Vizta DGTL, a game studio based in Berlin, hopes to set the fashion world ablaze with Kutur Runway, a fashion game that embraces role-playing game mechanics, social platforms and realistic 3D graphics.
The Berlin company believes the market opportunities created by early fashion games like Covet Fashion will become bigger with a fresh take — such as a social platform and a more modern approach to gaming, said founder Nicola Mizon and CEO Tung Nguyen-Khac in an interview with GamesBeat on a recent trip to Riyadh.
“It’s a lifestyle-driven platform. We start with a fashion game that combines strategy and RPG elements,” Nguyen-Khac said.
Vizta Digital plans to release its mobile-first product in 2025. The game will have the seamless integration of RPG mechanics, competitive styling and an innovative monetization system. The game is in alpha testing now and it is working toward a full launch in the middle of next year, Nguyen-Khac said.
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Mizon, founder, said in our chat, “We’re creating a fashion game project at the intersection of technology, fashion, games and commerce. So the hypothesis is that women are underserved in the game market. This is something that everyone knows, and we know that the majority of people playing games on mobile are females. We want to make games for women designed by women.”
Mizon said the flagship product, Kutur Runway, will be a mobile game that merges high-end fashion with immersive 3D gameplay, creating a platform at the intersection of two multi-billion-dollar industries: fashion and gaming.
“We think there’s definitely a need for more fashion gaming products. So what we wanted to create was a big product that brings all of these components together and really innovates in the space. You’ve played fashion games before, like Covet Fashion. But we wanted to create something that will innovate in two ways. One is with the visuals. So really having visuals that stand out, and I’m trying to so really have visuals that have that level of fidelity that will really appeal to the B2B audience as well.”
The leaders have both fashion game experience and fashion industry expertise, and they hope to wow fashion enthusiasts by bringing together different brands across the space. They also want to enlist help from creators and fashion celebrities.
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Blending worlds
Artwork for Kutur Runway
At its core, Kutur Runway merges RPG mechanics with a dynamic fashion world, allowing players to script their fashion legacy through head-to-head Style Trials. These trials transform the runway into a battleground where creativity reigns supreme, challenging players to craft stunning ensembles and outshine rivals in themed challenges.
The company has a small internal team and a number of contractors. In that sense, it’s a lean operation. The team has experience from brands such as Disney, Sony, Universal, Amazon, Nickelodeon, Agatha Christie, and Luc Besson, Vizta DGTL is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of gaming and delivering quality experiences to players worldwide. The company is targeting players from Gen Z to young adults (ages 15 to 35 years old).
The team hopes to set Kutur Runway apart by embracing a forward-thinking fashion perspective, developed by gamers to ensure an immersive and inclusive journey that seamlessly merges fashion and gaming. Leveraging advanced technology, including AI and web3 components, the game introduces a new level of interactivity and possibilities.
Additionally, through Web3 integration, Kutur Runway pioneers unique ownership and trading opportunities for in-game fashion assets, reshaping the landscape of digital collectibles and enhancing player engagement.
In addition to its creative features, Kutur Runway prioritizes inclusivity and diversity, ensuring every player feels represented, safe, and encouraged. This commitment extends to empowering players through intuitive creator tools, utilizing AI to unlock unprecedented creative opportunities in designing garments. With these tools, players can push the boundaries of user-generated content, shaping a fashion landscape that reflects the richness and diversity of their imagination.
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Players can collect garments with unique stats and rarity levels through various means such as crafting, purchasing in-game, or via partner marketplaces. Style Trials allow players to showcase their skills by creating looks that fit the presented criteria, with garments judged based on overall subjective appeal and given scores based on their “power.”
And players will have the capability to directly share their creations on their social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, empowering them to use their designs for content creation and further amplifying their influence in the fashion community beyond the game.
Nicola Mizon is founder of Vizta DGTL.
“You have to go somewhere where the audience is, especially the audience for tomorrow,” Nguyen-Khac said. “Gaming is actually one of the platforms where it makes so much sense. If we think bigger than a game, and think about a platform, then the opportunity moves beyond just one experience.”
Nguyen-Khac added, “We can create multiple experiences, and create this overarching platform where we can engage players with experiences around” a variety of fashion games under the lifestyle umbrella.
