Doom: The Dark Ages just launched on May 15. But it's already received "difficulty" balance changes "that have made the demons of Hell even more dangerous than ever," writes Windows Central: According to DOOM's official website Slayer's Club, these balance adjustments are focused on making the game harder, as players have been leaving feedback saying it felt too easy even on Nightmare Mode. As a result, enemies now hit harder, health and armor item pick-ups drop less often, and certain enemies punish you more severely for mistiming the parry mechanic.
It reached three million players in just five days, which was seven times faster than 2020's Doom: Eternal," reports Wccftech (though according to analytics firm Ampere Analysis (via The Game Business), more than two million of those three million launch players were playing on Xbox, while only 500K were playing on PS5.") "id Software proves it can still reinvent the wheel," according to one reviewer, "shaking up numerous aspects of gameplay, exchanging elaborate platforming for brutal on-the-ground action, as well as the ability to soar on a dragon's back or stomp around in a giant mech."

And the New York Times says the game "effectively reinvents the hellish shooter with a revamped movement system and deepened lore" in the medieval goth-themed game... Double jumping and dashing are ditched and replaced with an emphasis on raw power and slow, strategic melee combat. Doom Slayer's arsenal features a brand-new tool, the powerful Shield Saw, which Id Software made a point to showcase across its "Stand and Fight" trailers and advertisements. Used for absorbing damage at the expense of speed, the saw also allows players to bash enemies from afar and close the gap on chasms too wide to jump across. While previous titles allowed players to quickly worm their way through bullet hell, The Dark Ages expects you to meet foes head on. "If you were an F-22 fighter jet in Doom Eternal, this time around we wanted you to feel like an Abrams tank," Hugo Martin, the game's creative director, has told journalists.

And Doom Slayer's beefy durability and unstoppable nature does make the gameplay a refreshing experience. The badassery is somehow ratcheted to new heights with the inclusion of a fully controllable mech, which has only a handful of attacks at its disposal, and actual dragons. Flight in a Doom game is entirely surprising and fluid, and the dragons feel relatively easy to maneuver through tight spots. They can also engage in combat more deliberately with the use of dodges and mounted cannons...

One of my favorite additions is the skullcrusher pulverizer. Equal parts heinous nutcracker and demonic woodchipper, the gun lodges skulls into a grinder and sends shards of bones flying at enemies. The animation is both goofy and satisfying.
Another special Times article notes that Doom's fans "resurrect the original game over and over again on progressively stranger pieces of hardware: a Mazda Miata, a NordicTrack treadmill, a French pharmacy sign." But what many hard-core tech hobbyists want to know is whether you can play it on a pregnancy test. The answer: positively yes. And for the first time, even New York Times readers can play Doom within The Times's site [after creating a free account]...

None of this happened by accident, of course. Ports were not incidental to Doom's development. They were a core consideration. "Doom was developed in a really unique way that lent a high degree of portability to its code base," said John Romero, who programmed the game with John Carmack. (In our interview, he then reminisced about operating systems for the next 14 minutes.) Id had developed Wolfenstein 3D, the Nazi-killing predecessor to Doom, on PCs. To build Doom, Carmack and Romero used NeXT, the hardware and software company founded by Steve Jobs after his ouster from Apple in 1985. NeXT computers were powerful, selling for about $25,000 apiece in today's dollars. And any game designed on that system would require porting to the more humdrum PCs encountered by consumers at computer labs or office jobs.

This turned out to be advantageous because Carmack had a special aptitude for ports. All of Id's founders met as colleagues at Softdisk, which had hired Carmack because of his ability to spin off multiple versions of a single game. The group decided to strike out on its own after Carmack created a near-perfect replica of the first level of Super Mario Bros. 3 — Nintendo's best-selling platformer — on a PC. It was a wonder of software engineering that compensated for limited processing power with clever workarounds. "This is the thing that everyone has," Romero said of PCs. "The fact that we could figure out how to make it become a game console was world changing...."

Romero founded a series of game studios after leaving Id in 1996 and is working on a new first-person shooter, the genre he and Carmack practically invented. He has no illusions about how it may stack up. "I absolutely accept that Doom is the best game I'll ever make that has that kind of a reach," he said. "At some point you make the best thing." Thirty years on, people are still making it.
And in related news, PC Gamer reports... As part of a new "FPS Fridays" series on Twitch, legendary shooter designer John Romero streamed New Blood's 2018 hit, Dusk, one of the first and most influential indie "boomer shooters" in the genre's recent revitalization. The short of it? Romero seems to have had a blast.

