It's here, the day Netflix told us would never come: Netflix with ads is real.
The streamer’s cheaper, ad-supported subscription tier has officially arrived in the US, UK, and Australia, having rolled out in Canada on November 1. Called Netflix Basic with Ads, the new plan costs $6.99 / £4.99 / AU$6.99 per month, and grants access to (almost) all of the platform’s movies and TV shows in exchange for your tolerating up to five minutes of ads per hour.
We say ‘almost all’ because Netflix has confirmed that a “limited number” of programs are unavailable on the new ad-supported tier due to licensing restrictions. Don’t panic, though: you’ll still have all the best Netflix shows and best Netflix movies at your disposal should you decide to make the switch.
Other caveats include the inability to download content for offline viewing and a 720p cap on video quality – but such is the price you pay for paying a lower price (jeez, that’s a tongue-twister).
Below, we’ll walk you through how to switch to Netflix Basic with Ads from your current Netflix plan or sign up for the streamer’s cheapest tier as a completely new Netflix subscriber. We also share our early thoughts on the value-for-money Netflix Basic with Ads brings to the streaming table.
New subscribers
The steps needed to join Netflix Basic with Ads as a new subscriber are the same as those required to set up any other type of Netflix subscription.
If you’ve never had a Netflix account before, head to Netflix.com and register with your email, date of birth, and gender to make one. You’ll be prompted to create a password and select a payment method, before being given the option to choose your plan: Basic with Ads, Basic, Standard, or Premium.
Select Basic with Ads, and you’re ready to start streaming.
Existing subscribers
If you’ve already got a Netflix account and want to switch to Basic with Ads, the process is just as simple.
First, sign into your Netflix account on your laptop or tablet and navigate to your profile. Select Account and scroll down to Plan Details, where you’ll see the option to Change Plan.
Hit Change Plan, and you’ll see the list of available subscription tiers – which now include Basic with Ads – appear. Select Continue, then confirm your changes.
It’s worth noting that, while changes to higher-tier Netflix plans take effect immediately, changes to lower-priced plans won’t activate until your next billing date. In other words, your account won’t feature ads immediately if you decide to make the change – you’ll be able to continue enjoying the benefits of a higher-priced plan until your next payment date rolls around.
Should you subscribe to Basic with Ads?
It goes without saying, but the value in switching to this lower-priced Netflix plan will depend on your personal circumstances.
Sure, it’s not a particularly attractive proposition to know that your Netflix movies and TV shows will be interrupted by up to five minutes of ads per hour if you do subscribe – but the fact remains that this is the cheapest Netflix subscription we’ve ever seen.
For $6.99 / £4.99 / AU$6.99 per month, you can still binge the likes of Stranger Things, Squid Game, The Crown, Sex Education, and Bridgerton to your heart’s content – you’ll just have to tolerate seeing a series of 15 to 30-second ads before and during viewing.
Stranger Things and Squid Game are the two most popular Netflix shows in history(Image credit: Netflix / Future)
Netflix’s decision to embrace ads is, of course, primarily motivated by its desire to improve its bottom line, but the move also offers greater choice for customers who would prefer to pay a lot less for Netflix at the expense of ad-free viewing (for comparison, the streamer's highest-level subscription tier currently costs $19.99 / £15.99 / AU$22.99).
It’s also important to note that the price of existing Netflix subscriptions remain – for now, at least – the same as they were prior to the launch of Basic with Ads. There’s no obligation for you to make the switch to the cheaper, ad-supported Netflix plan if you don’t want to.
Business is business, and Netflix will likely hike its subscription prices again in 2023, but as things stand right now, it’s hard to criticize the company for introducing a more affordable Netflix plan that will, undoubtedly, help millions of customers save money without losing access to their favorite shows.
We’ll have a more comprehensive understanding of (and opinion on) Netflix’s new plan once we’ve spent some time experiencing Basic with Ads for ourselves. For now, though, we’re inclined to recommend it to those who want to enjoy – or keep enjoying – the streamer’s award-winning programming for the monthly price of an expensive coffee.
Google is updating its Assistant platform to be more kid-friendly with a suite of new parental controls, voices, and more.
Prior to this, Google Assistant never really had any parental controls, but as the company claims in the announcement, children commonly interact with shared devices so it saw fit to give parents the necessary tools to monitor them.
Assistant Parental Controls will allow users to control the type of content, features, and devices children have access to at home. For content, you can narrow things down to a handful of approved services like YouTube Kids or YouTube Music. Parents can also restrict access to news and podcasts. Select features like making phone calls can be disabled and given answers can be adjusted to be more age-appropriate. There will even be a new Downtime tool to set a schedule for when children can use Google Assistant.
