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Spotify Premium Users can get Hulu for Free

Charlotte Henry ·

Spotify Premium users can now access Hulu’s ad-supported tier at no extra cost. However, The Verge said that these users cannot add premium channels, such as Showtime or HBO, to their account alongside Hulu. The deal also excludes those who have a family plan on the music streaming service, but others can access Hulu via the ‘Your Services’ section of an account. This offer is time limited though – it will close on June 10th, 2019.  Hulu recently lowered its pricing to $4.99 a month, following Netflix’s recent price hike.

To take advantage of this deal, new Spotify users can sign up now. Just be sure to activate Hulu on the “Your Services” page within account settings. If you already get Hulu through Spotify, you won’t have to do anything to start saving an extra $3 per month. On the other hand, if you subscribe to Hulu and don’t yet have a Spotify account, you’ll need to cancel your billing through Hulu, then set it up through Spotify to receive the discount.

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You'll do Backflips When You See This Robot do Backflips

John Martellaro ·

As bits and pieces of robot dexterity come together, soon we’ll see some remarkable robot athletes. It’s a glimmer of things to come. The Verge writes:

MIT is back with the latest version of its Cheetah quadrupedal robot, the Mini Cheetah, and it’s got a new trick up its sleeve: it can do backflips.

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TMO Background Mode Special Edition Chat #5 with Kelly Guimont

John Martellaro · · Add Comment

Kelly Guimont is a long-time pro podcaster, Contributing Editor for The Mac Observer, host of the Mac Observer’s Daily Observations podcast, a tech support guru, and a Founding Volunteer of App Camp for Girls.

Kelly first appeared here in December, 2015 to tell her career story and has returned several times for interesting technical discussions. In this encore special edition, we chat about our favorite TV shows of late. John: Star Trek: Discovery, Saving Hope, and Being Erica. Kelly: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Doc Martin, and Wynonna Earp. Join us as we explore together what makes these shows so cool.

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iOS 12.2 Beta 5 Now Available

Charlotte Henry ·

Apple released the fifth developer beta of of iOS 12.2, as well as watchOS 5.2, tvOS 12.2, and macOS 10.14.4 Monday.  9to5 Mac took a look at what we’ve seen in the beta versions released so far and what else is new. iOS 12.2 features focussed on Apple Home smart TV support, and also included Animoji, and the release of  Apple News in Canada.

iOS 12.2 and the related software updates largely focus on supporting smart TVs that work with Apple’s Home app. Other changes include new Animoji characters includuing the new shark, owl, giraffe, and warthog options — plus a few more changes. iOS 12.2 beta 2 also includes changes to the AirPlay icon in Control Center plus AT&T ‘5G E’ in certain markets on certain iPhones and iPads.

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Amazon Echo Still has no Killer Apps

Charlotte Henry ·

Amazon’s Echo range of smart speakers are hugely popular. However, the device has not triggered a huge range of apps, nor standout successes, in the way smartphones did. Both the Apple App Store and Google Play store have far more apps on them, and generate farm more revenue for developers. Bloomberg News spoke to some developers to discover what the issues were.

Echo-branded smart speakers have attracted millions of fans with their ability to play music and respond to queries spoken from across the room. But almost four years after inviting outside developers to write apps for Alexa, Amazon’s voice system has yet to offer a transformative new experience. Surveys show most people use their smart speakers to listen to tunes or make relatively simple requests—“Alexa, set a timer for 30 minutes”—while more complicated tasks prompt them to give up and reach for their smartphone.

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Apple Still Offers Interactive Tour of iPhone 3GS

Andrew Orr ·

As discovered by Reddit, Apple still offers an interactive tour of the iPhone 3GS and all of its features. A tour of the iPhone 4 is available as well.

Meet the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet. iPhone 3GS features video recording, Voice Control, up to 32GB of storage, and more.

It’s so interesting to see how far the iPhone has come in terms of hardware and software. This is a cool blast from the past.

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Companies Affected by Box Enterprise Oopsie

Andrew Orr ·

Dozens of companies—including Apple—have been affected by a Box enterprise leak. Data stored in Box enterprise accounts are private by default. But people can share files and folders, which makes the data publicly accessible.

The discoveries were made by Adversis, a cybersecurity firm, which found major tech companies and corporate giants had left data inadvertently exposed…Using a script to scan for and enumerate Box accounts with lists of company names and wildcard searches, Adversis found more than 90 companies with publicly accessible folders.

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Facebook vs Snapchat is Like Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates

Charlotte Henry ·

Facebook’s so-called «pivot to privacy» has elicited a number of reactions. One of the more incisive ones comes from Kara Swisher. In a New York Times Sunday review column, Ms. Swisher compared Facebook’s attempts to bolster private messaging, in direct competition with Snapchat, to the battle between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. In that case, Mr. Jobs’s «stunning creativity» eventually «won out.» This time, the size of Facebook may mean Mr. Zuckerberg can make a success of the Snapchat model. If he really means it.

Mr. Zuckerberg is to Bill Gates as Mr. Spiegel is to Steve Jobs. Mr. Jobs always had better ideas and vision than Mr. Gates. But Apple spent a long time in dire straits while he pushed his high-level concepts about security, privacy, and design and simplicity. Mr. Gates, on the other hand, was an unqualified genius at business models and systems, and he clearly understood the depressing truth that good enough was good enough for a lot of consumers.