Lowpass: Amazon has been working on a new operating system to replace Android on Fire TVs, smart displays and other connected devices, I have learned from talking to multiple sources with knowledge of these plans, as well as job listings and other materials referencing these efforts. Development of the new operating system, which is internally known as Vega, appears fairly advanced. The system has already been tested on Fire TV streaming adapters, and Amazon has told select partners about its plans to transition to a new application framework in the near future. A source with knowledge of the company's plans suggested that it could start shipping Vega on select Fire TV devices as early as next year.

Angela Watercutter and Will Bedingfield report via Wired: After 118 days on the picket lines, the longest such strike in Hollywood's history, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists has reached a deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Both sides were mum about the terms of the deal Wednesday night, but it comes following a long struggle over the use of artificial intelligence on actors' performances and actors' demands for residual payments for shows and films that play on streaming services. A committee from SAG, which represents thousands of film and television actors, approved the agreement Wednesday. The strike itself, which has featured pickets outside the offices of Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and others, will end Thursday morning. It's expected that the tentative deal will head to the union's national board to be approved on Friday.

Undeniably, this is a huge milestone for Hollywood, a $130 billion-plus industry that has all but ground to halt this year, as both the Writers Guild of America and SAG dug in their heels over fair wages and the use of AI in their work. WGA members went on strike in May; SAG walked off the job in July, the first time the industry had faced a dual work stoppage since 1960. The WGA strike ended in September with a historic deal that put up guardrails to protect writers from AI encroaching on their work. As this year's negotiations between SAG and AMPTP dragged on, generative AI became the major sticking point. Back in July, studios claimed they offered a "groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors' digital likenesses." SAG countered that the proposal stipulated background performers could be scanned, paid for the day, and then turned into digital characters that studios could use "for the rest of eternity." (AMPTP disputed this.)

The issue was volleyed back and forth until last weekend, when SAG reviewed the studios' "last, best, and final" offer and rejected it, claiming "there are several essential items on which we still do not have an agreement, including AI. A follow-up story in The Hollywood Reporter revealed that the AMPTP proposal sought to allow studios to pay for AI scans of what are known as Schedule F performers and, following the actors' death, allow studios to use the scans without the consent of the estate or SAG. Schedule F performers include anyone who makes more than the minimum rate for TV series regulars or feature films. The guild wanted compensation for reuse of the scans, along with consent. On Tuesday, the studios reportedly agreed to adjust the AI language in their proposal, a move that seems to have been the tipping point. Even though the terms of the tentative deal reached Thursday are unclear, it's hard to imagine the actors didn't get at least some of the AI protections they were seeking.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: People who buy a Fire TV from Amazon are probably looking for a cheap and simple way to get an affordable 4K smart TV. When Amazon announced its first self-branded TVs in September 2021, it touted them as being a "great value." But owners of the devices will soon be paying for some of those savings in the form of more prominently displayed advertisements. Charlotte Maines, Amazon's director of Fire TV advertising, monetization, and engagement, detailed the new types of ads that Amazon is selling on Fire TVs. In a StreamTV Insider report from November 1, Amazon said the new ads will allow advertisers to reach an average of 155 million unique monthly viewers. Some of the changes targeting advertisers, like connecting display placement ads with specific in-stream video ads, seem harmless enough. Others could jeopardize the TV-watching experience for owners.

For example, Amazon is preparing to make Alexa with generative AI more useful for finding content on Fire TVs. This could help Alexa, which has struggled alongside other tech giants' voice assistants to generate significant revenue. Amazon gets money every time someone interacts with digital content through Alexa. However, the company is double-dipping on this idea by also tying ads to generative AI on Fire TVs. When users ask Alexa to help them find media with queries such as "play the show with the guy who plays the lawyer in Breaking Bad," they will see ads that are relevant to the search. [...] Finally, Amazon is adding "contextual sponsored tiles" that use machine learning to show ads based on whatever content genre or search term the Fire TV user is browsing.

