Force 2.2 Mbps streams on your Roku Player
Just how capable is your Netflix STB? An enterprising customer discovered there's an unpublished way to make the box stream much faster than any ordinary user can select.
A feature turned on by default in Roku's Netflix set-top box is intelligent streaming, where the bitrate is chosen according to the user's connection speed, thereby assuring the smoothest stream as possible. A user on Roku Forums posted a heretofore undocumented way to override the automatic selection and always stream at a chosen bitrate.
Copyright concerns take a voyage of Discovery
A new service from iCopyright allows publishers and content creators to find out who's reusing some or all of their words and pictures. But don't just think of it as a tool to beat up on "little guys" online, says the owner of the company.
In fact, CEO Mike O'Donnell says that searching out plagiarists and other abusers of copyright is "a distant third" on the list of things his firm's new Discovery service can do.
UnitedLayer COO: Giving access to InterCage is an issue of ethics
Richard Donaldson, COO of co-location provider UnitedLayer, knows that his new client InterCage is unpopular. It's just that he's not sure that hosting botnets, malware, and spam services deserves a lifetime of incarceration.
Because that is, Donaldson says, effectively what it means to cut off InterCage (a.k.a., Atriva) from the net community in this day and age.
Google co-founder blames politics for 'white space' device failures
Following Tuesday's rollout of T-Mobile's Android-based G1 phone, Larry Page went to Washington on Wednesday, urging the FCC to hurry up with its decision about opening up "white spaces" of the spectrum for free use by Google and others.
The day after helping to launch the first Android phone on T-Mobile's commercial wireless network, Google co-founder Larry Page landed on Wednesday in Washington, DC, where he lobbied the FCC to provide the "white spaces" wireless spectrum free of charge to companies like Google -- along with end users -- for future wireless devices.
High-def Slingbox enters the market
News from Sling Media hasn't been this big in quite a while. The Slingbox Pro-HD is now available -- the company's first device that enables streaming of high-definition content.
Though the device is half a year late, the new Slingbox Pro-HD is fortunately over a hundred dollars cheaper than originally anticipated. Priced at $299.99, the Slingbox Pro-HD can be purchased directly from Sling, or at select stores throughout the country.
Blu-ray market share creeps up - or down - to 8 percent
Back in April, Sony President Ryoji Chubachi projected that its Blu-ray Disc format would garner 50 percent of DVD market share by the end of 2008. At this rate, according to new data, we could get there in about nine years.
For the US home video market, new figures from Nielsen VideoScan show that Blu-ray ended last week with a scant 8 percent share -- only two percentage points over the 6 percent recorded for the last week of April, and a 13.4% decline over the previous week.
Mobile browser Skyfire begins its public beta phase
The latest Skyfire beta offers a full Web browsing experience to WM5, WM6, and Symbian S60 devices, enabling the consumption of media that's usually off limits to users of the "mobile Web." At least that's what it offers.
Of the three "screens" that the marketers of converged devices say are critical to the consumers' lifestyles -- television, computer, and handset -- it's the third that has been the most neglected in terms of the availability of media. Sure, improved storage has allowed greater volumes of audio and video content to be stored and played back on mobile phones. But with streaming media now a prime focus for content providers, our lowest-power and often most slowly connected screen could often use a little push.
DOJ unwilling to prosecute in private IP theft cases
Is the Justice Dept. unconcerned with everyday cases intellectual property theft, like the one profiled in the upcoming movie, Flash of Genius? No, it's just that there's not enough resources to go around, says a key DOJ official.
Bipartisan legislation introduced earlier this month before both houses of Congress would enable the President to appoint an "intellectual property czar," responsible for the enforcement of the nation's IP protection laws and answerable to the Executive Branch. But that would entail the creation of a major new wing of the Dept. of Justice whose responsibility would be to prosecute even the smallest cases, including instances that have typically been tried in civil court up to now.
ISPs to Congress: Let us regulate our own privacy practices
Broadband service providers are perfectly capable of setting up appropriate safeguards for users who may be targeted by behavioral ad platforms, said ISPs' executives this morning. It's the content providers we should be worried about.
It was an eerie setting on Capitol Hill this morning, as representatives from three of the nation's largest broadband ISPs -- Verizon, Time Warner, and AT&T (Comcast was conspicuously absent) -- plus the founder of Public Knowledge, noticed the hearing taking place in front of them very nearly suggested the absence of a quorum. Not that the subject of ad targeting methodologies for broadband users wasn't important. But with the Senate Commerce Committee's own chairman absent from this morning's hearing, and with only three senators present at any one time -- the bare minimum -- you definitely got the feeling something bigger was going on next door.
Roku set-top box to become an open platform
Earlier this summer, Roku, the company responsible for the hit $99 Netflix streaming set top box, said the device would soon support major content providers other than Netflix. With the release of an SDK, that finally looks viable.
Roku CEO and Founder Anthony Wood, formerly of ReplayTV, gave a keynote speech yesterday morning at the Streaming Media West conference in San Jose, entitled "The Future of Internet TV: Primetime Anytime." There, Wood proclaimed that the DVR (which his former company claims responsibility for inventing), is in its death throes, because "Streaming from the Internet to the TV is a much better solution."
Rage over 'Spore' DRM turns into class action suit
EA has been sued in the Northern District of California over DRM software placed in its evolution simulator game Spore developed by Will Wright and Maxis.
Though the game itself is regarded very highly, any praise it has received has been greatly overshadowed by the public's vexation at the SecuROM copy protection that caps installations at three. In the midst of public complaints, EA later increased the install limit to five.
MySpace Music snags EMI, launches today
Just as before, the site offers unlimited free streaming of content posted to an artist's profile. But now its system for playlist creation and purchase has improved, especially now that the fourth and final big label is secured.
Social Network MySpace has officially launched its music-dedicated portal after securing EMI as its final partner among the Big Four major labels.
Kneecapped malware host tries to rise again
InterCage (a.k.a., Atrivo), the network provider notoriously fingered as a major purveyor of malware, found its way back online after a days-long shutdown cheered by anti-malware and anti-spam activists.
Could pulling just one firm offline make a noticeable dent in the malware trafficking problem? That may depend on whether Sunday's move by former upstream provider Pacific Internet Exchange (PIE) to cut InterCage's connection makes an impression on owner Emil Kacperski.
Judge sets aside RIAA win in Jammie Thomas case
The Minnesota woman who lost the only RIAA copyright-infringement case to go to trial thus far had her verdict set aside Wednesday by the judge who originally oversaw the case.
District Court judge Michael Davis took the remarkable step of vacating the verdict reached on Capitol v. Thomas in his very own courtroom. The judge's 44-page decision is based on his conclusion that he did give the jury improper instruction as to whether the law disallows making files available for distribution, as Ms. Thomas allegedly did when she saved songs in a folder that was visible to peer-to-peer networks.
Congress may see the glass half-empty on DTV transition
Suppose only a small percentage of the American population finds themselves without television service come next February, and either don't know why or aren't sure what to do. Are federal, state, and local governments ready for them?
After a pair of congressional hearings in recent days where witnesses gave generally favorable reports on the status of the nation's transition to digital television -- still slated for next February 17 -- leaders there are still putting out the word that a crisis of misinformation may not be avoided in time.
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