As the Vision Pro begins rolling out exactly a week from now, news is making way of what users can expect on the game-changing XR headset, and surprisingly enough, some companies have expressly mentioned that their apps won’t be available on the Vision Pro’s app store. Notably, apps like Netflix, YouTube, and Spotify (among others) have announced a soft-boycott of the device. Instead of dedicated versions of the apps, they will only be available through the Vision Pro’s browser, offering a less-than-ideal experience as compared to more tailor-made apps like Disney+, which Apple formally partnered with over the Vision Pro.
Designer: Harshita Jajani
However, that hasn’t stopped designers from making their own versions of popular apps (like this Spotify app) for the XR headset. When Apple debuted the Vision Pro in June last year, it spoke highly of its passthrough interface that practically blurred the lines between reality and digitalism. These UX concepts explore that aspect of spatial computing, putting virtual elements in real spaces in a way that feels incredibly believable.
Designed by Harshita Jajani, this unofficial Netflix ‘app’ for the Vision Pro shows how immersive the streaming service could look in a spatial environment. Jajani took parts of the Netflix interface, translating them rather wonderfully into a style synonymous with the Vision Pro’s digital glass interface. The Netflix app features those classic rounded corners, translucent frosted windows, and the ability to shift from a window screen to a much more immersive full-periphery view.
Maybe Netflix will relent after a few months of withholding on the app, but only time will tell. Disney CEO Bob Iger promised a ‘magical’ experience with the Disney+ app (which will come bundled with the Vision Pro), and if anything Netflix’s own app for the Meta Quest is arguably one of the most immersive and fun experiences out there. However, until that happens, these concepts help fill that void. A void that feels like a lot after you spend $3600 on hardware!
There are too many streaming services to keep track of today — and with prices steadily rising, you might be asking yourself if it’s still worthwhile at all to subscribe to these services instead of cable. We share those frustrations but have ultimately decided this oversaturated space offers much more than the basic-cable world that came before it. But now, you have to wade through all of those options and figure out which have the content you want to watch, which fit into your budget, which have the most compelling original series, movies and documentaries, and the best live TV streaming services.
We at Engadget wanted to make that process easier so we’ve compiled a list of the best streaming services you can subscribe to right now, with our favorite picks spanning across all content types and budgets. Should you go out and subscribe to all of the services listed here? Probably not, unless you’re a true cord cutter aching for content. But these are the services that offer the best bang for your buck, regardless of whether you’re a live sports buff, a classic movie lover or a general streaming enthusiast.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-streaming-services-154527042.html?src=rss
There are too many streaming services to keep track of today — and with prices steadily rising, you might be asking yourself if it’s still worthwhile at all to subscribe to these services instead of cable. We share those frustrations but have ultimately decided this oversaturated space offers much more than the basic-cable world that came before it. But now, you have to wade through all of those options and figure out which have the content you want to watch, which fit into your budget, which have the most compelling original series, movies and documentaries, and the best live TV streaming services.
We at Engadget wanted to make that process easier so we’ve compiled a list of the best streaming services you can subscribe to right now, with our favorite picks spanning across all content types and budgets. Should you go out and subscribe to all of the services listed here? Probably not, unless you’re a true cord cutter aching for content. But these are the services that offer the best bang for your buck, regardless of whether you’re a live sports buff, a classic movie lover or a general streaming enthusiast.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-streaming-services-154527042.html?src=rss
I just finished watching the latest season of Stranger Things (at least the part released so far), and let me tell you: It is INTENSE. And because Stranger Thing merchandise is hotter than the devil’s bathwater right now, this is a Stranger Things dishwasher magnet available from AlwaysFits.
The magnet has “CLEAN” on one side, but you flip it over TO THE UPSIDE DOWN when the dishwasher is dirty. I’m not sure what you’re supposed to do when the dishwasher is empty and there’s just a pile of filthy dishes in the sink, but my plan is to wait for my roommate to do them.
