Thomas Hawk presents a less than rosy view of Apple’s one billion iTunes served. Though he is somewhat off the mark… we’re really talking about 50 million suckers. ;) Until recently I was counted amongst those suckers. See, I think the iTunes store is an efficient and reasonably priced service providing a large library of … Read more
Here we have yet another video distribution system that will fail (see MovieBeam ). MovieKlub will send you up to two DVDs a week for $24.99/month. So what’s the big deal? These movies can only be played 3 times… then you toss them out or return them for recycling. We’ve seen similar schemes in the … Read more
Democracy, who bill themselves as a free, open source, Internet TV platform, is now available for PC and Mac beta testing with planned support for Linux. The combination video player, publisher, and aggregator seems to be getting a decent amount of attention, but I’m not quite sold. I already have free software which handles video … Read more
MovieBeam, who just received a large cash infusion, is relaunching in 29 markets this year. In fact, my neighborhood already appears to be online. Basically you buy the Linksys MovieBeam set-top box, every week a few movies are downloaded via a digital over-the-air (OTA) signal, and then you choose which you want to rent. The … Read more
As you may recall, BitTorrent began their uphill battle towards legitimacy by partnering with the MPAA last fall to crack down on movie piracy. Now they’re taking it a step further by introducing a video download service with UK cable provider NTL. Once they add a custom storefront, will the service really be much different … Read more
Both Sirius and XM have been expanding their sports offerings lately — no doubt to tap into the fanatical multi-gazillion dollar industry. Sirius recently concluded Winter X Games and Super Bowl XL coverage, and moves on to Winter Olympics updates beginning tomorrow. Meanwhile on XM, all 39 games of the World Baseball Classic will be … Read more
HBO continues their quest to specify what you can and cannot record to your DVR. They’ve been at the forefront of limiting our recording rights and are at it again, this time petitioning that subscription video-on-demand should be off-limits. It’s interesting that they attempt to segregate content… why should one network or type of programing … Read more
Microsoft has submitted a patent application encompassing the construction of an electronic program guide (EPG) from a variety of sources. For example, the DVR might grab guide info from multiple feeds and then compare it to scannable channels and build a lineup grid based on the results. Doesn’t sound much different than most other modern … Read more