Other new features
The age-appropriate answers come through the introduction of Kids Dictionary, which allows Assistant to provide “simplified... answers” to children. According to the announcement, the feature works by having Assistant recognize that a child is speaking and “understanding” that it’s being asked a question. Google gives the example of a child asking what a telescope is and the child receiving a basic definition from a Nest Hub display.
In order to use Kids Dictionary, you must first add your child’s voice to a supporting device. Instructions on how to do this are on the Google Assistant Help page.
The last addition is the arrival of four new kid-friendly voices. Google states these voices were designed with input from children and parents to reflect a variety of accents. They also speak in a slower and more expressive style when compared to the standard monotone voice for adults.
Everything in the update will be available to all US users within the coming weeks. It’s unknown at this time if there are plans for a global launch. Google states the Parental Controls will make their way to the Assistant, Home, and Family Link apps on both Android and iOS. Presumably, Kids Dictionary and the four voices will also go to those apps, but the announcement doesn't say for sure.
We reached out to Google for more clarification and asked how parents can switch voices to the more kid-friendly one. This story will be updated if we hear back.
Better protection
The Google Assistant update is part of a long-running effort by the tech giant to empower parents to better protect their families. In fact, the Family Link mentioned earlier recently got a big makeover that changed its user interface and added a new location tracking feature. Plus, Google TV got new parent-controlled watchlists as a way to more easily monitor content.
But let’s say that isn’t enough and you want more protection tools for your family or want to suggest some. We recommend checking out TechRadar’s best identity theft protection list for families. These security packages offer tools like a password manager, anti-malware protection, and VPNs.
Meta has updated its professional mode setting to help its users monetize the content they create.
Some of the new features available now allow content creators to build a public following, boost SEO, and earn money from various programs on existing Facebook profiles.
With building an online presence in mind, the Facebook tool also includes analytics and enhanced well-being features to help users stay safe on the social media platform.
Professional mode for all creators
Meta started testing professional mode back in 2021, and is currently still working on new formats for users to earn money for the reels they share. This includes the testing of Ads on Facebook Reels on professional mode, as well as a new subscription model similar to YouTube.
Right now, US creators are able to apply to join a feature called “Reel Play” on Facebook, which is a bonus program that enables users to get paid for reels uploaded onto the platform.
“Professional mode allows you to build a global audience of followers, while still staying connected to friends and family from your personal Facebook profile. As you post public content, you’ll have access to features designed to help you obtain and engage new followers - that were previously only available on Pages,” Meta wrote in a blog post.
Creators on the professional mode setting also get access to a profile category directly on each individual’s profile, which will enable the brand created by the user to appear under their name when people search on Facebook.
Subscriptions are being introduced and tested on professional mode to allow fans to level-up their support for you and your work, and provide you the opportunity to build deeper connections with your most loyal followers by sharing subscriber-only content.
In the same way a website builder service offers a dashboard to keep track of a site’s performance, Meta has also introduced “Professional Dashboard”, a one-stop hub that allows users to view audience and profile insights, as well as the performance of the content created and uploaded.
Additionally, Meta has updated its scheduling software, Post Composer, to allow its users to create a timetable for uploading content.
Open source CMS WordPress.org has released WordPress 6.1 “Misha” in a bid to expand the block editing experience introduced earlier this year in WordPress 5.9 and WordPress 6.0.
Named after the Soviet-Norwegian jazz pianist Mikhail “Misha” Alperin, WordPress 6.1 includes additional updates to its website builder, offering a new default block theme that features ten style variations designed by WordPress community members.
The release also includes new writing features that allow users to select partial paragraphs in a block, and has a keyboard shortcut to add internal links expanded to all blocks.
With contributions from over 800 people around the world, WordPress 6.1 has been designed to ensure that users can apply a different look and feel to a website within a single theme.
Available now, WordPress 6.1 also offers a suite of new templates that users can create directly from the Site Editor, including custom templates for posts and pages.
“Additional improvements to the editor give creators and developers more control and customization for site-building while offering a more cohesive experience to users,” said Josepha Haden Chomphosy, WordPress Executive Director.
The update also includes fluid typography that lets web creators set one font size to scale on any screen size, which can be enabled through theme.json, a configuration file for block themes.
“As of WordPress 6.1, block based template parts can be used in traditional WordPress themes, allowing both site owners and plugin and theme authors to adopt what they need as they are ready in a way that is still future forward. A theme needs to specify the block-template-parts theme support to enable this feature,” a WordPress.org press release added.