Long-time Slashdot reader SchroedingersCat shares this article from Deadline: Prime Video will not be renewing The Wheel of Time for a fourth season according to Deadline article. The decision, which comes more than a month after the Season 3 finale was released April 17, followed lengthy deliberations. As often is the case in the current economic environment, the reasons were financial as the series is liked creatively by the streamer's executives...

The Season 3 overall performance was not strong enough compared to the show's cost for Prime Video to commit to another season and the streamer could not make it work after examining different scenarios and following discussions with lead studio Sony TV, sources said. With the cancellation possibility — and the show's passionate fanbase — in mind, the Season 3 finale was designed to offer some closure. Still, the news would be a gut punch for fans who have been praising the latest season as the series' best yet creatively... Prime Video and Sony TV will continue to back the Emmy campaign for The Wheel of Time's third season.

Quebec Culture Minister Mathieu Lacombe has introduced Bill 109, which would require streaming platforms like Netflix and Spotify to feature and prioritize French-language content. CBC.ca reports: Bill 109 has been in the works for over a year. It marks the first time that Quebec would set a "visibility quota" for French-language content on major streaming platforms such as Netflix, Disney and Spotify. [...] The legislation, titled An Act to affirm the cultural sovereignty of Quebec and to enact the Act respecting the discoverability of French-language cultural content in the digital environment, would apply to every digital platform that offers a service for watching videos or listening to music and audiobooks online. Those include Canadian platforms such as Illico, Crave and Tou.tv. It would amend the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms to enshrine "the right to discoverability of and access to original French-language cultural content."

If the bill is adopted, streaming platforms and television manufacturers would be forced to present interfaces for screening online videos in French by default. Those interfaces would need to provide access to platforms that offer original French-language cultural content based on the government's pending criteria. Financial penalties would be imposed on companies that don't follow the rules. If the business models of some companies prevent them from keeping to the letter of the proposed law, companies would be allowed to enter into an agreement with the Quebec government to set out "substitute measures" to fulfil Bill 109 obligations differently. "We don't want to exempt them. We're telling them, 'let's negotiate substitute measures,'" Lacombe told reporters.

Walmart is preparing for a future where AI agents shop on behalf of consumers by adapting its systems to serve both humans and autonomous bots. As major players like Visa and PayPal also invest in agentic commerce, Walmart is positioning itself as a leader by developing its own AI agents and supporting broader industry integration. PYMNTS reports: Instead of scrolling through ads or comparing product reviews, future consumers may rely on digital assistants, like OpenAI's Operator, to manage their shopping lists, from replenishing household essentials to selecting the best TV based on personal preferences, according to the report (paywalled). "It will be different," Walmart U.S. Chief Technology Officer Hari Vasudev said, per the report. "Advertising will have to evolve." The emergence of AI-generated summaries in search results has already altered the way consumers gather product information, the report said. However, autonomous shopping agents represent a bigger transformation. These bots could not only find products but also finalize purchases, including payments, without the user ever lifting a finger. [...]

Retail experts say agentic commerce will require companies to overhaul how they market and present their products online, the WSJ report said. They may need to redesign product pages and pricing strategies to cater to algorithmic buyers. The customer relationship could shift away from retailers if purchases are completed through third-party agents. [...] To prepare, Walmart is developing its own AI shopping agents, accessible through its website and app, according to the WSJ report. These bots can already handle basic tasks like reordering groceries, and they're being trained to respond to broader prompts, such as planning a themed birthday party. Walmart is working toward a future in which outside agents can seamlessly communicate with the retailer's own systems -- something Vasudev told the WSJ he expects to be governed by industry-wide protocols that are still under development. [...]

Third-party shopping bots may also act independently, crawling retailers' websites much like consumers browse stores without engaging sales associates, the WSJ report said. In those cases, the retailer has little control over how its products are evaluated. Whether consumers instruct their AI to shop specifically at Walmart or ask for the best deal available, the outcomes will increasingly be shaped by algorithms, per the report. Operator, for example, considers search ranking, sponsored content and user preferences when making recommendations. That's a far cry from how humans shop. Bots don't respond to eye-catching visuals or emotionally driven branding in the same way people do. This means retailers must optimize their content not just for people but for machine readers as well, the report said. Pricing strategies could also shift as companies may need to make rapid pricing decisions and determine whether it's worth offering AI agents exclusive discounts to keep them from choosing a competitor's lower-priced item, according to the report.

