Want to download a car? Now you can, kind of anyway: The Pirate Bay has started to offer users a way to exchange 3-D designs for physical objects that can be reproduced with 3-D printers. This kind of sharing only complicates the copyright debate. Read more »
Story Wheel brings the good old narrated slide show back to life, thanks to a mashup of Instagram and Soundcloud. The very first Story Wheel was produced by Soundcloud’s co-founders to celebrate a few important milestones: Soundcloud now has 10 million registered users and 10,000 developers. Read more »
You can’t make this stuff up: The indictment of the popular file hosting site MegaUpload reveals a hugely profitable business run by people whose Mercedes novelty license plates included “GUILTY” and “MAFIA.” Also included are numerous juicy internal emails between MegaUpload employees and executives. Read more »
The FBI has shut down MegaUploadcom with help of law enforcement agencies around the world. The bureau also indicted seven people involved with MegaUpload, including the company’s founder Kim Schmitz. Four of the seven have been arrested, but it’s unclear whether Schmitz is also in custody. Read more »
U.K. Netflix clone Lovefilm just announced an app for LG’s smart TV’s, and the company is also getting ready to launch on Roku’s media streamer once the device becomes available to Britons. Details on the Roku app are scarce, but it could launch in early February. Read more »
A new Pandora competitor called Raditaz combines customized online radio stations with location. Users can see what stations others are listening to in their neighborhood and even geotag stations specific to their gym or office. Raditaz built the service with a team of just seven. Read more »
Numerous sites went black Wednesday to protest the SOPA and PIPA bills. Participants included Wikipedia, Google, Craigslist, Greenpeace, Reddit, 4Chan and others, and many didn’t just stop at adding a black background. Check out our website gallery to take a look at some of the sites. Read more »
Anti-SOPA protesters are taking their cause to the streets on Wednesday, with protests scheduled in New York and San Francisco. We will cover the event in San Francisco, which will feature Ron Conway as a headline speaker, with a live video stream. Read more »
Grooveshark has shut down in Germany, blaming exorbitant licensing costs and redirecting users to a local Spotify clone. However, rights holders singled out by Grooveshark say that they have never actually been contacted by the service. Meanwhile U.S. lawsuits against Grooveshark continue. Read more »
Chill.com has all but abandoned its Turntable.fm-like group chat rooms and is now focusing squarely on social video discovery. The startup’s founder Brian Norgard likened the new approach to the way people interact with content in media-focused social networks like Instagram and Path. Read more »
China’s online video service PPTV struck a strategic partnership deal with local cable TV provider WASU last week that could hold the key to finally bring online video to the living room in China. Android TVs and set-top boxes could also play a big role. Read more »
Hulu is launching its first original scripted show just days before Netflix will unveil its first stab at an original TV show. Both companies are part of a bigger movement toward original online programming that includes new ways of funding as well as distribution. Read more »
No, it’s not Apple’s long-rumored TV set or one of the countless other app platforms from Samsung to Roku: Google TV’s biggest competitor, capable even of derailing the company’s entrance into the market for pay-TV set-top boxes, may just be Android itself. Read more »
Numerous cricket fans that have streamed matches from pirate sites in the past are receiving a very interesting sales pitch from online cricked specialist Willow.tv these days. The offer: Become a paying Willow.tv subscriber – or open yourself up to a potential lawsuit for copyright infringement. Read more »
Hulu made $420 million in 2011, and is expected to pay $500 million to rights holders this year alone. The service now has 1.5 million paying subscribers, and Hulu CEO Jason Kilar projects that Plus will account for more than half of Hulu’s revenue this year. Read more »
It has been a month since Spotify rolled out its app platform to all of its users, and early data from some of the participating third-party developers looks very positive: Spotify users seem to like the added functionality, with many coming back to their favorite apps. Read more »
GetGlue announced a new $12 million round of funding Wednesday, and the company has big plans for the money: It plans to launch a new version of its iPad app in Q1 of this year that will be a personalized take on the TV Guide. Read more »
Netgear is trying to compete with Roku, Apple TV and Boxee with its own streaming media player. The NeoTV has a few hundred apps, including Vudu, Netflix and YouTube, but lacks local playback capability and Hulu Plus. Should you buy it? Check out our review. Read more »
Roku is starting to sell its Roku LT and Roku 2 XS players in the U.K. and Ireland. The company is hoping to cash in on the launch of Netflix in both countries earlier this week, and possibly make up for weaker-than-expected sales last year. Read more »