Amazon Fire TV users will also start seeing banner ads on the device's home screen for things that have nothing to do with entertainment or media. This ad space was previously reserved for advertising media and entertainment, making the ads feel more relevant, at least. Amazon opening the ad space to more types of advertisers is similar to a move Google TV made early this year. The banner ads will occupy the first slot in the rotating hero area, which Amazon believes is the first thing Fire TV users see.

After years of inflation, Americans are used to sticker shock. But nothing compares to the surging price of streaming video. From a report: Last week, Apple TV+ became the latest streaming service to raise its price -- up from $6.99 to $9.99 per month -- following the example of Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, and Netflix, which all hiked their prices in October. Half of the major streaming platforms in the U.S. now charge a monthly fee that's double the price they charged when they initially came to market. And many of these streaming services haven't even been around for 10 years.

Consumers have grumbled, but have so far been willing to keep paying up. It's hard to say where their breaking point will be, but given that analysts believe the platforms are likely to continue raising prices even further, we'll probably find out soon enough. Part of what's driving the price hikes is how saturated the streaming market has become. For a company like Netflix, which has 77 million paid subscribers in the U.S. and Canada, finding new paying subscribers to keep revenue growing is not easy. Netflix has started clamping down on password sharing to boost its paid subscriber rolls, but that only goes so far. Raising prices for existing subscribers is an effective way to pump up the top line and keep investors happy.

Long-time Slashdot reader Shakrai writes: Continuing the seemingly industry-wide trend towards enshitification of the Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) marketplace, Max today announced that it will be making changes to the current Ad-Free plan. To wit, 4K HDR with Dolby Atmos will be removed and concurrent streams will decrease from three to two.

In other words, you are paying the same price for less features. If you wish to keep the features you've had all along, all you have to do is upgrade to Ultimate Ad-Free at a 33% premium for the annual plan or 25% increase for monthly. No news yet on a crackdown of password sharing, however, that seems inevitable as the industry races to the bottom.

Meet the new cable boss, same as the old, except, they bring death by several small cuts instead of a single large one.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Disney will acquire Comcast's one-third stake in Hulu for an expected $8.61 billion, the company said Wednesday, in a deal that will put the streaming service entirely inside the Magic Kingdom when the transaction closes later this year. "The acquisition of Comcast's stake in Hulu at fair market value will further Disney's streaming objectives," the company said in a short statement. Wednesday's deal brings to an end long-running speculation about the fate of Hulu, but still requires an appraisal process that is expected to be completed in 2024 to further assess the streaming service's fair value before a final sale price tag is agreed upon.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Not all Google searches make Google money. Google often says that it only shows ads on about 20 percent of queries, the ones it calls "commercial queries." This week, during the US v. Google antitrust trial, we got a rare glimpse at a closely guarded secret: which search terms make the most money. The list is only for the week of September 22nd, 2018, and it is the list of top queries ordered by revenue and nothing else. Still, we've never seen anything quite like this before, and the list was only made public after long deliberations from Judge Amit Mehta, who has, over the course of the trial, begun to push both sides to be more public with information and data like this.

Okay, here are the top 20 queries for that week ordered by revenue: iphone 8, iphone 8 plus, auto insurance, car insurance, cheap flights, car insurance quotes, direct tv, online colleges, at&t, hulu, iphone, uber, spectrum, comcast, xfinity, insurance quotes, free credit report, cheap car insurance, aarp, and lifelock.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Brazil's telecoms regulator Anatel claims that during an operation last week, it successfully blocked around 80% of pirate 'TV boxes' in the country. Estimates from early 2023 suggest that seven million were active in Brazil. The operation, claimed to be the most significant ever carried out, arrives just weeks after Google & Cisco were criticized for "turning a blind eye" to the IPTV piracy problem. [...] Whatever the approach, if Anatel had somehow managed to prevent 80% of all TV boxes receiving pirated content in the space of a year, that would be an extraordinary achievement. Even a week would be astonishing but the claim of millions in a day seems either incredible, non-credible, or entirely dependent on more important information or nuance that isn't being reported. Another angle is that disruption on a large scale tends to register in search results and Google data on various related search terms doesn't seem to reflect millions of TV boxes suddenly going dark in Brazil last week. At least, not for any significant length of time.

