Tag Archives: Mass media

Technology

Kobo’s Clara 2E E-Reader Aims to Beat Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 5

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The $100 Kobo Nia is one of the cheapest ad-free e-readers for digitizing your reading library, but it lacks many features that can greatly improve your reading experience. For just $30 more, the new Kobo Clara 2E brings better screen lighting that’s easier on the eyes, plus two important upgrades that should put a dent in the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 5‘s dominance.

Although the $120 Kobo Clara HD offers more screen resolution with crisper text than the $100 Kobo Nia, as well as the ability to shift its screen lighting to warmer tones that’s easier on the eyes and supposedly more conducive to falling asleep at night, the Clara HD was released back in 2018 and is four years old at this point. Feature for feature, it’s now well behind the Kindle Paperwhite 5 that Amazon released last October. With the new Clara 2E, Kobo is finally playing catchup, and more or less matching the Kindle Paperwhite 5’s best features, especially now that Amazon has restricted ebook downloads to a wifi connection only.

The Clara 2E is Kobo’s first six-inch e-reader to be completely waterproof, allowing it to be used at the beach, next to the pool, or in the bathtub without the risk of a tumble into the water causing any serious damage. Kobo claims the Clara 2E can survive up to 60 minutes submerged to a depth of up to two meters, so while reading underwater in the pool is totally plausible (if you get bored while practicing your snorkeling, I guess), you still won’t want to bring it along on a deep sea dive.

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The other major upgrade for the Kobo Clara 2E is the addition of Bluetooth, allowing wireless headphones, a wireless speaker, or a wireless connection to a car’s stereo to be used for enjoying audiobook content, which can be downloaded right to the e-reader itself from Kobo’s online store.

One reason to still opt for the Kindle Paperwhite 5 is that Amazon’s squeezed a larger 6.8-inch 300 PPI display into it by shrinking the e-reader’s bezels, whereas the new Kobo Clara 2E sticks with a 6-inch HD E Ink Carta 1200 display instead. It’s not a huge difference, and the Kobo arguably makes up for it by including 16GB of onboard storage instead of the Kindle’s 8GB. That’s more than enough storage for a lifetime of e-books, but for those using audiobooks, that storage bump will be welcome.

Kobo also points out that the new Clara 2E’s housing is made from more than 85 percent recycled plastic; 10% of which is (was?) ocean-bound plastic. Devices like this still don’t have user-serviceable rechargeable batteries, though, which limits their lifespans and means they might just find themselves getting tossed back into the used plastic pile again later. If companies like Kobo really wanted to do something useful to help the environment, they’d start designing products that can take advantage of new features and functionality through upgraded components, instead of encouraging us to completely replace devices that already work just fine but are a little outdated.

The Kobo Clara 2E is available for pre-order now for $130, with official availability starting on September 22. Also available is a $30 SleepCover made from 97% recycled plastic. That one can transform into a stand, but there’s also a $20 Basic SleepCover if you just want to hold your book while you read it.

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Entertainment

Warner Bros. Discovery proposes “10 year plan” for DC

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WB Studio Tour
Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer (Getty Images)

Can DC ever chart a course to navigate out of Marvel’s shadow? That’s been the question for the last 10 years (since the conclusion of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy). Newly crowned Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav thinks he has the answer, which is… the same thing the guys before him tried to do, basically.

“You look at Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman—these are brands that are known everywhere in the world,” Zaslav said on the infamous WB earnings call (per The Hollywood Reporter). “We have done a reset. We’ve restructured the business where we are going to focus, where there is going to be a team with a ten year plan focusing just on DC. We believe we can build a much more sustainable business.”

Oh, gee, a 10 year plan? Why didn’t anyone think of that before? It’s a strange bit of corporate gaslighting to pretend we weren’t all around for the attempted Zack Snyder-verse. Further, it’s not much of a “reset” when only one film (Batgirl) was canceled and the rest–which are all still tangled up in the Snyderverse to some degree–are going forward (even the dreaded Flash film).

