by Steve O'Hear
June 30th, 2009 | Posted in Net TV | 
Comments Off
After rumors of a third change in direction, Joost, the Internet TV startup that just won’t seem to die, has announced plans to focus less on its own online video portal and instead tout the company’s newly launched white label service to “media companies, including cable and satellite providers, broadcasters and video aggregators.”
In other words, the company, which was founded by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis of Skype fame, has conceded that ad-revenue alone can’t pay the bills and, instead, hopes that Old Media will.
See also: Joost up for sale? Old media to the rescue
Interestingly, on the same day as Joost’s announced change it direction, it’s been reported that rival Hulu alone boasts 10 percent of the online video ad market.
by Steve O'Hear
June 30th, 2009 | Posted in Audio, Net TV, Other | View Comments
When the Pirate Bay four were convicted of “assisting in making copyright content available” and sentenced to a one year prison term and a fine of $3.6 million, the site’s co-founder Peter Sunde played down the verdict, claiming that it was business as usual. The argument being that the site itself was never on trial, only the four individuals named in the law suit.
Today, however, we learn that, moving forward, it’s far from business as usual as The Pirate Bay has been acquired by Global Gaming Factory X (GGF), a publicly listed company in Sweden, for the grand sum of $7.8 million. Profit made from the sale will be used to fund a new political organization set up “to help with projects about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openness of the nets”, according to a blog post published on The Pirate Bay.
Continue reading »
by Steve O'Hear
June 29th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | Comments Off
When news first hit that three of the leading mobile phone industry organizations had agreed on micro-USB as a mobile phone charging standard, Apple was notably absent. The iPhone maker is particularly fond of its proprietary Universal Dock Connector, you know the one that enables all sorts of third-party after market device goodness and also generates the company a nice little revenue stream through its ‘Made for iPod’ program. Today, however, the European Union (EU), after applying pressure to the industry, announced that Apple had joined competitors, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, LG, Research in Motion, Samsung and others, in agreeing to switch to the micro-USB standard from next year.
(via Rueters)
by Steve O'Hear
June 28th, 2009 | Posted in Net TV | Comments Off
It was just over two years ago that I posted a brief note on a daring side project from Pirate Bay, the organization best know for its law-evading BitTorrent filesharing site. The project was to build a kind of YouTube-esque video streaming site, but one that operates outside of mainstream copyright law. Today we learn that the project, dubbed “The Video Bay”, lives on.
Continue reading »
by Steve O'Hear
June 28th, 2009 | Posted in Net TV | View Comments
Based in the UK, I don’t have access to the US-only video site Hulu. But if I did I’d no longer be able to access the studio-backed Internet TV service on my PlayStation 3.
That’s because, following the Boxee fiasco, the game console has become the latest means by which to conveniently watch Hulu content on a television to be blocked, reports Engadget.
Users who try to visit the site via the PS3’s built-in web browser are being greeted with the message: “Unfortunately, this video is not available on your platform. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
Continue reading »
by Steve O'Hear
June 28th, 2009 | Posted in last100 weekly wrapup | Comments Off
Here’s a summary of the last week’s digital lifestyle action on last100. Note that you can subscribe to the weekly wrapups, either via the special weekly wrapup RSS feed or by email.
Mobile
HTC unveils Android-powered Hero, apes Palm Pre’s Synergy
At a press conference in London this morning, HTC unveiled it latest Android-based phone – dubbed “Hero” – but unlike the G1 and HTC Magic before it, the new handset has been given a major UI overhaul that the company is calling HTC Sense.
Continue reading »
by Steve O'Hear
June 28th, 2009 | Posted in ZNF | Comments Off
A periodic roundup of relevant news from our friends at Zatz Not Funny…
Dicussing Boxee on TechVi
Dave Zatz: Last night, Ben Drawbaugh (EngadgetHD) and I discussed Boxee’s recent news with Randall Bennett of TechVi.