Warner Bros. Discovery said Wednesday it will revert its streaming service name from Max back to HBO Max this summer, just two years after dropping the HBO branding.

The decision, revealed at the company's upfront presentation to advertisers in New York, represents an admission that HBO's premium brand equity remains valuable in the streaming landscape. "Returning the HBO brand into HBO Max will further drive the service forward and amplify the uniqueness that subscribers can expect," WBD stated in a press release.

Back in 2000, Slashdot founder CmdrTaco marked the 4th anniversary of Jennifer Ringley's pioneering "JenniCam" livestream (saying "It sure beats the Netscape FishCam. It's nuts how Jenni's little cam became such a fixture on The Internet...")

But a new article in the Washington Post remembers how "Once, Ringley looked directly into the camera and held a note in front of her eye. It read: 'I FEEL SO LONELY.'" By 2003, Ringley had shut down the site and disappeared. She began declining interview requests, saying she was enjoying her privacy; her absence on social media continues to this day.
"But by then, the human zoo was everywhere," they write including "social media, where everyone could become a character in their own show." In 2007 Justin Kan launched Justin.TV, which eventually became Twitch, "a thrumming online city for anyone wanting to, as its slogan said, 'waste time watching other people waste time.'"

But the article also notes 2023 stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics survey that found Americans"were spending far less time socializing than they had 20 years ago — especially 18-to-29-year-olds, who were spending two more hours a day alone." So how did this play out for the next generation of livestreaming influencers? Here's the origin story of "a lonely young woman in Texas" who's "streamed every second of her life for three years and counting." One afternoon, her boyfriend told her to try Twitch, saying, as she recalled: "Your life sucks, you work at CVS, you have no friends. ... This could be helpful." In her first stream, on a Friday night, she played 3½ hours of "World of Warcraft" for her zero followers.
Eight years later... Six hundred and forty-two people are watching when Emily tugs off her sleep mask to begin day No. 1,137 of broadcasting every hour of her life... On the live-streaming service Twitch, one of the world's most popular platforms, Emily is a legendary figure. For three years, she has ceaselessly broadcast her life — every birthday and holiday, every sickness and sleepless night, almost all of it alone. Her commitment has made her a model for success in the new internet economy, where authenticity and endurance are highly prized. It's also made her a good amount of money: $5.99 a month from thousands of subscribers each, plus donations and tips — minus Twitch's 30-to-40 percent cut.

But to get there, Emily, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that her last name be withheld due to concerns of harassment, has devoted herself to a solitary life of almost constant stimulation. For three years, she has taken no sick days, gone on no vacations, declined every wedding invitation, had no sex. She has broadcast and self-narrated a thousand days of sleeping, driving and crying, lugging her camera backpack through the grocery store, talking through a screen to strangers she'll never meet. Her goal is to buy a house and get married by the age of 30, but she's 28 and says she's too busy to have a boyfriend. Her last date was seven years ago... But no one tells streamers when to record or when to stop. There are no labor codes, performance limits or regulations to keep the platforms from setting incentives impossibly high. Many streamers figure out the optimal strategy themselves: The more you share, the more successful you can be....

Though some Twitch stars are millionaires, most scramble to get by, buffeted by the vagaries of audience attention. Emily's paid-subscription count, which peaked last year at 22,000, has since slumped to around 6,000, dropping her base income to about $5,000 a month, according to estimates from the analytics firm Streams Charts... Sometimes Emily dreads waking up and clocking into the reality show that is her life. She knows staring at screens all night is unhealthy, and when she feels too depressed to stream, she'll stay in bed for hours while her viewers watch. But she worries that taking a break would be "career suicide," as she called it. Some viewers already complain that she showers too long, sleeps in too late, doesn't have enough fun...

She said she "used to show true sadness on stream" but doesn't anymore because it makes viewers uncomfortable. When she hits a breaking point now, she said, she closes herself in the bathroom.

