A subscription to Peacock is about to cost more. NBCUniversal announced on Thursday that it’s raising the price of its ad-supported Peacock Premium from $7.99 to $10.99 per month, while its ad-free Premium Plus plan will go from $13.99 per month to $16.99 per month, as reported earlier by Variety.
For new customers, the price increase will go into effect on July 23rd. Existing subscribers will see the hike on or after August 22nd, depending on when their next bill is. Peacock’s yearly plans will see similar increases, with Peacock Premium now priced at $109.99 per year (up from $79.99) and Premium Plus costing $169.99 (up from $139.99).
Peacock raised its prices by $2 in the lead-up to the 2024 Summer Olympics, an event it will continue to stream for at least another decade. NBCUniversal has filled out Peacock with a growing slate of original content, which includes shows like Poker Face, Love Island, and Dr. Death. It will also air NBA games later this year.
Along with the price increase, NBCUniversal also announced that it’s going to test a new ad-supported Peacock “Select” tier for $7.99 per month ($79.99 / year). The plan will offer access to content from NBC and Bravo, as well as some other titles.
Razer's new Pokémon collaboration is a missed opportunity. The four PC gaming peripherals in this lineup are simply reskinned versions of products that already exist, which cost $20 to $40 more than their all-black counterparts. You really should be getting more for your money here.
For example, the themed BlackWidow V4 X keyboard should include at least one highly-detailed custom keycap (switching out ALT for Pokéball designs doesn't cut it). Maybe the Kraken V4 X headset could have included themed pop filters of pokémon silhouettes. I'm just spitballing, which I guess is something that neither Razer or The Pokémon Company did enough of d …
The CEO seemingly having an affair with the head of HR at his company at the Coldplay concert is a viral video for the ages, but it is also, unfortunately, emblematic of our current private surveillance and social media hellscape.
The video, which is now viral on every platform that we can possibly think of, has been covered by various news outlets, and is Pop Crave official, shows Andy Byron, the CEO of a company called Astronomer, with his arms around Astronomer’s head of HR, Kristen Cabot. The jumbotron cuts from one fan to this seemingly happy couple. They both simultaneously die inside; “Oh look at this happy couple,” Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin says. The woman covers her face and spins away. The man ducks out of frame. “Either they’re having an affair or they’re very shy,” Martin said. The camera pans to another company executive standing next to them, who is seemingly shaking out of discomfort.
It is hard to describe how viral this is at the moment, in a world in which so many awful things are occurring and in which nothing holds anyone’s attention for any length of time and in a world in which we are all living in our own siloed realities. “Andy Byron” is currently the most popular trending Google term in the United States, with more than double the searches of the next closest term.
There are so many levels to this embarrassment—the Coldplay of it all, the HR violation occurring on jumbotron, etc—that one could likely write a doctoral dissertation on this 15 second video.
But the aftermath of this video demonstrates a phenomenon that we have now seen over and over again on all of social media, but on TikTok especially: The instant, gleeful doxing of people for reasons that run the spectrum from the very bad (being a Nazi) to the utterly benign (dancing weird at a Taylor Swift concert, being a hot security guard, standing in public). “TikTok help me find him / her” is now so common that it is a meme.
404 Media doesn’t know what’s going on in Byron or Cabot’s marriages and neither does anyone else posting about it; we have zero clue what’s going on behind the scenes or what is currently occurring in the personal lives of everyone involved.
404 MediaJoseph Cox
It is worth briefly considering the dystopia of this situation and its aftermath. It is not clear exactly how the Astronomer CEO was initially identified, but we have seen numerous cases where TikTok commenters and creators use Pimeyes and other readily available, often free facial recognition and social media research tools to identify a person.
The Astronomer CEO’s name, his wife’s name, the head of HR’s name, and the third company executive’s name and social media profiles are all over the TikTok comments and Reddit comments. His latest LinkedIn post was full of comments about the incident, left before he disabled comments and ultimately deleted the post. Commenters have pointed out that his wife has removed his last name from several of her social media profiles.
Polymarket’s degenerate gamblers turned the scandal into a market. The site lets users bet on events with binary outcomes like whether or not Byron will lose his job as CEO of Astronomer. A gambler pays a few cents to vote “yes” or “no” on the outcome of the event and wins the difference up to a dollar on each vote if they guessed right. Each vote shifts the odds up and down.
Today Polymarket opened two new Byron-related bets. The first asks the question: “Andy Byron out as Astronomer CEO by next Friday?” As of this writing, the site is giving him a 40 percent chance of leaving. Polymarket doesn’t care if he resigns or gets fired, the bet pays out to its “yes” voters so long as he leaves.
The crueler bet, and the one with more activity, is the “Astronomer Divorce Parlay.” A parlay is a series or combination of bets, and this Polymarket listing requires both Byron and Cabot to get divorced. An announcement will satisfy the bet, it doesn’t have to be an official filing. But it can come from Byron and Cabot themselves or their spouses. The image attached to the bet is a screenshot from the moment the Jumbotron filmed the couple embracing.
As of this writing, the odds are 21 percent that both couples divorce.
Polymarket’s X account got in on the action. As both of the markets opened, the account posted about Byron and Cabot four times in a row. “Smart bet?” Polymarket asked above a picture showing social media photos of the pair listed next to the current odds that they’d divorce their spouses.
