Sometimes a YouTube video deserves more nuanced feedback than a simple comment, or a “thumbs up” or a “thumbs down”. YouTube today is testing timed-specific emoji reactions for a small group of users. Viewers can throw out an emoji when a specific moment in a video resonates with them (or doesn’t). 

Users can also get a feel for how others reacted throughout the duration of a video. There will be a separate reaction panel in the comment section of each video that will display emoji reactions by the moment, similar to features already offered by Facebook Live and Twitch. 

“If you’re watching a video that is part of this experiment, you can react and see crowd reactions by opening the comment section of the video and tapping into the reaction panel. The test will also show you which moments other viewers are reacting to (which will be anonymized – we won't show who sent each reaction). We're testing multiple sets of reactions and will add or remove reactions based on how the experiment goes!,” wrote Meaghan, a representative from Team YouTube.

Google frequently experiments with new features on YouTube, but they don't always become permanent. YouTube recently tested letting users time their comments to specific points in a video and hiding the “dislike” button. As far as user engagement goes, YouTube is relatively light on options. 

Emoji reactions have been hit-or-miss on other social media platforms. Twitter experimented with emoji reactions to tweets last year, and reactions were largely ambivalent. But unlike tweets, videos are a lengthier medium and more likely to elicit a multitude of reactions. YouTube creators are likely to receive more detailed user feedback via emoji as well, such as being able to nail down if a joke landed or bombed.

YouTube is testing emoji reactions on a small number of channels to start but will expand the feature depending on the reception. Users will have a wide array of emoji reactions at their disposal, including the face with tears of joy, a heart, the shocked face, the celebration party poppers, the “keep it 100” sign, a question mark, the idea light bulb and a screaming cat.

Instagram is taking some of the hassle out of supporting a noble cause. The social network is testing a feature that gives you the choice of backing a movement when you search for its hashtag. You'll see the option to either "spread the word" through direct messages or start a fundraiser to provide material aid.

The test is focused on a "handful" of hashtags linked to well-known social causes, including #BlackLivesMatter, #climatecrisis and #womensrights. Instagram said it consulted with a group of relevant organizations, such as GLAAD and the NAACP, before settling on this first list. The social media giant said it would collaborate with others to expand the range of eligible topics.

The experiment isn't surprising. A feature like this could encourage more people to use hashtags and DMs. That, in turn, could keep you on Instagram where you might be tempted to leave for TikTok, where "Donation Stickers" have long been an option for creators hoping to rally support.

Amazon Game Studio head and longtime employee Mike Frazzini is stepping down, he announced in a LinkedIn post. Frazzini cited the desire to spend more time with family and the fact that the studio is finally having some success. "While there’s never really a perfect time to step away from a great role, now is a good time," he wrote. "We’ve launched two top 10 games in the past six months, and have a growing portfolio of promising new games in the pipeline."

Amazon Games has struggled over the past few years, notably with the cancellation of its Lord of the Rings MMO and fiasco with its first AAA game, Crucible. The company was also criticized for its policy of claiming ownership of employees' personal games that one engineer called "draconian." One former Game Studios manager said some of Amazon's issues may have come about because Frazzini had no previous experience in gaming, according to the same Bloomberg report. 

However, the company has had hits of late with New World, one of 2021's biggest money makers on Steam. It has also had ongoing success as the publisher of Lost Ark, made by South Korean developer Smilegate RPG. Frazzini didn't say what he planned to do next. 

Three years and three days after it was first unveiled, Apple TV+ has captured the first ever Best Picture Oscar for a streaming service with CODA. The film also took a historical win for Best Supporting Actor, as Troy Kotsur became the first Deaf male actor to win an Oscar. Writer and director Sian Heder also won for Best Adapted Screenplay. 

The film, with a mostly Deaf cast, follows Ruby (played Emilia Jones), a high school student who navigates life as the only hearing member of a Deaf family in Gloucester, Massachusetts. "This is a really big moment for the Deaf community. It’s a really big moment for the disability community," said Heder in a backstage ABC interview, via an ASL interpreter, as Variety reported. "Marlee Matlin won an Oscar 35 years ago, and not that much has changed in Hollywood, so I want to thank the Academy for making that change. Let this one be the first of many, many films to come out of this beautiful community."

Apple paid $25 million for the distribution rights to the film, which made a limited theatrical run and is currently streaming on Apple TV+. It beat out Netflix's The Power of the Dog, which was another favorite in that category.

After a record 27 nominations, Netflix didn't go away empty-handed, though. Jane Campion took a historic Best Director Oscar for The Power of the Dog, becoming only the third woman to win the award. (Chloé Zhao took the prize last year for Nomadland, while Katheryn Bigelow previously won for The Hurt Locker.) The Power of the Dog was nominated for 12 Oscars, including in the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor/Actress categories, but Campion was the only winner. 