Netflix has officially launched a new AI-powered search feature that uses OpenAI's ChatGPT to deliver a conversational content discovery experience, allowing users to describe what they're looking for in natural language. The streaming giant is also getting into short videos with a new vertical feed set to rival Instagram Reels and TikTok. TechCrunch reports: Users can enter their preferences using natural phrases like "I want something funny and upbeat" or even more detailed requests, such as "I want something scary, but not too scary, and maybe a little bit funny, but not haha funny." The feature is set to roll out this week to iOS users as an opt-in beta. Some subscribers in Australia and New Zealand have already had access to it, as reported by Bloomberg last month. [...] Additionally, at the tech and product event, the company mentioned plans to use generative AI to update title cards in subscribers' preferred languages. Other features revealed on Wednesday include a short-form video feed for mobile users and a redesign of its TV homepage.

Netflix's new mobile-only vertical feed allows users to easily scroll through clips of its original titles. Within this feed, users can tap on buttons to watch the entire show or movie immediately, save it to their "My List," or share it with friends. Of note is that the clips are curated from the "Today's Top Picks for You" section rather than being chosen from Netflix's entire library. This approach makes it specifically tailored to each user, ultimately encouraging viewers to watch the full shows.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: An update to Roku OS has resulted in colors looking washed out in HDR content viewed on Roku apps, like Disney+. Complaints started surfacing on Roku's community forum a week ago. On May 1, a company representative posted that Roku was "investigating the Disney Plus HDR content that was washed out after the recent update." However, based on user feedback, it seems that HDR on additional Roku apps, including Apple TV+ and Netflix, are also affected. Roku's representative has been asking users to share their experiences so that Roku can dig deeper into the problem. [...]

Roku hasn't provided a list of affected devices, but users have named multiple TCL TV models, at least one Hisense, and one Sharp TV as being impacted. We haven't seen any reports of Roku streaming sticks being affected. One forum user claimed that plugging a Roku streaming stick into a Roku TV circumvented the problem. Forum user Squinky said the washed-out colors were only on Disney+. However, other users have reported seeing the problem across other apps, including Max and Fandango. [...] Users have noted that common troubleshooting efforts, like restarting and factory resetting their TVs and checking for software updates, haven't fixed the problem.

The problems appear to stem from the Roku OS 14.5 update, which was issued at the end of April. According to the release notes, the update is available for all Roku TV models from 2014 on, except for models 65R648, 75R648, and 75U800GMR. Roku streaming sticks also received the update. Per Roku, the software update includes "various performance optimizations, bug fixes, and improvements to security, stability." Other additions include a "new personalized row of content within the Live TV Guide" and upgrades to Roku OS' daily trivia, voice control, and discovery capabilities. "I'm surprised more people aren't complaining because it makes a ton of shows simply unwatchable. Was looking forward to Andor, and Tuesday night [was] ruined," posted forum user noob99999, who said the problem was happening on "multiple apps," including Amazon Prime Video. "I hope the post about imminent app updates are correct because in the past, Roku has taken forever to correct issues."

"The U.S. and Canadian websites for Lenovo offered U.S. $140 and CAD $211 off on the same ThinkPad X1 Carbon model when choosing any one of the Linux-based alternatives," reports It's FOSS News: This was brought to my attention thanks to a Reddit post... Others then chimed in, saying that Lenovo has been doing this since at least 2020 and that the big price difference shows how ridiculous Windows' pricing is...

Not all models from their laptop lineup, like ThinkPad, Yoga, Legion, LOQ, etc., feature an option to get Linux pre-installed during the checkout process. Luckily, there is an easy way to filter through the numerous laptops. Just go to the laptops section (U.S.) on the Lenovo website and turn on the "Operating System" filter under the Filter by specs sidebar menu.
The article end with an embedded YouTube video showing a VCR playing a videotape of a 1999 local TV news report... about the legendary "Windows Refund Day" protests.

Slashdot ran numerous stories about the event — including one by Jon Katz...

"Google-owned YouTube's revenue last year was estimated to be $54.2 billion," reports the Los Angeles Times, "which would make it the second-largest media company behind Walt Disney Co., according to a recent report from research firm MoffettNathanson, which called YouTube 'the new king of all media.'" YouTube, run by Chief Executive Neal Mohan since 2023, accounted for 12% of U.S. TV viewing in March, more than other rival streaming platforms including Netflix and Tubi, according to Nielsen... More people are watching YouTube on TV sets rather than on smartphones and computer screens, consuming more than 1 billion hours on average of YouTube content on TV daily, the company said on its website.
When YouTube first started its founders envisioned it as a dating site, according to the article, "where people would upload videos and score them. When that didn't work, the founders decided to open up the platform for all sorts of videos." And since this was 20 years ago, "Users drove traffic to YouTube by sharing videos on MySpace."