“It’s very similar to the structure Alan Horn, [former Disney CEO] Bob Iger and Kevin Feige put together very effectively at Disney,” said Zaslav, as if copy-pasting from the MCU handbook worked for any of his predecessors. He may want to consider that Feige is someone that directors actually want to work for; the Marvel boss’ compassionate response to Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah after Batgirl was canned only makes Zaslav and DC look even worse in comparison.

But Zaslav is determined to “focus on quality” and not “release any film before it’s ready,” which sounds more like the baseline for the film industry than an innovative new strategy. “The objective is to grow the DC brand. To grow the DC characters,” he said. “But also, our job is to protect the DC brand, and that’s what we’re going to do.” DC fans will surely sleep better knowing this is the guy protecting their beloved heroes.

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Technology

Drake Gifted $8000 Gaming PC From Twitch Streamer Xposed

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While you’d all be aware that celebrities, despite their wealth, are given expensive shit for free all the time, today we’re going to take a look at one gift in particular. Partly because it’s a gaming PC, but also because we kinda have the receipt for it as well.

Esports guy Jake Lucky tweeted this out earlier today, and it certainly provoked a reaction:

Responses in the replies generally ranged from “it looks like shit” to “that’s massively overpriced” to “lmao all that just to gamble” (more on that soon). That first sentiment might be a bit much. I think this looks great! It’s a gaming PC, what do you expect, and the white lighting in these photos is an infinitely classier look than the electronic clown car aesthetic you often see on these kind of systems. I’m particularly fond of the lighting around the fans, it’s a very “starship corridor” look.

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As for the price, well, there are some caveats here. The PC—which was put together by Paradox Customs—was actually bought for Drake as a gift by streamer Xposed (Paradox tells Kotaku they “hashed out” the component selection together), and in the time between the order first being placed and the PC actually arriving the market for a lot of expensive PC parts crashed for some reason. Throw in some Canadian taxes Xposed had to pay and Paradox say the actual cost in July 2022 is somewhere closer to $6500. Which, you know, is still ridiculously expensive for a PC, but it’s also not $8000.

How do we know that? Paradox tweeted this earlier today, which handily also gives us a chance to take a look at the kind of specs you can expect to see in a PC that cost more than my last three desktops combined.

As for who paid for the system and why, Xposed actually picked out this exact system for himself, then says he ordered a second for Drake because he had helped the rapper out with an earlier PC, but at the time had to skimp and get him a “prebuilt from Best Buy because it was short notice”:

In December 2021, Xposed signed a partnership deal with Stake, a shady and controversial online gambling site which Drake just happens to be continually streaming and promoting at the same time, and who shared this new PCs arrival on their socials.



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Technology

Jeff Gertsmann Leaving Giant Bomb After 14 Years

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Screenshot: Giant Bomb

Today, Giant Bomb announced that the website’s co-founder, Jeff Gerstmann, was leaving the popular video game website after nearly 15 years. In a blog post announcing the departure, it was explained that “Giant Bomb and Jeff Gerstmann have agreed to go our separate ways.”

In a lengthy blog post shared on Giant Bomb’s website, staff explained that they were going to be “transparent” about Gerstmann’s departure, calling it “heavy-hitting news” and a “big moment” for the site and its future.

“Jeff has shaped Giant Bomb in profound ways and he’s also been a key part of bringing on board the voices that have defined the site through its different eras. To this day, Giant Bomb’s influence on the way video games are covered on the internet is still as pervasive as ever, and Jeff remains inseparably attached to that legacy.

But things change: life unfolds; priorities shift, and people come and go. And the same goes for Giant Bomb.

As for why he was leaving today, neither Giant Bomb nor Gerstmann shared any specific details, only stating that an agreement had been reached between the parties to “go our separate ways.”

The former GameSpot editorial director confirmed the news via his own personal Twitter announcing that today, June 6, was his last day with the company. He also hinted at more details and info coming tomorrow via a stream on his own Twitch channel.