There is still some hope that metaverse experience will be driven by fashion. Tung believes metaverse-like games have existed for years in the form of massively multiplayer online games, where the social platform is key to holding on to the audience.
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“We want to focus on making sure that the core experience, the technology, is where it needs to be,” Tung said.
It aims to have in-game purchases, VIP memberships, advertising and sponsorships, Web3 digital item trading and a second-hand marketplace.
The purpose of the game for the player is to become the most famous and influential fashion designer and stylist in the Kutur universe, all while expressing personal creativity, mastering fashion trends, and competing with or collaborating with others. One vs one or in groups vs groups. The player’s journey is one of growth, both in terms of skill and social influence, culminating in becoming a trendsetting icon in the game’s world.
The storyline of Kutur Runway is designed to take the player on a journey from being a local, fashion-obsessed individual to becoming a globally renowned fashion influencer. Set in a visually stunning, high-fashion digital world, the player starts out as a fresh face in the fashion scene, entering competitions, working on their style, and progressively leveling up their fashion skills and influence.
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Throughout the game, players meet influential in-game characters, including other fashion influencers, designers, and even rivals, who challenge their style and creativity.
There could be some user-generated content. Some brands might be OK with that, but others may shy away from it. The company will focus on where the brands are comfortable.
The storyline unfolds through fashion challenges, quests, and interactions with these characters, each of which pushes the player toward greater mastery in the fashion world. The player navigates this world while building their personal brand, unlocking prestigious partnerships with real-world fashion brands, and gaining followers as they rise through the ranks.
Kutur’s planned AI-powered fashion creator tool will democratize fashion design by allowing players to create custom pieces without formal fashion education. This powerful feature will enable everyone to become a virtual fashion designer, fostering creativity and accessibility.
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Partnerships
Matthias Meyer-Lutterloh of Vizta DGTL.
Vizta Digital was founded in Berlin in 2023 by Mizon, Matthias Meyer-Lutterloh and Nguyen-Khac. The combination of gaming and fashion expertise is paying off in partnerships.
Meyer-Lutterloh is an accomplished fashion and lifestyle and interior design designer. He worked on collections for prestigious brands including Bogner, Miss Sixty, Calvin Klein, Armani, Jean-Paul Gaultier, and Zara.
And Vizta DGTL has partnerships with Vogue in Singapore, Sleek Media, Fashion.tv, TheSoul Publishing and Donald Schneider, a fashion innovation and collaboration expert, with experience in high-profile fashion projects and partnerships at Vogue Paris, H&M, and Karl Lagerfeld.
The partnerships with fashion designers and entertainers are meant to bring together fashion, music and lifestyle brands together. It also plans to partner with influencers and creators and the company hopes to partner with top model franchises and put models in the game that look realistic.
The company said it values sustainability, diversity, inclusivity and platforms that can scale. Leading fashion houses are showing interest for in-game collaborations, and the company believes it can move into related verticals too.
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Funding and origins
Tung Nguyen-Khac is CEO of Vizta DGTL.
The initial funding of around $1.5 million came from angels, Sisu Game Ventures, and Lyrik Ventures. It also received grants from Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (which finances films) and the Near Foundation. Angels included Mike Lee (founder of MyFitnessPal and former chief digital officer of Under Armour) and Heiko Hubertz (founder of Bigpoint, among others). The first round came in more than a year ago.
Vizta Digital has an experienced founding team consisting of Nicola Mizon, Matthias Meyer-Lutterloh and Tung Nguyen-Khac. Together, they combine many years of expertise in the fashion world as well as in game development, game publishing and distribution and live game operations.
For example, Matthias Meyer-Lutterloh has worked as a fashion designer with renowned brands such as Bogner, Max Mara, Jean Paul Gaultier, Miss Sixty and Calvin Klein. He is also a sought-after expert in the Web3 environment and is currently Head of NFT at the European Blockchain Association.
Web3 technologies are also used to enable digital ownership and the sharing of designed fashion items. It can offer players ownership of exclusive digital fashion items, adding real-world value to virtual collections.
Insights from years ago
Vizta DGTL is blending games and fashion.
Nicola Mizon founded the company in 2023. But while the company is young, the team collected insights from years ago. Mizon had experience at both Spil Games and Aeria Games. Nguyen-Khac was the CEO at Spil Games, Aeria Games and Pro7Sat1.Games. He was also managing partner at Bigpoint and strategic adviser to Deca Games and Kongregate.
