Dish Network must pay $469 million for infringing two patents held by parental-control technology maker ClearPlay related to filtering material from streaming video, a jury in U.S. federal court in Utah has decided. From a report: The jury in Salt Lake City reached its decision on Friday in ClearPlay's lawsuit against Dish, finding that Dish's AutoHop feature for skipping commercials on its Hopper set-top boxes is covered by ClearPlay's patents. While jurors found that Dish's technology violated ClearPlay's patent rights, they rejected ClearPlay's contention that Dish copied its technology intentionally. A Dish spokesperson said on Monday that the company was disappointed in the jury's decision and will contest the verdict, potentially through an appeal. Representatives for ClearPlay did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.

$4,800 buys you a two-day "immersive" experience on the Star Wars-themed "Galactic Starcruiser" at Disney World — a pseudo cruise ship in space.

But one year after it opened, Disney is "cutting back" some of its bookings, reports SFGate: Earlier this year, it began offering its first sizable discounts to the general public. Now, the Starcruiser booking calendar shows only two voyages per week will be available for most of October, November and December. Only Thanksgiving week and Christmas week are offering three voyages....

"Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser is one of the most ambitious, innovative projects we've ever brought to life and is unlike anything we've done before — it continues to be among our highest-rated guest experiences due to its immersive environment and incredible service provided by our stellar crew," a Disney spokesperson told SFGATE. "We learned a lot from our guests during the first year of operation and have made some adjustments along the way to continue delivering an unforgettable experience for everyone who visits."

On March 1st, a European Union regulation went into effect that effectively bans 8K TVs. This is because they exceed the new lower Energy Efficiency Index (EEI) limit that set the maximum power consumption level for all TVs at 90W, which is significantly lower than the 190W that new 8K TVs can consume. According to Tom's Guide, Samsung "seems to have already developed a workaround for this 8K TV ban." From the report: The ban is specifically based on the EEI power consumption numbers, so if you can manufacture an 8K TV that consumes less than 90W then you are in the clear. Because of this loophole, Samsung has decided to ship its 8K TVs with low-powered default settings. According to AV Magazine, the new Samsung 8K TVs will come out of the box with a "brightness-limiting eco mode" as the default brightness setting. This will allow the TVs to still meet the EEI limit while maintaining their 8K resolution.

But does this mean that Europeans will be limited to low brightness settings if they want 8K resolution? Turns out, the answer to that is, no. The E.U. regulation requires that the TVs be energy efficient out of the box, but once users have them set up, they can change to a higher brightness setting and watch to their heart's content, even though their 8K TV will now consume more power than the 90W limit set by the EEI. Other manufacturers will likely find workarounds for the E.U. regulations if Samsung's workaround is successful [...].

Broadcasters are betting that antennas and modern DVRs will help them stay relevant. But a stalled transition to ATSC 3.0 and massive growth of linear streaming services could throw a wrench into those plans. From a report: Antenna television is back. In recent years, millions of cord-cutters have rediscovered antennas as a reliable way to watch broadcast networks like ABC, NBC, and FOX, all for free -- and now, broadcasters are eager to get the rest of us hooked. They've been marching ahead with the deployment of ATSC 3.0, a next-generation broadcast format that supports 4K, HDR, Dolby Atmos audio, and even interactive apps over the air, no cable or streaming subscription required.

A little over a year ago, one of the country's biggest broadcasters made an unexpected acquisition to help bolster the transition: The E.W. Scripps Company, which operates dozens of ABC, NBC and Fox stations as well as a handful of nationwide broadcast networks, quietly bought Nuvyyo, a Canadian startup best known for its Tablo DVR devices for cord-cutters. The acquisition, which hasn't been previously reported, is part of Scripps' multibillion-dollar bet on acquiring stations, networks, and spectrum for an ATSC 3.0-powered antenna TV future. But the transition to ATSC 3.0 has been anything but smooth. Five years after its launch, the format is still not available in many major markets. Support from TV makers has been limited, and some of the promised features likely won't be available for years to come. Meanwhile, free streaming TV channels are growing by leaps and bounds and are quickly becoming a viable alternative to both cable and antenna TV. As it stands, the future of broadcast TV is looking remarkably fuzzy.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has revealed in its annual revenue report that vinyl sales have outpaced CD sales for the first time since 1987. From a report: Sales of physical music formats, like vinyl, CDs, and cassette tapes, saw a 4% increase from 2021 to 2022, but last year vinyl made up $1.2 billion of the $1.7 billion in physical media sales according to the report. In physical units, records outsold CDs 41.3 million to 33.4 million, respectively -- RIAA says this is vinyl's sixteenth consecutive year of growth. CD sales actually fell 18% from $585 million to $482 million in revenue between 2021 to 2022, but the report suggests that 2021 saw a rebound in sales after 2020 took a chunk out of CD manufacturing and sales.

