Epic Games didn’t sue Apple to get a big payout, but that’s because the lawsuit itself is an investment. And to rewrite Apple’s rules, Epic is spending a fortune.
The reason Epic’s Fortnite got thrown out of the Apple App Store was that Epic rogue-updated Fortnite to offer a payment mechanism that bypassed Apple’s 30 percent cut of all in-app transactions. Apple booted Fortnite for violating its rules. Epic threw an… epic… hissy fit about this, culminating in the trial starting this week. While Epic has cobbled together an alliance called the Coalition for App Fairness — along with Spotify, Match Group, Basecamp, and Tile — there’s one more tech behemoth in play. Epic Games Store runs on Amazon Web Services. So does Fortnite itself.
The fight with Apple echoes Epic’s tactics elsewhere. The Epic Game Store is a clear challenge to Valve, which has an iOS-like store called Steam that also takes a 30 percent cut of sales. In a basic act of moral consistency, the Epic Game Store contains — in addition to games by other developers — other game stores. It also takes only a 12 percent cut of sales. Just last week, Microsoft announced it would cut its take on PC games to 12 percent to match Epic, from 30 percent. (It also filed a letter of support for Epic in the current case.)
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said in 2019 that the Epic Game Store’s hardball tactics against Valve will continue until either the store is profitable or Valve lowers its cut. Epic will torch an estimated $593 million by the end of 2021 on the Epic Games Store, according to court documents in the Apple case. At many companies, losing this much money would be a problem, but that figure is only slightly more than Epic’s Fortnite revenue from April 2020, which was $400 million that month.
Fortnite pretty much prints cash because the video game industry has hit on a business model that almost no other part of the entertainment industry can match: in-app payments. For Spotify, it’s not a fatal problem to dodge the App Store and its cut. I just go to a desktop computer, enter my credit card information, and — thanks to recurring billing — I’m done.
Fortnite is different, and it’s why a video game company is leading the effort to challenge the App Store payment rules. In Fortnite, if I want to buy a sweet dance move, I spend Epic’s V-Bucks to do it. The store refreshes every day, so if I want the new hotness, I need to act immediately. (There’s also a seasonal pass and a recently-introduced monthly subscription, but these do not seem to be as explicitly geared toward impulse buys.) Last year, in-app purchases were estimated to account for 40 percent of all gaming revenue.
Epic’s position gets weirder. Part of the story will involve people who imprinted on Neal Stephenson like ducklings, but before we get there, let’s run down what we know about the economics of Fortnite and the Epic Games Store to get a rough sense of how much money is in play.
It’s true that Fortnite is free to download, but in-app purchases more than make up for that. In 2019, Epic Games had revenue of $4.2 billion, with earnings of $730 million. (We know this because Epic, a private company, sold a stake, and those meddling kids at VentureBeat got a hold of numbers as a result.) Epic’s 2020 numbers are forecast at about $5 billion in revenue, with $1 billion in earnings, according to VentureBeat; in the court documents, Epic’s total 2020 revenue is projected at a mere $3.85 billion. In the two years Fortnite was available in the App Store, iOS customers alone accounted for $700 million in revenue for Epic, according to the court documents.
“Epic is in a fortunate position because Fortnite is the most popular game in the world,” says Christopher Krohn, an adjunct associate professor of marketing at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.
Apple’s revenue split from digital purchases is a little complicated — it’s got special rates for small developers, for instance — but in Epic’s case, Apple gets 30 percent of all in-app purchases. That’s in line with Minitel, the French pre-internet, which also had a 30 / 70 split for third-party content, says Bill Maurer, a professor of anthropology at the University of California Irvine who specializes in payment processors. Frankly, it looks like a carrier fee.
“At some level, Apple’s being greedy, because it doesn’t depend on this revenue,” says Michael Cusumano, a distinguished professor of management at MIT’s Sloan Business School. “It’s rolling in money from the iPhone itself.” On March 28, Apple reported its quarterly earnings — almost $24 billion in net income, riding mostly on strong sales of the iPhone and Mac; the previous quarter was a blowout for the company, with revenue of more than $100 billion.
Greed isn’t illegal. It’s also probably what’s motivating Epic, despite its CEO’s bluster. Epic wants to build something called the “metaverse,” an online haven where superhero IP owned by different companies can finally kiss. (The idea is based on Snow Crash, a 1991 book by Neal Stephenson.) The revenue potential here is the kind of thing that sends VCs into thinkfluencing fever dreams.
Fortnite is already a hangout space, one where IP from Marvel and DC can legally interact. Add to that the Unreal engine, which fuels a number of games as well as shows such as Disney’s The Mandalorian, and its other developer tools, and you’re looking at what could potentially be a piece of a metaverse. Should Fortnite, the Epic Games Store, or another Epic offering underpin a major chunk of a metaverse, the amount of money Epic is torching on its store and these lawyers will look like a wise investment against the fuckload of money it stands to make.
You can see why they might not want to cut Apple — or Valve, or Google, or anyone at all — in at 30 percent.
Look, I’m going to pop my popcorn and, as Sweeney put it, “enjoy the upcoming fireworks show” at the trial. I don’t think the outcome will matter much, since any verdict is going to get appealed immediately. But at the very bottom, it seems obvious that Epic’s position is the same as Apple’s: greed is good. Forget the fight to own the metaverse. The real world belongs to Big Tech, and we’re just NPCs who drop loot for the corporate players.
The Biden administration’s version of a COVID-19 vaccine-finding website launched today, along with a Spanish-language version, text messaging tool, and phone hotline.
The new website, vaccines.gov, is a new version of VaccineFinder, a site run through a partnership between Boston Children’s Hospital and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. VaccineFinder was originally created during the 2009 swine flu outbreaks and has hosted COVID-19 vaccine information for the past few months.
The new version has the same features as the old site. It lets people locate sites offering COVID-19 vaccines nearby, shows which vaccines are on offer at each location, and says if the vaccines are in stock or not. “In stock” does not necessarily mean there are appointments available, just that the site has shots on hand. People cannot make appointments directly through vaccines.gov — the website directs them to the vaccination site’s registration system.
There is now also a Spanish-language version of the site, found at vacunas.gov. There are few COVID-19 vaccination resources available for people in the US who do not speak English. Limited access to non-English vaccine information is the subject of a new federal civil rights complaint filed by the National Health Law Program. In 11 states, health departments have no non-English information available on their websites, a Type Investigations report found.
