Amazon Expands Video Library with Never Before on DVD Store

By David Tobia
May 25, 2012

• Amazon announced this week that it will expand its video offerings with the new “Never Before on DVD” store that features on-demand content.
• “Amazon says that 2,000 titles are available, and some of that same content should also be available to stream on Amazon’s Instant Video service,” reports The Verge. “Most of the content appears to be not-so-popular TV series and some classic movies, but we’re sure that you could find some gems hidden in there.”
• Amazon has also struck a deal with Paramount Pictures to offer hundreds of movies on its Prime Instant Video service (which costs $79 a year).
• “The agreement is good for the next three years, though the window for when new movies will become available on the service looks like it will be fairly long, if the titles Amazon has namechecked are any indication,” notes the post.
• Amazon says it now has an estimated 17,000 titles available for its customers.

Personalized Video News: NewsLook Announces Free iPad App

By Rob Scott
May 25, 2012

• Streaming video news service NewsLook has launched a free iPad app that allows users to create personalized video channels that feature curated news content from more than 50 worldwide sources.
• “Our NewsLook iPad app offers unprecedented personalization and engages users by greatly streamlining video search and discovery, enabling them to weed out unrelated content and get just what they want, from trustworthy sources,” said Fred Silverman, former CBS producer and current CEO of NewsLook.
• According to the press release, sources include the Associated Press, Bloomberg, and Reuters — and users can customize channels based on interests such as “sports, politics, lifestyle, fashion, art, and entertainment.”
• “NewsLook curates and publishes 150 videos daily in real-time and maintains a vast archive of over forty thousand videos,” notes the release. “This content is also available across a variety of platforms like Sony BIV and Google TV as well as via seamless syndication.”

Intel Launches Research to Offer Smart Devices that Mimic Your Brain

By David Tobia
May 25, 2012

• The Intel Collaborative Research Institute for Computational Intelligence has begun research intended to develop technology that will not only mimic the human brain, but will be able to use information to learn about its user.
• “Machine learning is such a huge opportunity,” says Justin Rattner, Intel’s chief technology officer. “Despite their name, smartphones are rather dumb devices. My smartphone doesn’t know anything more about me than when I got it.”
• Rattner leads the Intel research in conjunction with the Technion in Haifa and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, “aimed at enabling new applications, such as small, wearable computers that can enhance daily life,” reports Reuters.
• “All of these devices will come to know us as individuals, will very much tailor themselves to us,” says Rattner, who suggests that the devices, which continually record actions of the user, are expected to be available by 2014 or 2015.
• “Within five years all of the human senses will be in computers and in 10 years we will have more transistors in one chip than neurons in the human brain,” adds Moody Eden, president of Intel Israel.

Dish Targets Niche Markets with International Streaming Video Channels

By emeadows
May 25, 2012

• Dish is introducing a standalone subscription TV service with its new DISHWorld package of international channels to roll out on the Roku streaming box.
• “DISHWorld is made up of a series of international video channels and makes them available on Roku for as little as $19.99 a month. The service allows Dish to take a bunch of content that doesn’t usually have a huge audience, and doesn’t cost a whole helluva lot to license, and make it available to niche audiences,” details TechCrunch.
• The official Roku blog explains that DISHWorld has more than 50 international channels to offer, including: Arabic channels, Hindi channels, seven popular channels from Pakistan and four from Bangladesh, among others.
• This begs the question: Will Dish, or another service, be able to introduce a streaming service that provides more popular, less niche channels for subscription?
• TechCrunch thinks not, saying: “Think about it — these are networks that Dish spends very little to license, and it’s charging $20 a month. There’s probably no way that it could introduce a service of the content that most people watch and make it economically viable.”

Photographers Go Social: Google+ Draws New Community of Artists

By Rob Scott
May 25, 2012

• Google+ is ready to take on Flickr and Instagram by offering photo sharing with real-life meetups and its Google+ mobile app.
• The Hangouts video chat is gaining in popularity, especially with photographers who share their work online and chat with fellow artists.
• GigaOM interviewed photographer Trey Ratcliff this week at the Google+ Photographers Conference in San Francisco (the post includes the interview video).
• For those pundits who have argued that Google+ is becoming a ghost town, it’s interesting to note that Ratcliff “is hosting Hangouts about photography, sharing his latest pictures with his more than two million followers, and meeting people all over the world for real-life events,” according to the article.
• GigaOM cites the influence of Bradley Horowitz, VP of product management for Google +, who “studied image recognition at the MIT Media Lab and built a visual-information retrieval company” before overseeing the acquisition of Flickr while employed by Yahoo.
• Horowitz is bringing his vision of social photography to Google+ and hinted during the San Francisco conference that photo processing is next.
• According to the article: “’Today, the tools are too segmented,’ he said, summing up the discrepancy between an Instagram filter and a full-blown app like Photoshop. ‘Either they are toys, or they are for the pro.’ Google+ has some rudimentary online editing for photos built in, but Horowitz hinted at the possibility of extending these much further.”

