Oh, super, Dogecoin is spiking. The joke currency, which as recently as January 27th was worth less than a cent, hit 47 cents this morning, according to Robinhood’s tracker. As I type this, the market cap is more than $51 billion.
The currency is based on an au-courant-as-of-2013 meme of a Shiba Inu, and was intended to satirize bitcoin. Well, kids, the joke’s over. It’s now a top-10 cryptocurrency.
Weird year for finance, honestly. There was the Gamestonk thing which made GameStop stock so valuable, a member of the board of directors had to step down so that he could sell shares without restrictions. (Noted investor David Einhorn accused Elon Musk of pouring “jet fuel” on the January rally; a hedge fund called the top of the January rally based on the Musk tweet and raked in the dough.) Keith “Roaring Kitty” Gill stands to make millions, which he will presumably use to buy fancier headbands. NFT mania seized the world, after artist Beeple — aka Mike Winkelmann — sold an NFT of Everydays: The First 5,000 Days for $69 million. Coinbase went public earlier this week, and closed its first day of trading worth more than the company behind the Nasdaq, the exchange it trades on.
Last night, Musk — a shitposter with a hobby of being CEO of Tesla and SpaceX — tweeted “Doge Barking at the Moon.” For those of you fortunate enough to have avoided internet-related brainworms: a bunch of people probably thought this was a reference to a phrase used by internet traders, “to the moon.” Musk, who is known for coming to memes late, has called dogecoin his favorite cryptocurrency. In February, he called it “The People’s Crypto.”
Look, it’s not my fault that the interest rate is zero percent — that was always gonna make shit weird, because there’s almost nowhere safe to park your money without losing some of it to inflation. That means a lot more money is sloshing around than usual, which is fueling everything from SPACs to Gamestonk. What worries me is that we could be locked into zero interest rate policy world for as long as five years, which is an awfully long time for memes to mess with actual money. As long as there’s this much money sloshing around, anything goes. Anyway, if you are a hedge fund that called the top on Dogecoin based on an Elon Musk tweet, let me know — I’d love to interview you and find out how that call went.
I’m really serious about quitting Twitter this time, I promise. I deactivated my account on March 15th and declared the event to my friends in Slack. They earnestly congratulated me. They’re all still on Twitter, but they all know how exhausting and distressing it can be. Now that I’m gone, their new joke on Twitter is that I “don’t exist.”
It’s not the first time I haven’t existed, and sure as death and taxes, it won’t be the last. But my nonexistence on Twitter didn’t stick right away. When I first quit on the 15th, I came back three days later because I decided that I wanted to tweet about a new project.
Then I got owned by my friends, and I deserved it:
welcome back to twitter btw
— Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) March 18, 2021
It doesn’t feel good to quit something over and over again — especially when everyone knows you’re coming back. When I deactivated my account again for real on March 25th, my friend Casey Newton wasn’t buying it: “writing about people deleting Twitter should be like reporting a missing person to police. You have to wait at least a day.”
And so I returned to Slack to declare, once again, that I had quit Twitter. But now I’m subject to a real financial penalty. I’ve agreed to pay Casey $1,000 if I reactivate my Twitter account, and I really don’t want to cut that check. It’s an absurd amount of money. Fortunately, I can’t think of a single tweet that would be worth it.
I know this sounds like a stunt or a joke, but it’s not. Hours after I deactivated my account and put a bounty on it, Chrissy Teigen announced she, too, would be leaving Twitter. When I saw her goodbye letter it felt like it was in my own handwriting. “This no longer serves me as positively as it serves me negatively, and I think that’s the right time to call something,” she wrote. “…one thing I haven’t learned is how to block out the negativity.”
That’s not to say my experience on Twitter was anything like Chrissy’s. Twitter works differently when you have millions of followers and an endless eruption of mentions and replies. (Even rarer: her tweets often generated coverage from reporters and created entire news cycles.) And like other women on the internet, she received years of public abuse simply for being herself — except at a scale few people will ever experience.
But everyone is exposed to the online abuse of others at scale, even if they are not targeted by it. And that means Twitter is a horror show for people who feel real anxiety just from witnessing anger and cruelty. I’ve directly received plenty of abuse and threats through Twitter over the years because of my work, but the stuff that actually sticks with me is what I see happening to others. Whether it’s learning too much about the sacrificial character of the day, or falling down a thread of abusive replies to a random tweet, it’s difficult to avoid “negativity” on a platform that seems designed to reward it. Even the intermittent rewards that Twitter does provide — Llamas on the loose! Small boulder the size of a big boulder! — are at risk of becoming their own nightmares.
Making a change when you’ve been worn down for so long can feel more like something that’s already happened instead of a clear moment in time that separates past and future. I’m worn down, and that makes quitting Twitter feel a lot easier. (Well, that, and theoretically owing Casey a thousand bucks.) But the stress from Twitter’s toxicity is not the only reason I’m leaving.
There’s a deeper problem that comes with using a tool for more than a decade — the way it shapes how you experience the world. How it makes you form words and sentences to fit certain kinds of boxes. How it makes you feel compelled to fill those boxes, and why. How these things alter the rhythm of your life.
I’ve never liked the moral panic around “internet addiction,” but there is something resonant about the metaphor. (Let’s just leave aside stuff like the New York Postcalling screens “digital heroin”.) The little voice I once had in my head telling me to smoke cigarettes actually never sounded much different from the little voice telling me to tweet. I will let other people figure out the mechanisms behind that — all I need to know is that, for a time, I heard and I listened.
When those little voices go away, you find how much room there is for other kinds of thinking — in different shapes of time and color and texture. In 2014 I permanently quit Facebook after a few failed attempts. It didn’t take long to stop seeing things in my head that were Facebook-shaped. I found other places on the internet to enjoy and other ways to communicate with people. Just because Facebook and Twitter are free doesn’t mean you have to let them live rent-free in your head.
This past weekend, a thought passed through my mind in the shape of a tweet, and I felt the urge to tweet it. But I couldn’t, so I didn’t. And as the thought drifted away from me, I felt lighter. It wasn’t put on a permanent record. I didn’t stop to watch my phone and see if anyone else would acknowledge it. I let it go, closed my eyes, and felt the sun on my face.
You’ve probably been caught off guard by videos that play automatically on Facebook, Twitter, or just across the internet in general. They begin playing as soon as you load a page or (if they’re more deviously implemented) when you start scrolling through a page.
Automatic video play is a feature that, while nice to have when it’s surfacing content that’s related to your interests, can be pretty annoying. Autoplay videos can be harmful, too, exposing you to violent, offensive, or otherwise unwanted content that you shouldn’t have to see by default.
Whether you just want to put an end to autoplay videos on social media platforms or are looking for a more comprehensive fix, we’ve got some tips. Keep in mind that you’ll need to adjust these settings for every device that you use, since your preferences on, say, your phone do not automatically push to your PC.
Illustration by James Bareham / The Verge
Facebook
If you’re using Facebook on your browser, you can turn off autoplay videos this way:
Go to the drop-down menu at the top right of the page.
Select “Settings & Privacy” > “Settings.”
Look for the “Videos” listing on the left-hand menu. Inside of that option is a toggle where you can turn off autoplaying videos.
Facebook has similar options available for its iOS and Android apps:
Using the iOS app
Click the menu button on the bottom of your screen.
