"It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" will no longer air on broadcast TV this year, but it can be streamed on Apple+. This marks the first time since 1965 that the Peanuts special won't air on TV. People.com reports: Instead of airing on broadcast television, the Peanuts animated classics will be streaming on AppleTV+ as part of an expanded partnership with WildBrain, Peanuts Worldwide and Lee Mendelson Film Productions, according to a press release. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and A Charlie Brown Christmas will be offered on the streaming platform for free for certain dates this fall and winter.

Great Pumpkin will be available for free on the streamer from October 30 to November 1, the Thanksgiving special from November 25 to 27, and the Christmas special from December 11 to 13. But it's not just the iconic holiday specials that are moving to AppleTV+. Original Peanuts programming surrounding Mother's Day, Earth Day, New Year's Eve and back-to-school season will also be produced by WildBrain to air on AppleTV+. Included in the programming will be The Snoopy Show and season 2 of Snoopy in Space.

Apple has launched Apple Music TV, a free 24-hour curated livestream of popular music videos that will also include "exclusive new music videos and premiers, special curated music video blocks, and live shows and events as well as chart countdowns and guests," according to the announcement. From a report: Apple Music TV will be available to U.S. residents only on the Apple Music app and the Apple TV app. It can be found at apple.co/AppleMusicTV and in the browse tab in the Apple Music and Apple TV app. The service premiered Monday morning with a countdown of the top 100 all-time most-streamed songs in the U.S. on Apple Music. On Thursday (October 22), it will celebrate the upcoming release of Bruce Springsteens's "Letter to You" album with an "all day Bruce takeover" featuring music-video blocks of his most popular videos, an interview with Zane Lowe, anchor of Apple Music's radio station, and a special livestream fan event.

Marvel Entertainment has announced that it is halving the wait time for fans choosing to read releases on its digital subscription Marvel Unlimited, with titles now appearing on the service just three months after print release. The change takes effect immediately. From a report: Marvel Unlimited launched in 2007, and offers access to the publisher's digital library of titles -- currently numbering more than 27,000 issues -- for either a monthly or annual subscription fee. The service is available as an iOS, Android and web app.

Mega-chain AMC has begun to offer the option through its site, with prices for renting out a theater starting at a surprisingly reasonable $99 (though not in New York, Alaska and Hawaii). Split among ten friends, and you're already paying less than a normal movie ticket. From a report: Attendees can invite as many as 20 people to a screening, which consists of classic titles like Jurassic Park and Halloween-centric fare like The Nightmare Before Christmas. Prices go up from there. New titles like Tenet and The New Mutants, cost up to $349 for a single screening. The former, helmed by blockbuster director Christopher Nolan, was set to be a kind of litmus test for moviegoers' willingness to return to theaters.

Google has started to shut down parts of its 9-year-old music service as it transitions people to YouTube Music. Ars Technica reports: The gradual shutdown started on Monday with the death of the Google Play Music Store, which previously let you purchase music for playback and download, as opposed to the all-you-can-eat rental services that dominate the music landscape today. Google's Music store was a section of the Google Play Store, which now just shows a message saying the feature has been removed. Google is getting out of the business of selling music entirely and now only offers a rental service through YouTube Music.

The other big feature shutdown is music playback on Google Home and Nest Audio speakers. While the Google Music app still works and you can start a playback through Chromecast, you're no longer able to start music by voice through Google Assistant devices. If you dig into the Google Assistant settings (that means opening the Google app on your phone, then hitting "More," then "Settings," then "Google Assistant," "Services," and finally "Music") you'll find that the "Google Play Music" option has completely disappeared. Now the only supported services for voice commands are YouTube Music, Pandora, Deezer, and Spotify. [...] Google Music is scheduled to completely shut down sometime this month. Right now, the only thing left is streaming via the smartphone app and the Google Music website.

