Imagine you want some extra information about a show you’re watching. Just hold your phone like you’re taking a picture of the TV set – and it will know immediately what’s on. This kind of video recognition technology is a key part of Vobile’s new second-screen platform. Read more »
Ustream.tv has been cashing in on its premium broadcasting services, which allow customers to stream live video without ads: The live streaming site announced Wednesday that revenue from this line of products grew 290 percent year-over-year. And increasingly, those streams are viewed on mobile devices. Read more »
Ever wanted to know exactly which TV network is talking about a certain topic right now? Boxfish’s new iPad app has got you covered: The company indexes the closed captioning data from 3,600 TV stations in real time and presents it in a Twitter-like fashion. Read more »
Sick and tired of watching YouTube in your PS3’s browser? Then you’re gonna like this: Sony’s Playstation 3 is finally getting a native YouTube app, complete with all the bells and whistles, including search, your personal subscription queue and second screen navigation. Read more »
Google+ Hangouts were designed as a group video chat application with voice conversations in mind — but numerous musicians have been using the platform for concerts and online jam sessions. Google has now tweaked the audio settings to make these gigs sound better. Read more »
Some media streaming devices have hundreds of apps, but most people just use three or four. Don’t care for the extra clutter, and the price tag that comes with it? Then you may want to check out the MovieNite, a barebones $38 media streamer. Read more »
How about this for an unlikely winner of the 2012 London Olympics: VPN providers have been signing up lots of new users looking to access streams of the games in real time. Which makes one wonder: Wouldn’t it be better if those customers paid broadcasters instead? Read more »
The adult entertainment industry is known to push the envelope and innovate online. But can it reinvent crowdfunding? That’s what Offbeatr is trying to do with its Kickstarter for porn site, which actually has a few good ideas worth checking out. Read more »
Golf fans are looking to South Carolina this week, where the p94th PGA Championship is about to begin at the Ocean Course in Kiawah Island. Want to watch live as Tiger Woods takes the field? Then check out our guide to live streams of the event. Read more »
Xbox users can now browse kids titles on Netflix without stumbling across old B-movies that happen to have the same title, thanks to Netflix’s Just for Kids interface that just arrived on the game console. No kids? No worries. Your personal profile could be next. Read more »
Indie bands don’t just have to play one small club at a time anymore: DaCast just launched a pay-per-view live streaming solution for Facebook that specifically targets smaller bands and other small businesses with just a few thousand fans on the social network. Read more »
Thought BitTorrent was just about illegally downloading recent Hollywood blockbusters? Think again: Now you can legally torrent more than one million movies, live concert recordings, radio shows and books, thanks to a partnership of the Internet Archive and BitTorrent Inc. Read more »
The next time you’re starting a video chat on a website, it might be powered by WebRTC, a new plugin-free messaging technology. Video chat provider Tokbox just incorporated WebRTC into its developer platform – but its CEO told me that there’s still a rocky road ahead. Read more »
The average shared Spotify playlist contains a whopping 170 songs, according to new data released by Sharemyplaylists.com Monday. ShareMyPlaylists has been used to share more than 100,000 Spotify playlists to date, with 15,000 playlists being shared through the site each and every day. Read more »
Microsoft has put its weight behind WebRTC, a plugin-free technology for voice and video communications in the browser. However, it proposed a different approach than the one currently favored by other browser vendors, and warned against implementing the technology before there’s a common standard. Read more »
A video site that lets users bookmark and share embedded videos from other websites doesn’t commit copyright infringement – and just watching a stream of a video that someone else has uploaded isn’t infringing either: That’s the gist of a court decision in favor of myVidster. Read more »
YouTube is going to teach 16 of its site’s up-and-coming comedians the skills of producing and marketing their wares to the online audience with its new YouTube’s Next Comic program. Grooming talent like this makes sense, as the biggest YouTube success stories have been homegrown. Read more »
This is cool: Gus Class has turned his old Roomba vacuum cleaner into Oscar, the first robot that can be remotely controlled through a Google+ Hangout. It’s a neat use of the Google+ Hangouts API, and opens the door for other interesting hacks. Read more »
China’s state television is streaming 5,600 hours of live coverage of the the Olympic Games online — and it’s for the first time ever specifically targeting iPad and mobile users with a premium stream. However, it’s not giving up on P2P video streaming entirely. Read more »
Google has indefinitely delayed the launch of its Android-based Nexus Q streaming media player, likely in response to overwhelmingly negative reviews. Ordered one of the would-have-been Sonos competitors already? Then Google is going to send you a free unit. Read more »