Facebook Camera: Social Network Launches Photo App for Apple Devices

By emeadows
May 25, 2012

• On Thursday, Facebook announced its new Facebook Camera, an image-sharing app for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch.
• According to Dirk Stoop, a product manager for photos at Facebook, the new app is faster than the current Facebook app for sharing photos on Apple’s iOS.
• “We can basically show you more photos on the app, so we can make a more immersive experience around your photos. On the side of publishing these photos, Facebook Camera lets you upload much higher resolution photos at up to 2,048 by 2,048 pixels wide,” claims Stoop.
• The app also provides photo filters and tools for cropping and straightening.
• “It might seem strange for Facebook to release a camera application with built-in filters just weeks after announcing plans to buy Instagram, the social photo app. But Facebook Camera is aimed at a different audience,” explains The New York Times. “Instagram has 40 million users, while Facebook has 900 million. This leaves a large swath of people who are not on Instagram but are actively taking photos and uploading them to Facebook.”

IPO Fallout: Shareholders Take Legal Action Against Facebook

By Rob Scott
May 25, 2012

• Now that the stock has fallen following Facebook’s IPO, shareholders are suing the company and the underwriters of the IPO for hiding “severe and pronounced” reductions in Facebook’s revenue growth forecasts.
• Mark Zuckerberg is listed as one of the defendants in the suit, which was filed in a U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Wednesday. A similar suit was filed against the company in California earlier this week.
• “It probably shouldn’t surprise anyone that while the company’s initial stock offering was a boon to the company and insiders, it’s been a costly disappointment for the general public,” suggests a Los Angeles Times editorial.
• “Now, some investors are accusing the company and its bankers of playing the public for suckers, sharing pessimistic revenue projections with a few insiders but not average investors.”
• Regulators are investigating whether investment bank and lead underwriter Morgan Stanley “selectively informed clients of an analyst’s negative report about the company before the stock started trading,” notes the article.

Multiple Lawsuits Filed Surrounding Dish Auto Hop Feature

By Dennis Kuba
May 25, 2012

• As reported earlier this week by ETCentric, tensions continue to mount in regards to controversy surrounding the Auto Hop feature of Dish Network’s new DVRs.
• TV Networks are taking legal action against the ad-skipping feature. Fox, CBS and NBC also charge that Dish’s PrimeTime Anytime is an unauthorized video-on-demand service. PrimeTime Anytime automatically records prime time programming from ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox and makes it available for eight days.
• “Fox’s suit also singles out a third Dish technology for treading on the rights it has granted Amazon and iTunes to sell content online: the Sling Adapter, which allows subscribers to move content intended for their TVs to digital devices,” reports Variety.
• In a related article, Broadcasting & Cable notes that Dish has filed its own suit against the four major broadcast networks for seeking to “stifle” its Auto Hop feature.
• Dish explains that Auto Hop does not erase or delete commercials, but rather “allows consumers who are already time-shifting their television viewing to skip commercials more efficiently by automatically fast-forwarding through all the commercials at the touch of a button.”
• The company believes Auto Hop is “a legitimate, legal DVR feature, and Dish is in full compliance with copyright law and its rebroadcast agreements with the major television networks.”
• Fox disagrees: “We were given no choice but to file suit against one of our largest distributors, Dish Network, because of their surprising move to market a product with the clear goal of violating copyrights and destroying the fundamental underpinnings of the broadcast television ecosystem. Their wrongheaded decision requires us to take swift action in order to aggressively defend the future of free, over-the-air television.”

FCC Chair Throws Support to Broadband Data Caps and Tiered Fees

By Rob Scott
May 25, 2012

• Julius Genachowski, chairman of the FCC, has officially announced his support of usage-based pricing for broadband services.
• “Usage-based” refers to a tiered-fee model that allots more bandwidth to users who are willing to pay extra.
• Speaking at the NCTA Cable Show in Boston on Tuesday, Genachowski said that tiered pricing could help spur industry innovation and competition.
• “Public interest groups and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings have criticized the practice, saying users will be punished for watching streaming video services, for example, that tip them over their monthly limits,” reports The Washington Post. “Hastings has also cried foul over how Comcast isn’t counting video use of its own XFinity services against data plans.”
• Comcast recently announced it would begin usage-based pricing on a trial basis.
• “Business model innovation is very important,” Genachowski said. “There was a point of view a couple years ago that there was only one permissible pricing model for broadband. I didn’t agree.”

Alcatel-Lucent Unveils New Core Router: 16 Terabits Per Second

By David Tobia
May 24, 2012

• Alcatel-Lucent announced Tuesday that the new 7950 XRS Internet router is capable of delivering 16 terabits of data per second. “That’s about 2.5 million HD video streams every tick of the second hand,” notes CNN.
• This makes the router five times faster and 66 percent more power efficient than the current industry leaders.
• The 7950 XRS has been intelligently programmed to treat traffic according to the type of page. The router allocates power based on the content of the page, shifting more bandwidth to video traffic while only increasing bandwidth to regular Web pages when a user clicks a link.
• The product marks Alcatel-Lucent’s debut in the core router market, which has traditionally been dominated by Cisco and Juniper.
• Core routing represents a $4 billion a year industry, and Alcatel-Lucent stands in good position to pick up a decent market share, even if it is not an industry high on turnover.
• “Service providers know us now, and they trust us,” says Basil Alwan, president of IP networks for Alcatel-Lucent. The company hopes that this familiarity may help convince the likes of AT&T, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google to consider switching to the new router.