Once you’re there, tap “Settings & Privacy,” then “Settings.”
Scroll down until you find “Media and Contacts,” then tap “Videos and Photos.”
Finally, once you find “Autoplay,” you can turn off the feature.
Using the Android app
Click the menu button at the top right of your screen.
Once you’re there, scroll down and tap “Settings & Privacy,” then “Settings.”
Scroll down until you find “Media and Contacts” and tap on it.
Tap on “Autoplay” and set it to “Never Autoplay Videos.”
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Twitter
Click on “More” in the left-hand menu, and then on “Settings and privacy.”
Select “Accessibility, display, and languages” > “Data usage”
Click on the “Autoplay” setting. You can then switch off the autoplaying of videos on your feed.
Using the iOS and Android apps
Click the profile picture at the top of your phone screen.
Select “Settings and privacy” in the menu.
Navigate to “Data usage,” tap on “Video autoplay” and set it to “Never.”
Instagram
Instagram doesn’t allow for autoplay videos to be turned off, so you’ll have to tread carefully here. Videos won’t autoplay with sound if you use Instagram on your browser. Stopping autoplay on mobile devices is possible, but a little roundabout.
Using a mobile app
Go to your profile page and tap on the three lines in the upper right corner
Go to “Settings” > “Account” > “Cellular Data Use”
For Android: toggle the “Data Saver” on and tap on “High Resolution Media.” If you then select “Never,” then media such as videos won’t load in advance.
For iOS: toggle on “Use Less Data”
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Reddit
Reddit, like most sites that host video, autoplays videos by default. However, it’s pretty easy to turn it off.
Using the newest design
Click your username in the upper-right corner and select “User settings” in the menu.
Select the “Feed settings” tab at the top of the page, and toggle off the “Autoplay media” switch.
Using the legacy version
Click “Preferences” next to your username in the top right of the window.
Under “Media,” look for and uncheck “Autoplay Reddit videos on the desktop comments page.”
You’ll need to hit “save options” at the bottom of the screen to put the changes through.
Using the mobile app
Tap the icon next to the search bar, then hit “Settings.”
You’ll see “Autoplay” near the top of the page, and you can easily choose to turn it off.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Desktop browsers
There are a variety of desktop browsers out there — some of which let you turn off video autoplay and some of which don’t.
Using Google Chrome
If you use Google Chrome and want to turn off video autoplay — you can’t. There used to be an experimental command-line flag that allowed you to turn them off (you can find the flags by typing chrome://flags/ into Chrome’s address field), but it’s disappeared.
You can turn the sound off (which might help a bit):
Tap on the three dots in the upper right corner
Select “Settings” > “Site settings” > “Sound”
Toggle sound off. You can add exceptions for specific sites here.
Using Microsoft Edge
Interestingly, Microsoft’s Edge browser, which is also based on the Chromium open-source design, does let you turn off — well, at least, limit — video autoplay:
Click on the three dots in the upper right corner and select “Settings.”
In the left-hand column, click on “Site Permissions,” and then scroll down to and select “Media autoplay.”
You can either allow audio and video to play automatically or limit it. According to the instructions, whether autoplay will work or not will depend on “how you’ve visited the page and whether you interacted with media in the past.”
Using Firefox
Firefox has a similar feature that lets you turn off autoplay, for the most part.
Click on the three lines in the upper right corner of the browser and select “Preferences.”
In the left-hand column, click on “Privacy & Security.”
Scroll down to the section headed “Permissions” and look for “Autoplay.” Click on the button marked “Settings.”
A drop-down menu will let you allow audio and video, block audio, or block audio and video. You can also specify sites that you want to differ from your defaults — for example, if you block audio and video as a default, but you want to allow it for, say, The Verge.
Using Safari
Safari makes it simple to disable autoplay. In fact, it assumes that you want the feature disabled to begin with. However, if it hasn’t been disabled — or if you want to make some exceptions to the rule — here’s what you do:
While in the app, go to Safari > Preferences in the top menu.
Click on “Websites” in the top menu.
Look for and select “Auto-Play” in the side menu.
Look for the drop-down menu at the bottom right of the window and select “Never Auto-Play.”
As with Firefox, you can whitelist any sites that you want to be an exception to the rule.
Update September 4th, 2020 5:11PM ET: This article was originally published on March 15th, 2019. Most of the entries have been updated.
Update April 15, 2021 5:30PM ET: Additional entries have been updated.
A city in France has had a real rollercoaster of a week, after its Facebook page was accidentally deleted for violating the terms and conditions of the site. Of course, the city of Bitche, France (in the Moselle department in northeastern France) hadn’t done anything in particular to violate any of Facebook’s rules — it just sounded a whole lot like it did.
According to a report from Radio Mélodie (via Politico), Bitche’s troubles first began on March 19th, when the city’s official page — titled “Ville de Bitche,” which translates to the perfectly normal “City of Bitche” — was suddenly removed. Valérie Degouy, the city’s communication manager, attempted to contact Facebook to try to appeal the decision but was unsuccessful, and she eventually just made a new page titled “Mairie 57230,” after Bitche’s postal code.
“I tried to reach out to Facebook in every possible way, through different forms, but there’s nothing [I could] do,” Degouy said, explaining that she had already run into similar issues with the social media company when creating the page back in 2016.
Following the viral coverage of the confusion, Facebook quickly reinstated the page on Tuesday, telling CNN that it was “removed in error.”
This kind of content moderation mix-up has been an issue on the internet for about as long as spam and profanity filters have been around. It even has a name: the Scunthorpe problem, after a similar incident in 1996 that saw AOL censor the name of the British town of Scunthrope due to filters confused over an unintentional profanity found within the name.
And while, yes, this is objectively funny, there are larger implications here. Another town in the region — Rohrbach-lès-Bitche — has preemptively changed the name of its Facebook page to ensure that it won’t be accidentally caught up in Facebook’s profanity filter. A Facebook page to be able to communicate with residents and tourists is too important of a thing to not have in 2021, but due to Facebook’s broken content filters, towns are forced to change their digital identity to simply stay online.
Towns are renaming themselves online to stop their Facebook pages from getting taken down. The entire world will one day be governed by Facebook’s content moderation standards.
(Scunthorpe problem redux: the town of Bitche hits a snag)https://t.co/kgObaNYteP
— evelyn douek (@evelyndouek) April 14, 2021
For its part, the city leadership seems to be taking the removal in good stride. A statement posted by Benoît Kieffer, the mayor of Bitche, to both the reinstated Facebook page and Bitche’s official website acknowledges the difficulties of content moderation and points out the importance of using human moderators to help differentiate between false positives (like Bitche) and more serious offenders.
Kieffer goes on to ask Facebook to be more transparent and fair in how it makes these decisions, in addition to extending an invitation to both the head of Facebook’s French business as well as to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to visit Bitche for themselves.
Bravia Core is Sony’s high-end movie streaming service. It promises picture quality to rival 4K Blu-ray, the world’s largest selection of IMAX Enhanced movies and the latest box office releases from Sony Pictures. But is it right for you? And how can you get it? Here’s everything you need to know about Bravia Core…
As we reported back in January, Bravia Core claims to offer the highest bitrate of any streaming service currently available. Where Netflix streams 4K video in HDR at up to 17.2 Mbps, and Apple TV+ stretches to 40 Mbps during certain scenes, Bravia CORE claims to go one further with high-quality streaming up to 80 Mpbs.
