Technologies

Streaming Guide April 2023: You Can Skip These Services This Month

But you should definitely hold on to HBO Max.

Figuring out which streaming services to keep can feel overwhelming, especially when you factor in the added cost of live sports now that Major League Baseball is back. Plus, the costs add up quickly when you want to keep mainstays like Netflix or Disney Plus. But in April there are a few TV shows and movies worth streaming this month, even if that means holding on to a subscription longer than you want to.

Several popular series — like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel — are debuting their final seasons in April, while others like Bel-Air and The Mandalorian are wrapping up until the next installment.

Each month, I give advice on which streaming services to cancel or keep based on cost and current content lineup. If you’re thinking about canceling a few streaming service subscriptions, I’d like to offer my strategy: churn like ice cream.

That means you’ll rotate your services. Subscribe for a period, cancel, stream on a different platform, then resubscribe, keeping your favorites in a rotation. Feel free to pick one or two must-haves for the year and treat additional streamers like seasonal add-ons.This helps save money on Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO Max and others when they don’t have the content you want to watch at a given time. Just remember to shut off autorenewal for your monthly subscriptions. This may not work if you’re sharing accounts with anyone outside your household, but if you can work out an agreement with your streaming partners, try it.

Here are my recommendations for which streamers to keep or cancel for April, based on new TV shows and movies (I didn’t consider live TV streaming services) arriving on each platform. In addition to listing the new releases, I’m going to highlight when finales air so you can choose whether to cancel a subscription mid-month or wait to binge a show. Note that Netflix does not have to be a keeper this month. Hear me out: Beef and Chupa drop early, so you may cancel after watching those titles or wait until next month to watch April’s releases (unless you love Power Rangers).

Your tastes may be different, but if nothing else, I urge you to at least consider the concept of rotating for savings. It’s easier than you may think.

Watch Tiny Beautiful Things on Hulu

See at Hulu

April streaming service rotation

	Keep	Cancel
HBO Max	X
Hulu	X
Netflix		X
Apple TV Plus	X
Disney Plus		X
Starz	X
Paramount Plus		X
Prime Video	X
Peacock	X

Why you should keep these streaming services in April

HBO Max: You can watch Succession unless you want to binge it all in May or June. Titans drops its midseason premiere on April 13, but the series finale hits May 11. Barry — the fourth and final season — debuts April 16. Max Original limited series Love & Death, starring Elizabeth Olsen and Jesse Plemons, arrives with three episodes on April 27. The show wraps on May 25.

See at HBO Max

Hulu: Network shows like Snowfall and The Simpsons continue to air. But there’s a standout: Kathryn Hahn fans can watch Tiny Beautiful Things, a new limited series that drops April 7. Other releases include The Good Mothers and Dave season 3 (both on now), Dear Mama (April 22) and Saint X premieres on April 26.

Peacock: New episodes of NBC shows likes The Voice are still streaming, but Peacock original Mrs. Davis, an AI-themed dramedy, premieres on April 20. Bel-Air season 2 runs until April 27, so you can binge the entire season this month or in May.

See at Peacock

Apple TV Plus: Ted Lasso continues to air through April, and Tetris dropped on March 31 so you can check it out this month. Schmigadoon! returned on April 7 and Jennifer Garner’s new series, The Last Thing He Told Me, premieres April 14. If you’re not interested in any of these, skip Apple TV Plus. Know that it costs $7 a month and comes with a free seven-day trial.

Starz: If you haven’t already, snag a Starz deal at $3 a month for three months. Start watching the new season of Power Book II: Ghost and binge all of BMF season 2. Mid-month, stream the premiere of Blindspotting season 2 on April 14.

See at Starz

Prime Video: Most of us are already paying for this service, but if you’re a fan of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, season 5 premieres on April 14. There will be seven episodes in this final installment. If you have a standalone Prime Video subscription and aren’t a fan or prefer to skip the service’s new series, The Power, then cancel this month.

woman in coat and hat faces man in jacket as they talk in long carpeted hallway — You can watch the final run of The Marvel Mrs. Maisel weekly on Prime Video.

