Fox took its conflict with Cablevision over retrans fees to the next level today by briefly blocking Cablevision customers from accessing Fox content on Hulu and Fox.com. The move led to an outcry from consumer rights advocates – but that may have been exactly what Fox wanted. Read more »
The holiday season is coming, whether you want it or not – and with it, we’ll see a ton of new gadgets and gizmos to bring web video to the TV screen. Here’s what we want to know: Who is going to sell more boxes this season? Read more »
Music sharing pioneer Audiogalaxy returned this week, but not with the features its former users — or its founder — hoped to offer. The former Napster competitor found that, even with music-industry support, a legal file-sharing service is a long way from becoming reality. Read more »
Canadians love online video just as much as their U.S. couch potato counterparts. A new study from M Consulting and Ipsos Reid reveals that 81 percent of Canadians occasionally watch videos online. An impressive 41 percent even turn to online video more than once a week. Read more »
Want Facetime-like video chat on your iPhone 3GS or Android phone, but you don’t have a front-facing camera? Then iSeeU could be the right solution for you: It’s a simple mirror that you mount to your phone to film yourself with your rear-facing camera. Neat. Read more »
U.K.-based PS3 owners will soon be able to access some 4000 movies through LoveFilm. The DVD subscription service is taking a cue from its U.S. counterpart Netflix by extending its online video offering to the game console after forging an alliance with Sony earlier this year. Read more »
The prices unveiled by Sony for its line-up of Google TV devices didn’t convince you? Then how about $796 for a 40′ TV set with Google TV? That’s a price that briefly popped up on Sony’s consumer electronics website yesterday. Are more price cuts in store? Read more »
Flingo makes it possible to bring web videos to any connected Vizio TV, thanks to a new open source library that can be integrated into any web site. Flingo CEO Ashwin Navin, formerly of BitTorrent Inc., recently stopped by our office to demonstrate the project. Read more »
Google TV, Apple TV and Roku all have access to movies and TV show streaming from Netflix, but each device has a very distinct interface. Apple’s Netflix UI for example looks like Front Row. Google TV on the other hand looks so far pretty outdated. Read more »
It’s been a little over a week since Apple’s second-generation Apple TV has been in stores, and we used the time for some extensive testing. So what’s our take? To be honest, we’re a little disappointed. This simply doesn’t feel like an Apple device. Read more »
The Open Video Alliance is trying to jump-start the contribution of video to Wikipedia by getting educators and cultural institutions involved. The organization just published a white paper abut Wikipedia that, amongst other things, explains how exactly you get your video clips included in Wikipedia articles. Read more »
Google TV devices are starting to reach the market with Logitech’s Revue set-top box and Sony’s Internet TV this month – but will consumers bite? The first generation of devices is pretty expensive, and doesn’t even offer access to Hulu – but what else is missing? Read more »
Apple TV users really really want to use FaceTime: That’s the result of a admittedly completely unscientific poll of our readership that we did a week ago. And they’re right: FaceTime could be a killer app — all Apple needs now is an HD USB camera. Read more »
TubeMogul has raised a Series B round of funding of $10 million from new and existing investors. The online video advertising and analytics company wants to use the new cash infusion to build out its ad platform, which has proven to be a major money maker. Read more »
Logitech’s Revue, which went on pre-sale today, offers integration of TV and web content – except if you’re a cord cutter. The device’s hardware is optimized to work with set-top boxes and won’t play nice with over the air content. Oh, and Hulu doesn’ty play either. Read more »
Logitech officially announced the launch of its Google TV-powered Logitech Revue set-top box today, demonstrating for the first time what the device is capable of, as well as announcing a number additional devices that will be available for use with Revue. Read more »
Right Wing Radio Duck captured the internet by storm earlier this week. The mash-up, which has an out-of-luck Donald Duck falling for Glenn Beck’s rhetoric, even received praise from Beck himself. But how long did it take to produce this? We decided to find out. Read more »
Twitter video community 12seconds has announced that it is going to shut down by October 22. 12seconds was self-funded, which didn’t exactly help it to compete with other start-ups in this space – but don’t expect CEO Sol Lipman to blame the lack of funding. Read more »
Google TV will come with Netflix, Amazon VOD and Pandora. Apple TV on the other hand has Netflix, but instead of Amazon just iTunes, plus Flickr for your photos. Roku has MLB.tv, and Boxee hearts Last.fm. Still confused? Then check out our handy comparison chart. Read more »
Google unveiled the web site for its Google TV platform today, showcasing some of the features and apps of upcoming devices to prospective buyers. It’s Google’s first attempt to tell consumers what Google TV is all about, but it doesn’t reveal many previously unannounced features. Read more »