At Spil Games, Nguyen-Khac oversaw an operation with 300 million monthly active users, and about 60% were females playing dress-up and makeover games. The quality of the old Flash games wasn’t that good, but there was a lot of engagement nevertheless.
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“We think that there is a huge gap that needs to filled because the market is so underserved and the technology has come so much further,” Nguyen-Khac said. “It’s more important for the fashion brands as a platform to be there. It’s a perfect moment where things are coming together, and where it makes more sense to be in the market where there are 3.5 billion players and 1.2 billion of them are female. About 60% of them are interested in fashion. That’s a very good foundation.”
There are a lot of hypercasual games in the category, but much of the titles are dress-up or makeover games.
“There was a moment where we saw adult women have the desire for the games, but they’re playing these hyper casual dress up and makeover games because there’s nothing else out there in the market for them,” Mizon said.
The competition
Brands want to move into gaming and they’re getting into Roblox and Fortnite.
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“But some brands don’t want to look like either Roblox or Fortnite. They want to look good and luxurious. So that’s one of the aspects where we wanted to innovate. We want to push, first of all, mobile technology to make a beautiful game for women. And then we wanted to also have the core gameplay itself that delivers a familiar dress up experience that we know women love,” she said.
“But we want to innovate on the meta gameplay. Really add layers of meta gameplay. So we know women like that because you’ve seen how doing that disrupted the match-3 space. The team will add RPG features so women can level up,” she said.
Covet Fashion is still generating perhaps $40 million in profits a year, even though the game is 10 years old. While Covet Fashion paved the way, it did not succeed in creating a much bigger category that could serve all of the demand for fashion games in the market.
“The thesis we have is that the segment has been underserved,” Mizon said. “It’s ripe for innovation. And that’s the thing. That audience is still loyal. They’re still spending because women are the most sticky demographic, and the ones that actually spend more than men. We know that audience, as soon as we present something to them in the market that’s true and fresh, is something that we can take.”
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There are also orphan gamers who have seen their games, like Kim Kardashian, disappear. The game is competitive because women are competitive in social settings, Mizon said.
“But the games for them present them with a PvP experience that is super shallow,” Mizon said. “I get two choices and pick which one I want. We’re building a social platform that allows women to interact with each other.”
You can imagine a game where fashion houses compete to take over sections of Paris. In the game, you can start a fashion house and then compete against other fashion houses. The community can vote on who has the winning designs. It’s not so different from Covet Fashion in that sense, but with more realism.
“We are trying to create a fresh experience,” Tung said.
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Social networking startup Bluesky, which just reported a gain of half a million users over the past day, has now soared into the top 5 apps on the U.S. App Store and has become the No. 2 app in the Social Networking category, up from No. 181 a week ago, according to data from app intelligence firm Appfigures. The growth is entirely organic, we understand, as Appfigures confirmed the company is not running any App Store Search Ads.
In addition, the growth is not limited to the U.S. market, either. A number of countries are showing four-digit growth in downloads, compared to last Wednesday, leading Bluesky to enter the top 10 in countries like Japan, Thailand, and Taiwan, where it’s No. 1; Hong Kong, where it’s No. 2; Canada and South Korea, where it’s No. 4; and Singapore, where it’s No. 8.
While data on the app’s growth on Google Play is delayed, the early indications are that it’s rising there, too. At 4 AM EST, the app moved from No. 100 on the Android app store to No. 5 in the Social Networking category and is continuing to climb.
Appfigures can’t yet account for Bluesky’s claimed half a million new users over the course of a day, but its estimates do confirm a massive growth spurt. So far, the firm is seeing 197,000 new installs on the App Store on Thursday, up from just 3.4K the day prior. The majority of those — 80K, or 40% — came from the U.S. Japan also contributed with 53K installs (27%), and downloads have grown by 4 digits in around 90 total countries, Appfigures tells TechCrunch.
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As to what’s driving the surge, there are likely several factors working in combination.
On X, users are understandably upset over the company’s decision to change how the block function operates. Soon, users with public accounts can have their X posts viewed by anyone, including those they’ve blocked, unlike before. Blocked users will only be prevented from engaging with those posts by liking, replying, and reposting, for instance. That introduces a safety issue for many who use the platform but face harassment and abuse, and for some, it was the final straw.