So vinyl is officially booming again, and it may have something to do with the pandemic. The height of the covid-19 pandemic forced concert venues to shut down over health concerns and saw artists and their labels rethinking their music release strategies. Vinyl may have offered a special experience without consumers ever having to leave their homes, and it was an untapped stream of income for artists and labels.

The new 2024 Ford Mustang is losing its AM radio receiver, reports The Drive. A Ford spokesperson confirmed the feature's deletion, citing that "countries and automakers globally are modernizing radio by offering internet streaming through mobile apps, FM, or digital." From the report: The availability of AM radio in new cars has declined over the last decade with shifts in media consumption habits, with AM radio's audience evaporating in Europe and accounting for only a small minority of the U.S. population. [...] It's a trend of concern to current and former U.S. emergency officials, who recently wrote the Secretary of Transportation a letter advising action on AM radio's disappearance. AM radio is a crucial component of the U.S.'s national alert network, with just 75 stations reaching more than 90 percent of the country's population. Officials are concerned that AM receivers' decreasing availability in new cars could compromise their ability to reach citizens during emergencies.

Apple is launching a new music streaming service focused on classical music. TechCrunch reports: Based on its 2021 acquisition of Amsterdam-based streamer Primephonic, the new Apple Music Classical app will offer Apple Music subscribers access to more than 5 million classical music tracks, including new releases in high-quality audio, as well as hundreds of curated playlists, thousands of exclusive albums and other features like composer bios and deep dives on key works, Apple says.

However, while the app is being announced today, it's only available for preorder on the App Store for now. The release date will be later this month, on March 28. In addition, the app will only support iOS devices running iOS 15.4 or newer at launch. Apple Music Classical will present a simple interface for engaging with classical works. Users will be able to search by composer, work, conductor or even catalog number, to locate recordings. These can be streamed in high-quality audio of up to 192 kHz/24-bit Hi-Res Lossless. And thousands of recordings will be available in Apple's immersive spatial audio, as well.

The app will also let users dive into the recordings to read editorial notes about the composers and descriptions of their key works. Famous composers will have their own high-resolution digital portraits available, which Apple commissioned from artists. These were designed with color palettes and artistic references from the relevant classical period, Apple notes, and more will be added in time. At launch, portraits will be available for Ludwig van Beethoven, Frederic Chopin and Johann Sebastian Bach. The service will continue to be updated with new music over time, too. There's no additional charge for Apple Music Classical if you're an Apple Music subscriber. Android support is coming "soon."

A brand new version of Spotify is being unveiled to millions of subscribers on Wednesday, marking the largest change to the platform since it became available on phones more than a decade ago. From a report: In an exclusive interview airing Thursday on "CBS Mornings," Spotify's CEO and founder, Daniel Ek, said the updates include an "entirely new" home feed that is "completely redesigned from the ground up." "You'll see Spotify, I think, come alive. You're gonna see a lot more interactive content," he said. The popular digital music streaming service allows users to access a vast library of songs and podcasts. Ek said with the change, users will be able to see recommended content in the form of clips, and other visual components.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence discussed the emergence of spatial audio, the state of the smart home, and how a seemingly endless stream of lawsuits between Sonos and Google impact its day to day. Here's what he had to say about looming right-to-repair legislation and how it impacted the company's focus on reparability: We factor in everything. But I would say that our team has been on this for a long time, in terms of being the right thing to do. Also, I think we're learning. When we were first bringing out our products 20 years ago, we were like, "How do you build these things so they'll make the sound you want?" So we had to use things like adhesives. We've been able to come up with ways and inventions that allow us to disassemble these products. It comes into our thinking more broadly about what we're building and how you live up to the law of the land, but even before that, we were already starting to use recycled materials. We were already starting to use things that allow it to be more easily repaired. In late 2021, the company announced plans to extend the lifespan of its products and use less energy. They started a "Design for Disassembly" program that "includes changes like swapping out adhesives for fasteners, which can make it easier for consumers to take apart Sonos products for repair," reports The Verge. When asked for additional information about the program, Sonos wouldn't confirm whether it will also make replacement parts and repair manuals available.