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In the blog post announcing the news, Giant Bomb also talked about the future of the site following his exit, stating that this departure won’t lead to a “Giant Bomb 2.o” and that it still planned to be a “weird and welcoming corner of the internet.”

Change can be difficult to adjust to. But we are still building the bomb, and you’ll get a much more detailed announcement about how on June 7th’s Bombcast, so be sure to tune in. Starting tomorrow, there will be a renewed focus on a core group of nine Giant Bomb crew members, and we’ll be giving updates regarding future content, the plan for Premium and hopefully addressing most of the questions you might have, and maybe even a few you didn’t know you had yet.

We are more excited about what’s to come than ever and we hope you will be too.

There is no 2.0. There is just Giant Bomb. See you tomorrow.

Gerstmann’s sudden exit today continues a trend of older staff leaving the popular video game site.

Last year in May, three of the legacy members of the site, Vinny Caravella, Alex Navarro, and Brad Shoemaker left. They went off and started their own thing called Nextlander.

These departures all came after the news in September 2020 that the former parent company of GameSpot and Giant Bomb —ViacomCBS— had sold the sites to digital marketing company Red Ventures. While Caravella tried to squash rumors that it was this new owner that had led to an exodus of employees, rumors among fans and longtime viewers of the site still persist.



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Technology

7 Ways Uncanny AT&T ‘You Will’ Ad Predicted the Future

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Screenshot: Lucas Ropek/YouTube

In 1993, telecom giant AT&T launched an advertising campaign that somehow predicted quite a lot of aspects of how we work and live today. The “You Will” ad series, directed by now-famed thrill-master David Fincher, was an eerily accurate look at what life in the mid to late 2000s would look like. The ads, narrated by former Magnum P.I. star and professional mustache-haver Tom Selleck, imagined a series of scenarios involving gadgets and technology that didn’t yet exist.

“Have you ever done *insert thing we all do now*? Well, you will!” Selleck would say at the beginning of each ad. “And the company that will bring it to you? AT&T,” he added, at the end of each commercial. The campaign foretold a number of technological advances that would define the decades to come like tablets, smart TVs, remote work, smart watches, and smart home devices.

The central prediction of the ad was wrong, though. As Vox noted a couple years ago, while these ads were “remarkably accurate in predicting the cutting-edge technologies” that would soon arrive, they ultimately missed the fact that the company to “bring it to you” was not AT&T. Instead, it would be a whole bunch of startups that didn’t exist at the time, the publication noted.

That said, it’s uncanny to run down all of the things that “You Will” got right about the future.

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Technology

Teenage Engineering Makes the Op-1 a ‘Hundred Times’ Better

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Teenage Engineering has recently been in the spotlight for helping Panic create its Playdate handheld, but the company is best known for its brilliant OP-1 portable synth and sequencer. It’s been a beloved electronic instrument for musicians for 11 years now, so instead of completely reinventing it, the company has instead given it some major feature updates and a sleeker design with the new OP-1 field.

Although tablet devices have become powerful music-making tools thanks to apps that can recreate the sound and capabilities of classic sequencers, drum machines, and synthesizers, Teenage Engineering’s devices, including the tiny Pocket Operators, remain a popular choice amongst musicians for the simple reason they feature physical buttons and knobs that can make performing easier and more enjoyable than tapping a touchscreen.

Teenage Engineer’s recently announced TX-6 handheld mixer is a great example of what the company does best. It’s as small as a Game Boy but packed with loads of features someone mixing music would actually want, and despite the tiny size of its knobs and sliders, you can’t help but feel the urge to fiddle with it for hours on end.

Eleven years later, the new OP-1 field looks nearly identical to the original OP-1, which is a testament to what Teenage Engineering’s designers pulled off the first time around. There are some subtle color changes, and overall it’s considerably thinner with a new aluminum housing, but anyone well experienced with the original OP-1 will immediately find themselves comfortable with the new version.