X may also still be feeling the effects from the earlier Brazil ban, though lifted, which saw some active users from that region making the shift to Bluesky, possibly pulling their followers with them.
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Plus, Bluesky could be benefitting from the moderation issues plaguing Threads, which saw users getting their accounts banned or their posts downranked for no reason. (Meta had partially attributed the problem to internal software used by Threads’ moderators.)
In any event, X isn’t yet feeling the impacts of the changes, adding 17K more downloads between Tuesday and Thursday. However, the app is no longer in the U.S. App Store’s top 10, now sitting at No. 29. The Elon Musk-owned app is seeing a mild downward trend, Appfigures says, but this is in line with the entire news category in the U.S. App Store being down 8.4% this year.
Bluesky has seen big surges before, including when it opened its doors to the public after a long invite-only phase and more recently, when Brazil banned X, driving half a million new users to the social networking startup over the first two days of the ban, and more in the days that followed.
Google’s NotebookLM now lets you customize its podcast-like Audio Overviews. Before you generate a discussion using the note-taking app, you can give your AI hosts instructions about what topic you’d like them to focus on, or even tailor their discussions for different audiences.
Google launched NotebookLM’s Audio Overviews last month, with two AI hosts that offer a “lively” discussion of your research. The company notes that its Audio Overviews aren’t meant to be a “comprehensive or objective overview of a topic” and are “simply a reflection of the sources that you’ve uploaded and any instructions you provide.”
To customize the chat, open up a notebook in NotebookLM, select “Notebook guide,” and then navigate to the “Deep dive conversation” option. From there, hit “Customize,” and enter instructions that you want your AI hosts to follow. NotebookLM will then generate a conversation based on the directions you’ve provided.
In addition to taking the “experimental” label off NotebookLM, Google is introducing background listening for Audio Overviews, allowing you to listen to the AI hosts’ discussion while you work in other areas of the app. Last month, Google also added the ability for NotebookLM to dig deeper into YouTube videos with transcriptions.
You can buy a lot for $15,000 even in this day and age – that fee could bag you 54 years of Netflix Premium, about 94 pairs of Nike sneakers or even a Caddy (albeit one of the, ahem, slightly less commercially successful models). Or, it could buy you the huge chunk of analog hi-fi heaven you see in the image above – and I’ll bet it tracks just as smoothly…
What you’re looking at is Pro-Ject’s latest flagship turntable masterpiece, theSignature 12.2. It weighs over 80 lbs – the platter alone comes in at 23lb – and comprises over 100 “high-precision CNC-machined parts”.
The company tells me all manufacturing is done in-house at Pro-Ject’s factory, “keeping costs down and passing savings along to serious vinyl enthusiasts” (so, it’s a bargain really – although if it’s budget-friendly you’re after, you might want to look at the company’s new three-strong T1 Evo range rather than this top-end model).
The 12-inch tonearm uses a new three-point pivot for extra stability, with the DIN plug conveniently located at the rear of the arm’s base. Pro-Ject says the anti-skate and counterweight portions have also been simplified to offer finer degrees of adjustment and the vertical tracking angle (VTA) can be adjusted with a single thumb screw.
I feel the need, the need for speed…
That huge platter is TPE-damped on the underside with an integrated vinyl mat on top. Your chosen record is also clamped onto the platter with the help of the Signature Record Puck, which comes with your purchase. How has Pro-Ject relieved tension on what it calls the “flawless ceramic ball” bearing? A magnet around the inverted bearing well opposes another magnet embedded in the plinth, encircling the stainless-steel shaft. Everything here is geared towards speed stability, with Pro-Ject’s DC-driven AC generator in the driver’s seat.
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Pro-Ject says the MDF plinth is “mass-loaded” with steel pellets, thus drawing resonance away from the platter and cartridge. Its conical, spring-loaded feet can also be adjusted from the top of the plinth – a great perk considering its weight (you don’t want to lift this thing regularly if you value your spinal health).
The Pro-Ject Signature 12.2 will begin shipping in the US in November 2024, retailing for $14,999, which is around £11,497 or AU$22,350 – and remember, that doesn’t include a cartridge. Will it be one of the best turntables out there? I really hope so. I mean, look at it…
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Donald Trump has claimed he received a phone call on Thursday from Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook, in which the tech boss shared concerns about the European Union.