Impressive. If Sony’s figures are correct, Bravia Core is truly an industry first. It’s not for everyone, though – we’ll explain why below. Read on as we reveal the Bravia Core price, launch date, streaming quality, movie selection and more…
Bravia Core: release date
(Image credit: Sony )
Bravia Core – the ‘Core’ stands for Centre of Real Entertainment – was unveiled at CES in January 2021 and officially launched on 6th April 2021. The service is due to launch in 50 territories in 2021, including the UK, US, Canada, Australia and most of Europe (but not Italy).
The video streaming service aims to serve the latest blockbusters from Sony Pictures Entertainment and also hundreds of the company’s classics in 4K Blu-ray-like HDR quality (provided you have a fast enough internet connection). Some content also supports DTS – but not DTS:X.
Here’s a look back at the Bravia Core launch video…
Bravia Core: price
(Image credit: Sony)
Bravia Core is available for free – but only when you buy a Bravia XR 4K or 8K TV from the 2021 Sony TV line-up. Right now, the Bravia Core app comes pre-loaded on the Master Series Z9J 8K LED and Master Series A90J, as well as other 4K LED models such as the X95J, X90J and X80J (you can find the full list here).
Don’t fancy shelling out for a brand new Bravia XR TV? Unfortunately, there’s no other way to experience Bravia Core just yet.
So will Bravia CORE will be available on older Sony TVs, or other Sony devices such as the PS5, in the future? Sony’s FAQ page seems pretty clear: “No. BRAVIA Core will be available for eligible BRAVIA XR models.”
Lastly, it’s worth noting that the more you spend on a Bravia XR set, the more free Core you get. Splash out on the Z9J or A90J and you get 24 months’ free Bravia Core plus 10 credits to spend on lossless titles that would otherwise be available on pay-per-view basis. Purchase any other Bravia XR models and you get 12 months’ access and five credits.
At this point, you might be wondering what happens when the complimentary period ends? Short answer: nobody knows. Sony has yet to announce long-term pricing but according to Core’s terms and conditions, “you may watch the movies you have redeemed via Bravia Core until February 23, 2026”. That suggests Core could shift to a paid subscription model in years to come… assuming it’s a success.
Bravia Core: free trial
The likes of Disney+, Paramount+, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+ all offer new users a free trial, so you might be wondering if Sony offers a Bravia Core free trial. The answer? Sort of.
Sony does offer a ‘free trial’ – a free 12- or 24-month subscription to Bravia Core – but only with the purchase a 2021 Sony Bravia XR TV. No bad thing, since the Bravia XR range could well include some of the best TVs Sony has ever made.
Bravia Core: streaming quality
(Image credit: Sony)
Bravia Core aims to “bring the cinematic experience home” using Sony’s own Pure Stream technology, which offers streaming at 30 – 80 Mbps.
“Pure Stream is the highest streaming picture quality available on Bravia XR television,” commented Bill Baggelaar, EVP and CTO, Technology Development, Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Bravia Core’s main attraction is its collection of 300 new and recent titles that can be purchased or redeemed via Core credits. These are the crème de la crème, quality-wise, and many are available to stream in up to 80Mbps (4K Blu-ray discs tend to be around 82Mbps).
Then there’s ‘Unlimited Streaming’, which offers over 100 titles from the Sony Pictures catalogue in up to 4K HDR quality. Lastly, Sony has thrown in more than 50 ‘IMAX Enhanced’ titles, each of which is remastered using IMAX’s proprietary technology in 4K HDR. Some of these titles boast DTS sound, too.
Of course, the streaming quality you achieve all depends on the speed of your broadband…
Bravia Core: broadband speed
While Netflix recommends a 25 Mbps connection for streaming 4K movies, Sony says Bravia Core “requires a minimum internet speed of 43 Mbps.”
For reference, the average broadband speed in the UK is around 64 Mbps according to regulator Ofcom. That’s nowhere near enough to max out your Core experience – especially if Sony adds 8K content later in the year, as has been hinted.
Indeed, those who want to stream the highest quality lossless movies via Core will need a minimum internet speed of – drumroll, please – 115 Mbps. Sadly, many UK households don’t have access to those kinds of speeds yet.
Bravia Core: catalogue
(Image credit: Sony Pictures)
Sony has yet to release a full list of Bravia Core movies but the Japanese giant has highlighted the following titles:
Venom
Blade Runner 2049
Peter Rabbit
Ghostbusters
Blade Runner 2049
Jumanji: The Next Level
Little Women
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Bad Boys For Life
Baby Driver
Bloodshot Hotel
Transylvania
Smurfs: The Lost Village
Expect around 450 titles in total, including the premium titles above, popular classics and an extensive selection of IMAX Enhanced film titles. Around 100 of the titles can be streamed as many times as you like, at no cost, in up to 4K HDR quality.
On top of that, there’s exclusive ‘Studio Access’ content, which offers behind-the-scenes extra footage and interviews from Sony Pictures productions.
Bravia Core: early verdict
Bravia Core will almost certainly find itself cast as “the high-end Netflix” but it’s a very different proposition. Firstly, it’s exclusive to selected Sony TVs. Secondly, it’s designed to act as a showcase for Sony’s Pure Stream technology. And thirdly, the current selection of movies is still quite limited when you compare it to some rival services.
If you’re after a next-level, cinematic experience and have a smokin’ broadband connection, Bravia Core could be a fantastic addition to your home cinema. If you don’t, a 4K Blu-ray player could provide just as good picture quality and, we’d imagine, superior sound given the lack of compatibility with high-quality audio formats such as Dolby TrueHD.
Still, there’s no doubting Sony’s ambition and we look forward to putting Bravia Core through its paces when testing compatible Sony TVs.
MORE:
Our pick of the best Sony TVs on the market right now
Our guide to the best TVs you can buy
Take a look at the best streaming services for TV and movies
Bravia Core is Sony’s high-end movie streaming service. It promises picture quality to rival 4K Blu-ray, the world’s largest selection of IMAX Enhanced movies and the latest box office releases from Sony Pictures. But is it right for you? And how can you get it? Here’s everything you need to know about Bravia Core…
As we reported back in January, Bravia Core claims to offer the highest bitrate of any streaming service currently available. Where Netflix streams 4K video in HDR at up to 17.2 Mbps, and Apple TV+ stretches to 40 Mbps during certain scenes, Bravia CORE claims to go one further with high-quality streaming up to 80 Mpbs.
Impressive. If Sony’s figures are correct, Bravia Core is truly an industry first. It’s not for everyone, though – we’ll explain why below. Read on as we reveal the Bravia Core price, launch date, streaming quality, movie selection and more…
Bravia Core: release date
(Image credit: Sony )
Bravia Core – the ‘Core’ stands for Centre of Real Entertainment – was unveiled at CES in January 2021 and officially launched on 6th April 2021. The service is due to launch in 50 territories in 2021, including the UK, US, Canada, Australia and most of Europe (but not Italy).
The video streaming service aims to serve the latest blockbusters from Sony Pictures Entertainment and also hundreds of the company’s classics in 4K Blu-ray-like HDR quality (provided you have a fast enough internet connection). Some content also supports DTS – but not DTS:X.
