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Wilf has come from carrier, through CDN and into multi-CDN, and Nadine has exceptional insights into Middle East and African streaming markets.

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Arqiva wins Musk’s Starlink services

British broadcast distribution business, Arqiva, has been awarded the UK contract to provide ground station gateways for Elon Musk’s upcoming Starlink broadband by satellite service.

Arqiva will collect and send the Starlink traffic through its fibre network according to reports. However, Arqiva is declining to comment on the news.

There is more potential good news in that the UK government has indicated that Starlink – as far as its UK coverage is concerned – could be in line for a share of a new £5 billion ($6.9 billion) broadband development fund designed to supply high-speed internet access to underserved areas of the country. Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said that Starlink – and OneWeb – could benefit from the scheme.

Starlink already has some 1300 satellites in orbit and is fast expanding its international relationships with essential ground-service Earth stations to provide links to the orbiting system.

Arqiva’s telecoms and mast unit is now owned by Spanish infrastructure giant Cellnex Telecom. Arqiva/Cellnex is the largest wireless infrastructure operator in the country. Arqiva itself operates some 8300 cellular sites and is now handling 5G transmissions.

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Scientists have made a massless structural battery 10 times better than before.

The battery cell performs well in structural and energy tests, with planned further improvements.

Structural batteries reduce weight and could revolutionize electric cars and planes.

In groundbreaking new research, scientists have made a structural battery 10 times better than in any previous experiment.

You think science is badass. So do we. Let’s nerd out over it together.

What’s a structural battery, and why is it such a big deal? The term refers to an energy storage device that can also bear weight as part of a structure—like if the studs in your home were all batteries, or if an electric fence also held up a wall.

In the new paper, researchers from Chalmers University of Technology and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden reveal how their “massless” structural battery works.

Is the World Ready for the EV Battery Boom?

The main use case is for electric cars, where a literally massive amount of batteries take up a ton of room and don’t contribute to the actual structure of the car. In fact, these cars must be specially designed to carry the mass of the batteries. But what if the frame of the car could hold energy? “Due to their multifunctionality, structural battery composites are often referred to as ‘massless energy storage’ and have the potential to revolutionize the future design of electric vehicles and devices,” the researchers explain.

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To make the new structural battery, the scientists layered a buffer glass “fabric” between a positive and negative electrode, then packed it with a space-age polymer electrolyte and cured it in the oven. What results is a tough, flat battery cell that conducts well and holds up to tensile tests in all directions.

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The battery’s combined qualities (or “multifunctionality”) make it 10 times better than any previous massless battery—a project scientists have worked on since 2007.

Chalmers University of Technology writes in a press release:

“The battery has an energy density of 24 Wh/kg, meaning approximately 20 percent capacity compared to comparable lithium-ion batteries currently available. But since the weight of the vehicles can be greatly reduced, less energy will be required to drive an electric car, for example, and lower energy density also results in increased safety. And with a stiffness of 25 GPa, the structural battery can really compete with many other commonly used construction materials.”

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The scientists say the next step is to improve the performance even more, replacing aluminum foil in the electrode with carbon fiber material and thinning out the separator. This could result in a battery that produces 75 Wh/kg of energy and 75 GPa of stiffness, setting more records for massless batteries and also greatly reducing their weight.

The Priority Current Is a Stealth 28mph e-Bike

Besides electric cars, the study team mentions e-bikes, satellites, and laptops as technologies that could use massless batteries. There could be further applications that we don’t think of as electric at all today.

One of the most exciting potential uses is in aircraft, which scientists are struggling to turn electric because of the huge weight of existing battery tech. Regular airplanes as well as vertical take off and landing vehicles could turn electric by using massless batteries. They could even combine massless structural batteries with solar panels in order to store what they soak up for later use.

Now Watch This:...

There are now tons of streaming services available on your various connected devices. Many streaming services charge upwards of $18 a month to access their content. Thankfully, we have also seen a rise in completely free streaming services — this includes one of the oldest and better known options, Crackle.

