Sure, the Basic streaming tier is staying the same at $9, but now the mainstream HD streaming setup costs more than 4K used to. Speaking of, the premium package with 4K, HDR and up to four simultaneous streams is moving to $18 per month. That's hardly a cable bundle rate, but it's clear that the value-priced days of streaming are over.
You can always take your streaming business elsewhere (don't forget that The Mandalorianseason two just started this morning), but as I explained last year -- don't be surprised if you see Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock, Amazon Prime and all the others raising their prices too. They're in customer acquisition mode now, but competing in the content wars is expensive.
Netflix's price hike comes amid an unprecedented amount of original content, that the company says will only increase next year. Here's hoping that Ozark, a new season of Stranger Things and whatever new Adam Sandler movie is up next turn out to be worth the higher prices.
With a little refinement, these could be the complete package.
Jabra has made capable wireless earbuds for a few years, and now it's adding active noise cancellation (ANC) to the feature set with the $230 Elite 85t. According to Billy Steele, in the 85t Jabra finally has a flagship-quality set of true wireless earbuds -- with effective ANC. The sound quality is good, but not great, and there's room for improvement in the overall experience. Once the company fixes those minor issues, it will have its most complete package to date. Continue reading.
Black Friday has turned into a month-long retail event, and after Best Buy kicked things off with some lower-than-usual prices Amazon dropped prices to match. Sony's impressive ANC-equipped WH-1000XM4 headphones are down to $278, while at Best Buy, Vizio's 65-inch P-Series Quantum TV is available for $979. Continue reading.
Roborace team SIT Acronis Autonomous suffered an embarrassment in round one of the Season Beta 1.1 race after its self-driving car drove off the starting line and directly into a wall. Continue reading.
With up to 8 cores rather than 10 on the 10th-gen Core i9-10900K, the chips should be attractive to gamers that depend more on clock speeds. Cypress Cove will allow for "double digit" gains in IPC performance, Intel said. That in turn will allow for better generation-over-generation performance than we saw in the 10th-gen chips. Intel also expects a 50 percent gain in GPU performance compared to the last gen, thanks to the new Xe graphics architecture. Continue reading.
The surge Facebook saw at the start of the pandemic appears to be slowing down.
A surge in users that Facebook saw at the start of the coronavirus pandemic appears to be slowing down. User growth in the United States in Canada — the company's most lucrative ad market — has declined, Facebook reported as part of its third-quarter earnings.
The company now has 196 million users in North America, down slightly from 198 million last quarter. The company said the decrease was expected, and could continue through the end of the year. Facebook isn't seeing the same slowdown everywhere, though, and the social network is continuing to add new users in Asia and its "rest of world" markets -- and the company's revenue was up 22 percent for the quarter. Continue reading.
So now Nintendo does cloud-streamed gaming too. Putting aside the revelation that the Switch has offered cloud gaming in Japan since 2018, it's interesting to see the option pop up on the convertible console. For gamers who don't live in Japan, our first opportunity to experience game streaming on Nintendo will come with Control and Hitman 3.
I still have questions about latency and the quality of the experience, but it could get really interesting if Nintendo leans into the technology. Facebook, Google and Amazon can throw money and server clusters at the issue, but they don't have -- and can't buy -- a library of exclusive hit game franchises stretching back decades. The Tegra-powered Switch is at a huge power disadvantage compared to the PS5 and Xbox Series X, but if streaming takes off, then maybe people will think twice about putting a $500 mini-fridge-looking box in their living room and stick to the portable console they already have.
AMD is taking a step back into high-end graphics cards with the Radeon RX 6800XT. It's the company's first RDNA 2 video card for PCs, though that architecture will also appear in the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. At $649, the Radeon RX 6800XT is meant to compete with NVIDIA's powerful $699 RTX 3080.
It also announced a slightly cheaper $579 Radeon RX 6800, which will launch alongside the 6800XT on November 18th, and the high-end Radeon 6900XT, which arrives December 8th for $999. Continue reading.
As promised earlier this year, Sony is offering PSVR owners a free camera adapter for use with their PS5 when it arrives on November 12th. Once you have that, you'll be good to go. While the headset is already compatible with the PS5, the camera will need that special adapter.
To get it, you'll need to grab the serial number from your PSVR's processor unit. Then, head to the adapter request page Sony has set up to enter your shipping details. Continue reading.
Fancy chef creations on the printer you already own.
Only dedicated foodies might be willing to drop a few thousand dollars on a dedicated food printer, but what if you could transform a regular 3D printer on the cheap? That's the premise behind Cakewalk3D, a new Kickstarter project that promises to let you print designs on cakes, appetizers and more. If you have a supported 3D printer from Prusa, Creality and several other brands (listed here), you just need to find an appropriate design, prepare the ingredients, pour them into a special tube, install it on the printer and launch your project. You'll be able to print in chocolate, honey, ketchup, guacamole (why?) and more.