Along with the website, the Biden administration is launching a text messaging tool and phone line to connect people with vaccination sites. The phone line will be promoted in rural areas without reliable internet, Bloomberg reported. Older adults and other groups not comfortable using the internet struggled to sign up for vaccination appointments early on in the US vaccine campaign.
The rate of COVID-19 vaccinations in the US is starting to slow now that most people who were eager to get vaccinated have already received shots. The next step is reaching people who aren’t going to actively seek out a shot, or who may have questions about it. Over 100 million people in the US are fully vaccinated, as of April 30th.
Since its launch in 2015, Apple Music garnered 72 million subscribers by the end of 2020 and even more impressively (depending on who you ask) racked up a five-star review from us.
Five iOS updates and a couple of hefty interface refreshes later, the arrival of the splendid HomePod Mini (despite the discontinuation of the original HomePod) means there’s no better time to get fully acquainted with the ins and outs of Apple’s music streaming service. You won’t get far with Apple’s little smart speaker if you don’t, at any rate – and there’s so much to enjoy.
Whether you’re on the free three-month trial or already a subscriber and regular user, we’ve pulled together some key tips, tricks and features to make sure you get the utmost from Apple Music.
Read our Apple Music review
Set-up
1. How to unsubscribe
Sure, this is something of a negative note to start on – but if you’re signing up for the three-month Apple Music free trial and don’t want to commit to paying for the service afterwards, you can opt out straight away.
To do this, click on your profile icon in the top right corner of the screen in the For You tab, hit View Account, then View Apple ID and sign in to your iTunes account.
Next, tap Subscriptions halfway down the page. Here you can ‘cancel’ your free trial so it won’t automatically renew – don’t worry, you can still use it free for the three months. This is also how to select your subscription choice in future. Savvy.
2. Bulk unfollow artists
When you sign up to the Apple Music service, Apple will take the liberty of ‘following’ any artist already in your library as part of its Connect feature. This means your Connect section (now relegated to the Made For You tab) will be full of new and seemingly never-ending content from these artists. This may not be what you’re after, especially if you once bought Baby Shark (for a kid’s party or something. We don’t judge).
It’s on by default, but you can switch it off by tapping the profile icon, then clicking on ‘Notifications’ (to see the artists you supposedly ‘like’) and then sliding the ‘New Music’ and ‘Show in Library’ buttons to ‘off’. Now you can make sure you only hear from the artists you really like.
3. Sign in to iCloud Music for extra features…
You might want to enable iCloud Music Library to get the most from Apple Music if you’re using an iPhone or iPad. A number of features are only available with iCloud Music activated – most notably offline listening. In your iPhone/iPad, go to Settings > Music and toggle iCloud Music Library on.
4. Or don’t…
This can present some problems to users with a big existing library, especially if you have your own playlists. Apple will match these with its own tracks so you can listen offline – but it may not always get the right version. So if you’re precious about your existing downloads (and rightly so), you may want to turn off iCloud. To do this, simply toggle the iCloud Music Library option off.
5. Or have iCloud Music on mobile only
If you have a big existing music library and you’re not sure about Apple matching it for access on your mobile, you can turn this feature off on your computer but leave it on for your mobile. This way your existing library is left alone but you can still have offline tracks on the Apple Music mobile app. Turn off iCloud Music Library on your Mac by going to Preferences > General, then unchecking iCloud Music Library.
6. Multiple devices
The Apple Music Individual Membership plan, yours for £9.99 per month, can be associated with up to ten devices, five of which can be computers. You can only stream on one device at a time, as is the case on Spotify, Tidal and other services.
7. Multiple devices at once
If you want to listen to multiple devices at the same time then you’ll need a Family Membership. This gives simultaneous streaming access for up to six different people for £14.99 per month.
Interface
8. View album information for now-playing track
One slightly hidden feature is viewing the album of the track that’s currently playing. You can do this in two ways. The easiest way is to tap on the artist and album name at the top of the now-playing window. A pop-up will appear asking if you want to ‘Go to Album’ or ‘Go to Artist’. Click on the Album option.
The second, slightly longer method is to tap the three-button icon in the bottom corner of the screen, then tap ‘Show Album’ on the pop-up menu. That’ll take you there.
9. View artist page
Same as above, but select ‘Go to Artist’.
Or, if you’ve used the longer method: once you’re transported to the album page, click the artist’s name (highlighted in that pinky-red text). For both methods, you’ll be taken to the artist’s landing page where you can see all their music and related content (such as new releases, playlists they’re featured in, bio, and similar artists).
10. Explicit tracks
If you were wondering what that little ‘E’ was next to certain tracks, it doesn’t stand for exclusive, it’s for explicit. So prepare your ears (or your child’s).
Organising your music
11. Optimise your storage
This one is a no-brainer. Because why fill up your phone’s storage space with music you’re not listening to? The Optimise Storage feature in Apple Music will automatically delete downloaded songs if storage is running low and you haven’t listened to them in a fair while.
It’s a neat, simple feature that keeps your phone free of music you don’t need. And once you’ve toggled a button, you’re all set. It works when you’re low on storage. To set it up, open the Settings menu on your iPhone, scroll to Music, then Optimise Storage. Boom.
12. Offline music
You can save tracks, albums and playlists to your phone for offline playback (when you don’t have an internet connection) if iCloud Music is enabled (see point 3).
You can only download music that’s been added to your library. If there’s a ‘+’ icon next to a song, that means it isn’t added to your library. Tap it to add. It’ll then transform into a cloud icon, meaning it’s not been downloaded yet. Tap the cloud to download.
You can identify the songs downloaded on your device as they won’t have any icon next to them.
13. Viewing offline music
No mobile or network coverage? Simply select the Downloaded Music category in the Library tab to only see the music stored on your phone for offline listening.
Remember: this is both downloaded songs and playlists from Apple Music, as well as your own music files physically stored on the phone.
14. Sort songs alphabetically by artist (or however you’d prefer)
Want to sort your music library alphabetically by title instead of by artists (the default setting)? In the Library tab, select Songs and tap ‘Sort’ in the top right corner. Then select Title, Recently Added or Artist in the pop-up menu. Hey presto.
15. Shuffle and repeat
Wondering where the shuffle and repeat icons have gone? On the Now Playing screen, you’ll see them right underneath the track and artist, next to ‘Playing Next’.