Brian Snyder / reuters

Sci-fi fared particularly well at this year's Oscars. Dune, released simultaneously in the US on HBO Max and in theaters, won no less than six Academy Awards. The highlight was Greig Fraser's win for Best Cinematography, presented live during the telecast (above). However, the film's other awards were presented prior to the ceremony for the first time in Oscar history, something decried by several attendees including Steven Spielberg. They include wins for Best Production Design (Patrice Vermette, Zsuzsanna Sipod), Best Film Editing (Joe Walker), Best Sound (Mac Ruth, Mark Mangini, Theo Green, Doug Hemphill, Ron Bartlett), Best Visual Effects (Paul Lambert) and Best Original Score (Hans Zimmer).

Dune doesn't count as a streaming release, though, nor do others like Disney's Encanto, which won Best Animated Feature. Overall, streaming films fared poorer than last year, taking four statues compared to seven at the 2021 Oscar ceremonies.

Crunchyroll quietly announced on Friday it is ending one of the primary perks of its free tier. In an update spotted by Anime News Network, the company said it no longer plans to offer ad-supported simulcast streaming of new series. Previously free users could watch new shows shortly after their Japanese debut as long as they were willing to wait a week and sit through commercials. By subscribing to one of Crunchyroll’s premium plans, you can watch simulcasts one hour after their premiere in Japan.

In the immediate future, Crunchyroll will allow free users to access a “seasonal sampler” that will include a selection of simulcast content from the platform’s upcoming spring lineup. That sampler will allow free users to watch the first three episodes of shows like Spy x Family, Dawn of the Witch and Tomodachi Game one week after their platform debut until May 31st. To watch all new and continuing series in their entirety, free users will need to subscribe to one of Crunchyroll’s premium tiers, which start at $8 per month. All currently available content will continue to be available to watch for free.

“We want to encourage as many fans as possible to explore new shows and see the full benefits of Crunchyroll premium access,” the company said. “Crunchyroll makes more than 1,000 hours available for viewers to sample free of charge through our ad-supported tier, and will continue to offer free content going forward.” 

The announcement comes just weeks after Crunchyroll, following Sony’s $1.175 billion deal to buy the service in 2020, said it was adding more than 50 Funimation series to its back catalog, and that all future shows acquired by Sony would debut on its service.

Paramount+ is kicking off its Twitter watch parties with one of the service's more important shows. Twitter and Paramount+ are kicking off a series of watch parties for the Halo TV series that will give fans chances to discuss episodes in shared moments. The run begins today (March 25th) at 6PM Eastern with a 'pre-show' through the official account, with executive producer Kiki Wolfkill and stars Olive Gray and Kate Kennedy meeting online to discuss the series and offer a behind-the-scenes look.

From then on, you can expect nine regular "after-show" parties. The first takes place March 28th at 4PM Eastern, but you can expect a weekly cadence of parties starting April 1st at a similar time. The virtual festivities end on May 20th. The streams will include celebrity Halo enthusiasts, fan segments and other reasons to tune in.

Twitter and Paramount+ aren't shy about the rationale behind the get-togethers. They're hoping to recreate the "water cooler effect" of conventional TV, where you rush to share your opinions and speculation about an episode. This probably won't turn Halo into a Game of Thrones-style blockbuster that has everyone talking, but it might provide a sense of community that keeps you invested. If nothing else, it shows what you can expect from future parties.

Spotify is trying out a new “Car Mode” on a handful of users, the streaming service confirmed to TechCrunch. Last year the company retired its old Car View mode, explaining that it needed to pave the way for “new innovations”. The new in-car interface, called “Car Mode” appears to be more focused on voice controls than the older version. The jury is still out on whether hands-free voice recognition actually makes driving safer (some studies suggest drivers who use voice controls are more distracted). But the new revamp does offer less visual distractions and a cleaner interface.

According to screenshots of the Android version of Spotify Car Mode posted by 9to5Google, users can use voice controls to search for artists, browse albums, play or pause, fast forward and “like” a song. The new in-car mode appears to be far less busy than the older version, with simplified “Player View” and a “Library” tab that allows you to quickly access music or podcasts you’ve recently listened to.

Tech companies like Google and Amazon have pushed automakers to build more voice recognition features in future models of cars. As TechCrunchnotes, voice controls will also be an essential feature in autonomous vehicles. Spotify is no doubt trying to stay ahead of this trend. Last month, Spotify officially launched Car Thing, an in-car player with voice controls, after an extended test period (we reviewed it here). But for those who don’t want to pay extra for a hands-free in-car listening experience, Spotify’s new mode will be a welcome option.

