Apple has announced that former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Apple's environmental chief Lisa Jackson will be hosting a "climate optimism" discussion at its Union Square retail store in San Francisco on Wednesday.
The duo will also share their insight on Earth Day initiatives, Apple's ongoing commitment to the environment, and ways that people can have an impact on climate and the environment through positive actions.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has given his thoughts on what Apple might look like some 60 years in the future, stating in an interview that he believes his former employer, as well as Google and Facebook, will be even bigger in 2075. The comment comes from an interview Wozniak gave in preparation for the Silicon Valley Comic Con, which this year is themed as "The Future of Humanity: Where Will We Be in 2075?" (via USA Today).
Wozniak said Apple's ability to "invest in anything" is one of the reasons the company will still be around in 2075. The former Apple executive also pointed towards Apple's iPhone -- which he equates to granting users "more power than Superman" -- to explain why the company won't be going away any time soon.
Paul Allen and Steve Wozniak
"She has more power in her hand than Superman," Wozniak, broadly smiling, says, pointing at a colleague's iPhone. "To make such strides in computing... It shows you how exciting the future can be."
"Apple will be around a long time, like IBM (which was founded in 1911)," Wozniak said in an interview. "Look at Apple's cash ($246.1 billion, as of the end of its last fiscal quarter). It can invest in anything. It would be ridiculous to not expect them to be around (in 2075). The same goes for Google and Facebook."
Even though Wozniak stuck to SVCC's 2075 theme, he admitted that when Apple Computers began in 1976, its founders -- including Steve Jobs -- assumed that the company would last forever.
Wozniak recently celebrated those early days of Apple by visiting the just-opened "Apple Computer Exhibit" at Living Computers: Museum + Lab in Seattle, Washington. At an event marking the opening last week, Wozniak met one of the museum's founders, Paul Allen -- who is also a Microsoft co-founder -- for the first time. Wozniak said that he's felt Allen's influence since the early days of Apple, tweeting out, "that's what doing things first is about."
The first two decades of Apple are on display at the exhibit in Seattle, and it includes a working Apple 1 computer that visitors can interact with. Lath Carlson, the museum’s executive director, expects the Apple-specific exhibit to run for the next decade, giving those interested plenty of time to visit the museum.
Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers now have the option of replacing a customer's broken fourth-generation iPad with an iPad Air 2, according to an internal memo distributed by Apple last week.
An excerpt of the memo obtained by MacRumors:
Starting March 30, iPad 4th generation whole unit repairs may be substituted to iPad Air 2 models. Apple's repair and order management tool will indicate for each repair if a substitution will take place. Please note the substitute part’s color and capacity to ensure the customer understands what their replacement iPad whole unit will be.
The fourth-generation iPad was released in November 2012, so when a customer needs a replacement model, it's likely easier now for Apple to just give them a newer and more widely available iPad Air 2 in most cases.
Not every broken fourth-generation iPad will be replaced with an iPad Air 2. The decision will ultimately be decided on a case-by-case basis, likely depending upon availability of each tablet in the affected customer's region.
Days after a claimed 3D design drawing of the upcoming "iPhone 8" appeared, frequent Weibo leaker KK has shared a different dimensional drawing and renderings showing a device that is somewhat smaller in size than the previous leak. The veracity of the new drawing can not be confirmed, but KK has on several occasions shared accurate details about previous devices.
This new iPhone 8 leak shows a device that measures 137.54 mm tall by 67.54 mm wide, nearly identical to the iPhone 7's 138.3 mm x 67.1 mm body. The thickness of the iPhone 8 is not shown on the drawing.
According to the diagram, the iPhone 8's display measures 5.768 inches on the diagonal and will indeed cover nearly the entire front of the device. There appears to be only a 4 mm bezel around all four sides of the display, with over half of that being the 2.5D curved glass at the edges and the remainder appearing to be the device's frame around the sides.
