Hasta La Gadget!

Parents throughout the country just breathed a sigh of relief at the prospect of allowing more screen time for their kids that doesn’t revolve around some really loud and annoying YouTube dude. PBS just launched a new free ad-supported channel called PBS Retro, as reported by The Wrap. As the name suggests, this is a repository for all of your favorite edutainment classics from the 1980s, 1990s and beyond. The nostalgia is strong with this one.

PBS Retro is available via The Roku Channel, which is a streaming service on smart TVs and, of course, Roku devices. The 24/7 channel airs all of the shows you’re likely picturing right now, including Reading Rainbow and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. You’ll also be able to introduce your kids to Thomas and Friends, Zoboomafoo and Kratt’s Creatures, among others. It’s a collection of old-school classics.

This isn’t the only PBS-adjacent channel available on Roku’s platform. It’s home to other ad-supported channels like PBS Antiques Roadshow, Antiques Road Trip, PBS Food, Julia Child and PBS Nature. There are also plenty of PBS-related channels available via subscription, including PBS Masterpiece, PBS Kids, PBS Living, PBS Documentaries and PBS America. Some of these are available on Hulu+ Live TV.

PBS may become an even bigger fixture in the free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) space in the future. The organization says it’s in the “early days of experimentation” with a goal of making PBS content “available in new places.” It will “continue to consider additional opportunities” if these FAST channels increase revenue and brand awareness. In the meantime, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood makes for some mighty fine ASMR.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/pbs-retro-is-a-new-fast-channel-playing-just-the-classics-173125500.html?src=rss

Parents throughout the country just breathed a sigh of relief at the prospect of allowing more screen time for their kids that doesn’t revolve around some really loud and annoying YouTube dude. PBS just launched a new free ad-supported channel called PBS Retro, as reported by The Wrap. As the name suggests, this is a repository for all of your favorite edutainment classics from the 1980s, 1990s and beyond. The nostalgia is strong with this one.

PBS Retro is available via The Roku Channel, which is a streaming service on smart TVs and, of course, Roku devices. The 24/7 channel airs all of the shows you’re likely picturing right now, including Reading Rainbow and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. You’ll also be able to introduce your kids to Thomas and Friends, Zoboomafoo and Kratt’s Creatures, among others. It’s a collection of old-school classics.

This isn’t the only PBS-adjacent channel available on Roku’s platform. It’s home to other ad-supported channels like PBS Antiques Roadshow, Antiques Road Trip, PBS Food, Julia Child and PBS Nature. There are also plenty of PBS-related channels available via subscription, including PBS Masterpiece, PBS Kids, PBS Living, PBS Documentaries and PBS America. Some of these are available on Hulu+ Live TV.

PBS may become an even bigger fixture in the free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) space in the future. The organization says it’s in the “early days of experimentation” with a goal of making PBS content “available in new places.” It will “continue to consider additional opportunities” if these FAST channels increase revenue and brand awareness. In the meantime, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood makes for some mighty fine ASMR.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/pbs-retro-is-a-new-fast-channel-playing-just-the-classics-173125500.html?src=rss

Steam’s refund policy for games is simple: You have two hours to play the game after you buy it to decide if you want to keep it. Like all good things, some folks decided to take advantage of a loophole, and now Valve has changed its policy to close it.

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When we first met General Grievous 20 years ago this month in Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars microseries, it gave him an immediate, chilling presence. But then Revenge of the Sith, and with it the Clone Wars 3DCG series, constrained what could be done with the character. Grievous took on the air of a Saturday morning…

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Threads users may soon have a new way to clean up their timelines. The app is testing a new archive feature that can be used to manually archive individual posts or automatically hide posts after a set period of time, Adam Mosseri shared.

As on Instagram, archiving a post on Threads will hide it from public view, though the post will be available to the original author to view or undo. The Instagram head said the feature will be available to a “small number of people” to start. Though optional, Mosseri has made no secret that his preference is for all posts on the service to be somewhat ephemeral. “I think we should move to automatically archive posts on Threads after a month or so,” he wrote in a post back in February.

But, in a poll shared with that earlier post, Threads users overwhelmingly said they would “never” want their posts automatically hidden from public view. In his latest update, Mosseri noted that “the resounding feedback was not to make this the default” so the company will try out archiving “as an option” to start.

While archiving old posts is popular on Instagram, the feature could be somewhat more controversial on Threads. As the service grows and adds more features geared toward real-time information, posts that automatically archive could make it harder to go back and revisit the original source of an update. (If Mosseri, for example, were to automatically archive all his old posts, it would be much more difficult to track his evolving thoughts on Threads, which he often shares publicly on the platform.) At the same time, allowing posts to be ephemeral often encourages users to share more often, which is even more important for Threads’ continued growth.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/threads-is-testing-automatic-archiving-for-posts-184243484.html?src=rss