Media & Entertainment

Let’s break it down. 1. Exploding Commercial TV? House of Cards and Netflix have not exploded the restrictions of commercial TV (show length, plot resolution) that endured for decades. The Sopranos and HBO did that. Pre-Sopranos, a show’s hero leaving his daughter’s college interview – to murder a long-lost colleague – was unthinkable. In retrospect, it kicked Continue Reading →

Ah, exclusivity. Typically the domain of movie theaters and premium cable subscriptions, now everyone’s giving it a go. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is also joining the fray and has launched Pulp, a British indie comedy. The movie has already been shortlisted at several respectable film festivals but creator, Adam Hamdy, citing the high costs of marketing Continue Reading →

What’s going to happen to Hulu? Since founding chief executive officer, Jason Kilar, and chief technology officer, Tom Rich, announced in early January their plans to step down in the first quarter of this year, neither Hulu’s current leadership nor its owners (Comcast, News Corp and Disney) have discussed publicly their plans for the video-streaming Continue Reading →

While there’s still little known about Sony’s efforts to pioneer the first 4K movie download service, one thing we can say almost definitely now is that the service will in fact be compatible with its (supposedly) upcoming PS4. In an interview with The Verge, Sony President and COO Phil Molyneux almost sort of definitely confirmed Continue Reading →

Google has updated the YouTube app for iOS with its ‘send to TV’ functionality. This enables the app to send video out  on an automatic connectionto TVs that support the open protocol. This update also allows you to send YouTube videos to Xbox and PS3 consoles, but they have to be manually paired. YouTube for Continue Reading →

OUYA, the Kickstarter-funded Android gaming console, has already shipped developer consoles, but had yet to specify an exact date when backers could expect their production devices. On Thursday, the company announced that it will be shipping the first OUYA consoles out to backers beginning March 28, ahead of a June retail launch. The gaming hardware Continue Reading →

Pandora will start putting a monthly 40-hour cap on its previously unlimited mobile music streaming starting March 1. Pandora employed this strategy to cap desktop listening to 40 hours per month several years ago, but it lifted the cap in September 2011. Starting Friday, mobile listeners who surpass the monthly 40-hour limit can either switch Continue Reading →

Why buy second-hand? For physical goods, the appeal is in the price – you don’t mind the creases in a book or rust spots on a car if it’s a bargain. Although digital objects never lose their good-as-new lustre, their very nature means there is still uncertainty about whether we actually own them in the Continue Reading →

For the 2013 baseball season, Major League Baseball is more than tripling the number of stadiums that will accept mobile tickets via Apple’s Passbook app. This year there will be 13 stadiums that will enable paperless ticketing via Passbook, MLB announced at a fan event in New York City Tuesday night. That’s up from four Continue Reading →

While we knew it was coming, Roku has announced that the all-new Blockbuster on Demand service is now live on its video-streaming platform (US only), and will be available on the Roku Streaming Stick, Roku 2, Roku LT, and new Roku HD players (model 2500X). While Roku is particularly well-known in the US, with Netflix, Continue Reading →