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: In 1994 the TV show Friends premiered, and its first season's high ratings made it the 8th most-popular show. The next year Microsoft released Windows 95 — and filmed a promotional video for it with 25-year-old Matthew Perry and 26-year-old Jennifer Aniston.

"They'll be taking you on an adventure in computing that takes place in the office of Microsoft chairman Bill Gates," explains the video's narrator, adding "Along the way, they meet a wacky bunch of propellor-heads.... And are introduced the top 25 features of Windows 95!"

It's a journey back in time. (At one point the video refers to Windows as the operating system "with tens of millions of users.") Their 30-minute segment — billed as "the world's first cyber sitcom" — appears in an hour-long video introducing revolutionary features like the new "Start" button. Also demonstrated in Excel are the new minimize and maximize "features" in "the upper right-side of the window". And the two actors marvel at the ability to type a filename that was longer than eight characters...

Watch for reminders that The Microsoft Windows 95 Video Guide was filmed nearly three decades ago. When the desktop appears after waking from screensaver mode, Perry notes that there's "no messy DOS build-up." And later the video reminds viewers that Windows 95 is compatible "with DOS games like Flight Simulator." There's also a brand new feature called "Windows Explorer" (which is described as "File Manager on steroids"), as well as a new "Find" option, and a brand new icon named "My Computer". And near the end they pay a visit to the Microsoft Network — which was mostly a "walled garden" online service — described in the video as "your on-ramp to the information superhighway".

The video even explains how Windows 95 "uses the right mouse button for what Microsoft calls power users."

And by the end of it, Jennifer Anniston finds herself playing Space Cadet 3D pinball.

Bloomberg reports that Comcast's stock price took its biggest drop in over a year on Thursday, "after reporting drops in broadband and cable subscribers, and predicting more losses to come." Cord-cutting and increasing competition have eroded Comcast's traditional customer base. The company, which owns Xfinity, the NBCUniversal media empire and SkyTV, lost 490,000 cable-TV customers in the third quarter, better than analysts expected but part of an ongoing trend as consumers switch to streaming services like Netflix. It also lost 18,000 broadband subscribers in the quarter, with nearly all of those residential customers. Analysts had predicted Comcast would instead gain 10,900 residential broadband customers.

Shares fell as much as 8% on the news Thursday, their biggest intraday decline since July 2022.

"Growth has halted for Comcast — the largest US broadband provider, with 32 million homes," said Bloomberg Intelligence senior media analyst Geetha Ranganathan. "The company derives 80% of profit from cable, where, even after a pandemic-demand surge, broadband has been hurt by fierce competition and low-move activity among customers." Comcast expects "somewhat higher subscriber losses" in the fourth quarter due to pullback on promotional offers that targeted lower-end customers, Chief Financial Officer Jason Armstrong said on a call with investors. Revenue per customer climbed, however, in part because of price increases and promotions of higher-rate plans.

Broadband is becoming increasingly competitive as mobile providers move into the market with improved wireless internet offerings. In the past week, the Big Three — T-Mobile US Inc., AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. — all reported subscriber gains.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: As far as we know, Brazil-based file-sharing forum FileWarez.com first appeared in August 2004, its domain name having been registered the previous month. The default language was naturally Portuguese and according to this image from the Wayback Machine, potential members needed a basic grip of the language to sign up. After all, Google Translate wouldn't exist for another two years. At some point in the years that followed, FileWarez shifted to a Netherlands .NL domain supported by filewarez.no-ip.biz, which may suggest a site regularly on the move. In 2008, unspecified problems saw the .NL domain dumped in favor of a new one. Riding out problems, various issues, and bouts of downtime, FileWarez.tv stayed in place for the next 15.5 years. Then two weeks ago, after establishing itself as Brazil's oldest file-sharing forum, FileWarez suddenly vanished.