Google has added a new feature that lets you figure out what song is stuck in your head by humming, whistling or singing -- a much more useful version of the kind of song-matching audio feature that it and competitors like Apple's Shazam have offered previously. From a report: As of today, users will be able to open either the latest version of the mobile Google app, or the Google Search widget, and then tap the microphone icon, and either verbally ask to search a song or hit the 'Search a song button' and start making noises. The feature should be available to anyone using Google in English on iOS, or across over 20 languages already on Android, and the company says it will be growing that user group to more languages on both platforms in the future. Unsurprisingly, it's powered behind the scenes by machine learning algorithms developed by the company. Google says that it's matching tech won't require you to be a Broadway star or even a choir member -- it has built-in abilities to accommodate for various degrees of musical sensibility, and will provide a confidence score as a percentage alongside a number of possible matches. Clicking on any match will return more info about both artist and track, as well as music videos, and links that let you listen to the full song in the music app of your choice.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Insider: Netflix is killing its most interesting shows in their infancy and it could be the streaming giant's downfall. In the seven years that Netflix has produced original content, the world of TV streaming has dramatically changed. Now Netflix is getting left behind in the race it started. Many of its unique and ambitious shows have been canceled before they could reach their full potential. And Netflix keeps churning out more shows each year, without replicating the breakout success of 2016's "Stranger Things."

Statements from executives have described the cancellations as the result of a cost analysis that tells Netflix a longer-running show won't lead to new subscribers. Still, with syndicated shows such as "The Office" and "Friends" leaving its platform and a string of disappointing cancellations, including "Glow," Netflix has set itself up for a disaster when it comes to its reputation as a TV-watcher's must-have service. In 2020 alone, Netflix has canceled 18 original series. Of those, 14 had only one season. [...] TV lovers in these fandoms can only be burned so many times before they stop investing. Why should a Netflix subscriber spend 10 hours watching a new show if there's a decent chance they'll never see it end?

Apple has announced a new version of its HomePod smart speaker, the $99 HomePod mini -- a smaller version of the speaker that shrinks down the original model into a more compact size. The Verge reports: Like the full-size HomePod, the HomePod mini still features a mesh fabric exterior in both black and white colors, along with a small display on top to show the Siri waveform and volume controls. The new model is more of a short, spherical shape, however, instead of the oblong design of the original. The HomePod mini features one main driver, two passive radiators, and an "acoustic waveguide" on the bottom. The new HomePod mini also features an Apple S5 chip, which Apple says allows for "computational audio" processing to adjust how your music sounds 180 times per second. Multiple HomePod mini speakers can play music in sync and "intelligently" create stereo pairing when placed in the same room. Apple is also using the U1 chips that it debuted in last year's iPhones to create a better Handoff experience later this year. Apple said third-party support is coming later this year for Pandora, Amazon Music, and iHeartRadio.

There's also a new "Intercom" feature that allows for customers with multiple HomePod devices in different rooms to communicate throughout the house. "Intercom messages will also appear on connected iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches (although they won't immediately play out loud like they do on the HomePod mini)," adds The Verge. Preorders for the HomePod Mini start on November 6th and shipping begins on November 16th.

An anonymous reader shares a report: I'm fairly sure cars were supposed to be flying by now, but instead we've managed something else that would have felt like science fiction a decade ago: playing Xbox games on your fridge. That's right, someone has managed to get Microsoft's xCloud service running on a Samsung smart fridge. Instagram user Richard Mallard has managed this feat of modern engineering, sideloading the Android version of the Xbox Game Pass app onto his fridge. The app runs in portrait mode on Samsung's smart fridge, but games appear at the correct aspect ratio alongside cheese, beers, and whatever other essentials you store in a fridge.

Disney is restructuring its media and entertainment divisions, as streaming becomes the most important facet of the company's business. From a report: On Monday, the company revealed that in order to further accelerate its direct-to-consumer strategy, it would be centralizing its media businesses into a single organization that will be responsible for content distribution, ad sales and Disney+. The move by Disney comes as the global coronavirus pandemic has crippled its theatrical business and ushered more customers towards its streaming options. As of August, Disney has 100 million paid subscribers across its streaming offerings, more than half of which are subscribers to Disney+. "I would not characterize it as a response to Covid," CEO Bob Chapek told CNBC's Julia Boorstin on CNBC's "Closing Bell" Monday. "I would say Covid accelerated the rate at which we made this transition, but this transition was going to happen anyway."

