Streaming

The season finale of Game of Thrones managed to break piracy records once again, despite HBO clamping down on pirates in Canada and the UK.

An estimated 1.5 million downloads of the tenth episode happened during the first eight hours, with a further five million since. It is expected to rise to over 10 million by the end of the week, as latecomers catch up.

Netflix has been busy with content, although the video service has somewhat been neglecting the website it maintains. But that's all changing now as the company unveils a complete revamping which it hopes customers will find much more useful.

This update promises a better user experience that "has been built from the ground up to make it faster and easier to discover something".

Seven days ago, CEO of the most valuable, publicly-traded technology company on the planet unveiled a potentially category-changing online streaming service. In 15 more, you will be able to subscribe -- three months for free. Pundits wave the Spotify flag and spit out diatribes of disgust, much as they did when Apple launched iPhone eight years ago or iPad in 2010. Wrong again is their destiny. Will they ever learn?

Many of the doomsayers forget, or maybe just ignore, the fruit-logo company's success disrupting category after category. They also start out from a misguided premise: That Apple is a latecomer who cannot catch up with competitors like Spotify. How ridiculous. iTunes debuted in January 2001, iPod nine months later, and iTunes Music Store in April 2003. By longevity and reach, which includes exclusives (like The Beatles) and large catalog, Apple is the status quo. On June 30, the giant awakes, and the smidgens shake as it walks.

Playing video games is a very fun hobby. Hell, for some people, playing them is a job; yes, professional competitive gaming is a real thing. You know what else is cool? Watching other people play. While it was an absurd notion years ago, nowadays, people enjoy being spectators to another person's gameplay. I watch Pewdiepie, like, every day.

The most famous platform for streaming gameplay is Twitch, which is why Amazon bought the service for a ton of cheddar. Not to be outdone, however, Google today announces its own streaming service for gamers -- the unimaginatively named YouTube Gaming. While I do not expect a mass exodus from Twitch, Amazon's service will certainly lose some of its luster as a result. Interestingly, it will be run by former pro-gamer, Ryan Wyatt -- aka Fwiz -- most widely known as the former love interest of Justine Ezarik -- aka iJustine.

Video streaming service Netflix has announced another price increase to its monthly subscription, now costing £7.49 per month to watch House of Cards, Better Call Saul and other favorites in the UK.

The price increase is the second in the company’s history. It bumped the price up from the original £5.99 to £6.99 two years ago, following an expansion in Netflix Originals.

As with all things Apple, there’s been a lot of talk about its new music streaming service, ingeniously named Apple Music.

After it got officially unveiled and showcased during this year’s annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), the initial amazement was quickly replaced by a profound feeling of meh. Onstage the company said it would transform the listening experience for fans, and the creative act for artists, but once the hype died down it became obvious -- it’s not really offering features you can’t find elsewhere in the market. And then it hits you -- the price!

You might assume that Netflix, the world’s most popular video streaming service, would put out a fierce condemnation of online piracy, but CEO Reed Hastings is taking a much more accepting stance.

Speaking ahead of his company’s launch in Spain in October, Hastings indicated that piracy creates a market receptive to watching content online -- a necessity for his businesses to succeed.

It was not the industry's best-kept secret -- Sony let the cat out of the bag a little early -- but at WWDC today, Tim Cook officially took the wraps off Apple Music. Set to compete with the likes of Tidal and Spotify, Apple's new streaming music service sits neatly alongside iTunes and has the involvement of Dr Dre, Trent Reznor, and Jimmy Iovine to name but three.

Cook stepped into Steve Jobs' shoes for a moment, introducing the famous "one more thing" that has been missing from more recent Apple events. Not a company to hide its light under a bushel, Apple's Music service is not just a music streaming service, but "the next chapter in music". But there's more than just Apple Music; there's also Beats One, Apple's first ever radio station.

On June 3rd, music streaming service Tidal updated its Android app, which in my extensive testing over the weekend resolves a catastrophic bug that skips songs. The previous version jumped tracks before they finished playing on my Nexus 6 or 9. Last week, the lossless listening provider acknowledged the problem. The fix is in, and I am satisfied.