Prime Video

Cancel these after watching what you want

Netflix: While you may find good reasons to keep Netflix right now — like watching older titles — you can save money if nothing here interests you or after you watch new releases at the top of the month. Here’s what’s coming:

Mo’Nique: My Name is Mo’Nique comedy special (on now)
Beef (on now) — Comedy-drama series from A24 with Ali Wong and Steven Yuen
Chupa movie (on now)
Hunger — Thai thriller film about a street food cook who winds up working for a cutthroat chef (on now)
Cocomelon season 8 (April 10)
Florida Man TV series (April 13)
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die (April 14)
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always (April 19)
The Diplomat (April 20)
Sweet Tooth season 2 (April 27)
Firefly Lane season 2, part 2 (April 27)

Paramount Plus: You can keep streaming Rabbit Hole after its March debut or wait to binge it. April additions include Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies (on now) and a Fatal Attraction TV series (April 30). Some of you may want to cancel this service now that March Madness is over, or if you’re not digging Rabbit Hole.

Disney Plus: The Mandalorian’s season 3 finale streams on April 19, but if you only have Disney Plus for this show, then cancel it after it ends. Other releases include The Crossover (on now), a TV series based on a book. The Owl House series is ending with season 3, so watch the first of three episodes on April 9. Rennervations from Hawkeye star Jeremy Renner debuts on April 12, and Disney’s new original film, Peter Pan & Wendy, lands on April 28.

A cute green alien in Star Wars TV series The Mandalorian. — Pack it up after Baby Yoda’s tour is over in April.

Disney Plus

Save more money by waiting it out

If you’re not someone who routinely gets FOMO, then a smart method is to wait until the bulk or all episodes of your favorite series land on a platform. That way, rather than pay for a service for two or three months to cover the six- to 12-week run of a show, you can catch up on everything by subscribing for one month. And then repeat the cycle again.

For example, there will be 10 weekly episodes of Succession season 4 on HBO Max. The finale drops around late May, so all episodes of the Roy family’s dysfunction will be available to stream at that time. Though it premiered on March 26 and runs through May, why pay for three months when you can wait to stream it in full anytime in June? The same practice can apply to Rabbit Hole’s eight-episode run and 12 episodes in season 3 of Ted Lasso.

man in dark jacket runs from outdoors into curtained structure — Kiefer Sutherland as John Weir in Rabbit Hole.

Marni Grossman/Paramount+

Note how much you’re paying per month for each streaming service, and do the math. Apple TV Plus is $7. Netflix is $7 to $20 (until account-sharing fees kick in), Disney Plus is anywhere from $3 to $11 depending on bundles, HBO Max costs $10 or $16, Hulu starts at $8 and Starz runs $9. The others have a base rate of $5 per month. To avoid paying the most, you can check out deals for streaming services here: Best Streaming Service Deals From Verizon, T-Mobile and More and Best Streaming Service Deals on Hulu, Peacock, Disney Plus and More.

Should you decide to churn, set yourself a calendar reminder to alert you when it’s time to resubscribe or cancel. We’ll see you in May for another streaming rundown.

Technologies

How Much Energy Do Your AI Prompts Consume? Google Just Shared Its Gemini Numbers

Current measurements of AI’s impact aren’t telling the full story. Google has offered a new method it hopes to standardize.

The explosion of AI tools worldwide is increasing exponentially, but the companies that make these tools often don’t express their environmental impact in detail.

Google has just released a technical paper detailing measurements for energy, emissions and water use of its Gemini AI prompts. The impact of a single prompt is, it says, minuscule. According to its methodology for measuring AI’s impact, a single prompt’s energy consumption is about the equivalent of watching TV for less than 9 seconds.

That’s quite in a single serving, except when you consider the variety of chatbots being used, with billions of prompts easily sent every day.

On the more positive side of progress, the technology behind these prompts has become more efficient. Over the past 12 months, the energy of a single Gemini text prompt has been reduced by 33x, and the total carbon footprint has been reduced by 44x, Google says. According to the tech giant, that’s not unsubstantial, and it’s a momentum that will need to be maintained going forward.

