In a recent interview with Music Ally, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek denied criticisms that Spotify pays insufficient royalties to artists, and insisted that the role of the musician had changed in today's "future landscape." The FADER reports: Ek claimed that a "narrative fallacy" had been created and caused music fans to believe that Spotify doesn't pay musicians enough for streams of their music. "Some artists that used to do well in the past may not do well in this future landscape," Ek said, "where you can't record music once every three to four years and think that's going to be enough." What is required from successful musicians, Ek insisted, is a deeper, more consistent, and prolonged commitment than in the past. "The artists today that are making it realize that it's about creating a continuous engagement with their fans. It is about putting the work in, about the storytelling around the album, and about keeping a continuous dialogue with your fans."

Ek alleged that artists have said "many times" in private that they are happy with their royalties from Spotify, and said that he believes that musicians who cannot make a living may not be in step with modern standards. "I feel, really, that the ones that aren't doing well in streaming are predominantly people who want to release music the way it used to be released," Ek said.

Netflix is letting people choose the speed at which they want to watch something on their phone or tablet with new playback controls. From a report: Netflix will allow anyone on an Android mobile device to stream at either 0.5x or 0.75x speeds for slowed-down viewing and 1.25x or 1.5x speeds for faster watching. Those are slightly fewer options than YouTube, which allows people to slow all the way down to 0.25x speeds, and speed up by twice the normal playback speed. Playback speed options are also available on downloaded titles that people have saved for offline viewing. Subscribers must opt in to use the playback speeds with every single title they want to watch; it won't just remain active when you pick something else to watch. This prevents people from accidentally watching everything at 1.5x speed if they don't want to. The feature is rolling out tomorrow and will be available to everyone globally in the coming weeks.

Netflix announced it was testing the feature in 2019 and was met with backlash from Hollywood's creative community. Actor Aaron Paul and director Brad Bird spoke out against Netflix's decision to introduce the playback controls, and director Judd Apatow tweeted in October that "distributors don't get to change the way the content is presented." Netflix's team is introducing a number of features with the rollout to try to work with the creative community to ensure the quality of the content isn't disrupted, including automatically correcting "the pitch in the audio at faster and slower speeds," according to the company.

According to a new report from Pew Research, U.S. adults who get their news largely from social media platforms tend to fllow the news less closely and end up less informed on several key subjects when compared to those who use other sources, like TV, radio, and news publications. TechCrunch reports: The firm first asked people how they most commonly get their news. About one-in-five (18%) said they mostly use social media to stay current. That's close the percentages of those who say they use local TV (16%) or cable TV (16%) news, but fewer than those who say they go directly to a news website or app (25%). Another 13% said they use network TV and only 3% said they read a newspaper. To be clear, any study that asks users to self-report how they do something isn't going to be as useful as those that collect hard data on what the consumers actually do. In other words, people who think they're getting most of their news from TV may be, in reality, undercounting the time they spent on social media â" or vice versa.

That said, among this group of "primarily" social media news consumers, only 8% said they were following the key news story of the 2020 U.S. election "every closely," compared with 37% of cable TV viewers who said the same, or the 33% of print users who also said this. The social media group, on this topic, was closer to the local TV group (11%). On the topic of the coronavirus outbreak, only around a quarter (23%) of the primarily social media news consumers said they were following news of COVID-19 "very closely." All other groups again reported a higher percentage, including those who primarily used cable TV (50%), national network TV (50%), news websites and apps (44%), and local TV (32%) for news.

Related to this finding, the survey respondents were also asked 29 different fact-based questions about news topics from recent days, including those on Trump's impeachment, the COVID-19 outbreak, and others. Those who scored the lowest on these topics were the consumers who said they primarily used social media to get their news. Across 9 questions related to foundational political knowledge, only 17% of primarily social media news consumers scored "high political knowledge," meaning they got 8 to 9 of the questions right. 27% scored "middle political knowledge" (6-7 right) and 57% scored "low political knowledge" (5 or fewer right.) The only group that did worse were those who primarily relied on local TV. 45% of who got their news from news primarily via websites and apps, meanwhile, had "high political knowledge," compared with 42% for radio, 41% for print, 35% for cable TV, and 29% for network TV. The social media group of news consumers was also more exposed to fringe conspiracies, like the idea that the pandemic was intentionally planned.

