"Humans of New York" docuseries coming to Facebook

Based on photographer Brandon Stanton's popular blog "Humans of New York" a new docuseries of the same name will debut next week on Facebook's new platform, The Watch. The 12-episode series will feature interview wiht the same diverse subjects often featured on his popular blog. The half-hour series will also be executive produced by Julie Goldman, the Oscar-nominated documentary producer behind such films as Life, Animated and Weiner. New episodes will be relased weekly.

"Humans of New York" Facebook series will offer intimate, candid and often surprising conversations with strangers on the streets of New York City. Stanton began working on the project about four years ago and has interviewed more than 1200 people. 

Click to read more ...

Microsoft vows not to force OS updates on users again

While Windows 10 is considered a good upgrade for Microsoft’s desktop operating system, how it reached consumers wasn’t done in the best way possible. And Microsoft is now promising they won’t do the same thing again. If you aren’t familiar with what happened, basically when Windows 10 rolled out, users started to see their systems automatically downloading the big update file without their permission. There were also confusing update alerts that accidentally would lead users to upgrade to Windows 10 without realizing they did so.

Microsoft has apologized for how this was handled in the past. But a new statement has been released in response to a German lawsuit against the company by a consumer protection group. Microsoft Germany says they promise to not use background downloading of installation files for OS upgrades again. We really hope Microsoft sticks to their guns on this one.

Source: BGR

Samsung Gear Sport gets leaked ahead of rumoured IFA debut

With IFA just a few days away, we get a look at what looks like another wearable coming from Samsung. The Gear Sport (SM-R600) will supposedly have 5ATM waterproofing, which makes it suitable for taking on a swim. In the FCC schematics, you can see that it’s still similar looks-wise to other Gear smartwatches with its round screen. Not much is known from the leaked image. But it’s expected to be the first smartwatch to run on Tizen 3.0 and have both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. It’ll supposedly also have a heart rate sensor, as one would expect from a fitness tracker. We should be hearing more about this next week.

Source: GSMArena

How Netflix is turning everyone into an influencer

It use to be called the power, or the art, of persuasion. That is, the act of getting people to do things that they may not have initially done themselves. But today, we often hear the term "influencer" and yes, we are all influencers amongst our circle of friends, family and co-workers. We are constantly influencing, and being influenced by, others in our daily lives. We're interested in finding out ourselves if that movie was worth the Rotten Tomatoes rating or curious to try that charcoal ice cream cone that others are willingly waiting in line for. We don't want to miss out on something that sounds interesting!  

Click to read more ...