Unlike other paste extruders for 3D printers, its parts are food-safe, and the kit is open source if you want to make them yourself. The maker kit starts at $59, the standard kit requiring two 3D-printed parts is $89, and the full kit, with everything ready to install, is $129. Continue reading.
Sony WH-1000XM4 for $278, Roomba 960 for $300, and
Sure, Best Buy had a number of "Black Friday guaranteed" prices on its website already, but a slew of new deals are available today through November 1st. Among them are some of our favorite headphones and earbuds, as well as Amazon devices that were discounted last week for a limited time. Continue reading.
Cybercriminals are reportedly planning to attack 400 hospitals and other medical facilities.
US federal authorities have issued a joint cybersecurity advisory warning hospitals and healthcare providers that they're in danger of being targeted by a ransomware attack. Falling victim to this kind of crime isn't new, but officials say there's an "increased and imminent cybercrime threat" to the industry.
Alex Holden of cyber intelligence firm Hold Security told authorities that criminals have discussed plans on the dark web to infect over 400 hospitals and other medical facilities -- at a time when hospitals and clinics are dealing with a global pandemic.
The authorities advise against paying the ransom and are encouraging healthcare providers to patch their systems as a precautionary measure or to contact the FBI and other authorities if their networks have already been infected. Continue reading.
No matter whether you store it vertically or horizontally, it's a big darn console, supported by a new, cumbersome display plate that helps keep the beastly thing stable.
According to Senior Editor Jessica Conditt, the new controller has better trigger buttons and a wider grip. Demonstrating the demo title Astro's Playroom, she added that the new haptic functions are pretty impressive but we'll need to wait and see whether major game makers think the same. Deeper gameplay impressions are coming soon -- once we're able to share them.
CD Projekt Red has delayed Cyberpunk 2077 once again, with the game now expecting to land on December 10th -- a delay of 21 days.
"Most likely, there are many emotions and questions in your heads, so, first and foremost, please accept our humble apologies," the studio said on Twitter. CD Projekt Red says the delay is due to the challenge of launching the title on what amounts to nine different platforms while everyone on the team works from home.
The game was originally scheduled for release on April 26th. Continue reading.
In a nice callback to early Android devices like the Motorola Droid, the F(x)tec Pro1-X includes a 66-button QWERTY keyboard. It still, however, has the same aging Snapdragon 835 chip and 3,200mAh battery as its predecessor — though the new model comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage.
The Pro1-X is launching via Indiegogo, in a partnership with the mobile software tweaking community XDA Developers. "The main reason we created the Pro1-X was to offer our users a choice. Every phone launched either runs Android or iOS, and even the best Android phones require rooting to be able to truly customize the experience," said XDA Chief Content Officer Nirave Gondhia.
It will cost $899 when it goes on sale in March, but if you back the crowdfunding campaign there are a few levels of entry with lower prices. Continue reading.
Someone 'seized' a page on DonaldJTrump.com and threatened to release classified info.
With less than a week to go before the US presidential election, election security is a hot-button topic, and hackers have already struck. Briefly, the About page on DonaldJTrump.com was replaced by an unknown party.
On the page, it threatened to "discredit" Trump as president and said the attackers would choose to share or keep secret their incriminating data based on which option received more votes in the form of cryptocurrency sent to their accounts, as well as a supposed encryption key to verify their identity. The page was apparently up for around thirty minutes. Tim Murtaugh, Director of Communications for Trump's re-election campaign, said that they were working with law enforcement to investigate the source of the attack. Continue reading.
A $499 card that's on the level of a two-year old $999 GPU.
NVIDIA claims the RTX 3000 GPUs are its biggest generational leap ever, and that's evident with the 3070. When it came to 4K/HDR gaming, Devindra Hardawar found that the new RTX 3070 "practically mirrored" NVIDIA's older 2080 Ti in benchmarks -- impressive since the new card costs half as much out of the gate.
It's also fairly close to the former champ when using ray-tracing, so if that's your reason for upgrading, you may want to consider the more powerful (and more expensive) RTX 3080. Now the only question is what kind of price/performance parity we'll see from AMD's Radeon 6000 GPUs. Continue reading.
A staged rollout starts for some T-Mobile subscribers on November 1st.
As part of its latest UnCarrier initiative, T-Mobile has launched TVision, a series of over-the-top streaming services that promise to make the process of ditching cable as cheap and as simple as possible.
TVision Live starts at $40/month for more than 30 channels, including ABC, Bravo, CNN, NBC, ESPN and more. For an additional $10 a month, you can tap into TVision Live+, a sports-centric package that includes The NFL Network, ESPNU and The Golf Channel. At the top of the live streaming hierarchy is TVision Live Zone, which includes all of those other channels plus NFL Red Zone. Continue reading.