Brands are using Byron and Cabot’s face to build hype. The NEON film studio posted a picture of the couple on X to promote its upcoming horror movie Together. Chipotle commented on the story with a picture of its billboard that reads “It’s OK to Cheat.” Most chilling, the NYC Department of Sanitation used the viral moment to remind everyone that it has cameras everywhere.
Scrolling through a TikTok search for “CEO of Astronomer” (a TikTok-recommended search term) is full of wannabe influencers giving their own take on the saga, greenscreening the video behind their cut out faces with titles like “CHEATING COLDPLAY AFFAIR BOSTON CONCERT COUPLE UPDATE,” and “COLDPLAY EXPUSO A DOS AMANTES.” Fox News, Buzzfeed, and other huge accounts have posted the footage more or less unedited on their own accounts. Writing this article, we understand, puts us into this exact fray.
But one does not have to have sympathy or empathy for a CEO to see how this sort of thing could and often does go off the rails. This example is emblematic of the problem specifically because it’s easy to laugh at these people and because they’re doing something distasteful, but not illegal. The same technologies used to dox and research this CEO are routinely deployed against the partners of random people who have had messy breakups, attractive security guards, people who look “suspicious” and are caught on Ring cameras by people on Nextdoor, people who dance funny in public, and so on. There has been endless debate about the ethics of doxing cops and ICE agents and Nazis, and there are many times where it makes sense to research people doing harm on behalf of the state or who are doing violent, scary things in to innocent people. It is another to deploy these technologies against random people you saw on an airplane or who had a messy breakup with an influencer. And of course, these same technologies are regularly deployed by police and the feds against undocumented immigrants, regular people, and people wanting to visit the United States on tourist visas.
“JUST IN: Astronomer CEO Andy Byron’s wife removes his last name from her Facebook profile,” a follow up post said next to a screenshot from Byron’s wife’s Facebook account. And in a reply: The odds of them both getting divorced this year are soaring. 52% chance.”
OpenAI just rolled out its most autonomous AI product yet: ChatGPT Agent. Announced Thursday by CEO Sam Altman in a post on X, the new system doesn’t just help you think through a task—it actually does the task for you. […]
The post OpenAI launches ChatGPT Agent: An AI assistant that can book trips, analyze data, and take action first appeared on Tech Startups.
Nothing has just announced new updates to Essential Space, its AI-powered hub, which includes support for Google Calendar as well as updates to the new “Flip to Record” feature on Phone (3).
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This afternoon’s lineup of the best Android game and app deals is now ready to roll down below. On your way down be sure to scope out the deals we have today on the Sonos Ace ANC over-ear headphones at $150 off, these Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra configs at up to $400 off, and the deals on how to score Galaxy Buds 3 Pro for FREE with a FREE case alongside your Galaxy Z Flip 7 pre-order. As for the apps, highlights include titles like Old Man’s Journey, Front Armies [RTS], ELOH, Titan Quest: Ultimate Edition, and more. Head below for a closer look.
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This is Rumor Replay, a weekly column at 9to5Mac offering a quick rundown of the most recent Apple product rumors, with analysis and commentary. Today: all the latest rumors about the iPhone 17 lineup and iOS 26.
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Benjamin and Chance react to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman report on what Apple is planning to ship over the course of the next twelve months, as well as the details of a near-term refresh for the Vision Pro including a more comfortable strap. Apple launches a new Emoji puzzle in News+, AirPods marketshare is revealed in a new study, and Apple sweeps the Emmy nominations.
And in Happy Hour Plus, Benjamin and Chance talk more about the recent controversies surrounding Liquid Glass. Subscribe at 9to5mac.com/join.
Today is Donkey Kong Bananza launch day, and what better way to celebrate than with a discount? The Nintendo Switch 2-exclusive game is currently $62.99 ($7 off) at Costco for members. Nintendo games rarely go on sale, even after several months on shelves, so any amount off the retail price is a big win on launch day.
If you were on the fence about whether to get the game, let our review assuage any concerns. It rules. The Verge’s Ash Parrish describes it as a “fantastic feast.” The game offers satisfying punching mechanics, creative level design, and the unmistakable polish that most Nintendo games possess. Whereas Mario Kart World was a pretty good launch title, Donkey Kong Bananza is the Switch 2’s first must-have game.
For nearly two years, students at Columbia University have warned that they're being targeted - and put in serious danger - by right-wing Zionist organizations like Canary Mission and Betar US. Canary Mission's goal was initially to "expose" students it deemed antisemitic, ideally in the hopes that they'd be denied jobs and other opportunities. In the aftermath of October 7th, students who were targeted by Canary Mission and similar groups said they experienced a surge of online harassment that increasingly spilled over into real life. The stakes were raised further upon Donald Trump's reelection. Under Trump's brutal immigration enforcement …
I've been using the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 for the past week, and I think I can finally say it: I get folding phones. The Z Fold 7 so slim and so nice to use, that I'm looking at the whole category in a whole new light. It's great timing, because it looks like phones with two sets of hinges might be on the way. Huawei did it first, of course, but Samsung seems serious about launching its trifold in the near future, and Chinese brand Tecno just teased an enticing-looking concept. And you know what? Bring them on.
Don't get me wrong, I love a small phone. I plan to keep my iPhone 13 Mini until it becomes a security hazard. But big phones hav …
