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Netflix

Netflix Gave Away 83 Year Subscription!

Netflix recently gave away an 83 year subscription! Yes you read that right, an 83 YEAR subscription. So basically you’ll never have to pay for Netflix again. To promote the new Charlize Theron Film The Old Guard, they held a gaming tournament. With the prize being the basically lifelong subscription.

To win, all you needed to do was to be amazing at the original video game of The Old Guard. The task? To beat everyone and by the number 1 gamer by the end of a weekend a couple of weeks ago.

Netflix described the prize as an ‘immortal’ subscription of 1,000 months. Which is 83 and a third years.

The game was a ‘browser-based, top-down beat em up”. You’ll be  playing as Charlize’s character, Andromache of Scythia.

Originally, in the comics, Andromache was the oldest in the gang of immortals. She uses a double-bladed axe called the Labrys to hack and slash her way to victory.

The Netflix film is about immortality, so even if you die in the game, you’ll just move slower, which would have made it difficult to get the top score.

While the competition has now ended, you can still enjoy the game! So, go ahead and play it, why not!

The game is available here!

(Gizmodo)

The game will be available here from 4pm today (Friday 17th July). Good luck.

Listen to the guys chatting about it here!

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Virtual Reality Worlds Expand in Doctor Who and Peaky Blinders

A brand new Doctor Who trilogy is set to extend across VR, console, Switch and Mobile. Also, a Peaky Blinders VR game called The King’s Ransom! Virtual Reality is getting interesting indeed!

Maze Theory, the Virtual Reality studio that will develop both these amazing games. Are set to receive investment from the UK Creative Content EIS Fund. Furthermore they’ve been awarded a second grant from the Government’s UK Research and Innovation Body, UKRI!

Doctor Who & Peaky Blinders Expansion

Doctor Who franchise expansion will kick off next year! Launching a Playstation, Xbox, PC and switch game. Plus a horror/sci-fi mobile phone takeover game.

The three games create a trilogy of experiences. Doctor Who: The Edge of Time VR was the first.

It will include new mechanics, new subplots and iconic features! Such as the TARDIS, Daleks and the chance to collude with the Doctor herself.

The Kings Ransom, launches in 2021. Tommy Shelby, Arthur Shelby and Polly Gray features. Also it’s set in iconic locations such as The Garrison Pub and Charlies Yard. Furthermore, King’s Ransom will be a narrative driven action adventure!

What they’re saying….

“Maze Theory is evolving to the next level. We know from feedback that fans of shows like Doctor Who and Peaky Blinders crave new and exciting experiences across multiple devices and interwoven stories that create an overall experience far surpassing that of a single game.”

The world is facing challenging times right now, but the gaming sector continues to be resilient in times of economic uncertainty. These investments and our new content initiatives enable us to grow our fanbase and drive our business forward. We remain as committed as ever to delivering brilliant gaming experiences.” Maze Theory CEO, Ian Hambleton

 

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The Best Devices for Streaming TV

The Best Devices for Streaming TV

The Best Devices for Streaming TV

The Best Devices for Streaming TV

Streaming music, films and TV programs is the most popular way to view anything. High Street stores that sell CD’s and DVD’s are disappearing as streaming overtakes buying the physical items. There is more than one reason for this including the fact that they are cheaper to buy and instant, no matter what time of day or night you want to watch them. You can even stream things from other countries, although you may sometimes have to use a VPN to achieve this.

Just as an example, Netflix, which is one of the largest streaming platforms, has a library for each country. If you are a member of Netflix UK and want to watch something from Netflix US, you would need a VPN to fool Netflix into thinking that is where you are located.  Whatever platforms you are watching, what can be more important is the device you are using. Like with everything in this life, there are some that are better than others.

Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K – Voted Best Overall

It seems that the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K is rated the best by the experts and by consumers who buy more of this item than any of the other streaming devices. It lets you view more than 500.000 movies, TV shows from the likes of Netflix, Hulu and HBO, watch live TV, stream music and access sites such as Facebook and YouTube.

It also features Amazon Alexa, which is capable of many things including helping you to choose what to view. Team this with a good laptop and you can stream good quality programs, films and music wherever you are. Laptops such as Lenovo ones, which are durable and reliable, are great for this purpose, but it could be that you have never owned this sort of device before. Then you may want some expert advice on laptop buying, and this is available online. Do your homework and you won’t be disappointed.

As well as streaming, owning a laptop means that you can play games, shop, handle banking transactions and do many other things while on the move.

