MTV unveiled its social TV app called “Under The Thumb” for Europe — with no immediate plans for U.S. expansion — that “will let users watch MTV content on mobile devices, share it on the go with others, and then watch those on-demand programs simultaneously with those friends,” TechCrunch reports.
MTV is working to make the mobile and computer experience seamless as well as integrating Facebook.
“The main part of the service ‘Tiny Thumb’ which offers celebrity news and MTV highlights, as a limited selection of episodes to watch, will be free to use. ‘Super Thumb’ unlocks further shows, seasons and content to subscribers on a monthly basis for €2.99, and those who pay up €29.99 annually will have access to everything — that content is only available to those users who take contracts with MTV Mobile, the company’s mobile service,” TechCrunch writes.
Despite no announcement regarding a U.S. launch: “But of course the U.S. is aware and is following what we are doing. All the content is cleared and we have buy-in from at the Viacom level but no short term plans to launch it there,” said Michel Dupont, SVP of MTV in Europe.
According to inside sources, Apple will announce its Apple TV with the new iPad next week at the company’s scheduled event in San Francisco.
“We initially reported that Apple would be releasing two major new products in early March, and then believed the product would be a new Apple TV due to mounting code-based evidence for such a product with simultaneous supply constraints,” comments 9to5 Mac. “Now, sources have outright said Apple is launching this J33 (the new Apple TV’s codename) alongside the new iPad.”
“The new Apple TV is rumored to include a faster processor, possibly a variation of the dual-core A5 chip,” adds the post. “The dual-core A5 chip has been said to be required for the Apple TV to finally stream 1080p quality video, but Apple is also working on an ‘A5X’ chip that is dual-core, which also includes an improved graphics engine. Those two components of the chip would likely deliver the smooth video playback that Apple would include in such a product.”
It is rumored the Apple TV will also include Bluetooth 4.0 remote control, Siri support and host a new 1080P movie service from the iTunes Store.
Additionally, Apple will be revealing three new iPad variants, not one (if the sources are correct).
HBO Co-President Eric Kessler reports that 75 percent of all viewing on HBO GO is dedicated to original programming with movies only accounting for 20 percent, and sports programming taking up the last 5 percent.
This announcement aligns with a trend that rival Netflix has been seeing where the majority of the viewing on its streaming service involves TV content, not movies.
Of the movies viewers watch on HBO GO, 80 percent were new releases. Here, HBO has the advantage over Netlfix, which has a very limited selection of new films.
“Netflix still has a large lead in the device world, however, which is something that HBO is trying to change,” GigaOM reports. “HBO GO recently became available on Roku streaming players and Samsung TVs, and Kessler announced that the service would launch on the Xbox 360 on April 1 — which coincides with the season opener of HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones.'”
A press invitation from Apple announces an iPad-related event in San Francisco on March 7. In true Apple fashion, the invite doesn’t explicitly state the reveal of an iPad 3 but shows an iPad with the words, “we have something you really have to see. And touch.”
“Apple has not officially confirmed any details about its next iPad. However, people familiar with the product have said that the third-generation iPad would include an improved display and a faster processor, and essentially be the same shape and size as the iPad 2,” reports The New York Times.
Other sources report that the new iPad will be compatible with the 4G LTE networks of AT&T and Verizon.
In an earnings call, CEO Tim Cook says he expect the tablet market to eclipse the PC market, saying “we’re going to continue to innovate like crazy in this area, and continue to compete with anyone that is currently shipping tablets, or that might enter in the future.”
The loss of its Starz contract may not actually hurt Netflix as much as originally thought. Now, more that half of all Netflix viewing is dedicated to TV, not films, presenting an opportunity for the company to compensate for the loss of movies.
“Analysts say the prioritizing of television partly explains why the company has been able to retain about 21.7 million streaming subscribers in the United States — totaling one in four households that have broadband — despite complaints about an inadequate feature film selection. It’s a transition that Netflix has made rather successfully in the last six to 12 months,” reports The New York Times.