A small sound bar, 4K HDR streamer and Bluetooth speaker all-in-one.
Shockingly, the combination of a Roku streaming player and a competent sound bar makes for an easy TV upgrade. If, like Valentina Palladino, you have a seven-year-old Vizio TV you're still using, then this can reinvigorate the experience without taking up space or complicating things. And at $130, it's a relatively cheap add-on to your existing setup, whether it's in the living room or elsewhere. Continue reading.
The Trials and Tribulations of Paying Ransomware Hackers
There's no question that hackers are getting increasingly ambitious -- the average ransom demand increased from about $29,000 in 2018 to more than $302,000 in 2019. U.S. law doesn't prohibit paying ransom per se; but when victims pay monies to people or organizations who have been sanctioned by the U.S. government...they get into more trouble.
The world of fitness and exercise has been fundamentally changed by the pandemic. People are doing more workouts at home, purchasing home gym equipment, and relying more than ever on remote fitness coaching. The E-Commerce Times caught up with insiders from the health and wellness industry for perspective on how the population is staying active at home.
The Pandemic's Effect on Gift Giving: Is Your E-Commerce Business Ready?
For all the ways the COVID-19 pandemic has affected our online shopping behavior in 2020, add to the list: holiday gift giving. As e-commerce retailers, we should prepare for a surge in online gift purchases and also an increase in gifts delivered directly to the recipient. Here are ten ideas that e-tailers can use to rethink the gift-giving experience this holiday season.
AvidXchange SVP Heather Caudill on the Quest to Ensure Customer Loyalty
To survive in this new business reality, it is imperative that remote employees have the skills to succeed while away from their physical offices. How to do that effectively is a multifaceted process. CRM Buyer discussed that journey with Heather Caudill, senior vice president of relationship management at AvidXchange.
Open Source Defies Conflicts of Interest: Red Hat Tells All
Red Hat has never had a comprehensive document guiding associate participation in open source projects, until now. Perhaps under the influence of its recent purchase by IBM, Red Hat recently announced the external publication of its open-source participation guidelines. The company released the guidelines on GitHub under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
Healthcare records were digitized to help prevent medical errors such as misdiagnoses and mistakes with medication, but electronic health records have made it easier for bad actors to steal patients' highly personal information. Cybercriminals are further motivated by the fact that patient medical records are worth up to 10 times more than credit card numbers on the Dark Web.
Tech Firms Support Huawei Restriction, Balk at Cost
The U.S. government's policy to restrict federal agency exposure to products and services associated with Huawei Technologies and other China-based companies has gained the support of the U.S. information technology industry. However, a wide swath of U.S. companies registered concerns about federal regulations designed to control the employment of China sourced products by federal agencies and government contractors.
E-commerce is not yet every rural community's Holy Grail for shopping. Many local rural retailers are strangers to e-commerce, and the home delivery routine for rural customers is often very different from the opportunities enjoyed by suburban and city consumers. If stores in rural America want to keep customers happy and healthy, transitioning to e-commerce is key.
DoJ to Google: Try This Antitrust Suit on for Size
Google finds itself in the crosshairs of government regulators as the U.S. Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against the tech giant for unlawfully maintaining a monopoly in online search services and in search advertising.
Supply and Demand: A Moving Target for E-Tail Marketers
Marketers must adapt to changing circumstances. They also have to play better hunches when handling supply and demand issues. In this constantly changing marketplace, supply and demand are moving targets. So why are advertisers not fully...
Centralizing all tools and customer-effecting services into one system delivers great efficiencies for businesses. However, enabling customers to have the same experience in real time is the difference between a CRM and CXM.
Newest RoboLinux 11 Update Goes Far Beyond Typical Linux
RoboLinux is one of the most advanced desktop Linux distributions you can find. The latest release is even better, making it potentially THE best Linux variety available today for desktop users. The Oct. 9 release of RoboLinux 11.13 is an...
Women in Tech: 20 Trailblazers Share Their Journeys
Successful women in the tech trenches share their insights and tackle subjects ranging from how to search out a strong mentor to how to be one -- from how to advance in a large company to how to start your own firm.
This book is an excellent guide for students considering STEM courses, graduates pondering job choices, and career changers at any stage in life. It's also a useful tool for school and career counselors, recruiters, and HR pros eager to diversify their workplaces.
Get the day's top e-business and technology news from ECT News Network delivered to your inbox as stories break. Sign up today.
Feedback
We welcome your feedback. To share your thoughts or ideas, please use our online form.
Manage Subscriptions
This newsletter was sent in response to your request on an ECT News Network website. To update your settings, or to receive other newsletters from ECT News Network: Manage My Subscriptions.
BUSINESS SERVICES
How to Advertise
To advertise in this newsletter or elsewhere on ECT News Network, please call our sales department (818) 461-9700 or follow these links:
