Latest news with #verticalvideo
Washington Post
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
The latest generational divide: How to hold a phone
Young people hold their phones upright to do everything: texting, making video calls, scrolling on social media. Most egregiously, they record videos vertically — an act that causes consternation among Gen Xers and boomers when these generations are forced to squint at the resulting strip of video on their TVs or computers, the picture flanked by huge swaths of squandered screen space. The plague of vertical videos is likely to get worse. Some 56 percent of Gen Zers and 43 percent of millennials find social media content more relevant than traditional TV shows and movies, according to a Deloitte survey. Even Netflix recently announced that it will pilot a 'TikTok-like' feed of virtual video on its mobile app. Still, passions run deep when it comes to our screen real estate. In fact, we've seen this movie before. In the 1950s, the film industry began to shoot movies in wider aspect ratios to distinguish themselves from conventional 'full screen' televisions with a 4:3 aspect ratio. Frustration ensued over the incompatibly shaped screens, lasting until Americans largely transitioned to high-definition wide-screen TVs in the early 2000s. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Theatrical films couldn't fit 4:3 TV screens without using a crude cropping technique called 'pan and scan.' Discarding part of the original picture violated the director's vision, some argued, and led to unseen actors speaking from the void. An alternative method, called 'letterboxing,' could be deployed to preserve the entire image. But showing the full width of the movie meant inserting large black bars above and below the image — it was like watching a movie through a mail slot. Fast forward to today's smartphone-dominated culture, and something I call 'picket-fencing' now irks viewers. This technique involves displaying columns of nothingness to the left and right of a vertically shot video on a wide-screen TV — like viewing a picture through a slot in a picket fence. (Ironically, vertical videos would have been a much better fit on 4:3 screens.) Story continues below advertisement Advertisement I understand the younger generation's reluctance to turn their phones sideways. Social media platforms are designed for vertical scrolling; holding a phone horizontally may feel awkward and unnatural. However, as a member of the elder generations, I empathize with the aversion to this new-age vertical eyesore: If God intended for us to shoot vertically, he would have created man with one eye above the other. To hold a phone vertically or horizontally? I've created an accessible table to break down this generational clash over smartphone orientation. 11 of 11 Thoughts on a chain of vertical-screen movie theaters called 'Profile Cinemas'? 😃 Yay! 🙃 Meh. 10 of 11 The solution I prefer for ill-fitting video 📱 Turning my phone 90 degrees 🖥️ Reinstalling my TV on a pivoting stand and praying the software flips the screen 90 degrees 9 of 11 Which types of scenes are more annoying to watch? 🚩 Scenes with horizontal shots of human pyramids or flags getting lowered 🎭 Scenes with vertical shots of actors conversing from opposite sides of frame 8 of 11 I'd swap my TV for an even wider model if given the opportunity. 🙃 Meh. 😃 Yay! 7 of 11 What are your sources of solace? 📱 TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat 🎞️ The Criterion Collection 6 of 11 Do you walk down the street looking at your phone? 📱 Yes 🌎 Never! 5 of 11 Which sport do you prefer to watch? 🧗♀️ Rock climbing 🎾 Tennis 4 of 11 What's your retort in the debate? 🧒 These old farts may as well be screaming: 'Kids, get off my lawn!' 😇 'If the director meant for us to watch 'Charlie's Angels' in 9:16, they'd have given us just one angel.' 3 of 11 What makes you grumpier? 📱 Being criticized for not holding your phone correctly 📺 Being forced to watch vertical videos on your widescreen TV 2 of 11 My natural-born aspect ratio is ... 📱 9:16 🖥️ 16:9 1 of 11 Which lifestyle would feel most comfortable for you? ✨ Influencing 🥔 Being a couch potato ← Drag left or click Drag right → or click Congrats! You are in Team Horizontal! You see the full picture, and think wide. left right Story continues below advertisement Advertisement
Forbes
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Netflix New Scroll, Meta AI's Game Changers, Neuralink Valued At $8.5 Billion
Netflix adds a TikTok-style vertical video feed to its homepage. This is such a good idea. The company faces an existential threat from its scrolling competitors to whom it has been losing the war for attention since 2022. The new Netflix scroll, which will also be on the Netflix app, will showcase trailers, clips from films and series, behind-the-scenes content, games, and fan content. It could be a testing ground for new ideas and talent. Every streamer should immediately copy this. AI search has also been added to Netflix search. That might be a headline on another day, but it's the AI understanding of your behavior that makes the scroll so addictive. Wearable AI Arrives As Meta Upgrades Its AI assistant app. The app, designed to compete with ChatGPT, offers standard AI features like text and voice interaction, image generation, and web search but, now, for the first time, it will have geolocation. In other words, when you ask Meta AI a question, it knows where you are and what you are looking at. Using information about your interests, location, profile, and activity allows Meta AI to respond to up-to-the-second contextual information. This has never been possible before. The app will also handle real-time translation. This a game-changer for AI on Ray-Bans which suddenly became a lot more useful. I'm going to wear them all the time now. As with everything Meta does there are concerns about privacy and other negative consequences. Tariff on foreign films is an exercise of raw power over media and culture. If enacted, it will accelerate the shift to AI and virtual production. The President has since walked back his threats to place tariffs on an industry with a 300% trade surplus. You can never be sure if he's trolling, or if he sees an irresistable opportunity to control culture. Probably both. Here's what would follow an imposition of tariffs to the entertainment industry: (1) Reciprocal tariffs on US products will help foreign competitors, who have been fruitlessly fighting an onslaught of US films and series for a century. (2) There are many nuances about what constitutes 'foreign.' What if the film is a co-production? Who decides? (3) The commerce department would need some kind of assessor to carry out the President's order. Therefore, each film and series will have to be audited and a tax paid before its release. (4) This will accelerate the