Netflix has unveiled its plans to prevent password sharing between people in households outside of an account owner's primary location. From a report: As reported by gHacks, the streaming service has detailed how it aims to crackdown on account sharing in an updated FAQ. The information varies between countries, but it looks like the company will be paying careful attention to the devices used to log in to accounts from now on. The FAQ pages for US and UK subscribers currently highlight that devices may require verification if they are not associated with the Netflix household or if they attempt to access an account outside the subscriber's primary location for an extended period of time.

The FAQ pages for countries where Netflix is testing extra membership fees for account sharing have tweaked the rules. The Costa Rican Help Center states that devices must connect to the Wi-Fi at the primary location and watch something on Netflix "at least once every 31 days." The company will use information "such as IP addresses, device IDs, and account activity" to determine whether a device signed into an account is connected to the primary location. A device may be blocked from watching Netflix if it's deemed to fall outside of the household. As further set out in the guidelines, if you are the primary account owner and you find yourself travelling between locations, you can request a temporary code to access Netflix for seven consecutive days. Alternatively, you can update your primary location if it has changed.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: The UK Government's Intellectual Property Office published new piracy guidance today, and it contains a small, easily missed detail. People who share their Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Disney+ passwords are violators of copyright law. And it gets worse. The IPO informs TorrentFreak that password sharing could also mean criminal liability for fraud. [...] In a low-key announcement today, the UK Government's Intellectual Property Office announced a new campaign in partnership with Meta, aiming to help people avoid piracy and counterfeit goods online. Other than in the headline, there is zero mention of Meta in the accompanying advice, and almost no advice that hasn't been issued before. But then this appears: "Piracy is a major issue for the entertainment and creative industries. Pasting internet images into your social media, password sharing on streaming services and accessing the latest films, tv series or live sports events through kodi boxes, fire sticks or Apps without paying a subscription all break copyright laws. Not only are you breaking the law but stopping someone earning a living from their hard work."

TorrentFreak immediately contacted the Intellectual Property Office for clarification on the legal side, particularly since password sharing sits under a piracy heading. The IPO's response was uncompromising, to put it mildly. "There are a range of provisions in criminal and civil law which may be applicable in the case of password sharing where the intent is to allow a user to access copyright protected works without payment," the IPO informs TorrentFreak. "These provisions may include breach of contractual terms, fraud or secondary copyright infringement depending on the circumstances." Given that using the "services of a members' club without paying and without being a member" is cited as an example of fraud in the UK, the bar for criminality is set very low, unless the Crown Prosecution Service decides otherwise, of course.

Starting in November, Netflix will roll out its ad-supported tier for $6.99 a month, yet another sign that the onetime disruptive upstart streaming service has slowly become a cable package by another name. From a report: Netflix announced today that its new Basic with Ads tier is slated to launch on November 3rd, 2022, for $6.99 in the US, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, and the UK. In exchange for making you watch an average of four to five ads per hour that run anywhere from 15-30 seconds, Basic with Ads will give subscribers access to a large swath of Netflix's programming but not the platform's full catalog. A small selection of television shows and movies will not be available to Basic with Ads subscribers due to licensing restrictions that Netflix says it's currently working on. Additionally, Basic with Ads subscribers will not be able to download content onto their devices, and video quality is capped at 720p / HD.

"Netflix now has a million fewer subscriptions than rival Disney..." reports the Independent. "But it does not necessarily mean that Netflix has fewer subscribers. If a person is subscribed to two of Disney's offerings, that will count as two subscriptions, and the company does not divulge how many individuals are signed up to its services." (Digital Trends notes that "Following its acquisition of 21st Century Fox, Disney also controls Hulu," as well as the streaming sports site ESPN+.)

If you just want a straight Netflix-to-Disney+ comparison, the Independent reports Netflix with 220.67 million total subscribers, while IndieWire reported that at the end of June, Disney+ had 152.1 million subscribers. (Disney's chief executive says between March and June, Disney+ added 14.4 million subscribers, according to the Independent.)

