What’s New on Netflix in October 2017

Netflix is definitely keeping busy creating its own content, releasing 29 Netflix Original movies or series in October alone. Alongside the originals, Netflix will be streaming a large collection of new titles in October, including some horrors and thrillers for the Halloween season.

October 1

• 88 Minutes
• A Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song
• Before Midnight
• Blood Diamond
• Boogie Nights
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• Cleverman: Season 2
• Death Sentence
• Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood
• Eagle vs. Shark
• Eyes Wide Shut
• Generation Iron 2
• Ghost Patrol
• I Love You, Man
• Ice Guardians
• Lockup: Disturbing the Peace: Collection 1
• Made of Honor
• Miss Congeniality
• Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous
• Must Love Dogs
• Never Let Me Go
• No Reservations
• Penelope
• PJ Masks: Season 1
• Set Up
• The Reaping
• Tokyo Idols
• Tommy Boy
• Vanished
• Veronica

October 2

• Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown
• Sleeping with Other People

October 3

• 13 Demons
• Rodney Carrington: Here Comes The Truth (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)
• Cult of Chucky
• The Survivalist

October 4

• Raw

October 5

• Bonus Family (Bonusfamiljen): Season 1 (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)
• Schitt’s Creek: Season 3
• The Fosters: Season 5

October 6

• ID-0: Season 1 (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)
• Skylanders Academy: Season 2 (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)
• Suburra: Season 1 (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)
• The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)
• Word Party: Season 3  (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)

October 7

• Middle Man
• Chris Brown: Welcome To My Life

October 10

• The Skyjacker’s Tale
• Christina P: Mother Inferior (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)

October 11

• Donnie Darko

October 12

• Fe de etarras (NETFLIX ORIGINAL FILM)

October 13

• El Especial de Alex Fernández, el Especial (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)
• Kingdom of Us (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)
• MINDHUNTER: Season 1 (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)
• Super Monsters: Season 1 (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)
• Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
• The Babysitter (NETFLIX ORIGINAL FILM)
• The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (NETFLIX ORIGINAL FILM)
• Voltron: Legendary Defender: Season 4 (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)

October 15

• LEGO City: Season 1
• Money
• OtherLife
• She Makes Comics
• Belief: The Possession of Janet Moses
• West Coast Customs: Season 6

October 17

• Patton Oswalt: Annihilation (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)
• Slasher: Guilty Party (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)

October 19

• Wedding Unplanned

October 20

• 1922 (NETFLIX ORIGINAL FILM)
• Haters Back Off: Season 2 (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)
• One of Us (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)
• Smurfs: The Lost Village
• The Day I Met El Chapo: The Kate del Castillo Story (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)
• Wheelman (NETFLIX ORIGINAL FILM)

October 23

• While We’re Young
• Meet the Robinsons

October 24

• Wanted: Season 1 (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)
• Wanted: Season 2 (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)
• The Mist: Season 1

October 25

• The Hateful Eight
• The Final Master
• La Querida del Centauro: Season 2

October 26

• Strange Weather

October 27

• Stranger Things 2 (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)
• Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)

October 28

• Pup Star: Better 2Gether

October 30

• Judah Friedlander: America Is The Greatest Country In The United States (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)

October 31

• Zumbo’s Just Desserts: Season 1 (NETFLIX ORIGINAL)

Ellen Degeneres to Star in First Stand-up Comedy Special in 15 years

 

Ellen DeGeneres and Netflix have reportedly partnered up to produce a stand-up comedy special for the comedian.

The special, which as of this date does not have a title or release date on the streaming service, will be Ellen’s first special in 15 years. Her last special, Here and Now, premiered in 2003 on HBO, one month after the release of Finding Nemo in which she voiced “Dory.”

Since then, she has kept busy hosting her immensely popular daytime talk show “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” and more recently returned to the big screen in “Finding Dory,” which grossed over $1 billion worldwide. “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” has received 59 Daytime Emmy Awards over the course of 15 seasons and nearly 2,000 episodes.

DeGeneres has also hosted the Grammy Awards, Primetime Emmy Awards, and the Academy Awards. She made records when hosting the 2014 Academy Awards ceremony by taking a selfie with Awards nominees and attendees which quickly became the most retweeted post on the site’s history at the time, although the record has since been beaten.

