Digital Media Bytes: Last100 Edition

A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our friends at Last100: Rupert Murdoch’s Sky bringing interactive TV to XBox 360 In addition to live pay TV channels, Sky Player on XBox 360 will offer an “on-demand library of thousands of programmes spanning entertainment, movies, documentaries, kids, culture, news and sport.” Hands-on impressions of Nokia’s N97 … Read more

Twitter PSA: Delink Spymaster

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TechCrunch covered the Best Video Twitter worm yesterday, but seems to have missed the equally insidious opt-in Spymaster game. Unlike Facebook silliness, once authorized, Spymaster is much more in the face of your followers – freely tweeting game updates. Not only will you end up spamming your followers, your @mentions queue will fill up with Spymaster-related tweets.

spymaster-twitter

Spymaster may be for some folks, but it’s not for me. I prefer my games played with a joystick and on the plasma. And while I’m occasionally indulgent with an off-topic Twitter post, I respect my followers too much to partake.

So shortly after realizing Spymaster’s gameplay implications, I set about delinking them from my Twitter account. Spymaster’s FAQ doesn’t make it clear how to sever ties, a direct message to @playspymaster went unanswered, and a query on TechCrunch garnered no responses.

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The good news is that I’ve found the simple solution and Twitter OAuth appears to work as billed. Instead of giving up our credentials, as we have in the past with third-party apps, Spymaster and Twitter are linked via OAuth (with your authorization). Once you’ve established an OAuth relationship, a new settings tab appears on Twitter itemizing these services. To assassinate Spymaster from your Twitter account, visit the Twitter website and:

  • Click Settings
  • Click Connections tab
  • Click Revoke Access

Click to enlarge:

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Sharing Digital Media (Legally)

As ZNF readers are well aware, one of the biggest challenges we face with digital media (books, music, video) is in sharing it. Legally.  Over at Live Digitally, Jeremy Toeman details one possible scenario for an Amazon Kindle used book store – allowing folks to resell books back to Amazon for a store credit. And … Read more

New DirecTV TiVo Delayed until 2010 (plus tru2way)

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Photo by Zandir

After finding a few minutes to scan TiVo’s quarterly call transcript what stands out, other than hoarding $200+ million in cash, is what appears to be a slippage in the delivery of a new DirecTV TiVo DVR. 2009 has become 2010. CEO Tom Rogers, via Seeking Alpha:

DIRECTV not likely to rollout until early next year

We’ve pointed to that timeframe in early next year

our expectation is early next year that the DIRECTV new product will be available

I can’t say I’m surprised. And have been suggesting for some time that it’s unlikely we’d see the renewed DirecTV+TiVo relationship bear fruit this year.

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Hulu Desktop Arrives

Despite Hulu’s apparent hypocrisy, I’m quite pleased to see them release a desktop video client (v0.9) today. The (beta?) Hulu Desktop software is available for both Windows and Mac operating systems and, after just a few minutes of poking around, it looks like they’re off to a good start. However, I do question the authenticity … Read more

Digital Media Bytes: Last100 Edition

A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our friends at Last100: Microsoft and Netflix bring streaming to Windows Media Center sans Extender support Through a formal partnership, users of the Vista edition of Microsoft Media Center (not XP) can now access almost all of Netflix’s online features via the software’s TV-friendly “10-foot” User Interface. Universal … Read more

The Future of Windows Media Center Extenders

Bad news for Windows Media Center fans these last few days, as we’ve received confirmation from both Linksys and HP that they’re discontinuing their extender lineups. Brent offers Microsoft some tips over on Geek Tonic, including branding their own hardware, to breathe new life into this fine multi-room solution. That’s a good start, but where … Read more

Dave’s New Blueteeth (Jawbone, Solar)

What I hate most about Bluetooth devices is ending up with yet another gadget to charge. Frequently requiring a proprietary cable and, along with that, needing another free jack or port to juice it up. So it’s not that the first gen iPhone has a nearly worthless speakerphone (it does), but the promise of wireless … Read more