The drawing shows a narrow earpiece at the top of the device's front, with various cameras, sensors, and other components on either side of the earpiece. Those components would likely include a front-facing camera, small microphone hole, ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, and the rumored 3D sensor.
All of these components appear to be embedded within the display area itself, and while the accompanying rendered mockups based on the drawing show the earpiece appearing as a physical slit within the display area, the camera and other sensors are not depicted and it is unclear how they would appear in reality.
With the display filling the entire front of the device, there is no dedicated Home button and thus no visible Touch ID sensor. Apple has been rumored to be trying to build Touch ID into the iPhone's display, but the company has reportedly been struggling with perfecting the technology and thus could resort to putting the sensor on the rear of the device. One of the renderings shows the rear of the device with no obvious dedicated Touch ID sensor, although there is no corresponding dimensional drawing of the rear.
Notably, the rendering of the rear of the alleged iPhone 8 again shows a vertical dual camera, this time with the LED flash placed between the two cameras. As Ben Bajarin points out, the increased separation of the two lenses would help with augmented reality and 3D features, allowing for a greater difference in perspective.
iDrop News and Benjamin Geskin posted their own mockups showing a very similar design a few days ago, but it is unclear whether the two batches of renderings are based on the same original source information or if one set's creator was working from the other.
It is still early in the rumor cycle for detailed design leaks, so readers should continue to take information like this with a grain of salt until the information begin to solidify around a single specific design, but given KK's history of leaks this one is worth considering as a possibility.
Update: The drawing and renderings shared by KK appear to have originated on ifanr, and Geskin has confirmed his renderings are based on the same drawing.
Apple has been granted a permit that enables it to test autonomous vehicles on public roads in the state of California, according to the California DMV website (via Business Insider).
Apple was added to the list of permit holders that are allowed to participate in the Autonomous Vehicle Tester Program in California on Friday, joining companies like Google, Tesla, BMW, Honda, Ford, Nissan, and more.
Obtaining a permit for autonomous vehicle testing requires multiple steps, including outlining details for each specific vehicle being tested, suggesting Apple may have some sort of software test vehicle that's road ready. Whether Apple will actually begin testing a vehicle remains to be seen, as some companies sign up and then don't go on to use it, but should Apple begin vehicle testing, public reports will need to be filed.
In California, all companies that participate in the Autonomous Vehicle Testing Program must file Disengagement Reports that outline how many miles were covered with self-driving vehicles, so if Apple does test a vehicle, the information will be shared on the DMV's website.
Apple's acceptance into the Autonomous Vehicle Tester Program confirms the company's work on a car-related project. Early rumors suggested Apple was developing its own autonomous electric vehicle, but Apple is said to have since transitioned to building an autonomous driving system rather than a full blown car.
Developed under the leadership of Bob Mansfield, Apple's autonomous driving system could allow it to partner with existing car makers or return to its own car development project in the future. Apple executives have reportedly given the car team until 2017 to prove the feasibility of an Apple-designed autonomous driving system, and its approval to road-test vehicles could be a signal that the project is advancing.
Update: According to Bloomberg, Apple filed for a permit because it plans to start testing its self-driving car software platform on public streets. The software will be put in existing cars, with the permit covering three 2015 Lexus RX450h SUVs and six drivers, according to a DMV spokesperson.
It's been over three years since voice actress Susan Bennett came forward and revealed that she was the original female voice of Siri on iOS, which first debuted on the iPhone 4s in 2011. In a recent interview with Typeform, Bennett delved even deeper into her history with Apple and the early days of its virtual assistant.
In the interview, which is dotted with audio playback of Bennett's voice so readers can compare her normal voice to that of Siri, the voice actress remembers recording a new project in July of 2005 for a text-to-speech company called ScanSoft. The project was said to be for a phone-messaging system, but it turns out it was the basis for what would become Siri, two years before the original iPhone even came out.
“Malitia oi hallucinate, buckry ockra ooze, Cathexis fefatelly sexual ease stump, Say the shrodding again, say the shroding again, say the shreeding again, say the shriding again, say the shrading again, say the shrudding again.”