A game critic for the Los Angeles Times remembers his reaction to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. "What a disappointment — if only it had been built for video game consoles." This leads to this epiphany: For all the deserved attention "The Mandalorian" series on Disney+ has received, the just-released game "Star Wars: Squadrons" reminds us that some of the best "Star Wars" stories in recent years have been in the video game space.... This is a work, in fact, that doesn't suffer from an action-focused, little-narrative approach — every second I've spent with this game has fulfilled the sort of personal "Star Wars" fantasy that's enhanced by giving the audience a bit of autonomy. It's also, for those privileged enough to own a virtual reality headset, the VR experience I've had at home that most represents what it's like to be in a theme park.

Rather than throwing spectacle after spectacle at me, it lets me partake in them, to scratch the itch of being in the center of intergalactic, aerial dogfights. But less than emphasizing awe, "Squadrons" centers on the feel of controlling a ship, making me feel a part of something bigger. Sure, that's just digital, fictional warfare, but "Squadrons" understands the appeal of "Star Wars" is that it's open to everyone, and any of us can be ace pilots if given the chance. We don't admire; we act.

There is nostalgia at play. The game recalls some of the LucasArts spaceflight simulators of yore that I obsessed with in my suburban Chicago basement, but there's a sense of swiftness and polish that makes this game as appealing as a coin-op arcade machine. And yet it's also in possession of confidence, a depth that I'll need to master if I really want to go hard in multiplayer battles. As a solo player without many friends who play multiplayer games — OK, fine, none — I'm not so sure I'll take the time to learn each individual ship and its advantages or disadvantages. But I'm not sure I need that because "Squadrons" has me smiling throughout, even if I accidentally turn my X-wing into an asteroid. While throwing me into larger-than-life moments — disable a giant, Imperial starship and help lead a capture of it — "Squadrons" succeeds in making them feel livable and conquerable.

In other words, by focusing so intently on the act of spaceflight, I don't feel like a tourist in the "Star Wars" universe, thrown a litany of "greatest hits" moments. Instead, "Squadron's" single-focus obsession allows my imagination to run free rather than have to wonder where I am, who I am or what I'm supposed to do now. I can just fly. And shoot. And it feels great.

"Anyone who has ever fallen in love with technology knows the amount of control that it gives you," says Cory Doctorow. But in a new interview about his recently-released scifi novel Attack Surface, he argues that many Silicon Valley employees are now having second thoughts: If you can express yourself well to a computer it will do exactly what you tell it to do perfectly, as many times as you want. Across the tech sector, there are a bunch of workers who are waking up and going: "How did I end up rationalising my love for technology and all the power it gives me to take away that power from other people?"

As a society, we have a great fallacy, the fallacy of the ledger, which is that if you do some bad things, and then you do some good things, you can talk them up. And if your balance is positive, then you're a good person. And if the balance is negative, you're a bad person. But no amount of goodness cancels out the badness, they coexist — the people you hurt will still be hurt, irrespective of the other things you do to make amends. We're flawed vessels, and we need a better moral discourse. That's one of the things this book is trying to establish...

[F]iction gives you an emotional fly-through. It invites you to consider the lived experience of what is otherwise a very abstract and technical debate. And in the same way that Orwell bequeathed us this incredibly useful adjective Orwellian, as a way to talk about not the technical characteristics of the technology, but who does it and whom it does it to, these stories are a way of intervening in the world.
In the real world, Doctorow believes our moment in time includes the possibility of a growing coalition of anti-monopoly sentiment. But he also believes that fears of technology-induced unemployment may ultimately be offset by climate change.

"We've got 200 to 300 years of full employment for every working pair of hands, to do things like relocate every city on a coast 20km inland. The extended amounts of labour ahead of us are more than any technology could offset."

An error in Facebook's automated system rejected a user's picture of onions for being "overtly sexual." The BBC reports: The Seed Company by EW Gaze, in St John's, Newfoundland, had wanted to post a seemingly innocent advert for Walla Walla onion seeds on Facebook. But to their surprise, it was rejected for being "overtly sexual." In a statement on Wednesday, the social media company apologized for the error made by its automated technology. It took store manager Jackson McLean a moment to realize what the issue was with the posting, he said. Then he figured out that "something about the round shapes" could be suggestive of breasts or buttocks.