But the article includes stories of people getting rich through YouTube's sharing of ad revenue: Patrick Starrr, who produces makeup tutorial videos, said he made his first $1 million through YouTube at the age of 25. He left his job at retailer MAC Cosmetics in Florida and moved to L.A...

[Video creator Dhar Mann] started posting videos on YouTube in 2018 with no film background. Mann previously had a business that sold supplies to grow weed. Today, his company, Burbank-based Dhar Mann Studios, operates on 125,000 square feet of production space, employs roughly 200 people and works with 2,000 actors a year on family friendly programs that touch on how students and families deal with topics such as bullying, narcolepsy, chronic inflammatory bowel disease and hoarding. Mann made $45 million last year, according to Forbes estimates. The majority of his company's revenue comes through YouTube.
He tells the Times "I don't think it's just the future of TV — it is TV, and the world is catching on."

And then there's this... "My mom would always give me so much crap about it — she would say, 'Why do you want to do YouTube?'" said Chucky Appleby, now an executive at MrBeast. His reply: "Mom, you can make a living from this." MrBeast's holding company, Beast Industries, which employs more than 400 people, made $473 million in revenue last year, according to Business Insider. In the last 28 days, MrBeast content — which includes challenges and stunt videos — received 3.6 billion views on YouTube, Appleby said.

Appleby, 28, said he's since bought a Jeep for his mom.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Multiple studies and investigations have found that about half of American households watch TV and movies with subtitles on, but only a relatively small portion of those include someone with a hearing disability. That's because of the trouble many people have understanding dialogue in modern viewing situations, and Netflix has now introduced a subtitles option to help.

The closed captioning we've all been using for years includes not only the words the people on-screen are saying, but additional information needed by the hard of hearing, including character names, music cues ("dramatic music intensifies") and sound effects ("loud explosion"). For those who just wanted to make sure they didn't miss a word here and there, the frequent descriptions of sound effects and music could be distracting. This new format omits those extras, just including the spoken words and nothing else -- even in the same language as the spoken dialogue. The feature will be available in new Netflix original programming, starting with the new season of You in multiple languages. Netflix says it's looking at bringing the option to older titles in the library (including those not produced by Netflix) in the future.

Traditional closed captions are still available, of course. Those are labeled "English CC" whereas this new option is simply labeled "English" (or whatever your preferred language is).

TV producer Alex Berger criticized Apple TV+ as "the worst marketer in the universe" for failing to promote his French-language show La Maison, despite its success in Europe. Berger said he initially partnered with Apple out of hope, but ultimately felt they undermined their own content by not supporting it properly. 9to5Mac reports: Rafa Sales Ross at Variety recently interviewed TV producer Alex Berger, who made La Maison for Apple TV+. That partnership is apparently not one he intends to repeat: "Marketing makes a show," he emphasized. "Apple, for example, is probably the worst marketer in the universe -- the best for iPhones, the worst for television. They don't do marketing, and it was an issue for us with 'La Maison.' We did a great show that had an amazing success in France and other places in Europe, but they never promoted it. It drove me crazy."

Asked why, while believing Apple TV+ to lack in marketing efforts, did he decide to take "La Maison" to the streamer, Berger said simply: "Hope. We had hope." "Apple TV+ had never done a show in France and never really done a show in Europe," adds the producer. "'Slow Horses' started [things] in the U.K., but it was with the U.S.. I was hoping I would change them. We got very frustrated and just thought at one point that they were shooting themselves in the foot, and why? "La Maison faced the additional challenge of being a French-language series, at the time one of the only non-English shows on the streamer," notes 9to5Mac's Ryan Christoffel. "So it had an uphill battle already, making Apple's marketing struggles even more of a problem."

The Sydney-based CADA station secretly used an AI-generated host named "Thy" for its weekday shows over six months without disclosure. The Sydney Morning Herald reports: After initial questioning from Stephanie Coombes in The Carpet newsletter, it was revealed that the station used ElevenLabs -- a generative AI audio platform that transforms text into speech -- to create Thy, whose likeness and voice were cloned from a real employee in the ARN finance team. The Australian Communications and Media Authority said there were currently no specific restrictions on the use of AI in broadcast content, and no obligation to disclose its use.