IndieWire goes on to say that ESPN+ reported 22.8 million subcribers earlier this year, while Hulu had reported 46.2 million subscribers, so, "combined the subscriptions for the individual services making up the Disney Bundle just surpassed Netflix's overall paid global subscriber count." Here, we'll point out that Hulu is still the only one of the Bundle that makes money. However, its operating income declined in Q3, while losses at both Disney+ and ESPN+ increased.

Disney+ is expected to reach profitability in 2024, executives said Wednesday on Disney's Q3 conference call.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BBC: Electronic monitoring of home workers by companies is rising sharply, a survey suggests. The government is being urged to toughen the rules -- and ban most webcam use. "It was creepy," says Chris. "One of my managers was watching people's personal computers to monitor what we were doing at home -- all the time, not just when we were working. It was a bizarre way to carry on." When the first lockdown started, the firm that employed Chris -- a 31-year-old engineer from Sheffield -- sent most of its staff home. They were ordered to connect their private laptop and desktop computers to more powerful office machines so they could continue their high-tech operations. "We didn't mind," says Chris, "but I found loads of screens switched on one day when I came in to the office, and everybody's desktops were there, on display. "One of the managers wasn't just looking at our work. He could see exactly what we were doing all the time -- what we were watching on YouTube, that kind of thing."

Chris, who changed companies after he found out one of his managers was monitoring his home activities, thinks "excessive" surveillance is counter-productive. "My productivity didn't go down when I started working from home," he says, "and when I knew what was happening it made me more nervous. A lot of the time in my job is spent designing things on paper, away from the screen, so that doesn't register if someone is simply looking at what's going on on my desktop. It probably looked to that guy like I was downstairs watching Netflix or something, but I wasn't. It's a very blunt, depersonalizing way of trying to ensure people behave in the way a company wants."

ISPs around the world claim the unprecedented bandwidth demands Netflix's Squid Game is placing on their broadband networks means they should be getting more money. From a report: But experts say that's not how telecom networks work, suggesting that already cash-flush telecom giants are just positioning themselves for an underserved hand out. The popular South Korean thriller, a not so thinly-veiled critique of late-stage capitalism, tracks a group of indebted people who compete in deadly children's games for cash. According to Netflix, Squid Game is the most popular show in company history, the number one program in 94 countries, and has been watched by 142 million households. ISPs around the world also claim the show's popularity is driving a massive surge in bandwidth consumption, and they want their cut.

In South Korea, Internet service provider SK Broadband sued Netflix earlier this month, claiming that between May and September the ISP's network traffic jumped 24 times to 1.2 trillion bits of data processed every second. This surge is Netflix's fault, the ISP insists, and Netflix should be held financially responsible. In the UK, British Telecom executives have been making similar complaints, insisting that Netflix should be forced to help pay for the surge in network traffic caused by the show. But broadband experts say that's not how broadband networks actually work. "It makes no sense for ISPs to cry victim because they provide a popular service, and are expected to provide it," John Bergmayer, telecom expert at consumer group Public Knowledge told Motherboard. "People subscribe to broadband to do things like stream video, and it's broadband customers who are requesting all these Squid Game streams. They are not somehow imposed on ISPs by Netflix."

phalse phace shares a report from The Verge: British Satellite broadcaster Sky is moving away from the satellite dishes that have defined its TV service for decades. Sky Glass is launching today, an ambitious effort to sell television sets that stream Sky TV content over Wi-Fi directly to consumers. There's no external box, no satellite dish, and no need for a soundbar. Although announced for the UK today, Sky has global aspirations for Glass TV "built on technology borne of the collaboration as part of the Comcast Corporation." As such, we might be looking at the platform underpinning Comcast's rumored XClass TVs for the US. Sky Glass TVs will be available in three sizes: 43-inch, 55-inch, and 65-inch. Each 4K TV will stream Sky's TV channels, and integrates in voice control (Hello Sky) and 21 apps to access additional content like Netflix, Spotify, or Disney Plus.