Music curation
16. Love tracks (or don’t)
Much of Apple Music’s draw is centred on the For You tab, where you’ll find recommended albums and artists based on the music you like. To give Apple’s algorithms a steer, you need to tap the Love (heart) icon on the pop-up menu for every song (or album) you like.
There’s now also a Dislike option right next to it (with a thumbs-down icon) to tell Apple songs you don’t want it to recommend. You can do this for whole playlists, too.
17. Adjust the EQ
You can use Apple Music to change the way music sounds on iPhone with EQ settings, volume limit options and Sound Check. Simply go to Settings > Music > EQ to choose from an exhaustive list of presets. To normalise the volume level of your audio: go to Settings > Music, and toggle on Sound Check.
18. New music
Need to find new music? Click on the Browse tab and you’ll find a section called New Music dedicated to the latest releases, albums, playlists, music videos and more.
In Browse’s Playlists section, you’ll find curated playlists from the likes of Pitchfork, NME and Sonos, as well as playlists for your every mood and activity.
19. Browse new music by genre
Tailor to your musical tastes even further by going to the Genres section and filtering music by, you guessed it, genre.
You can filter playlists by genre, too, in the Playlists section.
20. Use built-in Shazam
Here’s a bit of insider knowledge: Shazam is built right into iPhones, even without a download of the app. This nifty tool can help you figure out what songs are playing when you’re in the car and can’t scrutinise your screen (do not scroll and drive), or while watching shows or movies.
If you’re trying to put a name to a song, simply tap the Shazam button on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. And here’s the best bit: the app will identify the music you’ve captured and save it to your library.
To use this feature, open the Control Center in your device’s Settings and add the Music Recognition icon to your ‘Included Controls’ – if music recognition is enabled on your device, you’ll be able to swipe up and see the Shazam icon from your iPhone’s lock screen. Now, tap this Shazam music recognition button to swiftly identify what’s playing around you.
Radio and TV
21. Create your own radio station
You can play an Apple-curated selection of music based on a certain artist or track. Simply click on the three dots on an artist or a track and select Create Station from the pop-up menu to listen to related music. Tap the ‘love’ icon on subsequent songs to tell Apple to keep playing more songs like it.
22. Listen to live radio on Apple Music
Apple Music subscribers can now tune in to not one but three live radio stations: Apple Music 1, Apple Music Hits, and Apple Music Country. Click on the Radio icon at the bottom of the home screen, then scroll down to Apple Music 1, Apple Music Hits, or Apple Music Country to tune in live, see upcoming shows, and listen to previously aired shows on-demand.
23. Listen to broadcast radio
You can also tune in to your favorite broadcast radio stations, including your local ones. To do this, go to Search, search for the radio station by its name, call sign, frequency, or nickname, then tap or click the radio station to listen to it live. And don’t forget, you can also ask Siri to play a radio station by name.
24. Play music videos on Apple TV
Apple Music makes it easy to watch music videos on Apple TV. There’s actually a Videos screen in the Apple Music app that includes the hottest new music videos and video playlists, and it’s accessible right from the app on your Apple TV. To use it, open Music on Apple TV and swipe to Videos. Then, swipe down to see a menu of video categories. Depending on the video, you can add it to a playlist or your library or remove it from your library.
More features
25. Share your listening history with your friends
Fancy sharing new sonic discoveries with your friends? You can do it by creating an Apple Music profile within the app. Then, if your friends subscribe and create a profile, you can see what they are listening to, too.
To create a profile, tap Listen Now and, in the upper-right corner of this screen on your iPhone, tap the photo icon. (On an Android device, tap the More button, then tap Account). Now, tap See What Friends Are Listening To. Follow the onscreen prompts to create a username, find and follow friends, share playlists and more.
You can also control what you share (nobody needs to know all of your listening habits, right?) hide certain playlists, block or unblock users or follow your friends’ accounts.
26. Siri + Apple Music = clever
You can use voice control to play your music, whether you’re on your iPhone or Apple Watch ( for instance: “Hey Siri, play AC/DC”). But it’s actually even cleverer than that. You can start a radio station by saying “play AC/DC station”.
Apple Music can also play by date, popularity and release date, so “play the number one hit from April 1988”, “play the top songs by AC/DC” or “play the newest song by AC/DC*” all work. It can be a little hit and miss at times, but it’s worth experimenting with all sorts of commands.
(*other bands are available. They’re not as good, though)
(Image credit: Apple)
27. Siri + Apple Music + HomePod Mini = cleverer
Siri voice commands and Apple Music are the key ingredients to a great Apple HomePod Mini speaker experience, so if you’ve bought yourself a new HomePod Mini, you can ask it all sorts of questions to get your favourite tunes playing. Start off with “Hey Siri, play something I like” and it’ll use your Apple Music profile to create a personalised radio station of songs you know and like.
Amazon Echo vs Apple HomePod Mini: which is the best smart speaker?
28. Turn off Listening History for Apple HomePod Mini
If you have a HomePod Mini, you might not want your kids or that friend who only loves country music messing up your carefully curated For You recommendations when they start shouting out song requests.
Keep your Apple Music profile separate from what the Mini’s been playing by firing up the Home app (which you should’ve downloaded when setting it up), head to the Details section and switch ‘Use Listening History’ to off.
29. Wake and stream
Want to wake up to the sound of your favourite song? When setting an alarm in your iPhone’s Clock app, tap Sound > Pick a song (under the Songs section) and then choose a track from your Apple Music library.
30. Lyrics
You can karaoke! Scroll up from the now playing screen, and lyrics (where available) will appear. Alternatively, tap the Lyrics tab in the pop-up options menu.
Since iOS 12, searching for songs by lyrics is a thing, too. Just start typing lyrics in the search box and voila – you’ll get the song you’re looking for (or at least suggestions for what it could be).
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Derek Chisora and Joseph Parker will clash at the Manchester Arena this Saturday in a 12-round heavyweight bout that’s expected to be one of the biggest fights of 2021. The action will be preceded by a blockbuster bill featuring Chris Eubank Jr and Ricky Hatton’s son, Campbell. It’s a £19.95 pay-per-view event affair in the UK, but there are cheaper options elsewhere. Here’s how to get a Chisora vs Parker free live stream, from anywhere in the world.
Chisora vs Parker free live stream
Date: Saturday 1st May 2021
Start time: 7pm BST / 2pm ET / 4am AEST
Chisora vs Parker: 10pm BST / 5pm ET / 7am AEST
Venue: Manchester Arena, UK
Free stream: DAZN free trial(details below)
Watch anywhere: Try ExpressVPN
UK stream: Sky Sports Box Office (£19.95)
US stream: DAZN ($19.99)
Chisora (32-10, 23 KOs) and Parker (27-2, 21 KOs) were due to fight in 2019 but the match was abandoned after Parker was bitten by a spider. Chisora, now 37, went on to suffer a unanimous decision loss to Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk in October, while New Zealander Parker struggled to a points victory over fellow countryman Junior Fa in February.
“I’m bringing the pain!” a confident Chisora told reporters at this week’s weigh-in. His manager, ex-heavyweight David Haye, also shared a post on social media, with the words: “Always ready for battle, 2021 there will be WAR”.
With both fighters now desperate to reclaim their place in the pantheon of great boxers, this weekend’s fight could be a case of ‘bombs away’ as both men unleash hell from the bell. Ok, it’s not the Tyson Fury fight the fans want, but it’s sure to be a thrilling evening of entertainment courtesy of Matchroom promotions.
The packed undercard features two sons of former champions in Chris Eubank Jr. and Campbell Hatton. And can Natasha Jones shock Katie Taylor to become undisputed WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO lightweight champion?
The undercard starts at 7pm BST, with the Chisora vs Parker ringwalks expected at 10pm. Anyone in the UK can watch all of action on Sky for £19.95. Otherwise, here’s how to find a Chisora vs Parker free live stream from anywhere in the world.
Watch Chisora vs Parker for free on DAZN
(Image credit: DAZN)
Sky has the exclusive rights to screen Chisora vs Parker in the UK/Ireland, while Spark has the rights in New Zealand. Boxing fans in the rest of the world can stream the big fight live on DAZN.
Subscription to the sports streaming service costs just $20 a month in the USA but Canadian subscribers enjoy a FREE trial. Worth knowing, right?
UFC free live stream with DAZN free trial
DAZN has the rights to the UFC, Bundesliga, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, US Sports, Fightsports, and much more live and on demand in selected European countries. Try it free for one month. Cancel at anytime.
Going to be outside Canada this weekend?Simply use a VPN to access the DAZN free trial without being geo-blocked. We recommend ExpressVPN because it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee and 24/7 customer support.
The headline heavyweight fight is expected at 5pm ET / 2pm PT.
Chisora vs Parker free live stream anywhere in the world using a VPN
Even if you have subscribed to the relevant Chisora vs Parker rights holders, you won’t be able to access these streaming services when outside your own country. The service will know your location based on your IP address, and will automatically block your access.
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) helps you get around this obstacle. A VPN creates a private connection between your device and the internet, such that the servers and services you’re accessing aren’t aware of what you’re doing. All the information passing back and forth is entirely encrypted.
There are many VPN providers out there, with some more reliable and safe than others. As a rule, we’d suggest a paid-for service such as ExpressVPN.
Try ExpressVPN risk-free for 30 days ExpressVPN offers a 30-day money back guarantee with its VPN service. You can use it to watch on your mobile, tablet, laptop, TV, games console and more. There’s 24/7 customer support and three months free when you sign-up.
UK: Chisora vs Parker live stream
(Image credit: Sky Sports)
Sky Sports has the exclusive rights to broadcast Chisora vs Parker in the UK. It’s a pay-per-view event and costs £19.95, whether you watch it on your TV or the Sky Sports Box Office website. Ouch.
Remember: Canadian boxing fans stuck outside their home country can use a VPN to access the Canadian DAZN free trial without being blocked.We recommend ExpressVPNbecause it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee and 24/7 customer support.
Sky Sports Box Office is also available on BT TV. Simply tune to channel 496 or search for the event in the BT Player.
Chisora vs Parker fight card
(Image credit: Matchroom / DAZN)
Derek Chisora vs Joseph Parker (12 rounds heavyweight)
Katie Taylor vs Tasha Jonas (WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO lightweight titles)
Dmitry Bivol vs Craig Richards (WBA light-heavyweight title)
Chris Eubank Jr vs Marcus Morrison
James Tennyson vs Jovanni Straffon (IBO lightweight title)
With quality programmes, vast platform support and a great interface, iPlayer is the best video-on-demand catch-up TV service out there
For
Superb content
Intuitive and slick interface
Extensive platform support
Against
Still no permanent 4K offering
It’s free (although you need a TV licence). It’s the home of superb TV shows. There are no ads. And you can download programmes for offline watching. Put simply, BBC iPlayer is the UK’s best catch-up TV service.
Even without considering all the live broadcast TV and radio the corporation provides across many channels, iPlayer is almost worth the licence fee on its own.
Missed the last episode of Line of Duty, need another Pointless fix or want to see what all the Killing Eve or Fleabag fuss is about? BBC iPlayer is your answer. It was already a great desktop service when first introduced in 2007 and, well over a decade on, it’s even more excellent in its incarnation as an app for your TV, smartphone and tablet.
Features
(Image credit: BBC)
Unlike Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, iPlayer is free to use – so long as you pay the BBC’s annual licence fee (currently £159), which has been in place, in some form or another, for almost a century.
The on-demand service is the home of BBC shows that have recently aired, offering a (typically 30-day) window to catch them before they are free to whizz off to the BBC and ITV’s relatively new, £5.99-per-month BritBox streaming service, which is where you’ll find the biggest collection of British TV content ever, combining current and classic boxsets for on-demand viewing.
BBC iPlayer does host some of its most popular TV shows for longer durations, however – Killing Eve (which became the first British-made show to be named the best comedy series at the Emmy Awards last year), Line of Duty (multipleBAFTA Television Awards nominee), Luther (multiple Golden Globe nominee) and Doctor Foster (two-time National Television Awards winner) are, at the time of writing, available to binge in their entirety on iPlayer, for example.
In a bid to boost the nation’s spirits during lockdown, the BBC helpfully added a slew of new long-term boxsets to iPlayer. The ‘from the archive’ tab in ‘categories’ is where you’ll find full series’ of classic fare such as Absolutely Fabulous, Black Adder and The Vicar of Dibley as well as pretty much every Michael Palin documentary ever made.
It would be difficult to guess how many hours of content iPlayer offers at any one time, but there always seems to be at least one show on iPlayer that everyone is talking about – and that’s a credit to the broadcaster’s consistency for quality programming.