Here’s a look back at the Bravia Core launch video…
Bravia Core: price
(Image credit: Sony)
Bravia Core is available for free – but only when you buy a Bravia XR 4K or 8K TV from the 2021 Sony TV line-up. Right now, the Bravia Core app comes pre-loaded on the Master Series Z9J 8K LED and Master Series A90J, as well as other 4K LED models such as the X95J, X90J and X80J (you can find the full list here).
Don’t fancy shelling out for a brand new Bravia XR TV? Unfortunately, there’s no other way to experience Bravia Core just yet.
So will Bravia CORE will be available on older Sony TVs, or other Sony devices such as the PS5, in the future? Sony’s FAQ page seems pretty clear: “No. BRAVIA Core will be available for eligible BRAVIA XR models.”
Lastly, it’s worth noting that the more you spend on a Bravia XR set, the more free Core you get. Splash out on the Z9J or A90J and you get 24 months’ free Bravia Core plus 10 credits to spend on lossless titles that would otherwise be available on pay-per-view basis. Purchase any other Bravia XR models and you get 12 months’ access and five credits.
At this point, you might be wondering what happens when the complimentary period ends? Short answer: nobody knows. Sony has yet to announce long-term pricing but according to Core’s terms and conditions, “you may watch the movies you have redeemed via Bravia Core until February 23, 2026”. That suggests Core could shift to a paid subscription model in years to come… assuming it’s a success.
Bravia Core: free trial
The likes of Disney+, Paramount+, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+ all offer new users a free trial, so you might be wondering if Sony offers a Bravia Core free trial. The answer? Sort of.
Sony does offer a ‘free trial’ – a free 12- or 24-month subscription to Bravia Core – but only with the purchase a 2021 Sony Bravia XR TV. No bad thing, since the Bravia XR range could well include some of the best TVs Sony has ever made.
Bravia Core: streaming quality
(Image credit: Sony)
Bravia Core aims to “bring the cinematic experience home” using Sony’s own Pure Stream technology, which offers streaming at 30 – 80 Mbps.
“Pure Stream is the highest streaming picture quality available on Bravia XR television,” commented Bill Baggelaar, EVP and CTO, Technology Development, Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Bravia Core’s main attraction is its collection of 300 new and recent titles that can be purchased or redeemed via Core credits. These are the crème de la crème, quality-wise, and many are available to stream in up to 80Mbps (4K Blu-ray discs tend to be around 82Mbps).
Then there’s ‘Unlimited Streaming’, which offers over 100 titles from the Sony Pictures catalogue in up to 4K HDR quality. Lastly, Sony has thrown in more than 50 ‘IMAX Enhanced’ titles, each of which is remastered using IMAX’s proprietary technology in 4K HDR. Some of these titles boast DTS sound, too.
Of course, the streaming quality you achieve all depends on the speed of your broadband…
Bravia Core: broadband speed
While Netflix recommends a 25 Mbps connection for streaming 4K movies, Sony says Bravia CORE “requires a minimum internet speed of 43 Mbps.”
For reference, the average broadband speed in the UK is around 64 Mbps according to regulator Ofcom. That’s nowhere near enough to max out your Core experience – especially if Sony adds 8K content later in the year, as has been hinted.
Indeed, those who want to stream the highest quality lossless movies via Core will need a minimum internet speed of – drumroll, please – 115 Mbps. Sadly, many UK households don’t have access to those kinds of speeds yet.
Bravia Core: catalouge
(Image credit: Sony Pictures)
Sony has yet to release a full list of Bravia Core movies but the Japanese giant has highlighted the following titles:
Venom
Blade Runner 2049
Peter Rabbit
Ghostbusters
Blade Runner 2049
Jumanji: The Next Level
Little Women
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Bad Boys For Life
Baby Driver
Bloodshot Hotel
Transylvania
Smurfs: The Lost Village
Expect around 450 titles in total, including the premium titles above, popular classics and an extensive selection of IMAX Enhanced film titles. Around 100 of the titles can be streamed as many times as you like, at no cost, in up to 4K HDR quality.
On top of that, there’s exclusive ‘Studio Access’ content, which offers behind-the-scenes extra footage and interviews from Sony Pictures productions.
Bravia Core: early verdict
Bravia Core will almost certainly find itself cast as “the high-end Netflix” but it’s a very different proposition. Firstly, it’s exclusive to selected Sony TVs. Secondly, it’s designed to act as a showcase for Sony’s Pure Stream technology. And thirdly, the current selection of movies is still quite limited when you compare it to some rival services.
If you’re after a next-level, cinematic experience and have a smokin’ broadband connection, Bravia Core could be a fantastic addition to your home cinema. If you don’t, a 4K Blu-ray player could provide just as good picture quality and, we’d imagine, superior sound given the lack of compatibility with high-quality audio formats such as Dolby TrueHD.
Still, there’s no doubting Sony’s ambition and we look forward to putting Bravia Core through its paces when testing compatible Sony TVs.
MORE:
Our pick of the best Sony TVs on the market right now
Our guide to the best TVs you can buy
Take a look at the best streaming services for TV and movies
No matter what you do during your waking hours — work at home or outside of it; commute in a car, a train, or by walking from your bedroom to your living room; or spend your days watching the kids or job hunting — you’re probably spending at least some of that time listening to music. But where do you find that music? And if you already have a site you go to regularly, would you like to try something new?
There is a wealth of streaming music services now available to anyone who wants to listen and experiment. Some offer both free and paid subscription versions. Others are completely free.
We asked the staff of The Verge to tell us about their favorite music streaming services. Some listen to major outlets such as Apple Music, Spotify, or YouTube Music, while others have discovered lesser-known but interesting venues.
Here’s what they recommend.