Sky hasn't named the TV manufacturer it partnered with yet, but the full specifications include a UHD Quantum Dot display, support for Dolby Vision, HDR 10, HLG, three HDMI 2.1 ports, and a single USB-C port. The rather chubby TV fits six speakers for up to 215W of Dolby Atmos surround sound: 3 outward firing speakers, 2 upward, and 1 central subwoofer. There will also be five color options: white, pink, green, blue, and black. The price of a Sky Glass TV is designed to be baked into a monthly subscription to Sky's TV service, known as Sky Ultimate TV, but you can also pay for the TV upfront if you want to lower the monthly costs. Sky Ultimate TV includes access to Netflix and some basic Sky channels, but Sky Sports and Sky Cinema are separate add-ons. What you pay will depend on the size of TV and whether you want to spread payments. The report goes on to note Sky's collaboration with Microsoft to watch TV together with others. "Sky demonstrated a software experience that allows you to watch TV channels with others, and see each other's reactions to sport in real time," reports The Verge.

Furthermore, Sky claims it'll be the first TV manufacturer in the world to allow customers to "swap old Sky Glass TVs for newer models when they're available," the report adds.

Comcast appears to be planning to offer TVs running its own software across at least two territories, according to recent reports from Protocol and The Financial Times. It comes a little more than a week after Amazon announced that it too will be getting into the TV set business. The Verge reports: In the US, the TVs will reportedly be branded as XClass TVs. Originally manufactured by Hisense, the 43 and 50-inch sets will run Comcast's X1 operating system, which is already found on its set-top boxes and Xfinity Flex streaming box. An Xfinity landing site confirms the "XClass TV" branding, while an FAQ spotted by Protocol says they'll aggregate "your favorite apps, live channels, and On Demand movies and shows together in one place."

Meanwhile in the UK, Comcast subsidiary Sky is reportedly planning to launch smart TVs of its own. The FT's report doesn't mention what operating system these TVs are likely to run. Sky already operates its Sky Q platform in the country, which currently runs on set-top boxes and shows satellite broadcasts alongside video streamed from services like Netflix and Disney Plus. As Protocol notes, the initiatives appear to be Comcast's attempt to insulate itself as customers turn away from traditional cable and satellite plans in favor of streaming services. By offering a platform that competes with the likes of Roku, Comcast would be able to maintain its direct relationship with customers. It could then aggregate content from other streaming providers alongside its own Peacock and Xumo streaming services. Controlling the viewing platform also gives Comcast and its subsidiaries the ability to negotiate with streaming providers to offer them better prominence on its platforms, the FT notes.

The co-founder of Arm has said that if the government does not stop the $40 billion takeover of the British chip designer, its proposed buyer, Nvidia, will become the next US tech monopoly alongside companies such as Google and Facebook. From a report: Detailing his concerns in a letter to the House of Commons foreign affairs committee, Hermann Hauser said that a deal would end Arm's position as the "Switzerland of the semiconductor industry." Arm, which employs 6,500 staff, including 3,000 in the UK, is a global leader in designing chips for smartphones, computers and tablets. "There is not a single important semiconductor company in the world which does not have an Arm licence," said Hauser. "Nvidia has an opportunity to become the quasi monopoly supplier of microprocessors to the world. This [deal] will give Nvidia a dominant position in all processor segments and create another US technology monopoly which has created so much angst in Britain when the country worries about the surreptitiously controlling influence Google, Facebook, Netflix and Amazon has on the UK economy." Hauser argued that because Nvidia is one of more than 500 Arm licensees worldwide, becoming the Cambridge-based business's parent company will destroy its "even-handed" model and ultimately kill the world-leading British tech firm. "Technology sovereignty is fast becoming the defining issue of the decade," said Hauser. "Given the importance of our IT infrastructure, which is correctly compared with our water and electricity infrastructure, [the takeover] clearly relates to national security as well."

