If you find yourself crunching numbers to make your budget work, you’ve probably thought of switching to Netflix’s ad-supported streaming tier. While you still get access to most content, you’ll have to sit through several advertising breaks. The additional viewing tier became available earlier this month. Saving money is great, but it has a significant compatibility problem. Before making the switch, read what you must know about the cheaper streaming tier....

Very Special Agent Anthony “Tony” DiNozzo, played by Michael Weatherly, was a staple of the crime drama NCIS for the first thirteen seasons of the show. He was well known for his goofy nature, for being somewhat of a womanizer, and for his near-constant stream of movie references. Tony generally maintained close relationships with his colleagues, though his family life for a time was strained. He tended to be more interested in snooping around in other people’s lives, but he also was fairly open about his personal life, with the exception of his relationship with his father for the first seven seasons....

Optimus Player is a new media player designed just for macOS that includes some compelling features. The clean and simple app offers users AirPlay 2 (in beta), multi-touch gestures, support for over 250 file formats, and more. Optimus Player launched just this week and is built on top of the FFmpeg software libraries. That means the media player works with over 250 file formats and more than 400 codecs. Optimus Player also features greater color accuracy than media players like VLC....

Disney is reportedly unimpressed with the upcoming X-Men spin-off The New Mutants. The Josh Boone-directed film is the final Fox X-Men movie yet to be released by Disney. It will introduce a whole new group of mutants in what is said to be the first horror-driven X-Men film. Despite the movie having a star-studded cast and a competent director, The New Mutants has had a lot of setbacks ever since it was announced back in 2015....

YouTube and Facebook are working to ensure the removal of all copies of head-mounted camera footage apparently live-streamed by the gunman in two mass shootings in New Zealand. Forty-nine people were killed, and at least 20 more wounded, in shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand … The BBC reports that the footage was live-streamed on Facebook, with copies subsequently uploaded to YouTube. New Zealand Police tweeted today that they are working to have the footage removed....

Dish Network’s Blockbuster on October 1 delivered a tasty alternative for miserable Netflix customers. It’s called Blockbuster Movie Pass — hyped up as, execs say, “the most comprehensive TV entertainment programming package ever delivered by a multichannel pay TV provider.” Quite a promise. Here’s the offering: Over 100,000 titles available on DVDStream thousands of movies to your TV or PCUnlimited movies, TV shows and games by mailUnlimited in-store exchangesPlus over 20 great entertainment channels....

New images from the Arrow spinoff backdoor pilot, “Green Arrow & The Canaries,” reveal a character who may have connections to Huntress. The spinoff series will follow Oliver Queen’s daughter Mia, played by Katherine McNamara (Shadowhunters), who is back in 2040 and now the Green Arrow protecting Star City. The show will be female-centric, and will bring Mia together with Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy) and Dinah Drake (Juliana Harkavy). Though it’s not confirmed, the title of the series is highly suggested to be the same as the episode title: Green Arrow and the Canaries....

The Music Void claims that Apple’s new MobileMe – reportedly due in April – will have a major music component, dubbed a ‘locker.’ The report does not delve into the details about this ‘locker’ but past reports have pegged the new service as your digital life stored in the cloud. But where does iTunes come into this? According to the report, Apple has secured a licensing deal with Warner Music Group and is using this deal to help secure agreements with the music industry’s other major labels....

Netflix’s Dracula was mostly well-received by audiences for its reliance on horror techniques and its charming portrayal of Count Dracula himself. Although season 1 seemed to mark a definitive end to the vampire’s story, there are a few ways showrunners Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss could bring the Count back in a second season. Each episode of Dracula is a chapter in the vampire’s journey from Transylvania to England. Very few characters are present consistently throughout the series....

The Lonely Island Presents: The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience parodies two of Major League Baseball’s most infamous sluggers. Described as a “visual poem,”“Netflix’s 30-minute mockumentary focuses on former Oakland Athletics teammates Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco, specifically the 1988 season in which they were dubbed “The Bash Brothers.” The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience marks the latest project from the comedic trio known as The Lonely Island. The group consists of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone - all of whom grew up together in Berkeley, California and later worked together at Saturday Night Live....