What is Crackle, you might ask? Let’s dive further into what this free streaming service offers.

Read more: The best video streaming services

If you want to check out the service right now, you can do so at the link below:

Watch Crackle for free

What is Crackle?

Simply put, Crackle is a free streaming service that has been around since 2004.

If you haven’t heard of Crackle until now, it might be because it has changed its name several times over the years. It launched originally under the name Grouper until it changed its name to Crackle in 2007, a year after it was purchased by Sony Pictures. In 2018 Sony decided to rebrand the service as Sony Crackle.

Nowadays, under new ownership by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, it has once again been rebranded itself as Crackle.

The streaming service currently offers a solid variety of classic movies and television shows, along with new releases. It also offers a growing number of content exclusive to Crackle. Best of all, it’s free to stream.

Is Crackle worth it?

Crackle is definitely worth signing up for if you are seeking premium streaming services on a budget. You do have to watch ads on occasion, but that is the “price” for accessing such a service. While you won’t get access to the latest and greatest exclusive streaming shows and movies available on Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, or HBO Max, the content on Crackle should keep you entertained.

Read also: 17 best websites to legally watch free movies online

While the service is free to use without an account, we recommend signing up for a free Crackle account to unlock more features, including parental controls.

Where is it available?

Crackle is currently only available in the United States. The service has since been discontinued in Latin American and Canadian markets.

What devices does Crackle support?

The service is available on nearly every device you can think of. Here’s a list of the supported platforms:

Android (smartphones and tablets)

Android TV (sticks, set-top boxes, and smart TVs)

Chromecast

Amazon Fire TV (sticks, Fire TV cubs, and smart TVs)

Apple TV set-top boxes

iOS (iPhone and iPad)

Roku (sticks, set-top boxes, and smart TVs)

Xbox One

Playstation 4

Samsung smart TVs

LG smart TVs

Vizio smart TVs

Web browsers

Windows: Internet Explorer 10 +, Microsoft Edge 14 +, Chrome 39 +, Firefox 44 +

Mac: Safari 8 +, Chrome 39 +, Firefox 44 +

iPhone/iPad OS 11.2 + and Safari 11.2 (Chrome is currently not supported on iPhone/iPad)

Android Mobile OS 4.4 + and Chrome Browser 39 +

User Experience

Once you sign up, you can browse through Crackle’s selection of shows and movies a few different ways. If you know exactly which show you want to stream, you can just type it in the search bar. You can also browse through the service’s various categories. There are two main ones, Movies and TV. There are also sub categories including Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Crime Time, New on Crackle, and many more.

Other features

Crackle is completely for free to enjoy, but there are a few extra features you can gain access to if you sign up for a free Crackle account. No credit card information is required. Once signed up, you can access these features:

Watch Later – If you find a movie or show that you want to watch on the service, but don’t have time to check it out immediately, don’t fret. You can select Watch Later on all Crackle content and it will put it into a Watch Later queue for easier access later..

Parental Controls – Some of Crackle’s content includes more mature themes. You may not want your kids to watch the service without supervision. You can go into your Crackle account settings, and activate Parental Controls. You can then create ...

Country

Limelight Networks, which competes with Akamai Technologies in providing content delivery networking to firms that want to distribute videos and software, this afternoon said it will cut 16% of its staff in a workforce rebalancing that will save the company $15 million annually.

Said Limelight's CEO, Bob Lyons, the job cuts are reflective of a strategy outlined in February to make the company more streamlined.

"This reduction in force, while difficult, is an essential part of the disciplined planning and work we need to accomplish to capture the significant opportunity ahead of us. Our efforts to date give us confidence that we will be able to achieve 2021 adjusted EBITDA between $20 and $30 million. We will provide additional financial guidance in connection with our first quarter earnings release.

Limelight said the job cuts are one among multiple actions to "improve execution, profitability and accelerate growth," by simplifying its organizational structure, improving productivity, and "prioritizing resources."

