Because you will probably wear out your thumb endlessly scrolling and scanning through Netflix offerings to find something to watch, engineers at the company have cooked up a concept that would allow you to do all of that browsing without lifting a finger. [More]
media
Netflix Engineers Dream Up ‘MindFlix’ Device That Would Let You Browse Movies With Your “Brain”
By 1.31.17
Is Netflix’s DVD Service Doomed?
By 1.19.17
When we talk about video nowadays, the conversation is usually about streaming content and the services that provide them. While Netflix’s DVD service is still kicking — and even has its very own app — it’s been losing customers steadily for years. And now, with the latest quarter’s subscriber exodus, some are wondering whether the disc-based service’s time is limited. [More]
The Triumphant Rise And Epic Collapse Of Vine
By 1.17.17
Today, while you’re posting the seventeen-thousandth Snapchat clip of yourself with the “puppy face” filter, or using Instagram to share that two-second loop of your grandma hula-hooping, the once-great micro-video platform Vine dies. Sure, it’s being reborn as some new app, but lightning rarely strikes twice on the internet, and the era of the “Vine star” or the six-second “viral Vine” is surely gone. In honor of Vine’s demise, we look back at the service’s meteoric rise — and its quiet fall from favor. [More]
AOL Still Exists, Laying Off 500 People
By 11.17.16
Six months after Verizon Communications paid $4.4 billion to buy AOL and its collection of media and technology companies, the top honcho at the ‘90s Internet brand says they’ll be laying off about 5% of the staff today, with around 500 employees expected to get their walking papers. [More]
Report: Google, Disney Aren’t Going To Bid For Twitter After All
By 10.6.16
While the rumor mill has been working extra hard lately, churning out names of possible suitors looking to buy Twitter, a new report says a few big names are definitely not interested in putting up bids. [More]
Proposed European Law Change Could Make Google Pay Publishers For Your News Results
By 8.26.16
Regulators in Europe are proposing a big update to copyright law in the region that, if adopted, would likely to lead to major changes in the way your news aggregators, well, aggregate. [More]
Gawker.com Shutting Down After Bankruptcy Sale To Univision
By 8.18.16
Gawker Media declared bankruptcy in June after losing a major lawsuit. The company went up on the auction block this week and Univision bought it up. And while the company likely has plans in mind for at least some of what it paid for, the flagship site isn’t going with: Gawker.com is shutting down. [More]
Snapchat Sued Over “Sexually Offensive Content” From Its Media Partners
By 7.8.16
While many people might use Snapchat just to share photos and videos with friends, there’s also an area for brands and media companies to post content, which you can see in the app’s “Discover” tab. But according to a new lawsuit against the social media company, that feature is showing minors “sexually offensive content” without warning. [More]
Fairly Used: Why Schools Need To Teach Kids The Whole Truth About Copyright
By 2.26.16
Today’s teenagers live in a time where technology gives them the tools to create, share, and publish just about anything they can conceive, and enables and encourages them to use and remix existing content from TV, movies, music, and games. At the same time, they are repeatedly reminded that their creations can be shut down, removed, or monetized by others who simply claim to have a copyright. So they know how to snag a clip from The Walking Dead, set it to “Yakety Sax” and post it on YouTube, but what they may not know — because most schools are failing to teach them — is under what circumstances the law actually protects the fair use of copyrighted material, and when it doesn’t. [More]
Add Comcast To The List Of Rumored Merger Partners For T-Mobile
By 6.17.15
Not one to sit around and sulk after ditching its $45 billion bid to buy Time Warner Cable – or let a rival cable company beat it to the altar – the Lords of Kabletown are reportedly making eyes with the wireless industry, flirting with the idea of buying T-Mobile. [More]
Samsung Buys Boxee, Immediately Kills Cloud DVR
By 7.9.13
Keeping your work and your media in the cloud is totally awesome, right up until the moment when you’re kicked off the cloud. That’s the tragic lesson of the Boxee Cloud DVR (digital video recorder), the set-top box of many couch potatoes’ dreams. The key feature of the product–free cloud storage for your programs–will end tomorrow now that Samsung owns Boxee. [More]
Bloggers: TSA "Strongly Cautions" Against Writing About Security Loophole
By 3.9.12
It seems the TSA isn’t so happy about the dissemination of a blogger’s contention that you can sneak dangerous stuff through security by placing it along the side of your body. The blogger says reporters complained that the TSA tried to get them not to write about the story. [More]
One ESPN Employee Canned, Another Suspended For Racial Slur
By 2.20.12
Use of a clumsy-at-best, racist-at-worst reference to New York Knicks hoopster Jeremy Lin by ESPN journalists have resulted in the firing of a headline writer and the suspension of an anchor. The journalists both used the same racially insensitive cliche to describe poor play by Lin, who is of Taiwanese descent. [More]
TechCrunch Provides Complaint Letter Template For Their Own Redesign
By 7.12.11
AOL-owned technology blog TechCrunch is extremely interested in your opinion of its new redesign, so they’ve created a helpful complaint letter template full of swearing and finger-pointing so that you, the user, can compose your thoughts more efficiently. [More]
Tell The FCC To Nix The NBC Comcast Deal
By 9.28.10
If you don’t want Comcast to own NBC, you can use this handy dandy online petition Consumers Union put together for you to tell the FCC. As the agency continue to mull over the deal, perhaps your opinion may help sway theirs. But why might Kabletown owning the peacock be bad for consumers? [More]
Big Media To Crack Down On Copyright Pirates
By 3.5.10
On his Reflections of a Newsosaur blog, Alan Mutter says a company called Attributor has rounded up several big media companies and is set to go after sites that hock their content for free. [More]
Al Franken Makes Comcast's CEO Look Like A Tool
By 2.5.10
Love him or hate him, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), former employee of NBC, made Comcast’s befuddled CEO Brian “Comcatastrophe” Roberts look like a complete tool during yesterday’s hearing on the proposed Comcast/NBC mergepocalypse. [More]
Other Cable Companies Are Pissed About The Comcast NBC Merger
By 2.3.10
The Comcast/NBC merger probably sucks for consumers, but it sure as hell sucks for other cable companies. Like, for example, WOW!. They are a smallish cable company that competes with Comcast in Chicagoland and in Detroit. [More]