In a press release Wednesday, global music industry group IFPI announced that "prominent illegal file-sharing forum, FileWarez," was shut down following co-ordinated action by record companies, anti-piracy body APDIF, and local cybercrime unit, Cyber Gaeco. "IFPI, the organization that represents the recorded music industry worldwide, alongside its Brazilian national group Pro-Musica, have welcomed the successful action against FileWarez.tv -- one of the most prominent illegal file sharing sites in Brazil -- by the Brazilian special cybercrime unit of prosecutor's office of Sao Paulo, Cyber Gaeco," the announcement reads. "FileWarez was the most established illegal filesharing forum in Brazil, dedicated to sharing illegal music content. While active, the site had more than 118,000 registered users with at least 24,000 monthly active users."

Apple is increasing the prices of some of its subscription-based services, including Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and Apple News+, in the U.S. and many other countries around the world. The higher prices are shown on Apple's website. The price changes in the U.S. are as follows: Apple TV+: $6.99 per month to $9.99 per month
Apple Arcade: $4.99 per month to $6.99 per month
Apple News+: $9.99 per month to $12.99 per month

For those who subscribe to Apple TV+ on an annual basis, the price has increased from $69 per year to $99 per year accordingly. Prices for the Apple One bundles that include these services are also increasing as a result:
Individual: $16.95 per month to $19.95 per month
Family: $22.95 per month to $25.95 per month
Premier: $32.95 per month to $37.95 per month.

Apple has announced a Mac event for October 30th with the caption "Scary Fast." According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the company is expected to focus on the M3 series MacBook Pro models. MacRumors reports: Kuo's wording suggests that he is expecting multiple M3 chips rather than just a single M3 chip, hinting at the possibility of M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips. If Apple does release M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips at once, we can expect to see the new chips introduced in 13-inch, 14-inch, and 16-inch MacBook Pro models. Kuo says that he previously predicted that Apple would not likely introduce new MacBook Pro models in 2023 because of "limited 4Q 23 shipments," and if new MacBook Pros do come out in November or December, the tight supply will last until the first quarter of 2024. Kuo further says that Mac shipments have declined due to the "limited M2 computing power upgrade," which may be the reason why Apple might launch M3 MacBook Pro models with low production volume.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman also says that Apple has been testing M3 Max and M3 Pro MacBook Pro models, suggesting that these machines are going to be refreshed. Gurman just last week claimed that Apple would not update the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M3 Pro and M3 Max chips until early 2024, so it seems that his predictions have since changed. That Kuo and Gurman are both now suggesting that we'll see 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models at Apple's October event comes as a surprise because much of their prior information pointed toward a 2024 refresh for these devices.

Gurman maintains that Apple will not refresh the MacBook Air models, Mac mini, Mac Studio, or Mac Pro at this time, which leaves the iMac, 13-inch MacBook Pro, 14-inch MacBook Pro, and 16-inch MacBook Pro for the October event. As Gurman has previously pointed out, these are the machines that are facing extended shipping times in Apple's online store. You can watch the event live via Apple's website starting at 5 p.m. PT on October 30th.

Further reading: Apple To Revamp TV App in Step Toward Simplifying Video Services

Apple will redesign its TV app in a step toward consolidating the company's various video offerings later this year, part of its efforts to become a bigger player in the streaming world. Bloomberg News: The company is preparing a new version of the app for release around December as part of an upcoming tvOS software update, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plan is private. The app, which first launched in 2016, aggregates content from iTunes, the Apple TV+ subscription service, live sports networks and third-party offerings like Amazon Prime.

As part of the overhaul, the company will discontinue its dedicated apps on the Apple TV set-top box that let users rent and buy movies and shows. It will also remove the movie and TV show sections from the iTunes Store app on iPhones and iPads. The idea is to steer more customers toward the main TV app, which sits at the center of Apple's expanding video strategy. There, users are able to subscribe to TV+ as well as third-party video services like Starz and Paramount+. The app already lets customers rent and buy programs, making a separate iTunes option unnecessary.

