Cable subscriptions average $60-$80 a month compared with streaming services that typically cost around $10 a month. ITworld writer Brian Proffitt walks his readers through the steps to determine if cord cutting is right for them, acknowledging that streaming services are, in fact, not for everyone.
First, he recommends that viewers identify their habits — for example, what they watch most (movies, sports or primetime television). According to the post, most online services now have good movie offerings, so movie-watchers should be able to make an easy switch.
Services like Hulu Plus offer a great selection of television. For frequent TV viewers, Proffitt suggests first listing the shows that are watched (even guilty pleasures) and identifying what streaming sites provide them in a timely fashion.
For sports fans, cutting cords can be much more difficult. Many sports have subscription-based seasonal passes, but they are likely subject to blackout rules.
Once a viewer has a good idea of what content is most frequently watched and which services offer them quickly (very important — some TV shows are delayed months on some streaming services), Proffitt recommends a good connection to the Internet without severe data limits. If you are always going over your data allotments, you may find the money you save by cutting cable subscriptions is quickly redirected.
Additional considerations include the cost of the Internet TV device (for example: Boxee, Apple TV or Roku), ensuring high definition and quality sound, and the ability to play other content like home movies on the TV.
Top broadcasters including NBC and Fox are jumping into the wireless world with the soon-expected launch of Dyle.
“Dyle is a service run by Mobile Content Venture, a consortium of broadcasters that are building a network to deliver local and live TV channels to mobile devices,” explains CNET.
Mobile Content Venture (MCV) has agreements with various companies including ABC, CBS, Samsung, LG, Belkin and others.
Using the app on a new phone or in conjunction with a dongle for tablets, users can tune in to live sports, breaking news and other live programming over broadcasting airwaves without overtaxing the cellular network.
“The wireless industry, MCV argues, can benefit from a second network that runs parallel to the cellular one,” notes the article. “Consumers who watch television through Dyle don’t consume data from their plans, an increasingly big concern with more restrictions on data use. In its own way, MCV believes it can alleviate the growing traffic congestion on the mobile highways.”
While CNET writer Roger Cheng expresses skepticism about demand — “history has shown that consumers haven’t exactly clamored for live TV on their mobile devices” — a new study from Research Now (commissioned by Dyle) may suggest otherwise.
“The 510-person survey found that 61 percent of consumers would be somewhat or very likely to switch cell phone providers to get access to mobile TV. Even more — 68 percent — said they would watch more live TV if it were available on their mobile device. The study found that consumers wanted to get their local news and weather from mobile TV even if the content is readily available online,” reports CNET.
The project does, however, face a dilemma: without critical mass, big manufacturers and mobile carriers won’t join up, but Dyle may struggle to gain traction without their support.
In response to NBC’s inability to provide live Olympics coverage online for non-cable subscribers, some U.S. viewers have taken up VPN services to access BBC footage with a UK IP address.
StrongVPN.com is one such VPN service provider that has had a jump in UK VPN sales recently, according to its president, Phil Blancett. He, however, holds no responsibility for what users do with their edited IP addresses.
“It’s not the responsibility of the VPN provider how people use our connections,” says Blancett. “We provide a VPN account and a secure connection, not what happens on those connections.”
“He compares the role of a VPN provider to that of an ISP, which should not be monitoring how you are using your Internet connection,” TechCrunch reports. “Another issue [is] that these companies are making money elsewhere and have other concerns with getting their Olympics coverage right.”
“I really don’t think the BBC or NBC really care,” Blancett says. “They’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
These VPN services are frequently used in countries like China that “geo-block a number of sites like Facebook and Twitter for political reasons,” the article explains.
“But as the amount of content — and specifically video content — has continued to grow online, so has the desire among consumers to get it where they want it, and when they want it,” concludes TechCrunch. “And just as torrent sites arose out of a time when getting content elsewhere simply wasn’t there, so has the market for VPNs and what they are getting used for, too.”
Tapping into coverage of the London Olympics could be a good way to spark 3D adoption. This year, NBC and Panasonic have devoted 30 ENG cameras, 20 rigs and three Olympic Broadcasting Services trucks to cover the games in a whole new way.
“NBC is working with Panasonic, the official sponsor of the 2012 Games, to pump more than 300 hours of 3D coverage into homes and bars worldwide,” Mashable reports. “According to the companies, about 80 percent of U.S. households have access to the programming — you just need a 3D-enabled TV to watch it.”
After tests during the Beijing and Vancouver Olympics, the project is now going full force, providing 12 hours of 3D programming each day.
In general, 3D has issues gaining traction despite the 10 million 3D TVs expected to ship to the U.S. this year. Some blame the lack of 3D-worthy content; others point fingers at the resistance to wearing 3D glasses.
While glasses-free 3D TVs aren’t expected to proliferate any time soon, Panasonic Chief Technology Officer Eisuke Tsuyuzaki remains optimistic about the current technology.
“So far, the response has been great,” Tsuyuzaki told Mashable. “We know people love 3D movies and seek them out, so it’s not a surprise that viewers love this too. We just need to give them more programming events in the future, so they keep coming back to watch more in 3D.”
A new geographic region is joining the ranks of Silicon Valley and San Francisco as a hotbed for technology start-ups.
“Silicon Beach” is a 3-mile expanse running from Venice to Santa Monica. It currently serves as home to a collection of start-ups such as Viddy, JibJab, Hitfix, ShoeDazzle, BeachMint and Mogreet.
Most of the young Silicon Beach tech companies share a focus on entertainment, celebrity or mobile innovation.
“Cheaper rents than the Bay Area, better weather and proximity to the beach (most of the start-ups are within two blocks of the ocean) make Silicon Beach an attractive place to be,” reports USA Today. “More than 500 tech start-ups have sprouted in sprawling Los Angeles and its environs, according to members of the L.A. tech scene who have compiled the list online as RepresentLA.com. But most of the action is at the beach.”
“There’s been way more interest from up north about what’s happening here in the last 12 months,” says Michael Yanover, head of business development for Creative Artists Agency. “LA has been under the radar, and it’s finally elevating itself.”
Ashish Soni, a professor at USC’s School of Engineering, and executive director of its Digital Innovation lab, says that many of his graduates are opting for local start-ups rather than heading to Seattle or San Francisco.
The area has a longstanding tradition of innovative pioneers (the article cites Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Jack and Sam Warner), so there are some who question the need for a new name. “Why are we rebranding the best brand in the world?” asks JibJab CEO Gregg Spiridellis. “Los Angeles is an amazing city with such a rich heritage of pioneers using technology to create art. Why can’t we just be Los Angeles? Silicon Beach sounds too hip.”
MIT scientists have developed a new set of software algorithms, a process they refer to as “Eulerian Video Magnification,” which applies spatial decomposition and temporal filtering to deconstruct visual elements of video frames and rebuild them in order to detect hidden information.
“These aspects could include the variations in redness in a man’s face caused by his pulse,” notes Technology Review. The process “can amplify aspects of a video and reveal what is normally undetectable to human eyesight, making it possible to, for example, measure someone’s pulse by shooting a video of him and capturing the way blood is flowing across his face.”
“Just like optics has enabled [someone] to see things normally too small, computation can enable people to see things not visible to the naked eye,” says MIT computer scientist Fredo Durand, a co-author of the research paper.
The team plans to release the software code this summer, and “predicts the primary application will be for remote medical diagnostics, but it could be used to detect any small motion, so that it might let, for example, structural engineers measure the way wind makes a building sway or deform slightly,” notes the article.
The technique works for any type of video footage. However, artifacts such as graininess will also be amplified, so higher quality video will have better results.
ETCentric staffer Phil Lelyveld asks: “Could this be used for video compression algorithm testing and evaluation?”
Unofficial Disney news source StitchKingdom reports, “one of the pioneering technologies employed by The Walt Disney Company is being updated in a fascinating new way that will attempt to make audio animatronic figures rival the most advanced 3D, high definition screens.”
The Physical Face Cloning patent application “seeks to improve upon the decades-old theme park experience by using some complicated algorithms to produce the most life-like audio animatronic figures to date,” suggests the post.
Physical Face Cloning will be presented as a SIGGRAPH technical paper in August. According to the conference program, the technology is described as: “A complete process for designing, simulating, and fabricating synthetic skin for an animatronic character that mimics the face of a given subject and its expressions.”
The process uses motion capture technology to digitize faces and create life-like synthetic skins from material such as silicone rubber. Directions for attaching the skin to a framework will enable manipulation of the figure to create realistic visuals.
According to the patent abstract: “The method includes capturing a plurality of expressive poses from a human subject and generating a computational model based on one or more material parameters… The method further includes optimizing a shape geometry of the synthetic skin based on the computational model and the captured expressive poses. An optimization process is provided that varies the thickness of the synthetic skin based on a minimization of an elastic energy with respect to rest state positions of the synthetic skin.”
The important but little known Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), “is misleadingly labeled as a trade agreement, making it seem like a relatively narrow and limited agreement involving traditional topics like tariffs and exchange of goods — the sort of government-to-government discussions that seem too esoteric to have much impact on the everyday citizen,” writes Slate.
As explained by the United States Trade Representative, TPP is an “ambitious, next-generation, Asia-Pacific trade agreement that reflects U.S. priorities and values.”
President Obama has touted TPP, saying it will “boost our economies, lowering barriers to trade and investment, increasing exports, and creating more jobs for our people, which is my No. 1 priority.”
Based on recently leaked information, Slate suggests that TPP would enact “significant changes in U.S. and/or other signatory countries’ laws.”
It would also “curb public access to vast amounts of information in the name of combating intellectual property infringement (or piracy, depending on your choice of words). The owner of the copyright in a song or movie could use a ‘technological protection measure’ — what are often called ‘digital locks’ — to prevent your access to it, even for educational purposes, and regardless of whether the owner had the legal right to do so.”
There are more than 20 chapters within TPP, spanning subjects like “customs, cross-border services, telecommunications, government procurement, competition policy, and cooperation and capacity building” and more.
According to Slate, this is the “same closed-door mentality that killed the Stop Online Piracy Act and has led to the near death of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. It likely will kill TPP if its negotiations do not change course. At a minimum, it will lead to an imbalanced and poorly drafted law.”
Originally scheduled to ship in July, the $299 Nexus Q will be delayed while Google makes improvements after hearing “initial feedback from users that they want Nexus Q to do even more than it does today,” the company wrote in an email to those who pre-ordered the device.
“The Nexus Q, a black orb that looks somewhat like a Magic 8-ball, was internally designed and manufactured in the U.S., a departure from recent industry norms in consumer electronics,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“It was designed to stream music and videos from Google’s YouTube video service and its Play service and is seen as competing against devices such as Apple Inc.’s Apple TV and Sonos Inc.’s home-audio system,” explains the article.
The duration of the postponement has yet to be announced, but it’s not completely bad news for early adopters. According to the Google email message: “To thank you for your early interest, we’d like to extend the Nexus Q preview to our pre-order customers and send you a free device.”
The Android-based media steaming device has received some criticism for its price point and lack of features, especially when compared to its competitors.
“Currently, the Nexus Q can only play back content from Android devices, and lacks its own user interface,” notes The Verge in a related post. “If we had to guess, we’d say that Google will address that issue before it commits to a re-release.”
Yahoo has launched a third major update to its IntoNow second-screen TV app, which now allows users to tag and identify a song that’s playing during a TV show.
The company says the music sync function works with live performances, featured songs, or even background music. For users interested in a particular song, the app can direct them to iTunes or YouTube.
The new release “takes a step back from earlier versions, which were focused on TV discovery and sharing metadata with users,” notes TechCrunch. “It found that users were getting little actual utility out of those features, and they weren’t coming back for more… So the team set about re-imagining ways it could promote more interaction with the app.”
A new feature called CapIt allows users to automatically grab an image from a show and then caption it, with an option to share with friends via Facebook, Twitter or IntoNow.
Another new feature is the ability to create group chats around a particular TV show or event, including an option to set up recurring chats that take place throughout a given season.
IntoNow has been downloaded more than 3 million times. according to Yahoo. The latest update is currently only available for its iOS version.
Viggle, the company that rewards viewers for checking into TV shows from their smart devices, now has one million registered viewers.
Since the mobile app’s launch six months ago, Viggle users have checked in more than 63 million times.
“In exchange for being a couch potato, users receive points that are redeemable for movie tickets and gift cards from places like Best Buy, Amazon, Fandango, iTunes, and Hulu Plus,” explains VentureBeat. “Users can also earn rewards by participating in real-time voting and game features while they watch.”
The New York-based company has released the Viggle Platform Developer Kit (VPDK) for third-party use, that it hopes will enable networks and producers to create social TV experiences that would reside within Viggle’s mobile apps.
Viggle sees potential for complementary and interactive features such as video playlists, news headlines, slideshows, games, polls, prediction cards, “mood-o-meters,” trivia questions and quizzes.
The VPDK is available for free. Developers can work with common Web standards including HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript.