All of its products by the end of 2023 will use post-consumer recycled plastic and they will include "sleep mode," a feature that cuts down on power consumption while the device is idle. The goal is for Sonos products to ultimately use less than 2 watts while idle," adds The Verge.

In the longterm, Sonos aims to cut emissions from its products' energy use by 45 percent by 2040. They also want to essentially cancel its entire footprint by that date by relying on a mixture of carbon offsets and new technologies that remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

Streaming boxes had so much potential. They were going to reinvent the cable box for the internet age and make it easier for users to find and organize and watch everything available in this era of infinite content. They were going to turn our TVs, the hub of our homes, into smart gadgets through which we could do almost anything. They were going to be game consoles. Streaming boxes were the next big thing. Instead, well, streaming boxes suck. From a report: You can't find a single product on the market that comes even remotely close to satisfying this vision. Instead of a thriving hardware and software category, streaming boxes have turned into ever-cheaper commodity items. At the Walgreens down the street from my house, crammed in between AA batteries and bizarrely unbranded wired headphones, sits a Roku Express HD for $30. And it's as good a buy as anything else. Streaming boxes are bad, and they're getting worse instead of better.

You could almost argue that in their current form, streaming boxes don't need to exist at all. By most measures, a majority of consumers in the US already own a smart TV -- and if you're in the market for a new set, you can barely find one that doesn't have some operating system built in. Of course, most of those smart TVs are slow, riddled with ads, and try to track your every move. That's why a good streaming box is such a good idea, at least in theory. The rest of tech's evolution has made good TV hardware and software even more important -- cloud gaming is improving all the time, our homes are getting smarter, we're even using our TVs to video chat. Streaming boxes let you upgrade without throwing out your big screen and add new features that might not come baked into the set itself. Plus, a good box could mitigate some of the worst ills of the smart TV world. To borrow an old-TV analogy: the built-in smart TV stuff is like the rabbit ears of old, and we need the cable box.

The auction house Sotheby's is celebrating the 30th anniversary of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash in a big way, reports Forbes. Stephenson teamed with special effects and prop company Weta Workshop to create "a bespoke piece, a cultural and historical artifact, stemming from the unique mythology of his new and coming Snow Crash universe." "The sword took us a year to create and is one of the finest pieces of craftsmanship WETA has created," said Sir Richard Taylor, founder of WETA workshop. "The whole collection is then housed in a crate from a fictitious gaming company that in theory has owned this sword that has now come up for auction. It is an insane, inworld fusion of ancient craft with the digital age." Taylor adds that "the swords Tansu storage case itself is an, automated, internally driven, magnetically activated, very unique box, with hidden compartments, secret items, coded messages and other inworld special nods to the world Neal authored."

This auction will not only celebrate Stephenson's legacy and the lore of Snow Crash but could also serve as a springboard to expand the Snow Crash universe further. [Taylor adds that Stephenson is exploring "future transmedia developments".] For Taylor, they are at the cusp of creating a body of creative work that blurs the line between the physical and the digital, which we have been affectionately calling 'Masterworks for the Metaverse'.
The sword will, of course, have its own unique NFT "capturing every detail of its physical twin," and someone's already bid $60,000 for it.

Also up for auction are two original manuscripts for Snow Crash and the painting used as the original edition's cover art — but also two forgotten artifacts from the book's afterlife:

• "The only surviving materials from the original graphic novel concept for Snow Crash titled Dioxin Posse, ca. 1989"

• "The leather jacket meant to be worn by Y.T. in the original graphic novel concept for Snow Crash, featuring the 'Elmo' logo used by her group, the "Dioxin Posse," ca. 1989."

The final season of Star Trek: Picard features the return of the Klingon Worf, reports Polygon, calling it "the chance to give one of sci-fi's most beloved supporting characters something that's usually reserved only for Captains and Admirals: a glorious third act."