We learned this week that the new Apple TV is running the same operating system as the iPad, and hackers have been able to jailbreak the device already. So with at least one door open for apps on the Apple TV, which ones do you want? Read more »
It’s coming down to the wire today for Novacut, a new open source project that aims to produce a collaborative video editor for users of HDSLR cameras. Novacut has been running a Kickstarter campaign to raise $25,000 in funding since late August. Today is the last […] Read more »
The world of open source film making can celebrate yet another achievement today with the release of Sintel, the animated short film that follows in the footsteps of Elephant’s Dream and Big Buck Bunny.Sintel was produced by the Blender foundation to showcase its 3D software. Read more »
20 percent of all broadcasts on Justin.tv now originate from the recently launched Android and iPhone apps. This number is poised to grow even further with a new iOS app supporting streams from the new iPod touch. Next up could be an app for Blackberry phones. Read more »
Today on the Net: British file sharers will continue to face lawsuits, Facebook.com is now the second most visited online video site, Apple approves the PlayOn video app,Hulu tweks its iOS app, and more. Read more »
Two computer scientists have released source code for a tool that is capable of decrypting HDCP-protected video in real time, delivering another blow to a content protection system that is in use in most modern home entertainment devices. With it, HDCP could become an open secret. Read more »
YouTube and the French music rights group SACEM have reached a royalty agreement that will compensate rights holders for the use of their music in YouTube videos accessed by French users. However, YouTube is still missing a similar agreement with Germany’s music rights group GEMA. Read more »
Today’s Mobilize 2010 conference, organized by GigaOM, is taking a look at the future of the mobile web. Speakers include Nicholas Negroponte, Mike Kuniavsky and Ken Denman. No ticket? No worries. Each and every session, keynote and red carpet interview and panel will be streamed live. Read more »
A tear-down of the new Apple TV reveals that the device loads a whopping 8 GB of Flash memory. Wait, didn’t Steve Jobs tell us that we won’t download any movies to the device? That’s because he wants to keep those 8 GB for apps. Read more »
Big broadcasters will soon have to provide closed captions for any of their TV shows online. A bill mandating such captioning was passed by the House yestrday after receiving unanimous support by the Senate. It’s now on President Obama’s desk, awaiting his almost certain signature. Read more »
3-D isn’t just for sports and movies anymore: Close to 35,000 people watched what was billed as the world’s first 3-D live concert in Europe yesterday. The event was captured with five live-optimized 3-D cameras, and required a broadcast staff of more than 100 people. Read more »
The Wikipedia’s Wikimedia foundation doesn’t want to be a slave to high video bandwidth costs. Instead, it is using BitTorrent-based P2P technology to distribute the growing amount of video on Wikipedia.org. Users can simply install a Firefox plug-in to help with the distribution of Wikipedia videos. Read more »
Roku users will soon be able to access Hulu Plus on their devices, if recent changes to the Roku.com web site are any indicator. The site already features a partner page for Hulu, boasting that Hulu PLus is easy to set up on Roku’s boxes. Read more »
Roku users will soon be able to access Hulu Plus on their devices, if recent changes to the Roku.com web site are any indicator. The site already features a partner page for Hulu, boasting that Hulu PLus is easy to set up on Roku’s boxes. Read more »
The British law office ACS:Law is know for hunting down file sharers. This weekend, it got into murky legal waters of its own after it accidentally published a number of internal emails on its web site, revealing names of alleged porn file sharers and more. Read more »
Netflix could launch a subscription plan that comes without any physical DVD rentals in the coming months, according to a blog post by the company’s CEO Reed Hastings. A plan like this would echo the new Netflix offering in Canada that also only offers online streaming. Read more »
Christopher “Monty” Montgomery, better know as the lead developer of the open video format Ogg Theora, released a video that dubs itself a digital media primer for geeks today. The video is going to kick-start a monthly series that aims to make technical subjects understandable. Read more »
The UI of Netflix on the Wii is going to get a major revamp: Netflix has started to send out new Wii discs to a limited number of subscribers that feature, amongst other things, search and browse buttons to explore the entire Watch Instantly catalog. Read more »
A Spanish court dismissed a lawsuit against Google’s video sharing site YouTube today. The lawsuit was brought forward against YouTube by the Spanish broadcaster Telecinco, who alleged in it that the video sharing site didn’t do enough against and even profited from its users copyright infringement. Read more »
Twelve percent of Roku’s customers have canceled their cable TV subscription, and many others have cut bakc on their monthly pay TV spending, according to Roku’s CEO Anthony Wood. Check out the video interview we did with Wood when he visited our office earlier this week. Read more »