To demonstrate the kit’s capabilities, Viggle recently launched “MyGuy,” a real-time fantasy sports game in which users earn points based on how well their selected players perform in a given game.
With a software update for the Apple TV set-top box released this week comes a new app for Hulu.
“Apple TV owners have been waiting forever for Hulu service to land on the device,” notes VentureBeat. “Previously, rumors indicated that a Hulu Plus app existed but hadn’t been approved by Apple. Some speculated that this was because a Hulu service would threaten Apple’s TV show sales via iTunes. And with OS X Mountain Lion’s new Mac Airplay feature, there’s really no reason not to put Hulu on the Apple TV.”
The new app will require users to subscribe to the Hulu Plus service ($7.99 monthly fee), which users can sign up for directly using the Apple TV.
“It’s likely that Apple takes a cut of every subscription that’s paid for through a person’s iTunes account, but we don’t know the exact percentage of that commission fee,” the post suggests. “This detail is probably why it took so long for Apple to bring Hulu Plus to the Apple TV.”
“If you take into account the possible loss from TV show purchases on iTunes as well as a dismal commission fee from bringing on new subscribers, it makes sense that Apple hesitated in bringing Hulu to its set-top box,” concludes the post. “If true, it could explain why Apple isn’t in any rush to bring additional streaming video services to the Apple TV.”
In a bold experiment that began eight months ago, Google invested $150 million to fund new video channels to “upgrade its content from simple user-generated videos and to lure more viewers and advertising,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
Following its success, the Internet giant has upped the ante, investing another $200 million in the project, which will help marketing efforts and expansion into Europe.
Already, YouTube launched almost 100 new channels this year and has reportedly secured commitments for ads amounting to over $150 million.
“In contrast with TV, YouTube’s fast production process and the lower costs of online video means producers can make near-instant changes to their programs in response to viewer feedback,” the article states. “As a result, YouTube channel producers say the rapid evolution of their content will eventually allow them to find the best way to attract large audiences for the long term.”
According to YouTube, user growth continues to rise, with four billion hours of video viewed on the site each month (up from three billion at the start of this year). The company claims that the number of channel subscribers has doubled since last year.
Google is taking a step toward a full-fledged ad management platform with its purchase of Wildfire Interactive, a social media marketing start-up that has been working closely with Facebook.
“The Google party line is that the company wants to own (and eventually integrate) the online marketing experience, full stop,” reports VentureBeat. “It wants to have a single destination where a brand marketing manager can go to create and control all online campaigns, from search marketing to Twitter CRM to Facebook campaigns, the whole shebang.”
The acquisition also likely provides some insight into Facebook’s marketing platform, which beats Google in its total share of display advertising.
Wildfire will continue business as usual for now — although the company’s largest focus may no longer be Facebook.
However, if Google really is looking to redesign online marketing, the start-up may help create such a platform in the next six to twelve months, the post suggests.
According to the official Google blog: “With Wildfire, we’re looking forward to creating new opportunities for our clients to engage with people across all social services. We believe that better content and more seamless solutions will help unlock the full potential of the Web for people and businesses.”
Fujifilm Australia is looking beyond the concept of digital photo printing with kiosks that enable customers to create special trinkets.
The CE company is developing a consumer 3D printing service intended for shoppers interested in creating their own DIY projects.
“Utilizing the in-store ‘kiosk’ model successfully implemented by Fujifilm for its digital photographs, a range of physical objects will be available for personalization,” reports PSFK.com.
“The catalog of available objects will be rotated to provide variety, but while some retailers may end up with a 3D printer in store, initially these objects are unlikely to be created before the customers’ eyes,” notes the post. “To start, a majority of items will be produced off-site and the customers would need to return to the store to collect their orders.”
The goal is to provide consumers with the opportunity to create a far-reaching range of items through 3D printing technology previously available primarily for professionals (think MakerBot in kiosk form).
“In a retail environment, a customer could use a kiosk to create their customized 3D product from a range of customizable designs or even a photograph, place their order with the retailer and then return to the store at a later time to pick up the product,” explains Michael Mostyn, a key account manager in the commercial division of Fujifilm.
“The prototype consumer kiosk for 3D printing is here,” adds ETCentric staffer Phil Lelyveld. “Once the consumer behavior catches on, it’s just a matter of swapping out the printers as the range of materials, colors, and options expand for a whole new industry to be born.”