AMC Theaters and Universal have reached a new agreement that dramatically shortens the theatrical exclusivity window -- the amount of time that films have to play in theaters before they'e allowed to be sold or rented in other places, like iTunes, Amazon, or AMC's own On Demand service -- down to just 17 days (ensuring that the films will hit at least three weekends in theaters). From a report: The new deal marks a radical shift from the standard theatrical release window, which has typically been between 70 and 90 days in recent years, and could vastly alter the landscape of both theatrical and digital film.

Netflix led the Emmy Awards race with a record-breaking 160 primetime nominations, beating the likes of linear television giant HBO and digital newcomers Disney+ and Apple TV+. Deutsche Welle reports: HBO came in second with 107 Emmy nominations, with its hit series "Watchmen" sweeping up 26 nominations, including a nod for the best limited series category. Earlier this year, Netflix hit all-time highs in viewership with industry observers pointing to lockdown measures that kept people in their homes for longer periods. Other digital streaming services have tried to make inroads during the pandemic, such as Disney+ and Apple TV+, which picked up its first nomination with Jennifer Aniston's best drama actress bid for "The Morning Show." Meanwhile, Amazon Prime, likely one of Netflix's biggest competitors, saw its comedy "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" pick up 20 nominations.

"Despite the unprecedented challenges facing the entertainment industry, it has been an extraordinary year for television," said Television Academy Chairman and chief executive Frank Scherma. "We are honored to be recognizing so many of the talented programs, producers, directors and craftspeople behind the remarkable storytelling that has brought us together while we remain apart." In some senses, next year's TV and cinema awards could be far worse hit than 2020's -- given that most of the series currently vying for gongs were produced long before the pandemic picked up pace.

ArchieBunker writes: In the streaming era, music is accessed from a variety of online services, ephemeral in nature and never living on board the device. However, the online audio revolution really kicked off with the development of one very special format. The subject of bitter raps and groundbreaking lawsuits, this development from Germany transformed the music industry as we know it. Twenty-five years on from the date the famous '.mp3' filename was chosen, HackADay takes a look back at how it came to be, and why it took over the world.

"A photo and film restoration specialist, who goes by the name of DutchSteamMachine, has worked some AI magic to enhance original Apollo film, creating strikingly clear and vivid video clips and images," reports Universe Today: Take a look at this enhanced footage from an Apollo 16 lunar rover traverse with Charlie Duke and John Young, where the footage that was originally shot with 12 frames per second (FPS) has been increased to 60 FPS... And I was blown away by the crisp view of the Moon's surface in this enhanced view of Apollo 15's landing site at Hadley Rille... Or take a look at how clearly Neil Armstrong is visible in this enhanced version of the often-seen "first step" video from Apollo 11 taken by a 16mm video camera inside the Lunar Module...

The AI that DutchSteamMachine uses is called Depth-Aware video frame INterpolation, or DAIN for short. This AI is open source, free and constantly being developed and improved upon... "People have used the same AI programs to bring old film recordings from the 1900s back to life, in high definition and colour," he said. "This technique seemed like a great thing to apply to much newer footage...."

DutchSteamMachine does this work in his spare time, and posts it for free on his YouTube page. His tagline is "Preserving the past for the future..." And he's planning to keep it all coming. "I plan to improve tons of Apollo footage like this," he said. "A lot more space and history-related footage is going to be published on my YT channel continuously." He also has a Flickr page with more enhanced imagery. [And a Patreon page...]
Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 calls it "similar to what Peter Jackson did with old World War I footage for They Shall Not Grow Old ."

