Sky
Latest
Sky Q is getting system-wide voice control
Back in March, Sky finally introduced voice search for its next-gen Sky Q service. With it, you can request specific TV shows and movies, or look through its vast library by mumbling the names of actors, directors and film genres. Now, Sky is going a step further with "enhanced Voice Control." The update will let you change channels, play recorded TV shows and fast-forward or rewind with simple commands like "skip back 30 seconds" and "watch from the start." You'll also be able to nip around the Sky Q menu with "go to Sky Store," "go to Sky Sports" and similar phrases.
Fox's takeover of Sky referred to the UK's competition regulator
It's now been a full year since 21st Century Fox first confirmed its interest in buying out Sky. In that time, the deal has been referred to and cleared by the European Commission, scrutinised by communications regulator Ofcom and discussed numerous times in parliament without a firm approval or denial. The decision has now been pushed back even further after Culture Secretary Karen Bradley announced today that the merger will be passed to the the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) as part of a formal six-month review.
‘Journey’ studio brings a dreamy fantasy game to iOS and Apple TV
At Apple's iPhone 8 announcement event today, founder of Thatgamecompany Jenova Chen went onstage to introduce a new title coming exclusively to Apple TV: Sky. Calling it a "romantic social adventure game," players will use the set top box's remote to control a character careening peacefully through the air.
Sky Mobile throws in more data for the same monthly price
Sky Mobile's plans are relatively easy to understand. You can either pay £10 per month for unlimited calls and texts (free for Sky TV customers), or 10 pence per minute or message on a pay-as-you-use basis. Rollover data and other perks are available to everyone, meaning your main concern is choosing how much data you might need for that particular month. As it stands, 500MB is £5, 1GB is £10, 3GB is £15 and 5GB is £20. From this Friday (September 15th), however, Sky is increasing the data allowances on the top two tiers: £15 will buy you 5GB, and £20 will get you 10GB to play with.
Sky Q’s Dolby Atmos support arrives for new Premier League season
When Sky surprised subscribers with the launch of its new Devialet-made surround sound speaker late last month, it also dropped in news that Sky Q customers would soon enjoy enhanced sound courtesy of Dolby Atmos. At the time, the company remained coy, teasing a "summer" launch, but with the new Premier League season imminent, Sky today confirmed that Dolby's surround sound standard will now be ready for when Arsenal host Leicester tomorrow night.
Sky is rewarding loyal customers with a special TV channel
Every major TV provider is worried about subscriber churn, or the number of people cancelling their package to save money or switch to a rival service. For the longest time, Sky has countered this trend with content, snapping up the rights to "unmissable" sports, movies and TV shows. Now, however, it's launching a loyalty programme too. Sky VIP offers different rewards depending on how long TV and broadband customers have kept their package. New subscribers, for instance, start on silver, unlocking a free Sky Store Buy & Keep movie and access to VIP ticket prize draws.
Amazon snatches ATP tennis rights from Sky
After winning numerous awards for its TV and movie originals, Amazon has set its sights on adding coverage of various popular sporting events to its Prime subscription. In the US, the company has already wrestled Thursday-night NFL game streams away from Twitter, but has been slow to lock in similar deals on the other side of the Atlantic. According to The Guardian, Amazon has now finally made a move, outbidding Sky and ITV to secure the UK rights to tennis' ATP World Tour for the next five years.
Sky’s made its own surround sound TV speaker with Devialet
Not content with building set-top boxes, internet and satellite-fuelled TV services, Sky is branching out into high-end audio. The company has partnered with premium speaker maker Devialet on the Soundbox, a wireless, all-in-one sound system that sits inside your media centre. It's a black, oblong box with six three-inch woofers and three two-inch full-range speakers. The system uses the walls in your home to naturally reflect sound and create a cinema-like audio experience. In short, it's surround sound without the need for a standalone subwoofer or any extra speakers.
Sky is shaking up the way you pay for and watch sport
Televised sport is big business -- just ask Sky and BT Sport. Between them, the two companies have spent billions in order to secure access to the world's biggest sporting leagues and major events, resulting in a significant markup for consumers. The rising cost of Sky Sports, for example, has led many to cut the package altogether or seek more dubious alternatives like the so-called Kodi box (although it's the add-ons, not the software facilitating illegal streams). Sky is keenly aware of this, so today it announced a new plan to make its sports coverage more accessible. It's expanding the number of Sky Sports channels to 10, which will cater for individual sports and allow customers to subscribe to each one on their own.
