Learn a language better with Netflix and this Chrome extension

One of the best ways to learn a new language is to immerse yourself in it. And no, that doesn't mean you have to travel there immediately (of course, that would be nice). Sometimes you can learn more by watching shows and movies in the language you're studying. And that's where this Chrome extension comes in. Language Learning with Netflix lets you watch shows with two subtitles on, allowing you to pair the translations with dialogue to help you pick up new words and the like. It supports the major languages on the service that already offer subtitles (including Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish).

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Huawei Mate 20 Pro and P20 Pro get support for Netflix HD and HDR

Review: Huawei Mate 20 Pro

Here’s great news if you watch a lot of Netflix on your phone. Huawei Mate 20 Pro and P20 Pro now support Google’s Widevine DRM. This means you can play HD and HDR content on Netflix. Before your Netflix videos were capped at 540p, because the phones only supported Widevine L3. Now, it supports Widevine L1. So, now you can watch your shows and movies in better resolution.

Source: Gizmochina

Skype for Desktop lets you blur your background for video calls

If you don’t want your messy bedroom or office to be the focal point of a video call, you might be able to address that soon. Microsoft recently released a new Skype Insider Preview build that will let you blur your background during video calls. This can be enabled during a call in two ways. One is you right click your own video, or you can find it through the new on-hover video settings. Version 8.37.76 is coming to Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Source: MSPoweruser

CES 2019: VLC plans to add AirPlay support

Janko Roettgers/Variety

We concentrate a lot on hardware with our CES coverage but there’s been a lot of movement in the software space. And Apple has a way of being at the show without actually being there. This time we get an update from open-source video player VLC. Jean-Baptiste Kempf, one of the app’s lead developers, told Variety that it plans to bring AirPlay support from Android or iPhone to the Apple TV. It should be coming to the main VLC app in “about a month” for free. The video app closes in out its three billion download mark and has been celebrating the news at its booth in CES.

The other feature VLC was demoing at CES included better support for virtual reality, making it possible to watch 2D movies in a virtual theater environment within VR headsets. The developers managed to reverse-engineer most VR headsets to natively support VR video through the main VLC app without needing to add “hundreds of megabytes” of code to VLC. The demo was just based on around 1MB of additional code.