Binging on your favorite TV show is already a way of life, but there may be no place for it in virtual reality. In a recent interview, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings laid out reasons why fully immersive virtual reality would not work with the streaming service.
Netflix does not offer a truly immersive VR experience for shows such as The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and has not licensed any VR content. According to Hastings in his interview with Venture Beat, that is because virtual reality, in its current form, is in direct conflict with the very foundation of what Netflix is about: comfort. “You’re exhausted after 20 minutes,” said the 55-year-old CEO.“We are more focused on a lean-back, relaxing experience.”
Comfort aside, Hastings is not sure virtual reality is even popular enough for its subscriber base of more than 70 million to be interested. “The problem with VR is that there’s not enough people on the platform to support the investment in that kind of content,” he said.
Hastings does see the potential in virtual reality, just not for watching movies and TV shows. “I think it’s going to be huge for the video game market,” said Hastings, who expressed this same thinking last week during Netflix’s earnings call for Q1. “I don’t think it will have a direct effect on us in the next couple of years,” Hastings said.
While the Netflix CEO is not ready to put big Netflix bucks into licensing and creating VR content, the worldwide leader in on-demand video streaming is not totally absent from the VR world. Last fall, Netflix and Oculus collaborated on a VR app where users can view Netflix content in the VR space using the Samsung Gear VR. The experience is not fully immersive, as the rendering of all the videos are 2D.
Hastings may be skeptical about VR’s reach, but its popularity is still increasing. According to Statista, the amount of active VR users worldwide is expected to grow from 43 million to 171 million.
No House of Cards VR Experience — yet.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.