According to The New York Times, a secretive task force called the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force is expected to release new and alarming findings that may involve vehicles made of materials not of this plant. From the report: Despite Pentagon statements that it disbanded a once-covert program to investigate unidentified flying objects, the effort remains underway -- renamed and tucked inside the Office of Naval Intelligence, where officials continue to study mystifying encounters between military pilots and unidentified aerial vehicles. Pentagon officials will not discuss the program, which is not classified but deals with classified matters. Yet it appeared last month in a Senate committee report outlining spending on the nation's intelligence agencies for the coming year. The report said the program, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, was "to standardize collection and reporting" on sightings of unexplained aerial vehicles, and was to report at least some of its findings to the public every six months. While retired officials involved with the effort -- including Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader -- hope the program will seek evidence of vehicles from other worlds, its main focus is on discovering whether another nation, especially any potential adversary, is using breakout aviation technology that could threaten the United States.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who is the acting chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told a CBS affiliate in Miami this month that he was primarily concerned about reports of unidentified aircraft over U.S. military bases -- and that it was in the government's interest to find out who was responsible. He expressed concerns that China or Russia or some other adversary had made "some technological leap" that "allows them to conduct this sort of activity." Rubio said some of the unidentified aerial vehicles over U.S. bases possibly exhibited technologies not in the U.S. arsenal. But he also noted: "Maybe there is a completely, sort of, boring explanation for it. But we need to find out."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: San Diego Comic-Con -- like just about every large conference, convention, and gathering in 2020 -- has had to switch to an online-only virtual format this year due to the continuing pandemic. Media companies that usually have a large presence at events like SDCC worked hard to create streaming alternative content -- but it seems they forgot to tell their copyright bots.

ViacomCBS kicked things off today with an hour-long panel showing off its slew of current and upcoming Star Trek projects: Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, and Strange New Worlds. The panel included the cast and producers of Discovery doing a read-through of the first act of the season 2 finale, "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2." The "enhanced" read-through included sound effects, effects shots, and storyboard images meant to bolster the actors as they delivered lines from their living rooms and home offices. Even if the presentation didn't look like a real episode of Discovery to the home viewer, it apparently sounded close enough: after the Star Trek Universe virtual panel began viewers began to lose access to the stream. In place of the video, YouTube displayed a content ID warning reading: "Video unavailable: This video contains content from CBS CID, who has blocked it on copyright grounds." After being blacked out for about 20 minutes, the panel was restored, and the recording of the virtual panel has no gaps in playback.

What are some titles -- movies, TV shows, or any console video games -- that have helped you stay calm in recent months? (No need to limit the listing to recently releases.)

Plex is bringing back the cable grid. The popular media center app added 80 live TV channels Thursday, complete with a programming guide that will look very familiar to anyone who has ever subscribed to pay TV, albeit with a few key differences: Plex's new live TV service is free to use, and it doesn't feature popular cable channels like CNN, TBS or Lifetime. From a report: Instead, its lineup includes channels like Reuters TV, Toon Goggles and the Bob Ross Channel. This type of ad-supported linear programming is growing in popularity across the industry; with consumers forced to tighten their belts, it could further contribute to cord cutting and fasten the shift from cable bundles to online video -- a future that may, at least to consumers, look very much like the best of TV's past. Plex has long positioned itself as an app for cord cutters, with free on-demand video and DVR functionality for broadcast TV networks. With its 80 new live TV channels, the company wants to offer its customers an experience that's closer to the lean-back viewing known from traditional pay TV. The Los Gatos-based startup has plans to add another 50 to 100 channels in the coming months.