Netflix has built a large collection of original content including stand-up comedy specials, and previously paid a whopping $60 million for the rights to stream three Dave Chappelle specials on their platform.

 

What’s New on Netflix in August 2017

August is a relatively slow month for new releases on Netflix, but still features a few big titles, with the majority being released on the first of the month. The Matrix movie franchise is among the content being released. Here are the other titles coming to Netflix this August.

August 1

• A Cinderella Story (2004)
• Bad Santa (2003)
• Cloud Atlas (2012)
• Crematorium (Season 1)
• Everyone’s Hero (2006)
• Funny Games (2007)
• Innerspace (1987)
• Jackie Brown (1997)
• Lord of War (2005)
• Maz Jobrani: Immigrant (2017)
• Nola Circus (2015)
• Opening Night (2016)
• Practical Magic (1998)
• Sleepy Hollow (1999)
• Small Soldiers (1998)
• Surviving Escobar – Alias JJ (2017)
• The Addams Family (1991)
• The Astronaut’s Wife (1999)
• The Bomb (2016)
• The Hollywood Masters (2017)
• The Last Mimzy (2007)
• The Matrix (1999)
• The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
• The Matrix Revolutions (2004)
• The Number 23 (2007)
• The Royal House of Windsor (2017)
• The Truth About Alcohol (2016)
• The Wedding Party (2016)
• Tie The Knot (2016)
• Who Gets the Dog? (2016)
• Wild Wild West (1999)

August 2nd

• Jab We Met (2007)
• The Founder (2016)

August 3rd

• Sing (2016)
• The Invisible Guardian (2017)

August 4th

• Icarus (2017)
• Voltron: Legendary Defender (2017)
• Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later (2017)

August 5th

• Holes (2003)

August 8th

• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (2017)

August 9th

• Black Site Delta (2017)

August 10th

• Diary of an Exorcist – Zero (2016)

August 11th

• Atypical (2017)
• Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh (2017)
• Naked (2017)
• True and The Rainbow Kingdom (2017)
• White Gold

August 13th

• Arthur and the Invisibles (2006)
• Hot Property (2016)
• Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo (2017)

August 14th

• The Outcasts (2017)
• Urban Hymn (2015)

August 15th

• Barbeque (2014)
• Brad Paisley’s Comedy Rodeo (2017)
• 21 (2008)
• A New Economy (2016)
• All These Sleepless Nights (2016)
• Donald Cried (2016)
• Murderous Affairs (2016)
• My Ex-Ex (2014)
• The Sweet Life (2016)

August 16th

• Gold (2016)

August 18th

• Dinotrux (2017)
• Glitter Force Doki Doki (2017)
• I Am Sam (2001)
• Marvel’s The Defenders (2017)
• What Happened to Monday (2017)

August 19th

• Hide and Seek (2005)

August 20th

• Camera Store (2016)

August 21st

• AWOL (2016)
• Bad Rap (2016)
• Beautiful Creatures (2013)
• Gomorrah (Italian Series – Season 2)
• Unacknowledged (2017)

August 22nd

• Lynne Koplitz: Hormonal Beast (2017)
• Sadie’s Last Days on Earth (2016)

August 23rd

• Feel Rich (2017)

August 25th

• Disjointed: Part 1 (2017)
• Death Note (2017)
• DreamWorks Dragons: Race to the Edge (2017)
• Once Upon a Time (Season 6)

August 29th

• Bring It On: Worldwide #Cheersmack (2017)
• Ryan Hamilton: Happy Face (2017)
• The Good Place (2016)

August 31st

• Be Afraid (2017)

Anthony Padilla is Leaving Smosh

Anthony Padilla has announced on the Smosh YouTube Channel that he is leaving the comedy group he founded with his friend and collaborator Ian Hecox.

In a 5-minute video featuring Anthony and Ian, Anthony told viewers that he had been contemplating leaving Smosh for a while, and decided to do so under his own creative volition. The comedy duo emphasized the strength of their 19-year long friendship and that there was no conflict between the two that lead to the departure.

Ian noted that he and Anthony had been discussing the possibility of Anthony leaving for some time and fully supports and understands his decision.

Ian will continue working with the Smosh brand and Anthony will pursue a career as an independent creator on his own channel. Hecox and Padilla will remain friends but will no longer be working together on the Smosh brand.

Smosh, now owned by Defy Media, currently operates the original Smosh channel (and channels in Spanish and French), Smosh 2nd Channel, Smosh Games, and Shut Up! Cartoons.