The new-release movies from Starz only account for 2 percent of all Netflix viewing, a fairly big drop from 8 percent a year ago.
Even so, people remain critical of Netflix’s selection of films available to stream. An analyst firm Piper Jaffray reported only four of the 2011 top-50 grossing films were available on the site, and one of them — “Gnomeo and Juliet” — will be removed Wednesday.
Netflix continues to offer popular newer films through its DVD service but is placing more focus on TV with original content and expanding with older, cheaper TV content offerings.
“Are the carriers throttling because of wild and crazy unlimited users hogging enormous bandwidth, or are the carriers throttling as essentially a tactic to get grandfathered unlimited users to hurry up and switch to tiered data plans?” asks monitoring firm Validas in a report concerning data throttling.
“The company analyzed data from more than 55,000 cell phone bills, and concluded that customers on unlimited plans aren’t actually using any more data than everybody else,” reports TG Daily.
“When we look at the top five percent of data users, there is virtually no difference in data consumption between those on unlimited and those on tiered plans — and yet the unlimited consumers are the ones at risk of getting their service turned off,” says Validas.
AT&T is starting to limit speeds for users in the top five percent of data usage, but according to the report, throttling doesn’t significantly help network bandwidth issues.
Nokia plans to incorporate a 41-megapixel sensor into its smartphone to enable digital zooming.
The sensor allows 3-4X digital zooming of both still photos and video while maintaining image sharpness.
Nokia’s research team worked with a number of optical zooms and experimented with different sensors, which led to a revelation. “If a big enough sensor could be fitted into the phone, the camera could just zoom digitally and throw away the unneeded pixels,” reports AllThingsD, regarding the team’s approach.
“Nokia has done it with the 808 PureView — or Hyperion, as it was code-named during development.”
At full resolution, the smartphone’s camera reportedly rivals professional cameras. Unfortunately, the technology will first appear on Nokia’s Symbian phone which is not sold in the U.S.
Wal-Mart plans to help customers set up their UltraViolet accounts and register the DVDs they own for a small fee.
UltraViolet, which has been available for a year, currently has some one million users.
“The industry’s hope is that, with UltraViolet, it can encourage consumers to pay for content they might be tempted to download illegally from the Web,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
The service has been slow to get off the ground due to service glitches, a limited catalog of titles, the need for multiple accounts, and the lack of Disney titles and iTunes compatibility, indicates the article.
“The potential Wal-Mart deal is part of a broader effort by the industry to hold on to revenue it is losing to both illegal and legitimate competition, such as some online storage lockers that play fast and loose with copyright law,” adds WSJ. “At the same time, technology companies, including Google Inc. and Apple Inc., have moved into the market for streaming entertainment with their popular YouTube and iTunes services, taking a cut of the revenue from each movie or TV show streamed.”
Unlike movies, music, books, pictures and written materials — which are protected by copyrights — physical objects must be protected by patents.
As the patent process is difficult, complex and costly, many objects are not covered by patents. And those which are covered only get protection for 20 years.
3D printers will lead us to re-think the need to get permission to copy, improve or build with physical objects. Moreover, it may get us to reconsider how intellectual property rights in general should function in the digital world.
“It is impossible to predict all of the ways that widespread access to 3D printing could change our society,” comments Slate. “However, before it revolutionizes manufacturing, design, or anything else, 3D printing may first help us regain a much-needed perspective on the role intellectual property should have in the world.”
Dropbox released their Android app that enables users to wirelessly upload pictures to the cloud from their smartphones. CEO Drew Houston said he hopes third-party developers will expand upon the app to include photo editing or manipulation features.
Users get 500 megabytes of storage following their first upload and are allowed up to 3GB of free space. An iOS version will be released soon, according to Dropbox.