WordPress.org has also improved the layout and visualization of document settings to help content creators easily view and manage important post and page settings.
- No release date announced yet
- Filming begin in October 2022; set to end in May 2023
- Main cast all expected to return
- Plot likely to pick up straight after season 1 finale
- No word on whether a third season will be greenlit
Severance season 2 is set to continue the tale of Lumon Industries on Apple TV Plus soon. The sci-fi thriller series' next entry will unravel more of the existential mysteries at play and the controversial medical procedure that renders employees unable to remember their life outside of the office walls. Unsurprisingly, given how great the first season was, we can’t wait to see what’s to come in its sophomore outing.
Season 2 is set to continue on from one of the best season 1 cliffhangers of recent memory. Severance is a show that masterfully ties together complex, conflicted characters in a bleak office satire. It's a series that grew in scope and ambition with every creeping episode – like the endless corridors of the Lumon office, always longer, darker, and more unnerving than you expect.
Severance is possibly the best Apple TV show to date (though your feelings on that may depend on whether Ted Lasso already has your heart). It’s able to wring the laughter out of painfully corporate banalities, at the same time as pushing them to their most terrifying conclusions, as we see dehumanized and psychologically tortured workers offered up on the altar of CEO worship.
But there’s still plenty we don’t know – including exactly when Severance season 2 will land. Given that the second season was greenlit back in April 2022, though, and with filming already underway, we’re sure to hear more information soon. Here’s everything we know about Severance season 2 so far.
Severance season 2 release date
Severance season 2 has only just started filming.(Image credit: Apple TV Plus)
Severance season 2's release date has yet to be finalized, but we can estimate a rough launch window. Filming began in October 2022 and is currently slated to end in May 2023.
Every time you find yourself here, it’s because you chose to come back.#Severance Season 2 filming has started. pic.twitter.com/4AgEFHEgV9October 31, 2022
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It took around a year for the first season to complete production and drop on Apple TV Plus. Given that principal photography still has six months to go, and the fact the show will need a lengthy post-production phase, it’s likely that we’ll be waiting until late 2023 to see the next installment. Here's hoping that's the case.
Severance season 2 cast
Expect Severance's main cast to return for its next season.(Image credit: Apple TV Plus)
Here's the full cast for Severance season 2 so far:
Adam Scott as Mark Scout
Zach Cherry as Dylan George
Britt Lower as Helena "Helly" Riggs
John Tuturro as Irving Bailiff
Patricia Arquette as Harmony Cobel
Tramell Tillman as Seth Milchick
Christopher Walken as Burt Goodman
Dichen Lachman as Ms. Casey
Jen Tullock as Devon Hale
Michael Chernus as Ricken Hale
There were plenty of recurring and guest characters in Severance's first season, so we might see some of those individuals return for its next outing. However, Apple is yet to confirm which of those might be back, or whether new actors have been hired to play new characters.
There will be eight new faces, though, among the season 2 cast. Per The Hollywood Reporter (THR), this octet of big name stars have joined Severance's roster in undisclosed roles:
Speaking to THR for a season 1 finale post-mortem piece, director-producer Ben Stiller previously suggested he had many actors in mind for potential season 2 roles, saying: "For me there are a lot, people like Christopher Guest I kind of imagine ‘Wow that would be amazing if someday he might be a part of the show'. It’s fun when you have a show like this where it allows for people to maybe come in for an episode or two but also fit into the world of Severance."
Creator Dan Erickson wants Severance's cast to go full A-list celebrity, though, joking with THR that "If Barack Obama is [there at the 2022 Emmys], I’m going to see if he wants a role on this show. I think he’d be really good, he’d bring some gravitas."
Severance season 2 plot
Severance season 2 should pick up events from season 1's finale.(Image credit: Apple Tv Plus)
Major spoilers for Severance season 1 follow.
So, what’s going on in Severance? The show is set at Lumon Industries, a shadowy corporate organization that has figured out a way to split a person’s psyche into two: an ‘innie’ that works on Lumon premises, and an ‘outie’ who never has to work a day in their life.
The downside, of course, is that the ‘innie’ doing all the work experiences a never-ending nine until five loop, where they never leave the office, and are doomed to complete obtuse and meaningless tasks on repeat for eternity. And it doesn’t take long for some employees to take issue with such a soul-destroying, Kafkaesque experiment.
