Netflix to add closed captions to all videos by 2014

Ideal for the hearing-impaired community, Netflix plans to finish adding closed captions to online video within the next two years.

Settling a recent lawsuit over the availability of closed captions when watching video on Netflix Instant, company officials with Netflix agreed to make sure 100 percent of all video content includes closed captioning by September 30, 2014. The lawsuit was brought against Netflix during 2010 by a deaf Massachusetts resident named Lee Nettles in addition to the Western Massachusetts Association of the Deaf and Hearing-Impaired as well as the National Association of the Deaf. According to the documentation, Netflix has already added closed captions to 82 percent of video content on the streaming service and will hit 90 percent by September 2013.

Regarding the agreement, Netflix chief product officer Neil Hunt stated “We have worked consistently to make the broadest possible selection of titles available to Netflix members who are deaf or hard of hearing and are far and away the industry leader in doing so. We are pleased to have reached this agreement and hope it serves as a benchmark for other providers of streaming video entertainment.“

In addition to adding captioning to existing content, rules have been put in place for future content additions. During the first year following the 2014 deadline, Netflix will need to add captions an average of 30 days after the video has been made available on Netflix Instant. That figure decreases to fourteen days in the following year and just seven days beyond September 30, 2016. The deal also indicates that the court will continue to check up on Netflix over the next dour years in order to evaluate the company’s progress with adding captions to both movies and television shows.

The agreement was put in place this week after a judge ruled that Netflix was subject to the Americans with Disabilities Act. It’s highly likely that the case will be referenced if more lawsuits are filed against other streaming video services like Hulu Plus or Amazon Instant Video. In order to see all video content that currently offers closed captions on Netflix, users can use the term “Subtitles” within the search function.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Oh, the irony: Startup launching Bitcoin debit cards in two months

Bitcoin is about to enter the physical real world now that startup BitInstant aims to create a debit card system based on the BTC currency.

You may remember hearing about the P2P puesdo-currency Bitcoin: a virtual monetary system that allows users to pay anonymously, bypass bank regulations, and avoid transfer and withdrawal fees. Last year, Bitcoin experienced quite a crash and security breach that made the currency nearly worthless – dropping from the exchange rate of $17 to merely a few pennies. Bitcoin has surprisingly got itself back together in the past months, and now a New York City-based startup wants to normalize its use again by introducing a Bitcoin debit card system.

Known as BitInstant, this Bitcoin debit card would act like your average prepaid card that you can use to make every day purchases, withdraw money, or transfer amounts to friends and merchants. The card hold a maximum of $1,000 in Bitcoin credit (BTC) limit, and would contain QR codes in the front that are scannable by a BitInstant app to link users directly to their accounts. 

“You’re at dinner with a friend? Forget PayPal, just scan his or your card with your Bitcoin app,” BitInstant CEO Charlie Shrem explains to Ars Technica. This process bypasses transfer fees if friends do not bank with the same company though users are allowed to keep each money transfer as BTU or convert them into US dollars, in which case a conversion fee would be charged.

So why would anyone use a Bitcoin debit card in place of actual prepaid cards in the first place? For one, BitInstant would attract those who’ve actually had successes at mining Bitcoin. Since the e-currency is in its own entire realm, advanced Bitcoiners can run complex softwares to generate BTC and BitInstant would allow these users to spend their hard-earned Bitcoins in real life, anywhere they want. The transfer would also be as instant as handing someone cash, meaning transactions can take place between any two users in the world without waiting for third-party middlemen to process the transfer.

Still, the entire concept of BitInstant cards seem ironic, to say the least. The point of Bitcoin is to provide anonymity and leave banks out of the money transfer equation, yet introducing a bank-issued Bitcoin card would bring both issues back to the forefront. We can’t imagine that a bank would issue a BitInstant card without so much as providing a trackable feature on the card, ruining the whole anonymous transaction feature Bitcoin had going for it. Even if BitInstant and the banks that issued the cards cannot publicly release transfer history made on the card, we’re pretty sure one can get a hold of that information if a user can acquire a police warrant to make banks give them that data.

But hey, if the whole futuristic e-currency idea seems fancy to you, by all means, preorder your Bitcoin debit card with BitInstant and its public Google Doc signup sheet.

(Photo mockup of Bitcoin debit card by Ars Technica.)

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com