After more than two years, The New Mutants is finally moving forward, as director Josh Boone announces that a new trailer is coming in January. Based on the Marvel Comics series The New Mutants, the film is about a group of young mutants trapped in a secret facility, who must get a grasp on their abilities in order to save themselves and escape. The movie will be the last X-Men film from 20th Century Fox after Disney’s acquisition of them....

A new month means new movies and TV shows streaming on Netflix - and February 2019 is no different. While January 2019 saw some truly great movies and TV shows join Netflix, such as The Dark Knight and the Indiana Jones series, February 2019 is shaping up to be great in its own right. February sees Netflix launching some new series that look like hits in the making - like Russian Doll, a black comedy about a woman who keeps repeating the night of her death, and The Umbrella Academy, Netflix’s latest comic adaptation (that is most definitely not your usual superhero show)....

The Irishman saw the long-awaited reunion of Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro in this tale of real-life mob figure Frank Sheeran (De Niro) and his rise through the Italian mob family. Though the facts of Sheeran’s story have been largely debated, the film nevertheless provides a compelling and unique story about organized crime. Though surrounded by more powerful people in the mob scene, Frank makes for a fascinating character to follow....

NetNewsWire has gone through many owners in its history, but it’s back in the rightful hands of Brent Simmons, and it’s seeing rapid development on macOS and iOS thanks to a team of open source supporters. NetNewsWire 5.1 for Mac is now available with many requested features. Version 5.1 brings it in parity with the iOS version, and it’s now my RSS reader of choice on the Mac. I’ve been using the app off and on since 2007....

The new “Hack DHS” program was made official by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in a press release on the agency’s website after it was revealed at the recent Bloomberg Technology Summit and covered by The Record. The program promises to pay out between $500 and $5,000 to “vetted cybersecurity researchers who have been invited to access select external DISH systems.” The actual payout will be based on the severity of the specific vulnerability discovered....

Update: The Apple newsroom source code is also floating a May 21 date. Image after the break … According to multiple sources, including Jon Prosser who has a good track record of nailing these release dates, Apple will release the new iMac, iPad Pro with M1 and the upgraded Apple TV 4K with revamped Siri Remote on May 21. Apple previously announced these products at its April product event, only saying that they will ship in ‘the second half of May’....

Earlier this year we reported issues with using the LG UltraFine 5K Display with new MacBook Pros near wireless access points including Apple wireless routers. LG acknowledged issues caused by poor shielding, inventory was pulled from Apple Stores, and revised hardware with proper shielding is now shipping and should be in Apple Stores soon. This week we got our hands on one of the new models with shielding improvements to put to the test and see if the issues have really been resolved…...

Apple’s new MacBook Pro is totally ready for a USB-C future, but some of your current accessories like printers and mics might not be so prepared. Printers, mics, audio equipment, and a lot of other common accessories use a boxy connector and standard USB to interface with your Mac. You can add a USB-A to USB-C adapter on the end of the cable that comes with your accessory, but dongles and adapters add complexity that can be avoided in this case....

Let the clone jokes begin, as AMC announces that a new Orphan Black TV series is in development, though it apparently won’t be a spinoff or reboot of the original. The Emmy-winning series ran for five seasons on AMC’s sister channel BBC America, where it quickly became something of a sensation due to the amazing performance(s) by Tatiana Maslany as the various clones — or “sestras” — as the women worked together (and sometimes in opposition to one another) to unravel the mystery of their creation and purpose....

Netflix’s new show Love Is Blind asks the question, well, is it? Is love blind? Or at the very least, can it be? Fifteen men and fifteen women begin dating in what the show calls “pods,” which are basically, tiny, yet comfortable rooms separated by a colorful door you can’t see through. These men and women are dating each other without ever seeing one another, with the goal being that they don’t just date, but they fall in love and get married in the next four weeks....