Lockdown measures enforced due to the Covid-19 pandemic brought about a surge in TV watching and online streaming, according to media watchdog Ofcom. From a report: Its annual study into UK media habits suggested adults -- many stuck indoors -- spent 40% of their waking hours in front of a screen, on average. Time spent on subscription streaming services also doubled during April. At the height of lockdown, adults spent an average of six hours and 25 minutes each day staring at screens. Screen time overall was up almost a third (31%) on last year. People watched streaming services, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+, for one hour 11 minutes per day, and 12 million people joined a service they hadn't used previously. Three million of these viewers had never subscribed to any service before.

"Imagine being able to download every single movie and TV show on Netflix in less than a second," writes Gizmodo: Researchers at University College London have the ability to do that with a new world record they set for fastest internet — 178 terabits a second, or 178,000 Gbps. Lecturer and Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow Dr. Lidia Galdino and team collaborated with Xtera and KDDI Research on the project. According to UCL's announcement, that speed is "double the capacity of any system currently deployed in the world."

To get that insanely fast speed, UCL researchers used a greater range of wavelengths than what's typically used in fiber-optic cables and different amplifier technologies to boost the signal. Fiber-optic cables tend to absorb signals (well, the photons that are transmitted through the cable to make the signal) after a few miles because of the material the cables are made out of. Repeaters, which are like a wifi extender, are needed to re-transmit those signals so they can travel for a longer distance. So what the researchers managed to do is not only extend the signal, but also massively amplify it... 5G on the high-band or millimeter wave spectrum operates on 24 GHz and above and can transmit data up to at rate of 1 to 3 Gbps. But the internet speed Dr. Galdino and team achieved uses a 16.8THz bandwidth to get 178,000Gbps. Makes 5G seem rather slow when you put those numbers side by side.

This kind of system would be cheap to integrate with our existing internet infrastructure, too. According to UCL, upgrading amplifiers at certain intervals would be a fraction of what it would cost to install new optical fiber cables, roughly $21,100 every 25-62 miles (40-100 km) versus $594,000 every 0.62 miles (1 km), based on today's conversation rate of £1 to $1.32). This sounds like it could be a worthwhile solution to help shrink the digital divide, something that the current pandemic has further illustrated the seriousness of.

A new study on kids' app usage and habits indicates a major threat to YouTube's dominance, as kids now split their time between Google's online video platform and other apps, like TikTok, Netflix and mobile games like Roblox. From a report: Kids ages four to 15 now spend an average of 85 minutes per day watching YouTube videos, compared with 80 minutes per day spent on TikTok. The latter app also drove growth in kids' social app use by 100% in 2019 and 200% in 2020, the report found. The data in the annual report by digital safety app maker Qustodio was provided by 60,000 families with children ages four to 14 in the U.S., U.K. and Spain, so its data isn't representative of global trends. The research encompasses children's online habits from February 2019 to April 2020, takes into account the COVID-19 crisis and is specifically focused on four main categories of mobile applications: online video, social media, video games and education. YouTube, not surprisingly, remains one of the most-used apps among children, the study found. Kids are now watching twice as many videos per day as they did just four years ago.

A community effort to improve the internet's routing security has won the backing of some of the web's biggest names. From a report: Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Akamai, and Netflix, among others, have signed up to the Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRS) group, in their roles as content delivery networks (CDNs) and cloud providers (CPs). MANRS's goal is to shore up the internet's lax security when it comes to routing people's connections around Earth. It is, essentially, depending on the circumstances, too easy for miscreants to hijack and redirect internet traffic from legit servers to malicious machines so that web browsing and other online activities can be snooped on or meddled with. This widespread issue is something that has become increasingly important in the past few years as the number and size of connectivity breakdowns and attacks on the global system have grown. Criminals and possibly government spies have realized the potential that exists in snatching people's internet traffic for surveillance, disruption, and theft. The MANRS group pushes four main approaches, two technical and two cultural: filtering, anti-spoofing, and then coordination and validation.