“We were recording for a text-to-speech company. And this was brand new to us. We had no real idea of what we were doing. We thought we were doing new scripts for phone systems.”
Bennett said she was paid an hourly wage, and refused a five-year contract that was eventually offered to her when the job was done, mentioning that constantly using a monotone voice day-in and day-out was "the complete opposite of creative." Only later did she realize that every odd phrase provided Apple with "all of the sounds of the English language," allowing the company to go in and "reform them into new phrases and sentences," and eventually craft what would become known today as Siri.
The origin of Siri's name is also explained, with Bennett stating that Dag Kittlaus -- a co-creator of Siri who has now left Apple to found Viv -- had originally planned to name his daughter Siri. His wife eventually ended up having a boy, so Kittlaus used the girl's name for Apple's smartphone assistant instead.
“In Norwegian the word Siri means “beautiful woman who guides you to victory.” Of course we know better, she’s the feisty chick who tells you where to go, right. But, Dag and his wife were expecting a child, they thought it was going to be a girl, and they planned to name her Siri. But when the baby arrived it was a boy. So they gave the name to the app instead. And that’s where Siri got her name.”
Eventually, Bennett discovered that she was the voice of the ever-present voice assistant in the iPhone beginning in October 2011, and admitted that "it was a little creepy." She decided to stay quiet about her role for two years, finally revealing herself in a CNN interview in 2013. That same year, Apple ended up removing all of Bennett's voice work from Siri and replacing her with someone else within the completely redesigned iOS 7 update.
The original Siri in iOS 5
Bennett said that everything has worked out for the best, because her work as the original Siri has opened up aspects of her career that she never imagined, including introducing Steve Wozniak at the 2013 Dallas Digital Summit and even giving a TED Talk in 2016. Because of this, she harbors no ill will towards Apple and the secretive methods the company used when creating Siri.
“I kind of got the best of both worlds because I was the original, and I do get to promote myself, and when Siri starts leading us all into the sea it won’t be my voice.”
The full interview on Typeform is well worth a read, as it goes back to detail Bennett's career beginnings as the voice of an ATM named Tillie in the 1970s, and delves into how Apple's programmers created Siri's personality from Bennett's original voice work. The article also looks to the future of virtual assistants and what the AI helpers might look like in next-generation smartphones.
Nest recently announced a new discount has launched for customers looking to purchase the company's Nest Learning Thermostat, allowing them to buy the IoT temperature-controlling device for $219 on its website, totaling $30 in savings. Nest founder and chief product officer Matt Rogers announced the temporary deal in a blog post this week, which he said is tied into upcoming celebrations surrounding Earth Day.
As such, Nest Learning Thermostat's $219 price tag will only remain available to customers until Earth Day, on Saturday, April 22. In the post, Rogers mentioned that since the Nest Learning Thermostat's launch in 2011, the device has "saved over 12 billion kWh of energy," which equates to "enough to power New York City for 81 days."
For us, home isn’t just an address where we raise our families. It’s the world we inhabit, and it’s our only one. As the late Carl Sagan noted in his book Pale Blue Dot, “On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives." So it’s up to us to take care of Earth, for all the generations to come.
In honor of Earth Day, we want to help more people save energy with a Nest Thermostat. Reversing decades of global warming is a huge challenge. But we believe that together, we can change climate change.
Customers also interested in Google Home have a chance to save a little more as well, as Nest also announced a combo deal where purchasing both the Nest Learning Thermostat and Google Home at the same time will earn users $50 in savings. Instead of paying $378 for both devices, customers taking advantage of the Earth Day deal will pay $328. On their own, Google Home costs $129 while Nest Learning Thermostat costs $249.
For those unaware, Google Home is Google's smart home hub, which includes voice controls for numerous home automation tasks like controlling temperature by connecting to Nest.