Social Video: Mixin Offers New Level of Online Video Interaction

By Rob Scott
May 24, 2012

• Social video start-up Mixin helps users mix personal comments with online videos and share the content via social graphs online.
• “It allows people to start customizing and sharing videos within minutes on either a partner site or on mixin.com,” explains VentureBeat. “You can add comments or a number of icons. The sharing is compatible with Facebook’s privacy settings so that users’ comments are only seen by their intended audience.”
• The company has announced initial distribution partners. AnyClip and Viumbe, for example, will integrate the tech into their players.
• More than 200,000 users tested Mixin during its live beta mode over the past month.
• Rivals include Chill, Frequency, Socialcam, and Viddy, but CEO Jon Goldman believes that “Mixin tries to be more consumer-friendly with easier authoring capability,” notes VentureBeat.
• “Most online video is all about searching and algorithms with some minor social features tacked on,” adds Goldman. “Mixin’s technology starts with social interaction as the foundation so that videos serve as a way to connect friends and increase sharing. The customization, commenting and posting to Facebook allows users to add their personal stamp and humor to the videos they love.”

Primetime: Adobe Announces Live TV Coming to its Multiscreen Suite

By Rob Scott
May 24, 2012

• Adobe has unveiled Primetime Simulcast, in addition to other enhancements to Project Primetime, its video platform for delivery of ad-supported TV viewing across connected devices.
• “Primetime Simulcast will support apps across Apple iOS and Android devices and within major computer browsers,” reports Multichannel News. “The new service complements Adobe’s Primetime Highlights, introduced earlier this year, which lets broadcasters convert live streaming to short, ad-supported video clips.”
• Adobe demonstrated Primetime Simulcast at the NCTA Cable Show in Boston this week.
• “Primetime with full integration of all major components will be available in late 2012 with support for Windows, Mac OS, Apple iOS, Google Android, Samsung Smart TVs and other platforms,” notes the article. “Components of Primetime will continue to be available as separate, individual products.”
• Adobe also introduced Adobe Media Server 5 and its Adobe Access 4 DRM solution.

OoVoo Upgrade Delivers 12-Way Video Chats to iPad and Facebook

By Rob Scott
May 24, 2012

• Video chat service ooVoo has announced new product upgrades, including a new app for Facebook that allows for 12-way video chatting.
• “The company, whose name represents two sets of eyes looking at each other, lets users access video chat rooms from the iPhone and Android phone over Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G LTE as well as via Web and desktop apps,” reports the Los Angeles Times.
• An upgrade to the company’s iPad app also includes the 12-way video chat feature, and allows users to view four video streams at once.
• “One of the most convenient aspects of this service over, say, Skype or Facetime, is that users can invite people by sending them a user-specific ooVoo link, so friends can participate without having to download the application,” explains the article.
• The service offers the ability to record and upload video chats to YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, free of charge.
• Currently, ooVoo has 46 million users worldwide, 60 percent of which are under the age of 25.

Global File Registry Uses Kazaa Code to Block Pirated Content

By Dennis Kuba
May 24, 2012

• Global File Systems, a subsidiary of Kazaa owner Brilliant Digital Entertainment, is selling software that replaces links to pirated content with links to legitimate content that users can purchase.
• “And soon, a version of the same technology could be used by ISPs to inject their own advertisements into search results — a capability that is sure to raise the ire of proponents of network neutrality,” reports Ars Technica.
• The software, Global File Registry (which advertises with the tagline “What goes up can come down”), is derived from Truenames, a file identification technology that was once part of Kazaa.
• Several major companies have already purchased the software including Skype, Level 3 Communications, and Google. And it is being marketed to ISPs in Australia, New Zealand and France.
• Moreover, it is being given away to law enforcement customers for use in blocking access to child pornography sites.

Redefining Multichannel Distributors: FCC Looks at Video Sites

By Rob Scott
May 24, 2012

• Cable and satellite TV companies are opposing any move by the FCC to redefine online video distributors as multichannel video programming distributors.
• “In a public comment period that ends in the coming weeks, the commission is asking whether the rules of multichannel distributors — like the right to carry certain popular channels and the responsibility to carry some less popular ones — should apply to new online distributors like Hulu and YouTube,” reports The New York Times.
• “If it decides that they should, then more companies could stream TV shows to computers and smartphones, hastening an industry-wide shift to the Internet,” adds the article.
• A simple change to the definition of multichannel distributor could have far-reaching effects, including a change to the way companies acquire programming, a shift in bundling practices that could potentially alter the cable model significantly, holding online services to traditional rules of retransmission consent, and more.
• “We’re barely into the second inning of how video distribution will ultimately work,” said Will Richmond, editor of VideoNuze. “Broadband delivery is leveling the playing field for new, deep-pocketed, over-the-top entrants to disrupt the traditional pay TV model.”