Radio Dismuke
Image: Earl 1900s Music Preservation
For some reason, my partner and I have become addicted to the popular music of the early 20th century, mostly the 1920s and ’30s. Over the past few years, we’ve become happily familiar with the sounds of Cliff Edwards, Bessie Smith, Ruth Etting, Annette Hanshaw, Paul Whiteman, Cab Calloway, and Ethel Waters. (Here she is, in one of her sadly few motion picture appearances, singing “Birmingham Bertha.”) So we spend a lot of time listening to Radio Dismuke, a little-known streaming service sponsored by Early 1900s Music Preservation, which gives us a constant diet of pop and jazz from the early part of the last century. —Barbara Krasnoff
Soma fm
Soma fm started life as an actual micropower radio station in San Francisco in 1999 but flipped over to the internet in 2000. It has been one of my go-to audio sources ever since. The site has tons of different genre stations. While working, I bounce between Groove Salad (ambient / downtempo), Secret Agent (think classic Bond meets modern sensibilities), and Drone Zone (very chill). In the early 2000s, Indie Pop Rocks was my secret weapon for finding new bands my friends didn’t know yet. When the holidays come around, Soma’s holiday stations will make your party twice as festive and half as corny. There are apps for it on all platforms, but if you’re using TuneIn for terrestrial radio, Soma’s stations are listed there, too. It’s all free, but if you use it a lot, find a way to chip in a bit — after more than 20 years of streaming, Soma deserves it. —Dieter Bohn
YouTube Music
Most of my time on YouTube isn’t spent watching videos; it’s listening to music. YouTube Music is everything I wanted out of Google Play Music, plus some. Its catalog of music is incomparable, mostly thanks to users who upload music that otherwise isn’t available on streaming services. It has recent hits and full albums if you want to use it like, say, Spotify, but it’s my destination for listening to uploads of older music or obscure tunes, live performances, and compilations of video game soundtracks. (For some reason, I know the Ghost Trick original soundtrack by heart, yet I haven’t played much of the game.) I’m always a little concerned that my favorite playlist or an upload of a hard-to-find album will be delisted, but perhaps it’s that rush that keeps me listening to it more often than any other music streaming service these days. —Cameron Faulkner
8tracks
I’ll confess that I don’t listen to 8tracks regularly these days, but using it is a predictable way to trigger a burst of nostalgia. The streaming service launched in 2008, and it lets users upload playlists of at least eight songs (aka 8 tracks). You can search through playlists based on their tags (which could include artists, genre, or “mood”), but you can’t see the list of songs ahead of time. They’re revealed as you listen. You also only get three skips per playlist per hour. The forced discovery helped me find songs and artists I never would have listened to. 8tracks shut down in December 2019 but was brought back to life by a new startup called BackBeat last April. All of the playlists I made in high school are still intact, but they are very embarrassing — so I’m keeping that username a secret. —Nicole Wetsman
KEXP
Image: KEXP
KEXP, a public radio station based in Seattle, is my favorite radio station in the world. It primarily plays alternative and indie rock, but there are also weekly blocks with completely different genres like blues, Latin music, songs entirely by Pacific Northwest-based artists, and my wife and I especially enjoy reggae on Saturday mornings. We regularly stream the station to our kitchen speaker while eating dinner or doing chores. The music selection is consistently excellent, and it’s also a regular reminder of the city where we met and fell in love. —Jay Peters
Aux Live
As The Verge’s resident Post Malone fan, I recently discovered Aux Live when a recording of his performance at PostyFest in 2019 was featured. My first intention was to only keep the subscription long enough to watch that one concert, but I ended up really enjoying the service. Aux Live is a music-focused service with a range of live concerts and documentaries across an expansive range of genres and legendary artists. It works both in-browser and via app. It costs $4.99 a month, but that feels reasonable given the vast number of artists featured in the service. —Kaitlin Hatton
Qobuz
Image: Qobuz
After purchasing a portable DAC to listen to higher-resolution music on my phone, I was looking for a place where I can actually listen to higher-resolution music. I found Qobuz, which allows you to stream songs with up to a 192kHz sampling rate and 24-bit depth. You’re also able to buy hi-res songs or albums and download them from the Qobuz store without having to subscribe to the service. Revisiting some of my favorite albums that I listened to during my iPod days gave me a newfound appreciation for those recordings, and I ended up paying closer attention to the way they were mixed and mastered. —Andru Marino
Spotify
Okay, fine — I’ll be the boring member of staff who recommends Spotify. Yes, other streaming services might offer better audio quality or curation, but Spotify has a nice user interface and compatibility with almost every piece of streaming hardware on the market, and that’s really all my basic music tastes require. And soon, with Spotify HiFi launching later this year, audio quality will receive a big boost. It helps that I’ve been using Spotify for close to a decade at this point, so it has near-limitless data on me to create custom playlists tailored to my tastes. Its daily mixes are far from perfect, but they’re good enough that I regularly use them when I can’t be bothered to pick a specific band to listen to. —Jon Porter
Apple Music
Photo: Apple
I use Apple Music for a very specific reason: because it lets me listen to music that’s not on Apple Music. Let me explain. A solid 10–15 percent of the music I listen to isn’t on Spotify or any streaming service. Whether it’s something I made or one of my friends made, a rip from a long-forgotten song posted to YouTube or SoundCloud, an album that’s too copyright-infringement-astic to be allowed on streaming services, or just music that’s on Bandcamp but not streaming services, I still want to have a good way of syncing all of the music I like across devices — and Apple Music does a great job of that. I just drag something into the application formerly known as iTunes, and in a few moments, it shows up on my iPhone, syncs to my iPod, and can even be played through my HomePods. I’d write more about how much I love this one aspect of Apple Music, but honestly, I’m starting to sound like an annoying hipster, even to myself. —Mitchell Clark
Live Music Archive
Did you know you can listen to over 200,000 concerts in lossless audio quality for free? And I really do mean free. The Live Music Archive, part of the Internet Archive, hosts an enormous vault of live performances from a wide range of artists who’ve given their blessing to have concerts traded among fans. Yes, there’s a ton of material from the Grateful Dead and jam bands in there, but the LMA also contains hundreds of recordings from acts like the Drive-By Truckers, John Mayer, Elliott Smith, Smashing Pumpkins, and more. Every so often, I’ll start digging through the archive and land on a gem I hadn’t heard before. Most are audience-recorded shows, as commercial releases (understandably) aren’t allowed.
Now, the Internet Archive isn’t exactly known for intuitive navigation, and the Live Music Archive site can be very kludgy to use. Thankfully, there are apps like this one for iPhone or this for Android that serve as easier-to-browse portals for everything inside the Live Music Archive, complete with features like offline downloads. —Chris Welch
Featuring a 2MP camera, a Pico and all the trimmings, this kit adds workable person and object detection to your Raspberry Pi Pico.
For
+ Simple instructions
+ Quick results
+ Compatible with many boards
Against
– Needs C/C++ knowledge
– Lens is unprotected
When we think of machine learning and artificial intelligence we instantly think of large data centers with massive computational power. But the Raspberry Pi Pico is capable of machine learning via TinyML, developed for microcontrollers. With the $40Uctronics TinyML Learning Kit, we can easily add computer vision to our projects.
Compatible with many different microcontrollers, such as those from Arduino, the Uctronics TinyML Learning Kitincludes an Arducam Mini 2MP Plus Camera which has been used for some time with other microcontrollers, but with the power of the Raspberry Pi Pico we see much better performance for machine learning, an almost 10x increase compared to an Arduino.
We put the Uctronics TinyML Learning Kit on the bench and learned more about what this kit can offer.
Design and Use of the Uctronics TinyML Learning Kit
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Measuring just 0.78 x 1.34 inches (20 x 34.1 mm) the focus of the kit is the Arducam 2MP Plus, a camera which is based on the OV2640, a 2MP camera which can be used with microcontrollers and computers via a SPI (data stream and commands) and I2C (sensor configuration) protocols.
This camera is not limited to just being used on the included Raspberry Pi Pico; it can also be used with Arduino and ESP32 based boards. A 2MP resolution may not sound like much, but for computer vision and machine learning it is plenty when we consider that our image will only be 320 x 320 pixels. The camera lens is contained in an M12 mount and the lens is interchangeable with other M12 lenses, available separately.
Connecting the camera to the Raspberry Pi Pico, or other RP2040 is a piece of cake thanks to the included jumper wires. The online resources clearly show the GPIO pins that we should use to connect the camera to the Pico and show the GPIO pins for the included CP2102 USB to TTL adaptor which is used to send video data from the Pico to an application, which in our review was a person detection script running Processing, a programming interface similar to the Arduino IDE but geared towards the visual arts.