An ARN spokesperson said the company was exploring how new technology could enhance the listener experience. "We've been trialling AI audio tools on CADA, using the voice of Thy, an ARN team member. This is a space being explored by broadcasters globally, and the trial has offered valuable insights." However, it has also "reinforced the power of real personalities in driving compelling content," the spokesperson added.

The Australian Financial Review reported that Workdays with Thy has been broadcast on CADA since November, and was reported to have reached at least 72,000 people in last month's ratings. Vice president of the Australian Association of Voice Actors, Teresa Lim, said CADA's failure to disclose its use of AI reinforces how necessary legislation around AI labelling has become. "AI can be such a powerful and positive tool in broadcasting if there are correct safeguards in place," she said. "Authenticity and truth are so important for broadcast media. The public deserves to know what the source is of what's being broadcast ... We need to have these discussions now before AI becomes so advanced that it's too difficult to regulate."

On its 20th anniversary, YouTube now says that since YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim's video -- "Me at the zoo" -- was posted, more than 20 trillion videos have been uploaded. From a report: The video behemoth dropped a number of jaw-dropping stats Wednesday, along with significant updates to its TV experience, which has become a strategic priority for the platform, all connected to its anniversary. YouTube says that as of March 2025, more than 20 million videos are uploaded every single day, and that in 2024 users posted more than 100 million comments on videos, on average, every day.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In 2019, Garrett Mitchell was already an Internet success. His YouTube channel, Cleetus McFarland, had over a million followers. If you perused the channel at that time, you would've found a range of grassroots motorsports videos with the type of vehicular shenanigans that earn truckloads of views. Some of those older videos include "BLEW BY A COP AT 120+mph! OOPS!," "THERE'S A T-REX ON THE TRACK!," and "Manual Transmission With Paddle Shifters!?!." Those videos made Mitchell, aka Cleetus McFarland, a known personality among automotive enthusiasts. But the YouTuber wanted more financial independence beyond the Google platform and firms willing to sponsor his channel. " after my YouTube was growing and some of my antics [were] getting videos de-monetized, I realized I needed a playground," Mitchell told Ars Technica in an email.

Mitchell found a road toward new monetization opportunities through the DeSoto Super Speedway. The Bradenton, Florida, track had changed ownership multiple times since opening in the 1970s. The oval-shaped racetrack is three-eighths of a mile long with 12-degree banking angles. By 2018, the track had closed its doors and was going unused. DeSoto happened to be next to Mitchell's favorite drag strip, giving the YouTuber the idea of turning it into a stadium where people could watch burnouts and other "massive, rowdy" ticketed events. Mitchell added: "So I sold everything I could, borrowed some money from my business manager, and went all in for [$]2.2 million." But like the rest of the world, Mitchell hit the brakes on his 2020 plans during COVID-19 lockdowns. Soon after his purchase, Mitchell couldn't use the track, renamed Freedom Factory, for large gatherings, forcing him to reconsider his plans. "We had no other option but to entertain the people somehow. And with no other racing goin' on anywhere, we bet big on making something happen. And it worked," Mitchell said. That "something" was a pay-per-view (PPV) event hosted from the Freedom Factory in April 2020.

The event led to others and, eventually, Mitchell running his own subscription video on demand (SVOD) service, FRDM+, which originally launched as Cleetervision in 2022. Today, a FRDM+ subscription costs $20 per month or $120 per year. A subscription provides access to an impressive library of automotive videos. Some are archived from Mitchell's YouTube channel. Other, exclusive videos feature content such as interviews with motorsports influencers and members of Mitchell's staff and crew, and outrageous motorsports stunts. You can watch videos from other influencers on FRDM+, and the business can also white-label its platform into other influencers' websites, too. "Today, bandwidth isn't a problem for FRDM+, and navigating the streaming service doesn't feel much different from something like Netflix," writes Ars Technica's Scharon Harding. "There are different 'channels' (grouped together by related content or ongoing series) on top and new releases and upcoming content highlighted below. There are horizontal scrolling rows, and many titles have content summaries and/or trailers. The platform also has a support section with instructions for canceling subscriptions."