Last month it was rumored that Nest is working on a cheaper version of its Learning Thermostat that would cost somewhere under $200 in a bid to gain "a bigger share of the connected home market." Cost-cutting measures might include a Nest Learning Thermostat made with less expensive components and potentially one that would lack the current version's metal edges. Also reported to be in the works by Nest are sensors that would let users control temperature room-by-room, an alarm system, digital doorbell, and updated indoor camera.
Google appears to be testing a Dark Mode feature for YouTube in the latest version of its Chrome 57 desktop browser.
The built-in mode was discovered on Thursday and shared in a Reddit post, and while the setting doesn't appear by default, a quick command in the developer console is all that's required to enable it.
YouTube Dark Mode in Chrome with black theme enabled
Follow these steps to enable the YouTube dark mode in Chrome on Mac. Make sure you're signed in to YouTube before performing the steps.
Press the keyboard combination shortcut Option + Command + I to open the developer tools sidebar.
Click the Console tab.
Paste document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=fPQ4jCL6EiE" into the console and press enter.
Close the developer tools sidebar and refresh the YouTube page.
Click your YouTube profile picture, select Dark Mode from the dropdown, and toggle the switch to enable the mode.
Google Chrome is available to download for free on the Chrome website. [Direct Link]
Team chat platform Slack got a long-awaited feature on Thursday with the addition of status updates, finally allowing users to customize their status message beyond the default "away" setting.
The new "set a status" feature includes five Suggested statuses including In a meeting, Commuting, Out sick, Vacationing, and Working remotely, as well as an input field for typing a custom message – allowing users to display a return time if they're away, for example.
Each status can be up to 100 characters and users can display an associated emoji to communicate their circumstances, but if an emoji isn't chosen a speech ballon is shown instead. The emoji appears alongside the username in the chat window, the sidebar, and the chat room members list, while hovering over the emoji or tapping it brings up the full status message.
Some third-party apps can also modify the status message. For example, Zenefits syncs user status with its Time Off Tracking system, while Meekan shows when someone's in a meeting (and when they'll be free). Statuses also automatically update when a user is on a voice or video call in Slack.
Statuses can be set from the browser, desktop and mobile versions of Slack. Mac users can click their name in the upper left corner of the sidebar, then select Set a status. On iOS, users should tap the More items icon (…), or edit their status directly from their profile.
Amazon has fired another salvo in the virtual assistant wars by opening up access to the far-field voice recognition technology found in its Echo smart speakers so that third-party manufacturers can make their own versions (via BBC).
The move comes as Amazon attempts to spread the use of its Alexa virtual assistant across a wide range of connected products and take ownership of a larger portion of the growing smart devices market. Google announced its branded Home smart speaker in November, while Apple is also rumored to be planning a similar Siri-enabled device this year.
The initially invite-only access to the technology via the Alexa Voice Service program will give manufacturers the right to replicate the Echo's seven-microphone array that allows the speakers to hear a voice command from across the room.
The access also means third-party developers can use the proprietary algorithms used for wake-word recognition, which focus the array on the owner's voice and filter out echoes and other noises. Developers will be provided with a reference kit as a starting point for their own designs, and the freedom to source components from a range of parts manufacturers.
"Our vision is for Alexa to be everywhere, and that means making it available to other companies and services to integrate into a wide range of devices," said an Amazon spokesperson.
"We expect Alexa to be in many devices over time, including products that compete with Echo, which is why we're investing in making a wide range of hands-free and far-field reference solutions available to OEMs [original equipment manufacturers]."
Amazon's rollout of Alexa has gained steam ever since CES 2017 in January, when the virtual assistant cropped up in a range of products including third-party smart speakers, cars, TVs, lamps, and even refrigerators.
In February Amazon announced it was extending third-party support for its Alexa Voice Service (AVS) internationally, and last month it added its Siri competitor to the company's iOS app, allowing users to search Amazon, track orders, play music, and start audio books from Audible.
Top music interviewer and CBC Radio 2 host George Stroumboulopoulos debuted his new House of Strombo music series on Apple Music on Thursday (via Billboard).