Amazon's Prime Video, the world's second-largest streaming service, is set to join YouTube and Netflix in reducing the speed of its streams across Europe to make sure broadband networks can handle the surge in usage as millions are confined to their homes. From a report: It is understood that the BBC is discussing whether to implement similar temporary measures for the iPlayer, which has the largest UK audience of any streaming service, along with Disney+, which launches across most of western Europe and the UK next week. An Amazon Prime Video spokesman said: "We support the need for careful management of telecom services to ensure they can handle the increased internet demand, with so many people now at home full-time due to Covid-19. Prime Video is working with local authorities and internet service providers where needed to help mitigate any network congestion, including in Europe, where we've already begun the effort to reduce streaming bitrates while maintaining a quality streaming experience for our customers."

A new leak of more than 100,000 documents from Cambridge Analytica's work in 68 different countries "will lay bare the global infrastructure of an operation used to manipulate voters on 'an industrial scale,'" writes the Guardian.

Long-time Slashdot reader Freshly Exhumed shares their report: The release of documents began on New Year's Day on an anonymous Twitter account, @HindsightFiles, with links to material on elections in Malaysia, Kenya and Brazil. The documents were revealed to have come from Brittany Kaiser, an ex-Cambridge Analytica employee turned whistleblower, and to be the same ones subpoenaed by Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Kaiser, who starred in the Oscar-shortlisted Netflix documentary The Great Hack, decided to go public after last month's election in Britain. "It's so abundantly clear our electoral systems are wide open to abuse," she said. "I'm very fearful about what is going to happen in the US election later this year, and I think one of the few ways of protecting ourselves is to get as much information out there as possible."

The documents were retrieved from her email accounts and hard drives, and though she handed over some material to parliament in April 2018, she said there were thousands and thousands more pages which showed a "breadth and depth of the work" that went "way beyond what people think they know about 'the Cambridge Analytica scandal....'" Kaiser said the Facebook data scandal was part of a much bigger global operation that worked with governments, intelligence agencies, commercial companies and political campaigns to manipulate and influence people, and that raised huge national security implications.

Netflix is to raise prices for UK subscribers by up to 20% as it looks to invest more in programmes ahead of the arrival of deep-pocketed rival Disney's eagerly anticipated service later this year. From a report: The streaming company, which has not raised prices in the UK since 2017, is increasing the cost of a standard plan by 1 Pound ($1.26) to 8.99 Pound ($11.3) and premium by 2 Pound ($2.52) to 11.99 Pound ($15.1). The price of a basic plan remains unchanged at 5.99 Pound ($7.5). The company, which has 10 million UK subscribers, said new customers will pay the higher rates immediately, while the increases will be implemented for existing users "over the coming weeks." Netflix has already raised prices in the US, as well as a number of markets in Latin America and the Caribbean that also use US dollars, with increases across western Europe also expected.