I’ll be honest, the Upside Down does NOT look like a place I’d want to visit. I don’t care if my best friend is trapped in there, I can always find a new best friend, but I can’t bring myself back to life. I’m just being realistic here.
Streaming is a curious beast. One minute you'll be enjoying the '80s vibe of Stranger Thingsand the next you'll be struggling to pick something from that overwhelming catalog. Sometimes, though, you'll stumble on something that you'd normally never choose — a Netflix suggestion from a friend or a recent addition that had escaped your glance as you navigated Amazon Prime Video's curated menus.
However, once you've watched that movie or TV show and moved on, it may drop back into relative obscurity, reducing your chances of remembering and paying that recommendation forward many months later. You may also have watched something, hated it and want to make sure it doesn't impact future recommendations. Luckily, many streaming services keep a running list of the things you've watched (if they haven't been removed from the catalog due to licensing agreements). Here's how to find them.
Netflix
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Finding your viewing history on Netflix is a simple affair. Visit Netflix.com, ensure you're logged in and then hover over your profile name. Select Your Account from the menu. Now, scroll down to the bottom and select Viewing Activity. You should now be presented with a list of everything you've streamed on your account.
While you're there, you can decide how your history impacts Netflix recommendations. Clicking the X next to a title will ensure it's deleted from your Recently Watched or Continue Watching row, but it will also ensure that Netflix doesn't use a moment of streaming weakness against you. Once it has been removed, it won't appear in your list until you watch it again.
Apple TV+
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Apple's catalog of streaming originals might not be as broad as, say, Netflix or Disney+, but the iPhone-maker has a very comprehensive movie and TV store that can help fill the gaps.
If you're looking to see what you've recently watched on either Apple TV+ or inside Apple's TV app generally, the company does provide a way to see your viewing history, but it's hidden away right at the bottom of the TV app itself.
Simply open the TV app on a Mac or iOS device and keep scrolling to the very bottom of the Watch Now tab. There, you'll see a small selection of your most recently viewed content. Select the 'See All' link to view everything you've ever watched on Apple TV (this may also include movies and TV shows from third-party apps you have installed on your Apple TV streamer.)
Unfortunately, Apple doesn't offer a dedicated 'Recently Watched' section in the TV+ web UI, opting instead for an 'Up Next' section. You can, however, clear what you have watched by heading to Settings and selecting Clear Play History. Alternatively, click here.
You can also remove individual movies and TV episodes from your Recently Watched list by long-pressing on the thumbnail of the content you wish to remove and selecting 'Remove from Recently Watched.' Perfect, if you've viewed something you told your significant other you'd wait for them to watch together.
Disney+
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Disney+ may now be over two years old, but it's not quite yet caught up with the likes of Netflix and Amazon when it comes to features. Sadly, that means you can't currently see your viewing history on Disney+.
Like many of its rivals, Disney does offer a Continue Watching section, which may help surface movies or TV shows that you may have stopped viewing just as the credits began to roll.
If it's something you feel very strongly about, you can head to the Disney+ website and hit the Give Feedback button at the bottom to, very politely, request that they add the feature.
Hulu
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If you're a Disney+ subscriber in the US, there's a chance that you may have signed up for the Disney Bundle to get subscriptions to Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu for a discounted price. Unlike Disney+, however, Hulu does allow you to properly maintain your watch history both inside its apps and on the web.
It may not be immediately obvious, but Hulu keeps your viewing history inside the Keep Watching section, from which you can browse the movies and TV shows you've already streamed. To make things confusing, you cannot see the individual episodes of a show you've already watched in the Keep Watching section, so you'll need to select the Details page of a particular series and add it to My Stuff. This will also let you see how many unwatched episodes you've got left to stream.
To remove content, navigate to the Keep Watching page and click on the X to purge it from your watch history. On mobile, tap the three dots on the thumbnail of the selected show or movie and hit Remove from Watch History.
HBO Max
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As it stands, HBO Max doesn't offer a way to see everything you've watched. It does, however, automatically add movies and TV series that you haven't finished watching to its Continue Watching row on the home screen of the service.