Executives freely admitted in a conversation with Protocol that their take on live TV doesn't provide a 1:1 replacement for individual cable channels, but they argued that it's a good-enough experience. "It becomes a dirt-cheap way to replace cable," said co-founder and Chief Product Officer Scott Olechowski. One of the companies supplying Plex with TV feeds is Cinedigm, which operates around a dozen linear online channels, Including the Bob Ross channel, ConTV and standup-focused Comedy Dynamics. Cinedigm only began developing linear channels a little over a year ago and already has 13.5 million monthly viewers for these channels on smart TVs. "There is a lot of power in lean-back entertainment," said Cinedigm Digital Networks President Erick Opeka.

In a new report on Science Advances, Minwoo Choi and a team of scientists in Electronic Engineering and Materials Science in the Republic of Korea, developed a wearable, full-colour OLED display using a two-dimensional (2-D) material-based backplane transistor. Phys.Org reports: They engineered an 18-by-18 thin-film transistor array on a thin molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) film and transferred it to an aluminium oxide (Al2O3)/polyethylene terephthalate (PET) surface. Choi et al. then deposited red, green and blue OLED pixels on the device surface and observed excellent mechanical and electrical properties of the 2-D material. The surface could drive circuits to control the OLED pixels to form an ultrathin, wearable device.

In this work, Choi et al. developed a large-area MoS2 TFT array to operate 324 pixels in a 2-inch RGB OLED, in which the full-color display demonstrated an active-matrix configuration. The RGB OLEDs were made of different optoelectronic characteristics, therefore the team designed the backplane TFTs to control each color pixel. The experimental setup was promising as a wearable display and functioned steadily on human skin without adverse effects. The team used heterogenous material designs to form optoelectronics in the present work. [...] The low stiffness of the ultrathin device prevented the deterioration of optical and electrical properties during substantial mechanical deformation reflexes -- after its transfer to a human hand. Based on the current-voltage characteristics (I-V), the current level did not change during skin shrinkage or skin stretching exercises and the on-state also did not fluctuate during active-matrix display operation. While the device stability is still in development, the team aim to conduct further engineering to improve the MoS2 film for practical applications as a wearable, full-color AMOLED display.

Microsoft's livestreaming platform Mixer will shut down later today and encourage users to migrate over to Facebook Gaming's livestreaming service, with treasured Mixer Partners getting partner status over there too. Rock Paper Shotgun reports: From what I've seen on my stroll through Mixer on this final day, a whole lot of folks are planning to switch to Twitch. The shutdown comes less than a year after Microsoft went wild recruiting top Twitch streamers including Tyler "Ninja" Blevins with exclusivity contracts rumoured to be worth millions.

Mixer first launched in 2016 under the name 'Beam' then was bought by Microsoft later that year, who renamed it 'Mixer' in 2017. One of its big selling points was shorter delays between the broadcaster and the viewers, so folks could have more back-and-forth and interact more. It also had built-in support for novelty streams like Pokemon controlled by viewers. Microsoft also had their studios integrate Mixer features into games, so Forza Horizon 4 gave rewards for both streaming and watching it on Mixer, Minecraft let viewers vote on things, and so on. "Ultimately, the success of Partners and streamers on Mixer is dependent on our ability to scale the platform for them as quickly and broadly as possible," Microsoft said in the shutdown announcement in June. "It became clear that the time needed to grow our own livestreaming community to scale was out of measure with the vision and experiences that Microsoft and Xbox want to deliver for gamers now, so we've decided to close the operations side of Mixer and help the community transition to a new platform."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Vox: [T]he story really starts in 2008, when Netflix broke into streaming in a big way, through a backdoor: It purchased the digital streaming rights to movies from Disney and Sony -- that is, movies you've heard of, like Pirates of the Caribbean -- from Starz, the pay TV channel. Starz had ambitions for its own streaming service, but those fizzled, which is why you have probably never heard of Vongo. And that's why Netflix got those movies for a song -- around $30 million a year -- while becoming a pretty good streaming service almost overnight. For context: In 2012, when Netflix wanted to make a new streaming deal for content from Disney, which by then had realized that streaming was a real thing, Netflix paid an estimated $300 million a year.

