Respawn is continuing to expand Apex Legendsbeyond its battle royale roots. The studio is launching its first big team mode, Control, as a limited-time feature available starting February 8th. The mode will sound familiar if you've played Destiny's Control or other hold-the-points gameplay formats. Two teams of nine players each vie to capture and keep up to three zones, with infinite respawns for every player. Those zones will confer benefits like they do in other games, but the nature of those benefits is different — there's a strong incentive to focus on territory rather than wiping out the enemy team.
Every zone your team owns will add points each second, up to a score limit of 1,250. You'll randomly encounter "Capture Bonuses" that deliver a wealth of points if your team holds a given zone when the bonus timer runs out. Own both the center point and your team's home point and you can spawn in that middle ground. And if you manage to capture all three points, you'll start a "Lockout" that guarantees a win if those points are yours when a timer expires. A lopsided match shouldn't drag on longer than necessary, to put it another way.
Control also introduces a ratings system where players can progress through tiers the more they accomplish for the team in a given life. You'll earn use of your ultimate ability every time you move up a tier, so there's plenty of motivation to stay in one piece. Respawn is promising Control-specific badges and challenges for those interested in longer-term goals.
And yes, there's a new Apex character. The game is introducing Mad Maggie, a seemingly Mad Max-inspired, Australian-sounding warlord who has been sentenced to fight in the Apex games. Much like Caustic, her abilities reflect her willingness to leave morality at the door — Riot Drill forces enemies out of cover by burning them, and Wrecking Ball produces boost pads while also exploding near foes. She can also highlight enemies she shoots, and moves more quickly while using shotguns.
It's too soon to know if Control will become permanent like Arenas. Respawn's strategy is clear, however. Modes like this potentially keep Apex fresh for veteran players, and might expand the audience to newcomers who aren't fans of the original game's last-one-standing experience.
The best horror movie villains never die, do they?
After 50 years in hiding, the dreaded Leatherface is back to terrorize with Netflix's Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot. History may have forgotten Leatherface, but Sally Hardesty (now played by Olwen Fouéré) hasn't. And she's not letting him get away this time.
David Blue Garcia directs the reboot, written by Chris Thomas Devlin and with a story by Evil Dead's Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues. The production team includes Kim Henkel, who co-wrote the 1974 original. Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham, Moe Dunford, Nell Hudson, Jessica Allain, Jacob Latimore, and Alice Krige co-star.
We all have that one friend who treats their pet like it’s their child or best friend (or both).
You’d probably figure that a stellar pet parent already has enough stuff for their fur baby, but there's a high chance you're wrong. Pet accessories (things like pet cameras, chew toys, tracking devices, this umbrella-leash contraption) aren’t always cheap, especially the good ones.
If you have one or more pet-obsessed buddies and are struggling to find them a gift for the holidays, their birthday, or just an “I appreciate you” present, we suggest getting them something that will also benefit their animal companion.
Below, we’ve pulled together a group of fantastic gift ideas for the pet owner in your life, and we’re confident you’ll find something here that your recipient will love. Now, go make your fellow pet parent’s day (and their pet’s day, too).
Got a pandemic puppy or a quarantine cat? You're not alone. Tons of people are adopting new pets — and figuring out that the cost of buying toys, beds, treats, and pet tech adds up quickly. To keep you from spending your entire paycheck on your four-legged friend, we'll be compiling a list of the best pet deals weekly so you can be the best pet parent ever — even if you're on a budget.
Celebrate National Mutt Week by buying your pooch one of the top smart collars on the market. Basically a Fitbit or Apple Watch for your dog, the Fi collar keeps track of your pup's location via GPS, and tracks sleep, steps, and other activity (which you can monitor through the connected smartphone app). Whether you want your dog to get more exercise or just want to keep an eye on your beloved furry escape artist, the Fi collar has you covered.
While most of the dog DNA kit deals left with the holidays, this Embark deal has stayed constant since Black Friday. With a simple cheek swab, you can check your dog's breed makeup across over 350 different breeds, find breed contributions down to 5% of your pup's total makeup, and (if you're lucky) even find doggy relatives.
Let's say you want your dog to be cozy, but you also want their bed to match your stylish home decor. Checking both boxes might sound like a far-off dream, but Paw.com's rug beds actually fit the bill. With a removable, washable cover, memory foam inner, and a design that's meant to look like a decorative rug, these beds are the all-in-one pet product you've been looking for. You can also score up to 70% off select dog beds and blankets on the site during Paw.com's Valentine's Day sale.
If you have a genius dog on your hands, a puzzle toy is one of the best ways to release some of that mental energy. This well-rated Nina Ottosson toy has multiple compartments that hold treats, and your pup will learn to flip, slide, and lift the pieces to reveal their snacks. It's sure to keep boredom at bay, so you can get some work done while your dog plays.
Whether you have a bird, fish, snake, or hamster, this Petco sale has products for you. Pet owners can receive $30 off online orders of $100 or more on select products. Save on everything from fish tanks to bird toys and more.
When Twitter banned Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 riots, many rejoiced at finally being rid of relentless misinformation at the hands of the former president. Then, when Twitter then actively enforced its civic integrity policy against further misinformation about the 2020 election, the platform felt a little safer — but apparently that only lasted until two months later, when the platform stopped enforcing the policy against 2020 election lies at all.
Twitter spokesperson Elizabeth Busby recently told CNN that the company has not been enforcing the civic integrity policy in relation to 2020 election lies "since March 2021." Busby also maintained that this change in policy enforcement has been known since June 2021, as reported in a New York Timesarticle. However, the referenced article only mentions that Twitter had "loosened its enforcement since March," while Busby's statement makes clear there has been no enforcement happening at all.
According to Twitter, the civic integrity policy exists to provide guidelines around "directly harmful types of content," mainly targeting false claims on how to participate in civic processes, intimidation or suppression of civic processes, and false affiliation. In Sept. 2020, Twitter expanded this policy to allow labeling or removal of "false or misleading information intended to undermine public confidence in an election or other civic process."
In the two months following the Jan. 6 riots, this policy allowed for any mention of election rigging, ballot tampering, or uncertified election results claims to be labeled with a content warning or taken down entirely. It also implemented a clear strike system, where repeat offenders could be punished with varying degrees of account suspension and, eventually, deactivation. By ending enforcement so soon after such calamitous events, Twitter undermined its so-called transparency and strike-based process, sending the message that misinformation only needs to wait patiently before it can be spread to the masses.
Twitter stands by this decision, telling CNN that the policy was only designed for use during an election, and that "the 2020 U.S. election is not only certified, but President Biden has been in office for more than a year."
While that may now be true, President Biden had only taken office shortly before Twitter's policy enforcement ended. Halting the policy allowed tweets mentioning a rigged election or fake results to run rampant at a time when the country had just been upended by an attempted insurrection. That's one reason why Trump's "Big Lie" about a stolen election in 2020 continues to reverberate around social media.
Today, various high profile politicians continue to commandeer the same ideas that still proliferate on Twitter. Donald Trump, though he remains banned on Twitter, still perpetuates the idea that he unfairly lost the election and maintains that this will affect future elections. Billy Long, Jim Lamon, and Bernie Moreno, all running for Senate seats, mention a rigged 2020 election in political ads that ran just this past week.
While Twitter doesn't allow such ads on its platform, the lack of enforcement regarding 2020 election results will let discussion of these ads' messages or prominent political figures' views run unchecked, further fanning the flames of misinformation ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. By not acknowledging the effects of 2020 election lies beyond the scope of President Biden's election, Twitter is allowing for further potential harm – and effectively confusing its users on what is and isn't allowed on the platform at the same time.
Paramount+’s live-action Halo series will debut on March 24th, according to a teaser the streamer shared today ahead of the AFC Championship Game on CBS. At approximately the 53-second mark of the clip, you can hear the announcer state the release date.
We’re just getting started. Watch the #HaloTheSeries Official Trailer today during halftime at the AFC Championship Game on @CBS and @ParamountPlus.
After sharing the first-look teaser back at The Game Awards in December, Paramount+ promised to release a longer trailer partway through today’s match between the Cincinnati Bengals and Kansas City Chiefs. CBS will air the trailer during halftime, with the game scheduled to start at 3:05PM ET. We’ll update this article with the full-length trailer once it drops.
First announced back in 2013, the Halo live-action series spent years in development hell before ViacomCBS announced last year the show would premiere on Paramount+ instead of Showtime, as previously planned. Pablo Schreiber, of American Gods fame, is the one donning Master Chief’s signature Mjolnir armor, and the entire project oozes high production values.
If the daily five letter word guess has gotten too easy for you, may we suggest a new challenge? Try starting your Wordle with the scientifically proven worst first word.
What is that word, you ask? Why, it's the consonant-laden "xylyl," of course!
TikTok user @crvlwanek, whose name is Chris, wrote and ran a computer script that helped determine the most terrible way to start a game of Wordle. Inspired by user @linguisticdiscovery – who recommends in his own video that the best starting word is "irate" – Chris actually wanted more concrete proof of the best first move.
"I copied over the entire [word] list into a JSON file," said Chris in the video. "And then I made a quick script to load all the words, calculate the frequencies of each letter, score each word based on the frequencies of the letters in the word, and then calculate the most optimal starting word."
The script found that the proven optimal first word is actually "later." But in discovering the best word, Chris also found the worst word. While he doesn't address "xylyl" in his first video, data fans quickly asked for the update, prompting him to scroll to the end of his calculated list for the big reveal.
A "xylyl," in case you were wondering, is "any of several isomeric monovalent radicals C8H9 derived from the three xylenes by removal of a hydrogen atom," according to Merriam-Webster.
Other data-minded viewers also called out Chris's initial calculation method, noting the need to account for letter position as well as frequency. Chris amended his script, and has made several versions that use both the sum and the product of frequency and position in order to find the best and worst word.
In these scripts. the best word seems to be either "saree" or "sooey." He also mentions "soare" to be a good candidate, as it appears highly in all versions. The other worst word candidates include "imshi" and "aflaj."
Regardless of best word controversy, it seems pretty certain that "xylyl" will not lead you down a quick road of success. But hey, if you do choose to start with it, you're gonna look pretty incredible the one day it's actually the word.
Ever since the omicron variant arrived in the US, there’s been a testing shortage in the country. Stuck between long lines at dedicated clinics and overly expensive at-home tests, many Americans have understandably given up the idea of getting tested to ensure they’re not sick with COVID-19. However, a solution to some of those problems could be on the way.
University of California, Santa Barbara
In a newly published paper spotted by Gizmodo, researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara, detailed a system you can start using for about $100 should you already have access to a relatively modern phone. What’s more, they say early results show their process is nearly as accurate as a PCR test (and thankfully doesn’t involve tickling your brain).
In its current iteration, the system involves downloading the team’s Bacticount app to your phone, as well as making use of a hot plate and a cardboard box with a LED light. When you need to test yourself, you place a saliva sample onto a testing kit that costs about $7. You then drop a reactive solution that makes it easier for your phone’s rear camera to detect any viral RNA in the sample. The solution turns a bright red as it bonds with the viral material in your saliva. The Bacticount app then conducts a real-time analysis based on how quickly the solution turns red.
As you might imagine, there’s still plenty of work to be done before you can start using the SmaRT-LAMP test at home. The initial study is based on a small sample size involving 50 symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals. Moreover, the Bacticount app is so far only optimized to work with the Samsung Galaxy S9. Still, the system shows promise. While it was developed primarily to aid with testing in places that don’t have access to adequate resources, Dr. Michael Mann, the lead researcher on the project, told Gizmodo that it could be adapted for at-home use. He also said it could be modified to detect new COVID-19 variants and other pathogens like the flu.
Anyone with an overactive brain can tell you that the nighttime hours are the best time to spiral.
That's the premise of a new Saturday Night Live musical number from Chris Redd. In "Now I'm Up," Redd, along with fellow cast member Kenan Thompson, sings about life's little annoyances and worries that loom too large in the quiet moments before we fall asleep. Existential dread, too-loud ads from free streaming services, mysterious lumps, even a partner's overly long toenails — all of those things and more can pop up out of nowhere and turn a sleepy brain into a suddenly active one.
It's a catchy tune, as most SNL musical numbers tend to be, but it's also painfully relatable.
I've been thinking about the Saturday Night Live cast lately, and how the show has low-key assembled one of the strongest squads of performers it's had in years. Sketches like this one prove it.
The latest episode, hosted by Willem Dafoe, delivered a sketch featuring New York City apartment tenant meeting where pretty much every member of the cast not named Colin Jost or Michael Che got a moment to show off their comedy chops. (No Cecily Strong either, sadly.) There's no one highlight to pull out here because everyone brings a little something different to their moment.
Newcomer Sarah Sherman makes her saltiness over an unexpected bill hilariously and loudly clear. Veterans Kate McKinnon and Kenan Thompson get big laughs from subdued moments as an elderly cat-hoarder and a very sexually active ladies man. Pete Davidson and Aristotle Athari both put on funny accents and find the comedy in their unique brands of weirdness. Even Dafoe gets in on the fun as the building's resident "pain in the ass" who longs for the days of a more dangerous and chaotic NYC.
NASA isn't just interested in putting more women in space. The agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has appointed Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Dr. Laurie Leshin as its first female director. She'll assume the role on May 16th, replacing former director Michael Watkins (who retired in August 2021) and interim director Lt. Gen Larry James. She'll also serve as vice president of Caltech, which manages the JPL.
Leshin has extensive experience, both in science and in breaking new ground. She has held senior positions in NASA, including a key director role at the Goddard Space Flight Center. As deputy associate administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, she laid some of the groundwork for both commercial spaceflight and Artemis. She was Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's science dean, and has served as WPI's first female president since 2014.
The incoming JPL director has also pursued science of her own. She has been a proponent of and contributor to Mars sample return missions, and helped study data from the Curiosity rover. The appointment is also a return of sorts of Leshin, as she earned her graduate degrees at Caltech.
Caltech said Leshin was a prime candidate to lead the JPL thanks to her "strategic approach" to science and technology, recognition of NASA's leading role in science, navigation of complex institutions and ability to "inspire the next generation" of scientists and engineers. In other words, she could be a good fit for an organization where long-term planning is absolutely necessary.
Apple has introduced a new feature that could help declutter the App Store somewhat. Per support documentation spotted by MacRumors, the marketplace now supports unlisted apps that users can only access through a direct link. Should a developer feel their software isn’t suited for public use, they can make a request through Apple’s website to distribute it as an unlisted app.
If the company grants the request, the app won’t appear “in any App Store categories, recommendations, charts, search results or other listings,” according to Apple. Outside of a direct link, it’s possible to access unlisted apps through Apple’s Business and School Manager platforms.
The company suggests that the new distribution method is ideal for apps that were designed for specific organizations, special events, research studies and other similar use cases. It notes, however, that unlisted apps aren’t a replacement for its TestFlight process since it will decline software that’s in a pre-release or beta state.
Otherwise, Apple notes it will consider both new and existing apps. Once an app is approved, its status as an unlisted app will apply to any future versions of the software a developer may release. In the case of any existing apps, their App Store link will remain the same.
The new year is well underway, and we’ve already started testing out a wide variety of gadgets, devices and components. This week, Devindra Hardawar played with NVIDIA’s RTX 3050 and deemed it a great deal — if it stays at its original price. Steve Dent shot with the Sony's new A7 IV camera to test out its autofocus, video and image quality improvements, while Billy Steele spent time with both the Jabra Elite 4 Active earbuds and the Shure Aonic 40 over-ear headphones.
Though the RTX 3050 is supposed to be an affordable way to hit 1080p/60fps while gaming, the $250 GPU may wind up costing considerably more due to demand and chip shortages. Devindra Hardawar says the graphics card, which is the lowest priced NVIDIA GPU to also feature ray tracing, is a fantastic component with 2,560 CUDA cores, 8GB of GDDR6 RAM and a boost speed of 1,777 MHz.
Devindra says the RTX 3050 tackled everything he threw at it during testing, averaging 140fps in Hitman 3’s Dubai benchmark. He was impressed at how well the card handled demanding games like Control, where it reached 65fps on average in 1080p (without ray tracing). It also stayed surprisingly quiet and cool at 60 degrees Celsius. While Devindra says it’s best suited to 1080p gaming, he also says it’s an absolute steal – if the price stays low.
With a higher resolution 33-megapixel sensor, improved video capabilities, and an updated autofocus, Steve Dent found a lot to like about the Sony A7 IV mirrorless camera. He even called the hybrid shooter a near-perfect package, and he particularly liked its sturdy grip, precise buttons and dials and the fully articulated rear touch display. Sony’s well-organized menu system also made it easy for him to navigate through the controls.
The main drawback on this camera is a rolling shutter issue: Steve says while shooting silently in electronic mode, the camera needs to be steady and the subject should be smooth, or artifacts like slanted lines will appear in the shots. However, he was quite impressed with the AI autofocus features, which made the A7 IV easy to use and the most reliable camera he’s tested. At $2,500 the A7 IV is more expensive at launch than previous models, but Steve says the improvements in image quality, video and color science make the A7 IV another winner in Sony’s camera lineup.
Jabra’s Elite 4 Active true wireless earbuds continue the company’s trend towards offering small earbuds with a wide array of hands-free features. With a IP57 water resistance, they’re also more useful during workouts, and Billy Steele says their small size makes them more comfortable to wear as well. The new model includes features often seen in pricer models like HearThrough, SideTone and Find My, most of which are adjustable in the companion mobile app.
Billy found the Elite 4 Active delivered good but not great sound quality – while they provided decent clarity and nice detail overall, they lacked a wider soundstage and depth. However, he said the call quality was slightly better than most earbuds thanks to the reduced background noise. Battery tests showed that the Elite 4 Active buds lasted a little over seven hours — enough to get through most of a work day — and the $120 price is competitive.
Billy Steele was pleased to see that Shure didn’t make too many compromises when it came to the Aonic 40 over-ear headphones. Made from aluminum alloy and glass-filled nylon, the cans are easy to fold flat for traveling and have physical buttons for on-board controls, but Billy says he found them a bit uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time. He was more impressed by the Shure app, which provides a robust equalizer, plenty of adjustable settings and the ability to make your own presets.
Billy says while the Aonic 40 offers a punchy bass and clarity across volume levels, the soundstage isn’t wide open and songs lack immersive depth often heard with other headphones. The noise cancellation and ambient sound modes were only decent, but the call quality was above average. The $249 headphones particularly excelled during battery testing where they lasted over 30 hours. Overall, Billy says the Aonic 40’s are a relatively affordable option, but lack polish on the finer details.
Netflix's love affair with Masters of the Universe isn't about to cool down any time soon. The streaming service is partnering with Mattel to develop a live-action Masters of the Universe movie — no, they weren't put off by the 1987 flop. Production is expected to start this summer, with the Nee Brothers (who created the upcoming The Lost City) co-directing the title and writing it alongside Shang-Chi's David Callaham.
The companies haven't divulged much about the plot, but they've already chosen Kyle Allen (Balkan in West Side Story) as Prince Adam/He-Man. Not surprisingly, there are hints Adam will discover his power as He-Man and fight Skeletor to protect Eternia.
This isn't a surprising move when MOTU has been lucrative for Netflix. Its She-Ra reboot had five seasons, and Kevin Smith's Masters of the Universe: Revelation is starting its second season in March. There's also a child-oriented CG animated series, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Between this and other '80s flashbacks, Netflix appears to know what nostalgia makes its audience tick.
The Silent Era of cinema was perhaps its most equitable with both hearing and hearing-impaired viewers able to enjoy productions alongside one another, but with the advent of "talkies," deaf and hard-of-hearing American's found themselves largely excluded from this new dominant entertainment medium. It wouldn't be until the second half of the 20th century that advances in technology enabled captioned content to be broadcast directly into homes around the country. In his latest book, Turn on the Words! Deaf Audiences, Captions, and the Long Struggle for Access, Professor Emeritus, National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology, Harry G. Lang, documents the efforts of accessibility pioneers over the course of more than a century to bring closed captioning to the American people.
To the millions of deaf and hard of hearing people in the United States, television before captioning had been “nothing more than a series of meaningless pictures.” In 1979, Tom Harrington, a twenty-eight-year old hard of hearing audiovisual librarian from Hyattsville, Maryland, explained that deaf and hard of hearing people “would like to watch the same stuff as everyone is watching, no matter how good or how lousy. In other words, to be treated like everyone else.”
On March 16, 1980, closed captioning officially began on ABC, NBC, and PBS. The first closed captioned television series included The ABC Sunday Night Movie, The Wonderful World of Disney, and Masterpiece Theater. In addition, more than three decades after the movement to make movies accessible to deaf people began, ABC officially opened a new era by airing its first closed captioned TV movie, Force 10 from Navarone.
By the end of March 1980, sixteen captioned hours of programming were going out over the airwaves each week, and by the end of May, Sears had sold 18,000 of the decoding units within four months of offering them for sale. Sears gave NCI an $8 royalty for each decoding device sold. The funds were used to defray the costs of captioning. In addition to building up a supply of captioned TV programs during its first year of operation, so that a sufficient volume would be available for broadcast, NCI concentrated on training caption editors. A second production center was established in Los Angeles and a third in New York City.
John Koskinen, chairman of NCI’s board, reflected on the challenges the organization faced at this time. A much smaller market for the decoders was evident than that estimated through early surveys. As with the telephone modem that was simultaneously developing, the captioning decoders cost a significant sum for most deaf consumers in those days, and the expense of a decoder did not buy a lot because not all the captioned hours being broadcast were of interest to many people. Although the goal was to sell 100,000 decoders per year, NCI struggled to sell 10,000, and this presented a financial burden.
To help pay for the captioning costs, NCI also set up a “Caption Club” to raise money from organizations serving deaf people and from other private sources. By December 1983, $15,000 was taken in and used to pay for subtitles on programs that otherwise would not be captioned. By 1985, there were 3,500 members promoting the sales.
Interestingly, when sales suddenly went up one year, NCI investigated and found that the Korean owner of an electronics store in Los Angeles was selling decoders as a way to enhance English learning.
The next big breakthrough was the move toward the use of digital devices recently adopted by court recorders that, for NCI, allowed the captioning of live television. Having the ability to watch the evening news and sporting events with captions made the purchase of a decoder more attractive, as did the decline in its price over time.
When the American television network NBC showed the twelve hour series Shogun in 1980, thousands of deaf people were able to enjoy it. The $20 million series was closed captioned and 30,000 owners of the special decoder sets received the dialogue.
Jeffrey Krauss of the FCC admitted that deaf people had not had full access to television from the very beginning: “But by early 1980 it should be possible for the deaf and [hard of hearing] to enjoy many of the same programs we do via a new system called ‘closed captioning.’” Sigmond Epstein, a deaf printer from Annandale, Virginia, felt that “there is more than a 100 percent increase in understanding.” And Lynn Ballard, a twenty-five-year-old deaf student from Chatham, New Jersey, believed that closed captioning would “improve the English language skills and increase the vocabulary of deaf children.” Newspaper reports proliferated, describing the newfound joy among deaf people in gaining access to the common television. Educators recognized the technological advance as a huge leap forward. “I consider closed captioning the single most important breakthrough to give the deaf access to this vital medium,” said Edward C. Merrill Jr., president of Gallaudet College, adding presciently, “Its usage will expand beyond the hearing-impaired.” And an ex-cop cried when his deaf wife wept for joy at understanding Barney Miller. He wrote a letter to the TV networks, cosigned by their six small children, to tell of the new world of entertainment and learning now open to his wife.
3-2-1 Contact was among the first group of television programs, and the first children’s program, to be captioned in March 1980. This science education show produced by Children’s Television Workshop aired on PBS member stations for eight years. Later that same year, Sesame Street became the second children’s program to be captioned and became the longest running captioned children’s program. — “NCI Recap’d,” National Captioning Institute
The enthusiasm continued to spread swiftly among deaf people. Alan Hurwitz, then associate dean for Educational Support Services at NTID, and his family were all excited about the captioning of primetime television programs. Hurwitz, who would eventually be president of Gallaudet University, was, like everyone else at this time, hooked on the new closed captioning technology. One of his favorite programs in 1981 was Dynasty, which was shown weekly on Wednesday night at 9 p.m. He flew to Washington, DC, early one Wednesday morning to meet with congressional staff members in different offices all day long. Not having a videotape recorder, he made sure he had scheduled a flight back home in time to watch Dynasty. After the meetings he arrived at the airport on time only to find out that the plane was overbooked and he was bumped off and scheduled for a flight the next morning. He panicked and argued with the airline clerk that he had to be home that night, and stressed that he couldn’t miss the flight. He was put on a waiting list and there were several folks ahead of him. Then, when he learned that he would definitely miss the flight, he went back to the clerk and insisted that he get on the plane. He explained that he had no way to contact his wife and was concerned about his family. Finally, the clerk went inside the plane and asked if anyone would like to get off and get a reward for an additional flight at no cost. One passenger volunteered to get off and Hurwitz was allowed to take his seat. The plane left a bit late and arrived in Rochester barely in time for him to run to his car in the parking lot and drive home to watch Dynasty!
And even with the positive response from many consumers, it was reported in 1981 that the Sears TeleCaption decoders were not selling well. It was a catch-22 situation. “People hesitate to buy because more programs aren’t captioned; more programs aren’t captioned because not that large an audience has adapters.” Increasing one would clearly increase the other. The question was whether to wait for “the other” to happen. To do so would most likely endanger a considerable federal investment as well as the continued existence of the system. Some theorized that the major factors for the poor sale of decoders were the depressed state of the economy, the lack of a captioned prime-time national news program (which deaf and hard of hearing people cited as a top priority), insufficient numbers of closed captioned programs, and an unrealistic expectation by some purchasers that decoder prices would decrease in spite of the fact that the retailer markup was slightly above the actual production cost.
Captioning a TV Program: A Continuing Challenge
On average, it took twenty-five to forty hours to caption a one-hour program. First, the script was typed verbatim, including every utterance such as “uh,” stuttering, and so forth. Asterisks were inserted to indicated changes in speakers. Next, the time and place of the wording was checked in the program. The transcript was examined for accuracy, noting when the audio starts and stops, and then it was necessary to decide whether the captions should be placed on the left, right, or center of the screen. In 1981, NCI’s goal was to provide no more than 120 to 140 reading words per minute for adult programs and sixty to ninety for children’s programs.
“We have to give time for looking at the picture,” Linda Carson, manager of standards and training at NCI, explained. “A lot of TV audio goes up to 250 or 300 words per minute. That’s tough for caption writers. If the time lapse for a 15-word sentence is 4 ½ seconds, then the captioner checks the rate computation chart and finds out she’s got to do it in nine words.”
Carl Jensema, NCI’s director of research, who lost his hearing at the age of nine, explained that at the start of kindergarten, hearing children have about 5,000 words in their speaking vocabulary, whereas many deaf children are lucky to have fifty. Consequently, deaf children had very little vocabulary for the school to build on. Jensema believed that closed captioning might be the biggest breakthrough for deaf people since the hearing aid. He was certain that a high degree of exposure to spoken language through captioned television was the key to enhanced language skills in deaf people.
CBS Resists
Although ABC, PBS, and NBC were involved in collaborating with NCI to bring captions to deaf audiences, the system CBS supported, teletext, was developed in the United Kingdom and was at least three years away from implementation. “It seems to me that CBS, by not going along with the other networks, might be working in derogation of helping the deaf or the hearing-impaired to get this service at an earlier date—and I don’t like it.” FCC commissioner Joseph Fogarty told Gene Mater, assistant to the president of the CBS Broadcast Group. Despite the success of line 21 captioning, CBS’s Mater believed the teletext system was “so much better” and the existing system was “antiquated.” “I think what’s unfortunate is that the leadership of the hearing-impaired community has not seen fit to support teletext. Those people who have seen teletext recognize it as a communications revolution for the deaf.” In contrast, NCI’s Jeff Hutchins summarized that the World System Teletext presented various disadvantages. It could not provide real-time captioning, “at least not in the way we have seen it . . .” Also, it could not work with home videotape. He believed that even if World System Teletext were adopted by the networks and other program suppliers, the technology would not be an answer for the needs of the American Deaf community. He also explained that “too many services now enjoyed by decoder owners would be lost.”
CBS even petitioned the FCC in July 1980 for a national teletext broadcasting standard. Following this, the Los Angeles CBS affiliate announced plans to test teletext in April 1981. “CBS was so opposed to line 21 that even when advertisers captioned their commercials at no charge to CBS,” Karen Peltz Strauss wrote, “the network allegedly promised to strip the captions off before airing the ads.”
CBS continued its refusal to join the closed captioning program, largely because of its own research into the teletext system and because the comparatively low number of adapters purchased. The NAD accused CBS of failing to cooperate with deaf television viewers by refusing to caption its TV programs.
The NAD planned nationwide protests shortly after this. Hundreds of captioning activists gathered at studios around the country. In Cedar Rapids, one young child carried a sign that read, “Please caption for my Mom and Dad.” Gertie Galloway was one of the disappointed deaf consumers. “CBS has not cooperated with the deaf community,” she stated. “We feel we have a right to access to TV programs.” She was one of an estimated 300 to 400 people carrying signs, who marched in front of the CBS studio in Washington and who were asking supporters to refuse to watch CBS for the day. Similar demonstrations were held in New York, where there were 500 people picketing, and the association said that protests had been scheduled in the more than 200 communities where CBS had affiliates.
Harold Kinkade, the Iowa Association of the Deaf vice president, said, “I don’t think deaf people are going to give up on this one. We always fight for our rights to be equal with the people with hearing.”
The drama increased in August 1982 when it was announced that NBC was dropping captions due to decreased demand. It was two years after NBC had become a charter subscriber. John Ball, president of NCI, said, “There is no question that this hurts. This was a major revenue source for NCI. I think the next six months or so are going to be crucial for us.”
Captioning advocates included representatives from NTID, the National Fraternal Society of the Deaf, Gallaudet, and NAD. Karen Peltz Strauss tells the story of Phil Bravin, chair of a newly established NAD TV Access Committee, who represented the Deaf community in a meeting with NBC executives. Although the NBC meeting was successful, CBS was still resisting and Bravin persisted. As Strauss summarized, “After one particularly frustrating three-hour meeting with the CBS President of Affiliate Relations Tony Malara, Bravin left, promising to ‘see you on the streets of America.’”
In 1984, CBS finally gave in, and the network dual encoded its television programs with both teletext and line 21 captions. The issue with NBC also resolved, and by 1987 the network was paying a third of the cost of the prime-time closed captioning. The rest was covered by such sources as independent producers and NCI, with funds from the US Department of Education used for captioning on CBS and ABC as well.
In his book Closed Captioning: Subtitling, Stenography, and the Digital Convergence of Text with Television, Gregory J. Downey summarized that because the film industry was unwilling to perform same-language subtitling for its domestic audience, the focus of deaf and hard of hearing persons’ “educational and activist efforts toward media justice through subtitling in the 1970s and 1980s had decisively moved away from the high culture of film and instead toward the mass market of television.”
Meanwhile, teachers and media specialists in schools for deaf children across the United States were reporting that their students voluntarily watched captioned TV shows recorded on videocassettes over and over again. These youngsters were engaged in reading, with its many dimensions and functions. In the opinion of some educators, television was indeed helping children learn to read.
People at NCI looked forward to spin-offs from their efforts. They liked to point out that experiments on behalf of deaf people produced the telephone and that the search for a military code to be read in the dark led to braille. Closed captioning should be no different in that regard. The technology also showed promise for instructing hearing children in language skills. Fairfax County public schools in Virginia, authorized a pilot project to study the effectiveness of captioned television as a source of reading material. The study explored the use of closed captioned television in elementary classrooms, evaluated teacher and student acceptance of captioning as an aid to teaching reading, and served as a guide to possible future expansion of activities in this area. Instead of considering television as part of the problem in children’s declining reading and comprehension skills, Fairfax County wanted to make it part of the solution. Promising results were found in this study as well as in other NCI-funded studies with hearing children, and when NCI’s John Ball submitted his budget request to Congress for fiscal year 1987 he was citing “at least 1,500,000 learning disabled children” as a potential audience for captioning and the market for decoder purchases.
In a personal tribute to Carl Jensema, Jeff Hutchins wrote that the only aspect of NCI that really made it an “institute” was the work Carl did to research many different aspects of captioning, including its readability and efficacy among consumers. His work led to a revision of techniques, which made captioning more effective. Once Carl left NCI and the research department was shut down, NCI was not really an “institute” any longer. John Ball also believed in the importance of Jensema’s research at NCI. His studies clearly demonstrated the impact of captioning on NCI’s important audience.
Real-Time Captioning
As early as 1978, the captioning program began to fund developmental work in real-time captioning with the objective of making it possible to caption live programs, such as news, sports, the Academy Awards, and space shuttle launches. This developmental work, however, did not result in the system finally being used. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was exploring a system that would allow the spoken word to appear in printed text. As it turned out, a private concern resulted from the CIA project, Stenocomp, which marketed computer translations to court reporters. The Stenocomp system relied on a mainframe computer and was thus too cumbersome. However, when Stenocomp went out of business, a new firm developed—Translation Systems, Inc. (TSI) in Rockville, Maryland. Advances in computer technology made it possible to install the Stenocomp software into a minicomputer. This made it possible for the NCI to begin real-time captioning using a modified stenotype machine linked to a computer via a cable.
On December 20, 1982, the Ninety-Seventh Congress passed a joint resolution authorizing President Ronald Reagan to proclaim December as “National Close-Captioned Television Month.” The proclamation was in recognition of the NCI service that made television programs meaningful and understandable for deaf and hard of hearing people in the United States.
By 1982, NCI was applying real-time captioning to a variety of televised events, including newscasts, sports events, and other live broadcasts, bringing deaf households into national conversations. The information, with correct punctuation, was brought to viewers through the work of stenographers trained as captioners typing at speeds of up to 250 words per minute. Real-time captioning was used in the Supreme Court to allow a deaf attorney, Michael Chatoff, to understand the justices and other attorneys.
However, fidelity was not the case for many years on television, and problems existed with real-time captioning. In real-time captioning, an individual typed the message into an electric stenotype machine, similar to those used in courtrooms, and the message included some shorthand. A computer translated the words into captions, which were then projected on the screen. Because “this captioning occurred ‘live’ and relies on a vocabulary stored in the software of the computer, misspellings and errors* could and did occur during transcriptions.”
Over the years, many have worked toward error reduction in realtime captioning. As the Hearing Loss Association of America has summarized, “Although real-time captioning strives to reach 98 percent accuracy, the audience will see errors. The caption writer may mishear a word, hear an unfamiliar word, or have an error in the software dictionary. In addition, transmission problems can create technical errors that are not under the control of the caption writer.”
At times, captioners work in teams, similar to some sign language interpreters, and provide quick corrections. This was the approach the pioneer Martin Block used during the Academy Awards in April 1982. Block typed the captions while a team of assistants provided him with correct spellings of the award nominees.
There has also been a growing body of educational research supporting the benefits of captions. As one example, E. Ross Stuckless referred to the concept of real-time caption technology in the early 1980s as the “computerized near-instant conversion of spoken English into readable print.” He also described the possibility of using real-time captioning in the classroom. Michael S. Stinson, another former colleague of mine and also a deaf research faculty member at NTID at RIT, was involved with Stuckless in the first implementation and evaluation of real-time captioning as an access service in the classroom. Stinson subsequently obtained numerous grants to develop C-Print access through real-time captioning at NTID, where hundreds of deaf and hard of hearing students have benefited in this postsecondary program. C-Print also was found successful in K–12 programs.
Communication Access Real-Time Translation (CART) is another service provided in a variety of educational environments, including small groups, conventions, and remote transmissions to thousands of participants viewing through streaming text. Displays include computers, projection screens, monitors, or mobile devices, or the text may be included on the same screen as a PowerPoint presentation.
Special approaches have been used in educational environments. For example, at NTID, where C-Print was developed by Stinson, the scripts of the classroom presentations and communication between professors and students are printed out, and errors are corrected and given to the students to study.
In October 1984, ABC’s World News This Morning became the first daytime television program to be broadcast to viewers with decoders through real-time captioning technology. Within a few weeks, the ABC’s Good Morning America was broadcast with captions as well. “This is a major milestone in the evolution of the closed-captioned television service,” John E. D. Ball declared, describing it as a “valued medium” to deaf and hard of hearing viewers. Don Thieme, a spokesman for NCI, explained that the Department of Education had provided The Caption Center with a $5.3 million contract. These two programs joined ABC’s evening news program World News Tonight and the magazine show 20/20 as the only regularly scheduled news and public affairs available for deaf viewers. The captioned news programs would be phased in gradually during the summer and early fall. Real-time captioning was also provided for the presidential political debates around this time. More than sixty-five home video movies had also been captioned for deaf people. This was an important step toward providing more access to entertainment movies for deaf consumers.
The first time the Super Bowl was aired with closed captions was on January 20, 1985. In September 1985, ABC’s Monday Night Football became the first sports series to include real-time captioning of commentary. ABC, its affiliates, the US Department of Education, advertisers, corporations, program producers, and NCI’s Caption Club helped to fund this program. Using stenotype machines, speed typists in Falls Church, Virginia, listened to the telecast and produced the captions at about 250 words per minute and they appeared on the screen in about four seconds. Each word was not typed separately. Instead, the captioner stroked the words out phonetically in a type of shorthand. Then a computer translated the strokes back into the printed word. These words were sent through phone lines to the ABC control room in New York City, where they were added to the network signal and transmitted across the country. Darlene Leasure, who was responsible for football, described one of the challenges she encountered: “When I was programming my computer at the beginning of the season, I found thirteen Darrels with seven different spellings in the NFL. It’s tough keeping all those Darrels straight.”
As TV shows with closed captions grew in popularity, deaf people were attracted away from the captioned film showings at social clubs or other such gatherings. The groups continued to hold their meetings, but for most gatherings the showing of captioned films gradually stopped. At the same time, telecommunications advances had brought telephone access to deaf people and there was less need for face-to-face “live” communication. Together, the visual telecommunications and captioned television technologies profoundly impacted the way deaf people interacted.
Freelancing isn’t all sweatpants and snooze buttons.
Well, sometimes it is. But most of the time, it’s cabin fever, caffeine withdrawal, fickle cash flows, and fierce competition for clients.
When you boil it down, being your own boss is really hard work — and no time is that more apparent than during tax season.
Compared to those with a typical 9-to-5 job or even small business owners, freelancers and self-employed workers face a unique set of challenges in terms of filing an annual income tax return. For one thing, you need to maintain thorough records of all your business-related expenses throughout the year so that you’re organized once it’s time to start prepping your return. Then, you have to compile all of your tax documents — from your 1099s to your Schedule Cs — and mind all your Ps and Qs. You’re also responsible for completing relevant paperwork on your own while hoping-slash-praying that you haven’t missed any deductions or tax breaks. And, since the money isn't automatically deducted from your paychecks throughout the year, you'll have to make and keep track of your estimated tax payments each quarter, too.
Perhaps most frustratingly, instead of getting a tax refund like the 9-to-5 crowd, you may actually need to cough up extra money to cover the year's taxes in the case that your quarterly estimated tax payments were a little low. (Or even be penalized if you neglected to pay them altogether.)
Oh, and don’t forget about the federal self-employment tax you’re required to pay. Sure, it goes toward Social Security and Medicare which is cool for Future You — probably maybe? — but not so fun for Current You.
Do you really need tax preparation software?
If your head isn’t already swirling from all that tax talk, consider the fact that a 2018 QuickBooks survey of 500 freelancers found that doing one’s taxes is among the most difficult challenges facing modern self-employed workers. It’s an obnoxious, tedious ordeal — so obnoxious and tedious, in fact, that more than a third of freelancers don’t even bother paying taxes, according to the same poll.
Since tax evasion is sort of a felony, filing your return every year is in your best interest. However, simply filing your taxes is not enough. If you try to figure it all out on your own, you could still be hit with costly penalties and interest if you make a mistake. On the other hand, you could always go to a CPA and have them take care of your income tax return for you, but their high fees could burn a hole in your pocket, too.
Fortunately, tax prep software offers a happy medium between the two. After all, there’s no reason to make the tax filing process harder on yourself than it needs to be when this modern convenience exists — especially if you've just begun freelancing or are newly self-employed.
What is tax software?
Tax software is a type of software program that’s designed to guide users through the process of preparing and filing their returns, and help them comply with tax laws while identifying any and all tax deductions and credits that may be available to avoid paying more in taxes than necessary. Essentially, it’s software that makes it less taxing to do your own taxes.
Back in the day, tax software came in the form of a CD-ROM so it could be downloaded to your desktop computer. (Groovy.) Nowadays, you can just download a program from a trusted tax prep company’s website. Or, even better, some tax preparation tools are available completely online or via mobile app for maximum convenience.
What should you look for in a tax software program?
As someone who’s freelancing or self-employed, you need to keep your eyes peeled for a few specific features whilst weighing your tax software options. These include:
A simple, user-friendly interface
Some sort of accuracy guarantee
Solid customer support
Access to a tax expert, if needed
A thorough review process or tool with intuitive, guiding questions that helps you find all possible tax deductions
Don’t forget that you’ll also need to file your state taxes in addition to your federal taxes. Some tax software providers will include one state for free, but most will charge you per state where you need to file. With the growing popularity of remote work, that can really add up.
Also keep in mind that the cheapest tax software option isn’t necessarily the best tax software option. The program you choose should be robust enough to handle complicated income tax returns since those of freelancers and self-employed workers tend to be pretty involved. It should also be capable of promising a high-ish level of protection in case you’re audited. In other words, now’s not the time to get stingy: you want to get your taxes done, but also done right. That’s not to say you should pay for features you don’t need, but just make sure your bases are covered, you know?
What’s the best tax software for freelancers?
That depends. Do you want to file on a mobile device? Do you want to take a chance with free software? Are you filing last-minute? Decisions, decisions.
If you have a pretty straightforward tax situation or you already have a few years of filing as a freelancer under your belt, you may be able to get away with a very low-cost or even free tax filing service like Cash App Taxes or FreeTaxUSA. However, if you need a little outside help as you suss out more in-depth stuff like itemized deductions and child tax credit, then a more budget-friendly accounting software, like TaxAct or TaxSlayer, may be up your alley.