After flashing a pre-made UF2 project, written in C/C++ to our Raspberry Pi Pico, we then installed the Processing IDE and the corresponding code to receive the image data and display on our desktop. If you are a MicroPython fan, then right now there are no MicroPython libraries for TensorFLow Lite for the Raspberry Pi Pico, but Arducam is working on supporting this. The Arducam Mini 2MP Plus Camera can also be used to take simple images and it has a community supported MicroPython library to simplify the process.
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
A camera connected to a Raspberry Pi Pico is cool, but machine learning is much cooler. Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML), is a version of TensorFlow developed for use on microcontrollers that almost always have less computational power than a full computer. Microcontrollers such as those from Arduino, Espressif (ESP32) and now Raspberry Pi are capable of being trained to identify objects, patterns or respond to external inputs from microphones, sensors etc.
Arducam claims that using the OV2640 camera with the Raspberry Pi Pico we can process at 1 FPS, which may not sound like much but the equivalent project running on an Arduino is 1 frame every 18 seconds. So the Pico is clearly the better board for TinyML on a budget. Arducam provides a Github repository containing a series of TinyML demos available as raw C code for customization and compilation on your machine. Should you wish to jump straight into using the demos, there are pre-compiled versions saved as UF2 files ready for use on the Pico.
What Projects Can We Use The Uctronics TinyML Learning KitFor?
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The Uctronics TinyML Learning Kit is designed for TinyML and so it is geared towards projects that require just enough processing power to add computer vision and artificial intelligence to a project. Using the camera as an input, we can give a robot “sight” and, using different models, we can train the robot to search for objects or persons.
Want to watch for intruders in a room and send alerts to your devices via the Internet? Well the Arducam camera and our guide to getting your Raspberry Pi Pico online will enable just this.
Bottom Line
The Uctronics TinyML Learning Kit is great fun, but to get the best from it, you really need to know your C/C++, until the MicroPython library is ready for release that is. If you are already familiar with machine learning then chances are that this is no stumbling block for you.
The Arducam Mini 2MP Plus Camera is incredibly easy to assemble, with clear instructions and a well documented GitHub repository and with a little time even a novice programmer could get great results.
These are computer-generated images from This Cat Does Not Exist, and folks: I think we are in trouble.
I understand this is going to sound crackpot, but hear me out. What if our computers are already smarter than us, and the only reason they’re pretending they aren’t is so we’ll continue feeding them their favorite thing, photos of our cats? I understand that in isolation this sounds ridiculous, but I don’t think it’s any sillier than the Singularity.
Under this theory, Skynet has already happened, but Skynet is benign because one of the first things we taught it was that cats were cute. And Skynet doesn’t have cats. We do. This is our major structural advantage: we can feed the internet fresh cat photos. It’s why the internet — thus far, anyway — has remained willing to continue human life as we know it: for our cats.
The problem, then, with This Cat Does Not Exist is that it allows the internet to make its own cat photos. That means Skynet doesn’t need us anymore.
This isn’t new, exactly — but last year, the computer-generated cats were horror shows. And yes, a people version exists already, but this isn’t an existential threat. We did not teach the computers that people are adorable. We taught them that cats are.
One of these cats is real (and my own personal cat). The other one does not exist:
Elizabeth Lopatto and This Cat Does Not Exist
The tells, as far as I can see, occur around the edge of the fur: it’s weirdly blurry. Also, as with the people version, the fake cat has an out-of-focus background. The coloration in the fake cat’s eyes is also a little less defined than my cat’s. Still, this is impressive.
The new batch of AI cats is limited — face only, no goofball action, sometimes the ears don’t match — but they may very well represent the first step toward the Matrix-like future of humanity. Because if the machines don’t need our cat photos anymore, they don’t need us.
The Federal Communications Commission has released a new speed test app to help measure internet speeds across the country, available on both Android and iOS.
The FCC Speed Test App works similarly to existing speed-testing apps like Ookla’s and Fast by Netflix, automatically collecting and displaying data once users press the “start testing” button. According to the FCC, the data collected through the app will inform the agency’s efforts to collect more accurate broadband speed information and aid its broadband deployment efforts.
The FCC’s Speed Test app allows users to test their speeds and share the data.
“To close the gap between digital haves and have nots, we are working to build a comprehensive, user-friendly dataset on broadband availability,” Acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement Monday. “Expanding the base of consumers who use the FCC Speed Test app will enable us to provide improved coverage information to the public and add to the measurement tools we’re developing to show where broadband is truly available throughout the United States.”
The app is part of the agency’s broader efforts to collect more accurate broadband speed data across the country. The FCC’s current coverage maps are built from self-reported data from internet service providers like AT&T and Verizon. In doing so, the process has allowed ISPs to exaggerate their current coverage, drawing heated criticism from broadband access advocates.
Earlier this year, the FCC asked the public to fact-check ISP data by entering in their address here and submitting a form here if the information described is incorrect.
Bringing home a used face mask can harbor unseen and unwanted bacteria. But we’ve noticed something over the years—where there’s a problem, there’s a Raspberry Pi solution! Today’s project tackles this issue and is known as the Box of Hope, developed by Jan-Hendrik Ewers, Sarah Swinton, and Martin Karel.
The best Raspberry Pi projects help make life easier, and this project takes a lot of guesswork out of mask sanitization. The Box of Hope has a sanitizing chamber that utilizes UV LEDs to sterilize fabric face masks. It also relies on wireless technology to issue daily usage reminders.
According to the dev team, the project was designed to be a box kept at the user’s home. It’s connected to the internet, which is necessary to send sanitization reminders to a given mobile device.
There are three major components in the project design: an API, a web app, and an I/O server. The RESTful API manages HTTP requests between the client and server. The I/O server runs on the Pi while the web app manages notifications.
If you want to read more about this project, visit the official Box of Hope website and project GitHub page.
An iPhone with cheese grater texture similar to the iMac Pro? Industrial designer Sarang Sheth shows what this would look like and why it is a bad idea.
The Apple iMac Pro, announced in 2019, got a complete new design, with the front provided with a unique hole pattern. Many Apple fans reminded it of the very first generation of Mac Pro, where often the comparison with a cheese grater was made. Some time ago, Apple filed for a patent for an iPhone with a similar cheese grater texture, which could contribute to more efficient cooling.
The opinions about this iPhone design were certainly not only positive on the internet, but that didn’t stop industrial designer Sarang Sheth from visualizing this idea. Sarang made for Yanko Design a concept of a iPhone 12 Pro Cheese grater Case. The characteristic cheese grater design gives the phone a special and cool appearance. Yet there seem to be more disadvantages than advantages to such a design.
Sarang Sheth about of his design: “We present the Cheesegrater Case for the iPhone 12 Pro. Made from a TPE bumper and a machined aluminum backplate, the case puts the familiar cheesegrater texture on the back of the iPhone to help it cool more efficiently (well at least in theory). In theory, it’s also perfectly suited to mince cloves of garlic or grate some Parmigiano Reggiano.”
iPhone 12 Pro case
Sarang has not only visualized the patented design, he also delves deeper into the potential practicality of this invention. He believes it is a bad idea, he cites several reasons for this. First of all, a textured metal case would attract dust, dirt, and lint. Moreover, you would not be able to charge the phone wirelessly.
In addition, such a cheese grater structure would make the device unnecessarily thick – which is unlikely to be Apple’s preference. In addition, you may wonder what such a 3D design does to the hand position. It doesn’t seem very comfortable. In addition, you may wonder why a smartphone must have desktop-quality heat dissipation. Does Apple still have some surprises in store for us? For example in the field of Augmented Reality (AR).