Said Lyons, the actions are in keeping with an intent to "improve our core CDN business by pursuing a leadership position in proactive client performance while improving our cost structure.

Added Lyons, "The actions we are announcing today are the first step, and we expect to continue to improve our growth and profitability by also expanding our core business, securing greater share of traffic and spend from existing customers while also growing our pipeline of new opportunities.

"Additionally, we are exploring opportunities that extend our core business. I am encouraged by the progress we have made in our first 30 days and the actions we have taken."

Tech Earnings

Asana beats Q4 expectations

Oracle beats Q3 estimates with solid cloud ERP growth

Broadcom beats Q1 expectations

Box beats Q4 estimates

HPE tops Q1 estimates

Digital sales growth helps propel Target, Kohl's to strong Q4 results

Zoom crushes Q4, gives strong Q1 outlook

Stratasys Q4 tops estimates

Dell's Q4 surges on PC boom amid remote work, education

Wayfair's Q4 strong as repeat orders surge

Salesforce beats Q4 estimates, Slack adds record number of paid customers

Workday Q4 results top expectations

Best Buy sees strong tech demand into Q1 2021

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This week Spotify posted what amounts to a justification of its royalty payouts called “Loud&Clear.” The idea behind it is to show that there are some artists that make a great deal of money from the platform, but there are also thousands of smaller artists that are making at least some money as well. There are no specific artists cited, but the generalities of the data are telling.

First of all, Spotify can’t really tell you what Drake or Taylor Swift are netting from the platform because they really don’t know. Remember that any royalty revenue goes directly to the copyright holder, which in most cases is the record label. The payout to the artist is then subject to the deal that the artist has with label, which Spotify (or any other streaming platform for that matter) isn’t privy to.

It’s In The Data

That said, there are some pretty good stats that can be gleaned from the site. For instance:

The platform has paid out over $23 billion in royalties to rights holders as of 2020. That includes over $5 billion just in 2020.

184,500 artists generated over $1,000 in royalties in 2020.

13,400 artists generated over $50,000 in 2020.

7,800 artists generated over $100,000 in 2020.

870 artists generated over $1,000,000 in 2020.

Over 100 songs have reached a billion streams.

207,000 songs had more than 1 million streams in 2020.

551,000 have over a million streams in total.

2,710,000 have over 100,000 streams in total.

Now the key to the royalty numbers above is the word “generated,” since Spotify doesn’t do direct payouts to artists. It’s always through a third party like a record label or aggregator like Tunecore. Regardless of the language, the point is that there’s some real money being generated on the platform for a good number of artists. If 13,000 of them can make a decent middle-class living just from a single platform, it goes without saying that they’re probably making a lot more when the performance on other platforms is taken into account. Spotify has about a third of the streaming marketshare so it’s conceivable that these artist’s income is substantially higher as a result.

Is This Good Or Not?

All this flies into the face of many older artists (David Crosby comes to mind) who can’t get their arms around the concept of streaming. They feel that since the average payout per stream is relatively low (around about $0.004 per stream for Spotify), that the streaming platforms are somehow stealing from them. Did it ever occur to them that maybe they’re just not that popular anymore? Major success at one point of your life doesn’t necessarily guarantee that it will always be that way, and in fact history has shown that to be the case most of the time. Streaming numbers just reflect what’s hot and popular right now.

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For instance, Loud&Clear breaks down artists into categories of popularity. At the top is what they call Chart Toppers. These are the top 500 artists in terms of listener numbers in 2020. They had 17.3 million average listeners per month and generated $3.7 million during the year. On the other hand Heritage artists are those that have tasted success over a couple of decades. They had at least 500,000 monthly listeners and 80% of the streams were from songs that were more than 5 years old. They averaged 2.7 monthly listeners and generated $407,000 in royalties.

Dropping down a step, the Established artist classification means that you were somewhere in the top 50,000 in listener numbers but not in the top 500. There were 34,000 of these artists and they averaged over 600,000 listeners per month. They generated an average of $94,000 last year. Once again, “gen...