Mark Scout initially joins Lumon to escape the crippling grief of losing his wife in a car accident, allowing himself to disassociate from his ‘outside’ psyche for most of the week. But he becomes more curious about the workings of the company after his friend and manager Petey stops showing up to work unexpectedly, while a new recruit seems determined to escape the office. Cue plenty of manipulation by their employer, unexplained baby goats, and a surprisingly violent disco.
Season 1 ended on a big cliffhanger, with four of these rebellious 'innies' having successfully activated their work psyches ‘remotely’, launching themselves into the lives of their 'outies', and spreading the word of their cruel working conditions and ruining Lumon’s reputation just before a key vote on whether to roll out the severance procedure more widely.
We'll explore the world outside of Lumon Industries in more detail in season 2.(Image credit: Apple TV Plus)
We expect to pick up the moment that season one ended, when this remote activation was interrupted by the employees’ supervisor. That leaves Irving knocking on the door of his office sweetheart, Dylan caught red-handed in the Lumon control room, "Helly" onstage at a Lumon gala after outing the company’s practices, and Mark in his sister’s home after releasing his wife was still alive and working as a Lumon employee. There’s a lot going on at once, and all these people’s 'outies' will suddenly find themselves back in the room after an hour of their innies taking control.
We expect season 2 will focus more on the world outside of Lumon Industries, with Helly’s gala outburst and Mark’s discoveries having leaked some company secrets to the public. But it wouldn’t be Severance without, well, severance, and we’re sure to see the cast flit between their 'innies' and 'outies' at times, especially if it's to further investigate Lumon’s labyrinthine office corridors, which are sure to contain plenty of secrets we’re yet to unearth.
Speaking to Variety about what fans can expect from the next season, Stiller teased: "I think that the biggest thing is how to maintain all those things in terms of the feeling of the show, while at the same time expanding the world since the end of the last episode. We’ve brought Mark and Irving and Helly to the surface, and I think those are storylines that people are going to be interested in. So, it’s going to be figuring out that balance."
During a Comic-Con 2022 panel (per Time magazine), Erickson added: "I’m excited, going into season 2, building out the world a little bit more and being able to see, with this one slight tweak to reality, what the different ramifications would be. We didn’t want it to feel sci-fi in the classical sense. We wanted it to be much more grounded."
Oh, and expect there to be a reveal of sorts concerning those goats in season 1. Asked if there was any significance to their appearance at Comic-Con, Erickson simply replied: "Yeah."
Severance season 2 trailer
There's no official Severance season 2 trailer yet, but we did get a very brief teaser during Apple's September 2022 iPhone 14 event.
The footage only shows Helly disembarking from a subway train, either on her way home or to her Lumon office, so it doesn't give anything away about the show's second season. Still, it's a fun little Easter egg-style clip, and shows how much Apple is leaning on another of its flagship shows (like Ted Lasso before it) to drive subscribers towards its streaming service.
Once an official trailer drops, we'll update this section.
Will we get more seasons of Severance?
Can we expect more seasons of Severance?(Image credit: Apple TV Plus)
Are more entries coming after Severance season 2? It seems likely. Severance is one of the best TV shows to have landed on Apple’s streaming platform since its launch in 2019, and the company won’t want to sleep on a certified hit. It holds a 97% certified "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, has won multiple awards already, and is sure to be a big winner on the 2023 awards circuit, too.
Ted Lasso, Apple's other megahit original series, is gearing up for a third season, and we expect Severance will get similar treatment. Reall, it all depends on how Severance's second season goes, but the quality of the storytelling so far bodes well for later seasons, and the many unexplained mysteries of Lumon Industries should offer enough for a few dozen episodes before it all runs out of steam. Just don’t expect Severance season 3 until 2025 comes around at the very earliest.
Microsoft has announced a new, more convenient way to pull images from Android devices, such as smartphones, into documents and spreadsheets made with the web versions of Word and Powerpoint found in Microsoft 365.
In a post on the Office Insiders blog, the company revealed that it will soon be possible for users of Microsoft’s online online collaboration tool to link their Android photo libraries to a Microsoft account using a one-time set up process.
For now, the feature is only available to personal users, in addition to enterprise and education organizations, who have opted into the Office Insiders program, which gives users early access to exciting but experimental new features within the company’s office software suite.
Microsoft 365 and Android integration
While at a glance this might seem like an exclusive club, with some business and education users may be out of luck due to their organization’s Microsoft Office configuration, it’s not too hard to enrol so long as a user has full control over their system.
For personal users, the Office Insider program is a simple opt-in, to be found on the product information page within Microsoft 365.
Once that’s done, linking your Android photo library to your Microsoft account is a simple process, so long as your Android device has the means to scan a QR code with its camera and install the Link to Windows app on the Google Play Store.