As with many streaming services these days, BBC iPlayer lets you download shows onto your smart device for offline watching for up to 30 days. This is great for long train journeys, if you’re travelling out of the country (iPlayer is only available in the UK) or can’t get any internet or data signal.
You can choose whether to restrict downloading to when you’re connected to a wi-fi network or allow downloading over your mobile network data in the app’s settings.
Best media streamers: the best TV streaming devices
(Image credit: BBC)
BBC iPlayer’s familiar grid layout is neat and stylish, with its home screen logically presenting you with ‘Featured’, ‘Recommended for You’, ‘Continue Watching’ and ‘Most Popular’ suggestions. The service dynamically highlights programmes, too, mixing documentaries and comedy panel shows so that there’s something for everyone.
You can also browse programmes by channels (BBC One, BBC Two or CBeebies, for example), categories (Arts, Food and Documentaries, say) or TV guide schedules. Or you can simply search for them. You can add shows to your ‘My Programmes’ list, too, so new episodes are easy to access.
Essentially, each update to iPlayer over the years has made it fresher and more intuitive to use. Scrolling through the service is a swift and smooth process, regardless of what platform you’re using.
This is probably a good time to mention that the iPlayer app is everywhere: on pretty much every smart TV and media streamer, available to download across iOS and Android devices, even on Xbox Series X/S. iPlayer’s not currently on the PS5, but it’s still one of the most prevalent apps across smart devices in the UK.
Just be aware that you need to create a BBC ID account to watch any iPlayer content, although it is free to sign up and stays logged in at all times, keeping your favourites list and watching history synced across all devices.
29 BBC iPlayer tips, tricks and features
Picture
(Image credit: BBC)
With increasingly high-quality screen resolutions on smartphones and tablets, both standard and high-definition shows on iPlayer look as good as you’d reasonably expect them to.
Naturally, we would urge you to play HD whenever you can. Most programmes are available in HD, so long as they’ve first been broadcast on a BBC HD channel.
Then there’s the BBC’s next-level 4K Ultra HD content, which offers a huge step up in picture quality – namely in resolution and detail. While the BBC still doesn’t yet have a regular, permanent 4K offering, it has run several 4K trials on iPlayer since 2016, including Planet Earth II and Blue Planet II on-demand viewing and, even more excitingly, live broadcasts of the 2018 FIFA World Cup football and Wimbledon tennis.
After temporarily removing 4K content during 2020 to help ease the strain on broadband networks, iPlayer has made UHD programming available again. The current ‘trial’ has nine shows available to stream, including His Dark Materials and Black Narcissus. We can’t help but feel it really is about time for 4K to become a permanent fixture of the service.
Despite broadcasting some HD programmes, such as The Proms, in 5.1 surround sound, all content on iPlayer is only available in stereo. This is a bit disappointing, especially when streaming modern films or the flagship 4K documentary Seven Worlds, One Planet, which we know has a lush Dolby Atmos soundtrack on its Blu Ray release. Although some paid-for streaming platforms do have tiers that support multi-channel sound, we understand that the BBC doesn’t have any plans to add that functionality to iPlayer in the short term.
The BBC does provide excellent accessibility features for the visually impaired and hard of hearing. Many programmes will have icons that tell you whether audio description (AD) or sign language (SL) options are available.
Here’s what’s next for 4K HDR streaming content on the BBC
Verdict
BBC iPlayer isn’t entirely free, of course. But when the license fee amounts to less than 45p per day, and you look at the incredible range and accessibility of programming available from the BBC, not to mention the cutting-edge picture technologies it strives to offer in the hopefully near future, we’d happily carry on paying so that we can see more of the broadcaster’s David Attenborough-narrated nature documentaries.
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English soccer teams and organizations are all shutting down their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts for the weekend as part of a massive social media blackout to advocate for better policies regarding discrimination and abuse that players and members of clubs receive on those platforms.
English football will unite for a social media boycott from 3pm on Friday 30 April to 11:59pm on Monday 3 May, in response to the ongoing and sustained discriminatory abuse received online by players and many others connected to the game.https://t.co/GYTAuWAEgN pic.twitter.com/dNLuv62nw5
— FA Spokesperson (@FAspokesperson) April 24, 2021
Groups participating in the blackout include the Premier League, the English Football League, the Professional Footballers’ Association, the Football Association, the League Managers Association, the Football Supporters’ Association, and more. Clubs that are part of the Premier League, EFL, Barclays FA Women’s Super League, and Women’s Championship will all be shutting down their social channels over the weekend as part of the protest.
The blackout comes after the various English soccer organizations banded together in February to request changes from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in an open letter requesting that the companies take stronger action against discriminatory and racist comments.
Specifically, the soccer groups advocated for four improvements: that posts be blocked or filtered if they contain racist or discriminatory material; that abusive posts be removed through “robust, transparent, and swift measures”; the addition of improved verification processes to allow for law enforcement to identify users and to stop abusive posters from making new accounts; and that the platforms work closer with law enforcement groups to identify people posting discriminatory content in cases where it breaks the law.
The leagues hope this weekend’s boycott will build on that movement, noting that while progress has been made, players, teams, and other members of the English football world still feel that there’s a lot more that Facebook and Twitter could do to help stop internet abuse.
Trade groups representing some of the largest telecom companies, including AT&T and Verizon, are suing New York over a new state law forcing them to provide cheaper broadband plans for low-income families in the state, as first reported by Axios.
Earlier this month, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill that would require internet service providers to offer a $15 a month broadband internet option for low-income consumers and families in the state. It’s one of the first laws in the country enforcing such a rule. But groups like USTelecom, CTIA, and the New York State Telecommunications Association argue that the state has no authority to set broadband prices and that the law could impair the companies’ abilities to upgrade their networks in the future.
“While well-intended, this bill is preempted by federal law and ignores the $50 monthly broadband discount recently enacted by Congress, as well as the many unprecedented commitments, donations and accommodations that broadband providers have made for low-income consumers since the pandemic began,” the coalition said in a statement to Axios Friday.
As of right now, some internet providers offer their own low-income options for consumers, but none of these programs are mandated by law. There are other subsidy programs like Lifeline offered by the Federal Communications Commission that help decrease the cost of connectivity for families.
In December, Congress approved over $3 billion to help consumers pay for internet service during the pandemic. The trade groups cite this law as a reason the New York broadband mandate goes too far.
It’s no secret that buying components is a basically a bloodsport at this point. In an attempt to let real people, rather than bots and scalpers, buy components, retailer Newegg instituted the Newegg Shuffle to create a lottery for a chance to buy parts.