Interestingly, back in 1987 Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had "hoped to avoid relying on familiar alien antagonists" when creating the first Star Trek TV sequel in 1987. So after a last-minute addition, "the early development of the character was left almost entirely in the hands of Dorn, then best known for a supporting role on the lighthearted police drama CHiPs." "They really didn't have a bible for Worf at all," says Dorn of those early episodes. "In fact, one of the first things I did was, I asked the producers, 'What do you want from this guy? You've just handed me a piece of paper that says Worf on it.'" With Roddenberry's blessing, Dorn set out making the character his own, giving Worf the kind of personal investment and attachment that only an actor can provide. "I decided to make the guy the opposite of everybody else on the show. You know, everyone else, their attitudes were great, and they're out there in space, relationships are forming. And after every mission they were like, Wasn't that fantastic? I didn't say anything to anybody, I just made him this gruff and surly character on the bridge. No smiles, no joking around."

It didn't take the show's producers long to realize that Dorn's gruff, joyless performance could effectively turn any bit of throwaway dialogue into a laugh line....

Alongside his role as the show's unlikely comic relief, however, Worf developed into one of Star Trek's most complicated protagonists. Roddenberry mandated that the show's human characters had evolved beyond the sorts of interpersonal conflicts that typically drive television dramas, but Worf, an alien, was permitted to be contrarian, hot-tempered, and even malicious.... He strictly adheres to a code of honor that does not totally overlap with that of his peers.... Yet, however many times "real" Klingon conduct clashes with his values, Worf never allows this to pollute his own sense of honor. He remains unfailingly truthful, loyal, and brave. And, over the years, other Klingons take notice of this and grow to admire and emulate him....

Dorn — along with the rest of the Next Gen ensemble — has once again been called upon to revitalize a Star Trek spinoff. The third season of Star Trek: Picard reintroduces us to Worf as a wise old master, so confident in his ability to defeat his foes in combat that he rarely needs to unsheathe this weapon. Dorn has imagined the past 20 years of his character's life in detail, taking inspiration from a source not entirely disconnected from Star Trek: the films of Quentin Tarantino. Appropriately, Dorn has patterned this version of Worf after a character from a film that opens with an old Klingon proverb: Kill Bill.

"One of the characters was Pai Mei, this martial arts killer," says Dorn. "He's gone so far in the martial arts, the next step is — he can defend himself and kill with a sword, but he can also do it with his bare hands. And with that comes calm, and the ability to know that sometimes you don't have to kill. That's how he's grown in the past 20 years. Now he can dodge ray guns...."

One way or another, the actor looks back at his untouchable tenure as Starfleet's greatest warrior with warmth and appreciation.
And speaking of appreciation, this video shows Dorn out of his Klingon makeup, joining with castmember Brent Spiner to recall a fondly-remembered prank that they'd played on Patrick Stewart (who was directing the episode).

"What if we told you the history you've been told about modern technology isn't quite what it should be?" asks a new Kickstarter campaign for a film about the life of John "Captain Crunch" Draper.

79-year-old Draper is often remembered for his influential early encounters with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, and Draper's early association with Apple Computers is even recognized in the film's title — "Employee 13." But the trailer also promises the larger life story of Draper, "an eccentric genius who went from being a penniless hacker to a millionaire and back again." What if inventions as big as the internet were envisioned before its time by a brilliant and divergent individual you've probably never heard of?

What if someone long overlooked is responsible for inspiring some of the most legendary names in Silicon Valley yet whose notoriety is, oppositely, more synonymous with scandal rather than success?

Employee 13 is an important new film project illuminating the intriguing life and influential achievements of John Draper, also known as "Captain Crunch," a hacker and inventor with autism.
The campaign says "John's ability to see what others could not influenced an industry, society and culture," and argues that his unique perspective in living with autism "enabled his notable discoveries and contributions advancing technology."

The film is in pre-production, "but we need your help to make it happen." (And to "shed light on the dim outcome of one brilliant man's life that was scrutinized without understanding, at a time when autism awareness and support did not exist.")

A poster for the movie hails Draper as an "OG hacker, internet technology pioneer, and champion for digital privacy."

Warner Bros. Pictures is revamping the "Lord of the Rings" film franchise. Variety reports: On a Thursday earnings call, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav announced that newly-installed studio leaders Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy have brokered a deal to make "multiple" films based on the beloved J. R. R. Tolkien books. The projects will be developed through WB label New Line Cinema. The first "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, helmed by Peter Jackson, grossed nearly $3 billion worldwide; Jackson's follow-up trilogy based on Tolkien's "The Hobbit" matched those grosses.