In a seapartate video on his own channel, Anthony Padilla, Padilla lays out the reasons behind his departure, saying that after the Smosh brand was purchased by Defy Media (formerly Alloy Digital and Break Media), his creative decisions were required to go through a filter in order to conform to standards set by the corporate owners.

He stated in the video that he will be making videos consistently on his channel, and a new channel titled “Anthony Padilla 2” was registered yesterday, June 13, with a biography that reads in part: “SOON.” As Padilla stated, he desired to go solo in order to make videos “with complete creative freedom, to be able to make whatever I want, whenever I want.”

Anthony started a website to talk to his friends on in 2002, then began creating videos with Ian which they decided to upload to YouTube, under the name Smosh. The duo began making lip sync videos in 2005. Their lip-sync video to the Pokemon theme song became the most viewed video on the video sharing platform at the time it was uploaded.

Smosh expanded its content offerings by posting original recurring videos, like Food Battle, Every (Blank) Ever, If (Blank) Were Real, and several other regularly uploaded sketch comedy videos. The channel also progressed from just Anthony and Ian appearing on camera, to many new cast members and hosts across the 4 channels that have a combined 10,701,375,769 views and 37,127,403 subscribers.

The full length feature film “Smosh: The Movie” was released in 2015, and both Hecox and Padilla provided their voices to the animated Angry Birds movie in 2016. “Ghostmates” was released on YouTube Red in 2016.

Padilla told Variety that he plans to upload a new video on June 19. The channel will feature interviews with other YouTubers, sketches, vlogs, and talks about his personal struggles, with videos to be released on Mondays and Fridays. Padilla also said that he hopes to do more voice-over work and plans on writing a television pilot.

 

 

You Can Now Archive Your Unwanted Instagram Posts Instead of Deleting Them

In an effort to prevent users from permanently deleting a photo, Instagram has launched their new “Archive” option.

Archive allows users of the photo sharing service to save publish photos, then privatize one photo at a time by sending it into the archive. This means if you’ve already posted a photo but you later decide you don’t want people to see it, you can simply archive so that you can keep it on your account.

To archive a photo, users only need to open the photo that they want to archive, and click the ellipses (… on iOS, vertical on Android) on the top right corner, which also contains the options to Turn Off Commenting, Edit, Share, and Delete. The Archive option will be the first of the options.

The photo is then removed from the user’s page and stored in the new “Archive” page which can be accessed by tapping the counter-clockwise arrow image on the top right corner of the app.

If the user changes their mind and wants to publish the photo on their page again,

Instagram says that the new feature allows users to be more flexible as their evolving profile reflects the user over time, and newly unwanted photos can then be relegated to private viewing.

What’s New on Netflix in June 2017

Netflix is seeing a slew of new releases on its streaming service, including the ever-popular Orange is the New Black, among other television shows and movies. Here are the new titles, by date:

June 1st

• 1 Night (2016)
• 13 Going on 30 (2004)
• Arrow – Season 5
• Burlesque (2017)
• Catfight (2016)
• Catwoman (2004)
• Chingo Bling: They Can’t Deport Us All (2017)
• Days of Grace (2011)
• Devil’s Bride (2016)
• Full Metal Jacket (1987)
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
• Intersection – Season 2
• Kardashian: The Man Who Saved OJ Simpson (2016)
• Little Boxes (2016)
• Mutant Busters – Season 2
• My Left Foot (1989)
• Off Camera with Sam Jones – Season 3
• Playing It Cool (2014)
• Rounders (1998)
• Spring (2016)
• The 100 – Season 4
• The Ant Bully (2006)
• The Bucket List (2007)
• The Queen (2006)
• The Sixth Sense (1999)
• Vice (2015)
• West Coast Customs – Season 3
• Yarn (2016)
• Young Frankenstein (1974)
• Zodiac (2007)

June 2nd

• Comedy Bang! Bang!: Season 5, Part 2
• Flaked! – Season 2
• Inspector Gadget – Season 3
• Los Últimos de Filipinas (2016)
• Lucid Dream (2017)
• Saving Banksy (2014)
• The Homecoming: Collection (2015)

June 3rd

• Acapulco La Vida Va (2017)
• Blue Gold: American Jeans (2017)
• Headshot (2016)
• Three (2016)
• Tunnel (2016)
• War on Everyone (2016)

June 4th

• TURN: Washington’s Spies – Season 3

June 5th

• Suite Française (2014)

June 7th

• Disturbing the Peace (2016)
• Trolls (2016)

June 9th

• My Only Love Song – Season 1
• Orange Is the New Black – Season 5
• Shimmer Lake (2017)

June 10th

• Black Snow (2017)
• Daughters of the Dust (1991)
• Havenhurst (2017)
• Sword Master (2016)

June 13th

• Oh, Hello On Broadway with Nick Kroll (2017)

June 14th

• Quantico – Season 2

June 15th

• Marco Luque: Tamo Junto (2017)
• Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Season 4
• Mr. Gaga: A True Story of Love and Dance (2015)

June 16th

• Aquarius – Season 2
• Counterpunch (2017)
• El Chapo – Season 1
• The Ranch – Part 3
• World of Winx – Season 2

June 17th

• Grey’s Anatomy – Season 13
• Scandal – Season 6
• The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015)

June 18th

• Shooter – Season 1

June 19th

• Amar Akbar & Tony (2015)
• Moana (2016)
• Rory Scovel Tries Stand-Up For The First Time (2017)

June 21st

• Baby Daddy – Season 6
• Young & Hungry – Season 5

June 23rd

• American Anarchist (2016)
• Free Rein – Season 1
• GLOW – Season 1
• Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press (2017)
• You Get Me (2017)

June 26th

• No Escape (2015)

June 27th

• Chris D’Elia: Man on Fire (2017)

June 28th

• Okja (2017)

June 30th

• Chef & My Fridge: Collection (2014)
• Gypsy – Season 1
• It’s Only the End of the World (2016)
• Little Witch Academia – Season 1
• The Weekend (2016)

Change Comes to Netflix’s Rating System

Netflix has been testing a new system to rate content from their streaming catalog, and after positive results, they’ve made a change.

Instead of allowing users to assign movies and television shows a rating of 1 through 5 stars, they will be prompted with a thumbs up or a thumbs down to indicate that they enjoyed or did not enjoy it, respectively. The beta testing on the new ratings was conducted in 2016 with “hundreds of thousands” of users.

Todd Yellin, the media company’s Vice President of Product told Variety and other journalists at a press briefing in Netflix headquarters on Thursday that the decision implement the change was made to improve user experience and introduction to new content that viewer may enjoy.  Reportedly, the beta testing pushed the company to implement the change as user-submitted ratings increased by 200% under the new system.

He described the move as making it simpler for users to tell Netflix what they’ve enjoyed and would like to see more of, since users are more likely to give a higher star rating to an award-worthy movie or show based on its quality, rather than a slapstick comedy which they would rather watch, according to Yellin. The thumbs up rating is meant to act as a yes or no for users, instead of giving them control over how much they like something through the use of 5 options.

An algorithm will also display a percentage next to the streaming content, estimating how likely someone may enjoy that TV show or movie based on what you have watched or given a thumbs up to previously.

Twitter’s Infamous Egg Avatar Has Been Replaced

What has been the face of Twitter trolls and newbies alike for 7 years is now a thing of the past, as Twitter drops the egg as their default profile photo and replaces it with a generic portrait figure, as many other sites use.

In a blog post, Twitter shared a brief history on the design of the image, relating the egg photo given to new users who go on to become regular Twitter users and an egg hatching into a bird. The image, a white egg against a colorful background, was first introduced in 2010 and succeeded 3 other default profile photos.

Twitter Design Blog

The microblogging site’s design team also explained their reasoning for the change, including highlighting the company’s commitment to recognizing different groups of users around the world by prompting self-expression among users through their profile photos. Some users also chose to keep the previous egg image because they liked the look of it, so the new default photo is meant to more apparently serve as a placeholder as encouragement to replace it. Twitter also briefly addressed the fact that accounts are often solely made to harass users, so a correlation between anonymous harassment from “egg” users negatively affects new users who have not yet uploaded a profile photo.

Rethinking our default profile photo. 🐣 https://t.co/5UjUltJwkf

— Twitter Design (@design) March 31, 2017

Several iterations of the design were considered after key traits were identified. A grey figure was chosen for being generic, universal, and temporary so that users would want to change it. A high color contrast was used to aid visually impaired users in seeing the image. The coloring also serves to give profiles with the default image less prominence than users with unique profile photos.