Chromecast Ultra – Best For Smartphones

If you are looking for the best way to stream things on your smartphone, the Chromecast Ultra could be for you. It offers streaming in HD and HDR as well as 4K Ultra. It plugs into your TV’s HDMI port and will then work with iPhones, iPads and Android devices.

Among the things you can watch or listen to are more than 30 million songs, 200.00 movies and TV programs, sports, radio games and more. Chromecast users can also put websites or their smartphone screen onto their TV.

Netflix Remote

Netflix Remote



Roku Ultra – Most User-Friendly

This is a great choice for streaming fans looking for lots of features. The very user-friendly menu is easy to navigate. Just speak the name of a film, TV program, actor or director into the controller mobile app and it will search them out for you. It has a night mode that will tone down loud noises such as explosions, so that you can watch late at night without disturbing the rest of the household.

The Ultra supports both 4K and HD streaming and with ones of the largest selections of things to watch, it has to be well worth considering.

Apple TV 4 – Best Apple Streaming

Although not the cheapest, Apple TV 4 does have the polished interface that you would expect from an Apple product. It has voice search with Siri and an excellent selection of films, shows, music and anything else you want to view. What will put some people off buying this item is that you have to be part of the Apple ecosystem for it to work at its best.

A notable omission is Google play, but that should not really be a surprise with the Apple versus Android war.

TiVO Bolt OTA With Antenna

This device has been developed for consumers who do not have connects via cables to their TV. It is wireless with antenna so that you do not miss out in all the free programmes from the normal TV channels. It has a memory of 1YB that will let you record up to 150 hours of HD content and can also stream all the services such as Netflix and Hulu.

To benefit the most from this, you have to purchase the box and then pay for the TiVO services, but if you love live sport and network shows, this could be the solution for you. One of its biggest advantages is that you only need one device for everything, although the pricing may deter some people.

Top Tech from CES 2018

CES 2018 TOP 5 – Top Tech from CES 2018

Top Tech from CES 2018

GadgetsBoy joins us this week to check out his Top Tech from CES 2018!

CES Top 5 Tech Bits!

It's CES 2018 and there's lots of great tech that's being shown off! See below our Top 5 pieces of tech from #CES2018, click the link below to hear our thoughts on them from this weeks show with GadgetsBoy here:howtokillanhour.com/shows/ep265Marcus Bronzy Nick Bright Funk Butcher DJ AceVideo Credits:RazerSamsung TVTheverge.comDJILaCieMobilegeeks Deutschland

Posted by How To Kill an Hour on Wednesday, 17 January 2018

Lacie DJI CoPilot

Top Tech from CES 2018 Lacie DJI

Top Tech from CES 2018 Lacie DJI

Lacie’s DJI CoPilot is basically a rugged external hard drive. But for the videographer’s out there. It’s a lot more than that. Who doesn’t want 2TB’s, a back up battery and a SD card reader in one?

Not got USB C? The CoPilot has got you! Use the regular USB or MicroUSB ports. Plug in any piece of media and the CoPilot does the rest, it’s automatically backed up. There’s also a small screen on the front to tell you how much storage is left. Making it great for videographers who don’t want to carry around their laptop ‘just in case’ they run out of space on all their SD cards.  The CoPilot will also charge devices and daisy chain other drives off of it. Simply plug another external HDD into it and your lappy will be able to read and write to it!

 

Samsung’s ‘The Wall’

Top Tech from CES 2018 The Wall

Top Tech from CES 2018 The Wall

Samsung announced at CES a breakthrough in home television technology. A world first. A modular, yes you read that right, a modular. 146-inch TV, that utilizes MicroLED technology. What’s beneficial of MicroLED’s over normal LED’s is that they are much much smaller than them and can serve as their own source of light. Thus vastly reducing the chance of backlight bleeding (as there isn’t a backlight) and burn-in. As well as creating darker blacks and much brighter colours on screen. Plus they draw a lot less power and can save you a lot of money in the long run! Bigger Tv Cheaper to run. Win Win in our books!

 

What’s even more intriguing is the fact that it has a modular design. This allows for a screen that is completely bezel-less and fully customisable to suit a consumers needs. Make the TV as big or as small as you like. You really are only stopped by how big your wall is!

Razer’s Project Linda

Top Tech from CES 2018 Project Linda

Top Tech from CES 2018 Project Linda

Razer’s Project Linda is a Lapdock. Don’t know what a Lapdock is? Basically it’s a laptop that has no internals and basically runs off of your mobile phone. What we’re about to tell you is really cool, but it’s just a prototype at the moment and it may or may not see the light of day. But one can hope!

