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Twitch Radio

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The streaming powerhouse Twitch, mainly used to stream esports, is going old school, in a new school kinda way. They are partnering with Radio.com, parent Entercom for interactive livestreams of sports radio stations. All around Major cities in the US!

This was first reported by Variety and will see Radio.com sports stations stream on Twitch in the following locations:

  • Boston (WEEI in Boston)
  • New York (WFAN 101.9 FM/660 AM)
  • Dallas (105.3 The Fan),
  • Chicago (670 The Score),
  • Atlanta (92.9 The Game), and
  • Detroit (97.1 The Ticket)

They’ll each have their own dedicated branded channels on Twitch too. VP David Rosenbloom said that the partnership would introduce sports broadcasting to a ‘new generation of fans’

Twitch is more than just games

Twitch isn’t just a gaming platform anymore, with the streaming giant expanding it’s content offerings on the platform. So it now includes other entertainment as well. Director of New Verticals at Twitch Jane Weedon said in a statement that Twitch has seen a growing community of sports fans on the platform.

“Twitch is the place where people come to connect and engage over their shared interests, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a group of people more passionate than sports fans,”

“With the addition of sports radio, on-air talent and fans will be able to interact and discuss their favourite athletes, teams and leagues with one another in real time.” Jane Weedon

Weedon added that the users will be able to join in the conversation with Twitch’s Chat feature, much like the long cherished call in format of talk radio stations.

This deal arrives at a time in an uncertain time for sports as COVID pummels sports industries all over the world. With sports stadiums remaining a no-go area for the time being. Radio still has plenty of opportunities to keep fans connected to the teams they love including analysis and interviews.

(Engadget)

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To Vaccinate or Not To Vaccinate

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At a time where vaccinations are a hot topic right now and on everyone’s lips. Coronavirus vaccine is a way off, but it brings us to think about vaccination’s in general and how important they are to everyone’s livelihood.

To most of us getting a vaccination is just a natural way of life and a way of protecting ourselves against the many different diseases out there. However, in America, vaccination’s are a controversial topic, with many parent’s opting to not have their children vaccinated.

So when an outbreak of measles infected a small town in America, one parent who decided against getting their child a vaccination. Was worried about their child getting sick and asked her community how best to protect her child from measles. Well….you can guess the response.

Take a look at the gallery below for the full response on how people reacted to her not getting a vaccine for her child:

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Who funds the WHO?

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The WHO, the World Health Organisation have been in the news a lot lately. Giving us daily updates on the world wide pandemic that we are all currently experiencing. It’s been in the news for other reasons lately however. As President Trump recently announced that he would be halting US funding to the World Health Organisation (WHO). According to Trump, the WHO, are guilty of “severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus”.

So, how much does the US give to the WHO?

The latest figures (above) from the WHO show that the US gave $893m for its latest 2 year budget cycle. That accounts for about 15% of the groups total funding base. Furthermore it’s 10x that of the contribution of China.

While it goes without saying, retracting funding to the WHO. In one of the worlds worst global pandemics for a century has been heavily criticised. However, Trump hasn’t been the only one to criticise the WHO for it’s advice and actions at the start of the pandemic.

Contributors to the WHO is a really long list, coming in at #2 is the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. They are soon followed by the UK, the GAVI Alliance, Germany, Japan and other organisations such as the World Bank.

China?

China contributed just $86M to the most recent funding cycle. This is on par with Norway. A country with a population of 1/260th of it’s size.

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Episode 323 Steffan Powell / The Rizen Producers

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tv streaming

Tv Streaming Boost!

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This story is more US centric than most of the ones we feature here on How To Kill An Hour but it is a good insight into how people are consuming their Tv these days. It seems like a lot of people are turning to Tv streaming over traditional methods. There’s a lot more households whom are choosing to stream their favorite shows instead of watching them on cable. (US version of Sky)

Climbing Numbers

Comscore have released a new set of data that states that the number of people opting for Tv streaming in the United States has spiked by 58% to 4.9million people. 4.9 million people is a total of 5% of all US households that stream over Wi-Fi without traditional Tv’s headaches of ads and schedules.

Comscore looked at “pure play” systems that don’t offer their own original shows the same way that services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime do. Pure Players are things like Sling, DirectTv Now, Playstation Vue and YouTube Tv. A full 10% of streaming time across the US came from these services this past April. A 53% spike from the previous year.

According to analysts it’s not just the young who are using these streaming services. Older viewers are signing up in droves too! Only 21% of households using these services have a head under 35. An 8% drop according to Comscore.

If a household does have these services, Comscore adds that they’ll spend nearly half their time streaming programming from it. This past April each of those households streamed a total of 128hrs of content on average. Equal to on demand services like Netflix.

Overall the users using Tv streaming services spent twice as much time with those services when compared to those watching normal Tv.

(Verge)

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Cute Cat

Robot Spy Cats!

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The U.S according to an apparent leaked CIA Memo obtained by Wikileaks apparently used cats to spy on Soviet Russia during the Cold War!

The crazy yet gruesome idea involved US Spies cutting open a real life cat and inserting spy equipment into its body, the tail would be used as an antenna with a wire running down the felines spine and a microphone in its ear all tied together with a batter placed on it’s chest!

Codenamed ‘‘Project Acoustic Kitty’ £10million was apparently invested into it for 5 years in the 60’s as the US government tried to develop its spy technology – Despite all this the project was never actually commissioned.

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US asks for Social Media Accounts?!

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If you want to travel to the US under the visa waiver program you will now have an optional question to fill out in the ESTA form. (Electronic System for Travel Authorization, basically a form which you have to fill out to get into the United States)

It reads: “Please enter information associated with your online presence,” along with a drop-down menu for various social media outlets and a text box for the username associated with each one.

Reportedly this was introduced to help identify Terrorist threats and was suggested way back in June 2016. It has just passed the DepDepartment of Homeland Security has approved the controversial proposal on December 19th.

There has been a lot of worry about this of course due to privacy risks and there is a worry that discrimination would “fall hardest on Arab and Muslim communities, whose usernames, posts, contacts and social networks will be exposed to intense scrutiny.”

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Death Diversity w / @FunkButcher

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