Google is rolling out a tight integration of its search on Google.com and Google+. Users who opt to personalize their search results will get to see posts from their Google+ contacts mixed with classic search results. This could be a big boon for Google’s social network. Read more »
Want to catch all the action at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, but didn’t make it out to Las Vegas? Don’t worry: Many of the keynotes and press conferences are streamed live online, and numerous outlets have set up their own show floor live feeds. Read more »
Now it’s official: Netflix launched in the U.K. and Ireland Monday morning, promising to bring unlimited streaming of popular movies and TV shows through PCs as well as connected and mobile devices to both countries. But for Brits, Netflix isn’t the only choice. Read more »
A TV that features voice control, facial recognition, thousands of apps, a game pad and 3-D video?No, it’s not the rumored Apple TV, but a new Smart TV made by Lenovo that’s based on the latest version 4.0 of Google’s Android OS. Read more »
Sony is going to start selling Google TV devices around the world, Google revealed in a blog post today. Google also confirmed we are going to see new Google TV gear from LG, Vizio, Samsung and Sony at CES in Las Vegas next week. Read more »
BitTorrent’s new Share app offers users a way to privately share files of unlimited file size with others without paying for a cloud storage service. The company is currently using S3 to cache files, but wants to eventually move to its own P2P cloud service. Read more »
The Intel days are over for Google TV: The next generation of Google TV devices will be powered by an ARM chip from Marvell that promises to be cheaper, snappier and less of a power hog. Also in Marvell’s pipeline: Android set-top-boxes for pay-TV operators. Read more »
Roku is expanding its lineup of devices with a new smart-TV stick that brings the entire functionality of its existing set-top boxes to TVs simply by being plugged into an MHL port. The stick can even be used with your regular TV remote. Read more »
TiVo and AT&T have settled their three-year old DVR patent lawsuit, and the settlement is good news for the DVR maker: AT&T will pay TiVo $215 million over the next seven years. The news comes only months after TiVo secured $500 million from Dish. Read more »
There are two rumors about Roku going around these days: One says that the company is getting ready to be acquired, possibly by Intel. The other one says it’s getting more funding. Which one makes more sense for Roku? The answer may surprise you. Read more »
Dozens of floats, all made entirely from flowers and other organic materials, marching bands, cheerleaders and… Occupy protesters? This year’s Tournament of the Roses parade promises to be a little different. But no worries: Both the parade and the surrounding protests will be streamed online. Read more »
Want to watch the ball drop on Times Square at New Year’s, but not actually spend hours in the cold on Times Square? Don’t worry, the action will once again be live-streamed to computers as well as iOS and Android cell phones everywhere. Read more »
Netflix, AT&T’s 250-GB bandwidth caps, the Royal Wedding, Roku, Google+ Hangouts and The Guild were only some of the subjects that proved to be really popular this year. Check out our list of the eleven most-read NewTeeVee posts of 2011. Read more »
Imagine citizen journalists could remix radio programs or TV news features simply by copy and pasting text fragments of their manuscripts and closed captions: That’s the idea behind hypermedia, and first tools to make it happen could become available as early as next year. Read more »
Got a Boxee Box as a gift this holiday season? Congratulations! The box is one of the most versatile Internet video devices out there, and our post-holiday tips and tricks take the pain out of setting it up, watching great content and finding additional accessories. Read more »
PC, Mac and Linux users are finally able to upgrade Boxee to its most recent version – but they won’t be getting any future upgrades. The company announced today that it is officially abandoning the PC platform, completely concentrating on CE devices instead. Read more »
Got a Roku media streamer as a gift this holiday season? Then check out this guide for some essential tips on how to set it up, what content to watch, how to get additional channels not listed in the Roku store, and what accessories to buy. Read more »
Santa is about to bring us our presents, and kids big and small will once again be able to track him with their iOS and Android mobile phones. QR gift tags, personalized videos from Santa and Elf Yourself also help to geekify your holidays. Read more »
Veoh.com may be just a shell of its former self these days, but the video site and its former investors nonetheless scored another court victory against Universal Music this week. An appeals court reaffirmed the decision that Veoh is protected by the DMCA. Read more »
Vevo clocked more than 3.6 billion global video views in October, with the average viewer spending 66 minutes per month on the site. That’s a huge success for the music video platform, but one that didn’t come cheap: Vevo paid more than $100 million in royalties. Read more »
KaZaA, Napster, LimeWire & Co. all have been sued out of existence in the U.S., but Spain’s Blubster and Piolet music swapping apps prevailed in court today. Pablo Soto, who developed both file sharing applications, can’t be held liable for copyright infringement, a local court found. Read more »