No filmmakers have been attached to the projects as yet, but in a statement to Variety, Jackson and his main "Lord of the Rings" collaborators Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens said Warner Bros. and Embracer "have kept us in the loop every step of the way." "We look forward to speaking with them further to hear their vision for the franchise moving forward," Jackson, Walsh and Boyens said.

Unlocking exclusive access has been a long-held promise of a lot of NFT-based communities. And now, Spotify is helping some of them realize that claim with token-gated playlists. TechCrunch reports: According to a series of tweets by Kingship, a metaverse band signed to Universal Music Group (UMG), the streaming company is piloting playlists that could be unlocked through NFTs in certain geographies. Under the pilot, Kingship has released a special playlist that could be accessed only by Kingship key card NFT holders. The group posted a series of steps that involves linking a crypto wallet like Metamask, Trust Wallet, Rainbow, Ledger Live, or Zerion to authenticate the NFT that unlocks the playlist. Kingship said that currently, this experience is only available to Android users in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Australia and New Zealand. "At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of tests in an effort to improve our user experience. Some of those end up paving the path for our broader user experience and others serve only as important learnings. We have no further news to share on future plans at this time," a Spotify spokesperson said.

Kaare Eriksen writes via Variety: As the Digital Entertainment Group, the trade association for home entertainment, tells it, business is better than ever: The U.S. consumer spend on home entertainment grew 11.4% year over year in 2022, totaling nearly $37 billion. Of course, success depends on how you define "home entertainment": Essentially none of that growth came courtesy of anything other than streaming, let alone DVD sales of any kind. When you remove SVOD from the equation, the truth is tough but unsurprising -- outside of theaters, people are increasingly losing the urge to pay for individual films or TV series, with all rentals and physical sales continuing to decline on an annual basis.

One apparent exception to this is digital sales made across platforms like Amazon, Apple TV and Vudu. Digital sell-through commands the largest share of home entertainment spend after streaming and increased ever so slightly in 2022. That said, it's important to remember that the scaling back of COVID restrictions throughout 2021 meant 2022 was the first (relatively) normal year at the box office since the pandemic started. As a result, more films from major studios were released in theaters and subsequently hit their digital windows sooner, per a bevy of deals Hollywood has worked out with exhibitors. But the key word there is films. TV is a different situation.

Between February of last year and May 2023, just over 100 TV releases from the major studios alongside AMC Networks and Lionsgate will have received Blu-ray or 4K Ultra HD releases in the U.S. market. From a studio-by-studio standpoint, there is little to no consistency as to the strategy behind these physical releases. The most staggering factor is how Paramount alone accounts for well over a third of these releases. [...] What's strange is Paramount's sheer commitment to physical releases for its more obscure series spread across the TV landscape. Just about everything originating from Paramount Pictures has at least a Blu-ray release. "Other than those Paramount releases, the only TV series that got 4K physical editions over the last 12 months are 'House of the Dragon' and the final season of 'Westworld,'" adds Variety. "By contrast, Disney has practically parted ways with physical TV releases altogether. To date, the only Disney+ series that has received a Blu-ray release is Peter Jackson's 'The Beatles: Get Back' docuseries." The same is true for Hulu.

Netflix has reduced the cost of its service in more than three dozen countries in recent weeks, as it tries to appeal to customers around the world who have an ever-growing list of streaming options. From a report: The streaming company's recent price cuts span Middle Eastern countries including Yemen, Jordan, Libya and Iran; sub-Saharan African markets including Kenya; and European countries such as Croatia, Slovenia and Bulgaria. In Latin America, nations including Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Venezuela have seen reductions in subscription costs, as have parts of Asia including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. The cuts apply to certain tiers of Netflix in those markets -- in some cases halving the cost of a subscription.