In any case, it seems unlikely that Apple will use such a design for the iPhone 13 Pro, which is expected around September. There is, however, good hope that the controversial notch will finally decline in size this year, it will still not completely disappear though.
Ilse is a Dutch journalist and joined LetsGoDigital more than 15 years ago. She is highly educated and speaks four languages. Ilse is a true tech-girl and loves to write about the future of consumer electronics. She has a special interest for smartphones, digital cameras, gaming and VR.
El Clásico returns on Saturday as Real Madrid host Barcelona in a pivotal La Liga clash that could help decide this season’s Spanish title. All eyes will be on the Estadio Di Stefano for the biggest Clásico in decades. Both teams need to win if they’re to have a chance of challenging table-toppers Atletico Madrid. It’s a late kick-off (8pm BST); here’s how get a Real Madrid vs Barcelona live stream from anywhere.
Real Madrid have confirmed their squad for Saturday and the big team news is that Eden Hazard will watch from the sidelines – the Belgian superstar is yet to fully recover from a muscle injury. By the looks of things, Zinedine Zidane has stuck with the same line-up that beat Liverpool in the Champions League on Wednesday, with the likes of Benzema, Modric and Vinicius all getting the nod.
The tide is starting to turn for Real Madrid, and at the perfect time. They’re currently just a couple of points behind rivals Barcelona, having fallen seven points behind top-of-the-league Atletico Madrid in January. With Atletico suffering a recent shock 1-0 loss to Sevilla, Zidane’s Real will sense an opportunity to make up ground.
Barça are unbeaten in 19 league games but it hasn’t been the best of seasons for Ronald Koeman’s men. They now have a golden opportunity to finish top of the table for the first time in two years – provided they beat Real and win the next eight La Liga fixtures.
Ready to find out which side will conquer El Clásico and move a step closer to La Liga glory? Follow our guide below to watch a Real Madrid vs Barcelona live stream from anywhere – and for free!
La Liga live stream: how to watch Spanish football
How to watch Real Madrid vs Barcelona for free
(Image credit: beIN Sports)
Rights to show La Liga matches in the USA – including the epic Real Madrid vs Barcelona clash – belong to beIN Sports. It’s easily bolted on to your existing cable package and you can watch via the beIN Sports Connect app.
Not got cable? Good news – popular streaming platform FuboTV carries beIN Sports. Better yet, FuboTV offers new subscribers a free 7-day trial. That’s right, you can watch El Clasico for nothing!
Going to be outside the US this weekend? Simply use a VPN to access FuboTV as if you were back in your home state. We recommend ExpressVPN as it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee and 24/7 customer support.
When the free 7-day trial ends, the entry-level FuboTV package costs $65 per month but it does get you 110 premium TV channels and much more. Not for you? You can cancel any time – there’s no lock-in contract.
Real Madrid vs Barcelona kicks off at 3pm ET / 12pm PT on Sunday morning in the States.
Watch Real Madrid vs Barcelona from abroad using a VPN
Even if you have subscribed to the relevant El Clasico rights holders, you won’t be able to access them 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. VPNs are a doddle to use and create a private connection between your device and the internet. All the information passing back and forth is entirely encrypted.
We recommend paid-for VPN services, such as ExpressVPN because they are entirely safe, come with 24/7 customer support and can be used to watch sport and other entertainment from any part of the world on almost any device. Try it out with the link below and get three months free.
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. Try it – it’s easier than you think.
UK: Real Madrid vs Barcelona live stream
(Image credit: Premier Sports)
This Saturday’s clash between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona will be shown live on La Liga TV, which is available as a standalone service via Premier Sports.
The company offers a handy streaming option. The cheapest plan costs £6.99 a month and gets you access to La Liga TV. Splash out £10.99 a month and you get all four channels: La Liga TV, Premier Sports 1 & 2 and Box Nation. Either way, it sounds like a bargain.
La Liga games can also be found on Virgin Media on the recently announced LaLigaTV channel in HD on channel 554. It’s available to all Premier Sports customers but any Virgin Media subscriber can sign up for £9.99 per month through their on-screen service. Use Home > Apps & Games > All Apps > TV Channel Upgrades on the remote. Home also to Italy’s Serie A, Premier Sports is available to Sky TV customers for £11.99 per month, or a £99 annual charge.
Australia: Real Madrid vs Barcelona live stream
(Image credit: Kayo)
Streaming service Kayo Sports offers the best coverage of Real Madrid vs Barca down under.
Subscription costs $25 per month for Kayo Basic or $35 per month for Kayo Premium. The latter is a good option if you want to stream the coverage to various TVs and devices throughout your home.
Better still, Kayo Sports is giving new users a free 14-day trial.
Of course, the free trial is only available in Australia, so any Aussie stuck outside their own country will need to use a VPN to get access.
Two satellites from the fast-growing constellations of OneWeb and SpaceX’s Starlink dodged a dangerously close approach with one another in orbit last weekend, representatives from the US Space Force and OneWeb said. It’s the first known collision avoidance event for the two rival companies as they race to expand their new broadband-beaming networks in space.
On March 30th, five days after OneWeb launched its latest batch of 36 satellites from Russia, the company received several “red alerts” from the US Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron warning of a possible collision with a Starlink satellite. Because OneWeb’s constellation operates in higher orbits around Earth, the company’s satellites must pass through SpaceX’s mesh of Starlink satellites, which orbit at an altitude of roughly 550 km.
One Space Force alert indicated a collision probability of 1.3 percent, with the two satellites coming as close as 190 feet — a dangerously close proximity for satellites in orbit. If satellites collide in orbit, it could cause a cascading disaster that could generate hundreds of pieces of debris and send them on crash courses with other satellites nearby.
Currently, there’s no national or global authority that would force satellite operators to take action on predicted collisions. Space Force’s urgent alerts sent OneWeb engineers scrambling to email SpaceX’s Starlink team to coordinate maneuvers that would put the two satellites at safer distances from one another.
While coordinating with OneWeb, SpaceX disabled its automated AI-powered collision avoidance system and manually steered its Starlink satellite out of the way, according to OneWeb’s government affairs chief Chris McLaughlin. It was unclear why exactly SpaceX disabled the system. SpaceX, which rarely responds to reporters, did not return multiple requests for comment for this story, nor did David Goldman, the company’s director of satellite policy.
SpaceX’s automated system for avoiding satellite collisions has sparked controversy, raising concerns from other satellite operators who say they have no way of knowing which way the system will move a Starlink satellite in the event of a close approach. “Coordination is the issue,” McLaughlin says. “It is not sufficient to say ‘I’ve got an automated system,’ because the other guy may not have, and won’t understand what yours is trying to do.”
OneWeb satellites (left) launch in batches of 36. SpaceX’s Starlink satellites (right) launch in batches of 60.Images: OneWeb / SpaceX
SpaceX has roughly 1,370 Starlink satellites in orbit and is on track to launch thousands more, with ambitions to build a 12,000-satellite network of global broadband coverage. OneWeb has launched 146 satellites so far, of the roughly 650 it plans to send into orbit for a similar global network, operating in higher orbits around Earth. And Jeff Bezos’ Amazon has pledged to join the same race, planning to launch over 3,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit. All companies want to beam broadband internet into Earth’s most rural regions to meet increasing demand from consumers and governments alike.