He says Mr Cook told him he was concerned about recent financial penalties issued by the EU, which ordered Apple to pay Ireland €13bn (£11bn; $14bn) in unpaid taxes in September.
Mr Trump, who is running as the Republican candidate for the upcoming US Presidential Election, made the claim in a podcast released on Thursday.
The BBC has asked Apple for a response.
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Mr Trump told presenter Patrick Bet-David in his appearance on the PBD Podcast that Mr Cook had called him a few hours prior to complain about fines the company was forced to pay after breaching EU rules.
He said Mr Cook had told him about a recent $15bn fine from the EU, to which Mr Trump said he responded “that’s a lot”.
“Then on top of that, they got fined by the European Union another $2bn,” Mr Trump continued, “so it’s a $17-18bn fine.”
According to Mr Trump, the Apple chief executive went on to make a remark about the EU using the money received via antitrust fines to run an “enterprise”.
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Antitrust fines paid by firms which breach EU competition rules go towards the bloc’s general budget and “help to finance the EU and reduce the burden for taxpayers,” the Commission’s website states.
A Commission spokesperson said antitrust fines are designed to sanction companies that have breached competition rules, as well as deter them and others from engaging in anti-competitive behaviour.
“When determining the amount of the fine, the Commission considers both the gravity and the duration of the infringement,” they told BBC News.
“All companies are welcome in the EU, provided they respect our rules and legislation.”
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Mr Trump said he told Mr Cook he would not let the EU “take advantage of our companies”, but he needed to “get elected first”.
The former president has spent some of his campaign trying to woo prominent tech figures, with Tesla and X (formerly Twitter) boss Elon Musk among those backing Mr Trump.
He also said he spoke to Google boss Sundar Pichai earlier this week, and claims to have had multiple calls with Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg in August.
Mr Musk and the heads of several large tech firms have criticised the EU’s approach to regulating their platforms.
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The bloc has set of rules and requirements that firms must comply with in order to offer digital products and services in the region.
These include the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and its Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act.
Its two digital laws aim to rein in powerful “gatekeeper” tech companies, provide more choice for consumers and protect users of online platforms or services from illegal or harmful content.
Apple has previously claimed that opening up services including its app store to third parties, as required by the DMA, could be bad for users.
Whether you’ve been shopping today’s best TV deals or already have a great home theater setup, you’re going to need to get some great content onscreen. And if you’re hoping to take in the best new movies to stream on Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Max, or anything else, you can do so with some savings by checking out the current streaming deals. With so many streaming services out there nowadays, we thought we’d put all of the best streaming deals in one place for your convenience. You’ll find them all below, and if you still need a device to watch on don’t miss out on today’s best laptop deals, best tablet deals, and best phone deals.
Getting right into it, Amazon Prime Video, specifically, does not have a free trial. However, Amazon Prime subscribers do get access to Prime Video with their retail subscription, and that has a free trial. There’s a catch, though. If you signed up for an Amazon Prime free trial before, or have had Prime, either as a trial or paid membership, any time in the last 12 months the trial isn’t available. If you haven’t, and you meet the eligibility, you can sign up for a Prime free trial for up to a month.
The monthly membership for Prime costs $180 per year, at $15 per month for 12 months, but an annual Prime membership is cheaper at $139. The average cost of the annual fee is about $11.60 per month, saving you $41. There is also Amazon Freevee, which is a free, with ads, service that allows you to watch select original content, live TV, movies, and shows for free, just like cable TV.
Home to fan-favorites like The Walking Dead, Mad Men, Hell on Wheels, Mayfair Witches, Dark Winds, and more original shows, AMC+ takes the channel online. The AMC+ free trial gives you seven days to stream content on the service for free, as long as you’re a new customer. After those seven days are up, you’ll have to pay $5 per month for the basic plan with ads, or $9 per month for the ad-free plan.
You won’t find a better library of reality TV, documentaries, and beyond. Discovery+ even has its own library of original content and can’t-miss shows. With shows from HGTV, Food Network, TLC, A&E, OWN, Lifetime, History, Sci, and more, there’s something for everyone. Now, there are some deals available through other providers, like Sling which allows you to access up to seven days free. There is also a Discovery+ free trial directly available to new customers. After the trial, the basic plan is $5 per month with ads, or $9 per month without ads. The ad-free tier also allows you to watch offline with mobile downloads.