"Due to wildly differing audiences, markets, costs, and scales, comparing FRDM+'s financials to the likes of Netflix and other mainstream streaming services is like comparing apples to oranges. But it's interesting to consider that FRDM+ has achieved profitability faster than some of those services, like Peacock, which also launched in 2020, and Apple TV+, which debuted in 2019."

Netflix's Q1 revenue rose to $10.5 billion, a 13% increase from last year, while net income grew to $2.9 billion. The company says it expects more growth in the coming months when it sees "the full quarter benefit from recent price changes and continued growth in membership and advertising revenue." The Verge reports: Netflix raised the prices across most of its plans in January, with its premium plan hitting $24.99 per month. It also increased the price of its Extra Member option -- its solution to password sharing -- to $8.99 per month. Though Netflix already rolled out the increase in the US, UK, and Argentina, the streamer now plans to do the same in France. This is the first quarter that Netflix didn't reveal how many subscribers it gained or lost. It decided to only report "major subscriber milestones" last year, as other streams of revenue continue to grow, like advertising, continue to grow. Netflix last reported having 300 million global subscribers in January.

During an earnings call on Thursday, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said the company expects to "roughly double" advertising revenue in 2025. The company launched its own advertising technology platform earlier this month. There are some changes coming to Netflix, too, as Peters confirmed that its homepage redesign for its TV app will roll out "later this year." He also hinted at adding an "interactive" search feature using "generative technologies," which sounds a lot like the AI feature Bloomberg reported on last week. Further reading: Netflix CEO Counters Cameron's AI Cost-Cutting Vision: 'Make Movies 10% Better'

Amazon plans to release its first TV streaming device powered by Vega OS later this year while courting major publishers to bring their apps to the platform, according to Lowpass, which cites sources familiar with the company's plans and multiple leaks.

Vega, a Linux-based operating system, may eventually replace Amazon's Android-based Fire OS across its device ecosystem. The company has already implemented Vega in three products: the Echo Show 5 and Echo Hub smart displays, as well as the Echo Spot smart clock/speaker. The tech giant has moved more cautiously in transitioning its TV hardware to Vega, having previously delayed a Vega-powered streaming stick originally slated for release in late 2024.

LG is partnering with Zenapse to integrate AI-driven emotional intelligence into its smart TVs, enabling hyper-targeted ads based on viewers' psychological traits, emotions, and behaviors. Ars Technica reports: The upcoming advertising approach comes via a multi-year licensing deal with Zenapse, a company describing itself as a software-as-a-service marketing platform that can drive advertiser sales "with AI-powered emotional intelligence." LG will use Zenapse's technology to divide webOS users into hyper-specific market segments that are supposed to be more informative to advertisers. LG Ad Solutions, LG's advertising business, announced the partnership on Tuesday.

The technology will be used to inform ads shown on LG smart TVs' homescreens, free ad-supported TV (FAST) channels, and elsewhere throughout webOS, per StreamTV Insider. LG will also use Zenapse's tech to "expand new software development and go-to-market products," it said. LG didn't specify the duration of its licensing deal with Zenapse. Zenapse's platform for connected TVs (CTVs), ZenVision, is supposed to be able to interpret the types of emotions shown in the content someone is watching on TV, partially by using publicly available information about the show's or movie's script and plot, StreamTV Insider reported. ZenVision also analyzes viewer behavior, grouping viewers based on their consumption patterns, the publication noted. Under the new partnership, ZenVision can use data that LG has gathered from the automatic content recognition software in LG TVs.

With all this information, ZenVision will group LG TV viewers into highly specified market segments, such as "goal-driven achievers," "social connectors," or "emotionally engaged planners," an LG spokesperson told StreamTV Insider. Zenapse's website for ZenVision points to other potential market segments, including "digital adopters," "wellness seekers," "positive impact & environment," and "money matters." Companies paying to advertise on LG TVs can then target viewers based on the ZenVision-specified market segments and deliver an "emotionally intelligent ad," as Zenapse's website puts it.

After over 40 years in operation, the last RadioShack store in Maryland is closing. Store manager Cindy Henning, who worked there for three decades, reflected on the joy of helping customers and the legacy left by late owner Michael King: Henning told WTOP she's going to miss it dearly. She's worked there for three decades. "We would have a lot of fun. That was half of our day was to have fun with people and show them how electronics work," Henning said. It was owned and operated by longtime local resident Michael King, who passed away at the end of January at the age of 79. His son Edward has taken over as owner. "It's the end of an era," he said.

