman writes. “The endless desert still awaits and it’s even vaster and more mysterious than we envisioned when we first conceptualized a new adventure for Alto and his friends,” a blog post reads.

“As a small studio striving to make sure everything we release is lasting and artful, we’re firm believers that much of what makes an experience magical lies in the little touches. The care and polish provided to make sure people are truly delighted.”

The team didn’t give any insight as to when the mobile game will come out, not even a release window. The game was first announced last December, and in February the developers promised we’d be hitting the desert this summer.

Since then, it’s announced three separate projects, Where Cards Fall, Skate City and Distant. The former is an isometric 3D puzzle game — think: Monument Valley but with a group of teenagers and giant playing cards. Skate City is, as the name suggests, a skateboarding game. The latter is a platformer that “focuses on the elegance of movement.”

One has to wonder if taking on these additional games (Snowman serves as publisher and “creative partner” for Distant) had anything to do with Odyssey’s delay. Hey, at least we got a new screenshot (above) out of it.

Source: Built By Snowman

AccuWeather for iOS Sending Location Data to Monetization Company Even When Location Sharing is Off

Popular and well-known iOS weather app AccuWeather has been caught collecting and sharing user location data even when location sharing permissions are turned off, according to a blog post recently shared by security researcher Will Strafach.

According to Strafach, AccuWeather was partnering with data monetization firm Reveal Mobile to collect GPS coordinates, including speed and altitude, the name and BSSID of a user’s Wi-Fi router, and whether a device has Bluetooth on and off, all of which was available to Reveal Mobile when location services were enabled.

With location services disabled, AccuWeather was still sending the Wi-Fi router name and BSSID, which still offered Reveal Mobile location data.

During a testing period of 36 hours, specifically while the AccuWeather application was not in the foreground, my test iPhone (located on a desk in an office building) sent the above information to RevealMobile a total of 16 times, occuring roughly once every few hours.

Reval Mobile is a firm that uses location data to gather information on a user’s home, work, and frequently visited locations, pairing that data with demographic targeting criteria to allow retailers to deliver targeted ads. From the company’s website:

By expanding the use case of location data to pre- and post-shopping experiences, entirely new possibilities open up for online and offline retailers. The value lies in understanding the path of a consumer and where they go throughout the day. Traveling from home to work to retail to soccer practice to dinner is vital to knowing the customer, and represents the new opportunity of mobile location data.

In response to Strafach’s blog post, Reveal Mobile says the data it collects is anonymized and grouped into audience segments. “We offer no product or service that permits anyone to see an individual device’s location data,” reads a statement on the Reveal Mobile website. The company also says it does not reverse engineer a device’s location when location sharing is turned off.

We do not attempt to reverse engineer a device’s location based upon other data signals like Bluetooth when location services are disabled. In looking at our current SDK’s behavior, we see how that can be misconstrued. In response to that, we’re releasing a new version of our SDK which will no longer send any data points which could be used to infer location when someone opts out of location sharing. We do collect IP address, but do not use this data to determine location, as covered in our privacy policy.

AccuWeather vice president of emerging platforms David Mitchell told ZDNet that AccuWeather will use data through Reveal Mobile for “audience segmentation and analysis, to build a greater audience understanding and create more contextually relevant and helpful experiences for users and for advertiser.”

Following Strafach’s discovery, many people have been uninstalling the AccuWeather app, and given the wealth of weather apps available in the App Store, this is not surprising. AccuWeather does not apparently have plans to end its relationship with Reveal Mobile, so users may want to find another weather app.

Tags: App Store, AccuWeather
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Metal Gear Solid 2 HD comes to Nvidia Shield TV

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was one of the best games to come out on the PlayStation 2, and it’s one of my favorite games ever. There have been a few re-releases and remasters, but now the critically acclaimed game has made its way to the Nvidia Shield TV Android set top box/game console.

“Play as the legendary hero, Solid Snake, as he sets out in pursuit of a tanker carrying a new Metal Gear prototype, and as Raiden, a rookie within the special ops unit, FOXHOUND, sent to infiltrate the Big Shell and rescue the US President from a mysterious group called Dead Cell. World peace hangs in the balance.” This is the full-fat MGS2 experience, with the full HD game with all content, as well as the VR missions that were added in MGS2: Substance.

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Exclusive to Android on the Shield, this is essentially a port of the HD collection version from the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, which means only 720p resolution but an excellent 60 frames per second experience. The visuals are still as good as ever, however, with the improved HD textures and graphics being faithfully represented on the Shield version with the X1 Tegra processor.

Gameplay is as I remembered it, wonky controls and all. Thankfully they didn’t try and make the controls more traditional here and kept the classic MGS scheme. It is a bit different using the Shield controller to play this, instead of the classic PS controller but the improved Shield controller is an admirable substitute for the most part. I had little difficulty adjusting and found myself successfully sneaking my way through Big Shell in no time.

Metal Gear Solid is not a game series that appeals to everyone, but it is an amazing experience and if you haven’t had the opportunity to play it before, and have access to a Shield TV I’d definitely recommend checking this game out. The only downside is that not every Android user will be able to experience this classic, as it’s Shield exclusive, but the Shield TV is probably one of the few Android devices I’d trust to run this game at a respectable level. If you’re looking to pick it up, it launches today, August 22, and will be on sale for 33% off for a limited time ($9.99) and will normally go for $14.99 in the Google Play Store.

Download Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty HD from the Google Play Store

Take $40 off the durable, water-resistant Beats Tour2 in-ear headphones

There are a ton of different pairs of earbuds on the market today, and if you’re reading this, chances are good that you’ve been using whatever cheap in-ear headphones came with your device when you listen to your music on the go. If it’s time for an upgrade, now’s the perfect chance to score a deal on the excellent Beats Tour2 in-ear headphones, which are currently on sale from B&H.

The Beats Tour2 headphones are purpose-built for active lifestyles, with a rugged, moisture-resistant design that protects them from sweat and water splashes. The wingtip earpieces keep the headphones in your ears more securely than traditional earbuds during strenuous activities.

Along with their solid build quality, the Tour2 headphones deliver a full range of sound, with clear mids, crisp highs, and the punchy lows that the bass-heavy Beats lineup is known for. Three different pairs of wingtips and four pairs of eartips ensure the best fit and noise isolation. The wingtips are removable, allowing you to use the Tour2 headphones as regular earbuds if you prefer.

The RemoteTalk cable has convenient in-line controls with a built-in microphone, making it easy to control audio playback and take calls without having to remove your phone from your pocket. The cable also features a flat design that greatly improves the durability of the wiring and prevents the headphones from getting tangled. The audio cable is 4-feet long so you can stow your phone in your jacket or bag, while a cable management clip lets you keep the slack tied up and out of your way.

The Beats by Dre family of headphones can be quite expensive, and the Beats Tour2 are no exception at their usual price of $90. For a limited time, however, B&H has the Beats Tour2 in-ear headphones for just $50 in the vibrant Siren Red color, giving you a tidy discount of $40. A hard-shell carrying case is included as well.

B&H

Looking for more great deals on headphones and other electronics? Check out our deals page to score some extra savings on our favorite tech.