What are your chances, though? Newegg told PCMagthat 100,000 people tend to enter the raffle, setting your chances at 0.01% to win any individual Shuffle. That number, of course, disregards that many people get a chance each Shuffle, as multiple GPUs, motherboards and other components are available each time. And when there are multiple items or bundles, you could submit multiple ‘entries’ each day.
Newegg may have dozens of each potential combo as well, so perhaps your actual odds — if you try for every single combo on a given day — are much higher. That’s 100,000 people entering almost daily for the chance to buy expensive and overpriced PC parts. Prices on Newegg, however, are often better than what scalpers are putting up on eBay.
Still, that number could be worse. For instance, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, your chance of getting struck by lightning is roughly one in 500,000, so you’re more likely to win the Newegg Shuffle rather than have electric current blast down from the sky and run through your body.
Another lottery, Mega Millions, places its odds at winning the jackpot at one in 302,575,350, while the chance to win a million bucks is one in 12,607,306. That’s far less likely than winning Newegg’s drawing. Even if you have to enter the Newegg Shuffle multiple times to win, at least you don’t have to pay for a ticket each time.
It’s not impossible, however. One of our editors recently won a chance at winning a GPU (though ultimately passed on it), while PCMag reporter Michael Kan needed 13 attempts for the chance to buy an RTX 3070. Still, many on Twitter and other social networks have tried far more and claim to not have won just yet.
Going for 0-29. #neweggshuffle #neweggshufflestreak. Always in for everything!April 26, 2021
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Some have criticized Newegg’s practice of putting bundles in the Shuffle, which forces winners to purchase other items, like motherboards or monitors, when they finally get the chance to buy one of the best graphics cards or best CPUs.
But for many, this is their best shot, other than constantly monitoring sites or checking in daily with local big box stores. But on the internet, that line is 100,000 people long.
Another internet meme has sold for big bucks online: Zoë Roth, best known as “Disaster Girl” for the popular image macro taken by her father in 2005 of her smirking at the camera while a house burns down in the background, has sold the original copy of the meme as an NFT for 180 Ether, worth almost $500,000.
Roth tells The New York Times that she’ll use the money to pay off her student loans and to donate to charity. And as is the case with many NFT sales, the Roths also retain the copyright to the image and will make 10 percent off any future sales of the NFT.
She’s by no means the first meme star to leverage the boom in crytocurrency-based artwork into a small fortune. Chris Torres — the creator of Nyan Cat — sold an NFT of the rainbow, Pop-Tart-bodied cat for close to $600,000 and has since worked with other internet meme owners, like Kyle Craven (aka the guy in the “Bad Luck Brian” meme) to help them profit off their previous internet fame (or infamy). Craven’s original meme image sold for $36,000, while Laina Morris (“Overly Attached Girlfriend”) sold her meme for $411,000 earlier in April.
Interestingly, Roth’s NFT was purchased by 3F Music, a Dubai-based music studio with surprisingly deep pockets that also bought several other big-ticket NFTs, including Overly Attached Girlfriend ($411,000) and The New York Times’ meta NFT-column ($560,000).
In a statement provided to the NYT in March, 3F Music explained its purchase by commenting that “Our management team is always in cooperation with some highly knowledgeable and experienced art advisers who believe that we must grow with technological movements that help us to not only promote our business but also to support artists and the art market.”
The European Parliament has formally adopted a law requiring internet companies to “remove or disable access to flagged terrorist content” within one hour after being notified by national authorities. Once issued, such takedown notices will apply across the EU, with countries able to levy financial penalties against firms that refuse to comply.
The legislation will come into force 12 months after it is published in the EU’s official journal, a standard step for all EU law. It will then have to be adopted by each member state.
The legislation has been under discussion in the EU for years. It was first proposed in 2018 at a time when terrorist attacks by groups like ISIS were peaking across the continent and lawmakers were worried about online radicalization. Since then the proposals have been making their way through the EU’s legislative bodies, with several major amendments.
Notably, the legislation now explicitly excludes takedowns targeting terrorist content that’s part of any educational, artistic, journalistic, or academic material. It also includes no obligation for internet companies to preemptively monitor or filter their content.
However, many MEPs and rights groups are still worried the legislation will have unintended effects. Although companies are under no obligation to filter content, say critics, they might choose to do so in order to avoid having to respond quickly to takedown notices. Such algorithmic filters could be over-zealous, worry experts, blocking legitimate content.
“To say that [using automated filters] is not an obligation is to allow it,” Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield, a Green MEP from France, told EURACTIV. Such technology might look particularly attractive in a “context where the algorithm is going to be cheaper than human means.”
Another concern is that the one-hour takedown limit is too short a time frame for smaller platforms with fewer resources. Such platforms are often used by terrorist groups to host content precisely because they can’t moderate content. This would make business harder for these companies, stifling competition in a market already dominated by US tech giants.
It’s also possible that EU member states could interpret what constitutes “terrorist” content in harmful ways. “This could open the way for authoritarian regimes, like those in Poland and Hungary, to silence their critics abroad by issuing removal orders beyond their borders,” writes one civil rights group. “Because this must happen within the hour, online platforms will have no option but to comply with these orders to avoid fines or legal problems.”
No matter how much web browsers improve, it feels like they can’t keep pace with everything we want to do. Open one too many tabs on a few-year-old laptop, and your fan starts spinning, your battery life dips, your system starts to slow. A faster or cleaner PC might fix it, but a startup called Mighty has a different idea: a $30-a-month web browser that lives in the cloud.
Instead of your own physical computer interacting with each website, you stream a remote web browser instead, one that lives on a powerful computer many miles away with its own 1,000Mbps connection to the internet.
Suddenly, your decent internet connection would feel like one of the fastest internet connections in the world, with websites loading nigh-instantly and intensive web apps running smoothly without monopolizing your RAM, CPU, GPU and battery, no matter how many tabs you’ve got open — because the only thing your computer is doing is effectively streaming a video of that remote computer (much like Netflix, YouTube, Google Stadia, etc.) while sending your keyboard and mouse commands to the cloud.
Skeptical? I definitely am, but perhaps not for the reason you’d think — because I tried this exact idea nearly a decade ago, and it absolutely works in practice. In 2012, cloud gaming pioneer OnLive introduced a virtual desktop web browser that would let you load full websites on an iPad in the blink of an eye and stream 4K video from YouTube. (Quite the feat in 2012!) I called it the fastest web browser you’ve ever used, and OnLive’s asking price was just $5 a month.
