At long last, Twitch is getting a Discovery feed…this after years of griping from creators about the lack of growth opportunities for smaller streamers. According to techcrunch.com, all the new features that were announced at TwitchCon Paris revolved around supporting short form video content. It is expected that Twitch’s bread and butter will continue to be live-streaming, but even at that, most creators depend on promoting their content on YouTube Shorts and TikTok to drive viewers to their Twitch Channel. The company is also shifting its approach to ad breaks, which have been a point of contention between the platform and its users. Although streamers have been able to see countdown timers for ad breaks on their end, many have complained that ads interrupt their content without enough warning. Starting this month, streamers will be able to turn on a chat countdown timer to have more of a heads-up for ad breaks. The countdown timer allows streamers to “snooze or pull ahead,” and gives them the chance to “make the right calls” for their community.

As we reported here a while back, GM announced it was dropping Apple CarPlay in all future EVs in favor of an exclusive partnership with Google. Well, 9to5mac.com reports that GM dealers are not happy with the move. One reason is that dealers and salespeople are getting a lot of blowback from customers unhappy with the move. Other car makers have doubled down on supporting CarPlay. Ford, for example. Ford has determined that 70% of their customers are also Apple customers. Besides GM, Tesla and Rivian are the other two major holdouts in adopting CarPlay…in Tesla’s case, it probably flows from Elon Musk’s claiming that Apple was poaching Tesla engineers for their secretive Project Titan self-driving car project. 

Sega of America workers have voted to unionize! Engadget.com says the staff voted 91-26 in favor in the NLRB supervised election, and the union will now be officially recognized under the Communication Workers of America. There are some 200 workers in various departments around the country. It’s not the first games union in North America, but workers say it’s “the largest multi-department union of organized workers in the entire gaming industry.” 

When ya just have to have the biggest….TV on the block. Samsung has rolled out their biggest OLED TV, an 83 inch mega screen, matching the 2nd biggest TV LG makes. According to Cnet.com, the 83 incher will will sell for $5400, and be available later in July. The rival LG 83 inch TV is $4800…$500 less than the new Samsung. If you are really well fixed cash wise and have a huge room, of course, you can go for the LG 97 inch set…that beauty is $25,000! Yeah, I know…dream on! The new Samsung seems to match the LG 83 inch screen feature for feature, although Samsung says the new series isn’t as bright as their 77 inch set. The new Samsung will work for PC gamers, but only if they have a high-end video card. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.