Netflix makes browsing for content on TVs much easier

Netflix is introducing a new user interface for TVs to make the browsing experience less of a pain. The new UI, the streaming service says, is a result of “rigorous research and testing” to make sure you have the easiest time looking for titles you might want to watch without being limited by the few buttons on your remote control. According to Netflix, it’s now easier to look for new content on the service as well as to search for either TV shows or movies. The streaming service reasons that “while a member generally isn’t sure what exact title to watch, they have a pretty good sense of whether they are in the mood for a quick series episode or a longer movie experience.” It’s also now easier to access My List and get to the shows or movies you’ve saved there.

These are the best-sellers from record-breaking Amazon Prime Day

Amazon has a lot to celebrate with its recent Prime Day sale, the 36-hour event schedule from July 16^th to 17^th marked its largest shopping event ever, surpassing sales from last year’s Cyber Monday, Black Friday, and Prime Day. Over five million items were sold worldwide in different categories including: toys, apparel, beauty products, PCs, computer accessories, and kitchen items. Globally, July 16 marked the best sales day ever for Fire TV and Kindle e-readers. In Canada, the best-selling products included the Echo Dot, Instant Pot Duo 7-in-1 multi-use programmable pressure cooker, LifeStraw Personal Water Filter, and Bose QuietComfort Noise Cancelling headphones.

IBM's Call for Code puts technology at the service of natural disaster countermeasures

IBM's Call for Code initiative engages the global developer community to build innovative solutions that reduce human suffering and the number of people affected by natural disasters.

Call for Code is an annual global initiative from creator David Clark Cause, with IBM proudly serving as Founding Partner. It is backed by a $30 million, five-year IBM investment and support from The Linux Foundation, which gives the 22 million developers access to IBM technologies around cloud, data, AI and blockchain technologies, along with training and code to help jump start projects. The registration opened on June 18th and will close on August 31.  The 3 winners will be announced in October at a special event. 

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‘Alto’s Odyssey’ is coming to Android for free starting next week

After a bit of a wait, game developer Snowman is finally bringing Apple Design Award winner Alto’s Odyssey to the Android platform. It took a while but the game will be launching for free on Android starting July 26^th. Its iOS counterpart will still cost $6.99 on iOS even after the Android app goes live. But this is because Snowman has to adjust how it markets the game on Google’s mobile platform. Snowman has heard from other indie developers how hard it is to get App Store-level sales on Google Play if they release a paid game out of the gate instead of employing a free model with ad support.

This method has worked for Snowman’s previous game Alto’s Adventure, which has been downloaded 36.5 million times on Android and has 647 billion play sessions. Even now that the game is over two years old, it still logs an average of 13 million sessions per day across 1.5 million devices.

Source: Engadget