Fallout from the DTV Transition
Dave Zatz: It’s been two weeks since the digital television switch was universally flipped in what’s effectively a government spectrum fundraiser.
Hands On with the Sungale Widget Photo Frame
Mari Silbey: I’ve had something of an obsession with Wi-Fi photo frames ever since eStarling brought the first one (disastrously) to market. So naturally I jumped at the chance to get my hands on the new Sungale touch-screen, Wi-Fi, widgetized photo frame – colloquially known as the ID800WT.
New Logitech Squeezeboxes on the way
Dave Zatz: It’s been quite some time since the Squeezebox Duet and Squeezebox Boom Internet audio streamers hit the shelves in 2008. And word on the street indicates Logitech will be refreshing their lineup in short order.
by Steve O'Hear
June 26th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | View Comments
Vodafone HTC Magic running on a SIM Zero contract on 3
As my obsession with mobile continues – the new frontier – I’ve made the decision to take out a second mobile phone contract. But with a twist. I don’t plan to make (or receive) a single call on handset number two. Instead, it will be used for data only (Web browsing, third-party Internet-connected apps and email).
Continue reading »
by Steve O'Hear
June 24th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile, Net TV | View Comments
We’ve known for a long time that Nokia wants to be seen as much as a services company as a handset maker, so it shouldn’t be all that surprising to learn that the company is exploring different ways to deliver online video to mobile phones.
According to a report in New Media Age, Nokia is particularly interested in “kick-starting” the consumption of long-form content on mobiles by utilizing a podcast style delivery method whereby users subscribe to various video feeds, presumably enabling content to be downloaded to the device “over-the-air” rather than being “side-loaded”.
While the service is said to be in trial mode only with about 600 users, 100 of which are Nokia employees, content partners already reportedly include BBC Worldwide, ITV, Sky and Paramount.
by Steve O'Hear
June 24th, 2009 | Posted in Net TV | Comments Off
Major League Baseball on Boxee
Forget the ongoing spat with Hulu, PC-to-TV media player Boxee has announced an official partnership with MLB.com.
Subscribers to the MLB.TV Premium can now use Boxee to pipe content from the service, which includes “live and on-demand in HD (where available)”, to their TVs or simply enjoy Boxee’s ‘ten foot’ and remote control-friendly UI on their PC. On that note, MLB.TV Premium offers DVR functionality to pause and rewind a live game.
Going forward, Boxee hopes this is the first of such partnerships, as live sport is bound to be seen as a major driver of uptake for Internet TV solutions such as Boxee.
MLB.com represents a big step for boxee as we hope this is the first of many different live sports offerings we can bring to you. We hope other sports follow MLB.com’s lead of giving fans a choice of how they enjoy watching their favorite teams…. [Boxee blog]
The company also announced that a version of Boxee, albeit in Alpha, is now available for Windows along with existing versions for Mac OSX and Linux.
by Steve O'Hear
June 24th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | Comments Off
I knew it would happen, I’m just surprised it’s taken so long: Google’s Android has been given a major UI overhaul by a third-party handset maker.
At a press conference in London this morning, HTC unveiled it latest Android-based phone – dubbed “Hero” – but unlike the G1 and HTC Magic before it, the new handset has been given a major UI overhaul that the company is calling HTC Sense.
Continue reading »
by Steve O'Hear
June 23rd, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | Comments Off
This one feels like a bit of a re-announcement but over time could well amount to more. Chip maker Intel and handset maker Nokia held a joint press call today to tell the world about a new “long term relationship” to share R&D and key technologies to develop a new mobile platform or range of devices that “go beyond today’s smartphones, notebooks and netbooks”.
Oh and said devices will be powered by future Intel processors, of course.
Which, as The Register points out, sounds a lot like the Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) Intel has been to touting for years, and very similar to Nokia’s own – albeit non-Intel based – N810 Internet tablet (see my review).
Continue reading »
