Media & Entertainment

Periscope Is Secretly Building An Apple TV App

Comment

Image Credits:

Periscope is developing an app for the new Apple TV, according to multiple sources. It will allow users to watch livestreams on their television that are broadcasted from Twitter’s Periscope app. You could consider it a coming of age moment, considering the acquired startup’s website is Periscope.tv

[Update: Confirmed. Apple showed Periscope’s icon on stage during its demo of the new Apple TV App Store.]

Periscope

Tomorrow, Apple will unveil an upgraded Apple TV set-top box that includes an Apple TV App Store featuring apps built by third-party developers, BuzzFeed News previously reported. Games are slated to be a big focus for the Apple TV platform that’s built on iOS, thanks to a multi-functional new remote controller reported by 9to5Mac that includes motion-control. But the Apple TV platform will also support an array of other experiences. Few of the apps have been outed yet, but sources confirm Periscope will be one of them.

Though we can’t confirm the exact functionality of the app, it’s likely to be focused on watching streams. Periscope made videos viewable on the web in June without the ability to broadcast, and the Apple TV app could work similarly. Periscope was acquired by Twitter in January and launched the mobile, ephemeral live-streaming app in April. It now has over 10 million registered users and sees 40 years of watch time per day, its CEO Kayvon Beykpour recently said on a stream.

We don’t have a specific unveiling or launch date for Periscope on Apple TV. Twitter and Periscope did not respond to our inquiry before press time. The app might be previewed in tomorrow’s Apple keynote to show off the potential of the Apple TV software development kit. Apple wants to get developers’ minds swirling with ideas for what they could build.

apple-tv-pacman1

The goal is differentiation in two senses.

Apple wants the Apple TV to do things that other set-top boxes from Amazon and Roku can’t. That means getting developers to take advantage of potential hand-off or multi-screen options afforded by iPhones and iPads also running on iOS.

Apple also wants to define the future of the living room by inspiring developers to do more than just translate their desktop and mobile products to the television. The much bigger landscape screen, more powerful hardware that doesn’t depend on a battery, faster connection speeds, and the versatile controller with touch and voice input all open new opportunities for app makers.

Periscope BroadcastsDone right, the Apple TV platform could transform much more than traditional video content consumption. Gaming, news, social, and other areas could all see a renaissance on the tube.

Seductive third-party experiences could help sell more of the new Apple TV hardware units. Building an audience this way could boost Apple’s leverage as it negotiates deals with traditional cable channels to bring their content to Apple’s forthcoming live Internet TV service. Bloomberg Business says the TV service has been delayed until 2016 because those negotiations were progressing slowly.

If Periscope can expand on the value of its live-streaming app, not just its size, by coming to the Apple TV platform, it could inspire other social developers to start tinkering with television too.

 

More TechCrunch

Cargo ships docking at a commercial port incur costs called “disbursements” and “port call expenses.” This might be port dues, towage, and pilotage fees. It’s a complex patchwork and all…

Shipping logistics startup Harbor Lab raises $16M Series A led by Atomico

AWS has confirmed its European “sovereign cloud” will go live by the end of 2025, enabling greater data residency for the region.

AWS confirms will launch European ‘sovereign cloud’ in Germany by 2025, plans €7.8B investment over 15 years

Go Digit, an Indian insurance startup, has raised $141 million from investors including Goldman Sachs, ADIA, and Morgan Stanley as part of its IPO.

Indian insurance startup Go Digit raises $141M from anchor investors ahead of IPO

Peakbridge intends to invest in between 16 and 20 companies, investing around $10 million in each company. It has made eight investments so far.

Food VC Peakbridge has new $187M fund to transform future of food, like lab-made cocoa

For over six decades, the nonprofit has been active in the financial services sector.

Accion’s new $152.5M fund will back financial institutions serving small businesses globally

Meta’s newest social network, Threads, is starting its own fact-checking program after piggybacking on Instagram and Facebook’s network for a few months.

