GoKawiil
Tech News
Disney has hiked prices across Disney+ and Hulu, with ad-free standalone plans rising 13 percent from $19 to $21.50 per month and ad-supported plans rising from $12 to $12.50. Bundle prices also increased, including the Disney+/Hulu/ESPN Select bundle without ads jumping from $29 to $33, while Hulu + Live TV rose by $10 monthly.
Bloomberg reports Disney plans to raise subscription prices across Disney Plus and Hulu, citing people familiar with the matter. Ad-free Disney Plus Premium and ad-free Hulu would rise from $18.99 to $21.49 per month, while ad-supported standalone plans increase by 50 cents to $12.49. The ad-supported Disney Plus-Hulu bundle would stay at $12.99, though the ad-free bundle rises from $19.99 to $21.99, with subscribers possibly notified as soon as September 23.
A report explains that streaming platforms must compress 4K video heavily to send it over the internet without buffering, which strips out fine details like film grain, shadow gradients, textures and complex motion data. A 1080p Blu-ray, by contrast, uses a much higher bitrate and preserves that visual information more faithfully, so it can look sharper in demanding scenes despite having fewer pixels.
Apple has again raised subscription prices, with Apple TV climbing from $13 to $15 per month and its annual plan jumping 20 percent from $99 to $119. The individual Apple One bundle, which includes Apple TV, Music, Arcade, Fitness+, News+ and iCloud+, rose from $20 to $22 monthly. Existing subscribers get one month's notice before the new rates take effect.
Apple is increasing Apple TV's monthly subscription from $12.99 to $14.99, with the annual plan rising from $99 to $119. Apple One bundle pricing is also going up, with the individual tier moving from $19.95 to $21.95 monthly. This follows a similar increase to Apple Music announced roughly a month earlier.
The Australian Recording Industry Association has updated its Charts Code of Practice to exclude music that is wholly AI-generated from national chart eligibility, effective with the chart dated August 31. Songs made with AI assistance can still qualify, but only if the recording is substantially human-made, with humans writing the song and performing lead vocals and primary instruments using authorized tools.