Janko Roettgers

@jank0.bsky.social

3070 Followers 50 Following

Reporter, covering streaming, AR, VR etc. Writing a weekly newsletter at www.lowpass.cc.

Screenshot of text: "Revenue this month, Month to date: $1"
Text reading "Netflix built its voting tech to only allow one vote per Netflix profile. But those early tests showed that fairness was as much about the way different options were presented, and that long-held beliefs about user interface (UI) design could introduce perceived biases. One example: Designers such as Iyengar like to direct the eye to simplify smart TV interfaces. When you open up the Netflix app on your TV, you’ll find that one title is always preselected, which helps to understand what to do if you want to navigate to the title right next to it, or perhaps one in a row below. “On TV, you should always have something in focus,” he says. “Otherwise people don’t understand where the focus state is.” When Iyengar’s team built the interface that people will use to award stars to Star Search performers, they initially followed that same principle and highlighted the third star to direct the eye. Test audiences immediately pushed back. “People did not like that we were filling up the stars for them,” he says. “They were, like, ‘Why are you voting for me?’”"
A mocked-up screenshot of the upcoming HQ Trivia-like Netflix game Best Guess Live
A screenshot from the VR workout app FitXR
Screenshot of text: "You will lead a team of engineers for the Prime Video (PV) Fire TV team, with full responsibility for the Vega OS experience. The team is responsible for the dedicated Prime Video app on Vega OS, as well as all PV experiences on the Vega Launcher. With the app launching in 2025, you will get to shape the future of this product as well as the culture of the team."
A screenshot of the Quest TV VR video app UI
A screenshot of Netflix's title page for its NASA+ live stream, complete with a "watch live" button.
A pie chart showing that 87% of Netflix's live content viewing happens within the first seven days of the original broadcast
Screenshot of a video featuring an Apple employee in a relatively bare room. In the background, presented like a fancy gadget: a pair of paper 3D glasses.
A screenshot of text: "Availability: Veo 3 is available now, but only to people who subscribe to Google’s new AI Ultra Ultra tier, which will cost you $249.99 per month. What’s more, the number of videos you can generate are limited: AI Ultra subscribers get 1000 credits per month, and the creation of a single Veo 3 clip costs 150 credits (extra credits can be bought for an additional fee)."
Screenshot of a part of an auction listing for a "Straight Lens Tester," which features a device label that includes the Seacliff moniker (Seacliff was the internal cod name for the Quest Pro).
Render of a hardware controller for Spotify, with a small display for album art, four buttons and a big knob.
Screenshot of text: "Lowpass broke the news of The Trade Desk building its own TV OS, and Sonos being its first hardware partner, months before the two companies ultimately acknowledged this. Lowpass had scoops on Netflix’s use of AI, Venu’s design and feature set, Amazon’s moves away from Android, Meta’s XR calling plans, Roku’s HDMI ad insertion patent and VLC’s five-billion-downloads milestone, and more. Lowpass also covered the ways AI is changing streaming, this year’s renaissance of spatial video, the emergence of mixed reality, the inside story of Roku’s TV program, and much more. More than 20 of this year’s stories were exclusive to paying subscribers. 2024 financial update I’m not quite ready to share absolute numbers yet, so I‘m gonna borrow Big Tech’s tendency to present some benchmarks in relative terms – but unlike those tech companies, I’m also going to be frank about the challenges."