He knew his customers would find the ad rejection funny, and posted the photo, along with the automated Facebook message warning "listings may not position products or services in a sexually suggestive manner," to the company page. Mr McLean said some clients have been posting images of potentially suggestive carrots and pumpkins in reply. He also appealed the decision to Facebook.

The Walla Walla onions, "an older onion variety," had recently brought back in stock by customer request, and are now selling fast due to their newfound notoriety, he said. "We've sold more in the last three days than in the last five years," said Mr McLean, adding they are also now listed under "sexy onions" on the company website.

Apple told CNBC that it will extend some Apple TV+ subscriptions on a free one-year trial for three additional months. From the report: When Apple TV+ launched last fall, Apple bundled a free one-year subscription with the purchase of an Apple product, immediately boosting the number of people who could watch the streaming service. The first of those trial subscriptions were previously going to expire at the start of November, meaning that people on the one-year trial who had not cancelled were going to be charged $4.99 per month for the streaming service.

Now subscribers whose trial expires before February will get three additional months of Apple TV+ for free. This means that someone who bought an iPhone on December 1 and activated Apple TV+ on the same day will have access to the service through March 1, when billing starts. Apple has not revealed the number of Apple TV+ subscribers. The service has fewer TV shows and movies than rivals like Disney+, which surpassed 60 million subscribers in August after launching last November. Netflix has more than 190 million subscribers around the world, it said in July. But unlike those services, Apple TV+ doesn't have a back catalog of reruns.

A Texas grand jury indicted Netflix for the "lewd" representation of children in the controversial French film "Cuties." The Hill reports: The Sept. 23 indictment shows the Tyler County Grand Jury charged the popular streaming site for "promotion of lewd visual material depicting child" for its drama about a young girl who is torn between her conservative Muslim family's values and her desire to join a dance troupe. Among the charges in question is Netflix's alleged promotion of material that portrays the "exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child, which appeals to the prurient interest in sex and has no serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value" -- a violation of the Texas penal code, according to the press release from Tyler County District Attorney Lucas Babin.

Netflix denied any wrongdoing after a summons was served on Oct. 1 by the Texas State Rangers. "'Cuties' is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children. This charge is without merit and we stand by the film," the company said in a statement to The Hill. After its Sept. 9 release, various GOP lawmakers including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) condemned "Cuties" for its alleged sexualization of minors. In a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr dated Sept. 11, Cruz called on the Department of Justice to investigate possible child abuse in relation to "Cuties."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AT&T is reportedly moving ahead with its plan to sell DirecTV despite receiving bids that value the satellite division at less than one-third of the price AT&T paid for it. AT&T bought DirecTV for $49 billion in 2015 and has lost seven million TV subscribers in the last two years. In late August, news broke that AT&T is trying to sell DirecTV to private-equity investors and that a deal could come in at less than $20 billion. The New York Post yesterday provided an update on the sale process, writing that AT&T is pressing ahead with an auction even though it is "shaping up to be a fire sale." The sale process is being handled for AT&T by Goldman Sachs.

"Opening bids from a coterie of buyout firms came in at around 3.5 times DirecTV's roughly $4.5 billion of EBITDA, implying a valuation at around $15.75 billion, according to a source close to the process," the Post article said. Despite the low first-round bids, AT&T "last week invited a handful of suitors into the second round of an auction of the struggling satellite-TV broadcaster," the Post wrote. Private-equity firms "are looking to milk the shrinking company for cash as DirecTV's subscribers steadily flee to lower-priced streaming-video services like Netflix," the Post wrote. AT&T could retain a minority stake in DirecTV after a sale.

In honor of legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen, who tragically passed away today from throat cancer at the age of 65, we wanted to resurface an article Eddie wrote in 2015 for Popular Mechanics. While many know him as the guitar god, Eddie Van Halen was also an inventor and patent holder who has spent the better part of 35 years in his shop, rebuilding guitars and amps, searching for his signature sound. Here's an excerpt from the article: I've always been a tinkerer. It comes from my dad. Growing up, we lived in a house in Pasadena that had no driveway. You used an alley that ran through the middle of the block, behind all the houses, to get to your backyard or the garage. Well, the neighbor behind us had a U-Haul trailer up on car jacks and loaded with cinder block. One night my dad came home from a gig at three in the morning. He had a little heat going, he'd had a few drinks, so he says, "This thing is blocking me from getting in again." So he got out of the car and tried to move it. As soon as he lifted the trailer, the jack fell over, and it chopped his finger off. This was a problem. Besides the obvious reasons, he played clarinet and saxophone. On a sax, you don't need to seal the hole with your finger. A valve closes over it. But with a clarinet, you have to seal the hole, so he took a saxophone valve cover and adapted it to work on his clarinet.