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The biggest changes to the OP-1 field can be found inside, with Teenage Engineering boasting there are about 100 different improvements to the device including an upgraded speaker for louder sound, 32-bit stereo audio throughout, a USB-C port, Bluetooth MIDI, 24 hours of battery life per charge, an all-glass OLED screen that now sits flush with the rest of the interface, 160 minutes of recorded sampling storage, four styles of tapes to record to, and an FM antenna allowing audio to be broadcast through a radio or radio stations to be recorded and sampled.

When the TX-6 portable mixer was revealed with a $1,200 price tag, it seemed like Teenage Engineering was shifting its focus from affordable audio toys to more powerful tools for music creation, and that trend continues with the OP-1 field. The original OP-1 is still available for $1,400, but the new version gets a price jump to $2,000 making it less of an audio toy for amateur musicians and more of a serious piece of music-making gear for professionals.

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Technology

Streamer Makes Leap To YouTube After Twitch Misspells His Name

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Sykkuno, one of Twitch’s top streamers known for his wholesome demeanor and for playing games like Among Us and GTA Online, left the Amazon-owned platform for the red pastures of YouTube Gaming this month. The move shocked the livestreaming space because Sykkuno was something of a household name on Twitch, boasting four million followers and 103 million total views since becoming a more consistent streamer in April 2019. However, the switch made sense for him because, as he revealed during his first-ever YouTube Gaming livestream, the Google-owned platform offered him a slightly better deal, and Twitch gave his name a rather unfortunate misspelling in an official email.

You might not have heard of him, but Sykkuno has been on YouTube for years. In fact, an old account of his can be traced back to April 2006, where he uploaded League of Legends and Minecraft content before moving to his current channel, which now has 2.75 million subscribers, in September 2011. While Sykkuno spent much of his early career on YouTube, he didn’t make a name for himself as a streamer until April 2019, when he began broadcasting regularly on the Twitch channel he’d created years before. In August 2020 he joined a collective of streamers called Offline TV, which includes other online personalities like DisguisedToast and LilyPichu, and although he left the group a couple of months later in November, he has continued to see rapid growth. Now, with four million Twitch followers, Sykkuno has left the Amazon-owned platform because he believes he’ll be “much, much happier” on YouTube.

After sharing the news of his move to YouTube on social media, Sykkuno went live on May 3 to discuss the reasoning behind the switch. It was a multifaceted explanation spurred by the negotiation of his Twitch contract. He said he went to the company asking for a better deal because Twitch’s initial offer was “just bad,” though he didn’t offer specifics. Twitch came back with what Sykkuno called a “very, very good offer,” which almost convinced him to stay since it was “pretty much dead even” with YouTube’s. He even said that if Twitch’s offer was “a little worse,” he would have remained on the platform.

And yet, he didn’t. Ultimately, YouTube did make the better offer, but that wasn’t the sole deciding factor. What solidified the move, aside from the increase in money YouTube was offering, was a peculiar email Sykkuno received from Twitch.

After sharing some stats about his Twitch performance—he was the 28th highest-earning streamer and the 45th most-followed streamer of all time—he then threw up an email the company had sent him on screen, which showed an apparent Twitch spokesperson spelling his name as “Sukkuno.” You can almost feel the embarrassment emanating from Sykkuno as he discussed the email. He was so shook that he messaged folks asking if it was a phishing scam because he couldn’t believe Twitch would do that to his name.

“Maybe I have too big an ego or something, but I was shocked,” Sykkuno said during the livestream. “I legit thought I was getting scammed. I was afraid to click this email because I was like, ‘Am I about to get a virus?’”

There was some levity, with Sykkuno joking a bit about the unfortunate misspelling, but he wrapped the segment up by expressing just how unappreciated Twitch made him feel. Notably, Sykkuno’s move comes during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, during which Twitch is supposed to be “celebrating and recognizing” the huge impact AAPI streamers have had, not just on Twitch but on gaming culture as a whole. Sykkuno’s an American of Chinese and Vietnamese descent, and misspelling his name, even if it isn’t his real name, seems pretty careless. It’s no wonder he felt unappreciated, especially as anti-Asian sentiment ramps up worldwide but particularly in the U.S. due to the ongoing pandemic.