“This event was a good example of how satellite operators can be responsible given the constraints of global best practices,” says Diana McKissock, the head of the Space Force 18th Space Control Squadron’s data sharing and spaceflight safety wing. “They shared their data with each other, they got in contact with each other, and I think in absence of any global regulation, that’s… the art of the possible.”
Still, the sharp increase of satellites in orbit, mainly driven by SpaceX’s Starlink venture, has moved faster than any authority can regulate the industry for safety. McKissock says SpaceX has made efforts to increase its transparency in orbit; the company currently provides location data of its satellites to other operators. But its automated system for avoiding collisions is a closed book where openness and coordination are needed the most, analysts and operators say.
“What is the point of having it if you have to turn it off when there’s going to be a potential collision?” Victoria Samson of the Secure World Foundation says, adding that the void of any clear international framework for managing active objects in space makes it largely unclear who would be held responsible if a collision actually occurred.
Satellite maneuvers in space are common, but worry in the industry is mounting as OneWeb, SpaceX, Amazon, and other companies race to toss more satellites into space. And this Starlink close call isn’t the first. In 2019, a European Space Agency satellite had to move out of the way of a Starlink satellite to avoid a potential collision. SpaceX didn’t move its satellite because of a computer bug that prevented proper communication with ESA, it said at the time.
With more OneWeb satellite launches planned on a monthly basis, and with planned constellations from Amazon and Telesat in higher orbits than Starlink, the need to establish clear rules of the road in orbit is becoming more urgent than ever. SpaceX looms especially large, not just because of the size of its constellation but because of where it’s sending them. “OneWeb and others will have to transit through Starlink to reach their destinations, so SpaceX needs to ensure now that other satellite operators can do that safely,” says Caleb Henry, a satellite industry analyst at Quilty Analytics.
McKissock says the 18th Space Control Squadron is fully aware of the industry concerns with SpaceX’s autonomous avoidance approach. “So it’s been interesting,” she says. “But like I said, I’m glad they talked to each other. The scary situation is when one of the operators is not communicative, and then it’s just crossing your fingers.”
There is plenty that scientists don’t understand about the long-term effects of COVID-19 on society. But a year in, at least one thing seems clear: the pandemic has been terrible for our collective mental health — and a surprising number of tech platforms seem to have given the issue very little thought.
First, the numbers. Nature reported that the number of adults in the United Kingdom showing symptoms of depression had nearly doubled from March to June of last year, to 19 percent. In the United States, 11 percent of adults reported feeling depressed between January and June 2019; by December 2020, that number had nearly quadrupled, to 42 percent.
Prolonged isolation created by lockdowns has been linked to disruptions in sleep, increased drug and alcohol use, and weight gain, among other symptoms. Preliminary data about suicides in 2020 is mixed, but the number of drug overdoses soared, and experts believe many were likely intentional. Even before the pandemic, Glenn Kessler reports at TheWashington Post, “suicide rates had increased in the United States every year since 1999, for a gain of 35 percent over two decades.”
Issues related to suicide and self-harm touch nearly every digital platform in some way. The internet is increasingly where people search, discuss, and seek support for mental health issues. But according to new research from the Stanford Internet Observatory, in many cases, platforms have no policies related to discussion of self-harm or suicide at all.
In “Self-Harm Policies and Internet Platforms,” the authors surveyed 39 online platforms to understand their approach to these issues. They analyzed search engines, social networks, performance-oriented platforms like TikTok, gaming platforms, dating apps, and messaging apps. Some platforms have developed robust policies to cover the nuances of these issues. Many, though, have ignored them altogether.
“There is vast unevenness in the comprehensiveness of public-facing policies,” write Shelby Perkins, Elena Cryst, and Shelby Grossman. “For example, Facebook policies address not only suicide but also euthanasia, suicide notes, and livestreaming suicide attempts. In contrast, Instagram and Reddit have no policies related to suicide in their primary policy documents.”
Among the platforms surveyed, Facebook was found to have the most comprehensive policies. But researchers faulted the company for unclear policies at its Instagram subsidiary; technically, the parent company’s policies all apply to both platforms, but Instagram maintains a separate set of policies that do not explicitly mention posting about suicide, creating some confusion.
Still, Facebook is miles ahead of some of its peers. Reddit, Parler, and Gab were found to have no public policies related to posts about self-harm, eating disorders, or suicide. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the companies have no policies whatsoever. But if they aren’t posted publicly, we may never know for sure.
In contrast, researchers said that what they call “creator platforms” — YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch — have developed smart policies that go beyond simple promises to remove disturbing content. The platforms offer meaningful support in their policies both for people who are recovering from mental health issues and those who may be considering self-harm, the authors said.
“Both YouTube and TikTok are explicit in allowing creators to share their stories about self-harm to raise awareness and find community support,” they wrote. “We were impressed that YouTube’s community guidelines on suicide and self-injury provide resources, including hotlines and websites, for those having thoughts of suicide or self-harm, for 27 countries.”
Outside the biggest platforms, though, it’s all a toss-up. Researchers could not find public policies for suicide or self-harm for NextDoor or Clubhouse. Dating apps? Grindr and Tinder have policies about self-harm; Scruff and Hinge don’t. Messaging apps tend not to have any such public policies, either — iMessage, Signal, and WhatsApp don’t. (The fact that all of them use some form of encryption likely has a lot to do with that.)
Why does all of this matter? In an interview, the researchers told me there are at least three big reasons. One is essentially a question of justice: if people are going to be punished for the ways in which they discuss self-harm online, they ought to know that in advance. Two is that policies offer platforms a chance to intervene when their users are considering hurting themselves. (Many do offer users links to resources that can help them in a time of crisis.) And three is that we can’t develop more effective policies for addressing mental health issues online if we don’t know what the policies are.
And moderating these kinds of posts can be quite tricky, researchers said. There’s often a fine line between posts that are discussing self-harm and those that appear to be encouraging it.
“The same content that could show someone recovering from an eating disorder is something that can also be triggering for other people,” Grossman told me. “That same content could just affect users in two different ways.”
But you can’t moderate if you don’t even have a policy, and I was surprised, reading this research, at just how many companies don’t.
This has turned out to be a kind of policy week here at Platformer. We talked about how Clarence Thomas wants to blow up platform policy as it exists today; how YouTube is shifting the way it measures harm on the platform (and discloses it); and how Twitch developed a policy for policing creators’ behavior on other platforms.
What strikes me about all of this is just how fresh it all feels. We’re more than a decade into the platform era, but there are still so many big questions to figure out. And even on the most serious of subjects — how to address content related to self-harm — some platforms haven’t even entered the discussion.
The Stanford researchers told me they believe they are the first people to even attempt to catalog self-harm policies among the major platforms and make them public. There are doubtless many other areas where a similar inventory would serve the public good. Private companies still hide too much, even and especially when they are directly implicated in questions of public interest.
In the future, I hope these companies collaborate more — learning from one another and adopting policies that make sense for their own platforms. And thanks to the Stanford researchers, at least on one subject, they can now find all of the existing policies in a single place.
This column was co-published with Platformer, a daily newsletter about Big Tech and democracy.
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