Amazon has revealed that Fallout -- a live-action adaptation of Bethesda's popular RPG video game franchise -- will premiere on April 12th, 2024, exclusively via Prime Video. The Verge reports: The announcement was made on October 23rd, otherwise known to Fallout fans as "Fallout Day" -- the in-game date that marks the beginning of the Great War that turns the world into an irradiated nuclear wasteland. Bethesda's executive producer and game director Todd Howard is an executive producer on the series, which stars Ella Purnell (Yellowjackets), Walton Goggins (The Hateful Eight), Aaron Moten (Emancipation), Moises Arias (The King of Staten Island), Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks), and Sarita Choudhury (Homeland).

Alongside the premiere announcement itself (which was amusingly presented as an interactive Pip-Boy interface graphic), Amazon said in a press release that the show will be an original story set in a future, post-apocalyptic version of Los Angeles and will be considered a canonical addition to the existing game franchise. We do not currently know how many episodes will be in the series or what the release schedule will look like following the premiere.

Brian Steinberg reports via Variety: So-called "pause ads" -- they only turn up a few seconds after a viewer has decided to halt the programming, and not every time one does -- are seeing new movement in the streaming world, with the format appearing more frequently on Hulu since July, according to Josh Mattison, senior vice president of revenue management and operations for Disney Advertising. Pause ads are also in motion in venues such as NBCUniversal's Peacock and Warner Bros. Discovery's Max.

As more media companies seek to goose subscriber rates by offering cheaper ad-supported versions of their streaming services, this type of commercial may become more handy. One of the main attractions of streaming, after all, is that it boasts fewer traditional commercials than its linear TV counterpart. The industry hopes that a pause ad -- other "out of pod" commercial experiences are also in development -- can appear on screen without upsetting a subscriber who gets viscerally roiled by the prospect of a glut of typical TV spots.

Others have also found ways to work ads into the moments when streaming fans come to a stopping point. NBCUniversal's Peacock launched with pause ads, says Peter Blacker, executive vice president of streaming and data products for NBCUniversal's ad-sales division, while Warner Bros. Discovery's Max introduced them in 2022, says Ryan Gould, head of digital ad sales and client partnerships at the company. No one has been holding back on the new format. Hulu has experimented with pauses since at least 2018, and an early version of the idea surfaced last decade when Coca-Cola and Universal Pictures tested concepts with ReplayTV, an early backer of digital video recording technology. Coke, which once used the slogan "the pause that refreshes" to great effect, and Charmin, the Procter & Gamble toilet tissue that can offer succor during many breaks in TV viewing, tested the format with Hulu in 2019.

Shakrai writes: Multiple outlets are reporting that Apple TV Plus has cancelled Jon Stewart's popular show The Problem with Jon Stewart, reportedly over editorial disagreements with regards to planned stories on the People's Republic of China and AI. Fans and haters of Apple will both recall that Apple recently made changes to AirDrop, one of the few effective means Chinese dissidents and protesters had for exchanging information off-grid at scale, and will ask why Apple is apparently not only willing, but eager, to carry water for the PRC, overriding both human rights and practical business concerns in the process. "Apple approached Stewart directly and expressed its need for the host and his team to be 'aligned' with the company's views on topics discussed," reports The Verge, citing The Hollywood Reporter. "Rather than falling in line when Apple threatened to cancel the show, Stewart reportedly decided to walk."

Netflix said its effort to limit password sharing led to a 10.8% rise in subscriptions in the third quarter, a better-than-expected result that comes as the company plans to increase some prices in the U.S. and other markets. From a report: The streaming giant added 8.8 million subscribers in the third quarter with customer growth in every region, its largest quarterly customer gain since the second quarter of 2020. The company plans to immediately raise prices for its basic plan in the U.S., which is no longer available to new customers, to $11.99 from $9.99 and up the cost of its premium plan to $22.99 from $19.99.

