Incoming Roku App Update…

After discovering in December that our app was suffering from some significant bugs I started working on a brand new system that would replace our aging and outdated system.

An hour ago I submitted the Roku app based on this new system.    So what’s new?

[jaw_media_gallery gallery=”69404″ type_gallery=”horizontal” thumb_gallery=”6″ ][jaw_clear]

Totally redesigned Roku app

The new app was designed from the ground up with 2 specific goals in mind.  First, it must be really easy to use and secondly it must be extremely lightweight and fast.   It was also designed to be more secure and give our viewers more privacy options.

New User Interface

Upon loading the new interface, you will see we have changed quite a bit.   Our content is now divided up in to 5 separate areas – Talk Shows, Films, Series, Rentals and Live Streams.  In each area you will find the content divided up by show/genre/series.

New “Live Stream” Area

Live streaming is finally within our grasps.   If we can reach 1,000 subscribers we will be launching a new 24 hour live streaming channel exclusively for FreeJack TV.

In order to get ready for this goal we have added a “Live Stream” area that already contains 2 live video channels (TWiT.tv and InfoWars) as well as selection of live audio feeds from various underground online radio stations.

Return of Rental-on-Demand

We have signed a few deals with film distributors to bring back our rental section.   Each of these films is a high quality release in every major genre.   Stay tuned for more announcements!

New Account System

With the old system accounts where complicated to use.   With the new system you are able to login with the same username and password that you use on the website.   If you own other Smart TV devices, you will be able to use the same account across all platforms (when the apps become available).

Watch on Mobile, Web & Roku ad-free with our new +Plus member features

Another annoying fact with the old system was that you need separate +Plus accounts for each platform.   As we move to the new system you will be able to use your subscriber features (Ad free viewing, Exclusive videos) on your PC/Mac, Smart Phone, Tablet or Roku device.

Other notable additions

  • We have added Closed Caption support (aka subtitle support) to our system.  Currently only a handful of content have subtitles but more are coming soon!
  • Trick-Play Support:   For the non-techie, this means when you fast-forward or rewind videos a bar containing thumbnail screenshots will appear and allow you to see where you are skipping to.   Again, this is currently limited to a small amount of content, but we will hope to have network wide support by the end of the year
  • New watch later system – You can now manage & view your cue online as well as on Roku
  • Updated purchase flow – It’s now easier than ever to upgrade to a +Plus subscription or rent a video with Roku’s in-app purchasing
  • Update resume system – When you watch a video your position is now saved in the cloud so when you watch on a different device or platform, you can continue where you left off
  • Delete your data and account – We now allow you to delete data like your “Watch History” and even your account to help protect your privacy

I’m probably forgetting a few things, but you get the picture… this is a massive update to our fight against censorship.

Don’t forget… the new app drops June 1st!  Until then you can check out a bunch of the new content here on the website.

 

Power Outages Coincide in LA, New York, and San Francisco

Aseries of subsequent power outages in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City left commuters stranded and traffic backed up on Friday morning. Although the outages occurred around the same time, there is as of yet no evidence that they were connected by anything more than coincidence.

Power Outage in New York Friday

The first outage occurred at around 7:20 a.m. in New York, when the power went down at the 7th Avenue and 53rd Street subway station, which sent a shockwave of significant delays out from the hub and into the rest of the subway system. By 11:30 a.m. the city’s MTA confirmed that generators were running again in the station, although the New York subways were set to run delayed into the afternoon.

The MTA and Con Ed are still working to determine the cause of the outage.

Power Outage in Los Angeles Friday

Later in the morning, power outages were reported in Los Angeles International Airport, as well as in several other areas around the city.

The outage sent frustrated fliers onto Twitter to comment.

Major power outage at LAX…. I had to trot every stair… God has a way of making me exercise….

Power outage at B terminal. Just trying to get home 🙁

While the outage was an inconvenience, it does not appear to be as widespread as it’s San Francisco counterpart.

Power Outage in San Francisco Friday

By far the largest outage of the morning happened in San Francisco, where, as of 1 p.m., it appears that the majority of the city is out of commission.

The massive outage is closing BART stations, shutting down traffic signals, and affecting office buildings. Residents and workers in the area are calling it “totally surreal.”

Pictures show blocks of stalled traffic as drivers struggle to navigate without stoplights. SF Gate reports that no injuries have been reported yet in connection to the outage.