transition to AI and virtual production. Teams for AI films will be smaller, distributed and remote. (5) The liberal multicultural entertainment industry is a frequent target of Trump and his supporters. Blows against them earn cheers from MAGA world. (6) In the end it's about the art of the deal. Producers, studios, and streamers need to get in line behind big tech and start buying some Trump coin. Even then, it might not help you. Just ask Google and Meta. Mark Zuckerberg thinks AI companions could supplement human relationships. In a recent Axios interview, he described a future where Meta's chatbot becomes part of a user's social life, integrated across phones, smart glasses, and eventually wrist-worn devices. The new Meta AI app already allows users interact with AI characters and share conversations with others. Zuckerberg says this could help address the loneliness epidemic. Critics are skeptical. The bots collect personal data, and Meta does not guarantee that conversations are excluded from model training. Elon Musk's Neuralink is reportedly seeking to raise $500 million at a pre-money valuation of $8.5 billion. This would more than double its last known valuation of $3.5 billion in late 2023. The funding round, still in early discussions, could push Neuralink's post-money valuation to around $9 billion. Neuralink has been conducting human trials and early results show participants can control digital devices using only their thoughts. Fortnite is back on the iPhone. After a five-year standoff, Epic Games is relaunching the game on iOS, citing a federal court ruling that Apple violated an injunction by restricting links to alternative payment options. The ruling weakens Apple's grip on in-app transactions and opens the door for developers like Epic to bypass the App Store's 30 percent cut. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said Fortnite will be available again in the U.S. App Store this week. But this is more than a game. Fortnite is Epic's metaverse platform, home to concerts, branded content, and a creator economy. Returning to iOS expands that reach just as Epic doubles down on making Fortnite a hub for games, social connection, and user-generated content. The metaverse didn't die, it just moved to where the users are. The first two stories in my series about the changes in Hollywood wrought by new technologies, rising costs, and lower viewership: AI and Hollywood's Next Golden Age and Hollywood is Losing The War for Attention are now live. MixRift has launched Battle Orb, a fast-paced mixed reality strategy game where players go head-to-head in immersive arenas that blend physical and digital play. Featuring 1v1 and 2v2 competitive modes, players aim, shoot, and outmaneuver each other using physics-based tactics to climb the global leaderboard. This column serves as the script for the news segment of our weekly AI/XR Podcast, co-hosted by former Paramount futurist and co-founder of Red Camera, and Rony Abovitz, founder of Magic Leap, Mako Robotics, and Synthbee AI. This week's guests are Tye Sheridan and Nikola Todovic of Wonder Dynamics AI. You can find us on Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube. What We're Reading People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies (Miles Klee/Rolling Stone)
Fast Company
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Fast Company
Your Netflix app is about to get a 'For You' page
The vertical video feed is coming to the Netflix app. The streaming service announced Tuesday that in the coming weeks it will pilot the new feature, which it will populate with short-form clips of movies and shows tailored to the end-user's viewing habits. Netflix users will be able to swipe through the feed to watch, save, or share content with friends, just like Tiktok. Yep the user interface that took over social media is making its way into streaming—but most importantly for Netflix, it's a play for improving its own content discovery engine. 'We know that swiping through a vertical feed on social media apps is an easy way to browse video content, and we also know that our members love to browse our clips and trailers to find their next obsession, so in the coming weeks we'll be testing a vertical feed filled with clips of Netflix shows and movies to make discovery easy and fun,' Netflix's chief product officer Eunice Kim said during a virtual presentation. During this mobile-only test, the vertical video feed won't be available to every single member, Netflix tells Fast Company, but those who get it will see recommendations personalized to them, with feature clips from their 'top picks for you.' Netflix previously tried vertical-video feeds in 2021 with two themed apps, Fast Laughs for comedy clips and Kids Clips for clips from its children's programming, but it's forthcoming in-app pilot expands on that concept across the streamer's library. The announcement was one of a number of design changes Netflix announced Tuesday, including a new 'My Netflix' tab with listed content, reminders for upcoming shows, and a continue watching feed, as well as a homepage designed to show more information at a glance, including callouts like 'New Episode,' 'Recently Added,' 'Oscar Winner,' and 'We think you'll love this' that appear with their own emoji-style icons next to shows. The company is also considering expanding into video podcasts. But it's the vertical video feed that seems aimed at killing two birds with one stone. Netflix head of design Steve Johnson told Fast Company last year that the two things that keep him up at night are discovery and competition for viewing time from a generation that spends a majority of its viewing hours on mobile devices. By piloting its own short-form, vertical video feed, Netflix is trying to both improve discovery and carve out more viewing time on its app with a swiping experience borrowed from social media. Already, TikTok's social media competitors like Instagram have made design changes that mirror its vertical video layout, and that trend is now creeping into other app categories. (Tubi launched its own TikTok-ified discovery format, called 'Scenes,' last fall.) As TikTok became more popular, full-length, professionally shot shows had to compete with more and more short-form video content, and even with amateur, recorded snippets of their own IP popping up in social feeds. Now, Netflix is trying to meet viewers where they are, with a few potential benefits. By offering viewers shareable clips of its own shows, Netflix has a say in how its content appears on other platforms, while still taking advantage of the soft marketing of user-generated fandom. And if cutting up its shows into bite-size videos and organizing them in a format familiar to social media natives provides Netflix a better discovery funnel for new shows, the format could soon find other closed platform imitators.
