Watch TV in the UK -- be it through an aerial, cable, or satellite -- and you have to pay for a TV license. The official line is that you need a TV license "if you watch or record programmes as they're being shown on TV or live on an online TV service" and this has long-meant that anyone time-shifting their viewing by watching shows on BBC iPlayer have been able to do so for free. This is set to change.

Having waxed lyrical about the threat of adblockers to the web, UK culture secretary John Whittingdale turned his attention to the BBC's streaming services. He plans to close a loophole that has permitted people without a TV license to watch non-live shows on iPlayer without paying a fee and -- more importantly -- without breaking the law. He says that this is 'wrong' and wants to bring the 'free ride' to an end.

The History channel is one of those networks that many people either love or hate. While it provides good incite into many things, it can also go a bit off the rails at times. On the whole though, it's a solid viewing choice much of the time.

History Vault promises to provide hundreds of hours of "curated" content to viewers and to do so commercial-free. Content is divided up by categories including world leaders, inside the presidency, ancient discoveries and more.

Training for that big marathon? You have a lot of work to do and plenty of long training runs in your future, but it can be done, it just takes some ambition and fortitude. But those long training runs? It's good to have some company to keep you going. Since a partner isn't always possible, music can be your next best option.

In running, the Runkeeper app comes in handy for tracking your workout and music can be supplied from a good streaming service such as Spotify. Now the two are teaming up to keep you moving out there.

Swedish music streaming service Spotify has decided to transport its entire product onto Google’s cloud. The news was confirmed on the Spotify blog.

In the blog post, written by the company's vice-president of engineering and infrastructure, Nicholas Harteau, it was explained how Spotify decided for the move as it could no longer scale fast enough to meet the demand.

You could always watch Hulu on your PC or Mac, or for that matter, on multiple other mobile devices. Now the streaming service wants to integrate much deeper, using Windows 10 as its launchpad.

This doesn't mean it will cease to be accessible in all of the previous ways, it just adds one more option for customers of the service.

When Sling TV launched it already had a number of deals with major networks such as ESPN and CNN, bringing real-time TV viewing over an internet connection, and doing so for a reasonable price, especially compared to cable and satellite providers. There were also a number of add-on packages for such things as extra sports and news channels.

Last year, just in time for Game of Thrones, the service landed HBO, and now it has another prize in its lineup, one that may attract even more customers.

Picking a streaming music service can be difficult as they are all largely the same -- listen to all you want for a small monthly fee. While Spotify is my current favorite service, Apple Music has been piquing my interest more and more. The problem? Lack of a web player makes Apple's offering unusable on Linux-based desktop operating systems, while iTunes on Windows and OS X is painfully slow and bloated. On iOS it is a dream, but Tim Cook and company have a lot of work to do elsewhere.

Today, however, Apple scores a major win with official Sonos support -- it is finally out of Beta. If you have invested in a Sonos wireless speaker system, starting tomorrow, you can begin using the Apple Music service with it in many ways.

We're now counting down the hours to the kickoff of Super Bowl 50, which begins at 6:30PM EST when the Denver Broncos meet with the Carolina Panthers in Santa Clara, California. The fact that the big game is carried by network TV was a problem a few years ago for anyone who had cut the cord, but those days are changing and doing so quickly.

These days you have options that weren't available in those earlier times. In fact, it's not even just the game, but the halftime show and even the commercials, which sometimes become the real star of the game.

Legalities aside, there is one problem with content made available through the likes of the Pirate Bay. Whether you use traditional torrents or magnet links, you'll (usually) need to wait for a download to complete before you can enjoy the movie, show, or album of your choice. But not anymore.

A new beta feature for the world-famous torrent site makes it possible to stream videos without the need to download them first. By integrating the Torrents-Time plugin, the Pirate Bay now includes a Stream It option for all video torrents.

Sunday is it. The big day will be here as the Denver Broncos take on the Carolina Panthers. Peyton Manning squares off against the up and coming Cam Newton in a showdown for the coveted Lombardi Trophy, first hoisted into the air by the Green Bay Packers back in 1967, three years before the legendary namesake passed away.

Fast-forward 40-plus years and we've arrived at that day again, though this time the game will be held in a more temperate climate, as that is now the way the league wants it to be. No more frozen tundra, but weather more suitable to fans and media.

In the time since Amazon launched its Fire TV and Echo devices the two have continued to receive updates steadily. Both are popular products with a growing following of customers and remain near the top of Amazon sales rankings.

Now the Fire TV has graduated to generation two, and with that update came integration with Amazon Echo. The company, at the time, promised to bring this functionality to the first generation version of the set-top box and now it is doing just that.

Roku is always adding new channels, the store is jam-packed now. You can even watch the upcoming Super Bowl using the new CBS Sports app the device recently added. All of these options leave it more difficult for users to find the content they want.

Now the set-top box maker is trying to fix that problem, at least to some degree. To ease the pain Roku is expanding its search capability to encompass more channels.

Streaming services come and go, and some remain popular or even grow over time. Giving the users the ability to create and manage stations is a great idea, allowing anyone to become the radio DJ, perhaps a fantasy of many people, is an even bigger ambition.

The greatest option for this has been Live365, a service started back in 1999, in the early days of streaming. It brought the world of online radio to the masses and made it easy to create your own station.

Just last week Netflix announced plans to clamp down on VPNs and proxy tools. In what appears to be a move to please license holders the company has already started to impose new restrictions.

Some Netflix customers in Autralia who are using the uFlix VPN have noticed that their access to Netflix has been denied. Attempting to access Netflix using the tool results in an error message being displayed: "You seem to be using an unblocker or proxy. Please turn off any of these services and try again". But this is not the end of the story.

iHeartRadio, a leading provider of streaming music, has numerous stations customers can listen to either on the web or through mobile apps. It's a popular service in a crowded streaming market. In fact, it even sponsors a major music festival each year in Las Vegas, the most recent taking place back in September.

What sort of follower-base does putting on a show with big name artists take? Obviously there's a lot behind it, aside from followers -- contracts with artists and radio stations, for example.