Hasta La Gadget!

Netflix will be removing approximately 1,800 titles from its streaming library today because licensing agreements with several studios like Universal, MGM, and Warner Bros are expiring. Content that is set to for removal includes 15 seasons of South Park, older films from the James Bond series, as well as a few classic horror movies.

While this may come as a shock, it’s common business for Netflix to constantly be evaluating its content and remove and add certain movies and TV shows when it feels that it should. The company says that they aim to be a good programmer rather than a broad distributor. As a result, Netflix will only be serving up the most popular pieces of content, rather than everything under the sun.

However, not all hope is lost, as Netflix will also be adding more content at the same time it will be removing content. New shows and movies that the company will be adding on include ParaNorman, The Hunger Games, Safe, Bachelorette, and Mission Impossible 2, as well as a handful of other titles being tacked on.

Netflix’s four-year contract with Starz ended last year, which saw the end of streaming for movies like Scarface, Young Frankenstein, Toy Story 3, and Gangs of New York. However, Netflix recently signed a contract with Disney, which will see a handful of classic childrens’ movies come to the streaming service shortly.

[via CNET]

Netflix removing 1,800 titles as studio deals expire is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Digital rights advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has released their annual report of which companies are the best at protecting its users data from the government, and the results may be surprising to some. The EFF reports that Twitter is the best when it comes to protecting user data, while Verizon, Apple, and didn’t score so great.

The report ranks the policies of various large companies, and see how each company stacks up based on six privacy criteria, including whether or not the company published transparency reports and if they fight for users’ privacy rights in Congress and in court. Twitter came out on top, meeting all six criteria, along with internet service provider Sonic.net.

As for the low scorers, Verizon and MySpace didn’t meet any of the six criteria, while Apple, AT&T, and Yahoo only met one of the criteria. However, other companies that received high marks include Dropbox, Google, and LinkedIn, all of which require a warrant in order for their content to be handed over to government officials.

One of the trends seen in this year’s report is the constant low marks with wireless carriers, with both Verizon and AT&T scoring lowly, and the EFF is calling for wireless carriers to up their game and join the other big companies in doing their users a favor by publishing law enforcement guidelines and regular transparency reports.

EFF praises Twitter, slams Verizon over user data protection is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

LG’s Optimus G successor, the G Pro, is coming to AT&T on May 10 with pre-orders beginning May 3, the companies revealed in a press release today. LG’s Optimus G Pro offers a 1.7GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, a 5.5-inch 1920×1080 display with a pixel density of 400ppi, and a 13 megapixel rear-facing camera. The G Pro will be available on a two-year agreement for $199.99, and packs AT&T 4G LTE cellular connectivity.

Chris checked out the G Pro back in February at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and came away with a decidedly positive overall impression. The phone’s high points seem to be its camera and light and slim design, as well as a built-in IR blaster that means it can operate as a universal remote for you TV and other home electronics.

The phone’s arrival was hardly a surprise, having been leaked earlier by Android Central, which pegged the exact date. Then LG announced an event for today, May 1, and went on to confirm that this would indeed be about the Optimus G Pro late in April.

For LG, it’s a phone that follows the Optimus G, a flagship device that has done fairly well so far, hitting the 1 million sales mark back in January of this year, after a release in September 2012. The G also provided the basic groundwork for Google’s Nexus 4 Android reference device, which reached 1 million in handset sales in February, according to an estimate based on serial numbers calculated by Nexus 4 owners.

The G Pro will be going up against the extremely well-reviewed HTC One, and the Android juggernaut, Samsung’s Galaxy S4, so it’s got a lot to compete with. But for fans of the last two major LG-made devices, this looks to be decently attractive upgrade.

Like Punxsutawney Phil’s shadowgazing, we can rightfully expect a new Call of Duty game to be announced annually and available at the holidays. Also like our groundhog friend, the only annual questions we must ask are in the details — what is this year’s Call of Duty about, and who’s making it? It turns out that this year’s Duty development, unsurprisingly, falls on Infinity Ward’s shoulders — the folks who created the much lauded Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare — and it’s named “Call of Duty: Ghosts.” It’s arriving on a whole mess of platforms this November 6th, including Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC, but also PlayStation 4 and the next Xbox — given that we don’t know release dates for the PlayStation 4 and the next Xbox, it stands to reason that Ghosts could arrive on a different date for those platforms. It’s also likely we’ll see a handheld version on Nintendo’s 3DS made by someone other than Infinity Ward, but we’ve got no direct word on that just yet.

The “Ghosts” in the title references … well, we’re not entirely sure just yet. Previous CoD games featured a character named “Ghost” fairly prominently, though the plurality indicates a game about more than one individual. We’re holding out hope that the often overserious, dramatic tone of previous CoD games is being completely thrown out in favor of a goofy game about hunting ghosts. The bullets pass right through their ethereal form! Run for your life!

Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo

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Bike sharing service Social Bicycles has raised $1.1 million to expand the reach of their social bike sharing service to new markets. The company, led by Ryan Rzepecki, reported the funding this morning.

The round was led by David Rose on behalf of New York Angels as well as Esther Dyson, Amol Sarva, and Karl Ulrich. David Rose and Brad Higgins will be on the company board.

The company, founded in 2011, began as a Kickstarter project and then turned into a solid rental product with a pilot launch at the San Francisco airport in December and another pilot at the University of Buffalo in March.

The company is helping launch a bike share in Hoboken, New Jersey and St. Petersburg, Florida is on track to buy 300 bikes.

The bikes have built-in GPS systems and can be unlocked via your cellphone. Users can leave bikes almost anywhere and then find and unlock them anywhere using the app. This allows bike sharing services to exist without central hubs that take up valuable sidewalk space.