It is also increasing some prices in the U.K. and France, though the cost of its ad-supported and standard ad-free plans are unchanged. The price increases are a sign of streamers' efforts to improve profitability and wean consumers off the low monthly subscription fees that drew users away from pricey cable bundles in the early days of streaming.

Apple is taking a different approach to social with its Vision Pro headset: making apps social right out of the box. This, according to Road to VR's Ben Lang, is what Meta should have done all along. Instead, it's pioneered a social experience on the Quest platform that involves "jumping through a fragmented landscape of different apps and different ways to actually get into the same space with your friends." From the report: Apple is taking a fundamentally different approach with Vision Pro by making social the expectation rather than the rule, and providing a common set of tools and guidelines for developers to build from in order to make social feel cohesive across the platform. Apple's vision isn't about creating a server full of a virtual strangers and user-generated experiences, but to make it easy to share the stuff you already like to do with the people you already know. This obviously leans into the company's rich ecosystem of existing apps -- and the social technologies the company has already battle-tested on its platforms.

SharePlay is the feature that's already present on iOS and MacOS devices that lets people watch, listen, and experience apps together through FaceTime. And on Vision Pro, Apple intends to use its SharePlay tech to make many of its own first-party apps -- like Apple TV, Apple Music, and Photos -- social right out of the box, and it expects developers to do so too. In the company's developer documentation, the company says it expects "most visionOS apps to support SharePlay." [...]

Perhaps most importantly, Apple is leaning on every user's existing personal friend graph (ie: the people you already text, call, or email), rather than trying to create a bespoke friends list that lives only inside Vision Pro. Rather than launching an app and then figuring out how to get your friends into it, with SharePlay Apple is focused on getting together with your friends first, then letting the group seamlessly move from one app to the next as you decide what you want to do.

Even apps that don't explicitly have multi-user experience built-in can be 'social' by default, by allowing one user to screen-share the app with others. Only the host will be able to interact with the content, but everyone else will be able to see and talk about it in real-time. It's the emphasis on 'social by default', 'things you already do', and 'people you already know' that will make social on Vision Pro feel completely different than what Meta is building on Quest with Horizon Worlds and its ecosystem of fragmented social apps.

Christopher Grimes reports via the Financial Times: Some of Netflix's competitors are reversing a streaming war tactic by licensing their old TV shows and movies to the streamer -- boosting its programming offerings but also potentially squeezing its profit margins, analysts say. Netflix relied heavily on programming that it licensed from other companies when it launched its streaming service in 2007. But after Walt Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount and the then Time Warner launched their own streaming services, they pulled many of their shows from Netflix to avoid feeding a company that had grown into an arch-competitor. With legacy media groups under pressure to produce streaming profits, however, licensing revenue is looking attractive again -- even if it comes from Netflix. This summer, Warner Bros Discovery's HBO network began licensing a handful of older shows to Netflix, including Insecure, Six Feet Under, Ballers and Band of Brothers.

Analysts at Morgan Stanley said the return of licensing deals was a "long-term positive" for Netflix and would "pad" its lead over competitors in streaming. But the bank added that the cost of licensing -- along with the Netflix's investments in gaming and other sectors -- could add pressure to its profit margins in 2024. The analysts raised their outlook for Netflix's overall cash spending next year by $500mn to $17.7bn. Netflix will report results on Wednesday, with investors expected to focus on whether it plans to increase subscription prices and signs of progress on its new advertising tier. The latest data on its password sharing crackdown will also be watched.

[T]he studios' experiments with licensing deals appear to have given some old shows new life. After NBCUniversal licensed its show Suits -- which aired from 2011-19 and starred Meghan Markle -- to Netflix in June, the show experienced a revival. The legal drama was in the top spot on the Nielsen Streaming top 10 for three months, an example of the "Netflix effect" on older shows. Bloys said licensing shows to Netflix had also boosted traffic for the programs on Warner Discovery's Max streaming platform, home to HBO programming including Ballers, a sports drama that ran from 2015-19. Ballers entered the Nielsen top 10 after it went to Netflix, and Insecure, a comedy starring Issa Rae that ran from 2016-21, had a similar boost.