Project Linda will run off the latest Razer Phone and it looks incredible and fits in well alongside other traditional gaming laptops. The phone sits where a trackpad would be and then you use the laptop traditionally but with a mouse.

Whilst being connected to Project Linda, games will take advantage of having an extra display and display vital stats and other information on the phone’s screen whilst the main action on the laptop screen.

When docked the phone will be charged by Project Linda and whilst the laptop doesn’t have internals per say there is 200gb of internal storage on the device. To store apps, games, media and phone backups. The aim of the device is to bridge the gap between handheld entertainment experience and laptop convenience.

Stats:

  • 13.3” Quad HD 120Hz touchscreen
  • 5.7″ Razer Phone screen can act as a touchpad, second display for stats or touch display for fine editing
  • Keyboard powered by Razer Chroma (Fully customizable laptop keys)
  • 200gb internal storage
  • o.59 inches thin
  • 3.5mm headphone jack

 

LG Rollable TV

Top Tech from CES 2018 LG Rollable Tv

Top Tech from CES 2018 LG Rollable Tv

 

Not to be outdone by Samsungs ‘The Wall” LG showed off a rollable 65″ TV prototype, which has a resolution of 3840 x 2160. (UHD) Much like their Wallpaper series, LG are highlighting to the world what OLED technology can actually do. When we saw the Wallpaper series we were impressed, it’s incredibly thin, yet produces some gorgeous imagery. The fact that it can now be rolled up, one saves space and two, makes it less easy to break. One small caveat of the Wallpaper series is although it was pencil thin, it looked really fragile!

 

Vivo’s In-Screen Fingerprint Reader

Top Tech from 2018 CES Vivo Fingerprint

Top Tech from 2018 CES Vivo Fingerprint (The Verge)

Whilst many of us have iPhone X’s and have got used to FaceID, (so long TouchID, we hardly knew thee) there’s just as many who LOVED touch ID. We know have the notch. The notch we don’t want. There was a lot of will they won’t they prior to the launch of iPhone X in regards to the fingerprint sensor under the screen. While many experts believe that Apple will introduce it on this years iPhone. A Chinese tech firm have beat them to the punch!

Vivo, have announced at CES 2018 a phone that does just that, a phone that’s bezelless and with a fingerprint sensor embedded into the screen. The reader is completely invisible and makes for a super sleek design. The guys over at The Verge have been testing it out for themselves. Whilst they state that the phone and the tech is slow, it works. That’s all that matters. Whether that’s just because we’re used to super quick fingerprint sensors on Apple and Samsung devices is another matter entirely.

The Vivo is using a Synaptics optical sensor. The tech works by looking at the gaps between the pixels on an OLED display and scanning your prints that way. (LCD’s won’t work due to the tech needing a backlight.) The guys over at The Verge did state that whilst this is a breakthrough in tech, no phone has been announced. BUT. An announcement is due imminently.

 

To read more about GadgetsBoy please click here!

Listen to the guys chatting about this by clicking here!

Sonos Play 5

Episode 227 Sonos Play 5

Facebook Videos

Facebook Originals?

Facebook Videos are going to become more than hosts for “OMG I can’t believe he said this” Or  videos with audio that is  NSFW (hate those….).

Facebook are preparing to launch into the world of original programming, according to Business Insider they are planning 24 original shows in June via the company’s new ‘Video’ Tab.

They aren’t playing around either, napping College Humour Co-Founder Ricky Van Veed to lead their efforts and hiring a former MTV exec in Mina Lefevre to take over creating original content which is both scripted/non-scripted. Business Insider report that Facebook are apparently planning to take on both premium content and low budget in the vein of House of Cards and High End YouTube videos.

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!

 

Twitter’s News TV?

Twitter is working to get more money in to help the struggling service by creating a 24hr ad supported rolling news channel in the latter stages of the year from media firm Bloomberg.

The live video stream will include original programming as well as feeds from Bloomberg themselves, Justin Smith, Bloombergs chief exec adding that the stream is going to be much broader in focus that its existing output. Emphasising the importance of many who use Twitter as they watch live events telling the Wall Street Journal:

“Viewers have already embraced a multi-stream experience with live events and marrying those experiences seemed like a very powerful thing to offer to consumers”

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!

Picture of Marcus Bronzy from the How To Kill An Hour Podcast

Episode 156 App store price hike!

The Nvidia Shield is a machine from the future!

The Nvidia Shield has been out for about a year now, but this year Nvidia have outdone themselves with the new and improved Shield with 4K and google built in! We’ve had a go trying out all its features, and it blew us all away. Read more

EP 77 How Flukes Kills Time!