King said his grandfather owned a TV repair shop in the '50s and then his dad worked with him. They started carrying RadioShack products and grew to franchise three stores in Maryland. The RadioShack franchise first declared bankruptcy in 2015. King said they used the RadioShack name, but they don't have a warehouse in the U.S., so they were buying product from other wholesalers and selling it. "It was fun while it lasted, but it's not the same anymore," King said. "I know my dad realized that." The store's last day is Saturday, April 26.

"Gen Z is rediscovering Tumblr — a chaotic, cozy corner of the internet untouched by algorithmic gloss and influencer overload..." writes Fast Company, "embracing the platform as a refuge from an internet saturated with influencers and algorithm fatigue." Thanks to Gen Z, the site has found new life. As of 2025, Gen Z makes up 50% of Tumblr's active monthly users and accounts for 60% of new sign-ups, according to data shared with Business Insider's Amanda Hoover, who recently reported on the platform's resurgence. User numbers spiked in January during the near-ban of TikTok and jumped again last year when Brazil temporarily banned X. In response, Tumblr users launched dedicated communities to archive and share their favorite TikToks...

To keep up with the momentum, Tumblr introduced Reddit-style Communities in December, letting users connect over shared interests like photography and video games. In January, it debuted Tumblr TV — a TikTok-like feature that serves as both a GIF search engine and a short-form video platform. But perhaps Tumblr's greatest strength is that it isn't TikTok or Facebook. Currently the 10th most popular social platform in the U.S., according to analytics firm Similarweb, Tumblr is dwarfed by giants like Instagram and X. For its users, though, that's part of the appeal.
First launched in 2007, Tumblr peaked at over 100 million users in 2014, according to the article. Trends like Occupy Wall Street had been born on Tumblr, notes Business Insider, calling the blogging platform "Gen Z's safe space... as the rest of the social internet has become increasingly commodified, polarized, and dominated by lifestyle influencers." Tumblr was also "one of the most hyped startups in the world before fading into obsolescence — bought by Yahoo for $1.1 billion in 2013... then acquired by Verizon, and later offloaded for fractions of pennies on the dollar in a distressed sale.

"That same Tumblr, a relic of many millennials' formative years, has been having a moment among Gen Z..." "Gen Z has this romanticism of the early-2000s internet," says Amanda Brennan, an internet librarian who worked at Tumblr for seven years, leaving her role as head of content in 2021... Part of the reason young people are hanging out on old social platforms is that there's nowhere new to go. The tech industry is evolving at a slower pace than it was in the 2000s, and there's less room for disruption. Big Tech has a stranglehold on how we socialize. That leaves Gen Z to pick up the scraps left by the early online millennials and attempt to craft them into something relevant. They love Pinterest (founded in 2010) and Snapchat (2011), and they're trying out digital point-and-shoot cameras and flip phones for an early-2000s aesthetic — and learning the valuable lesson that sometimes we look better when blurrier.

More Gen Zers and millennials are signing up for Yahoo. Napster, surprising many people with its continued existence, just sold for $207 million. The trend is fueled by nostalgia for Y2K aesthetics and a longing for a time when people could make mistakes on the internet and move past them. The pandemic also brought more Gen Z users to Tumblr...

And Tumblr still works much like an older internet, where people have more control over what they see and rely less on algorithms. "You curate your own stuff; it takes a little bit of work to put everything in place, but when it's working, you see the content you want to see," Fjodor Everaerts, a 26-year-old in Belgium who has made some 250,000 posts since he joined Tumblr when he was 14... Under Automattic, Tumblr is finally in the home that serves it, [says Ari Levine, the head of brand partnerships at Tumblr]. "We've had ups and downs along the way, but we're in the most interesting position and place that we've been in 18 years," he says... And following media companies (including Business Insider) and social platforms like Reddit, Automattic in 2024 was making a deal with OpenAI and Midjourney to allow the systems to train on Tumblr posts.

"The social internet is fractured," the article argues. ("Millennials are running Reddit. Gen Xers and Baby Boomers have a home on Facebook. Bluesky, one of the new X alternatives, has a tangible elder-millennial/Gen X vibe. Gen Zers have created social apps like BeReal and the Myspace-inspired Noplace, but they've so far generated more hype than influence....")

But in a world where megaplatforms "flatten our online experiences and reward content that fits a mold," the article suggests, "smaller communities can enrich them."