Cloud desktop providers like Shadow have also offered similar capabilities; when you rent their gaming-PCs-in-the-cloud ($12-15 a month), you can use those virtual PCs’ built-in web browsers to get similar speeds, thanks to the fact they typically live in data centers with very few hops to (and possibly direct peering arrangements with) major content delivery networks.
Mighty argues that by focusing on the browser (rather than recreating a whole Windows PC), it can give more people what they actually want. “Most people want an experience where the underlying OS and the application (the browser) interoperate seamlessly versus having to tame two desktop experiences,” founder Suhail Doshi commented at Hacker News. Mighty claims it’ll eliminate distracting cookies and ads, automatically notify you about Zoom meetings, quick search Google Docs and presumably other integrations to come. Mighty also says it encrypts your data and keystrokes, among other security promises.
But it’s not entirely clear why it costs so much more, or who would be willing to pay $30 a month for such a subscription — you’d think the kinds of people who can afford a monthly browser bill on top of their monthly internet bill would be the same kinds of people who can afford a faster PC and faster internet to begin with. Gigabit fiber is already a reality for some homes, and it’s not like Mighty will turn your iffy 25/3 connection into a gigabit one; while Doshi tells me it’ll technically work with a 20Mbps connection, he says he’s targeting 80+Mbps households right now.
Then again, it’s not like everyone has a real choice of internet service provider, no matter how much money they make. As Jürgen Geuter (aka tante) points out below, this feels more like an indictment than innovation. It’s been a decade, and we still haven’t solved these problems.
“Streaming your browser to you because rendering the HTML is too slow on your machine” is not innovation but a mark of shame on everyone building websites and browsers.
Tech failed as an industry. https://t.co/JJC0WomArb
— tante (@tante) April 28, 2021
I agree with my colleague Tom: I genuinely want to know who’d actually pay for this and why. Would you?
I want to meet whoever is going to spend $30 a month to stream a Chromium browser from the cloud just to avoid RAM hungry Chrome https://t.co/4pl6jL2zUV
AT&T says it will now offer a prepaid 5G data-only plan with up to 100GB of data for $55 per month — a big upgrade from its previous offering of 40GB for $75. The new pricing extends to Cricket Wireless customers as well as AT&T’s direct prepaid subscribers, though those on Cricket won’t be able to access the 5G network. These plans allow customers to buy data for their tablet or mobile hotspot separate from their voice plan.
That 100GB is a lot of data at a lower price than the other major carriers are offering; currently, T-Mobile has a prepaid data-only plan of 50GB for $50 and Verizon has a 30GB plan for $65 per month. It may be no coincidence that Verizon and T-Mobile are also eager to expand their own 5G and LTE-based fixed home wireless products, but AT&T may have a little more room to be aggressive with its mobile hotspot offerings while it remains committed to pushing its fiber home internet service.
The company says that current Cricket customers already enrolled in the 100GB data-only plan — previously $90 per month — will see the new price reflected on their next bill. Likewise, existing AT&T customers will get a data bump and a price decrease automatically. New customers can sign up for the plans starting today.
The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday granted SpaceX approval to operate 2,814 Starlink satellites in lower orbits than originally planned, handing a win to Elon Musk’s satellite internet project. The decision delivered a partial defeat over its competitors, like Amazon and OneWeb, which sought to thwart the tweak over concerns it would create harmful frequency interference and ramp up risks of satellite collisions.
The FCC found that allowing lower orbits for Starlink satellites “does not create significant interference problems.” Lowering the orbits, it said, allows SpaceX to make “safety-focused” changes to the constellation, like being able to more quickly discard any dead or broken satellites by steering them toward a fiery end in Earth’s atmosphere.
The approval came with some conditions: SpaceX must coordinate with other operators to ensure signals from Starlink satellites don’t interfere with others. The company will need to provide semiannual reports to the FCC on Starlink failures. Those reports will also list any “conjunction events” or any maneuvers or close calls with other satellites.
SpaceX’s Starlink network so far has over 1,300 satellites in orbit. The company plans to launch thousands more to provide global broadband internet to rural parts of the world, for governments and consumers alike. Amazon and OneWeb are also developing their own satellite internet networks. OneWeb has launched 182 of its planned 648 satellites. Amazon’s Kuiper network hasn’t launched any yet, but it won FCC approval in 2020 to launch 3,236 satellites, half of which must be in space by 2026.
SpaceX won approval to operate its first group of 1,584 satellites in a lower-than-planned orbit in 2019. Almost all of those satellites are already in space, making the FCC’s decision on Tuesday timely for SpaceX’s next tranche of satellites.
The FCC’s approval means that SpaceX can lower the altitude of its next 2,814 satellites from a previously planned altitude of around 1,150 km to around 550 km, the same orbital neighborhood as Amazon’s proposed constellation. The FCC said SpaceX’s modification application attracted “nearly 200 pleadings” from other organizations and “a significant number” presentations and additional letters, most of which pushed back SpaceX’s change.
Those organizations included rivals Amazon and OneWeb, which sought to convince the FCC that SpaceX’s proposed altitude change would create signal interference with nearby satellites and increase risks of orbital collisions — especially as SpaceX’s autonomous collision avoidance system doesn’t tell other orbital operators which way a Starlink satellite will move to avoid a crash. Rivals also claimed the several proposed modifications to SpaceX’s original license, granted in 2018, should be treated as an entirely new constellation with a more rigorous approval process, an idea the FCC rejected in Tuesday’s ruling.
In a statement, Amazon cast the FCC decision as a win, pointing to one of the FCC conditions of the modification that says SpaceX must “accept” any interference from Amazon’s Kuiper constellation in the future. The condition suggests SpaceX’s 2,814 satellites must work around Amazon’s constellation, instead of Amazon having to adjust its network to SpaceX’s modification — a prospect the company fought against.
“This is a positive outcome that places clear conditions on SpaceX, including requirements that it remain below 580 km and accept additional interference resulting from its redesign,” a company spokesman said. “These conditions address our primary concerns regarding space safety and interference, and we appreciate the Commission’s work to maintain a safe and competitive environment in low earth orbit.”
