Month: April 2021

• 

  The teaser image on this event's invitation looks like Apple Pencil scribbles, perhaps supporting the idea this will be an iPad-focused event. [credit: Apple ]

Apple will host its first product unveiling event in more than five months, the company announced Tuesday. Invitations that went out this morning state that the event will take place at 10:00 am PST on Tuesday, April 20, 2021.

Many people didn't learn about this event from the invitation that went out this morning. Rather, they learned hours before when Siri began answering the question "Hey Siri, when is Apple's next event?" with "The special event is on Tuesday, April 20, at Apple Park in Cupertino, CA. You can get all the details at Apple.com."

As has become the custom, the event has a tagline: "Spring Loaded." The taglines usually harbor subtle clues about what products might be updated or how, as well as the general theme of the event.

Enlarge (credit: Google)

It sure seems like "Google Play Movies & TV," Google's video content store, is on the way out. Late last year, the Android version of the Play Movies & TV app was rebranded as "Google TV," and now, Google is announcing (via 9to5Google) that on many smart TV platforms, Google's purchased video content will be accessible from the YouTube app. The transition will start June 15, when Google says the "Google Play Movies & TV app will no longer be available on Roku, Samsung, LG, and Vizio smart TVs."

Like any Google service transition (we are experts at this by now), this move comes with some caveats. Google notes that all your old purchases will be available on YouTube, but new purchases made on YouTube don't support family sharing across family-member accounts. The Google Play TV watchlist also won't be making the jump. Additionally, there are several forum complaints already saying that the YouTube app on certain platforms lacks the surround sound audio or HDR support that Play Movies had.

Google Play Movies & TV launched in 2012 (previously, it was "Google Movies") as a way to buy and rent professional, Hollywood-style video content through Google's ecosystem. It launched as part of the unified Google Play ecosystem, alongside the Google Play app store, Google Play Books, Play Music, and Play Magazines. Google Play Magazines eventually became Google Play Newsstand and shut down in 2018 in favor of the revamped Google News. Google Play Music died in 2020, and users were pushed to YouTube Music. That makes two dead Google Play brands so far.

Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto/Getty Images)

Facebook is allowing its oversight board to rule on moderation decisions relating to content that remains on its Facebook and Instagram platforms. Previously, the only rulings the board could issue were to restore content that moderators had removed.

The Facebook Oversight Board was established last year in response to concerns that the social media company wielded too much unchecked power over what content appeared on its site. Current board members include several law professors, executives from think tanks and nongovernmental organizations, a former US federal circuit judge, and the former prime minister of Denmark. The board is managed by an independent organization that the company seeded with $130 million.

To appeal a post, a person must have an active Facebook account and must have exhausted the company’s appeals process. At that point, the user can take their petition to the oversight board.

Enlarge / What's missing from this console profile shot in April 2021? A compatible expansion drive for next-gen game storage. (credit: Sony Interactive Entertainment)

On Monday, Sony posted a bulletin to PlayStation 5 fans letting them know about a sweeping new system update, meant largely to touch up the game console's menu interface. The blog post includes a long-winded notice about one update that, for some players, won't seem like much of an update at all: "cold storage."

As a result, PlayStation 5 is now five months out from its launch while continuing to lack something kind of important in a game console: a way to add functional storage space, which is required to play any PS5 game you own.

Call of Duty, call of download

Last year's new consoles, the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, have a ton in common as far as hardware is concerned. As just one example, they lean on a new generation of internal storage—rated PCIe 4.0 and connected via the NVMe protocol. With this jump, read and write speeds increase dramatically, and that has been part of the latest next-gen gaming sales pitch.