On the flip side, if you have a more complicated tax filing situation or are a little overwhelmed with the thought of even beginning your income tax return, it may be worth it to choose a higher-cost tax software option from the most trusted tax professionals, such as H&R Block and TurboTax.
There's a lot to consider across the many options out there and we know you probably have enough on your plate already, so we’ve done the research for you. Here are the best tax software programs for freelancers and self-employed workers that you can use to start preparing your taxes today.
A federal appeals court voted unanimously on Friday to uphold California’s SB-822 net neutrality law, reports The Verge. One year after the Federal Communications Commission repealed net neutrality rules that applied nationwide, the state passed its own set of laws. Those rules barred internet service providers from blocking, as well as throttling select websites and services. However, California could not begin enforcing those laws due to two separate legal challenges.
The first came from the Department of Justice. Under former President Donald Trump, the agency sued the state, arguing its laws were pre-empted by the FCC’s repeal of the Obama-era Open Internet Order. In February 2021, the Justice Department dropped its complaint. Later that same month, a federal judge ruled in favor of the state in a separate lawsuit involving multiple telecom trade groups. This week’s ruling upholds that decision.
In its ruling, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said the lower court “correctly denied” the preliminary injunction brought against California by the telecom industry. It said the FCC “no longer has the authority” to regulate internet services in the way that it did when it previously classified them as telecommunications services. “The agency, therefore, cannot preempt state action, like SB-822, that protects net neutrality,” the court said.
The four trade groups behind the original lawsuit – the American Cable Association, CTIA, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association and USTelecom – said they were “disappointed” by the decision and that they plan to review their options. “Once again, a piecemeal approach to this issue is untenable and Congress should codify national rules for an open Internet once and for all,” the groups told CNBC.
After months of stalemate at the FCC, federal action on net neutrality could come soon. Next week, the Senate Commerce Committee will decide whether to advance Gigi Sohn’s nomination to a full vote of the Senate. President Biden picked Sohn to fill the final empty commissioner seat on the FCC. Her confirmation would give Democrats a three to two edge on the FCC, allowing it to advance the president’s telecom-related policies.
TikTok is a place for meddlers. If working from home has got you missing office gossip, then the "I'm not a nosey person" trend is for you. This week, our FYPs were inundated with odd filters, busybodies, and… more Euphoria (have the children not suffered enough?).
I’m not a nosey person (lie)
"I'm not a nosey person" is the perfect TikTok trend. It combines an absurd filter, an iconic audio, and relatable scenarios to make one of the funniest trends the app has seen yet.
The premise is simple: Each video begins with someone claiming they're "not that nosey," before revealing the situation that spurs them to snoop. As they share those circumstances, the rat filter takes effect — elongating their noses and giving them whiskers. Then the TikTokker proceeds to whip their snout around as if they are sniffing out clues. The trend is paired with audio from an episode of Love & Hip Hop: Miami in which Trina yells, "you not going to call me no bitch cuz I am going to whip your ass," while dramatic music plays in the background. The audio has appeared in over 82,000 videos, and the filter has been used in nearly half a million TikToks.
Some of my favorite uses of this trend include @pixiesitckss's video that reads, "me the moment someone shares their screen with a bunch of tabs open," and @projectmanagerbestie's "when they start off the meeting with '___ is no longer with the company'" video. I am grateful for the nosey-person representation.
Nosey people rise.Credit: TikTok / @pixiestickss
This trend is for all the people out there who have nothing going on in their own lives and live for the drama. So… it's for everyone.
Please get Euphoria off my FYP
I am exhausted! I love Lexie and Fez as much as the next girl, but enough with the Euphoria trends. I can't take four more weeks of this. That being said, there is one trend that made me chuckle this week.
Since Euphoria debuted in 2019 there's been a lot of conversation about whether the HBO teen drama is an accurate depiction of the modern high school experience. This discourse has returned in full force with the premiere of the second season a few weeks ago. It didn't take long for a TikTok trend to emerge, poking fun at the debate.
This trend is text-based, and users start with "people say Euphoria is unrealistic, but at my school…" and then proceed to describe the outlandish plot of another TV show, movie, or book. The girls that get it, get it — and the ones that don't… well, they must not be plugged into pop culture. And of course the trend is set to the Euphoria soundtrack.
A fantastic example of the trend is @hackedat150k’s video that reads, "People say euphoria is unrealistic but at my high school our weird Spanish teacher snuck into the boy’s locker room and heard a football player singing and blackmailed him into joining the glee club. Then he traumatized his students with a rendition of 'gold digger.'" That, my friends, is the plot of my microgeneration's Euphoria, aka Glee. The Normal People and The Secret Historyversion of the trend are also top tier.
I go to William McKinley High and it is crazy!Credit: TikTok / @hackedat150k
This week in filters
Filters have been dominating my FYP lately. Last week, we saw the "PLEASE ADOPT ME" filter take off, which randomly assigns you your celebrity parents. This week was all about finding your celebrity twin, being a Renaissance muse, and embracing your inner male podcaster.
The "who is your celebrity twin" filter is fairly self-explanatory: It matches a celebrity to your face. The real fun here comes from people’s reactions, including your own. It's one of those trends that’s more fun to partake in than observe.
The Renaissance Eyes filter is actually really cool. It allows you to superimpose your eyes over iconic Renaissance paintings like the "Mona Lisa" and "Girl with a Pearl Earring." The effect was created by @noctiluma, a Brazilian filter artist. So far, the effect has been used nearly 160,000 times, and even Billie Eilish got in on the trend.
The final noteworthy filter of the week is the "bearded man" filter. A couple of weeks ago, women were using the filter to see what they would look like as a man, typically with a caption like "someone said if you don’t like the male version of yourself you should humble yourself." A week ago, TikTokker @sadimmigrantkid posted a video that said, "If I looked like this I would start a podcast. You know what women don’t be doing." Their video got 12.8 million views and over 1.7 million likes — and it spurred other women to use the filter to imagine themselves as podcast dudes, which is unsettling because the last thing we as a society need is more men with podcasts.
Related Video: We tried the viral TikTok 'Sex Chocolates'
