TechBooky

Facebook wants to push even further into your home—the social media company is building a TV set-top box with a built-in camera, according to a new report in Cheddar . The device, code-named Ripley, is reportedly based on some of the same technology as Facebook’s recently unveiled Portal smart display—and it will be optimised for Facebook"s burgeoning TV platform, Watch. The set-top box would let you stream Watch shows to your television, though it"s not clear if it would support content from other platforms. If Facebook is making a play for the TV, it’ll need to shore up its support for apps. As it stands, The Portal supports Facebook Watch and music through Spotify and Pandora. That’s fine for a smart display, but it’s nowhere near the kind of content support Facebook will need to convince users to give up an HDMI port, especially when so many other options are out there. In addition to streaming, the box would also be equipped with a camera simila...

If you"ve ever been in a situation where, for some reason, you couldn"t make use of your streaming service subscription for an extended period of time and you had to pay for another.  Here is the good news— YouTube TV"s announced a new feature which allows customers to pause their subscription at any time and resume it later when they"re ready to use it again. According to the services help page . YouTube TV Help wrote in a post : "You can cancel or pause your YouTube TV membership at any time. When you cancel or pause your membership, you"ll still have access to YouTube TV until the end of your payment period," "When your paused state ends, you will automatically be charged at your normal monthly price for a new month of service, and that date becomes your new billing date," the post added. During the pause period, neither the user nor the shared members would have access to YouTube TV and no new programme would be recorded. However, the pr...

Many people are yet to wrap their head around nor upgraded to 4K resolutions yet, but this week at the IFA 2018, Samsung  announced its first-ever 8K television for commercial release. It"s not news that Samsung"s been working on an 8K set. The company first showed the Q9S at CES 2018 in January, and quietly announced in a presentation at the QLED and Advanced Display conference in June , Forbes noted that it would be releasing several 8K models this year. But thus far, exact timing and price have remained a secret, Until now. Q900R, It’s a QLED device that comes in four big screen sizes (65”, 75”, 82” and 85”)—with a very impressive 4,000 nit peak brightness and supports a real 8K resolution as well as the HDR10+ standard. Since there’s virtually no 8K content on the market worth watching right now, the primary selling point of the TV appears to be upscaling 4K content—which Samsung explains it will relies on tech involving artifici...

When you’re watching a crucial sports live online or on TV, the last thing you want is for the screen to go blank for no reason—But that’s precisely what happened, as the screen went blank for users using YouTube TV to watch the live stream of the semi-final match between England and Croatia. Keen to make up for the outage, YouTube has decided to offer subscribers at least a week’s worth of free service. It also said that at least some of those who complained directly to customer service were told they would receive a month’s worth of credit. The One week of free YouTube TV amounts to $10, under the current $40-per-month pricing for new customers. Customers who signed up before March 13, 2018, on the original $35 monthly plan are grandfathered in on that price. YouTube TV earned a "good" rating in April 2017 review; It offers "several compelling features" like an unlimited cloud DVR but noted it was missing several major cable channels at launch, including ...

Microsoft may soon extend its Movies & TV app beyond the Windows 10 hub. “Microsoft is building these apps to give consumers more of a reason to buy content in the Microsoft Store”.  According to a report by Windows Central . “Lots of people buy digital movies and TV content, and Microsoft has a huge store that a lot of people seemingly ignore or don’t know about because there is no mobile companion app for their phone,” the report added. Last June, Microsoft shut down its Groove Music service after announcing a partnership with the music streaming platform Spotify . The company requested its customers to transfer everything they had saved, downloaded and playlists they had created on Groove to Spotify, media reported. But the company did not touch the “Movies & TV” app then. The Microsoft Store has an impressive collection of films and TV shows available to buy, including many that aren"t available via streaming services, but until...

After dealing with demonetisation problems for close to two years. YouTube creators will finally get paid for their content. At its annual VidCon gathering in Anaheim, California, the site announced an alternative payment method for channel memberships and a merchandising feature. Channel Memberships is a rebrand of Subscriptions, a feature that had been tested by select creators for a while. Channels with over 100,000 subscribers will get access to Memberships for $4.99 per month. Creators will have a unique badges for their profiles, custom emoji, members-only posts, exclusive livestreams and videos, and other perks. While channels with fewer than 100,000 subscribers will be disappointed to miss this opportunity, YouTube says it hopes to make more Memberships available to more people in the coming months. Merchandise is exactly what it sounds like—merchandise that creators can customise and feature on a digital "shelf" on their YouTube channel. The company partnered with T...

The latest sound technology will finally come to the best high-end streaming TV box. At Apple"s WWDC 2018 developer conference, the company announced another addition which is mind blowing. Apple just added Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision support to its Apple TV - making it the only streaming device to support Atmos and Dolby Vision. Dolby Atmos, if you haven"t heard of it before, provides a more immersive audio experience by creating a sound bubble of 360-degree sound by bouncing sound off the ceiling, making it more lifelike than traditional surround sound systems. The catch, obviously, accessing Dolby Atmos features on your Apple TV 4K will require Dolby Atmos–enabled speakers or a Hi-Fi receiver. That’s because Dolby Atmos is decoded by an external receiver. There are options from LG and Samsung, like the LG SJ9 Soundbar or Samsung HW-K950, but they"re more expensive than traditional 2.1 setups. The company describes it as “sound, turned up to 360” : “Comb...

Game lovers are in for a treat. ESPN and Riot games has signed a  multi-year agreement to stream esports competitions on the ESPN+ app. ESPN+ will kick off its coverage in June 16 — just in time for the North American League of Legends Championship Series Summer Split. Ten teams will go against each other twice each season, with 18 matches for each, and one match per day. The matches will stream live on ESPN+ on Saturday and Sunday. Following this, the summer finals will be held in Sept. 8-9 at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif. Three teams will qualify for the League of Legends World Championship in South Korea. That competition will put 24 teams from 14 regional leagues up against each other later in the fall. However, ESPN+ won’t have exclusive rights to the “League of Legends” programming, which will continue to be distributed on Amazon-owned Twitch and other platforms. Here is how it all started: In 2016, Riot Games (publisher of multiplayer battle-arena ...

If you"re one of those people who enjoy using Twitter on their TV, you"re in for some bad news. Twitter today announced that it will discontinue its apps on the Xbox One, Roku, and Android TV. The apps will no longer be available beginning this Thursday, May 24. The report was first sighted on twitter support page , after a tweet on the cancellation of their app on listed device. The tweet which reads: “On Thursday, May 24, Twitter for Roku, Twitter for Android TV and Twitter for Xbox will no longer be available. To get the full Twitter experience, visit https://twitter.com on your device or desktop. The Android TV app was published in late 2016, and it allowed users to watch Twitter live streams (football, coverage of political events, etc) and view Moments. It was last updated in December 2017 and currently sits at 10,000-100,000 installations, so it"s not surprising why Twitter would decide to end development. The Roku and Xbox apps offered similar functionality. The...