Earlier this year, Netflix announced that it was going to
terminate its DVD rental service. Now with a little under a month and a half left
until the service discontinues, Netflix is offering its customers in the US up
to ten extra discs until the 29th of September.
Customers will need to sign up for the offer by simply clicking on a link before the deadline, 29th of August. Netflix will select the discs based on the movies included in a customer’s film queue and customers will find out exactly how many CDs they have received only once they open their envelopes. The extra DVDs, however, aren’t meant to be kept forever and will need to be sent back to Netflix by the 27th of October at maximum.
The new Artificial Intelligence tool ‘ChatGPT’ has gained one
million users just five days after launching in November of last year, according
to information provided by the service itself. The conversational AI bot that
can produce human-like text has been put to a variety of uses, like writing
short stories, prose, music and term papers to programming basic code, solving
math problems and doing translations in different languages. The founder of Microsoft,
Bill Gates has already warned that AI technology like ChatGPT could be substituting
people in white collar jobs, in a short period of time. Microsoft has recently
confirmed a multimillion dollar investment in the U.S. Company ‘OpenAI’ who are
the developers of ChatGPT.
Netflix has decided to suspend its service in Russia over
the country’s ongoing invasion in Ukraine. A Netflix spokesperson confirmed the
news.
The video streaming company, which has about 1 million subscribers in Russia, made this major decision after refusing to comply with a new Russian law that requires large streamers to host 20 Russian propaganda channels, including NTV and Channel One. Netflix later announced that it would suspend all its productions and acquisitions in Russia.
A study was recently conducted on the effectiveness of Netflix
VPN bans across different VPN platforms. Since Netflix provides its content on
the basis of regions, this means that not all TV shows and films are available
to watch in every country.
As a result, many users utilize VPN software to get access to Netflix content that may not be legally available to them. For instance, a user from a South Asian country could use a VPN service to get access to a server in a European country.
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It is very bizarre to think that just a couple of decades
ago we didn’t have the technology we have today. There was no way that you could
be doing thing you can do now such as watching on-demand videos every day. Before
the days of YouTube and Netflix, there were only television broadcasts that
showed the movies, soap operas, shows, etc. and you had only a certain window
to catch the show before it was gone.
Today, times have changed and we can watch almost anything
from the days of the past to the modern videos on-demand anytime, anywhere. These
on-demand video platforms have become a part of our everyday lives and they
provide us with content which is updated regularly. These platforms make a lot of
revenue from people who are looking to get some free on-demand videos.
Netflix is launching a programmed linear content channel in France called Netflix Direct. The new channel will provide Netflix streaming subscribers content from Netflix’s existing streaming library in a linear format, almost like how cable and broadcast TV stations do.
The purpose behind offering this functionality is to help users spend lesser time and mental effort in deciding what they want to watch and also kind of surprise them with new and different content.
Using smartphones to stream their favorite shows or videos means
that advertisers will have less revenue because mobile ads are not perfectly
optimized. If we look at the data provided by the mobile ad company, their
biggest consumers are people of age 24 to 34 who spend $25.85 every month on
app subscriptions. People aged 16 to 24 spend around $21.41 whereas old age
consumers spend $13.97 every month on subscriptions,
The subscription services have become fairly popular among
the people in the USA. People, on average, spend around $33.58 on streaming and
on-demand entertainment services such as Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and
YouTube TV. These all streaming services are the to choices for the people in
the USA. The big surprise is that 57 percent of young adults admitted that they
use smartphones to stream their favorite shows and videos. Millennials and Gen
Z are also preferring to buy their desired subscription of mobile apps instead
of spending on other services.
OTT, or Over the Top platforms, has become the ultimate source of entertainment for people, as they continue to be confined in their homes. Even before the global pandemic hit us all, OTT platforms were popular. But ever since the lockdown began in many countries, OTT platforms have only achieved more success than ever. With nothing to do at home, these platforms provide the highest quality content over the Internet, in exchange for a certain amount of subscription fee.
Since cinemas are included in this ongoing lockdown situation all over the world, it has affected many films that were due to be released. Let's examine how the Indian entertainment industry has altered its ways in the face of the strict lockdown. Where Amazon Prime and Netflix are among the top OTT platforms in the world and rule many markets, the Indian market is being ruled mainly by Hotstar, a local platform, and Disney+. It is to be noted that Disney+ is gradually spreading its services all over the world and is still not completely available elsewhere.
Quick Facts:
Netflix is rolling out a new feature, Shuffle Play, which can be tested on the company's platform. The option of shuffle play can be found below the user's profile and Netflix's home screen.
Netflix is testing a ‘Shuffle’ button for indecisive viewers. pic.twitter.com/PyHcdZNAts
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) August 19, 2020
With Shuffle Play, users can randomly select a movie or TV show that they want to watch. The list of movies or TV shows that will be shuffled will either be the ones that have already been watched or viewed by the user, or those that are saved in the user's My List section.
Although the feature hasn't been officially rolled out yet, it can be tested on connected TV devices. Netflix began the testing in July. Some of the users also reported that they found a shuffle option that said 'Play Something' located in the sidebar navigation of their TV app.
Shuffle play on Netflix. It's a thing... pic.twitter.com/Le1D3IxRwp
— Tom Hodgson (@tall_n_moody) August 18, 2020
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