Kotaku has reached out to Sykkuno and Twitch for comment.

 



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Technology

Streamers Aren’t Liking Twitch’s Potential Money Making Idea

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It’s a bold move Twitch, let’s see if it pays off.
Screenshot: TikTok / bradeazy / Kotaku

Twitch is reportedly considering major changes to the monetization practices that streamers are upset about because the potentially lopsided percentages work out to pad Twitch’s bottom line.

According to a Bloomberg report, Amazon, Twitch’s parent company, is considering multiple changes to its partner program in order to boost its profits. These changes include a new revenue split from subscriptions, a new tier system, and bolstering advertisements.

One of the monetization changes under consideration is a revenue cut from subscriptions for partnered streamers, Twitch’s most popular streamers. The proposed cut would decrease the revenue partnered streamers make from subscriptions from 70% to 50%.

Another proposal Twitch is considering is adding a tiers system for partnered streamers. According to Bloomberg, these tiers detail the criteria a streamer must meet to receive 50% or 70% of revenue from their subscription. In exchange to this proposal, anonymous sources told Bloomberg that Twitch might release streamers from their exclusivity in their contracts, which will allow them to stream on Twitch’s competitor sites like YouTube and Facebook Gaming potentially to recoup any cut revenue.

Twitch is also reportedly considering incentives for more advertising through “revenue-sharing arrangement,” that Bloomberg says will present “a more lucrative model for streamers.”

Twitch streamers haven’t taken kindly to the news of Twitch’s proposed changes to its partnership program. Twitch streamer PleasantlyTwstd told Kotaku that she isn’t surprised by Twitch exploring these changes. If changes hit the website this summer as they are now, PleasantlyTwstd said smaller streamers will have “little to no incentive” to grow their channels on the platform.

“Smaller streamers I think are going to have little to no incentive at this stage to really push for growth,” PleasantlyTwstd said. “It’s going to start feeling like to make a payout you have to hit more subs and the struggle at current is discoverability at all.”

PleasantlyTwstd said she would like to see streamers be brought into the conversation about Twitch’s monetization changes so they are advocated “in earnest.”

“Twitch has been kind of in a holding pattern where their priority is making the platform more money but until they actually try to work more closely with the people who make them money or freely create tools, they’re just going to keep throwing out ideas and ‘initiatives’ that fall flat,” she said.

Leftist streamer Hasan “Hasanabi” Piker took to Twitter saying the reason Twitch made these changes is due to the company not viewing itself as having competition within the livestreaming space, so there’s little reason to offer something that’s truly compelling for its users.

“[I] love twitch but it seems like they’re moving away from [content creators] to fix their profits,” Piker said in a tweet. “Nearly my entire revenue comes from subscribers who elect to give me $5 a month. Twitch doesn’t consider the 50/50 split it takes from smaller creators in that process profitable enough. That’s wild.”

“Subscriptions are more important to the life of every streamer than almost any other utility Twitch offers and to touch the split is to financially devastate and potentially remove thousands of full-time creators from your platform it immediately,” JERICHO said.

“What a joke. Makes it worse for everyone except Twitch themselves,” Jacksepticeye said.

“Twitch is INSANE if they think this will go over well,” Max “Gassy Mexican” Gonzalez said. “Like actually will shake the platform in the worst way possible.”

Kotaku reached out to Twitch for comment.

While these proposed changes are reported to hit the website as soon as this summer, anonymous sources told Bloomberg none of these changes have been finalized.

   



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Technology

Twitch Considering Cutting Streamer Pay to Boost Profits

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Photo: Martin Bureau (Getty Images)

2022 is shaping up to be a rough year for content creators and sellers trying to make living through major tech platforms. Sellers on Amazon and Etsy are already facing increased fees and now new pay cuts may reportedly make their way to Twitch.