Google did not immediately respond to CNET’s request for further comment.

Google’s calculation method considers much more

The typical calculation for the energy cost of an AI prompt ends at the active machine it’s been run on, which shows a much smaller per-prompt footprint. But Google’s method for measuring the impact of a prompt purportedly spans a much wider range of factors that paint a clearer picture, including full-system dynamic power, idle machines, data center overhead, water consumption and more.

For comparison, it’s estimated that only using the active TPU and GPU consumption, a single Gemini prompt uses 0.10 watt-hours of energy, 0.12 milliliters of water and emits 0.02 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent. This is a promising number, but Google’s wider methodology tells a different story. With more considerations in place, a Gemini text prompt uses 0.24Wh of energy, 0.26mL of water and emits 0.03 gCO2e — around double across the board.

Will new efficiencies keep up with AI use?

Through a multilayered series of efficiencies, Google is continually working on ways to make AI’s impact less burdensome, from more efficient model architectures and data centers to custom hardware.

With smarter models, use cases and tools emerging daily, those efficiencies will be critical as we immerse ourselves deeper in this AI reality.

For more, you should stop using ChatGPT for these things.

Technologies

Vivo Launches Mixed-Reality Headset, an Apple Vision Pro Competitor

Vivo Vision has many of the same design elements as Apple’s VR/AR, but is only available in China, for now.

Look-alikes of Apple products often pop up in China, and mixed-reality headsets have now joined the party. Chinese smartphone maker Vivo has introduced the Vivo Vision, a headset mixing both AR and VR, and it bears many similarities to the Apple Vision Pro.

The company announced the Vivo Vision Discovery Edition at its 30th anniversary celebration in Dongguan, China, saying it’s «the first MR product developed by a smartphone manufacturer in China, positioning Vivo as the first Chinese company to operate within both the smartphone and MR product sectors.»

The Vivo Vision, currently only an in-store experience in mainland China, has a curved glass visor, an aluminum external battery pack and downward-pointing cameras like the Vision Pro. But it also has some differences — an 180-degree panoramic field of view and a much lighter weight at 398 grams (versus the Vision Pro’s 650 grams).

CNET asked Vivo if it plans to sell the Vivo Vision to non-China markets, but the company did not immediately respond.

The Vivo Vision runs on OriginOS Vision, Vivo’s mixed-reality operating system. It supports 3D video recording, spatial photos and audio, and a 120-foot cinematic screen experience.

The starting cost in China will be $1,395 (converted to US dollars), compared to the Vision Pro at $3,500.

Even if the Vivo Vision came to the consumer market in the US, it might not matter much to Apple’s bottom line. The Vision Pro hasn’t been a big seller, likely because of the price tag. Still, the headset market is expected to grow quickly over the next several years, and Apple is already working on new versions of the Vision Pro, including one that’s more affordable than the original.

Jon Rettinger, a tech influencer with more than 1.65 million YouTube subscribers, says he’s not overly enthusiastic about VR/AR just yet. «It’s heavy, invasive and without a must-have use case,» Rettinger told CNET. «If the technology can go from goggles to glasses, I think we’ll see a significant rise. But if the current form factors stay, it will always be niche.

The YouTuber loves that the technology exists, but still doesn’t use it. «The honeymoon wore off. Aside from some gaming and content viewing, it’s still cumbersome, and I tend to go back to my laptop,» he said.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Aug. 22 #537

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Aug. 22, No. 537.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle has a fun theme, especially if you have ever read Agatha Christie books or played a few rounds of the board game Clue. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Whodunit?

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Solve the crime

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

REST, POEM, SOUR, SOURS, DIAL, HOLE, VOLE, ROLE, ROLES, VOLES, HOLES, DEEM, GAIT, SAME

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

HEIR, LOVER, RIVAL, SPOUSE, STRANGER, DETECTIVE

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is ITSAMYSTERY, with all the answers being characters common to mystery novels. To find it, look for the I that’s the farthest left letter on the top row, and wind down.