To remove a movie or show from your Continue Watching listing in your app or on the web, tap on your profile icon, then Continue Watching, and then Edit. Then, simply tap the X next to an individual item or Clear All to remove everything. When you're finished, hit Done.
Amazon Prime Video
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Unlike Netflix, Amazon doesn't make it easy to see what you've previously watched. In fact, it buries its listing inside a number of links that you wouldn't otherwise check.
If you want to go the manual route, ensure you're logged in on the Amazon website and click the Your Account link on the top bar. On the resulting page, scroll down to Personalization and click Improve Your Recommendations. Now, on the left menu, click Videos You've Watched.
Here, you can rate a TV show or movie so that Amazon can better understand your likes and dislikes or exclude that listing entirely. If you've found that both Netflix and Amazon have done a poor job of matching content to your interests, this is a good way to provide it with more insight.
Peacock
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Peacock doesn't currently provide a way to see everything you've streamed on its service. It does, however, offer a Continue Watching section that will list all of the movies and TV shows that you have started but may not have completely finished.
Paramount+
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Paramount+ also doesn't currently provide a way to see everything you've watched. There is a Keep Watching section, though, that lists all of the movies and TV shows that you have started but may not have completely finished.
Every hit movie, TV series, or even trailer is predictably followed by two things – memes, and merch. Although Netflix’s Squid Game hasn’t seen any release of official merchandise, designers and builders like Sanago are taking it upon themselves to create their own collectibles. The ‘Squid Game Doll’ isn’t a product you can buy off the shelves, although Sanago’s video shows you how you can make it on your own. All you need is a $50-$70 3D Pen, a length of plastic filament, an iPad, and a couple of workshop tools to create a scaled-down replica of the killer doll from the smash-hit Korean series. If you want, you can even chuck in a stepper motor to make the doll’s head turn 180° for dramatic effect!
With a YouTube channel devoted specifically to 3D Pens, Sanago makes videos documenting how versatile 3D pens can be. Although the Japan-based YouTuber sells 3D pens under his own brand on Naver, the videos are more about showing what the pens are capable of, as he builds out tiny models of BMWs, Porsches, houses, cartoon/video-game characters, and occasionally also takes it upon himself to repair broken walls, stairs, and pillars with 3D pens. With the Squid Game Doll, however, Sanago taps into a wonderfully creative trick to making perfect collectible toys by simply tracing over images on an iPad. Fundamentally, this ensures that his models are perfect in their basic detail and proportion, and a steady hand always helps too. Sanago starts simply by drawing out the front profile of the doll to act as a guide for the rest of the 3D building.
The next steps involve turning the 2D profile into 3D forms by adding more cross-sections, building out first the legs, then the dress/torso, and finally the head.
Once there’s a rough skeleton to work with, Sanago basically fills in the gaps to create a ‘solid model’. Working almost like a 3D printer would (although taking less time, using less filament, and accruing a fraction of the cost), Sanago fills up the gaps rather rapidly, focusing more on getting the job done fast and well, instead of on proper accuracy. It’s absolutely fun to watch how the 3D pen essentially draws in air, and Sanago’s deft handiwork makes it even more incredible to watch as the rough forms come to life. The following steps will ensure that the model looks absolutely perfect.
The face is built out the same way as the rest of the doll, with a focus on the details like the eyes, nose, lips, etc. Two things are crucial here – firstly, making sure that you ensure the base model looks roughly the way you want it to look, and secondly, ensuring that there are absolutely no inconsistencies or gaps while filling up the rough 3D structure. Just the way a 3D printer adds layers to create a rigid surface, it’s imperative that you do the same, because even though the layers may look completely rough to begin with, they’ll be finished to reveal a much smoother model.
At this point, the model looks like a cake of ramen noodles before they go into boiling water. This is absolutely intentional because the design process here is a combination of additive and subtractive modeling. Sanago first creates a rough model of the toy, and when he’s satisfied with how it looks overall, he works on the finer details, creating a smooth product from the rough, hollow, plastic mass.