The 10-episode show is a spin-off of the Canadian host's radio series The Strombo Show, which is filmed at his Toronto home in front of a live audience. The show is set to feature video segments, artist interviews, and exclusive behind-the-scenes access. Stroumboulopoulos was interviewed by Zane Lowe on Apple Music's Beats 1 about the partnership.
Stroumboulopoulos (left) with Zane Lowe
"The bands set-up right in my living room, with a live audience packing the place," Stroumboulopoulos explained in a statement. "Lights, smoke machines and amplifiers stacked high -- it's every gig in a small space that you've ever loved, with the best bands in the world."
The video segment of the first show features a performance and interview with Canadian group A Tribe Called Red, an Ottawa-based First Nations DJ collective. Apple Music subscribers can view it in the Browse section of the app under the Strombo banner, where playlists and other content can also be found. Going forward, videos for the show will be available in the Connect section of the Strombo page.
A longer 30-minute version of each episode can be found on YouTube. Check out the first offering embedded below.
Apple may spend several billion dollars to obtain a "substantial stake" in Toshiba's memory chip business, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK. Reuters cited NHK as saying Apple's stake would be greater than 20 percent.
Given concerns from Japanese government officials about Toshiba selling "critical technologies" to overseas buyers, Apple would reportedly have Toshiba keep some shares so that the company retains partial Japanese ownership.
Apple is also considering teaming up with its manufacturing partner Foxconn, which is trying to acquire about 30 percent of the stake, the report said.
Foxconn allegedly offered Toshiba up to 3 trillion Japanese yen ($30 billion) as a standalone bid, but a subsequent report said Toshiba would likely reject the bid due to Foxconn's ties with China, where it operates multiple factories.
Apple's other manufacturing partner TSMC has reportedly already withdrawn its bid, while other potential suitors are said to include technology giants Amazon and Google and rival memory chipmakers SK Hynix and Western Digital. Apple itself was named as a potential bidder by a separate source earlier this month.
Toshiba announced plans to sell its NAND flash memory business in January in order to raise funds to cover write-down costs associated with its U.S. nuclear subsidiary Westinghouse Electric, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March. The company expects to face $9 billion in related charges.
Apple dual sources 32GB, 128GB, and 256GB flash storage from Toshiba and SK Hynix for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
Toshiba, facing an uncertain future, is supposedly expected to select the winning bidder of its memory chip business by June.
Apple is purchasing so many trees for its upcoming Apple Park campus that it's becoming challenging for other companies to source trees, according to a report from the San Francisco Chronicle.
"Buying trees is a surprisingly cutthroat business," reads the Chronicle in a piece about a rooftop City Park that's being built above the upcoming Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco. Adam Greenspan and Patrick Trollip, who are sourcing trees for that project, say Apple has made it hard to track down trees across California and Oregon.
And it's been especially challenging to locate desirable specimens because Apple has been buying up 3,000 trees for its new Cupertino headquarters. When Greenspan and Trollip found a tree they fancied they would "tag it" with a locking yellow tag, so that nobody else -- like Apple -- could get it. Eventually all the tagged trees were moved to a nursery in Sunol, where the transbay project team leased 4 acres.
Apple Park, Apple's second campus with the famous spaceship-shaped main building, will be completely covered in greenery. Landscaping at the site started late last year, and Apple has said it will plant more than 9,000 native and drought-resistant trees, including fruit trees.
In a separate report on Apple Park, The Economist highlighted the parking situation at the campus. For the 14,000 workers that Apple plans to have on site, Apple has built nearly 11,000 parking spaces, many of them located in underground lots beneath the main building and in two garages at the south of the campus.
In total, Apple has built 325,000 square meters of parking, compared to 318,000 square meters of offices and research buildings. So much space has been dedicated to parking due to Cupertino city laws, which require a certain number of parking spaces for employees.
Employees will begin moving into Apple Park in April, but Apple has said it will take more than six months to transition thousands of employees to the site. Smaller building construction and landscaping has not been finished and will continue into the summer, even after the campus sees its grand opening.