Amazon’s fight against the SpaceX modification tumbled out of the obscure FCC meetings and into the open in January, when Musk accused Bezos’ company of trying to “hamstring Starlink today for an Amazon satellite system that is at best several years away from operation.” Amazon shot back in a company statement, saying “it is SpaceX’s proposed changes that would hamstring competition among satellite systems” and that Musk’s company is trying “to smother competition in the cradle if they can.”
On SpaceX’s autonomous collision avoidance system, which the company temporarily disabled this month to coordinate a collision-avoidance maneuver with a OneWeb satellite, the FCC said none of the companies “raise specific or particularized concerns that warrant additional inquiry at this time.” Questions about SpaceX’s automated system, the FCC said, “could be addressed through good faith coordination among the operators”.
Moving Starlink satellites to lower altitudes is a plus for astronomers, who for years have complained that SpaceX’s satellites reflect sunlight during ground-based nighttime observations and stain images of the cosmos with obtrusive streaks of light as they pass by in orbit. Lowering the satellites’ altitude puts them further into Earth’s shadow from the Sun. And combined with other efforts to reduce their reflectivity, operating the satellites in lower altitudes helps mitigate their impacts on visual astronomy, the American Astronomical Society was cited as saying in the FCC filing.
Legal services startup DoNotPay is best known for its army of “robot lawyers” — automated bots that tackle tedious online tasks like canceling TV subscriptions and requesting refunds from airlines. Now, the company has unveiled a new tool it says will help shield users’ photos from reverse image searches and facial recognition AI.
It’s called Photo Ninja and it’s one of dozens of DoNotPay widgets that subscribers can access for $36 a year. Photo Ninja operates like any image filter. Upload a picture you want to shield, and the software adds a layer of pixel-level perturbations that are barely noticeable to humans, but dramatically alter the image in the eyes of roving machines.
The end result, DoNotPay CEO Joshua Browder tells The Verge, is that any image shielded with Photo Ninja yields zero results when run through search tools like Google image search or TinEye. You can see this in the example below using pictures of Joe Biden:
Before Photo Ninja, you get plenty of results from Google Image Search (top) and TinEye (below). Image: DoNotPay
After Photo Ninja, the image yields no results in reverse image searches. Image: DoNotPay
The tool also fools popular facial recognition software from Microsoft and Amazon with a 99 percent success rate. This, combined with the anti-reverse-image search function, makes Photo Ninja handy in a range of scenarios. You might be uploading a selfie to social media, for example, or a dating app. Running the image through Photo Ninja first will prevent people from connecting this image to other information about you on the web.
Browder is careful to stress, though, that Photo Ninja isn’t guaranteed to beat every facial recognition tool out there. When it comes to Clearview AI, for example, a controversial facial recognition service that is widely used by US law enforcement, Browder says the company “anticipates” Photo Ninja will fool the company’s software but can’t guarantee it.
In part, this is because Clearview AI probably already has a picture of you in its databases, scraped from public sources long ago. As the company’s CEO Hoan Ton-That said in an interview with The New York Times last year: “There are billions of unmodified photos on the internet, all on different domain names. In practice, it’s almost certainly too late to perfect a technology [that hides you from facial recognition search] and deploy it at scale.”
Browder agrees: “In a perfect world, all images released to the public from Day 1 would be altered. As that is clearly not the case for most people, we recognize this as a significant limitation to the efficacy of our pixel-level changes. Hence, the focal point and intended use case of our tool was to avoid detection from Google Reverse Image Search and TinEye.”
DoNotPay isn’t the first to build this sort of tool. In August 2020, researchers from the University of Chicago’s SAND Lab created an open-source program named Fawkes that performs the same task. Indeed, Browder says DoNotPay’s engineers referenced this work in their own research. But while Fawkes is a low-profile piece of software, very unlikely to be used by the average internet consumer, DoNotPay has a slightly larger reach, albeit one that is still limited to tech-savvy users who are happy to let bots litigate on their behalf.
Tools like this don’t provide a silver bullet to modern privacy intrusions, but as facial recognition and reverse image search tools become more commonly used, it makes sense to deploy at least some protections. Photo Ninja won’t hide you from law enforcement or an authoritarian state government, but it might fool an opportune stalker or two.
The Internet Archive, in partnership with George Blood LP, has been working since 2016 to digitize thousands of 78rpm records, some of which were made in the early 1900s. Over 250,000 records have been preserved, and the archive posted a Twitter thread yesterday detailing how each record is cleaned and filed away.
At the Internet Archive, this is how we digitize #78 rpm records. Our partner @georgeblood_lp has perfected this technique, digitizing with 4 different styli at once.
We put as much effort into capturing the #metadata as we do digitizing the music. pic.twitter.com/dn4EjXTS9z
— Internet Archive (@internetarchive) April 25, 2021
Each record is cleaned on a machine that sprays distilled water onto its surface. A little vacuum arm then sucks up the water, along with whatever dirt and nastiness has built up in the record’s grooves over the years.
The discs are then photographed, and the photos are referenced to pull info from the discs’ labels and add it to the archive’s database by hand. While most of the records are from the biggest record labels like Columbia, RCA Victor, and Capitol, the archive has found 1,700 other labels.
4/ …but along the way, we’ve uncovered 1700 other music labels + some pretty beautiful picture discs.
From 1898-1950, this was THE way music was recorded & shared. Shouldn’t we preserve this part of our musical history?
To learn more or get involved:https://t.co/n741BM382p pic.twitter.com/OdpsP5NQFR
— Internet Archive (@internetarchive) April 25, 2021
Some of the 78s are a treat to look at, including picture discs that have an image printed across the entire surface of the record. I recommend “Vem Vem (The Cuban Kissing Game)” from 1947 and “Night Herding Song” from 1949.
78s don’t have standardized groove sizes, so recordings taken with various stylus tips will each sound slightly different. Here, you get four: the records are digitized with custom-built turntables that have four arms, each with a different stylus. Each version is available to download separately, with the file name showing “3.3_CT” for a recording from a 3.3 mil truncated conical stylus and so on.
Four styli might make you nervous when we’re talking about preserving fragile records, some of which are over a hundred years old. But most of these 78s are made of hard shellac, which makes them prone to shattering if mishandled, but is also tough enough that the grooves won’t be damaged by a stylus. Modern equipment with diamond tip styli also exert much less force than old players with steel needles, George Blood LP points out.
The whole collection is a little overwhelming to dig through, but you can narrow your browsing by year, genre, and artist. If you’d prefer to be surprised, the @great78project Twitter account posts a new record from the collection every hour.
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