Speaking of hollow mass, Sanago also repurposes electrical components from a toy parrot and places them inside the doll. A control board, microphone, and speaker go in the hollow torso, two AA batteries go into each leg, and a stepper motor sits in the neck, allowing the head to rotate on command.
The finishing process finally begins with a heated carving tool, that Sanago uses to melt the noodly texture on the doll and make it smoother. It’s a laborious process that requires time and patience, but turns the basic rough 3D model into something that looks much more like the final product. It also allows Sanago to carve in details like lips, eyelids, and the lines on the hair. Although Sanago’s MacGyvered heating tool isn’t something every household would have, the easiest way to really get the job done is either a knife and a candle or using a heat-gun or hair-dryer if you’re comfortable. One great benefit to the creative process here is that you can pretty much use any color filament you’ve got lying around. As long as the filaments are of the same material, they should adhere well, and the entire model gets a coat of paint in the end, so any underlying color works for your design.
At this point, it’s sort of like working with any 3D printed, CNC-machined, or hand-made model. Sanago gets to work sanding the surfaces with a Dremel tool and a sanding bit, making sure there aren’t any bumps or inconsistencies in the surface. Parts don’t need to be modeled with fixtures here because the 3D Pen simply lets you glue components together, while the Dremel tool easily lets you sand or buff out welding/joining marks.
When the entire thing’s ready, it gets a coat of paint, applied in this case, using a spray gun (although you could just hand-paint your toys too). Sanago’s toy also comes with movable hands, details that just require a bit of planning beforehand (followed by some sanding and finishing), and a switch at the bottom lets you switch the toy on or off. Cleverly enough, Sanago even outfits the doll’s microphone unit behind its petticoat button, and a buttonhole lets you easily record what your doll’s going to say, while a speaker in the back plays out the doll’s deadpan dialogues. The video ends with Sanago even hacking together a Pink Guard Helmet using a 3D pen, and creating a demo video of the Red Light Green Light game in progress. While it doesn’t cinematically match up to what Netflix pushes out, it’s gotten over 14 million views on YouTube, which is pretty impressive if you ask me!
With the phenomenal success of Netflix’s Squid Game, it was only a short matter of time until the inevitable tidal wave of merchandise hit shores. Well, now it’s here, and Funko is releasing six characters from the series in their Funko Pop! style figurines to rake in some of that money. It’s like Funko just broke open their own Squid Game piggy bank!
Available individually for $11 or as a $66 six character set from Entertainment Earth, the figures include Seong Gi-Hun (Player 456), Oh Il-nam (Player 001), Abdul Ali (Player 199), Kang Sae-byeok (Player 067), Cho Sang-Woo (Player 218), and a circle masked worker. Will they also release square and triangle masked workers and Front Man and VIP figures? If there’s money to be made, I can almost guarantee it.
Did you know Squid Game’s creator/director Hwang Dong-hyuk shopped around a script for a Squid Game movie for ten years before Netflix showed an interest in turning it into a series? Ten years! I wish I’d gotten ahold of it first. I mean, sure, it would have been filmed with next to no budget with sets made almost entirely from cardboard, but still, ketchup can pass for real blood if your camera is crappy enough.
A cool gaming controller for the most popular video streaming service will bring an unprecedented level of control to the in-game action for hours of fun on the go.
Netflix has redefined streaming content in more ways than one for more than a decade now. The platform has a whopping 207.64 million paid subscribers worldwide as of the first quarter of 2021 as reported by Statista. But according to internal reports, Netflix’s growth graph is on a flattening trajectory in the last couple of years, and the next big avenue to look forward to is gaming. The gaming service will be a part of the current Netflix portfolio and will be offered at no extra cost to the subscribers. This will give Netflix an edge over current competitors like Disney+, Amazon Prime Videos and Apple TV+.