A contractual loophole let Netflix get Disney's and Sony's stuff without cutting deals with Disney and Sony. But soon enough, media companies were scrambling to sell their stuff directly to Netflix: They saw Netflix as an easy source of nearly free money -- if Reed Hastings and company wanted to pay them for old shows and movies they were already selling other places, then they'd be happy to do it. But that free money wasn't really free: Netflix took the stuff Hollywood considered its leftovers and built a giant business with it -- and ended up competing directly with the established media players, using their own content. Which leads us to today, where the biggest media companies in the world find themselves years behind what used to be a Silicon Valley upstart. The full story on the impact Netflix has had on Hollywood and the people who run it and work in it was told in this week's episode of Land of the Giants: The Netflix Effect.

Elon Musk says Neuralink recipients will be able to stream music directly into their brains, with no headphones needed. Futurism reports: It's still entirely unclear if Neuralink's brain-computer interfaces will ever be able to bypass the ear, the cochlear nerves, and beam music magically to the auditory brain. But Musk has already set his sights on bigger things. When asked by another Twitter user if Neuralink's devices could also help "estimulate the release of oxytocin, serotonin, and other chemicals when needed," Musk replied with another "yes." To make that feature and more a reality, Neuralink is looking to add more, well, brains to its operations. "If you've solved hard problems with phones/ wearables (sealing, signal processing, inductive charging, power management, etc.), please consider working at [Neuralink]," Musk tweeted over the weekend. On August 28th, the mysterious computer-brain interface startup will release an update on its progress.

In what sounds like a Black Mirror episode, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy complied with a hostage-takers demands and posted a six-second video urging the public to watch the 2005 film "Earthlings," a movie about mankind using animals for pets, food and clothing. "Everyone should watch the 2005 film 'Earthlings,'" he said in the video posted to his Facebook page, which has been since deleted. The hostage-taker eventually surrendered to police and the bus passengers were freed unharmed. Deutsche Welle reports: Ukrainian police say the armed man who took 13 people aboard a long-distance bus in the western city of Lutsk hostage on Tuesday morning has been detained after authorities stormed the vehicle. The country's SBU Security Service said no one was injured in the incident. A man with explosives and weapons seized the bus and took 13 people hostage in northwestern Ukraine early Tuesday morning, the SBU said in a Facebook statement. Metro reports: The man called police after taking control of the bus and introduced himself as Maksim Plokhoy, deputy interior minister Anton Gerashchenko said. But the minister added that police have identified the man as Maksim Krivosh, a 44-year-old Ukrainian born in Russia. In a Telegram account reportedly belonging to him, Krivosh apparently admitted taking people on the bus hostage, and said "the state has always been and always is the first terrorist," while demanding that senior Ukrainian officials release statements on their social media pages calling themselves terrorists. He also called for Ukrainian president President Zelensky to urge people to watch the 2005 movie Earthlings. The film chronicles the day-to-day practices of large industries, and how they rely on animals for profit.

The directing duo behind the highest-grossing film of all time are set to break another movie record for Netflix. From a report: This time, brothers and Avengers: Endgame filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo (who also helmed Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, and Avengers: Infinity War for Marvel) are headed to Netflix for the streaming service's biggest-budgeted movie yet -- and it looks to be a spy film that would have 007 raising his stirred-not-shaken glass. According to Deadline, Netflix is putting a massive, $200M+ budget behind an adaptation of The Gray Man starring Ryan Gosling and Captain America himself, Chris Evans. The plan is to make a new franchise out of the spycraft source material from author Mark Greaney -- something that would take Netflix's big-budget investments in a different direction from the prestige-oriented Martin Scorsese film The Irishman. Greaney is also known for taking over Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series after the author's death. With a pair of movie stars going full Spy vs. Spy in a film co-written by Joe alongside his frequent MCU collaborators Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the film looks to capitalize on a similar vibe as the Mission: Impossible movies or underappreciated The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Spy/assassin Court Gentry (Ryan Gosling) is being hunted by his old CIA co-worker Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans). Expect plenty of gadgets, double-crosses, and action setpieces.