Tidal delivers HiFi streaming—1411kbps Free Lossless Audio Codec—at the premium price of $19.99 per month. For a music streamer charging more, about double other paid service competitors, the glitch was inexcusable. I first reported the erratic behavior nearly a month ago.

If Apple's streaming music service launches tomorrow at WWDC and is branded with the company's name/logo, look for broad naming changes ahead. My guess, and it's only that: the lower-case letter before products like iMac or iPhone will disappear; over time. Under CEO Tim Cook, the branding strategy differs from Steve Jobs. That's sensible considering where the company is today compared to 1998 when the cofounder introduced iMac.

Apple Watch foreshadows the new nomenclature. Contrary to months of iWatch rumors before launch, the device is identified by sound as Apple Watch, but what you see is the company's logo, which is one of the most recognizable brand icons ever created. If Apple Music turns out to be more than just streaming, but the replacement for or displacement of iTunes, consider that as sign of future naming conventions to come. If I am mistaken -- well, Apple should do what I predict.

It has been rumored for as long as we can remember (well... almost...). The idea that Apple would launch a streaming music services -- bearing in mind everything else Apple does -- is something that just makes sense. Now the cat is out of the bag as the rumor is confirmed by Doug Morris, CEO of Sony Music.

The official announcement will come from Apple at its World Wide Developers Conference tomorrow (Monday 8 June), but Morris' statement in an interview in the Midem Music Industry Festival in Cannes is a solid source. He said that the launch will represent a "tipping point" for the industry as music listeners make the move from downloading tracks to streaming them on demand. Just don't expect Apple service to be free.

Last year Amazon rolled out its competitor in the set-top box market, the Fire TV. The box seemed to be a hit, and the price point was right to compete, at $99. That places it squarely in the crosshairs of Roku and Apple. But how is it fairing in this tight market?

According to a recent report the answer is "quite well". According to Strategy Analytics, the retail giant is pulling in a whopping 30 percent of the current streaming media device market. In fact, the top four makers account for 90 percent of the total market.

Football season is coming, despite that it isn't even officially summer yet. The draft is behind us and OTAs are underway. Training camp is just around the corner in July. But one thing has lacked with the National Football League, and that's live streaming games. Thanks to a deal with DirecTV, the league has been locked up while other sports like MLB have thrived in this market. Things are changing though, but the wheels turn slowly.

The NFL has inked a deal with Yahoo -- yes, the also-ran search competitor -- to live stream a game for free, It's a start and we'll see where things go from here. In the meantime write down the date October 25th. That's the day the Buffalo Bills take on the Jacksonville Jaguars. Sound like a boring game? It isn't, because it will test this new plan.

My third month as a Tidal subscriber started today, but nearly not at all. Last week I prepared to cancel the pricey, streaming service after encountering a disastrous functional flaw listening on either Nexus 6 or 9. Songs skip to the next track part way through playing, which is unacceptable behavior—made more so because of expectations that higher audio fidelity and loftier monthly subscription fee set.

I would have stopped subscribing yesterday, at the billing cycle's end, if not for Tidal offering a free month of service. Whether or not our paying relationship continues depends much on the music streamer resolving an app problem. "There is a bug with Nexus and Sony phones with Android 5 unfortunately", according to a tech support specialist, "We are working on fixing this. Mostly after 26 megabytes have been streamed, it skips. So for now we do not have a solution yet",

The EFF (Electronic Freedom Foundation) has involved itself in lots of online battles -- including the fightback against NSA surveillance, and the drive for net neutrality. The latest fight sees the organization joining forces with web performance and security firm CloudFlare in tackling the site blocking activities of the record industry.

The digital rights group is battling record labels which it says are forcing web firms into becoming the "copyright police". The move was prompted by the closure of Grooveshark, a music website run by one of CloudFlare's clients. It re-opens the question of who is ultimately responsible for the content that appears on sites -- those posting it, those hosting it, or any other company involved in the delivery?