The cloud gaming service is set to debut early next year and we could expect an announcement by the end of this year too. This gives the perfect opportunity to concept designers for coming up with Netflix branded gaming accessories that will ultimately brace the platform just like Google Stadia, Xbox Gaming pass, Nividia GeForce Now, and Amazon Luna. The gaming controller has a very distinct form factor – something akin to the Nintendo Joy-Con controllers but still very unique in its own rights.
Designers Seong Bin Yoon and Cheolhee Lee have envisioned the video streaming service to get a gaming controller that is good for casual gaming as well as AR and VR-assisted gaming fun. The vertical grip positioning with bumper buttons on the sides coincides with that vision for the freedom of movement in all directions. The front has the customary joystick, directional pad and buttons for in-game input. Interestingly the left and right sections of the controller can move independently for a more immersive game input and better control in the game for tactical advantage.
On both sides, there are volume dial buttons, so I’m assuming the controller can beam stereo audio through the speaker-like vents on the bottom front on both sides. This cool Netflix cloud gaming controller design gets a thumbs up from my side. For sure it is a refreshing take on the gaming controller accessories which have not evolved much in terms of design over these years. Moreover, it aptly matches the distinct image of Netflix as a video streaming platform!
Dubbed (Archi)TECT’S GAMBIT, the chess pieces from Carpenter boast a conceptual take on the high-rises and suspension bridges that make up the bulk of Bangkok’s cityscape.
‘Queen’s Gambit’ turned the world into chess players. Soon after bingeing the hit Netflix series, we were buying the coolest chessboard we could find and maybe a couple of guidebooks too. Whether you’re new to the original board game or you’ve been playing it as long as Beth Harmon, the game of chess has a beloved board design that’s been host to an endless array of stylistic variations throughout the game’s rich history. Carpenter Design, a carpentry company devoted to repurposing wood waste, went further than only learning how to play chess after finishing ‘Queen’s Gambit,’ designing and carving their own chess board modeled after the architecture of Bangkok, the company’s home city.
Dubbed (Archi)TECT’S GAMBIT, the chess pieces from Carpenter boast a conceptual take on the high-rises and suspension bridges that make up the bulk of Bangkok’s cityscape. Starting out as a chess player in secondary school, Carpenter designer Vrada Siripong felt inspired to take up the game once more after finishing ‘Queen’s Gambit.’ (Archi)TECT’S GAMBIT was created by Siripong and her fellow Carpenter co-designer, Sirincha Sathume who both played in the same chess club. Speaking on the board’s conception, Siripong notes, “It was fun and purely out of my personal fascination. As soon as I finished the series, my brain immediately started working on ideas for the project.”
When set against the backdrop of Bangkok’s skyline, players can recognize all of the city structures that inspired Siripong’s and Sathume chess boards and pieces. For example, the board’s King and Queen pieces resemble the form and general framework of high-rise buildings in Bangkok’s city proper, whereas the Rook mimics a simpler micro-model of both ends of a suspension bridge in Bangkok. The board’s black wood gives the game a mature, refined finish and stenciled embroidery adornments fill each square. The delicate stencil work was initially programmed using AutoCAD, a software familiar to most architects.
Your Xbox can run Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, YouTube, and Spotify, which sounds pretty impressive at first till you realize you have to navigate those apps with a gaming controller. If you’re the kind to use your Xbox for bingeing as much as you do for gaming, 8BitDo’s Xbox Media Remote might come in pretty handy. Designed to let you use your gaming console as a media console too, the remote gives you a traditional television-style experience, with the appropriate navigation, playback, and volume control buttons.
While it’s essentially a third-party controller, the Media Remote looks like it belongs right in Xbox’s design family, and works wonderfully with the gaming console too. It comes in the same colors as the Xbox (black or white) and two sizes – a smaller remote with all the basic controls, and a longer one with a few extra buttons. The remote works seamlessly with Xbox One, Series X, and Series S, allowing you to wake up your console just by pushing the main button and navigating through the interface just as comfortably as you would with a TV remote. If you’re in a gaming mood, the remote comes with XYAB buttons too, although don’t expect to pull off any spectacular victories with that! That remote’s for Netflix and Chill, not GTA and Thrill!
