List of All Articles with Tag 'tech'

The combined cost of popular streaming services like Netflix and Disney Plus is now more expensive than traditional cable television, according to new analysis. Recent price rises to all of the main streaming platforms for ad-free subscriptions have pushed the cost above the average cable TV package of $83 per month for the first time. Calculations by the Financial Times found that a bundle of the top US streaming services – including Disney+, Hulu, Netflix and Peacock – rose in price from $73 to $87 over the last year. Some of the price rises of streaming services have been considerable, going way above the rate of inflation. Netflix raised the price of its basic advertisement-free monthly subscription from $9.99 to $15.49, representing a 55 per cent increase. Disney Plus saw an even bigger increase for its ad-free subscription price, nearly doubling from $7.99 per month to $13.99. “From a business point of view, streaming was going to have to move in this way – the price point was going to have to go up,” David Rogers, a professor at Columbia Business School and expert in digital business, told the FT. “This was accelerated by the fact that we no longer have cheap debt to flood the market with streaming content.” These rising costs, combined with an increasingly fractured streaming ecosystem, have helped contribute to a major surge in online piracy over the last year. Figures published earlier this year by research firm Muso revealed that the most popular form of piracy is websites that host free streams of films and TV series, which account for 80 per cent of all illegal content consumption. Visits to these sites rose by nearly 9 per cent last year, with early data suggesting that this trend will continue into 2023. Several illicit streaming sites offer similar functionality to the legitimate platforms like Netflix, however they typically do not have any restrictions on the content you can watch. Security experts have warned, however, that such sites may pose a risk to visitors, while links shared on social media sites can often lead to fake versions of these illicit sites that seek to steal financial and other sensitive data. Read More Free streams to watch Barbie spread online amid security warnings Hozier would consider striking over AI threat to music industry Google is getting ready for the ‘quantum apocalypse’ X now sorts posts on accounts based on number of likes, not by chronology

Irish singer Hozier has said he would consider striking over the threat of artificial intelligence (AI) to the music industry. The 33-year-old said he would be willing to join similar action to the US actors and writers’ strikes, who are fighting for better contracts and protection against the use of AI in the industry. Members of US acting union Sag-Aftra and the Writers Guild of America (WGA) began industrial action on July 14 and May 2 respectively. Appearing on BBC’s Newsnight, Hozier responded to presenter Victoria Derbyshire who asked if he could imagine going on strike over the threat AI poses to music. The Take Me To Church singer, whose real name is Andrew Hozier-Byrne, said: “Joining in solidarity if there was… action on that? Absolutely.” He later said: “Whether (AI is) art or not, I think, is nearly a philosophical debate. “It can’t create something based on a human experience. So I don’t know if it meets the definition of art.” Hozier’s comments come amid Hollywood concerns over proposals by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to use ground-breaking AI to keep a digital likeness of actors. The interview also heard the Grammy-nominated star discuss fellow Irish singer Sinead O’Connor, who was found dead at her home in south-east London last month aged 56. He said he had been “walking on this road that she paved”, after she made headlines in 1992 when she tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II on US TV show Saturday Night Live in protest at the Catholic church, sparking a ferocious backlash. In 2013, Hozier’s debut single Take Me To Church, in which he criticised the church’s teaching of “shame about sexual orientation”, reached number two in the UK official charts and achieved global success. Speaking about the difference in public reaction, he said: “I think sensibilities have changed. “I think part of it is because Sinead was a woman. I think a lot of it is she was one of the first who had that courage to stand up and say it. “That was such a taboo at the time.” He also revealed he had once been invited to perform Take Me To Church in the Vatican City, quipping: “That would’ve been fun.” The full interview will be broadcast on Newsnight at 10.30pm on BBC Two.

Lenovo Group Ltd.’s profit missed estimates for a second straight quarter after the global PC market slid deeper

HONG KONG (Reuters) -China's Lenovo Group on Thursday posted a worse-than-expected 24% fall in revenue for the April-June quarter, hit

Twitter, recently rebranded as X, now sorts account posts based on their like counts, straying away from the platform’s historic approach to display them in the chronological order in which they were posted. This new change affects how logged-out users see other profiles and comes as the latest in the string of alterations made to the platform since Tesla titan Elon Musk took over the company last year. Before the platform was rebranded as X, Twitter blocked users without an account from accessing the site in any form, directing them instead to the login page – a move that was quickly ended. Now for logged-out users, X shows posts on other profiles sorted by their like counts. This new sorting method seems to be done based on likes, and not by the number of views garnered by individual posts as it can be seen that tweets with more views, but fewer like counts are showing up lower in the feed. For instance, if a logged-out user – or one who hasn’t signed up on the platform – now visits Elon Musk’s account, they would see on top his cheeky April 2022 tweet about “buying Coca-Cola to put the cocaine back in” and not his most recent post. Some posts by users on the platform suggest this change was likely made towards the last week of July. It remains unclear why this change has been made as it could frustrate users who may want to see the most recent posts made by other profiles. Earlier this week, X also placed Tweetdeck into a paid service and placed it behind a paywall, and also slowed down access to rivals, and news organisations via the platform. The change makes accessing Tweetdeck, rebranded recently to “X Pro”, to require a subscription to the company’s premium service Blue. Those visiting Tweetdeck’s website without a Blue subscription are now being redirected to a page promoting signup to the premium service. X also seemed to have added a delay of about five seconds when people clicked on links to go elsewhere on the web. The delay was found to be applied to a range of rival social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky. Websites of news organisations that have been critical of Mr Musk such as Reuters and the New York Times also seemed to be slow to load. Read More Elon Musk’s Twitter slows down access to rival websites Twitter is turning Tweetdeck into paid service after slowing down access to rival sites Mark Zuckerberg says he’s ‘out of town’ as Elon Musk drives to his house to fight Snapchat experiences ‘temporary outage’ as My AI chatbot posts own Story Musk’s Twitter takeover sparks mass exodus of climate experts Elon Musk’s Twitter slows down access to rival websites

Ask Jeeves became a casualty of the search engine wars of the early 2000s. Eventually, their mascot was escorted right out the door.

JAKARTA Indonesia's central bank said on Thursday it had started a trial of cross-border QR code payments with

At least two brands have said they will suspend advertising on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, after their ads and those of other companies were run on an account promoting fascism. The issue came less than a week after X CEO Linda Yaccarino publicly affirmed the company's commitment to brand safety for advertisers.

By Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON New York City on Wednesday banned TikTok on government-owned devices, citing security concerns, joining

By Jaspreet Singh and Max A. Cherney Chip design software company Synopsys on Wednesday named 25-year-veteran Sassine Ghazi

New York City banned access to TikTok on government-owned phones, the latest in a string of US states

Tech companies aren’t yet ramping up hiring after massive layoffs over the past year, despite a surge in