If you haven't been following the news today, Lenovo is currently holding its Tech World show. We have seen new laptops in various price ranges. But a hot item these days for the home theater is sticks, as opposed to set-top boxes. We've seen them from Google, Roku and Amazon, but all three had some experience in the market. Now Lenovo is jumping in feet first with its own offering.

The Chinese hardware maker has announced Lenovo Cast to allow customers to share the videos from their phones and tablets, but do so on the big screen -- obviously more comfortable than having folks gather round that hand-held device.

Roku, the small set-top box, has become wildly popular in recent times. It is also constantly adding new content via "channels" and trying to improve the hardware offerings as well. Now folks in the UK will get the latest improvements.

Roku Search is, perhaps, the biggest part of the announcement, as it allows customers to more easily locate the content they wish to watch. For the moment it only covers a few key channels -- Netflix, Snagfilms and Popcornflix -- but Roku plans to add many more channels in the future.

For many folks, music gets them through the day, or even life. There's also no shortage of services out there looking to get users to choose them. While some are lesser known, Spotify certainly isn't, as it's an industry leader that boasts 25 billion listening hours since it launched.

Now the streaming company is making some improvements that should satisfy customers even more. Users of the mobile app can expect what Spotify terms a "richer experience" for the Now app.

When it comes to coffee, I am pretty open-minded, brewing many different brands with my Keurig. Hell, the use of that single-cup brewer is sacrilege to many aficionados, but I enjoy it. Away from home, however, I drink Dunkin' Donuts, 7 Eleven and, of course, Starbucks. While the Seattle-based Starbucks is not my favorite coffee, I go there more often than the other two. Why? The ambiance. I enjoy being in the coffee shop, as it is trendy and they play interesting music. Oh, and free Wi-Fi!

Apparently, I am not alone in enjoying the music that is played in Starbucks, as the company is joining forces with my favorite streaming music service, Spotify. While this partnership seems odd on the surface, it actually makes a lot of sense.

Video games and set-top boxes. They don't seem to go together, but these days they do. You can play games on many of them, though they won't be confused with an Xbox One or PS4. But today video games aren't just about playing, it's become a spectator sport as well. Much of that is due to the Twitch service which allows people to post videos and watch others.

Now the Twitch channel has arrived on Roku, one of the most popular set-top boxes on the market. The manufacturer is adding the channel now, allowing customers to begin streaming the videos that seem so popular in today's culture.

Online video services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are undeniably popular, but they are set to explode in the next few years. A study published by Juniper Research suggests that in a period of just five years (2014-2019) the number of people subscribing to streaming video services will rocket from 92.1 million to 332.2 million.

Despite what many people may have thought, it is not growing use of mobile devices for entertainment that will be responsible for the increase. The nearly fourfold growth will be driven by the success of the likes of Google's Chromecast and Amazon's Fire TV Stick.

On May 1st, Tidal billed my credit card for the first month of music streaming. Yesterday, my subscription to Google Music ended. I should be satisfied with the switch, given how much more I enjoy 1411kbps lossless listening over the more typical 320kbps compressed streaming music. But recent, recurring service problems put my customer continuation into question.

Quality of content, or available selection of it, isn't the problem. I find plenty of music to enjoy, and the default playlists are smartly curated. The high-fidelity is just that. But slow starts, drop-offs, and song skips disrupt the listening experience -- and for a service costing twice as much as major competitors, like Beats, Rdio, or Spotify, I expect more but get less. There is no customer support option that I can find, either.

Music options abound these days, some more affordable than others. It's become genuinely hard to choose a streaming service that fits your needs and budget. While there aren't any new options on the market, one may have just become much more appealing, as Rdio makes a major annoucement about services and pricing.

This latest move adds a combination of both radio and streaming music of the user's choice and does so with one reasonably priced plan.

Netflix might be looking to revive Top Gear, following Jeremy Clarkson’s BBC outing after punching a producer in the face over a cold steak.

That is not the weirdest part of the rumor, it is what Netflix is planning to rename Top Gear, since it cannot use the BBC’s brand. The Mirror is reporting that Netflix plans to name the show House of Cars, and it will feature a similar format to Top Gear.

The BBC has announced that access to its iPlayer service from outside of the UK is to end from 26 May. Originally only made available to those living in the UK, the international version of iPlayer provided access to a selection of its content for a monthly subscription.

Those with a subscription have a month to access the content they have paid for, so the final date that iPlayer can be used will actually be 26 June. The timing of the BBC's announcement is interesting, coming just a week after the European Commission revealed plans to break down the barriers of geo-blocking.

While the internet is supposed to be an open-access resource, there is a great deal of content which can only be accessed in certain parts of the world. To comply with licensing rules, broadcasters in particular will often restrict access to their services to specific countries, but in Europe there are plans to bring such geo-blocking to an end.

Described as "a discriminatory practice used for commercial reasons" geo-blocking is derided by the European Commission as little more than a money-making venture. The aim is to create what has been dubbed a Digital Single Market, breaking down barriers and simplifying regulation.

Sony is bringing its PlayStation Now game streaming feature to PS3 users. It's something that has been available to gamers with a PlayStation 4 since the beginning of the year, but from May 12, it's something that owners of older consoles will be able to take advantage of.

PlayStation Now allows for the streaming of more than 100 PS3 games, and a 7-day free trial is available for anyone who wants to test the waters. With cloud-based game saves it's possible to start a game on one device, and finish it on another, and Sony says there's more to come.

The last few weeks have seen two new live video- streaming apps break into the market in a big way. Meerkat hit first and garnered plenty of attention, but was quickly usurped by the introduction of Periscope, which Twitter purchased earlier this year.

Despite Meerkat’s early lead, Twitter has been throwing its weight around to keep Periscope on top, including disabling some of Meerkat’s Twitter integration features. Still, the race between the two remains neck and neck, with celebrities like Aaron Paul, Ashton Kutcher, and Madonna taking sides. But what are the real differences between the two apps? I’ve been using them both for about a week now, taking a close look at the functionality as a watcher and as a streamer and here’s what I have discovered.

Nielsen, the leader in TV ratings, has to move into the new era, which means TV streaming. Now the company is moving in that direction, partnering with Roku, the top set-top box maker on the market, in order to gather this data.

But how do you rate this new dimension in TV? Well Nielsen thinks it can and it's partnered with Roku to give it a try. The two are announcing a new deal beginning now and it aims to make the world of internet-based TV a ratable one.

It's a great time of the year for sports fans, with hockey in the playoffs, the upcoming NFL draft, the Triple crown and baseball season well underway. Now Roku is bringing all of this to your TV via both its set-top boxes and Roku TVs. It arrives just in time for all of the action.

The NBC Live Extra Service promises over 3,000 events per year, including some exclusive coverage. That traverses an awful lot of ground.