Indie high-speed space flier Hyperburner has been named Apple's App of the Week, and as a result, it will be available for free for the next seven days. Normally priced at $2.99, this is the first time Hyperburner has been available for free since it was released in June of 2016.
In Hyperburner, players take control of a spaceship in a distant colonial solar system. The idea is to navigate the ship through an increasingly dangerous series of courses, unlocking improved ships and endless gameplay modes as the game progresses.
Hyperburner features fast-paced gameplay, instant respawns, simple and customizable controls, and six zones to complete. Our sister site TouchArcade gave Hyperburner four and a half out of five stars, praising both the level design and the soundtrack.
Each zone has its own signature art style, complete with unique hazards to face. Said objects might be moving or static, but either way it's going to take some skill to navigate around them. The patterns are wonderfully crafted, almost puzzle-like -- so there's no feeling of cheap deaths or haphazard design flaws. Every death is your fault, and betters you in some manner. There's only several worlds but each one looks entirely different, almost like a different game in a way.
They throw a lot of very tight "thread the needle" type of situations at players constantly, forcing people to learn from their mistakes as they hit that replay button over and over. It's addicting and beautiful at the same time.
Hyperburner will be available for free until next Thursday, when a new App of the Week is chosen. It can be downloaded from the App Store. [Direct Link]
Apple today updated its iMovie video editing app for the Mac to version 10.1.5, introducing a couple of important bug fixes to address issues that have popped up in previous updates.
Today’s iMovie update fixes an issue that could add a red tint to video imported from some camcorders and it fixes a bug that prevented some videos shot on the iPhone from appearing in the import window.
According to Apple’s release notes, the update also improves the performance and stability of the app.
iMovie 10.1.5 comes nearly six months after the last major iMovie for Mac update, which was released in October of 2016. iMovie 10.1.3 introduced support for the Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pro, allowing MacBook Pro owners to use the Touch Bar for editing purposes.
Apple has also updated Final Cut Pro, its video editing software for professionals. Like iMovie, Final Cut Pro has received several bug fixes and performance improvements, as listed below:
- Ability to expand the width of the Inspector to view and adjust effect parameters - Fixes issues with updating older libraries - Faster redraw of audio waveforms when using clips that are being imported while recorded to disk - Diamond icon in the Timeline Index to show when the user has modified display of roles in the timeline - More color options in the Role Editor - Reveal in Browser correctly displays the location of the original clip in the browser - Support for Canon Log 3 and Sony S-Log3/S-Gamut3 log processing - Resolves an issue in which the viewer could occasionally disappear when exiting full screen - Resolves issues in which Share to DVD could become unresponsive - Improves font quality of DVD menu and chapter titles - Improves image quality when creating a DVD - Enhanced DVD User dialog messages with embedded links to documentation
iMovie for Mac is provided for free to those who purchase a new machine, and it can also be downloaded from the Mac App Store for $14.99. [Direct Link]
Three additional Apple suppliers, including Compal Electronics, Sunwoda Electronic, and Biel Crystal Manufactory, have promised to use 100 percent renewable energy when manufacturing iPhone components, Apple VP of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives Lisa Jackson told Bloomberg in an interview.
96 percent of the energy Apple uses comes from renewable sources like wind and solar, allowing the company to reduce its carbon footprint, and in 26 countries, Apple facilities are powered with 100 percent renewable energy. With much of its own company using renewable energy, Apple has started focusing on its suppliers to further its sustainability efforts.
"We look at our carbon footprint as so much more than just our office, our data centers, our stores, even our distribution centers," Jackson told Bloomberg Television. "All that's included in our 96 percent, but now we're moving onto our supply chain."
Late last month, Apple promised to honor the commitment it made under the Obama administration to fight climate change, and today, Jackson said Apple plans to continue on its path and make its values known to the Trump administration, which has started to rescind environmental rules and protections.