Sky thinks you need to record six shows at once
Before the internet and the rise of streaming, families across the nation would sit down at regular times each week to get their fill of television. It still happens now, but on-demand services have changed the way each family member views their favourite TV shows. Sky knew this, so it designed its next-generation set-top box -- the Sky Q -- to not only handle linear programming, but also deliver it at a time when it suits you. In fact, it stuffed the box with a staggering 12 tuners that at launch delivered live TV, picture-in-picture and streaming, as well as allowing you to record up to five shows at while while watching a sixth. It's an impressive selection, but it obviously wasn't enough.
Sky Q tips and tricks: how to get the most from your set-top box
Researched and written by Nicholas Fearn There's no denying that the way we consume media has changed dramatically over the past few years. With the rise of streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime, entertainment is increasingly on-demand, allowing you to access your favourite movies and TV shows whenever you want. As a result, it's easy to view traditional broadcasters as outdated. However, Sky changed that mindset with the Q set-top box. It lets you record more of your favourite shows, stream offline content via an app, access a library full of on-demand media and watch shows on several devices. Vying to be the ultimate home entertainment device, Q gives you an easy, flexible way to enjoy a wide variety of TV shows, movies, music and sports. However, it's packed full with features that can be pretty overwhelming if you're a just getting started. In this guide, we provide you with a host of great tips and tricks to help you get the most out of the device. Using the Touch remote To make flicking through shows easier and quicker, Sky has kitted out Q with its very own touch remote. Like the new Apple TV, it sports a touchpad for navigating the box's menus. The remote acts in a similar way to a games console D-pad: you can swipe left, right, up and down to go through channels and options. But there's also a quick-scroll feature to help you find things faster and with ease. Just swipe and hold, and it'll begin to scroll for you. To select an item with the remote, you simply press the touchpad, and there's also a dismiss option (which looks a bit like an arrow) so you can cancel shows at any time.Turning on the Q is a case of pressing the power button quickly, although you can program it to control your actual TV's power too. For that, simply long press the same button. Voice search Going through countless menus and channels to find the TV show or movie you're looking for can be extremely frustrating, but Q has you covered with its voice search feature. Now, you can tell Q what you want to watch, and it should be able to do the rest. To access this feature, press the search button located on the side of the remote. While holding it down, say what show you want to access, and it'll begin the search. You can look for almost any TV show or movie, and generally speaking, the feature just works. Saving disk space If you're constantly downloading and recording shows on the box, it's easy for it to become clogged up and slow down. By default, shows download in HD, and that can take up memory. To maximise Q's disk space, you can tweak your settings to make content download in SD quality. While the quality won't be as good, you'll save lots of memory and be able to store even more shows. To do that, you need to go into the 'settings' menu, click on 'preferences' and switch the download format to SD. Setting parental controls When it comes to using Sky Q as a family entertainment device, you may want to set up parental controls to ensure that your children only have access to age-appropriate shows. Go into the 'Settings' menu, and find the 'Parental' section. You'll find a few different options in there. Depending on the age of your kids, you can create a pin to stop them from accessing adult content that's played before 8pm. This will also prevent them from making purchases in the Sky Store. There's a setting to block adult content altogether too. Using Sky Sports split screens Bit of a footy or F1 fan? Then you're going to like the Sky Sports split-screen feature, which is now available to Sky Q subscribers. This lets you watch matches, results and replays side-to-side. Depending whether or not you have a Sky Q 1TB or 2TB box, you can get this feature up and running by clicking the red button on your remote and opening the Sky Sports app. Fluid viewing with live TV Fluid Viewing is one of Sky Q's leading features. Using it, you can resume a show in a different room on one of Sky's Mini boxes or mobile device. Although it only works with recorded shows, it's still a really useful feature. To get it to work, you need to record a show by clicking red button twice. Switching to the previous channel With the Q, Sky introduced a number of changes. The option to select the previous channel is one of them. Before, you'd just press the left arrow button on the old remote, but that's not the case anymore. Now you need to press the right one, or swipe right if you have the touch remote. Undeleting content There's nothing more annoying than deleting something by mistake. Luckily, you can get retrieve old content by heading into 'Recordings' and clicking on 'Deleted'. In here, you should see all the shows you've previously removed. Just press 'undelete', and it'll move back into your recordings list. Finding your lost remote The Sky Q remote is an powerful piece of kit, and while it can do loads of amazing things, that's not to say you won't misplace it like any other bit of tech. If this happens, press the 'Q' button on your box, and the remote will beep for 30 seconds. You should then be able to prize it out from between the sofa cushions. Prevent automatic downloads As is the case with most streaming platforms, when you finish watching a TV episode, the next one will play or download automatically. Obviously, this can take up memory, and it may happen when you're only dipping in and out of a particular series. To avoid this, you can turn off 'auto downloading' by going into 'Settings' and selecting 'Setup & Preferences'.
