Rumors started floating before E3 last year that Microsoft was looking into offering a subscription TV service that would mix some Netflix-style content streaming with more traditional live and network TV content. Since then, Microsoft has gone on to establish the Xbox as a streaming media apps platform, and unfortunately that is also as far as Microsoft is going to get […]
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Every so often a product comes along that is described as a product in search of a market. Samsung may have come up with the poster child of such products with the Optical SMART Hub, a networkable 8x DVD burner. The Hub also sports a USB port for attaching external storage, turning the Optical SMART Hub into a NAS. The […]
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Qualcomm released their Skifta app for Android devices a couple of months ago. The idea behind Skifta was to make accessing and controlling DLNA streaming devices easier for mainstream users. Now that the company has the software side of DLNA under control, Qualcomm is looking to expand Skifta’s reach to the hardware side with its Skifta Media Shifting Platform. Device […]
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The movie studios, and Warner Bros. in particular, were counting on UltraViolet to revolutionize movie buying by creating a buy-once-play-everywhere digital content locker system. Unfortunately, since its launch, UltraViolet has mostly served as a pundit punching bag and free advertising for iTunes. Akamai, the content distribution service giant, has decided that perhaps they are the missing ingredient for UltraViolet. Akamai has […]
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Microsoft may not have had a lot to announce during tonight’s CES keynote, but they did have a little bit of Xbox media streaming news in the form of the Fox App. Microsoft has partnered with News Corporation to bring content from the Wall Street Journal, IGN, Fox, and Fox News to Xbox Live. No timetable was given, but it […]
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Disney has been in a serious deal-making mood these last few months. First they hooked up with Roku, then they went big with YouTube. Now they’ve signed on for a 10 year deal with Comcast that will see almost all of Disney’s networks made available on Comcast’s Xfinity streaming and VOD service. If you can name a Disney, ABC, or […]
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Netflix will be providing their Q4 and annual financials soon, and investors are sure to be hoping that any big numbers are black rather than red, but in the meantime Netflix has been throwing around some other big numbers. The company recently announced that its 20 million customers streamed over 2 billion hours of content in the fourth quarter alone. […]
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DirecTV has been a bit slow to get on board with HD, at least in the user interface of their set top boxes. The finally started pushing the new HD UI that they had been promising for years to beta testers a few months ago. Evidently they started rolling out it for real in November, but someone at DirecTV HQ […]
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The folks over at Plex have updated their Android app, bringing it to version 2.0.2.1. The update brings with it a variety of video related fixes, including a number of UI tweaks to make using the video player a better experience. The big news for this update is official Ice Cream Sandwich, Android 4.0, support. There are not many ICS […]
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Here’s one from the “I can’t believe they shipped without this feature” file. Apple has offered Season Pass for a while now. With Season Pass, one can purchase an entire season of a show, usually at a discount over buying every individual episode, which is fine if you know that you want to pony up for an entire season up front. However, […]
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