The San Francisco began at noon eastern, 9 a.m. local time, and resulted from a substation fire. Areas confirmed to be worst affected include the entirety of the financial district, parts of SoMa, Richmond, Nob Hill, and Pacific Heights.

I can personally attest that power is out in inner Richmond, Nob hill and financial district. Will post if we get more updates.

Pacific Gas and Electric’s own outage map showed thousands affected and current estimates indicate that the outage is hitting up to 90,000 customers.

Sources initially told Inverse that PGE was working to restore power to the city by 12:30 p.m. local time. The company now says that power should be restored to most customers by 1 p.m.

See also:

Photos via LADWP, PGE, Getty Images / Allison Joyce

Cory is an editorial intern for the culture section. He’s from Long Island and, accordingly, knows that Billy Joel is better than Bruce Springsteen. He writes fiction in his spare time, and in college he taught himself to play bass because he wanted to be in a rock band but didn’t want to work too hard.

Welcome to FreeJack TV – The Home of Alternative Media

For years we in the alternative media have struggled against censorship from the platforms we broadcast on.

Now YouTube, Facebook and Google are all targeting our views as “extremist” or “fake news”.

Up until now these platforms would just delete your account.   This resulted in us creating multiple accounts to still disseminate our views.

As they realized this was a waste of time, their next move was to quietly “hide” our content and squeeze off the meager income that is derived from advertising shares.

Now the advertisers themselves are organizing to choke off any sort of monetary compensation for their ads appearing on our work.

I predicted this years ago…

In 2011 we had a massive increase in traffic to our YouTube channel.   We started climbing the ranks to become the #12 channel in Canada and we’re starting to bring in about $300 per month for advertising.

I was extremely excited that this would help buy the equipment we needed to start making some semi-professional productions.

It was all looking good, so I decided to put the equipment on my credit card and pay it off with the YouTube money.

No sooner had the equipment arrived on my doorstep, I noticed our ad revenue had a big a drop.   They had demonetized one of the bigger videos due to copyright strikes.   This wasn’t a case of us using copyrighted material, it was that someone had obtained a copyright on public domain content.   We had used an audio clip from Bill Cooper and someone was claiming they owned it.

So this ended up delaying a lot of plans we had.  We had great equipment but no revenue coming in.

This pattern repeated for the next 3 years. I even went as far as licensing 100% of the content with written consent, only to have YouTube pull the ads off the videos again and again.

By 2014 we had started building an alternative platform to host our videos without the fear of YouTube removing our content without any notice.

Conspiracy Channel is born…

After a lot of research and testing I found that I could start a Roku channel using most of the the equipment we already had.  I decided it was worth it to have a backup system and maybe even a few new viewers.

In that first year we surged to 50,000 installs and a tonne of daily visitors.

Since that time we have consistently grown by 50,000 installs per year and as of launching this website we have now crossed 200,000 installs!

We started reaching out to the other content producers out there and offered them space on our system.

In 2015 we started offering a +Plus membership to help support the growth of the system.   In 2016 we upgraded our Roku app to the latest technology and launched a new FireTV app with subscriptions.

Now 2017 is here and we are making our biggest changes ever…

New Name, New Platform…

For over a year we have been planning to expand our platform to allow more content creators to join us in fighting back against YouTube.

On June 1st, 2017 we will be publishing our latest update to our Roku app.   This is probably the biggest update we’ve ever done.   Our entire backend system was re-engineered to have more content while delivering it faster. In current test we are seeing about a 75% decrease in load times.  Wow!

The new Roku app has some great new features as well:

  • You can create a free account or login directly with the app
  • A new Live TV & Radio section (my favorite addition)
  • Redesigned user interface that makes it easier to browse content
  • New “Watch Later” cue and recommendation engine
  • Streamlined purchases for Rentals and +Plus subscriptions

A Note for FireTV users:

At some point we will be moving our FireTV app over to the new system as well.   Unfortunately, we do not have an Android coder to help out so we may need to pay someone to build it.   Until we get this figured out, the Fire TV app will remain known as “Conspiracy Channel” and we will be launching a secondary app for FreeJack TV that contains our Free content with advertising.

Final thoughts….

We are now in the finally stretches of development and hope to have the Roku app and Web portal available on June 1st, 2017.   Once we have the bugs worked out, we will be adding new features almost monthly.

One cool feature that I have been working on will allow us to notify you of major events (war, apocalyptic scenario, world news, etc) while watching content on our system.    We hope to have it out this fall, but it will depend on how the rest of the development goes.

Turn On.  Boot Up. Jack In.

The Revolution will be televised…