David Attenborough's hologram will help you study fossils in VR
Sir David Attenborough is no stranger to VR. The beloved naturalist and TV presenter has worked on immersive, look-where-you-like films for the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London, the American Museum of Natural History and Google. Now, the documentarian is teaming up with Sky and the NHM for a new experience called Hold the World, which allows you to pick up fossils and other rare objects. As you turn them over, a "hologram" of Attenborough will pop up and explain their importance.
The best movies on Now TV
Going head-to head with rivals Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, Now TV is Sky's contract-free subscription streaming service. You can pick up a Sky Cinema Month Pass for £10 a month, granting access to over 1,000 films and a new premiere every day. Here's our pick of the best movies on the service right now. See also: The best movies on Netflix UK and Amazon Prime Video
Europe clears 21st Century Fox's purchase of Sky
21st Century Fox's £11.7 billion acquisition of Sky has edged a little closer to being a done deal today, as the European Commission approved the merger. The commission was assessing any potential competition concerns that might arise from the marriage of huge media company and pay-TV provider. It concluded that as the two firms "are mainly active at different levels of the market," the acquisition wouldn't have any significant impact on competition. It wouldn't be good business for Fox to withhold its films from Sky's competitors, for example, or for Sky to worsen its platform by carrying Fox's content exclusively -- not to mention regulations and existing contracts in countries where Sky operates prevent that kind of thing from happening anyway.
UK broadband prices to fall as Ofcom prioritises high speeds
Ofcom says millions of UK broadband customers could soon pay less for superfast broadband under new plans to limit the amount Openreach charges other ISPs to access its fibre network. The communications regulator said today that it wants to slash the cost of new connections for lower tier fibre services (up to 40Mbps) from £88.80 pounds a year to £52.77 in the hope that providers, like BT and TalkTalk, will pass those savings on to customers.
Ofcom proposes free cash for lengthy broadband outages
Under new proposals by Ofcom, Brits could soon receive automatic compensation for slow broadband repairs and missed engineer appointments. The measures are part of a larger crackdown on the UK's telephone and internet service providers. Openreach, the arm of BT that handles broadband infrastructure, was forced to become its own, "legally separate company" earlier this month. Now, Ofcom is effectively saying that it needs to do better than before, or face financial repercussions.
Sky Q's promised voice search feature is finally here
Ever since Sky first started talking about its next-gen TV service, Sky Q, voice search was pitched as one of its fancy features, though clearly labelled as coming eventually. A year and change after Sky Q launched, it's finally arrived. Subscribers can now -- or, by the end at spring of the latest due to a staggered rollout -- pick up their glossy Touch Remotes, hit the dedicated voice search button, and well... you get the idea.
A sly Now TV update is culling sideloaded apps like Plex
Ever since the launch of the first Now TV box for just £10 in 2013, some buyers have been using the little streaming pucks in ways Sky hadn't originally intended. Cut through the branding, and Now TV boxes are just Rokus in disguise, complete with a developer mode that lets users sideload apps not available in the sparse Now TV store. But no longer, as Sky has quietly begun issuing an update to Now TV boxes that disables developer mode and purges any apps that've been installed on them using the loophole.
Ofcom to investigate Sky and 21st Century Fox merger
The UK's media regulator will investigate a proposed merger worth £11.7 billion ($14.6 billion) between 21st Century Fox and Sky. Speaking in the House of Commons, Karen Bradley, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, said she had referred the matter because of "public interest considerations" which "warrant further investigation." These include media plurality -- the need for citizens to have access to a variety of independent news sources -- and a "commitment to broadcasting standards." Ofcom has 40 days to investigate and deliver its report, which will undoubtedly shape Bradley's decision to approve or block the deal.
How the UK plans to block illegal Kodi soccer streams
Last week, at the High Court, the Football Association Premier League (FAPL) was granted stronger powers to crack down on the illegal streaming of English football matches. Instead of chasing websites hosting live players, the League can now block the servers that provide the live feeds, cutting off "Kodi boxes" -- a combination of legitimate media centre software with non-authorised third-party plugins -- and similar IPTV services. But how will it be enforced? Now that the order is publicly available, we can shed some light on how the FAPL intends to utilise its new powers.