Threads finally starts its own fact-checking program

Looking Glass makes trippy-looking mixed-reality screens that make things look 3D without the need of special glasses. Today, it launches a pair of new displays, including a 16-inch mode that…

Looking Glass launches new 3D displays

Replacing Sutskever is Jakub Pachocki, OpenAI’s director of research.

Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI co-founder and longtime chief scientist, departs

Intuitive Machines made history when it became the first private company to land a spacecraft on the moon, so it makes sense to adapt that tech for Mars.

Intuitive Machines wants to help NASA return samples from Mars

As Google revamps itself for the AI era, offering AI overviews within its search results, the company is introducing a new way to filter for just text-based links. With the…

Google adds ‘Web’ search filter for showing old-school text links as AI rolls out

Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket will take a crew to suborbital space for the first time in nearly two years later this month, the company announced on Tuesday.  The NS-25…

Blue Origin to resume crewed New Shepard launches on May 19

This will enable developers to use the on-device model to power their own AI features.

Google is building its Gemini Nano AI model into Chrome on the desktop

It ran 110 minutes, but Google managed to reference AI a whopping 121 times during Google I/O 2024 (by its own count). CEO Sundar Pichai referenced the figure to wrap…

Google mentioned ‘AI’ 120+ times during its I/O keynote

Firebase Genkit is an open source framework that enables developers to quickly build AI into new and existing applications.

Google launches Firebase Genkit, a new open source framework for building AI-powered apps

In the coming months, Google says it will open up the Gemini Nano model to more developers.

Patreon and Grammarly are already experimenting with Gemini Nano, says Google

As part of the update, Reddit also launched a dedicated AMA tab within the web post composer.

Reddit introduces new tools for ‘Ask Me Anything,’ its Q&A feature

Here are quick hits of the biggest news from the keynote as they are announced.

Google I/O 2024: Here’s everything Google just announced

LearnLM is already powering features across Google products, including in YouTube, Google’s Gemini apps, Google Search and Google Classroom.

LearnLM is Google’s new family of AI models for education

The official launch comes almost a year after YouTube began experimenting with AI-generated quizzes on its mobile app. 

Google is bringing AI-generated quizzes to academic videos on YouTube

Around 550 employees across autonomous vehicle company Motional have been laid off, according to information taken from WARN notice filings and sources at the company.  Earlier this week, TechCrunch reported…

Motional cut about 550 employees, around 40%, in recent restructuring, sources say

The keynote kicks off at 10 a.m. PT on Tuesday and will offer glimpses into the latest versions of Android, Wear OS and Android TV.

Google I/O 2024: Watch all of the AI, Android reveals

Google Play has a new discovery feature for apps, new ways to acquire users, updates to Play Points, and other enhancements to developer-facing tools.

Google Play preps a new full-screen app discovery feature and adds more developer tools

Soon, Android users will be able to drag and drop AI-generated images directly into their Gmail, Google Messages and other apps.

Gemini on Android becomes more capable and works with Gmail, Messages, YouTube and more

Veo can capture different visual and cinematic styles, including shots of landscapes and timelapses, and make edits and adjustments to already-generated footage.

Google Veo, a serious swing at AI-generated video, debuts at Google I/O 2024

In addition to the body of the emails themselves, the feature will also be able to analyze attachments, like PDFs.

Gemini comes to Gmail to summarize, draft emails, and more

The summaries are created based on Gemini’s analysis of insights from Google Maps’ community of more than 300 million contributors.

Google is bringing Gemini capabilities to Google Maps Platform

Google says that over 100,000 developers already tried the service.

Project IDX, Google’s next-gen IDE, is now in open beta

The system effectively listens for “conversation patterns commonly associated with scams” in-real time. 

Google will use Gemini to detect scams during calls

The standard Gemma models were only available in 2 billion and 7 billion parameter versions, making this quite a step up.

Google announces Gemma 2, a 27B-parameter version of its open model, launching in June

This is a great example of a company using generative AI to open its software to more users.

Google TalkBack will use Gemini to describe images for blind people