Netflix has been quietly testing a new approach towards personalized movie and TV show recommendations: The company recently launched a game show host-like personal assistant dubbed Netflix Max on the PS3 that uses gamification to get users to rate more movies and find better content. Read more »
Amazon just updated its cloud player with a scan and match feature that makes it possible to instantly beam songs to the cloud without uploading every single song. The feature mirrors Apple’s offering, but comes with new restrictions for existing Amazon cloud music users. Read more »
Fanhattan’s guide to entertainment on your iPad just got a lot more useful: The app added content from new partners, including NBC and HBO, and a new WatchList feature. The idea: Add your favorite movies and shows once, and get notifications whereever and whenever they’re available. Read more »
Netflix wants your help – and we are not talking about its troubled stock: The company is looking for volunteers to join its crowdsourced subtitling community. It’s all just an experiment for now, but it could one day become a massively crowdsourced closed captioning operation. Read more »
GMail users are now able to video chat with up to ten of their contacts, thanks to a new integration of Google+ Hangouts. The group video chat platform replaces Google Talk’s video chat, and is part of Google’s efforts to merge all of its messaging products. Read more »
NBC requires viewers to verify they are pay TV subscribers before accessing any of the live streams of the London Games. So what’s a cord cutter to do? Luckily, there are plenty of perfectly legal ways to watch the coverage without cable. Read more »
YouTube is in charge of the streaming for NBC’s ambitious online coverage of the 2012 London Olympics, delivering some 3,500 hours of live coverage from the event on the web and through native apps. Here’s an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at this cooperation. Read more »
Want to watch the Olympic Games online? You’re in luck: NBC is streaming more competitions than ever live to web browsers, iPads, iPhones and Android devices. Plus, there are plenty of second-screen apps that help you to get the most out of the games. Read more »
Roku has raised $45M in additional funding from News Corp., BSkyB and others. The company wants to use the funding for further international expansion, and also hints at additional partnerships with pay TV providers. But who is the mystery “unnamed strategic investor” that joined this round? Read more »
U.K. sports fans will get 24 live streams of the action once the Olympic Games unfold in London this weekend. The BBC is relying on Adobe to deliver these streams, and the company is using it as a big test case for its new Project Primetime. Read more »
Google is working on bringing AirPlay-like functionality to its Google TV platform. The company will bring second-screen features developed for its Nexus Q music streaming device to Google TV devices, and developers will be able to make use of them for their apps as well. Read more »
Roku removed about two dozen channels from its channel store this week to give Dish exclusivity for foreign-language content on its platform. The move led to a backlash from developers and could foreshadow the future of online TV. But Roku insists that customers will benefit. Read more »
Google’s Nexus Q music streaming device officially went up for sale on Google Play this week. The device wants to compete with Sonos, btu also stream videos from YouTube and Google Play. How well does it work? Check out our video review. Read more »
BitTorrent Inc. is offering three MP3s from DJ Shadow’s upcoming album as a free download through its popular uTorrent client – and the popular turntablist is actually making some money with the downloads, as long as his fans also agree to install some bundled software. Read more »
GetGlue is getting ready to launch an updated second screen experience dubbed GetGlue HD that adds media from numerous sources as well as a programming guide to the app. GetGlue founder and CEO Alex Iskold stopped by our office to tell us all about it. Read more »
Thousands of people are now making six figures on YouTube, the company revealed during its Q2 earnings call Thursday. YouTube had previously put that number in the hundreds. Google’s Chief Business Officer, Nikesh Arora, said that the company has found its model for YouTube. Read more »
YouTube is sending golden play buttons to any partner that has surpassed one million subscriber on his YouTube channel. The company is also honoring partners with more than 100,000 subscribers, and released some interesting new stats about these audience magnets. Read more »
This week, public radio’s Blank on Blank successfully raised more than $11,000 in funding on Kickstarter. It’s not the only radio show looking to crowdfunding as a new way to connect to its audience, and it could foreshadow huge disruptions for public radio. Read more »
Want to watch the world’s best golf players compete against each other at the Open Championship, but don’t have a TV nearby? No worries, much of the tournament is live streamed online, viewable either on your PC or mobile device – with no cable subscription required. Read more »
YouTube is starting a series of educational workshops this week that aims to teach video makers how to produce better clips – and it wants to reach as many of them as possible: YouTube’s new summer workshops are held as Hangouts on Air, viewable by anyone. Read more »