Smart TV manufacturer Vizio has formed a partnership with nine media and advertising companies to develop an industry standard that will allow smart TVs to target advertisements to specific households, the companies said this week. From a report: The consortium includes major TV networks like Comcast Corp's NBCUniversal and CBS, as well as advertising technology companies like AT&T's Xandr. Addressable advertising, or targeting viewers on the household level based on their interests, has long been the goal of TV marketers. But TVs lack cookies that internet browsers use to allow ads to follow people around the web. [...] The consortium of companies, dubbed Project OAR, or Open Addressable Ready, hopes to define the technical standards for TV programmers and platforms to deliver addressable advertising on smart TVs, which are WiFi-enabled TVs with apps for services like Netflix Inc and Hulu, by the end of this year, McAfee said. Further reading: In January this year, Bill Baxter, chief technology officer of Vizio, spoke about business of data collection in an interview. He said: It's about post-purchase monetization of the TV. This is a cutthroat industry. It's a 6-percent margin industry, right? I mean, you know it's pretty ruthless. You could say it's self-inflicted, or you could say there's a greater strategy going on here, and there is. The greater strategy is I really don't need to make money off of the TV. I need to cover my cost. And then I need to make money off those TVs. They live in households for 6.9 years -- the average lifetime of a Vizio TV is 6.9 years. You would probably be amazed at the number of people come up to me saying, "I love Vizio TVs, I have one" and it's 11 years old. I'm like, "Dude, that's not even full HD, that's 720p." But they do last a long time and our strategy -- you've seen this with all of our software upgrades including AirPlay 2 and HomeKit -- is that we want to make things backward compatible to those TVs. So we're continuing to invest in those older TVs to bring them up to feature level comparison with the new TVs when there's no hardware limitation that would otherwise prevent that.

"The BBC, the UK's national broadcaster, and ITV, the biggest private player in the UK market, are in the 'concluding phase of talks' to create a rival to Netflix," writes Slashdot reader AmiMoJo. The BBC's director general Tony Hall said the aim was to launch the "BritBox" rival to Netflix in the UK the second half of 2019. Neither organisation would say how the services would be priced, but Lord Hall said it would be "competitive". There are reports it could cost £5 a month.

A similar service, also called BritBox, is already available in the US and has amassed 500,000 subscribers.
Their announcement promises "an unrivalled collection of British boxsets and original series, on demand, all in one place." Diginomica writes that "the more cynical among us" might call it "a knee-jerk reaction to Netflix," adding "the BBC has a bad case of Netflix envy."

They ask where this would leave future BBC-Netflix joint productions -- and whether BBC content would be removed from both Netflix and Amazon. But they also believe that if there is a threat to Netflix, it's the upcoming Disney+ streaming service with original Star Wars content scheduled to launch in late 2019.

According to new research from marketing technology firm Audience Project, the majority (57%) of UK customers would stop watching Netflix if commercials were introduced, and even lowering subscriptions would cause a significant drop off of 42%. Here are some of the other key findings: - In the UK, Netflix takes the lion's share of the streaming audience at 70%, followed by BBC iPlayer (61%). Interestingly, YouTube, ITV Player and All4, all of which host ads, saw a decline.

- TV is still the preferred streaming device in the UK used by 42% of respondents.

- Streaming is on the rise particularly amongst the young, with almost as many 15-25 year olds streaming/downloading (63%) as watching traditional TV (65%) "This is proof, if it were needed, that Netflix is right to focus on growing through its investment in content rather than considering hosting advertising any time soon," Netimperative reports.

Martyn Bentley, Commercial Director UK at Audience Project, comments: "Our findings highlight the growing importance of targeting and relevance in advertising. As consumers have increasing choice over whether or not they see ads, both broadcasters and advertisers alike need to work hard to ensure that campaigns enhance experience, rather than detract -- plus it suggests that greater inroads need to be made with Connected TV as a means to help tailor advertising at a granular level."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Independent: A video software firm has come up with a way to prevent people from sharing their account details for Netflix and other streaming services with friends and family members. UK-based Synamedia unveiled the artificial intelligence software at the CES 2019 technology trade show in Las Vegas, claiming it could save the streaming industry billions of dollars over the next few years. The AI system developed by Synamedia uses machine learning to analyze account activity and recognize unusual patterns, such as account details being used in two locations within similar time periods. The idea is to spot instances of customers sharing their account credentials illegally and offering them a premium shared account service that will authorize a limited level of password sharing. The company said it is already carrying out trials with a number of pay-TV operators but did not reveal which ones.