@issielapowsky) is a senior reporter at Protocol, covering the intersection of technology, politics, and national affairs. Previously, she was a senior writer at Wired, where she covered the 2016 election and the Facebook beat in its aftermath. Prior to that, Issie worked as a staff writer for Inc. magazine, writing about small business and entrepreneurship. She has also worked as an on-air contributor for CBS News and taught a graduate-level course at New York University’s Center for Publishing on how tech giants have affected publishing. Email Issie.

Issie Lapowsky () is a senior reporter at Protocol, covering the intersection of technology, politics, and national affairs. Previously, she was a senior writer at Wired, where she covered the 2016 election and the Facebook beat in its aftermath. Prior to that, Issie worked as a staff writer for Inc. magazine, writing about small business and entrepreneurship. She has also worked as an on-air contributor for CBS News and taught a graduate-level course at New York University’s Center for Publishing on how tech giants have affected publishing.

sudo apt update sudo apt full-upgrade sudo apt install libwidevinecdm0

Many Raspberry Pis are pressed into service as home media devices. They are a natural fit given their price, power and size. But one facet of media consumption where the Raspberry Pi needed a little help was streaming content from services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu which use Widevine DRM to deliver protected streaming media. In a recent update, Ventz at vpetkov.net has announced that an official Widevine package is now available for the Raspberry Pi 4 and 400.

Ventz is well known in the community for Chromium Media Edition, essentially the same Chromium executable but using a custom launcher and user agent that tricked sites such as Netflix, Hulu and Spotify to work with the Raspberry Pi. With the release of an official package for the Raspberry Pi we can now install the Widevine support for the provided Chromium browser.

Installation is a breeze, using just three lines of code, the first two to ensure our Pi is up to date before finally running the Widevine package installation.

We tested the installation on a spare Raspberry Pi 4GB connected via Ethernet. Initially Netflix playback was a little choppy, but after a few seconds everything was in sync and playback was certainly comfortable.

Adding Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ to your home media center just got a little easier thanks to Ventz and the Raspberry Pi.

The BBC is calling for legislation to ban the sale of ‘plug-in’ devices, such as Amazon’s Fire TV Stick, that allow global tech giants to dictate the viewing choices of millions of Britons.

The rise of smart TVs and on-demand viewing is threatening the prominence that the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and other UK public service broadcasters have traditionally enjoyed on electronic programme guides (EPG).

Instead of an EPG, smart TVs present viewers with ’tiles’ offering direct access to streaming platforms such as Netflix, Disney, YouTube and Amazon Prime.

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Streaming ‘sticks’, such as Amazon’s £30 Fire TV device, also let viewers stream TV services from tech giants such as Apple, guided by Alexa’s search results.

The BBC fears its services could be shut out from Smart TVs and TV sticks which can charge the biggest players high fees for prominence.

Clare Sumner, BBC director of policy, called for “for urgent legislation to update the 2003 Communications Act to modernise the regulatory framework to ensure public service broadcasters (PSBs) are prominent and available on all major TV platforms.”

Read More

Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio and Russell T Davies helping ministers protect ‘Britishness’ on TV

The new law would “prevent providers of TV user interfaces (for example, smart TV manufacturers or global tech providers) from releasing products in the UK without complying with these rules.”

There could be “financial sanctions” for TV manufacturers which refuse to comply. “This would ensure original British programming and trusted news is universal, available to all and easily accessible,” Sumner said.

Media regulator Ofcom supports a law change to give services like the BBC iPlayer and ITV Hub guaranteed prominence on Smart TVs. Ministers are considering their response.

However Samsung has protested that a law ensuring PSB prominence on smart TVs “could stifle the ability of TV manufacturers to develop new models and introduce different types of technology to improve the viewer experience.”

Submitting its response to Ofcom’s Public Service Broadcasting Review, the BBC also said it was opposed to the regulator’s suggestion that the licence fee be “top sliced” with a pot of cash given to new public service TV organisations. This would “diminish the BBC’s scale and scope” at time that it needed to “compete with global players.”