Disney+ doesn’t have any deals going on right now, but you can get its Duo Basic, which includes Hulu, for $11 per month. An ad-free version of this pairing is available for $20 per month. Several other packages are available, one that sees Disney+ and Hulu bundled with Max for $17 per month, and one that bundles Disney+ and Hulu with ESPN+ for $17 per month. There are also ad-free version of these bundles as well.
ESPN+ is your place to watch live sports, but also to access an on-demand library of sports related content and originals like the 30 for 30 Library, documentaries like Bullies of Baltimore, The Minister of Defense, The Return, and more. Unfortunately, there is no ESPN+ free trial so if you want to watch, you’ll have to pay. But don’t let that get you upset because there are some fantastic ESPN+ deals available, mostly thanks to Disney. You can sign up to ESPN+ through one of the Disney bundles, allowing you access to three difference services for one low price — Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu. As a standalone service ESPN Plus starts at $12 per month.
Once FuboTV, now rebranded to just Fubo, the titular cable-tv-like streaming service allows you to watch live cable TV channels online, from anywhere. Before we talk about pricing, you’ll want to know that Fubo has one of the best free trials for live sports fans. You can stream for up to a week without paying a dime, and that includes any broadcasts available during your trial week, live sports included. That means, if you sign up before your favorite sports game you’ll be able to watch, for free. After that week is up, you’ll need to pony up some cash. Outside of the trial, there aren’t any noteworthy deals. A standard subscription is $75 per month, for the Fubo Pro plan, with over 180 channels, 1000 hours of Cloud DVR, and the option to watch on up to 10 screens simultaneously.
Hulu, you may or may not know, has two services. There’s the Hulu you likely know, with tons of on-demand movies, shows, and original content, that’s also available as part of the Disney bundle. But there’s also another Hulu with Live TV option that includes access to live cable TV content and channels. That’s important to differentiate because there is a Hulu free trial available, but no Hulu with Live TV free trial. A great way to understand these is to compare it to YouTube and YouTube TV — both under the same umbrella but two very different services.
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If you want to use the free trial, you’ll get access to Hulu only, with ads, for up to 30 days. After that, it will cost $8 per month. Or again, you can spring for one of the Disney bundles. The Disney Bundle Duo Basic includes Hulu and Disney+, with ads, for $10 per month. The Trio Basic, which also includes ESPN+ with ads, is $15 per month. The Disney Bundle Trio Premium, which removes ads from all three services, is $25 per month.
HBO’s Max combines not just HBO’s incredible library of movies and shows, but also much of what you know from Discovery. As far as we know, there is no free trial, but there are three premium tiers to choose from. Starting with basic at $10 per month, it’s ad-supported, and streams top out at 1080P HD quality. You can save a little with an annual subscription, which is $100 per year. Max Ad-Free is $17 per month or $170 per year. Max Ultimate Ad-Free is $21 per month or $210 per year and boosts resolution to 4K. Currently Max is available as part of a Disney+ bundle. This will get you Disney+, Hulu, and Max for $17 per month with ads or $30 per month without.
Netflix needs no introduction but with a string of price increases and tier changes, the cost is a bit more nebulous than it once was. It begs the question how much does Netflix cost? There are no deals available, at least not currently, so that’s a good place to start. Also, you’re out of luck if you’re hoping to capitalize on a Netflix free trial, because one doesn’t exist. Although, do include Netflix standard with ads, starting at $150 per month for three phone lines.
Back to Netflix pricing, with no deals, the Standard plan with ads is going to set you back $7 per month in the U.S., and $6 per month in Canada. The next tier up, Standard with no ads, is $15.50 per month, while the highest tier, Premium, is $23 per month. Standard gets you access to full HD 1080P streams, on two screens at once, while Premium offers HD+Ultra HD content on up to four screens at once.