"One thing this administration has made clear is that they want to hear from business and so we're going to do everything we can to make our values known," Jackson said.
Along with Compal Electronics, Sunwoda Electronic, and Biel Crystal Manufactory, four other suppliers have committed to using clean energy: Lens Technology, Solvay Specialty Polymers, Catcher Technology, and Ibiden. In March, Apple said that by the end of 2018, the company and its supplier partners expect to generate more than 2.5 billion kilowatt hours of clean energy per year.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Although Hulu's new live TV bundle is set to launch before spring is over, details about the service have been noticeably scant ahead of the its launch. Today, sources speaking with TechCrunch who have knowledge of Hulu's plans have claimed that the new cord-cutting bundle will cost subscribers exactly $39.99 per month, which comes in right under Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins' promise of a bundle that would cost users "under $40" per month.
The price of the service's add-on cloud DVR feature has also been detailed, which will reportedly cost users $20 each month to gain extensive video recording functionality. Subscribers to Hulu's base $39.99 package will have a limited DVR feature (small storage space, no fast-forwarding), but Hulu's alleged $20 DVR add-on package would include "unlimited" storage capped at 200 hours of programming as well as allow for fast-forwarding.
The live TV service will allow for a certain amount of recording and storage space in its base package – a feature that’s quickly becoming a standard offering for these types of businesses. But this recording space will not be a fully functional DVR, as it will not support fast-forwarding.
However, Hulu is considering an add-on package to its live TV service that will include an unlimited DVR with up to 200 hours of programming, as well as unlimited streams. (There may be a cap on concurrent streams outside the home, though – we’ve heard three.)
This add-on bundle will allow users to optionally upgrade their live TV service with the cloud DVR and unlimited streams, and will be priced under $20 per month, sources tell us.
Concurrent streaming on devices in the same home is said to be capped at three, and that number may lessen for users who don't opt-in for the cloud DVR bundle. In total, the Hulu Live TV bundle would cost upwards of $60 on the high-end, which does still come in under most low- to medium-level traditional cable packages. Subscribers currently using Hulu's $7.99/month or $11.99/month (ad-free) on-demand options will simply have to pay the difference of an upgrade to the live TV service when it launches.
Reports about included channels have been circulated in the past -- including CBS and NBC -- but the look of the specific channel bundle that will be on offer, and if there might be more than one tier, remains a mystery. Most packages, like DirecTV Now, give users tiers ranging from $35/month to $70/month to access more channels. In the original rumor, Disney and Fox were floated as potential partners with Hulu's service, and Time Warner's stable of channels will also help bolster the channels available to subscribers.
Although the cord-cutting bundle options have become plentiful in the past few years, ranging from Sling TV to Playstation Vue to DirecTV Now, Hulu's alternative will be interesting as the first to combine live television with exclusive video on-demand options. One of the most important aspects of Hulu's bundle -- its actual launch date -- has yet to be rumored, but the company has until June 20 to debut the service before the end of spring.
Apple has partnered with the National Hockey League to provide coaches with iPad Pros for use behind the bench during the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs, which began on Wednesday, as reported by The Associated Press.
Toronto Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock (Image: Sportsnet)
All sixteen NHL teams that qualified for the playoffs have up to three iPad Pros available to them to review plays. The real-time video footage will help players make shift-by-shift adjustments during games, while coaches can better decide when to challenge offside or goaltender interference calls, aka a Coach's Challenge.
“By the time the player gets off his shift, that content is available within a minute, I guess, from the time it actually took place,” NHL executive vice-president and chief technology officer Peter DelGiacco said. “Today generally speaking a lot of that would be done between periods and there’s a limited amount of time. ... This kind of gives the coaches and the players real-time access so that they can make adjustments.”
The arenas of all sixteen NHL teams that qualified for the playoffs have also been outfitted with Macs for video coaches as part of the collaboration with Apple.
Apple today updated its iMovie video editing app for the Mac to version 10.1.5, introducing a couple of important bug fixes to address issues that have popped up in previous updates.