The world never run out of bad 'B' movies to mock, apparently, because Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) is back for a 13th season, Variety has reported. Thanks to a Kickstarter campaign last year that raised $6.52 million, a full 13-episode season of the series will arrive on a dedicated streaming platform called Gizmoplex starting on May 6th.

As usual, some ordinary humans have been kidnapped by mad scientists (played by Felicia Day, Patton Oswalt and Mary Jo Pehl) and are forced to watch some terrible B-movies. To survive the process, they create companion robots to help provide a continuous stream of taunting and jokes throughout the entire running length of the films. 

This year there will be three hosts: Jonah Heston, Emily Connor, and original host Joel Robinson. They'll "be forced to endure some of the cheesiest movies ever to appear on MST3K, including our first-ever Halloween special, our first-ever 3D movie, and a holiday special finale so big it’ll take all three hosts to riff it," according to the team. The B-movies on the slate include Robot Wars, Santo in the Treasure of Dracula and The Million Eyes of Sumuru. 

The show was created by Joel Hodgson and debuted in 1988. It ran for 10 seasons on Comedy Central and the Sci-Fi Channel until 1999, and was later revived by Netflix in 2017 for two seasons, following another Kickstarter campaign. However, Netflix declined to pick it up for a third season. 

The latest revival will thus air independently on a dedicated MST3K platform called Gizmoplex, which offers a website and apps (iOS, Android, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, and Amazon FireTV). It'll premiere on May 6th with three episodes released daily from Friday to Sunday. After that, new episodes and one of 12 shorts will arrive every two weeks. The platform will also offer classic MST3K episodes from season 1-10, and for a limited time, they'll be free and ad-free.

If you want the new episodes, though, you'll have to sign up (unless you pledged support on Kickstarter). Individual episodes will cost $10, a three-month pass is $50, and a full season from May 22 to February 23 is $135. The latter includes a digital download of season 13. 

Reddit is looking into the possibility of introducing some video features reminiscent of TikTok's, according to TechCrunch. While the project is still in its very early stages and hasn't even entered the testing phase yet, TechCrunch says it could include TikTok-like video editing tools that make it easy for you to "react" to another person's post or to incorporate it into your content.

On TikTok, you can use a feature called Duet to put your video side by side with another user's to create remixes, parodies and the like. In 2020, the service also introduced Stitch, which lets you integrate scenes from another video into your own. It enabled the quick creation of funny responses to viral videos and even responses that fact check wrong information going around on the platform. Reddit does allow you to post videos on its website, but it doesn't have features like Duet and Stitch yet.

You probably wouldn't think of Reddit if you're made to list social networks with a focus on video. And the goal of this project isn't to create a TikTok competitor, but rather to provide its users another way to engage in discussions, especially if the original post is also a video. Reddit did purchase TikTok rival Dubsmash back in 2020, but it shut down the service in February this year and incorporated video features from the defunct video-sharing platform. This particular project will also use video technology from Dubsmash. 

A spokesperson told TechCrunch that Reddit is now reaching out to individual communities to see if they're interested in the new video features. It will only take steps to begin initial testing after they receive (most likely positive) feedback from the communities:

"In line with our work to help people engage in the topics that matter to them through social audio, video, text, memes, and more, we're in the process of reaching out to a few Reddit communities to see if a new video feature we’re working on is something they find useful and fun. After getting feedback from Redditors, we’ll explore an initial test for this new capability."

The following contains moderate spoilers for the fourth episode of ‘Star Trek: Picard’ season two.

Continuity is something that comes up in geek media a lot, from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to Star Wars to DC’s TV Arrowverse. It used to be a thing only hardcore nerds really cared about, but now it’s gone mainstream, with fans of all stripes cheering at callbacks and pointing out inconsistencies. Star Trek was probably the first major example of an interconnected universe that most people were aware of, but as the franchise continues to grow, with at least five shows in active production and more on the way, is consistent continuity something it can keep up with?

Out of all the current shows, Star Trek: Picard probably has the strongest ties to continuity right now. It’s billed as a direct sequel to Star Trek: The Next Generation and follows the adventures of Jean-Luc Picard 20 years after we saw him and the Enterprise-E crew in Nemesis. Season one found him a broken man, after a devastating attack on Mars and the banning of synthetic life. This storyline actually made a good follow-up to the events of The Next Generation, in which the rights of an artificial being like Data were constantly being called into question.

