digital media

Who loves public domain access to tons of historically significant and utterly beautiful contend... now in 3D? With the internationally recognized Creative Commons Zero (CCO) license in effect, The Smithsonian launched their Open Access initiative this week to the public for the first time. This system's launch included approximately 2.8 million 2D images and 3D models, rolling the lot directly into the public domain for all to enjoy - and use!

Continue Reading

Today Disney+ is having some network issues, and they're expected to continue through the week. Given the amount of issues logged by Down Detector and the relatively massive wave of mentions about the network in the last day, it would appear that the holidays have not been adequately prepared for by the folks running the servers that host the Disney+ network. Outages appear to be centered in the New York area, Southern California, Washington, Florida, and throughout The Netherlands.

Continue Reading

In late 2019, Hulu decided to split their app into two versions. They called these versions "Classic Hulu app" and "the latest Hulu app" in support documentation. Every device Hulu supports for the "latest" Hulu app will have access for years to come, more than likely. This includes Apple TV (4th gen and later), Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 (not including live programming), Nintendo Switch, Windows 10 devices, Echo Show, Chromecast, and a variety of others. What we're interested in here is the latest guidance from Hulu on devices on which "New" Hulu will and will not work.

Continue Reading

You just opened Disney Plus (or Disney+ if you prefer) for the first time and you're feeling overwhelmed. Or you've been using Disney Plus for a while now, and you wonder if there's anything you've missed. If you're looking for a "what to watch on Disney Plus" sort of article, you can find that on SlashGear too - but THIS article is all about getting started out right.

Continue Reading

Several new experimental features were released today in Steam in the system called Steam Labs. This ecosystem is a place where Valve tests its newest ways in which users can find, view, follow along with, and likely BUY new games. Users can have a peek at the system through Steam Labs right this minute - assuming you're all about testing things that aren't yet fully realized, of course.

Continue Reading

Back in the middle of August, 2019, Spotify removed access to its Android-based music widget in its standard music streaming app. This move was met with some significant backlash from the Android community, resulting in coverage by the tech press, and ultimately a response from Spotify itself. Now, it would seem, Spotify is on track to bring the feature back to the Android app, very soon.

Continue Reading

A ten dollar price increase was tipped this afternoon for all DIRECTV NOW users. That'll apparently make the standard package DIRECTV NOW cost around $50 a month - and it'll be re-named DIRECTV NOW Plus. This smaller of two packages will have "40+ channels" and will replace the standard DIRECTV NOW package that currently costs $40 USD.

Continue Reading

A recent case that went viral over the Interwebs reminded consumers that they may not really own the digital content they purchase, even if it says “Buy”. The case of Anders da Silva’s disappearing iTunes Movies, however, isn’t as clear-cut as it seemed. Because while this specific case doesn’t exactly change the policies, a lot more factors are apparently in play, particularly the case of switching regions/country where the content you have bought may not or no longer be available in your new place of residence.

Continue Reading

Purchasing digital copies of usually physical goods is so easy and convenient these days, most of us don’t give a second thought about it. We don’t have to carry books around, deal with fragile DVDs, or fumble around for cartridges whenever we want to switch games. But depending on where you bought said digital content, buying might not exactly mean what you think it means. That was the bitter truth that a Canadian iTunes user learned when Apple quietly removed content he already bought because the items were no longer being sold on its digital content store.

Continue Reading

An appeals court has agreed with a 2013 ruling by Judge Denny Chin that Google's digitization of 20 million books did not violate copyright laws. Google's snippet feature - or snippet view, if you prefer - shows only a tiny portion of any given book at a time. As such, it has been ruled that any reading of an entire book would be far too great an undertaking to consider realistic. "Snippet view," said the appeals court ruling, "at best and after a large commitment of manpower, produces discontinuous, tiny fragments, amounting in the aggregate to no more than 16% of a book."

Continue Reading

It's not yet May the 4th and it's definitely not yet Christmas, but it seems that the Force will be in full, well, force this Friday. Come 10th of April, the Interwebs will most likely be clogged when hundreds of Star Wars fans try to download and stream all at once the Star Wars Digital HD collection which, for the first time, brings all, yes all, Star Wars film in digital format, HD quality. That means you can enjoy all of the good and the bad that Star Wars has to offer, wherever you are and on whatever device.

Continue Reading

Sometimes, you just want to take a note and have it magically appear in your online journal. With eQuil, you can. The hardware, which works with a responsive app, records your input and copies it to your iOS device. We got a look at eQuil here at Showstoppers, and what we saw was subtly impressive.

Continue Reading