As recently as last month, Netflix executives talked about raising -- not lowering -- prices. In a January earnings call, co-Chief Executive Greg Peters said the company is looking for places where they can afford to raise prices, which feeds continued content investments. "We think of ourselves as a non-substitutable good," Mr. Peters said. Netflix also has an opportunity to add new subscribers in markets where it doesn't currently have a large share, he said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned away an Ohio man's claim that his constitutional rights were violated when he was arrested and prosecuted for making satirical posts about his local police department on Facebook. The justices' rejection of Anthony Novak's appeal means his civil rights lawsuit against the Parma Police Department cannot move forward. With its decision, the court again declined to consider revisiting "qualified immunity," the contentious legal defense that lets police officers and other government officials off the hook in civil rights cases if constitutional violations have not been "clearly established" when they occur. At issue was whether a lower court correctly granted the police officers qualified immunity under the rationale that previous court precedent had not clearly established that Novak's actions constituted protected speech under the Constitution's First Amendment.

In March 2016, Novak set up a Facebook page that purported to be that of the Parma Police Department. He published six satirical posts in 12 hours, one of which claimed there was a job opening to which minorities were encouraged not to apply and another that warned people not to give food, money or shelter to homeless people. The police department, claiming the posts had disrupted its operations, launched an investigation and ultimately searched Novak's apartment, arrested him and jailed him for four days. Novak was charged under a state law that criminalizes disruption of police operations but acquitted at trial.

The police officers, Kevin Riley and Thomas Connor, say they had probable cause to arrest Novak because they genuinely believed his conduct was disrupting their operations. Novak sued the officers and the police department, saying they had violated his free speech rights, as well as his right to be free of unlawful searches and seizures under the Constitution's Fourth Amendment. After lengthy litigation, a federal judge dismissed Novak's claims. The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in a ruling in April that "the officers reasonably believed they were acting within the law" even if his Facebook page was obviously a parody. That's because there was no court precedent saying it's a violation of the Constitution to be arrested in retaliation for satirical remarks when the officers have probable cause, the court said. Novak's appeal was backed by satirical news sites The Babylon Bee and The Onion, which filed a lighthearted brief saying its writers "have a self-serving interest in preventing political authorities from imprisoning humorists."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Almost two decades after the release of the Guillermo del Toro-directed Hellboy, the character is getting yet another reboot. Millennium Media has confirmed that Hellboy: The Crooked Man will enter production next month in Bulgaria, Deadline reports. Casting for the titular character (originally played by Ron Perlman and then David Harbour) is yet to be announced, but the new film will be directed by Brian Taylor, best known for the Jason Statham action movie Crank.

Perhaps most interesting is that the comics' original creator Mike Mignola has written the script for the upcoming film alongside Chris Golden. Both were reported to have worked on the script for the 2019 reboot by The Hollywood Reporter, though Andrew Cosby ultimately ended up with sole credit for writing the screenplay. The 2019 reboot is widely considered to have been both a commercial and critical failure, bringing in roughly $55 million at the box office on a budget of $50 million.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: A new paper in Annals of Botany indicates that watching nature documentaries makes people more interested in plants, potentially provoking an involvement in botany and ecology. [T]he researchers investigated whether nature documentaries can promote plant awareness, which may ultimately increase audience engagement with plant conservation programs. They focused on "Green Planet," a 2022 BBC documentary narrated by Sir David Attenborough. The show, watched by nearly 5 million people in the United Kingdom, featured a diversity of plant species, highlighting vegetation from tropical rainforests, aquatic environments, seasonal lands, deserts, and urban spaces. The program also addressed environmental concerns directly, examining the dangers of invasive monocultures and deforestation.

The researchers measured whether "Green Planet" drove interest in the plants by exploring people's online behavior around the time of the broadcast. First, they noted the species that appeared on the show and the time each one appeared on-screen. Then they extracted Google Trends and Wikipedia page hits for those same species before and after the episodes of the documentary aired. The researchers here found a substantial effect of "Green Planet" on viewers' awareness and interest in the portrayed plant species. Some 28.1% of search terms representing plants mentioned in the BBC documentary had peak popularity in the UK, measured using Google Trends, the week after the broadcast of the relevant episode. Wikipedia data showed this as well. Almost a third (31.3%) of the Wikipedia pages related to plants mentioned in "Green Planet" showed increased visits the week after the broadcast. The investigators also note that people were more likely to do online searches for plants that enjoyed more screen time on "Green Planet." "I think that increasing public awareness of plants is essential and fascinating," said the paper's lead author, Joanna Kacprzyk. "In this study, we show that nature documentaries can increase plant awareness among the audience. Our results also suggest that the viewers found certain plant species particularly captivating. These plants could be used for promoting plant conservation efforts and counteracting the alarming loss of plant biodiversity."