CBS

Season two so far has decided to focus on the relationship between Q and Picard, with the omnipotent being thrusting the old admiral into an alternate reality similar to, but not identical to, the twisted mirror universe where everyone is evil. In this reality Picard is an admired general in a genocidal empire. He makes the decision to travel back in time to the point of divergence with the reality he knows, a common Star Trek plot device.

It’s common enough that the episode makes two references to at least two other previous time travel adventures in the franchise: Seven and Raffi encounter a punk on a bus with a boombox blasting the song “I Hate You” at top volume, a recreation of a scene from The Voyage Home (even featuring the same punk), and later they find that their colleague Rios is being taken to a “Sanctuary District,” a concept first introduced in the Deep Space Nine two-parter “Past Tense.”

CBS

And yet, there’s an entire plot line that involves Picard heading to a set of coordinates only to arrive at 10 Forward Street, the location of Guinan’s bar in the season premiere. Picard even laughs when he sees the street sign, showing that even he’s aware of the amusing similarity to the name of Guinan’s bar on the Enterprise-D. Star Trek is no stranger to coincidences, though the next scene makes me wonder if the writers were aware that Guinan’s bar is called 10 Forward because it was at the very front of deck 10.

Even though it is 2024, Guinan does in fact happen to be there, though she’s closing up shop. But instead of a happy reunion between the two, this version of Guinan doesn’t recognize him at all. This doesn’t seem to perturb Picard in the slightest — he even withholds his name and where he really comes from so as to not disturb the timeline.

Long-time Trek viewers will immediately see the problem with this, namely in that another time travel adventure, the TNG two-parter “Time Arrow,” Picard met Guinan in the 19th century. He saved her life, even. And that adventure was actually an answer to a long-standing question on the show: How did the two become friends without ever meeting before she stepped foot on the Enterprise-D in season two of TNG? Guinan once said their relationship was “beyond friendship, beyond family” and while the whole adventure might not have been the ideal solution that fans wanted, it was good enough at the time.

So, when Picard walks into 10 Forward Street, it seems like the perfect opportunity to deepen the connection between the two characters further. Reunited after 131 years! It’s a level of “wibbly wobbly timey wimey” that Doctor Who is known for and has managed to make work, in particular when establishing the relationship between the Doctor and River Song. If the connection between Guinan and Picard is “more than friendship, more than family” there’s room for another adventure between the two to establish why they care for each other so deeply.

CBS

Instead, it’s like they’re meeting again for the first time. This Guinan is jaded, almost angry at the state of Earth, which is why she’s leaving now. It seems uncharacteristically bitter for her, who is usually a caring, curious person. And, while Picard feels like he can’t reveal details about the future to her, he does feel like he has to convince her not to leave Earth.

But… why? Long-time fans know that at some point she returns to her homeworld, only to become a refugee when the planet is attacked by (presumably) the Borg. And when we saw her in “Time’s Arrow,” she was merely visiting, and was unlikely to stay long lest her mother show up to come collect her. It doesn’t really track that she would have hung out another 131 years, even going so far as to open a business or have a dog.

CBS

I previously argued that there’s a point where it becomes unrealistic to expect fans to keep up with every bit of continuity. There are almost 30 films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and days worth of TV shows to match. And it’s impractical to expect a new Star Trek writer to watch 800-plus episodes of old Trek before they’re allowed to write a single word of script.

But to watch at least a few episodes of the show relevant to the current storyline? That’s not a huge ask, especially in a world where everything is available via streaming. We’re long past the days of the BBC erasing the tapes of Doctor Who or the original prints of films like Star Wars disappearing into the void. And no longer are TV show archives locked away in corporate storage facilities or stacked in basements of hardcore collectors. Just a few clicks on Paramount+, and any episode of any Star Trek series can be pulled up on demand. Which includes “Time’s Arrow.”

CBS

But it’s even understandable that under a time crunch, perhaps the writers couldn’t watch every episode with Guinan. But even then the excuses are thin, since the writers could do what I did before writing this post: Google it. Pull up Star Trek wiki Memory Alpha, punch in “Guinan” and skim through the entry to get a full list of her appearances. There’s even a section specifically about Picard and Guinan’s friendship, which would have alerted any reader to the existence of the “Time’s Arrow” two-parter, even if the writers for whatever reason had never heard of it.

With 56 years of history and most of the writers born after the original series — and newer shows even employing people born after The Next Generation — they can’t be expected to know everything. But even as everything becomes “available forever,” there are people who’ve made it their jobs to sort through all of it and keep track of every little detail. Some writers argue that continuity can be stifling, and the jury’s still out on how much it matters, but in the case of Guinan and Picard the appeal is the characters’ shared history. A shared history that isn’t hard to look up on today’s internet.