Happy Friday! Welcome to Issue 14 of Rerun, your weekly digest of digital storytelling, interactive media and the future of TV curated by Axonista.
Lots of fantastic reading this week! Our own Daragh Ward writes about what Apple TV reveals we can expect from Apple's WWDC event next Monday, and what they could mean for the industry. We also feature a pre-TVoT interview about OTT, featuring our own Claire McHugh and Daragh Wardâhe's everywhere this week!
In addition to that, there's NFL streaming to the world for the first time, Netflix's promise to never show third-party ads, designing for AR, a new Oculus movie, Kung Fury, and much more! Let's get straight to it!
Top Pick
Apple TV will be a no-show at Monday's WWDC Keynote â or will it ?
With content deals not quite complete and rumors of hardware delays, many people are now betting against Apple TV making an appearance during Tim Cookâs keynote address Monday. Here at Rerun though, weâre not so sure.
While we do expect there to be a dedicated event later in the year with a more complete set of announcementsâââincluding a subscription service with an almost full house of network content (it will likely still exclude NBC due to an ongoing conflict with NBCâs parent, Comcast)âââwe think there are enough compelling reasons for Appleâs âhobbyâ device to get at least some limelight on Monday morning.
Future of TV
It's not TV, it's OTT
Ahead of this summer's TV of Tomorrow conference in San Francisco, the iTVDoctor Rick Howe interviews industry experts, including our own Daragh Ward, about the emerging world of OTT and the problems and opportunities that they see coming down the line.
Yahooâs NFL deal will put online TV to the test
On the 25th of October the Buffalo Bills play the Jacksonville Jaguars in a game that will be watched by millions of NFL fans around the world. This time however, with Yahoo landing the rights to make this the first regular-season game to be live streamed, many will be watching to see the next episode in the battle between cable TV and online streaming unfold. Here, Wired takes us through the good and the bad of this growing trend in sports broadcasting and discusses the possible implications for the future of TV.
Netflix promise âNo advertising. Period.â
"No advertising coming onto Netflix. Period. Just adding relevant cool trailers for other Netflix content you are likely to love." - Netflix CEO Reed Hastings
Earlier in the week the internet freaked out over reports that Netflix were adding pre-roll ads before shows. Quick to quash the rumours, CEO Reed Hastings said no ads, just promos. Of course Netflix constantly test features like this with small groups of users, so you may never even see them!
Virtual Reality
Designing humane augmented reality experiences
The difference between your life right now and a life with AR is that right now, you can escape advertising.
In a future where your digital world is overlaid onto the physical one, what does it mean to see advertising? It's one thing to see a pop-up ad in your web browser and quite another to get one in front of your face as you're walking down the street or out to dinner. In this post Matt Sundstrom shares some of his ideas on how to advertise humanely in AR.
Oculus Story Studio : Henry
Oculus Story Studio have set out to delight audiences by creating VR's first character, Henry the hedgehog. In this immersive storytelling experience, the audience explores and discovers Henry's world, and the character starts to feel like a friend. The magic of this movie, is that it shows the evolution in VR where not only does it stir the human senses, but also creates a deep emotional connection with a character.
Googleâs Cardboard app is the go-to how-to for VR design
First I get you used to lifting things with your virtual handâŠthen all of a sudden youâre lifting ten-ton automobile and cranes...then I can go one step further and make you feel like you are a crane. And there, Iâve got you totally into elsewhere land.
Last week saw Monument Valley creators Ustwo collaborate with Google to release an app that demonstrates the fundamentals of designing VR experiences. Suffice to say it's beautiful and the best example of VR design principles so far.
Briefs
- Christopher Nolan finally explained the spinning top in Inception
- Customer satisfaction with TV cable providers in the US is at a 7-year low
- How the newspaper from Harry Potter inspired Facebook's autoplay videos
- Magic Leap unveiled its development platform to create mind-boggling augmented-reality apps
With Kung Fury, culture reaches peak nostalgia
Billed as, 'an action comedy about a super kung fu cop in Miami in the 1980s who decides to travel back in time in order to kill Adolf Hitler', the Kickstarter crowdfunded 30 min movie, Kung Fury made its big screen debut at Cannes Director's Fortnight to critical acclaim, and was distributed on YouTube, where it has notched up over 13 million views to date.
With a theme song performed by David Hasselhoff, time travel, an arcade machine villain, and a kick ass kung fu hero, this is a wild '80s themed ride with cult classic written all over it. It cost just $630,000 to make. Rewards for project funders included props from the movie as well as minor and major on screen parts and movie credits such as 'SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY'. Is this the future of movie making?
Hat tip to Rerun subscriber @goyer for pointing us towards our new favourite movie.