Another funny thing was later in his life, when he started losing his teeth. You need your bottom teeth to play a reed instrument. Instead of going to the dentist, he made himself a perfectly shaped prosthesis out of white Teflon that filled the gap where his teeth were missing. He slipped that in when he had to play. Watching him do that kind of stuff instilled a curiosity in me. If something doesn't do what you want it to, there's always a way to fix it... Van Halen was an inventor on three patents related to guitars: A folding prop to support a guitar in a flat position, a tension-adjusting tailpiece, and an ornamental design for a headstock. Two of the three remain today.

Slashdot reader nicolaiplum shares the following news about his passing: Rock legend Eddie van Halen has died, aged 65, after a long battle with cancer. "In a band known for its instability -- due in part to a rotating cast of lead singers that most notably includes David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar -- Eddie Van Halen and his brother Alex remained constants, appearing on 12 studio albums that reached across five decades and sold tens of millions of copies," reports NPR.

The New York Times adds: "His outpouring of riffs, runs and solos was hyperactive and athletic, making deeper or darker emotions feel irrelevant. The band he led was one of the most popular of all time." This story is part of a new occasional article series we're calling Slashback. We'll be covering a topic that may not be breaking news, but is interesting to us.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has said that he isn't sure if 8K resolution will ever be standard for video games, calling it "aspirational technology." From a report: Talking to Wired, Spencer said," I think 8K is aspirational technology. The display capabilities of devices are not really there yet. I think we're years away from 8K being -- if it ever is -- standard in video games." Spencer's comments come despite the Xbox Series X being able to support 8K output. However, while it may technically be able to push video at a resolution of 7680 x 4320, there are more factors to consider, chiefly being if anyone even has an 8K television or monitor to view such visuals on. According to Wired's chat with Liz Hamren, head of gaming engineering at Xbox, Microsoft's data suggests that 4K TV adoption is less than what publishers may think, and so that suggests 8K adoption is still years away at least.

Regal Cinemas, a subsidiary of Cineworld Group, said it will shut down all 536 locations on Thursday until further notice. The closure reflects "an increasingly challenging theatrical landscape" due to the COVID-19 pandemic and is temporary, the chain said. NPR reports: Regal is shutting down theaters again less than two months after it started to reopen U.S. locations in late August. The decision was announced after the James Bond franchise's No Time to Die was shelved until 2021, further pushing back a release that had already been delayed. Roughly 40,000 Regal employees across the U.S. now face a work furlough, the company told NPR. More than 5,000 employees in the U.K. will also be affected, the BBC reported.

"This is not a decision we made lightly, and we did everything in our power to support a safe and sustainable reopening in the U.S.," said Mooky Greidinger, CEO of Cineworld, noting the chain's safety precautions for staff and moviegoers. In a statement, Greidinger emphasized that "there has been no evidence to date linking any COVID cases with cinemas." He also aired frustration that Regal can't yet operate in New York state, a key U.S. market, although some indoor venues such as bowling alleys and casinos have been allowed to resume business. "The prolonged closures have had a detrimental impact on the release slate for the rest of the year, and, in turn, our ability to supply our customers with the lineup of blockbusters they've come to expect from us," Greidinger said. "As such, it is simply impossible to continue operations in our primary markets."

Spotify has rolled out a useful new feature today for iOS and Android that allows users to search for songs by its lyrics. 9to5Mac reports: When you're not sure the name of a song/artist, music recognition apps like Shazam are great if a song is playing. However, they don't work near as well if you're just trying to sing a couple of the lyrics into your phone. In those cases, it's common to search the web for the lyrics before heading to your music service to play or add the track. Now Spotify has simplified that problem as the service on both iOS and Android has added the handy option to type in lyrics to search for songs. Spotify designer Lina shared the news on Twitter this morning.