Luckily, these are features that will come as standard on most, if not all, recent business smartphones.
The new feature promises to be robust and intuitive, supporting the same image sizes, dimensions, and file types currently supported by Word and Powerpoint on the web. It will also allow users to replace existing images in documents with those on mobile devices.
The feature will eventually be available to all users of Office on the web who have a Microsoft 365 subscription, use an android phone, and, if they are using the Mozilla Firefoxweb browser, are using version 104.0 or later.
The cast of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever are completely unaware about talk of a possible Namor spin-off project.
Speaking exclusively to TechRadar at the Marvel Phase 4 movie's global junket, Alex Livinalli and Mabel Cadena expressed surprise at online rumors concerning a Namor-led movie or show.
The pair, who portray Attuma and Namora – Namor's closest confidantes – in Black Panther 2, are certainly open to the prospect of featuring in a possible Talokan-based production. And Livinalli even went as far as to jokingly say TechRadar should call him if we hear anything definitive.
"What, really?!" Livinalli said when TechRadar brought up the Namor spin-off speculation. "They don't tell us anything so, if you know anything, please let us know!"
"Oh wow," Cadena added. "That would be extremely cool. I think we'd both be very open to returning for that."
One of the oldest Marvel characters to be created by the comic book giant, Namor will be the primary antagonist in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The ocean-dwelling mutant, played by Tenoch Huerta in the superhero film, is more of an anti-hero than an outright villain, though he occasionally teams up with classic Marvel supervillains if it'll benefit his nation or keep his people safe. You can read more about him in our in-depth Namor explainer.
Analysis: will Marvel greenlight a Namor spin-off project?
Will audiences be returning to Talokan in a future MCU production?(Image credit: Marvel Studios)
That's difficult to say as Marvel keeps these things very close to its chest. However, there are a few reasons to suggest we'll see Marvel sign off on a solo Namor movie or Disney Plus show.
First, let's address those rumors. In January, Bleeding Cool (via Murphy's Multiverse) teased that Wakanda Forever would serve as a jumping-off point for a Namor-led franchise. Okay, that's not much to go on, but Huerta and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige have opened up about the potential for a Namor movie or TV series in the months since such speculation surfaced online.
Speaking to Total Film (per The Direct), Huerta said that "the mythology around Namor is huge. You can be crazy with all this cultural aspect, and you can create a lot of things with Namor". Meanwhile, responding to a Namor cosplayer at Wakanda Forever's world premiere, which you can watch below, Feige said: "We'll see [about a Namor movie]. It depends on this!"
THIS MOVIE CANNOT FLOP pic.twitter.com/DSUGV4UtIAOctober 27, 2022
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The prospect of a Namor spin-off project, then, is looking increasingly likely. The anti-hero is one of Marvel's most complicated characters, whose allegiances vary wildly depending on circumstances surrounding himself and the Atlantis-style kingdom of Talokan. As Huerta says, there's so much source material to pull from and, given the complexities, character richness, and thematic resonance surrounding Namor as an individual, he's an ideal candidate for a solo Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) outing.
There are plenty of slots available in Marvel and Disney's forthcoming movie slate where a Namor movie could fit into, too. Per a screenshot shared on Reddit, there are five unclaimed Marvel movie spots in Disney's calendar – between July 2025 and November 2026 – that a Namor film could occupy.
If Marvel opts to create a Namor-led TV series instead, there's room for it to appear on Disney Plus as part of Marvel Phase 5 or Marvel Phase 6. The former is looking pretty stacked already, with the likes of Loki season 2 and Secret Invasion already taking up residence in the MCU's next phase. But it's not as if Marvel hasn't restructured its release schedule before, most recently shunting some MCU movies back due to production issues surrounding its Blade film reboot. So there's always a chance Marvel could move its TV slate around to accommodate a Namor series, especially if the character proves to be as popular as many expect him to be when Wakanda Forever releases worldwide on November 11.
Our guess? A Namor TV show seems the more likely route. A Namor Disney Plus series would allow viewers to explore Talokan in greater detail than a film could, equally allowing supporting characters like Attuma and Namora to have fleshed out character arcs. Show us more about Talokan's MCU history, dig into the minutiae of Namor's complex persona, and tie his project into another Black Panther 2 spin-off – Ironheart's own Disney Plus show or the rumored Midnight Angels TV series – and we'll certainly be down for another underwater adventure.
We'll be covering Black Panther: Wakanda Forever extensively in the build up to launch day and post-release, so check back with TechRadar for our spoiler-free review and other fascinating content soon.