The company faces fierce competition in the cloud from Microsoft, Apple’s iCloud and Google’s Drive.
James Staten, an analyst at Forrester Research said the new app is intended to “secure and solidify their position as the best file-sharing service and trying not to go beyond that, which I think is a smart move.”
Apple just acquired Chomp, an app search and discovery platform. The company plans to streamline the discovery process of the App Store’s 500,000 apps (and counting).
“This is not a cheap ‘acqui-hire,’ Apple has bought the Chomp team and technology and plans to use both to completely revamp App Store search and recommendations,” TechCrunch reports. “And they clearly have the money to do it: Apple has nearly $100 billion in cash (and cash equivalents) in the bank now coming off their monster quarter.”
In two rounds of funding, Chomp had raised just over $2.5 million. The company of 20 or so employees powers all Verizon’s Android-based app searches, a deal that should stay intact, at least for the time being.
“My understanding is that such deals will remain intact for now but are likely to end once the Chomp team and product fully transitions over to Apple,” comments MG Siegler for TechCrunch. “The same is likely true for Chomp’s stand-alone products.”
Adobe has introduced Project Primetime, which it claims is “the industry’s first fully integrated video technology platform.”
Primetime includes streaming, content protection, analytics and advertising using a single workflow to Apple iOS, Google Android, desktop operating systems and connected TVs.
“The first portion of Adobe’s project, ‘Primetime Highlights,’ is available today for the iPad and showcases a video editor alongside the Auditude ad platform,” reports Engadget. Adobe will have additional platforms coming later in 2012.
Although DISH Network still believes the Blockbuster name carries weight, it will close 500 stores by the end of this quarter, a third of its remaining 1,500 locations.
The company hopes to eventually reach a stable store count “that would allow it to use the brick-and-mortar locations to better bolster its mainstay satellite business,” reports The Verge.
Over the past three quarters, the Blockbuster division broke even and DISH has created a Blockbuster @Home on-demand service. DISH saw a 13 percent increase from a year ago and gained 22,000 new customers, boosting it to the 14 million subscriber mark.
In a related story, the Wall Street Journal reports that in order to appeal to customers’ desire for bundled services, DISH Chairman Charlie Ergen says the company needs to offer mobile wireless with its video service to compete with cable operators and phone companies.
According to Ergen, “in the face of a saturated pay-TV market, DISH needs to sell packages of services with more value so it can compete better with pay-TV providers,” WSJ reports.
He believes the company has an 80 percent chance of succeeding as a wireless provider. The FCC has not yet approved DISH’s use of satellite spectrum for building its wireless network.
RIM is working with developers to boost its third-party applications to rival those of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. However, Netflix is not signing on, explaining on Twitter: “We don’t have any current plans to support BlackBerry devices, including PlayBook.”
“Netflix has long been available for Apple’s iPhone and iPad and devices running Google’s Android software,” reports Reuters.
According to the post, it is not clear at this time whether Netflix would “port its existing Android app across rather than create a specific app for PlayBook.”
RIM recently upgraded software for the PlayBook to allow developers to easily translate their Android apps over to the PlayBook. “The upgrade also enables a BlackBerry smartphone to remotely control the tablet, which connects to a television via a standard cable,” adds Reuters.
Pew Research released a report showing social media users are editing their pages more often and upping privacy settings “as they seek to protect their reputations in the age of digital sharing,” Reuters reports.
According to the study, 63 percent of users deleted “friends” (up from 56 percent in 2009), 44 percent said they’d deleted comments on their profiles (up from 36 percent), and 37 percent removed their names from tagged photos (up from 30 percent).
In terms of privacy, 58 percent of those surveyed set their profiles to private for only friends to see, 19 percent allowed friends of friends to view, and only 20 percent of the users kept their profiles entirely public.
“Over time, as social networking sites have become a mainstream communications channel in everyday life, profile owners have become more active managers of their profiles and the content that is posted by others in their networks,” the report states.