As an outlier, Paramount Plus includes a litany of content from CBS, Comedy Central, BET, Nickelodeon and Nick Jr., MTV, and live sports. You’ll be pleased to know there is a Paramount Plus free trial, so you can watch for up to a week free. After that, the normal price kicks in at $8 per month for Essential, and $13 per month with SHOWTIME. The SHOWTIME bundle includes originals, movies, and shows from the popular premium network channel like Dexter New Blood, Billions, Yellowjackets, George & Tammy, and more. Don’t worry, if you spring for Essential there are a ton of great shows and movies to watch from Paramount, too. Other than the free trial, there aren’t any big deals available right now, unfortunately.
NBC Universal now has Peacock with a lot of good content, but most importantly, a competitive price, and that’s without any deals or discounts. Since Peacock does not have a free trial it makes sense why the prices are more accessible. The lowest tier, Peacock Premium, is $8 per month with 50 always-on channels, live sports, and tons of on-demand content. The downside to the basic plan is that you will see ads. The Premium Plus plan, at $14 per month, ditches those ads and allows you to download and watch select content offline — that’s not available on the basic tier.
Sling TV takes live cable TV content and broadcasts and makes it available to everyone online. Sling TV does not have a free trial, at least at the time of this writing, but there are — you’ll first have to enter your local zip code. That’s because Sling TV is owned by DISH Network and its family of brands. With your Sling service, you can try Discovery+ for up to seven days free, or AMC+ for just $5 per month.
As for a Sling subscription, there are two primary plans available, Sling Orange and Sling Blue. Orange is $40 per month and Blue is $40 per month, but each are currently going for 50% off for your first month. This brings each plan down to just $20, with each reverting to its regular pricing after one month. Orange comes with 35 live cable channels with the option to stream on one device at a time. Blue has 42 cable channels and you can stream on up to three devices at a time. Or, you can add both and get Blue and Orange for just $55 per month normally, with the current 50% off deal bringing it down to $27.50 for your first month.
YouTube TV is the brand’s live TV streaming service, think live cable channels online and through YouTube’s platform and apps. You can access channels like ABC, CBS, Food Network, NBC, MSNBC, NFL Network, Comedy Central, and many more. But also live sports are available on YouTube TV, including the NFL Sunday Ticket. Normally, it’s $73 per month for the base plan, but YouTube is offering a deal right now that saves you $32 on your first four months. That price is reduced to $50 for your first two months then returns to $73 after. You can also try without paying thanks to the YouTube TV free trial. With that trial you get ten days free but it’s for new customers only.
One of the biggest concerns for smartphone owners is getting their device’s battery to last all day. Experiencing battery drain without knowing the cause is one of the most frustrating situations we can encounter. It seems that’s exactly what’s been happening with users of the latest iPhones and iOS 18. Reports indicate that the iPhone 16 series is experiencing excessive battery drain, with iOS 18 potentially being the cause.
Several users have been complaining on forums about battery drain after installing iOS 18. The first related posts date back to the beta release, but the availability of the stable update and Apple’s new-gen mobile flagships revived the discussion. While several owners of the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro (Review) are reporting battery drain, users of older models are also experiencing the same issue. So, we may have to look at iOS 18 to find the potential culprit.
iOS 18 could be causing excessive battery drain on iPhone 16 series and older models
Reports indicate that the issue is particularly prevalent when the phone is not in use. Apparently, iPhones running iOS 18 are consuming a noticeable amount of power while the device is asleep. This could potentially indicate a bug in underlying iOS 18 processes, keeping them active when they shouldn’t be. Some reports mention a 10-15% battery drain overnight while users sleep. An iPhone 16 Pro user says they get much worse battery life than their previous device, the iPhone 12.
It is noteworthy that modern smartphones resort to systems that “learn” people’s usage habits and adapt to them to manage battery usage. That means that the first few days after an update (especially a big one) tend to bring excessive battery consumption. On Android, users can enable or disable the system from the “Adaptive Battery” option. However, the iPhone 16 series and iOS 18 have been available long enough for the issue not to be present.
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Affected users have tried multiple methods to resolve the battery drain. They have attempted to disable features such as ProMotion (120 Hz) and AOD, remove widgets, and even perform a factory reset on their devices. In the majority of cases, none of these fixes were successful.
Will iOS 18.1 fix the problem?
iOS 18.1 is expected to arrive sometime this October. The update will bring the first Apple Intelligence features to eligible devices. However, given what we’ve seen, users are probably also waiting for noticeable improvements in the battery life department.
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