The figure is reminiscent of the iconography plastered on restroom doors indicating male and female restrooms. To avoid users associating the new avatar with a specific gender, the head, shoulders, and height were altered.

Avatar revisions can be seen from start to finish below:

Twitter Design Blog

 

 

 

Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos Rises to Become World’s Second Wealthiest Person

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index  and Forbes watched Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos become the 2nd wealthiest person in the world amid a rise in Amazon stock.

Amazon’s stock rose $18.32 after Amazon announced their plans to acquire another online commerce site, Souq, described as the largest e-commerce website in the Arab world.

According to Bloomberg, the 53-year-old billionaire has added $10.2 billion to his net worth this year alone. Real time figures from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index show that Bezos currently has a net worth of $76.7 billion based on Bloomberg’s metrics.  Bezos sits at $1.5 billion above Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett.

Forbes also lists Jeff Bezos as its 2nd wealthiest person on its Real Time Billionaires List, with a net worth of  $76.2 billion, $200 million above Spain’s Amancio Ortega.

Bezos remains below the world’s wealthiest person,Bill Gates, on both lists: $10.7 billion away from the #1 spot by Forbes’ metrics, and $9.7 billion according to Bloomberg.

Amazon’s value has risen dramatically since its start as an online book reseller, to become the world’s largest e-commerce site and a predominant cloud-computing service, Amazon Web Service. Bezos also owns The Washington Post after purchasing it for $250 million in 2013, and aerospace company Blue Origin, which he founded.

Cover photo from James Duncan Davidson under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

What’s New on Netflix in April 2017

Here are the movies and TV shows that will be available to stream on Netflix beginning in April.

Starting April 1:

• A Weekend With the Family (2016)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
• Across the Universe (2007)
• An American Tail (1986)
• An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991)
• An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster (1999)
• Boy Bye (2016)
• Born To Be Free (2016)
• Cool Runnings (1993)
• Good Witch: Season 2 (2016)
• Gremlins (1984)
• Only for One Night (2016)
• Richard Pryor: Live & Smokin’ (1971)
• Scooby-Doo (2002)
• Schindler’s List (1993)
• Something’s Gotta Give (2003)
• Thunderstruck (2012)
• Wynonna Earp: Season 1 (2016)
• Trouble with the Curve (2012)
• Tropic Thunder (2008)
• The Tenth Man (2016)

Starting April 2nd

• The D Train (2015)

Starting April 4th

• Chewing Gum (Season 2)
• Louis C.K. 2017 (2017)

Starting April 6th

• The BFG (2016)

Starting April 7th

• El Faro De Las Orcas (2017)
• Dawn of the Croods (Season 3)
• The Get Down (Part 2)
• Win It All (2017)

Starting April 8th

• Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)

Starting April 10th

• Documentary Now! (2016)

Starting April 11th

• Kevin Hart: What Now (2016)

Starting April 12th

• DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (Season 2)

Starting April 14th

• Chelsea (Season 2)
• El Elegido (2017)
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return (Season 1)
• Sandy Wexler (2017)

Starting April 15th

• Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993)
• Slam (2017)

Starting April 18th

• Lucas Brothers: On Drugs (2017)

Starting April 19th

• A Plastic Ocean (2016)

Starting April 21st

• Bill Nye Saves the World (Season 1)
• Girlboss (Season 1)
• Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On (Season 1)
• Sand Castle (2017)
• Tales by Light (Season 2)
• The Mr. Peabody & Sherman Show (Season 4)
• The Prestige (2006)
• Tramps (2017)

Starting April 22nd

• The Great British Baking Show – Masterclass (Seasons 1-3)
• The Secret Life of Pets (2016)

Starting April 24th

• Long Nights Short Mornings (2016)

Starting April 25th

• Queen of Katwe (2016)
• The 101–Year-Old Man Who Skipped Out on the Bill and Disappeared (2017)
• Vir Das: Abroad Understanding (2017)

Starting April 26th

• Real Rescues (Seasons 6-7)
• Trust (2010)

Starting April 27th

• Las Chicas Del Cable (Season 1)

Starting April 28th

• A Murder in the Park (2014)
• Casting JonBenet (2017)
• Dear White People (Season 1)
• Rodney King (2017)
• Small Crimes (2017)

Starting April 30th

• Sofia the First (Season 3)