Grant Imahara, an electrical engineer and roboticist who hosted the popular science show MythBusters and Netflix's White Rabbit Project, has died suddenly following a brain aneurysm. He was 49. From The Hollywood Reporter: An electrical engineer and roboticist by training, he joined Discovery's MythBusters in its third season, replacing Scottie Chapman and was with the show until 2014 when he left with with co-hosts Kari Byron and Tory Belleci. The trio would reunite in 2016 for Netflix's White Rabbit Project which lasted for one season. On MythBusters, Imahara used his technical expertise to design and build robots for the show and also operated the computers and electronics needed to test myths.

Born in Los Angeles, Imahara studied electrical engineering at the University of Southern California (though he briefly had doubts and wanted to become a screenwriter) before combining the two passions and landing a post-graduation gig at Lucasfilm-associated THX labs. In his nine years at Lucasfilm, he worked for the company's THX and Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) divisions. In his years at ILM he became chief model maker specializing in animatronics and worked on George Lucas' Star Wars prequels, as well as The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Galaxy Quest, XXX: State of the Union, Van Helsing, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. [...] Imahara also starred in several episodes of the fan-made web series Star Trek Continues. He played Hikaru Sulu, a lieutenant, helmsman and third officer on the USS Enterprise, in the show that was an unofficial continuation of Star Trek: The Original Series. "We are heartbroken to hear this sad news about Grant. He was an important part of our Discovery family and a really wonderful man. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family," a representative for Discovery said in a statement on Monday.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Researchers in Singapore have developed an apparatus that can be placed in a window to reduce incoming sound by 10 decibels. The system was created by a team of scientists, including Masaharu Nishimura, who came up with the basic concept, and Bhan Lam, a researcher at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Their results were published on Thursday in Scientific Reports. The prototype is not yet the most practical device in real world conditions, but it points the way toward the development of technologies that may help ease the strain of noisy city living.

Borrowing from the same technological principles used in noise-canceling headphones, the team expanded the concept to fit an entire room by placing 24 small speakers in a window. The speakers emit sound waves that correspond to the incoming racket and neutralize it -- or, at least some of it. The system is based on the frequency of the sound waves and, for now, the optimal range is between 300 and 1,000 hertz. [...] The system uses a microphone outside the window to detect the repeating sound waves of the offending noise source, which is registered by a computer controller. That in turn deciphers the proper wave frequency needed to neutralize the sound, which is transmitted to the array of speakers on the inside of the window frame. The speakers then emit the proper "anti" waves, which cancel out the incoming waves, and there you have it: near blissful silence. Unfortunately, there are some limitations. The system works best from the types of steady noise sources found within the optimal frequency range and isn't great at neutralizing sporadic noises. Also, since human voices don't fit within most of that range, they won't be canceled out.

America's studios, creators and marketers are relying, more than ever, on digital platforms that allow them to gauge what audiences like-- and would like to see more of. From a report: They're not just looking for test screenings, either. They're looking to check in with potential audiences at every stage of production, from before a script is written until the moment their new TV show, film or music video debuts. Ever since George Lucas ushered in the era of endless sequels (and prequels), Hollywood executives have tried to capitalize on the success of the Last Big Thing by churning out more of it. But content budgets are increasing far faster than established franchises can keep up. Netflix is projected to spend more on new and acquired content in 2020 -- $17 billion -- than Apple spent on research and development in 2019. With stakes that high, minimizing risk when creating new content "at scale" means treating it like any other mass-market product. Executives, producers, writers, directors and marketers need to be able to consistently craft programs that are more likely than not to find their target audiences. Critical approval and industry awards -- even box-office blowouts -- while nice, aren't the endgame for most.