A new Bloomberg report citing people familiar with Twitch’s pay planning claims the company wants to incentivize streamers to run more ads in addition to considering reducing the portion of subscription fees allocated to performers. More specifically, the site’s top streamers would reportedly see their share of subscriptions dip down from 70% to 50%, according to Bloomberg. The company is also considering introducing multiple pay tiers with different criteria required to qualify for each. All told, these changes are intended to boost Twitch’s profitability, though it could come at the expense of their community’s most active users.

Twitch did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.

On the flip side, the sources speaking with Bloomberg said the company may consider easing up on its exclusivity restrictions which would let creators stream on other platforms and potentially raking in some additional income there as well.

The tentative monetization considerations come amid a time of flux at Twitch. On one hand, the company’s riding high on a pandemic induced viewership surge. Some 24% of U.S. internet users between the ages of 16 to 64 said they began watching more live streams during the pandemic, according to GlobalWebIndex data viewed by Insider Intelligence. On the other hand though, even with that uptick in eyeballs, Twitch is simultaneously reeling from what Bloomberg calls a mass “exodus” of employees disappointed in the company’s direction. Some 300 employees reportedly left Twitch last year, with another 60 leaving in the first three months of 2022. Some top creators have left too. In the past year both DrLupo and TimTheTatman, two prominent streamers, left the site for rival YouTube.

Twitch streamers aren’t the only ones bracing for a financial squeeze from their Big Tech bosses.

Earlier this year, Amazon announced it would add a 5% “fuel and inflation surcharge” to third party sellers who use the company’s fulfillment centers as a way to offset increased costs. In a notice to sellers viewed by the Associated Press, Amazon said increased hourly wages, construction costs, and new hires during the pandemic were all to blame for the increased price hikes. Still, Amazon wasn’t exactly struggling as a company during the pandemic, though. In the first quarter of 2021, the company posted a record $108.5 billion in revenue which comes out to nearly triple its revenue from the same time the previous year.

Over at Etsy sellers went on strike and issued a digital boycott over what they viewed as exorbitant increases to seller fees. Etsy recently tried to increase seller transaction fees by 30% which would in effect raise the seller fee from 5% to 6.5%

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Technology

GOG Is Now Providing Menstrual Leave To Employees

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Image: GOG

The digital storefront GOG, formerly known as Good Old Games, recently announced that it will offer its employees menstrual leave, allowing anyone suffering from excessive period pain or other complications extra time off. It makes the studio one of the first companies in the games industry to offer such a benefit to its staff. Its parent company, CD Projekt Red, is also looking into providing similar leave options.

As first spotted by Axios, the Poland-based company announced on LinkedIn April 1 that it was going to start offering extra paid time off for all affected employees. A GOG spokesperson told Axios they estimate this will amount to an extra day per quarter for employees who take advantage of the time off. But also told the outlet that staff members are free to take more time off “whenever period pains occur.” Employees can also choose to just take a few hours’ leave rather than full days.

“Menstrual Leave fosters inclusiveness by accepting that there are biological differences in the workplace,” GOG wrote in the LinkedIn post announcing the new plan. “By giving additional days off for those experiencing menstrual period pain, we acknowledge these symptoms are real.”

Implementing Menstrual Leave is yet another step towards making GOG an even more inclusive workplace, and we won’t stop in our continuous efforts to learn, reflect and improve on how we can do better for all of our team members.

GOG’s culture and communication manager Gabriela Siemienkowicz told Axios that the new policy is “experimental” and that the company would evaluate throughout 2022 how these additional days off “impact the well-being” of GOG employees. After that, the storefront may “expand the policy” next year, though there are no details as to what that may entail.

Kotaku has reached out to GOG for comment.

Siemienkowicz also told Axios that the policy was inspired by her own experiences and that during a “Women of GOG” meeting she brought the topic up and found other employees had similar stories and experiences.

“We shared the same view on this matter,” said Siemienkowicz. “And would appreciate the possibility to simply lay down and take most of the day off without sacrificing one of the regular paid absence days we have available throughout the year.”

GOG’s parent company, CD Projekt Red, told PC Gamer that it is also looking into adopting a similar policy in the future.

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