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‘Not going back’: How Sundance reinvented itself in VR

Good morning, and welcome to Protocol Next Up. This week, we're taking a closer look at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, and the ways voice security technology can help improve smart TVs.
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The prestigious Sundance Film Festival, which officially begins Thursday, looks very different this year: After being held in Park City, Utah for nearly 40 years, the pandemic is forcing Sundance to go online. In addition to a fairly traditional web event with scheduled film screenings, the festival also includes a number of immersive and VR spaces, courtesy of its New Frontier showcase.
Sundance New Frontier selection chief curator Shari Frilot recently shared all the details with me:
Sundance isn't the first festival to embrace VR as a way to replace the in-person experience. Earlier this month, Tribeca held the premiere for the VR film "Baba Yaga" in VR itself. Frilot credited those efforts, as well as those of the London Film Festival, Burning Man and other events, for inspiring Sundance.
Film festivals like Sundance long played a key role in popularizing immersive storytelling, giving many festivalgoers an opportunity to try VR for the very first time. But with the growing popularity of VR headsets like Facebook's Oculus Quest, and the pandemic forcing festivals to go virtual, filmmakers suddenly find that the medium can help them attract global audiences.
"Facebook nearly tripled VR revenues from 2019 to 2020 and that's with constant shortages of Quest and Quest 2 headsets throughout the year. We're just getting started." —Moor Insights & Strategy analyst Anshel Sag reading between the lines of Facebook's 2020 results.
"We felt like we had a little bit of a spoiling asset here that needed to be moved." —AT&T CEO John Stankey on why the company decided to release all of WarnerMedia's 2021 movies on HBO Max.
82% of leaders will adopt a hybrid-first model in 2021. Preparing the organization for a more complex hybrid workforce introduces complexities that can impact productivity and the employee experience. Explore 5 Steps to Building a Hybrid Workforce to help you develop your return-to-work plan.
Voice security startup Pindrop announced a partnership with TiVo this week to bring its technology to smart TVs and streaming devices. Originally developed to fight fraudsters, the technology is now being used to personalize voice search results and present the right content recommendations to each member of the family.
It all started with the Chicken Man. Pindrop developed its technology to help financial institutions secure their call centers against fraudsters including the Chicken Man, who would always play a recording of chickens in the background to mask his voice. Dealing with scam artists helped Pindrop get very good at dealing with background noise. During a demo given to Protocol, an Android TV device featuring Pindrop's tech was able to identify two different speakers, even with a blender running on high gear and with one of the participants wearing a muffling N95 mask.
Not all personalization is born equal. Streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ have for years offered user profiles to personalize content recommendations. Similarly, Google and Amazon are both offering consumers a way to personalize responses from their respective voice assistants. But while the tech and streaming giants require users to actively set up user profiles and authenticate the voices of each member of their household, Pindrop is taking a more organic approach.
The startup wants to fine-tune its technology to detect the emotion and age of consumers to further improve recommendations. TiVo has yet to announce any products that will feature Pindrop's technology, but Balasubramaniyan said that we may get an update on that in the next few months. In addition to its legacy DVR business, TiVo also launched its own Android TV streaming dongle last year, and is licensing its voice technology to other companies.
A version of this story first appeared on Protocol.com.Everyone knows Netflix, Hulu and Disney+. But what about Xumo, Fubo, Moovi, Mubi or Tubi? Chances are, if you're reading this newsletter, at least a few of these may look familiar. Still, are you sure you would be able to figure out which ones are real and which are made up? Over at The Verge, you can do just that with a fun little quiz. Give it a try, and see if you can beat my score (I got 11 out of 13 right). Oh, and while you're at it: Try to come up with a name for a streaming startup that doesn't exist yet! With Vimeo and Vdio and Yidio and Veoh and Vidgo and Vudu already taken, it's harder than you'd think.
82% of leaders will adopt a hybrid-first model in 2021. Preparing the organization for a more complex hybrid workforce introduces complexities that can impact productivity and the employee experience. Explore 5 Steps to Building a Hybrid Workforce to help you develop your return-to-work plan.
Thanks for reading — see you next week.
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