Enlarge / Michael Keaton in The Flash , which is streaming on Max. (credit: YouTube/Warner Bros.)

Streaming services are on thin ice with many customers. With price hikes becoming a norm for streaming services, subscribers are reconsidering the value of streaming apps and whether subscriptions are worth the cost. In a bid to mollify disgruntled customers and make their packages seem more economical and simple, streaming services are bundling up.

Verizon announced today that its myPlan wireless phone customers will be able to get Netflix and Max, both with ads, for $10 per month total per phone line. Netflix with ads is usually $6.99 per month, while Max's ad tier is $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year. That means Verizon customers can save up to $6.98 per month with the new bundle, which Verizon will begin offering on December 7.

The new offer joins two other deals that Verizon already offers that bundle its wireless service with TV streaming. One lets customers add ad-free Disney+ and Hulu and ESPN with ads for $10 per month per line. Another lets customers add Apple One , which includes Apple TV+, Apple Music, Apple Arcade, and iCloud+, for $10 per month per line.

Enlarge / The enhanced edition trilogy includes Grand Theft Auto 3 , Grand Theft Auto Vice City , and Grand Theft Auto San Andreas . (credit: Rockstar Games)

Netflix subscribers will be able to play the three original 3D Grand Theft Auto games on iOS and Android starting in December, according to a blog post from the streamer.

The titles included are 2001's Grand Theft Auto III , 2002's Grand Theft Auto: Vice City , and 2004's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas .

All three released initially on the PS2 and Xbox. The first 3D entry in the series, Grand Theft Auto III , was a crossover cultural sensation when it debuted, and it is credited as one of the main originators of the open-world genre, which remains one of the most popular genres in triple-A games to this day.

Enlarge (credit: Pool / Pool | Getty Images Europe )

The latest advertiser fallout on X , the platform formerly known as Twitter, could end up costing Elon Musk's company much more than the $11 million in revenue that the company previously estimated could be "at risk" due to backlash over antisemitic content on X.

According to internal X sales team documents reviewed by The New York Times , X may lose "up to $75 million" as more than 100 major brands—including Airbnb, Amazon, Coca-Cola, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, and Uber—have stopped advertising, while "dozens" more are considering pausing ads on the platform.

These sales team documents, The Times reported, "are meant to track the impact of all the advertising lapses" in November. On top of noting which brands have stopped advertising, the documents also flag brands at risk of halting ads. Ultimately, the sales team's goal is listing "how much ad revenue X employees fear the company could lose through the end of the year if advertisers do not return," The Times reported.

Years ago, director Zack Snyder had an idea for an epic Star Wars movie that he pitched to Lucasfilm. That project never panned out for a variety of reasons. But the idea continued to germinate until it became Rebel Moo n , a two-part film for Netflix that Snyder and the streaming giant hope will launch a new franchise. Snyder unveiled the first extended teaser at Gamescom in Germany.

Apart from Star Wars, Snyder has said that his influences include the films of Akira Kurosawa, especially The Seven Samurai and The Dirty Dozen . He has set his epic saga in a universe controlled by a ruthless and corrupt government of the Mother World (the Imperium) with an army led by one Regent Balisarius (Fra Fee), and the rebel moon of the title is called Veldt. Per the official premise:

When a peaceful colony on the edge of a galaxy finds itself threatened by the armies of a tyrannical ruling force, Kora (Sofia Boutella), a mysterious stranger living among the villagers, becomes their best hope for survival. Tasked with finding trained fighters who will unite with her in making an impossible stand against the Mother World, Kora assembles a small band of warriors—outsiders, insurgents, peasants and orphans of war from different worlds who share a common need for redemption and revenge. As the shadow of an entire Realm bears down on the unlikeliest of moons, a battle over the fate of a galaxy is waged, and in the process, a new army of heroes is formed.

Kora knows something about the oppressive nature of the Imperium, since she used to be an Imperium leader, and now seeks redemption from her past. The band of allies that Kora assembles includes a former Imperium general named Titus (Djimon Hounsou); her farmer friend Gunnar (Michiel Huisman); Tarak (Staz Nair), a blacksmith who can bond with animals to rally them to a fight; a cyborg sword master named Nemesis (Doona Bae); a warrior named Darrian Bloodaxe (Ray Fisher) and his sister Devra (Cleopatra Coleman); a spider warrior named Harmada (Jena Malone); and Jimmy, the last of a race of mechanical knights from a fallen kingdom, voiced by Anthony Hopkins. Ed Skrein plays Admiral Atticus Noble, right hand to the tyrannical Regent, and Cary Elwes has also been cast in an as-yet-unnamed role.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

In the land before streaming, there was a time when getting a Netflix DVD in the mail felt magical. Those times have largely passed, and soon the service behind it will end, as we covered in April . But on Monday, Netflix announced that customers can keep any remaining DVDs they have after September 29 once the service shuts down. Additionally, subscribers can potentially get up to 10 discs for free as the service clears out its inventory.

These days, Netflix handles its DVD rental service through a subsidiary called DVD.com . The DVD amnesty announcement came via DVD.com's X account on Monday, relayed to us by The Verge .

An "X" social network screenshot of the free Netflix DVD announcement from Monday, August 21, 2023. (credit: Ars Technica)

In 1997, Netflix launched as a pay-per-rental service, but it transitioned to the now-famous subscription queue system in 1999, where customers make a list of DVDs they'd like to receive, and they would get shipped out in order as they became available. As we noted in April, this business model partially led to the collapse of video rental chains. While once popular, the world largely moved on to streaming video services, and in April of this year, Netflix announced that it would discontinue its DVD rental service permanently.